Ignatius of Loyola

ON ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, CONFESSOR,

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF CLERKS REGULAR OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

AT ROME.

In the year 1556.

PREFATORY COMMENTARY.

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, at Rome (Saint).

BY J. P.

§ I. The name and surname of the Saint; his country.

The Reverend Father Peter Ribadeneira—among all those who have bestowed labor on illustrating the deeds of our most holy Parent and Founder, having merited the chief praise—begins his Life from his name and surname. The name of St. Ignatius And his name, indeed, is now, by a constant and widespread notion and usage, Ignatius: but it was not always such: for that it was of old called by the Spaniards Iñigo is clear partly from the informations of Alcalá concerning his life and morals, and also from the sentence pronounced there a few years after his conversion; where the name Iñ. constantly recurs. That affair took place in the years 1526 and 1527, marked in our Spanish transcript. Partly, I say, from thence, and partly also the notion of that name is had in the aforesaid Ribadeneira in his Spanish Life, book 1, chapter 1, which was printed at Madrid in the year 1594. Whence it comes that I am plainly led to believe that that name Iñigo was the common, primitive, and domestic name of the Saint, by which as a boy he was called among his own in his paternal home, and which still clung to him afterward even when he had passed the bounds of adolescence and youth; yet so that in the course of time the name Ignatius prevailed, as being more common to other nations outside Spain, and more known and used: which name the Saint has now made his own.

[2] Furthermore, a certain imprudent scribbler dared to gnaw at the name of our holy Parent—so long, and by so many and so public monuments consigned, it is attacked by a certain foolish person and received by the consent of the whole world—and to recast it into Ennecon, in a little work On the religious institution of St. Ignatius, or St. Ennecon, founder of the Society of Jesus, by the Benedictine Fathers, etc., published at Venice in the year 1641. That little work I have before me, and our John Rho long ago refuted it in the book whose name is Achates: concerning which little work more must be said elsewhere. Now let that excellent Benedictine champion, I pray, expound to us what autograph of our holy Founder, what letter, what instrument or document is marked with the name of Ennecon, and not rather of Ignatius, or Iñigo, Inigo, or Ynigo. And this indeed is the first ineptitude of that author, which the said John Rho imputes to him among many others. As if forsooth there were any reason for transforming Ignatius or Inigo into Ennecon, because a most holy abbot once lived in Guipúzcoa who was called Ennecon, and many in that region, for the sake of veneration, are named Ennecones. But of these and other things pertaining hereto, consult the Achates.

[3] as though it were not genuine; It is indeed true that there once existed in Spain a certain Ennecon, of the Order of St. Benedict, celebrated for the fame of sanctity, abbot of the monastery of Oña, which is in Navarre, not however in Guipúzcoa, as Mabillon testifies in the Benedictine Annals at the year 1011. That Saint was treated of among us on the first day of June, page 107; but how wilt thou prove that the name of Ennecon was given him by the parents of our Saint in baptism? The author of the aforesaid little work attempts to prove this in chapter 1, speaking thus: “Therefore, since the devotion of the neighboring people toward this Saint Ennecon was so great, and since it is a solemn custom that parents take as patrons for their sons those Saints whom they chiefly worship, and impose their names upon them; .. on account of these things, I say, it is easy to suspect that the pious parents of Ignatius .. out of pious affection toward this holy Ennecon and their patron, in order to renew his most holy memory and to procure his protection for their son, made their offspring of the same name as he.” Then indeed that “that Ennecon was in infancy, in youth, and only then at last called Ignatius by the confession of his followers, when he had already become known to the world, because the name of Ignatius was better known, we have proved, from writers contemporary with the same St. Ignatius, more surely than sure,” he says—or rather dreams. For what?

[4] but with vain effort. The thing is settled: it is probable: therefore it happened. Who would dare to mutter against it? But that the parents of Ignatius worshiped Ennecon with a peculiar piety, at least ought to have been proved. Again, since the parents of Ignatius propagated their stock with numerous offspring, if their piety toward Ennecon was so great that they wished to have a son of the same name as he; why did they impose that name at last only on Ignatius, the youngest-born? And these things indeed Rho throws back at his adversary, and we with him. For the rest, because I have no mind to trifle with that laborious trifler, I forbear from more, and expunge the name of Ennecon in our Saint until it be sufficiently proved; the name of Ignatius, Iñigo, or Ynigo I admit. There are those who would have it that the infant Ignatius foretold his own name before he received holy baptism.

[5] That the Saint foretold his own name before he received baptism, Our John Eusebius Nieremberg, in the Spanish Life, chapter 1, relates this, citing Father Melchior de la Cerda and others (but he does not express their names;) as also certain Manuscripts of the college of Alcalá. Supported on these foundations, our Aloysius Carnoli adopts that miracle in the Italian Life, which he published under the name of D. Vigilius Nolarcus, chapter 2, page 7 of the edition of the year 1687, which we use. From this author our Francis Garcia relates that prodigy, in the Spanish Life, book 1, chapter 1; but he relates it so as to indicate that he is not sufficiently convinced of the truth of that prodigy. Nor indeed are we sufficiently convinced of so great a matter; but we desire those testimonies which are suited to prove a fact so unusual and singular. Meanwhile, so long as those are not brought forward, we cannot approve that prodigy by our reckoning. Nor indeed do we conceive how

it could have come to pass that a deed so wonderful, rare, splendid, and illustrious was not widely divulged and taken up in frequent conversations both within and without the domestic walls of the Loyola family, to say nothing of the neighboring places and of a great part of Spain. Nor further does it fall within our understanding, that Ribadeneira should hand down nothing of it, Maffei nothing, Orlandini nothing—men who did not neglect to commit to writing matters of lesser moment done by the Saint.

[6] Or were they ignorant of this deed? It is not probable; for since—as widely almost as Spain extends—it is not sufficiently proved it could not but have been in the mouth of the whole people, it does not seem credible that nothing of the kind reached the ears or hands of the said authors. But John Nieremberg, who relates it, is worth no more than the authors whom he cites. And since he cites Melchior de la Cerda, let it be permitted us to ask whence de la Cerda drew a prodigy so wonderful. Those others, of whom above, and who are said to have handed it down, are not even named: in what manner, then, shall we know of what age, authority, mark, and credit they ought to be reckoned? Which argument also holds good for those Manuscripts of Alcalá mentioned above. And so, if anyone wishes this prodigious matter to be admitted by us as true, we ask that he bring forward a record, a testimony, or a document from some author, from witnesses or processes drawn up for promoting the sacred honors of the Saint, of such a kind as may be able to elicit a prudent assent from us. Otherwise nothing comes of it.

[7] In the Manuscript informations which we have, in the cause of the canonization of our holy Father, exhibited by Father Lawrence de Paulis, procurator general of the Society of Jesus, and by his consortium, Another name is discussed, which is read to have been somewhere given him. a little after the beginning, besides the name Ignatius or Innicus, by which the Saint is there called, the surname Lopez is added to him. Elsewhere another occurs: for our Gabriel de Henao, in the Antiquities of Cantabria published in Spanish, book 3, chapter 35, page 356, from the Alcalá sentence, of which we made mention above, brings forward these words: Iñigo Lopez de Recalde; observing that in all the rest of the context of the cause the Saint is called simply Inigo. What then does the surname Recalde mean? A lesser difficulty occurs in the patronymic surname Lopez: for that it is not foreign to the family of Loyola is clear from the ancestors of St. Ignatius (of whom the same author had treated in chapter 33;) yet the matter standing so, that of these he confesses he knows of no one who contracted a marriage with a Recalde spouse; signifying that nothing else is at hand for him by which to extricate himself from this difficulty than by saying that, because the Saint used only his own proper name, the notary applied the surname Recalde to him out of his own head, having heard it on the occasion of some Guipuzcoan or Biscayan who, for the sake of kinship, transacted business with the Saint at Alcalá. But this is to cut the knot, not to loose it.

[8] Guipúzcoa, a province of Cantabria, was St. Ignatius's country; and the place of his birth in his country was the castle of Loyola. The Saint was a Cantabrian of Guipúzcoa, born in the house of Loyola; Concerning his country it is clearly established from the authors. In the shorter Life, which Father Gaspar Quartemont made Latin from the Spanish copy of Ribadeneira, chapter 23, the place of birth is most clearly defined in these words: “Father Francis Borgia … in the year 1550 set out for Rome, chiefly for this reason, that he might see Blessed Ignatius .. And when he was celebrating his first Mass (and he did this in the house of Loyola) he kissed only the floor of that chamber in which the Blessed Father had been born, out of that reverence by which he was moved toward this Saint.” Is this not clear enough? When therefore in the secret consistorial Relation held before Pope Gregory XV by Cardinal Francis Maria del Monte, on the 19th day of January in the year 1622, concerning the life, sanctity, acts of canonization, and miracles, it is said that he was born in the town of Azpeitia; understand that of the territory of Azpeitia, next to the town of Azpeitia: for indeed the town of Azpeitia and the house of Loyola are so near in the same territory that they may be reckoned morally the same place. Hence the Bull of canonization rightly says: “Blessed Ignatius was born .. near the town of Azpeitia.” Therefore Stephen Garibay, in the historical Spanish Compendium, volume 3, book 30, chapter 5, deservedly convicts of error those who, calling that house Loëla, record that it is situated in the province of Álava.

[9] not of Álava, nor a Biscayan; The Saint therefore was not of Álava, nor, strictly speaking, a Biscayan, according to Henao, Antiquities of Cantabria, book 3, chapter 33; where he warns that the name of Biscay is not to be extended to all the Cantabrian provinces, as he observes is done by the common people and by writers. Hence, according to Henao, Baillet does not write rightly, in the Life of St. Ignatius, that he was born in the Castle of Loyola in Biscay: nor did Father Dominic Bouhours, in the French Life of the holy Father, sufficiently rightly distinguish, according to Henao's mind, the parts of Cantabria, when he said that he was born in that part of Spanish Biscay which extends itself toward the Pyrenean mountains, which today bears the name of Guipúzcoa. But concerning Biscay taken broadly, and concerning Biscay proper, one may consult the Geography of Baudrand. The Saint, therefore, according to what has been said, is a Cantabrian of Guipúzcoa; not of Álava, nor a Biscayan, properly speaking; nor of Azcoitia, nor strictly of Azpeitia, but he first began to breathe in the house of Loyola, a small distance of places being left on either side between those two towns: which house, on the testimony of Garibay, himself a Guipuzcoan by country, lies under the jurisdiction of the town of Azpeitia; and in spiritual matters, as may be seen in Henao, pertains to the same town's church of St. Sebastian de Soreasu, as he calls it: where the Saint was reborn in Christ by baptism. When in the year 1721 I was at Azpeitia, the baptistery was shown me which is held to be the Ignatian one.

[10] nor of Azcoitia; nor of Pamplona. Nicholas Antonio, in the Library of Spanish writers who flourished after the year 1500, volume 1, page 473, committed a slip concerning the place of the Saint's birth, when he thus pronounced: St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Cantabrian of Guipúzcoa, of the house FROM THE TOWN of Azcoitia. The second ineptitude of the Pseudo-Constantine, as he is called, concerning the Saint's country, where he further entangles his birthplace, is chastised in the cited Achates from page 7. Charles de Tapia, in the Treatise on religious matters, chapter 10, cited in Henao, book 3, chapter 33, in the citations and notes, hallucinates when he writes: “Ignatius of Loyola .. born in the most noble CITY of Loyola.” For Loyola is a castle, not a city. Caesar Egassius Bulaeus, in the History of the University of Paris, volume 6, at the year 1564, less rightly and properly—because too broadly and remotely—addresses him by the title of a noble of Pamplona. For who would rightly call anyone a Parisian, because he was born in a place subject to the diocese of Paris? Moreover a curious description of the ancient House of Loyola, as also of the college of the Society of Jesus; and likewise of the miracles and public veneration, is given after the Lives of the Saint, in his posthumous glory.

§ II. The place of his nativity in the house of Loyola; the year; his parents, brothers, and sisters; the genealogical series.

In the posthumous glory of St. Ignatius, which thou hast below after the Lives, chapter 1, no. 4, among other things which are there said of the interior of the house of Loyola, Some would have it that St. Ignatius was born in a stable; there occur these: “To those entering the house, opposite the door there immediately meets a chapel, which of old was a stable, and in which our holy Father Ignatius was brought forth, as tradition, such as it is, reports.” Nieremberg, in chapter 1 of the Life, writes that this is related among other marvels concerning the Saint; but without a witness, without a surety, who either himself relates it, or gives faith that it is related by another. Carnoli scrapes together for this matter whatever he can: namely that under Clement VIII, in the sight of so great a multitude of men as flowed together to Rome for the holy year 1600 from a great part of the world, an image of St. Ignatius was engraved on a sheet, and, with the special faculty of the Superiors, was scattered abroad, marked with the title of Blessed and with rays: in which, among the chief matters of his life, this controverted history of his nativity is exhibited in the first place; which same place it also holds in the Life given to the light at Rome in engravings of brass at the time of the beatification. He adds Cardinal Ludovisi in his Panegyric, which he delivered, and which, as he reports, was published in print at Bologna, at Rome, and elsewhere. Carnoli attempts to procure faith for this deed from Nicholas Lancicius, who, in volume 1 of the Spiritual Little Works, little work 1, chapter 19, no. 255, treats of the image published at Rome in the jubilee year 1600 already mentioned.

[12] There exists in this our Professed house of Antwerp a Life of St. Ignatius, but that is not proved to us. which expresses his various deeds in images, and is noted as published at Rome in the year 1609. Among the other images one is represented with this inscription: “The mother, about to bring forth Ignatius, out of her piety toward the Lord's Nativity, orders herself to be carried to the stable, and there brings him forth, the last after seven sons, in the stable, in the year of salvation 1491.” The words of Garcia, book 1, chapter 1, as also of Henao following him in the citations and notes, book 3, chapter 39, I do not recite; because, since they are recent writers, they cannot of themselves establish or overturn the matter. But to us it seems that that deed is altogether to be placed among the apocrypha. 1. Because in the most ancient writers of the Life, or in documents, we do not find it. 2. Because we do not sufficiently understand how, only about fifty years after the Saint's death, an image expressing that was drawn from sufficiently true, solid, and faithful records or instruments, which so long lay hidden from the writers of the Life. 3. Because for the natal chamber, and not for a stable, stands the text of Ribadeneira given Latinity by Quartemont, and cited by us in §1, no. 8, where it is said: “Father Francis Borgia .. in the year 1550 .. kissed only the floor of that CHAMBER in which the Blessed Father had been born.” Dost thou hear, only of the chamber?

[13] Ribadeneira attaches the natal year, clothing the time with various characteristic marks, The natal year, to the year of human salvation 1491, Innocent the Eighth being Supreme Pontiff, Frederick the Third * Augustus Caesar, Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic monarchs of the Spains: in which year Maffei, Orlandini, the consistorial Relation above, and the Bull of canonization agree; so that it is wonderful that in Garibay the year 1495 is marked; and more wonderful that the most illustrious Henry Spondanus, in the Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, at the year 1521, no. 6, writes that our holy Father was then twenty years of age when, in the assault of the citadel of Pamplona, he underwent the utmost peril of his life. Whence it would follow that the year of his birth fell about the year 1501; which whom has it hitherto come into mind even to dream? But what day was the Saint's natal day, we desire to learn.

[14] his parents, Parents fell to the Saint's lot distinguished above all by a noble stock, according to Ribadeneira, Maffei, and Orlandini. And concerning their family—both of them most renowned, says Bartoli, in the illustriousness of race, in antiquity, and in number: “Each held its own dominion from a long age, augmented with the chief prefectures, and reckoned many men distinguished in war and in letters throughout the whole series of ancestors.” Father Michael de Arbieu, of the Society of Jesus, himself also a Cantabrian, and a most weighty man, on the testimony of John Rho in the Achates, is introduced saying these things there, page 10: “The stock itself is by far the most noble DE PARIENTES MAYORES, as the inhabitants speak, and its head, when the oath must be sworn to the kings, and one must swear into their words, or in other cases in which the magnates are wont to be admonished or summoned, is admonished by the kings through letters. With which privilege the stock of Loyola, and one other in Guipúzcoa only, is honored.”

[15] his brothers and sisters. That St. Ignatius's parents had five daughters, and eight sons, we have from Ribadeneira and Maffei. Why then does Henao attribute to him six brothers, and say that three sisters are reckoned, whom others record to have been four, nay even five? But we do not see what compels us to depart from those ancient authors, who so clearly and distinctly declare that matter, that it does not seem to need seeking in others. Moreover Ignatius was the youngest-born, either of all together, or at least of the brothers. We use the disjunctive “either”; because Ribadeneira and Maffei here speak ambiguously. For the latter, setting down five daughters, eight sons, of whom, he says, the youngest-born was Ignatius. But the former, treating of his mother, says that “she bore five daughters, eight sons; of whom she brought forth Ignatius last.” Dost thou see the ambiguity in the relative “of whom” and “of whom”? Nor is this removed in the Life written by Ribadeneira in Spanish, and published at Madrid in the year 1594: for there it is thus said: Tuvieron estos cavalleros cinco hijas, y ocho hijos; de los quales el postrero de todos, como otro David, fue nuestro Iñigo. That is: These nobles had five daughters, and eight sons; of whom the last of all, like another David, was our Ignatius.

[16] The genealogical series, Henao, book 3, chapter 33, reviews the genealogical series of the family of Loyola, beginning from the house of Oñaz, and from about the year 1180; when he says he finds the lord of that same house, Lope de Oñaz; whom he asserts to have been succeeded by his son Garcia Lopez de Oñaz; and this one by Lope Garcia de Oñaz, his son, who married Agnes de Loyola, mistress of this ancient house; and so descending, Henao thus orders his genealogical catalogue, that at last he brings it down to the parents of our Saint, Bertrand Iañez de Oñaz and Loyola, and Marina Saënz de Licona and Balda; and that this one indeed was the heir son of Juan Perez de Loyola, we have from the same source; and that she was the daughter of the noble knight and wise counselor Martin Garcia de Licona, who, by reason of his wife, the marchioness, as they call her, of Balda, had begun to be lord of the house of Balda.

[17] In Ribadeneira in the Latin Life, and in Maffei, St. Ignatius's mother is called Marina Sone; derived from the 12th century, but in the shorter Life of Ribadeneira, which Quartemont turned into Latin, she is written Marina Sonez; but in the Spanish Life of Madrid, published in the year 1594 by the praised Ribadeneira, she is called Maria Saez de Balda. In the consistorial Relation alleged above she is written Maria Sanchez; Garcia in the Life, chapter 1, noting that this coincides with Saez; and warning that she was called Marina, not Maria. Moreover Henao confesses, book 3, in the citations and notes to chapter 33, that he does not know how, in Father Andrew Lucas's Life of the Saint, Lizana crept in for Licona; which error also passed over to our John Nadasi, in the Year of memorable days of the Society of Jesus, July 31, and to Carnoli, chapter 2. But Henao, in the place just produced, cites a writing of the year 1535, of the 19th day of July, an authentic copy of which he indicates is found in his keeping, in which St. Ignatius's mother is called Marina Saenz de Licona by her own daughter Magdalena of Loyola; by which writing one seems bound to stand.

[18] Among the other monuments of our college of Loyola there is preserved in that place a genealogy of the stock of Loyola, it is set forth. in which one may see the affinities contracted with the most noble families of Spain; but chiefly with the Borgia and the Xavier; as we learn from the notices transmitted thence. Concerning the brothers and sisters of St. Ignatius, and their posterity, propagated from the same tree of Loyola through various branches of succession, Henao has laboriously collected very much in chapters 35 and 36. Observe meanwhile, with the same author, in the citations and notes to chapter 33 of book 3, against Charles de Tapia, that Ignatius was not the lord of the house of Loyola, but his elder brother. Garcia also gathered various notices of the family of Loyola, book 1, chapter 1; whom the reader desirous of knowing such things may consult, lest we, clinging too much to matters of this kind which do not properly pertain to our purpose, should without necessity augment the truly very great mass of matters to be treated concerning St. Ignatius.

* elsewhere: IV.

§ III. His education, military life, and the defense of the citadel of Pamplona.

Of his earliest boyhood, on the testimony of Maffei, this one thing is established, that he was educated by his people with no very severe discipline, His education among his own people; and that from his very cradle, as in an opulent house, he drank in altogether worldly spirits. Whence it is given to be gathered that the Saint was educated by his people in a laxer and more careless manner of living than was fitting, as is wont not rarely to happen in the houses of nobles, where especially there are many offspring. Yet there is no reason why thou shouldst impute the freer license of living, in which he consumed the flower of his age before he was called by God to a more perfect institute of life, to the education which he had drawn from his parents, according to the consistorial Relation and the Bull of canonization cited before; whence we have that he was born not only of .. Catholic, but also of pious parents; who with like piety saw to the education of their Son. These things fight with the tenet of a certain recent French Legend-writer, who, after he had pronounced rather crudely in the Life of St. Ignatius, near the beginning, that he lived in every depravity of morals (dans tous les déréglemens), soon adds that “the bad education which he had received from his parents, and the evil habits which he had contracted at court, could excite in him,” etc.

[20] was it at Arévalo? Ignatius spent his adolescence at Arévalo, in the diocese of Ávila, if the things be true which Francis Sacchini records from the report of others, in the History of the Society of Jesus, part 5, volume 1, book 8, at the year 1588, from number 116; where he thus writes: “Not in vain did many believe that it came to pass, by the special patronage of Blessed Ignatius, that when the Society had rejected far more famous places, it placed its seat at Arévalo. For they related that Ignatius had spent his adolescence there, delivered by his father to Juan Velasco, treasurer of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who, for friendship's sake, since he lacked his own, had asked from Beltrán de Loyola one of his children, whom he might educate with him.” I said above, “if the things be true which Sacchini records from the report of others.” For he passed his earliest boyhood in his paternal home, according to Maffei cited above: which being over, he was sent by his parents to the court of King Ferdinand, according to Ribadeneira; and indeed, according to Maffei, having scarcely saluted letters from the threshold; where, when among the honorary pages, as the same reports, he had for some time served the king .. he betook himself to Antonio Manrique, and with him laid the rudiments of military service; which thereafter, up to the thirtieth year of his age, he professed. These things being so constituted, we do not sufficiently conceive in what manner it can be said that he spent his adolescence at Arévalo.

[21] His military life; But the things concerning his military life which Ribadeneira passed over are supplied from Maffei, book 1, chapter 1, where, treating of his worldly vanity, he affirms that among his vices and blind errors certain illustrious tokens of a good and religious mind shone forth; namely reverence toward sacred things, a horror of all impiety of words, a mind untouched by the sordidness of avarice and the desire of gain; which is proved by the example of the storming of Nájera; loftiness of soul in reconciliation with enemies; the highest dexterity in great and arduous affairs, joined with alacrity; and finally a certain senile maturity, at that youthful age, in acting and in handling the dispositions of men. But indeed, since we have fallen upon this discourse, by which we instruct the reader more fully concerning his life passed in warfare, there occurs here a certain question, not of great moment indeed, yet not altogether to be neglected. What this is, receive in few words.

[22] in which, whether the office of a leader or prefect of soldiers Thou wilt ask, therefore, whether, and with what military office, he was invested. Lawrence Surius, in the brief Commentary of things done in the world from the year of salvation 1500 up to the year 1574, among those things which he writes at the year 1540, in which the Society of Jesus was approved, relates of St. Ignatius that, on account of his singular prudence and fortitude of soul, when the French were most fiercely storming the citadel of Pamplona, having obtained the office of prefect, he strenuously defended himself and his men. In Genebrard, in the Chronography, book 4, at the year of the world 5622, he is called leader of the Spaniards in the citadel of Pamplona, then besieged by the French. In the Office of St. Ignatius, published at Milan in the year 1647, it is thus had: “A soldier and leader most bravely defending Pamplona,” etc. Andrew Lucas, in the Life of the Saint, book 1, chapter 2, printed in Flemish at Antwerp from the Spanish in the year 1654, would have it that Ignatius was elected leader by common suffrage of the soldiers who, together with him, were the garrison in the city of Pamplona, when they saw themselves besieged; and he cites the passage of Surius just produced by us; nay he subjoins that the strenuous leader added new courage to his men, dispirited by fear and speaking of surrender, and that all followed him to defend the citadel. Our James Coret, in his Life, which he sketched under the fifth angel of the Apocalypse, chapter 2, section 3, relates that he was leader of the column. Our Gabriel Daniel likewise, in the History of France, volume 3, at the year 1521, calls him a young LEADER. Did the Saint therefore, while he followed warfare, bear the office of a leader? That the soldier himself, on account of his signal endowments treated of just now, roused the highest expectation concerning himself of undertaking illustrious offices of warfare, is beyond controversy; but that he was really leader of some military cohort, I should wish to be proved to me from more certain documents from elsewhere; and until that be done, I incline my mind to think that he was only a volunteer or honorary soldier. Surius certainly does not prove the matter; for neither whence

he drew that prefecture, we know, which is neither touched by Ribadeneira even with a little word, nor coheres sufficiently with the words of Maffei. And indeed who would deny that documents of a better mark both could and ought to have shone before the assertors of this prefecture, than Surius—to be corrected by us more than once below in other matters?

[23] Let us set forth and weigh a little the words of Maffei, book 1, what office he bore, is examined. chapter 2: “The duke of Nájera,” he says, “who presided over Navarre with supreme command .. set out into further Spain to gather auxiliaries, Ignatius and a few others besides being left at Pamplona for the sake of the garrison. And the rest indeed, on the approach of the French army .. terrified, and at the same time distrusting the spirits of the townsmen, had altogether decided to yield to the time and to leave the city: but Ignatius, having tried with many words to recall the men from that counsel, when he perceived that he profited nothing by exhorting, with burning eyes detesting their cowardice and perfidy, while all looked on, entered ALONE into the citadel, prepared to defend it with all his might, together with a few left in that garrison.” Now indeed, if at that time Ignatius was a leader, such as those authors call him; is it credible or probable that he left his soldiers, over whom he himself ought then to have presided with command, and, while all looked on, a leader of soldiers without any soldier accompanying his leader, entered the citadel alone? I do not think so. For where are Ignatius's commands, where his courage, where the straits of the situation, where the laws of warfare? “He entered the citadel alone,” Maffei being witness; not therefore with all the garrison soldiers accompanying him, as it pleased Andrew Lucas to write. Bouhours, book 1, adds one soldier too.

[24] Coret indeed says that he retired into the citadel alone with his column; but he says the very thing that is in question. What office he bore is more easily asserted than proved. Bartoli, whom he cites in the margin, book 1, no. 3, relates that, having left the city, he retired into the citadel, but adds to him no column of soldiers accompanying him thither. Charles de Tapia, cited in Henao, book 3, in the citations and notes to chapter 33, among other things which he there relates of St. Ignatius, records these: “He, being of the household of the most serene Ferdinand, the Catholic king, sent by him to Pamplona, the chief city of the kingdom of Navarre, to preside over four hundred soldiers, defended it so long from the hard siege of the French, until, wounded in the leg,” etc. But I pity the good man; because he brings onto the stage King Ferdinand, who had already died in the year 1516, and to whom Charles V had succeeded. Besides, how do these things cohere with those which we narrated above from Maffei, concerning the rudiments of warfare laid with Antonio Manrique? Nor indeed was Ignatius prefect of the garrison which was in the citadel of the city of Pamplona, as may be seen in the Acts which Father Luis Gonçalves took down from the mouth of the Saint himself; and which I shall give afterward: for there, chapter 1, no. 1, he says of himself: “He set forth so many reasons before the prefect (namely of the citadel of Pamplona) that,” etc. Consult besides the same Maffei, book 1, chapter 2. To this is added that Garibay, book 30, chapter 4, writes that he had professed the military art: whom also he soon commemorates as a spirited and brave soldier: but why neither as a leader nor as a prefect of soldiery, if ever he was such? But of these things enough.

[25] In the siege of Pamplona, on what day Ignatius was wounded; But although the things which the Saint bravely and gloriously did in the defense of Pamplona in the year 1521, in which it was besieged and intercepted by the French, are sufficiently divulged from Ribadeneira and Maffei; yet they told them so as to leave some things unsaid. That the day especially on which Ignatius was wounded in it fell on the second feria of Pentecost, which was the 13th of the Kalends of June, Orlandini writes to have been ascertained from sure authors. The Italian Life, which our Reverend Father Mutio Vitelleschi, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, approved in the year 1622, marks the same year, month, and day. And indeed since in the year 1521 Easter fell on the 31st day of March, it is necessary that the second feria of Pentecost fell on the 20th day of May; and so Andrew Lucas erred, so far as we perceive from his Flemish version, which is at hand, when, narrating Ignatius's mishap and the surrender of the citadel, he reports that the matter happened on the 8th of June, on the second feria of Pentecost of the year 1521. In Bartoli's translator Janin, under the same characters of year and feast, the day is wrongly noted as the 19th of May, as also in Coret, chapter 2, section 3. But in Labbe, in the Chronological history, part 3, at the said year of Christ 1521, one reads: “In the storming of the citadel of the city of Pamplona, Ignatius of Loyola was wounded by a ball of an artillery-piece, then twenty years of age.” But that age is convicted of error from the year of his birth, 1491. We have spoken of the time in which this deed took place; if anyone desires to know other circumstances, passed over by Ribadeneira, which preceded the Pamplona expedition both on the part of the French and on the part of the Spaniards, let him consult Maffei, who touches on them briefly, book 1, chapter 2; Andrew Lucas, book 1, chapter 2; Bartoli, book 1, no. 3; Garcia, book 1, chapter 2; Bouhours, book 1.

[26] a chapel there, and an inscription It remains that we also inspect the citadel of Pamplona itself. And the old citadel indeed, which the Saint defended, afterward ceased to be in the same place. But lest that place, in which it once stood, should remain inglorious, a chapel was there founded in honor of St. Ignatius, a perpetual monument of the deed there done: on whose wall an inscription is marked in golden letters below the name of Jesus: which, while I was there, I copied out on the 5th day of May 1722, and then compared with another copy of our college of Pamplona. But from that transcript of mine it will suffice to have skimmed these things: “Blessed Ignatius of Loyola … in the defense of this castle, having received a wound in both shins, fell dying: yet, divinely strengthened, he brought forth worthy fruits of penance, and, with almost the whole world resisting, but the Deity favoring, erected the religious order of the Society of Jesus, to the great good of the Church. ..”

[27] with our observations. The most excellent prince Juan de Cardona, viceroy of Navarre, captain-general of the same and of Guipúzcoa, etc., saw to the erecting of this arch. The deed done in the second year of the pontificate of Paul V, and the eighth of the reign of Philip III, king of the Spains, the most magnificent, most noble, and most illustrious Antonio Venegas de Figueroa feeding the church of Pamplona. Paul V began to sit in the year 1605, from the 17th day of May; to Philip II, snatched from the living in the year 1598, on the 13th day of September, succeeded Philip III; and hence, if the marks of time stand, they will concur with the year 1606 of the Christian era. For the rest, from the old inscription's title, by which that monument is prefaced, and which we copied from the wall of the said chapel, it is plainly established that this is not the original inscription, but was transcribed from another older one. Besides, that clause “saw to the erecting of this arch” moves in us the suspicion that at that spot of the old citadel where Ignatius had fallen, there was first erected an arch, or a pyramid, or some monument, marked with the aforesaid inscription: which then, perhaps demolished or thrown down in the course of time, was replaced by that chapel which now stands there, the ancient and first inscription being transferred to the wall of the chapel, on which it is now inscribed.

§ IV. Sacred reading; Montserrat; the Saint's confessor there, and his stay; his garb; an image and inscription.

How the Saint, most grievously wounded, was carried to his paternal home, and there in a wondrous manner restored to his former health, [The Life of Christ, read by Ignatius, is reported to have been composed by Landulph the Carthusian.] thou wilt understand from the writers of the Life: from whom also it is established that the sacred reading of the Life of Christ and of the Saints, offered to him by divine counsel, kindled the first little fires of a better life in his soul, so gradually burning strongly and sweetly that, wholly changed into another man, he held it fixed to send back word of dismissal to profane warfare, and to pass over to the sacred. Moreover the book concerning the Life of Christ which he read, Bartoli would have to be that of Landulph the Carthusian: of whom, in the Library of that Order, by the author Friar Theodore Petreius, professed of the same family among the Ubii, it is thus said: “Ludolph of Saxony .. published .. works of great utility and piety: among which is especially the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he compiled from the text of the four Evangelists, and explained with commentaries no less most lucid than most devout.” He flourished about the year of the Lord 1330, as is there noted. And indeed because this work of Ludolph was so avidly received, as is clear from its frequent impression, of which there is mention in the same place, it could easily have happened that, rendered into Spanish, it came into the hands of St. Ignatius. But whether this really was done, let Bartoli see to it, who asserts it.

[29] Meanwhile Ignatius, convalescing gradually at once in soul and body, His journey from Navarrete to Montserrat; and most keenly pricked by heavenly goads, but not yet sufficiently fit in strength to seize upon the journey by which he had determined to depart from his kindred and paternal home, kept himself at home for a while, piously indulging in holy occupations amid heavenly favors; until at last, being now somehow sufficiently prepared for the sacred expedition which he was meditating, and his own brother Martin Garcia, the eldest-born, busying himself in vain to deter him from his purpose, he made for Navarrete; where he spent some coins .. in the repair of a certain image of the most blessed Virgin, which was ill-composed; according to the Life taken down from the mouth of the Saint himself, and afterward to be printed by us. And having set out thence, before all things he pressed on to visit, for religion's sake, the most celebrated shrine of the Virgin Mother, to whose protection he had committed himself wholly, and whom he had already then, by a singular apparition, felt quite favorable and beneficent toward himself, which was inhabited, on Montserrat, with a great concourse of comers, by monks of the Benedictine institute. But that place is situated in Catalonia; concerning which it seems worthwhile to learn more: which will be done from the autograph letter of our Reverend Father Peter Cant, superior of the naval mission—as I read it ascribed to the same letter by another—to Reverend Father Lawrence van Schoone, at that time moderator both of himself and of our Flemish-Belgian province, given from the ship in the port of Barcelona, 11 August in the year 1674; from which I skim the following:

[30] whose magnificence, “At last we arrived at the votive-goal of votive-goals, that is, at that Lady, at whose altar, his vow being paid and his sword hung up, our holy Father conceived that spirit whose fecund offspring is the Society which he soon brought forth. At the same altar the next day we both celebrated Mass; with how great a feeling of tenderness, God knows. It would be the work of an entire volume, to describe the majesty of the Lady, of the temple and convent, which is of monks

of the Order of St. Benedict, the amplitude and magnificence, the immense and truly royal treasures of the sacristy, inasmuch as they were bestowed by various kings; and the very nature and situation of the mountain. For the sake of epistolary brevity I will say only that the whole temple is gilded from the bottom to the top very elegantly; that before the Virgin's altar, day and night with an unextinguished flame, seventy-five silver lamps, greater and lesser, perpetually shine; that the treasures stored in the sacristy are equivalent to several millions, and are much greater than those which I once saw at Compostela, which yet are very great, in the sanctuary of the holy Apostle James.

[31] the situation and nature of the place is described. The mountain itself, wonderful in its pleasantness, height, and figure, might deservedly be reckoned among the miracles of nature; since it is wholly of living rock, yet is wholly ever green with fragrant plants and pleasant trees, by no other art than that of nature. Since the convent is placed so high that clouds are seen as it were as a footstool of our feet, and take from us wholly all sight of the land lying below; yet the mountain rises from the foot of the convent into very many peaks, each one of which easily surpasses the highest tower of Belgium; so that, from its likeness to a saw (serra), the mountain is not without reason called serrated (serratus). Those very saws or peaks we also climbed, which not all dare; because one must go up by the narrowest and steepest steps, which are cut in the very rock: and, what seemed wonderful to us, whereas those peaks appear most sharp from the lower place, above they spread out into most pleasant plains, which, at fair intervals, fifteen hermits of the same Order of St. Benedict inhabit with their chapels and houses. Thus far Cant concerning that place.

[32] In what year of his age he was there; what he did there, For the rest, the things done there by our Saint Ribadeneira will give, book 1, chapter 4, the chapter of the old division (which is also noted in the margin of our new partition of chapters;) and Maffei. The time of the new warfare, which, keeping watch by night with his profane arms hung up at the Virgin's altar, he there began, is attached by them to the year 1522; from which, if thou go back to the year of his birth 1491, it follows that when he was on Montserrat he counted about the thirty-first year of his age; and not the twenty-sixth, which Diego Payva Andradius, in the Orthodox explanations, book 1, and Surius cited above wrongly noted; the last of whom is convicted also of another error, when he attributes to the Saint lying sick from illness a whole year and more: for since he was laid low in the citadel of Pamplona on the 20th day of May, from what was said in no. 25, in the year 1521; and since in the very next year 1522, and indeed that whole night on which dawned the feast day of the angelic salutation, on the 25th of March, with his arms hung up he set up his famous watch on Montserrat; as thou mayest see in Ribadeneira and Maffei; it follows that he did not lie sick from illness, in his paternal home or outside it, a whole year, much less more than that. Moreover, lest so noble a kind of new night-watch, and one altogether memorable, should be frustrated of perpetual memory in the very place where it once happened; the abbot of the said monks willed it to be commended to posterity by a marble tablet affixed to the side of the altar with this epigraph, as Bartoli relates, book 1, no. 10:

[33] “Blessed Ignatius of Loyola here, with much prayer and weeping, devoted himself to God and to the Virgin. are noted in an inscription. Here, arming himself as with spiritual arms with a sackcloth, he passed the night. Hence he came forth to found the Society of Jesus in the year 1522. Friar Lawrence Nieto, abbot, dedicated this in the year 1603.” Concerning the chapel in that place in the new church, dedicated in honor of St. Ignatius, and also adorned with pictures representing the deeds done by the Saint on Montserrat, Garcia treats, book 1, chapter 5; where he also sets forth by what event it came to pass that the chapel, which afterward was destined for another female Saint, thereafter continued to be St. Ignatius's, whose it had been before. In the same place also mention is made of the ancient and singular fraternal communication which the Society of Jesus had with that house. But other things which the Saint did on Montserrat now call us.

[34] There, says Ribadeneira, he confessed the crimes of his whole life from a writing, through three days, to an excellent confessor. Of him whom Ignatius used there for his sacred confessions, The same author in the Compendium of the Life given Latinity by Quartemont says that he was a Frenchman by nation, by name John Chanones, a man distinguished and famous for the praise of sanctity. But the form of expressing this man's name is not one and the same: for in Ribadeneira in the Spanish Life of Madrid of the year 1594, and in Bartoli, it is written Chanones; in Argaiz, to be cited a little later, it is Xanones; in Garcia, finally, Chacones. But perhaps it will not be unpleasing to know a little more distinctly the virtues and merits of a man praised in passing by Ribadeneira. Receive, then, his eulogy, which, drawn from the archive of the monastery of Montserrat, Bartoli reviews, book 1, no. 10: “He had been,” he says, “formerly vicar of the church of Mirapicensis, who, being about to venerate the Mother of God, when he had once betaken himself thither, captivated by the religious examples and innocence of the monks, had bidden farewell to the world; and having abdicated from himself the dignity of his office and his faculties, had professed the monastic life in the thirty-second year of his age: thence unto the eighty-eighth, with the same ardor as at first, he endured in that order. Whether strong or sick, young or a decrepit old man, he never touched flesh, and daily out of his daily allowance divided a third part among the poor.”

[35] “His garb was the meanest, a hair-shirt reaching to the knees under his garment; his eulogy. his nights, a few hours being deducted for rest, sleepless in prayer, partly with the rest in choir, partly in the secret of his cell. By long and grievous illnesses God refined the man's patience, especially in his decrepit years, which even alone stand for a grievous illness: in these he received his pains always with a most equable mind, always repaid them with the praise of God and thanksgiving. But in self-abasement and obedience he was so sublime, and eminent in so many other endowments, that for restoring the discipline of the Order he was an exemplar and author to many houses throughout Spain and Portugal.” Prosperously therefore and happily, divine providence so guiding the matter, it happened that St. Ignatius fell upon such an arbiter of his conscience; whose praises, of a most excellent monk, we do not regret having reviewed in few words, being not unmindful surely how illustriously he then deserved of our holy Father—the first, to speak with Quartemont, into whose bosom, as of a father and master, he might pour out his counsels and the inmost thoughts of his soul.

[36] On Montserrat That the Saint drew out but a slight delay of time there, is indicated by the manner of narrating the things which he did in that place, in Ribadeneira, Maffei, and Orlandini. The Life written from the Saint's mouth by Luis Gonçalves, no. 18, says: “On the day before the Annunciation of the most blessed Mary in the year 1522, by night .. he set forth to fall on his knees before the altar of the most blessed Mother of God, and .. passed the whole night. Day coming on, having received the holy Eucharist, he departed, that he might not be recognized. But he went not by the straight road that leads to Barcelona, … but by a bypath, by which he was carried into a certain town, which is called Manresa, where he determined to make a stay,” etc. Among the documents of our Roman archive concerning St. Ignatius sent hither there occurs a Manuscript copy, containing certain matters said by Father Araoz concerning the holy Father, which are said to be lacking in his Life, and to be reported by Araoz's companion. In the said Manuscript, therefore, we have that a little after the Saint had arrived at Montserrat, he withdrew into some cave sought out through those mountains; where also certain things are written to have befallen him wishing to lie hidden. But those I would not dare to approve; because they are not consonant with what has just been said. For the rest, the sojourn at Montserrat cannot be narrowed to a lesser space of time than three days; since he spent three days there in washing away, by a general confession of his whole past life, its stains, as is established from the biographers. But how many days he stayed in that place, we confess that nothing is at hand for us whence we might determine it; whatever Garibay may write, that he made a novena there. For the rest, to extend the time of his sojourn on Montserrat to three years—what is this, if it be not this, to overturn the fixed chronological points of those matters which followed after this sojourn?

[37] he remained a very brief time. For since, after his departure from Montserrat, he passed about one year at Manresa, on the testimony of Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 10, or, as we have from Maffei, book 1, chapter 11, spent among these things nearly the space of a year; and since, as the latter notes, chapter 12, at the beginning of the year 1523 .. having set out from Manresa he came to Barcelona, that he might cross over into Italy from that place; and, as the former relates in the cited chapter 10, came to Rome .. on Palm Sunday of the year 1523; not to say that on the 14th day of the month of July, in the year of the Lord 1523, toward Jerusalem, he set sail from Venice, according to Ribadeneira, chapter 11; and, returning in the year 1524, set upon the studies of letters at Barcelona, according to chapter 13; it follows that all these things, circumscribed by their years, cannot be reconciled with that three-year period; from which help is sought, to snatch from St. Ignatius the book of Exercises, which he composed among the Manresans, and to attribute it to another. But those dreams will have to be blown away by us below, when, from our proper purpose, we treat of that matter, and vindicate that book to its true Author, against Argaiz, in the History of Our Lady of Montserrat, chapter 46, no. 9, and others, who either ascribed it to another, or thought otherwise than is fitting concerning the manner in which it was composed by our holy Father.

[38] Concerning the traveling cloak which, before he had arrived at Montserrat, he procured for himself, It is described, what garment the Saint used there, clothed in which he kept his watch there all night before the altar of the Virgin Mother; in which he departed thence; in which finally he entered Manresa, Ribadeneira treats graphically, book 1, chapters 3 and 4; and Maffei, book 1, chapters 3, 4, and 5; to whom add Orlandini, book 1, no. 18, whose words why I should rather transcribe hither than those of those two, thou wilt soon understand: “He clothed himself,” he says, “in the habit which he had lately procured on his journey near Montserrat. It was an ankle-length tunic of rough sackcloth, a rope for a girdle, shoes of esparto-grass, but he covered only the one foot, which was weaker from the old wound: the other quite bare; likewise he left his head bare: he hung at his side a gourd for the use of water, and grasped in his hand a traveler's staff, the accoutrement of pilgrims.” That he performed that sacred vigil in this habit; that in this he departed toward Manresa from Montserrat; that in this finally he entered Manresa

on entering appeared, is had from the designated no. 18 and the two next following. Argaiz, in the cited place, would have it that Orlandini contradicts Ribadeneira in this, that he gives the Saint a double tunic, Ribadeneira giving him one. He tries to prove this from these words of Orlandini: “Ignatius's garment was a double cloak of thick cloth, of an ashen-reddish color, and a little cap made of the same.”

[39] But Argaiz sins in many things. For 1. The text of Orlandini concerning the garment here in controversy, against the dreams of certain persons, we have already given, and it too is a single one. 2. The words which Argaiz just now thrust forward are wretchedly truncated from Orlandini's book 1, no. 30; which, if he had transcribed them uncorrupted and entire from the very source, he could easily have seen that there the treatment is of a garment which, that it was diverse by the whole heaven from this one of which we are disputing, the circumstances of the matter cry out. For Orlandini, treating of the Saint about to depart from Manresa, says: “He now enjoyed more certain health; but because a grievous languor of the stomach had settled in, and a very cold winter raged, at the urging of his friends he put on his body a double cloak of thick cloth, of an ashen-reddish color, and placed on his head a little cap made of the same as a covering. Then he departed for Barcelona.” Concerning the Saint's double garment the Gonçalves Life, no. 34, may also be consulted. 3. That double garment pleases Argaiz for this reason, that he may transform St. Ignatius into a Benedictine of an inferior order. 4. He also brought onto the stage two confessors, namely Forner and Chanones, whom the Saint, after he had communicated with them, Argaiz believes—or rather dreams—to have obeyed, and to have assumed a habit which was rather that of a religious than of a pilgrim: certainly with no shadow of truth. For although this little fable has been more than enough confuted from what has been said, yet it pleases me to add to these, by way of a coping-stone, the following. The Life taken down from the mouth of St. Ignatius by Father Luis Gonçalves, no. 16, thus narrates: “And so he bought cloth of that kind from which sacks are made, not very closely woven, and rough with many prickles: and he immediately ordered a garment to be made for himself from it, reaching down to the feet.” And soon the Life adds in the same place, shoes of esparto, of which he wore only one, a staff the mark of pilgrims, and a little gourd. What appearance here of a religious habit, much less of a Benedictine Oblate?

[40] Bucelin, in his Benedictine Menology, at the day July 31, had thus, before Argaiz, described this fictitious metamorphosis of our holy Father: “About to be a soldier for Christ, he assumed a new man and habit in the monastery of the Blessed Admirable Mother of Montserrat among our men, and there, of the Oblates, ridiculously and groundlessly transformed into a Benedictine Oblate. whom the Spaniards call Donati, being invested with the religious garb,” etc. Away, therefore, with pure and unmixed dreams of this kind; with which if those two authors (not to add a third to them, Constantine Cajetan, cited by Argaiz) have taken it into their minds to procure honor for the sacred garment of the religious of the Benedictine Order; let them know that neither the holy patriarch Benedict nor his Order is to be adorned with false things, being most conspicuous by true praises from elsewhere.

[41] Whether he professed From a like fabrication of fables came forth that invention, of which there is treatment in the Responses of Father Daniel Papebroch to the most Reverend father Sebastian of St. Paul, part 2, among those things by which reply is made to article 15, §3, no. 25; where from a certain author it is related that some maintain that St. Ignatius drew the perfection and sanctity of his life from the third Rule of St. Francis, and took up his habit, made profession, and lived for some time according to it. But trifles of this kind are worthy rather of neglect and commiseration than of refutation. Meanwhile there may be consulted the things which are answered there from no. 26. But behold, that invention is not long ago again renewed in a German booklet, whose title is: The Rule of the third Order, called of the Penitents, which the Seraphic Patriarch St. Francis composed by a special instinct of the Holy Spirit, etc., compiled with other things pertaining to the notice of this Order by a certain man from the reformed Austrian province of the poor Franciscans. The said booklet came to light at Vienna, at the press of John Baptist Schilgen, printer of the University, in the year 1726; as I find ascribed to a fragment which was extracted from the aforesaid book.

[42] the third rule of St. Francis. But since that fragment, although small, yet teems with great and gross falsities, it merits no faith in this matter. For it is false, first, that from St. Ignatius's staff, rough garment, and rope with which he was then girt, it follows that he was a Tertiary of the Order of St. Francis; for as thence, according to what was just said of the Benedictine Oblate, thou wilt not hammer out a Benedictine habit; so also thou wilt not thence hammer out a Tertiary of St. Francis. It is false, secondly: That in the church of the Mother of God of Montserrat he opened the offenses of his whole past life by a general confession to a Franciscan priest: for who was there his confessor, I said above. It is false, thirdly, that he sought the cave of Manresa; where, clothed after the norm of the first Tertiaries, dwelling together with them, he lay hidden for some time. Where he was at Manresa, Ribadeneira will give, book 1, chapters 5 and 6. It is false, fourthly, that he thereupon deposited his profession, made, into the hands of his Franciscan confessor. It is false, fifthly, that in the same cave of Manresa, keeping the habit of a penitent Tertiary, he wrote the admirable book of the Spiritual Exercises. Of St. Ignatius's profession it will be said elsewhere. Of his habit it has just been treated. How many and how great falsities are heaped together in that slight fragment, to be laid among old wives' fables! But what can a recent author, approved by the ordinary censors of books at Brussels—likewise the Reverend Father Engelbert Pauck, of the Order of St. Francis Seraph, equally approved by the censors in the third Seraphic Vineyard, folio 164, who are there cited—persuade in this matter, if they be compared with all the ancient tradition of the past, to which it did not even occur to dream of it?

[43] That something also in like matter happened at Manresa is indicated by this, that Father Ignatius Pien, [Certain things are touched on concerning an image of St. Ignatius, exposed at Manresa with an inscription.] my own brother, sent me among the Roman monuments a Spanish inscription, placed beneath an image of St. Ignatius of Loyola in the monastery of the Dominican Fathers at Manresa, by the Reverend Friar Bernard Llanes, son and Prior of that convent, on the 3rd day of April in the year 1649. The aforesaid Father Ignatius Pien subjoins that he has also a Memorial, which Our men then offered to the Vicar Father of the Dominicans, both against the manner in which St. Ignatius was depicted in the aforesaid image, and against the inscription: and the Response of a certain Dominican Father to the said Memorial: and finally a Memorial of Our men offered to the Inquisition. From the said Inscription we have that St. Ignatius, in the year 1522, having departed from Montserrat to Manresa, came to the convent of the Dominican Fathers; that the Prior of the same convent received him into hospitality in a certain cell of that place (which was then called the Priory;) in which he dwelt the rest of the time that he was at Manresa; that in that convent he wrought great spiritual things, and rejoiced in heavenly delights. And a little after it is added that he had many illuminations from heaven, and composed the book of the Spiritual Exercises. But if Ignatius, as long as he was among the Manresans, was in that convent, as that inscription would have it, since it makes no mention of another place at which the Saint lodged; therefore the Saint did not first lodge at the hospice there; therefore he did nothing in the cave of Manresa of those things which are affirmed to have been done there; which are false; see Ribadeneira, book 1, chapters 5 and 6, and the things which I shall say afterward concerning the cave of Manresa and the Spiritual Exercises. So much for the inscription. But what displeased our men in the image of St. Ignatius exposed there, I do not find; nor do I know what afterward followed upon this controversy.

§ V. The journey from Montserrat to Manresa; the Saint's cave; the Spiritual Exercises composed there; the time of his sojourn.

Meanwhile, therefore, Ignatius, from a profane soldier changed into a most pious pilgrim, not yet in certain light, Notice of Manresa. the beast being left with the monks of the monastery of Montserrat, on foot himself, still limping on one leg swathed with bandages, with the greatest labor departed from Montserrat, and turned aside a little after from the military road, first to desert places in the neighborhood, then to a town of the Barcelona territory, Manresa (today the common people call it Manresa), about nine miles from Montserrat, says Maffei, book 1, chapter 5. That place was once an episcopal one, situated on the river Cardoner *, which a little below falls into the Llobregat, the recent geographer Michael Antonio Baudrand observes, at the word Minorissa. Moreover that this little city is situated in a valley, Cant wrote, quoted above. But that Manresa is either a little town or a village of five hundred houses, we have from Bartoli, book 1, no. 11.

[45] For the rest, what we just now gave in few words concerning the Saint's departure from Maffei, It is set forth how St. Ignatius, we have described more fully in a Spanish transcript sent hither together with the other Roman monuments, with this title: Relation and History of the time in which our blessed Father Ignatius stayed at Manresa and Barcelona, which John Sacrista Paschal left in writing. In the margin likewise the following are noted in Spanish by the hand of Father Pien: “This History of the time in which our blessed Father Ignatius was in the cities of Manresa and Barcelona, extracted from his Catalan original, Father Francis Castel sends to our Father General Claudio Aquaviva through Father Joseph de Alderete, 1605.” Thence I skim these things, which I subjoin: “I, John Sacrista Paschal,” he says, “make faith, by virtue of this present writing, for the perpetual memory of the things which I heard my mother Agnes Paschal, widow of a second marriage, and Father Ignatius of Loyola, say, partly concerning the matters which follow, pertaining to the journeys, conversion, and coming of him into the city of Manresa and Barcelona; partly concerning those things which I myself saw and handled with my own eyes and my own hands. When I was a youth of fifteen years, and was a page of the archbishop who was then of Tarragona, with a certain uncle of mine, own brother of my said mother Agnes Paschal, a widow, by name Anthony Pujol, who was to the said archbishop master of sacred ceremonies and confessor; because he was a very learned man and of great merits; my mother was staying at that time at Manresa; on account of the affairs which the author of this narration there records.”

[46] having left Montserrat, “She had then her chief house and habitation in this city of Barcelona; the care of it in her absence being committed to others. And while on a certain Sabbath she had visited the holy house of Our Lady of Montserrat (whither she was wont to go on most Sabbaths, because Manresa was distant only three leagues) and was returning to her house from midday together with the company of two youths, and of three women there expressed; she came to the chapel of the Apostles, which was a little lower down from Our Lady,

there met them a certain youth, wholly clothed in a cheap woolen garment *, like a pilgrim, in stature indeed not very tall, but fair and ruddy, and of a very good countenance, and grave, and above all of a great modesty of the eyes, which he scarcely raised from the ground: and he came very wearied, and limping on his right shin. He met, as I said, my mother in the chapel of the Apostles: whom he asked whether anywhere thereabout there was a hospice, into which he might receive himself. But she, having beheld his honored and good countenance, together with his head somewhat bald, contemplated him, his presence moving her to devotion and piety: and so she said to him that the one which was nearer there was three leagues distant from thence, where they themselves dwelt, in the city of Manresa: whence she was, and whither she was going. And that if it pleased him to accompany and follow her, she would there accommodate him and provide for him handsomely, in the best manner in which it could be done.

[47] he came to Manresa: But he, having testified that the said offer was pleasing to him in honored and Christian words, resolved to follow them, walking with a slow gait, on account of his lameness, that he might be able to accompany them. And when they offered him the ass which they were leading with them, that he might sit upon it, out of the commiseration with which they were borne toward him, they could never prevail upon him to cease going on foot, or to mount the beast even for a single step. And when all together, now late, arrived at Manresa—the said Father Ignatius, and the two said other youths, and the said three women, and my mother—she, before she entered the city, sent him ahead, that he might enter with Jerónima Cavera, a widow and prefect of the hospice of St. Lucy of the same city, charging her to provide for him a good bed and chamber in the said hospice, and to take care of him; that in the rest, which pertained to his food and to his comforts, she would carefully provide for him from her own house, as many days as should be necessary. And so it happened that, my said mother, returned home, on that very evening sent to the hospice for the said Father Ignatius a supper which she had found prepared for herself, a hen, as she said, and a dish with broth; because she was herself somewhat ill-affected. She did the same on the two following days, in which he stayed in the hospice, namely five: where he always fasted with great rigor. Lest the narration grow too much, I abridge it.

[48] He weaves in various things concerning his virtues, the harshness of his life, the house procured for him by his mother, and how he departed thence. that he might more tranquilly and conveniently attend to his affairs; concerning his spiritual conversations, and the good works which he exercised both in the hospital toward the sick, and toward the rest of the poor existing in the city: then he relates the contradictions and murmurings of the envious and malicious against these holy exercises, and their author, and also his followers, and particularly Joanna Serra, into whose house he had received himself; and above all he narrates that there was murmuring concerning his mother Agnes Paschal, who was traduced as the inventress of these disturbances and the fosterer of novelties, on account of the offices rendered by her to their author: and that the matter went so far that she was compelled to summon from Tarragona her own brother Anthony Pujol, of whom above; who, he records, with haste, herself accompanying, came to the city of Manresa: and that his mother, the matter being laid before him, asked of him that he would lead him with him to Barcelona. Said and done: Ignatius bade farewell to Manresa, leaving the greatest longing for himself among the greater and better part of the city: and with the uncle of the said John Paschal he came to Barcelona. These things we have abridged thence: what pertains to Barcelona will be given afterward, where it shall be said with what authority this testimony of John avails; now let us return to Manresa.

[49] Francis Vicens, a citizen of the same city, and also doctor of philosophy and medicine, the cave of St. Ignatius published an Apology, printed in the year 1664; in which he excellently defends the truth and unity of the holy and prodigious cave of Manresa; which the Society of Jesus there holds and possesses as the true and only one; into which its glorious Founder and Patriarch, having departed from Montserrat, and moved by the divine Spirit, withdrew; and which finally, by his rare austerity, wondrous life, the favors of heaven received there, and the miracles wrought, he converted into a true sanctuary. And these things indeed, summarily premised by the praised author of that Apology, are more fully drawn out in the writers of the Ignatian Life. But because that Apology will very soon recur rather often, being about to be a great help to us in illustrating our Saint's sojourn among the Manresans, therefore we have thought a brief notice of it should be supplied.

[50] Certain religious fathers of Manresa raised this controversy, that it is the only one, against certain religious by saying before witnesses worthy of faith that in their convent was the true cave of St. Ignatius; and that it was not such as the Society has. But that afterward they mitigated their statement in the month of August of the year 1664, we have from the cited author of the Apology, a religious being sent by them to the college of the Society, to report that they had never thought or said that the Society's cave was not the true one, in which the Saint dwelt; but that he also dwelt in that which they themselves had, near the one which is the Society's. And indeed so deeply had that opinion settled in the minds of the said Fathers, that from their new cave they gave earth for the sick, in imitation or opposition, as the author speaks, of that which is wont to be given, miracles following the gift, from the old one, which the city venerates. But with what words the city opposed itself, on the 20th day of September of the said year 1664, to the patrons of that imaginary cave, the author has in no. 9. But that the holy cave, held in veneration to this day, is that which St. Ignatius inhabited, he proves from no. 13 from sworn and eyewitness testimonies. From no. 17 he brings forward sworn witnesses, deposing that they heard it from those who saw the matter.

[51] it is asserted: Afterward he proves the same argument from tradition, and public fame with authentic writings; not to speak of the universal veneration, from no. 39; and from miracles, from no. 47. Finally he judges that he manifestly and evidently concludes that this and no other is the true and only cave of St. Ignatius, which our Society possesses; then adding negative arguments, as they call them, which suffice to convince any man, provided he suffer himself to be led by reason, from the singular circumstances which patronize this cause. Possession therefore, to conclude what we have said, stood always, and will stand, for our Society, which holds the only and true cave of the Saint, with the exclusion of any other whatsoever; which, after so many years had elapsed, the novelty of those good religious, destitute of all foundation of probability, could not at last fabricate in the year 1664. It pleases me now, before we proceed to other matters, to describe what that cave was. The site of the place, therefore, its nature, form, dimension, and the rest of that kind, understand from Bartoli, book 1, no. 12:

[52] which is described. “To the Saint seeking a retreat, one easily met him, distant about six hundred paces from Manresa, very suited to his purpose. It was a cave at the foot of a hill, hollowed out in the living rock, dark, and not much unlike a sepulcher, yet situated in a most pleasant place, and in a narrow valley, to which, among the inhabitants, its pleasantness gave the name of the Valley of Paradise. Eighty reeds thence the brook Cardoner flows with most limpid waters: opposite is the royal road: between this and the cave there is seen a cross of stone, one of three, to which it was the Saint's custom to make pious stations. The cave has in length two-and-thirty palms; in breadth ten: in height, where the vault rises much, likewise ten: but lower, as one recedes more inward into it. On the part which looks toward Montserrat, there lies open a little window, conveniently taken from a cleft of the rock, from which the temple can be seen, and the Virgin Mother adored. For the rest, on all sides black, and horrid with darkness, and unshapen, and rough with peaks jutting upward here and there from the crag. Few knew of this, no one approached it; and for this it seemed the more opportune to Ignatius. Having therefore opened into it, through the opposing thorn-thickets and the dense brambles, a narrow entrance, he made it his own.” Vicens, mentioned above, narrates, no. 31, that the most illustrious bishops Raphael de Rovirola of Barcelona and Francis Robuster of Vic, remissory judges in the processes of the canonization of St. Ignatius, on the 16th day of September of the year 1606, surveyed that cave with their eyes; and that the deed is contained in the information of the same year 1606, folio 510; which says, among other things, that this cave is distant from the city about 200 paces; besides, that it has a length of 26 palms; that it is of eight in breadth, and eleven in height. Cant, in the letter of which above, places that monument at about the third cast of a stone outside Manresa.

[53] Various reasons persuade us that in the retreat of that cave the book of the Spiritual Exercises was composed by the holy Man, There he composed the Spiritual Exercises. or the first designation and idea of the same. First: Because that place was especially fit for this, being solitary, free from noise and from interrupters. 2. Because in the praised Vicens, no. 13, we have that in that cave he performed harsh penance: that he very often withdrew into it, no. 20: that he dwelt in .. the said cave.., that he beat himself with a scourge in the cave.., and that the Saint MADE THE EXERCISES IN the said CAVE. And the Informations of Barcelona and Manresa are cited. I said above disjunctively, “or the first designation of the same,” etc.; for those Exercises were not composed all at once and at one time. For in the most ancient Life, by the author Gonçalves, taken down from the mouth of the holy Father, near the end, the holy Man, being asked in what manner he had written them, answered that the Exercises were not all composed at once, but that, as he had observed each thing to profit himself, so he noted it in writing, which he judged could be useful to others also. Such as is that method of examining the conscience, employing those lines, and other things of the kind. He asserted that the method of the Elections he had particularly drawn out from that variety of spirits which he felt then, when he lay sick from his leg at Loyola. But of the Exercises of St. Ignatius very much remains soon to be said.

[54] That the sojourn of St. Ignatius among the Manresans is to be extended to about one year, How long he stayed at Manresa. is established from the Acts taken down from the mouth of the Saint by Gonçalves, no. 29; where these things are said: “While he was still at Manresa (and he was there nearly a whole year;)” etc. Of this sojourn it is also established from Ribadeneira and Maffei. The latter, book 1, chapter 11, says: “the space of nearly a year being spent .. he altogether determined to seek Jerusalem.” And chapter 12: “at the beginning of the year 1523 .. having set out from Manresa, he came to Barcelona,” he affirms. But Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 10, writes: “About one year more or less at Manresa

he spent.” But in the shorter Life in Quartemont, chapter 4, he is said to have stayed at Manresa nearly a year. Which time Orlandini abbreviates somewhat more, book 1, no. 31, saying that “he departed for Barcelona .. leaving Manresa about the tenth month after he had come.” In the Canonical Hours he is narrated, in a round number, to have stayed there a year. It follows from so many testimonies alleged, that Garibay is not to be heard, book 30, chapter 5, when he restricts St. Ignatius's sojourn among the Manresans, too sparingly, to seven months.

§ VI. By whom, where, and when was the book of the Exercises written? A vindication of this subject.

In that little, but nervous eulogy of the Spiritual Exercises, which is in the Canonical Hours of the Saint, after there has been said of those things which the Lord had revealed to the Saint at Manresa, [Against Yepes, who judges that the Exercises were composed by the Saint after he had studied,] the Church soon recites thus: “At which time the man, plainly rude in letters, composed that admirable book of the Exercises, approved by the judgment of the Apostolic See, and by the utility of all;” from that eulogy, I say, determine what is to be held from the common sense of the Church concerning those three questions; namely that that book was composed by St. Ignatius living at Manresa, in the year 1522. The Reverend Father Antonio de Yepes, in the general Chronicle of the Order of St. Benedict published in Spanish, volume 4, century 5, folio 236, judges that the Saint was without doubt the author of this book, but confesses that whether it was ordered by him then, when he was at Manresa, is not certain to him, nay rather that he holds the contrary as more probable. For because that work teems with many authorities of Sacred Scripture and of the doctrine of the Saints; he disallows its composition to the Man then unskilled in those matters and indeed in the Latin tongue itself; judging that it comes nearer the truth, that he wrote it after he had run through the course of studies at Paris, being then furnished with letters and experience; so that, while at Manresa he imbued the persons coming to him with the spiritual Exercises, this did not happen, according to Yepes's conjecture, because he then wrote the book of the Exercises, but because he then profited by the Cisnerian one. He adds that he affirms this not from his own conjecture alone, but would have it gathered from the general tradition of the Order of St. Benedict, which drew its origin from the usage of the holy place of Montserrat.

[56] Ribadeneira is opposed to him; who to his arguments To this he confesses that Father Ribadeneira is of the contrary opinion; and he brings forward his letter, communicated to him by the Reverend Father Francis Giron, Rector of the college of Salamanca of the Society of Jesus, from folio 237; from which I skim the following, rendered by me into Latin from the Spanish. Two things seem to be established by Ribadeneira: the one, that it is very probable that our blessed Father Ignatius had at Manresa notice of the book or Exercitatory of Father Friar Garcia de Cisneros, and in the beginnings of his better life profited by it for his prayer and meditation; and also that he was instructed by Father Friar John Chanones, and taught some things from it; and that the Saint also gave to the book which he afterward composed the name of the Spiritual Exercises, the name of the book being taken from the book or Exercitatory of Father Friar Garcia. The other is, that the book of the holy Father is very diverse from the book of Father Friar Garcia: because, although in the one and the other some things are treated as to their matter which coincide; yet in the manner and form of treating they differ greatly. And after Ribadeneira had enumerated various things which hold a most chief place in the book of the Exercises, and of which in that other one no word occurs; he establishes that there is no doubt that those two books differ, and that the second is not taken from the first.

[57] replies, To the argument which Yepes brought forward, from the Saint's unskilfulness at that time, Ribadeneira rejoins that, in order that God may teach and illuminate some soul, there is no need of studies or of Latinity. And “what our Father,” he says, “wrote in the book of the Exercises, he did not write for this reason, that he had turned his study to it, or had learned it in books; but because God himself had taught it him, and he had experienced it in himself. For although in those beginnings he did not know what the Lord had determined concerning him; yet God knew it, and gradually disposed him, that He might make him the founder of the Society, and a great Patriarch of His Church; and gave him one of the helps by which he ought to join and subdue the same his Society; and his sons should make as great fruit in the Church as they made through the Exercises.” And soon, confirming his opinion from the fruit which everywhere and in so many ways our Lord has deigned to work through them, he rightly judges that, even if our holy Father had studied much, and had drawn his Exercises from other books, yet it could not have come to pass, humanly speaking, that from ideas drawn in the school, and dug out from the reading even of spiritual and pious books, there should follow such changes of life, reformations of morals, and other emoluments of the spirit, as flowed forth from the book of the Exercises of the holy Father, if the Lord had not with singular favor given him them for the execution of these things.

[58] Then he alleges the words of Pope Paul III, who in a Brief, and proves that they were composed by the Saint recently converted. published in the year 1548, praising and confirming the Exercises, thus speaks: “The Spiritual Exercises, drawn out from the sacred Scriptures and from the experiences of the spiritual life.” Likewise this text of Father Polanco (whose, says Ribadeneira, is the Preface of the book of the Exercises) the same author cites: “These instructions and spiritual Exercises, which, taught not so much by books, as by the unction of the Holy Spirit, and by internal experience, and by the practice of dealing with souls, our Father in Christ .. composed,” etc. And at last the praised Ribadeneira thus concludes the matter: “And this was the common sense of all the ancient Fathers of the Society, who dealt and conversed with our blessed Father; nor was there ever any thought or suspicion of another thing.” To the letter, given at Madrid on the 18th of April in the year 1607, is subscribed Peter Ribadeneira. By which are solidly established the things which he had already said in book 1 of the Life, chapter 8: “At this same time he wrote the book, which they call, of the Spiritual Exercises, from the accurate observation of the things which had befallen him;” namely then, when he was living among the Manresans, as is clear from the antecedent and consequent text of the said writer. That book, therefore, was written by St. Ignatius at Manresa in the year 1522.

[59] Those Exercises And these things indeed could suffice at that time to vindicate those sacred meditations to St. Ignatius as their true and genuine author. Yet there was found a certain hypercritic, to whom it afterward pleased to re-cook that old cabbage, and to thrust forward thence new dishes of ineptitudes. Receive the matter and its vindication from Bartoli, book 1 of the Life, no. 21: “We have said,” he says, “that St. Ignatius, having set out from his paternal home to Montserrat, expiated his whole life by sacred confession with John Chanones, a monk of St. Benedict, and was instructed by him with holy counsels in the virtue undertaken; I add, perhaps for this he also received some book, and, if you please, this very one which is commemorated, the Exercitatory. From these, I know not who—whatever the name of this man—wrote two books: he makes this title of them: ‘Concerning the religious institution of St. Ignatius, or St. Ennecon, founder of the Society of Jesus, by the Benedictine Fathers; and concerning the little book of the Exercises of the same, in great part taken from the Exercitatory of the true servant of God, Garcia de Cisneros, Benedictine abbot.’”

[60] From which it is clear that he attempted to prove that St. Ignatius copied out his Exercises in great part from the book of Cisneros; against a certain foolish hypercritic and consequently, as plainly follows, that they are not his own; unless an unjust seizer of another's property ought to be called a legitimate possessor. “For how could a man,” he says, “rude in divine things, write with such exquisite skill and so coherently concerning the cultivation of intimate virtue? Whence, moreover, experience in dealing with souls to him who had thus far lain hidden either among beggars and the sick in a hospital, or as a hermit in a solitary cave? From Cisneros, therefore, he copied that book.” But this is neither the only, nor yet the most grievous, of those things by which that book grazes the glory of St. Ignatius and his Order; but since it has been marked by the sacred Congregation of the Index (struck, namely, by the Roman thunderbolt, as is established from the decree of the same Congregation, published at Rome in the year 1646, on the 18th day of December) and at once erased from the eyes and memory of men, it merits no further mention.

[61] As for the Exercises, this only will I say; if the things which I related before are of any weight, Bartoli excellently defends them, the opposite is most evidently established from them, namely that Ignatius neither copied nor compiled the Exercises from Cisneros. Nothing indeed is truer than that he needed to draw from elsewhere that in which he was neither sufficiently versed, nor of himself sufficiently learned. But whence, and in what manner? Let the witnesses of his faith say, whom the most illustrious Auditors of the Roman Rota commend by the weight of their name: “Since the said Exercises,” they say, “were made at that time in which the said Blessed Father was an unlettered man, and ignorant of letters; we are surely compelled to confess that the said knowledge and light were rather supernaturally infused than acquired.” Which utterance, drawn from those authorities, and published by those authors on whom the gravity of the matter committed to them imposed the necessity of truth, ought to prevail with any sensible man more than that he should wish it confirmed by surer proofs.

[62] and vindicates them to Ignatius Yet we have the intimate confidants and familiars of St. Ignatius, James Laínez and John Polanco, by whom it has been handed down to us beyond ambiguity, that St. Ignatius had, in composing the Exercises, no chief master besides God; that there were no instructions except from heaven. Nor are there lacking men of a most holy life, likewise divinely taught the same, whom both to relate would be long, and is not necessary to me, resting on juridical testimonies, when there was treatment of enrolling him in the album of the Saints. That rather is necessary, to remember what they clearly consigned to us who had heard it from himself; that, as, more illumined ever by new rays, he came to know more of divine things, so he always added something new to the book of the Exercises, until he perfected it such as we have it. From which, to those doubting, satisfaction is excellently made how so absolute a little work could come forth from a man neither lettered nor accustomed to guide souls; and how, even being such, he could use passages of councils and of the Fathers, and discern the nature of the good and evil spirit by settled rules, which cannot be furnished except by one thoroughly learned, and long practiced in the governance of the interior man.

[63] he vindicates, For at Manresa, while he lived alone, FROM THOSE THINGS WHICH HE HAD LEARNED BY DIVINE TEACHING (which, before Gregory XV, from the authentic report of the most illustrious Auditors of the Roman Rota, the Advocate of the Pontifical assembly said, treating of that Manresan sojourn of the Saint) from those things, I say,

the chief ones, he described, in the order which I have set forth, the parts of the Exercises; upon which then, as upon a foundation laid, he kept building for a full five-and-twenty years, up to 1548, in which, fortified by the authority of Paul III, they came forth into the light; and, now long thoroughly instructed by very use in the economy of the interior life, he added to them new rules, which he called Additions; and, now a theologian, various texts from councils and Fathers. Hence in that diploma which a little before I copied out, the Pontiff, he says, named them Instructions, or Spiritual Exercises drawn out from the Scriptures and from the experiences of the spiritual life, and reduced into an order most apt for piously moving the souls of the faithful: such, namely, as they then were, when the leader Francis Borgia received them to be confirmed by supreme suffrage: but not such as they had been, when at Manresa they had first been written by the Saint. Therefore Ignatius neither brought forth the Exercises from one man; nor yet from Cisneros. Which is so clear to one comparing both with each other, granting they have something of matter in common, as it is clear that a royal citadel differs from a palace, although both have gates and walls. And that no one may think this said by him gratis, Bartoli proves this argument from an enumeration of the parts of each book, proceeding thus:

[64] For where, in the Exercitatory of Cisneros, is the meditation of the Foundation, as their true and genuine author concerning the end for which man was created; which is the beginning of the Exercises of St. Ignatius for extricating the soul from secular things, that from the beginning it may incline to none of them? Where the two Standards, for affecting souls toward the standard of Christ? Where the other things concerning the tyrant and the king, for perceiving beforehand the outcome of each war, and the rewards? Where the Election of a stable life, the greatest part of the whole, toward which whatever has been premised tends? Where the threefold Manner of praying? Where the particular Examen of conscience … Where so many Additions and Rules for discerning the spirits among themselves; for the correction of scruples; for ordering one's life for the future; for feeling with the Catholic Church; for dispensing one's goods to the poor with fruit? Is there any of these in the Exercitatory of Cisneros? Is there any of the rest, which are proper to the Exercises of St. Ignatius, and cannot be repeated to prolixity without weariness? Yet I have touched only on the matter: for if the manner and the joining of the parts among themselves be regarded, which frames the Exercises of St. Ignatius into the art and form which I described before; what even a shadow of these in Cisneros? or what of these did their defender see well enough, that he should investigate it in Cisneros?

[65] Yet this is the sum of the Exercises; this the true and so proper method of them; to their same author. that although their matter be the same, yet, digested either rashly or in an order diverse from theirs, it would compose not the Exercises of Ignatius, but a book of another kind, diverse from them in nature and efficiency. And he plainly ought to have been mindful, whom the itch of defending this falsity assailed, from what variety of effects the diversity of causes may safely be asserted, and to demonstrate that from the Exercises of Cisneros there proceeded those changes of morals everywhere, which were made by the Exercises of Ignatius so arduous and in so great a number, that on that account they made in some the suspicion of enchantments and of magic.

* elsewhere: Cardener.

* in the Spanish it is gerga coarse cloth.

§ VII. Other arguments by which the book of the Exercises is claimed for St. Ignatius as its true author; the objections of a certain more recent writer weighed.

Then Bartoli proceeds to vindicate this spiritual treasure of sacred meditations to its true and genuine author Ignatius by other arguments assumed from without, Extrinsic arguments in these words: “For the rest, setting aside any argument born on either side from the very bowels of this cause; it is grievous indeed to many, and those most weighty men, that they should be said to have feigned by a lie, or, being stupidly credulous, to have thought, that this is the work of Ignatius. Francis Borgia, duke of Gandía, then a religious, now Blessed, offered this to Paul III to be approved as the true offspring of Ignatius; (which the very Bull also signifies;) as one which Ignatius had delivered to Francis as his own. Either therefore Borgia deceived the Pontiff, or he himself was deceived by the Saint; but by what a one, and how industrious in withdrawing his own illustrious deeds from the light of men, and in deflecting them onto others? so that he strove to attach to another things now almost finished, lest any glory thence should return to himself. He willed that the name of his own family, of which he had been parent—lest he should be called its parent and founder—should be one that sounded nothing at all of Ignatius. Now if he had, I will not say wholly filched the Exercises from Cisneros; but, as much as should suffice for ascribing them to Cisneros; would he have ascribed them to himself? But if he did not ascribe them, whom at last did he wish to be reckoned their author, besides God, under whose teaching he had learned them?”

[67] “But it very much concerned Ignatius that this book should not be disallowed to him, which won for him—which he desired above all things most eagerly—detractions, reproaches, accusations of poisoning and of heresy; prison, chains, and six hundred other torments of persecution, which for its sake he bore with a most equable mind; by which the said book is claimed for the Saint, when nothing was more at hand than to redeem them by the single title of Cisneros, whose work had long been read without suspicion. But even if Ignatius had not been so great a despiser of himself, that he would gladly have even his own things attributed to others; was he equally a despiser both of truth and of equity? Was he unmindful of himself and of his stock? He must be of shameless brow, who so sells another's lucubration for his own, that—that man being still a boy—any one of the common people could reproach him with it, celebrated already under the author's name, as usurped rather by rapine than by theft.” But what judgment ought to be formed, not so much of the things objected to the Saint, as of their writer and author, he concludes from the diversity of the two books; from the Saint's virtue and genius; from the faith of the witnesses sworn in decreeing to him the honors of the Saints; from the most illustrious auditors of the Roman Rota; of whom he who reduced the Acts, offered to Paul V, into a grave and solid cognizance of the cause, was Innocent X, who sat in Bartoli's time; add the consistorial relations held publicly and privately before Gregory XV; and finally the manuscript codices of our Society.

[68] against an adversary disarmed by a public decree of the Cassinese congregation, After these vindications, produced by Bartoli on behalf of the genuine author of the little book of the Exercises, so often praised and to be praised at more length below, it is worth while to observe that, as he proceeds, that wise and venerable congregation did not endure the shamelessness of a writer who dared, against all law of duty, to assume the name of a religious of Monte Cassino; besides that it also noticed a great injury done to a religious family, which had deserved nothing such, but was always, as it is for the future, both obedient in its offices and a daughter in spirit; a solemn decree being published on this matter, which, from a transcript of our Roman archive sent hither by Father Ignatius Pien, thus runs: “Since it has been reported to us that a certain little book under the name of D. Constantine Cajetan, monk and abbot of Monte Cassino, has been printed, signally prejudicial to the estimation of the Society of Jesus; we grieved indeed, as was fitting, vehemently, and greatly wondered at the man's levity and audacity (if indeed he is the author of such a writing, which can most hardly be persuaded to us). And that satisfaction may be made by us to the most religious fathers of the Society, who are esteemed by us as highly as it is fair that their excellent virtue and doctrine should be esteemed, and that it may be clear to all others that, without our being consulted and plainly unaware, the aforesaid book came forth into the light, being gathered into one on the occasion of our chapter, we have determined to publish and attest this very thing by a public edict; adding besides that the aforesaid Father D. Constantine, because he lives outside our congregation for many years now by Pontifical authority, is no more subject to our power than any other professor of another religious institute. Wherefore if anything has been sinned by him in this kind hitherto, or (which God avert!) shall happen to be sinned for the future, we wish both the alumni of the Society of Jesus themselves, and all others whomsoever, earnestly to be entreated, that they persuade themselves for certain that this is altogether adverse and repugnant to the common sense of the whole Cassinese Congregation, and to its peculiar observance toward the Society of Jesus. Given at Ravenna in our general chapter on the 23rd day of April 1644. D. Honoratus of Ulateri , scribe of the Chapter.” And a seal was affixed. That decree Bartoli also made public.

[69] But a certain other man, who had incautiously followed the most inept author of this infamous little book, the Portuguese congregation of the same institute judged to be corrected also by public documents. as also his follower, by the public documents of the Portuguese congregation Understand the matter from this decree in Bartoli: “Since our Benedictine Portuguese Congregation has always, as is fitting, with the highest zeal and reverence followed the most learned and most religious family of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus; and since it becomes all followers of Christian discipline, much more those of a stricter institute, that, walking at the same time in charity, they should prevent one another in honor; we the undersigned abbot general and definitors of the aforesaid congregation, specially gathered for this, testify that in the book entitled Benedictine History, lately published in the Portuguese vernacular idiom by our most Reverend father master Leo of St. Thomas, monk of our Portuguese congregation, and chief professor of theology in the academy of Coimbra, some things are related from a certain Constantine Cajetan, likewise a monk of our Cassinese congregation, which, as adverse to the estimation of the aforesaid most religious Society, and so less probable than the faith of history demands, have already been indicated by a public decree by our own Cassinese congregation (which we gladly venerate as a parent).”

[70] “Wherefore we declare those things, as published or excogitated without foundation by the first author, grazed by the documents of the Benedictine Order. and less considerately related by the second, to be certainly foreign to the common sense of our congregation. In faith of which, we have ordered this testimony to be written, and have subscribed our names, earnestly entreating the religious Fathers of the said sacred Society, that they persuade themselves for certain that nothing has been detracted or diminished from that ancient observance of ours toward them, which they have hitherto experienced, or even shall be for the future. Given in this our monastery of Tibães, on the 29th day of October, of the year 1645. Master Friar Antonio Carneiro, abbot general of St. Benedict,” etc. For the rest, for this so signal testification of a most excellent good will toward our Society, our eighth general chapter, held at Rome in the year 1646, judged it to be its part to give thanks to each of the already praised congregations, decrees being published on this matter for the memory of posterity, the thirteenth and the twenty-sixth, which are had in the most recent edition of our Institute, printed at Prague in the year 1705, volume 1, pages 566 and 570.

[71] But now, after these things, who could bear patiently enough, Argaiz, from that sordid source, and from another of no faith here, this odious and bitter dispute concerning the Exercises

of Ignatius, that this cabbage should be cooked again by a certain more recent scribbler; who, either ignorant of all things, or not sufficiently kindly toward the Society or its Founder—to speak most mildly—attempts to snatch that admirable book from the Saint, and to substitute for it the Cisnerian one. But whether that author is not rather worthy of commiseration than of refutation, let the judgment be of others. For Gregory Argaiz, chronographer of the Order of St. Benedict, in the History of Our Lady of Montserrat, printed in the Spanish tongue at Madrid in the year 1677, chapter 46, no. 9, among other ineptitudes which he blabbed out concerning St. Ignatius, assigned to him no lowest place, which turns upon the Exercises. For, to pass over in silence what he brings into the midst concerning the deeds done by the same Saint in the Order of St. Benedict, as he will have it, he several times calls to his aid D. Constantine Cajetan; as though forsooth an author could make faith to whom so many public and solemn censures had been branded. But let us give this rather to the ignorance of Argaiz than to malevolence, according to the law of charity, which thinks no evil. Let us meanwhile examine what ineptitudes Argaiz puts forth, the bad patron of that bad cause. He produces Charles de Tapia, in the Commentaries on the Authentic Ingressi, whom he cites, chapter on the sacrosanct Churches, in the word Monasteries, chapter 10, no. 2, writing thus, among other things, of St. Ignatius:

[72] he assails the true author of the Exercises; “He went off to Montserrat, the mountain dedicated to the most glorious Mary the Mother of God; where, clad in a cheap habit, HE REMAINED THREE YEARS IN THE HERMITAGE.” What that author dreams concerning that hermitage coheres so ill that it fights with the time, with the place, with the authority of the older writers, which here surely deserves greater faith than Charles de Tapia deserves; who, in the things which are produced from him in Argaiz, deserves none at all. We have already given specimens. There is therefore no reason why we should defer even the least to Charles de Tapia here; whose words nevertheless Argaiz would have much faith placed in, as one who, as he adds, was very friendly with Father Alfonso Salmeron and James Laínez, companions of St. Ignatius. But far be it that those two men should have imbued the said Charles with matters so frivolous; if it be true that any use of friendship intervened among them. But the Saint, from his Manresan retreat, several times returned to Montserrat, that he might communicate the state of his conscience with that man who had there been his confessor. Grant this to be so; does it thence follow that St. Ignatius did not compose at Manresa the Exercises, distinct from the Cisnerian ones? But if, knowing only to read and write, without any use of the Latin tongue, he was so learned, as Ribadeneira will have it, that he wrote the book of the Exercises; why did he go up to Montserrat? For his confessor had no other than the Cisnerian book. But this argument of Argaiz is so nerveless and wretched that it merits no answer.

[73] but he is accused of doubtful faith: For the rest, of how doubtful faith this good Argaiz is, and of what genius, is abundantly given to be understood from Nicholas Antonio, in the old Spanish Library, volume 1, page 400, from no. 455. Consult likewise our Acts of the Saints, volume III of April, page 271, from no. 7; and the Responses of Papebroch, part 2, to article 21, §2. But because through the course of this paragraph frequent mention has fallen concerning Garcia de Cisneros; if anyone desires to know more of him, let him consult the praised Nicholas Antonio in the Spanish Library of authors who wrote after the year 1500, volume 1, page 392; where he will find a brief eulogy of the man. From what has been said, Arnold Wion is abundantly confuted, who, in the Wood of Life, book 5, chapter 10, treating of that Garcia, and also of the Exercitatory of the spiritual life composed by him, says: “Chiefly from that treatise the reverend Fathers of the Society of Jesus drew all the perfection of their religious order, and their manner of meditating.” Following this author, Dom Benedict Haesten, provost of the monastery of Affligem, of the Order of St. Benedict, in the Monastic Disquisitions, book 2, tract 6, disquisition 5, struck against the same error.

* Bartoli: Horatius.

* it could not be read well. Bartoli: Volaterris.

§ VIII. The idea of the Exercises; the men trained in imparting them; the fruits derived from them to the Society of Jesus in particular, and to the whole Christian commonwealth in general, while St. Ignatius was still living.

Our Francis Suárez, in volume 4, On the virtue and state of religion, book 9, chapter 6, sets forth at more length the art or method of the Exercises of St. Ignatius; Besides others, who gave the idea of the Exercises; which various writers of the Life also furnished, namely Bartoli, book 1, no. 16; Garcia, book 1, chapter 10; and Bouhours, book 1; who may be consulted by those who desire to see the idea of the Exercises delineated in a long series of discourse. These few things are in Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 8; for “what we learn in this spiritual school of self-knowledge pertains not only to the cultivation of the intellect, but also to the inflaming of the will. And so it is perfected not so much by knowledge as by action; and has for its end not knowledge itself, but operation;” these few things, I say, are there, as also the rest, which the praised author adds to these; but they do not sufficiently teach in what the method of those Exercises consists. Father Ignatius Diertins, a man who has discharged the most illustrious offices in our Society, and most known by the writings by which he explained the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, embraced this matter in few words in the History of the Spiritual Exercises, the first part of which he published in print at Rome in the year 1700, when in book 1, no. 6, he thus declares: “The end being set forth .. for which God created man and all other things; always insisting on this truth as a foundation, he soon, through the way which they call Purgative, leads to knowing the foulness of sins, through which we most basely deviate from that end.”

[75] “Then, the example being proposed of Christ the king and emperor, Father Ignatius Diertins furnished this in few words. he provokes us, being drawn back from the standard of the devil, to follow the standard of the same best and wisest leader, and to imitate his virtues through the illuminative way: nay, through the meditation on the three classes of men, he in some way impels us. All which things, in the third week, Christ with the cross going before being placed before the eyes, are more and more confirmed. And finally, in the unitive way, which comprises the fourth week, he kindles us to the desire of the glory of the risen Christ, and to his most pure love. With these he joins the annotations, additions, preludes, colloquies, examinations, methods of choosing, rules for tempering the diet, for discerning spirits, for scruples, for feeling with the orthodox Church, and the rest; which, if they be employed in the order in which they are prescribed, have a certain incredible force of leading men to sincere virtue, and to everlasting salvation: so that it is not lawful to doubt that this work is greater than human, and plainly the invention of the eternal mind; whose excellence is never sufficiently perceived, unless use itself and exercise be added.” Here the reader has a certain sum of the sacred meditations of St. Ignatius.

[76] Moreover, that it is not for everyone to impart the Exercises of our holy Father to others in such a way that they produce not only the thirtyfold fruit in some, the sixtyfold in others; but the hundredfold; It matters much what director thou usest in the Exercises, that is, most abundantly heaped with the richest affluence of all heavenly gifts, Bartoli rightly observes, book 1, no. 17: “This, however,” he says, “is held for ascertained, that in performing the Exercises with fruit the industry of a skilled leader can do very much, and that this office is not for everyone indiscriminately. For the holy Father, out of so many imbued with his spirit, and most knowing in divine things, reckoned so few for imparting the Exercises according to his own genius and mind, that, when he had named four, he was silent about all the others. In the first place was Peter Faber, then Alfonso Salmeron; the third * Jerome Doménech; and, as to the first week, Francis Strada.” But whence is the cause of this difficulty sought? From this, namely, that, as Bartoli proceeds, “the Exercises are a medicine of ailing souls; and since of these, as the temperament is diverse, so is the distemper; thus one equal and unchanged cure cannot profit each. Whence wisely and skilfully the holy Man prefixed certain rules under the name of Additions, partly for one exercising his soul, partly for one imparting the Exercises.”

[77] [and with what accuracy thou shouldst perform them, that they may bear the hundredfold fruit,] But now, that those signal and admirable changes of morals do not follow in many today after the Exercises are performed, which in these first times so affluently and copiously showed themselves, the chief cause Bartoli relates, expressed from the papers of John Miron, a most weighty man in the Society, in these words: “Because the prescriptions of our Father Ignatius are by no means insisted on: for the good comes from an entire cause; and if some Additions or Annotations be neglected, there is a loss of good, which was bound up with the entire observation of them: nay, if anything even be changed in imparting the Exercises; they will now not be Ignatius's work, but of a spirit and invention diverse from him. For those additions so intimately inhere in these and those meditations, in this and that week, that if they be employed otherwise, they lack their fruit; much more if foreign meditations be interposed, or any addition be appended to any meditation. And there is here a peculiar and proper use of those rules, which chiefly distinguishes the various kinds and modes of the Exercises.” From which it is understood that both he who imparts the Exercises, and he who receives them, ought wholly to apply themselves diligently and strenuously to this care, that they accurately keep themselves within the bounds prescribed by our holy Father, and studiously observe the least rules, additions, notations, or instructions, and those of no moment in appearance; that, to embrace all in a word, they should esteem that even the minutest tittles whatsoever are not without their value, so that they may be secure that they have on their part placed no obstacle, whereby the sacred retreat of the Exercises should the less pour into their bosom a good measure of fruits, both pressed down and shaken together and running over; such, finally, as it poured into so many others, especially in the first years, and while Ignatius was still living, with no less abundance than utility. But now let us examine how many and how great advantages the use of those signal Exercises has brought into the world.

[78] Certainly they brought immense fruits to the Society of Jesus, Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 8, says of their use: “and let us speak of their utility; first, to those very Exercises we ought to reckon the institution of our Society owed. For almost all those first Fathers, whom Ignatius had as helpers and companions in instituting the Society, he excited through the Exercises to the study of perfection and the contempt of the world. Those who afterward followed, and entered the Society already established—men distinguished either by doctrine, or genius, or nobility, or other ornaments of nature and fortune—for the most part were led by Exercises of this kind to embrace this kind of life.”

And in the Madrid Examination of the year 1595, of which below in §92 I shall say more, and which he underwent under oath, he affirms that God taught him, when he had not yet given his labor to letters, and gave him the means of the Spiritual Exercises, by which means he gained all his first companions, and many others of those who afterward followed him; many also who entered other Orders; many besides among the laity, who amended their life. Let us illustrate the matter with examples. And of the first nine companions of St. Ignatius, from whom he afterward formed the Order instituted by himself, one may consult the History of the Exercises, which I just now cited, book 2, from no. 4. But concerning others, who then followed them, it pleases us in passing to skim examples from the same History. Thus, in the designated book, no. 16, there is placed a letter of St. Ignatius to Emmanuel Miona, a most weighty priest, and once, while he lived at Alcalá, the arbiter of his conscience, by which, having most earnestly exhorted the man to the Exercises, he bore this fruit, that he joined him to himself. At no. 19 occur James and Stephen de Eguia, brothers, brought to the Society through the Exercises. In the same place, no. 20, James Hosius, when he begins the Exercises, examines them indeed as suspect; but having tasted these sacred banquets set before him by Ignatius, so far was he from detecting any poison in them, that, burning with desire of heavenly things, he sent back word of dismissal to earthly things, and joined himself to the Saint.

[79] Of Francis Strada what shall I say? In book 3, no. 4, we have of him that by a single meeting and conversation with Ignatius, great men while, from zeal for warfare, he was seeking Naples, he was suddenly converted to the sacred warfare; and that, having accompanied the Saint returning from Monte Cassino into the City, he was instructed in the Spiritual Exercises, and, not unequal to the deceased Hosius, came into his place with Ignatius, a partaker and companion of his life and labors. To this add, from book 4 of the said History, no. 4, Antonio Araoz, a Cantabrian, a youth of great genius and spirit; who, when, already a doctor of theology, he had come from Spain into the City, that he might join to the Saint, to whom he was joined by blood, in his institute of life also; some days being spent in the practice of the Exercises, he perceived the vanity of perishable things, and passed over to the family of his kinsman. Of John Polanco and Andrew Frusius there is treatment in the same place, no. 18; of Mark Laínez, brother of James, no. 19; who, when out of pious simplicity he had long and much been anxious lest his brother, by following Ignatius, should fall into heresy, came to the City with the zeal of revisiting his brother, and, cultivated by his admonitions and counsels in the meditation of pious things according to Ignatius's prescription, gave his name to the Society, which before he had held suspect; of whose happy death and apparition there is treatment in the same place. Next to him there presents himself to us, no. 20, Emilian Loyola, nephew of the holy Father Ignatius by his brother; who, although he had turned aside to Rome with this design, that he might rather give himself to the court than to the Society, yet, the light of the Exercises afterward arising, inspected the matter with a purer eye, changed his design, and delivered himself wholly to the Saint, becoming from his nephew his son.

[80] Nor indeed would I pass over James Miron, who obtained most happy successes also at Paris by the help of those Exercises; by aggregating them to it. for, admitted to them, he devoted himself to the Society, with so great contempt both of himself and of human affairs, that he thought his age, his doctrine, and the inheritance of his parents, of whom he was the only son, ought to be postponed by him; afterward obtaining the highest esteem of his name among the Portuguese; as may be seen in the cited book, no. 23. But if from thence we proceed to number 36, we shall find there that a Nuncio of Cologne was instructed by Faber in divine things through the customary meditations, and then aggregated to the Society. The chief place among so various and many offspring of those sacred Exercises not undeservedly claims for itself Peter Canisius, a native of Nijmegen in Guelders, a province of Belgium, that great apostle of the Germans in most difficult times, the hammer of heretics, and everywhere most known for deeds bravely done for the Church of God; of whom the History so often already assigned draws out more in the same book 4, no. 37. Rome saw a public example of excellent penance in John Alphonso Vitoria, a Spaniard by nation. He, the Society not yet entered, having departed from the retreat of the Exercises, burned with a new desire of conquering himself: for at the very Bacchanalia, when masked men fill all things with vain spectacles, he himself, clothed in a sack and the garb of a penitent, began to go forth through the most frequented streets, and to rage upon his back with scourges so pertinaciously and unmercifully, that he made no end of beating himself before, all overflowing with blood on every side, he arrived by a long circuit at our house. Having given this first specimen, he gave his name and life to the Society; from book 6, no. 16. But here let us draw in our sails, lest the present plan of our purpose lead us further than is fitting. Other examples the same History will give in various places. Meanwhile enough and more than enough, from what has already been said, remains the passage of Peter Ribadeneira above explained, namely how much both the institution of the Society and its propagation owe to the Exercises of our holy Father.

[81] Great advantages of spirit “Nor indeed,” says Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 8, “is this benefit proper only to our Religious order, but also common with the rest. For this manner of meditating has crammed full many monasteries. Many religious men wavering it has confirmed in the counsel undertaken: the loose and vagrant it has bound with the chains of a severer discipline. Yet the fruit of them is not circumscribed by the spaces of religious orders: for they comprehend every kind of men, state, office, age, and manner of life,” etc. Which, lest anyone think pronounced hyperbolically rather than truly, lo, for thee some examples, by which they may be confirmed, from the History of the praised Diertins. That I may therefore silently pass over the first fruits of the Exercises, and the change of morals among the Manresans, of which matter the same author treats, book 1, no. 7, it is worth while to recall to memory what he relates, book 4, no. 12, of one and another monastery of sacred virgins, into which a certain incredible ardor of religious perfection was injected, and in which was recalled the discipline that had almost fallen. The vicar of the bishop of Speyer, already before instructed by our Exercises, burned with so great zeal against concubines, that, war being openly declared against them, he pledged himself either to eject them all, or quickly to lay down his office, as is there related, no. 26. And soon, no. 27, there occurs at Mainz a certain man, formerly a monk by profession; whom Faber, having gone thither, by the practice and exercise of divine things, led back from the stain and corruption of heresies to the pure and chaste worship of religion. In the same place the praised Faber imbued two bishops with the Exercises, according to what thou hast, no. 34. Of the bishop of Augsburg there is treatment, no. 49.

[82] through the same Exercises What of this, that, when Antonio Araoz and James Eguia were sent back into Spain, and carried to Barcelona, so great a harvest immediately offered itself, that the rest of the year's time was consumed in fostering and aiding that one city? And indeed, having experienced the benevolence and excellent good will toward the Society of the viceroy and vicereine, the duke of Cardona and his wife; of the bishop and prefect of the Neapolitan sea, and of other princes of that kind, they dared to call away even most noble men from the din of human affairs to the leisure of the sacred retreat of the Exercises. Among whom, when there was also he whom I mentioned, the prefect; and when, that he might more freely attend to that heavenly contemplation, being freed from the salutations of friends and the annoyances of cares, he had removed himself into another dwelling, empty of interrupters; that indeed is memorable; that the viceroy Francis Borgia is recorded himself to have boasted that he wished to act as the doorkeeper of that dwelling, lest anyone should interrupt such a man occupied with such an office. So great, finally, was the frequency of competitors to be imbued with the pious Exercise, that not even ten instructors seemed likely to be enough, as the same History will teach thee in the cited place, no. 28. But of the bishop of Plasencia, led through the Exercises, especially of the first week, to morals more befitting his dignity, as also of the excellent fruits thence obtained, Diertins will instruct thee at more length, book 7, from no. 20.

[83] As for Italy; Francis Strada, in a letter to Sts. Ignatius and Francis Xavier given in Spanish at Brescia in the hospital of the incurables in the year 1540, in other places of the Catholic Church on the third of January or February, narrates that he gave the Exercises to four chief Doctors of that town, and after them asked of them whether they were prepared to beg for the love of Christ in the same town: and that they magnanimously answered that they were most ready for that, and much greater things. And so, that God might be the more glorified, a procession being instituted, he begged as a poor man with the same Doctors through the whole town, and, alms being received everywhere, having entered the hospital with them, divided the alms among the poor. Then he adds concerning the Doctors: “After so great and such a mortification, what joy do you believe they carried back home with them? One of them .. speaking with me said: I am filled with so great gladness, I am suffused with so great a sweetness of wondrous fervor, that I cannot contain myself from bursting outwardly, for the greatness of my joy, into a voice of exultation: my skin,” he said, “does not hold me; I hasten to my cell, that I may let the vehemence of my spirit evaporate. When he had arrived there (as he afterward himself related to me) he was dissolved into a very great weeping, and, made wholly peaceful, recognized experimentally what utility there is in conquering oneself and denying oneself, according to the sentence of our Savior. When I wished to depart, the husband of the sister of the archpriest .. offered himself to seek alms with the others, and to do this twice a week .. More than sixty women .. were importunate to me, to give them .. the Exercises; alleging that they too had souls, as well as the men.” These things on the faith of our Roman monuments; from which they were drawn.

[84] Polanco, when he had come to Pistoia, a city of Etruria, instructed the prelate of the place and Cardinal, Robert Pucci, in holy meditations; the things done for particular persons are reviewed. and when he asked that something be published to him concerning the care of his office, he instructed him both with writings and with words. And so the pious pastor, already of his own accord inflamed, conceived keener fires, and, contrary to the customs of those times, brought his mind to preach the word of God, to the great advantage of his flock, with the favorable murmur of the people; as is clear from book 5, no. 13, where the deed is attached to the year 1546. But now let us inspect Sicily, which did not lack great emoluments of the Exercises. For Jerome Doménech, at Messina, through an external priest already instructed in the pious meditations, provided for several; among whom he himself led a certain son of a baron, whose ferocity not even the galleys could tame, to gentleness by the help of the Exercises: see there, nos. 22 and 23. Of the various colleges of women in Sicily, which were kindled to piety by these Exercises of prayer, and of their loose morals restrained,

in many places, especially at Agrigento and Palermo, mention is made in the same place, no. 3. Our Belgium too had its part in this sacred sowing of the Exercises: for Strada, having first approached Ruard Tapper, chancellor of the university of Louvain, a man indeed grave and learned, and the same inclined to piety, impelled him by his discourses to bestow, in exercising his spirit after the custom, three hours daily, snatched from his highest occupations, on the author Orlandini, book 4, no. 39. And soon, no. 40: “Then,” he says, “he more closely urged with the same meditations a certain priest, Cornelius Vishaven, already master of arts, and sufficiently imbued with theology, and already of his own accord inclining to the Society.” Of Theodoric Hesius, wholly committing himself to Faber, there is treatment in the same place, no. 50. Among the others who at Louvain salutarily exercised themselves in the Society's discipline of praying and meditating, the first place was borne by Louis Blosius, abbot of Liessies; as is said, book 13, no. 31; where also concerning his zeal toward the Society. Moreover, the things that pertain to the Exercises performed by Blosius, and imparted to the monks of Liessies, thou wilt find in his Life among us at January 7, chapter 17, from no. 59.

* supply from the Italian: Francis Villanova; and

§ IX. The book of the Exercises assailed; ordered to be examined by the Apostolic See; then approved and praised by the same; a vindication of the same book.

The Exercises harassed by many persecutions; From almost the first time in which that sacred Hercules of the Spiritual Exercises came forth into the light, it sustained so many and grievous things, that it was little short of being suffocated, so to speak, in its very cradle, had not God, who had been their chief author, deigned to be also their singular protector. And indeed how many and how great persecutions were stirred up against that book! The first was that of Alcalá. The second, the first of Salamanca. The third, that of Paris. The fourth, that of Venice. The fifth, the most foul one of Rome. The sixth, that of Parma and Plasencia. The seventh, that of Portugal. The eighth, the first of Toledo. The ninth, the second of Salamanca. The tenth, the second of Alcalá. The eleventh, the second of Toledo. The twelfth, the third of Toledo: which Diertins reviews in this order in the Index to his History of the Exercises, at the word Persecution. He who desires to consult the older authors, let him consult Ribadeneira, book 1, chapters 14 and 15; book 2, chapters 2 and 14; book 4, chapter 4; Maffei, book 1, chapter 17; book 2, chapter 8; Orlandini, book 1, from no. 54; book 4, no. 17; book 5, no. 54; book 7, from no. 51; book 8, from no. 45, and from no. 55; book 11, from no. 57, book 13, no. 33.

[86] But to what a pitch of distemper and bitterness the hatred conceived against the Exercises broke forth, even at that time when they had been approved by the oracle of the Apostolic See, hear from our Roman monuments; in which it is thus noted: “There exists here in the archive a writing of Friar .. of the Order .. to the archbishop of Toledo, John Siliceo, even after the Vicar of Christ had approved the same, against the Exercises already approved by the Apostolic See.” The beginning of that writing is soon subjoined, and the following text is produced from the Apostolic letters by which Pope Paul III approves the Exercises: “Since our son Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, erected by Us in our benign City, and confirmed by Us with Apostolic authority, has composed certain Instructions or Spiritual Exercises, drawn out from the sacred Scriptures and from the experiences of the spiritual life;” there follows a Spanish note, in which it is said that this Ignatius, according to what fame reports, was marked in the Inquisition as a heretic, one of the Illuminati; that he fled to Rome, that he might escape the Inquisition and the Inquisitors. “I well know,” says that kindly author of the note, forsooth, “that God is able from stones to make sons of Abraham, and that of Saul, the persecutor of the Church, He made a vessel of election: And He smote the rock, and the waters flowed, and the torrents overflowed.”

[87] Then by that furious man there is called to the support of his distemper against the Exercises and their author he is torn to pieces by a certain friar with bitter censures, that text: “These Instructions and spiritual Exercises, which our Father in Christ, master Ignatius of Loyola, institutor and Superior General of our Society, taught not so much by books as by the unction of the Holy Spirit, and by internal experience and the practice of dealing with souls, composed, have been translated from the Spanish idiom into Latin in two ways.” They are the words of a little preface, composed by a certain man of the Society of Jesus, which was published in print before the Exercises, and marked at Rome on the 6th of the Ides of August 1548; after the Pontiff had praised them as full of piety and sanctity: and hence that author then rightly said what he said concerning the unction of the Holy Spirit. This that Friar, of whom above, did not endure: for this Ignatius, as he observes, was a Spaniard, and was so slightly tinged in letters that he was neither knowing nor sufficient to write those Exercises and Instructions in Latin; but in the vulgar and Spanish tongue. He also warns that it is the more to be noted and weighed, concerning the things which are said of internal experience and the unction of the Holy Spirit, etc.; that they savor not a little of the source of those whom he calls Dexados (and whom I interpret as “the Forsaken”) and of the Illuminati: who, revelation being left aside and postponed, remit themselves in books and deliver themselves over to that thing which the Spirit tells them in their breast, and hold it for an infallible thing that the Spirit of God always speaks with them: Which yet is against that: “Believe not every spirit; but prove the spirits, whether they be of God.”

[88] Finally, to the virulent and gall-tinged pen of that ill-employed and false Friar the following text furnished a new handle for raging, as also the very Society of Jesus. which, after the manner of a Bacchant, he assailed: “The Superior General of the Society of Jesus,” etc.; “a certain man of the Society of Jesus,” etc. “Certainly,” says that Friar, “this title and surname is proud and schismatic, and not a little injurious to all the Christian people.” And soon he adds in Latin: “For since (the Gospel being witness) there are not and cannot be but two societies, the one the Society of Jesus, the other the society of the devil; if these, and only these, are named and are of the Society of Jesus, it remains that all the rest both are, and are named, of the society of the devil.” Thus he. Then he attacks the Exercises themselves; which in some places he arraigns, and marks with various censures, even of superstition, nay of heresy. That Doctor Torres refuted this whole writing, and the several things contained in it, one by one, strongly and accurately, in a writing given in the year 1554, on the 2nd day of January; Father Ignatius Pien testifies, who transcribed these notes of that Friar at Rome, and sent them hither, indicating that this writing exists there annexed to the former writing; and warning that he exhibits neither the objections of the Friar .., nor the refutations of Doctor Torres, partly because most of those objections do not merit the labor of copying; partly because, where they have some appearance of difficulty, they are read copiously confuted in Suárez. The general Apology of the Exercises of the same Doctor Torres, subscribed on the same year and day against this and other detractors of that time, the said Father exhibits a little after, transcribed by himself also at Rome; of which we below. “There exists here also a much longer Apology,” he says, “of Father Jerome Nadal, wholly autograph, in which he gravely and at length refutes the several things objected by the aforesaid Friar.” Thus he.

[89] Certain observations concerning that furious man, But let us observe: 1. That that Friar above truncated from the text of the supreme Pontiff the word “beloved”: for Paul III says, “Since our beloved son Ignatius,” etc. Did the Friar truncate this out of a Pharisaic scruple? 2. When he traduces the surname of the Society as proud and schismatic; he was either forgetful of himself, or most rash: for at the beginning he cited the words of the text, in which that surname is had, as the words of the Pontiff, calling the Society by this name. 3. Whoever that Friar was; he plainly savors of the genius of Friar Melchior Cano, who, how many and how great things he stirred up, to traduce most vilely the little Society, trumpeting abroad that its followers are the precursors of Antichrist, thou wilt find in Orlandini, book 8, no. 46; as also the various accusations fastened on the Society by that Friar. Certainly the things which that anonymous Friar above blathered concerning the double society have much affinity with the words of Melchior Cano, book 4 On Theological Places, chapter 2; which we shall give below, on occasion of those who either assailed or disapproved the name of our Society.

[90] and the approbations of the little book of the Exercises But it is truly most unworthy that the Exercises should be thus foully marked by that anonymous Friar, after they had before been examined, praised, and approved by the Apostolic See in a solemn diploma. For Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandía, procured the Pontifical confirmation of the little book of the Exercises, and an indulgence of offenses for those about to perform them; see Orlandini, book 6, no. 75, at the year 1546; until, after a mature examination in the year 1548, at the Duke's second petition, on the 31st day of July, the diploma of Pope Paul III came forth. Moreover the examination of the matter had been committed to Juan Alvaro de Toledo, Cardinal of Burgos, of the Order of Preachers; to Philip Archinto, the Pontiff's vicar in the City; and to Giles Foscarari, Master of the sacred Palace, of the same Order of Preachers: to whom the book, translated into Latin from the Spanish idiom in two ways, was delivered to be inspected: who most highly commended both copies, not even a little word being changed; says Orlandini, book 8, no. 1; although that version which Andrew Frusius had published, not so much rendering word for word, as the other, but faithfully rendering the sense, seemed fitter for use, and worthier of the press; in the same place, no. 2.

[91] from the original copy Father Ignatius Pien consulted the Original of the first Latin translation of the Exercises of St. Ignatius, and at the end read the following approbations, likewise original: “We have read all things digested in this volume; and they pleased us greatly, and seemed especially conducive to the salvation of souls. I., Cardinal of Burgos.” “Such holy Exercises will not be able not to furnish the greatest advantage to any studious person; therefore they are to be embraced even with open arms. Friar Giles Foscarari, Master of the sacred Palace.” “We grant that this work, worthy of all praise and very profitable to the Christian profession, be printed. Ph., Vicar.”

[92] The aforesaid Father, after this title: “The Original of the second Latin translation, transcribed at Rome. from which the printed copies came forth;” adds that at the end there are had original approbations, which he adds that he copies out: “We have read these spiritual Exercises, and they please us greatly, and we judge them worthy to be received and greatly esteemed by all worshipers of the orthodox faith. I., Cardinal of Burgos.” “Since the Christian religion cannot long subsist without some spiritual exercises and meditations—for in meditation, says the Prophet, my soul burns—I judge none more opportune than these, which without doubt from the studies of the Scriptures, and by long

practice of things, were born. Friar Giles Foscarari, Master of the sacred Palace.” “We grant that this work, worthy of all praise and very profitable to the Christian profession, be printed. Ph., Vicar.” That these approbations, as also the former ones, are had in the original in the same order in which he copied them out thence, the same Pien testifies: which order differs in the printed copies. These approbations were followed by the Apostolic one of Paul III, in the year, as I said, 1548, which begins: Of the pastoral office, and is had, published in print, in the little book of the Exercises, and also in Orlandini, in the same book 8, no. 1.

[93] There the Vicar of Christ praises the Exercises .. full of piety and sanctity, and very useful for the edification and spiritual progress of the faithful, The Apostolic See earnestly praises it; and salutary .. Having also due respect to the abundant fruits which Ignatius, and the Society instituted by him .. cease not to produce in the Church of God everywhere among the nations, and to the greatest aid which the aforesaid Exercises brought to it, not undeservedly, says the Pontiff, .. we, by the aforesaid authority, by the tenor of these presents, out of our certain knowledge, approve, commend, and fortify with the patronage of the present writing the aforesaid instructions and Exercises, and all and singular things contained in them: exhorting greatly in the Lord all and singular the faithful of Christ of both sexes wherever established, that they should be willing to use so pious instructions and Exercises, and to be devoutly instructed by them: and also granting that instructions and spiritual Exercises of this kind may be printed .. freely and lawfully, etc.

[94] Doctor Vergara, in his letter given to St. Ignatius, others defend them: thus speaks concerning the spiritual Exercises: “I say that to say and affirm that they contain anything heretical, erroneous, scandalous, or ill-sounding, or any other error which cannot or ought not to be attributed to the printer, is the error of the Lutherans: since the Vicar of Christ has determined the contrary.” And Doctor Cuesta, in a letter likewise directed to St. Ignatius, concerning the spiritual Exercises, says: “I judge that Catholic doctrine, both holy and theological, is set in that work and Exercises; and that those who shall have acted conformably to the things which are had in the book, and shall have exercised themselves, must necessarily draw great spiritual progress.” Those two letters are in hand among the other Roman monuments, from whose Spanish context I have here translated them hither. The letters of Father Jerome Nadal, Commissary General of the Society of Jesus in the Spains, to Father Antonio Araoz, Provincial of the same Society in Spain, against those outsiders who there called into doubt the spiritual Exercises and the Institute of the Society, were given at Córdoba in the month of January 1554; as the note of Pien inserted in our Roman monuments has it. From these it is understood with how great an effort the book of the spiritual Exercises was defended against its most insensate enemies, even then, when it had been approved by the Apostolic See. Which, that they may better appear, I skim some things from Orlandini, book 13, no. 33, at the year 1553.

[95] [War declared against the Exercises at Toledo excited excellent champions for them.] “At the end of this year,” he says, “in the city of Toledo, and widely through the kingdom, a grievous storm began to arise against that divine little book of the Exercises. Siliceo's old offense, like an ill-cured ulcer, lived under the scar. Melchior Cano, having abdicated the bishopric of the Canaries, when he had given offense to Charles and the Prince, directed his suspicion against Araoz as if standing in his way. Relying on the authority of these men, and complying (as was believed) with their wishes, Thomas Pedroche declared war against the Exercises .. He gathers many things from that little book as if rashly blabbed out: others which pious and Catholic ears would spit out: some also .. which contained manifest heresy, and were worthy of the censor's rod. All which, comprehended in a writing, he delivers to Siliceo, of whose family he was, and to the sacred Inquisitors … To meet so great an evil, therefore, Araoz .. asks Doctors of great name that they too should publish their opinion on that little work in writing, and confirm it with their own signature. Which, before the rest, Alfonso Vergara, canon of Cuenca, renowned for piety and doctrine, and Doctor John Costa, and Bartholomew Torres, both afterward bishops, the former of León, the latter of the Canaries; of whom there also exist signal monuments concerning the most holy Trinity, did brilliantly. And Torres indeed published many writings on that matter, from which it is worth while here to ascribe part of one, on account of its manifold doctrine.” But of this there will be treatment in the next §.

§ X. Other vindications of the Exercises; eulogies.

Doctor Bartholomew Torres At hand is the opinion of the praised Doctor Torres concerning the Exercises, transcribed by Ignatius Pien from the Spanish copy of our Roman archive. But because Orlandini turned a great part into Latin, and interwove it into the History of our Society, book 13, from no. 34; I shall transfer it hither, as it stands there: “God is witness .. how much against my will it was that my opinion concerning the Exercises of the Society of Jesus should be demanded. For I desire simply and in a Christian manner to make openly known to the whole world what I feel in this matter. And first, lest anyone think that I speak from any private affection; I say that I am not a man of the Society of Jesus: although, if I were seriously desirous of virtue, I should long ago be engaged in it, or in another of the holy religious orders. I say next, that although I am myself, of the number of doctors, the most unlearned, yet I can sufficiently answer the question proposed: since I have known the Society from its rise, and long ago at Salamanca dealt very familiarly with Ignatius, then with the alumni of his discipline, diligently observing to what the affairs of this Order should turn out, my eyes being assiduously cast upon the very facts, which by no means suffer a lasting deception to be made. I say besides, that from the day on which I knew this holy Society, I have never found any error or crime in the men who indeed were truly of it. For men unskilled in affairs, when perhaps some less favorable rumor goes out concerning any priest, say that he is of the Society.”

[97] an excellent apology These things being premised, he thus discourses of the Exercises: “Over and above these, I deny that anyone can truly and perfectly estimate the force of the Exercises, unless he exercise himself in them. For since they all refer to implanting virtues in souls, and extirpating vices; there is no one who can perceive the force of virtue, and feel its taste, unless he first labor in it. I myself have seen learned men, who could not understand the matters of the Exercises, although they be so clear and Catholic, drawn from the Gospel and the holy doctors; which yet those who refer them to use understand with no trouble. To be sure, it is one thing far different, to know letters, and to perceive the matters of the spirit, which, besides letters, demand action, and the practice of prayer, and of all the other virtues. I profess indeed that I was exercised at Alcalá to that form, and I call God to witness, that in thirty years in which I am engaged in the studies of wisdom, and in very many in which I teach theology, I never learned so much to my own profit as the Exercises taught me in a few days. But if to any of the doctors, who is pleased with his own science, this perhaps happen to be wonderful; I appeal to experiment: let him try the same, and he will judge the same. Nor is the reason in obscurity, namely that my former studies I referred to teaching, but the Exercises to acting: and it makes great difference, to know, that thou mayest teach; and to know, that thou mayest do.”

[98] But soon describing the manifold fruits which thence come forth, he defends “I add,” he says, “that very many are known to me who undertook those Exercises, and that I have persuaded many of my hearers, both religious and secular, to undertake them: nor yet is any one known to me who did not thence bring back a great progress of piety, and who did not openly proclaim that he wished nothing at all of mortal things preferred to them. And would that we knew how to esteem that treasure as highly as it is worth! For since prayer and meditation are of so great moment, on account of the method and way which is most conveniently there imparted; many through them attain more in a short time than others in long time and labor, being destitute of that support. In sum, whoever desires to know what the Exercises are, I pronounce that they are nothing else than to consider, with an attentive and quiet mind, the heads of the faith, the law and precepts of God, finally His benefits, the life and death of Christ: to review one's past life, to determine concerning the future: but that the enemy of the human race, when he sees their vast emoluments to piety, moves all his engines to remove them from the nature of things. But even thence it appears that it is a divine business, which profits by persecutions, and, the more keenly it is assailed, the more strongly it grows.”

[99] Then the praised Doctor shows himself an excellent champion, the little book with arms drawn from the authority of the Apostolic See. “And at the same time I pronounce,” he says, “that the Exercises, and whatever is contained in them, all and singular, have been approved by Apostolic authority, the Pontiff moreover exhorting the faithful to use them: and that it is plainly unworthy of a wise man to affirm that the Pontiff approves that, and exhorts the faithful to that, which contains errors. Nor do I doubt that, if the men of the Society, to whom for the love of Christ ignominies are welcome, were to deliver the names of their adversaries to the sacred council of the Inquisitors, they would be severely animadverted upon. For the rest, since the Apostolic See has approved the Exercises, I say and pronounce that it is lawful for no one to assert that there are errors in them, nor to endeavor that they be amended. But if perhaps anything (which however there is not) should be found difficult, this only is to be taken care of, that it be explained. All things, therefore, which are in them, are true and Catholic, and the things contrary to them, errors. But the things which are objected, as, refuting them one by one in another place, I show, I affirm to be plainly empty, and many even ridiculous.”

[100] of the Exercises; Having thus spoken from Doctor Torres, Orlandini, many other things being passed over, skims these from the same Doctor: “This,” he says, “after I had subscribed my name to this disputation, occurred to me. Those who keep saying that they have found errors in the Exercises, without doubt applied diligence in weighing them: but the Pontiff applied no less. But those condemn, the Pontiff commends. Let them themselves answer, whose authority it becomes me to follow. This my reasoning,” he says, “can restrain anyone who is but wise, so that hereafter he dare not utter a word except to the commendation of this little book.” For the rest, that dissertation is in our Spanish transcript noted as of the second of January in the year 1554. He who transcribed it from our Roman archive, and sent it hither, says: “There exists here a prolix vindication of the preceding writing, or a Response to a certain objection of some persons, given by the same Doctor Torres on the 4th of March, of the same year.” Receive the sum:

[101] and answers objections. After he had proposed this objection of certain persons (which, rendered from the Spanish, sounds thus in Latin) “Some say that the Pope does not intend to do everything which he approves and confirms, even though it be concerning Christian morals, as Pope, nor that it be held as an article of faith;” he answers that he had not said that all and singular things contained in the Exercises are ARTICLES OF FAITH, or PROPOSITIONS

OF FAITH; but that they are Catholic, or that nothing erroneous is contained in them: and that to say the contrary (as some have said) is the greatest rashness, and an error which savors of the doctrine of Luther. He adds that the intention of the Pontiff ought to be gathered from his own words: and that from the words of the Pontiff it is clear that he approved all and singular things contained in the Exercises both as Pontiff and as Catholic: Since he says, 1. All and singular things contained in them, by the aforesaid authority, we approve, commend, and fortify with the patronage of the present writing. 2. Out of certain knowledge. 3. He had been consulted, as is clear from the same Bull, whether the Exercises were WORTHY OF APPROBATION AND PRAISE, and thus Catholic. 4. He caused them to be examined by learned men, conspicuous for authority, letters, and religion; such as were the two Dominican Fathers: and this diligence being applied, he approved and commended the aforesaid Exercises, and all and singular things contained in them, as Catholic. 5. The Pontiff greatly exhorts all the faithful of Christ, that they should be willing devoutly to use, and to be instructed by, so pious instructions and Exercises. From these he shows that the Pontiff approved all things both as Pontiff and as Catholic. He concludes finally: 1. Even if the Pontiff had not approved them as Pontiff, but as a private Doctor, it would be rash if anyone should say the contrary, without evidence and the greatest certitude. 2. Since the Pontiff approved all and singular things, as Pontiff and as Catholic; “I repeat,” he says, “what I said, that all and singular things contained in the Exercises are Catholic, and to say the contrary is the error of the Lutherans.” On which matter he adds more. Thus he, from Doctor Torres.

[102] What Mancio thought of the Exercises. Orlandini, after he had given the text drawn from Doctor Torres, and produced by us a little before, in the cited place, no. 38, says: “These and other writings of the Doctors being published, the rumor of all the common people gradually, and the endeavors of the adversaries, of themselves grew old. Then the opinion of Mancio also profited very much toward that matter, who, of the sacred Order of Preachers, was a man of great name in Spain, and at Alcalá a noble professor of divine wisdom from the chief chair: and the same was both very studious of our family, and very dear to the Prelate of Toledo himself. To whom, when the Prelate himself had delivered the volume of the Exercises to be read and weighed; he, having accurately perused it through some days, answered with a free voice that he had found nothing in it worthy of the censor's mark or animadversion. And when the Prelate thrust upon him another codex marked by Cano, Mancio answered that not even in that was there anything of evil except the one marking of Cano. In this manner the truth, being laid open, dispelled the wiles and lies of the malevolent by its own light, and defended itself, both by its own force and by the authority of the Apostolic See. Thus the golden little book of the Exercises was proved and refined, like gold in the furnace, and not even a shadow of iniquity was found in it.” Its eulogies, its use in the Society, the distinguished persons cultivated by them, and the places accommodated to their use, as also the fruits, the Posthumous Glory of St. Ignatius will give, chapter 2.

§ XI. The Saint's setting out from Barcelona into Italy, and thence into the Holy Land; his studies of letters on returning to Barcelona; his virtues; his prophecies.

At the beginning of the year 1523 he departed toward Barcelona, that he might board a ship; as is noted in the most ancient Life by the author Luis Gonçalves, In his passage through Barcelona no. 35. But at Barcelona he had spent a little more than twenty days before he boarded the ship; from the same Life, no. 37. Bartoli meanwhile records this singular event, book 1, no. 23: “To him begging there occurred to ask alms from a noble woman, whose name was Zepilla (Garcia calls her Rocaberti). She had a son, who, having left his mother and his paternal home, had become callous, a wanderer, to shameful begging. She, having beheld Ignatius, and conjecturing not in vain from his honorable countenance and bearing that he in reality concealed something nobler than what he professed by asking alms, was carried away with bitter grief, and, the image of her son recurring, whom she seemed to see in Ignatius; she received him in the worst manner, reproached him with his wicked cowardice, decorated him with such titles of honor as ‘runaway vagabond,’ ‘worthless.’ Whose alms of indignation Ignatius, congratulating himself more dearly than on any other, endured as long as it pleased her to rage.”

[104] Then, having given thanks most calmly, he added the Saint's patience being tried, that what she said was well spoken, and that it all fitted him, and that he knew no one anywhere more cowardly or worse: which words he seemed to say from the feeling of his soul, with such shame of himself, as if they burst from the depth of his breast. Confused by this so unexpected and humble answer, and repenting of what she had said, the woman understood that Ignatius was not such as she had feigned in her hasty mind; and, her contempt being changed into reverence, she sent one to carry bread to him, and to excuse the fault of her unconsidered grief and judgment, which had wrung from her words so crude. And the woman used to tell this everywhere with a special affection of piety, and afterward cultivated Ignatius, returned from Palestine, so readily that she used his holy counsels very much. Thus there.

[105] Then, the anchors being weighed, on the fifth day carried to Gaeta by a navigation no less perilous than swift, he purposed to go on foot to Rome: on the 5th day he reached Gaeta; thence he departed to Rome, Venice, Jerusalem: and on the first night he lodged at a country-house full of soldiers; who, plotting certain nefarious and base things, he opposed himself with so great an ardor of soul and outcry, that they, astonished partly by the weight of his words, partly by the miracle of his constancy, desisted from the shameful attempt, on the author Maffei, book 1, chapter 12. How long afterward he stayed at Rome, on what day he arrived there, Ribadeneira relates, book 1, chapter 10; where also he narrates by how many hardships and bitternesses the journey stood, which the Saint had from Rome to Venice. And thence he set sail toward the Holy Land on the 14th of July, in the year of the Lord 1523; on the day before the Kalends of September indeed being carried to Joppa; but on the fourth day of September toward midday entering into the Holy city; of which Ribadeneira, chapter 11; in whom also is a narration of the things which there befell the Saint.

[106] where, for inspecting the holy places But that he was no less piously curious than laboriously accurate an inspector of the holy places, is clear from the Italian Life, published by order of our most Reverend Father Mutio Vitelleschi, Superior General of our Society; in which, chapter 5, it is said that, for preserving the memory, and exciting in others a pious affection, he explained in writing whatever he had observed in those holy places, and sent it to Agnes Paschal (of whom both it has already been said, and it will be said elsewhere); and that the writing was so devout, and full of sparks of that holy fire which burned in his heart, that whoever should see it would judge that it had been written by a holy man; besides, that as such it was kept for some time by the Paschals, and afterward, as a hereditary treasure of the sons of Ignatius, given to the fathers of the Society by the heirs of that good lady. That from Jerusalem he also brought with him a little box of relics, and delivered them at Barcelona to sister Antonia Strada, a nun of the convent of St. Jerome of the same city, and that they are to this day kept in it with much veneration, inscribed above in the Saint's own hand, Garcia testifies, book 2, chapter 3.

[107] the time was narrow for him. What was the cause why the Saint, having set out for the Holy Land with the intention of fixing his foot in those cramped seats of Judaea, was compelled to depart hence, the authors expound. But since he returned to Venice in the year 1524, in mid-January, as Ribadeneira teaches in Quartemont, chapter 5; and since in that return, the anchors being weighed from the island of Cyprus, he spent two months and more, from the Life of Ribadeneira which we give, book 1, chapter 12; it follows that the time for Ignatius to survey those most sacred monuments was most narrow, restricted namely to about six weeks. And indeed divine providence so moderated that matter, which willed to use the labor of its Servant elsewhere for propagating the greater glory of its name, and had wonderfully decreed to be favorable to Ignatius at Rome, not at Jerusalem, that from the very head of the world that heavenly fire which fed upon the Saint might be diffused into the rest of the world. But now, what Ignatius, being hindered from the Jerusalem sojourn, agitated in his mind, see in Ribadeneira, book 1, chapters 13 and 16; and also in Maffei, book 1, chapter 16: and Maffei thus proceeds in the same place:

[108] In the humaner letters “And indeed, as regards the studies of letters, since he did not yet understand how much they claim for themselves almost the whole man, thinking that he could meanwhile also attend to helping souls, he had determined to return to Manresa to that flock of his, where he greatly desired both to bring to good fruit the seeds of piety and virtue scattered in the minds of men, and to enjoy the intimacy, and be instructed by the industry, of a certain Cistercian monk, a man of approved sanctity and doctrine. But when he had found him, contrary to what he had thought, dead, he judged Barcelona would be a fit seat of studies for him, chiefly for this cause, that, since he had resolved to cultivate poverty perpetually, and to receive nothing from his house and kinsmen; in that city he had many joined to him by spiritual bond.” And from these words of Maffei, Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 13, can be supplemented. It is wonderful that this most conspicuous school of the Saint is not even named by Surius in the brief Commentary: for at the year 1540 he thus speaks: “And so from Jerusalem he returns into Spain, and first betakes himself to Alcalá, then to Salamanca, and there gives his labor to letters.”

[109] In the year, therefore, of restored salvation 1524, in the thirty-third of his age, he studied at Barcelona for two years. the holy Man began to attend to the humaner letters, and, now a man of perfect age, to become a boy again among boys, to promote the glory of God and the salvation of his neighbors. Two years he spent there; thence in the year 1526 he set out to the academy of Alcalá. Consult Ribadeneira. This reckoning of time is confirmed from the Gonçalves Life, no. 57, in which it is said: “The year 1524 was passing, when he came to Barcelona at the time of Lent: and he was there two years. Wherefore in 1526 he came to Alcalá.” Wrongly, therefore, does John Sacrista Paschal, in his Relation cited above, say that he was there six continuous years. For the rest, from that same Relation I extract some things as a supplement to those which Ribadeneira relates of the Saint's deeds at Barcelona, book 1, chapter 13.

[110] The said John, then, narrates that his mother brought it about Ribadeneira is supplemented that he exchanged the pilgrim's habit for a habit of honorable black cloth after the manner of a cleric; which he wore, as long as he remained at Barcelona; and when he departed thence to Paris for his studies. He was in her house, when he was giving his labor to Grammar, and always had at his own disposal the library which was there, of Anthony Pujol, his uncle. “He always slept, as long as he was at Barcelona, and ate,” he says, “in this my house, where I am at present;” which the same John describes with the most distinct marks.

there circumscribes; where the better part of the city treated him with favors and visited him, on account of the great fame of sanctity and charity which he had. And in particular, as he relates, the following favored him with their alms: Lady Estefania de Requesens, daughter of the count of Palamós, and wife of the great commander of St. James, Lord Juan de Requesens, grandmother of Lady Mencía de Requesens and Zúñiga, who was marchioness de los Vélez, and who, he says, is to this day countess of Benavente; Lady Isabella de Bojados, Lady Guiomar Gralla, and Lady Isabella de Josa, and others, who were among the chief of the women of Barcelona: and they venerated him as an apostle, visited him, and followed him with favors. He confessed his sins to a certain father of the Order of St. Francis (who dwelt in the monastery of Jesus of the said Order, which is outside the walls of Barcelona; and was called father Friar James of Alcántara), a great religious and servant of God, who was, he says, my mother's confessor.

[111] During the time that he was in her house, every night he related to him thousands of things concerning our Lord, concerning the things which the Saint there did, the contempt of the world and its goods, and the esteem of the true heavenly goods. He was the author to him of frequenting the Sacraments, and of fearing and loving the law of God, and the will of his mother. He slept on the ground almost every night, abstaining from the bed, and passed the greater part of it in prayer, his knees set at his bed. And on not a few nights he observed him, and saw the chamber full of splendor; and himself lifted into the air, on bent knees weeping, sighing, and saying: “My God, how infinitely good Thou art: since Thou art such, that Thou dost bear with him who is so bad and perverse; such as I am.” John Paschal adds moreover that the Saint foretold to him his whole life, and also all the things which he was to undergo in it. He predicted that it was the will of our Lord that John should take a wife; and that the matter would thus be: that he would have a wife very Christian, and likewise many sons and daughters; and at the same time with them infinite labors, and losses of goods, to be sent upon him by the Lord, for His great affection toward him, and for the remission and purgation of his faults.

[112] and predicted, Besides, that he should be reduced to poverty; but that this would not happen except for the glory of God and the spiritual progress of his soul; that all these things truly happened in the manner in which they had been predicted. Moreover the said John confirms his Relation with an oath; which in our transcript is marked at Barcelona, and in the same house in which St. Ignatius was, on the 9th of March in the year 1582. For the rest, Bartoli, book 1, no. 30, sets forth that prophecy more distinctly: “Thou art about to take to wife,” the holy Man said, “a woman of excellent virtue .. Many sons shall be born to thee from her; but many hardships likewise with them .. The first of them came into the light at once dumb and deaf. Another, now twenty-two years old, became out of his mind. The third, living a profligate life, defiled his father's eyes by a sudden death. But of the daughters, though they were four, to one only could a dowry be given.” The same author relates, book 1, chapter 27, that this John, wont afterward to narrate to his sons what he had observed in Ignatius, added these things: that if they knew what he himself had seen concerning Ignatius, it would come to pass that they would never be sated with kissing the ground on which he had trodden, and the walls within which he had lived. Which when he said, weeping and grieving profusely, and beating his breast with his hand, he called himself unhappy and guilty, because he had not known how to profit by the intimacy of the holy Man. In a letter to the mother of John Paschal, given in the year 1528, of which I shall treat below in §15 at the beginning, the holy Man familiarly mentions him also: A Joan me encomendad mucho, y dezidle, que a sus padres siempre sea obediente, guardando las fiestas: que assi haziendo vivira mucho sobre la tierra, y tambien sobre el cielo. That is: Commend me much to John, and tell him that he should always be obedient to his parents, keeping the feasts; for by so doing he shall live long upon the earth, and also above in heaven. There is ascribed to our copy of this letter that the said John himself gave its original to Father John Pogio at Barcelona.

[113] Certain questions and answers concerning the affairs at Barcelona. Among other things asked by Father Nicholas Lancicius (of which a particular notice is given below in §13) it is thus written: “I should wish a brief description of the place, or street, or house, in whose chamber Blessed Ignatius was seen by Paschal thus lifted from the ground.” The answer of Father Peter Giles, of whom there is treatment in the cited place, has thus: “There is a street at Barcelona, whose name in the Catalan idiom is DELS Cotoners; that is, of those craftsmen who arrange and prepare cotton for clothing and human use. The upper head of that street is terminated by a great and famous street, whose name is DE LA Boria, next to the square DEL OLI, that is, of oil. The lower head is terminated by another street, whose name is also DELS COTONERS. If thou go from the aforesaid street from the said upper head to the lower head, toward the sea; the last house of the aforesaid street on the left (which has a door both in this street and in the other, by which it is terminated), this is the house of John Paschal. In it is a chamber near the head of the stairs in the middle part of the house, square, of about twenty-two palms; as much as I can now judge. In that chamber occurred the aforesaid raptures; there were likewise sometimes in prayer elevations from the ground; and the splendor of his face: as John Paschal used to narrate.” Of which I shall give some things besides in the Posthumous Glory of the Saint, chapter 2.

§ XII. Busying himself to render a monastery of better fruit, he is most vilely beaten; his virtues exercised; eulogies; a space of penance obtained for a man about to be hanged in a wholly wondrous manner.

The shorter Life of Ribadeneira, chapter 6, thus speaks: “Since he held it certain and ascertained that certain wanton youths too freely frequented the sacred virgins of the monastery of the Angels of the Dominican family, Busying himself to lead a monastery back to better fruit, which at that time was situated outside the walls of the city (of Barcelona); he tried to persuade these virgins that, to avoid occasions, they should forbid those men entrance, and join their mind to true piety and religion. But when those insolent men learned that by this counsel the doors were shut against them; first they began to threaten, then, having caught Ignatius from ambush, to punish him with so grievous a cudgeling that he was forced thence to lie sick. Nor yet by this could the fortitude of his soul be retarded from his undertaking: nay he even rejoiced, because he had been worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Jesus.” Orlandini mentions that deed, book 1, no. 50: of which also the authors of the Life. That deed, and its circumstances, are amply enough described in the Relation of John Paschal, of which above; whence I excerpt summarily certain points, which I here subjoin; namely, that he was so cruelly beaten that he was left like a dead man: that at his sighs there ran up certain millers passing by, who, having set him on a beast, led him as far as the gate of St. Daniel, and thence in the same manner, with a very slow gait, to the house of Paschal: that he was held to his bed three-and-fifty days, and could not move himself: that remedies were applied to him; and so far was he from betraying his executioner in that infirmity and great pains of body, that rather he always praised the Lord, and asked pardon for the malefactors.

[115] That it was afterward learned for certain that this had happened by the order of a certain merchant, he is wretchedly tortured, whose name was Ribera; who greatly repented of the deed, saying that he had never commanded that it should go so far; but had intended nothing else than to terrify Ignatius: that that mishap became widely known throughout the whole city; because he was esteemed in it as an apostle: that it made the poor also anxious: that finally in that infirmity Father James of Alcántara, his confessor, ordered him to lay aside a great and very rough hempen sack which he was wont to wear; although he himself was unwilling: which the said John affirms that he received and kept as relics; and, he adds, that he keeps it as salt to this day, together with the Crucified Christ which he wore on his breast, on the day on which he was converted, of the size of one palm and a half; which, he says, I have to this day without the cross: because I gave it for relics to the Fathers of the Society; and I had thousands of his other things; namely wallets which he used to carry and collect alms for the poor: likewise letters written in his own hand, and also the pilgrimage which he made from Rome into the Holy Land, written also by his own hand: but I gladly delivered all to the Fathers of his holy religious order and Society: for there is neither table, bed, chest, nor board in my house which are not his relics; since he touched all, in the space of six years (let us say two), always eating and sleeping in it. Bartoli, book 1, no. 28, says: “Moreover that hair-shirt, kept by John Paschal, and delivered by his own signature to his heirs as the best patrimony, healed many sick at Barcelona; but at last in the year 1606 the duke of Monteleone (viceroy of Catalonia, as is added in the Italian text: Hector Pignatelli, from Garcia and Carnoli), having bought it with many prayers, made it the treasure of his house …”

[116] the author of the crime, however, being afterward converted to penance. After three-and-fifty days, having with difficulty escaped from his torments and the peril of his life, and scarcely yet able to govern his step, he soon dragged himself to the parthenon of the Angels, to confirm the nuns by a new exhortation in the tenacity of the purpose they had conceived; Agnes Paschal, who loved Ignatius as a son, interposing herself in vain. So brave and manly a charity deserved, not only that God should prohibit like mishaps in the progress of the holy work; but that He should also convert to good fruit the chief author of the bloody crime. For as he was once returning from that monastery, a certain Ribera, a merchant, fell on his knees, and, confessing the crime of which he had been the chief contriver, with great grief of soul asked pardon of him, swearing holily and faithfully that thenceforth he would change his life and morals. Which, as he had promised, he afterward performed not feignedly. And he professed that he was stirred to the penance of his wicked audacity, not so much by the atrocity of the barbarous sacrilege, as by the virtue of the Saint, from whom, amid so many cruel blows of the Moor, neither had any specimen of impatience escaped, nor a word or indication of him by whom he was so cruelly beaten, or by whose command he was being beaten. Yet besides this virtue of Ignatius, it is by no means doubtful that those prayers greatly contributed to this, which, imitating his Master hanging on the cross, he had poured out for his most hostile enemies.

[117] The Saint's patience, The Italian Life, alleged at no. 106, commends the Saint's patience, when it speaks in chapter 7 to this effect: “There were many who, recognizing from the conformation of his face and body that he was of a birth very diverse from that which the manner of life chosen by himself displayed, reproached him with harsh words and rustic manners for so unbecoming a form of living. They added that it was rightly seen that, like a vagabond, he must have fled from his own; to which they joined both bitter threats and base insults. The Saint, with fixed step and serene countenance, gave them convenient time for speaking, never interrupting them. At the end he gave them most humble thanks from a sincere heart, as to men who had deserved of him by a singular title. And when once he had been received with a base reprehension of the same tenor by some youths who worked in the house of the Paschals, the masters of those youths, armed with zeal, avenged themselves on them, holding it fixed to forbid them the house. Ignatius so vehemently interposed himself with the Paschals that the youths were not ejected; saying that, in so far as they loved his good, they should permit that the youths should deal with him in such a manner; because his own sins deserved much worse. God brought forth from the submissive constancy of His Servant the accustomed fruit of unfeigned patience, namely a change of heart in those who insulted him; because the greater part of them, first admirers, then imitators of the sanctity of Ignatius, became such.”

[118] But in what places especially he attended to the exercises of piety at Barcelona, Garcia relates, book 2, chapter 4: the holy places most frequented by him, “For although,” he says, “he frequented all the temples of the city; yet chiefly that which is called Our Lady of the Sea; where he confessed and communicated every eighth day, and quite ordinarily heard Mass, Vespers, and Compline in the Cathedral church, and in the chapel of St. Eulalia, for the devotion by which he was affected toward this holy Virgin.” But now, since the house of Agnes Paschal was, according to what has been said, one of the chief schools of the virtues exercised by St. Ignatius at Barcelona; we ought not to wonder that this same place was conspicuous for the singular favors of God toward His beloved Servant. What has above been just premised on this subject can be confirmed from the Positions produced by Father Lawrence de Paulis, procurator general of the Society of Jesus, and his consortium, in the cause of the canonization of St. Ignatius; in which, under the title Ecstasies and raptures, it is thus had: “Many times at Barcelona in the house of Agnes Paschal he was seen in prayer rapt without the use of his senses, only breathing, and sometimes having his face miraculously shining… Sometimes also lifted from the ground into the air one cubit and a half, uttering these words: O Lord, if men knew Thee!” For the rest, the eulogies of the Saint's most conspicuous Life among the people of Barcelona, Garcia brings forward, book 2, chapter 6, from the words of the most illustrious bishop of Barcelona, directed to Clement VIII, and also from a public testimony of Barcelona sent to the same Pontiff. Now must be spoken of a wholly wondrous thing which the Saint performed at Barcelona.

[119] Ribadeneira, in the shorter Life, chapter 6, narrates these things: “As Ignatius was returning from the monastery of the Angels, [A wondrous thing performed by the Saint at Barcelona in favor of a hanged man is set forth.] he heard that a man, by the impulse of the demon, had hanged himself with a noose from a beam of his house on the Lullian street; he swiftly flew thither, and cut the rope hanging from the unhappy beam: and although no one doubted of his death, yet, cast on the ground, he began as a suppliant to pray to God for the man's salvation, and called upon the man: and lo, he was so restored to his senses that he confessed his sins to a priest, and then at once rendered to God his soul, snatched from the jaws of hell.” This miracle is confirmed from the words of the three Auditors of the Roman Rota in Bartoli, book 1, no. 29: “All being astonished, and awaiting the outcome of the matter, Lyssanus returned to life.” Besides, it also comes to be noted, that this plainly wonderful and unusual thing was not performed secretly, or before one or another witness, but in the public light of the city of Barcelona: for in the Positions a little before assigned, under the title Miracles, both the thing itself and the circumstances of the thing are corroborated. Thus, therefore, I read there: “At Barcelona, when a certain Lyssanus, on account of a cause lost in judgment, out of despair had hanged himself, and many men ran together to see this spectacle; Ignatius, the matter being heard, approached that house, and found Lyssanus, the rope being cut, laid on a bed without the use of his senses, and held for dead: and immediately, bending his knees, he begins to pray to God, that He would grant him so much life that, returning to life, he might be able to grieve for that and other sins, and to confess. Which when Ignatius did, and invoked the name of Jesus over the body of Lyssanus, all being astonished, and awaiting the outcome of the matter, Lyssanus returned to life; and, signs of contrition being given, a little after piously died, and, by the license of the bishop, informed of the said contrition, was buried in a holy place.” Maffei also records the deed, book 3, chapter 14, and, concluding it, says: “The fame of which thing pervaded the whole city and those borders with great admiration of all; and there survive today those who remember it; from whom I,” he says, “diligently inquired into this very thing at Barcelona.”

§ XIII. Whether that hanged man was raised from death; the companions joined to the Saint at Barcelona; a prophecy concerning a certain man not taken up.

That controversy between two of the Society, in questions asked Various questions and answers concerning the deed done in the case of that hanged man, wonderfully recalled to penance by the help of St. Ignatius, were long ago ventilated between two distinguished men of our Society, namely Father Nicholas Lancicius, most known for virtue and writings, and Father Peter Giles or Gil, honored with an excellent eulogy in the Library of the Society. I have in hand a transcript, sent hither lately together with the other Roman monuments; divided into two columns, in one of which are contained the Questions of Father Lancicius, copied from the autograph; but in the other the autograph Answers of Father Peter Giles, that is, likewise transcribed from the autograph, and, so far as they contain the present subject, written by the hand of Father Ignatius Pien. The Questions, then, there have thus in the fourth place: “The testimonies concerning the hanged man, recalled by the Blessed Father to life, or to the use of life, have one inconvenience: that from them it cannot be understood whether that Lyssanus was dead, or only hindered from the use of his senses .. Father Maffei, who many years ago heard this very thing at Barcelona from many, says that he learned that that hanged man was truly held for dead as dead: as also Thomas Bozio well proves this, On the Signs of the Church, volume 1, book 7, chapter 1, page 205, first published at Rome.”

[121] and in answers, The Answers of Father Giles: “I confess that they have this inconvenience. But nothing further, which is certain, could be gathered from the words of Paschal, or from the witnesses, except what is had in the process and in my testimony. I many times asked this of Paschal, while he lived: because it was a great miracle. Yet he never, the matter being maturely considered, dared to say that he was most certainly dead; but that he either was, or was reputed, dead. Paschal, when this happened in his presence, was a little boy, only 13 or 14 years old. Nor could he so certainly remember. When Father Maffei, going into Portugal, and thence returning into Italy, came to Barcelona, I was present: I led him to Paschal and his house. From Paschal Father Maffei heard, or from those who had heard from Paschal, who had been present. But Paschal (believe me), being duly interrogated, said that which I and other witnesses have attested.”

[122] The Questions of Father Lancicius: “And certainly, if he was alive, in various there was no reason why, the use of his senses recovered, he should not have lived longer. For since it is more difficult naturally to receive the use of the senses than, that being recovered, to continue it, as production is more difficult than conservation: it is wonderful that he did not live long: since he had recovered his senses so well that, as Father Maffei testifies in the Life of Blessed Ignatius, book 3, chapter 14, he was able to confess his sins to a priest called for that purpose.” The Answers of Father Giles: “The uncertainty of the miracle, and of the outcome of the matter, is the cause why Your Reverence brings forward this acute reasoning. But (if one may conjecture) although he was alive or half-alive, the merciful God willed, at the prayers of Ignatius, that he should recover the use of his senses, to the effect of grieving for his sins, and confessing, if he had opportunity: and no further. Add also that by hanging the blood and all the humors are greatly altered. It could therefore (the Lord so willing) happen that that fervor of the blood, for a moderate interval, should be rendered milder for the use of the senses: but then, gradually increasing, by some interior affection, at last should kill the man. Paschal said for certain that that Lyssanus had shown signs of contrition: on account of which (information being had) he was buried in a holy place. But whether he confessed; of this he somewhat doubted. And I very often interrogated Paschal about this: and certainly (believe me) Paschal was variable in this. Because, since he was then a little boy, he could not, now an old man almost eighty, remember so firmly about this, and other circumstances in particular, and narrate all that had then happened.”

[123] The Questions of Father Lancicius: “If it could more probably be established it was ventilated. that Lyssanus was dead, or rather held for such at Barcelona; much weight would be added to promoting the business of the canonization.” The Answers of Father Giles: “I see that this miracle of the resurrection of a dead man, if it were fully proved, would help much. But a thing so ancient, and concerning which, then, when it happened, no inquisition was made; nor was it investigated while our Father Ignatius lived: nor sought out immediately after his death; but almost fifty years after Ignatius's death: and almost eighty years after the miracle happened. It is no wonder if of so great a thing there is now a slight notice; a slight remembrance. If immediately after the death of our Father Ignatius Processes had been made for the future memory of the matter, such as are now made; many eyewitnesses would have survived, by whose testimony the Processes would have been made clearer. But over the past there is no power. The Lord so permitted. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Thus there. And those Questions indeed, mixed with many other Questions proposed by Lancicius, are marked at Rome on the 28th of May 1599; but the Answers to them are had, on the faith of the aforesaid Father Ignatius Pien, in the very margins of the letter which, written by Lancicius, Father Peter Giles had ordered to be transcribed to this end, as he himself prefaces. To the Answers he subjoins a Letter, for the sake of greater elucidation.

[124] And soon there follow in our said transcript Excerpts from the letter of Father Peter Giles to Nicholas Lancicius: In which in which these things are had: “Concerning the fourth, about Lyssanus the hanged man; let Your Reverence note well those things which I relate in my testimony, and those which the article about the same miracle narrates in the process of Barcelona, proved by witnesses: likewise the several things which I, answering to the words of Your Reverence's letter, write. All these things, I say, are the more certain and true which can be known of this miracle. And that you may better perceive all things, let Your Reverence suppose these six things, which I shall now write: from which you will understand that nothing further can be known of this miracle.”

“1. This miracle happened about the year 23 (above the thousand five hundredth) from the Lord's Nativity; when Father Ignatius was giving his labor to Grammar at Barcelona.”

“2. Ignatius at that time was known to approved men, and to women, not many; but to those men and women whose care of spiritual things was greater; and to a few certain nuns of the monastery of St. Mary of the Angels, and of St. Jerome: finally to his confessor, to his teacher Ardevol, and to a few little fellow-students.”

[125] a letter “Thirdly, at the same moment in which Lyssanus was found hanging by the rope, and there was an outcry of men and women in the same street; Ignatius was returning from the monastery of the Angels (which then was outside the walls, but now that monastery remains deserted, and the nuns have been transferred within the walls of the city of Barcelona;) and having entered by the gate of the city which is called the gate of St. Daniel, he was passing through the square of Lull (called lo pla den Lull) next to the street called de Belloc, in which was the house where Lyssanus had been found hanging by the rope: Ignatius saw the tumult of men: he went up where Lyssanus lay either dead or half-alive: Ignatius prayed for him, others prayed, Ignatius cried out, etc.: there followed the miracle which is written, etc.”

“4. Let Your Reverence know that the men did not call Ignatius to work that miracle: they did not ask that he should do it: because perhaps he was unknown to all of them: but only, moved by mercy, he obtained it from the Lord. Yet they, as Paschal narrated, saw that after the prayer and cries of Ignatius the man revived, and had the use of his senses for a slight interval of time. Whether he was altogether dead, the rude men had not proved by experiment: nay they applied vinegar to his temples or the pulses of his head and arms, and to his breast: which they would not have done, if they had known for certain that he was altogether dead.”

[126] added moreover. “Fifthly. Let him know also that those men did not acclaim that Ignatius had raised him, or had done a miracle; although they believed it, or had a conjecture of a miracle. And consequently no inquisition was then made concerning the miracle performed, nor proof, nor information. Wherefore after a few days the memory of that thing vanished. But Paschal always retained that great matter in his heart; and by word (as I said in my testimony) he often narrated it to me. But whether it was a miracle of the true raising of a dead man, the Lord alone knows.”

“6. I judge that if our Father Ignatius, of blessed memory, had been certain that he himself had done so great a miracle of the true raising of a truly dead man; I judge, I say, that either he himself would have revealed it to someone in confession, or outside confession, to the divine glory: or God the Best and Greatest would have ordained, for the good of the Church, that through other witnesses beyond all exception so great a work (such as is the raising of a dead man) should have been most certainly shown and published.” Then he offers his services for perusing certain things from the writings of Lancicius. “For since I,” he says, “in the Processes made in the monastery of Montserrat, at Manresa, at Barcelona, discharging the office and name of procurator, supplied all the witnesses, surveyed all those places, and read many times all that is contained in the processes; perhaps I shall help a little, or certainly shall not harm,” etc., at Palermo, the 5th of July 1599.

[127] And these things indeed were then answered by that Man, Our conjecture concerning the present deed. thoroughly knowing of the matter, to the difficulties proposed to him by Lancicius. Let it be permitted us here to observe in a little word these few things. Although from what has been said there is not open certitude, undoubted authority, and clear and manifest faith, that that hanged man both was truly before dead, and by the prayers of Ignatius was, from truly dead, made truly alive; yet since no one doubted of his death, according to Ribadeneira above, no. 119; and since, from the public depositions of the witnesses, he is said in the same place to have returned to life; and since those two things, to return to oneself, or to return to one's mind, and to return to life, are wholly diverse; a probable reason is afforded for inclining to that opinion, that that Lyssanus by the prayers of Ignatius was recalled not only to the use of life, but to life itself, and truly and properly revived from death. Now let us proceed to other matters.

[128] Moved by admiration of the things which the Saint did at Barcelona, four men before the rest, Ignatius takes companions to himself; refuses another, according to Maffei, book 1, chapter 16, aggregated themselves to the leadership and institute of Ignatius (of whom mention will recur at no. 162): a certain Calixtus, who, on Ignatius's advice, had lately undertaken the pilgrimage to Jerusalem; another they called by the surname Artiaga; the third was of the family of the viceroy of Catalonia, by name Cazeres: to whom in the last place there came John, a youth of French nation. It is wonderful that Father John Rho, in the Apologetic Interrogations, to John Baptist Castaldo, a clerk regular, interrogation 10, page 166, writes from a sworn witness in these his words: “I have often heard father Michael Rhodis of the Society of Jesus, a native of Gerona in the principality of Catalonia, a man of excellent religion, noble for zeal of souls and austerity of life, narrating of his father, a most famous jurisconsult, that he, while still an adolescent, familiarly knew our holy Father Ignatius giving his labor to Grammar at Barcelona, and by the example of his virtues and his exhortations so caught fire in his soul toward virtue, that he most vehemently desired to follow him, and to become his companion, and to imitate his virtues. When he had opened this to Ignatius, he answered: ‘Thou shalt not follow me; but a son of thine one day shall give his name to the religious family which I, the divine grace favoring, am about to found.’”

[129] This prophecy was uttered in the year 16 or 17 before the Society was founded; with a signal prophecy. nor did it deceive: because Michael Rhodis entered the Society, and lived in it very long, and died a very old man with the fame of great virtues. Hence it is gathered how long before the Society was founded Ignatius was made certain by divine means of founding it. For this happened immediately after the Jerusalem pilgrimage. “So I confirm, and with my own hand I wrote, I Francis de Caspe, professed priest of the same Society, in the 70th year of my age, and the 55th of my religion, in which I have discharged various magistracies, of rector, superior, and procurator of the whole province of Aragon to the City. And so I swear by God our Lord, and the holy four Gospels, the 13th of the Kalends of February 1641. Francis de Caspe of the Society of Jesus.” Bartoli, book 1, no. 30, writes these things of the aforesaid Michael: “Disclosing to his father his counsel of entering the Society, he learned from him that this had once been predicted to him by Ignatius; and that it was now proceeding into effect: which brought the highest pleasure to both. But the provincial acting more slowly in receiving the youth than either the impatience of his age or his more eager piety would suffer, he turned his desires elsewhere, and grasped at the Carthusian order, and, having tried it twice at different times, twice indeed obtained it, but always something intervened, by which, the matter being disturbed, he sought again the Society, and, admitted into it, fully proved the faith of the double prophecy uttered by the Saint.”

§ XIV. Affairs at Alcalá and Salamanca.

At what time he came to Alcalá, In the year 1526 he came to Alcalá. There he spent a year * and a half: at which time he bestowed his study on the terms and the Summulae of Soto, the Physics of Albert, and the Master of the Sentences. He was also exercised in giving the Spiritual Exercises, etc. Thus the Life of the holy Father, taken down from his mouth by Father Luis Gonçalves, no. 57. Maffei, book 1, chapter 16, affirms that the Saint went to Alcalá TOGETHER with his companions. But the Life just designated contradicts him, no. 56, saying: “The Pilgrim (so St. Ignatius is there called) departed to Alcalá ALONE; although even then he had some companions (as I think).” The same Maffei, book 1, chapter 17, of the Douai edition of the year 1585, says: “having stayed at Alcalá not more than a seventh month,” etc. But in the edition of his works which is prefaced as printed at Venice in the year 1589, that error was rightly corrected: for there is read, “having stayed at Alcalá about a year and a half”; with which agrees the most recent Padua edition of the year 1727.

[131] and with what studies, along with works of piety, he there occupied himself: He entered the course of arts, as they call it, with no very happy success: inasmuch as, incited by that same over-hasty haste, almost no order or distinction of discipline being kept, he undertook many and various things at one and the same time: and in logic the terms, as they call them, in physics Albert; in theology the Master of the Sentences (which books were then most in use in Spain), he began to unroll, and to hear daily in the schools several interpreters. Which thing, in appearance useful and compendious, was even the greatest hindrance to him in that very thing which he was hastening. For, as almost happens in human affairs, when he avidly followed all things, he attained almost nothing, and the very variety and multitude of things brought both darkness to his understanding, and truly perturbation and confusion to his memory; Maffei being witness, who committed these things to writing, book 1, chapter 17. Besides, as he proceeds, there was added also this inconvenience, that in the greatest poverty not only did he himself with his men live on begging, but he also relieved with great labor of body and soul the want and difficulties of others, alms being sought everywhere. Moreover, what retarded his course in letters most of all, he burned with so great a desire of recalling wandering souls to a good mind and to the evangelical law, that he could not, although the time was then another's, contain himself from casting discourses concerning true virtue and piety in the circles of the scholastics, and from instructing in the crossroads boys and the common people in the precepts of the Christian faith, and from inciting men of all ranks everywhere to the worship of God and the study of religion, with keen and vehement speech. Concerning the hindrances to his studies, and the procuring of virtues and works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual, toward his neighbor, one may also consult the shorter Life of Ribadeneira, chapter 6.

[132] But this literary defect, which was then in Ignatius at Alcalá, which God afterward compensated to the Saint in others. God afterward abundantly compensated to him, forming in the same place various men distinguished in doctrine and virtue, who illustrated the Society of Jesus. For, to omit many and signal theologians,

whom at various times that most celebrated academy gave to the Society, there came forth from it three of the first companions of the Saint in founding his religious institute, namely Laínez, Salmeron, and Bobadilla. And six years after its foundation, namely 1546, Father Francis de Villanova, sent by St. Ignatius, gave the beginning to the college of Alcalá. Besides, in it taught the Dezas, the Vázquezes, the Suárezes, the Azores, the Arrubals, the Torreses, and other distinguished Doctors; and St. Francis Borgia expounded the sacred Scripture, as Garcia observes, book 2, chapter 9; from whom I drew these things. But let us return to Ignatius.

[133] This, then, was Ignatius's station at Alcalá, his food from begging; His manner of living, to which, when his friends added more than the necessaries, he distributed them among the poor. But to those whom the shame of honorable birth, or sickness, deterred from begging, he himself carried them, on the author Bartoli, book 1, chapter 32, illustrating the matter with examples: “Martin Saez,” he says, “wealthy among the chief men of Azpeitia, noticed him doing this. For when he had come to Alcalá on business, he wished to see Ignatius, once known to him, now famous by report. Having therefore waited for him about to come out of the school, he both well recognized him, and, silently following, saw him entering a certain cottage; and after a little coming out of it. Then he himself also entered, and found a woman lying sick, in want of all things. She, asked about him who had come to her, being studious, denied that she knew him; but that he seemed holy, and that by him there was daily brought to her both the necessary alms, and consolation applied by pious discourses concerning God. ‘Well,’ said Saez, ‘I should wish thee to signify to him returning tomorrow, that if he shall need money for himself or others, thou knowest a man who will not grudgingly bestow it.’ She did what was charged: but Ignatius, seeing himself observed; ‘I have hitherto, sister, succored thee as I could; henceforth God will succor thee by another way, to whom I commend thee greatly.’ Which said, he departed, nor afterward set foot there.” This deed is confirmed from the chapter 8 of the Italian Life designated elsewhere.

[134] But in exercising the works of corporal mercy James Eguia excellently brought aid to the Saint, and of exercising works of mercy. who was then also at Alcalá, and afterward gave his name to the Society; of whom Orlandini, History of the Society, book 1, no. 54, relates these things: “When the present calamity of anyone pressed, there was a sure refuge for the blessed Father. And once, money not being at hand, he opened his chest, that thence Ignatius might take from the furniture what should seem good: who, as he greatly loved James, and understood that he would deal kindly no less with him than with the poor if he took liberally; from the coverlets and ornaments of the beds, and other garments of the kind, made a splendid bundle, lifts it on his shoulders, and carries it and certain candlesticks, like a porter, through the streets of the city.” But of that James, more elsewhere.

[135] But that grave difficulties were stirred up against St. Ignatius at Alcalá, Informations concerning him; and the tragic end of another, is known from the Lives. And a transcript of the Informations set up there concerning the Saint and his companions, I received, while staying at Madrid in the year 1722, from Father Joseph Cassani of the Society of Jesus. That cause, moreover, is there noted as begun at Alcalá on the 19th day of November in the year 1526; which on the 6th day of March of the next following year 1527, likewise on the 10th day of May, and again on the 14th day of the same month and year, was resumed, according to that writing; from which besides we have that on the 18th day of May of the aforesaid year the Lord Vicar visited the ecclesiastical prison, and interrogated Ignatius, ordered to appear before him; and that finally on the 1st day of June of the same year, Ignatius being ordered to be summoned before him, he ended the cause: but with what outcome, Ribadeneira teaches, book 1, chapter 14; who, book 5, chapter 11, summarily relates a tragic history, which, because it is more fully narrated in the shorter Life, chapter 6, I thought should be transferred hither from thence. Another wonderful thing befell the blessed Father in the same city of Alcalá. Dismissed by the vicar from prison, he was ordered to use the same kind of garment as the other scholastics. And for that matter the vicar charged John Lucena, a man devoted to the offices of charity, to gather alms through the crossroads. And when both, intent on this business, were going about the city, a numerous crowd by chance was watching a game of ball before the house of a man of the chief nobility, whose name is for a just cause suppressed. He, the cause of this collection being learned, his eyes turned upon John Lucena, moved with anger, said: “And how does it befit thee, a man of that station, to cast thyself down hither?” And he added indignantly: “Let me burn, if this man, for whom thou gatherest alms, be not worthy of the pyre.”

[136] after those, a history illustrious to him. That utterance grievously wounded the ears of those to whom the sanctity of the blessed Father was seen and known. On the same day a most desired messenger came concerning the birth of King Philip II: whence it came that at Alcalá and throughout all Spain triumphal fires were kindled. While therefore this same noble was ascending the tower of his house, furnished with gunpowder, to the artificial fires; behold, a spark rashly falling there, and the powder being caught, he perished by a horrible mishap, burned up with the tower. When this was announced to the Father, weeping out of commiseration and grief, he said: “This very thing, this morning, as I passed by his house, he had imprecated upon himself: I indeed certainly by no means wished it for him.” The fame of that event suddenly traveled through the whole city, and it was held among miracles for the illustration of this Ignatius's sanctity.

[137] Francis Borgia meets the Saint; another's eulogy of him. But as that reviling which had been offered to the Saint did not remain unavenged; so his captivity was not inglorious: for, to omit that of Bartoli, no. 33: “They report that, while he was being led ignominiously into prison among the officers, he met Francis Borgia, son of the Duke of Gandía, a youth of seventeen years, amid the salutations of the people and courtly offices, surrounded by a numerous retinue; and that this mishap of his was a certain sport of divine providence, meditating even then joys long afterward for Ignatius, from the same captive gladly to become at Rome the future patron of Ignatius and the Society, the more heaped up indeed, in that the one would recall the more distant beginnings of power, the other of humiliation.” To omit, I say, that of Bartoli; Maffei being witness, George Naveros, a distinguished Doctor of that time, and in great favor with Charles the emperor, when he had come to visit him; admiring the greatness of his soul, and the force of his speaking, as soon as he returned home to his own, said: “This day I have seen Paul in chains.” Thus Maffei.

[138] [An accusation concerning the observation of the Sabbaths, and too frequent reception of the Eucharist.] And on occasion of the various questions with which he relates that Ignatius's mind was first turned in all directions, then, he says, since, though prohibited by royal edicts, yet in almost all Spain many Jews, under a feigned habit and dress of the body, are engaged, a malefic kind of men, and very hostile to Christians; the vicar inquired of him whether he observed the Sabbaths? To whom he: “Yes, in honor of the blessed Virgin Mary,” he said: “for otherwise I both am ignorant of the Jewish rites, and indeed my country bears no Jew.” Moreover, among the heads of accusations proposed or imputed to the Saint at Alcalá, according to Bartoli is to be reckoned the very frequent use of the Sacraments, introduced by Ignatius there. Which he thus sets forth, no. 33: “Finally that frequent use of the sacred things, many approaching the sacred table every eighth day (which was then just as if now one approached daily) was accused of novelty, and openly condemned by some. For Alfonso Sanchez, canon of St. Just, and the same a Doctor, once openly denied the Eucharist to Ignatius and his companions, a scruple being also cast of too great familiarity with God; but his mind soon turned for the better, he immediately gave it: which while he imparted, he was suffused with so sweet a feeling of piety that he scarcely held back his tears, and wished to have Ignatius with him at dinner, and observed him as a saint, especially when he heard him discoursing of the affairs of the soul.”

[139] The affairs at Salamanca are related by Luis Gonçalves, Certain notices concerning the affairs at Paris. Ribadeneira, and Maffei; so that nothing singular occurs to us which ought to be added to them from elsewhere. To the deeds done by the Saint at Paris we prefix these things from Maffei, book 1, chapter 18: “Since for a journey so long and hazardous the companions had not the same mind, and also, even had they arrived there quite safe, it was uncertain what abundance of means for spending their time in the studies of letters they would have among unknown nations; his counsel being communicated with them, Ignatius determined to go ahead alone himself to Paris; and if the matter should seem likely to have the means for him to support them there, to summon them by letters; but if not, to make them more certain of the whole matter: so that, although in diverse places, yet with the same conjunction of minds, the course of philosophy and theology being meanwhile run through, they might afterward, God willing, resume their intimacy interrupted for a time. Things, therefore, being thus arranged, though many of the chief nobility of Salamanca took it ill, and resisted in a great degree, about the twentieth day after he had come out of custody, Ignatius set himself on the way, driving before him a little ass laden with books, and came to Barcelona: where, although by no entreaties or reasons of his friends he suffered himself to be moved from the meditated Paris journey; yet he could not refuse this, that both for the expenses of the journey, and for procuring necessaries at Paris, he received some money, partly in cash, partly in bonds, from Elizabeth Rosell, and certain other friends.”

* Spanish: about (quasi).

§ XV. His arrival at Paris; a calumny fastened on the Saint on occasion of the college of Montaigu there; his exercises of piety, humaner studies; his lodging.

At the beginning of the month of February in the year 1528 he arrived at Paris sound and safe, from Ribadeneira, book 1, When St. Ignatius came to Paris. chapter 16 at the end. But the Gonçalves Life, no. 73, says: “more or less, he came there about February, in the year, as he himself (the holy Father) reckons, 1528.” After Father Ignatius Pien had sent hither from our Roman archive a copious harvest of Ignatian documents; he afterward made an accession of some of these monuments pertaining to the same subject, which therefore I shall indicate by the name of the Roman gleaning. In it I find certain copies, which the praised Father prefaced with his own hand, from a manuscript book of our archive in folio, and five fingers thick: whose title is, The letters of St. Ignatius. In the said gleaning, then, is had a copy of one letter, which St. Ignatius wrote in Spanish at Paris on the 3rd day of March in the year 1528, to his sister in Christ our Lord, as he calls her, Paschal, of which letter the original, as is ascribed to our copy, exists in our college of Sassari in Sardinia: from which letter I excerpt these things pertinent to our matter, and render them into Latin: “In a prosperous time and with entire health of my person .. I arrived at this city of Paris,

ON THE SECOND DAY of February, where I attend to my studies, until the Lord determine otherwise concerning me.” Where thou seest the day of the holy Father's arrival in the city of Paris noted more distinctly than above, clearly marked by the Saint himself. And so much of the time.

[141] He frequents there the college of Montaigu. Now of the place which, for the sake of Latinity, he frequented at Paris. Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 1, has thus: “At Paris he first delivered himself, in the gymnasium of Montaigu, to good teachers of Latinity to be reformed, and in that study spent nearly two years.” This college he frequented, but never inhabited: for Maffei, book 1, chapter 18, writes these things: “Therefore he did not disdain to go daily to the college of Montaigu, and there, among troops of insolent boys, a Man already of mature age, to repeat the rudiments of Grammar.” These things are confirmed from the Gonçalves Life, which at the said no. 73 narrates these: “At Paris he dwelt with certain Spaniards, and heard the lectures of humaner literature which were given in the college of Montaigu. For since he had been hastily promoted to higher studies, he returned to these lower ones, when he had perceived that he was very much destitute of foundations. And so together with the boys he studied after the Paris fashion.”

[142] whence there was born a certain absurd fable, That place gave occasion to a certain very absurd invention. I explain the matter. Bulaeus, in the History of the University of Paris, volume 6, page 948, describing the author of the invention, says: “John Bolese, commonly Bouleze, who in the Rectorial records is said to have been sworn in the year 1551, Carpentier being rector, though he calls himself a priest and citizen of Laon, contended with John Margot, bachelor of theology, concerning the headship of the college of Montaigu: for being absent, when he had set out for Rome, he was elected head on the 20th of August of the year 1571. But Margot, Bolese being absent, was elected three days after; yet at last, the suit being long agitated, came off victor. And he says that he, from the college of the Lombards, where he taught the elements of the Hebrew tongue, was taken into the bosom of the poor masters, although he had never lived even one day with the poor disciples. He composed a book concerning the victory of the body of Christ obtained in 1566 over Beelzebub *, and professes himself professor of Hebrew letters, and perpetual poor man of the college of Montaigu.”

[143] by the author John Bolese, To this book he prefixed a letter to Gregory XIII, in which he ascribes the origin of the Jesuit Society to his college; and from which Bulaeus narrates the matter, some things being drawn from its very context in his own words to this end. But I transcribe hither the absurd context itself, copied from our Roman archive by Father Ignatius Pien. It has thus: “I rejoice indeed that those priests who are called by the name of the Society of Jesus have now done much throughout almost the whole world. But it is troublesome to me that it should be hidden from men WHENCE they drew their origin, and how THEY EFFECTED THIS. For in truth they drew the origin of their piety and doctrine in the community of the poor of this our college of Montaigu, restored by our good Father Standonck, or Standon. From which, ALLEGING the austerity of it and OF ITS STATUTES, and taking it ill, as they said, that the intention of the founders was not observed, THERE WENT OUT IN ONE DAY FOURTEEN MEN OF THE FIRST PIETY AND DOCTRINE, CARRYING WITH THEM THE STATUTES AND OUR Bull; WHICH THEY MIGHT REDUCE INTO TRUE PRACTICE. Certainly it is most wretched to make a loss of the substance, and to expect an accident subsisting, or to wish to attain the end, yet without a disposed means and principle. The foundation is the intention that piety be restored: and the means and principle to this end is destroyed; that is, good men, and the temporal good: contrary to the statutes, and the institution of the founders, upright and learned men are ejected, who are to be retained by all means, who both conserve the temporal good, nourish the body, and instruct the mind in piety, doctrine, and virtue. O judgment of men!”

[144] “There went out, therefore, in one day fourteen. And hence they took the name of the Society of Jesus by a threefold reason. thrust into the light: The first indeed from the etymology of the most sacred name of Jesus, that is, Savior, who is the ultimate end of our statutes, immediately manifestly demonstrated in the Prologue of the same statutes in these words: ‘That, girded with the testimony of a good conscience, and literature proved through their life, the faithful of God may become cooperators with God for saving souls everywhere perishing.’ But the second from that same most sacred name IHS, with the arms of the passion set over the court of our lower chapel, as also is seen on the inner doors of the house. But the third, because according to the statutes the college is one of the imitation of Christ. For, as is seen in most clear words in the Bull, the number of the first institution, of poor men to be instructed for saving souls everywhere perishing, or for the gain of souls, is in the number of the holy Apostles and disciples of the Lord under the most benign Savior and His Virgin Mother, namely eighty-six, at the least: and its feast is the Division of the Apostles.”

[145] “But on occasion of these fourteen poor men falling away from and going out of the community, as though forsooth the Society the Lord Natalis Beda, the second Head, and the rest of the poor of the community and superiors, writing that they had found by experiment that the aforesaid statutes, on account of their too great austerity both in food and nightly vigil, and in various corporal and spiritual occupations, so tended to the desolation of the said college, that hitherto no one who had begun that manner of living had been able to persevere in it: obtained a Brief for changing our statutes, whensoever, from the counsel of three discreet men, it should be expedient, for having perpetual men, who should perpetually maintain such a congregation or college of poor men to the honor of God. Although it was already had in the Bull. But the matter remained undone: because the aforesaid Beda took care to have burned the first of the heretics or Lutherans: whence at last, an exile of Christ, he died on Mont-Saint-Michel.”

[146] “Whatever, therefore, of the knowledge of God and of obedience to Thy Holiness has been prepared in the new world and elsewhere by the priests of the Society of the name IHS, in truth took its beginning among the poor of Thy most poor college of Montaigu .. This our college, situated on Mont-Sainte-Geneviève, had taken its beginning at Paris on Montaigu. is called of Montaigu from the founder, D. Peter of Montaigu, bishop, Cardinal of Laon .. From the surname, therefore, of the lord bishop Cardinal of Laon, the college of the poor is called of Montaigu. Whence went out the first of those who compose the Society of the name of Jesus. Indeed, as much grace as God the Best and Greatest shall have given me, I too will endeavor that our statutes, so holy, be reduced into true practice,” etc. And these things thus far from the preface of Bolese. But does that unpolished fabulist dream sleeping what he writes waking? Does he so trifle in a matter so serious as is the institute of the Society, whose sole and only author is Ignatius? Was he so carried away by insolence, that in the public sight of the whole world, and indeed a few years after the death of St. Ignatius, according to what we have said from Bulaeus, he dares to make a pretense, and to thrust upon the supreme Vicar of Christ on earth an ill-dressed little bundle of falsities? Vast, indeed, either confidence or ignorance! But let us sprinkle upon that ill-employed man a little salt from the document of confutation, which I transcribe hither from the describer praised above:

[147] The confutation of that fable, “Hitherto in confirmation of his opinion Bolese could bring forward nothing, except a certain writing of the year 1510, in which there is treatment of moderating the austerity of life instituted eight years before by D. Standon: to which end, among other things, it is set forth that in that year fourteen went out of the college. But they are not said either to have been such as Bolese describes, nor to have departed together on the same day, nor to have gone out to procure the salvation of souls with a Bull and statutes. On the contrary we object, that our first Institutor, whom he approves to have been Father Ignatius, came to Paris in the year 1528, that is 18 years after that time. That he and his companions did not depart from Paris before the year 1536: and this we prove from the History of Surius, the Apology of Payva, the Book on the origin of religious orders of Paul Maurice of Milan, and from the Life of our Father himself, and the Bulls by which in the year 1540 the Society is approved. Likewise that neither he, nor any of his companions, ever dwelt in the college of Montaigu, either among the poor or among the rich; but that our Father himself heard the course of philosophy in the college of St. Barbara, his fellow-students and roommates being Father Faber and Francis Xavier, to whom there came from Spain in 1532 James Laínez and Alfonso Salmeron, as also Simon Rodríguez, and Nicholas Bobadilla.”

[148] by a writing composed not many years after. “That three of those first ten of our Fathers still live, Salmeron, Rodríguez, and Bobadilla: which could not be, if already in the year 1510 they had been men of the first piety and literature, as Bolese says: which could not happen unless they had reached the twenty-fifth or thirtieth year.” Hence appears the antiquity of this confutation; which must have been composed not many years after the Bolesian dreams, certainly not composed after the year 1579: since in that year Simon Rodríguez died, from the History of our Society, part 4, book 7, no. 280. By this confutation also is overthrown the petulant satire which the author of the book entitled The New Ishmael adorned from the re-cooked cabbage of Bolesian absurdity, from page 51. See also to what refuse Bulaeus sends the reader, when in the cited volume, page 945, the origin of the Society being set forth, he adds, page 946: “This is the rise of the Jesuits.” See however below what we say of John Bolese. But now to other matters.

[149] To those things which we gave above from Maffei concerning the frequenting of the college of Montaigu, there is subjoined to what exercises of piety the Saint gave himself. His exercises of piety, “At the same time also,” he says, “concerning the fixed time of prayer, and the vexation of his little body, he diminished much, that more leisure and strength might remain for study; yet so that he never omitted those three things especially: the first, that he should daily be religiously present at the sacrifice of the Mass: the second, that every eighth day, after the Sacrament of penance, he should refresh himself with the heavenly bread: the last, that twice daily he should as diligently as possible review his words, deeds, and thoughts of that day, and, comparing today with yesterday, week with week, and month with month, should most accurately explore and weigh his progresses or regresses in spirit.” The procuring also of the salvation of others, and the established custom of dealing with his neighbors, so long as he attended to letters, and especially philosophy, he in some part relaxed, yet never wholly laid aside.

[150] For the rest, in attending to Latin letters in the said gymnasium he spent nearly two years, the time and place of his humaner studies from Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 1. Maffei, book 1, chapter 19, restricts the time to nearly eighteen months. Ribadeneira, in the Spanish Life published at Madrid in the year 1594, book 2, chapter 1, defines it from the beginning of February of the year 1528, up to the renewal

of the studies in the year 1529, which at Paris is kept on the 1st day of October, sacred to St. Remigius. Money being deposited by the Saint with another, but spent by him on his own uses, it came to pass (I give the words of the Gonçalves Life, from no. 73) “that, Lent being over, nothing more was left to the Pilgrim .. He was therefore compelled to seek his food by begging, nay even to leave the house in which he was. He was then admitted into the hospice of St. James beyond the temple of the Innocents; not without loss of his studies, because the hospice was distant at a long interval from the college, and it was besides necessary to return in the evening before the angelic salutation; otherwise he would not have been admitted, nor was it allowed to go out in the morning before light.”

[151] Father Dominic Bouhours, book 2 of the Life of St. Ignatius, calls that place saint Jaques de l'hospital, Certain notes concerning the hospice, where the Spaniards were admitted; first founded, as he will have it, by Charlemagne for the pilgrims of St. James, when Spain was freed from the domination of the Saracens. The same place designates as the Saint's lodging a certain recent French Legend-writer, in the Lives of the Saints, volume 2, column 468; but he says that it is had from Maffei that the hospice into which Ignatius received himself existed in the Paris suburb, near the University, and that it was called the hospice of St. James. Whence he would have it very probably established that the Saint was admitted not into St. James de l'hospital, in the Dionysian street; but into St. James du Haut-pas, in the southern Paris suburb: that it is likewise established that the house where the ancient church of this St. James was, was in the time of St. Ignatius a hospice, etc. But the text of Maffei contradicts him, book 1, chapter 19, clearly teaching that the Saint's lodging was very far removed from the University and the academic schools.

[152] “The third part (of the city of Paris),” he says, “from the time of Charlemagne dedicated to the Muses, is named the University. into which the Saint received himself at Paris. In this, besides the rest of the crowd of inhabitants, the scholastics chiefly dwell, and there are reckoned there very many colleges of free access, each with its own disciples and Doctors of the liberal arts, and a prefect of the college, whom they call the head. Therefore from that vicinity into the hospice of St. James, which is FAR THENCE in the suburb, Ignatius, compelled by extreme necessity, at SO GREAT AN INTERVAL OF PLACES,” etc. Du Breul, in the Theater of Paris antiquities, book 2, which is concerning the part of the city called the University, page 576, treats of the hospice of St. James du Haut-pas, then of the abbey of St. Maclou; but of the college of Montaigu, in the same place, page 671; and finally of the foundation of the church and hospice of St. James To the Pilgrims, in the Dionysian street, book 3, which is concerning the city of Paris, page 684; but I find there no foundation of that place before the fourteenth century. For the rest, the hospice of St. James beyond the temple of the Innocents, to conclude the foregoing, I leave to be determined by the curious inhabitants of the city of Paris, who have more leisure and opportunity for inspecting minutiae of this kind more closely than I have.

* read: Beelzebub or Beelzebul.

§ XVI. His excursion into Belgium; a prophecy uttered at Antwerp; a public infamy at Paris turned to the great praise of the Saint; the reduction of heretics; the earlier inconstant companions.

Ignatius, therefore, laboring under want of all things, and cast down from the hope of relieving it, Ignatius, to whom someone had in vain raised a scruple about begging, because he could not carry into execution the counsel which he had taken for that purpose, as may be seen in the Life, where this did not succeed, on the testimony of Ribadeneira, entered upon another more convenient way. The matter being diligently commended to the Lord in prayer, following the counsel of a certain religious man, he determined to go to Belgium each year, that from the Spanish merchants, wealthy men, who trafficked in that province, he might gather some money for his expenses, and, by the loss of a few days, redeem the perturbation of all his studies. Nor did he otherwise than he determined: for in the first and second year he set out into Belgic Gaul; in the third he even made an excursion into England, with excellent success, as the Life testifies in the same place. “But that matter,” says Bartoli, book 1, no. 36, “displeased John Madera, who was a compatriot of Ignatius, and believed it a disgrace to the Loyolas, as if their wealth were so diminished that they could not, or they so sordidly stingy that they would not, assist a kinsman. Wherefore he once busily strove to cast a scruple upon Ignatius of a manifest injury to his own people, whose fame he was thus wearing away, of which he himself was not master; and in this John stuck so pertinacious, that by no reasonings of Ignatius could he be led away from that error. He therefore gave in writing a question to be examined by some of the chief Doctors of the Sorbonne, whether a noble man, having abdicated the world for the love of Christ, could, without disgrace to his people, seek alms everywhere? Whose one and consenting answer—namely that there was in it no suspicion of fault—he exhibited to John, not indeed so much a defender of himself, as of voluntary poverty, which, ennobled by the love and example of Christ, does not obscure even royal families.”

[154] He makes for Antwerp and Bruges to seek alms. That Ignatius, therefore, in the Paris academy destitute of the necessary supports for prosecuting his studies, made an excursion to Antwerp and Bruges, most flourishing and opulent cities at that time, for the sake of collecting alms, is related by the testimonies of writers; of Orlandini first, who records that he was at Antwerp, book 1, no. 66; of Bartoli, book 1, no. 37; of Carnoli, chapter 10; of Garcia, book 2, chapter 11, who add Bruges to the city of Antwerp. What of this, that that excursion to each of the said cities of our Belgium is put quite beyond doubt from Ribadeneira himself, who in his second edition of the Life of our holy Father, printed in the Spanish idiom at Madrid in the year 1594 at Peter Madrigal, book 2, chapter 1, page 51, clearly names each of those cities? And that he came to Antwerp, he again testifies in the shorter Life, chapter 17. If the author of the Carmelite Prodromus, Reverend Friar Valentine of St. Amand, had seen these texts of Ribadeneira, he would have expressed otherwise, nay let us say more rightly, suppressed, what he has in article 10, no. 143, page 126.

[155] Francis Sacchini, in the apologetic preface prefixed to the first part of the History of our Society, treating of the excursions during the time of his sojourn at Paris, [At Bruges he is kindly received by Ludovicus Vives, and by the lodging of another.] instructs us of a certain singular fact, which he writes befell St. Ignatius at Bruges in these words: “When he had once come to Bruges, he was invited to a banquet by Ludovicus Vives, a man of illustrious erudition and fame. And after the banquet Vives said of him to his companions that he was a holy man, and would without doubt found some religious Order. Which some of the hearers soon reported to Ignatius himself, and, being betrayed by Ignatius for a sure cause, John Polanco left it in writing.” Besides, in a Manuscript of our college of Bruges, entitled Certain Supplements to the history of the college of Bruges, I found these things: “St. Ignatius … was received in hospitality at Bruges by Gonçalo Aguilleres, a Spanish merchant (a man of the first authority and zeal, being an excellent defender and preserver of the temple of the Augustinian Fathers there from the fury of the Belgian Iconoclasts). Who first most kindly cherished the poor man of Christ; then looked up to him as a friend and holy man, and intimately cultivated him.., and so the holy love of Gonçalo toward Ignatius grew, that he himself, having once set out for Paris, business requiring it, that he might not be deprived of the friendly intimacy of the Man, used the same chamber for some months with our holy Father.”

[156] This our most splendid city of Antwerp, while he was there, At Antwerp he utters a signal prophecy: the holy Man adorned with a prediction, as Ribadeneira testifies in his shorter Life, chapter 17. Receive the series of the matter from him: “When,” he says, “from Paris he had come into Belgium, to seek borrowed money for sustaining his life, as we said, and had been invited by certain merchants to feast with them at Antwerp; a certain youth was among them, a little separated from the rest, Peter Quadrado by name, born at Medina del Campo; upon whom, having cast his eyes, he bade him approach nearer. For, he said, since he would in future deserve exceedingly well of the Society of Jesus, it was fitting that they should already then contract friendship, and that he should know himself greatly bound to God, because He had chosen him to establish one day a college for the Society of Jesus. Which, as he foretold it many years before the foundations of the Society were laid, so it was found by the event that the prediction was true. For after a long interval that Peter Quadrado, and the lady Francisca Manga *, his wife, built at Medina del Campo a college of the Society.” The credit of Ribadeneira in this prophecy is vindicated by our Father Julius Nigroni, in the posthumous Historical disputation concerning our holy Father, and concerning Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, page 64. Moreover, of Peter Quadrado in the Life of Father James Laínez, rendered into Latin from the Spanish of Ribadeneira by our Father Andrew Schott, book 2, chapter 3, it is thus said: “That man, while he trafficked at Antwerp, a mart by far the most celebrated of the Aduatici, had kindly helped with alms Ignatius of Loyola giving his labor to studies at Paris.” Consult likewise below, paragraph 34, no. 346.

[157] where his lodging-house is shown. To this is added, that among the people of Antwerp, in the New Long street, commonly de Langhe nieuwstraet, opposite the side gate, which looks toward the South, of the church of the collegiate St. James, there is shown a house in which the Saint is said to have once lodged; this tradition, everywhere there most received, and the common persuasion of the citizens, being confirmed by an inscription which is subscribed to an image of St. Ignatius, exposed for public veneration in the corner of the frontispiece of the aforesaid house, in this manner:

TO ST. IGNATIUS,

OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, FOUNDER,

ONCE LODGED IN THIS HOUSE,

This is Sacred.

Add from the Image of the first century of our Society, book 6, chapter 5, page 854: “That the Saint lodged at Antwerp in the house of John Cuellar, and was wont to be invited to supper with great courting and pious contention by the chief of the merchants, many even today record, who often heard their parents narrating it.” But that this house was the same as that of which we spoke a little before, is established from the testimony of our John Bolland, which will elsewhere be produced by us, §34, no. 346, whom I just now cited. These things concerning the Saint's excursion into Belgium being thus set forth, now Paris calls us back.

[158] Concerning the public punishment of rods which impended over the Saint, Having first returned from Flanders (as the Life taken down from the mouth of the holy Father by Luis Gonçalves, no. 77, says) “he began to attend more earnestly to spiritual intimacies and conversations, and at nearly the same time imparted the Exercises to three: to Peralta, to the bachelor Castro, who dwelt at the Sorbonne, and to a certain Cantabrian, who stayed in the college of St. Barbara, Amador by name. These made great changes in their life, and immediately distributed whatever they had, even their books, among the poor: and they themselves began to live by begging,” etc. And at no. 78 there follows: “Vast rumors arose at Paris against the Pilgrim (that is, Ignatius), especially among the Spaniards, and from the master

our de Govea; who said that he had reduced to madness Amador, who stayed in his college. He so determined, and said, that as soon as he should come into the college of St. Barbara, he would be publicly flogged—what the Parisians call ‘to give the hall’—as a seducer of the scholastics.” Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 3, narrates how he was freed from the peril of the rods; where he also reviews the cause why he had incurred it: namely that out of the number of his fellow-students Ignatius persuaded many to break off intimacies contracted rather by the enticement of pleasures than by the conjunction of studies and virtue; to attend diligently to piety and religion on feast days, and to receive duly the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist. Wherefore it happened that they were sometimes absent, on those days, from the appointed schools of letters.

[159] against Bulaeus A great crime indeed, Bulaeus, which thou so imputest to the holy Man, page 945, saying: “Since on feast days he snatched his fellow-students from the schools and the repetitions then wont to be made, into the church to the worship of God, and so diverted them from the duty of studying and from observing the laws of the academy,” etc. But Bulaeus does not prove: 1. that he called his companions away from their duty. 2. that he diverted them from the observation of the academic laws. And since he proves neither; and neither ought to be presumed of our Saint, then already most perfect, Bulaeus might have abstained from that cold epilogue, which in these words, “Therefore, that Ignatius might escape this punishment, he approached Govea, and forestalled him,” he soon subjoins, “and, his innocence being proved, if he did not merit praise for having SINNED against the rules, at least he obtained impunity.” So then, at least impunity, not praise? But Bulaeus could have learned the opposite from Maffei, and from that very book 1, chapter 20, from which he relates some things: for Govea, as may there be read, “led Ignatius into the hall .. There, silence being enjoined, suddenly, against the expectation of all, he set up a discourse concerning the PRAISES of Ignatius, extolling the man's fortitude, innocence, charity: vehemently accusing himself and the others who had contrived the peril for the innocent man .., at last, tears starting, he fell at Ignatius's knees, and, having prayed pardon for his fault, both restored him among the rest into admiration and favor, and himself in all his after life embraced Ignatius and his companions with a special love and zeal.” These things, I say, if he had read through the aforesaid chapter to the end, Bulaeus could have learned from Maffei.

[160] A certain more recent smatterer, of the Calvinist, or perhaps of no, religion, and concerning another, some things are observed. in his French Historical and Critical Dictionary, to be devoted to eternal darkness, volume 2, page 1846, brings forward the words of some Calvinist, in which it is asserted that Ignatius not only asked of his teacher that he should receive him with rods, no otherwise than the other disciples, when he did not learn his lessons; but was even in fact received with rods; and that these things happened at Paris in the college of Montaigu, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. How many and how great lies in a few words, so openly absurd that they do not merit to be refuted! These even the said author of the Dictionary himself does not adopt, but rather refutes, although otherwise so great a rhapsodist of filth. “In this manner,” says Ribadeneira in the shorter Life, chapter 7, “Ignatius being freed from peril and infamy, his integrity was recognized, and a great accession was made to the esteem of his name. Nay even the head of the college, James Govea, a Portuguese by nation, a doctor both erudite and holy, thereafter embraced him, and all his sons, with so great benevolence, that chiefly by his authority John III, king of Portugal, sent Fathers of the Society of Jesus into India, who, traversing those vast and distant lands, and imbuing the minds of the barbarians with faith and leading them to the worship of God, brought forth most abundant fruits.” So great a good did God draw out of this most slight occasion, most full of disgrace and ignominy. Of the public esteem of the holy Man from this deed, and of the disposition toward him of his teacher, who had been the author of this storm, and also of the first teachers of the University, Moscoso and Vallius; Bartoli treats, book 1, no. 40. Before the rest, however, as he adds, a certain Martial, professor of theology, clung to him with an intimate closeness, and, being wont to be instructed by him concerning the great secrets of divine things, easily brought his mind to believe that he had learned by heavenly teaching these things which no pulpits on earth sounded: and went so far that he wished to confer on him the insignia of Doctor of theology to be delivered before he had run through the course of arts.

[161] To the things illustriously done by the Saint at Paris in Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 1, The Saint well deserving of the Catholic religion at Paris. and the three next following; as also book 5, chapters 2 and 10, we add these things from the Ecclesiastical Annals of Odorico Rinaldi, volume 20, at the year of Christ 1534, where he thus writes: “Moreover this year at Paris public writings began to be affixed by night against the Eucharist; but by King Francis such nefarious attempts were repressed, as will be said next year. St. Ignatius Loyola was then giving his labor to theology in the same city, and, inflamed with zeal to defend the faith, bestowed all diligence on recalling into the bosom of the Church those contaminated with heresy.” And a few things being interposed, he alleges this passage of Maffei, book 1, chapter 21: “Several heretics, the Lutheran plague now spreading, being convicted by timely disputations and admonitions, he willingly led to the sacred tribunals of the Inquisitors, and by a secret abjuration restored them into favor with the holy Roman Church.” Of the excellent endowments of the most holy Parent for binding to himself the minds of men, and for leading them back to better fruit, I do not transcribe what Maffei commemorates in the cited place.

[162] Some of his companions did not persevere. And indeed the rare supports both of his nature and of grace shone forth greatly in the companions whom he chose to himself at Paris: concerning whom, before I treat, I suggest that there be inspected, concerning his first associates, taken up before by him (namely Calixtus, Artiaga, Cazeres, and little John), the Gonçalves Life of the holy Father, nos. 58 and 80; likewise Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 4; Maffei, book 1, chapter 16, and book 2, chapter 1; and Orlandini, book 1, no. 52; from whom I subjoin these things: “John .., an adolescent .., who, as he was younger in age, so was more advanced in wisdom and mind, lest, after justice was recognized, with the peril of salvation ascertained, he should be turned backward, hid himself in the cloisters of the monks.” But Bartoli, book 1, no. 38, records these things of Cazeres: “Taken and bound as a spy,” he says, “in England, then in France, and in the camp of Charles V, twice indeed he barely escaped the noose, but once he was so distorted by dire tortures that thereafter he drew out a most wretched life.” These, then, the Lord had not chosen as helpers to Ignatius for founding the fabric of the Society of Jesus; as neither the three others, namely Castro, Peralta, and Amador, joined to him at Paris, of whom Orlandini thus, book 1, no. 67: “Yielding to the time, until they should put an end to their studies, they deferred their purpose of evangelical perfection.” That was, as it were, another premature offspring of Ignatius's companions, and not vital: for although all led their life laudably and piously; yet no one remained in his discipline and society.

* elsewhere: Manson.

§ XVII. The first, of whom the Society of Jesus coalesced; eulogies; the degrees of licentiate and mastership in Arts.

The first companion constant to Ignatius Of the companions Ribadeneira treats, book 2, chapter 4, but sparingly and restrictedly enough. Let us hear Maffei, book 1, chapter 21: “But now,” he says, “what had at the beginning been his chief purpose, that he should aggregate to his institute and manner of life some men distinguished in genius and doctrine; on this very thing he bent himself especially during the time of theology; and joined to himself, God well helping, nine young men, the choicest of the whole academy. Of whom the first was Peter Faber.” His eulogy Ribadeneira has, book 3, chapter 11. But his genius, joined with a signal erudition in philosophy, Maffei commends; on whose report, being led over from a pastoral life to letters, he had so profited by genius and industry that in the more difficult passages of Aristotle master Penna himself consulted him.

[164] How the holy Father gradually won him to himself in a friendly way, Peter Faber; diligently instructed him in piety, and afterward finally polished him fruitfully with the spiritual Exercises, see in Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 4, cited; so, as Maffei adds, inclined to penance, and kindled with so great an ardor of soul, that in the depth of winter, the river Seine being frozen with ice and pressed by carts with impunity, in a separate little house of the St. James street he performed the proposed meditations, and indeed sitting on the snow under the open sky, and abstained for six whole days from all food and drink whatever, being about to protract the fast even longer, had not Ignatius, having noticed it, and having consulted God as a suppliant, forbidden him. Thus he. There may be consulted what the eulogy just designated has, and Bartoli, book 2, chapter 1. There exists his Life, translated from the Latin of Father Nicholas Orlandini into the Italian idiom by Erminio Tacito. St. Francis de Sales praises Faber, part 2, chapter 16 of the Introduction to the devout life.

[165] The second companion who came to Ignatius was St. Francis Xavier, the second St. Francis Xavier; whom to have merely named would be enough, being most known throughout the whole world for apostolic labors and miracles, and mentioned in various places in the Life by Ribadeneira. He, though familiar in intimacy, as is there said, book 2, chapter 4, was yet in the beginning more alien in mind; but he at last could by no means withstand the force of the spirit speaking in Ignatius. These things Maffei thus expresses: “From the same lodging Francis Xavier also, a noble Cantabrian (when the said author, as also Bulaeus, History of the University of Paris, volume 6, page 945, ought to have said a Navarrese), and the same of no vulgar erudition; inasmuch as, having been given the master's laurel at Paris, he afterward became a public interpreter of Aristotle, although in the beginning so little studious of Ignatius, that he even wantonly derided his piety, as happens; yet was so soothed both by the Man's patience and by his services, that he wholly betook himself to his leadership and disposal.”

[166] Xavier, moreover, was followed by James Laínez, from Almazán, a town in the kingdom of Castile, of the diocese of Sigüenza. whom James Laínez followed, His Life Ribadeneira published. Brief is that eulogy of the man in Bartoli, book 2, no. 3: “This is that James Laínez, who, illustrious for labors scattered over Europe and Africa for the Church of God; who, theologian of the Pontiff, present at the Council of Trent, often merited admiration; who, having constantly refused the sacred purple offered him by Paul IV, could not avoid being judged by the Society, after Ignatius's death, most like him, and being set over it as General: and what shines more augustly among so many praises, being held equal to governing the world, he withdrew himself from that burden by a modest self-abasement and flight: when twelve Cardinals in a secret sitting concerning the successor of Paul IV attempted to impose this upon him, by an example rare in histories.”

of calling a man to the pontificate whom neither the honor of the mitre nor of the purple had before adorned. His Life, written in Spanish by Ribadeneira, our Andrew Schott gave Latinity and published in print.

[167] To Ignatius there also joined himself as a companion Alfonso Salmeron, Alfonso Salmeron. Simon Rodríguez, Nicholas Bobadilla. most illustrious for apostolic labors, erudition, and writings. The deeds done by him Ribadeneira annexed to the Life of James Laínez, with whom he lived most closely joined, and had many things in common; which, from the Spanish, the same Schott, quoted above, published in Latin. “There were added also to Ignatius,” says Ribadeneira, “Simon Rodríguez and Nicholas Bobadilla:” of whom the latter, of Palencia, in Maffei, is said to be a learned youth, and to have publicly professed philosophy in the town of Spain called Valladolid; but the former a Portuguese of excellent disposition. More concerning them Bartoli will give, book 1, no. 3. Of the three others, who afterward were added to them at Paris, account will be taken below. Upon this foundation, then, whose corner-stone was Christ Jesus, with beginnings slender indeed for the great fabric which afterward followed, the Society of Jesus began gradually to be formed and founded.

[168] A catalogue found by Petau, and sent to Rome, Among our Roman monuments I find a writing noted with this title: From the letters of Father Denis Petau to Father Stephen Charlet at Paris, the 28th of July 1635; by which writing we are instructed concerning the degrees of Arts conferred on Ignatius and his companions. He thus records: “When lately I had betaken myself, about to celebrate Mass, to St. Geneviève's, I fell upon a certain paper, in which were reviewed the names of the masters in Arts in the time of our holy Father Ignatius, with the four examiners of each licentiate, and in it I found written the names of most of our first Fathers. I judged that I should do a thing not a little pleasing to our Reverend Father General and to Your Reverence, if I should send their catalogue drawn from the autograph: in which it is to be noted that the masters in Arts are distinguished into four classes of nations, namely of France, Picardy, Normandy, and Germany. Under the nation of France are comprised Spaniards, Navarrese, Portuguese, etc. In the margin is noted the college in which they lived. I have besides added the order which each held in the licentiate. Besides, it is to be known that at that time the year was wont to be begun from Easter; so that the year which is there marked (as is now the usage) pertains to the next following year. For example: Simon Rodríguez was made master in Arts in the year 1535, the 14th of March, on Tuesday; it must be reckoned for the year 1536, in which the Dominical letter was B. A., so that the 14th of March was Tuesday: and so of the others, where the day is noted with the feria, which is not everywhere found. Besides, Peter Faber is found twice, and I know not which of the two is our Father. Father Broët is called Dominus, because he was a priest.”

[169] he marks the degree of promotion of St. Ignatius, “That word Lexo. signifies the college of Lisieux; Cal., of Calvi; Ceno., of Le Mans .. By this paper the lord Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld was greatly delighted: certainly I was suffused with a certain singular feeling of joy, which will affect also, as I think, Your Reverence, and the rest of our Fathers and brothers who shall read this catalogue. And perhaps also this will apply no small goads to Your Reverence, to procure, at the request of the lord Cardinal, from the sacred Congregation of Rites, the approbation of the Office of St. Geneviève: since especially by the divine favor it came to pass that in the church of that great Saint, and in the sight of her relics, and one of her religious admitting them, two of our holy Fathers, and all the rest, obtained their degree.” These things being prefixed, there is subjoined in the same place the following catalogue: “In the nation of France ...... he was in order ...”

[171] From these we are instructed concerning the degree of licentiate, as they call it, and mastership. of Ignatius and his companions in Arts. But as regards the mastership of Arts; concerning it, among the said Roman monuments, Father Ignatius Pien noted these things: “St. Ignatius and his companions were made masters of Arts at Paris, according to the original testimonies of the Rector and University of Paris, given to all severally, which,” he says, “I diligently consulted.” And soon he proceeds:

“According to the original testimony given 1536, the 3rd of October; which, since it has always been kept here among the testimonies of St. Ignatius's other companions, it is established that our Father Faber was made master at the time here designated; namely: Peter Faber, of the diocese of Geneva, 1536 after Easter.”

“According to the original testimony given 1534, the 14th of March: Ignatius of Loyola, 1534 after Easter.”

“According to the original testimony given 1536, the 3rd of October: Claude Jay, 1536 after Easter.”

“According to the original testimony given 1534, the 4th of September: John Codure, 1535 before Easter.”

“According to the original testimony given 1536, the 3rd of October: Alfonso Salmeron, 1536 after Easter. Nicholas Alfonso de Bobadilla, 1536 after Easter.”

“James Laínez, made master of Arts at Alcalá, 1532, the 26th of October, as is clear from the original testimony of the Rector and University of Alcalá.”

[172] Certain things said above are confirmed from Bulaeus, who, in the History of the University of Paris, volume 6, Some things are confirmed from elsewhere. page 946, writes: “1534 .. Ignatius was MADE MASTER in Arts .., two years before LICENSED in the same, namely the 13th of March 1532.” Page 935: “Francis Xavier, otherwise Xabiere, a Cantabrian (it ought to have been said, a Navarrese), on the 15th day of March in the year 1529 was LICENSED in Arts.” In the same place, from the Rectorial Records of the year 1536, he cites these words: “D. Nicholas Alfonso de Bobadilla .. about to incept (that is, to obtain the degree of mastership) under M. Francis Xavier.” Here it becomes plain that the Catalogue sent by Petau treats only of the Licentiate, not of the Mastership of Arts: which in the Canonical Hours of the Saint is affirmed of all his nine Companions.

[173] Concerning the mastership of our holy Parent there was sent to us the following testimony, from the parchment copy Testimony concerning St. Ignatius's mastership in Arts. which is kept in our Roman archive, copied out in these words: “To all who shall inspect the present letters, the Rector and University of the study of Paris, greeting in Him who is the true salvation of all. Since all worshipers of the Catholic faith are bound both by natural equity and by the precept of the divine law to bear faithful testimony to the truth: much more is it fitting that ecclesiastical men, professors of various sciences, who scrutinize the truth in all things, and instruct and inform others in it, should thus by neither love nor favor, nor any other occasion whatever, deviate from the rectitude of truth and reason. Hence it is that we, in this part desiring to bear testimony to the truth, make known by the tenor of these presents to all and singular whom it concerns, that our beloved, discreet man, master Ignatius of Loyola, of the diocese of Pamplona, master in Arts, laudably and honorably obtained the degree of mastership in the illustrious Faculty of Arts at Paris, rigorous examinations having been diligently held beforehand in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-four after Easter, according to the statutes and customs of the aforesaid Faculty of Arts, with the solemnities accustomed in such matters. In testimony of which we have caused our great seal to be affixed to the present letters. Given at Paris in our general congregation solemnly celebrated at St. Mathurin, in the aforesaid year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-four, on the fourteenth day of the month of March. le Roux.” Father Ignatius warns, however, that he cannot altogether clearly read the name, on account of the entangled flourishes of the letters. There is appended a great seal, impressed on Spanish red wax, and enclosed in white iron. In the gleaning of Roman documents sent to us by the same Father Ignatius Pien, mention is made of one letter of our holy Father from the manuscript book of our archive in folio, and five fingers thick, whose title is The Letters of St. Ignatius; which letter is said to have been written when he studied at Paris; and whose original is entirely autograph in the house of probation at Cagliari in Sardinia. From this letter, then, for the confirmation of what has been said concerning the time of St. Ignatius's licentiate, we have that he obtained it in Lent of the year 1533, in which at Paris he writes on the 13th of June: for by that phrase, me hize maestro, which is in the text, understand the licentiate, according to what has been said.

§ XVIII. His theological study at Paris; the Vows on Montmartre; his sojourn at Paris; his departure into Spain; a testimony.

The time of the theological studies of Ignatius and his companions St. Ignatius, James Laínez, Peter Faber, John Codure, Alfonso Salmeron, Claude Jay studied theology for a year and a half in the University of Paris. This is clear from the original testimony of the Dean and masters of the theological Faculty of Paris, given severally to all the aforenamed, on the same year and day, namely 1536, the 14th of October. The testimony given to St. Ignatius I exhibit below: the rest wholly similar to it; says Father Ignatius Pien among our Roman monuments. And that testimony, transcribed from the parchment, thus runs: “To all who shall inspect the present letters, the Dean, and the several masters of the Faculty of theology in the venerable, flourishing, and fruitful study of Paris, greeting in Him who is the true salvation of all. Since all worshipers of the Catholic faith are bound both by natural equity and by the precept of the divine law to bear faithful testimony to the truth; much more is it fitting that the masters, professors of sacred theology, who scrutinize the truth concerning divine things, and instruct and inform others in it; should thus by neither love, nor favor, nor any other occasion whatever, deviate from the rectitude of truth and reason.”

[175] “Since therefore it is truly established to us, not only by fame reporting, but by the evident declaration of the very thing, that our beloved, venerable, and discreet man, in the University of Paris, from his testimony: master Ignatius of Loyola, is master in Arts, and a student in sacred theology: wishing, as also it is incumbent on us, in this part to bear testimony to the truth; we make known by the tenor of these presents, both to the present and to those to come, that the aforesaid master Ignatius of Loyola studied for a year and a half in this same our Faculty. In testimony of which we have caused the seal of our aforesaid theological Faculty to be affixed to the present letters. Given at Paris in our general congregation solemnly celebrated at St. Mathurin, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-six, on the fourteenth day of the month of October. Pourmer is subscribed, so far as I can attain by reading,” says Pien. There is appended a great seal impressed on Spanish red wax, and enclosed in white iron.

[176] And these things are to be understood of the theological study in the University of Paris; [yet so that their theological training must be extended more widely from elsewhere.] for Ignatius, according to Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 1, the space of philosophy being run through, gave the remaining time, to the thirty-fifth year ending, to sacred theology. Luis Gonçalves had preceded him in the Life, thus relating: “Now then, the course (understand of Arts)

he had finished, and had spent some years in the study of theology.” Maffei, book 1, chapter 19, affirms these things: “After these things (namely after the philosophical laurel) he set upon sacred theology in the gymnasium of the Dominican monastery, with vast labor indeed and industry; since, besides his other lucubrations, in the raging of winter, he came daily in the morning before light to the schools, which are there held about that hour. And from that study he perceived so much, God helping, as was sufficient to render an account of his faith and doctrine, without any suspicion of novelty, from the decrees and authority of the Fathers.” So much of his studies.

[177] Concerning the place, time, persons, and nature of the vows made near Paris, Against the common opinion of the writers, Manare establishes and their confirmation or renewal, Ribadeneira instructs the reader, book 2, chapter 4; to whom add Orlandini, History of the Society, book 1, from no. 90; not to commemorate Maffei, book 1, chapter 21. Father Ignatius Pien drew and copied from the Roman archive singular notices bearing on the matter of which here is our discourse, from those which were collected by Oliver Manare concerning Father Peter Faber from his Diary or Book of Meditations; a copy of which, he says, I brought from the City, and left to the novitiate of Tournai, bound in quarto. There, then, these words are noted: “Father Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 4, says that our Blessed Father, with six companions, in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin on Montmartre, bound himself by vows of poverty to be instituted on an appointed day, and of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and of obedience to be rendered to the Apostolic See concerning Missions. But by constant tradition we always held at Paris, that they uttered together the vows of chastity and of poverty to be undertaken, on a day to be designated by themselves, on Montmartre. And for this reason those who had given their name to the Society were wont for many years afterward to go there, and to confess and communicate, and to renew their vows privately and secretly, as was then the custom. And at this celebration I was present once and again in the years 1548 and 1549. Afterward, when our men were gathered in the same house and family, namely in the Clermont house, we began to renew our vows together at home in the domestic chapel.” This tradition admits no difficulty, being conformable to the historical truth everywhere most known. The difficulty is in another tradition, which follows in that collection.

[178] from the Diary of Father Faber, which he cites, “To the Blessed Virgin, who is called in the Fields, in the suburbs of St. Germain, or certainly of St. Marcel, we were wont often to go for devotion's sake: because we had received by tradition that our blessed Fathers had there made two vows: namely of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and of obedience to be rendered to the supreme Pontiff at a time to be designated. And this Father Faber seems to insinuate in his Diary, thus saying: ‘In this same year, on the day of St. Mary in August, all of us who were then in the same determination and exercised (except M. Francis, who, though he was in the same determination, had not yet received the Exercises) on the same day, I say, we all went to St. Mary near Paris, that there each might make a vow of going to Jerusalem at a fixed time, and after returning thence, of placing himself under the obedience of the Roman Pontiff, and of beginning on an assigned day to leave parents and nets, except viaticum. And we who assembled this first time were: Ignatius, M. Francis, I Faber, M. Bobadilla, M. Laínez, M. Salmeron, M. Simon. Jay had not yet come to Paris in the same purpose. But M. John and Paschasius had not yet been won. And on the same day, in the two following years, we all went to the same place to confirm that determination, to which we found so often much spiritual increase. And there were in those years with us already M. Jay, M. John Codure, and M. Paschasius; all these, I say, in the last year were with us.’” Thus he. Thus Manare, from the Diary of Father Faber.

[179] [that the vows of St. Ignatius and the first fathers were uttered in two different places;] And soon, proceeding, the same Manare says: “That tradition alone, moreover, and the special devotion which was had for this cause to the temple of the Blessed Virgin in the Fields, and the frequenting of it by Our men for many years after, brought it about that I believed (as many others did) that the vows of chastity and of poverty were made on Montmartre in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin: but that the other two vows were made at St. Mary in the Fields. And indeed ordinarily the other place, called Montmartre .., is distant much farther from the city than the former. But it will be my Father Nicholas Orlandini's task to loose this knot. Let the Diary be seen, folio 3.” Father Ignatius Pien says: “In another copy, plainly similar to this, subscribed by the same Manare, these things are placed at the foot or end in this manner,” etc.; but what he extracts thence, it is not necessary to transcribe from the fragment sent hither. For this clause of Pien, subjoined in the same place, suffices; in which he thus speaks: “Thou seest that each copy agrees with the other, even in this matter, as to substance: although this same matter, in the copy which here on the opposite side,” he says, “I copied out whole, and which we have just given, is said more clearly and explicitly.” For the rest, what Manare here relates from tradition is simply, absolutely, and affirmatively set down in his Response to certain queries concerning the virtues and instructions of our Blessed Father, proposed to the same Father Manare by Nicholas Lancicius, a student of theology at Rome; as may be seen below, §86, part 3: where, to the thirty-fourth, these things are said: “In that other temple (of the Blessed Virgin, which has its name from the Fields) they had uttered the vows of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and of obedience to be rendered to the Pontiff concerning missions.”

[180] but we do not follow him But what Manare establishes concerning the two different places, in one of which two vows, in the other two others, were uttered, we by no means approve. 1. Because it fights with Ribadeneira and Orlandini, historians of most approved mark. 2. Because they dissent from the tradition of our elders, as is clear from the common sense of the Society. 3. Because this cannot be hammered out from the words of Faber, as we shall soon say. 4. Because from the words of Faber the opposite is rather persuaded. For those words of Faber, “We all went to St. Mary near Paris,” why do they indicate St. Mary in the Fields rather than the shrine of the Blessed Mary which is commonly called Montmartre, according to Ribadeneira in the cited place? Nay rather, why ought they not to be understood of this place, and not of that other? For grant that by those words is denoted the sacred shrine of St. Mary, which has its name from the Fields; now it will follow that the vow of poverty, besides the other two, was uttered in that place: which no one would admit: for neither, according to what Manare brought from Faber's Diary, is it only said that they went thither, that there each might make a vow of going to Jerusalem at a fixed time, and after returning thence, of placing himself under the obedience of the Roman Pontiff; but also of beginning on an assigned day to leave parents and nets, except viaticum. Where thou seest the vow of poverty expressed: which yet, from constant tradition, Manare always held to have been uttered on Montmartre, as is clear from what has been said above.

[181] But whether the tradition here in controversy drew its origin from this, that, as in the cited Response Manare relates, [in this opinion. An inscription on Montmartre: the ineptitudes of a certain monk.] “when the holy Father was sowing at Paris the seeds of the future Society, as I learned from Fathers worthy of faith,” he says, “on feast days and Sundays he was wont to betake himself to the temple of the Blessed Virgin (which has its name from the Fields) … that he might attend to prayer with his companions, and refresh himself more conveniently with the most sacred body of Christ;” whether hence, I say, that tradition was born, or from elsewhere; that in Manare's time indeed, and not many years after the deed, it existed at Paris, I believe: yet I do not judge that we should depart from the more common opinion concerning the vows of the first companions of St. Ignatius named as uttered in one place, Montmartre. There exists, moreover, this inscription in Bartoli, book 2, chapter 6: “To God, Best and Greatest. Stop, spectator: and in this sepulcher of the Martyrs read the cradle of an approved Order. The Society of Jesus, which acknowledges St. Ignatius Loyola as father, Paris as mother, was here born in the year of salvation 1534, on August 15: when Ignatius and his companions, having religiously conceived vows at the sacred Communion, consecrated themselves to God for ever, to the greater glory of God.” Argaiz shows abundantly and more than enough that he understood neither the nature of those vows nor the affairs of the Society, when in the History of Our Lady of Montserrat, chapter 46, no. 9, he will have it that on Montmartre profession was uttered by Ignatius and his companions. Nay indeed he goes to such a pitch of ineptitude that he does not fear to assert that the Jesuits elected Ignatius Superior General in the monastery of Montmartre. Than which what more unbecoming can be said?

[182] To these let us add from the Response of Manare cited above: The Saint's prayers on Montmartre: the time of his sojourn at Paris. “Outside the temple of those holy Martyrs, in a certain quarry from which stones are dug for preparing gypsum, I heard,” he says, “that our Blessed Father passed the night more than once in prayer.” His sojourn at Paris, according to what was said in §15, was begun at the beginning of the month of February in the year 1528, and, according to what is to be said a little below, his departure thence happened at the beginning of the year 1535: and so the holy Father stayed there about seven complete years; and incompletely perhaps eight; but not ten: and hence I cannot explain that phrase, “he fixed his foot for ten years at Paris”; which is noted in the transcript copy of the authentic testimony of the writings of Fathers Laínez, Salmeron, and Polanco concerning St. Ignatius; and which was transmitted hither to us from the archive there among the other Roman monuments. And so likewise I do not approve Surius, in the brief Commentary of things done in the world, at the year 1540, writing: “He spent ten years there .. in the studies of letters.”

[183] The reckoning of the time, Concerning the holy Father's journey from Paris into Spain, one may consult Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 5, and Maffei, book 2, chapter 1: who says: “Lest by his departure the affairs at Paris should take any detriment, having first exhorted his fellow-soldiers in few words to perseverance and fidelity, he set over them Peter Faber, most ancient both in years and in vocation; whom they should meanwhile obey; whom they should hold in the place of a parent.” Concerning the reckoning of the time these things occur: “In the year 1535 Ignatius and his companions so arrange matters among themselves that he himself returns into his country,” says Ribadeneira in the cited place. In marking that year the Life written by Luis Gonçalves had preceded. Maffei attaches the matter to the same year, during the autumn season; Orlandini agreeing with him, book 1, no. 99, when, verging to its close,

in the year we mentioned, 1535, he fixes that departure. But to those two Bartoli, book 2, no. 23, opposes these things: “If the setting-out happened at the end of 1535, as from Polanco's manuscript Maffei and Orlandini published, it is clear that he could not have reached Venice before the end of the next following year: for in a shorter time a man of afflicted body, and with common outfit, could not, in the middle of winter, have accomplished seven hundred miles, as far as Azpeitia is distant from Paris, nor have spent a whole three months at Azpeitia, nor thence have expedited in various cities the affairs of his companions; nor at last have returned from Spain into Italy.”

[184] when the Saint departed from Paris into Spain: That he set out from Paris in the first months of the same year is certain: whence it is necessary that an error crept into Polanco's writing; and it is clearly established from it, that in the ten days interposed between Pentecost and the Ascension, in the year 1535, the holy Man was in his country: with which rightly agrees the sworn testimony of the Carthusians of Vall de Cristo, concerning Ignatius's dutiful coming thither in that year, his companions' affairs being now arranged, to visit a monk of that monastery. It is clear, therefore, that he could not have departed from Paris at the end of that year; in whose month of May he was already in his country, the year not yet advanced to its middle. But that he came to Venice as 1535 was hastening to its close, I shall make manifest in its place from his letters. Thus Bartoli. Surius therefore, cited above, wrongly assigns to the Saint's return into Spain the year of salvation 1536.

[185] an honorable testimony being afterward given concerning him and his companions. According to what has been said, therefore, it is necessary that after the Saint's departure from Paris the following testimony was obtained by him, whose transcript, copied from parchment, we have among our Roman monuments, in these words: “We friar Thomas Laurentius, professor of sacred theology, of the Order of Friars Preachers, general inquisitor of heretical pravity, and of the orthodox faith in the kingdom of France, commissioned and deputed by the holy Apostolic See, make known and certify to all whom it concerns or shall concern, that our predecessor friar Valentine Li (a name, Pien warns, is added, but which he cannot divine without peril of error), doctor of the aforesaid faculty of theology, and general inquisitor of the faith in the whole kingdom of France, at one time inquired concerning the life, morals, and doctrine of Ignatius of Loyola, and we who were his secretaries never perceived that he found anything in him except what was Catholic and Christian. Moreover we knew the said de Loyola, and master Peter Faber, and some of their household; for we saw them always live in a Catholic and virtuous manner: nor did we ever detect anything except what befits Christian and most excellent men. Besides, the Exercises which the said de Loyola gives, as far as we could learn of them, seem to us Catholic. Given and done at Paris at the monastery of the Friars Preachers, under our seal, which we use in such matters, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-six, on the twenty-third day of the month of January, there being present the discreet men masters Laurentius Daosta and James de Cáceres, clerics, masters in Arts, and friar Alfonso de San Emiliano, Spaniards, staying at Paris, witnesses called and asked to the premises.” The subscribed name, with wondrous flourishes, could not be disentangled by Pien. And it is added: “By command of the aforesaid Lord inquisitor.” There is appended a seal in Spanish red wax.

§ XIX. The journey into his country; examples of his virtues, the emendation of morals; miracles, prophecies, the ardor of divine love, a chamber illuminated.

Certain circumstances present themselves to us on occasion of this journey, concerning which, among all who relate it, the manner of narrating is not everywhere equal. The Saint, carried into his country, For from Ribadeneira and Maffei we have that it was undertaken by the Saint not on foot, but by riding, since he was indeed weak in strength on account of the sickness of his body. The Italian Life, which is noted as published by order of Father Mutio Vitelleschi, our Superior General, records, chapter 12, that he set out into Spain on bare feet, after his accustomed manner, and used a horse rather to carry his poor wallets than to ride upon. Francis Lucas, book 3, chapter 4, agrees with the same Life, when he says that that whole journey was performed by him on bare feet. And although in each of those Lives there is noted in the margin the mention of a process, from which, as I gather, this notice was drawn; yet the matter is decided from the Gonçalves Life, no. 87, in these words: “After these things, the little horse which his companions had bought for him, he himself mounted, and began to set out into his native land.” Ribadeneira, in the Spanish Life, book 2, chapter 5, has these things, which I thus interpret from the Spanish: “Our Ignatius departed .. on a beast .., which his companions had bought for him; because his great weakness did not give him place to go on foot.”

[187] Concerning his coming into his country Bartoli, book 2, no. 23, thus writes: he avoids the meeting of his own people “With this conveyance he at last came into his country, and he desired secretly to enter the town, that he might partly avoid the meeting of his people; partly of those who would oppose his choosing a lodging in the house of the poor, but in vain: for two leagues from Azpeitia, into the house into which he had turned aside, there came a certain John de Eguibar, very familiar with the Loyolas; and having inquired, as happens, whether there was any stranger within? he received of the poor man an account ill given enough by all, except that he displayed something of countenance, and in tongue the accent of that region; yet that it could not be well brought to memory who he was. Here John applies his eye to the chinks of the chamber into which he had withdrawn, to try whether he could discern him: and he sees a man praying on his knees, and immersed wholly in himself and in God. And to him soon returning, and gazing more curiously by the old aspect of the ancient countenance, he ceased to doubt who he was.”

[188] and the honorable meetings of the people of Azpeitia; “Every salutation therefore omitted, on a headlong horse, most joyful, he flies to Azpeitia, and gladdens the lords of Loyola with that news .. An entrance is at once prepared for the comer, the clerics arrange the procession of supplicants, his kinsmen and relatives the equestrian one. Fearing, however, what was too likely, lest by that honor they should frighten and drive him away from his country before he reached it, on purpose they held back from fear, a priest being meanwhile appointed (whose name was Balthasar de Arabaesa, from the Italian Life published by order of our Reverend Father Mutio Vitelleschi), a grave man, who should discharge the office of saluting him, and declare that he, as always, so now also, was impatiently awaited by his own people of Loyola. But because they prudently observed that he would, by some fear of an honorable meeting, turn from the royal into a deserted road through the mountains, infested with ruins and robberies; they also sent thither armed servants, who, under pretense of a journey, should accompany the comer. And they had acutely provided for what would happen. For the offices of his brothers being modestly declined before the priest, and the same being immediately sent back to them, that a more attentive one might not oppose him, through the mountainous ways alone he made not for Loyola but for Azpeitia, that there he might measure out for himself the desired lodging in the house of the poor.”

[189] but he falls in with them; yet does not indulge them: “But indeed the honors which he had so much avoided, he incurred. For nearer to the town he sees coming to meet him a procession of supplicant clerics, and his kinsmen in a vast number. But, to abridge the outcome of the matter in brief, Ignatius's mind could not be moved from the purpose of modesty set before him: for, on the testimony of Ribadeneira, he could by no reason be induced to turn aside to his brother, but lodged in the public and hospitable house, and began to collect alms from door to door, his brother much resisting.” In the place of the brother, who is also set down both in the Spanish Life of Ribadeneira and in its Compendium in Quartemont, Maffei, book 2, chapter 1, substitutes Bertram, Ignatius's nephew, as he will have it, by his brother: “The Pyrenees surmounted,” he says, “Ignatius reached the province of Guipúzcoa. Of Loyola at that time, Garcia being dead, Bertram, the eldest of the stock, was master. He, hastily forewarned of his uncle's coming,” etc. Thus reads the Douai edition of the year 1585; but in the other, of which we spoke above, no. 130, this is corrected: for it has thus: “The Pyrenees surmounted, he reached the province of Guipúzcoa. His kinsmen, hastily forewarned of his coming by those who had recognized the Man at Aquae Augustae, which today they call Bayonne, in passing,” etc. But that brother was Martin Garcia, joined in marriage with Lady Magdalena de Araoz, the marriage contract being made in the year 1498, on the 11th day of September. And he made his testament on the 19th day of November, on which he departed from life, in the year 1538, according to what thou wilt read in Henao in the Antiquities of Cantabria, book 3, chapter 33 at the end, and in the citations and notes to that chapter, no. 27. From these also correct Carnoli, chapter 12, who, following Maffei, hallucinates also in the said Bertram.

[190] for he turns aside to the house of the poor, and lives most poorly. The holy Man, then—to refer ourselves to the former matters—having withdrawn into the public house of the poor; the one thing that remained for his kinsmen, as Bartoli writes, was to send him thither an elegant bed, and a provision for the table equal to the bed. But not even on that bed did he ever lie: although early in the morning he broke it up daily for this purpose, that he might seem to have used it, since he took no sleep except on the ground. Which at last being detected by the servants, in place of the silk they put under him a common one from the coverings of the sick, which he thereafter used. But of the sumptuous basket which was sent daily, he never touched anything; nay even the day after his arrival, which was a Sabbath, having openly begged bread from door to door, he kept that custom perpetually during the three months in which he lived at Azpeitia, if he had received anything a little more convenient, giving it to the poor, with whom he used the same table, setting aside for himself what was meanest. Into the house he entered only once, and that constrained. For after prayers spent in vain, his kinswoman, prostrate at his feet, when she besought him by whatever he owed to the suffering Christ, not to deny it to her; at last he yielded to her asking, more that he might be taught by the deed how much he ought to esteem Him by whom she had entreated, than that he indulged anything properly to her consolation, or to the convenience of his paternal home. Wherefore, having entered there toward evening, the next day, no one knowing, he sought again the hospital. But Maffei writes that the Saint stayed some days in his paternal home.

[191] Of the singular examples of his virtues, of the morals of the people reduced to a better form, Other things done by St. Ignatius among his own people and of the excellent institutions by which he tempered them, what shall I relate? Let there be consulted on this subject the Life of Ribadeneira, which we give, and Maffei; because however these treat it so that certain things can be sought from elsewhere, by which the notices of matters pertaining hereto may be increased; lo for thee these few things, which I add to them from Bartoli, book 2, no. 24: “His stomach beginning to be restored even before he had breathed his native air, there returned together his former austerity, a chain girt about his bare flesh, a hair-shirt, scourgings, fasts, and very frequent sleeping on the ground.” And some things being interposed, he says: “Those ten days which divide the Ascension from Pentecost, in explaining the precepts of the Decalogue

he dedicated one by one, and with such success that he first summoned the Holy Spirit upon those who were present, before that solemn day, for which he was preparing them, approached. For on one of those days he abolished the custom of swearing falsely and vainly, which by long abuse had now grown familiar. And on the sixth day he brought back to modesty some harlots, but so pierced with horror of their profligate life, that they were not satisfied unless they drew back into the way the companions of the same disgrace. Of these three, from fear of relapsing, and from a desire of paying somehow, in some part, the penalties which they had deserved, made a pilgrimage on foot into distant lands. Another, since her strength was lacking for the same, dedicated her whole life in the hospital to the ministry of the sick women.”

[192] The associates of the most august Sacrament were also Ignatius's work: illustrious deeds: “for he instituted them, and set them over the care of the poor whom an ingenuous shame deterred from seeking their food. To which matter he assigned of his own a good large sum, whose income the rulers of that town administer, out of which its dispenser every Sunday distributes alms to the poor .. On his brother's house he imposed this pious burden, that on Sundays twelve loaves should be distributed to as many poor, in memory of the Apostles. Finally, whatever he desired to be done at Azpeitia to the service of God, he accomplished. For with this clause the witnesses of that town gathered the whole examination of him.” Finally the holy Man so approved himself among his own people, that in a short time, as Ribadeneira writes in the shorter Life in Quartemont, chapter 8, he filled the whole region both with the fame of his wonderful deeds and with the love of most beautiful virtues. For in those parts he cured a certain man named Bastida, who had labored many years with the falling sickness. Likewise two women, one indeed noble, whom ulcerated lungs, a cough, wasting, and consumption were emaciating; the other, whom for the space of four years a malignant spirit had afflicted: and very many other wonders, held in the place of prodigies, he performed by divine power. Wherefore all looked up to him as a holy man, and tried religiously to touch his garment. What the author here touches cursorily concerning that demoniac, he draws out a little more amply in the same place, chapter 18.

[193] prophecies, “Martin Halartius,” says Bartoli in the cited place, “deformed in face and stammering in tongue, once, while he was answering concerning the catechism, moved the noble women to laughter. To whom Ignatius: ‘You laugh,’ he said, ‘at a simple boy; namely you know of him only that which the eyes announce. But hold this, that he is far more beautiful in soul than deformed in face; and that this beauty of his soul is to be adorned always with new beauty: that he will become a distinguished servant of God, and by an immense good of souls will illustrate his country by illustrious labors.’ To which prophecy the event itself excellently corresponded. He led a holy life in the clergy, and one strenuously busy in zealously promoting the salvation of his fellow-citizens, as long as he lived.” “Another, an eight-year-old, Francis Almario, his mother presented to Ignatius, earnestly asking that he would pray well for him, and would beg from God that, for the solace and relief of his mother, he might be kept safe. Ignatius, having fixed his eyes on him for a while, then turned to the mother: ‘Be of good courage; for this boy,’ he said, ‘will both be of a longer life, and the father of many children.’ Which was so exactly fulfilled in each respect, that, the parent of fifteen sons, he reached the eightieth year of his age.”

[194] the ardor of the divine fire in prayer, During the time of his sickness a thing worthy of memory happened. The prayers of Garcia his brother, as it is in Bartoli in the cited place, and the very troublesome persuasions of his beseeching kinsmen, had no more weight to tear him away from the hospital to Loyola on this occasion than they had had when he came to Azpeitia. Wherefore, that they might satisfy the office of piety and love, they went to him thither, that they might be present with him as he lay. Among them Maria de Oriola and Simona de Alzaga, his nieces, while they kept watch some nights, were spectators of a thing to be admired. For when once, about to withdraw for some rest, they left a candle lit for every event, he ordered it extinguished, warning those who importunately opposed that, if anything should happen, light would by no means fail him from God. The candle, therefore, being extinguished, they go away: he himself, whose mind for dealing with God in no way depended on his body being well or ill, applies his mind to prayer: in which, while he passes some hours, he began to burn more vehemently with that blessed fire of divine love, which he had once experienced.

[195] a chamber illuminated with heavenly light. And, as at other times, not sufficiently master of his flame, he was compelled to relieve his breast with long sighs and great cries; into some such cries then also he broke out. To them his kinswomen at once ran, threw open the chamber, and, astonished, were stupefied at the heavenly splendor with which the whole shone. Nor was Ignatius's stupor, with shame, less: while he saw himself unexpectedly caught in that light. Wherefore he bound them by the humblest prayers to eternal silence on this matter. From the consistorial Relation of Cardinal del Monte let us weave, to what has here been said, that brief coping-stone: “He returned into his country in the year 1535, and there for three months in the hospital of the Magdalene, begging his food from door to door, and serving the poor, he diligently passed his time.”

§ XX. The conversation at Segorbe concerning instituting the Society of Jesus; his coming to Venice.

What passed between Ignatius and his brother at his departure from his native land; what places then, The holy Father and for what cause, having departed thence, he approached, Ribadeneira will give. At last he came to Valencia: where he conversed with the bachelor de Castro, now a Carthusian, from the Life written by Gonçalves, no. 90. Bartoli, book 2, no. 25, thus sets forth the matter: “Having set out for Segorbe, he visited M. John de Castro, once his master at Paris, and most friendly; but then there professed in the Charterhouse of Vall de Cristo; and, out of their old friendship, conferred with him his counsels concerning seeking Italy, and thence Palestine, and concerning establishing—either there or wherever God should deign to show—an Order, which by its institute should care no less for the salvation of others than of itself, and for virtue. He proposed to him its idea, the chief parts being described from that exemplar which he thus far bore, roughly impressed on his mind from heaven. He named besides those whom he had chosen as companions of the work, Xavier, Faber, Laínez, the rest well and long known to him. Lastly he confidently asked what he himself thought of this matter, and commended it to his prayers. John deferred his answer to the next day, and passed a solid night with God upon it.”

[197] “The next morning, wholly exulting with joy, as one who had perceived that this was the work of God, God showing it, he dealt with John de Castro the Carthusian he vehemently animated Ignatius to urge on what he had begun: and added that of its prosperous successes to the glory of God he was so certain, that he did not doubt, the Charterhouse being abandoned, where he was already a novice of some months, to join himself to him as a companion. But ‘Far be it,’ said Ignatius, and, on the contrary, left him more keenly inflamed with love of the holy solitude to which he had been called, after a perpetual communion of mutual prayers agreed on between them.” Moreover, sure faith of this conversation was made both by the old records of that Charterhouse, and by its monks distinguished for virtue, who had received these things from the mouth of de Castro, and finally by the testification of three of those fathers juridically confirmed by public authority; from whose autograph, subscribed on the 8th of January of the year 1641, it pleases here to set down some things which indicate the manner of the matter more closely. Thus he.

[198] For the rest, the documents and confirmations of this deed I copy from the Apologetic Interrogations of John Rho to John Baptist Castaldo, concerning the Society of Jesus to be instituted by him; a clerk regular, interrogation 8, from page 129; who, page 128, writes that he exhibits the document itself, which he affirms was transmitted to him from Spain, most entire. It has thus: “In the name of God. Amen. Be it known to all, that in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-one from the birth of Christ, on the eighth day of the month of January, at the royal convent of the Carthusian Fathers of Vall de Cristo, situated within the general bounds of the town commonly called de Altura, of the diocese of Segorbe, of the kingdom of Valencia, at the instance of Father Christopher Perez, rector of the college of St. Peter, of the Society of Jesus, of the city of Segorbe, there was received by me, Vincent Paul Ballester, notary public by the royal and Apostolic authorities, and inhabitant of the said city of Segorbe, an information of witnesses of the following tenor:

On the eighth day of the month of January, in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-one from the birth of Christ, the Reverend Father Dom Antonio Martin de Altarriba, vicar of the royal convent of the Carthusian Fathers of Vall de Cristo, being fifty-two years of age, a little more or less, and professed of the said house thirty-two years, given and produced as a witness on the part and at the instance of Father Christopher Perez, rector of the aforesaid college of the Society of Jesus; by priestly rite and custom, his right hand applied to his breast, testified by the Lord God and His holy four Gospels, that he would tell the truth of the things which he should know, and concerning which he should be interrogated to this article: Namely, whether St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder and author of the clerks of the Society of Jesus, had a mind of entering the religious order of the Theatine Fathers, before he founded the Society of Jesus?”

[199] it is proved “The Reverend Father testified with full voice that he had received from the most ancient fathers of the convent of Vall de Cristo, and especially from the venerable Father Dom Matthias Ferrez (this man professed the Carthusian order for sixty-five years in the royal convent of Vall de Cristo, conspicuous with such glory of sanctity and religion that he was worthy to be held as a man almost divine both by St. Louis Bertrand, and by Blessed Nicholas Factor, and also by the most illustrious Lord Dom Juan de Ribera, of holy memory, patriarch of Antioch and archbishop of Valencia; and the convent of Vall de Cristo not only venerates his ashes in a most honorable place distinct from others; but most piously cultivates his image, painted by the piety and command of the most illustrious Lord Dom Pedro Ginés de Casanova, bishop of Segorbe), that St. Ignatius, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-five, came from the city of Valencia to the royal convent of the Carthusians of Vall de Cristo, that he might see his most beloved teacher, father Dom John de Castro, to whose good arts and letters he had devoted himself wholly to be imbued at Paris: and besides that he might open his mind, before conceived, concerning founding the Society of Jesus. In his prayers to God he placed the happy outcome of so great a matter.”

[200] from the testimony “Dom John de Castro assented to the wishes of Ignatius: that evening, and the next night, he most ardently prayed to God upon this one matter. On the following day he thus addressed Ignatius: ‘So, O Ignatius, do thy wishes concerning founding the Society of Jesus smile upon me, that, if thou pleasest, I will desert the Charterhouse: I am a novice, not yet bound by vows, I will transfer my help, labor, strength, counsel upon thee alone, provided that the business of so great a mass attain a happy outcome.’ To which Ignatius: ‘By no means, reverend Father, stand by thy undertakings: commend me to God by thy prayers:’ being about to return to Valencia, that he might set out for Rome to found the Society of Jesus.” The same the said witness received from Father Dom Onofre Ripoll, a religious professed of fifty years, and Prior of Vall de Cristo,

[201] authentic: This the said witness testified that he knew, both on account of the things mentioned above, and on account of the common tradition among the Fathers of the royal convent of Vall de Cristo; and also because he saw and read this truth in manuscripts stored in the archive of the said Charterhouse. And because the matter is so, and on account of the oath taken. But generally the said witness was interrogated concerning hatred, love, fear, prayers, subornation, threats, ill and good will, and other circumstances necessary to the premises, and to all he said, No. Friar Antonio Martin de Altarriba, vicar of the Charterhouse of Vall de Cristo.

[202] In the same place, page 131, is subjoined the following testimony: “On the aforesaid day and year, and likewise by one, the reverend Father Dom Andrew Soler, an older religious professed of the said Charterhouse, sixty-eight years of age, of forty-nine of profession, a witness given and produced on the part and at the instance of father Christopher Perez,” etc., as above, “the reverend Father testified with full voice that he had received from Father Dom Michael Monllor his master, being ninety years of age; who showed him certain letters, which he cherished as sacred things: for they were of Father Dom John de Castro, of the Carthusian convent of Vall de Cristo, a man of approved virtue, who at that time was lodging in the Charterhouse of Scala Dei, and said to him: ‘This is a letter of a most holy man, our brother, the companion of St. Ignatius.’”

[203] “And then he disclosed to him that St. Ignatius had come to this Charterhouse of Vall de Cristo, and by another that he might see the aforesaid Father D. John de Castro, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-five, and that he might confer with him the mind he had conceived concerning founding the Society of Jesus. Then St. Ignatius, awaiting Father D. Castro, a novice, in the evening hours standing with the rest of the family of religious, sat at the cross of the convent's cemetery. And because the matter is so, and he received it from the common tradition of the Fathers, and on account of the oath taken.” But generally the said witness was interrogated concerning hatred, love, etc., as above. Friar Andrew Soler, an older religious of the said house of Vall de Cristo.

[204] “On the aforesaid day and year, the reverend Father Dom Nicholas Bonet, testimony; a religious of the royal convent of the Carthusian Fathers of Vall de Cristo, being sixty years of age, a little more or less, of thirty-seven of profession, a witness given and produced,” etc., as above; “the reverend Father testified with full voice that he had received from the most ancient fathers of the convent of Vall de Cristo, above sixty years of profession, and especially from Father Dom Michael Monllor, and from father Dom John Bellot, and had heard especially from this one, that St. Ignatius came to the said convent of Vall de Cristo, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-five, that he might confer the mind before conceived concerning founding the Society of Jesus, with Father D. John de Castro of Toledo, once the master of St. Ignatius in the University of Paris: and that he conferred with him the mind of founding the Society of Jesus. The same thing the said witness testifies that he often heard from Father D. Onofre Ripoll, Prior, who died in this house in the year 1614. Moreover that he heard from the said Fathers that St. Ignatius never had a mind of entering another religious order, not even of the Carthusian Fathers. This the said witness says both on account of the things mentioned above, and on account of the common tradition among the fathers of the convent of Vall de Cristo. And because the matter is so, and on account of the force of the oath taken.” But generally the said witness was interrogated concerning hatred, love, etc. And to all he said, No. Friar Nicholas Bonet. But for full and sure faith of all and singular the premises, there is subjoined an instrument confirmed by public authority, by which both of the matters contained in the testimonies which we have produced, and of the legality, as they call it, of the notary who subscribed to them, it may legitimately be established, as may be seen in the aforementioned John Rho, page 133.

[205] [and hence that he himself thought of Italy, that he might found the Society of Jesus; whither he came in the year 1535.] From what has been said, therefore, it follows that it ought to be held for a sure and ascertained thing, that Ignatius, the counsel of founding the Society of Jesus being now conceived, thought of Italy. Which is very consonant with two prophecies: with the one indeed which he foretold to Michael Rhodis at Barcelona, of which was said in §13, from no. 128. And with the other which he predicted concerning Peter Quadrado at Antwerp; as thou hast in §16, no. 156. Whence it is established that the holy Father foreknew that the Society of Jesus was to be founded by him, before he founded it. Moreover, what befell him, when, having left Spain, he came first to Genoa, then to Bologna, and at last to Venice, the writers of the Life will give. And that he came to Venice at the end of the year of Christ 1535, “was established for me,” says Bartoli, book 2, no. 26, “from his autograph letter, given at Venice on the 12th of February in the year 1536, in which, informing the archdeacon of Barcelona of his arrival there, he says, ‘I have now been at Venice a month and a half;’ and he proceeds to write of the studies of theology, which he was there about to continue until the vernal fast of the next year: and of the books useful to him for these, which he says he will afterward send back to Rosell.” Which likewise he repeats in other letters, given thence in November of the same year. Let us accompany the holy Man thither.

§ XXI. St. Ignatius at Venice did not ask St. Cajetan of Thiene to be admitted into the Order of the Theatine Fathers.

Ribadeneira gives occasion for refuting this little fable; The things done by our holy Father among the Venetians the reader will understand from the writers of the Life, and from Orlandini toward the end of book 6. But what Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 6, narrates concerning John Peter Caraffa, as also concerning the Order of the Theatines, suggests to us occasion for refuting that little fable, against which Francis Sacchini published an apologetic Dissertation, prefixed to volume 1 of the History of the Society of Jesus, and Julius Nigroni assailed it in an historical Disputation in a posthumous little work, published at Cologne in the year 1630, in which he refutes the tenets of the most Reverend Lord John Baptist Castaldo, a priest-theologian of the same Order. To these afterward was added John Rho, a strenuous defender besides of Nigroni, in Apologetic Interrogations directed to the same John Baptist Castaldo, in which he rejects the fable of St. Ignatius, our founder, conversing with Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, and asking of him the Order of the Theatines.

[207] whose question is proposed. Receive the state of the question in few words from Francis Sacchini, who thus begins the said Dissertation: “John Baptist Castaldo,” he says, “a clerk regular of the venerable Order which they call of the Theatines, in the Life of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, not many years ago published that Blessed Ignatius, the Parent of our Society, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-six, at Venice, while he awaited his companions from Paris, urged Blessed Cajetan, the chief founder of the Theatines, to receive him into that Order. But that Cajetan, after he had consulted God by prayers, answered without hesitation that it would be for the greater glory of God, if he himself should found a new and more active family, which should spend itself wholly in helps to its neighbors.” This, then, is the controversy of the present subject.

[208] But I judge thus: that this deed imputed to the holy men Cajetan of Thiene and Ignatius [It is argued from the silence of antiquity that the Saint did not ask to be admitted into the Order of the Theatine Fathers,] is by no reason probable, much less credible; nay rather that it labors under so many and so great difficulties, cohering by no means either with each other, or with the very thing which is thrust forward, that it ought altogether to be reckoned inept and paradoxical. 1. Because this thing is new, and in our Society unheard-of before the times of Castaldo. This argument, although it be negative, as they call it, and in many other controversies not always sufficiently solid and firm; yet in this cause has great firmness: For the beginnings of the Society, as Sacchini rightly says, and the things done by the blessed Father at Venice, his companions Laínez and Simon Rodríguez put into Commentaries; and not a few things Faber noted. Besides, the blessed Father himself, two years before he departed from life, compelled by the demand of the Fathers, deliberately and accurately set them forth to Luis Gonçalves. Moreover those who dealt familiarly with the blessed Father omitted no occasion of fishing out something from those things which were stored in that sacred breast; and whatever fell from the mouth of the holy Father they most studiously collected, and consigned to writing, and in familiar meetings, and even in public discourses among the domestic exhortations, scattered through the Society. Which, before the rest, three men, without doubt the greatest at once in religion and in prudence, he whom I mentioned, Gonçalves, Jerome Nadal, and John Polanco, most diligently performed, to say nothing of Peter Ribadeneira.

[209] And yet no mention is anywhere found of that thought objected to Ignatius, there being no mention made of any such deed, no utterance of Cajetan, who should have said that it would be more excellent and more glorious to God, if he had founded a new family. Which certainly there was no reason for the blessed Father to suppress in silence; since it pertained not so much to his praise as to exciting and confirming his companions. Since these things are so, all things being circumspectly considered, it seems to me altogether certain that, if what Castaldo relates had really happened, it would by no means have come to pass, either that Ignatius, in so long a time and with so many occasions offered, should never have disclosed it; or that, if he had at some time disclosed it, among so many attentive men no one should have received it: so that not even a slight trace of it should reside anywhere in the whole Society, either in the memory of the aged, or in the parchments, less forgetful surely. Which reason, since it is of itself sufficiently valid, yet joined to the reasons which, he says, we took a little before from the very thing, leaves, in my opinion, no place of doubting. Of the reasons drawn from the very thing I shall speak a little later; now I make the novelty of the matter plain from elsewhere.

[210] Julius Nigroni, the controversy of the present deed being proposed from Castaldo at the beginning of his Historical disputation, [so that it ought to be held a new invention and unheard-of before Castaldo's times,] looking back to his own times, greatly wonders at the novelty of this matter, that “not even the least rumor, or, to say better,” he says, “not even the slightest whisper of this petition had insinuated itself into my ears, through so many years in which I lived in this Order, from the thirty-first year of its confirmation by the Apostolic See. In which time I most curiously investigated, both by reading the monuments of writings and by interrogating the elders, the beginnings and progresses of my Religious order, both that I might satisfy my mind avid of the knowledge of such things, and that in composing ascetic works nothing might fall from my pen which was not altogether certain, or of which

[211] and supported by no tradition. Is it from tradition? But this John Rho, in the fourth Interrogation proposed to Castaldo concerning that subject, from page 41, blows away, as proved by the faith of no ancient records, drawn from no sure author, confirmed by no witness who should say that he received it either from Cajetan, or from any man beyond all exception, who had heard it from him; but supported only by recent testimonies, of which none, the same Rho affirms openly and using no circumlocution, was rendered before the eleventh or twelfth year of the seventeenth century, in which Castaldo at Florence was composing the deeds of Cajetan. But how solidly, and by what reasons, he assails this feeble, as he deservedly calls it, tradition, let the judgment be of others, especially of those who are not carried away by preconceived opinions. What more? I should be too long if I were to gather hither the several members of this argument even by anatomy; which the praised author drew out from the cited page up to 76. Lo, however, a few specimens out of many. From page there is produced a testimony marked by eleven sworn witnesses, fathers professed of our Society, at Naples on the 4th day of August of the year 1640; whence I excerpt these things, which concerning one of the older and weightier Theatines, who lived at Naples many years ago, are there deposed by the said sworn witnesses as heard:

[212] This ineptitude is overthrown from various “When .. we earnestly asked him,” they say, “to teach us in a friendly and sincere manner .. what foundation in his Religious order that conversation had which father Castaldo had now for the third time committed to print; namely that St. Ignatius asked of Blessed Cajetan his habit ..; he answered sincerely and in a friendly way that two things were certain to him: the one, that Father Castaldo had done it with a good intention ..; the other, that he himself had traveled through almost all the houses which his Religious order has in Italy, and had even long stayed in many, especially at Venice; and had never heard anything such of that conversation, except only at Naples at that time when Father Castaldo was writing the Life of Blessed Cajetan. Wherefore he had plainly been astonished whence it had come into the mind of the said father, and whence such an utterance, never before heard among his own, had suddenly arisen, especially since so great a matter had been handed down to memory neither by bishop Tuso, nor by father Antonio Caracciolo, most diligent writers of his Order and of its affairs, who committed to print things far more minute. And the same father added besides that Castaldo had often asked of him that he would leave it attested in writing that he had heard it from his entrance into religion, at least that the memory of so great a matter might be preserved in their archive; and that he had constantly answered: that he could not do it with a safe conscience, since in truth he had never, and nowhere, before heard it; to which answer Father Castaldo by no means acquiesced, but rather pressed, and affirmed that it could most safely be done, since such a revelation and prediction was very honorable both to his Order and to ours; that he nevertheless persisted in his purpose, and never wished to attest any such thing either by word or by writing.” What seems to thee, reader, is not this a fine tradition?

[213] testimonies; Against the same especially there makes besides this other testimony, page 51: “I, Flaminius Magnati, professed priest of the Society of Jesus, affirm, even so far as is needful, with an oath, that a few years ago, when outside the city, together with NN., one of the most ancient and weighty Theatine fathers .., we were walking, he was interrogated by me .. on what foundation at last rested what father Castaldo had written in the Life of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene; namely that St. Ignatius at Venice had begged of the same Cajetan to be admitted into his Religious order; that he himself answered me that he knew no foundation of this petition; nor had he in his Religious order, in which he had lived 60 years, heard anything of the kind, before Castaldo wrote the Life of Blessed Cajetan.” This Theatine father is diverse from him who is produced in the former testimony, as under the same religion of an oath the said Flaminius testifies, page 52. Who, then, would not say that this tradition, here in controversy, is shadowy? From the said page is adduced the testimony of Marcus Antonius Palumbo Ascanio, professed priest of our Society, also confirmed by an oath; that he said these things to father Castaldo: “How did your paternity write that Blessed Ignatius begged of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene to be admitted into the Order, when yet it was nothing else than that Blessed Ignatius asked to be received into a certain hospice, of which the curator was one Theatine father? How then did your paternity equivocate, asserting that he asked entrance into the Order? Then the said father Castaldo, moving his shoulders with a gesture familiar to him, affirmed what I had said, and, smiling, answered these very words: ‘We take for ourselves what makes for us.’ To whom I: ‘But not with falsehood, especially in writings with so great prejudice to us.’”

[214] From the faith of the letter of the most illustrious Constantine, bishop of Veglia, among whom Prelates which Rho brings forward from page 55, concerning the Venetian meeting of Sts. Cajetan and Ignatius, in which the latter asked of the former the Order of the Theatines, the most illustrious Paul Aresio—who was by profession a Theatine, and then bishop of Tortona—is deposed to have answered thus; namely, that that history was false, and that Father Castaldo had lapsed by too great facility in writing; and that he had been well convicted by Father Julius Nigroni. And a few things being interposed, the same most illustrious Constantine adds: “Michael Ghislieri, of the same Religious order of the Theatine fathers .., told me that he had never believed that history; and added that it ought not to have been printed without a good and real foundation. But I believe that this is the sense of the weightier fathers of the same Religious order, which I conjecture from this, that although the whole life of Blessed Cajetan was published in most elegant copper engravings, that meeting with St. Ignatius is not seen among the other figures; which, as a thing most plausible, ought to have been printed.” Then Rho soon alleges from Aresio's own letter, given to him, and indeed in his own hand, this fragment, page 56: “That Father Castaldo out of his own brain wished to believe * this history, I cannot persuade myself: for I knew that he was always a good religious. But whence this talk was born, I know not.” Who, then, would believe that this matter was widely divulged by the tradition of the ancients, which Aresio, a man of so great authority and wisdom, and of very long stay among the Theatines, as Rho observes, page 57, and the chief glory of the Theatine Order, professes that he is ignorant of?

[215] To this most conspicuous prelate add another of Ventimiglia, that the vanity of this novel tradition may openly shine forth; they even profess their name. who, as Rho testifies page 57, before he put on the mitre, was secretary to the Order of the Theatines. He, therefore, as is there written, being interrogated concerning this tradition of Castaldo, says: “Whether I ever perceived by hearing that the holy father Ignatius Loyola begged of Blessed Cajetan to be admitted into the religious order of the Theatine fathers, and that before he founded his own. To this I answer in truth that I have often heard it; but with the same truth I say that such talk, as far as I know, has no other foundation than the authority of father D. John Baptist Castaldo, who related it in the Life of Blessed Cajetan. But by what reason he asserts this, I know not.” Whence anew it is most invincibly argued that this pretended tradition is supported by a wholly ruinous foundation, that is, by none.

[216] Another testimony. What of this, that in the same place, page 58, the most reverend father Angelo Scivori, of the Order of Carmelites of Genoa, master and doctor of sacred theology, on oath makes faith that he knows that the History written by .. John Baptist Castaldo concerning St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, asking of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, one of the four founders of the Theatine Fathers, their habit at Venice in the year 36 of the last century, is held by the weightier fathers of the same Theatine Order as false, and supported by no truth; and that they judged it to have been related by the same Castaldo too lightly, although, out of good intention, and a certain peculiar love with which he is borne toward his blessed parent, they did not doubt that this was done by him. Finally, in the same place, page 60, “I have,” says the same author, “a letter, written to me from Florence by N.N., a man most illustrious in all Italy for birth, letters, and eloquence, and for most modest morals, and once noble for a long practice (O Castaldo) of your affairs among you: in which he calls this thy opinion, from the sense of your men, a PHANTASTIC CHIMERA.” He brings forward more from page 67.

[217] [It is wonderful that a historian of the Order of the Theatine Fathers adopted that fable:] Meanwhile, as if nothing hitherto had been written against that masterless tradition, thus conducts himself Father Joseph Silos in the History of the Clerks regular of the Theatine Order, printed at Rome in the year 1650: for I do not sufficiently conceive how, volume 1, at the year 1531, page 136, he so securely, affirmatively, and confidently dared to declare his mind concerning that imaginary tradition, especially after he had seen the Historical disputation of Nigroni, which he cites page 138, and the apologetic Interrogations of Rho were already published in print. “That Ignatius,” he says, “dealt familiarly at Venice with other conspicuous men of our order, WE HOLD FOR ASCERTAINED, especially with Cajetan of Thiene, with whom that happened which the tradition of our men transmitted to posterity;” which he soon sets forth there at length.

[218] whose first origin is uncovered. But let us uncover the first origin of that little fable, at least by conjecture, from those things which Nigroni relates on this matter, no. 59, where he establishes these: “Prudently our Sacchini, fortified and aided by the writing of John Polanco, by a most probable conjecture came to the source of the error, judging that opinion to have arisen from the conversations conferred familiarly with Caraffa, and from some dissension which occurred without hatred, as St. Augustine teaches happens among friends. Of this kind could have been the disputation concerning the setting-out of each Order, and concerning joining both, which lasted long, as the same Sacchini relates.” Whose saying it pleases to confirm by the testimony of the often-mentioned Ribadeneira, an ear-witness; who, “in the year 1620 ,” he says, “wrote to me a letter given on the 20th of November: which,” he adds, “a few months before he sent to Rome, that it might be kept in the archive, on account of emerging necessities:” from which Nigroni brings forward these words, rendered from the Italian into Latin: “In the month of April of the year 1545, Father James Laínez, having returned from Venice to Rome, in my presence, proposed to our Blessed Father Ignatius, in the name of the weightier Theatine fathers who stayed at Venice, that he should receive their Order into the Society, and of two bodies make one.

to the glory of God, etc. The Blessed Father, when he had brought forward certain reasons, answered that he judged it to be the greater service of the Lord that each religious order should persevere in the institute which He gave to each.” And soon Nigroni adds these things: “And so, since Castaldo had not received that conversation of the Blessed men from persons worthy of faith who were present, or were near to those first ones; but from a report which flowed down to posterity with an uncertain author, this was to him the cause of his false opinion.” Thus indeed Nigroni concerning the origin of the little fable which we have in hand. Unless perhaps some petition intervened, of which a little before in the testimony of Marcus Antonius Palumbo Ascanio, by which the holy Father asked to be admitted into a certain hospice, of which some Theatine father was curator. But whether it was this, or the conversation just alleged; whether both together, or neither; this remains, that very many things from elsewhere make it inconvenient that this invention should be excluded from the register of futile trifles; whatever Silos may hold of it for ascertained.

* perhaps “to strike out” (cudere)?

* perhaps “perfection” (perfectione)?

* perhaps 1602.

§ XXII. Other arguments which make against that little fable; the judgment of the Apostolic See concerning it.

Although this spurious tradition labors of its own nature under so many inconveniences; yet so many and so great arguments war against it, This little fable fights with the Saint's prophecies, and with his aim; that it does not bear before it even the least shadow of credibility, or appearance of truth. For this little fable fights, first, with the predictions of our most holy Parent, by which he declared that a religious family was to be founded by him, before he founded it; from what was said in §§13, 16, and 20: to which add what is to be said in §34. But what more paradoxical than that the Saint had received a revelation from God concerning a new Order to be founded by himself, and had disclosed it to others; and yet meanwhile sought the institute of another Religious order? This little fable fights, secondly, with the aim which St. Ignatius had long ago fixed for himself, nor does it cohere with the things done by him on that occasion. Each is argued. For that the holy Man formed, from the very beginning of his conversion, out of those things which the Lord had revealed to him at Manresa, a certain idea of a new Religious order, for bringing new supports to the Church militant, is understood from the companions whom he chose to himself by a threefold choice, partly in Spain, partly in France, as from what has been said becomes clear. Why likewise did he himself, now advanced in age, begin to become a boy again among boys, and to study? Why did he aggregate to himself fellow-soldiers, polished by studies, and approved by spiritual exercises, pilgrimages, and a begged livelihood? What need of words? Read, read through, and read again all the footsteps of our most holy Founder hitherto; recall also to memory his conversation, when he was already standing ready for the Venetian journey, with de Castro the Carthusian, and the prediction concerning the Order to be founded by him, confirmed by so many and so solid testimonies, from §20; these things, I say, revolve in thy mind, reader, and judge whether by any appearance of truth it becomes probable that Ignatius was so versatile and changeable at Venice, that he threw away all these things in favor of the Order of the Theatine Fathers; among whom, if we believe the invention, he himself alone wished to be.

[220] with the faith given to his companions, and received from the same, at Paris: This little fable fights, thirdly, with the faith given by Ignatius to his companions at Paris, and there received from the same. For who, a prudent appraiser of matters, would be so credulous as to let himself be persuaded that a sensible man, and most constant in his undertaken counsels, wavered with such levity, that he suddenly threw away the most holy resolutions of his will, confirmed by the religion of a vow, being carried away by a versatile fickleness, and deserted companions most excellent, most loving, and dearest to him, unsaluted, and almost betrayed, the mutual faith being violated? Those companions, I say, whom, chosen at Paris, he had begotten in Christ Jesus, had so solicitously educated, so skilfully cultivated, had bound to himself by such close bonds of spiritual benefits, had obligated with himself to God by such most sacred vows; whom finally he had ordered to be present at Venice on an appointed day; awaiting them there, the affairs of some of them being before arranged in Spain, after so many of their labors in studies, after their faculties abdicated, and the hopes of all dignities and fortunes broken off? Indeed these things do not befit a man even moderately constant, much less our holy Parent, most tenacious of his purpose.

[221] with the things done at Venice: This little fable fights, fourthly, with the things which the Saint transacted at Venice. For it is established that Ignatius, at that very time in which he awaited his Paris companions there, diligently applied himself to hunting new companions in that place, and joined to himself Stephen and James Eguia, and likewise Hosius. Go now, and persuade me that he dismissed his old companions, and those thoroughly known to him for their most excellent endowments of soul, while he sought new ones; and that he strove to hide himself in another's family, while he thus studied to enlarge his own; as Sacchini rightly weighs. “A sound mind,” he says, “shrinks from thinking this, and the Reverend Lord Castaldo, in the letter in which he defends his narration, not obscurely confesses that it is absurd; and says that perhaps Ignatius wished to betake himself to Cajetan together with his companions. But that assertion is far removed from all probability; and since it is founded on the conjectural adverb of uncertain outcome, ‘perhaps’; I shall not refute it at length in this place, concerning which Sacchini may be consulted in the Dissertation alleged above, who overthrows it by various reasons.”

[222] with the spiritual Exercises, This little fable fights, fifthly, with the spiritual Exercises composed by St. Ignatius: on which subject Sacchini thus discourses: “From those, however great he was, the whole Ignatius proceeded. Through them he convoked his companions, and tempered the Society by institutes and morals. The same he left commended to the Society as the keenest weapon of divine praise. These he desired, as the height of his wishes, to see approved by Apostolic authority, and he saw it. Through them he profited greatly among all, and especially among the most excellent minds. And at this very time in which he is said to have wished to be numbered among the Theatines, through the same he both aggregated to himself the three companions whom we mentioned above, and most studiously applied himself to cultivating others.” Then Sacchini sends the reader to a letter, written at this very tract of time of which is treated, by Ignatius at Venice to his former confessor concerning those Exercises; as may be seen in the History of the Society of Jesus, book 1 at the end; whence it is clear how greatly their most holy Founder held them in esteem. “I ask, therefore,” says Sacchini, “was he thinking to carry with him those precepts and their use into a new Order, or was he prepared to abandon and abdicate them? For that he should wish to desert them, cannot fall into the thought of a wise man.”

[223] For what more sure and ascertained to the blessed Father, composed by the Saint: a most studious hunter of divine glory, than that those were most efficacious administrators of so great a work, and demonstrated to him by heavenly light? Nor can the other be said. For a petitioner of a religious Order must above all in no way be addicted to his own opinions and morals. For he comes to be taught, not to teach. Otherwise, he will lose his own tranquility, and disturb another's. Nothing is more odious than an innovator, and that a newcomer. But wherever the blessed Father should come with his Exercises, he would come not as a disciple, but as a master. In a word: wherever Ignatius was with that little book, there the Society of Jesus was. But if it seems certain and clear that neither with those nor without those Exercises could he take up another's discipline; it plainly follows that he never treated of taking it up. Of this argument, which Sacchini, as also Nigroni, draws from the spiritual Exercises, Interrogation 18 of Rho treats, page 313.

[224] This little fable fights, sixthly, with the place: since through that time with the place: in which it is reported to have happened, it is shown that Cajetan was by no means at Venice, but at Naples: for what Castaldo answers in his defense, that it could have happened, as it is in Sacchini, that at the same time Cajetan made an excursion to Venice, although it is something, yet it is little, where a history is narrated as certain. For it by no means removes the fact that the whole narration, if it does not fall, at least totters, as resting on an unstable foundation. For as it could happen that he went; so, that he did not go. Nay even of his stay at Naples it is established; of his Venetian excursion it is not established: it is drawn only by conjecture from this deed, which is in question; which is otherwise such that from it the very setting-out can more probably be denied than affirmed. Nothing, therefore, does that deed build up the setting-out, but rather destroys it. For where weak things are imposed upon weak things, both the sooner collapse. But to me it seems nearer to faith on all sides that there was no journey. For holy men, and greatly occupied in public utilities, do not undertake long journeys without great causes.

[225] Now great causes are great affairs. But these Cajetan would have undertaken either for the public Christian cause, for it is shown that St. Cajetan was not then at Venice: or for the private one of his Order. If the former; how would he lie hidden? For great and public affairs, as, when they are transacted, they come to the notice of many; so, when they have been transacted, they persevere to the memory of posterity. The latter, what need was there, when soon a general assembly was to be held at Rome? And how would it lie hidden, since the affairs of more distinguished men, and much more of the founders of a religious Order, are observed and preserved not only studiously but also religiously. Is it credible that it could have happened that a holy man, and the same the parent of a sacred family, made a long pilgrimage back and forth from most noble cities, and that nowhere any traces of going, none of returning, exist, no arguments survive, in private, in public commentaries, or letters (which yet it is necessary that many pass in such usages)? Thus Sacchini, with no less modesty than probability.

[226] This little fable fights, seventhly, with the fortitude of soul with which St. Ignatius was endowed, with the fortitude of soul which St. Ignatius had: having long ago been taught to do and to suffer brave things; it fights, I say, if, as is had from Castaldo, our most holy Patriarch, deterred by fear of difficulties, desisted from his purpose of founding his Order. But truly this is thought and pronounced little honorably concerning St. Ignatius, whose greatness of soul is set among his chief praises! Should thus a Man, undaunted toward every hardship, harassed by accusations, prisons, chains, judgments; exercised by so many adverse things, victor over so many inconveniences and obstacles, and not receding even a nail's breadth from his purposes, be said to have been terrified by those difficulties which in the aforesaid Nigroni, §19, are proposed from Castaldo? By no means: for from the poor and laborious life, which from the beginning of his conversion he had instituted for the glory of God and the help of his neighbors, he never desisted, but persevered: all the obstacles which opposed being overcome,

and from the Formula of the Institute, offered to this holy See, he confirmed it by solemn vows duly pronounced; as Cardinal del Monte says in the Relation made to Gregory XV for the canonization of the Saint, among the things which he has concerning his Faith.

[227] it fights finally with the most keen-eyed It fights, eighthly, with the most exquisite and keen-eyed circumspection of St. Ignatius, which he employed in founding his Society: for since our blessed Parent pursued the highest perfection both in the very end and in the means or instruments most accommodated to attaining the same, as is found proved at length in Rho, Interrogation 17, which is concerning the perfection of the institute of the Society, from page 297; there was no reason why, by any sanctity of others being objected, he should desist from founding that Society which he had conceived in mind, for the sake of entering any other family, especially of the Theatines, which so greatly differed from that which Ignatius was meditating; as appears from Nigroni, no. 64; where the enticements enumerated by Castaldo, by which he thought the holy Father could be allured to his Order, he proves to have lacked force to move the most constant Man from the purpose and step of the life undertaken and entered. And that sum was, as Sacchini rightly says, which they explained by vows conceived at Paris on Montmartre: to apply themselves with all their strength to the helps of their neighbors: to serve Christ: to enlarge His kingdom even among barbarians, and particularly in Palestine: to dedicate their labor to the supreme Pontiff for this work, and to depend upon his nod. Whence the missions, as we call them, whence the fourth vow of the Professed, and the very Society itself finally, as it differs from other Orders, flowers forth.

[228] by his circumspection. This form, therefore, having clung to Ignatius's mind for so many years, and he having instituted his life from it, conformed his companions to the same, and bound them by the bonds of vows; finally seeing the same approved even by happy experiences; and on the other hand seeing all things contrary in those fathers of St. Nicholas, the monastery of the Theatines among the Venetians; since in them, as Castaldo says, the love of solitude flourished; who would believe that that form was so suddenly abolished and changed, that it was wholly transfigured into another face? that he who just now had embraced the whole world in charity by making excursions, now shut himself in narrow enclosures: and he who, unencumbered, had wished to be at hand for all the nods of the Pontiffs, now would rather be fixed to the choir, which to those same fathers was always most ancient. It is not so indeed; but he bore the Society so fixed in his senses, and, so to speak, in his inmost marrow, that he had even the very name already ready. And so in the next year (1537), when they departed from Venice, it was agreed among all the companions, Ignatius being the author, that to those asking what kind of men they were, they should answer that they were of the Society of Jesus. Which name he afterward always so loved and defended, that to none of the old Fathers was it doubtful that he had chosen it by a sense more excellent than human. But since it had already before, offered to him approaching the City, as we just said, pleased him, it is not rashly conjectured that, just as the whole fabric of the Society, so the very name was brought from the Manresan lights. Thus he. But let this be the end: since the Apostolic See itself has interposed its authority in the present controversy.

[229] I cannot, therefore, but weave to these, by way of a coping-stone, a copy of a letter, To all which is added sent hither among our other Roman monuments. “There exists here in print,” says Father Ignatius Pien, “what I copy:” but we interpret it into Latin from its Italian transcript. The title which precedes sounds thus in Latin: “Copy of a letter, written by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Charles Vizzano, Assessor of the holy Roman Office, to the Vicar general of Cosenza.” And it I thus render: “Most illustrious and most reverend Lord, my most worshipful. Many months ago there appeared a little book printed there, whose title is: Summary of the life and miracles of Blessed Cajetan; which our most holy Lord, together with the approbation of these my most Eminent Lords Cardinals General Inquisitors, wished to be prohibited, as containing, against the decrees of the sacred Congregation, the fable that St. Ignatius asked to be admitted into the congregation of the Theatines. But because the Theatine Fathers asserted that this had been published inadvertently, and without their knowledge, they showed themselves ready to remove that leaf: and in truth they consigned to me a copy of the book in which that had been changed, that I might show it to His Holiness: as I did. It pleased His Beatitude to enjoin me that the prohibition be suppressed, and that the book, corrected in this manner, be permitted to circulate.”

[230] “Now it is understood that copies of the above-mentioned printed book are sold there, the judgment of the Apostolic See concerning this little fable; in the form in which they were before. But His Holiness ordered me to write to Your Lordship, that you keep watch over this matter; and permit not the book to circulate except corrected, suppressing the copies which you shall find not to be of this kind: and instruct distinctly concerning all things which in that matter shall occur to you: for when the evil shall have proceeded, this book will be prohibited, and the rashness of him will be punished who shall have dared to contravene the decrees of the sacred Congregation. Let Your Lordship labor with due zeal and prudence. And I kiss your hands. The 21st of October 1659. Your most illustrious and most reverend Lordship's most devoted servant Charles Vizzani.” And the letter is inscribed: “To my most illustrious and most reverend Lord, most worshipful, the Lord Vicar General of Cosenza.” There follows finally this Latin testimony: “The present Copy has been extracted from its own proper Original existing in the Acts of the archiepiscopal curia of Cosenza: with which, comparison being made, it agrees, etc., saving however a better reading, etc. And in faith, etc.” And there is subscribed, Diego Abruzino, actuary.

[231] To what end, someone will say, these things at such length? I will say. and our reason why it has here been more laboriously confuted. First, because the foul stain of inconstancy and levity—add also of infidelity toward his companions—is branded on St. Ignatius. 2. Because this little fable cannot stand without the collapse of the Saint's prophecies concerning the Order to be founded by him. 3. Because otherwise the faith and sincerity of the monuments and Writers of our Society is shaken. Which three things by the highest right demanded a laborious confutation.

§ XXIII. Three companions added to the former; the tenfold number of the first Fathers; the fruits of Faber at Paris; his and his companions' departure to Venice, thence to Rome; why the Saint was left at Venice.

Under Peter Faber three other companions were aggregated at Paris. What manner of life, Ignatius being absent, his first companion there, Peter Faber, kept at Paris, Orlandini narrates, book 1, no. 100, and Bartoli, book 2, no. 27. For he there proved himself a genuine son of the most holy Parent, applying himself, with the apostolic spirit which he had drawn from him, to the gain of souls. But among many other fruits this was the chief, that he had a part also in the aggregation of the first companions. For by his admonitions and examples two men, already distinguished by the mastership of theology, John Codure, an Allobrogian, and Paschasius Broët, a Picard, already invested with the priesthood, in the thirty-sixth year of the current century joined themselves to the other seven. For Claude Jay, of Geneva, likewise a theologian and priest, although the exact time is not plainly established, had come to them before these. Thus Orlandini, book 1, no. 101. Bartoli affirms that they were all adorned with the mastership of theology, and that Claude indeed was born at Annecy near Geneva; Paschasius at Bertaucourt not far from Amiens; but John at Embrun, the metropolis of Dauphiné. If thou add these three to the other seven enumerated above, thou wilt have the ten first Fathers of the Society.

[233] The tenfold number of the first Fathers gnawed at by a certain Calvinist. A certain wretched Calvinist ineptly gnaws at this tenfold number in James Gretser, in the Apologetics printed at Ingolstadt in the year 1599 for the Life of our holy Father, published by Ribadeneira; where, book 2, chapter 1, page 209, Gretser introduces him thus speaking: “This number was once called Atlas, in which also a mystery lies hidden.” And what is that? For thus, as there that ill-employed man growls, “the Jesuits prop up the Papacy, as Atlas, his summit set under, propped the stars.” Thus inelegantly and insipidly that heterodox calumniator. Better does Florimond de Raemond allude to this number, in the History of the rise, progress, and ruin of heresies, part two, book 5, chapter 2, page 17 of the Cologne edition of the year 1614, in his Latin translator thus speaking: “These ten, as if a conspiracy being made for the salvation of the Christian commonwealth, bound themselves mutually by the closest bonds, that they might oppose themselves to the fury of Luther and other heretics. And as God disposes all things in number, weight, and measure; so this ten is judged to have presignified, not without cause, that wonderful things were to be effected by this Society. This is that number which the arithmeticians cannot join with others or conclude without the round O; by which we are warned that, as this number has no other end than that round little orb; so the things to be done by this Society are to be terminated by the same spaces by which the world is; and that this is to be that tenth wave which is to overwhelm the pinnace of Luther, and to sink it into the deep.”

[234] By what reason the nine first companions of St. Ignatius departed from Paris to Venice, to meet him there by agreement, has been handed down to memory by Ribadeneira and Maffei. The departure of Ignatius's companions to Venice; Orlandini, book 1, no. 104, and following, says: “While most of them distribute among the poor those things which remained at Paris of their goods, some of the companions, a few days before, hasten ahead, to await them at Meaux. That town is distant from Paris about twenty-four miles. But the rest departed from Paris on the tenth of the Kalends of December with so great a conspiracy and alacrity of minds, that neither did Xavier take it ill to be torn from the theological studies, whose end he already saw, nor did Laínez greatly fear the remains of the most grievous illness with which he had lately labored. For the former reckoned to desert, for Christ's cause, the journey of theology now almost finished, no less to his glory than to pursue it to the very end. And the latter, unable to pity his little body, which, afflicted and emaciated, ought to have been cherished with suitable services, did not doubt to wear it more, by the daily austerity of the hair-shirt, throughout that whole journey. And when to Xavier at Pamplona a messenger had come unexpectedly, that he had been made canon of the church of Pamplona, the wise man laughed at these things, being now soothed by better promises from God, and remitted nothing of the ardor and will of the meditated pilgrimage.”

[235] Now from the following event understand both Faber's constancy and the vast fruits of souls brought back by him at Paris. great fruits of souls being brought back by Faber at Paris, Faber also had a grave dissuader of his departure and counsel, on the testimony of the historian just praised, no. 106, a Doctor pious and noble in the reputation of letters, who affirmed that a capital fraud was undertaken by him, if at Paris, where by no means doubtful means of salvation

he brought to so many, he should turn only thither, where in the uncertain salvation of others he should bestow his labor. And lest this should seem to be said by him rashly, he promised that he would produce from the Paris gymnasium all the theologians, most weighty authors of his opinion. But other was the mind and purpose of men, other of God ruling all things.

[236] Of Simon Rodríguez, suddenly freed from a grave illness, what shall I record? [and by certain successes had along the way concerning others, which are here noted.] Hear the deed briefly from Orlandini, no. 108: “At Meaux,” he says, “from the companions who had gone before, a certain vast and blackened humor of blood appeared on the shoulders of Simon, so foul in aspect that it struck horror into the companions. But he, groaning all night, and turning his weary limbs on the bare ground, which was his couch, now to this, now to that side, was not more tormented by the very bite of pain than by the fear and care of his grief, lest he should be compelled to break off the journey begun. But God, who had led them out from Paris, and led them by His angel, suddenly made a medicine for the recent illness. Day dawning, at the very moment of departure, that swelling, which seemed about to burst into a foul ulcer, subsided of its own accord, so that not a trace appeared even to those curiously gazing.” But the constancy of the said Simon is written to have been tried besides from elsewhere in the same place, no. 112; of the disputations of the Fathers with heretics, no. 113; of the peril which, by the leading, as is believed, of an angel, they escaped, no. 114; and finally of Xavier miraculously healed, no. 115; which it may suffice here to have pointed out with the finger, that brevity may be consulted in a matter which is not properly of St. Ignatius, although it is referred back to him, namely the parent of all of whom there was discourse.

[237] They came, therefore, to Venice on the eighth day of January, When they came to Venice. of the year 1537, from Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 7; which characters of time the same author also notes in his Spanish Life of the year 1594, book 2, chapter 7; as also in the shorter Life from Quartemont's version, where it is said to have happened before the 6th of the Ides of January. Add Orlandini, book 2 at the beginning, Bartoli, book 2, no. 31, Andrew Lucas, book 3, chapter 9, and Bouhours, book 2; so that, these marks of the day being thus set down especially by Ribadeneira and Orlandini, I would not dare to agree with Maffei, who, book 2, chapter 3, writes that they came to Venice on the third of the Ides of January; nor with the Italian Life, published by order of our most Reverend father General Mutio Vitelleschi, which affixes it to the ninth day of January. The Gonçalves Life does not mark the day of arrival. Among our Roman monuments there exists a transcript prefaced with this title: “Copy of the authentic testimony of the writings of Fathers Laínez, Salmeron, and Polanco, that it may be understood what those Fathers thought of our Father Ignatius, and of some of his miracles:” in which transcript I read these things: “We came to Venice on the 6th day of January of the year 1537.” But so slight a difference of time ought not to detain us. Let us meanwhile pursue other things.

[238] [The things done there by them, even Satan himself is compelled to praise: one of them miraculously healed.] What was done at Venice thou wilt understand from the authors. To Ribadeneira add the following from Orlandini, book 2, no. 2, where he narrates these things: “The virtue of the man could no longer lie hidden in so great humility, that even Satan was compelled by God's constraint to betray it. Among the women who then prepared food for the sick was one possessed. She, with a fierce gaze of her eyes, and scourging with reproaches the Fathers who had entered the kitchen for the sake of ministry, turned to those who were present, said: ‘You are wholly ignorant what kind of men these are. These are great men, and endowed with much doctrine. That they should not aspire hither, I strove indeed greatly, but in vain.’ A little after, when again one of the Fathers, entering the kitchen, was received with immense outcries of the woman, he began blandly to soothe and mollify her. But she quickened her step, and was preparing to throw herself into the fire; but, lest she should accomplish what she thought, another woman present restrained her. But she rolled up her whole body backward into a coil, so that, always clinging to her own place, she touched with her head turned back the flames nearly beneath her. The same, suddenly raised into her own posture, terrified all things with outcries. But the Fathers pressed those offices of mercy and humility the more keenly, the more troublesome to Satan, the more pleasant to God, and the more welcome, they felt them.” Thus far Orlandini; to whom join Maffei in the cited place recording these things: “One,” he says, “of the number of the companions, when the prefect of the hospital would not admit a poor man covered over his whole body with leprosy, received him himself into his own bed: and when he had risen in the morning, all groaning, being himself also seized with the same foulness of disease; the next day, not without a miracle, he appeared wholly unharmed and untouched.”

[239] [The companions departing to Rome, and an illustrious example of victory being given along the way by one of them,] But after they had, in the space of about three months, roused great admiration and esteem of themselves by their apostolic labors among the Venetians, at mid-Lent, according to Ribadeneira; or, according to Maffei, spring now approaching, they departed to Rome, Ignatius excepted, who remained at Venice. Moreover the manner of the journey, and the most grievous hardships endured in the course of it, thou wilt learn in few words from Ribadeneira and Maffei. The latter, among other things, reviews a certain singular matter, whose commemoration, because it avails much to the commendation of illustrious virtue, even though the discourse have something of the unpleasant, we nevertheless do not judge should be passed over in this place. Receive the deed: “Indeed at Ravenna,” says Maffei, “one of them, when, nauseated, he had avoided the filth of a hospital bed, and the coverlets dripping with corruption; which, the first occasion afterward being given of punishing himself, he did not omit. In some village or other a man consumed by lousy disease had departed from life. When our men had come into that village, and, the beds being distributed, none now remained except that which had cherished the lousy man; that father, vehemently longing to recover the palm lately lost, naked immediately, through the highest ardor of his soul, entered those same coverlets, and there turning himself again and again, when he had fed vast troops of the animals that whole night, wearied even to sweat, exacted from himself no light penalties for his former fastidiousness and delicacy.”

[240] I said above that St. Ignatius remained at Venice; The holy Father remains at Venice: of which matter but for what cause is not related in the same manner by all. Ribadeneira, when he says: “Ignatius remained at Venice on purpose,” does not explain the cause. Maffei has more: “He meanwhile stayed there both to retain what he had gained in the Lord, and to expedite what pertained to the navigation.” Orlandini, book 2, no. 3, adds besides another cause, in these words: “Especially because in the Pontifical court was engaged John Peter Caraffa, at the end of the former year (namely 1536) chosen into the number of the Cardinals, who, as I said, had not favored him at Venice.” Finally he adds a fourth cause on the part of Peter Ortiz, procurator of the emperor at Paul III, the supreme Pontiff; whom, however, Ignatius's companions there found a favorer.

[241] Father Joseph Silos, in the History of the Theatines, volume 1, the cause is inquired: from page 137, treating of this subject, confesses indeed that Caraffa's benevolence toward Ignatius cooled at Venice, because the Saint was there ill spoken of as to his doctrine, being called into odium by the false accusations of some, and that that Theatine Prelate, an implacable avenger of the name of heretic, received this scattered rumor with a grave brow; yet so that, the sanctity of the Man being afterward recognized, the love of the praised prelate revived, excellently approved both toward the Society and toward its Founder; from Maffei, book 2, chapter 23, and Orlandini, book 15, whom he cites. But that something a little more resided in the mind of Caraffa than the said historian signifies, we have from our two authors just cited. Let Maffei be heard: “There succeeded,” he says, “Marcellus, Paul the fourth of that name; who, since on account of some interposed offenses he was thought a most keen enemy of our Order, greatly deceived the opinion of men.” Orlandini, in the assigned place, no. four, teaches us two causes of the offense, thus speaking: “There was .. an opinion that Caraffa had been both formerly offended, because, when he greatly desired that one and the same Order should be formed of this ours and of the Theatines, Ignatius had refused; and lately, because, Ignatius himself advising, in the cause of the Neapolitan youth, of whom above,” he says, “we narrated, Pope Julius had rescinded his acts.”

[242] But the historian of the Theatine Order just cited would have it and it is shown that this was partly the case, that Cardinal Caraffa's affection toward the Society was not diminished by that deed of the Neapolitan youth. The other deed, of both Orders being formed into one, the same historian denies. I shall not spend much labor in discussing his reasons: for whether for that, or for another reason, this happened; I do not sufficiently understand how our Maffei could write thus without any cause. Sacchini likewise, in his apologetic Dissertation, prefixed to volume 1 of the History of our Society, thus speaks: “For the rest, that not only a familiar intercourse of the blessed Father with Caraffa, but also some dissension, intervened, is likewise plainly attested. On which matter Polanco put these things word for word into writing, which are there thus recorded: ‘He here also, among others, dealt familiarly at one time with D. John Peter Caraffa, and concerning certain matters pertaining to that new Order, he had prudently admonished him out of charity.’” And soon it is subjoined: “But not very willingly were the things which he suggested heard. And although Ignatius never related to anyone what had happened between him and the aforesaid John Peter Caraffa; yet it could easily be understood from his words that it was of no light moment, whatever it was, which passed between them.”

[243] [namely that there was a fear lest John Peter Caraffa at Rome should be adverse to Ignatius.] “And thence had its origin that which some suspected and said, that this John Peter Caraffa, afterward Cardinal, a Theatine, and the same Pontiff Paul IV, was not very well affected toward Ignatius; although he always, even while he was Pontiff, treated him with great honor.” These things, says John Polanco, than whom no one knew the affairs of Ignatius more inwardly, related in his Life of the same, which he left written. Besides, to the cause, on account of which the Saint, his companions now dismissed by him to Rome, alone remained at Venice, which we stated from Orlandini, there is added a confirmation from the testimony of Laínez in Carnoli, chapter 13, who affirms that he left, handed down to memory by his own hand, these words, rendered by me here into Latin from the Italian; namely that Ignatius had not erred; and that in fact Caraffa opposed himself to them. Finally this controversy is decided in the most explicit words in the Life taken down from the mouth of the holy Father by Luis Gonçalves; where these things occur: “All set out for Rome, that they might receive a benediction from the supreme Pontiff, being about to set out for Jerusalem. Yet the Pilgrim (so Ignatius is there called) did not set out for Rome, BECAUSE

OF D. Ortiz and the Theatine Cardinal.” This is confirmed from a Manuscript of our Roman archive, to which is prefixed this title: “Copy of the authentic testimony of the writings of Fathers Laínez, Salmeron,” etc.; in which I read these things: “We came to Rome. When we were at Venice, they warned us of two persons who could oppose us: of whom one was partly adverse to us; the other, who was Doctor Ortiz, driven by a divine impulse, embraced us with the highest benevolence,” etc.

§ XXIV. The first Fathers graciously admitted by the Roman Pontiff; the faculties of undertaking sacred Orders, and of performing ecclesiastical offices.

To chapter 7 of book 2 of Ribadeneira, two points which he there narrates [The supreme Pontiff graciously admits the first fathers, and endows them with the Apostolic benediction and favors] are to be somewhat explained by us. The one is the gracious benevolence with the Pontiff toward the companions sent by Ignatius to Rome; the other, the grant especially of the spiritual benefits, enriched with which he dismissed them. Orlandini, book 2, no. 10, after he had treated of the specimen of doctrine given by our men at the Pontiff's table, adds these things: “The table being removed, they fall to the kissing of his foot: whom the Pontiff, his arms spread, as if about to embrace all alike, ‘I take,’ he said, ‘great pleasure, when I contemplate that erudition of letters with so great lowliness of soul. If you shall need anything, which indeed pertains to me, I will gladly give it.’ But they, ‘A benediction,’ they say, ‘most blessed Father, and the power of sailing to Jerusalem, we suppliantly ask.’ ‘And these,’ says the Pontiff, ‘I gladly grant. Yet I do not think you will set out for Jerusalem.’ Which surely were said by the Pontiff either because he was not ignorant that the Venetians were preparing arms against the Turks (for he too afterward, together with the Emperor and the Venetians, made a league against them), or by some heavenly instinct, he foresaw the hindrances of the navigation.”

[245] Here one may recognize the modesty of Ignatius. For before the Society was founded, with the faculty of undertaking sacred Orders, lest he himself should seem to be eminent, when he asked anything of the Pontiff, he preferred that the supplicatory petitions be inscribed in the name of some one of his companions, who should ask for himself and for some companions, rather than in his own name. Thus in the fortieth year of this century we find that many benefices of ecclesiastical right were given to John Codure and his ten companions. But the petition of which we now treat was so conceived that the name of Faber alone was expressed. He asked, by a singular favor, that the power of visiting the sepulcher of the Lord, and other religious places of the kind beyond the sea, and of remaining there for some time, and of receiving and carrying away sacred relics, whoever could and would justly give them, be made to himself and his twelve companions, whom the same piety held. Which petition, on behalf of the Pontiff granting all things, Antonio Pucci, Cardinal of the Four Holy (Crowned) Martyrs, major Penitentiary, duly signed on the 5th of the Kalends of May, and we still have it in our archive. Nor did the Pontiff kindly give this only; but he also made for the companions not yet sacredly initiated the power of undertaking sacred Orders from any bishop or prelate, on three next feast days continuously.

[246] Bartoli rightly adds that by these letters there was likewise given to Salmeron the faculty that, when he had reached the twenty-third year of his age, he should be initiated into the priesthood. [and with a dispensation as to the age of Salmeron: as is established from the instrument,] But for that year Bouhours, book 2, wrongly sets down the entering of the twentieth year of Salmeron: because, according to his Life made Latin from the Spanish of Ribadeneira by Andrew Schott, he was born before the sixth of the Ides of September of the year 1515, and hence had already for the most part completed the twenty-second year of his age in the year of Christ 1537, in which those faculties were granted. These now, lo for thee, reader, I transcribe from our copies, sent hither from Rome; in which these things are noted, drawn from the parchment copy:

[247] “Antonio, by divine mercy, of the title of the Four Crowned Saints, priest Cardinal, which here to our beloved in Christ Nicholas de Bobadilla, Diego Laínez, Francis Xavier, Alfonso Salmeron, John Codure, Simon Rodríguez, and Michael Landivar, and Ignatius of Loyola, clerics and scholars respectively of the cities and dioceses of Palencia, Sigüenza, Pamplona, Toledo, Embrun, and Pamplona, masters of Arts and philosophy, greeting in the Lord. That the affections of your devotion may grow toward the Apostolic See the more amply, the more benign you shall have found it in doing you a special grace: The supplications, therefore, being addressed to us on your part, as far as we can with God benignly assenting, by the authority of the Lord Pope, whose Penitentiary we administer, and by his special and express mandate made to us upon this by the oracle of the living voice, we impart by the tenor of these presents license to you, and to each of you, and to the ordaining prelate, that you may freely and lawfully be marked with the clerical character, if you are not yet marked, by any Catholic prelate having the grace and communion of the said See, residing outside the Roman Curia in places distant from the City by at least forty miles, even in a strange diocese, and be promoted to all even sacred Orders and Orders of the priesthood, and thou, Alfonso, as soon as thou shalt have reached the twenty-third year of thy age; or from now, if thou art constituted in it, even to the said Order of the priesthood, even outside the times appointed by law, on three Sundays or other festive days, and afterward may minister in them even in the ministry of the altar, the license of your respective Ordinaries upon these things being by no means required; and with thee, Alfonso, upon the defect of age which, as is asserted, thou sufferest … * we dispense.”

[248] “Notwithstanding a defect of age of this kind, and of the councils of Lyons, the Lateran, and Vienne, and other Apostolic constitutions and ordinations, and also statutes both provincial and synodal, is produced. and all other contrary things whatsoever. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the seal of the office of the Penitentiary, the 5th of the Kalends of May, in the third year of the pontificate of the Lord Pope Paul III. P. de Pamphi, gratis. F. Sergardus. Phi. Ferrinus, gratis. A. Lomellini, by consent, the Most Reverend commanding.” There is appended a seal impressed in Spanish red wax, and enclosed in white iron. On the back, which is folded over, there is added by the hand of the Cardinal himself: “Gratis, in consideration of their doctrine and pilgrimage. A. Cardinal. A. Lomellini. Cordellas.”

[249] This being exhibited at Venice, St. Ignatius is promoted to sacred Orders, When St. Ignatius had exhibited this faculty at Venice to Vincent Nigusano, bishop of Arbe, he was there promoted by him to the four minor Orders on the 10th day of June in the year 1537: to the subdiaconate, on the 15th of the same month: to the diaconate, on the 17th: to the priesthood, on the 24th, under the title of sufficient knowledge and voluntary poverty, Jerome Verallo, the Apostolic legate, dispensing, into whose hands St. Ignatius had vowed poverty. Of which matter there exists among our Roman monuments the following testimony, transcribed from the original parchment in these words: “Vincent Nigusano, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Arbe: To all and singular who shall inspect the present letters we make known, that our beloved in Christ Ignatius of Loyola, master in the liberal Arts, and already cleric of the diocese of Pamplona, humbly asking this, by the force and dispensation of certain letters of the sacred Apostolic Penitentiary: of which letters indeed the tenor and content follows and is such; namely: ‘Antonio, by divine mercy, of the title of the Four Crowned Saints,’” etc. Here is inserted the instrument of the faculty which we just produced: and in which that word after “sufferest,” which there could not be read, is here thus expressed, “which, as is asserted, thou sufferest, NOW we dispense.” And after that instrument, the testimony of Nigusano thus proceeds:

[250] both minor and major; of which matter the instrument is produced: “On Sunday, the tenth of the month of June, to the four minor Orders, and on the feast day of Saints Vitus and Modestus, which was a solemn general feast in this benign city of Venice, that is on the fifteenth day of the same month, to the Orders of the subdiaconate; on the seventeenth, which was Sunday, to the Orders of the diaconate; on the twenty-fourth, that is on the feast of St. John the Baptist, to the Orders of the priesthood, according to the custom of the holy Roman Church duly and canonically, during the solemnities of the Masses, We celebrating in pontificals in our chapel in the house of our usual habitation in the city of Venice, we resolved to promote and promoted him, found fit and sufficient, to the title of sufficient knowledge and voluntary poverty, the most reverend Lord D. Jerome Verallo, Auditor of the causes of the sacred Palace, and in the whole dominion of Venice with the power of a Cardinal Legate a Latere, Apostolic Legate, thus dispensing: into whose hands the said Ignatius of Loyola vowed perpetual poverty, the solemnities wont to be observed in like cases being duly observed. In faith and testimony of all which we have caused the present letters to be made, and by the undersigned notary, and by the appending of our seal, to be fortified. Given at Venice in the chapel of our habitation, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1537, on the 27th day of the aforesaid month of June.” And it is added: “Priest James de Zambellis, Venetian notary, by command of the most reverend Lord Apostolic Legate, and of the said reverend Lord Bishop of Arbe, subscribed.” There is appended a seal, enclosed in white iron, and impressed in Spanish red wax.

[251] “There exist here also,” says Father Ignatius Pien in the Roman monuments such as was also given to the Saint's companions. which he sent hither, “the original testimonies of the same bishop given to Bobadilla, Laínez, Salmeron, Codure. St. Francis Xavier and Simon Rodríguez without doubt carried their testimonies with them into Portugal, when they were sent thither. The testimonies given to Bobadilla, Laínez, Salmeron, Codure are as to all things wholly similar to that which was given to St. Ignatius: except that in the testimony given to Laínez it is added that he was also marked on the 10th of June with the clerical character. And the same is added in the testimony given to Salmeron: but in this last there is no mention of the priesthood conferred, perhaps by an error of the secretary writing so many testimonies at once. (Indeed that on the 4th of November of the same year he was already a priest, will soon appear:) or perhaps because on the 24th of June he had not yet reached the 23rd year of his age. Peter Faber, Claude Jay, Paschasius Broët were long before already priests.” Thus there. And indeed Salmeron, in the year 1537, on the 24th day of June, had not yet reached the twenty-third year of his age, from what was said a little before.

[252] I subjoin to these the faculty of celebrating everywhere, ministering the Sacraments, [The faculty of celebrating everywhere, ministering the Sacraments, etc., is granted to them:] preaching, interpreting the sacred Scriptures, and hearing confessions, in the whole Venetian dominion, with a signal proclamation of praises. This, the same Pien writes, Jerome Verallo, Legate a Latere in the Venetian dominion, granted to St. Ignatius, Faber, Jay, Laínez, Broët, Bobadilla, Codure, in the year 1537, the 5th of July. There exist here the original instruments given to each, as to all things of wholly the same tenor with that of Ignatius; which, transcribed from a paper, but yet original copy, is had among our Roman monuments, and thus runs: “Jerome Verallo, Auditor of the causes of the sacred Apostolic Palace, notary of our most holy Lord the Pope, chaplain,

and domestic Prelate, and in the whole dominion of the Venetians with the power of a Cardinal Legate a Latere, Apostolic Legate, to our beloved in Christ Ignatius of Loyola, priest of the diocese of Pamplona, master in Arts, everlasting greeting in the Lord. We judge it worthy and fitting that we should assent to the devout petitions of any of the faithful of Christ, especially of those whom the skill of the sacred Scriptures adorns, and whom the honesty of life and morals laudably commends, as far as is permitted us by the office of our legation, which, though with insufficient merits, we discharge, and that we should follow them with a gracious favor.

[253] “Hence it is that we, wishing to follow thee, on account of the illustrious gifts of virtues, whose testimony and the skill of the sacred Scriptures, with which we know thee marked, with a benevolent favor, and hoping that by the zeal of thy diligence thou wilt bear thyself so faithfully and solicitously that thou wilt more firmly corroborate the faithful of Christ present at thy preachings, by thy admonitions and examples, in the observance of the commandments of God, by the Apostolic authority which we discharge, we indulge to thee by the tenor of these presents that thou mayest freely and lawfully, in whatever churches and places fit for it (those of nuns only excepted) subject to our legation, where thou shalt have found benevolent receivers, celebrate Masses and other divine offices, minister the ecclesiastical Sacraments, and preach the evangelical law and the word of God to the people of Christ, and publicly and privately read and interpret the sacred Scriptures, and also hear the confessions of all and singular the faithful of Christ of both sexes living within the limits of our legation of this kind, having recourse to thee, and, they being diligently heard by thee, absolve by thyself them and each of them from all and singular their sins, crimes, excesses, and delicts however grave and enormous, in which patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other Ordinaries of places can absolve by law or custom or otherwise, as often as shall be opportune, and enjoin on them a salutary penance for the premises, the license of patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other Ordinaries of places being first required by thee, though not obtained;”

[254] is here exhibited. “Notwithstanding any Apostolic and general or special constitutions and ordinations published in provincial and synodal councils, and all other contrary things whatsoever. Given at Venice in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand five hundred and thirty-seven, on the fifth day of July, in the third year of the pontificate of the most holy in Christ Father and our Lord, Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third. Jerome Verallo, Legate.” And a seal is affixed in Spanish red wax. “Seen by me Jerome Zilioli, doctor of both laws, canon of Vicenza, and substitute vicar in the bishopric of Vicenza, on the sixth day of September 1537. Gratis for God. Christopher Fournau.” Thus there. The same, in the same manner, he granted to Salmeron, 1537, the 4th of November. He was then therefore a priest, since the Legate then gave him, as a priest, the faculty of CELEBRATING everywhere, HEARING CONFESSIONS, etc. The same without doubt he granted to St. Francis Xavier and Rodríguez: but the instruments do not exist here, says Pien; which they carried with them into Portugal: as was said a little before of another of their testimonies.

* the word there could not be read; perhaps “now” (nunc), as here a little below?

§ XXV. The Saint's innocence declared against the accusations; where and when his first Mass was celebrated.

Declared among the Venetians Concerning the calumnies scattered against the holy Man among the Venetians, and his innocence declared, the Life written by Luis Gonçalves, no. 93, treats, and also Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 6 toward the end. But of the sentence by which the integrity of Ignatius was laid open by the Legate through his ordinary judge, “there is a copy with us,” says Ribadeneira. I exhibit it from the monuments of our Roman archive: “In the name of Christ. Amen. In the year of His Nativity one thousand five hundred and thirty-seven, in the tenth indiction, on Saturday, the thirteenth of the month of October, in the third year of the pontificate of the most holy in Christ Father and our Lord, Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third. We Gaspar de Dottis, doctor of decrees, canon of Torcello, Apostolic protonotary, and vicar in spirituals general of the most reverend in Christ Father and Lord, Lord Jerome Verallo, Auditor of the causes of the sacred Apostolic Palace, notary chaplain, domestic prelate of our most holy Lord, and Legate through the whole dominion of the Venetians with the power of a Legate Cardinal a Latere, and of his Palace of causes:

[256] Wishing and intending, the Lord granting, to decide and end with due conclusion the cause of the inquisition made ex officio against and toward a certain priest Ignatius of Loyola, St. Ignatius's innocence, on occasion of certain sayings, reported, and inquired into ex officio: having therefore seen first our inquisition made ex officio, as is said, against the same Father Ignatius; having seen his appearance before us, voluntary from our office; having seen our decree of receiving witnesses upon the premises for the information of the curia; having seen the term given to all and singular wishing to oppose, say, and deduce against the said Father Ignatius; having seen the depositions of the witnesses, and the sayings received on the part of the curia; having seen the offer made in judgment of the said Father Ignatius, and his obligation of presenting himself as often as, etc.; having seen the defenses of the same Father Ignatius; having seen the citation and term given to all and singular wishing to deduce anything against the said Father Ignatius, and the citation made for this day and hour to hear our sentence and pronouncement, and having seen and considered all and singular things to be seen, which deservedly were to be considered, the name of Christ being repeated, from whom every best judgment comes, and the spirits of those judging are impelled to declare the truth:

[257] We Gaspar, doctor, canon, protonotary and vicar aforesaid, a public testimony being published on this matter; by those things which we have seen and diligently inspected, which can move our mind, and the mind of any upright judge, say, declare, pronounce, and definitively sentence in this manner which follows: namely, because we say and pronounce that the aforenamed Lord Father Ignatius of Loyola was and is to be absolved and freed from all and singular sayings whatsoever reported, and whispered to us and our office, as frivolous, vain, and false, as by these presents we absolve and free him, imposing silence, as we impose it, on all and singular things of which in the process, declaring the aforesaid Father Ignatius to have been and to be a priest of good and religious life, and of sound doctrine, and also of excellent condition and fame, who in the city of Venice up to this present day has taught doctrine and good examples: and so we say, pronounce, sentence, absolve, and declare in every best manner which we can and ought. Praise be to God.

[258] The aforesaid definitive sentence was passed, given, read, and promulgated by the R. Lord vicar aforesaid, sitting for the tribunal, which is here given. in the year, indiction, month, day, and pontificate as above, there being present the Lords Bartholomew de Cesis and Julius Odoardi, chamberlains of the aforesaid most reverend Lord Legate, witnesses called and asked.

I Jerome Thadeus, son of the late D. Petrutius, cleric of the diocese of Trani, public notary by Apostolic and imperial authority, and of the aforesaid most reverend Lord Legate, and of the reverend Lord vicar: Because I was present at, and wrote, the aforesaid definitive sentence, and all and singular things contained in it, together with the aforenamed witnesses, therefore in faith of the premises I have subscribed myself with my own hand, and have affixed my accustomed sign.” In the margin is had the sign of the aforesaid notary, and in the middle of the sign, his subscription, H. T. Pien observes that the sentence is written by the same hand as this testimony of the notary. Concerning this Lord Vicar Gaspar de Dottis, Dotto or Dottio, Maffei, book 2, chapter 2 at the end, and in the same place chapter 8; Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 14; Orlandini, book 1, no. 121, and book 14, no. 23. Concerning the time which St. Ignatius spent on preparation for his first Mass, these things occur.

[259] The place and time of his first Mass; “He had determined,” says the Gonçalves Life, no. 96, “after receiving the grade of the priesthood, to defer the offering of his first Sacrifice for a year, that meanwhile he might prepare himself for it, and might ask the most blessed Virgin to place him with her Son.” In the time Ribadeneira agrees, book 2, chapter 11, saying: “Now adorned with the priesthood, he took a whole year's space for preparing himself and collecting his mind more.” From that author's Spanish Life of Madrid of the year 1594, book 2, chapter 11, we have that the Saint, initiated into sacred Orders, waited a year and a half before he celebrated his first Mass: where a little before the same writer of the Life had premised that he did it later than he had thought. Carnoli, chapter 13, indicates from the Saint's own handwriting that his first Mass happened in the year 1538; to which he also assigns a place, namely the chapel of the manger of Christ, at St. Mary Major at Rome; and defines the month and day, when he places the night of the Lord's Nativity concurring with Wednesday. Whence if thou go back to the 24th day of June of the year 1537, on which he was consecrated priest; now the interval of time of which we discourse is clear. In the matter of the place Maffei had preceded, book 2, chapter 4, saying: “At Rome he made a beginning of sacrificing, at the very manger and cradle of Christ the Lord, which in the most sacred shrine of Blessed Mary of the Snows are religiously venerated.” But these things can be solidly corroborated from elsewhere from Ribadeneira.

[260] There exists in our Roman archive an Italian letter of Father Nicholas Orlandini to Father Peter Ribadeneira, which from the answers of Ribadeneira containing certain doubts concerning the Life of St. Ignatius written by him. The letter is signified to be sent from Rome on the 18th of December 1598; and from Madrid on the 12th of March 1599 to be sent back by Father Ribadeneira to Orlandini himself, with Italian marginal answers ascribed by his own hand. From the transcript of the said letter sent hither from Rome I extract the following. “Your Reverence says,” says Orlandini, “book 2, chapter 11 (see the Spanish Life of Madrid just now cited) that our Father waited a year and a half after his ordination before he said Mass; saying it in the year 1538 on the night of the Nativity at the holy Manger: and chapter 7 of the same book shows that the said ordination was made on the day of St. John the Baptist of the year 1537: so that, according to what Your Reverence says, since our Father ought to have spent a year and a half to prepare himself, he waited until the end of the year 1538.” Ribadeneira answers: “It is most certain that our Father said his first Mass at Rome on the night of the Nativity 1538.” “Within the year 1538,” says Orlandini, “happened some things which seem clearly to demonstrate that our Father did not wait so long; but that he said his first Mass on the Nativity of the year 1537; that is, six months after his ordination.” Ribadeneira answers: “On the Nativity 1537 our Father had not yet come to Rome.”

[261] “The first,” as Orlandini proceeds, “is, that

at mid-Lent of the year 1538 (as Your Reverence affirms, chapter 13) the Fathers were united at Rome, to the doubts proposed to him by Orlandini to treat of founding the Society, and erecting it into a Religious order. But it is not credible, Orlandini says, that our Father undertook a matter of this kind unless he had first several times, by holy Sacrifices, consulted the Lord, and sought to understand His holy will.” Ribadeneira answers: “It was not necessary for him to consult by means of Sacrifices.” Orlandini insisting, “So much the more,” he says, “that in the said chapter 13 Your Reverence assigns this, saying: ‘The Fathers, that in so grave a matter they might make themselves more certain, all by common consent determined to apply themselves to prayer with greater fervor, and to offer the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass.’ Nor is it probable that all the others did it, our Father excepted.” Ribadeneira answers: “All, that is, those who had already celebrated.” The second thing, as Orlandini argues, was “that the said Fathers were united at Rome, as above, at that time in which Ignatius had been at Monte Cassino with doctor Ortiz; and, as Your Reverence says, chapter 12, that he, while celebrating Mass, saw the soul of Hosius fly to heaven. It follows, therefore,” he says, “that he did not wait the whole year 1538; but that he celebrated before they were gathered to found the Society.” And this he judges the more true, that in the said gathering there is no mention of Hosius. Ribadeneira answers: “I do not say WHILE CELEBRATING Mass; but the Italian translator, not well understanding my Latin and Spanish words. The Latin is, ‘When he was giving his labor to the sacred thing;’ the Spanish: Y despues estando en Missa: which I wrote of set purpose, and they are verified in HEARING Mass.”

[262] Orlandini besides objects, that the said fathers, having entered Rome in Lent of the year 1538, they are confirmed. the churches being distributed among themselves, preached, the church of Our Lady of Montserrat pertaining to Father Ignatius; and according to what, he says, Your Reverence affirms in the said chapter 13, they made a great movement, and renewed the ancient use of holy communion and confession. Whence it does not appear credible that this and other actions of that moment were performed, and that only our Father abstained from celebrating that whole year. Ribadeneira answers: “It was not necessary to have said Mass, in order to preach: it sufficed to be already a priest. Both Father Benedict Palmio and I preached many years before we were ordained.”

[263] These letters of Ribadeneira being received, Orlandini insisted, Other confirmations of the same. as is clear from the difficulties proposed to Father Ribadeneira in a letter given at Rome on the 3rd of November in the year 1599. It will suffice to give the Answers of Ribadeneira, inscribed by him in the margin to Orlandini's letter. The transcript, transcribed for me by Pien, and received from Rome, I thus interpret from the Italian: “I entered the Society in the month of September, of the year 1540; and from that time I always understood that our Blessed Father said his first Mass on the Nativity of the Lord of the year 1538. 2. What I write was seen and examined by the older Fathers, and by Father Polanco himself; and they approved it. 3. The common opinion is founded on an error, which arose from the Italian translator, who ill translated what I had written in Latin and Spanish. 4. After the first Fathers had made a vow at Paris of going to Jerusalem, and of waiting one year to find a passage, as I say book 2, chapter 4; and wishing to wait that year, book 2, chapter 8; and having entered Venice in the year 1537, on the 8th day of January, book 2, chapter 7; it necessarily follows that they waited that year in the Venetian dominion. 5. I believe that what I write will have more credit than what Father Polanco writes. Because I applied more diligence than he in proving the truth of matters: and I was with our holy Father six years before him: and when Father Polanco had heard that our holy Father had seen in Mass the soul of Hosius, he believed that it happened when he was saying Mass. 6. That matter is not a business of our opinion or devotion, but of fact. 7. When I spoke with Father Laínez of that delay of our Blessed Father in saying his first Mass, he said that the Father must have had some secret cause for doing what he did.” But these things more than enough: by which solidly stand the place, month, and year of the first Mass of our holy Parent.

[264] To which finally is added the testimony of Ignatius himself. I had written these things; when afterward, falling upon our Roman gleaning, of which I spoke above §15, I found the day and year of the first Mass of our holy Father, so clearly determined by himself that no further controversy about these can survive. For in the copy of a fragment, of which a specimen is contained in the said gleaning, of a Spanish letter which the holy Father gave to the Lords of Loyola, his brothers, Martin Garcia and Beltran, from Rome on the second day of February in the year 1539, these things are read: “On the past day of the Nativity, in the church of Our Lady Major, in the chapel where is the manger in which the infant Jesus was laid,.. I said my first Mass.” And the subscription runs thus: “needy of goodness, Ynigo.” Hence gather that Father Ignatius, when at Monte Cassino he saw the soul of father Hosius, did not say, but heard Mass: because he was at Monte Cassino before the year 1539; according to what, ascribed to our said copy by Father Lancicius with his own hand, on the testimony of Father Ignatius Pien, I have transferred hither.

§ XXVI. The famous apparition made to St. Ignatius in the Roman countryside; his entrance into the City; the Exercises imparted.

This apparition is so known from the writers This apparition is proved from the Life written by Gonçalves, that it need not be described here. The deed, in the Life received and written by Father Luis Gonçalves from the Saint's mouth, is thus related, no. 96: “But when one day, some miles before he entered Rome, having entered a certain church he prayed, he felt his mind so moved and changed, and saw so manifestly that God the Father placed him with Christ His Son, that he dared not doubt that God the Father placed him with His Son.” In the margin of our transcript, which Pien sent hither, and from which we copied these things, the said Pien ascribed these things from the process of Madrid: “And he most clearly saw God the Father delivering him to Christ His Son, so that he did not doubt that God had placed him with His Son.” But the author of the Life, whose words we were just producing, soon adds: “I, who wrote these things, said to the Pilgrim (that is, Ignatius) when he narrated this to me, that certain other things are related in particular on this matter by Laínez. Then he: ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘Laínez shall have said on this matter, this shall be true: for I do not so remember it in particular’ (namely on account of the multitude of visions and diversity of places, as in the margin Pien rightly observes). ‘But,’ he added, ‘when I narrated those things, I know for certain that I narrated nothing but the truth.’” Thus he concerning this his vision.

[266] Let Ribadeneira be heard in our Life, book 2, Ribadeneira, and Laínez, chapter 11: “Father James Laínez,” he says, “when he was Superior General of our Society, and at Rome in a certain assembly of all of us (at which I too was present) was speaking; narrated it in this very manner in which it was written down by me. And Ignatius himself, while he lived, being asked certain things concerning this very heavenly illumination, ‘Ask,’ he said, ‘of James Laínez: to whom, when the thing happened, I truly and faithfully narrated the whole matter.’” Ribadeneira adds moreover these things: “Moreover in a certain little Commentary and Diary (in which, while he wrote the Constitutions, Ignatius daily set down with his own hand his affections in prayer, and, as it were, his spiritual tastes) I found written: ‘Such (he says) an affection I felt today, as when the eternal Father commended me to His Son.’” Father John Rho, in his Achates, page 153, says: “Let us add a small part of the domestic sermon which Laínez delivered to the Roman companions in the year 1560, from the codex of his sermons which we keep in the archive.” From its page 11 he introduces Laínez thus speaking: “The first foundation of this appellation (namely of the Society of Jesus, of which he was beginning to speak) was, as it seems to me, to our Father that which I shall now bring forward:

[267] When we were coming to Rome by the Siena road, and the Father abounded in many spiritual motions, from whose sermon the words are given. especially in the Eucharist, master Faber and I daily said Mass; he himself did not say it, but communicated. He told me, then, these words impressed on him by God: ‘I will be favorable to you at Rome:’ of which, since our Father knew not the meaning, he said: ‘I know not what shall be to us. Perhaps we shall be fixed to the cross at Rome.’ Again he said that he seemed to himself to see Christ, the cross taken up on His shoulders, and near Him the eternal Father, who said to Him: ‘I will that thou receive this man as thy servant.’ And so Jesus received him, and said: ‘I will that thou serve me.’” Dost thou see how Laínez, who had heard the matter from the holy Father, and to whom he, being interrogated about it, referred the interrogator, according to what was said from Ribadeneira; dost thou see, I say, how Laínez reviews both the matter itself and the circumstances of the matter one by one? The mention of the little Commentary and Diary, made a little before by the same Ribadeneira, offers occasion for noting some things concerning this passage.

[268] From our Roman archive Father Ignatius Pien sent hither a transcript, Likewise from the Diary to which he prefixed this title with the following notices: “The Diary of St. Ignatius, of which Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 2 (as also in the place assigned above by us) and Luis Gonçalves in the Acts of St. Ignatius, in the last lines. When I had found this in Italian, I thought it should be copied. Afterward, beyond hope, I found the Spanish autograph, nay even a Latin translation in the copy of the Compulsory Process of Madrid of the year 1606: where it is said: ‘When our Father master Ignatius was writing the Constitutions, he had many and great visitations of God, and in prayer, Mass, and elections he weighed and treated with the Lord the several points: among which was one, whether the churches of the Professed houses could have any revenue for the sacristy or fabric; and upon this single point he said 40 Masses, and noted in a certain quire with his own hand what the Lord had communicated to him. Of which the copy is this, extracted from its original, by the hand of Father Diego Ximénez. Peter de Ribadeneira, chapter first, no. 5.’” These things being thence cited, Pien thus proceeds: “That Diary comprises the notes not only of 40 days, but of a much longer time. This is clear from the Italian copy which I have before me. Father John

Rho, cited above, page 151, produces a Spanish text from the papers of St. Ignatius: from which I skim these: Veniendo en memoria quando el Padre me puso con [el] Hijo.”

[269] written by the Saint's own hand; and Polanco; This text Orlandini renders into Latin, book 10, from no. 59, treating of those Commentaries, and giving a specimen of them; and those Spanish words he thus translates: “Because I recalled that time in which the Father placed me with His Son.” Our said Italian transcript agrees, in which I thus read: Venendo in memoria, quando il Padre mi pose con il Figliolo. I ask now, what do those words, “I recalled that time in which the Father placed me with His Son,” signify, if they do not manifestly touch that vision? For at what other time was Ignatius placed by the Father with His Son, if not then? But now John Polanco, how great a man in the Society! as may be seen from the History of the same Society, in it (they are the words of John Rho, page 150) “which, concerning the life of Ignatius and the rise and increases of the Society, he composed in Latin, a History with the highest fidelity and diligence; and which I,” says Rho, “in the previous year, before I came to Pisa, inspected in our Roman archive, chapter 4, most diligently pursues that vision itself and the promises of Christ the Lord.” But that Polanco was deceived, or, what is worse, deceived others, who would presume to say without sure witnesses and documents, by which he might clearly and solidly prove his saying?

[270] to which are added What more? For the truth of the present deed stand the oration of Aloysius Albritius to all the Cardinals, in our secular jubilee year praised by the Pontiff, from Rho page 153; likewise the tablet of the Roman altar, which the Pontiff venerated on his knees, as the same author adds; the long consent of the Christian nations, and the fidelity of the promises, page 154. To which add the tradition of the Society, which, because born before it, then grown up, confirmed, and propagated with it, remains so long with us in possession, until for most grave and sure causes it be dislodged from it. But it is not dislodged by any frivolous little reasons of smatterers and hypercritics, or by little doubts not sufficiently founded. Such as that is, that the truth of this apparition rests on the sole and single testimony of St. Ignatius, who alone saw it, alone first related it. What then? Is it therefore false, or suspect? If thou say this; see how great a window thou openest from this pseudo-principle to malignities and cavillings against the deeds of the Saints, done with witnesses removed, and known from their narration alone.

[271] other reasons. Nor say that the vision of which we treat is to be held among fables, because the Roman judges did not approve it: for this is not a sure foundation for invalidating deeds of this kind. For since, as John Rho says from page 149, they cannot be had except from the saying of the seer (for how else are these secret visions proved?), the severity of the Roman Rota is wont to reject all those from the legitimate proofs, so that they are rather ornaments of a sanctity already attested than proofs. It will therefore be faith enough, if the witnesses be men beyond all exception, and sworn: of which kind are the first, of Toledo, and the second, of Rome. But in the Office of St. Ignatius, which by command of the most Eminent Lord Caesar Cardinal Monti, archbishop of the church of Milan, is noted as added to the Ambrosian Calendar, and printed at Milan in the year 1647, in the third lesson it has thus: “He heard Jesus promising him His patronage in those words, near the City: I will be favorable to you at Rome.” These things I had to say concerning that deed; but of the place in which it happened, receive now a few things.

[272] “Having entered a deserted and solitary church,” etc., of the place in which the matter happened, which Ribadeneira has, book 2, chapter 11; whence it is understood in what place the matter happened. There is in my hands a topographical map engraved on copper at Rome, with this title above: “Notices of the chapel of St. Ignatius in the village of La Storta, where there is a convenience of celebrating Mass.” Below is represented in an image the deed of the famous apparition: at whose side is placed the inscription cut in marble above the door of the said chapel:

TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST.

IN THIS CHAPEL

GOD THE FATHER

APPEARED TO ST. IGNATIUS SEEKING ROME

TO INSTITUTE THE SOCIETY OF JESUS,

IN THE YEAR 1537,

BENIGNLY COMMENDING

HIM AND HIS COMPANIONS

TO CHRIST THE SON BEARING THE CROSS:

WHO, GAZING ON IGNATIUS WITH SERENE COUNTENANCE,

ADDRESSED HIM IN THESE WORDS:

I WILL BE FAVORABLE TO YOU AT ROME.

THYRSUS GONZÁLEZ,

SUPERIOR GENERAL OF THE SOCIETY,

THE CHAPEL BEING REPAIRED AND ADORNED,

TO THE HOLY PARENT

SET THIS UP,

IN THE YEAR 1700.

[273] There is subjoined the prospect of the same chapel to those coming from the City, its description. according to the Roman copy, here caused to be engraved on copper, as thou seest in this scheme.

Below the prospect of the chapel is exhibited the marking of the roads from the City to La Storta, with a threefold exit to it from the City; of which one is through the Angelic gate, another through the gate of the Castle, and the last through the gate of the People. La Storta is distant about six Italian miles from the City, that is about two Belgian leagues, and looks toward it turned between east and south: on the other side it has the Florence road, or, according to what we heard above from Laínez, the Siena road. From Rome to La Storta one goes more directly and thus more shortly through the Angelic gate, according to the said marking.

[274] His entrance into the City happened indeed in the month of October of the year 1537, from Orlandini, book 2, no. 32; but above, §25, no. 248, from the words of Ribadeneira, “on the day of the Nativity of the year 1537 our Father had not yet come to Rome.” But at what precise individual time he came there, I would rather learn than teach. This is established, that he was there in the time of Lent, according to what Ribadeneira says, book 2, chapter 13: where he thus writes: “At mid-Lent in the year 1538 all the Fathers meet at Rome with Ignatius.” Add: “Meanwhile Ignatius,” as Maffei narrates, book 2, chapter 6, “diligently labored, after his custom, for the salvation of his neighbors, both with other arts and especially with the spiritual Exercises.. With which he in those days, besides the rest of the crowd, diligently cultivated some distinguished men. Among them Gasparo Contarini, Cardinal, a most weighty senator; and the same in those times (which his various monuments illustriously testify) easily the chief in genius and doctrine. He was so captivated by Ignatius's prudence and intimacy, and profited so much by his precepts and counsels, that he affirmed that he had at last, by God's benefit, found such a master of governing and moderating the mind as he had long desired. And the same, the Exercises being imparted to him (which copy they report is kept among his heirs even today), he himself very accurately copied out with his own hand.” Orlandini also treats of this matter, book 2, no. 34. The holy Father besides cultivated with his sacred meditations Peter Ortiz, a most weighty man: of which matter Ribadeneira and Maffei; to whom add Orlandini, who narrates this at the year 1538. But the retreat of Ortiz to Monte Cassino, whither he had withdrawn, that, interrupters being removed, he might attend with greater fruit, under the direction of Ignatius, to his spiritual Exercises; that retreat, I say, gave a handle to a little fable formed in the little brains of some concerning the Albaneta instruction of St. Ignatius; which we now set about confuting.

§ XXVII. The fictitious instruction of the Saint at Albaneta among the Benedictine monks in composing the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus; the deliberations of the first Fathers concerning constituting the Society.

[The Exercises imparted by Ignatius to Ortiz at Monte Cassino gave occasion to this little fable;] The retreat of our most holy Parent for cultivating Peter Ortiz with sacred meditations gave occasion to an empty invention, by which it pleased some to assert that the holy Man, instructed by the Benedictine monks, composed there the laws or Constitutions of our Society from their rules or laws. Dom Benedict Haeften, in the Monastic Disquisitions, book 2, tract 6, disquisition 5, thus writes: “On Monte Cassino he wrote the rules of his Society, and there, as Antonio Scipio related in the Eulogies of the abbots of Monte Cassino, being instructed by the president both with the books which were needful and with the aid of one or another monk, he betook himself to Albaneta, a place in the same forest of Monte Cassino separated about five hundred paces from the chief monastery.” Arnold Wion had preceded, in the Wood of life, book 1, chapter 1, relating these things: “Ignatius Loyola so formed his followers, whom he wished to found, from the institutes of this (understand the Benedictine) rule (for, placed at Cassino, he inhabited that mountain of contemplation for some months; and there, like another Moses and legislator, composed second tables of religious laws not unlike the first) that in a very brief interval,” etc. A writing also of a certain Benedictine, found and transcribed by himself at Rome, Father Ignatius Pien sent hither together with the other Roman documents, with this title prefixed to it: “On St. Ignatius Loyola composing the Rules of the Society of Jesus at Albaneta;” but his assertion, as the same Father rightly observes, that Benedictine author does not even attempt to prove. To these trifles agrees the reverend Father Friar Francisco de Berganza, in the Antiquities of Spain defended, part 2, book 8, chapter 3, no. 31, writing that the Saint received himself to the Priory of St. Mary of Albaneta, distant five hundred paces from his mother monastic house; and that there, instructed by the rules of the holy Fathers and especially of St. Benedict, he composed his rule and Constitutions.

[276] I pity indeed the credulity of those good men, because I see them engaged in an error so gross, which is rejected from various arguments, and bestowing their labor on a pure and unmixed little fable. What I assert, I thus prove. 1. Which of the writers who accurately and thoroughly inspected and scrutinized the deeds of both Ignatius and the Society touched that deed even with their fingertips? The Gonçalves Life says, no. 98: “The Pilgrim (that is, Ignatius) departed from Rome at one time to Monte Cassino, that he might impart the Exercises to doctor Ortiz: and he spent forty days (not some months, as Wion would have it) there.” See also Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 12. Secondly. That deed is manifestly overthrown from the Original commentary, sent for the History of the Society of Jesus from the province of Lyons in the year 1599, which, on the faith of Father Ignatius Pien, and from his transcription, among the other documents drawn from our Roman archive, relates these things: “The beginning will be made by our Father of happy memory Ignatius; concerning whom these are the words of father Hannibal du Coudret: ‘At the time when the Reverend Father Ignatius was writing the Constitutions, I saw no book in his chamber during the whole seven months in which I served him, except the Missal on those days on which he wished to offer Sacrifice; but commending himself to God through the night, in the morning he himself wrote what God had inspired. And when the days were clear, that he might do this more quietly, he withdrew into the garden of a certain Roman, which for this very purpose he had borrowed.’”

which for this very purpose he had borrowed from him; and there, a table being placed in the middle of the garden, with only a writing-desk and paper, he wrote what occurred.” Does the Albaneta fable shine forth in these things even by a shadow?

[277] Thirdly. When the holy Father was composing the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, he had already celebrated his first Mass; which are here as is established from his Diary cited in the paragraph immediately preceding, where concerning his forty Masses, etc. The same ought to be admitted without any evasion from the Life of St. Ignatius which he himself dictated to Luis Gonçalves; at the end of which, besides the forty Masses, these things occur: “The method which he observed in composing the Constitutions was this, that he should daily say Mass, and propose or offer to God the point which he was treating.” But so long as Ignatius attended to imparting the spiritual Exercises to Ortiz on Monte Cassino, he had not yet then said his first Mass: for Orlandini, book 2, no. 36, connecting Ignatius's retreat to Monte Cassino with the death of Hosius (which also Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 12, and Maffei, book 2, chapter 6, do) thus says: “At that time, when in this retreat Ignatius was with Ortiz, the bachelor Hosius at Padua .. freed from the body by a brief illness, departed to God.” And these two events he attaches to the year 1538: and from elsewhere, in the Manuscript Menology of our Society, in which is had the eulogy of the aforesaid Hosius, rendered into Flemish from the Italian, at the day March 13 I read: “About this time (for the day is properly unknown) the happy passing of Father James Hosius.” Hosius, therefore, died in the year 1538, on the day and month aforesaid, according to what has been said. But Ignatius celebrated his first Mass in the year 1538 on the Nativity of the Lord, from what was said in §25. It consequently follows that, because he had not yet celebrated his first Mass, when he was on Monte Cassino with Ortiz, and then there saw the soul of Hosius, he did not there and then compose the laws or Constitutions of the Society. Nay rather Orlandini, in the same no. 37, testifies that when Hosius died, the time was not yet ripe for composing the Constitutions; for “he was carried out,” he says, “a little before it was begun to be deliberated concerning the Religious order.” Did Ignatius write the Constitutions of his Religious order before it had been maturely deliberated concerning constituting it?

[278] against it Fourthly. The first formula of the Institute of the Society is proposed to the Pontiff and approved by the oracle of the living voice in the year 1539, from Orlandini, book 2, nos. 57, 82, and 83; see besides Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 17; and at last the same Society is erected into a religious Order by the public documents of the holy See in the year 1540: and so, if we give faith to the assertors of the Albaneta fable, already then in the year 1538 its Founder must, according to what has been said, have tempered the Society with laws before it was born. Who would believe this? 5. What Orlandini at the year 1550 faithfully, accurately, and distinctly unfolds, the circumstances of the writing, time, places, and persons being graphically noted, concerning the manner, order, and whole economy which Ignatius kept in conceiving, composing, and revising the Constitutions; these alone ought to suffice to dissipate those empty smokes of the Albaneta instruction. 6. But by these words, contained in the proem with which the holy Father begins his Constitutions: “Because the Vicar of Christ our Lord has so determined, … we judge it necessary that the Constitutions be written;” does he not openly indicate that he writes the Constitutions by command of the Vicar of Christ, and thus after the Society was approved with solemn rite by the Vicar of Christ in the year 1540, and not in the year 1538?

[279] Seventhly. In the Diary of St. Ignatius cited above I read these things: are brought forward. Questo di anco andando per la CITTA: that is, “On this day also while I went through the City.” He was not therefore on Monte Cassino, but at Rome, when he wrote these things; and he wrote these things when he was composing the Constitutions, from what was said above. 8. The institute of the Benedictine Order and of the Society differ too much between themselves for this to be said derived from that. This argument Father John Rho thus draws out, page 50: “To the Benedictines a fixed seat, the adoption of monasteries: that we ought nowhere to have firm seats, is provided immediately at the beginning of the Summary of the Constitutions. Of their habit accurately in the rule or certainly the laws: to us no fixed kind of garment from a rule. To them no small wealth in public psalmody: to us no choir. Of the preaching of the divine word their laws are silent: it is our chief labor. To them a prescribed formula of abstinence: to us it is permitted to each one's discretion. Of the plan of academies nothing does Benedict [say]: of these at length Ignatius treats. To us a most absolute monarchy pleases: far diverse to the monks is the form of the commonwealth. They create their superiors in assemblies: to us the Superior General imposes them.” Very many other points, proper, characteristic, and substantial to the Society alone, by which it is distinguished from all other Orders; what else do they cry out than that the Founder of the Society of Jesus drew his Constitutions neither from the Benedictine nor from any other Order's institute? But those points will be given below, §§30 and 31. These seem to me more than to suffice for the confutation of this Albaneta ineptitude, which, placed in the fourth place among those which John Rho in the Achates directed to D. Constantine Cajetan, monk of Monte Cassino and abbot of St. Baront, is there refuted by the same author from page 23. St. Ignatius therefore wrote his Constitutions at Rome in the Professed house; not at Albaneta; for when in the year 1538 he was living on Monte Cassino, that matter was then too premature; as is clear from the deeds of the year 1539; of which I shall now speak.

[280] The Life of the Saint in Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 13, narrates Various and serious deliberations are held among the first fathers, how all the fathers together at Rome deliberated concerning constituting the Society. What the said author there has, we declare, confirm, and illustrate from the monuments of our Roman archive, copied and sent hither by the often-named clearer-away of the Ignatian affairs there: among which is set a Latin copy, whose matter thou wilt understand from this title which is prefixed to it: “The deliberation and determination of the first fathers concerning constituting among themselves one body or society; so that, even after they should be sent by the supreme Pontiff into various parts of the world, no separation of places however great should divide them: and concerning making a vow of obeying some one of the Society,” etc. And these things are subjoined, excerpted from a somewhat longer narration: “Lent being lately over, when the time was approaching in which we must be divided and separated from one another, which also we awaited with the highest desires, that we might the sooner reach the end fixed and pre-thought by us and vehemently desired; we determined, many days before the separation, to meet among ourselves and treat mutually of this our vocation and formula of living. Which when we had done several times, .. and were solicitous and vigilant to find some way fully fit, by which walking we might offer ourselves as a holocaust to our God; to whose praise, honor, and glory all our things should tend; at last we determined, and by concordant opinion resolved, to apply ourselves more fervently than usual to prayers and Sacrifices and meditations …”

[281] “We began, therefore, to bestow our human endeavors, and to propose among ourselves certain doubts .., about which through the day we were wont to think and meditate, whether they should be separated, or remain gathered in one body; and even to investigate by prayers: and at night each one proposed in the midst what he had judged more right and expedient .. On the first night on which we met, this doubt was proposed, whether it were more expedient, after we had offered and dedicated ourselves and our life to Christ our Lord and to His true and legitimate Vicar on earth, that he should dispose of us and send us where he should judge us able to bear more fruit, whether they be … Indians, or heretics, or any others whatever, faithful or infidel: whether, I say, it were more expedient that we should be so bound and knit together among ourselves in one body, that no division of bodies however great should separate us; or whether perhaps it were not so expedient ..”

[282] “At last we defined the affirmative part: Namely that, after the most clement and most pious Lord had deigned to unite and gather us together, so weak, and born of such diverse regions and morals, we ought not to rend the union and gathering of God, but rather day by day to confirm and stabilize it, which last pleased. by reducing ourselves to one body, … to the greater fruit of souls; since virtue itself also, united, has more strength and fortitude for pursuing any arduous good, than if it were dispersed into several parts. Yet in all these things which have been said and which shall be said, we wish it to be so understood, that we assert nothing at all out of our own spirit and head, but only whatever it be that the Lord shall inspire, and the Apostolic See shall confirm and approve.”

[283] Whether a vow of obedience should be made, This first doubt being decided and resolved, we came to another, … namely whether, after we had all made a vow of perpetual chastity and a vow of poverty, into the hands of the most reverend Legate of His Holiness, when we were at Venice; whether, I say, it were expedient to make a third, namely of obeying some one of us, that more sincerely and with greater … merit we might in all things fulfill the will of the Lord our God … For the solution of this doubt, when we applied ourselves to prayer many days and kept asking, and nothing occurred which filled our minds, we began to agitate among ourselves certain means for better solving the doubt. And first. Whether it were not expedient that all of us should withdraw to some hermitage, and there remain for thirty or forty days attending to meditations, fasts, and penances, to this end that the Lord might hear our desires … or whether three or four in the name of all should go thither to the same effect .. We determined that all should remain within the City, especially for two causes: the first, lest there should be a rumor and scandal in the city and among the people, who might judge … that we had either taken flight or were plotting something new, or were little firm and constant .. The second, lest meanwhile through our absence there should be a loss of the fruit which we then saw was being made great in confessions, preachings, and other spiritual exercises, and so great that, even if we had been fourfold more in number than we were, we could not satisfy all, as neither now.”

[284] the following preparations of soul being employed, “The second thing which we began to agitate for finding a way of solution, was to propose to all and to each of all the three following preparations of soul. The first is, that each one should so prepare himself, so attend to prayers, Sacrifices, and meditations, that he should strive in finding

joy and peace in the Holy Spirit, laboring, so far as in him lay, concerning obedience, to have a will more affected toward obeying than toward commanding, where an equal glory of God and praise of His majesty should follow. The second preparation of soul is, that none of the companions should speak on this matter with another companion, or ask reasons of him, that by no persuasion of another might another be drawn and bent more toward obeying than toward not obeying, or the contrary; but each one should seek only that which from prayer and meditation he had drawn as more expedient. The third, that each one should reckon himself alien from this our congregation, and into which he should never expect to be received, so that from this consideration he might be borne by no affections whatever to opining and judging thus rather than otherwise, but as an alien might freely bring forward his opinion .., by which he believes there will be a greater service of God, and a surer conservation of the society enduring.”

[285] “These preliminary dispositions of soul being made, we ordained that on the following day all, prepared, should come, each about to say all those inconveniences and by various reasons which could arise against obedience, all the reasons .. which each of us had found separately by thinking, meditating, praying. And each one in his order brought them forward. For example, one said .. ‘If we wish to live under obedience, we shall perhaps be compelled by the supreme Pontiff to live under another rule already made and constituted, by which it would come that, since opportunity and place of laboring concerning the salvation of souls would not so be given us—to which one thing, after the care of ourselves, we intend—all our desires, in our judgment acceptable to the Lord our God, would be frustrated …’ But on the next following day we disputed to the contrary, bringing into the midst all the advantages and fruits of obedience itself, which each had drawn in prayer and meditation, and each in his order brought forward what he had meditated … For example, someone thus reduced the matter to absurdity … ‘If this our congregation, without the sweet yoke of obedience, had the care of matters to be done, no one would have an exact care .. Likewise if this congregation were without obedience, it could not long remain and persevere: which yet fights against our first intention of conserving our society perpetually.’”

[286] “Since therefore by no thing is any congregation more conserved than by obedience, being proposed and weighed it seems to us necessary; especially to us, who have vowed perpetual poverty, and are engaged in assiduous and continual labors both spiritual and temporal, in which a society is less conserved. Another said thus: ‘Obedience begets heroic virtues, even continual ones. For he who lives truly under obedience is most ready to execute whatever is enjoined him, whether they be most difficult, or generating confusions and laughter and a spectacle to the world … Likewise nothing so overthrows all pride and arrogance as obedience. For pride makes much of and follows its own judgment and its own will, yielding to none, walking in great and marvelous things above itself: but on the contrary obedience fights by the diameter i.e., diametrically; for it always follows another's judgment and another's will, yields to all, and is most closely associated with humility, which is the enemy of pride. And although we have given the supreme Pontiff and pastor all obedience, both universal and particular: yet in our particular and contingent matters, which are innumerable, he could not, nor, if he could, would it befit him, to attend.’”

[287] “After therefore we had for many days agitated very many things on this side and that concerning the solution of the doubt, weighing and examining the reasons of graver moment and more efficacious, [it was concluded by the votes of all, that obedience must be rendered to some one of the Society.] attending to the accustomed exercises of meditation, prayer, thought; at last, the Lord furnishing aid, not by the opinions of the majority of votes, but with none at all dissenting, we concluded that it was more expedient and more necessary for us to render obedience to some one of us, that we might better and more exactly fulfill our first desires of executing in all things the divine will, and that the society might be more surely conserved, and finally that provision might be decently made for particular affairs occurring, both spiritual and temporal. The same order of discussing and proceeding being likewise kept in all the rest, always acting on either side, we tarried in these and other things nearly three months, from mid-Lent up to the feast of John the Baptist inclusive; on which day all were sweetly and with concordant consent of minds terminated and finished, not without great vigils, prayers, and labors of mind and body premised, before we defined and deliberated these things.” On the back Pien notes that it is inscribed in the hand of St. Ignatius: 1539, en tres meses el modo de ordenarse la Compañia. That is: 1539, in three months, the manner in which the Society is ordered.

* that is, after sunset, by an Italian phrase.

* some word is lacking in the instrument.

§ XXVIII. Various determinations of the Fathers concerning instituting the Society; the faculty of preaching and hearing confessions in the City and its district.

The deliberations given in the preceding paragraph were followed by these determinations; [The determinations of the first fathers, from authentic instruments, concerning the vow of obedience in the Society,] which, transcribed from the Roman archive by the hand of the same Father Pien, who wrote the foregoing with his pen, I exhibit: “I N., undersigned, confess before Almighty God, and the most blessed virgin Mary, and the whole heavenly court, that, prayer to God being premised, and the matter maturely weighed, I have of my own accord deliberated, as in my judgment more expedient to the praise of God and the perpetuity of the Society, that there should be in it a vow of obedience: and deliberately I have offered myself, yet without a vow and any obligation, to enter the same Society, if by the Lord Pope granting it should be confirmed: to the memory of which deliberation (which I recognize that I have from God's gift) I now, though most unworthy, approach the most sacred communion with the same deliberation. On Tuesday the fifteenth of April 1539. R. Cáceres. John Codure. Laínez. Salmeron. Bobadilla. Paschasius Broët. Francis. Peter Faber. Ignatius. Simon Rodríguez. Claude Jay.” The transcriber of these, Father Ignatius Pien, thus notes: “This formula is written by the hand of Peter Faber: but all the subscriptions are autograph.” He adds: “In the novitiate at St. Andrew, next to the domestic chapel of St. Stanislaus, where he died, the same deliberation is read with the same subscriptions, as I there,” he says, “copied it.” Which also is at hand for me. But lest the name Cáceres strike anyone, Father Ignatius Pien testifies, among the things which he inserted in the Roman gleaning, that he found in the archive an autograph letter of Cáceres, given at Paris on the 11th of February 1541 to Father Ignatius at Rome.

[289] By the same scrutinizer of our Roman archive there were communicated with me thence the Determinations of the Society, 1539, the 4th of May, written by the hand of Peter Faber, and transcribed by him in these words: and to the supreme Pontiff concerning the missions; “IHS. On the fourth day of the month of May, which was the festivity of the holy Cross, there were concluded by all, none dissenting, the things which follow, and on the next following day, which was Sunday, the same were confirmed. That whoever is about to enter the said congregation or Society, shall be bound to make an express vow of obedience to the supreme Pontiff, by which indeed he offers himself about to go to whatever provinces or regions both of the faithful and of the infidels, etc. But this vow shall be made to the supreme Pontiff through the hands of the Prelate of the Society, or through the hands of the whole Society, and not before the Pontiff himself, etc.”

[290] “That boys or any others whatever shall be taught the very commandments. the instruction of boys, That a determined time shall be assumed, in which the commandments and rudiments themselves may be imparted in a certain order and in a due manner. That forty days shall be assumed in the year, on which days such rudiments shall be taught.” Pien observes in the margin of the transcript which he sent, that here some declarations are added, that there be no place for scruples; likewise that no one of this congregation can procure with the Pontiff that he be sent somewhere, etc.; as is had in the formula offered to Paul III. Bartoli however observes, book 2, no. 45 toward the end, that the determinations set down by Ignatius were always approved by the common votes of all, one man only and in one matter being excepted, namely Bobadilla, who never wished to be bound by a vow to the office of imparting Christian doctrine to boys, though the rest asked it. Wherefore it pleased to defer to him rather than to his reasons, and not to oblige the Society more strictly to that office than to others. Yet Bobadilla did not avoid, even in this matter, a certain mark of pertinacity; which, since it seemed likely to result in a great inconvenience, if what the others had judged should be made void by the obstinate judgment of one rather than by reasons, it was decreed by them that, if one, against the assent of all, should harden his mind, his vote should be void and null. But let us return to our transcript.

[291] “On the Saturday before the fourth Sunday after Easter there were concluded, the perpetuity of the General, and on the following Sunday confirmed, none dissenting, That boys be taught for the space of one hour, not however taking the hour scrupulously, but according to the probable judgment of the teacher. That those who are to be admitted, must do the spiritual Exercises, and other trials of the Society, etc.” Pien adds that these are written by the hand of Faber; adding that on the back of all the preceding determinations from the 4th of May of the year 1539, there is had in the hand of St. Ignatius, “Determinations of the Society: from which, and others, is drawn the formula of the Institute offered by all to Paul III.” He warns likewise that among these, in the same hand of Faber, it is noted, that on the day before the Octave of Corpus Christi it was determined, “That there shall be one Prelate in the whole Society, who shall be elected in perpetuity, that is for life, según las excepciones, que despues se determinaran; that is, according to the exceptions which shall afterward be determined.” There follows another determination concerning the Constitutions to be made, etc., that one must stand by the judgment of the majority of the Society staying in Italy, of this tenor: “IHS. Ma. Since, as we piously believe, it happens, God the Best and Greatest disposing, that we are separated into diverse and those distant regions of the world, and that by command of the supreme Pontiff, the prince of the whole Church; we considering, who are joined in one body, that many things can happen which may pertain to the advantage of the whole Society, namely concerning the Constitutions to be made and any other things:

[292] It seemed to us all who were then at Rome—nay we determined this, and as a sign of this truth subscribed our names with our own hand—the prerogative of the plurality of votes; that all things of this kind ought to be left to the judgment and opinion of the majority of votes of those (who are of our body) staying in Italy, who by those who shall then be at Rome can be convoked, or their votes required of them by letters: and thus, the votes of the majority of them being seen, as we said, who shall then be in Italy, concerning the aforesaid matters pertaining to our whole Society

they can determine, as if the whole Society were present. For thus it pleased, and it seemed good to all in the Lord, the fourth of March 1540. Iñigo, John Codure, Simon Rodríguez, Alfonso Salmeron, Francis, Claude Jay.” The value of this instrument grows from what Pien ascribes to it, saying: “This writing is written by the hand of John Codure: all the subscriptions are autograph. On the back is inscribed in the hand of St. Ignatius: Determination of the Society.” It grows likewise from what the same Father soon subjoins: “This same determination, written in the Italian tongue, was confirmed at Rome the 14th of May 1541; this I do not copy, but only the autograph subscriptions; namely Paschasius Broët, Laínez, Salmeron, Ignatius, John Codure, Claude Jay.”

[293] to which Jay also refers himself. Various other determinations These instruments are followed, in our transcript, by an autograph note of Claude Jay, expressed in these few words: “Whatever my reverend Father in Christ Lord Ignatius of Loyola, and my brothers who are in Italy, shall have determined in things pertaining to the Society, I hold ratified and firm. In testimony of which I subscribe my name, the 18th of April 1542. Claude Jay.” Finally the last place in the determinations, in our Roman transcript, is held by various determinations, comprised in this document: “IHS. On the fourth of March 1541 we all met together, that is, Lord Ignatius, Lord Claude Jay, Lord James Laínez, Lord Paschasius Broët, Lord Alfonso Salmeron, and I John Codure, who were then of the Society at Rome, also in the name of the absent, who had given us their votes; and we determined that two of us should think about the affairs of the Society, .. and afterward should report to the Society what should seem good to them, that, if they should please, they might approve, or if they should think anything better, might say it: and this, both that our affairs might be done more briefly, and that the others, apart from those two, might meanwhile be able to attend more both to making sermons, and to confessions and other spiritual exercises. And two were named, Lord Ignatius and I John Codure: who according to the will of the Society began today, the tenth of March.”

[294] are produced. From the addition and on the faith of Father Ignatius Pien, “Here follows their report on many matters, on the poverty of the Society, on the impediments excluding from the Society, on the office of the Prelate for life, on the trials of our men, on garb, on the instruction of boys, on having colleges in universities. There is subjoined the approbation of all these, and the autograph subscriptions of all the fathers. Iñigo, Paschasius Broët, Salmeron, Laínez, Claude Jay, John Codure.” We have from what has been said whereby to look up to the mature prudence in conducting affairs, joined with a modesty equal to Ignatius's, who equaled himself to none, much less preferred himself, and with the wonderful concord of the companions sprung from diverse nations, none dissenting, according to what was alleged above. But what was just now said of the sermons, confessions, etc., is declared from the letters patent, before graciously obtained: as becomes plain from this copy of them, inserted among our Roman monuments:

[295] An instrument is given, “V. Caraffa, of the title of St. Mary in Trastevere priest Cardinal of Naples, Legate of the benign City. To our beloved sons in Christ Peter Faber, Lorenzo Garcías, Diego Laínez, Francis de Robier (read Xavier), Nicholas de Bobadilla, Simon Rodríguez, Ignatius de Loyola, Alfonso de Salmeron, Claude Jay, Paschasius Broët, John Codure, priests of the dioceses of Geneva, Jaén, Elne, Sigüenza, Pamplona, Palencia, Vic, and Toledo respectively, everlasting greeting in the Lord. The gift of knowledge, the sincerity of devotion, and the honesty of religion, with which we have learned you to be marked, deserve that we should follow you with the grace of a special prerogative, and assent to condign favors. Since therefore, as you lately caused to be set forth to us, you, who have for much time given your labor in theology, desire in the office of preaching the word of God to satisfy many:

[296] We, wishing that you and each of you may be able more freely to exercise the aforesaid office of preaching to the salvation and profit of souls, by which to the Saint and his companions being inclined to your supplications in this part, by the Apostolic authority which we discharge in this part, grant and likewise indulge to you and to each of you, by the tenor of these presents, out of special grace, the faculty, that, as long as you shall live, everywhere, and in this benign City and its district, where you shall have been asked for this, or one of you shall have been asked, or where you shall have hoped that you can profit for the salvation of the souls of the faithful of Christ, you may preach the word of God, the license of anyone upon this being by no means required, and may use, enjoy, and possess the privileges, graces, faculties, indults, and concessions which preachers of the word of God use, possess, and enjoy by law or custom, or otherwise, and shall be able in any way in future to use, possess, and enjoy; and also that you may, the license of the diocesans of places, and of the rectors of any particular churches whatsoever, or of any others whomsoever, being by no means required, hear the confessions of any of the faithful of Christ of both sexes, wishing to confess to you or to one of you, and, they being diligently heard, absolve them from any sins, crimes, and delicts from which the Ordinaries of places can absolve by law or custom or otherwise in any manner, and enjoin on them a salutary penance for the things committed:

[297] And that to the same faithful of Christ, without however prejudice to the rectors of the parochial churches, of laboring in the City and its district or with their consent, you may freely and lawfully minister the Eucharist and the other ecclesiastical Sacraments, and each of you may—we, by the tenor of these presents, out of special grace grant and likewise indulge the faculty, most strictly inhibiting the same Ordinaries and rectors, and also any other persons whatever of whatever dignity, state, grade, order, or condition existing, under pain of excommunication by sentence already passed, to be incurred by that very fact, if they shall do the contrary, without any declaration, that they presume not to hinder, disturb, or perturb you or any of you concerning the preachings of this word and the other premises, against the tenor of the presents, by themselves or another or others, under any sought pretext.

[298] the faculty is granted. Notwithstanding the premises, and any Apostolic and general or special constitutions and Apostolic ordinations published in provincial and synodal councils, and all other contrary things whatsoever. In faith, strength, and testimony of which we have caused the present letters to be made, and, signed with our own hand, to be fortified with our seal. Given at Rome in our house on the 3rd day of May 1538. V. Cardinal of Naples, Legate.” And a seal is affixed in Spanish red wax, and it is subscribed: “Jo. Paul de Thisis, Auditor. Seen.”

§ XXIX. Margaret of Austria succors the poverty of Rome through Ignatius; her letters to him; the acts of the most Eminent Contarini with the Pontiff for the Society; the labors of the fathers in Italy; the Society is reported to have been promoted by an apparition.

In time of famine Margaret of Austria, once Ignatius's penitent, aids Rome: What Ribadeneira records, book 2, chapter 15, of the public offices of charity which the first fathers rendered to Rome laboring under a great scarcity of provisions, I set forth a little more at length thus from Maffei, book 2, chapter 11: “Many nobles besides, for the perfection of the glorious work, spontaneously offered Ignatius no light sum of money. In which matter the piety and beneficence of Margaret of Austria, daughter of Charles V, married to Ottavio Farnese, today duke of Piacenza and Parma, shone forth especially. And of that money, although Ignatius understood that he could, especially by the will of those who had contributed, spend some part on his own necessities and those of his men; yet the Man was of so great scruple, that he spent not even a farthing except on the advantages of the external poor, the names being accurately entered in a book, that the account of absolutely all might be clear. And in this manner chiefly the labor was carried on to the very end of winter, with the favorable murmur of the city,” etc. Famiano Strada, in the History of the Belgian War, decade 1, at the year 1559, writes these things of Margaret: “For piety she used a great master indeed, Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus: with whom she was wont to expiate her soul from offenses, and that somewhat more frequently than those times bore. From that author she drew toward the most sacred Eucharist a religion truly singular, and plainly Austrian;” as is given to be seen from two specimens which are there narrated.

[300] whose letter to him is here given. I find a letter of the praised Princess, annexed to our Roman monuments, which from the Italian sounds thus: “Reverend M. Ignatius: Thy letter was a great solace to us, because we were made more certain of thy health, and from it we understood that the affection with which thou hast followed us has not been diminished by so long an absence, nor has it fallen from thee, in our many labors, to pray the blessed God for us. For which thing we are bound to thee on infinite accounts, and pray thee that in thy prayers thou wilt be willing henceforth to continue the same. And if from here we can do anything for thee or thy Society, thou wilt always find us most ready to gratify thee in all things. And so we offer ourselves to thee. May God our Lord make thee content. Parma, the 16th day of January 1554. Margaret of Austria.” The inscription is: “To our most dear reverend M. Ignatius, at Rome.” But let us return to the earlier times and the institution of the Society.

[301] [The acts with the Pontiff in favor of the Society by the most Eminent Contarini, from his letter.] The often-named collector of the Roman monuments concerning the holy Father sent hither a copy of an original letter of Cardinal Contarini to St. Ignatius, in which he narrates that the Institute of the Society was set forth to the supreme Pontiff and read by himself; approved and confirmed by the Pontiff; that the Bull was soon to be composed, etc.; from which are confirmed and illustrated the things which Ribadeneira says, book 2, chapter 17. These I thus render from the Italian into Latin: “To the reverend lord Ignatius. Yesterday, through thy Spaniard M. Antonio, I received the extension of the chapters together with a note of the reverend master of the sacred Palace. Today I was with our Lord, and, over and above the petition delivered by mouth, I read to His Holiness all five chapters; which quite satisfy His Beatitude, and he most benignly approved and confirmed them. On Friday we shall come to Rome with His Beatitude, and it will be given in charge to the most reverend Ghinucci to make a Brief or Bull. I commend myself to thy prayers. Salute our M. Lactantius. Farewell well in the Lord. Tivoli, the 3rd of September 1539. Your most loving G. Cardinal Contarini.” The inscription is: “To our most loving reverend lord Ignatius. At Rome.” Of the delay cast in the way of the solemn and canonical confirmation of this business, one may consult Ribadeneira in the cited place: until at last in the year 1540, on the 5th of the Kalends of October, the Society of Jesus was erected into a religious Order by Pope Paul III, a solemn Bull being published on this matter, which begins: “To the government of the Church militant.”

[302] On occasion of what the Pontiff there says of the first fathers of the Society; [Testimonies how Xavier and Bobadilla labored in the vineyard of the Lord at Bologna;] now, how for many years they laudably exercised themselves in the vineyard of the Lord, by publicly preaching the word of God with sufficient license premised, I produce these testimonies copied from our Roman archive. Concerning St. Francis Xavier and Bobadilla there exists this: “Augustine

Zannetti, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Sebaste, and of the episcopal curia of Bologna in spirituals and temporals general vicar and suffragan. To all and singular to whom our present letters shall come, everlasting greeting in the Lord. To you, by the tenor of the presents, we make undoubted and sincere faith, and attest in the Lord, that Francis Xavier and Nicholas Bobadilla, priests, in this our city of Bologna, by our license preached sincerely and in a Christian manner, and in nothing agreeing with the doctrine of Luther; nay extirpating it with the utmost strength: in which sermons they brought much utility to this our city, and by their life and morals, which all approved, they corroborated it. Whence that they departed as fugitives from that city is false, but they went for their own affairs, and to sow elsewhere the good seed which they left with us. In faith of which we ordered our present letters to be made, and to be subscribed by our undersigned notary, and, subscribed with our own hand, to be fortified by the impression of the seal of the episcopal curia of Bologna. Given at Bologna in the episcopal palace on the 26th day of June 1538. So it is. Augustine, as above, vicar and suffragan of Bologna, with his own hand.” And a seal is affixed, and it is subscribed: “Bartholomew Foscarari, notary of the episcopal curia and chamber of Bologna, with his own hand.”

[303] Concerning Codure, from the same archive I interpret the following testimony from the Italian: Codure in the city of Velletri, “We Jerome of Arezzo, vicar general of the most reverend archbishop of Trani, make undoubted faith, how the reverend father master John Codure, of the diocese of Embrun, came into the city of Velletri on the natal day of St. John the Baptist, and from that day up to today, which is the 15th of July 1539, preached the divine word with most welcome hearing, not once or twice only, but daily: where that people testify that satisfaction has been made to them. And hence he departs from us with a good and welcome leave on the aforesaid day. And this is the mere truth, and fortified with our accustomed seal.” And a seal is affixed, and it is added: “We Jerome with our own hand wrote and subscribed.”

[304] and in that of Tivoli; Concerning the same Codure, from the same place, this testimony is at hand, given at Tivoli: “IHS. Be it clear to all, that lord John Codure, priest of the diocese of Embrun, staying with us at Tivoli, and by our license there preaching sacred and Catholic doctrine with a good spirit and example, and by word and work recalled very many to penance, and from the first Sunday of Advent up to the third heard the confessions of many, asking nothing temporal for these, but freely giving what he freely received, and humbly conversing among us, with thanksgiving eating frugally what through our poverty could be administered to him, announcing the word of God through the streets, churches, and squares, published widely, graciously, and compendiously penance and the amendment of sins. And since concerning preachers no suspicion ought to arise, and their preaching ought to be Catholic according to the true faith of the holy Roman Church, we have given these in testimony, that he who has labored in the Lord, and, trusting in the Lord, helped by the Lord, may receive a testimony from us. Given in the palace of our Lord bishop the 12th of December of the year 1539. Ludovico de Collibus, vicar general of Tivoli.” And a seal is added; and that on the back is written in the hand of St. Ignatius, our transcript makes faith: testimonio del vicario de Tiburi cerca M. Joan; that is, the testimony of the vicar of Tivoli concerning M. John.

[305] Salmeron and Broët at Siena, Concerning Alfonso Salmeron and Paschasius Broët there follows in the same place this Original testimony of Francis Cosci, vicar of Francis Bandini de' Piccolomini, archbishop of Siena: “We make,” he says, “undoubted faith, that lord Alfonso Salmeron with his companion lord Paschasius came into this city of Siena for the sake of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and by our leave and grace obtained from us that they might feed our sheep with their own doctrine: which they did, proving the evangelical truth not only by sound Catholic discourses, but also by a most honest life and religion, and not only without any accusation of any men whatever, but even without the least suspicion. But because it has come to our ears that something is being attempted against their fame; we judged it our part to give a testimony, both to the truth first, and to those who conversed well and in a Christian manner with us. In testimony of which we have caused these letters to be made, subscribed by the hand of the public notary and secretary of our archiepiscopal curia, and fortified by the impression of our small seal. Given at Siena in the archiepiscopal palace on the 29th day of June 1538.” Below is had the subscription of the notary and secretary, and a seal is annexed.

[306] Bobadilla and Jay Concerning Bobadilla and Jay, there is noted in our transcript from the Roman archive, after the said testimonies, this which follows; and it is the authentic testimony of the vicar general and administrator of the bishopric of Ferrara concerning the good life and doctrine of Claude Jay and Nicholas Bobadilla. It has thus: “Octavian de Castello of Bologna, doctor of both laws, bishop of St. Leo, suffragan and vicar in spirituals general of the most reverend Lord Cardinal de Salviatis, bishop and legitimate administrator of the bishopric of Ferrara, etc. Being asked on the part of the venerable priests lord Nicholas Bobadilla and Claude Jay, pilgrim clerics, by the tenor of the presents we make faith and attest to all and singular who shall inspect our present letters, and bring to their notice, how the said both aforenamed clerics for many and many months stayed in the city of Ferrara celebrating the divine offices, and publicly preaching the word of God to the people, and giving a good example in the very city of Ferrara.

[307] From which by our good grace and license, not suspended, at Ferrara. not excommunicated, they departed, but, moved by devotion, withdrew to other parts, as by the presents we make undoubted faith, exhorting all and singular the faithful of Christ, to whom they shall happen to turn aside, that they treat them charitably in word and example alike. In faith of which we have ordered the presents to be made, and have caused them to be fortified with the accustomed impression of our small seal. Given at Ferrara in our episcopal palace, from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 1538, in the 11th indiction, on the 28th day of June, in the fourth year of the pontificate of our most holy Lord Pope Paul III.” And a seal is affixed in Spanish red wax: and it is subscribed “Benedict de Silvestris, secretary of the episcopal curia and chamber of Ferrara, by command.” But now let the discourse of the Society be resumed.

[308] To its canonical approbation there were interposed no ordinary difficulties and delays, [The institution of the Society is reported to have been promoted by an apparition.] Bartholomew Guidiccioni especially resisting; of which matter the writers treat: yet so that, afterward wholly changed, he stood on our side; and, though concerning the multitude of religious orders to be checked he thought altogether the same as before, according to the report of Maffei, book 2, chapter 12, yet he denied that he could resist this any longer, being vehemently instigated, namely, by a divine warning and by the hidden operation of the spirit. Thus he. That a certain apparition intervened in this business, Ughelli records, volume 1 of Italia Sacra, column 830 of the most recent edition, setting down these things concerning Bartholomew Cardinal Guidiccioni, bishop of Lucca (the faith of which be with the author): “Recent religious Orders, over the old ones instituted by most holy men, he for some time out of zeal for piety turned away from; but admonished in his sleep by St. Ignatius, he so changed his zeal,” etc.

§ XXX. The Society instituted at an opportune time; its end and means.

That this Religious order was instituted at a most fitting time is so clear that it need not be proved at length. Francis Suárez briefly shows, Suárez draws it out in few words, chapter 4, no. 3, in these words: “But it has been deservedly observed by many wise and prudent men, that at this same time there was born in Germany Martin Luther, namely in the year 1483, eight years before Ignatius; and that in the year 1521 he stirred up a public war against the Roman Church, by disseminating innumerable heresies; and especially those which seemed able to grant the liberty of the flesh, and to destroy the subjection and obedience to the supreme Pontiff: by which means he had innumerable followers and ministers of his blasphemy and iniquity. But at this very time in which the faith seemed to be shaken and to fail in so many Catholic provinces subject to the Church; not without great providence of God there began to be opened a door and a way by which the same true faith and the name of Christ could be carried to innumerable nations of peoples, among whom before it had not been heard. Namely in the East and West Indies, and in many kingdoms and islands, which a little before the aforesaid times were explored by the piety, diligence, and industry of the Catholic kings of Spain and Portugal.”

[310] That the Society was instituted at an opportune time. “At this same time, therefore, God raised up Ignatius, to erect the Society for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, and for the propagation and defense of the faith (as is said in the Pontifical Bulls, especially of Gregory XIII, ‘How much more fruitfully’). For the defense of the faith against heretics becomes propagation among the gentiles and pagans; but the progress of life, among the faithful and Catholics themselves. Most fittingly, therefore, was this Religious order instituted to this end at that time in which both the defense of the faith was most necessary to the Church, and the propagation very opportune, and the restoration and perfection of morals most useful.” Thus Suárez; which may be reckoned as a kind of summary to chapter 18 of book 2 in Ribadeneira; in which he treats most diffusely of the counsel of God the Best and Greatest in instituting the Society; and to chapter 19, which is concerning the propagation of the Christian faith among the Indians. Bartoli also may be inspected, book 1, no. 2.

[311] [Its end is one's own salvation and that of others, from the Bulls of the Pontiffs,] That the end of this Religious order is to seek not only its own but also another's perfection, is most clearly established both from the testimonies of the Pontiffs and from our Constitutions. For in the first Bull of Paul III, where the formula of the Institute proposed to him is set down, the Society is said to be instituted chiefly to this end, that it should especially intend the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, the propagation of the faith, etc. And from what is there said below, it is incumbent on each of the Society that he take care to have always before his eyes first God, then the plan of this his Institute, which is a certain way to Him, and to attain this end proposed to him by God with all his strength. Nearly the same words occur in the like formula offered to Julius III, and inserted in the first Bull of the same Pontiff. Gregory XIII, in the Constitution “How much more fruitfully,” thus says: “As the end of the said Society is the propagation and defense of the faith, and the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine; so also it is proper to the grace of its vocation, to go to diverse places, by the direction of the Roman Pontiff and of the Superior General of the same Society,

to traverse, etc.” And in the other Constitution, “The Lord ascending,” the following are had: “Whose (the discourse is of the Society) chief end is the defense and propagation of the Catholic religion, and the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine.”

[312] and from the Constitutions. The same matter is declared in our Constitutions. For in the Examen which is proposed, at the very beginning, to all who wish to enter the Society of Jesus, chapter 1, no. 2, it is thus established: “The end of this Society is, not only to attend, with the divine grace, to the salvation and perfection of one's own soul, but with the same earnestly to apply oneself to the salvation and perfection of one's neighbors.” And in the Constitutions, part 1, chapter 2, no. 8, “our Institute .. is said to tend directly to helping souls, and disposing them to attain their last end from the hand of God our Creator and Lord.” And again in the same place, part 3, chapter 1, no. 9, of the Society it is thus related: “Which is wholly instituted for the greater glory of God, and the universal good, and the utility of souls.” Finally in the proem of part 4 it is thus had: “Since the aim to which the Society directly tends is to help its own souls and those of its neighbors to attain the last end for which they were created.” From which it is sufficiently established that the end of the Society of Jesus, both from the testimony of its institutor Ignatius, and from the assent of the Pontiffs approving its Institute, is placed in this, that one should apply oneself to one's own and one's neighbor's salvation. More things pertaining to the end of the Society Suárez heaps up, chapter 2, from no. 3.

[313] The praised author, chapter 3, treats of the means which the Society uses to the appointed end; [The means of caring for another's salvation peculiar to the Society are the instruction of boys,] whether they immediately regard the proper perfection of the companions, as may be seen no. 3; or are directly concerned with the salvation of one's neighbor, or are proximately referred to it, as thou hast no. 10. And that it may attain this end of another's salvation, as we said, it directs to it certain singular means, proper to itself, and in a proper and singular manner; which either have not hitherto been undertaken by any Order, or certainly not so continually treated, with a tenor of assiduity, as our most holy Parent himself both treated them and willed the same to be treated by us. Let the first, then, be the instruction of boys and of the rude in Christianity; from the formula of the Institute offered to and approved by Pope Paul III, and likewise Julius III; where the aforesaid words are had. That care indeed pertains to parish priests; but they then neglected this salutary and at the same time laborious office so much, that it was necessary for them to be gravely admonished and roused by the Council of Trent; which see session 5, chapter 2; and session 24 on Reformation, chapter 4. That there then existed no congregation which imbued boys and the rude with the rudiments of the Christian faith by the force of its proper institution, Nigroni observes, no. 13; and that the congregation of clerks which is said to be erected at Rome into a Religious order, especially devoted to this office, was constituted twenty years after our Order was founded, he relates from Rutilio Benzoni, whom he cites, book 1 on the Jubilee, chapter 8.

[314] What of this, that in the Society this salutary office is so peculiar and perpetual, with a peculiar vow on this matter. that the professed of the same and the spiritual coadjutors promise a peculiar care concerning the education of boys; as is clear from the Constitutions, part 5, chapters 3 and 4. And this is done for this cause, that this holy exercise may be commended in a peculiar manner, and more devoutly cared for, on account of the singular service which is rendered to God by it in the help of souls, and because it could more easily be consigned to oblivion, and go into disuse, than other more specious ministries, such as preaching, etc.; as is in the Declaration to the said chapter 3. And this office is imposed not only on our novices and scholastics, and fathers of the third probation; but this instruction for forty days is enjoined on the rector, to be performed by himself or by another, as soon as he is declared rector, and on the professed and spiritual coadjutors, after the making of profession and vows, before a year elapses. See the decree 58 of the 2nd Congregation; and canon 15. In the profession of the first fathers of the Society the special vow concerning the education of boys thou hast in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 1.

[315] The second means by which the Society applies itself to the salvation of its neighbor from the end prescribed to it, The second means is the defense and propagation of the Catholic faith, and which is so characteristic and proper to it that hitherto by no congregation has it been undertaken in this manner, is the defense and propagation of the Catholic faith, according to what has just been premised. This argument Nigroni thus proves and draws out: “The blessed Father knew,” he says, “that some religious men of almost all Orders, and especially of the Preachers, Minors, Hermits, and other Mendicants, full of the zeal of God, either of their own accord, or by the command of their superiors, or by the order of the Apostolic See, had set out in past ages into the provinces of the infidels, to preach the Gospel, and that some had undergone martyrdom. He knew that in India and in the new world, at the time when he was instructing this his Society, the salvation of those barbarous nations was procured by the same. But he had not found this care undertaken by any Order, as its chief end and proper ministry, by a peculiar vow, by which each one should bind himself to go without excuse and evasion wherever the supreme Pontiff should send him, whether to the Turks, or to the heretics, or into India to the gentiles, which we do in our solemn profession.” Consult the formula of the Institute offered to Pope Paul III, and approved by him, and the Constitutions, part 5, chapter 3, no. 3.

[316] amid death and torments: But how earnestly this was in fact rendered by the fathers of the Society in past times, and is still rendered in the present, it is not worthwhile for me to say here. Among the most profuse praises with which Paiva extols this apostolic sphere of the Society, of which we treat, in the Orthodox explanations, book 1; brief is that on folio 22 verso: “It would indeed be infinite to review by numbering how many men of this fellowship, in this office of teaching the Gospel and of calling away the Indian men from impiety, have been beaten with stripes, how many bound with chains, how many wretchedly thrust into prisons, how many almost consumed by hunger, how many finally have perished for the name of Christ by various kinds of torments. But to be silent of the rest, I certainly cannot pass over in silence the death of Gonzalo da Silveira, a Portuguese, a man especially noble, and once most dear to me, but now a most holy martyr,” etc.

[317] The third is the education of youth: The third character proper and peculiar to the Society in procuring another's salvation, undertaken by it in a singular and peculiar manner, is the gratuitous education of youth from almost the first elements, to be joined with probity. Proper, I say, and peculiar is this character of the Society: for although at the time when St. Ignatius was thinking of establishing the Society many religious, as Nigroni observes, no. 15, explained philosophy, theology, and sacred Scripture in the public gymnasia; yet what Order had, from its peculiar institute, assumed that province, of applying itself to the education of boys of every kind from Grammar—and indeed in some places even from the first rudiments—up to sacred theology, with schools open to everyone, and colleges instituted to this end, in which the abstruse and hidden approaches of the sciences might be surveyed? Consult Nigroni at the number just cited: where besides he warns that, if some regular congregations in Italy publicly teach boys, at the time when he himself wrote these things, the seventieth year after the Society was instituted, yet what he said is not the less true; adding that “to undertake this labor publicly, within my memory,” he says, “they began not many years before.”

[318] The fourth is the imparting of the spiritual Exercises: The fourth peculiarity of the Society for the end intended by it in the salvation of one's neighbor is the imparting of the spiritual Exercises. The formula offered to Paul III and Julius III, and the confirmation of Gregory XIII, make mention of them. That there were indeed always in the Church of God certain spiritual Exercises is established from the proper treatise on this subject, which, published by Nigroni among the ascetic Treatises, is there reckoned the sixth, and treats of retreat for meditation and the spiritual Exercises which are in use and among the ministries of the Society of Jesus. But those who, as leaders, directors, and masters, should instruct others professedly, so to speak, and in that manner and method which is peculiar to the Society, in that retreat empty of all other business, and with the course of meditations reduced to an art—either thou wouldst find none, as I think, or certainly, if ever any such were found, this their pursuit, when the Society was constituted, had almost, if not plainly, ceased. The ministry of these spiritual Exercises, therefore, is one of the means proper to the Society, and by which the end intended by it is reached. But how greatly the Society esteems it, is most clearly inculcated in the Constitutions, part 4, chapter 8, no. 5, by these words: “Let them accustom themselves to imparting the spiritual Exercises to others, after each has experienced them in himself: and let all give heed, that they may be able both to render an account of them, and to have dexterity in handling this kind of spiritual arms (which by the grace of God is seen to conduce so greatly to His service).” And in the seventh part, chapter 4, no. 8, we are bidden to promote our neighbor to better things also by imparting the spiritual Exercises.

[319] But rule 41 bids the Superior take care that our men be accurately exercised in imparting the spiritual Exercises, which is greatly esteemed in the Society, and extends widely. after they have experienced them in themselves. Rule 7 of priests likewise says: “Let them understand that it is incumbent on them by a peculiar reason to have a very familiar use of the spiritual Exercises, which are seen to conduce so greatly to the service of God, by which they may .. be able to bring others also to undertake them.” Finally rule 11 of those who are engaged in missions reckons, among the spiritual means which they can use according to the Institute of the Society and the good pleasure of the Superior, the imparting of the spiritual Exercises. But with how great care of our men, with how great frequency of externs, with what change of morals and fruit they are performed, and very many other things suited to illustrating a ministry so genuine and proper to the Society, can be sought from what was said above.

§ XXXI. Certain other means proper to the Society; its manner of living; two properties common to it with other religious.

The fifth property of the Society, for attaining its end, is the pious aid and ministry of those who are found in prisons or in hospitals, The fifth means is the visitation of prisons and hospitals: from the formula of the Institute approved by Julius III. That this care was proper to no Order by the force of a rule, at the time when our holy Father

was forming the Society; but that afterward two congregations came to our help in this ministry, Nigroni observes, no. 16; the one indeed in Spain, called of Hospitality, and erected by St. John of God; concerning which Order and its founder there was treatment among us at the day March 8, sacred to the anniversary memory of the same Saint, volume 1, from page 809; but the other arose in Italy at Rome, of clerks who are called Ministers of the sick, begun under Sixtus V; as may there be read in Nigroni. In our Constitutions, part 7, chapter 4, no. 9, it is prescribed that our men apply themselves to helping the sick, especially in hospices, by visiting them, and sending some who may serve them ..; so also by relieving, as far as it can be done, the poor and those detained in public custody, and by taking care that others relieve them.

[321] and the sixth, finally, is the mission to preach, etc. The sixth means, finally, proper to the Society, and prescribed to it by its most holy Founder in promoting the salvation of souls, is the mission to preach, hear confessions, impart Christian doctrine, and set up other pious works, without any compensation or hope of temporal reward, through the towns and villages of the faithful; in which there is wont to be a greater scarcity of spiritual things than in the frequented cities; as is in Nigroni, no. 17; where he also notes that in ancient ages this was customary, from the words of Origen, who is brought as an eyewitness of his age. In later ages also, illustrious in that salutary and apostolic office, there are named in the same place St. Vincent and St. Bernardino; the former indeed the splendor of the Preachers, the latter of the Minors; whom St. Ignatius emulated both in other actions and also in this, and embraced missions through the villages and country places as pertaining to the substance of his Institute, as the cited author there proceeds; so much indeed that, as his opinion holds, they are comprehended under the solemn vow of obedience to the supreme Pontiff concerning missions according to the Apostolic letters. And indeed in the Constitution of Julius III, mention being made of this vow, after the Turks, infidels, Indians, heretics, schismatics have been commemorated, it is soon added: “or even to any of the faithful, whithersoever they shall have judged that we should be sent, we may be bound to execute it.”

[322] These means are the characteristic signs of the Society of Jesus. Pope Clement XI deigned to follow the missions of the Society with a spiritual favor; as is clear from the Bull published on the 23rd day of January in the year 1703; to which I send the reader. Moreover this salutary office of cultivating the vineyard of the Lord in these apostolic missions, long after the life of St. Ignatius, the congregation of the Mission made proper and peculiar to itself, instituted by Blessed Vincent de Paul, who in the year 1660 on the 27th day of September died with the odor of sanctity, and in the year 1729, on the 13th day of August, was enrolled in the sacred Calendar by Pope Benedict XIII, a decree of beatification being published. Of that congregation and its founder the Reverend Father Hippolyte Helyot treats in the History of monastic, religious, and military Orders, and of secular congregations, volume 8, chapter 11; where concerning the second end of the congregation he writes that it is free for eight months in the year for country missions. Of other missionary priests, as they are called, there is treatment in the same volume. But to return to our Society; those six means, which are employed by it for attaining its end, are as it were characteristic signs, by which it is recognized and distinguished from other religious Orders, professing an institute diverse from its own. Hence are strengthened the things which were disputed above against the Albaneta fable. For who would doubt whether our Constitutions were drawn from the proper and peculiar storehouse of St. Ignatius, which in many, as we have seen, substantial points he composed so peculiar to the Society alone, that they are proper to no other religious Order?

[323] Whether the manner of living in the Society is lax or strict: But because “the end of this Society is, not only to attend with the divine grace to the salvation and perfection of one's own soul,” as was said above, “but with the same earnestly to apply oneself to the salvation and perfection of one's neighbors,” and that by means so accommodated to this end, and so proper to the Society; it follows that our Order, by the force of its institution, is mixed of the active and contemplative life, as may be seen in Suárez, chapter 6; but in what grade of perfection our religious order is constituted, he teaches chapter 7; and proves that it is by the force of its Institute most perfect; chapter 8 thou wilt find, that fittingly in the Society there is not the ordinary use of chant and choir; finally chapter 9 he asks whether the Society professes a rule simply strict or lax; and after he had premised various things both concerning penances and afflictions of the body, according to the manner prescribed in the constitutions of the Society, and concerning its manner of living, which in externals for certain causes is common, he concludes that the rule of the Society is very strict: of all which it may suffice to have here most briefly renewed the memory, lest otherwise without necessity they lead us too far away. There may also be consulted John Rho, Interrogation 17 among the apologetic ones, in which he vindicates its perfection to the Institute of the Society.

[324] The Society of Jesus has two properties, common to it with many other religious. The Society is an Order of clerks regular, The first is, that it is a Religious order of clerks regular or priests. Our most holy Founder, deferring the formula of his Institute to the authority and judgment of the Apostolic See to be approved, already then under this notion designated to Pope Paul III those whom, if perhaps God should deign to raise up as imitators of himself; “whose religious order,” as Ribadeneira speaks, book 2, chapter 17, “should be of clerks regular.” The Council of Trent also calls our Order the Religious order of the clerks of the Society of Jesus. Gregory XIII in the year 1573, in the Approbation and new concession of faculties of reciting the canonical Hours outside choir, etc., speaks of the Institute of the clerks regular of the Society of Jesus, which “by our .. predecessors,” he says, “was approved and confirmed.” More Francis Suárez will give, volume 4 on Religion, tract 10, book 1, chapter 5: where he proves that the Society is and is called a Religious order of clerks, not only by reason of habit, but also by reason of its proper Institute and its functions. Add Julius Nigroni in the ascetic Commentaries on our common rules, in the third Particle of the title, which is “of the Society of Jesus,” no. 4; John Rho in the apologetic Interrogations to John Baptist Castaldo, a clerk regular, among which is the fourteenth concerning the clericate of the Society. And so, as our Society retained the name of a Religious order of clerks regular, and the thing signified by the name, given to it from the beginning by its Founder; so it sent back word of dismissal to the title of secular honor, by the decree of our second general congregation, celebrated in the year 1565, canon 85; volume 1 of the Institute, page 454 of the new edition; where it is Decreed that that honorific name, that is Don, where it is a mark of secular nobility, be altogether removed from our Society.

[325] The second property of the Society, common to it with other religious, and an Order of mendicants by the force of its Institute; is that it is a mendicant Order. In the Apostolic letters of St. Pius V, supreme Pontiff, given on the 7th of July, in the year 1571, the Society is declared mendicant by the plan of its Institute, and numbered with the other mendicant Orders, and made equal to them in privileges. That most holy Vicar of Christ, therefore, who deserved best of the whole Church of God, as also of our Society, having first followed it with most abundant praises, thus writes: “Because the Society itself is mendicant (inasmuch as by its Institute and Constitutions, confirmed by Apostolic authority, it cannot possess stable goods, but lives on uncertain alms and the largesses and subventions of the faithful),” etc. The Institute confirmed by Julius III, volume 1, page 19, has thus: “Let all and singular vow perpetual poverty, so that not only privately, but not even in common, can the professed, or any of their houses or churches, acquire any civil right to any incomes, revenues, possessions, or to any stable goods, except those which shall be opportune for their own use and habitation, being content with the things given them out of charity for the necessary use of life.”

[326] even though the colleges are supported from annual revenues. But the Constitutions, part 6, chapter 2, no. 2, thus establish: “In the houses or churches which shall be admitted by the Society for the help of souls, no revenues, not even applied to the sacristy or fabric, can be had: but neither in any other way; so that any dispensation of them should be with the Society.” And because it could be objected to St. Pius V, that the dwellings of the Society, in which the scholars and novices are supported from perpetual revenues contradict this; forestalling the objection and removing the ambiguity, of his own motion and certain knowledge, that most holy Vicar of Christ in the cited place thus ends the matter, saying, that “it (the Society), and its Superior, and the singular persons of the Society of this kind were, are, and shall be truly, and not feignedly, mendicant; and that we number them among the Orders of other mendicant friars and religious, and other mendicant friars and religious; as we number them, and they ought to be numbered,” etc. More Julius Nigroni, alleged above, suggests, no. 7. See also what we said in §33 on occasion of the responsory letter of the sacred Congregation of the Council of Trent to the bishop of Lille, who called the fathers of the Society most opulent, not mendicant.

§ XXXII. The origin of the name of the Society of Jesus; its assailing.

The origin of this name The first imposition of this name happened in the assembly at Vicenza of our first fathers, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 2, no. 25: “It came into mind,” he says, “to bring forward in the assembly this also, what should seem to be answered to those who should ask what men they were, and of what discipline they said they were. And prayers being applied with accuracy to that deliberation, when they reflected with themselves that no one among them held the dignity of head, except Him to whose service they had devoted themselves, Christ Jesus, the author of our salvation, all without doubt (as will be shown below, Ignatius being the author) went into this opinion, that of Him whom they had set as their leader in seeking the salvation of men, and as the exemplar of all their actions, they should above all assume His name, and that from Him who was the true salvation of men, this instituted fellowship should be called the Society of Jesus.” And this indeed was, so to speak, a forerunner nomenclature of that same denomination, concerning which afterward it was inquired among the fathers at Rome, and it pleased all that from the military term the Society of Jesus (for soldiers give a name to their cohorts, which the common people call societies or companies, from their very leaders) it should be called; as the same historian observes in the same place, no. 62. Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 11, when he had set forth that most celebrated apparition of Christ Jesus displayed to St. Ignatius in the Roman countryside,

of which above there was treatment, says: “both by that illustrious vision and by other divine illuminations, many and great, the Lord Jesus so impressed His most sacred name on his mind, and inwardly fixed it, that from His name he imposed the name on the Society.” And certainly in the formula of the Institute offered to Paul III, and inserted in his Apostolic letters by which he approves the Society, it is said at the very beginning: “Whoever in our Society, which we desire to be marked with the name of Jesus,” etc.

[328] Maffei, book 2, chapter 5, that vision being narrated, adds: given to our Order, is shown, “And this very thing was even the chief cause why Ignatius gave to the Society, afterward confirmed, the salutary name of Jesus especially.” Ribadeneira adds in the place just cited, that the holy Father was illumined by so clear and firm a light, and it was established to him so certainly concerning the divine will regarding it, that he said he could never be moved from this mind. And what he did with his companions willing and consenting, he would altogether have done with them resisting and dissenting, on account of the clearness of the divine light. To which can be joined the testimony of Polanco in Orlandini, no. 62 already cited. Moreover, that that signal apparition of which we just spoke was not the sole and only cause of this name imposed on our family, is established from what has been said. Let it remain, then, that it was one of the causes, and the last impulse. And so understand that saying of Maffei, “was even the chief cause”; since Ribadeneira affirms that it happened not by that illustrious vision alone, but by other divine illuminations also, many and great. Whence from that apparition an argument cannot be drawn against the prophecy foretold at Antwerp by the holy Father many years before to John Quadrado, concerning a college of the Society of Jesus to be founded by him. Consult the Historical Disputation of Nigroni concerning St. Ignatius and St. Cajetan of Thiene, at §37 of Castaldo.

[329] Another cause besides of this denomination Ribadeneira suggests in the shorter Life, and various reasons for this are brought forward, chapter 12: “Why he wished the Order to be marked with the name of Jesus, this was the chief reason, lest it should be called by his name, or he should seem to have been the companion and administrator of constituting it.” More Nigroni heaps up in the ascetic Commentaries on our common rules, among very many other things most laboriously collected by him concerning the name of the Society of Jesus, from page 76, of the third edition, published in print at Cologne in the year 1617. But what motions and feelings that name ought to excite in each of the companions is set forth in Orlandini, book 2, no. 63. Add those of Ribadeneira in Bartoli at the end of book 2, which is there said to be written from Ghent to a friend at Rome: “I, having received the death of Father Master Ignatius—as bitter to us as it was blessed to him—should have broken down and failed, had I not, lifting my eyes to him, and to the provident hand of God, on which he wished never not to depend, taken great relief to my mind, being well taught this, that the Society by no means rests on Ignatius, but chiefly on Jesus Christ; who had chosen this His Servant to raise up and perfect this fabric of His work. Wherefore for it there will by no means be lacking others and others whom He may send; who, though perhaps they will not be Ignatiuses, yet are to be such as can fill his place. And it consoles me that I remember Friar John Hurtado, at his approaching death, to have said, that Christ, when the Church was still almost in its cradle, withdrew its two foundations on the same day—I mean Peter and Paul—that it might understand that it was sustained by the power of Christ.”

[330] And indeed, those who shall have been called hither—to use the words of the praised Ribadeneira in the Life, book 2, chapter 11—with the consolation of those who live in it. let them recognize that they have not been enrolled in any Order of Ignatius, but called into the Society of the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord; let them serve as soldiers under that supreme commander: let them follow His standards: let them take up their cross eagerly: and let them look to Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. And lest they be wearied, failing in their courage, let it be certain and persuaded to them that their Leader is at hand for them; let them hope that He will be always favorable not to Ignatius alone and his companions, as we see He has been hitherto, but also to themselves. From which words of Ribadeneira Nigroni, no. 26, gathers five reasons which moved Ignatius, for the sake of his men's utility, to assign this name to his Order.

[331] The name of the Society, how it is to be understood. But what is understood by the name of Society, which is the other part of our denomination, may be read in Nigroni where above, from no. 29; who, various significations of this word being brought into the midst, rightly writes that he is most fully persuaded that, by a metaphor drawn from military affairs, the name of Society was given to our Order by its holy Founder; as if thou shouldst say a cohort, or century, or legion, which is enrolled to join battle with the spiritual enemies, desirous of attaining victory over the demon, the flesh, and the world, and most eager to carry off the prey of souls. Our Order, therefore, is not an assembly of men who are associates of Jesus, unless thou understand associates of this kind, who are as it were soldiers, warring under the standard of our supreme Leader and Lord Jesus Christ, whom they themselves have for tribune and leader; according to what was said at number one of this paragraph, from the History of the Society, book 2, no. 62.

[332] It was indeed often assailed, Now it remains to be said of those who either assailed or disapproved that name. Melchior Cano, book 4 On Theological Places, chapter 2, treating of the notion of the word Church, which from the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9, he teaches is called the Society of Jesus Christ, adds these things: “Which without doubt, since the society with the Church of Christ is such, let those who arrogate that title to themselves see whether, after the manner of heretics, they lie that the Church exists with themselves.” A brief indeed but bitter digression, yet of no great moment, because brought forward by Cano, who, otherwise a most knowing man, burned with zeal against the Society, not according to knowledge, as is well enough known. Then, granting that that denomination of our Order displeased Cano; yet it pleased its most holy Founder, who, a most modest Man, had not arrogated it to himself, but had offered it to the Apostolic See to be examined, and approved by its suffrage; it pleased so many supreme Pontiffs; it pleased the ecumenical Council of Trent: which is most abundantly enough to repress the audacity of all those who raised their crests against the name of the Society. Among whom were also the Sorbonne masters of Paris, as becomes plain from their decree, which in Orlandini at the year 1555, no. 45, is produced, with this beginning: “This new Society, peculiarly vindicating to itself the unusual appellation of the name of Jesus,” etc. Which how our Olave refuted, is there given to be seen, no. 47. That name, then, was indeed often gravely assailed; but never overcome, and it clung to the Society always; as the holy Father believed it would cling to it always.

[333] but according to the idea which St. Ignatius had of it, Of which it is worth while to hear our Andrew de Cazorla, at that time the most ancient of the province of Baetica, near eighty years of age, who had discharged offices and prelacies for forty years, etc.; who in his testimony, given on the 29th of January, in the year 1641, at Seville in our house of probation, thus testifies to our matter: “I have also in memory, nay even in writing with me, that Father Diego de Guzmán, a man of noted sanctity and nobility (who for two years dealt familiarly with our most holy Father Ignatius, so that, as he himself attested to me, no day passed on which he did not enjoy his sweet conversation), at my request dictated about the year of the Lord 1592; namely, that when by command of our most holy Father Ignatius two Fathers visited, in his name, the Cardinal called de la Cueva, most loving of our Parent and of our affairs, the Cardinal in conversation said to them that the name of Jesus imposed on our Society did not at all please him, lest it should excite great envy among other Religious orders.”

[334] Which opinion of the Cardinal when the said fathers, from the testimony here set down, having returned home, reported to our most holy Father; then the most holy Father broke out into these words: Si no se dijesse Compañia de Jesus (I use, says the witness, the same Spanish words which the said father Diego de Guzmán instilled and dictated to me at my request) se podria dezir Congregacion de Jesus, o Religion de Jesus, o Orden de Jesus: mas el nombre de Jesus no creo que se quitara: giving clearly to understand that the name of Jesus had been given by Jesus himself.”

[335] The event proved the truth: for although it was often attempted, especially by Sixtus V, supreme Pontiff, never to be overcome. that the name of Jesus should be excluded from our Society, it was never done and accomplished: nay rather the same most holy name of Jesus was established and often confirmed by his successors. Thus he in Rho toward the end of Interrogation X among the Apologetic ones, on the faith of which we judged that both the aforesaid marks of the witness, and his very testimony, in which they are inserted, should be here transcribed. But lest the Spanish words cast a delay upon the reader unskilled in that language, they sound thus in Latin: “If it should not be called the Society of Jesus, it could be called the Congregation of Jesus, or the Religion of Jesus, or the Order of Jesus: but the name of Jesus I do not believe should be taken away:” clearly signifying that the name of Jesus had been given by Jesus himself.

§ XXXIII. The extreme measures attempted to abolish this name from the Society; the audacity of a certain bishop repressed by Roman authority; the commendation of the same name from a certain wonderful thing; objections against it.

How truly all extreme measures were attempted by Pope Sixtus V to abolish this most sacred name from the Society, Sacchini sets forth in the History of the Society, part 5, [Pope Sixtus V attempted extreme measures to change this name; but Gregory XIV confirmed it.] book 10, no. 34, and following. But in vain: for after a decree, made by command of Sixtus V for abrogating the ancient name by our Reverend Father Claudio Aquaviva, and that being now delivered to the supreme Pontiff; but (whether this happened from his own forgetfulness, or by some greater force) retained with him and never published, the death of the same Pontiff, following thereupon not many days after, cut short that whole business, and rendered it undone; nay rather greater strength then accrued to the same name for the perpetuity of time. For by Gregory XIV it was again asserted to the Society by a solemn Constitution, given on the 4th of the Kalends of July 1591, by which the Institute of the Society and its manner of governing are confirmed, and which begins: “To the Catholic Church;” where to our matter it is established: “The name of the Society of Jesus, by which this laudable Order at its birth was named by the Apostolic See,

and hitherto marked, is to be retained in it for perpetual future times.” To these can be added the affirmation of James Ximénez, who was secretary to the Society, from the confidence of the prophecy of St. Ignatius, that the name of the Society would never be changed. Of which matter the same Sacchini treats at length in the cited place, from no. 48.

[337] The bishop of Isola in Calabria There was found, however, even after so solemn a Constitution of Gregory XIV, a certain bishop of Isola in Calabria (for in Italian Isola, in Latin Esula, Insula, Asyla, is a city of the kingdom of Naples in Calabria, on the testimony of Baudrand) which bishop in a certain letter called the fathers of the Society Ignatian fathers, not of the Society of Jesus, and most opulent, not mendicant, etc.; whose audacity was checked by the response of the Sacred Congregation of the Council of Trent; all which I learn from our Roman monuments; whose collector transcribed for me a copy of the responsory letter, and it sounds thus: “Reverend Lord and brother. Since Gregory XIV of happy memory decreed, in the Constitution which begins ‘To the Catholic Church,’ that the name of the Society of Jesus, by which this laudable Order at its birth was named by the holy Apostolic See, and hitherto marked, is to be retained in it for perpetual future times: and since the most holy Council of Trent did not disdain to call the Religious order of the same, and its pious Institute approved by the same See, by this name; not without indignation of soul did the most illustrious Fathers, interpreters of that Council, read through Your Lordship's letters, in which, no account being taken either of the Apostolic sanctions or of this sacred Tribunal, you do not fear rashly to mock, and on many grounds to carp at and assail, the same Religious order, which you call Ignatian, not of the Society of Jesus.

[338] not thinking rightly enough of that name, is checked by the Sacred Congregation. Which deed indeed the most ample Fathers, greatly disapproving, seriously enjoin upon you, that henceforth, mindful of your episcopal dignity and of gentleness, you abstain in every way from calumnies and detractions of this kind, lest, if they find you again lapsing into it, they be brought to the necessity of checking such audacity with graver penalties. May God keep Your Lordship safe. At Rome the 25th day of January 1625.” And soon there are added in our transcript the following: “This letter was given by the most illustrious Lord Fagnani on the 15th of May, in the year 1625, and on the 17th day of the same month and year sent to Naples to the Reverend Father Provincial, that he might transmit it to the bishop. And it is copied from that which is in the Memorial book from the year 1602 up to, etc., folio 79. It is to be noted, however, that this book, in the number of the folios, after the hundredth resumes one, two, three, etc., from the beginning. And folio 79 is cited of the number following after the said hundred; as I learn from what is subjoined in Italian to the book just designated.”

[339] By a wonderful event Moreover, that this denomination pleased the Savior Christ himself, may be conjectured from a certain wonderful thing, which our Louis de la Puente, in the Spiritual Guide, tract 1, chapter 22, testifies happened to a certain man at Rome, whom the supreme Pontiff Gregory XIII was exhorting to enter our Society: who, when he felt a repugnance in himself to doing this, went down to the church of St. Peter, and on bent knees before the Most Holy Sacrament, with great fervor asked that the will of Christ the Lord himself be manifested to him. And suddenly there came forth a voice from the tabernacle, which said to him: “Be of the Society of my name.” And it appeared for certain that it was the voice of God, from three admirable effects which it wrought. The first was of the greatest reverence: for it cast him to the ground with great fear and trembling, as is wont to happen on occasions of this kind, in the manner in which the voice of the eternal Father on Mount Tabor cast to the ground the three Apostles who heard it.

[340] The second effect was, that it so changed his heart, it seems to be divinely approved. that he was vehemently affected toward that which before he shuddered at; overcoming, namely, with sweetness all the repugnance and difficulty which retarded him from entering the Religious order. The third was, that it suddenly infused into him a great esteem of the name of Jesus, and that with so great a light and clearness of the inestimable riches which lie hidden in that name, that whenever he spoke of it, he carried into great admiration all who heard him. To this deed, which the aforesaid author relates with no witness cited, strength accrues from Nigroni, no. 47 at the end, where he has that John Oliva, his roommate, who once knew him passing through France by face, and addressed him, asserted to him that he was a Spaniard, and by name James or Diego Sanchez. Nor let anyone thence infer that our Order ought to be called the Society of the name of Jesus: concerning which Nigroni in the same no. 47.

[341] Nor is there any reason why by the haters of our Order its denomination should be accused of pride or arrogance; Objections against our Society formed from its name. see Nigroni, no. 43, and Sacchini in the cited place, no. 38. Nor does our Order do any injury to others in that matter; consult Nigroni, no. 45; nor to Christ; consult Sacchini, no. 40. Of the foolish heretical detractors of this name what shall I record? These indeed in a formed column, with puffed cheeks, to speak with Nigroni, no. 39, in circles and sermons; then, famous libels being published, written with Lycambean blood, attempted to tear this name of the Society of Jesus, and to overwhelm it with accusations; whose unbridled audacity by whom it was repressed, is soon subjoined.

[342] Let those meanwhile learn, if any still survive, to whom this name displeases, They must be resolved into another earlier Society, of the same surname as ours. that we are not the first to whom it was given; and hence that this appellation is not so unusual as, from the former no. 332, it seemed to be to the Sorbonne masters. For in the Spicilegium of d'Achery, volume 3, page 806 of the new edition of the Letters, etc., is produced a letter of Pope Pius II, given in the year of Christ 1459, to Charles King of the French, in which he thus writes: “We have understood that our beloved son William de Torreta made a vow of entering a Society called under the name of Jesus, newly instituted for the honor of God and the assailing of the infidels, and of wishing to persist in it together with others for the defense of the Christian faith against the Turks,” etc. But since that matter is written eighty-one years before the name of Jesus was solemnly imposed on our Society; let our adversaries, I pray, expound to us whether the things which are objected against our Society in this matter did not have place in that earlier Society. But these, on account of which, on the testimony of Sacchini, no. 34 cited above, Sixtus V wished our name changed, are: because he said the term was proud, and injurious to the other Religious Orders, and to all the faithful. That it also came round to the injury of Christ himself, since His most holy name became profaned, not only by the common people everywhere, but even in the courts and the tribunals in the mouth of scribes and notaries. That it was finally burdensome to the pious, who, whenever that Society should be named, must interrupt their grave cares, and give signs of veneration, and uncover their head. For what kind of men were these, whom it were impious to name except with head uncovered? These things chiefly moved the Pontiff, why he wished a new name to be assumed. Did not these, I say, obtain in that earlier Society of Jesus? Do they obtain in ours?

[343] Certain other adventitious names. Of the adventitious, common, and compendious name by which we are called Jesuits, one may inspect Nigroni from no. 57, and Suárez, no. 5, in whom likewise, no. 4, occurs the term Inniguistae, derived from the Spanish name of Ignatius, Iñigo. The name of Theatines also was transferred to us, from Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 6, and Orlandini, book 1, no. 122. Finally we have also been called reformed priests, on the testimony of the same Orlandini, book 15, no. 50: and called Apostles in Portugal, as may be seen in the same historian, book 3, no. 40. And to return to the proper and original name of the Society of Jesus, each of its alumni must know, and hold deeply engraved in his mind, that this is his office, that he imitate the actions of Jesus, whose glorious name he bears. For the rest, concerning our Society, for the suitableness of the subject which we treat, let these things suffice and more than suffice hitherto; so that on its behalf, against its detractors and assailants, the reader ought not to expect an apologetic defense in this place, which would be both a longer labor and foreign to our purpose. There may meanwhile be consulted on this matter the Library of the writers of the Society in the Index of subjects, chapter 18, from page 946; and the Vindications of our Father Alfonso Huylenbroucq, against the famous libels, etc., at Ghent in the year 1711, and the other Vindications, published in the same place in the year 1713: as also the same author's Vindications against the second Trumpet, which came to light at Brussels in the year 1715. But certain things which conduce to the commendation of the said Society will be given in the Posthumous Glory of St. Ignatius.

* read: decreed (decreverit).

§ XXXIV. The Society of Jesus foreknown by St. Ignatius, and by others, as is reported, before it was founded; its principal author and secondary; likewise by whose suffrages was its first Superior General elected?

[The Society of Jesus known to its Founder before it was born, from the testimony of Mutio Vitelleschi;] That the Saint had a foreknowledge of founding his religious family long before he founded it, is established from the testimony which we produced beforehand on another occasion in §13. Add the prophecy foretold by him at Antwerp, §16, and the conversation at Segorbe, §20. But because here we treat of our Society, a proper place offers itself to us of confirming that foreknowledge. This Father John Rho vindicated to our holy Parent in Interrogation 10 among the Apologetic ones, from page 145, laboriously engaged in that controversy against John Baptist Castaldo, a clerk regular. But I shall not draw the matter out into long discourses, but only skim some testimonies from him for its confirmation. Thus, page 161, there is in him the testimony of Mutio Vitelleschi, our Superior General, in these words: “I Mutio Vitelleschi, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, testify, even with an oath, so far as is needful, that 57 years ago, namely from my entrance into the Society, I heard from my elders and seniors, that St. Ignatius, our Parent, before he founded the Society, had divine revelations concerning instituting it, and comprehended in his mind its idea and the form of the institute, and that I believe this to be most true. In faith of which I have subscribed these with my own hand, and ordered them to be fortified with the seal of the Society. At Rome in our house of the Professed, the 12th of the Kalends of December in the year 1640. Mutio Vitelleschi.”

[345] This testimony is followed by that: “I Alvaro Arias, Assistant of the Spains of the Society of Jesus, testify, of Alvaro Arias, even with an oath, so far as is needful,

that from the year 1593, in which I was admitted into the Society, I heard from the most ancient fathers, who had been contemporaries of the first fathers, and had long dealt with them, that it was once revealed to St. Ignatius that the Society was to be founded by him, and that he drew certain of its first lineaments in the spiritual Exercises, which I also believe to be most true. This testimony of my hearing and persuasion I wished here to give, lest this truth should ever fade into oblivion. And therefore I have written these with my own hand, and sealed them with the seal of my office. At Rome the 12th of the Kalends of December 1640. Alvaro Arias.” To that testimony is subjoined this: “I John Chamerota, professed of the Society of Jesus, and master of sacred theology, now being in the eighty-second year of my age, testify, even with an oath, so far as is needful, that in the first years of my entrance into the Society, that is, about sixty-eight years ago, I received from the elders of our Order, that to St. Ignatius, the founder of our religious order, in the very beginnings of his conversion, the form and type of our Society, which he was to found, was divinely shown. Of which matter I too have no doubt. In faith of which I have written and subscribed this testimony with my own hand, at Rome the 8th day of November 1640. John Chamerota.”

[346] From the letter of Father John Bolland, given to Father Philip Alegambe at Antwerp, Of John Bolland. in the month of December in the year 1640, Father John Rho, page 168, produces the following: “Concerning Peter Quadrado, to whom our holy Father predicted that he would found a college for the Society, we have all always heard from our seniors, so that he must be stupid who doubts of a thing handed down by our elders with so constant a report. There is here among us Father William Warighem, who for about 56 or 57 years has been in the Society, and dwelt at Antwerp immediately after the city was recovered from the heretics. He records that he heard it thus then by a more recent report. There is shown in this city the house in which our holy Father was received in hospitality by D. Cuellar, a Spanish merchant; with whom that Quadrado, then still an adolescent, was living.” Besides, Rho testifies, page 179, that he saw at Rome, with Alvaro Arias, Assistant of the Spains, a book written in Spanish “fifty-five years ago,” he says, “in which the allocutions of Giles Gonçalves to his companions concerning the Institute and laws of the Society, of a domestic kind, are read: in the first of which I read these words, rendered by him with the highest fidelity into Latin, and caused to be excerpted by a public scribe, he testifies: ‘Our end is to add ourselves as companions to Jesus in the reduction of souls, and the acquisition of the world: as Father Everard in a certain sermon says he heard our Father Ignatius, and his companions, saying, that as soon as the meditation of the earthly kingdom was proposed to him (it is had in the little book of the Exercises under this title, on the Kingdom of Christ) the notions concerning the idea of the Society were impressed on him.’” Nor shall I heap up here more, which the said author abundantly suggests in the same interrogation 10; since these suffice to make faith of a most ancient tradition among us of the Society foreknown by the holy Father before he founded it: which tradition holds so long, until it be solidly overthrown.

[347] It was, as some would have it, foretold by others. Some would have it that the Society was foretold by the prophecies of others. Orlandini, book 2, no. 56, at the year 1538, says: “At this time many of the externs, when they weighed the lives and institutes of the Fathers, vehemently doubted whether these perhaps were those evangelical men of whom, so long before, Blessed Vincent Ferrer by divine instinct had predicted. For many things seemed to agree, from that oracle of preaching, with their lives and morals;” as he there proceeds at length. Ribadeneira, in the book on the Writers of the Society, in the notice of Peter Canisius, thus writes: “When the Society was not yet born, a certain woman, commonly noble in the opinion of sanctity, admonished his mother to educate her son Peter with great care: because in a short time a certain religious order of clerks was to be instituted, which would bring excellent advantages to the Church of God: in which religious order her son, enrolled, would be held a man especially distinguished.” There may also be consulted Orlandini, book 4, no. 34, and Rader in the Life of Peter Canisius, book 1, chapter 1. Moreover I shall not here pursue more of the things by which our Society is said to have been foretold in other writers: of which subject Father Julius Nigroni treats in the ascetic Commentaries on our common Rules, among the things which the third particle of the title, of the Society of Jesus, says, no. 11; Father Andrew Lucas in the Life of St. Ignatius, book 4, chapter 7; Father Eusebius Nieremberg in the Life, chapter 1; Bartoli, book 2, no. 47. For since so many ornaments are at hand from elsewhere, by which the Saint is illustrated in his Society, both more solid and more certain than those which are drawn from prophecies of this kind, I easily forbear from them.

[348] Its principal and secondary author: The principal author of the Society was the Holy Spirit; but the secondary, St. Ignatius, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Father Francis Suárez, on Religion, volume 4, tract 10, book 1, chapter 4, no. 4, argues the first part of this assertion from the testimony of St. Ignatius, who at the beginning of his Constitutions professes it; then proves it from the authority of the Pontiffs, and by several other reasons or conjectures and effects. The second part of the assertion is so known and certain to all, that it is plainly wonderful that another was, with the greatest ignorance, substituted for St. Ignatius as founder of the Society by Chemnitz, whom Diego Payva Andradius, in the Orthodox explanations, book 1, folio 13, thus confutes: “These are, Chemnitz, the beginnings of the Society of Jesus, this its first origin: which thou falsely assertest was first instituted at Venice by John Peter Caraffa, who afterward was made Cardinal, and at last in the year 1555 Pontiff, called Paul IV, before he was raised to that summit.” And certain things being interposed concerning the origin of the Theatine Order, then, folio 14, he thus proceeds: “Whose kind of living, as it is older than the Society of Jesus, so in the manner of living differs greatly from it. For they attend chiefly to the meditation of sacred and eternal things and to psalmody; but these join, with the assiduous contemplation of the divine mysteries, the teaching of the people, the amplifying of the Gospel, the administering of the Sacraments, and all the other Apostolic offices.”

[349] “They have not yet gone beyond the bounds of Italy, in which they are engaged with great praise, in designating the secondary [author the error of Chemnitz is confuted.] and lead a life most conspicuous in the judgment of all: but these have already surveyed the farthest shores of the world, and announced Christ Jesus crucified to almost the whole human race: so much so that there is no nation so barbarous and uncultivated to which the name of the Society of Jesus is not most known. Nor can I persuade myself,” he says, “that thou wast induced by any other reason to say that Paul IV, supreme Pontiff, was the author of the Society of Jesus, than that it might become suspect and hateful to all thy men, on account of the hatred which they have conceived and exercise against the most holy Roman Pontiffs. Which indeed sufficiently show what faith is to be given to you, Chemnitz, in the things which you everywhere judge to the great disgrace of the Roman Church and the ignominy of the most holy Pontiffs.” But let us pursue our own affairs.

[350] Ribadeneira thus begins the first chapter of his third book: Ribadeneira says St. Ignatius was elected General by the suffrages of all, “The Society being confirmed by Paul III, supreme Pontiff, the fathers had nothing prior than to create as Superior him who should preside over the whole Society, and by whose spirit and prudence all things both at Rome and abroad should be administered.” In what state the most recently born Society then was, which fathers, how many and when, were partly present at Rome, partly summoned thither, partly also absent, and for what causes, Ribadeneira teaches in the cited place. When he speaks of the present ones, “they join their suffrages with the suffrages of the absent fathers, which they had either left in writing or afterward sent,” it can be asked concerning the suffrage of the absent Bobadilla. Ribadeneira, when he clearly affirms this, “By the votes of all, both present and absent, Ignatius is declared Superior General;” does he not seem to intimate that all the suffrages of all existed at Rome, and flowed into the election of St. Ignatius to the government of the Society; whether the suffrages of the absent were there left, before they departed, or sent thither after their departure? And Ribadeneira deserves great faith: for in the same place he had premised this: “Because I,” he says, “was of that small number of those who then stayed at Rome in the Society, and did not depart from Ignatius's side .., I shall narrate the following things not as a hearer, but as a spectator and present and most certain witness.”

[351] To Ribadeneira asserting concerning the election made by the suffrages of all, not only agrees, but adds something clearer, Maffei, book 2, chapter 13, in these words: also of Bobadilla, as Maffei would have it; “The fathers who indeed were in Italy, at the beginning of Lent of the year 1541, all met (in the City), one being excepted, Bobadilla, whom, then especially conducting affairs in the town of Bisignano, the Pontiff would not have drawn away again from the work. He AND THE OTHERS, who were farther away, had each partly left at Rome, at their departure, their suffrage in a note duly sealed, partly afterward sent it enclosed in letters.” And soon he adds: “Finally on the seventh day, the suffrages being legitimately drawn and recited, Ignatius is declared Superior, none dissenting except Ignatius himself.” Therefore no one who was not a companion, whether present or absent, had failed to elect Ignatius by his suffrage, according to the report of Maffei. For he says “He and the others”; likewise “all,” etc.

[352] Orlandini, book 3, no. 4, of Bobadilla thus narrates: whom Orlandini contradicts. “Since he could neither come to the City himself, nor, being absent, send his suffrage, the fathers, anxious concerning the near mission which the Pontifical majesty was urging, were compelled, no account being taken of the absent one, to constitute a Superior General from their own body.” By which Orlandini clearly indicates that Bobadilla gave no suffrage in the election of the Superior General. Nor, according to the same historian, can it be said that Bobadilla left it at Rome before his departure; for a little before he had premised: “For the sake of electing him, Xavier and Rodríguez, about to set out for India, had left their sealed suffrages. Faber sent his from Germany by letter, and that several times, and always the same, lest, at such intervals of places, or in any way, the copy should be intercepted, or be brought too late to the City.” Where thou seest how accurately Orlandini here speaks of the suffrages of those three absent men, as clearly above he had excluded the suffrage of Bobadilla. But since Ribadeneira relates the matters not as a hearer, but as a spectator and present and most certain witness; who would dare to impute to him an error in the point here in controversy?

[353] but Bobadilla does not seem to have sent any suffrage. I have before me a Spanish copy, with the other Roman documents, from our Professed house

drawn from the archive, prefaced with this title, which from the Spanish sounds thus in Latin: “The form which the Society had in its oblation and promise to be made to its Creator and Lord, is that which follows.” What was then done by the fathers on that occasion, is had from Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 1. There may besides be seen Orlandini, book 3, no. 6 and following; so that from elsewhere those things need not be transcribed hither. But this pertains hither, which from the said Spanish I thus interpret: “The notes of all being opened one after another, NONE DISSENTING, all the suffrages met upon Ignatius, except master Bobadilla, who, because he was at Bisignano, and at the hour when he was about to set out for Rome it was commanded him by the Pontiff to remain longer in that city, on account of the fruit which he was making there, SENT HIS SUFFRAGE TO NO ONE: and because His Holiness wished to disperse those who were at Rome through diverse parts, they were compelled to conclude their affairs without Bobadilla, conformably to all the suffrages of all the absent and of all the present.” Since these agree with Orlandini, first concerning the suffrage not sent to Rome by Bobadilla; second concerning the election concluded by the fathers without Bobadilla; it seems to me that both this is to be held, and one must stand by the narration of Orlandini.

[354] Ribadeneira, in appearance contrary, is explained. Ribadeneira, in appearance contrary, I explain. When he says of the fathers who were present at Rome: “They join their suffrages with the suffrages of the absent fathers, which they had either left in writing, or afterward sent;” understand, namely, with the suffrages of Peter Faber, St. Francis Xavier, and Simon Rodríguez; of whom the first sent his, the second and third left theirs at Rome, from what was said above, and to be said in the following paragraph. The other proposition, “By the votes of all, both present and absent, Ignatius is declared Superior General,” I expound so that it may be extended to all those and those only who gave suffrages for Ignatius: but since among the givers, according to what has been said, Bobadilla was not, the proposition is not extended to him: so that the Saint truly had all the suffrages of all the electors for himself, although he did not have that of Bobadilla, who for the reasons mentioned was absent from Rome, and sent a suffrage for no one, and hence was not an elector. So much for Ribadeneira. As for Maffei; since from his words we have both that Bobadilla was an elector, and that St. Ignatius was declared General by the votes of all the electors, none indeed dissenting except himself, it follows that his opinion cannot be reconciled with the foregoing.

§ XXXV. The suffrages of the fathers for the election of St. Ignatius as Superior General; likewise a double declaration of St. Francis Xavier concerning the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, from their autographs; when Ignatius entered upon that office.

All the suffrages are wholly autograph; all were closed, as is clear from the traces of the seal still adhering; The suffrage of St. Ignatius, as Father Ignatius Pien, who sent hither their copies, noted with his own hand. Moreover I exhibit those suffrages in the same order in which I received them. And they are Latin, unless I shall have indicated otherwise. The suffrage of St. Ignatius I thus render from the Spanish: “IHS. Excluding myself, I give my suffrage in our Lord, that he be Prelate, to him who shall have the more suffrages, that he be [it]. I have given it indeterminately, taking it in good part: yet if it shall seem otherwise to the Society, or it shall judge it to be better, and for the greater glory of God our Lord, I am ready to designate him. Done at Rome the 5th of April 1541. Iñigo.” This suffrage was closed with the seal of the name of Jesus, which still adheres to it.

The suffrage of Laínez consists of these words: “IHS. Mary. I James Laínez, led by the sole zeal of the glory of the Lord Jesus and of the salvation of my soul, elect Lord Ignatius of Loyola as my superior and that of the Society of Jesus. of Laínez, In faith of which I have here subscribed my name the fourth day of April 1541. Laínez.” On the back is had in Laínez's hand, Laínez.

[356] The suffrage of Salmeron, in these words, most worthy of himself and of Ignatius, of Salmeron is expressed: “IHS. Mary. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. I Alfonso Salmeron, most unworthy of this society, prayer to God being premised, and the matter maturely weighed according to my poor judgment, elect and pronounce as Prelate and superior of myself and of the whole congregation, Lord Ignatius of Loyola, who, according to the wisdom given him by God, as he begot us all in Christ, and fed us little ones with milk, so now will lead the greater ones in Christ with the solid food of obedience, and direct them into the fat and most fertile pastures of paradise, and to the fountain of life: so that when he shall have rendered this little flock to Jesus Christ the great shepherd, we may truly say, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. But let him joyfully say: Lord, of those whom Thou hast given me, I have not lost any of them. Which may Jesus himself, the good shepherd, deign to grant us. Amen. This is our opinion. Written at Rome the fourth day of April one thousand five hundred forty-one.” The autograph epigraph is Salmeron.

[357] The suffrage of Claude Jay is of this tenor: “Lord Ignatius, of Jay, of Broët, whom God has now for many years given to us all as a father, I judge and desire to be elected as Superior of our Society of the name of Jesus. And so I, the least of the same Society, as far as pertains to me, elect him, and to his government, after God and the Saints, I commit my soul and my whole self most willingly, and from now commit it. Claude Jay.” The autograph epigraph is: Claude Jay.

The suffrage of Paschasius Broët, the briefest of all, has thus: “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. I Paschasius Broët elect as Prelate, Lord Ignatius of Loyola.” The autograph epigraph is: Paschasius.

[358] of Codure: The suffrage of John Codure extends more broadly, concluded in these terms: “IHS. Mary. Since it happens to me, by the command and obedience of the supreme Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth—which obedience indeed I most willingly undertake, as if Jesus Christ our Lord himself commanded and enjoined the same on me—since, I say, it happens to me to go into Ireland for certain pious affairs, to result in the glory of God and, as is piously hoped, the salvation of my neighbor, and that country is not a little distant hence; so that it is sometimes difficult to visit one another by letters after many months, I judged that I should act more advisedly, the matter being commended to God, yet moved by myself and not by others, as He who reigns in heaven is witness, if, before I departed, I should signify to the Society, written by my hand, him who, after the diploma of our Society is made, ought in my judgment to be set over the same our Society, and to hold the place of ministry, seeing only the greater glory of God and the greater good of the whole Society; he is he to whom I render this testimony, that I have always known him a zealot of the honor of God, and most ardent for the salvation of souls, and therefore also ought to be set over others, because he always made himself the least of all, and ministered to all, the honorable father lord Ignatius of Loyola; after whom I judge should be preferred, endowed with no less virtue, the honorable father lord Peter Faber. This is the truth before God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, nor should I think anything else ought to be said, if I knew for certain this to be the last hour of my life. In sign of which truth I have left this page, subscribed and closed by my hand, to be opened only after the diploma of the Society is made, to our Society which here remains at Rome, written the fifth of March 1540. John Codure.” The autograph epigraph is: John Codure, to the Society after the diploma is made.

[359] Concerning which last some things are observed. Bartoli, book 2, no. 48, observes that the suffrage was given and consigned by him so long before, because he was soon to be sent as nuncio into Ireland by the Pontiff: which however, he adds, afterward did not happen. Father Ignatius Pien, to this copy sent to us, thus noted for the present matter concerning Codure's setting-out: “Yet he does not seem in fact to have been in Ireland. I have certainly found nothing on this matter. This is established, that on the 22nd of April of the following year 1541 he made his profession at Rome; nay that on the 4th of March 1541 he was given by the Society to St. Ignatius as a helper; and that he died at Rome the 29th of August 1541. But the Pontiff in the same year 1541 sent into Ireland Salmeron and Broët.” Thus he. Consult for these Ribadeneira, book 3, chapters 1 and 4; and what was said above in §28, where we produced the various determinations of the Society.

[360] The declaration of St. Francis Xavier, That to the suffrage of St. Francis Xavier there is annexed on the same leaf another double declaration, likewise wholly autograph, I learn from our copies, from which I set forth the first declaration from the Spanish thus: “I Francis so say, that, His Holiness granting our manner of living, I acquiesce in all those things which the Society shall have ordained concerning all our Constitutions, rules, and manner of living, those being gathered at Rome whom it shall have been able conveniently to convoke and summon. And since His Holiness sends many of us to diverse parts outside Italy, and because all will not be able to meet: I say by this paper, and promise, to take in good part whatever those shall ordain who shall have been able to be present at the meeting, whether they be two, or three, or those who shall be. And so by this signed with my hand I say and promise, that I will hold ratified all those things which they shall do. Written at Rome in the year 1540 the 15th day of March. Francis.”

[361] The suffrage of St. Francis Xavier I thus interpret from the Spanish: and his suffrage; “IHS. I Francis also say and affirm, that, in no way persuaded by man, I judge that he who is to be elected as Prelate of our Society, whom we all ought to obey, seems to me just, according to what my conscience dictates, speaking, to be Prelate, our old and true father Lord Ignatius: who, since he joined us all together with no small labors, not without them will know better to conserve, govern, and promote us from good to better; because he more inwardly knows each one of us. And after his death, speaking according to what my soul feels, as if upon this one had to die, I say there is to be elected father master Peter Faber. And in this part God is my witness, that I say nothing else than I feel. And in faith of this I subscribe with my own hand. Done at Rome in the year 1540, the 15th of March. Francis.”

[362] The other declaration, given Latinity from the Spanish, likewise another declaration of the same. indicates the following: “Likewise, after the Society shall have been gathered, and shall have elected a Prelate; I Francis promise now for then perpetual obedience, poverty, and chastity. And so,

my father in Christ most dear, Laínez, I ask thee for the service of God our Lord, that in my absence thou for me offer this my will with the three vows of religion to the Prelate whom you shall have elected. Because from now, for the day on which he shall be created, I promise to observe them. In faith of which I fortify the present paper signed with my own hand, written at Rome in the year 1540, the 15th day of March. Francis.” There is added an inscription likewise autograph: Esta es la carta de Francisco para los de la Compañia. That is: This is the paper of Francis for those who are of the Society. Meanwhile, if we listen to some smatterers or envious ones, St. Francis Xavier was not of the Society of Jesus. But let us proceed.

[363] The suffrage of Simon Rodríguez is of this form: The suffrage of Simon Rodríguez, “To the praise of God and of the Virgin Mother. It has seemed to me, according to the light which, unworthy, I unworthily have, that Ignatius is for us he whom we ought to elect from among us as president and rector; and if he by some chance or by intervening death be lacking, in his place let Peter Faber succeed: and since I feel this in my conscience, I have wished to show you faith, my most cordial brothers, by subscribing my name with my own hand; asserting also that I was persuaded to this neither directly nor indirectly by man, but of my own accord and freely, which likewise I believe you will do. And since hitherto there has been no ambition among us, so I hope it will be: and when the Lord shall have prospered your desires, remember, O most dear brothers, your brothers; lift up your hearts on high for them. I salute you all, my brothers. At Rome the fifth of March, on which day I depart from Rome, in the year from the nativity of the Lord del mil e quinientos y quarenta, that is 1540.” And it is subscribed: Simão * Rodríguez. On the back is inscribed in Simon's hand: “Let it not be opened before the day.”

[364] and a triple copy of Faber's. The suffrage of Peter Faber I thus transfer hither from the Spanish: “IHS. Concerning the first Superior, to whom we are bound to render a vow of obedience, I give my suffrage to Ignatius; and in his absence by death, which be far off, to M. Francis Xavier: likewise offering myself even now, to bind myself, to obey whoever shall be set over the Society, and not only the Superior, but also whatever ordinations or constitutions those shall make who shall join together at Rome; asking all for the service of our God, that they be willing to hold me, in all things that shall be done, as their member, and a partaker of all their labors. In sign of which I here place my name, confirmed by my hand, in the year of the Lord 1540, on the day of St. John the Evangelist. Peter Faber.”

Another copy of the same suffrage given at Speyer, from the Spanish: “IHS. My vote concerning the Superior is for Ignatius, and in his absence by death, for M. Francis de Xavier. Likewise I submit myself to whatever shall be ordained by the Society in my absence: and to all things I here put my name, confirmed by my hand with such consent. Given at Speyer the 23rd day of January 1541. Peter Faber.”

A third suffrage of the same from the Spanish: “IHS. My vote and judgment concerning the first Superior of the Society is upon Ignatius; and in his absence by death, upon M. Francis Xavier. Likewise I say that whatever the Society shall there do concerning our affairs or any others whatever, for which my vote shall be necessary, all that I will take in good part. And to this end I here put my name, confirmed by my hand the 5th day of February 1541. Peter Faber.”

[365] When St. Ignatius accepted the generalate. These things being thus, nothing was left but that the most holy Father should accept the office of governing the Society conferred on him; but with how great an effort he wished to shake it off, as unequal to his shoulders, the writers relate; until at last he accepted it on the third feria of Easter, the 13th of the Kalends of May, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 3, no. 11. The blessed Father presided over the Society, from the shorter Life of Ribadeneira, chapter 10, from the tenth of the Kalends of May 1541; but there the beginning of that prefecture, so far as I attain, is drawn from the religious profession of the holy Father and his companions, which was performed on the said day, and by which, as it were, the supreme magistracy of the Saint in the Society was completed, the companions being indeed bound by the force of a solemn religious vow to obey him. See what is to be said in the next following §, no. 368. Before the holy Man entered upon his magistracy, namely at that time in which, having returned to his men from his confessor, he awaited the latter's final determination, there is interposed in Orlandini in the cited place, no. 9, a miracle; concerning which see Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 6.

* in the Portuguese dialect.

§ XXXVI. The profession of St. Ignatius and of the companions then existing at Rome consigned to writing; the autographs of the absent; the profession of the fathers at Rome not made into the hands of a Benedictine commissary; how Ignatius auspicated the generalate; the conversion of a heretic; the first provincials of the Society; the restoration of the Decretal of Innocent III.

The profession of the Prelate is this: “I, the undersigned, promise to Almighty God and to the supreme Pontiff.” There follow the rest word for word, The copy of the profession of the Saint and of his companions. as Ribadeneira writes them, book 3, chapter 1. After the word “Constitutions,” it is subjoined: “Done at Rome on Friday, the 22nd day of April 1541, in the house of St. Paul outside the walls. Ignatius of Loyola.” Thus our Roman copies: in which this little note is ascribed to the name of the holy Father: “This subscription is autograph.” The profession of the subordinates is thus expressed in the same place: “I, the undersigned, promise to Almighty God and to the supreme Pontiff.” There follow the rest word for word, as Ribadeneira writes them, book 3, chapter 1. After the words “according to the same Bull,” it is subjoined: “And the Constitutions. Done at Rome on Friday, the twenty-second day of April 1541. In the house of St. Paul outside the walls. Paschasius Broët, Claude Jay, John Codure, James Laínez, Alfonso Salmeron.” In the margin of our said copy it is noted: “These subscriptions are all autograph.”

[367] There follows in the same place a document, transcribed by the hand of Father Ignatius Pien, [The instrument of faith concerning the election of St. Ignatius as Superior General,] with this title: “The faith of the election of the reverend Lord Ignatius of Loyola as Superior of the Society of Jesus.” Then these things are narrated: “There being gathered capitularly in the church of St. Paul outside the walls of the City, in a place specially deputed for the undersigned matters, the venerable men lords Ignatius of Loyola, Claude Jay, Paschasius Broët, James Laínez, John Codure, and Alfonso Salmeron, priests of the cities and dioceses respectively of Pamplona, Geneva, Embrun, Palencia, and Toledo, masters in Arts, making and representing the whole Society of the Lord Jesus, lately erected and instituted under the invocation of the Society of Jesus by the most holy in Christ Father Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third, in their own name and in the name and by procuratorial vote respectively of the other companions, namely lord Peter Faber, Nicholas Bobadilla, and Francis Xavier, and Simon Rodríguez, absent from this city, of the dioceses respectively of Geneva, Pamplona, Sigüenza, Vic, companions of the same Society of Jesus, concerning the election of their Prelate or Superior, to be made by the Apostolic authority granted to them by the force of the Apostolic letters to the same companions and Society, of electing one of the same companions in doctrine and spirit, as it should please them, concordantly and none of them dissenting, the Holy Spirit being invoked, after the celebration of Mass, elected as their Superior and Prelate the aforesaid reverend lord Ignatius of Loyola, and into his hands made the perpetual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience solemnly, and according to the form of living granted to the same Society and companions in the same Apostolic letters, and declared or to be declared in the Constitutions of the said Society, namely the special obedience to the supreme Pontiff concerning the missions contained in the Apostolic letters, and concerning the education of boys in the rudiments of the faith. Done in the church of St. Paul outside the City in the year of the Lord 1541, the 22nd of April.” The contemporary witness, of whom below in the notes to book 3, chapter 6 of the Life, thus speaks:

[368] “I John Jerome Doménech, cleric of Valencia, legitimately subscribed, and somewhere explained. secretary of the same Society, extracted this from its writings, and in faith subscribed myself with my own hand, and signed it with the seal of the aforesaid Society.” And there is affixed a seal of the Society impressed in Spanish wax, namely the name of Jesus. After the celebration of Mass they are said to have elected Ignatius, and into his hands vowed, in the church of St. Paul in the year 1541, the 22nd day of April; not that they had not elected him before; for that this was done is established from the suffrages produced in the preceding paragraph; but because after the consummation of the Sacrifice or communion of Ignatius celebrating, holding ratified, confirming, nay rendering public and solemn, the election before made, they vowed to Ignatius himself holding the place of God, and now professed. And in this way thou wilt reconcile two authors in appearance contrary to each other, namely Orlandini, related in the foregoing paragraph, from whom we said that Ignatius accepted the office of governing the Society conferred on him on the third feria of Easter, the 13th of the Kalends of May; and Ribadeneira there cited, when he relates that our blessed Parent presided over the Society from the tenth of the Kalends of May 1541, according to what I there said.

[369] Of the vows of the absent fathers. But let it be permitted us for a while to return to the vows of the fathers, on account of the autographs of the absent, whose extracts are at hand. That of St. Francis Xavier we have already given, §35, no. 362. That of Simon Rodríguez, in Latin, is directed with a pious prayer to Christ; but lacks the marks of time and place. The autograph of Peter Faber is written partly in Spanish, partly in Latin. The very formula of the vows is expressed in the Latin idiom, and contains those vows which are had in the formula of profession in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 1. But the circumstances of the deed are set forth in Spanish. That it happened, we learn from the same source, during his Mass, at Regensburg in the church of Our Lady of the old chapel, at the high altar, on the 9th day of July, which was the Octave of the Visitation of Our Lady the Mother of God, in the year 1541; but that it was anew confirmed by him, and fortified with his signature and name, on the 10th day of the same month and year; and was sent to Rome.

[370] Moreover the said house of St. Paul, in which Ignatius with his men pronounced the solemn profession, [The commissary is blown away, who, as one would have it, received the vows of our men.] was of the Benedictine monks: on which occasion, the pseudo-Constantine again leads us to new ineptitudes, book 1, chapter 3, thus writing: “The matter was to be conducted at the discretion of the Pontiff, to be corroborated by his authority: and just as not many years before, by a pontifical Brief, the bishop of Caserta was chosen as commissary, to receive by Apostolic authority the vows of the Theatine clerks regular in the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles: so likewise in the profession of Ignatius and his companions it is to be opined: that there was chosen

namely someone who, by the vicarious authority of the Pontiff, should receive those vows, and order them to be ratified. But who he was, if there be place for conjectures, since his name—nay because his name—the writers of the Society by no means committed to writing, I would easily believe was lord Lorenzo of Mantua, a most prudent man, who at that time as abbot presided over that basilica. For it is not easily to be opined that the most discreet Pontiff ordered a jurisdictional and solemn act to be performed, in a Benedictine church—signal, noble, exempt—by another than by its abbot, and that a Prelate of great name.” Thus he. But away with the invention, and tell me, prithee—thou excellent vindicator, forsooth, of the glory of the Benedictine Order—those thy expressions, “it is to be opined,” “if there be place for conjectures,” “I would easily believe,” “for it is not easily to be opined”: those thy expressions, I say, which consist in mere opinions and imaginary conjectures, will they forge anything more than a commissary composed of imaginary ineptitudes? Moreover, since this thy vanishing levity was long ago confuted by Father John Rho in the third ineptitude, imputed to thee by him among the other eight, I shall not dwell at length on its confutation. And indeed for this the instrument produced a little before ought to suffice, which the secretary Doménech affirms that he extracted from the writings of the Society, where, after the fathers had elected Ignatius Superior General, he clearly adds that into his hands they made their vows. But let us transfer the discourse elsewhere, these trifles being dismissed.

[371] Let it now be said of the manner in which the holy Father soon began to adorn the supreme magistracy of the Society. How Ignatius auspicated the generalate: Ignatius, made general master of the Order, as may be read in Ribadeneira in the shorter Life, chapter 10, took such a beginning of his office. The next day he rose very early from his bed, and roused the rest from sleep: for he judged it his part to take assiduous care of his men. Of his ministry in the kitchen, and the exposition of Christian doctrine, Ribadeneira makes mention in the greater Life, book 3, chapter 2. “Nor yet meanwhile,” says Maffei, book 2, chapter 13, “was he lacking to graver affairs, his times being so distributed that, as far as was allowed, he satisfied each office.” More there the said author has, which may be read in him; as also concerning a certain youth, of excellent natural endowments, who had set out for Rome from the northern region, and, being infected with the Lutheran corruption, was wondrously desirous of infecting others. What happens? By command of the magistrates he is arrested: who, when they had both by themselves and by employing masters of sacred theology tried in vain to recall him from the madness of his opinions; lest they should leave anything unattempted, pitying his age and genius, before the law was proceeded against him, having summoned Ignatius, they set forth the whole matter to him: since neither their exhortations nor their threats profited; let him have him for some time with himself: let him see again and again by what means he might lead back the wandering little sheep to the folds of the Church.

[372] The youth, most kindly treated by Ignatius and his companions, the conversion of a heretic, began by God's benefit gradually to be affected and changed by accurately observing their words, deeds, and institutes; .. and at last, the offices of the fathers persevering, and by most diligent treatment, the matter went so far that, the fibers of the deadly dogmas being torn out, he acknowledged with groans his former pertinacity. Nor did he desist from the salutary undertaking before, having detested his errors by voluntary abjuration, with great admiration and joy of the good, he returned into favor with the holy Church. He afterward, grave men asking why he, who before, assailed by so many engines, had most obstinately resisted, at last suffered himself to be conquered by the hospitality and intimacy of Ignatius and the fathers; without hesitation answered that he had yielded not so much to their disputations and arguments .. as to their conspicuous sanctity and virtue; because he had established with himself, almost necessarily, that a right faith in God could in no way be absent from morals so incorrupt, from so great peace and concord, from such good works. Thus there Maffei.

[373] The creation of the first Provincials of the Society: What Ribadeneira briefly touches concerning the Society propagated through various provinces, book 3, chapter 4 at the end, the same Maffei thus declares, book 2, chapter 15: “And so, the Society being now so widely spread, Ignatius was compelled not only to set rectors over colleges or houses, as before, but also to appoint provincial superiors, as they are called, with ample power over the several nations. And first he set over Portugal Simon Rodríguez, then over Spain Antonio Araoz, a Cantabrian, over Italy James Laínez, over India Francis Xavier, over Germany Peter Canisius, over France Paschasius Broët, and over others in turn others. For the province of the City, unless when he was pressed by graver illness, he himself administered to the very end. Meanwhile, wonderfully solicitous for the progress of the whole Society, he exacted a task by letters from each Provincial; charged each most diligently with what was for the common good; but at Rome, besides the care of domestic discipline, of which has been said, and the other functions, he dealt with many and grave matters which pertained to the increase and defense of the Catholic faith, partly with the supreme Pontiff, the Cardinals, and the legates of princes in person, partly also with the kings and princes themselves by letters and interpreters.”

[374] The restoration of the Decretal of Innocent III, Among the good works which the holy Man saw to in the City, and of which Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 9, was that especially, that the Decretal of Innocent III, most necessary and salutary to the life of men, should be restored. Thus there Ribadeneira: whose words I declare and confirm from the following document, which the often-named inspector of the Roman archive for the Ignatian affairs received from that archive, and made Latin from the Italian for me. That instrument, then, contains the information given by Ignatius, to urge the decretal of Innocent III, passed in the fourth Lateran Council, canon 22, in the year 1215, in the Chapter “Since infirmity.” Which instrument I transcribe hither: “Most reverend Lord Legate. Since many and innumerable sick depart from this life without spiritual medicine, either very ill confessed or not confessed at all, because the sick are then commonly wont to be admonished to confess only when the illness has taken great increase, and now leaves but slight, or even no, hope of life; at which time the memory fails, and the intellect is weakened, so that the confession is made not only briefly, but also badly: and often indeed, frenzy or another deadly evil coming on, is not made at all: to which is added besides that the announcement of confession, made at the time of so great peril, by striking fear into the sick, is apt to accelerate death: all which could be avoided if they confessed at the beginning of the illness: besides that such confession not only places souls in safety, but also brings relief to the sick, and conduces much to their bodily health; since bodily illness sometimes proceeds from sin, the Lord saying to the sick man whom He had healed: Go, and sin no more, lest something worse befall thee:

[375] given to the Legate Hence your most reverend Lordship desires, as before you did in your diocese, to urge the observance of the Decretal and chapter ‘Since bodily infirmity,’ of Penances and Remissions, made under Innocent III in the Lateran Council: although your most reverend Lordship desires to moderate the observance of the chapter: that is, where it orders that the sick man's soul be first cared for (so that, after provision has been made for the sick man's spiritual salvation, one may proceed more healthfully to the remedy of bodily medicine, that, the cause ceasing, the effect may cease): you desire to promulgate that physicians may indeed at the first and second visit treat, although they are not confessed; but at the third let them not apply their hand, unless they first confess; or that they confess within three days. And notwithstanding this moderation, some physicians have tried, as far as they could, to disturb so holy a work; and that not here only, but also by letters sent thither (although some who profess the same art think the contrary); saying that it is against charity, to permit an obstinate sick man, unwilling to confess, to die, by not treating him. Because, if he were treated and survived, he could afterward do penance and be saved.

[376] To this those of sound sense answer, that every law is passed for the common and universal good, for the execution of the matter even if the detriment of some private person follow: as is clear in the precept of observing the Sabbath, by which he who gathered wood was ordered to be stoned for the common good and the universal observance of the law. And in this manner it could be said of Dathan, Abiram, Ananias, Sapphira, and many others, that, if they had survived, they could have done penance. Finally many theologians and canonists of the first mark, a consultation being held together, and the matter studiously weighed, subscribed, as your most illustrious Lordship may see from the copy annexed here: whose autograph is kept in our house together with the seal of the general chapter, held at St. Augustine's, and the subscriptions of all the doctors, theologians, and canonists, who agree in sense, though changing some words, as will appear from the copies of the approbations given by them. His Holiness, the matter being known, will greatly praise the work of urging the observance of the Decretal.

[377] But nevertheless, since the physicians raise such rumors here, with instruction; and it is quite probable that they, on account of our sins and so great blindness, will move all they can, to bring a hindrance to so holy a work: and although it be promulgated and committed to execution, it is likely that they will not cease to clamor, that they may be able to disturb it. Therefore, that I may rightly inform your most illustrious Lordship as far as I can, I annex here besides a certain writing composed and approved by the canonists, by which the objections are refuted, and the whole matter declared.” At the word “consultation,” of which a little before, the copyist of this instrument says: “this consultation, and the autograph subscriptions of many theologians and canonists, I here found.”

[378] He also extracted from the Roman archive a wholly autograph writing of St. Ignatius, and with a writing composed by the Saint, by which he meets the objections. composed with his first cares, by which the difficulties which can be objected in this matter are met. It has thus: “IHS. It is not against charity to deny medicines to a sick man unwilling to confess, although he incur death. First. The laws and sanctions of the canons rather and more principally contemplate the common and universal good than the private and particular. But to deny medicines to some sick man unwilling to confess is something particular: therefore for the common good it is not against charity, etc.: because for one who shall have been unwilling to confess, almost infinite others will confess. 2. If this were against charity, it would follow that all justice would be abolished. But this is a very great inconvenience: therefore. It is proved: no delicts could be punished, as by reasoning it is permitted to prove: therefore. It is proved. First, a judge could not deliver to punishment a heretic unwilling to confess, and remaining in his perfidy (since, unconfessed, after admonition, he can and ought by law to be put to death): because perhaps by the same reasoning, if he had lived, he would have repented. But this is a very great inconvenience: therefore for the common good it is not against charity, etc. 3. The divine law is irreprehensible. But it delivers some to be put to death, who perhaps, if they had lived, would have repented,

as is clear of Dathan and Abiram, of Ananias and Sapphira: therefore it is not against charity, etc. And of him who gathered wood. 4. Since the enactment of the canon is holily and legitimately ordained by a general council, the Holy Spirit being its author, and standing in the midst of the council (it is a Hispanicism, for ‘existing’), it cannot determine or provide anything against charity. Therefore the authority of the council alone and paternal charity is a sufficient proof, and consequently it is not against charity, etc.: since it is said in the decree: After provision has been made for the sick man's spiritual salvation, let one proceed to the remedy of bodily medicine.” Below is had: “The Summa Angelica, the Antonina, the Tabiena, the Silvestrina;” but at the side, “for any illness.” There are also affixed the names of certain canonists. On the back St. Ignatius wrote: “The physician.”

[379] The Roman council most recently urged the Decretal. The words “paternal charity” were said a little before: concerning which observe, that this canon is not only not against charity, but was made out of paternal charity: namely that the sick may thus be impelled to consult their eternal salvation. It remains that I here add, that the Decretal of Innocent III was most recently restored and enjoined in the Roman council, held under Benedict XIII in the year 1725, title 32, chapter 1 on Penances and Remissions, with this beginning: “Although it be read to have been declared by another most salutary Constitution of Innocent III in a general council,” etc. And with this clause: “We therefore command all bishops that they keep watch that the Innocentian Decretal itself, and the Constitution of St. Pius V, which begins ‘Over the Lord's Flock,’ likewise issued on this matter, be observed in every way, a penalty of excommunication, reserved to himself, being imposed against physicians, if after the third visit of the sick man they do not abstain from the care of the sick, so long as the sick man himself has not received the Sacrament of Penance, which the confessor is bound to attest, a note left with the sick man, subscribed by his hand.” Thus there: from which the weight of commendation accrues to the most praiseworthy care of St. Ignatius in this matter.

* the word “to prove” (probare) is not had in the autograph: perhaps he means, “as by reasoning is clear.”

§ XXXVII. The familiarity entered into by the Carthusian Order with the Society of Jesus at Cologne from the year 1543, thereafter increased and propagated; the benevolence of the same Order at Paris toward our men.

This title, which I prefix to the present paragraph, I find in the copies communicated with us from our Roman archive. [The Prior of the Charterhouse of Cologne kindled by Canisius with a desire of seeing Faber,] But what is here given for the greater declaration of Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 12, which is entitled “The charity and benevolence of the whole Carthusian Order toward the Society,” Father Ignatius Pien notes to be excerpted from the Annals of the Charterhouse of Cologne by the Reverend Father Hermann Crombach. These things being prefaced, our copy thus records: “In the year 1543 Father Peter Canisius made an excursion from Cologne to Mainz to Father Peter Faber. Cultivated by him with sacred meditations, admitted on the 8th of May to the Society, and sent back to Cologne to begin his novitiate, he kindled the reverend Father Gerard Hammontanus, Prior of the Charterhouse of Cologne, most familiar to him, with a desire of seeing Father Faber and of performing the Exercises; who communicated his joy with the Prior of the Charterhouse of Trier by this letter, and thus impelled him to the love of the Society and of the Exercises:

[381] The most sweet wounds of Jesus in place of salvation. Venerable in Christ most beloved father and friend. he communicates it to the Prior of the Charterhouse of Trier, Amid the most mournful storms of our time, by which Christianity is now on every side shaken, God has not so far abandoned His Church but that He has raised up for us some apostolic men, whom He has filled with His spirit and clothed with power from on high, as I have learned from the testimony of many learned men; who by true fervor recall the erring, restore sinners, and draw them to the way of salvation; and great fruit follows, the invisible artificer working in the hearts of men, whose words are sparks of glowing bronze, and touch and inflame hearts. They have been approved by our most holy Lord Paul III, and sent to diverse nations. The first of them is called Ignatius, and stays at Rome, and some in Italy; in the Spains, in France, and in Portugal are others cultivating the vineyard of the Lord. One of them is a doctor at Ingolstadt, and one stays at Mainz with the Cardinal, a man of great sanctity: he is called M. Peter Faber, a Paris theologian.

[382] He gives to men of good will who offer themselves to him certain spiritual Exercises, with the highest commendation of the spiritual Exercises: by which within a few days they attain a true knowledge of themselves and of their sins, and the grace of tears, a true and courageous conversion from many created things to God, progress in the virtues, and a secret familiarity, love, and friendship of God. Would that by some occasion it were permitted to go to Mainz! Certainly a man ought deservedly to seek such a treasure even among the Indians. I hope that the Lord will give me to see the man of God, His singular friend, before I die, that I may be directed by him to the interior reformation of a man, and union with God, to which the ordinance of the chapter admonishes us. In this most perilous time many cling to the heresiarchs, vessels of perdition, organs of the most wicked devil: therefore we ought the more gladly to cling to the friends of God, organs of the Holy Spirit; that we may the more safely be defended from the fiery darts which the demon hurls into the hearts of men. But of this more at length another time. If perhaps the Lord shall have touched Your Reverence's heart, that you may speak to his friend at Mainz, let Your Reverence see to it in Christ. In haste, the last of May in the year 1543.” After this letter, our copy thus proceeds:

[383] [which Father Faber imparts to the Charterhouse of Cologne, following our men with a signal friendship;] The same Gerard, Prior, gave another letter to Father Faber at Mainz, in which, inviting him to Cologne, he says that he is preparing himself to receive from him a true and solid instruction. In the months of August and September Father Faber was at Cologne, exercised the Carthusian fathers with the meditations of St. Ignatius; and left with them the book of the Exercises copied out by his own hand. He used for a time the hospitality of the Charterhouse, where now a library of manuscript books is seen. Whence, having set out for Louvain in the following year 1544, he returned to Cologne on the 22nd of January: where then the Carthusian fathers sustained with alms the companions living in a hired house. There a mutual familiarity so grew, signified to Peter de Sardis (nay rather Peter de Leyde, according to what is to be said in our Notes to chapter 12 of the third book of Ribadeneira, on the faith of Theophilus Raynaud), General of the greater Charterhouse, that he, in the general chapter of that year, rendered the Society of Jesus a partaker of the merits of the Order, in those records written to St. Ignatius: “Friar Peter, humble Prior of the greater Charterhouse,” etc., as in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 12.

[384] with the Order's communication of good works: Father Faber, glad at this news of the communication of good works, gave thanks to the Carthusian fathers, and commended to them the nine companions of the Society left at Cologne; who in the year 1545, when our men were ordered by the senate of Cologne to dwell separately, received into hospitality two of them and supported them, until that storm had thundered out. With the same, Lambert Castrius, the first of the Society of Jesus dying at Cologne, was buried. In the year 1546, when Gerard Hammontanus, Prior of the Charterhouse, had begged prayers of Father Faber, he gave his last letter to him a little before his death from Madrid, in which he promises them in his own name, and also in the name of Francis Xavier himself, to whom he had written on that matter. For thus at the beginning of it he says:

[385] for which Faber shows a grateful mind. There is nothing why thou shouldst fear, most dear father, that I forget you: continue to merit day by day more and more that spirit which intercedes for you in your friends: for He himself is solicitous for you, and assiduously rouses me to your memory: those benefits also, conferred by you upon me and mine, rouse me, which also pray for you. Among which that not least, by which he brought it about that our Society should be a partaker of all the benefactions of your Order. This certainly makes all our brothers keep a singular memory of thy salvation and of that your convent. Master Francis, who is among the Indians, last year had a letter from me on this matter, and an admonition, that he always keep the memory of thee and of that convent. To him are now sent ten of our Portuguese, who themselves also know this thy benefit, and my love toward thy brothers and all Germany. Through them M. Francis will receive another letter of mine, in which he will read mention of you, and of those who wish us well at Cologne; that he may know that he is a debtor, and may help me, that I be not ungrateful, I to whom so gratuitously all wish well and do well, etc. The 12th of March in the year 1546.

[386] The beneficence of Father Gerard Hammontanus was continued in the following years, especially in the year 1553, [St. Ignatius gives thanks to Father Hammontanus continuing his beneficence toward our men,] in which he gave a great sum of money for buying a house proper to the Society, and in the year 1554, in which with five hundred florins he relieved the want of the fathers of Cologne, a hundred crowns being also sent to St. Ignatius at Rome at an opportune time, when there our men were pressed by need. There survive St. Ignatius's letters of thanks, indices of his kindness, of this copy:

[387] May the highest grace and eternal love of God and our Lord Jesus Christ adorn and promote Your Paternity with your holy congregation by continual increases of spiritual gifts. given on this matter Although in these years our communication of letters with Your Paternity has been rare, that of prayers has been frequent; as also we have felt on both sides that the affection of mutual charity is by the very course of time increased rather than diminished. Which on our part the living memory of you, and a mind day by day more inclined toward you, and on your part not only the letters of our men, who write that they are affected with continual benefits by Your Paternity, but also the very experience of your beneficence, extending itself even to us at Rome, teaches us; for which we give thanks to God, the author of all good things, and to Your Paternity as great as possible.

[388] For very opportunely your liberality has succored the necessities of this college, to him by a letter: and the signification of so great a charity of yours has greatly tightened for us the bond of mutual love. May the Lord Jesus deign, according to the riches of His highest goodness, to repay this benefit with all the others for His poor. At Rome the brothers who are in our college and house are well. The Lord has exercised me with adverse health for six months; but I have now begun to be moderately well. The rest Your Paternity will understand from our brothers, to whom it is written more fully. We all desire humbly to be commended to the prayers and Sacrifices of Your Paternity and of your venerable brothers, both yours and ours. Farewell in the Lord Jesus Christ, who

is salvation to all and everlasting life. Amen. At Rome the 12th of the Kalends of September in the year 1554. Your Paternity's servant in our Lord Jesus Christ, Ignatius L.” Thus far the letter: whose inscription in the said Gleaning is thus expressed: “To the venerable in Christ father, and much to be respected by us in the same, the lord Prior of the Charterhouse of Cologne, etc. At Cologne.”

[389] But the Response of the Father Prior to the letter of Father Ignatius, from our copy of the Roman Gleaning, sounds thus: to which the said father “To fight the good fight by the arms of justice on the right hand and on the left, reverend father, and to be embraced by me continually in the arms of charity. I have received the letters of Your Reverence. I understand that health is somehow recovered: and that you have deigned to admit me, an unworthy sinner, into the communion of the prayers and Sacrifices of your holy Society; into which I humbly desire again and again that I and my brothers be commended. I shall never forget you, for the affection which the Lord long ago, through M. Peter Faber of holy memory, gave me toward you. The little gift which I sent is not worthy of thanks; would that turbulent times allowed me to succor according to my affection! since I now know a manner of disposing sufficiently secure, and see the growth and perseverance of the Society in the good begun.

[390] Yet lest, an occasion now had, I should do nothing, I send 500 golden florins, thus answered. requiring neither letters nor gratitude, but prayers and silence; because I am not ignorant that clerks live on the alms of the faithful, and are bound to give their superfluities to pious uses, as I intend to do even to death, God helping, to quiet my conscience, so long as the dispensation is committed to me against my will. Would that I could see at Cologne the college of your brothers founded, before I die! I have said many things to the prelates and rectors of the city, but the rectors themselves make themselves difficult. … May God have mercy on all our men, and keep Your Paternity with your holy Society very long in your divine work, which you have begun, for the salvation of the desolate Church. From our cell the 27th of September in the year 1554.” The subscription has thus: “Your most reverend Paternity's humble bondsman, Friar Gerard, servant of the Charterhouse at Cologne.” But the inscription thus: “To the reverend in Christ father Lord Ignatius, Superior of the Society of the name of Jesus, his most dear father.” Now let us resume the Crombachian excerpts, of which we spoke above:

[391] [Other proofs of the most inclined will of the Charterhouse of Cologne toward the Society.] In the year 1556 the Charterhouse of Cologne published in print the mystical theology of Henry Herp, and inscribed it to St. Ignatius the founder and the whole Society, which it shows to have been set by God against the swollen wits of the sectaries, and by the sanctity of its life as well as by its doctrine to bring forth innumerable fruits to the Church throughout the whole world. The same in this year contributed much, with John Gropper and Everard Billick, that by the senate of Cologne the Tricoronate gymnasium should be delivered to the Society of Jesus, the sectaries being ejected: and in the year 1557, the fruit of the Society's gymnasium being known, it succored with two hundred thalers the want of the masters.

[392] In the year 1559 the same Charterhouse, dedicating certain books of Denis the Carthusian to John Gebhard of Mansfeld, Elector of Cologne, thus commended to him the college of the Society at Cologne: “Behold, opportunely to Your Highness God has sent auxiliary forces of men certainly distinguished in piety and erudition, who are called of the Society of the name of Jesus: Your Highness knows them; since the fruits which they at Cologne, and their companions in the most remote lands of the Indies, and in most ample kingdoms, hitherto unknown to our world, and also in many places of Europe, make incredible, are so attested and illustrious, that whoever should wish to spread darkness over them by his lie, would rather dishonor himself. They differ little from clerks; but differ much in profession. Their institute looks especially to this, that they may as excellently as possible instruct youth in schools, and the people in public sermons and private confessions, and all those who deliver themselves to their discipline, in all piety.”

[393] Canisius fostered a familiarity with the Prior of the same: Father Canisius, though absent, fostered this familiarity with Father Gerard, Prior, by frequent letters given to him, and, as often as he made an excursion to Cologne, cultivated the Charterhouse of Cologne with his exhortations, being most friendly with Lawrence Surius, once his fellow-student in the Montano gymnasium, who in his Commentaries of the histories of his time also fully pursued the deeds done by St. Xavier and his companions among the Indians. Crombach adds: “These things I have excerpted from my Cologne Annals .. willing to submit more of the kind, if they can be of profit. At Cologne the 22nd of June in the year 1664. Your Reverence's servant in Christ, Hermann Crombach.” Moreover those Annals are not reckoned among the books published by him in print, which the Library of the Writers of our Society records; nor do I know to whom he directed this his letter.

[394] from whose Prior's autograph There follows in our copy this title: “The autograph of Friar Gerard, Prior of the Charterhouse of Cologne, For a memorial.” Which seems to be a fragment of a letter given by the praised Prior to one of our men. It thus says: “I humbly salute the reverend Father Lord Ignatius, Superior of the Society of the name of Jesus, and all his devout brothers, of whom hearing the holy conversation, and the examples of virtues, and the great fruit of souls which they make in diverse parts of the world, I vehemently rejoice and congratulate, desiring even to deliver my whole self, in simple obedience, into their ministry. But because bodily infirmity and my vocation simply forbid this, therefore in spirit I join myself to them, especially in the most sacred daily office of the Masses, beseeching God by my unworthy prayers, that He would deign to defend them everywhere from evils for the salvation of the whole Church, and to work through them immense fruits of souls unto the end.

[395] I salute in particular our M. Peter Canisius, some things are here transcribed. to whom let the annexed letter be destined, if it shall seem good to the reverend Lord Superior, they being first read; whom also I humbly beseech that he would deign to have pity on Germany and to succor it, by sending Canisius or at least some of his men to Cologne and Louvain, because the Holy Spirit still works in the hearts of many, especially in lower Germany. Moreover all the estates of the empire have submitted themselves to the definition of the council, and begin to come to their senses, the heresiarchs being extinguished in sin, and their princes humbled. Yet I commit all things to the Holy Spirit, whom I pray that He deign to inspire lord Ignatius with a pious will concerning this matter. Friar Gerard, useless Prior of the Carthusians at Cologne.” On the back is inscribed in the hand of St. Ignatius: Del Prior de la Cartuxa. That is: Of the Prior of the Charterhouse.

[396] Moreover to the Carthusian fathers of Cologne add those of Paris, The benevolence of the Charterhouse of Paris toward our men. who also deserved abundantly of us, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 10, no. 109. “Not yet,” he says, “had the Society a preacher, and one who should speak to the people, at Paris; but both in duly administering the divine mysteries, and in conferring pious discourses, and especially in demonstrating the ways of praying and meditating, it bestowed its labor and zeal upon the city. And although it lacked even a church of its own; yet it urged the frequent use of the Sacraments, now in a domestic chapel, now in the church and curia of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, sometimes also with the Carthusian fathers. Who with a certain special inclination of soul gave the Society the use and power of their church: by whose labors they themselves also grew, being increased by about twenty-two novices in a few months.”

§ XXXVIII. The sentences by which the holy Father and his companions are freed from public infamy, to chapter 13 of book III of Ribadeneira.

This sentence comes forth from our Roman archive, copied out by Father Ignatius Pien, and illustrated by marginal notes by him. The acts of this sentence being related, But the words upon which the notes fall will be expressed in the text in capital letters. And he thus records: “The reverend fathers the lords Franzino, elect of Marsico, governor of the benign City, and Philip Archinto, bishop of Borgo San Sepolcro, vicar of the same benign City and of its district, having seen a note or memorial, which the same reverend Lord vicar asserts was proposed in the Signature of our most holy Lord Pope by the reverend Lord bishop of Cesena, and thence a delegation issued by the oracle of the living voice by His Holiness to the same vicar together with the aforesaid reverend Lord governor, that they should diligently inquire concerning the truth of the defamations, everywhere spread abroad by Matthias of San Cassiano, master of the posts, against and toward the house and congregation of the priests of the Society of Jesus, staying in the church of St. Mary della Strada in the City. Likewise who saw the report of the INTIMATION made to the said Matthias, that on the said matter he should produce or notify, if he had anything for the verification of the said defamations. Likewise who saw the APPEARANCE made in the acts BY … the asserted procurator of the said Matthias, by which he required that the heads of the defamations be specified to him, to the effect that he might deliberate concerning his answer.

[398] Likewise who saw the report of ANOTHER INTIMATION, and the accusations, falsely fabricated against Ignatius and his companions, therefore made to the said Matthias concerning certain heads of the defamations themselves; and especially that the place of the Religious order of the nuns of St. Martha was a brothel, or, as he commonly asserted, a seraglio of the said priests, and also that some of the said priests had fled from the city of Paris, being under inquiry for heretical pravity; likewise that some of the said priests existed in the acts of the aforesaid lord governor not only accused, but also convicted of a most wicked crime, and of other most atrocious crimes, of which he boasted that he had a process with him, against which intimation nothing further was said, deduced, and alleged, as appears from the ACTS; and nevertheless the aforesaid lord vicar, as he asserts, from then onward, twice personally visited the said place of the nuns of St. Martha, examining the women there existing severally, and also, as he asserts, diligently made an inquisition by himself concerning the life, morals, and doctrine of the said priests; likewise the aforesaid reverend lords governor and vicar, who most recently saw the report of the most recent CITATION intimated to the said Matthias, to see, upon all and singular the premises, the ordinance and declaration made for executing the mandates of the aforesaid our most holy Lord.

[399] an honorable testimony is given for their innocence: All things being diligently seen and examined, and the things to be considered being considered, the name of Christ being invoked, they said, sanctioned, declared, and pronounced, that the said and any other defamations were falsely, iniquitously, deceitfully, and slanderously spread abroad, and that those priests and their congregation are of such life, and integrity of morals, and religion, of so sincere and Catholic doctrine, and bring forth such abundant fruits, now for many years, in the field of the Lord, with such celebrity of fame and splendor among all both were and are, that they have always been and are greater than all revilings and slanders; commending in particular their Superior, the venerable man, Lord Ignatius of Loyola, greatly in the Lord. And so their good works, which

Christ daily gives them, that in them they may walk in the service of the Most High God, and the obedience of the Apostolic See and of our most holy Lord, make it that their esteem and fame is rather to be increased with the highest praise, than diminished by the malignity and detraction of anyone. Therefore they imposed and impose silence on the aforesaid Matthias concerning the aforesaid and any other defamations, under penalty of the loss of his office of the posts, and also of the confiscation of all his goods, to be incurred by that very fact and by law without any further declaration, the aforesaid lords, the lords governor and vicar, reserving to themselves the declaration of the condemnation of the penalties incurred by the aforesaid Matthias on account of defamations of this kind, and of the expenses made in the present cause. Below is had: So we pronounce, Ph. vic.; that is, Philip vicar.

[400] At the word Franzino, the copyist of this sentence says: “In the acts which I here have he is called Francis Michaelis. But these acts are not authentic.” I add, that the matter is said to have been committed to Francis Michaelis in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 13. At the word “of Cesena” the said furnisher of this sentence observes these things: “St. Ignatius had before petitioned our most holy Lord. He deferred the matter until his vicar should recover. When he had recovered, St. Ignatius soon petitioned again through the bishop of Cesena, who offered a memorial, in which he called the Society HOLY. All these things are clear from the very memorial, which,” he says, “I have before my eyes.” At the word “of the intimation,” which soon follows, he says: “This intimation I have in hand. In it it is said that the most holy Lord on the 19th of June in full Signature, by the oracle of the living voice, delegated the Lord vicar, that with the Lord governor he should inquire into the truth of the defamations. The intimation was made the 30th of June 1546. The report of the intimation I also have.” Thus he. At the word “appearance” he warns this: “The appearance was made the 3rd of July 1546. The requisition made in it I have,” he says. “By …” he thus explains: “That it was Philip Bencivene is had in the acts: but in the sentence little points are set down, the name being omitted.” At the word “of another intimation,” it is thus in the notes: “That other intimation was made the 14th of July.” There follows in the text of the sentence, “as appears from the acts.” The author of these notes says: “Those Acts I also here see.” Likewise “the most recent citation.” After this, I read in the acts: “The same Matthias also not appearing, neither by himself nor by his asserted procurator, sentence was passed against him of the following tenor, and subscribed by the most reverend lord vicar only, whose tenor is as follows.” The composer of the notes adds: “Here follows the sentence, as I copied it.” Now remains

[401] The other sentence, of which Ribadeneira in the cited place, The copy of another sentence for Ignatius against a slanderer. and which the same Father who copied the former one, transcribed also for me from the Roman archive: “The name of Christ being invoked, sitting for the tribunal, etc., we sentence, etc., the aforesaid Dom John de Torano, rector of St. John de Mercato of the region of Campitelli of the nuns of the monastery of the Catechumens, confessed of the premises (which he there had enumerated), and respectively legitimately convicted, found guilty and by law punishable, to be and to remain perpetually suspended from the divine offices, and to be deprived of all his benefices and offices, as we suspend and deprive, and all his goods to be and to remain confiscated .. as we confiscate .. And dealing more mildly with him, after the manner of an ecclesiastical judge, to be and to remain condemned and thrust into perpetual prison, as we condemn and command him to be thrust, etc. So we pronounce. I. Cardinal del Monte and protector. Simon Gugnetto, notary.” To these there are added, likewise in the hand of Father Pien, these: “The acceptance of the sentence, and the commutation of the prison into perpetual exile, are had in the acts with the same notary.” And soon, “The insolent letter of the aforesaid John de Torano given to St. Ignatius, before his crimes were laid open, I here have,” says the same Father. Likewise a memorial, as he adds, inscribed by the same to the Pontiff himself, in which he accused Ignatius and his companions of heresies and of the confession revealed, feigning great piety.

[402] Likewise another sentence, Now I exhibit another public act set up for the holy Father, and drawn from the Roman archive, and it is the sentence of the Vicegerent for St. Ignatius against Francis Ferrer, thus sounding: “The reverend Lord Peter Rapondo, doctor of law, lieutenant and vicegerent of the reverend father lord Philip Archinto, bishop of Saluzzo, vicar general in the benign City and its district of our most holy Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third. Having seen the petition on the part of the Lord Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, against Lord Francis Ferrer of Barcelona, the accused party summoned, concerning and upon certain words said and uttered injuriously and iniquitously by the same Lord Francis against the aforesaid lord Ignatius, and having seen the citation made to answer the said petition, and having seen the confession of the same Lord Francis upon the said petition, together with the acceptance of the said confession on the part of the said Lord Ignatius, and having seen the term assigned to the said Francis to prove the satisfaction alleged, and having seen the declaration of the same Francis, by which he said that he had satisfied in this manner which follows, namely:

[403] Because in the same place and before the same persons where he said the injurious words, of which in the petition, against the said lord Ignatius, by which, injurious to St. Ignatius, he is condemned to ask pardon. there also the same Francis Ferrer said that concerning all and singular the injurious words which he had said against the said Lord Ignatius he had lied, and that he did ill to have said the aforesaid words; and having seen the citation to hear sentence for this present day, and the things to be seen being seen, and the things to be considered being considered, the parties being there respectively present, he pronounced, declared, and sentenced, that the said Lord Francis Ferrer, because, when he confessed that he had said certain injurious words against the said lord Ignatius, and that concerning those injurious words he had lied, be therefore bound only, for a salutary penance, to ask pardon of the same Lord Ignatius on bent knees. And so he pronounced, declared, and sentenced in every best manner, way of law and form, by which he could, etc.

[404] The faith of this instrument fortified by public authority. In faith of which he commanded the presents to be made and to be subscribed by the undersigned notary. Given at Rome in our house in the year from the nativity of the Lord 1547, in the 5th indiction, on the second day of the month of June, in the 13th year of the pontificate of the aforementioned most holy in Christ Father and our Lord Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third. So I pronounced, I Peter Rapondo, lieutenant. The copy compared with the original subscribed, under the second day of the month of June, agrees with the same original; which I attest. In faith of which I here subscribed myself, together with the impression of the seal of the reverend Lord vicar of the City and of his curia, for greater corroboration, etc. So it is. John Bergamo, notary of the curia of the reverend Lord vicar. In faith.”

§ XXXIX. Ecclesiastical dignities closed off to the men of the Society by Ignatius; satisfaction somehow made to the King of the Romans concerning Canisius; some things concerning Claude Jay, St. Francis Borgia, and Laínez in this matter.

How strongly, and for how grave causes, our holy Father bore himself in this matter, Ribadeneira will give, book 3, Bobadilla declines the episcopal dignity, chapter 15, from the deeds which he there brings forward. The cited place I confirm and declare. Bobadilla, in a letter inscribed to St. Ignatius, and drawn from our Roman archive, on the faith of Father Ignatius Pien, has thus: “The grace and peace of Christ the Lord be always with us. Amen.” What follows I make Latin from the Spanish: “A certain secretary of the King of the Romans came to this court, and spoke with me, that I should accept a certain bishopric of Trieste: to whom I answered that our vocation was of poverty, and not of magnificence ..” It is subjoined in our transcript in Latin: “From the camp near Ingolstadt the 5th of September 1546.”

[406] From the little book of the Recuerdos (which in Latin thou mayest call the Memorial) of Father Polanco and Father Peter Ribadeneira, and Canisius: page 41, there are produced from our Roman collection these things, which I interpret from the Spanish into Latin: “1552, yesterday the Cardinal of the Holy Cross told me, returned from the Pontiff, at midnight of the night; that Lord James Lasso had spoken with him, that in the first consistory he should propose the bishopric of Vienna for M. Canisius, saying, that His Holiness, without the consent of the Society, out of reverence toward the King of the Romans, should confer it on him; and that the Cardinal narrated to His Holiness what Lord James had said to him, and that he wished to understand his mind, lest he should err; and that the Pope said to him: What Lord James wished, that very thing it is; but I am unwilling to do it, because it does not suit that Society; and it seems to me that M. Ignatius has reason for not consenting to that business, and for foreseeing from afar what could happen, by opening the door to ambition: and he does very well when he does not open it .. On the other hand it is a hard thing not to make satisfaction to so great a devotion of the King of the Romans, and to so great a necessity, which is of persons fit for such a burden,” etc. I have besides in hand a copy transcribed from an autograph Italian letter of Father John Polanco, which is noted as given at Rome the 6th of October 1554; whose subject turns upon the present business of the bishopric of Vienna to be accepted by Father Canisius, and the things which to this end were done at Rome: but of these I have said enough above. But between the acceptance and the refusal of that bishopric a certain middle temperament was interposed.

[407] For how the Pontiff somehow satisfied the King of the Romans, who is made administrator of the bishopric of Vienna by Julius III, St. Ignatius consenting, is clear from the Brief by which the same Pontiff (namely Julius III) makes Father Peter Canisius administrator of the bishopric of Vienna: which the often most praised collector of the Ignatian monuments at Rome sent hither from the original draft (subscribed by Cardinal Pozzo, then prefect of the Signature of grace, and by St. Ignatius): which, he says, exists here: as is clear from the marginal notes which he ascribed below. The Brief thus sounds: “To our beloved son Peter Canisius, priest of the Society of Jesus, master in theology. Beloved son, greeting. Desiring to set over the church of Vienna, of the province of Salzburg, at present destitute in a certain manner of the solace of a pastor, a person useful and fit according to our heart, and to provide opportunely lest meanwhile that church suffer in spirituals and temporals: and attending that thou, on account of thy piety toward God, and knowledge of letters, and providence in spirituals, and circumspection in temporals, and various other gifts of virtues with which the Most High, the giver of them, has manifoldly marked thy person, wilt know, during its vacancy,

if thou wilt and canst salubriously rule and happily govern that church, and be very useful and fruitful to the same church in its rule and administration:

[408] Of our own motion, and out of our certain knowledge, and from the plenitude of Apostolic power, by a Brief in consideration also of our most dear son in Christ Ferdinand, the illustrious King of the Romans and of Hungary, elected emperor, whom we have understood greatly to desire this; we, by Apostolic authority, constitute and depute thee, in whom from the premises we greatly trust in the Lord, administrator of that church in spirituals and temporals for a year, within which we shall provide the same church with a fit and useful pastor, committing to thee fully the full and free care and administration of the same church in the same spirituals and temporals, during the said year.

[409] Apostolic, But we will that, this administration enduring, in the said church, and city, and diocese of Vienna, thou mayest freely exercise, by thyself, or by another, or others, whom in thy name thou canst substitute, those things which are of jurisdiction; but those which shall be of Order, cause to be exercised by a Catholic prelate having the grace and communion of the said See, and confer, and provide for, and present to, and elect for any ecclesiastical benefices with cure and without cure, secular, and regular of whatever Orders, pertaining to the collation, provision, presentation, election, and any other disposition of the bishop of Vienna for the time being, and otherwise dispose of them, and also, the due and accustomed burdens of the episcopal table of Vienna being supported, freely and lawfully dispose of the residue of its fruits, revenues, and proceeds in all things, just as the bishops of Vienna, who have been for the time being, could or even ought to confer them, and provide for them, and present to and elect for them, and otherwise dispose of them, and also of the fruits, revenues, and proceeds of the aforesaid table: the alienation, however, of any immovable goods and precious movables of the said table being wholly forbidden.

[410] whose copy Wherefore we enjoin thy discretion so solicitously to bear, and faithfully to prosecute, the aforesaid care and administration, as is premised, that the church itself may rejoice that it is committed to a provident governor and fruitful administrator; and that, besides the eternal rewards of retribution, thou mayest merit to obtain thence more abundantly the benediction and grace of the said See: and also we command by these presents our beloved sons, the chapter and vassals of the church, and the clergy and people of the aforesaid city and diocese, that the chapter, humbly attending to thee as father and pastor of their souls, exhibit to thee the obedience and reverence due and devout; and the clergy, receiving thee benignly and treating thee honorably, humbly receive thy salubrious admonitions and mandates, and take care efficaciously to fulfill them: and the people, devoutly receiving thee, humbly attend to thy salubrious admonitions and mandates, so that thou mayest rejoice to have found in them sons of devotion, and they in thee a benevolent father: and the aforesaid vassals, following thee with due honor, take care to exhibit to thee entirely the accustomed fidelity, and the wonted services, and the rights due to thee from them; otherwise the sentence or penalty which thou shalt duly pass or establish against the rebellious, we will hold ratified, and cause, the Lord being author, to be inviolably observed until condign satisfaction.

[411] We also ask and earnestly exhort the aforesaid Ferdinand, and our venerable brother the archbishop of Salzburg, is here produced. commanding the same archbishop by Apostolic writings, that, having thee and the aforesaid church, suffragan of the same archbishop, more inclinedly commended for reverence of us and of the said See, they follow you with the aids of a benign favor in enlarging and preserving your rights, so that thou, supported by their protection, mayest in the rule of the same church committed to thee be able, God being favorable, to prosper, and to King Ferdinand may accrue the reward of everlasting life, and from us a condign action of thanks, and the archbishop himself may thereby be able the more abundantly to merit the divine mercy, and our benediction and grace and that of the said See. Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the third day of November 1554, in the fifth year. ‘Attention being had to the consent of the Superior General, and because the King petitions, and it is in draft form, it can be expedited. Ja. Cardinal Pozzo .’ To the expediting of this brief in my name and that of the whole Society I consent . Ignatius *.” And these things indeed concerning Canisius thus far.

[412] But how greatly the holy Father labored in the cause of Claude Jay, Ribadeneira sets forth in the cited place: to which I add these: Jay, at the first suspicion of the bishopric of Trieste being offered him by the King of the Romans, soon wrote to St. Ignatius at Venice the 13th of September 1546, according to the report of Father Ignatius Pien in our Roman copies, who also produces a fragment of the letter, which I thus render from the Italian: “Hitherto .. I have refused to accept a beneficed ecclesiastical benefice; and less would I wish it at present. And the greater it were, the less would I wish to accept it. I by God's grace acquiesce in my vocation of poverty, although I do not acquiesce in myself, knowing that I sin daily, and offend my Lord: nor do I know how to govern myself: and hence I would not wish to accept the government of another from obligation.” Thus the most modest man. Then, as Pien adds, he asks of St. Ignatius prayers, and the manner in which he is to refuse it to the King of the Romans. And on the 25th of September 1546 he refused it to the King of the Romans by a most beautiful letter, whose subscription is: “To your most serene majesty the most humble servant and least chaplain Claude Jay.” But when he had learned that the King was pressing with the Pontiff, that he himself should impose that burden on Jay, he persuaded and deprecated by a most beautiful letter, that he would desist from urging, the 10th of December 1546 at Trent. The inscription, from the Italian, is: “Of your sacred majesty the least servant and unworthy chaplain Claude Jay, also in the name of his companions.” After, namely, Cardinal Carpi, protector of the Society, had persuaded the very same to the same King by a letter given at Rome the 4th of December 1546, without doubt St. Ignatius impelling each; as the collector of the Ignatian monuments at Rome for us observes. To these add what, among the excerpts from the Memorial book of Father Luis Gonçalves of 200 pages in folio, page 195, 196, etc., Father Ignatius Pien abridged and inscribed in our Roman documents, thus recording: “He narrates how greatly St. Ignatius opposed, lest the Pontiff should give Claude Jay a precept of obedience, that he should accept the bishopric of Trieste, the King of the Romans urging: and that, the King at last desisting, St. Ignatius appointed Masses, and Te Deum laudamus, in thanksgiving.”

What passed between St. Francis Borgia, Pope Julius III, and Charles V, Ribadeneira sets forth in the place cited above: concerning which it is worth while to have observed that I have in hand a copy of a Spanish letter, drawn from our Roman archive; by which our holy Father writes to St. Francis Borgia concerning the Cardinal's hat, which Pope Julius III wished to confer on him at the request of the emperor Charles V; setting forth the feelings of his soul concerning that dignity. The same archive furnished us with a writing by which Father Laínez keenly declined the dignity of Cardinal, the judgment of St. Ignatius being alleged among other things, marked the 19th of December 1555: by which are confirmed the things which Ribadeneira has in the cited place.

* These were written by the hand of Cardinal Pozzo himself.

* These Father Polanco, secretary, wrote.

* By the hand of St. Ignatius himself. Some things concerning Jay, St. Francis Borgia, and Laínez.

§ XL. The deeds of Ignatius in freeing the Society from the care of women.

A supplicatory petition of the Society offered to the Pontiff, What Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 14, records to have been done by Ignatius concerning the present matter with the supreme Pontiff, are declared and confirmed from our copies, drawn from the Roman archive; among which is St. Ignatius's memorial to the Pontiff, copied out by Pien, notes being added here and there. Have the text: “Most blessed Father. The devoted orators of Your Holiness, the Superior and priests of the Society of Jesus in the church of St. Mary della Strada, erected, instituted, and approved by Your Holiness in the benign City, do not cease, according to their strength and slender means, to exercise themselves in the daily services of the Church of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently of Your Holiness, His vicar on earth.

[414] that it be exempted from the care of nuns. But since the aforesaid priests * are solicited by some great men, especially in the parts of the Spains, to undertake the care of nuns and of women desiring to serve God devoutly: from now the orators themselves, noticing that this is one great impediment to the other offices incumbent on them in the service of God, from the very principal institute of Your Holiness, and since as yet this care begins to arise, and seems able to hinder, and a small impediment at the beginning can afterward become greater; humbly have recourse to the most blessed feet of Your Holiness, supplicating out of special grace, that in their institution and the confirmation of the Society, which is held as expressed word for word and can be expressed, You would deign to declare and decree, that it is a great impediment to the other offices and services of God incumbent on them from the very principal institute of Your Holiness, to undertake the care of any nuns or sisters, or of any women whatever, or to receive any vow or obedience of them: and that they ought in no way to be bound to undertake such care of women, nor does it profit their institute and the Society. Notwithstanding, etc.”

[415] There follows in our copy a certain clause expressed in these terms, Concerning two exempted from the government of the Society which seem to be added to signify the greater force of the decree, and to procure a singular firmness for it. What are there written by abbreviation, perhaps ought to be written in the manner in which I have enclosed them in brackets. That clause, then, has thus: “And with abrogation, etc., and with decree and prohibition, etc., and that the present letters may be expedited by Brief or by contradictory letters of Your Holiness.” That on the back of this instrument there are had written by the hand of St. Ignatius those Spanish words, Sobre mucheres profesas, that is, “concerning professed women”; I learn from Father Ignatius Pien. But what our holy Father determined concerning Isabella Rosell or Roser is clear from the letter given to her, and related in Ribadeneira: to which, from our Roman copies, I add the copy of the Brief by which the Pontiff freed the Society from the care of the said Isabella Roser and Francisca Cruilles. It thus sounds:

[416] We Philip Archinto, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Saluzzo, vicar in spirituals in the benign City of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third, there exists a Brief, attest and make faith, how the aforesaid our most holy Lord, it being set forth to him on the part of his beloved son Ignatius of Loyola, Superior of the Society of Jesus, in the benign

City canonically instituted by His Holiness, that his beloved daughter in Christ Isabella Roser, a woman of Barcelona, by commission of His Holiness, into the hands of the said Ignatius, Superior of the aforesaid Society, solemnly promised and vowed obedience to Ignatius himself only, and a vow of chastity simply, but a vow of poverty—the will of her deceased husband being satisfied—to hold and observe, of her other goods, the poverty which her Prelate should enjoin or command her, or perhaps otherwise made those three vows simply, without any condition, into the hands of Ignatius the Superior of this kind:

[417] And also that his beloved daughter in Christ Francisca Cruilles, by which Paul III the servant of the same Isabella, solemnly vowed obedience to the said Ignatius, and perhaps to the Superior of the same Society for the time being, and chastity and poverty simply, into his hands, and that the said Ignatius was greatly impeded by diverse and very many services for the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the service of His Holiness, and that it did not profit him nor the Society to have women of this kind under his care.

[418] And therefore, at the petition and instance of the same Ignatius, freed the Society from their care, and them from their vows, he first exempted and freed Ignatius, and the Superior for the time being, and the Society of this kind, from the said burden and care of Isabella and Francisca; and then, out of the plenitude of Apostolic power, wholly exempted and freed Isabella and Francisca Cruilles aforesaid from the obedience, religious order, care, government, and aforesaid vows of the Society itself and of its and the Superior for the time being of this kind, and commuted the vows made by them into and to this; namely, that during the life of each of them they should obey the Ordinary of the place in which for the time it should please them to be, just as any other Christian, and perpetually observe chastity, and he restored to the same Isabella and Francisca Cruilles respectively all the goods which they had before the aforesaid profession, and which they now have, and shall have for the time, and granted to each of them that they might acquire and retain those and others for the time, and use them, and freely dispose of and make testament of them, both in life and at the article of death, at the pleasure and every manner of will of each of them, sell, give, and alienate them in all things and through all, as if they had made no vow of poverty.

[419] and renders them wholly free, And that for the rest the said women should enjoy all and singular the indulgences, graces, faculties, and concessions which, if they were not exempted from the said Society, they would enjoy, he indulged. Notwithstanding the premises, and the Apostolic, provincial, and synodal Constitutions and ordinations, and also the statutes and customs of the said Society, and of the Order to which perhaps it belongs, even fortified by oath, Apostolic confirmation, or any other firmness, and the nature of the said vows, and also the privileges, indults, and Apostolic letters, granted, confirmed, and even renewed at repeated times, to them and their superiors even generally under any forms and clauses of words, even derogatory of derogatories, and others stronger, more efficacious, and unusual, and annulling, and other decrees.

[420] all derogation being removed, etc. All which, even if for their sufficient derogation special, specific, express, and individual mention, or any other expression, of them and their whole tenors, and word for word, and not by general clauses importing that, were to be had, or some other exquisite form observed, the tenors of this kind are held for fully and sufficiently expressed, as if they were inserted word for word in the presents. To those, otherwise to remain in their force, this once only he specially and expressly derogated, and to all other contrary things whatever. In faith of which we have ordered these our letters of this kind, subscribed with our hand, and fortified with our seal, to be made, by command of the same our most holy Lord, made to us by the oracle of his living voice. Given at Rome, etc., on the third day of November 1546, in the 13th year of the said most holy Lord Pope Paul III.” Moreover, on the testimony of Father Ignatius Pien, the copy of the Brief concerning Isabella Roser and Francisca Cruilles is a certain draft, written by Father Polanco, and in certain places polished by another hand.

[421] Among the letters of our holy Father, of which we have very many copies at hand, Certain other things pertaining hither. collected by Father Claude Joachim Thoubeau of the Society of Jesus, we have one copy which is given to the nuns Ulvia and Bajadella, written in Spanish at Rome the 5th day of April in the year 1549: where these things are had, here rendered into Latin: “The authority of the Vicar of Christ has closed the door, that no government or superintendence of Religious women be admitted, the Society petitioning this at the beginning, because it judged that it would be for the greater service of God our Lord,” etc. The Bull of Paul III, given in the year 1549, in which it is granted that we should not be bound to receive the care of nuns or of any Religious persons, etc. (which Ribadeneira cites, book 3, chapter 14) exists printed in the Institute of the Society of Jesus. Of the Apostolic letters of the year 1547, the 13th of the Kalends of June, Ribadeneira makes mention in the same place. But what the holy Father exacted from his men in this matter is clear from the Constitutions, part 6, chapter 3, no. 5; where he prescribes this: “Since the men .. of this Society ought always to be ready to run through any parts of the world whither they shall have been sent by the supreme Pontiff or by their Superiors; they ought not to undertake the care of souls, nor likewise of Religious women, or of any others whatever, so as ordinarily to hear their confessions or to govern them: although nothing forbids, once, for special causes, to hear the confessions of one monastery.” Our seventh Congregation also, adhering to the tenets left it by its holy Founder, thought good to make decree 56, by which it establishes that the care of women, who live together under certain laws among themselves, is foreign to our institute; and therefore our men must abstain from it, and inform the Pontiff, if the matter require. By these things, which both the Founder of the Society and the Society itself cautiously and prudently prescribed to their men, the door was also closed, that no congregation of women should follow the institute of the Society; which, how foreign it was from the mind of the holy Father and of the Society, gather from what has been said. And indeed, as if from a watchtower he had long before foreseen it, that a sect of this kind would at some time emerge, the time came in which this precaution had a singular use: for in the seventeenth century somewhat advanced there existed a certain congregation under the name of Jesuitesses, by private authority, without any approbation of the Apostolic See, formed in some parts of Italy and beyond the mountains: which Pope Urban VIII suppressed and extinguished, Apostolic letters being published on this matter, marked in the year 1631, and inserted in the Roman Bullary, volume 5. Let us review the earlier matters.

* it has only “pr. s.” i.e., the abbreviation for “priests aforesaid”.

§ XLI. The benevolence of the sacred College of Cardinals, and then of Pope Julius III, toward Ignatius and the Society; the assembly of the fathers in the City; the approbation and dignity of the Constitutions.

After these things, as Maffei writes, book 2, chapter 19, Paul III, supreme Pontiff, worn out with age and cares, The benevolence of the Cardinals toward our men in the difficulty of provisions: departed from life, and the assembly for creating a new Pontiff, amid a great variety of zeals and wills, was drawn out over some months. At which very time, when the City, as in a long interregnum, labored most vehemently under a difficulty of provisions, and our men being increased in number day by day, extreme famine seemed to be at hand; Ignatius experienced the excellent kindness both of others and especially of the sacred College of Cardinals toward himself and his men. For amid their highest occupations a pious remembrance of our men came upon the august Fathers: and by common counsel, to relieve their want, a no light sum of money was transmitted from the very conclave, especially favoring and helping Rodolfo Pio of Carpi, whom Ignatius had already before chosen for himself and his companions as patron and protector, as they call it, by the authority of the supreme Pontiff.

[423] And matters being long and much agitated, the Pontiff at last is declared to be Julius, the third of that name, who, because in the Council of Trent, as Legate, he had familiarly known Faber, Laínez, and Salmeron, the Apostolic theologians, and had learned much both from them and from others concerning the institute of the Society, The munificence of Pope Julius III granted, to Ignatius petitioning, many things very liberally for the increase and welfare of the Society. His diploma exists in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 21. Concerning the text of Maffei observe in passing: that Faber was indeed destined for the Council of Trent, but that the intervention of death prevented his being present at it, from Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 11, and Orlandini, book 6, no. 19. But perhaps Faber slipped from Maffei's pen for Jay, who, together with Laínez and Salmeron, was present at that holy Council, and was in great (they are the words of Orlandini in the cited place) esteem among all at Trent. He was consulted in the circles concerning the affairs of the council, and was much employed by the prelates. But let us return to the former matters. By other testifications of a most inclined will toward Ignatius and his sons, the most holy Vicar of Christ wished his benevolence to be proved. For, as Orlandini narrates at the year 1550, book 10, from no. 1, a jubilee being proclaimed and proposed to the whole Christian world, by which the whole flock was called to its Pastor, as is customary, Ignatius was a suppliant to the Pontiff, that he should make for the men of the Society, who for the Church and the salvation of souls were engaged in the most distant places, in India, Brazil, the Congo, and nearer Africa, and could not betake themselves to the City without great damage to the Christian cause, the means and power of meriting the jubilee with the Christians of those regions and with the neophytes; and at the same time should indicate what he should prescribe to be done for the sake of meriting it.

[424] in communicating spiritual graces with the Society, The Pontiff, gazing on Ignatius with a kindly eye, that he might signify the affection of his soul, said: “As regards bestowing the jubilee on your absent companions, that I gladly bestow, yet with this parsimony, and, to use his words, with this restriction, that I would have all my power in this matter communicated with your Society; and let it be permitted to your brothers, separated from us by so great an interval, to enjoy the treasures and most ample condonations of this year; and to prescribe, for meriting them, whatever shall seem good, at your discretion.” Ignatius, many thanks being given, on that occasion recalled to the supreme Pontiff some of the things which were announced concerning the Indies and those remote parts, joyful to hear, and not unworthy of those most lofty ears. Which when the Pontiff had heard, burning with zeal for the divine honor, he could not hold back his tears for the pleasure of joy, testifying that they had befallen him most pleasant. But not only to the Indians and other nations most remote from the City, but to several also who were nearer to the same City, the praised Vicar of Christ granted the gain of the jubilee, Ignatius requesting; as may be read in the same place, no. 3. What of this, that he granted that singular

benefit, and heaped it with another no less liberal gift, when he was unwilling that the privileges of the Society be suspended during the jubilee? Of which matter thou canst be instructed at more length in the same place, no. 4.

[425] among which is a jubilee for those warring in Africa. Meanwhile, on occasion of what I have said of the jubilee, and likewise of what Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 5, relates of Laínez returned from Africa, after excellent labor bestowed on the Christian soldiers in that war which, under the leadership of Juan de Vega, viceroy of Sicily, was waged against the enemies of the Christian name; I produce the following instrument, transcribed by Ignatius Pien at Rome, by which St. Ignatius obtained a jubilee for those then warring in Africa against the infidels, and announced it obtained by this letter: “Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of Jesus. To the illustrious lords, and noble and strenuous men, leaders and soldiers, and finally to all Christians who in Africa wage war against the infidels, the protection and aid of Jesus Christ the Lord, and everlasting salvation in Him. Since, admonished by the letters of the most excellent lord Juan de Vega, viceroy of Sicily and general leader of this holy expedition, I had, in his name and that of the whole army, supplicated our most holy lord Julius, by divine providence Pope the Third, that he would open to you, who are detained in a war to be waged for the glory of Christ and the exaltation of the holy faith, against the infidels, the treasure of the Jubilee which is opened to those coming to Rome and visiting some churches; His Holiness with a cheerful mind, out of Apostolic kindness, granted that grace to all of you (who however should be contrite and confessed): that you may fight so much the more alacritously, courageously, and bravely with the enemies of the holy cross, the more you shall see the more copious liberality of the Most High God and of His spouse the Church, and the happier outcome of the war (whether victory befall the living, or beatitude someone dying, the remission of all sins being obtained). That therefore I might signify this grace obtained, it seemed good in the Lord to write these letters, and to seal them with the seal of our Society. Given at Rome the seventh of the Ides of July 1550.”

[426] Nor did the will of the Pontiff, most beneficent toward our holy Patriarch and all his company, stop here, The Saint and the Society is increased also in temporal fortunes. but to these interior things, to speak with Orlandini in the same place from no. 34, and which are proper to souls, Julius benignly added besides external ones, and such as pertained to the household and to fortunes. He, from the goods of the Church, assigned to the college of Salamanca, Cardinal Mendoza requesting, seven hundred gold pieces yearly; although he could otherwise hardly be induced to detract anything from private churches, to convert it to other uses and colleges. He assigned to the Roman college, which was begun the following year, the duke of Gandía requesting, likewise fifteen hundred gold pieces, for each year. He assigned to our men the dwelling of the sacred virgins at Zaragoza, once erected by Juan de Gonzalvo, conservator of the kingdom of Aragon, and afterward dissolved by the authority of the supreme Pontiff. Finally, when Ignatius returned to him as a suppliant, to ask something, after his manner, from the interior treasures of the Church for the advantage of souls; the Pontiff, when he had assented to his petition, said: “What? Do you ask nothing for the protection of your life and the need of your bodies?” And he commanded him henceforth, a strict mandate of obedience being interposed, as often as the house of the professed was in want, so often confidently and without bashfulness to return to him: and he admonished one of his household present, that he should from time to time recall this very thing to his memory. This was the mind, this the disposition of the most excellent and best Pastor toward the Society. Thus far the historiographer of our Society: and he immediately thus proceeds:

[427] Excited and animated by which, Ignatius, admonished especially by so holy and religious a year, The fathers being summoned into the City determined to convoke the professed fathers who were absent from the City—which he had now long desired—that he might confer with them concerning the sum of the Society, and deliver the Constitutions written and polished by him, before he published them, to be inspected, and abdicate himself, as afterward appeared, from the office of Superior General. Of the convocation of the fathers, and of the abdication of the generalate attempted with them in vain, Ribadeneira writes, book 4, chapter 1; we shall write also a little after. As for the assembly of the fathers in the City; that it was made from various provinces, we have from Ribadeneira; but Orlandini, no. 47, determines those whose names he relates to be certain, namely Araoz, Strada, Oviedo, Miron, brought from Spain with Borgia: then Laínez recalled from Sicily: but that at Rome were present Miona, Frusius, Polanco, all professed of the four vows, except Strada, who on the Kalends of February of the year 1551 now approaching made his profession, according to what our historiographer records in the same place. For the rest, the dignity and excellence of the Constitutions, and of their Founder, by a most deserved right demand of us that what Ribadeneira briefly touches, book 4, chapter 2, be here supplied and explained by us.

[428] The Saint offers his Constitutions to be examined; Let us hear the matter from Orlandini, no. 48 and following: “Therefore, those whom I mentioned being gathered in the City, Ignatius brought into the assembly his Constitutions, written by the authority and request of the first fathers, and the whole Society urging; and gave to all and to each the means of inspecting and weighing them, that if anything ought to be changed, or added, or introduced, they might indicate it freely and faithfully. For although Pope Paul had granted so much to the Society, that in those letters by which he confirms the institutes of the Society, he approved with the same authority the Constitutions and laws which it should have made and approved, by that very fact, no other judge being employed; Ignatius, endowed as he was with prudence and sanctity, lest he should publish anything which could not undergo the judgment of all, would by no means stand by his own judgment, and rely on his own prudence in publishing and divulging them, but of his own accord subjected them to the animadversion and judgment of others. For he desired that such Constitutions should come from him as would suit all, and from which no variety of regions and nations, no dissimilarity of morals and natures could be excepted, not being ignorant that, where there was so great a variety of morals and nations, not all things fall aptly upon all, nor do all things suit all; and that by frequent exceptions of laws the laws themselves are broken and lose their strength,” etc.

[429] which he also delivers to others absent to be weighed, Nor did the holy Parent contain himself only within these limits of prudence and circumspection; nor only to those, as is there asserted, no. 50, who then had gathered, but also to others afterward, who had been absent, he delivered them to be weighed, lest any of the chief fathers should be lacking, whose judgment in so grave a matter he did not seek. They were read by all very willingly, and received with the highest zeal and no less approbation. But the blessed Father, still intent on polishing and correcting them, and changing some things which had either been noticed by the fathers, or the advancing day had admonished, judged that they should not be promulgated before the fifty-third year of this century. What then afterward? Then at last he sent them into Spain, Portugal, and some other provinces, not indeed that they should be received by his men as already perfect and complete in all their numbers, but that, of what sort at last they were when recalled to action, and how apt to the morals of every kind and nation, daily use itself might show, and might corroborate what with so great zeal and long meditation, so many deliberations and Sacrifices, had been decreed and constituted in them. And not even then did he wish them to have any force or any strength, unless anew recognized and approved by the whole Society: which, after his death, in the fifty-eighth year of this century, when the Society was convoked for the assembly of the Superior General, it did. Then at last, Laínez being declared Superior, gathered into one place by the decree of the same Society, again shaken out, and tossed in their hands, they were approved by the highest consent of all, and received with a certain veneration. Nay even, that a business of such moment might be most absolute in all its parts of censure on every side, the same, at the same time, Pope Paul, the fourth of this name, having ordered them to be examined by four Cardinals, and long and much discussed, at last restored safe and entire, as he had received them, not even a word being changed.

[430] What shall I record, with how great preparation and moderation of soul, with how exquisite and accurate deliberation, mature consultation with God, and most frequent recourse to Him, for the sake of receiving light, the holy Father conducted himself in composing the Constitutions? using the highest accuracy in composing them. Why do we tarry at length? After the example of Leo the Great, writing to bishop Flavian against the impious and detestable heresy of Eutyches, as that is narrated at more length in Orlandini, no. 54, Ignatius, when he gave his labor to writing the Constitutions, before he deliberated on each matter, and altogether decreed, what he had meditated upon it by praying and deliberating, he placed, taken down and written with his pen, upon the altar where he duly celebrated his daily Sacrifices (as we too, as Orlandini says, whose words I relate, have heard from our seniors, and he who was present as minister to him sacrificing, John Paul Borrello, has set forth) that upon him writing and deliberating Christ might shine more abundantly, and, the light being multiplied, he might determine on each matter according to the greatest glory and honor of God. Thus he. Wouldst thou have some specimen, whence thou mayest gather how diligent and accurate the most holy Man was in these matters? Forty continuous days he sacrificed to God the Best and Greatest, and gave himself to divine prayers more ardently than usual, for this one thing, that he might determine whether it were expedient for the churches of our Professed houses to have some revenues, for the building or worship and adornment of those churches; which are the very words of Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 2; and of which matter Orlandini, no. 55. See also what we said above in §26 of the Diary of St. Ignatius, being about soon to say more of it.

§ XLII. The wonderful feelings of Ignatius in composing the Constitutions; the composition of these venerable on several titles; the abdication of the generalate attempted by the Saint; the affairs of the Indies; the German college.

Orlandini, having pursued in writing the wonderful feelings of the holy Parent, had in those forty days, A specimen of the affection of St. Ignatius, suggests, no. 59 and following, an example of the feeling of a single day. Understand the matter from him: “That I may satisfy the pious zeal of my readers,” he says, “whom I doubt not an avidity has seized to taste a specimen of those commentaries (although it is very difficult to preserve their spirit in the Latin tongue), I shall insert as faithfully as possible what he noted on the two-and-twentieth day. On Saturday,” he says, “the fifth Mass of the Trinity. In the accustomed prayer, since at the beginning not much was present, after the middle enough of the pleasantness and joy of the soul was at hand, with some object and appearance of a lucid clearness. While the altar is prepared, Jesus occurring to my mind, I was moved to follow Him, since I altogether judged that He is the leader and head of the Society; that this was the argument of all

the greatest reason, why the highest poverty and nakedness should be assumed: although other reasons also, which I had employed in the elections, looked to the same. And this thought moved me to piety and tears, and also to constancy, so that, although in the Mass of this day, or in others, tears did not flow abundantly, this feeling seemed likely to be enough, in the time of temptations and troubles, to obtain constancy.

[432] when he was composing the Constitutions; Amid these thoughts, while I was proceeding, and putting on the sacred vestments, the pious feeling grew, and this seemed plainly to be a confirmation of the decree: although other consolations were absent: and it seemed to be a confirmation in some way from the most holy Trinity (For this the blessed Father desired, that there should be present to him especially from the most august Trinity some feeling, whence he might understand that the things which he had decreed concerning poverty were acceptable to Him), since the Son so communicated Himself: because I recalled that time in which the Father placed me with His Son. After the sacred vestments were put on, when the name of Jesus impressed itself on me more and more, and I was thus corroborated and confirmed for every event; a new force of tears and sobs broke forth. The Mass now entered upon, much of grace and pious feeling accompanied me, with a quiet and long weeping. In the course of it various motions were present in the confirmation of the decree: and when I held the divine Sacrament in my hands, there came an internal colloquy, and a vehement commotion of never deserting the Lord, whatever should present itself, a new sweetness of spirit and new motions overflowing me. And that vast feeling remained with an impulse to tears, even after the Mass; and all day, whenever the memory of Jesus came upon me, devotion and confirmation recurred to my mind.

[433] likewise another is given. These things are related by Orlandini, who soon adds why he described the feeling of this day especially, although he affirms that in others are read more admirable gifts of heavenly lights and sweetnesses; namely for this reason, that here it is more clearly explained what especially impelled the most blessed Man to perfect poverty. The praised historiographer, not wishing to defraud the pious reader of another, and that a most beautiful, thought of the holy Father, which he writes was noted by him on the thirty-fifth day, thus narrates it: “It had come into his mind on a certain day to put an end to the Sacrifices which he was making upon this deliberation concerning poverty: then, considering that one ought not to deal so definitely with God; ‘When I abased myself,’ he says, ‘and did not think it fair that a fixed time should be prescribed by me, but that I should wholly and entirely subject myself, and should stop there where it should please the highest goodness to indicate to me; there came the thought: What if God should place me in hell itself? Here indeed,’ he says, ‘two things were presented to me: on the one side the torments which I should endure in that place: on the other, the curses against God which I should hear. In the former I could not represent to myself pain, nor be moved by those torments: and so it seemed to me it would be much more bitter to hear blasphemies against the most holy name of God.’”

[434] In this manner, then, the most holy Founder of our Constitutions was affected, The Constitutions to be held in the highest esteem, when he attended to their composition. “No apparatus of books was then with him,” says Orlandini, “no codex except the volume of the Masses. His study was prayer: his library, a perennial meeting with the divine mind.” And indeed in his Constitutions he often delivers things so that they seem not invented by him, but almost dictated by God. Let Father Peter Ribadeneira be heard in the juridical Examination of Madrid of the year 1595, thus speaking to the fifth interrogation: “He wrote the Constitutions .. imbued with the heavenly spirit and divine wisdom, with so great gravity of words and sentences, that they lead the reader into admiration, and Father master Laínez said to the same witness, that that single book of the Constitutions of Father Ignatius was sufficient to govern and reform all the regular Orders of the Church; a good testimony of which was the reverence with which five general congregations held in the Society from the time of the death of Father Ignatius received and venerated the same Constitutions.” There follows in Orlandini a question of St. Ignatius, by which he inquires of Laínez whether God reveals to the founders of Religious orders the most grave points of their institute, etc. That interrogation, drawn out there at length, as also the answer of Laínez, the holy Father agreeing with him in that matter, we forbear to transcribe hither, sending the reader to Ribadeneira, chapter 1 of book 5.

[435] Hither pertains the Saint's conversation with our Luis Gonçalves, for various reasons, in which, when they conferred many and various things among themselves concerning the plans and institutes of this life (we use the words of Orlandini, no. 66), especially these: why the Society employed the same care of the body as the other clerks, or one not very dissimilar; why it too did not publicly sing psalms in the churches, with alternating choirs, as the other Orders; why, to explore and test the dispositions and morals of the novices, it commanded journeys on foot, with no viaticum, but that begged by humble prayer; why, besides the dwellings of the Professed and novices, it had also colleges and seats of studies; when these, I say, and other things of the kind they communicated among themselves, and Ignatius rendered the reasons of them one by one; at last he referred the sum of all the reasons to that one retreat of Manresa: in which he had received clear notions and understandings of all these and other things, impressed by God and as it were consigned in his soul.

[436] Hence it comes that all those things ought deservedly to procure in us the highest esteem and veneration of Constitutions of this kind, which are brought forward. and to engrave deeply in the mind that of Orlandini, thus concluding in the cited place: “By these tokens, then, we have our Constitutions attested; so that it plainly appears what is to be thought of him, if any exist, who either esteems little or neglects laws published by so many divine significations and admonitions, established by so many procurations of Sacrifices, prayers, tears, composed with an apparatus of so long a time, elaborated by so many vigils, agitated by the judgments, counsels, deliberations of so many most weighty fathers, and finally received with so great consent, approbation, testing, and use of the whole Society. To perverse minds nothing is ever right, all things are crooked, while they do not direct themselves to the right norm and rule. He must put on the spirit and sanctity of the Constitutions who would judge of their excellence and sanctity.” Thus far Orlandini. Certain sayings or answers of the holy Father to various persons concerning the Constitutions I have in hand from the Roman archive, and from the little book called Recuerdos, that is, the Memorial, page 97 verso, which Father Ignatius Pien ascribes to the copy sent hither by him.

[437] He writes to Laínez concerning abdicating the generalate: But for the greater declaration of what was done then, when our most holy Founder left no stone, so to speak, unturned, that he might lay down the helm of the Society conferred on him; it is worth while to understand the matter from the following document. For this matter a letter to Father Laínez urged, wholly autograph and very long, but full of his self-abasement; of which Father Ignatius Pien among the Roman monuments. It seemed good to me to render here thus the following Spanish fragment from it: “The Society acquiescing, or the half of it, I give thee my suffrage, if it shall be of any value, and offer thee, with a very good will, and with much joy of my soul, the office which I have: and I not only elect thee as worthy; but, if it shall seem otherwise to thee, I offer myself to this same, that I may elect whomsoever thou shalt name, or whom any one of them shall name; believing that, when it shall be so ordained, it will be altogether for the greater service, praise, and glory of God our Lord, and for the greater spiritual solace of my soul in His divine majesty: as it is quite true that, speaking absolutely, I desire, bearing myself humbly, to abdicate this burden. And so, in all things and through all, laying down all my little judgment, I always hold, and hope I shall hold, as much better, that which thou thyself, and the Society, or its part, as has been declared, shall have determined. Which, so determined, by this written with my hand, I approve and confirm.” Thus the most humble Man. “It seems,” says the aforementioned Pien, “that Laínez was then at Bologna: because on the back is inscribed in the same hand of St. Ignatius, pa, bo *; nay on the wrapper there is had in another hand: ‘This letter seems written to Father Laínez, when he was at Bologna in the council in the year 1547.’” And the said Father observes that the Council of Trent was for some time transferred to Bologna, where sessions IX and X were celebrated, in the year 1547. Hence the holy Father, as it were, already then gave a prelude to what he afterward did in this matter.

[438] which matter he then most strenuously urges; but in vain. Orlandini, book 10, at the year 1550, no. 67, thus writes to our matter: “Therefore, the blessed Father having conferred his Constitutions with the fathers, full and free power being given of changing, moderating, adding, what should seem good; he felt that the time was most opportune that, what he had long ago determined with himself, he should, by the occasion of the general assembly, deliver his part to another, and, incited by that old avidity of his for obeying and reducing himself into the ranks, and also by so many infirmities of both soul and body (as he affirmed), old age moreover coming on, which by its own right, as it were, demanded a vacation of office, should altogether withdraw from the helm of the Society, which he had most unwillingly accepted. And lest it should be objected to him by the fathers, as once, when he acted in person, he set forth his counsel in express words by this letter; which Ribadeneira gives, book 4, chapter 1; and Orlandini, no. 68. A copy of the Spanish autograph of the aforesaid letter, sent hither among the other Roman monuments by Father Ignatius Pien, I have with me; which, as he notes to it, was closed with a seal, as is clear from the traces of the seal and the piercing of the letter. And it is marked the 30th of January, of the year 1551 in our copy. But the Fathers greatly disapproved this purpose of the most modest Man. It pleased, however, as Orlandini writes, no. 70, for his sake to bring the matter to a vote. One Andrew Oviedo, such was the simplicity of his most candid mind, said it seemed to him that what the Father demanded could be granted; and to others asking the cause, ‘Because,’ he said, ‘he, who is holy, thus judges it expedient.’ But of all the rest, and Oviedo himself immediately assenting, there was in retaining him the same consent as there had once been in declining the office.”

[439] And so St. Ignatius, compelled to prosecute further the government of the Society once accepted, The Saint attends to the affairs of the Indies, earnestly watched over his office, and the public good of souls. Hence he was the author of building houses of catechumens in India, Orlandini recording the deed at the year 1550, book 10, from no. 119: “At Cochin,” he says, “Francis Henriques and Balthasar Gago had their seat, to the great advantage both of the Portuguese

and of the heathen: and since many of these were consigned even by the soldiers themselves, instructed in no catechesis, and sometimes brought over by reasons not sufficiently fitting and decorous, and this was the source of many evils; Blessed Father Ignatius was the author, by his letters, that dwellings should be built for the catechumens, where, by long deliberation, and by handling and learning the Christian rites, they might come more prepared to those mysteries.”

[440] But in the next following year 1551 the beginning of the Roman college is attached by Ribadeneira, book 4, and to the German college; chapter 3, as also of various others throughout Italy; as may be seen in the same place, chapter 5. In the year which followed this, 1552, according to Ribadeneira and Orlandini, was reserved the German college, then instituted at Rome by Pope Julius III: whose beginnings and the causes of its institution, and other things pertaining hither, Ribadeneira describes in the same place, chapter 6. A monument indeed most worthy, John Cardinal Morone being its promoter, Julius its founder, Gregory XIII its restorer, and St. Ignatius its moderator, in which, as in a picture, Germany ought to recognize and venerate, expressed in living colors, their merits toward her, their zeal, vigils, cares, and supports. Into our Roman monuments is inserted a copy of the original letters of the Cardinal of Carpi, concerning the making of a Bull for the erection of the German college in the City, and other things pertaining thereto. They are marked as given at Viterbo, on the 3rd day of August 1552. Their subject or context is Italian; the subscription this Latin one: “As a brother, R. Cardinal of Carpi.” The inscription likewise Latin: “To the reverend in Christ Father Lord Ignatius, Superior of the Society of Jesus, at Rome.” In the said monuments there is next subjoined a copy of the original letter of Cardinal Morone, by which he writes that he has understood with great consolation, from the letters of St. Ignatius, the good order and progress of the German college, both in studies and in religion, etc. It is Italian, and given at Novara on the 10th day of March 1553. The natal day of the holy Apostles Simon and Jude was the birthday of the college, Peter Ribadeneira, lately returned from Sicily, explaining in St. Eustace's, to the most excellent crown of Cardinals and prelates, the plans and praises of the institute, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 12, no. 8. Paiva, in the Orthodox explanations, book 1, folio 16 verso, I know not why, defers the beginnings of this college to the following year, saying that the Saint undertook this excellent work in the year 1553.

[441] Then he thus proceeds and weaves the following eulogy; which I produce the more gladly, whose eulogy is given, because it is composed both by an external and by a contemporary author. It thus sounds: “But since the most dutiful Society of Jesus, born also for the common utility of the Christian commonwealth, undertook the office of educating these German youths, and performs it with the greatest praise and the congratulation of all; by the labor and providence of Ignatius their college was constructed and built not far from the college of the Society of Jesus at Rome; to which the most reverend Morone so favors, that he brings no less aid and help to sustaining and enlarging it, than to instituting it. But how much utility this thing brings to the Germans, can be sufficiently conjectured from Chemnitz, who fears so much from it for himself and his faction, that for this one cause he affirms that the Society of Jesus was chiefly prepared for the destruction of Germany and of the Gospel. Nor do I doubt that by the divine benefit and the labor and diligence of these youths, Germany will at some time recover the light of faith snatched from her, and that God will at last turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the imperfect to the knowledge of the just.”

[442] and the error of Chemnitz is confuted. Then, arraigning the error of Chemnitz, he affirms that he is in this especially deceived, as usual, that he affirms that these German youths gather in that college for no other cause than that they may at last be co-opted into the Order of the Society of Jesus. For although the men of the Society of Jesus bear the care of feeding, sustaining, moderating, and educating them; yet they are neither impelled nor by any reason induced to undertake their institute of life. For since they were incited to undertake this labor only by desire of the salvation of Germany, they have nothing prior than to consult and provide for it by every means. Wherefore, German men, if you still retain any feeling of a grateful mind, if you preserve humanity, if the ancient sweetness of your morals, if integrity in rendering offices, if that courtesy and gentleness proclaimed by the discourse of all; these certainly ought to be especially welcome to you, these as dear as possible, who, when they desire to obtain no favor from you, or that any be repaid them by you, when they seek no benefits, or wish to be increased by any honors, moved by your calamities alone, induced by charity, incited by love, confer all their labor, industry, and thought upon your salvation: and who often seek their own food from door to door, supply to your sons an abundance and store of all things which nature needs, imbue them with piety, form them in religion, cultivate them with erudition, that both you may be able to enjoy them with greater pleasure, and they may at some time restore to you the most clear light of the Gospel, snatched away by the most atrocious crime of certain wicked men.” Thus far Paiva.

* it seems to be nothing else than “para Bononia” i.e., “for Bologna”.

§ XLIII. Letters of illustrious persons in Spain, Italy, and France, written to St. Ignatius concerning the colleges of the Society of Jesus.

[443] A letter of St. Thomas of Villanova, The college of Valencia, instituted in the Spains in the time of St. Ignatius, is illustrated by Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 10; but here from the following documents, drawn from our Roman archive, Father Ignatius Pien taking care. Among them is a copy of the original letter given by St. Thomas of Villanova, of the Augustinian family, archbishop of Valencia, to St. Ignatius: whose context I thus interpret from the Spanish: “In this city of Valencia a college of that holy Order and Society of Jesus has been founded, in which have resided as rectors, first master Miron, and afterward the reverend Doménech, with much fruit, which was brought about in this city and kingdom by their example and doctrine. And since obedience has moved both from their place, it would be most welcome to me to see that college prosper and bear the fruit hoped for from it, so that one of the aforesaid fathers should return to it. But if this cannot be done, let another distinguished and religious person be supplied to it, who may preside over it. Your most reverend Paternity will consider what is fitting; and provide, as you shall have seen, to conduce more to the good of religion and the service of our Lord. May He guard and preserve the life of Your Paternity in His service. Valencia, the 9th of September 1552. Most devoted to Your most reverend Paternity, Friar Thomas, archbishop of Valencia.” The inscription is: “To the most reverend Father General of the Society of Jesus, at Rome.” Thus a saint to a Saint.

[444] With these agree the things which of that most holy prelate Orlandini writes, book 15, a great esteemer of the Society of Jesus; no. 78: “When living,” he says, “as was before signified, he had embraced the companions with paternal indulgence, so much so that, if he saw any one removed from Valencia, he lovingly expostulated that his aids were being taken from him: dying, when he had a certain sum of money in bonds (for he had almost no other chest than the hands of the poor), he bequeathed the larger part of it to the college.” Thus there. For the rest, what in the place alleged above Ribadeneira records of the college of Gandía erected for the Society by St. Francis Borgia, it pleases somewhat to declare from the notices which I have received, drawn from our Roman archive.

[445] Before me is a copy of a letter (though not the original) of the most serene Philip, prince of the Spains, Likewise letters of Philip II, then prince of the Spains, afterward king the second of that name, to the supreme Pontiff, commendatory for the college of Gandía and the Society. It is Spanish; given at Valladolid on the 22nd day of the month of April 1554; subscribed: “Your Holiness's very humble and devoted son, Don Philip, by the grace of God prince of the Spains and of both Sicilies, etc., who kisses your feet and hands.” The Prince signs; and a little below, G. Perez. In our cited copies, next to this is another letter of the same prince to the Cardinal of St. James, and to the Cardinals of the Holy Cross, de la Cueva, and Morone, on the same subject, noted with the same place, day, and year as the preceding. Nay indeed, what thou mayest wonder at, the same prince commended the aforesaid college to St. Ignatius himself, as is clear from his letter, a fragment of which is seen among the same Roman copies, and from the Spanish thus sounds: “I ask thee, and earnestly commit to thee, that thou take a peculiar care of the said college, and of its Religious, and of the affairs and business pertaining to them. For so great a benefit will thence redound to the commonwealth in spirituals, and God our Lord will hold this so acceptable, that He will repay thee the reward of the care and diligence which thou shalt have undertaken in this business. And to me this will be most welcome. Given in the place, day, and year as the two preceding. P. the Prince signs. And a little below is had: By command of His Highness; and it is subscribed: Gonzalvo Perez.” The inscription, rendered from the Spanish into Latin, thus sounds: “To the venerable and devout religious Father master Ignatius, General of the Society of Jesus.” Moreover, he who desires to be more fully instructed concerning the deeds done by the Society of Jesus in Spain, and its colleges, let him consult Orlandini, book 15, no. 65 and following.

[446] of the Republic of Genoa; of the Duke of Ferrara; Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 10, treating of various colleges, makes mention very briefly of that of Genoa in Italy, established by the labor of Father James Laínez. There is with me among our Roman monuments a copy transcribed from the original letter of the Republic of Genoa, by which it asks for men of the Society to establish a college. It is Italian and brief, given at Genoa on the 13th day of April 1554. It is subscribed by four deputies, and below by the chancellor of the deputies. It is inscribed with Italian words, which if rendered sound thus in Latin: “To the very reverend Lord Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of Jesus. At Rome.” But to the matter of the college of Ferrara, of which also the same Ribadeneira writes, book 4, chapter 5, pertains the original letter of the Duke of Ferrara, transcribed from our Roman archive; by which he signifies that it has happened welcome to him that eight of the Society were sent to Ferrara, to begin a college. It begins in Latin thus: “Reverend in Christ most dear friend.” All the rest is Italian, as also the subscription and inscription. It is marked at Ferrara the 25th of June 1551. The subscription is: “Your good friend, the Duke of Ferrara.” The inscription: “To our most dear friend in Christ Ignatius of Loyola, Superior of the Society of Jesus. At Rome.”

[447] of the bishop of Trent; Hither also pertains the letter of the bishop of Trent; transcribed from the original by Father Ignatius Pien at Rome; by which he asks for a college to be founded by him there. The exordium is: “Reverend in Christ Father beloved by us.” The continuation is Italian. The clause this Latin one: “Given in our city of Trent on the 19th day of April 1552.” The subscription likewise: “Christopher, by divine mercy Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, bishop and prince of Trent and Brixen,

etc.” The inscription this also Latin: “To the reverend in Christ Father sincerely beloved by us, the Lord Master Ignatius of Loyola, Superior of the congregation of the most holy name of Jesus. At Rome.” Now let us see what in France concerning this subject, while the holy Father was still living, was accomplished.

[448] two letters besides What Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 11, has of the bishop of Clermont, lord William du Prat, and the college which he instituted at Billom in his diocese, as also of that of Paris, we supply from two original letters, written by that most illustrious man to St. Ignatius, and transcribed from the Roman archive by the praised Ignatius Pien at Rome in these words: “Much time has now flowed by (reverend Father) since I wrote to Your Reverend Paternity how much it was in my desires, and how long I had labored, that in a town of my diocese (which the inhabitants call Billom) I might be able to erect and institute a University now almost wholly collapsed and dying out; grieving greatly that up to now my endeavors have fallen out unhappily, but led into this hope, that God the Best and Greatest by His immense kindness will not suffer them to be vain and useless, if He shall know it to be for the glory of His name and the salvation of my people, and shall otherwise inspire thy mind, that thou wilt not disdain to help us with the erudition and piety of some of thy brothers; which how difficult it has hitherto been for thee through the injuries and tumults of wars, I am not ignorant. But the Christian affairs, the divine clemency permitting, being brought back to a somewhat more tranquil state; I could wish that Your Reverend Paternity would deign to send hither to me three or four of thy fellowship, well instituted in letters and morals; whom I will receive kindly and piously as brothers, as friends, and I will give heed that they lack nothing of those things which shall seem to make for the necessity of human life, and for the coming-in of spiritual fruit. Long ago I saw to the buying of a certain house in that town, which I will gladly and readily devote to your Society, and I will do the other things which I shall understand, from the counsel of thy brothers, to be for the praise of God the Best and Greatest, and the utility of your Society.

[449] But I would have thee know that it has not stood by me, that my house, of the most illustrious which is at Paris, has not already been named as yours and your Society's: but the business has been procrastinated, while I wait that your Pontifical diplomas be received before the parliament of Paris. But since I see us delayed by long waiting, and that it is not yet established what the parliament determines on this matter, I have resolved to assign that my house to you, as soon as I return to Paris. Meanwhile I pray God the Best and Greatest to keep thee and thine safe for the edification of His Church, and I vehemently and earnestly commend myself to the prayers of all of you. From our castle of Beauregard near our city of Clermont, the 3rd of the Kalends of October 1553. Your Reverend Paternity's humble brother, G. bishop of Clermont.” The inscription is: “To the reverend father Lord Ignatius of Loyola, Superior of the Society of Jesus.”

[450] And thus indeed has the one copy of the most illustrious bishop of Clermont's letters; of the bishop of Clermont but the other is expressed in these terms: “From the letters of thine (most dear Brother), and especially of lord Paschasius, I think I have understood how I brought into this our Auvergne lord Robert Claysson, a man of thy fellowship, commendable both for skill in letters and truly for integrity of morals and piety of the Christian religion; whom in the city of Billom I destined to the interpretation of divine Scripture among the scholastics, and to the province of sacred sermons in the churches. And it can scarcely be said with how great applause and favor not only of the scholastics, but of all the citizens, he was there received: so much so that he has enticed most of the other cities of my diocese with a holy emulation, so that they desire to snatch him to themselves and call him away thence, and contend with many and almost daily wishes with me, that this be permitted them through me.

[451] But indeed, as to omit or neglect a work begun and desired by me for many years would seem unbecoming; a letter, so to be altogether and stubbornly unwilling to grant anything to their so holy desires could seem foreign to piety. Whence, that that pious love might glow the more, I sent him to those some cities, that in them he might, by a public sermon, give a specimen both of his erudition and of his virtue. Which succeeded so happily that all heard him most avidly, as if hanging on the mouth of the preacher, and acclaimed almost the same as the Athenians to the divine Paul, ‘Let us hear thee again concerning this’; some desiring his labor and sermons throughout all Advent and the feasts consecrated to the Nativity of Christ, others in the succeeding Lent, others at another intervening time. But I did not suffer him to desist from the work begun: for I permitted it only so long as the school of Billom is wont to keep holiday for some days on account of the heats of the dog-star.

[452] This our region, most dear brother, … is most populous and most thirsting for the evangelical word, to St. Ignatius so that I dare to say that the harvest indeed is great, but the laborers few, and that therefore the Lord of the harvest must be asked to send laborers into His harvest, and I would think there is scarcely any other province in this our kingdom, where with greater fruit and a more ample heap of spiritual sheaves the brothers of thy Order could be engaged. There have come to us two of thine, master Jerome Bassus and master Peter Canalis, men truly not a little to be looked up to for the zeal of religion and singular modesty … Master Jerome I determined to send into my city of Clermont, who so applies himself to the hospice and the care of the poor, that among my citizens he has procured for himself an incredible favor, by a daily sermon refreshing the poor sick there, where he has procured for himself as hearers not only those valetudinarians and the domestic guests of the hospice, but a great crowd of citizens, both men and women.

[453] given But thou wouldst do a worthwhile thing, and wouldst bring great aid to our endeavors by the grace of God, if thou wouldst send to us four or five of thine, who might join their right hands and labors to lord Robert, and take upon themselves the business of the whole gymnasium, our men having discharged their office through the course of time. This indeed I strive for, and will effect, if God the Best and Greatest shall inspire my wishes, that with thy men be the entire power and authority of the school of Billom.. Finally I will see to it that the roof be sound, and the rest of the household furniture so prepared, that on account of solicitude of this kind they be not called away from the worthier office of their lectures and the exercise of pious contemplation..

[454] are produced. But because the dearth of provisions is grave with you, as I hear, I did not judge that this letter should be sent to you without a little gift, though I do not doubt that there are there many who, magnifying your Society for its merit and dignity, meet, or certainly succor, your necessities, and that you, according to the doctrine of Paul, are everywhere and in all things so instituted that you know both to be filled and to hunger, to abound and to suffer want. Your venerable Paternity will therefore receive with this letter a hundred gold pieces, that in some part our abundance may supply your want (if there be any), from whom we ask back a reward, and a far more abundant interest, and that indeed spiritual, imploring with God the protection of your prayers, to which also I heartily and earnestly commend myself to Your Reverend Paternity. Farewell. From the episcopal house … the 5th day of February 1555. Servant and brother William, bishop of Clermont.” The inscription of the letter is the same as that of the preceding.

§ XLIV. The letters of Ferdinand I to St. Ignatius concerning the college of Vienna, the composing of a Catechism, the affairs of his conscience, and a theological compendium to be made by the men of the Society for Germany against the heresies.

Ferdinand I, most loving of St. Ignatius and the Society, Ferdinand, the first of this name, own brother of the emperor Charles V, first King of the Romans, and then his successor in the empire, always embracing St. Ignatius and his offspring no otherwise than a most kind father, gave very many letters to him, testifying the affection of a most inclined mind toward him, and a most pious zeal toward the orthodox religion. Which, because they illustrate the sayings of Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 5, and are quite honorable to our Saint, I judge should be brought to light from the original copies of the Roman archive; whence Father Ignatius Pien procured them for us, to be given both in this and in the following paragraph. And in the first place among our copies is set that in which there is treatment of erecting a college at Vienna, and of the praise of Jay. It has thus:

[456] “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, as also of preserving the orthodox faith, of Bohemia, etc., ever Augustus, etc. Venerable, devout, beloved by us. Since we see that in this our age, in which diverse depraved dogmas and great heresies have risen up everywhere, the greatest necessity, if ever before, demands that opportune plans be entered upon for maintaining, supporting, and educating learned, pious, and Catholic men, who not only by sound doctrine, especially of the sacred Scriptures, but also by the good example of life and integrity of morals, may bear the care of instructing youth: (For we judge that by this way and plan it will be greatly provided both for defending and preserving, for the salvation of men, the old orthodox and Catholic faith and our Christian religion, and for well and rightly ruling and governing the commonwealths for their happy increase:)

[457] But since we perceive that those colleges which have newly begun to be erected for the Society of Jesus can bring great fruit in that matter in those places and provinces in which they shall have been erected: and since we for that reason have determined to erect and institute for this Society, in the city of Vienna, the metropolis of our archduchy of Austria, a college at the first opportunity, he has determined to erect a college at Vienna, in which, together with the brothers of the Society, also young men and adolescents, who shall seem more apt for the studies of letters, may be supported and instructed in the sacred letters, that thence afterward, as from a certain seminary of virtues, some may be taken up and chosen into the number of the brothers of the society itself, but some for the office of preaching, likewise for parishes and other ecclesiastical benefices to be governed piously and laudably, namely for edification, and also for other offices to be discharged in the commonwealths, according to the capacity, ability, and inclination of soul of each:

[458] But since we judge it will be especially useful, that the institution of a college of this kind may the more rightly and with greater fruit be done and proceed, he asks that two be first sent thither by the Society. if in this beginning we employ two brothers of the same Society, who meanwhile, while the things pertaining to the erection and construction of such a college are being taken care of, may in that our University of Vienna, by the lecture and doctrine of the sacred Letters, prepare, incite, and allure the minds of the studious to embrace such studies; and besides, to those also, to whom the care of constructing this

college we shall commit, they may be at hand with their counsel, and diligently help and promote the very erection:

[459] Therefore we very earnestly exhort and require thy devotion, Jay is by name praised and asked for. that thou wouldst be willing, by the authority which thou holdest in this Society of Jesus, to take care and effect, that the honorable Claude Jay, professor of the same Society, who, on account of his excellent doctrine in the sacred Letters, and probity and modesty of life, is long since known to us and welcome and dear, and with him some other also of the same Order, who shall be approved by our most holy Lord (to whom also we have written on this matter), and by thy devotion, may for that cause betake themselves to Vienna, being about to have from us an honorable and necessary maintenance, until the college be erected; and there by reading and teaching may lay and establish, as it were, certain foundations of a firmer structure and institution of this college, as we plainly hope that thy devotion, for the sake of helping and advancing this pious institute of ours, will most willingly and with all zeal do; which we shall benignly recognize toward the same thy devotion when occasion is given. Given in our and imperial city of Augsburg on the 11th day of the month of December in the year of the Lord 1550, of our reigns the Roman the 20th, but of the others the 24th. Ferdinand. By the sacred royal majesty's own mandate. Jordan. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor.” The inscription is: “To the venerable, devout, beloved by us Ignatius of Loyola, Superior of the Society of Jesus.”

[460] [Another letter asks, Jay and his companion being occupied in the vineyard of the Lord and in composing a Catechism,] The letter of the same to the same concerning composing a Catechism: “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. Since, some months ago, as thou knowest, we erected at this our academy of Vienna, to the glory of Almighty God, and for the increase of our holy Catholic religion, a college of the brothers of the Society of Jesus, and assigned to it certain and sufficient annual revenues or proceeds, by which those brothers, applying themselves to the sacred Letters, may conveniently support and sustain themselves; but now it has been shown to us that those two theologians, doctor Claude and his colleague, whom thou didst send to us, can scarcely bear those sufficiently great labors which are incumbent on them, both by reading publicly and privately, and by composing a certain sum of Christian doctrine, which, published, may be proposed with great utility to the men of our age: Therefore we should greatly desire to take up or co-opt yet one or another such learned and pious theologian of thy Society into the said college instituted here by us, who might lend their pious labor and aid also to the two men already mentioned, laboring in cultivating the vineyard of the Lord. And we have heard that there are now two such distinguished theologians of the same thy Society and of the German nation in the academy of Ingolstadt, whom however thou hast determined to transfer thence elsewhere.

[461] that one or another laborer be sent from the Society. But although in this matter we should be unwilling to bring any prejudice to the most illustrious Albert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, son of the duke of upper and lower Bavaria, our most dear kinsman and prince, by transferring the aforesaid two men from his gymnasium to this our Vienna one; yet if thou hadst altogether determined to call them thence, and transfer them to another place, we benignly require thee that thou wouldst be willing to grant them to us, and to send them nowhere but to this our college of Vienna. In which thou wilt surely do a thing not only especially apt and fitting for the conservation of the study of the sacred Letters and the propagation of our holy Catholic and orthodox religion, but also very welcome to us, and to be recognized with all grace and our royal kindness toward thee. Given in our city of Vienna on the 4th day of the month of December, in the year of the Lord 1551, of our reigns the Roman the 21st; but of the others the 25th. Ferdinand. By the sacred royal majesty's own mandate. M. Singkhmoser. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor.” The inscription is: “To the honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us Master Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of the name of Jesus. To Rome.”

[462] The letter of the same to the same concerning certain affairs of his conscience to be treated with the Pontiff. “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, He sends to the Saint credential letters for the holy See: of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. We had committed to the honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us, Peter Canisius of the Society of the name of Jesus, doctor of sacred theology, to write to thee certain of our private affairs, which seem to touch our conscience, that concerning them thou mightest deal in person apart with our most holy Lord. And so we do not doubt that thou hast already received them. But since the said Canisius has now again signified to us that in his judgment it would not be amiss that we should also give letters of faith (which they call credential) in thy person to His Holiness, we immediately ordered the same to be expedited, to this effect, which thou wilt know from the enclosed copy of them. Therefore when thou shalt have wished to address His Holiness in those very affairs, thou wilt be able reverently to render such our letters to His Holiness, and afterward so much the more freely and conveniently to deal and treat those matters with His Holiness, according to our will and desire, which without doubt thou hast abundantly perceived from the said doctor Canisius: as we trust of thee. For so thou wilt do a thing most welcome to us, to be recognized with our royal kindness toward thee. Given in the town of Pardubice on the 21st day of the month of September in the year of the Lord 1554, of our reigns the Roman the 24th; but of the others the 28th. Ferdinand. By the sacred royal Majesty's own mandate. M. Singkhmoser. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor.” The inscription is: “To the honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us Master Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the brothers of the Society of the name of Jesus.”

[463] The credential letters, as they call them, of the same King: “Most blessed, etc. which are here produced. We have committed to the honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us Master Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of the name of Jesus, that he should signify to Your Holiness certain things which especially pertain to the tranquilizing of our conscience, and should strive to obtain them according to the manner which he is about to declare to Your Holiness. Therefore we humbly and most earnestly ask Your Holiness, that to the aforesaid Master Ignatius, in those things which he shall thus set forth to Your Holiness in our name, you would deign to lend benign ears and full faith, and be willing to bear yourself in them toward us paternally and benignly, namely as we promise ourselves concerning the paternal and most inclined will of Your Holiness toward us. Which we shall diligently strive to merit toward the same Your Holiness by our filial observance, to whom, reverently deferring our zeal, we obsequiously commend ourselves. Given in the town of Pardubice the 21st of September 1554.”

[464] Another letter to the Saint The letter of the same King to St. Ignatius. He asks that a theological Compendium be made by the men of the Society for Germany against the heresies. “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. Since we have hitherto in fact found that the heresies and reprobated dogmas and opinions of many, which in this age, creeping through almost the whole Christian commonwealth, spread abroad, have thence chiefly grown in Germany, and been more deeply impressed on the minds of men, because the false teachers and heretics have especially aimed at this, that they might scatter among the common people their errors and dogmas reduced and comprehended into certain brief heads and articles, and that hence also it has come to pass that, our pastors in Germany sometimes drowsing, not only many such postils, partly prolix, partly compendious and succinct, but also Catechisms, common-places, and other brief booklets of the kind, written both in the German and Latin tongue by the heretics, have come to light with great destruction of the Christian and orthodox flock, which indeed, because on account of their brevity they could be procured at a low price and easily consigned to memory, have therefore also been wont to be more welcome and more plausible to the people.

[465] Ferdinand meets the poison of the heretical booklets, Considering therefore by what plans and remedies especially so perilous a contagion could be met, no other way has seemed to us more convenient or efficacious, than if our pastors and orthodox theologians, employing in some way the same art in plucking out and eradicating the reprobated opinions and heresies which the schismatics seem to use in scattering them, should compile some compendium of theology, which might be as a rule and norm to ecclesiastics as well as seculars, and might be bought at a low price by all. For thence, in our judgment, both the Catholics, both clerics and laymen, will be able to draw the true sense and understanding of the sacred Letters and of our orthodox religion, and to fix it deeply in their mind, and those also who are now seduced will be led back into the right way, and to the bosom of the holy mother the Roman Church.

[466] asking that a theological compendium be composed by the doctors of the Society, Therefore we had deliberated to commit this compilation to certain doctors, brothers of thy Order existing in this our academy of Vienna, and to impose it to be perfected. But we have learned that they labor in the vineyard of the Lord with such diligence otherwise, by lecturing and teaching, both in the schools and in the pulpit, that they can by no means attend to so great a work without loss both of their disciples and of the Christian flock. But since it is not doubtful to us that thou aboundest there at Rome in most learned men of thy Order, to whom so pious and necessary a work may rightly be committed, and to whom also more time is at hand for undertaking and perfecting it, and since we are persuaded that thou wilt by no means deny us asking this; therefore we clemently ask thee again and again, that not so much for our sake, as also for the advantage and salvation of Christendom, thou wouldst commit to some learned men of thy Order, existing with thee at Rome, such a compendium of theology to be published, and transmit it to us when finished.

[467] to be printed and published. For we will take care that it be immediately here printed, and not only publicly read and taught in this our academy of Vienna; but also published, taught, throughout our kingdoms and other provinces, and, as far as, by the divine grace bestowing, we shall be able to effect, diligently observed; but especially we will give heed that the parish priests and rectors of other churches in our provinces use it. For the rest, thou, and those who shall have undertaken this work, will not only do a welcome thing to us ourselves, but will also deserve excellently of our provinces, nay of the whole Christian commonwealth; and God the Best and Greatest, whose glory is here especially concerned, by His immense goodness will repay to thee and to them a condign reward, namely an unfading crown in the age to come, for this, whatever it be, of labor; and we ourselves will be mindful of so great a benefit, and will clemently recognize it toward thee and that sacred thy Society with our grace and royal liberality. Given, etc., in our city of Vienna on the day

15th of the month of January, in the year of the Lord 1554, of our reigns the Roman the 24th, but of the others the 28th, Ferdinand. By the sacred royal majesty's own mandate. M. Singkhmoser. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor.” Concerning the dispensation as to the place of the college of the Society of Jesus erected at Vienna, there is treatment in the next following paragraph, on the same occasion on which the instrument concerning the dispensation for that of Prague is exhibited in the same place.

§ XLV. The letters of Ferdinand I to St. Ignatius, and the deeds for founding the college of Prague.

Peter Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 15, thus speaks: “At Prague (which city is the royal seat of all Bohemia) Ferdinand, King of the Romans, [The text of Ribadeneira concerning the college of Prague is declared and confirmed] moved by the fruit of the college of Vienna, constituted a college for our men, that they might by their labors repel the Hussites, Wycliffites, and other heretics who depopulate the kingdom of Bohemia. The foundations of that college Peter Canisius laid.” Thus Ribadeneira; whose words I declare and confirm from the letters of the praised Ferdinand directed to the holy Parent on this subject, and from other documents inserted into this paragraph; all which, from our often assigned Roman archive, Father Ignatius Pien transcribed with his own hand; except the first letter, which is written by another's pen. That letter, then, treating of the foundation of the college of Prague, for which King Ferdinand asks for twelve of our men, and among these two professors of theology at least, is of the following tenor:

[469] “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, from the letters of Ferdinand; of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. Since we hold it sufficiently and more than sufficiently examined and ascertained, that the brothers of thy Society in this our city of Vienna and other neighboring places have, by their word and the example of their life, presided over our subjects honestly, rightly, and salubriously, and have profited very much both by teaching the people the word of God from the pulpit, and by diligently educating the youth in the schools; and since it is not to be doubted that, God helping, even in future their labor will day by day more and more profit; inasmuch as they seem never to be idle, but day and night to be occupied in cultivating the vineyard of the Lord; and since we, indeed, seeing so great a diligence and so great a progress of theirs, and experiencing it in fact, have proposed in our mind to foster and propagate that sacred Order also in our other kingdoms and provinces, being raised namely to a great hope that those pious and Catholic men will elsewhere also produce a hundredfold fruit in the Lord:

[470] And so we have first determined to institute also for them a certain college in Prague, the metropolis of our kingdom of Bohemia. with which he asks that twelve men of the Society be sent thither. But lest in ordaining a convenient place for a college of this kind, and in designating the necessary annual revenues, we should labor in vain, it has seemed to us that we shall do a worthwhile thing, if we should first of all benignly open to thee this our purpose, and understand whether for this use thou art able to send us twelve brothers, among whom there be at least two professors of sacred theology. For if we shall have learned that this can be done by thee, we will also, as soon as it can be done, provide for the habitation or place of the college, and the sustenance of the brothers; and, all things being prepared, we will summon those twelve brothers, the necessary viaticum being appointed for them, and will embrace them in the aforesaid place with all our royal kindness, as befits a Christian and pious king.

[471] And therefore we clemently ask thee, that thou also on thy part wouldst help and promote this our purpose, for warring down the heresies. which looks to the glory of Almighty God and the salvation of many souls, by consenting namely and appointing the twelve requested brothers of thy Society, among whom there be at least two who profess sacred theology, that in this manner, by the labor and diligence of this sacred Order, from that our kingdom also the heresies, with which the said kingdom now for many years is most grievously afflicted, may be plucked out and exterminated, and in their place sound doctrine, namely our orthodox and Catholic religion, may be fostered and propagated, as we plainly promise ourselves concerning thy piety. For as soon as we shall have learned that thou art willing to satisfy these our requests, there will be no delay in us but that a place convenient for their habitation, and annual expenses for their sustenance, be prepared. And in this thou wilt do a thing especially acceptable to God the Best and Greatest, and very salutary to our said kingdom, and vehemently worthy of thy piety, and finally most welcome to us, to be recognized with all our royal grace toward thee and thy said sacred Society. Given, etc., in our city of Vienna, on the 20th day of the month of October, in the year of the Lord 1554, of our reigns the Roman the 24th, but of the others the 28th. Ferdinand. By the sacred royal majesty's own mandate. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor. M. Singkhmoser.” The inscription is: “To the honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us Master Ignatius of Loyola, Superior General of the Society of the name of Jesus. To Rome.”

[472] Which matter he had greatly at heart, But how greatly the most religious Prince had this matter at heart is clear from a letter of the same to the same: in which he praises the Society: rejoices at our men to be sent to begin the college of Prague: assigns sufficient revenues: promises benevolence and beneficence. All which understand from the context of the letter itself. “IHS. Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. Most welcome to us were thy letters given from the benign City on the 22nd day of the past month of November, by which thou didst answer ours of the 16th of October. For it affected us with great pleasure, that we hear that those pious and Catholic men, the brothers of thy Society of the sacred name of Jesus, are multiplied day by day, and, growing more and more in spirit and divine grace, bring forth most abundant fruits everywhere among the Christian people: since we conceive no small hope that God the Best and Greatest has chosen this thy most praised and most blameless Order, through which He wills to work much good in these our last ages, and to confer His kindness upon the Christian world. Besides, no vulgar joy it brought us, that our requests concerning the sending of some of thy brothers into our kingdom of Bohemia had with thee the place which they ought; so much so that, although a great number has lately been dispatched to other places of the world, and thou must now remain not a little exhausted, yet within a year's interval of time thou wilt, according to our will, send the requested twelve brothers, among whom there shall be two doctors of sacred theology, to Prague, the metropolis of our said kingdom, where namely, for the salvation of our faithful subjects, we have proposed to institute a college.

[473] Them, therefore, we will await in their time; for the erection and necessary sustenance of which college, how great and what kind of revenues, and what goods, we have determined to assign and appoint, we have signified to thy honorable, religious, means being assigned to it for the convenient sustenance of the persons: devout brothers, beloved by us, Nicholas de Lanoy, rector of the college of Vienna, and Peter Canisius, doctors of sacred theology. And they are such that we think the college can conveniently be maintained thence. But if besides we shall be able hereafter also to confer any kindness and favor upon thee and thy sacred Society, at no time will we suffer our will and inclination thereto to be lacking to thee and to it. Which we wished benignly to answer thee to thy aforementioned letters. Given in our and the Empire's city of Augsburg, on the 28th day of the month of February in the year of the Lord 1555, of our reigns the Roman the 25th, but of the others the 29th. Ferdinand. By the sacred royal majesty's own mandate. M. Singkhmoser. J. Jonas, Vice-Chancellor.” The inscription similar to the preceding.

[474] Another of the same to the same urges the departure of our men to Prague, of which he treats in another letter; and promises rewards of diligence. “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. On the last day of the past month of February, when we had understood that our benign requests concerning the sending into our kingdom of Bohemia of some brothers of thy Society had with thee the place which they ought, we had written to thee that we had already signified to thy honorable, religious, devout brothers, beloved by us, Nicholas de Lanoy, rector of the college of Vienna, and Peter Canisius, doctors of sacred theology, that from the goods and revenues of the vacant monastery of the Order of the Celestines, we had determined to assign and appoint the necessary sustenance for a college of your Society to be erected at Prague.

[475] Since therefore Canisius was lately in that our kingdom of Bohemia, urging that those twelve of our men hasten the journey to Prague. and, being present, has seen the plan and manner of erecting and sustaining a college of this kind (as without doubt he himself also will declare to thee by his letters), and we therefore desire that those twelve brothers, whom thou hast appointed or wilt appoint thither, arrive at Prague at the first opportunity: therefore we again benignly ask thee, that thou wouldst take such care of sending them, that even before the beginning of winter they may be able to commit themselves to the journey. For as regards the viaticum necessary for those about to come, we commit to our Agent in the City that he suffer them to lack nothing on the part of provisions, that so much the more conveniently and quickly they may enter upon the journey to Vienna, and thence to Prague, as Lord Canisius will write to thee more at length on that matter. And the sooner thou art about to send them, the more gain also we hope they will make in the flock of the Lord, and God the Best and Greatest will repay this diligence to thee and to them most abundantly, and we shall be quite inclined benignly to recognize this very thing toward thee and thy said Order or Society at any time. Given in our and the Empire's city of Augsburg, on the 30th day of the month of July, in the year of the Lord 1555, of our reigns the Roman the 25th, but of the others the 29th. Ferdinand.” The rest as in the preceding letter. The inscription as above.

[476] In another letter given to St. Ignatius he signifies that he has written to the Cardinals Morone and of Augsburg concerning obtaining a double Pontifical dispensation for founding the college of Prague, He bids that a dispensation be asked of the Pontiff in their favor; and stabilizing that of Vienna: he asks besides that St. Ignatius expedite those destined for Prague, and give his labor with the Cardinals for obtaining the dispensation. Receive the letter itself: “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. This last three days ago we gave thee a letter, clemently asking that thou wouldst take such care of sending to Prague those twelve brothers of thy Society of the name of Jesus, whom thou hast promised to send, that even before the beginning of winter they might commit themselves to the journey, and therefore, for thy observance and piety toward Us, and thy zeal of consulting the salvation of our faithful peoples, that thou wilt diligently take care of this, we by no means doubt. But now we write to the most reverend in Christ fathers the lord Cardinals Morone, protector of our kingdoms and provinces, and of Augsburg, that at the first opportunity, and,

if it can be done, before those brothers about to come commit themselves to the journey, or at least, at the time when they shall depart, they may strive to obtain from our most holy Lord a double dispensation; one, that the same brothers of thy Society, about to come to Prague, may have a convenient place, not only for themselves, but also for others whom from the people and youth of Prague they will be able piously to instruct and help; which place is in the monastery of St. Clement, of the Order of Preachers, of the diocese and city of Prague; and on account of the reasons explained to the said most reverend Cardinals in a certain separate and special writing, it will have to be asked, that it may be commuted into another monastery of St. Agnes, of the Order of St. Clare, now desolate, that there henceforth the brothers of the Order of Preachers, migrating from the monastery of St. Clement, may live, ceding voluntarily to the brothers about to come of thy aforesaid Society.

[477] But the other dispensation for the monastery of the holy Virgin, as also another for those at Vienna. of the Order of Carmelites, of the diocese and city of Vienna, that this same also may entirely and freely pass over into the use and perpetual right of those of the Society of Jesus who dwell there with great fruit. Moreover we have committed to our Agent in the City that he also confer with thee on this matter, and commend the business, together with thee, to the said most reverend Cardinals. Wherefore we again benignly require thee, both that thou wouldst be willing to hasten the expedition of the brothers whom thou art about to send, and also that thou wouldst render us thy labor also, together with the said most reverend lord Cardinals, in obtaining the aforementioned dispensations, and promote the matter both with their most reverend lordships and elsewhere, wherever it shall be opportune, with all zeal and diligence, being about to do in it a pious and salutary work, and very useful for the more convenient sustenance of the brothers of thy so often said Society, and most welcome to us, to be benignly recognized toward thee and thy Order. Given in our and the Empire's city of Augsburg on the 2nd day of the month of August, in the year of the Lord 1555, of our reigns the Roman the 25th, but of the others the 29th. Ferdinand. By the mandate, etc.,” and the inscription of the letter as above.

[478] There follows in our Roman documents a separate writing, The instrument is produced, of which mention is made in the preceding letter, written by the same hand as that. It has thus: “In the cause of dispensing concerning a college to be erected at Prague for the Society of Jesus. Since (as is sufficiently established) the renowned kingdom of Bohemia has for so many years labored under the grave and pernicious schism of the Hussites, and has ceased to have any episcopal see, the sacred royal Majesty has now long and greatly desired, if by any means so distinguished a province of the Empire could in his times be converted and led back to the union of the holy Roman Church. But among other means opportune for this, it seemed that it would be not the last, if the fathers of the Society of Jesus, introduced into Bohemia, as into a copious, uncultivated, and deserted harvest, should exercise themselves as faithful laborers, in the manner in which elsewhere everywhere they do with great fruit, by piously instructing the youth, recalling the erring into the way, lecturing on Latin and Greek letters, professing the sacred sciences, preaching, administering the Sacraments, and applying themselves to other exercises of piety of the kind for the edification of the neighbor and the glory of God. And this would be so much the more needful in Bohemia, in that a graver scarcity of priests occurs in that whole kingdom, and of those who both by word and by example are willing and able to profit the common people.

[479] But that the said Society may be more conveniently introduced into this kingdom, by which the said dispensation is asked for our habitation at Prague, it has pleased the royal majesty to auspicate this pious work from the very head of the kingdom, namely the city of Prague, twelve persons of this Society being now convoked from the City, who, coming at once, may, according to the plan of their Institute and profession, be sustained and fostered at Prague. But since a place had to be chosen for them, which should be convenient of access not only to themselves, but also to the youth and people; indeed, after much deliberation of many, a more fitting place could not be found for erecting this college than in the monastery of St. Clement, which is of the friars Preachers, of the Order of Blessed Dominic. Which monastery indeed, that it may be more rightly known, has hitherto very few friars, and of them no preacher or lecturer: besides, it threatens ruin in its buildings from age, and, as the friars themselves present confess, from too great want it seems that it cannot be conserved and repaired. And it is very rarely visited by the citizens, so that indeed very little spiritual fruit is gathered in that monastery.

[480] It seemed therefore to pious and zealous men expedient, for promoting the greater glory of God and the public utility of Bohemia, and for the Dominican Fathers about to migrate elsewhere. that this very monastery should cede and be applied to the use of those who are of the Society of Jesus. And in the same opinion are the friars Preachers themselves also, who desire in this part to cede their place and right, because they conceive a sure hope that a cession of this kind will greatly profit both Prague and Bohemia in faith and religion. Yet lest prejudice should be done to the friars of St. Dominic, a place of another monastery has been sought and found, and proposed to the said friars themselves: who, since they see the place in this second monastery to be more ample, more pleasant, and more spacious, promise that they will even more gladly migrate thither; especially since the buildings there are better, and since this monastery has now for some years been deserted, after the nuns of St. Clare, of the Order of St. Francis, ceased to inhabit it: since besides there is danger, unless the place be occupied by Catholics, lest the Hussites turn both the temple and the place to their own use. Therefore for the greater glory of God and the utility of the commonwealth the sacred royal Majesty desires and asks that our most holy Lord dispense, concerning the change of these two monasteries, out of the plenitude of the Apostolic See: namely so, that the aforesaid friars of St. Dominic, migrating from their monastery (as also they now offer themselves ready for this), be judged to cede and resign * their right in favor of the fathers of the Society of Jesus: it being saved meanwhile, first, that the treasures, goods, and revenues of the same monastery remain wholly, as before, with the Dominican friars themselves, and then, that another monastery now vacant, namely that of St. Clare, freely and entirely cede to the same friars, after they shall have migrated, once and at the same time, now and in perpetuity.”

[481] To this instrument is subjoined the following in our Roman copies, to which is prefixed this title: “In the cause of dispensing concerning the college of the brothers of the Society of the name of Jesus erected at Vienna. The cause of the dispensation for the college of Vienna. The text is: That besides, by dispensation of the Apostolic See, the brothers of the same Society, who now at Vienna in Austria are engaged with much fruit of many, may lawfully and freely retain, and henceforth entirely possess, the monastery of the Blessed Virgin of the Carmelite Order, of the diocese and city of Vienna. Which monastery indeed the most serene king assigned to the same brothers, after seculars had begun to dwell there with their wives, and to profane the sacred place, and when the Provincial father of the same Order of Carmelites, though often asked and required for this by the most serene king, took no care to send any friars thither (so great is the scarcity of Religious of that kind in all Germany), and to be present for performing the divine worship there.”

[482] [Other letters of Ferdinand to Ignatius concerning the departure of our men to Prague, etc.] Other letters of the same King of the Romans to St. Ignatius treat of the departure of our men to the city of Prague, deferred by the supreme Pontiff, and of Canisius to be retained meanwhile in their absence, etc. I exhibit a copy of them: “Ferdinand, by the divine clemency favoring, King of the Romans, of Hungary, of Bohemia, etc. Honorable, religious, devout, beloved by us. We have received thy letter given on the day before the Kalends of the past month of October, and thence have learned for what causes it has seemed to our most holy Lord that the expedition of those twelve brothers of the Society of Jesus, whom thou hast promised to send to institute a college in our royal city of Prague toward the end of the coming month of January, ought to be deferred: on which matter, since His Holiness also has written to us copiously with a great signification of his paternal benevolence toward us, it becomes us indeed to comply with and acquiesce in the will of His Holiness, as we ourselves write back to His Holiness in the enclosed, benignly asking of thee that thou wouldst be willing to render such our letters to His Holiness, and moreover we shall not forget the counsel of His Holiness of retaining meanwhile at Prague, until the other twelve arrive, doctor Canisius. But as regards the maintenance of the Bohemian scholars whom last year we transmitted to Rome, that they might live under thy discipline; we have long since ordered the moneys, received on loan for their sustenance, to be paid by our counselor and Agent, the reverend and noble, faithful, beloved by us Don Diego Lasso, of whom in future also we will not neglect the benign care and account. For the rest, as regards the business of the hospitals, and of the Apostolic consent or indult, which through thee we have required of our most holy Lord, we will by other letters inform thee shortly of all things which it is necessary for thee to know. Which we wished benignly to answer thee to thy aforesaid letter, and we bid thee expect from us all kindness. Given in our city of Vienna, on the 29th of November, in the year 1555, of our reigns the Roman the 25th, but of the others the 29th. Ferdinand. By the mandate, etc.,” and the inscription as in the preceding letters. The letters patent by which the Saint fortified the first inhabitants of the college of Prague, dispatched thither by him from Rome, are given in our George Crugerius, in the Sacred Dust of Bohemia, etc., part 1, at the day January 25; on which the said letters are there marked, in the year 1556.

* It is better said “renounce” (renuntiare).

§ XLVI. From the letters of Albert, duke of Bavaria, to St. Ignatius, the deeds done by our men at Ingolstadt are elucidated and confirmed, and the college founded by the same duke.

The affairs of the Society of Jesus at Ingolstadt under the most serene dukes of Bavaria William and Albert, excellent worshipers of the orthodox religion, Albert, duke of Bavaria, writes concerning making Canisius Ribadeneira sets forth, book 3, chapter 15. But what he there has of Peter Canisius, Nicholas Gaudanus, and the foundation of the college, will receive greater light from the letters given by the praised duke Albert to St. Ignatius, and transcribed by Father Ignatius Pien from our Roman archive. In those which, among others, hold the first place here in our copies, he writes concerning the vice-chancellorship of Ingolstadt to be transferred to Canisius; the college to be erected, and new aids to be sent from the Society. Lo for thee a copy of the letter itself: “Reverend father, friend in Christ sincerely beloved by us. The vice-chancellorship of our university of Ingolstadt being vacant, and a canonry and ecclesiastical prebend of Eichstätt; because both this office, and the said canonry and prebend, from their original institution and

foundation, pertain and belong only to doctors of theology, as the confirmations upon this of the Apostolic See, issued once by Pope Paul II of happy memory, will and establish: we have committed that both be offered also to our beloved master Peter Canisius, brother of your Order, who with the highest praise and no less fruit there professes and teaches the sacred Letters. For both several theologians and those of most illustrious name, who in former times discharged it, both received the fruits, revenues, and proceeds of the canonry and prebend annexed to the same office. Nor did we judge that the aforesaid Peter would not undertake this office, which has only the name of dignity, and neither has the burdens of labors, nor receives the advantages of special emoluments: but he brought as reasons of his excuse obedience and poverty; by which, since he is devoted to you and your Order by vow, he signified that it was not lawful for him, without your consent as his Superior, to undertake the so often said office.

[484] We wish therefore Your Love to know—which we think has already become known to you—the vice-chancellor of the academy of Ingolstadt, that the reverend in Christ father and Lord our friend, the honorable bishop of Eichstätt, is the true chancellor of our University: but since on account of other graver affairs he cannot be present at the University, he has one who bears his place with the same: this one is called vice-chancellor: and has nothing else to do than, in the conferring of the degrees of licentiate, doctorate, and mastership, to impart to the candidates the power of promoting, and by a fitting oration to exhort the scholars to studies and decency of morals: but from all other profane affairs incumbent on the University in the administration of secular matters he is wholly free and immune. For the rest, as is fitting, he is held in that honor in which the chancellor himself, whose person he represents. Since therefore none more rightly bears the place of the bishop than he who exists in the same state of life, and is as far as possible equal in religion, erudition, prudence, and finally life; as this office has hitherto always been committed to theologians, we hold it persuaded that we can easily obtain from you, that Your Love, as Superior and Prelate, with whom is all authority of granting this, would, in consideration of us, lend consent and assent, that the aforesaid master Peter Canisius may accept the so often said vice-chancellorship, and discharge it, and be able to receive the emoluments of the aforesaid canonry and prebend: in which you will do a thing most welcome to us, and desired and longed for by our whole university of Ingolstadt: And we will effect that, for that dignity, both Canisius himself and his colleagues be treated in all necessaries more honorably and splendidly.

[485] a college to be erected for the Society, and new aids to be sent. Moreover, since we are still in that deliberation, how a college of your Order may be erected among us, as Your Love has at some time understood both from our letters and from our messengers: and since we desire that the very undertaken work be perfected as soon as possible: it is very necessary that, over and above the two masters sent by you to us, Peter and Nicholas, we still, by your labor, engage two or three other learned men, in whom especially your Order excels. For certainly, the number of disciples growing, those present alone will by no means suffice for the immense and continual labors: for, wearied, they will at last succumb. Wherefore again we ask of Your Love, that you would as soon as possible signify to us how many and what kind of men you are able still to send us, especially to the said University: for that being understood, we will order what is necessary for them for viaticum, that they suffer no inconvenience; but be treated honorably, as they are worthy. This, for your piety toward the afflicted Christian commonwealth, from whose use and utility we do these things, and for our singular and devoted zeal toward your Order, and most inclined mind, we do not doubt that you will not difficultly do; offering and promising to Your Love and the Order committed to it whatever labor and benevolence of ours to all and every advantage of yours. Given from our city of Munich the 8th of the Kalends of August in the year 1551. Albert, by the grace of God count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of upper and lower Bavaria, etc.” The inscription: “To the reverend in Christ Father, sincerely beloved by us, Ignatius, Superior of the Society of Jesus Christ in the City, our friend, at Rome.” Thus far duke Albert. “This letter,” says Father Ignatius Pien, “seems original, on account of the adhering seal; but not autograph, on account of the difference of the handwriting from the sure handwriting of the Duke.”

[486] He writes concerning the construction of the college of Ingolstadt, Another of the same to the same; by which he testifies his benevolence, writes more certain things concerning the college of Ingolstadt, asks for Canisius, etc., has thus: “Reverend Father, sincerely beloved by us. We took it very ill that all the theologians of your Order of the Society of Jesus were called away from our academy of Ingolstadt. For both by doctrine and by sincerity of life they discharged happily, with great fruit, not only the office of lecturers among the scholars, but also of preachers to the people. Therefore we have gladly embraced them with our grace and favor, and we hold it persuaded that they cannot for a just cause complain of us in anything. But that the care of erecting that college has hitherto been intermitted, is not to be imputed to us, who have always been most ready to furnish that which may advance the cause of the Catholic faith and religion, and of the orthodox Church, and of Jesus Christ the Best and Greatest; but to the present most disturbed and most afflicted state of all things in Germany, of which we do not doubt that you have been made more certain, and grieve together over that most wretched and calamitous lot. Yet lest, by that perpetual injury of the times, the cause of the theological college be any longer suspended among us, we have ordered a ground to be procured at our said school of Ingolstadt, and a new college to be built, which also we will take care to endow with annual revenues, as master Peter Canisius will write to you on that matter.

[487] We ask therefore of you—as also we write to our most holy Lord for that cause—and asks for Canisius with two other theologians. that you take care to send to us both the said Canisius, and two other theologians, professors also of other faculties, who may bestow their service and ministry of reading and preaching. But whatever you shall need for accomplishing this work, or whatever you shall wish to be further done by us, you will confer with our secretary Henry, whom also for that cause we have dispatched to the City: he will set forth our mind more fully. It remains that we most gladly offer you all things, by which both to your Order most abundant fruit may accrue, and the orthodox religion and ecclesiastical liberty, almost driven out of Germany, may at some time be restored. At Munich the 20th day of the month of May, in the year of the Lord 1554. Albert duke of Bavaria, etc., by his own hand.” The inscription: “To the reverend in Christ Father sincerely beloved by us, Ignatius Loyola, Superior of the Society of Jesus in the City.”

[488] The same asks of the same that certain articles concerning the college of Ingolstadt be approved, He asks likewise that certain things be approved concerning the said college, and that theologians be sent at the time prescribed in them. Lo the letter: “Reverend Father, most dear friend. What through our counselors concerning the college to be erected and begun for your Society in our town of Ingolstadt, with the venerable, beloved by us, master Peter Canisius, theologian of the same Society, we have in these days treated, of all these and our whole will Canisius himself will most fully signify to Thy Paternity; and from certain articles, written and subsigned between our said counselors and Canisius upon the erection of this kind, which he will transmit at the same time, thou wilt more copiously learn. But since this work looks not only to the advantage of our Lord, nay to the common utility of Germany: we do not doubt at all that the service and ministry, which so often in thy name and that of thy brothers thou hast offered, now, when the matter demands, thou wilt most gladly bestow; that what is now begun may attain its due effect. For the rest, we hope that this our undertaking, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, will be approved by the supreme Pontiff our most clement Lord: which also Thy Paternity, in our name, for the perpetual affection of charity and observance toward us, will report to His Holiness and most humbly commend. We desire therefore to be made more certain by Thy Paternity as soon as possible of the approbation and confirmation of the aforesaid articles: for what in these pertain to us, we hold welcome and ratified all that is contained in them: and, the fathers of the Society being present, we will most readily furnish all things promised by us, both gladly and without delay.

[489] We ask also that theologians be sent (if it can be done) at the time prescribed in the said articles: and that theologians be sent. who may be able not only to discharge the office of lecturers among the learned, but also—or at least one of them—the office of preacher to the people, happily with the grace of God: for so the present most afflicted state of our most sacred religion, and the salvation of those peoples, alas! most wretchedly erring, demand, require, and importunately beg. Hasten therefore, according to your office and vow, to seek the lost sheep, and to lead them back to the flock of the Lord; to educate good laborers (who in the present age are very few, and everywhere are wanting), and to send them into so copious a harvest. To this holy work, most welcome to God, we will most benignly foster and protect you, according to our strength, with substance and labor: and we hope it will shortly come to pass that this your college among us (if now good beginnings be laid) will grow immensely, be increased, and be splendidly endowed by many good men still. Etc. At Munich the 12th of December 1555. Albert duke of Bavaria, etc., by his own hand.” The inscription almost as the former.

[490] Another of the same to the same. The Duke acquiesces that the college of Ingolstadt, according to the will of St. Ignatius, be endowed without pacts and obligations. It is not the original. The chief things are excerpted: “Reverend Father, as most dear as honorable. The letters of Thy Reverend Paternity have been rendered to us, [He answers St. Ignatius that he acquiesces concerning endowing the college of Ingolstadt without obligations.] by which thou answerest our petitions concerning the college to be instituted for your venerable Society in our town of Ingolstadt. They were indeed most welcome to us .. But we have plainly changed nothing in our purpose of preparing in our state a seminary of good and faithful ministers of the Catholic religion. Wherefore, since it so pleases Thy Paternity, and your custom and Constitutions require, that you do not admit the endowment of any college with pacts or obligations; but strive to give altogether gratis what you have received gratis: we are of this opinion, that without obligation or pacts of either party of us, yet those articles, on which we agreed, be observed in the manner of an obligation.” Then he asks that St. Ignatius send our men: that he has ordered 300 gold crowns for viaticum, to be counted out soon at Rome. “Thy Paternity and that venerable Society we embrace and love from our soul. Given in the city of Munich, the 5th of May 1556. Albert duke of Bavaria, etc., by his own hand.” How the holy Man satisfied the excellent zeal of the Prince toward the Catholic religion; how many and whom of his men he dispatched from Rome to Ingolstadt; how strenuously they there promoted the academic affair for him; Orlandini will give, book

16, num. 23.

* i.e., by the hand

§ XLVII. Original testimonies obtained by St. Ignatius in Italy and Sicily in favor of the Society, on the occasion of the Sorbonne decree issued against the same Society.

Testimonies gathered by St. Ignatius against the Sorbonne censure; What, on the occasion of this decree endured by our men at Paris (Lutetia Parisiorum), was said at Rome and established there by Ignatius, you will learn from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 11; to which add the following.

That decree was made on the Kalends of December in the year 1554; but it was made known to our men in the following year, as Orlandini attests, book 14, num. 51. The diligent inspector and clearer of our Roman archive, already often named, observes that there exists there a response and defense of the Society against that decree, taken up chapter by chapter, written by Martin Olave in the year 1555 and printed by Orlandini, book 15, num. 46. Now Martin Olave was a master in the arts and in sacred theology, in life, character, and learning commendable in manifold ways; he attained the grade of master (of theology) in the year of the Lord 1543, on the sixth of March, in the Faculty of Paris; this the same investigator and collector of the Ignatian records at Rome affirms from an original testimony of that same Faculty, dated 1544, the second day of May after Easter, which he says he has before his eyes, and from which he adds that he excerpted the words printed here a little before in Roman letters, and noted below in the copy which he sent to us. And the testimonies which Ribadeneira says were sought at St. Ignatius's command and brought to him, he says he finds there. Here they are.

[492] From Italy. Original testimony of the Inquisitor of Ferrara, 21 March 1555: of the Inquisitor of Ferrara, To all who shall inspect these our letters patent, I, Master Hieronymus Papinus of Lodi, of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitor of Ferrara, and in the whole dominion of the most illustrious Duke Ercole II Apostolic commissary in causes of the faith, give assurance that the reverend Don Jean Pelletier, a Frenchman, rector of the college of the name of Jesus, and his confreres, have so conducted themselves at Ferrara in a Christian, modest, and pious manner that not a word ill-sounding against them has been heard by me; and also in publicly teaching the humane letters, and in many other public affairs in which our most illustrious Duke employed them, they bore themselves so exemplarily, in a Christian and prudent manner, that they brought no small benefit to the youths of this city, and to the whole city, both in letters and in morals. In witness whereof I have ordered these our letters to be made, subscribed with my own hand, and I have commanded them to be fortified with the greater seal of our office. Given at Ferrara the 21st day of March 1555. Signed, Master Hieronymus Papinus of Lodi, Inquisitor and commissary as above, with his own hand. And the greater seal of the same Inquisitor is affixed.

[493] Original testimony of the University of Ferrara, 20 April 1555: and likewise of the University there, Antonio Musa Brasavola, protophysician of Ferrara, and reformer of the flourishing gymnasium of the same city, knight of the golden spur, and count of the sacred Lateran palace, to the University of Paris, and especially to those who preside over sacred theology, and to all who shall read these present letters, greeting. When in recent days, most renowned men, I was asked what I thought of the doctrine of those religious, their morals, piety, and religion, who bear the surname of the name of Jesus (for I, who have had frequent intercourse with them, can attest who they are, who they were, and who they will soon be), marveling at this matter, I broke forth into these words: What, pray? Ranging through all the various congregations and orders of Christians, I have never seen, beginning from the Apostles, an institution more suitable, more useful, and more necessary than this, by which boys from their tenderest years are trained in good arts and conformed to the best morals — which in a well-ordered city must be reckoned the best of all things; for youth best trained will at length be brought into old age most thoroughly instructed in doctrine, morals, and sanctity.

[494] Since therefore I was entreated, not to say implored, convened for this purpose by name, to bring before Your Excellencies a testimony concerning them, I was unwilling to do it unless first, our university being convened, I should individually ask what each one thought of these men. And so, an address having been made in the church of San Romano by the mandate of our most illustrious and most excellent Duke, all who were present (and they were those that follow): Lord Master Sigismondo Nigrisoli; Lord Master Vincenzo Caprili; Lord Master Ippolito Cavano; Lord Master Fabrizio Sanseverino; Lord Master Girolamo Auricalco; Lord Master Antonio Maria Canano; Lord Master Luca Ricardo; Lord Master Ippolito Constabile; Lord Master Fabio Antimaco; Lord Master Francesco Brusantino; Lord Master Giovanni Battista Giraldi; Lord Master Roberto Sacrato; Lord Master Cesare Caprili; Lord Master Marco Antonio Florio; Lord Master Giovanni Bosco; Lord Master Domenico Bondi; Lord Master Alessandro Fanti; Lord Master Renato Brasavola; Lord Master Filippo Constabile; Lord Master Giovanni Battista Pinea; Lord Master Girolamo Eldigeno; Lord Master Giulio Ferrari; Lord Master Girolamo Brasavola; Lord Master Baldassarre Ricardo; Lord Master Enea Caprili; Lord Master Giovanni Battista Auricalco; Lord Master Vincenzo Madio; Lord Master Francesco d'Argenta; Lord Master Pietro Canebazio; Lord Master Filippo Sazello; Lord Master Giovanni Bregantino; Lord Master Giovanni Melariense.

[495] with a notable pronouncement of all convened These lord masters all, with one mouth and one mind, as if breathed upon by the same divine spirit, broke forth into these words: The School and Society of Jesus, like all others, ought (according to Christ's teaching) to be judged from its works; and all were of the opinion that nothing is done by these men which is not, for its sanctity, worthy of admiration; for in the first place they teach the liberal arts and both tongues (I mean Latin and Greek) freely, and they mold the waxen minds of boys with such morals that there is none among them who does not seem to have taken on the gravity of old age in his boyhood; then they preach publicly, and expound the Gospel to every creature, celebrate the solemnities of the Masses, and leave nothing untouched that pertains to religion; for they also frequent the hospices, comforting the sick, that they may endure in the name of God what they suffer; and thus, throughout the whole city consoling the sick in the name of Jesus, they leave them well edified.

[496] with a fine tribute to the Society. All of which their works show, whether they be worthy of reception or of expulsion. And so they concluded that, if they were not in this dear fatherland, they ought to be sought out from every quarter, and, sparing no expense, ought to be summoned to a rightly ordered city. For from their manner of life so many goods proceed that nothing better could be found. This was the judgment of our University concerning these men, which we send to them, as to upright men, that they may judge whether they are to be expelled from cities, or rather to be sought and received, and, if they are not present, to be tracked down everywhere on earth; for down to these times we have found none who were more useful in cities than these, and more necessary for building up Christian piety. These are the things which our University of Ferrara has wished to write to Your Excellencies. Farewell, all of you, in Christ, and, as is your custom, take it in good part. Given at Ferrara in the halls of our usual residence, under our great and round seal, in the year of the Lord 1555, on the 20th day of the month of April, etc. Giovanni Baroni, by mandate. The great and round seal is appended.

[497] Original testimony of the Bishop of Modena, 23 April 1555: Judging it most pleasing to God on high if we willingly bear testimony to the truth, Testimony of the Bishop of Modena, and reckoning this the chief among the other duties of Christians, if we continually show a grateful mind and aid to those who are well-deserving and have deserved well of the Christian cause: lest, therefore, we depart from duties of this kind, to all and singular persons, both public and private, who at whatever time shall inspect, read, and hear these present letters patent, we make sincere assurance in the Lord and likewise attest, how the congregation or Society of clerics warring under the title of the name of Jesus (which Society or congregation Paul, supreme Pontiff, the third of that name, of happy memory, instituted, approved, and commended, and his successor Julius the Third likewise approved and confirmed) — and not only those dwelling in the city of Modena, but also elsewhere in the cities of Italy — both by their habit and by the honesty of their life and morals displays Christian religion and piety, so that very many, allured and drawn by their examples and likewise by their teachings and honest Christian disciplines, and moreover cleaving to footsteps of this kind, daily advance more and more to the increase of the virtues. Nor do we write such things to pursue them with any praises, since that is not our purpose; but rather that what we have seen and heard and experienced, and do experience, we may testify for the praise and honor of God, according to the truth of the matter. For it is written that a man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth those things that are good, since the tree itself is known by its fruits, and each one at last is to be judged not by the estimation of men, but by the weight of things. And let it suffice to have offered these few remarks upon the aforesaid Society of such clerics (which we too deservedly judge to be commended and approved). In witness, strength, and testimony whereof we have commanded these presents to be made, and to be fortified by the impression of our seal. Given at Modena in our episcopal palace, on the 23rd day of the month of April 1555. Egidio, Bishop of Modena. Ippolito Salvi, by mandate. The seal of the aforesaid bishop is impressed.

[498] Original testimony of the Bishop of Bologna, 5 May 1555: of Bologna, We, Giovanni Campeggi, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Bologna and prince, to all and singular who shall see and read this our testimony, testify and give assurance, for that time in which we have had experience of the priests who are called of the Society of Jesus, and of their college, which was established and erected in this our city twelve years ago, that we found them endowed with good morals and sound doctrine, professors and zealots of the true and Catholic religion. They announce the word of God publicly, usefully, and piously, and administer the Sacraments of Confession and of the Eucharist, imbue and train youths both in good morals and in Greek and Latin letters, visit the hospices, exhort the poor sick to patience and penitence, and serve the other works of mercy; and they are so pleasing and dear to us that we make use of their labor daily, not only in the city but also throughout this our whole diocese. And in faith of this matter we have subsigned this testimony with our own hand, and caused it to be subscribed by our secretary, and commanded it to be fortified with our seal. Given at Bologna in the halls of our usual residence, on the third of the Nones of May 1555. Giovanni Campeggi, Bishop of Bologna. Ludovico Bartoli, secretary. It is fortified with the appended seal of the same bishop.

[499] Original testimony of the Archbishop of Genoa, vice-Legate of Bologna, etc., 31 May

1555: of the Archbishop of Genoa, We, Girolamo Sauli, by Divine mercy Archbishop of Genoa, vice-Legate of the most reverend father in Christ and most illustrious Lord, Don Innocenzo, by the same mercy Cardinal deacon of San Onofrio of the Holy Roman Church, of Monte, Legate a latere of our most holy Lord the Pope and of the Apostolic See in the city of Bologna and its county, district, and diocese, in things spiritual and temporal, and in the exarchate of Ravenna and the whole province of Romagna, as also in the cities of Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Piacenza, and their dioceses, in things spiritual, and vicar general. To all and singular who shall see and read this our testimony we give assurance and testify, that we have seen, heard, and had experience of the priests who are called of the Society of Jesus, that they have dwelt in this city twelve years ago, and are endowed with sound doctrine, and are followers and zealots of the true religion, announcing the word of God publicly, usefully, and piously, and, according to their powers, giving themselves to the administration of the Sacraments, that is, of Confession and of the Eucharist. Moreover indeed they imbue and train the youth of this city both in good morals and in Greek and Latin letters, so that by this means boyhood may with a pure breast drink in knowledge together with Christ. Besides this, we know that these same priests visit the hospices, exhort the poor sick to patience and penitence, and provide for them by other offices unto salvation, and serve the other works of mercy, so that they are both to us and to the city pleasing and dear; and finally, in all their affairs they express the Apostolic institution, and strive ever to cleave to Apostolic authority and faith. And in faith of this matter we have subsigned this testimony with our own hand, and caused it to be subscribed by our scribe, and commanded it to be fortified with the seal of the aforesaid most reverend and most illustrious Lord Legate, which we use in like cases. Given at Bologna in the palace of our usual residence, on the day before the Kalends of June in the year of the Lord 1555. Girolamo, Archbishop of Genoa. Vice-Legate. Seen. Bartholomeus?, regent. And the seal is appended.

[500] Testimony of the Vicar and Inquisitors of Florence, Original testimony of the Vicar of Florence and of the Inquisitors, 4 May 1555: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Since ignorance of things is the cause of almost all evils, it is most of all harmful when it is of those things which pertain to the salvation of souls. Since therefore the Society of Jesus, which now for some years has dwelt in this city of Florence with very much spiritual fruit, brings great usefulness to the salvation of souls, offers the edification of a good example, and confers much on the Christian commonwealth: since besides we know that this Society is by no means yet spread through all cities, nor known; we have judged it worth the effort to make all the faithful who shall inspect these present letters more certain concerning this Society by our testimony. We therefore, Antonio de' Preti of Consilice, doctor of both laws, vicar and official general in spiritual things of the most reverend father in Christ Lord Antonio Altoviti of Florence, Archbishop of Florence, and in this matter commissary over the inquisition of heretical depravity in these parts, specially deputed by the Apostolic See together with certain * of our colleagues, give assurance that the religious of the said Society are men without reproach, of pious conversation, of much edification, and adorned with Christian morals, and walking in truth, and who by their example invite many to the imitation of Christ. And that their doctrine and preaching are faithful, catholic, and very salubrious, and by which the souls of very many, buried together in sins, come to their senses. They also greatly benefit the faithful in the administration of the Sacraments, and in many other pious and spiritual exercises, to which they seem diligently to give themselves. To the bishops also and ordinaries, in whose cities they dwell, they are a help, since they so diligently serve the salvation of the faithful.

[501] This Society favors all religious orders approved by the holy Church: with the highest praise of the Society. finally, it is zealous for true peace and concord among all. We affirm besides that the colleges and gymnasia of the said Society of Jesus, in which these men educate the young, poor and rich alike, and that freely, and solely out of love of Christ and of the salvation of souls, are conducive and most useful for rightly and in a Christian manner forming youth in letters and virtues: and that very many young men in colleges of this kind are seen to have been changed for the better in their morals. Wherefore we give very many thanks to God, that He has raised up these His servants, who amid so many disturbances of the Church so diligently and so sincerely procure the honor of God, defend the faith, increase the Church, and serve the salvation of all. In faith of all which we have ordered these presents to be made, and to be subscribed by our public notary undersigned, and to be fortified with the impression of the seal of the archiepiscopal curia of Florence (which we use in such cases). Given at Florence in the archiepiscopal palace of Florence, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1555, in the 13th indiction, on the 4th day of the month of May. Thus it is: Antonio de' Preti, vicar as above, with his own hand. We, Alessandro Strezia, provost of the Church of Florence, one of the commissaries deputed for the Inquisition of heretical depravity in the dominion of Florence, also give assurance of the aforesaid, and in faith have subscribed these things with my own hand, on the day and year abovesaid. Isidoro de Monte-Acuto, hospitaller of Santa Maria Novella, one of the commissaries deputed for the Inquisition of heretical depravity in the dominion of Florence, give assurance of the aforesaid, and have subscribed myself with my own hand on the 6th day of May 1555. And the seal is affixed; as also the subscription of Giovanni Vannucci, notary.

[502] There are besides in hand copies of the original testimony of the Duke of Florence Cosimo II and of his councillors, Various other testimonies are noted. which is signed 24 May 1555; likewise of the original testimony of the Duke and governors of the Republic of Genoa, 24 October 1555, and of the Vicar general of Naples, on the 7th day of September of the same year 1555; of the Viceroy of Sicily, Giovanni de Vega, together with the whole council of the royal magistracy, on the 5th day of October of the same year 1555; of the Cardinal Archbishop of Messina, Giovanni Andrea Mercurio, of the title of San Ciriaco alle Terme, on the 11th day of October of the oft-named year 1555; and the legalization of the noble jurats of Messina is signed on the 12th day of the same month and year. But let it suffice to have transcribed those above hither; whence it may be understood how little value the Sorbonne decree against the Society had, enervated as it was by so many and so distinguished testimonies given for the same elsewhere.

* perhaps: ceteris the rest?

§ XLVIII. Testimonies given in praise of the Society in Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Belgium, on the occasion of the same Sorbonne decree; its prohibition in Spain.

In our Roman manuscript records there is noted a Cognizance held according to legal form at Piacenza on 16 May in the year 1555, The sentence given at Piacenza favors the Society against the Sorbonne decree, and on the following days, by the vicar general of the Bishop of Piacenza, and his sentence concerning the Society. It is noted, I say, or merely indicated: for the text of that proceeding was not sent hither at the same time; which is very long, containing indeed eleven whole folios, and the sworn testimonies of many, contrary to the Paris decree, and very honorable to the Society; as is said in the said manuscripts. And presently in the same place are noted the sworn testimonies of many given at Seville on 31 May 1555, before the vicar general of the Archbishop of Seville; which comprise two folios, and are very similar to the testimonies made at Piacenza; according to the account which is joined to this proceeding in our transcript. But the testimony of the University of Valladolid, of which we have a copy in the same place, is directed among others to the Saint himself, and is very contrary to the tenets of the Sorbonne decree, declaring these things, namely, which I excerpt from it:

[504] testimony Juan de Ysunza, licentiate in decrees, rector of the University of Valladolid, of the diocese of Palencia, and chaplain of His Caesarean Majesty, and locum tenens ordinary judge of the same chapel, to the most reverend and most religious father in Christ Ignatius of Loyola, General Prelate of those who exist as true professors of the crucified Society of Jesus, and to all and singular the Prelates of the same Society, and also to any other faithful of Christ who shall inspect the tenor of these presents, greeting in Him who is the true salvation … We make known, and confirm by public testimony, that, legitimate and sufficient information of many witnesses having been obtained by us beforehand ex officio, we have found that all the aforesaid, and any of them, of the Society of Christ Jesus, who dwell in this town, and whom it has also befallen to arrive by way of passage, whether they be Prelates and their superiors, or also subjects and lesser brethren, and ministers of the Society, are with us all in great reverence and love: whose life and example we contemplate as a mirror of all goodness.

[505] of the University of Valladolid To many also, that they might direct their steps into the way of salvation, though entangled in the world, they have been and are a help. And, having enumerated the pious functions of the Society toward its neighbor, it thus continues: Nor likewise (so far as we have known, or as has ever been heard) has anyone been admitted into the aforesaid Society who was not endowed with good morals and virtue, and proved in the other requisite things: no criminal or useless man, or of ill fame, has found a place among them. No one of them has given any scandal in this town; nor has any been found in a sinister work or even in the appearance of evil … May God deign to preserve your most reverend Paternity, and all the associates of this divine name, in His holy service, and, throughout the whole world, to increase your Institute: and, obtaining what you desire, may you direct us all and all the faithful of Christ to better things, through Him who redeemed us, Jesus Christ our Lord. In testimony, approbation, commendation, and certification whereof we have commanded these present letters, subscribed with our hand and fortified with the seal of our University, to be fortified by the hand of the public notary of this studium. Given in our college of the Holy Cross of this town of Valladolid, of the diocese of Palencia, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1555, on the day before the Ides of July … there being present in the same place the Lords Juan de Frechilla and Juan Díaz de Carabantes, masters of sacred theology, witnesses called and asked to the premises. Licentiate Juan de Ysunza, rector. Below is the subscription of the public notary Juan Manuel de la Nulla.

[506] Besides, against the censure branded upon the Society by the Sorbonne college, there is set the original testimony of the conscript fathers of Gandía, and of the conscript fathers of Gandía, on the 12th day of August in the year 1555, directed to St. Ignatius: which is transcribed from our Roman records. These things I cull from it: To the most reverend father Master Ignatius of Loyola, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus, Onofrio Ros, justicia (that is, judge), Vincenzo Peresio, Giacomo Fusterio, and Francesco Sancio, conscript fathers of the republic of Gandía, everlasting greeting in the Lord … In this our republic, they say, by the benefit and favor of your reverend Paternity, a college of the brethren of your Institute and Order was erected by our most illustrious Duke Francisco de Borja under the title of St. Sebastian; where the brethren under the cloister and the obedience of the Prepositus live so holily, soberly, chastely, piously, and religiously … that to all

they are an example, and draw very many into admiration. And after other things concerning the selection of those who are admitted into the Society, and in praise of the works which the Society performs, etc., they thus conclude: Wherefore, how much this our republic owes, first to God, then to your reverend Paternity, for these benefits bestowed upon it, is not within our power to judge, nor even to recount. Who could render a fitting return of gratitude? Let Him render it who is able to bestow all things upon all. But, for what is in us, lest we be judged ungrateful, we perform these things: we give innumerable, though unequal, thanks to your reverend Paternity, prepared for the future, as much as we shall be able, to obey you. Farewell. Gandía, the day before the Ides of August, in the year from the Virgin's childbearing 55 above 1500. Onofrio Ros, justicia (that is, judge, as above); Vincenzo Peresio, Giacomo Fusterio, Francesco Sancio. By mandate of the said lords justicia and jurats of Gandía, Michele Andrea, notary and scribe of these same lords. On the back the seal is impressed. The inscription is: To the most reverend father Master Ignatius of Loyola, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus.

[507] From Portugal there exist those documents in our Roman copies; as also various instruments, from Portugal, namely, a letter of the King of Portugal given to the supreme Pontiff at Lisbon in the month of August of the year 1555: from which I excerpt these things from the Spanish. He indeed praises our men for their great fruit; which the King writes they have done and do in his kingdoms and dominions; likewise for their sound doctrine, example of life, and the selection of those who are admitted. To these things, he asks this grace from His Holiness, that he may so think of the Society, and not believe it to be very acceptable to himself alone, but to every state of persons, etc. In the same copies is noted another letter of the same King in commendation of the Society, affirming things contrary to the decree of the Paris Faculty, and given at Lisbon in the same month of August 1555, in the Portuguese tongue. Likewise the original testimony of the city of Lisbon, given in commendation of the Society to St. Ignatius on 20 August 1555: add the most ample original of the University of Coimbra, opposed to the decree of the Paris Faculty, on the Kalends of November 1555. Finally the autograph of the Inquisitor of Évora, Brother Jerónimo de Azambuja (ab Oleastro), of the Order of Preachers, 28 August 1555.

[508] Germany From Germany there are as many testimonies for the Society against the Sorbonne decree as there are letters, plainly distinguished, of Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and of Albert, Duke of Bavaria, to St. Ignatius; concerning which see above, §44 and following. To these, however, add the letter of Philipp Jakob Widmanstadius, an academic of Vienna, which Father Ignacio Pinius affirms he finds, printed at Ingolstadt in the year 1556, concerning the beginnings, progress, and certain deeds of the Society of Jesus; which the said Father notes, in the Roman records that he collected, to be of two folios, and that in them certain chapters of the Paris decree are refuted.

[509] and Belgium. From Belgium there occurs, in the cited copies, the testimony which Adrian Cornelii of Brouwershaven, rector of the University of Louvain, granted on the 2nd day of January in the year 1556. Whence I excerpt these things: We make known, he says, and by these presents attest, that formerly, at the request of the most serene Lady Mary, Queen dowager of Hungary and Bohemia, locum tenens of His Sacred Caesarean Majesty in lower Germany, the Faculty of sacred theology of the aforesaid University being asked to examine the Bulls and privileges of the Society of Jesus, and to report what seemed to it concerning their Institute; the same Bulls [and] privileges being maturely seen, examined, and discussed; the morals and conversation also of those who of the said Society have here for many years acted with great fruit and edification of the faithful of Christ being considered; it answered the same most serene Queen that their institute was pious and holy, and that nothing was found in their privileges, Bulls, morals, and conversation which was not expedient and useful to the whole Church, and in lower Germany. If anyone desires to read this testimony in full, he will find it in Orlandini, book 10, num. 105. The Dean of Louvain, in the letter which he writes to Cardinal Pole, the Legate, and of which a copy is among the said transcripts, after he had praised the morals and labors of our men, says: Our theological Faculty, before the Queenly Majesty, having first visited their Institute, privileges, and Apostolic Bulls, by the mandate of the same Majesty, attested and answered, many years ago, on account of their exemplary conversation, being questioned upon this manner of life by the same Queen, that it deserved the favor and patronage of all. Wherefore we beg your most reverend Lordship to hold these same men commended, and to continue to bestow your pious favor. May the Lord Jesus preserve the same Church, His spouse, unharmed. Below is: To the most reverend and most illustrious Lord Cardinal Pole, Apostolic Legate.

[510] The Inquisitors of Zaragoza with a very severe censure To these things, that which Ribadeneira writes in the place cited above, on the occasion, namely, of that fine Sorbonne decree: Moreover in Spain, since the Sorbonne decree was against the sacrosanct authority of the Apostolic See, by which our religion was approved and confirmed; the inquisitors of the faith prohibited it by their decree from being read, as false and as offending pious ears; to these things, I say, there greatly conduce, for their illustration, the things which Father Ignacio Pinius transcribed at Rome from the decree of the Inquisitors of Zaragoza, and they are these: We, the Apostolic Inquisitors against heretical and apostatic depravity, appointed in the whole kingdom of Aragon, in the city, and in the bishopric of Lérida … Whereas the Society of the name of Jesus has been approved by the supreme Pontiffs, … yet very many in this city and in the bounds of our jurisdiction, some moved by ill will, others by ignorance, have malevolently spread abroad that a certain University outside the Spains has sanctioned these things against the aforesaid Society: namely, that it was dangerous in the matter of the faith, disturbing of peace and ecclesiastical tranquillity, and subversive of the approved Religious orders, and very many other things, by which the aforesaid Society of the name of Jesus, the Apostolic See, and its authority seem to be disparaged …

[511] All which things, being diligently weighed by us, … the matter having been communicated with most learned and pious men, they proscribe the Sorbonne decree. we have decided that it must be enjoined upon all and singular the men of our jurisdiction, in the name of holy obedience, and under pain of the greater excommunication, and that they are to be held suspect and disparagers of the Apostolic See, whosoever shall have any writings which speak of this matter, if they do not bring them to us and to the house of the Holy Office. Then those who shall have understood that in the present cause any have spoken too freely and as those thinking ill of the approbation of this Society, we will that they be willing to signify it to the Holy Office, and within three days from the proclamation of the edict to reveal it, and that henceforth no one may speak against in affairs of this kind … By this aforesaid edict also we will that those be most severely punished who shall not have obeyed this our mandate … Given at Zaragoza in the royal palace of the Aljafería, on the 14th day of the month of November 1556. Subscribed by the reverend father Inquisitor. Licentiate Cervantes de Gaeta. By mandate of the reverend father, Juan Tomás Prado, secretary of the Holy Office.

§ XLIX. The Belgian Society; St. Ignatius's assistant in governing the Society; his favor with Pope Marcellus II and Paul IV.

The state of our Society among the Belgians, St. Ignatius being still alive, Ribadeneira narrates, book 4, [Ribadeneira is sent into Belgium to Philip II, that the Society may be admitted there:] chapter 15, in these words: There were always some of the Society who cultivated Gallia Belgica, who both at Louvain, Adrian being over them, and at Cologne (Colonia Agrippina), Leonard Kessel being rector, exercised the studies of letters and the offices of piety, and many applied their minds to our institute, etc. But since no Religious order can, by the laws of that province, without the King's grant, obtain new seats in it, Pietro Ribadeneira was sent thither by Ignatius, to negotiate with King Philip concerning establishing the Society in that region. Concerning which matter there exists a letter which the holy Father, having heard of the abdication of Charles V, gave at Rome to Philip his son, and successor of the Spanish dominions, on the 23rd day of October 1555, sending Ribadeneira with it, that the Society might be admitted in Belgium. That letter, rendered from Spanish into Latin, is set forth in the Imago primi saeculi Societatis Jesu, book 6, chapter 1. But what Ribadeneira, admitted to King Philip at Antwerp about the Ides of March in the year 1556, after the delivery of Ignatius's letters, set forth, and with how great labor it was wrought that the Society might be received into Belgium, Orlandini writes, book 16, from num. 28; where also he writes of Viglius Zuichemus, president of the council, strenuously pleading the cause of the adversaries.

[513] to which end Blosius labored, I have in hand a transcript of an original letter, given by Louis of Blois (Ludovicus Blosius) to Father Adrian at Brussels; which is contained in our Roman records, and thus pronounces upon our matter: My Father Adrian, we are about to depart hence tomorrow morning. The court has accepted my excuses: blessed be God. I shall therefore remain among the people of Liessies. I send to you a copy of the French letter which, departing hence, I am about to write to the Lord President Viglius. Someone there will be able to interpret it, that you may understand what I have written. Fare well in the Lord, and pray for us. Brussels, this Sunday Laetare. We commend ourselves also to the prayers of Father Arnold. The inscription is: To the venerable Lord Master Adrian of Antwerp, provost of the scholastics of the Society of Jesus, at Louvain. That there adheres to this letter a copy of another on the same sheet, namely of one to be written by Blosius to the president Viglius, Father Ignacio Pinius observes; adding that this copy is not written in the hand of Blosius: yet that it was sent by him to Father Adrian. Some things from the same I excerpt, since I have its transcript also in hand.

[514] letters being given to Viglius in favor of the Society; After Blosius had premised that he had long since had great familiarity with Master Adrian, and with others of the Society; passing to the praises of the Society, he affirms that it is more than manifest that the said Society was erected by the will of God; and that it is, as it were, the last Order which God sent to His Church for the salvation of many. He adds besides that God works great things through the men of the Society in the Indies, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, and elsewhere. Nor does he omit to make mention of the fruit evident to the eye at Louvain, and of the privileges granted by the Apostolic See to the Society, as necessary to our vocation, although more ample than those which are contained in the ancient canons and granted to other religious, yet not contrary to the Church, nor tending to its disturbance; but rather conducing to spiritual usefulness and the salvation of souls. To these things, he commemorates that two Pontiffs succeeding one another in close order approved the said Society with mature deliberation, and also that Christian princes almost everywhere are best affected toward it: that it is a thing alien to reason to think that lords and honest men of this kind, using good counsel, should have been deceived in this matter. But if, of my own will, he says, it had, in this Belgium as elsewhere, some colleges erected, I hope this would conduce much

to the honor of God and the good of souls; but I fear, he says, that we are not yet worthy to receive such a benefit from God. And, an occasion being offered of speaking about the men of the Society in the presence of the emperor, the queen, or in the council, he urges that Viglius be not easily opposed to them, etc. Hence it is clear how greatly the venerable Louis of Blois had the affairs of the Society in Belgium at heart with the president Viglius.

[515] [whose admission in Belgium is attributed to the Saint: yet earlier certain things were done concerning the college of Brussels.] But whatever was obtained in favor of the Society, Ribadeneira acting against him, to whom among mortals it is owed you will find in Orlandini, book 16, num. 33. But among the Blessed, says Ribadeneira, it was attributed to Ignatius. For when, after a struggle of seven months, almost nothing had been advanced, and new difficulties, others upon others, arose daily; the matter was accomplished on the third day after Ignatius's death, although the letters were given to the Society a little later. But concerning the Society admitted into Belgium by a very narrow entrance on account of the conditions attached, but which were afterwards plainly removed by King Philip, Orlandini makes mention in the same place. It is necessary, however, that before the reign of Philip II certain things had been attempted and obtained for the erection of our college of Brussels, with Charles V, according to those things which exist among our Roman copies in a certain fragment of a Spanish letter given by the royal Majesty at Brussels on the 6th day of April in the year 1554; by which he grants to our men the favor of as much land, out of the empty space of the walls, as the sum of four thousand scudi once is worth; that they may be able to begin their college. So much concerning the Belgian Society. Now let us pursue certain other things done in the last years of our holy Parent.

[516] Concerning Father Nadal (Natalis), who was chosen as helper to St. Ignatius in administering the Society, Father Nadal chosen as helper to St. Ignatius Orlandini, at the year 1554, num. 17, thus says: Nadal returned from Spain to Rome in the autumn, much longed for, and a few days later was joined to the blessed Father in administering the whole Society. For since, together with the increases of the Society, the cares of governing it grew, and Ignatius, in the assiduous conflict of disease, now scarcely drew out his life, and for the most part lay abed; for the sake of how much it concerned that he, as a parent to the family instituted by him, should be present and survive to it, like children, as long as possible; those whom he employed for counsel advised him to take on someone into whom he might turn off part of the burden. He, the matter being easily approved, having convened as many of the priests of the Society as dwelt at Rome, one or two novices excepted, set forth the gravity of the matter. He appointed sacrifices and prayers for three days, admonishing besides that, by asking one another, they should learn who was a fit person for this office.

[517] Which things being accomplished, on the solemn day of All Saints being again gathered into one place, in administering the Society. by common consent, one desired vote being scarcely lacking, they designate Nadal. And Ignatius ratified the choice. And when these vicars wished to endow that power, some with the name of general commissary, Nadal himself was of this opinion, that it should be distinguished by no name. For nothing was more necessary to the Society than that the supreme and unimpaired authority of the Prepositus General should flourish. And indeed afterward the blessed Father did not use his labor much in the City (Urbe), as will be established from the course of the narrative. Thus Orlandini.

[518] In the year of Christ 1555, Pope Julius III being taken from life, Pope Marcellus II with the greatest goodwill toward St. Ignatius there succeeded Marcellus Cervini, who, on account of his very brief rule of a few days, was not so much given as lent to the Chair of St. Peter. To him, as Maffei relates, book 2, chapter 22, Ignatius, out of old familiarity, having come to venerate and congratulate him; the Pontiff, closely embracing the man and most sweetly kissing him, walking about with him much, seriously conferred concerning the propagation of the Christian faith and the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline; and for that very purpose asked of him certain men whom he might have with him, for the sake of counsel. But especially he loved Diego Laínez and Martín Olave; the virtue and wisdom of each of whom he knew very well. For concerning Francis Xavier, by whose fame and deeds he was greatly moved, he had already before entreated that he should by all means recall him to Rome from India: for he was held by a certain wondrous desire of seeing so great a man, and of rushing into his embrace.

[519] Nay, he had even ordered our men, as many as at that season dwelt at Rome, to be brought to him in the palace: that he might, as it were, review these little forces, and, like a good general, inspect the individual soldiers in person. and affected toward its offspring; Finally, many words about our Society having been passed to and fro, "Do you," said the Pontiff, "furnish the warriors: we shall use them." When from that meeting, and afterward from other conversations, Ignatius departed very glad, and had filled the Society with the best hope, in a short time that gladness vanished for all: since Marcellus, on the twenty-second day after he had been declared Pontiff, extinguished by a fever, with the great mourning of all, left the Christian commonwealth bereft and weakened.

[520] as also Paul IV toward the Saint. Paul IV, who succeeded Marcellus II, how he was affected toward Ignatius and the Society, Maffei briefly touches, chapter 33; which things Orlandini treats more at length, book 15, from num. 4. I transcribe those which most pertain here. When Ignatius had approached with some of his men to kiss the foot of the newly announced Pontiff, it is wonderful how lovingly and how honorably he was received by him. And with the same benignity and token of honor, a few days later the Pontiff, having summoned Ignatius, conversing much about his own affairs and much about the affairs of King Ferdinand, not fallen upon his knees, as is the custom (for he never suffered himself to be addressed by Ignatius on his knees, nor even with head uncovered), but walking about with him through the chamber, heard him, many looking on and marveling: he granted the suppliant all things, and whatever he had asked for Ferdinand he liberally gave. Nay, even Cardinal Giovanni Michele Saraceno, who was of very great favor and authority with Paul, and who at the beginning of his pontificate was said alone to manage everything, when he too had asked certain things of the Pontiff, Paul referred his requests to Ignatius. And Cardinal Otto Truchsess of Augsburg used to relate that he had, from the Pontiff's own mouth, heard him admire Ignatius, when he said such things about him and the Society in conversation, that, if he had anything to transact with the Pontiff, he would say that he would employ no other than Ignatius to accomplish it, so great was his authority with him. And thus far indeed concerning the things splendidly done by St. Ignatius in life; now I shall set forth how precious was his death in the sight of the Lord.

§ L. The Saint's illness, death, and its circumstances.

[The Saint sets three over the Society; withdrawing to the vineyard, but faring worse, he returns to his men.] A little before his death, says Father Francesco Sacchini in the History of our Society, part 2, book 1, num. 22, Ignatius had willed to use the supreme power in administering the Society (a thing to which the grave and assiduous vexations of his diseases did not permit him to attend) through Giovanni Polanco, and Cristóbal de Madrid, who was almost a novice, and not yet of the order of the professed, but a man of great authority; and likewise Jerónimo Nadal, counsel being taken among themselves. To these things, our Saint in the last days of his life withdrew to a vineyard; from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 16. It was situated in the City. Maffei, book 2, chapter 23, calls it a villa, which, he says, he had recently built not far from the church of St. Balbina, at the Baths of Antoninus (Caracalla) …; and, the affairs of the college being in a strait (as may be seen in Orlandini, book 15, num. 6), relying on great confidence in God, that there might be a retreat, sunny and open, for the sick and the invalids, and also a place of relaxation for the studious youth of the college, as is there indicated. But the place, lest anything should harm the health of the best Parent, was ordered to be inspected by a physician, from the narrative of Orlandini, book 16, num. 94. Ribadeneira affirms that there, by the heaviness of the sky and the greatest heats, he began to fare worse than usual. Maffei says: There, either ill received by the plaster of the new work, or old age now pressing, he fell into a mortal fever; so that, while his inmost vitals burned, no pallor was in his face, no signs of death appeared in his whole body; only a certain unwonted weariness appeared in his limbs and movement. The holy Father having returned home from the vineyard, let us relate what befell. Here Ribadeneira is so brief that he must fittingly be supplemented from elsewhere.

[522] I keep a transcript of a letter of Father Giovanni Polanco (whom the holy Father had employed for nine years in every kind both of writing letters From the letter of Father Giovanni Polanco and of business, as Ribadeneira attests in the same place), concerning his death and its circumstances, communicated to me among other Roman records by Father Ignacio Pinius: which I set forth thus from Italian into Latin: The peace of Christ, etc. By these lines I signify to your Reverence, and to all our brethren who are subject to you, that it has pleased God to call our blessed Father Master Ignatius to Himself on Friday morning, the last day of July, on the vigil of St. Peter in Chains; those things which held him bound in mortal flesh being broken, he was claimed into the liberty of His elect. He heard at last the desire of that His blessed Servant; who, although he bore his pilgrimage and its labors with great patience and fortitude, yet for many years now had desired to see and glorify his Creator and Lord in the heavenly fatherland: whose divine providence left him to us thus far, that by his example, prudence, authority, and prayers, this work of our least Society might be advanced for the better, as through him it had been begun. And now, when its roots were, as it appears, in whatever manner firm, that this plant and its fruit might take increase and augmentation in so many parts of the world, He raised him up to heaven, that he might obtain for us a so much more abundant supply of His grace, by how much he is more closely joined to the abyss of the same and of every good.

[523] But although it cannot be but that in this house and in the colleges the loss of the amiable presence of so great a Father, of which we are deprived, is felt; there are narrated yet the feeling is nonetheless free from grief; and a certain pious affection is present in our tears and in our bereavement, an increase of hope and of spiritual alacrity. It seems to us that, so far indeed as concerns himself, it is now time that his so continual labors should come to true rest, his infirmities to true salvation, his tears and continual endurance to blessedness and perpetual felicity. But so far as concerns us, we bring ourselves to believe that he is not lost to us; but even that never more than now do we hope that he will be a help to us by his most ardent charity, and that the divine mercy, by his intercession, will amplify the spirit, the number, and the founders of our Society, for the common good of His Church.

[524] And because your Reverence will desire to understand somewhat more distinctly

the passing of the said our Father, of St. Ignatius who is in glory; let him know that it befell him very easily, and that it did not last one hour after we perceived that he was departing from life. We had at home many sick, and among them Father Master Laínez, and Don Juan de Mendoza *, and some others gravely affected. Our Father too was troubled by a certain indisposition: because for four or five days he had suffered a slight fever; but it was doubted whether he suffered from it or not; although he then felt himself, as at other times, to be very weak. And so on Wednesday he called me, and admonished me to tell Doctor Torres that he too should take care of himself, as of the other sick; for since his sickness was made light of, more attention was paid to others than to himself. And so he indeed did: and another physician of great name, our friend, called Master Alexander, also visited him daily. On the following Thursday he ordered me to be summoned after the twentieth hour, the caretaker of his health being ordered to go out of the chamber, and said to me that it would be opportune if I went to St. Peter's, and saw to it that it be signified to His Holiness that he had been brought to the very last extremity, and that scarcely any hope of temporal life remained to him; that he should at length beseech His Holiness to pray well for him and for Master Laínez, who was also in peril; and that, if the Lord our God should do him the grace of calling him to heaven, he would there pray for His Holiness, as they had prayed daily on earth.

[525] the illness, I answered: Father, the physicians do not detect danger in this infirmity of your Reverence: and I, for my part, hope it will be that God will preserve your Reverence to us for some years for His service. Do you fare so ill as he does? He answered me: So much so that nothing remains but that I breathe out my soul: or something similar. I nevertheless showed, as I truly held, that I had hope of a longer life for him; but that I would perform that office: and I asked whether it would be enough to go on the following Friday: because that evening I was sending letters into Spain by the Genoese route, and the courier was departing on Thursday. He answered: It would be more pleasing to me if it were done today rather than tomorrow: or the sooner, the more pleasing. But come, do as shall seem good to you: I freely permit myself to you. I, that I might be able to say that in the physicians' judgment he was in peril, if indeed they should so think, that same evening asked the chief of them (it was Master Alexander) to tell me candidly whether our Father was in peril, because he had ordered me to carry such things to the Pope. He answered: Today I can say nothing of his peril; I will say tomorrow.

[526] and likewise the Saint's death These things being so, and the Father having committed himself to me, it seemed to me, proceeding in this matter in a human manner, to wait until the following Friday, that I might understand the judgment of the physicians: and that same evening of Thursday, at the first hour of vespers, Doctor Madrid and I were present at the supper of our Father, who, after his manner, supped well, and conferred conversation with us; so that I retired to bed without any suspicion of the peril of this infirmity. In the morning at sunrise we found our Father lying in the last extremity: and presently I betook myself in haste to St. Peter's; and the Pontiff showed a great token of grief, and prayed well for him, and as lovingly as he could. And thus, before the second hour from sunrise, Doctor Madrid and Master André des Freux (Frusius) being present in the same place, he rendered his soul most peacefully to his Creator. We weighed the humility of this holy old man; who, certain of his passing (according to what he had shown the day before; for I do not recollect that I have seen him affirm a thing to be future, with such a demonstration of certitude as this was, and that concerning the aids of providence to be present at Rome, which he promised us one year before, as afterward at the same time the matter befell) — thus certain, I say, of his passing, would not even call us, that he might bless us, nor give any other sign: which in such a case some servants of God are wont to do.

[527] But just as he felt so humbly concerning himself, nor wished the Society to be supported by any confidence other than in God, its circumstances. he passed from this world in the common manner. And perhaps he obtained this grace from God, whose glory alone he had before his eyes, that no other signs should appear in his death; just as in life it was his custom to cover over the secret gifts of God; certain ones excepted, which for the sake of edification had to be manifested. In like manner divine wisdom sometimes shows in His servants miracles falling under sense, that those who have little faith or capacity may be moved by them. And sometimes, in place of miracles, it shows the effects of great and solid virtues, and sure testimonies of His grace, for the good of those who have their eyes open by the light of faith and of other spiritual gifts. And in this second manner His providence seems to have used itself toward the head of the Society, as it uses it toward its members, throughout the whole earth, so far as it extends, showing, from the movement of minds, the conversion, and their spiritual fruit, through instruments so weak in so many parts of the world, whether you regard those who are within or those who are outside the Society; that here is the finger of God.

[528] But, returning to the point; after our Father had passed from this world, The inspection and anointing of the body, for the preserving of the body it seemed fitting that the intestines should be taken out of it, and that it should somehow be embalmed with balsam. And this matter too was of great edification and admiration: for his stomach and belly were empty and shrunk: whence the seculars skilled in that art inferred his great abstinences of past time, and his great constancy and fortitude; because in so great weakness he wearied himself so greatly, and with so glad and even a countenance. The liver also was inspected, in which were three little stones, witnesses of the same abstinence, from which it had been hardened: and it confirms that which the good old man Jacobo Eguía (who is in glory) used to say; namely, that our Father had for a long time lived by a miracle: because I know not how with such a liver he could have led his life in a natural manner, unless the Lord our God, preserving him then, as necessary to the Society, supplying the defect of the bodily organs, had kept him in life.

[529] We deferred the burial of his blessed body until Saturday after vespers; his burial and public veneration: and there was a great concourse of the pious, and their pious affection; although he remained in the same place in which he had expired: some kissing his hands, others his feet, others touching the body with our fathers. We labored in keeping off those who, some of them, wished a part of some biretta, others of the garments; or they snatched from the shoe-laces, or the night-coverings of the head, or his things: although nothing of these was given to those who asked for them; nor, while we knew of it, permitted. Certain of the painters likewise formed some effigies of his face. As long as he lived, he never permitted this; although many asked it. In the greater chapel of our church, at the Gospel side, we dug out a small sepulchre: where the body was deposited in a coffin, after the Office had been said according to custom, and covered with a great stone, which can be removed when it shall be necessary. And there it will be, as it were, in deposit; until it be seen whether something else may not be fitting.

[530] Sacrifices and prayers enjoined upon our men, etc. Doctor Olave went to announce the death to the supreme Pontiff: and His Holiness, testifying the affection with which he had pursued the Society in all the grades through which he had passed, offered himself after the manner of a good father, etc. Some of the chief Cardinals did the same, as also various other friends, offering themselves at length to the Society. To the Lord our God be praise; for He is our fortitude and hope. For three days we all made Mass at the altar for our Father: although some could be moved with no less affection of religion to commend themselves to him than to commend him to the Lord our God. Yet let there be done everywhere that which is agreeable to reason, both concerning the three days' Masses (which, that they should all be of Requiem, is not necessary) and concerning the prayers of our brethren who are not priests. We found no chest, nor any writing-cabinet locked, except some little boxes; of which those which he used contained some little things fitted to himself, and certain blessed crowns of the Blessed Virgin, and waxen medallions, which are called Agnus Dei, from those which used to be distributed. He left twelve provinces. At Rome … Servant in Jesus, Giovanni de Polanco.

[531] Observations on the said letter. Observe 1. That which we have said from Polanco, "and to pray well for Master Laínez"; Orlandini, book 16, num. 96, thus has it: "But convey also to the other of the fathers the benediction and indulgence." Which Polanco hearing, suspected that the other, whom the Father signified would die, was Laínez, who lay abed all but laid out; although the outcome showed that not Laínez's but Olave's death was foresignified. And indeed, as Bartoli notes, book 4, num. 31, since Laínez was reduced to such a state that two days later he was fortified with the last viaticum and the holy oil; Polanco, who wrote the letter on the 6th day of August, before Olave fell ill, in no way doubted but that Laínez was that other, whose name the Saint did not express. Bartoli adds that Polanco himself observed this, and corrected himself in the third volume of the Histories which he left. Therefore Polanco's letter in no way stands in the way of St. Ignatius's prediction concerning Laínez as his future successor in the government of the Society. See Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 17. Observe 2. Although Polanco's letter is printed in Bartoli in the place designated above; yet it is not there given in full, but cut off toward the end in some part of it; nor is it given in its original phrasing, but with the style changed. But we here produce it whole, and endow it with a new translation according to the phrasing of that copy which Father Ignacio Pinius had transcribed from the Roman archive.

[532] The Society bound to the Duke of Bavaria for great merits, To this letter I subjoin a transcript of another, which was sent on the 14th day of August in the year 1556 to the Duke of Bavaria, from our Roman gleaning, expressed in these words: IHS. Most illustrious Prince, and Lord most to be venerated in Christ. May the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ inhabit and adorn the mind of your Excellency, with a perpetual increase of spiritual gifts. Amen. Mindful of that singular observance and zeal toward your Excellency of our most dear Father Master Ignatius, of holy memory, and that this whole our Society, for many years, with a singular

affection acknowledges You, together with your most illustrious house, as a most certain patron, not only at Ingolstadt, but everywhere among the nations, we should not seem to have satisfied our duty, if we did not make your Excellency more certain concerning the passing of the same Father, and first Prepositus General, founder of this Society, whom the divine and supreme Goodness, having snatched him from the present life, translated into another, happy and eternal, long and much desired by himself. He bore indeed the continual sickness of his body with great fortitude and constancy of mind (which in him always shone forth singularly); but for very many years now he burned with a holy desire of standing by and adhering to his Creator, and of praising Him more perfectly in that heavenly kingdom. Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus, who both gave and took from us such a Father.

[533] Yet although we are deprived of the bodily presence of so great a Man, he announces to him the Saint's death, and the election of a Vicar, the same divine Goodness leads us into this hope, that we may hope our Father's help from heaven will profit us more than it ever profited on earth: and therefore from his death we not only do not despond in mind, or become weaker in the hope of the progress of our Society; but even gladder and more alacritous than usual we find ourselves rendered to all those things which our Institute demands. For in this change of our Father, of the heavenly life for the earthly, we expect the more copious and greater help from him, by how much he is nearer to the fount of spiritual grace and of all good things. Nor do we doubt that he who, while dwelling among men, was wont so often to pour out prayers to God for your Excellency and all Bavaria, will in the heavenly fatherland both more ardently ask it and more efficaciously obtain it. While from the whole Society (which is scattered through almost the whole world, wherever the religion of Christ flourishes, and is distributed into thirteen provinces) those convene with whom the authority of electing a Prepositus General will rest, we have elected as Vicar him who was Prepositus Provincial of Italy.

[534] Both he, though he be sick, and all we, earnestly beseech your Excellency, and commends himself to his benevolence. that he may hold us in the same place as before, and persuade himself that we shall not degenerate from our Father, and that ever, as he was, we shall be most ready for the service of your Excellency and of your successors, and of all your subjects, so far as it shall be permitted us by the manner of our life and the weakness of our powers, unto the glory and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose supreme and infinite goodness give to all the grace by which we may all understand His will, and, understanding it, ever obey it. Rome, the 14th of August 1556. That a letter of the same copy was written to Cardinal Farnese and to other Cardinals is subjoined in our transcript.

[535] But although that letter of Polanco above, concerning the death of our holy Parent and its circumstances, supplies almost whatever you could desire in this kind; yet from elsewhere I confirm and declare the things then done Some of the aforesaid points from our Roman records, among which is a transcript of an Italian letter which Father Nicolaus Lancicius (Łęczycki) on the 18th day of June in the year 1599 addressed at Rome to the Most dear brother in Christ Tommaso Cannicari, of the Society of Jesus; at Reggio, that is, Reggio di Calabria (Rhegium Julium), a maritime city in Calabria ulterior, as I suspect: because to the letter of Lancicius are inscribed the answers of Cannicari, with this title, which from Italian sounds thus in Latin: The answer concerning certain matters of Blessed Ignatius, sent from Sicily by him who was the infirmarian of the blessed Father when he died. Those queries of Lancicius, and also the answers of Cannicari, I thus translate and explain from the Italian. Lancicius asks, 1: When blessed father Ignatius was opened after death, were the intestines left within, or taken out and buried elsewhere? And so those three stones which were found in the vein of the liver. Cannicari answers: They were taken out and buried in the chapel of Our Lady: of the stones I know nothing; that is, as I interpret from the proposed question, of their burial: otherwise of their reality there is no doubt from Polanco's letter; to which add Maffei, book 2, last chapter: Realdo Colombo, he says, an excellent dissector of that time, who was present at the opening, testifies in his book on Anatomy that he found three stones in the vein of the liver which is called the Porta. Lancicius asks, 2: Was his body embalmed with balsam; and much, or little? Cannicari answers: It was sufficiently embalmed with balsam.

[536] are declared and confirmed by the answers to the letter of Lancicius. Lancicius asks, 3: Was he buried with a chasuble, and of what color was it? Cannicari answers: With a chasuble; but of the color I do not recollect. That it was of a golden color, or of golden yellow (mali aurei, quince-yellow), is gathered from what is to be said below, §107. Lancicius asks, 4: During that space of two days in which he remained unburied, did he have a bad odor? Cannicari answers: He did not have it; but a good one. Lancicius asks, 5: Does he recollect from whom he received communion, and at what hour: and whether he received it within the bed, or outside it, on bent knees: and whether he recollects any action done by him which does not stand in Ribadeneira? Cannicari answers: I do not recollect. That the Saint communicated in the body of the Lord on the 28th day of July is established from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 16; and Orlandini writes, book 16, num. 96, in these words: On the third of the Kalends of August (Sextilis), when two days before he had received the most divine Sacrament of the Eucharist, … he secretly summons Polanco, ordering the benediction to be asked of the Pontiff for himself, etc.; concerning which above from his letter. Lancicius asks, 6: What was done with the garments and other things which he then used? Cannicari answers: They were divided here and there for devotion; among our men, I understand: for to externs it was denied, Polanco said above, num. 529. Thus Cannicari; the rest the following paragraph will give.

* alternatively: Mendoça

§ LI. Certain other things concerning the Saint's death, and its circumstances, drawn from ancient documents.

Various other queries of Lancicius concerning the hour of death. We pursue the queries and answers; of which there was treatment in the last paragraph. Lancicius asks, 7: At what hour did he die: because some say that he did not die at that hour which stands in the Life? Cannicari answers: At the second hour after sunrise. I shall use the opportunity offered by this query and answer to discuss the time at which the Saint departed from this life. Let Ribadeneira be heard, book 4, chapter 16: He passed to the Lord, he says, on the day before the Kalends of August 1556, at the first hour after sunrise …, in the 65th year of his age, and the 35th after his conversion. Orlandini, book 16, num. 99, together with Maffei, book 2, last chapter, agreeably to Ribadeneira, marks the death of the holy Man as having befallen at the first hour from sunrise; but besides, from both, we have that it was done on the sixth feria (Friday); as also from Polanco in the letter produced above. I know not how, in the brief Life of Ribadeneira rendered into Latin by Quartemontius, for the sixth feria there crept in the second feria (Monday). But the chief question here is about the hour of death. Polanco brings light to it in the same place, from whom we learn that it befell BEFORE THE SECOND hour from sunrise: and so, the first hour being completed, and the second begun or incomplete, which, from Polanco's phrasing, was even then still running at the time when the holy Father was expiring. And thus it can be marked, with Ribadeneira, Maffei, and Orlandini, as the first hour after sunrise: but with Cannicari, the second hour after sunrise. For it can be called the first, until the second has been heard struck: unless brother Cannicari perhaps computed the second from dawn or first light; or, after so many years, did not rightly remember, being now without doubt very old. Let us return to Lancicius.

[538] He asks, 8: Whether the chapel in which he was wont to say Mass at the time when he died is that in which the Father General now dines, before his chamber: and whether Father Ignatius died there? [the chapel in which the Saint was wont to celebrate, the illness, the confessor, etc.;] Cannicari answers: I could not say exactly: because the whole thing has been changed. But we shall discuss distinctly below, §107, concerning the chambers of our holy Father. Lancicius asks, 9: Whether he was sick for a long time at St. Balbina, before he came home? Cannicari answers: He was not, except for two or three days. Lancicius asks, tenth: Who was his confessor toward the end of his life? Cannicari answers: Father Pietro Riera. Lancicius asks, 11: How long before was Father Jacobo Eguía dead, who was his confessor? Cannicari answers: I do not remember exactly. Lancicius asks, 12: Whether the people flocked to the chamber of Father Ignatius, when he was dead, or to the church. And by what signs did they show the opinion which they had of his sanctity? Cannicari answers: There was a great concourse: because he was held for a saint. In the chamber one slave * of the Cardinal of St. James, the doors being broken open, touched him with a crown (rosary). Lancicius asks, 13: Whether he remembers the miracle of the scrofula, from which that girl was freed by the garment of Father Ignatius? Cannicari answers: I know nothing. But concerning this matter and others pertaining to the present subject it will be said below.

[539] I keep another Italian letter of the same Giovanni Tommaso Cannicari, likewise concerning the prediction of death, the benediction of the Pontiff, transcribed from a Roman copy wholly autograph: which he gave at Reggio, that is, at Reggio di Calabria (Rhegium Julium), as I suspect, according to what was said in the preceding paragraph, num. 535; and it is signed on the 15th day of April in the year 1603; and it is directed to Father Ludovico Maselli, Assistant of the Society, instructing him concerning the death of St. Ignatius and its circumstances, and answering his interrogations. Whence I cull the following from the Italian. To the first interrogation: Whether he foresaw or foretold his death at that same morning time at which he died? I heard, he says, that he sent Father Polanco to His Holiness, to ask his benediction, because he himself was about to pass from this life; and I heard besides that he received the benediction which he asked, before he expired. That Cannicari testifies he had heard of the benediction imparted by the Vicar of Christ is proved from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 16; although the time did not permit that that favor should be intimated to the Saint in person. For Orlandini says this in clear words, book 16, num. 98: The associates, having entered to ascertain how the Saint fared, … find the holy Father already breathing out his soul most quietly … Polanco … flies to the Pontiff. The Pontiff … groaned, and largely granted what was asked. But Ignatius meanwhile, redoubling the most holy name of Jesus, most peacefully expired. To Orlandini add Maffei, book 2, chapter 23: Who, he says, to the Pontiff

had been destined the day before, namely on 30 July, toward evening, because he feared nothing of the kind, the matter being deferred to the next day, when he had immediately obtained what he wished, the Pontiff being willing, and following Ignatius with most friendly words; then gravely accusing himself, he did not meet the time. To the second interrogation: The physicians, says Cannicari, used to say that he died of a malignant fever: and I, serving him that night, up to the middle part of it, heard him act and converse, as he was wont for the greater part of his infirmity. After midnight it seemed to me that he rested, not calling me so frequently as he was wont; although he frequently invoked the Lord for his help: Ay Dios; that is, ah! God.

[540] the holy viaticum, and extreme unction, To the third interrogation he says: I do not recollect whether he received the most holy Sacrament of communion in the form of Viaticum. Extreme unction he did not receive. To the fourth: If he did not receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, this, I persuade myself, was done because he had communicated shortly before, and because his infirmity was not judged so dangerous that necessity demanded such a Sacrament to be given him. As regards the holy oil; a little space of time before he expired, while there were present two secular physicians, and three of our Society who were also physicians, who had opportunely come to visit him, they did not know that he was near to death. They found him indeed, the pulse of the artery being examined, very weak; and for the restoring of his strength I had it in charge to cook by fire a dish mixed with two fresh eggs. And while I was occupied in preparing it at the fire, Doctor Madrid entered the chamber of the blessed Father, and, touching him, saw that he was now on the point of passing from life; and, approaching me, ordered that, leaving the things at the fire, I should summon Father Pietro Riera, prefect of the church, that he should come to him at once. But I, doing these commands with all haste, Father Riera not being found, returned to give my answer; and I found that our blessed Father had expired, and understood that, after he had expired, Father Riera had been sought with such haste, that he might anoint him with the holy oil. He adds that from this fourth answer it appears what is answered to the fifth interrogation.

[541] and the last moment of life. To the sixth: When I, he says, had found him deceased, I found Doctor Madrid present, who was binding his chin with a fillet, to keep the mouth closed. There was present also Father Torres with other fathers, whose names I do not recollect. To the seventh, he thus answers: After these fathers had perceived that he was now on the point of passing from this life, there did not remain the space of half a quarter of an hour. At which time, because I had gone to summon Father Riera, prefect of the church, I was not present at his death: and therefore I can say nothing of this last moment. To the ninth he answers this: I know not what else he may have spoken at the last moment of his life, save as I said in the second interrogation. To the tenth nothing occurs to be transcribed. To the eleventh: Concerning the sense of his sanctity, which survived; I heard, he says, it said both by our men and by externs commonly: The Saint is dead, the Saint is dead. To these things, a certain servant of the Cardinal of St. James, etc. Consult what was said a little before in this paragraph, and what will be said in the next following. To the twelfth: The concourse of people to our church, while the body was at home, and afterwards in the church, was very great, so that it was full up to the doors, and even outside, the people by great common consent showing signs of the opinion which it had of his sanctity, etc. These more minute things, in several places, but nonetheless curious, and not altogether unworthy of estimation, because reported by the Saint's infirmarian, it seemed good to produce from the said letters.

[542] Among the Roman records I have a Spanish letter of Ribadeneira with this autograph inscription of the same father: Finally it is asked how, foreknowing his death, he did not ask for unction, To Father Bartolomé Pérez, Assistant of the Society of Jesus. It was given at Madrid on the 3rd day of August, in the year 1605. Pérez had asked of Ribadeneira how our blessed Father Ignatius, knowing that he was dying, did not ask for extreme Unction; and had begged of him that the reason of this matter be given him. Ribadeneira therefore, having set forth the history of the holy Father's infirmity and death, which is known both from Ribadeneira himself, book 4, chapter 16, and from Polanco's letter, which we have already given, deduces two things: first, that it appears very probable that our holy Father knew, or had a revelation of, his death: and therefore sent one to ask the benediction of His Holiness, so determinately and affirmatively; for the same Saint was endowed with the highest prudence, circumspect likewise, and moreover not precipitate in acting with the supreme Pontiff: that for the same cause he had confessed and communicated, arming himself with the holy Sacraments of penance and of the altar, and doing on his part whatever he could do without ostentation of the revelation which he had.

[543] The second thing which he deduces from this is, that for that same cause, and it is answered. seeing the physicians say that the infirmity was not dangerous, and that some of them made light of it, he permitted things to run as they seemed to the physicians; because otherwise he ought either to say that the physicians did not know what they said; or that he himself had a revelation of the thing which was to happen. Which was very alien from his prudence, and from his humility, which he could not have kept safe by asking for viaticum or extreme Unction in these circumstances, and by signifying that he knew more of his infirmity and its end than the physicians: as afterward was made clear by the outcome. And these things indeed truly and very conformably to the sanctity, circumspection, and prudence of our holy Father in the case proposed, Ribadeneira judges can be said: since he did whatever he could, to satisfy his obligation and devotion, without detriment to his humility; and permitted that the physicians (whose office this was) should pass judgment on his infirmity, and that that should be done which seemed good to them. You may consult Orlandini, book 16, num. 100.

* in the Italian it is schiavo; elsewhere servo, i.e. servant

§ LII. The apparition, the miracle, the concourse, the burial, the new vigor in the Society.

Nor indeed did God, who glorifies those who glorify Him, long defer to adorn His Servant, after a most holy life concluded likewise with a most holy exit from it, with singular tokens of honor among mortals: [The Saint, at the same moment in which he died, appears to a certain matron at Bologna:] for Bologna is a witness, where our holy Father, at the very instant of time in which he passed from life, showed himself glorious in glory to a certain matron. Receive the fact from Ribadeneira in Quartemontius, chapter 21: At that point of time in which he departed from life at Rome, at Bologna, shining and renowned, he appeared to a noble matron, a widow, Margherita Delis by name, and most loving of the Society. And she without delay narrated the vision to Father Francesco Palmio, rector of the college, at whose ear she was wont to wash away the hurts of her soul: and she indicated that Ignatius was dead, and confirmed that she had seen him, and depicted him so in his native colors, as if she had known him before, whom in reality she had never seen. Moreover, when she went to that father, although she did not immediately gain credence for the matter: yet when the tidings of the day and hour were brought, on which day and hour he exchanged this life for a better, it was found that she had spoken true.

[545] the next day he heals a girl of scrofula On the next day after the Saint's death, at Rome, the following miracle occurred, which is narrated in the place just cited: In the year 1556, on the Kalends of August, the funeral rites were performed for him before a very great crowd of people, who had flocked together to see and venerate him. There was present among the rest a certain Bernardina, a religious woman, and greatly given to piety. She had a daughter, fourteen years old, laboring under a grave and dangerous scrofula. Although she had spent a great part of her means on the treatments applied, she had not only made vain expenses, but the disease grew worse from day to day. On that very day the mother brought her to the church of the Society, that she might touch the body of the blessed Father. For she hoped that by his prayers her daughter's health would be restored by God, which she could not expect from the help of the physicians. But so great a crowd of people had convened, that, whatever the mother and daughter did, they could not find a way of making a path through the crowded throng, and of approaching the body, now enclosed in the coffin.

[546] through his relics. When therefore they saw that they had wasted their effort, and grieved vehemently; they tried at least to obtain some of the relics of the blessed Father: which, received with great faith and great piety, the mother applied to the neck of her daughter, and to the scrofula and ulcers, which had now almost broken out into a cancer. Behold for you a truly marvelous thing: for by the mercy of God, and the merits of Ignatius, the daughter recovered her former health in a moment of time, all being astonished at the novelty of the thing, and as by a great testimony of his sanctity, that even dead he drove away diseases from those who religiously and suppliantly implored his aid.

[547] The same miracle is reported I have in hand a Latin translation of an Italian narrative, whose title, written by the hand of Father Polanco, thus runs: This Father Cornelius Wischaven of good memory did: which narrative was drawn up by the hand of Father Petrarca, companion of the same Father Polanco: as Father Ignacio Pinius attests in the instrument of the said translation, which he sent hither from Rome. In it there is treatment of the miracle of the scrofula just mentioned: and because the very mother of the healed girl teaches certain things which are not said above, I produce it. Thus it sounds: To my beloved and reverend fathers in Christ Jesus. That I may not keep hidden any longer a certain grace, received from God through the merits of Father Ignatius, I will report it by this narrative. One of my daughters, fourteen years old, had three years before labored under a certain evil in the throat. We committed her to Master Jacopo of Perugia, when we heard that he was the first physician at Rome: and he treated her with many remedies; but in no way did he help her, telling me that the evil was incurable, and judging it to be scrofula. Hence this held me ill, because I heard that this evil could not be healed, except by the King of France. From the physician now named we handed her over to others: but they helped her nothing. Then there came to our house a certain Hebrew, saying that he would heal her. He applied to her certain powders, by which he wished to remove the root of that evil: and, bringing her great torment, he kept her under his treatment for several days; nor did he bring her any help. Afterward, the Jew being dismissed, I gave her to be treated by Master Giovanni Struncano, physician of Pope Paul IV, she being afflicted with a great ulcer. He treated her a year and a half: nor did he yet bring a remedy, telling me that to free her would be a great thing.

[548] When one day I was present at the sermon of the reverend

Father Benedetto, from the narrative of that girl's mother, I understood that Father Ignatius had passed from this life. I felt a great piety of soul, that, if one of his consecrated hands had touched the throat of this my daughter, with God's help, he would have healed her. And so before the noon meal I spoke with Father Cornelius, imploring this grace of him, that one of the hands of Father Ignatius might touch her throat. The reverend father told me to return after the noon meal with my daughter; that she would be helped either by me or by others. When therefore the body had come into the church, all the brethren of the Society sat around it, for the sake of reciting the Office: and to me, wishing to pass, they said that I should wait until the Office was finished. And it being finished, they carried it to the sepulchre. And Father Cornelius was one of those who carried the body up to the sepulchre. But I, wishing to pass with my daughter, could not, on account of the multitude of men who were present. Then indeed I drew great grief thence, seeing that I could not be helped, neither by Father Cornelius, nor by others, whom I solicited: and therefore I complained of Father Cornelius, that he had deceived me, and betook myself to him. Lay that to my charge, said the reverend father, I will give you another counsel: and he told me to go to the sepulchre: for since we could not touch the body, nor was that by our negligence, faith would therefore suffice. Go to the sepulchre, and God through the merits of our Father will hear you, as many times as you ask: and this confidence will suffice you: for the goodness and sanctity of our reverend Father (I said this often to Father Guido and many others, and now I say to you) is not sufficiently known to many seculars, nor even to many of ours, though his familiars, who dealt and conversed with him. Wherefore I exhort you, go, do what I confidently tell you: I tell you this from my heart, through the merits of that holy Father.

[549] And so, believing the words of Father Cornelius, I went to pour out prayers, to whom that befell. as best I could, beseeching God through the merits of that blessed Father, that my daughter might be healed. And when my daughter was standing there near the altar, she suffered a fainting of spirit: not being able to stand any longer, I led her into the house of a certain kinswoman of mine, who was nearby: and, returning to the church, I addressed Father Guido, complaining about the aforesaid matter concerning Father Cornelius. The reverend father asked of me what Father Cornelius had said to me: which he himself confirmed. But I, not altogether acquiescing in these words, asked of Father Guido some pieces of the garments of Father Ignatius, who for three or four days still distilled pus: and so I obtained a piece of red cloth, which, inserted within, had lined the garment. This I with great piety bound to my daughter's throat for three days: and on the first day, on which I had attached it to the throat, by the grace of the Lord, and through the merits of that blessed Father, the pus ceased to drip: and so the evil utterly deserted her. And at this very time, whoever sees her healed does not think it possible that she should be healed. After nine months, when I asked Father Cornelius whether I could indicate this last physician, by whom she had been healed, to those who had inquired of me how she had been healed; Father Cornelius answered: You can, and rightly ought, neither to hide the grace bestowed on you, nor the work of the Lord our God. And so I answer them that which befell me, to the praise and glory of God. I, Bernardina of Rome, wife of Andrea di Neruci of Pisa. Thus she. Moreover, the genuine character of this narrative is confirmed by the simplicity of the womanly style, which shines forth more in the Italian copy; as the aforesaid Ignacio Pinius observes. Now to the things which followed the Saint's death we add these from Orlandini, book 16, num. 133:

[550] the great concourse at Rome to his body: At Rome, as soon as the passing of the blessed Father was made known, the common people bearing about that the holy Man was dead, a suddenly great concourse was made into the church and house of the professed. Among the rest, a slave of the Cardinal of St. James, by force, broke through the doors of the chamber where the Blessed one's body lay, that he might touch it with a rosary. See what was said, num. 538. And since mention of that place, which is venerable by the Saint's inhabitation, here falls in, it seemed good to describe it from Orlandini. This chamber is low and narrow, and simply wrought, twenty-nine palms long, fourteen wide, ten high. In it the successor Prepositi dwelt until the second year after 1600. At which time, when the Prepositus General Claudio Acquaviva had migrated into a part of the house built by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, as though perpetuating the hereditary benignity of the Farnese family toward our Order, it began to be held as religious (sacred): and that very thing for the memory and consolation of posterity, that the blessed Father had there acted and finished his life, and after him all the Generals up to that time had lived, and the first general congregation had been held. When the new house was being built, although it was done not without inconvenience, it pleased the Fathers to preserve it whole with three adjoining chambers. But concerning this chamber and its veneration, the discourse will return below in another place.

[551] the burial of the body, the inscription, the funeral honors; Ribadeneira in Quartemontius, chapter 11, thus teaches us concerning the place of burial: His body was committed to a lowly sepulchre in our church of Santa Maria della Strada, at the right of the high altar, on the Kalends of August (at the third hour before night, as Orlandini notes in the cited place). But in the year 1569, the altar being moved from its place, it was first translated to the opposite part of the same church. Thence again in the year 1587, on the 13th of the Kalends of December, which day is consecrated to St. Pontianus, it was translated into the sumptuous church of the professed house, recently built by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It was laid in a tomb at the right of the altar in a leaden coffin, and a flat stone was placed over it, and black polished marble was inserted into the wall, and this inscription was engraved; which will be shown below from the Roman documents; where the first burial of the Saint and the translations will be treated. But the funeral honors were bestowed on Ignatius not only at Rome, but also in other provinces, not even the Indies themselves being excluded therefrom; as we learn from Maffei, History of the Indies, book 16, toward the end; where he mentions these things: For him, he says, both in other provinces … and especially in India, the funeral rites were performed with solemn rite and exquisite ceremonies. Although there were by no means lacking those who, with a Man of such illustrious sanctity, not absurdly affirmed that his patronage should rather be implored than prayers poured out for him.

[552] the new vigor diffused into the Society, Moreover, from the most holy death of Ignatius a great vigor of new life flowed, both into his sons individually, and into the whole Society universally, as though diffused from a lively head into the whole body, and into the several members of the body; according to those things which I shall presently say. For all his sons felt the patronage of that same Saint dead, or rather truly living: for at his death a certain most sweet sense of grief, as Ribadeneira speaks, followed in the whole Society, tears with gladness, a longing full of hope, a vigor of spirit everywhere excited: so that all everywhere seemed to burn with a certain new desire of laboring for Christ, and of suffering grave and difficult things. Maffei, cited a little before, says: Certainly, from his departure (as you might conjecture that the best Father in heaven was aiding the undertakings of his own) through all the ranks of the Society founded by him, a certain fresh alacrity to pious labors, a new ardor and vigor of minds, was diffused: and the Indian field responded to cultivation and sowing with a more abundant yield than before. For in the four nearest years, at Goa alone, besides the uncertain sum of those who were washed baptized by the Franciscans and Dominicans, there were baptized by the Society of Jesus first one thousand and eighty; then one thousand nine hundred and sixteen; then three thousand two hundred and sixty: finally, with a notable increase, twelve thousand seven hundred and forty-two. Thus far Maffei there.

[553] To which if you join Orlandini, book 16, num. 135, Ignatius being, as is believed, the intercessor. you will have whence to proclaim the beneficence of God toward the Society, so profusely liberal, its Founder being taken from the living. In many colleges (the words are Orlandini's) it was observed at once that the supports of life were more largely supplied by the peoples amid extreme want, and that the persecutions of adversaries were either extinguished or greatly mitigated. All which things, although they gave assurance that Ignatius had ascended to the holy mountain of God, and before the most holy Trinity, as with hands lifted up, was aiding the endeavors of his own more abundantly than when he too stood here in the battle-line, and incited them to explain by public tokens of observance the piety of their soul toward him; yet the presidents and rectors, for modesty's sake, permitted nothing. Concerning the admission of the Society into Belgium, long and much, but in vain, attempted, but at last accomplished on the third day after the death of our most holy Parent, what Ribadeneira, the agent of that cause, thought, you will understand from what was said in paragraph 49, num. 515.

§ LIII. The estimation of St. Ignatius conceived by St. Francis Xavier and others of the Society of Jesus.

But now, that our holy Founder was in the highest estimation among his sons, those things are an argument which Ribadeneira narrates, book 4, St. Francis Xavier's veneration for St. Ignatius chapter 17; where, among other arguments of excellent veneration toward him, the great Apostle and Thaumaturge of the Indies, St. Francis Xavier, holds a notable part; concerning whose plainly singular observance toward his holy Father, which Ribadeneira there relates, you will be able to be confirmed from those things which I add. Among his new letters, published by Poussines at Paris in the year 1661, there stand not common specimens of this matter: for in the first letter, on the day before the Kalends of April in the year 1540, he thus writes to him from Bologna: I have plainly resolved to give my endeavor, that both I, and whatever part of our Society shall ever anywhere on earth be with me, may be joined to you and to the Roman Society by the commerce of tidings and offices: and thus refer all our affairs to you minutely and distinctly, as little daughters are wont, when they render account to their mothers.

[555] And in letter 17, which he writes to his holy Father in Christ Ignatius at Rome from Cochin, on the 4th of the Kalends of February in the year 1552, it is shown he thus opens the inmost recesses of a soul piously and reverently affected toward Ignatius: Most truly, my Father, I have just received at Malacca, putting in hither from Japan, the letters of your holy Charity, which, since they taught me concerning the life and health of a head so dear and venerable to me, as I desired, God our Lord knows with how great pleasure they filled my soul. Many indeed in them I read with delight, sentences breathing your sweetness and piety; which I again and again perceive with fruit of my soul, turning them over in my recalling mind, and in a manner taste again: especially those golden last words, with which you sealed the letter as with a certain seal of charity: Wholly yours, so that

I can at no time ever forget you. Ignatius. Which words, as I read them there with sweetest tears, so also weeping I here transcribe, recalling the most sweet memory of time elapsed, and of that sincere and holy love with which you always embraced me, and now also pursue me: and moreover reflecting that I was freed, out of all those great labors and perils of Japan, by God, bent especially by your prayers, and yielding to your paternal vows for me.

[556] from the letters given to him. And, some things being interposed, Francis thus again continues: Your holy Charity then adds that you are held by a great desire of seeing me yet once more before the end of this life. He knows, who sees through the inmost parts of my breast, our Lord, how vehement and how sweet an impression of tender affection this so kindly a token of your surpassing love toward me has insinuated deeply into my soul. Indeed, as often as I turn over those your words in my mind (and I turn them over very often) unbidden tears fill my eyes: nor can they be held, but that they sweetly burst forth at that alone most pleasing image which presents itself to me thinking that it may be possible that I should embrace you again. Which although I see to be most difficult, yet there is nothing which holy obedience cannot effect. By the zeal with which you ardently burn of obeying and gratifying God our Lord, I ask one grace of you, which, if I were present, kneeling on the ground before your holy feet, I would as a suppliant beg, etc. Thus the truly genuine and holy son to his holy Parent; calling him holy in that one letter plainly twelve times. Finally, in the ninth letter of book 2, among those which were published from the Latin version of Orazio Torsellino, he had thus written from Cochin, on the 19th of the Kalends of February 1549: I, Father of my soul, and most to be venerated by me, kneeling on the ground (for thus do I write this letter to you), as though I beheld you present, as a suppliant beg, that you cease not to beseech God for me in your holy Sacrifices and prayers.

[557] Other testimonies from our men in praise of the holy Father Meanwhile, to the domestic testimonies of our men in praise of the holy Father, which it is given to read in Ribadeneira, it seemed good to add the following, from Orlandini, book 16, num. 123: André des Freux (Frusius), whom Ignatius and others, on account of his innocence of life and singular wisdom, judged most like an angel, was wont to say that the heavenly grace of Christ seemed as though inborn and natural in Ignatius. So constantly, everywhere and always, and so easily did he keep measure and virtue. To Frusius there is added in the same place Fulvio Androzzi, of excellent doctrine, prudence, and piety, who, having learned at Meldola of the passing of the blessed Father, when once, though with reluctant conscience, he had made, as usual, the funeral Mass for his soul; being about to do the same again, when he had approached the altar: I could not, he said (for thus he writes), command myself but that I should make the Mass of the name of Jesus: nor in my private prayers do I seem to myself able to express anything other than these words: Father Ignatius, pray for us: and plainly in many matters I seem to myself to have experienced his patronage.

[558] Lastly, to this place we have reserved another fact, although by dignity and merit it seems it can be reckoned among the chief of this kind, testimonies which Ribadeneira in Quartemontius, chapter 12, transmitted to posterity: A certain priest of the Society, mature and grave in age, had once been his confessor, a Navarrese by nation, Jacobo Eguía by name, a man heaped with praise of such great virtue and innocence, that the blessed Father said: When we shall have been gathered to the assembly of the Blessed in the heavens, Father Jacopo will ascend to such a height that we, separated by an interval of places, shall scarcely be able to see him. And this old man was wont gravely to extol the virtues and integrity of the blessed Father, as one who had the candor of his soul and his inmost sentiments explored and known. This praise was so grievous and hateful to the Father, that, the name of obedience being interposed, he ordered him to abstain from such discourses. But this man, unmindful of the edict, when he repeatedly relapsed into his former custom, himself also ceased to lay down his sins in his ear.

[559] This same old man frequently used this expression: Would that God were willing that I should survive Father Ignatius by even a few days, they are set forth: to make known those things which I have known concerning him! But to God, in whose power are all things, it seemed far otherwise. For this man died three days before Blessed Ignatius: which very thing, as was believed, Ignatius obtained by his prayers. Moreover, concerning this Jacobo Eguía and his praises, and also concerning the present history, Orlandini too can be consulted, book 16, num. 91, saying that he died on the 17th of the Kalends of July; which day, however, could not fall within that space of three days preceding the death of St. Ignatius. And indeed the holy Father is said to have foretold that he would die before him, according to those things which are there to be read. In fine, he must have reported the greatest and most unusual specimens of Ignatius's virtues: for he quite led men into amazement, signifying what he was about to make public, if he had survived Ignatius by even one hour; as Orlandini mentions in the same place.

[560] The original and wholly autograph letters of Father Oliverio Manare, to which add the autograph letters of Manare. given at Brussels on the 25th day of February in the year 1600, to Lancicius, so far as is gathered from the index which is found joined to them at Rome, and on the front of which is inscribed: Al F. Lancicio, that is, To Brother Lancicius, as Father Ignacio Pinius, their transcriber, attests; those letters, I say, report thus: That he was commonly held for a holy Man by our men, this is an argument to me, that I understood some wise and spiritual men were wont to ask God through the merits of the same our reverend Father. 2. That very many took pains to have something of his garments or other things which he used, as relics, though he still lived … 3. All, on account of the opinion of his sanctity, greatly venerated, feared, loved, and revered him even when absent, so that out of reverence we did not dare to approach him; not because he was General, but chiefly because he was, in the opinion of us all, a saint.

§ LIV. What Father Pietro Ribadeneira thought concerning the sanctity of St. Ignatius.

Ribadeneira looked up to Ignatius as very holy; Father Pietro Ribadeneira, the intimate observer and most faithful witness of the life and morals of St. Ignatius, in the juridical examination at Madrid, which was held there in the year 1595, being ordered, an oath being interposed, to give assurance of what he thought concerning the sanctity of St. Ignatius, drew out the argument of his testification upon it into fully ten heads. Understand the matter from the transcript of the said examination, which the very often named clearer of the Ignatian records there sent to us, drawn from the Roman archive. Ribadeneira therefore thus deposes there: To the fifth interrogation he said that he held, and always had held, Father Ignatius to be a holy man, and very holy, and a friend of God. But the reasons and foundations, on account of which he holds him for such, are those which follow.

first, because he never noted any fault in him: First, because during all that time in which he dealt with the Father himself so intimately and familiarly, as was said above, the witness himself does not recollect that he ever saw in him, or heard anything from his mouth, which in the judgment of the witness himself was not only [not] a mortal sin, but [not] even a venial one; not that the witness himself believes that Father Ignatius did not sin venially: for he well knows that there is none just who does not sin: and that the just man falls seven times a day: but because the Father's words and his actions were so moderate and circumspect, that, when the witness himself heard and saw them, he could not judge that there was sin in them; because he never heard from him idle words, or murmurings, or injuries, even while he was reprehending his sons; nor did he see him angry, or moved by any perturbation of soul except that which he himself, consideration and weighing being applied, wished to use, while he reprehended, so that that movement followed reason, and did not go before it.

[562] second: because he saw in him heroic actions, and singular virtues: Second, because he saw in Ignatius himself many operations of heroic virtues and of singular sanctity, but especially concerning the assiduity of prayer, tenderness, devotion, and abundance of tears, and the dominion which he had over his tears: likewise the most ardent zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, profound humility, contempt of himself and of the world, patience, alacrity; and in labors and persecutions admirable fortitude and constancy, and singular prudence, and above human, which he used in all things spiritual and temporal, with a certain perpetual tranquillity of soul and countenance in all things, whether prosperous or adverse; so that if any change of countenance intervened, it was when he showed greater gladness than usual, if ever some great and sudden tribulation arose: concerning the rest of the virtues, finally, which are reported of him in book V of this History.

[563] Third, because the Lord chose him as Father and founder of a Religious order, [third, because he founded the Society of Jesus; and profited many by the spiritual Exercises:] such as is the Society, and gave him the grace of planting, watering, propagating it, and dilating it through the whole world, and of gathering from it, in his time, such abundant and sweet fruits. For it is to be believed, nor does it seem possible to be otherwise, that God our Lord, who chose him for so great a work, gave him also those graces and talents by which he had need for performing it worthily, as He is wont to do with others whose labor He wishes to use: for He gives them the grace necessary for discharging that office to which He chose them. Which indeed is still more admirable, if the circumstances be considered which concur in this so wonderful a work. Of which kind are the change of the life of Father Ignatius himself from such great vanity and luxury, to such great contempt of himself and so rigorous a penitence. That God taught him, when he had not yet given his endeavor to letters, and gave him the means of the spiritual Exercises, etc.: which I gave above, §8, num. 78.

[564] That he persuaded his first companions, who were all Spaniards [second: because he joined companions to himself, and received the idea of the Society from God.] and French, that, all human hope being cut off, they should follow him; at which time so many and so atrocious wars were being waged between France and Spain, and yet they dwelt together, with an inmost peace and love more than of brothers preserved among them. That God gave him a certain idea and form of the Society, so conformable in substantials to other Religious orders; but in other things so diverse, and differing from them, as appears, according to the exigency of these times: of which kind is the fourth vow, which the professed emit, of obedience to be shown to the supreme Pontiff in missions,

and for resisting heretics, who assail the authority of the Apostolic See. Similarly also the delay of the profession to be emitted, etc. Of which kind also are the Constitutions, which the same Father Ignatius wrote, imbued greatly with a heavenly spirit and divine wisdom, etc.; which you have above, §42, num. 434.

[565] Fourth, on account of the many and great revelations, visitations, and supernatural favors Fourth, on account of the revelations and heavenly favors. which Father Ignatius received from God, some of which are reported in the first book, chapter VII; and in book V, chapters 1 and XI of his History: and very many others can be seen in the quaternions which he wrote with his own hand, at the time when he was writing the Constitutions, and which were found after his death. Fifth, on account of the admirable fruit which followed from this idea and Institute throughout the whole world, Fifth, on account of the spiritual miracles. both in the reformation of morals among Catholics, and in the conversion of gentiles and heretics, as is known, in which matter there are wrought as many spiritual miracles as there are persons who from heresy and infidelity to the Catholic faith, from a depraved manner of living to good fruit, have been converted. Which marvels indeed ought to be esteemed the more than corporeal ones, by how much there is a difference between the good which through them God communicates to minds, and the good which bodies receive through other temporal miracles, according to the doctrine of the Saints.

[566] Sixth. On account of the temporal miracles which the Lord wrought through the intercession of Father Ignatius, Sixth, on account of the temporal miracles. while he lived and after his death, some of which are reported in his Life, and of which mention was made in those things which were said to the fourth interrogation. On account, finally, of many other things which occurred in various regions, namely at Rome, Padua, Barcelona, Alcalá, Toledo, Burgos, and in the homeland of Father Ignatius himself, as can be seen through the informations concerning them, to which the witness himself refers.

[567] Seventh. On account of the great hatred with which the demon always persecuted Father Ignatius, Seventh, on account of the hatred of the devil against Ignatius. and the persecutions which it continually stirred up against him, which Father Master Laínez observed, and which he several times told this witness: and that sometimes, while the companions were together, Father Ignatius being absent, in the highest peace and quiet, when he returned to them, straightway some storm and tempest arose to them from the demon, on account of the hatred with which it persecuted the said Father Ignatius. The same Father Laínez said besides to this witness, that, when he was at Padua, he had seen a certain poor soldier possessed, etc. See Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 6, toward the end. There follows in our transcript concerning the young man Matthew, possessed by a demon; concerning whom consult Ribadeneira in the cited place. The same, almost in substance, another demon said in the city of Trapani in Sicily, when Father Ignatius first died, in the presence of the viceroy Giovanni de Vega, and some others, among whom was Father Girolamo Doménech, provincial of the Society in that kingdom, a holy man; who wrote this very thing to the City (Rome). Ribadeneira reports the fact in the place just assigned; and that the demon here can be given credence, you will find in him in the same place.

[568] Eighth, on account of the many and grave persecutions Eighth. On account of the many, and those most grave, persecutions which, on account of this hatred of the demon, and the will of the Lord, Father Ignatius suffered throughout his whole life, even before he founded the Society, at Alcalá, Salamanca, Paris, Venice, Rome: and after he founded it, in himself and in his sons throughout the whole world; and on account of the patience, fortitude, tranquillity, and alacrity, with which he overcame all persecutions of this kind with so illustrious a victory, as is known, that it is a very certain sign of the singular grace with which the Lord proved him, strengthened him, and gave him victory over his enemies.

[569] Ninth, on account of the judgment of others concerning the sanctity of Ignatius. Ninth. Because the witness himself saw many and great servants of God, and most grave men, reckon Father Ignatius himself a saint, concerning whom it is reported in the History of his life, chapter XVII, book IV; to whom he refers himself; and that it is certain that if some of the fathers of the Society, each of whom by himself seemed a great saint (such as were the fathers Pierre Favre, Diego Laínez, Francis Xavier, Francisco de Borja, and others), be compared with Father Ignatius, they would seem dwarfs in comparison with some giant; which very thing they themselves acknowledged, and revered him as such with great veneration.

[570] Tenth, on account of those things which he wrought Tenth. On account of certain things which God, through the mediation of Father Ignatius, wrought in the person of the witness himself, which on this occasion the witness himself reports, and testifies that he will relate plainly and faithfully, as they were done, to the glory of God, who wrought them, and the testification of the sanctity of Father Ignatius, by whose intercession they were wrought, and to the confusion of the witness himself. He said therefore that, when he himself was a boy, on a certain occasion suddenly there seized him a terror and horror so great that by day he did not dare to pass from one chamber of the house of the Society into another, unless someone accompanied him; but by night, even if he had a companion, he did not dare to pass. With which disturbance indeed he labored for many days, until on a certain day he accompanied Father Ignatius, returning home from the church of St. Paul at Rome, and gave him the reason of that affliction; who indeed, by two words which he said to the witness himself, drove away that disturbance altogether, as if he had drawn it out with his very hand.

[571] in the person He asserts besides that, when in the year 1543 the witness himself was greatly vexed by a certain most grave temptation, with an obstinate mind of not remaining in the Society, and rebellious against Father Ignatius himself, who wished that the witness himself should collect himself for some days, that he might commend himself to God; which the witness himself refused to do: on a certain night of the month of August the Father spoke to him, and by two words which he said to him, when he was very obstinate and rebellious, so changed him, that he began to cry out with a loud voice, and to say: I will do it, Father, I will do it: being driven indeed by a vehement impulse, and a force greater than human: according to those things which are there said.

[572] In the same year 1543 he says that at the beginning of the month of September he confessed generally to Father Ignatius, without intention of persevering in the Society: of Ribadeneira himself for he had not yet emitted his vows. But as soon as he had finished the confession, Father Ignatius said to him these words only, namely: I ask you, Peter, be not ungrateful to Him who has heaped you with as many gifts and graces as God has bestowed on you. At the same moment of time in which the Father uttered those words, there fell from his soul those shadows which had darkened it; and he resolved with himself to remain and persevere in the Society, with such great promptness and firmness of soul, that in these fifty-two years elapsed from that time he had no temptation or thought against his vocation which brought him trouble. But these things which he reports, and which he himself experienced in his soul, the affections, movements, and changes of it being considered, he judges to have been effects of the singular grace of God which Father Ignatius had: since with so few words he accomplished such great effects, and changed hearts, and rendered them serene, and freed them from the perpetual trouble which they suffered, as is had in his Life, book V, chapter VI.

[573] He asserts besides that Father Ignatius in the year 1555 sent the witness himself from the City (Rome) into Flanders, who testifies these things. to beseech Philip the Catholic King, that he would grant power of founding colleges of the Society in those states: and when he had spent seven months on that matter in vain, and slight hope shone of obtaining it, on account of the many and great adversaries which that matter suffered, it happened that Father Ignatius on the last day of the month of July in the year 1556 passed from this life, and the King as soon as possible granted what was asked, and the privilege on the 3rd day of the month of August next following of the same year: and the witness himself, and many others who learned of it, held for certain that Father Ignatius, as soon as he had passed from this life, obtained from the Lord in heaven that which could not be obtained by human means: by which are confirmed the things said, §49, num. 515. But to the sixth interrogation (in which it is asked whether he knew what was the opinion concerning Father Ignatius himself among grave men and servants of God), among other things which Ribadeneira answers, In particular he mentions that he heard from Doctor Peralta, canon of Toledo, a man of much learning and noted virtue, who at Paris had been a disciple in spiritual things of Father Ignatius himself, that Father Ignatius, on account of those things alone which that man had seen in him, could be canonized. And below, in those things which Ribadeneira deposes: To the last interrogation concerning public voice and fame, he said … that when he was about to write the Life of Father Ignatius, this was the greater difficulty which he felt, that he understood he would not have or find words by which he could well explain those things which he had conceived in his soul concerning the sanctity of the said Father. But his conceptions were still far distant from that which the Father himself was in himself. Thus Ribadeneira thought: now let us hear externs.

§ LV. Illustrious external men, heralds of the merits of St. Ignatius.

Honorable testimonies concerning St. Ignatius from the supreme Pontiffs, The external heralds of the holy Father Ribadeneira will give, book 4 of the Life, chapter 17: who afterward amplified this argument in the shorter Life, endowed with Latinity by Quartemontius: from whose chapter 23 I take these things: Paul III, supreme Pontiff, who first confirmed the Society, decreed many things of great moment on its counsel. Among the rest he established at Rome the sacred college of Inquisitors, and into it co-opted four of the order of the Fathers in purple (Cardinals), excelling in authority and prudence, who in that tribunal should preside over the judgments of questions of faith. Julius III never would make Father Peter Canisius bishop of Vienna, even though King Ferdinand of the Romans much demanded it, because it was by no means approved by Ignatius. See what was said in paragraph 39, num. 406. How much he esteemed him is likewise clear from paragraph 41. Concerning Pope Paul IV I spoke in paragraph 49, num. 520; and concerning Pope Marcellus II, in the same place, num. 518; who, how familiarly and yet reverently he used St. Ignatius, when he was a Cardinal; and how much he deferred to him even in the most grave matters of the Synod of Trent and of the Christian commonwealth, is established from the letter of the said praised Cardinal, which I thus render from the Italian, from our Roman documents: Reverend Master Ignatius. You will perhaps marvel that I have detained Master Diego Laínez here longer than you and he would have wished. I have done all to a good end, and for a cause which regards the public utility: because when I had committed to him the province of collecting the errors of the heretics, both concerning the Sacraments, and all the rest, which

are to be condemned in the council on the side of the doctrines;

and since this is a long work, and of long duration, it did not seem good to me to dismiss him before he had either brought it to completion, or to that point at which another could impose an end upon it. Since this matter requires somewhat more time, I ask of you that you take in good and equitable part that security which I receive from Master Jacob and from you. Nevertheless, whenever you shall wish the work to be left unfinished, at your first admonition whatever you shall have written shall be done. May God preserve you in his grace. At Trent, the 5th of February 1547. Yours, M. Cardinal of Santa Croce. Thus he.

[575] Now let us return to Ribadeneira. Gregory XIII, he says, in the briefs ac illustrium personarum — and of illustrious persons written in the year 1582 and 1583 for establishing and defending the Institute of the Society, expressly says that the Holy Spirit put it into Ignatius's mind to constitute the Society, and delivered to him the form of the Institute. He adds this also, that the whole Christian commonwealth is refreshed and recreated through the sons of the same Society. Finally, both Gregory, and those who preceded Gregory, Pius IV and Pius V, extol the labors of the Society with such great praises, and the fruits which God gathered thence, and gathers daily, that modesty counsels that they be passed over in this place. Yet these fruits nevertheless proceeded by divine power from Ignatius as from a root. Let us add to these the letters of so many illustrious persons to the Saint, concerning which in paragraphs 43, 44, 45, and 46, as so many heralds of his merits. Now once again let us follow Ribadeneira.

[576] Fr. Luis of Granada, speaking of him, says that he was struck dumb with admiration, beholding the life, [Ludovici Granatensis, Surii, Molani &c. — of Luis of Granada, Surius, Molanus, etc.] the heroic and admirable virtues of this new mirror of virtues and of prudence, which God in this our time sent for the salvation of infinite men. For these are his words. Likewise many other wise and prudent men feel the same; the same do very many authors of various nations, who wrote their testimony on this matter, and make mention of him as of a Saint. In this number is Fr. Laurence Surius, German by nation, who touched upon the summary of this life. In the same is John Molanus the Belgian, who names him most blessed. In the same is Genebrardus the Frenchman, who affirms him sent by God against Luther. Finally doctor Sander the Englishman, who calls the man divine, and says that he did what he did with God as author and impeller. Thomas Bozius, on account of the sanctity of his life, calls him most illustrious. Paul Morgi (read Morigia) of the Order of the Gestani (read Jesuati), likewise Angelus de Paz of the Minorites, Mambrinus Rosa, all Italian writers, honorably proclaim the life of this blessed Father. The same committed to writing Gonsales Iglesus, master Alfonso Villega, and Stephen Garibai, Spanish writers of our time, and they call him blessed, beatified, and holy. Doctor James Paiva the Portuguese, who as theological doctor for his king was present at the Council of Trent, names him illustrious, an exemplar of sanctity, an admirable man given to mortals by a singular benefit. These things Ribadeneira. Of St. Philip Neri I shall say something in the next paragraph.

[577] Besides, in the hands of all are the things which Orlandinus brought to light. [Laudatur Sanctus in epistola Barnabitarum; — The Saint is praised in a letter of the Barnabites;] And in book 16, num. 124, is brought forth a letter of the Clerks Regular, commonly called Barnabites, on the death of the holy Father, given by them from Milan to Rome on the Kalends of September in the year 1556. A copy of that letter Fr. Ignatius Pinius transcribed for me at Rome: from which I cull the following, expressed in praise of St. Ignatius in these words: "But neither has he altogether departed from us: he lives among all, wherever throughout the whole world the name of Christ extends itself, the sweet and grateful memory of the holy Man, who deserved so well of the Christian commonwealth; under whom as master and leader the faith, religion, and doctrine of Christ were so far propagated that it penetrated even to the antipodes themselves, among whom many thousands of men were converted to the faith, etc." And a little after it is said: "He was a foot to the lame, an eye to the blind, a solace to the poor, and a protection to all the wretched … We in so great a death cease not to offer the sacred Host to God upon the altar: let others scatter purple flowers upon the tomb; these are the lilies of priests, and mysteries more flourishing and lovable to God, for that holy soul, though now, as we believe, enjoying the joy of the blessed life." Thus there. These letters, says the aforementioned Father, when R. P. Laynez had received them on the 14th of September, on the following day he gave a reply, full of religious kindness.

[578] In Orlandinus, ibid., from num. 125, is the summary of a letter, ac Ludovici Stradæ; — and of Luis Strada; written by Luis Strada, a man, as he adds, excellently learned and pious, of the family of St. Bernard, to our companions of Simancas in Spanish, and long afterward turned into Italian, and also brought to light at Rome, as is had from those things which Orlandinus says in the same place. I have in my hands another Italian copy of the same letter, printed at Naples in the year 1605; and since it is noted as written on the 12th of February 1557, from its antiquity a value accrues to it. John III king of Portugal, as Orlandinus, ibid., testifies at num. 129, both often declared how much he attributed to Ignatius, and once, when Julius III the supreme Pontiff had died, he is reported to have said that the Cardinals would do excellently if they should create Ignatius Pontiff.

[579] [Cardinalibus Augustano, a Cueva, ac Ludovisio — To the Cardinals of Augsburg, de Cueva, and Ludovisi] Otto Truchsess, Cardinal of Augsburg, in the book cited, num. 131, besides other things which he is noted to have written at Würzburg, indicated not obscurely how he was affected toward the Saint, when he calls him by the name of our most holy Father. But at num. 132 the letters of Bartholomew de Cueva the Cardinal are brought forth, in which, no otherwise than a son in the loss of a most beloved father snatched from him, he makes mention of the best remembrance of our holy Father Ignatius. And soon he affirms himself bereaved of a singular friend and parent. Add to these that brief word: "Assuredly," he says, "the Christian commonwealth has lost one of the most excellent heads which it had." Louis Cardinal Ludovisi, in a sacred Panegyric delivered in the metropolitan church of Bologna at the dedication of the chapel of St. Ignatius, rendered into Latin and published by the Plantin press in the year 1631, page 40, after he had said that he was not to be separated from the number of the thaumaturges wonder-workers, soon adds: "But I," he says, "would believe Ignatius himself to have been the greatest miracle of all miracles." But there would be no end, if we should wish more laboriously to collect other eulogies in praise of the holy Father. Meanwhile, whoever desires more, let him approach our Christopher Gomez in the Eulogies of the Society, or its Bulwark, constructed from the testimonies of Pontiffs, councils, Cardinals, and prelates, and also of emperors, kings, princes, etc. Theophilus Raynaudus also, ours, in the little work which is entitled "St. Ignatius Loyola, the soul of the world," point 11, collected the honors of the Saint.

[580] And although these things are so, yet "One kind," quidquid obstrepant hæretici. — whatever the heretics may clamor. says Ribadeneira in Quartemontius at the place alleged above, "is hostile and adverse, of those who defected to the enemies of the Church, who lean upon this one thing, to detract from his fame, and even write books in which they accuse both his life and his whole Order. In this number is Simon Lithus of Meissen, most notorious for the filth of the Calvinian sect, who published five books against the other five which we sent forth to the public concerning the life of B. Ignatius. Which books in my opinion avail no less to prove his sanctity than the excellent testimonies concerning his virtue of so many and so great men whom we have mentioned. For as it is of great praise to be praised by the good, so it is of no less to be reviled by the wicked." The idle audacity of that man of Meissen our James Gretser excellently repressed, likewise with five apologetic books written for the Life of St. Ignatius which Ribadeneira published. Meanwhile let this avail here against this man, and others impudent of the same bran and foolish, that word of St. Jerome in epistle 80, marked in the new edition of his works vol. 4, col. 644, to St. Augustine: "Bravo for your virtue! You are celebrated throughout the world; Catholics venerate and look up to you as the restorer once more of the ancient faith; and, which is the sign of greater glory, all the heretics detest you, and pursue me with equal hatred, that those whom they cannot kill with swords, they may kill by their wish." But there is no reason why calumniators of this kind should detain us.

[581] [Elogium S. Ignatii in Bulla canonizationis ejus. — Eulogy of St. Ignatius in the Bull of his canonization.] How much more true and estimable is the eulogy with which the Vicar of Christ on earth, Urban VIII, honors our holy Father in the Bull of his canonization, in which these things are read: "A man truly whom the Lord had chosen beforehand, that he might be the leader of those who should carry his most holy name before the nations and peoples, and lead the infidels to the knowledge of the true faith, and recall the rebellious heretics to its unity, and defend the authority of his Vicar upon earth."

§ LVI. In how great esteem St. Ignatius was held among the Cardinals Gaspar de Quiroga, Francis Mary Taurusius, etc.

The one named again and again in the course of this Commentary, the inspector of our Roman archive for digging out Ignatian notices from thence, [Cardinalis de Quiroga inter homines cum fama sanctitatis mortuos — The Cardinal de Quiroga among the men who died with the fame of sanctity] communicated to me thence the following testimony, which he affirms he corrected from the original Spanish, afterward found by him in the same place. And it runs thus: "Gaspar de Quiroga, by divine mercy presbyter Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Balbina, archbishop of Toledo, primate of the Spains, grand chancellor of Castile, Apostolic inquisitor general against heretical pravity and apostasy in the kingdoms and dominions of his majesty, and his counselor of state and president of the Italian council, etc. To all and each who shall read these our letters, greeting in Christ Jesus our Lord. Since it greatly pertains to the divine glory and to the honor of his servants, and to the edification of the holy Catholic Church, and to the example of all the faithful of Christ, that persons flourishing in eminent virtue and rare and excellent sanctity, whom the same Lord sends into this world that by their exemplary life they may excite and kindle others, be recognized and esteemed:"

[583] "And since among his chief servants, whom it pleased his goodness to give in this our calamitous time to his Church, ponit S. Ignatium, — he places St. Ignatius, which now is so cruelly vexed and assailed by its enemies, infidels and heretics, was B. Father Ignatius de Loyola, founder and venerable parent of the venerable Society of Jesus, who by the example of his holy life, by salutary doctrine and institution, by the propagation and governance of the same his Religion, which in so short a time was diffused through the whole world, brought forth the greatest fruits, both in repressing heretics, and in leading the gentiles to the light of the Gospel, and also in reforming the morals of Catholics, as is manifest to all:"

[584] "Therefore, since we have known the aforesaid B. Father Ignatius, apprime sibi cognitum, — most fully known to him, and have enjoyed his familiarity, and have transacted not a few affairs with the same at Rome (which among other benefits to us

conferred upon us by God, we account as singular:) and therefore his holy life and morals have been known to us; that in this his Servant the divine goodness may be more glorified, by these our letters we declare it to be true, that we knew him, very often transacted business with him, and were joined with the same devout Father Ignatius de Loyola by a close bond of friendship, nor did we ever see in him, or hear anything from his mouth, which was unbecoming to the sanctity and gravity of a perfect and holy man:

[585] "Nay rather we always held the same as a man truly humble, & variis virtutibus insignem. — and distinguished by various virtues. meek, patient, endowed with charity and with zeal for the divine glory and the salvation of souls, a despiser of the world, prudent, magnanimous, and amid all the changes of pleasant and harsh, of prosperous and adverse times, we always saw and observed him (not without great admiration) with the same countenance, and grave gladness, and religious gravity; so that in the composition of his countenance there readily showed itself to be beheld an evenness and peace of mind. Finally, such was he known and held by us, as it was fitting that he should be, whom God had chosen for so great a work as was the institution, propagation, and fruit of his holy Religion. And so we piously believe that his blessed soul has been received into heaven, and enjoys God, and the eternal reward of his temporal and salutary labors. In faith whereof we have given these letters, subscribed by our hand, and fortified with our seal, and registered by our secretary, at Madrid on the sixth day of July 1593. G. Cardinal archbishop of Toledo. And there is subjoined: By mandate of the most illustrious and most reverend Lord, Master Jerome Paul. On the back is impressed the great seal of the same Cardinal archbishop in red Spanish wax. Registered L. 7, fo. 353. Jerome Paul."

From the produced letter are confirmed and illustrated the sayings of Ribadeneira concerning that prelate in book 4, chapter 17; and there are made clear the things which he relates of the same in the little Life, chapter 23.

[586] [Testimonium Cardinalis Taurusii, qui morienti adfuit: — The testimony of Cardinal Taurusius, who was present at his death:] The letter of the most eminent Francis Mary Taurusius concerning the virtues of St. Ignatius is had in Bartoli, book 4, num. 35; which also was sent to me from the Roman archive together with other Ignatian documents under this title: "Copy of the first attestation of the most illustrious Cardinal Taurusius, exhibited on the 14th day of February 1606. James Gianeus notary public." From our copy, however, I take these: "Francis Mary Taurusius, presbyter Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Bartholomew on the Island, by Apostolic dispensation archbishop of Siena, to all and each, etc. The blessed man Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, can indeed have no firmer testimonies of his glory than those which, through the followers of his Institute, the true lights of this age, endowed with every kind of virtues and disciplines, God himself evidently displays. Which he proves from the propagation of the Catholic faith, the conversion of heretics, and the reformation of Christian morals, with God as leader, and Ignatius bearing before them the standards of the eternal kingdom, and supplying courage and strength, and also the defenses of arms." And then he thus continues: "We indeed, to whom by the special gift of God it was granted to have known him while still dwelling in this workhouse of the flesh, and to accompany with prayers and vows his soul, loosed from it and migrating hence into the eternal tabernacles, to be, as we certainly believe, immediately received, since we were then present in his very chamber, have always so venerated his name and eminent sanctity, etc. Given at Rome on the day before the Kalends of September 1600. I, Francis Mary Cardinal and archbishop of Siena, affirm. John Tanius secretary."

[587] [item Cardinalis Otho Truchses, & alii Ignatium maximi faciebant. — likewise Cardinal Otto Truchsess, and others made the most of Ignatius.] To these two purpled Fathers let there be added Otto Truchsess, mentioned in paragraph 54; concerning whom the letters of Manareus, cited above in §51 toward the end, thus teach: "As to externals," he says, "I saw Cardinal Otto Truchsess, while he lived, coming to his domestic chapel, to pray or to celebrate, thinking that the sanctity of the Man conferred something of virtue upon the place; after his death I saw Cardinal Hosius likewise coming, to celebrate in the same place, on account of the memory of the holy Man, who was wont to pray and celebrate there. I heard very many others speaking of him as of a holy Man, among others master Virgil Crescentius, D. Philip Neri, prefect of the Oratory of St. Jerome, and others whose names have slipped from me." Upon the word "prefect," the said Fr. Ignatius Pinius notes that St. Philip Neri died in the Oratory of St. Mary in Vallicella; that besides there is at Rome another Oratory (in which St. Philip had earlier dwelt) which is called of St. Jerome, because it has a temple dedicated to St. Jerome. Its prefect, he says, Manareus distinguishes from St. Philip.

[588] But on the occasion just now offered from that which was said of St. Philip Neri, inter quos Philippus Nerius. — among whom Philip Neri. I produce some singular saying from a document which, among others, the praised Fr. Ignatius inserted into his Roman Spicilegium. From the Italian I thus render it: "Fr. Gabriel Venustus, professed of the Society of Jesus, a very good Religious, rector of several colleges, and at last in the Roman college prefect of spiritual matters, easily twice narrated to me that, while he was in the Roman seminary prefect of a certain chamber, and had gone with our father Rubino to the new church, to see a certain picture very recently exposed, St. Philip met him, and asked what they were. They answered him: Of the Society of Jesus. The Blessed one subjoined: You are the sons of a great Father; I am bound to him; master Ignatius taught me to make mental prayer. This is the whole of what Fr. Venustus narrated to me; which that I heard from himself, I make faith by these things written with my hand. Famianus Strada." The aforesaid collector of Ignatian notices observes these things concerning the new church: "Thus is called the temple built by St. Philip Neri, where before was the temple of St. Mary in Vallicella. See the Acts of the Saints, volume VI of May, page 547; and page 593 the little addition." That St. Philip Neri erected the new church in place of the temple of St. Mary in Vallicella, Peter James Baccius testifies in the Life of the same Saint, published in Italian at Verona 1624, book 1, chapter 13.

§ LVIII. The conformation of countenance and body, dress, afflicted health; effigy, writings.

Those who applied their mind to writing down the deeds of St. Ignatius took especial care to represent, as far as they could, in genuine lineaments, the habit of his mouth and countenance, Externa corporis habitudo, — The external habit of the body, and the external conformation and stature of his body. Ribadeneira above all handles this matter in book 4, chapter 18, in the briefer Life dispatching it in the same place, according to his design there, in fewer words. Brief also on this subject is Maffei in book 3, chapter 15, with which he puts the crown upon the Life of the holy Father. As to the stature of his body, the said Ribadeneira in the book and chapter cited thus writes: "His stature was moderate, or rather short." In Quartemontius in the briefer Life these things are handed down: "He was of middling stature." But lest the things which here are said of "middling," there of "moderate or rather short" stature, should present as doubtful or obscure what is certain and clear; at hand is the measure of the stature of our Saint, communicated to me together with the notices of the Roman Spicilegium by Fr. Ignatius Pinius, in these words: "This whole silken thread, expanded exactly in a straight line, but not stretched, equals the height of the reed which is kept here in the sacristy of the domestic chapels, once the closets of St. Ignatius, as the measure of the height of the same Saint. Further, that line, which you see inserted, contrary to custom, in the space between the columns of this printed page, equals a sixth part of the said silken thread; which being multiplied six times, it will be easy for anyone to come to the knowledge of the height of the whole body."

[590] vultus majestas. — the majesty of his countenance. That the holy Man was of a pleasing aspect and full of dignity, that I may speak with Maffei, book 3, chapter 15, we have received; with Bartoli, book 4, num. 32, adding that Eleutherius Pontanus, long known to the Saint, writes that by his sole presence he composed the bystanders to gravity and modesty; and that some, conscious to themselves of some fault, could not endure his presence, nor dared to behold his countenance; not to say anything of his most lively and acutely penetrating eyes, of a most ardent temperament of nature, but so subdued by the command of virtue, and so alien from all demonstration of ardor, that the physicians rather judged it phlegmatic. Let us say the thing as it is: so did he know how to render all the motions of nature obedient to reason, that he seemed to consist of every tempering of disposition, and of none; for since no affection commanded him, all obeyed.

[591] [Alia quædam his superaddita de egressu e domo, — Certain other things added to these concerning his going out of the house,] Some things, mingled among the Lancician questions and the Velatian answers, of which presently at num. 596, concerning the external habit and dress of the holy Parent, pertain here; where, to the second: "Was he very gray, and of what sort were the hairs he had more, black or gray?" Velatus replies: "His beard was gray here and there, and not entirely." To the third: "When he went abroad, did he wear a cloak, or a garment such as the scholars now use at Rome, made in the French manner?" Velatus replies: "When he went out, he wore a cloak." To the fourteenth: "Since in a certain letter of your Reverence I have read that, while on some occasion Fr. Ignatius was being carried back from the palace on a mule, he returned through the Trastevere square; I should like to know whether he did this often, and whether out of humility, lest he be seen by men, or that he might flee the crowd?" Velatus replies: "This he did when he had to deal with the Pontiff; and that he might be less seen, he was carried on a mule." "When," I say, "he had to deal with the Pontiff": understand, as Fr. Ignatius Pinius rightly here observes, also "and when the Pope was staying in the Vatican palace at St. Peter's": for the palace at St. Mark was near to our house. Moreover, the Vatican palace is distant half an hour from our house; and very many young Religious, not half an hour distant thence, are carried thither in a carriage. Why then not old Ignatius on a mule?

[592] [vestitu, & afflicta habitualiter valetudine; — his dress, and habitually afflicted health;] The questions of the same father Lancicius, which he proposed to Fr. Ribadeneira in the original letters given at Rome on the 26th day of June in the year 1597 to Madrid; and the Answers of the praised Fr. Ribadeneira, written in the margin of the same letters; which both are set down in Latin from the Roman archive, the transcriber being Fr. Ignatius Pinius; those documents, I say, concerning the dress of St. Ignatius, to the eleventh question: "How was he dressed, that is, what else besides a cassock did he wear; what sort of shirt or breast-cloth did he have, and of what color?" have these things: "He wore a linen shirt, and a jerkin now single, now double according to the season. But because he frequently and vehemently suffered in his stomach, he warmed his stomach with skins and other cloths, which the physicians falsely suspected to be weak from excessive cold; but after thirty-three years (of the disease or pain, it seems must be understood) it was at last recognized that heat

was the cause of the disease, not cold. And so he rejected the furs and the other coverings, applied to warm the stomach; and he fared better. Orlandini, book 16, num. 93. Not age only, now grave, he says, long-lasting hardship, most severe discipline, but even the perverse treatment of his assiduous languor had worn him down; which for nearly thirty years had been applied contrary to necessity, as had recently been discovered, the physicians being intent on warming the stomach, when they ought to have cooled the liver.

[593] Nor indeed did one disease alone weaken the Saint's health; so much so, that in the canonical Hours as is clear from the physician's prescription for guarding it, which I have before me among the papers received from Rome, and from which I extract a few things translated from the Spanish: Your Paternity is somewhat subject to catarrh, and it is to be feared lest you be more subject to it hereafter, on account of age and inward occupations. Nor is it a matter of small moment to preserve oneself from this infirmity; as he there proves. Then he explains the causes of catarrh, that he may guard against them, and the remedies. From what has been said it is clear that there was a great soul in the sick body of the holy Father. But how far the state of his weakened health went, he will easily see who shall consider that, on account of bodily debility, the Saint was dispensed by the Apostolic See in the recitation of the canonical Office: of which matter behold for you the instrument from our Roman archive, and transcribed from the autograph copy itself: I, Francesco Vannuzzi of Rome, almoner of our most holy Lord Pope Paul III, and canon of the basilica of Blessed Mary in Fonte Olei (Santa Maria in Trastevere) of the Trastevere region, give assurance, that, it having been received by the aforesaid our most holy Lord the Pope, that the venerable Ignatius de Loyola and Diego de Eguía, both Spanish priests of the diocese of Pamplona, on account of various labors undergone for Christ, Ignatius namely of the body and especially of the stomach, Diego indeed also of the eyes, incurred such grave and assiduous pains and sicknesses, that they can with difficulty and with great loss of time read the canonical Hours from the book;

[594] To the same Ignatius and Diego, that they may be permitted to say and recite the same canonical Hours, and the divine Office, both daily and nightly, it was dispensed with him by the Apostolic See. according to the manner and custom of the Roman Church even newly introduced, even by putting before and after, or to omit them and it altogether, and by no means to say and recite them, and in place of the same Hours and the divine Office of this kind, unless their corporal or spiritual frailty and debility impede it, or as they shall have seen in the Lord more salubriously expedient (concerning which he burdened their conscience), to say and recite other prayers, which need not be repeated from the book, or to hear confessions, or to exhort the faithful of Christ, or to do some other works more fruitful and salubrious for themselves and for the same faithful, without scruple of conscience freely and licitly they may and can — this, by an oracle of the living voice made to me, he granted, and gave them license and faculty thereto by Apostolic authority. In faith whereof, by the mandate of the same our most holy Lord, I have subscribed these presents, and caused them to be fortified with the accustomed seal of the mentioned basilica. Given at Rome in the houses of my usual residence, in the year from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 1539, on the second day of the month of January, in the fifth year of the pontificate of the aforesaid most Holy Father. I, the same Francesco Vannuzzi, have subscribed with my own hand, and sealed. That on the back was written in the hand of St. Ignatius, licencia de Iñigo para el Oficio canónico (that is, license of Ignatius for the canonical Office), the transcriber of this instrument notes; concerning whom I have spoken elsewhere often.

[595] In vain would anyone labor to obtain anywhere an image of the Saint painted or fashioned so artfully and happily that it should represent him perfectly, and to the life, as they say; on the testimony of Ribadeneira in the place cited above: where he also adds the cause, and his own judgment, which of all those that are in circulation comes nearest to the true one. There is no effigy which represents the Saint perfectly: Bartoli assigns that one which Alessandro Crivelli of Milan, who afterward was adorned with the sacred purple, by the stealthy work of a painter, ordered to be drawn from him, while he conversed familiarly with him in the meantime, and was plainly ignorant of the pious fraud. He adds that at Rome we have the work of Jacopino del Conte, an excellent painter, taken indeed from the face of the dead man, but perfected from the image of the living one, which that painter held impressed on his mind, because he was wont to lay down his sins with him, and to see him often. This is held the most genuine of all, both because it is the last, and because it was expressed by the pencil of a learned hand. Thus he there.

[596] which of all comes nearest to the likeness, Maffei, book 3, chapter 15, says: An effigy of him is in circulation, not much to the life, as his familiars affirm; since it was only from the face of the dead man that the modelers expressed the image in plaster; because he himself, while he lived, although wearied by the prayers of many, suffered himself neither to be painted nor to be fashioned. In our Roman transcript, which contains the Queries of Father Lancicius from autograph letters, given at Rome on the 8th of April 1598 to Father Giovanni Battista Velati, at Milan; and also the Answers of Father Giovanni Battista Velati, written by his own hand in the margin of the letters of Father Lancicius; in which transcript, to this first query of Lancicius: Which image is most like Blessed Father Ignatius: and whether that one from plaster, made after his death, and, as is said, painted by your Reverence, is truer than all those which are in circulation painted in colors: Father Giovanni Battista answers: This one from plaster, before all: and of the colored ones, that which our Father General has in his chamber.

[597] as the more genuine. Moreover, concerning this image, among the positions and articles, proposed by the agency of Father Lorenzo de Paulis, procurator general of the Society of Jesus, and the consortium, in the cause of the canonization of our holy Father, under the title Of the opinion of sanctity, it is said: That after the death of St. Ignatius, before his body was buried, the painters, who were then in the City (Rome), made and took an effigy or image, commonly called ritratto, which is in the professed house of Rome of the same Society, and is kept with the aforesaid reverend Father General of the same Society (mention had been made before of Claudio Acquaviva). From that image or ritratto very many other images were painted at the instance of princely men, and nobles, and others. We suspect that one to have been formed to the prototype of the aforesaid image which our most reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva transmitted to the reverend Father Oliverio Manare, concerning which we shall now treat.

[598] Which one is here given. In the catalog of relics and documents which are kept in the chamber of the reverend Father Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Louvain, written most kindly for our use by the hand of the reverend Father Bernard van den Haute, who at that time presided over that college, the following are noted: An effigy of St. Father Ignatius, on the back of which is written in our vernacular tongue, which we thus turn into Latin: This little image was sent in the year 1612 by the reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva to the reverend Father Oliverio Manare, asking his judgment whether it rightly represented our blessed Father Ignatius. To which he answered that he had never seen one that better represented him than that. Which I, Jacobus van den Steen, then companion of the same Father Oliverio, attest. And presently there follows in the said catalog: This effigy the said Father Oliverio gave as a gift to that brother Jacobus, who died at Louvain, and whose elogium is had in the History of the college of Louvain, at the year 1651 at the end. Consult the things to be said below from the testimony of the same Father Oliverio: where he reports certain curious things on this subject. Moreover, this image, painted with the pencil, we have caused to be engraved in copper with the graver, in imitation of its prototype; adding on that occasion the ornament which surrounds the effigy of the Saint; as may be seen in the plate which is here represented. Here it is.

Effigy of ST. IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA

[599] But the loss is more easily borne, that the true lines of the mouth and of the whole countenance of the holy Father, The image of Ignatius shines forth in the little book of the Exercises. and the living characters of the same, the art of painting could not bring to a living and perfect imitation; since he himself in a manner painted for us his own image, most like the prototype, in his writings, in which, no otherwise than in a certain painting, the singular endowments of his nature and grace, and, to say it in a word, the whole Ignatius, shines forth. Orlandini, book 16, num. 101, says: Let him who wishes to esteem Ignatius know the spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions left by him. Those are the form of Ignatius: these the image. From the former, in the latter his virtue is expressed: in both are described the ways and the marked footsteps, by which he ascended to the loftiest summit of perfection. Concerning the book of the spiritual Exercises I have said very much above, in paragraph 5 and following. The holy Father composed it indeed in Spanish, but Father André des Freux (Frusius) endowed it with Latinity; as we have from the Library of the writers of the Society of Jesus, page 1; who in the year 1556, the same in which St. Ignatius departed from the living, closed the last day of his life and of his rectorship of the German college; see Orlandini, book 16, from num. 89, in whom, at num. 90, you will find the man's elogium.

§ LVIII. Certain other writings of St. Ignatius.

It shines forth likewise in the Constitutions He wrote also, says Ribadeneira just cited, the book of the Constitutions, distributed into ten parts, in which he gives laws to the Society, and prescribes a most complete form of government, with such great spirit, such great gravity of sentences, weight of words, order, comprehension, that it seems not human doctrine, but divinely infused. This book Giovanni Polanco made Latin from the Spanish of the holy Father; as you may see in the cited Library: where also the very Declarations of the Constitutions are asserted to St. Ignatius, as their true author, against some who thought that they were composed by Diego Laínez, according to those things which are there said. But although we have already beforehand said very much in praise of the Constitutions, and have vindicated their composition to the holy Father, yet let it be permitted us from the same Library, page 2, to add these things to them for the fuller praise of that book.

[601] rigidly examined, and approved by Apostolic judgment. Certainly, when Paul IV, supreme Pontiff, to whom it had for a long time seemed not altogether approved, had given it to be reviewed and judged to two Cardinals, of Trani and of Reggio, and then also Alessandrino and Moniliano being adjoined: who all were most wise men, of diverse Orders, from the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Regular Clerics; and, what is the chief point, forestalled by the calumnies of those who were thought to have all things intimately known, yet it was rendered wholly unimpaired. For indeed it is worthy of admiration that the holy Patriarch conceived, and prescribed to his Order in these Constitutions, those things which, because they departed from the norm of other Orders, seemed to some most grave men little firm and consonant with sincere theology, and on that account were long and much assailed; but

at last by Apostolic sentence they were ratified and confirmed, and the opposing opinions subjected to censure. So that not rashly did a certain one of the more recent writers write that St. Ignatius is deservedly to be numbered among the eminent doctors on account of these books, inasmuch as he, taught by God theodidactus, wrote them, filled with so profound and approved a doctrine, that all and each of the things contained in it have been declared by Apostolic judgment as pious and holy. Certainly three supreme Pontiffs, namely Gregory XIII, Gregory XIV, and Paul V, after the examination of the Constitutions so often repeated, confirmed and approved them all, as if each and every one had been inserted word for word into their Bulls.

[602] [Item in epistola de religiosa obedientia, — Likewise in the letter on religious obedience,] Now let us review the Catalogue of Ribadeneira: "He wrote besides," he says, "a letter on religious obedience, to the companions and sons of Portugal, so perfect, and completed in all its numbers, that it is as it were the model of all the precepts which are handed down concerning obedience. This the holy Man gave from Rome on the 7th of the Kalends of April 1553." The same author in the Life of St. Ignatius, book 5, chapter 4, calls it admirable and divine. But how excellently dear and precious St. Francis Borgia held this golden monument, he wished openly to profess in his letter which is "On the means of preserving the spirit of the Society," whence we excerpt these things at num. 9: "As to what pertains to the virtue of obedience (to which the Society refers all things, as to its goal and standard, and which is its chief tower), although some things perhaps were to be said, yet because our B. Father wrote a letter about it, not only useful, but worthy of all admiration—inasmuch as nothing can be either added to it or taken from it—I refer you to it, with this one word of the Gospel: Do this and thou shalt live. For this we can promise ourselves in the Lord will be, that if we shall have performed the things which are contained in it, we shall be named, and shall be, sons of perfect obedience."

[603] But although these things are so, there was nevertheless found at one time a certain spurious son of the holy Father and of the Society, [a spurio quodam Societatis filio oppugnata — assailed by a certain spurious son of the Society] Julian Vincent by name, carried away by such intemperance that, with a plainly foolish and rash attempt, he dared publicly to impugn this most holy letter, and to carry propositions excerpted from it to the Pontiff, with a malicious interpretation added, as though by them not only false but even heretical doctrines were sanctioned. Of this ill-counseling accuser, and the tumults thence arisen, it is written in the History of the Society of Jesus, part 5, vol. 1, book 8, at the year 1588; where at num. 8 you have these things: "This was the sum. From blind obedience, by which inferiors are commanded to obey the mandates of Superiors simply, and without inquisition, as the voice of the Lord, considering Christ himself in the one commanding, he wished by calumny to make it out to be foolish, that one must obey even if errors and crimes were imposed; or certainly that authority was attributed to the presidents of the Society which is only in the supreme Pontiff, that whatever they decree or command, they cannot err." Further, of the things which followed this scene, and its catastrophe, and also of the fall of Julian Vincent, his casting into prison, and the death met there, the cited History treats.

[604] Another letter of the holy Father, to ours dwelling at Coimbra, which is noted as given to the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of Jesus who are in Spain, [Alia Sancti epistola; regulæ modestiæ: — Another letter of the Saint; the rules of modesty:] "On religious perfection," we have among the Letters of the Prepositi General. Of the Rules of modesty what shall I mention? For indeed how much their composition cost our holy Founder is clear from Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 1, where he narrates the matter which he had heard from the mouth of the Saint himself. Most worthy of note to these is that marvelous event which happened in their promulgation, and in the exhortation delivered to ours concerning their observance; as we have in the same place from the same author. Orlandinus besides can be consulted at the year 1554 of the History of the Society, book 14, from num. 8.

[605] In Ribadeneira and Maffei, book 1, chapter 7, [liber de SS. Trinitate, aliæque epistolæ — a book on the Most Holy Trinity, and other letters] occurs a book on the most holy Trinity; of which Orlandinus, book 1, num. 27, also makes mention. Brief is that notice in the Library of writers of our Society, page 2: "He wrote … a notable treatise on the most holy Trinity in the very first rudiments of his better life, unlettered; which whoever may have grudged us, or by whose fault it perished, I cannot say." Nor was it of small labor: for Ribadeneira in the little Life in Quartemontius, chapter 16, says that he undertook to write a little book on this matter of nearly eighty pages. The letter to Emmanuel Miona, by which the spiritual Exercises are commended, is extant in Orlandinus, book 2, num. 132. To Ferdinand king of the Romans, that he should not bring honors upon the Society; ibid., book 6, num. 34. To Isabella Rosel or Roser, concerning the abdication of directing her conscience, etc., in Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 14. To a certain religious most hostile to the Society, in which he wishes him to burn with charity, in the same, book 5, chapter 2. To the Fathers gathered at Rome, on abdicating the supreme magistracy of the Society; in the same place, toward the beginning of book 4. To these add another to Francis Borgia on entering the Society of Jesus, in Francis Garcia, book 4, chapter 15. Maffei, book 3, chapter 10, produces part of a letter given to the Preposit of the province of Portugal, from which it is clear that the Saint was not accustomed maliciously to impart to his inferior prefects each his own right and power, etc.

[606] [inter quas est una ad Æthiopiæ regem. — among which is one to the king of Ethiopia.] There is besides extant another letter of the holy Man, inscribed to Claudius king of Ethiopia; in which, on the occasion of the patriarch whom together with other companions he sends to him, he treats of the unity of the Catholic Church, of the primacy of Peter and his successors, eminent over all and each of the churches of all lands. This, signed on the 7th of the Kalends of March in the year 1555, Maffei exhibits in his Indian Histories, book 16, and Orlandinus, book 15, num. 105; whose documents may the sons of iniquity of these times, who obstinately and stubbornly cease not to move war against the Apostolic sanctions, deeply engrave in their mind!

§ LIX. A brief Chronicle, from the year 1521 up to 1543; then further continued up to the Saint's death.

Among our Roman documents, of which so frequent memory is repeated in the course of the present Commentary, Chronicon illud — That Chronicle I found this Chronicle; in procuring which for us the investigator of our Roman archive, well known from the foregoing, lent his choice, and also in transcribing the same his hand, and in illustrating it here and there with little notes his industry. It will serve for a compendious idea of the things done by Ignatius and his offspring in that interval of times, both for that and for the order of the years to which they ought to be bound; with some help in both respects for the Saint's Life, and for our Commentary, which has hitherto illustrated it; as will become plain from the copy of that Chronicle, which I subjoin. The years which are vacant in it, supply from Orlandinus, or from Rho, question 13 among the Apologetics.

In the year 1521 Fr. Ignatius, in the 26th year of his age (nay rather the thirtieth), in the defense of the citadel of Pamplona, one leg being broken, was gravely wounded in the other. From which wounds, as he lay abed, he was so moved by the reading of pious books that, the pomps of the world and profane warfare being abandoned, he resolved to serve God.

1522. On the feast of the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin at Montserrat, after a general confession of his whole life, and the reception of the Lord's body, he took the habit of a pilgrim. Thence, having set out for Manresa, he devoted himself for nearly a whole year to the gravest works of penance and to spiritual exercises.

1523. He sets out for Jerusalem; where he most religiously visited the Lord's sepulcher, the place of the passion, Mount Olivet, and other holy places.

1524. He returns in the middle of January, and when he had arrived at Venice, thence he hastened to Barcelona. There for two years he gave his effort to letters.

1526. He came to Alcalá, to apply himself to the studies of philosophy. There, having been several times troubled by the vicar of the archbishop of Toledo, he is at last handed over to prison. Detained for 42 days, no crime being discovered, he is dismissed, his life and doctrine being of course approved. At Alcalá he lived for the space of a year and a half.

1527. He goes away to Salamanca toward the end of this year: but after 10 or 12 days from his coming he was cast into chains; and, 22 days having been passed in prison, he was dismissed with the same testimony.

1528, 1529, 1530, 1531, 1532, 1533, 1534, 1535. He came to Paris for the sake of studies in the year 1528 about the month of February. There indeed, not without great troubles and persecutions, he gave sedulous effort first to grammar anew, then to philosophy, and at last to the study of theology: his first companions being sought out through the spiritual Exercises.

1535. He departs from Paris; about to set out for his native land for the sake of recovering his health, by the counsel and exhortation of the physicians and of his companions.

1536. (nay rather 1535) After sermons and other pious works which he had exercised in his native land, he set out on a journey to Venice.

[608] ad annum usque — up to the year 1537. Nine companions come to Venice at the beginning of this year: thence they set out for Rome. From Rome they return again to Venice, that they may sail to Jerusalem. But since they had no opportunity of sailing, they betook themselves to the neighboring cities, where they lived with great fruit of souls, awaiting meanwhile for a whole year, if any occasion of sailing should offer itself.

1538. They go away to Rome, that they may offer themselves and their service to the Pontiff. There, among not a few works of rare piety, they do not escape the detractions of malevolent men, and the troubles by which they were exercised.

1539. In various offices of piety, sermons, and lectures, partly at Rome, partly in other provinces to which they were sent by the Pontiff, they exercised themselves.

1540. On the fifth of the Kalends of October the first approbation of the Institute of the Society was made by Paul III, supreme Pontiff: to make which he could not be brought before Cardinal Guidiccioni (who was the chief adversary of the multitude of Religious Orders) had approved it. He at the beginning altogether refused: gradually, however, God the best and greatest so bending his mind and will, on account of the multitude of prayers and Sacrifices which were made to that end, he not only most willingly approved, but also extolled it with the highest praises. The Pontiff, however, would not have the number of the professed exceed sixty.

1541. Fr. Ignatius is elected General Preposit, the suffrages concurring in him twice or thrice. In the same year all (that is, both the Preposit and the subjects) made their profession.

[609] 1543 pertextum, — carried on to 1543, 1543. The first house of the Society was built at Rome. In the same year the second approbation of the Society was made by the same Paul III on the day before the Ides of March, and he permitted that as many as wished should be admitted into the body of the Society and the number of the professed (let us say more clearly: that as many as the General wished, he might admit). From that time the Society took great increase, and was propagated far and wide.

That the Chronicle, or aforesaid writing, here ceases, the above-praised investigator of the Roman archive affirms: that there is nevertheless added to it a continuation from the year 1546, under this title: "Part of the Chronicle of the Society;" which he affirms was written by the hand of father Natalis,

and that also this part was polished by his hand; and that he excerpts the chief things, which I subjoin:

1546. Dispatch of the Bull of the Coadjutors. Laynez, Salmeron, and Claudius sent to Trent. Faber, called to Rome that he might go to Trent, dies on the first of August. The Exercises and vows of Fr. Francis (Borgia). The tribulation of Mathias begun. Domenech sent to Bologna, James l'Hostius to Sicily: the strictness of obedience noted, especially of the understanding. Concerning which below, §69; which here, according to what is to be said there, seems to be placed by anticipation.

1547. Fr. Polancus secretary of the Society. Fr. Ignatius begins seriously to compose the Constitutions. Great occupation in the tribulation of Mathias. (see above §38.) The tribulation of Barberanus was joined to it. Labor was spent that the bishopric of Trieste should not be accepted. Fr. Ignatius helped that the Inquisition should be constituted in Portugal, and dispatched at Rome. The tribulations of Mathias, of Barberanus, and of the bishopric came out prosperously.

The Society freed from the care of nuns. An oracle of living voice through Durantus for the Exercises. At Rome Fr. Ignatius prohibited public mortifications, of which the author was Fr. James Eguia with Ferronius, who had been secretary before Polancus came. The Father receives into the Society doctor Torrius, and sends him into Spain. Here [is] the first division of provinces. In Portugal M. Simon provincial: in the rest of Spain Fr. Araoz.

1548. The profession of Fr. Francis (Borgia) on the first of February. A tribulation stirred up against ours at Salamanca through Cano: this was quieted through the sermons of Strada. Those who were professed in Italy give their suffrage to Father Ignatius for the Constitutions. Great knowledge and esteem of the Society in the Council of Trent through ours. The Exercises, confirmed by Apostolic authority, given to Latinity, and printed.

1549. Ours sent to the island of Ormuz, situated in the Persian gulf. Fr. Antony Criminalis is killed for the faith by the infidels in India. In all these and the following years in India there is great fruit, signs also through healings, destruction of idols, many are received into the Society, etc. Fr. Laynez was sent into Sicily by Cardinal Farnese for the reformation of a certain monastery. Father Canisius was sent from Sicily to Rome, thence to Bologna to the council, afterward into Germany.

[610] continuatur — it is continued 1550. The professed who could conveniently come are convoked by Fr. Ignatius. There came to Rome Fr. Francis (Borgia), still in the habit of a duke, with his household, although he was professed by dispensation of the Pontiff, and with him Fr. Araoz, Fr. Oviedo, etc. (At the beginning of the following year master Simon came to Rome.) At Rome were, with Fr. Ignatius, Fr. Laynez, Fr. Salmeron, Fr. Miona, Fr. Frusius, Fr. Polancus. Other fathers besides assembled. Fr. Ignatius resigned his office, letters written by his own hand being given to the fathers present. All most constantly interceded that he should stay, except Fr. Andrew of Oviedo, who with great simplicity of mind said that it seemed to him that Father Ignatius was not fit to bear the office of General. "For the Saint," he said, "the man, said he was not fit: that is to be believed."

Fr. Ignatius showed to the same fathers the Constitutions written by him, that they might note if anything seemed amiss. Master Laynez goes to the African war with John Vega, and excellently discharges the ministries of the Society: he returns to Rome, Aphrodisium being stormed. The archbishop of Toledo, Siliceus, persecutes the Society in his diocese, and by public edicts forbids that ours be received. M. Francis (Xavier) sailed to Japan (in the year 1549); where the first men were made Christians through him. Six churches being founded, etc., he returned after a triennium into India.

1551. Fr. Francis (Borgia) departed with his own from Rome, moneys being left for the foundation of the Roman college, which this year was begun, schools of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongue being opened. Fr. Francis put off secular dress, becomes a priest, and withdraws into Cantabria, preaches, begs, with great edification and fruit of all: makes the beginning of the college of Oñate. M. Laynez sent to Genoa. The Neapolitan college begun through M. Salmeron and M. Oviedo. At Ingolstadt teach with great celebrity Fr. Salmeron, Fr. Canisius, and Fr. Goudanus. The accusation of master John de Mercato, and the action against him. M. Laynez becomes Provincial of Italy.

[611] 1552. The German college at Rome has its beginning, usque ad annum — up to the year Cardinal Morone acting, Julius III commanding. M. Francis sails to China: before he could enter which, he dies on the nearest island, and his body remained incorrupt. Fr. Ignatius was said to have called him to the office of General Preposit. At Vienna in Austria dies Jaius, a man etc. That Fr. Francis (Borgia) should not be created Cardinal, he himself and Fr. Ignatius took care. For he was in that danger, because he had been designated by Charles V. John de Mercato is condemned by a wonderful judgment, to the great favor of the Society.

1554. Fr. Natalis divided Spain by a special commission of Fr. Ignatius into four provinces, Portugal, Castile, Baetica, and Aragon. Adversaries are stirred up in Spain against the Exercises. They report them to the Inquisitors; the matter nevertheless vanishes. Fr. Paschasius the first Provincial of France. Fr. John Nunnius, who had lived with great fruit at Tetuan in Africa, is designated patriarch of Ethiopia, Fr. Oviedo and Fr. Carnerius bishops, with ten (nine in Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 13) other companions. The King of the Romans contends with Julius III that Canisius be created bishop of Vienna: Fr. Ignatius and Fr. Canisius striving against it: at last the King, persuaded, desists. A decree of the Faculty of theology of Paris against the Society on the first day of December.

1555. Fr. Ribadeneira is sent to the court of Philip the Catholic king, where he was nearly a year; he transacted concerning the license of founding colleges in Flanders*. He preached at Louvain in Latin with the admiration and fruit of all, with such celebrity as some years before Strada had preached there. There are named by Julius III as bishops Fr. Nunnius, Fr. Oviedo, Fr. Carnerius, absent, with the full consent of the Cardinals, and great edification, that the Society accepts only those bishoprics where there is only good work, not also honor or revenue. Master Salmeron is sent by the supreme Pontiff into Poland: he returns with the Apostolic Nuncio the bishop of Verona. Father Canisius becomes Provincial of Germany.

[612] 1556. The patriarch of Ethiopia sails into India, and bishop Oviedo (Carnerius had preceded the year before). 1556, quo Sanctus obiit. — 1556, in which the Saint died. Our Father Ignatius migrates to the Lord on the last day of July; after whose death it was observed that an alacrity of spirit was everywhere stirred up in all ours, after a little stupor and grief at the first news.

Thus far that Chronicle: concerning which, at the year 1550, Fr. Ignatius Pinius observes these things: Although the convocation and arrival of many happened this year, the letters nevertheless to those present were given on the 30th of January 1551 (as is clear from the autograph, here, he says, appended); and that is had in this very part of the Chronicle at the year 1551: but it is deleted; I believe, because it had been said by anticipation at this year 1550. Of the copy of this letter, sent to us from Rome, I have spoken above in paragraph 42, num. 438.

* that is, Belgium, in the Roman signification.

§ LX. On the virtues of St. Ignatius; and first on prayer.

[Virtutes Sancti sub uno aspectu positæ melius elucescunt. — The virtues of the Saint, placed under one view, shine forth better.] Ribadeneira in book 5 collects the virtues of the Saint, exhibited under one, so to speak, view. "For although," he says in his Preface to the said book, "in those things which have been explained by us concerning Ignatius, the marks of all his virtues stand out, and the light of a most approved and most upright mind shines forth: yet sometimes the very right deeds are obscured by the narration of other matters; and though they appear most of all, being implicated and joined with others, they less delight and move, and teach the truest method of acting, than when they are viewed separately, and excite the reader not only by their weight, but also by their number." The author's plan pleases. But when he subjoins: "Nor yet shall I pursue all things which are known to me, but shall excerpt a few certain things from many, which will seem either more illustrious, or more suitable for example;" he has left us room for a further supplement to the present subject. And first indeed let it be said of prayer.

[614] [Solidam in suis requirebat devotionem non extraordinariam: — He required in his own a solid devotion, not an extraordinary one:] In book 5, chapter 1 of the Spanish Life printed at Madrid in the year 1594, Ribadeneira adds these things; which we thus render into Latin from the Spanish: "He greatly desired and busied himself that ours should place all their care and study in the continual exercise of devotion and of familiarity with God, all curiosity, desire, and esteem of visions, raptures, excesses of mind, and revelations being cut off, which often deceive and disquiet light and weak hearts. When the Lord bestows them, they are to be accepted with fear, humility, thanksgiving, and prudence, never to be desired or sought after: nay rather, by the counsel of the Saints and spiritual masters, always, as far as it lies in us, to be fled, and to be held as suspect: and care is to be taken that in our soul solid virtues take root, which adorn, illustrate, and beautify it, and render it acceptable in the eyes of God." And thus the Father was ever speaking of that continual study of virtues, and also of prayer and mortification: and he rarely made mention of vision, revelation, or a thing of this kind.

[615] [tametsi ipse singularibus prærogativis esset ornatus. — although he himself was adorned with singular prerogatives.] Which moves the greater admiration in those who consider how much this holy Father was illuminated and visited by the Lord, from the time he began to serve him, up to the term of his life: and what visions and revelations he had, etc. And nevertheless we rarely heard that in his speech, nay even in his mouth, there was revelation, vision, or a thing of the same kind; but there was humility, charity, patience, self-contempt, zeal for the glory of God, labor for the good of souls, prayer, mortification, and other virtues of this sort. The holy Man therefore wished prayer solid, and productive of great things.

[616] [Ad celebrandam Missam diligenter se comparat; — He diligently prepares himself for celebrating Mass;] The spirit of prayer shone forth greatly in Ignatius when he celebrated Mass. "Let him who reads that little book (the discourse is of the Saint's ephemeris or diary, of which we treat elsewhere) more attentively," says Maffei, book 3, chapter 1, "clearly perceive with what preparation, with what spirit he was wont to approach the Sacrament of the altar." Among the Questions which Nicholas Lancicius proposed to father Ribadeneira, of which above num. 592, the fourth runs thus: "How long did his Mass last, and how long did he prepare himself for saying it, and how long after Mass did he give thanks; and whether in saying Mass sighs, or some peculiar sign of devotion appeared in him beyond the rest." Ribadeneira replies: "The preparation for Mass was always great. It lasted nearly for an hour, when he celebrated privately; when in public, he accommodated himself to the hearers. The thanksgivings after Mass were generally in a closed chamber. Sighs were rare; tears were copious." Our Fr. Charles Linek, in the "Image of most absolute virtue and of true sanctity expressed in the words and examples of St. F. Ignatius," and to public light and imitation

proposed, and printed at Prague in the year 1717, part 1, chapter 7, from Fr. Gonsalvo's Diary, which he cites: "It was a thing established in his custom," he says, "daily beforehand, before he gave effort to performing the divine thing, to read through the whole series and context of all the words in the Missal book; and he did this for this reason, that if he had found any error of the printer, he might correct it the day before, lest in that most sacred colloquy with God he should commit even this error, such as it might be."

[617] And a little after, Linek subjoins: "He was wont then to boil with so many and so great ardors, [tempore Missæ æstuat igne cælesti, visa supra caput ejus flamma — at the time of Mass he burns with heavenly fire, a flame seen above his head] that, since he poured forth flames with his whole countenance and whole body, he seemed to have put off the man, and to have put on the Seraph. Whence also above his head, while he offered the sacred Host to God, a huge flame was seen to flash forth, Nicholas Lanoius being a most weighty witness, who at the time of the sacrifice, being present, saw with his own eyes a flame settle upon the head of Ignatius as he celebrated; as is related in the manuscripts of the archives, and elsewhere, etc." Bartoli, book 4, num. 27, narrates the fact thus: "There was present to him as he celebrated at the altar on a certain day Nicholas Lanoius, and having by chance raised his eyes upon him, after the solemn Memento had been said to God, he sees a flame settling upon his head, and, terrified by the appearance of danger, he runs to extinguish it; but noticing that the Saint was alienated from his senses, and placidly flowing away in sweet tears, [and] suffering nothing of harm from it, he believed the thing to be divine." Thus there; which are confirmed from our Roman Spicilegium, where Fr. James de Guzman S.J., who was with our holy Father at Rome, testifies the matter from hearsay. Mention is made of James Gusman in Orlandinus, book 12, num. 47, at the year 1552: of Nicholas Lanoius, however, in the same historian, and in Sacchinus in the History of the Society, part 2. See their indices.

[618] But how much he intended his mind in performing that most august Sacrifice, Quanta cum intensione animi, — With how great intensity of mind, who could explain? Certainly in the year 1550, as Ribadeneira testifies, book 5, chapter 1, because on the very natal day of Christ our Lord he had continuously made two Masses, he was brought into the extreme peril of his life. Our Nicholas Lancicius, in the Spiritual Opuscula, vol. 2, opusculum 18, chapter 9: "Nay rather," he says, "the domestics observed that even while he was robust and healthy, he often fell into illness after Mass. Not rarely indeed he so languished at the very sacred altar, that he had to be carried from it by others' hands to his chamber, being unable to stand on his own feet, on account of the divine languors. With so great consolations was he suffused in his daily Mass (which daily toward evening he arranged in the Missal, and accurately read through the whole), that, the magnitude of the divine delights redounding into his body, he could not freely breathe, and could not at all speak forth and pronounce the word; until that great abundance and richness of the divine sweetness should relax. And sometimes it happened that among prayers and Sacrifices he boiled with such great ardors, that all the parts of his body glowed, his face reddened like purple, and all his veins throbbed with a manifest palpitation of the heart, and sometimes even the hair of his head bristled." Thus Lancicius: besides whom Bartoli can also be consulted, book 4, num. 27. To these, there is woven into the papers transcribed from our Roman archive an original Letter of Fr. John Ausonius the Frenchman, by which he narrates to Sebastian Diacetti S.I. the things which he had received concerning Fr. N. Ignatius from the mouth of Fr. Hannibal Codrettus, one of the most ancient fathers of the Society, and familiar to St. Ignatius; which is signed at Avignon the 13th of July 1598. In this it is thus had briefly to the point: "On account of raptures and ecstasies, he almost never celebrated in public: nay rather the good father Hannibal says that from the excessive exertion with which he celebrated, our B. F. Ignatius often fell into a fever."

[619] [quam perfecta cum pronuntiatione celebraret. — with how perfect a pronunciation he celebrated.] The holy Man also placed most diligent effort in this, that he might pronounce all and each of the words, each syllable, each letter and accent-mark, clearly and distinctly, without any syncope, dislocation, hurrying, or precipitation; from the Diary of Gonsalvo in Linek, num. 7: where these things are read: "He uttered all the words of the Mass with a quite full voice, and so sonorous, that even outside the doors of the chapel it was nicely perceived. He pronounced slowly, and guardedly, each thing, all hurry being far laid aside, wont to bear it indignantly if he noticed anyone in the sacred oblation, or in the hourly prayers, or in any other functions of this sort, saying the words hurriedly, and uttering them more quickly than those are wont who address some man conspicuous in dignity." See the things to be said of the Mass below, paragraph 86, part 1, to the seventh question, from the testimony of Fr. Oliverius Manareus replying to the demands of Nicholas Lancicius. Nor indeed was the care of St. Ignatius less in fostering piety after the liturgical function was performed, than it had been in performing it.

[620] [quam diuturnæ postea vacaret actioni gratiarum. — how long afterward he devoted himself to the action of thanksgiving.] For spending two hours daily after Mass, he was fed with that which Augustine called "the fattening of truth, the fattening of the light of immortal wisdom," from Bartoli. At which time, as he adds, access to him lay open to no one, unless the gravity of the business denied all delay of a reply: for then Louis Gonzales entered, who under him presided over the house, that he might expound to him the matter committed to him. Which since it happened to him quite often, this which I relate ought to be held for an undoubted testimony from him. "I remember," he says, "how often, when necessity frequently compelled, I went to him, about to treat with him, [and] met with a countenance so splendid, that, though fixed on the matter which I was bringing to be treated, at his sight, now forgetful of myself, I was stupefied. For his appearance was not such as I had not rarely noted in certain pious men while they prayed; but he breathed something unusual, and plainly divine." Let us add these things by way of a finishing touch with Bartoli: "And so Lainez, who on account of that so close intimacy with God likened Ignatius to Moses, was able to augment the likeness by the excellence of this splendor, which from the fellowship of the Lord shone forth in his face." Of the abundance of heavenly delights at the time of Mass, more will soon follow.

§ LXI. The gift of tears and heavenly delights, especially from his affection toward the most holy Trinity.

Although in book 5, chapter 1, Ribadeneira treats chiefly in two places of the gift of tears of our holy Father; [Lacrymæ Ignatii in Missa, & cantu ecclesiastico. — The tears of Ignatius at Mass, and at ecclesiastical chant.] yet he has left not a few things unsaid on this subject, which therefore I supply from elsewhere. Maffei, book 3, chapter 1, writes these things: "When at the beginning of his priesthood, in the midst of the Lateran temple, he celebrated the natal feast of Christ at the altar renowned for the sacred relics of the Apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew, he was suddenly anointed with so great a sweetness of spirit, that during the performance of the divine thing he could by no means hold back his tears. Moved by so unusual a spectacle, a certain one from the surrounding multitude, and interpreting the matter far otherwise, whispering afterward into the ear of Francis Strada, Ignatius's minister: 'A criminous man indeed,' he said, 'is this your priest, and covered with all crimes, who, agitated by the stings of conscience, has wept over his crimes through nearly the whole Mass!'" John Rho in the Various histories of virtues, book 3, chapter 12: "James Crucius," he says, "a man venerable in age and wisdom, narrated to us that, since the holy Father was wonderfully captivated by sacred melodies and ecclesiastical chant; while the vesper prayers were being chanted by ours according to custom in simple but sweet harmony; Ignatius was wont to cast himself into a corner of the old house, from which, an open window, there was a prospect into the church: and there with a silent groan he was dissolved into tears at the divine praises, so sweet that blessedness itself does not reject them, as the nurslings of song and music, that is, pearls brought forth in a most serene sky."

[622] Bartoli, book 4, num. 29, culling some points from the commentary or diary into which the holy Father referred his spiritual feelings (See what I said §26), makes most attested his singular gift of tears, Donum lacrymarum — The gift of tears to which add several other sacred delights. He affirms that he translated the matter from the Saint's words, as they exist in the original Spanish. Which things here therefore being in Italian, his interpreter renders into Latin thus: "The tears of this day seemed to me much unlike the past ones: so they were present with a slow influx, interior, sweet, without great noise and motion: so deeply indeed from within, that it is not at hand how I may explain it. My whole self toward the love of God moved the interior and exterior address, of which, granted me divinely, there was so great interior harmony, that I cannot expound it. On the following day, as on the immediately preceding, there were tears in abundance at Mass, and during Mass, and with these the enjoyment of the same interior address, which by a likeness recalled the speech and concert of heaven, the sense and affection of piety growing in me with the tears; while I noticed myself to be using a divine mode of knowing and understanding. On the next day also a great abundance of tears, and a wonderful interior address.

[623] Supplicating the Virgin, that she would be present to me with the Son and the Father; aliasque — and others but after, supplicating the Son, that together with the Mother he would deign me worthy of his commendation before the divine Father; I felt myself lifted up into the sight of the Father, my hairs standing on end, my whole body moved with an immense ardor: which tears followed, with a most vehement sense of piety. In the very entrance of prayer, with much abundance and profusion of tears, with most intense piety, and frequent intelligence and perception of the Most Holy Trinity, of these and similar perceptions and knowledge there was so frequent and so great a pleasantness, that memory and wit fail me to explain it. So great a knowledge did I experience of divine encounters, [and] an exuberance of divine tastes with a perpetuity of tears, and a swooning of voice, that as often as I named God and Lord, it seemed to me to enter the recesses of my mind with homage and an admirable reverence of humility; so that it seems inexplicable.

[624] delicias — delights After prayer, new interior motions, and those unusual, sobs and tears: I was wholly in the love of Jesus; with words and vows preferring to die with him, than to live with any other. While the altar is prepared, and Jesus occurs to my mind, I felt myself pressed to follow him; and I reckoned within me the reason for choosing the highest poverty to be this, that it is greater than any human reason: because Jesus was the head of the Society. When it returned to my mind that the Father had consigned me to his Son, with this counsel, that the name of Jesus might be imprinted on me so deeply, and so greatly confirmed, a new abundance of tears and sobs came to my aid. As I conversed with the divine majesty, a huge weeping arose, and so great a love, that I seemed to myself to be joined beyond all measure with his love, nor until then to have obtained so excellent, rare, and so lucid and sweet a grace of love. Afterward also in the chapel new tears, and new senses of piety always ending in the Most Holy Triad.

[625] cælestes — heavenly But at the altar, being clothed in the sacred vestments, a greater influx of tears, of sobs, and of most intense

love. All things toward the Most Holy Trinity.

But as I performed the sacred thing, so great a sense of the divine, so many tears; that going on I doubted whether I should be, the tears continuing, about to make loss of my eye: so much from immoderate weeping it pained. At those words, "May it please thee, O holy Trinity," I was occupied by an immense love, and an overflowing of ardent tears; and these and other graces from heaven all tended toward the Most Holy Triad, from which I was led, and drawn into its love. The divine thing being performed, now stripped of the sacred vestments and praying not far from the altar, new sobs and tears, all from the love of the Trinity; and of that love there was so great a sweetness that I could not depart thence. Also for the rest of that day, at home and through the City, there returned vehement impulses of love, and motions to tears, the memory of the most blessed Trinity being repeated.

[626] testata reliquit Sanctus — the Saint left attested Conversing with the Holy Spirit, that I might make a Mass of him, with the same tears and sense of piety, I seemed to see and feel him in expressed clarity, and in the color of a fiery flame, in an unusual manner. While the altar is furnished, and afterward, and I was adorned with the sacred vestments, and sacrificing, with great interior motions, and ardent tears, and sobs, my voice often failed: then a notable hearing and sight of our Lady, very propitious to me before the Father. So that in the prayers to the Father, thence to the Son, and in the consecration I could not but hear and discern [her], since she is the part itself, or the door of that great favor which I enjoyed within (namely she showing that in the flesh of the Son hers too is present), with so manifold an intelligence that it cannot be written. From the beginning of the customary prayer to the end, I perceived great senses, and very lucid ones, of piety. Outside the house, in the temple, and celebrating, I saw the heavenly homeland, or its Lord, with an intelligence of the three Persons, and in the Father the second and the third.

[627] Having received a certain light, and being strengthened, while I entered the chapel about to pray, in quodam diario — in a certain diary I felt, or rather saw by supernatural power, the Most Holy Trinity, and Jesus set before me as an intercessor before it, that it might deign my mind worthy with this vision. At the hearing and sight of which a huge weeping arose in me, and a great plenitude of love. Performing the sacred thing with many tears and pious senses, in one place especially, the same appearance of the Most Holy Triad as before was set before me, always with an accession of love toward the divine majesty. In the Mass, at that "Te igitur" Thee therefore, I felt and saw, not obscurely, but in clear light, nay very clear, that it was itself, or the divine essence, in the appearance of a sun, or a little above as the sun appears to us; from which essence the Father seemed to go out and be derived. And so as I said: "Thee therefore, most clement Father," there was set before me the divine essence prior to the Father, and in this appearance and aspect of the essence of the Most Holy Trinity set before me, without distinction of Persons, I was affected with a vehement sense toward the thing which was represented to me, with a huge motion, and most profuse tears, and a most vehement love toward the divine being of the Most Holy Trinity. The Mass thence performed, while I pray at the altar, the same divine being, or the same vision as before, set itself before me, in the manner of a sphere, and in a certain manner I discerned the three Persons as I did the first, and by that aspect and sense I obtained new affections and tears.

[628] Also in the chapel, a great affection toward the Most Holy Trinity filling my mind, a se conscripto: — written by himself: with a great heap of love, and vehement tears, I did not see, as on other days before, the distinct Persons; but as it were in a lucid clarity one essence, which wholly snatched me into its love. Beginning Mass, I could not, on account of the immense affection of piety, utter: "In the name of the Father," etc. The whole Mass from then on [was] with the highest affection, most profuse tears, and love, which was wholly borne into the Most Holy Trinity. The same likewise I sometimes felt toward Jesus, as if I were in his shadow and leading; yet not with any diminution thereby of unity with the majesty of God, but rather with a great increase of it. I drew great senses of piety, while I prepared myself for sacrificing, reckoning in my mind that for this work it would be necessary that I should be like an angel: nor were sweet tears wanting. Thence several times I saw, now indeed the essence of the Father; first the essence, then the Father; the affection of piety regarding first the essence, then the Father: but now by another manner, and without distinction of this kind.

[629] Very often stopping in the Mass, with a various and manifold knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity, in quod referebat — into which he referred which pervaded my mind with so great a light, that I could not believe that so much of knowledge could accrue to me by long study. At other times in prayer, with a great sense of piety, and ardent charity, and taste of divine things, tending in part to this, that it might in a certain manner lift me up; afterward in the Mass tears more copious than before, sometimes with voice interrupted, so many and such things concerning the Most Holy Trinity being meanwhile perceived, that of what I might besides grasp concerning it, nothing seemed to remain over. In this Mass I knew, felt, and saw—the Lord knows—that when I spoke of the Father, and acknowledged [him] to be a Person of the Most Holy Trinity, I was affected with his love the more earnestly for this, that in him were specially the other Persons; and this I experienced also in prayer to the Son and the Holy Spirit; enjoying each of them, and devoting myself to them, and exulting to be of those three. So great a thing did it seem to me, that I made no end of confounding myself. Who art thou? And what hast thou deserved? And whence [is] this to thee?

[630] spiritualia sua sensa: — his spiritual feelings: Performing the sacred things with singular piety, tears and ardor, my speech being sometimes even oppressed, while I supplicated the Father, Jesus seemed to offer him my prayers, and to aid them, with that sense and sight which cannot be expounded. As I stood at the hearth, Jesus returned again into my eyes; afterward also as I went and returned in the City and through the streets from Cardinal Carpensis, and in other places, he was present visible, [and] I abounded with many tears and many motions of mind. At which time, hearing and seeing Jesus, I was inflamed with so great a love, that I did not think there would ever be anything so powerful which could separate me from him. On these sacred allurements of divine love the mind of Ignatius fed. So richly did it overflow with a fountain of sweet tears.

[631] [Incommodum ex frequentibus lacrymis ab Ignatio contractum, — An inconvenience contracted by Ignatius from frequent tears,] And indeed so frequent and copious a flowing of pious weeping is confirmed from the inconvenience which the holy Man contracted thence; concerning which matter Ribadeneira, to the eighth question of Nicholas Lancicius, which he had proposed to him here among other questions in the letters given at Rome on the 26th day of June in the year 1597 to Madrid; concerning which matter, I say, Ribadeneira there speaks thus: "He had no Breviary, because on account of tears he could not recite the prayers: and therefore he was freed from this obligation by the supreme Pontiff, as is said in his Life." There seems also to have been somewhere a rumor, or at least a report, that so great an abundance of tears rained down from his eyes, that he caught them in some receptacle. For Fr. John Ausonius in his letter, of which above paragraph 60, num. 618, writes these things: "First," he says, "concerning the little dishes; it is certain that they were wont to be given; but whether indeed for receiving tears, he has nothing certain: that rather should have been asked of John Paul, companion of Fr. N. Ignatius, who last year died in the professed house." But if that matter were established, it would certainly be wonderful; and would have affinity with those things which among us in volume VI of July, on the 28th day of the same month, page 621, are narrated of St. Irene the hegumena.

[632] [Ex dictis liquet, Sanctum tenerrime affectum fuisse erga SS. Trinitatem. — From what has been said it is clear that the Saint was most tenderly affected toward the Most Holy Trinity.] Moreover from the fragment of the above diary it is concluded that St. Ignatius was affected with a most tender sense of piety toward the most holy Trinity: and this is confirmed from the titles which so often in various other places in the said diary are repeated, marked with the memory of that most sacred name: on which subject see what Ribadeneira in book 1, chapter 7, has handed down to memory concerning the wholly singular affection of the holy Man toward this mystery, when he dwelt at Manresa.

§ LXII. External reverence during prayer; collection of mind; some points of pious affection.

That Ignatius esteemed external worship and reverence, due to God, more highly [Externam in orando reverentiam præfert S. Ignatius — St. Ignatius prefers external reverence in praying] than those singular visitations sent by the heavenly Guest in weeping and tears, he left attested in a certain paper in Ribadeneira in the Madrid Life designated above, book 5, chapter 1 at the end, where he introduces the holy Man saying these things, which from the Spanish sound thus: "In all those times before Mass, in it, and after it, there was in me a thought which penetrated the interior of my soul, with how great reverence and external worship, betaking myself to Mass, I ought to name God our Lord, and not to seek tears; but that external worship and reverence." And Ribadeneira affirms straightway that he adds, that, because he attended to that external worship, he repelled the tears rising up in him; and esteemed that grace and knowledge more highly than all the other past ones.

[634] "And in another place," says Ribadeneira, "he says that he asked of God lacrymis, ac visitationibus cælestibus. — with tears, and heavenly visitations. that he would give him external worship, reverence, and humility; and not give visitations and tears, if the glory equal to his divine majesty had been thereby served: that he might rejoice in his graces and visitations, all his own advantage being wholly set aside; and that afterward all the spiritual visitations which happened to him represented to him that external worship, not only when he named the three divine Persons, or remembered them; but that he might venerate the altar, and all other things which pertained to the holy Sacrifice of the Mass: to these, that he judged it evil to notice those visitations before that external worship and reverence. And in another place at last," as Ribadeneira relates, "he adds, that that humility, reverence, and external worship ought not to be of fear, but of love: that so he often said to God: Give me humility and reverence that may love: and that, while he uttered these words, the Lord afforded him new and wonderful visitations."

[635] But that exterior composition of the body is confirmed from the work of John Rho, [Eam & exercebat ipse, & requirebat in suis. — He both exercised it himself, and required it in his own.] which is entitled "Histories of various virtues": where in book 3, chapter 7, among our matters, num. 1, he narrates these things of St. Ignatius: "That, the Society being constituted, he was wont, hidden in a corner, with a certain incredible composition of all his members, and with a countenance breathing piety, to be present at the vesper praises, I remember to hear from James Crucius, who as a boy had seen Ignatius, and, captivated by the sanctity of his morals, had obtained the Society from him; in which up to the year

up to the year 38 of this seventeenth century, and lived to the ninety-second year of his age." Thus he.

What of this, that the holy Father held that religious decorum during the time of prayer so earnestly at heart, in the flourishing age of his subjects, that among the ancient rules of the Minister written by him, he placed one about visiting the brothers daily, as they were hearing Mass, or praying in the temple, to see whether, bending their knees, they leaned upon some support, judging this indulgence of the body in prayer unworthy; from Nicholas Lancicius, Spiritual Opuscula, vol. 1, opusculum 2, chapter 3, num. 70.

[636] Further, that external decorum, proceeding from an internal moderation of the mind, Collectio animi per diem &c., — Collection of mind through the day, etc., and being its guardian, is an argument how great a recollection flourished in him, how continual a conjunction with God, how severe a law with the faculties of the mind, lest they should wander even a little beyond the bounds prescribed to them by Ignatius. Hear Maffei, book 3, chapter 1: "He desired that it be most familiar to our men, that in each created thing, as far as it could be done, they should recognize the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. The same he admonished, that against the daily snares of the demons, lest, being suddenly circumvented, they be led into fraud, they should either always march in ordered array, as they say, or certainly, their forces of mind being dissipated into various cares and businesses, should as it were sound the retreat at fixed hours of the day, and descend into themselves, and reckon all their words, deeds, thoughts, before God most diligently, a monitor being employed also, if there were need, either for the sake of memory or even of knowledge, etc. Indeed he himself, although he always kept himself in his own power, and, by the precept of St. Bernard, was wont not to give himself over to things, but to lend himself; yet, such was his diligence, at each hour he of his own accord inquired into himself; and this, on account of long exercise, with no trouble: and more and more he strove to make progress in spirit, comparing day with day … week with week … Nor that only, but also at fixed times daily, leisure being snatched from his highest occupations, he devoted himself to contemplation."

[637] ac vespertina; — and the evening [time;] The day declining toward evening seemed to him in a certain manner solemn and sacred by a peculiar title. For in the Original Commentary sent for the History of the Society of Jesus from the province of Lyons in the year 1599, and inserted into our Roman collection, it is thus narrated: "About the hour of vespers he was wont to withdraw daily into his chamber, and there for an hour or more to be free for God and himself. But if some outsider then wished to meet him about a matter of some moment, he did not suffer the doors of his chamber to be knocked, but it was commanded to the keeper that he should open with one push the door, which was divided into two parts from top to bottom, and say what he wished."

[638] custodia sui: — guardianship of himself: Add that he was an assiduous and most vigilant guardian of the faculties of soul and body. Let Maffei be heard again on this matter: "Nor indeed did he compose himself for these blessed encounters only at the hour of prayer, but he was in a certain perpetual vigil against all the allurements of mortal things, and the idle wandering of the mind … Accurately he guarded his mind from every stain … Intent was the guardianship of the senses; the daily confession of any omission whatever; a continual recollection of the benefits of God; in interpreting the deeds and words of others no rashness. Finally he observed with the highest care whatever he understood to pertain in any way either to guarding or to augmenting the grace of Christ." Supported chiefly on these foundations, this great and excellent edifice of St. Ignatius's prayer rose up and stood. He did many things and with many, yet so that he prescribed to himself diligently to decline the things which called [him] away too much from the state of devotion and the divine service. Let that of Maffei be an example: "To pilgrim men seeking, with himself as interpreter (because he prevailed much in authority among princes), a station in the court, he denied that he had any business except with the court of the highest King: to which if they desired access, he would give his effort, as far as by labor and prayers he could attain, that they might be among the intimate friends and familiars of the King. Which reply being made public, now fewer showed him trouble in that kind."

[639] singularia piæ affectionis puncta; — singular points of pious affection; Behold for you now certain singular points of pious affection: "The seven temples also of the City," says Maffei, "most celebrated both by religion and by the indulgences of the Pontiffs, at certain times of the year he diligently and chastely visited on foot, and indeed through the winter cloaked, not without a mantle: nor did he suffer, by any weariness of body, either the rest to be destitute of his example, or himself to be deprived of the communion of so great goods. But the expiatory grains, as they are called, and the waxen effigies of the heavenly Lamb, and painted little icons of the Saints, and other things of that kind, which are mocked by the impious, he so studiously guarded and held dear, that in his box, after death, almost nothing else appeared." But since he so earnestly placed all his cares in promoting the glory of God, the public good of the Church, and the salvation of souls; nor did it escape him how great a help to this was ecclesiastical and civil power, he prayed daily ardently For the Catholic Church, and namely for the Christian kings and princes: but for the supreme Pontiff never without most abundant tears, as Maffei relates. Certainly in our Constitutions, part 7, chapter 4, num. 3, let these things be read: "The neighbor is also helped by holy desires, and by prayers poured forth in the sight of God for the universal Church, and especially for those who are of greater moment to its universal good." But in the declaration to the said chapter it is said: "Of which kind are ecclesiastical and secular princes, and others who could much profit or harm the good of souls and the divine service."

[640] The golden little book Of the Imitation of Christ was also among the delights of our Saint. inter quæ libellus — among which the little book And indeed that this, both for nourishing piety and for calming the perturbations of the mind, so hostile to prayer, is most accommodated, who is ignorant? "This little book," says Bartoli, book 4, num. 12, "came into the hands of Ignatius, still a penitent novice at Manresa; who was so captivated by its first sweetness, that he could never afterward be without it; wont to call [it] the partridge of pious books (See below paragraph 86, part second, response sixteenth), wholly compacted of absolute virtue, from a vital juice and spirit. Thence he daily read a chapter in order; but with a slow drawing, meditation being interjected here and there, and the heavenly food being drawn in gradually, after the manner of the earth avidly drinking in all the drops of a thin rain: but through the day, as chance bore, he opened it again and again, and re-read what had first occurred."

[641] And indeed there always occurred something which made for the present matter, De imitatione Christi. — On the Imitation of Christ. whether an alleviation of grief, or a strength for a failing mind, or a counsel for the tempted: and this was to him a perpetual consoler, counselor, and companion. But those whom he much loved in Christ, he presented with this little book as with a singular pledge; and about to go to Cassino with Ortiz, the procurator of Charles V, about to perform the Exercises of the spirit there, he took with him as many of those books as there were monks in the monastery; and gave one to each, the recipients being plainly no less worthy than the giver in a demonstration of the honoraria of a grateful mind. Hence are amplified the things which Ribadeneira relates of that little book, book 1, chapter 13. George Mayr in a letter to R. A. P. N. Claudius Aquaviva, which he prefixed to the said book rendered by him into Greek, says: "We well know that B. Ignatius Loyola … not only thought magnificently of it, but by daily use and reading rendered it most familiar to himself; and to his sons … most commended, etc." But among the several other and singular points of the holy Founder, to which his pious affection of mind extended itself, three others deservedly demand for themselves some peculiar place, which I subjoin to the former.

§ LXIII. Pious affection toward the Most Holy Eucharist, toward Jesus the mediator and his Virgin Mother, and toward St. Ignatius the martyr.

Nor was the devotion of St. Ignatius common, by which he honored the God-man latent under the Eucharistic species. And indeed, who could be mindful of that eminent favor, by which he clearly saw that in that august and dread Sacrament the Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is most truly contained, from Ribadeneira book 1, [Sanctus erga Eucharistiam valde affectus; cujus etiam frequentiam auxit. — The Saint greatly affected toward the Eucharist; whose frequency also he increased.] chapter 7, and not be inflamed with a most tender ardor of mind toward this most holy mystery, as long as he lived, and with perpetual reverence? Do you wish a specimen? He ordered a little window, as it is in Bartoli book 4, num. 28, to be opened in his chamber, by which there might lie open a prospect into the high altar and the most august Sacrament; whence, as another Daniel, from the secret of his chamber, and far from witnesses, he might have his eyes intent thither, where he wholly dwelt in mind. But if we call back to memory those marvelous things by which the Lord went before his Servant among the most sacred arcana of the altar, from the things said in paragraph 61; if besides we turn our eyes to the pious preparation, or rather the sacred awe, with which Ignatius girded himself for those things, as you have in paragraph 60 and 62; shall we not conclude that the holy Father thought most magnificently of that divine banquet? To this is added his more frequent use of receiving it, introduced into the Church by his effort: for that the frequency of the Sacraments received increase from him, the Church reads of him in the canonical Hours.

[643] [Quid suaserit S. Francisco Borgiæ: an orationem Anima Christi composuerit. — What he counseled to St. Francis Borgia: whether he composed the prayer Anima Christi.] In [our] hands is a copy of the letters of St. Ignatius which he wrote to Magdalena his sister about monthly communion. Of the use of the Eucharist which St. Francis Borgia, still secular, held, it is treated in Ribadeneira in the Life of St. Francis Borgia published in Spanish, book 1, chapter 10; the adviser namely to him was St. Ignatius, that every eighth day he should approach this sacred banquet. Most tender affections toward it breathes that most well-known prayer: "Soul of Christ, sanctify me," etc., quite familiar to our holy Parent. Was it composed by him? This is denied in the Latin interpreter of Bartoli, book 4, num. 26: "Attributed to St. Ignatius," he says, "I think, because he not rarely includes it in the colloquies of his meditations: from which also I would think it was born, that those less diligent in seeking its author published it in their books as the proper offspring of the holy Man. But that prayer, of whomsoever at last, is plainly not St. Ignatius's: for I read it in a book printed at Lyons in the year 1499, when Ignatius was then eight years old: and there was added, for those about to recite it at the prescribed time, an indulgence of penalties: but Boniface, although he be the last of that name, preceded Ignatius by a whole century." Thus there.

[644] [Initio conversionis Christi gesta litteris expressit, ac sequi studuit, — At the beginning of his conversion he expressed in writing the deeds of Christ, and strove to follow them,] Now of Jesus the mediator. He wrote from the first time of his conversion all the most beautiful and most notable words and deeds of Christ, of the blessed Virgin, and of the other Saints, and, for the sake of memory, was entering them into a highly polished and elegant book in the most

most excellent characters of letters he was entering them. And indeed the examples of Christ in golden letters, of the blessed Virgin in crimson, of the rest of the Saints in various colors, from Ribadeneira, book 1, chapter 2. And indeed the things which he painted of Christ with his hand, he expressed in himself by morals and examples, but wished them to be expressed in others. That these things are so, the proof is his spiritual Exercises, and other things which I subjoin. For what [of] the meditations on the Kingdom of Christ, on the two Standards, on the three Degrees of humility, to omit others? What [of] the holy places surveyed at Jerusalem, and the things done there amid the sacred allurements of love toward Jesus, which Ribadeneira narrates book 1, chapter 11? What [of] the beginnings of the letters? What [of] the name of Jesus given to the Society? What [of] a certain singular zeal for sacred images which represented the countenance or deeds of Christ the Lord, in Linek book 1, chapter 3? What [of] the image of the Crucified which he wore upon his breast, Carnolius being witness chapter 22? Do not these sufficiently prove that the holy Father burned with a certain eminent affection toward Jesus the Savior? To these are added both the most frequent expressions of the same name in our Constitutions, and the seal of bronze which St. Ignatius used, marked with the venerable name of Jesus, and which from the Roman documents I had here engraved on copper; which, behold, I represent to you.

Fr. Ignatius Pinius testifies that with this seal were sealed the elections of our Generals, beginning from R. P. James Laynez; that with this same seal St. Francis Borgia sealed the patent commendatory letters of father Araoz, which thus begin, translated from the Spanish: "IHS. Francis Borgia, Preposit General of the Society of Jesus, to the Provincials, Prepositi and Rectors, and the rest of the religious of the Society of Jesus in Spain, greeting and eternal life in the Lord. Now you know, since it is notorious, what confidence and esteem of father doctor Araoz of our Society our Father Ignatius of holy memory had, etc." At the end is had: "Done at Madrid the 16th of November 1571. Francis." This venerable little seal, therefore, Ignatius employed outwardly; but inwardly the quite frequent apparitions of Jesus the mediator exhibited to him, how many and how deep seals of this divine name they impressed on his inmost heart! Of those apparitions consult Ribadeneira book 1, chapter 10, and chapter 11; book 2, chapter 11; add the things which will soon here follow on occasion of the Virgin Mother of God, whom, after her Son, Ignatius uniquely loved.

[645] For indeed there was a most tender reciprocity of love on both sides, here between the most august Queen of heaven, Multa quoque — Many things also there between Ignatius; and his piety toward her indeed [was] plainly singular; but her plainly maternal solicitude toward him shone forth. Of the Virgin's apparition Ribadeneira writes book 1, chapter 2; of the defense of her virginity meditated by the Saint, chapter 3: where also of the vow of chastity: of the nocturnal vigil before the image of the Mother of God before the festal light of her Annunciation, chapter 4; of the vision of her, chapter 7; of the foundations of the Society laid at the shrine of Mary on the Mount of Martyrs, on the day sacred to her Assumption, book 2, chapter 4; of the day and night obsecration before the Mother of God before the Saint's first-fruits first Mass, ibid. chapter 11; of the celebration of them in the sacred shrine of B. Mary ad Nives of the Snows on the Lord's natal day, in paragraph 25 of this my Commentary; of the solemn profession made in the chapel of the Mother of God, these words being inserted into the formula of the same: "I promise … before the Virgin Mother," in Ribadeneira book 3, chapter 1. Of the custom of keeping the prayer-Crown Rosary of the Virgin in bed at night, for the sake of pious occupation, Bartoli book 4, num. 27. From which is concluded here indeed the love of Ignatius toward the most blessed Virgin Mother; there indeed her favor toward him.

[646] Fr. Louis de Palma in the "Practice and brief declaration of the spiritual way," etc., rendered from the Spanish into Latin, & magna — and great from page 281 thus writes: "Our holy Father was, from the very beginning of his conversion, affected by the most holy Virgin with many benefits; in that she showed herself to be seen by him, encouraged him, and confirmed him in the purpose of his chastity. Hence he in turn, in sign of a grateful mind, before her altar and image at Montserrat changed his secular garments for a sack: passing the whole night sleepless before the same her image; suspending there his sword and dagger, which he had used in the first years of his vanity, as a perpetual anathema of his devotion toward the Virgin. From these beginnings this devotion toward this most sacred Virgin so grew in him, that he was wont never to undertake anything either grave or light, of which he did not expect the promotion from the Virgin and her patronage, and to ask nothing from God except through her intercession: and she in turn increased him with perpetual benefits, and deigned him with her apparitions; as one may see from a certain quaternion which he himself left written by his hand: in which he noted the illuminations which he daily enjoyed while writing the Constitutions."

[647] specimina — specimens And what I related a little before in passing of the Crown of the Mother of God, I thus amplify from the same author, page 294: "It is certain that, although our holy Father in the beginnings of the Society left it free to each to spend the morning hour of prayer either in mental or vocal prayer; yet he then prescribed to our students, and to our brother coadjutors who know not how to read, the Hours of the blessed Virgin at that hour, [or] her Rosary, seriously commending that those who read the Rosary be well instructed in the meditation of its mysteries, that they may run through it with greater devotion and fruit." Our holy Father, in the Constitutions, part 4, chapter 4, num. 3, thus says: "Besides the Sacraments of confession and communion (to which they must approach every eighth day) and besides the Mass, which they will hear daily, they will spend one hour in reciting the Office of the most blessed Virgin." And in the same place, num. 4: "Some (of which kind could be those coadjutors who have not learned to read) besides Mass will spend also one hour in reciting the Rosary or Crown of the blessed Mary the virgin." And in the declaration to the same chapter he prescribes these things: "As to what pertains to the Crown or Rosary, let them be taught how they may think or meditate the mysteries which are contained in it; that they may be able to exercise themselves in it with greater attention and devotion."

[648] præbuit Vir sanctus, — the holy Man afforded, What need is there to commemorate the most close communication of offices and wills between Mary and the holy Father in the Manresan retreat and the composition of the book of the spiritual Exercises? Ignatius assuredly knew the great benignity of the best Mother toward the calamitous, joined with the highest power. Hence in the third Exercise of the first week, which is on sins, "the Colloquy," he says, "is first made to our Lady, the Mother of Christ, imploring her intercession with her Son, and the obtaining of grace triply necessary for us. First, that we may feel an internal knowledge and detestation of our crimes. Secondly, that, recognizing and abhorring the perverse order of our works, that being corrected, we may rightly order ourselves according to God. Thirdly, that, the depravity of the world being perceived and condemned, we may withdraw ourselves from worldly and vain things. These being finished, let the Hail Mary be recited once." And on the fourth day of the second week, in the meditation on the two Standards, he prescribes to have recourse again to the Mother of mercy, saying: "The Colloquy is afterward to be formed to the blessed Virgin, and grace is to be implored through her from the Son, that I may be received and remain under his standard," etc. Thus piously affected was the holy Father Ignatius toward the Virgin Mary.

[649] Fr. Ignatius Diertins, a notable expounder of the Exercises of our holy Father, [Deiparam virginem quanti faceret: — How much he esteemed the Virgin Mother of God:] observes these things on this matter in his explanation of the said third exercise, of the Antwerp edition of the year 1696, page 75: "But that our holy Father so studiously in this, and then in several colloquies, teaches us to implore the patronage of the blessed Virgin; that so often in the meditations he raises up her memory; that in the third week he proposes her sorrows, in the fourth her joys, to be contemplated; that in the three modes of praying he invites [us] to imitate her virtues, and sets before the mind the formulas of saluting and invoking her to be revolved; that finally in so many modes he promotes the worship and veneration of the Mother of God; he will not wonder, who shall have read that B. Ignatius, after at Montserrat, keeping watch through the night before the altar of the blessed Virgin with his arms suspended, he had laid the rudiment of his sacred warfare; thence, full of zeal for the honor of the same Virgin Mother, withdrew to Manresa; in which retreat, tarrying for a year, he composed this admirable book of the Exercises."

[650] A notable argument also of Ignatius's love toward the Virgin Mother, and of her reciprocal love toward him, is afforded by an image of the Mother of God expressed with the brush (I use the words of Bartoli's interpreter, book 2, qua occasione hic agitur — on which occasion it is here treated num. 21) which he retained even after the Society was founded; but he at last endured to be without it, that he might in some way console Fr. Araoz his kinsman, departing from him most grievingly: for, such was his eminent courtesy, not bearing the grief of the one departing, he gave him the image drawn out from his bosom, just as if he were giving the half of his heart, and forbade [him] to give it to anyone at all; adding that, from the time he had changed his garment, it had been carried about with him perpetually by him, and that in six hundred chances of soul and body he had experienced the reward of its worship most fully by manifold aid. Nor did the piety of Araoz need another spur: but he was not permitted long to possess so grateful a gift: for on that return into Spain, while for the sake of business he passes through Loyola, Maria (read Marina), the daughter of the holy Man's brother, asked it of him at least as a loan, to be returned to Araoz when he should afterward return that way. But neither did he ever afterward return, nor did she believe herself held by the promise.

[651] But now being eighty years old, and taking care lest the precious pledge should after her perhaps pass to some by whom it would be less honorably held, [de imagine Cæsaraugustana, quæ olim fuerat Ignatii: — concerning the Saragossa image, which once had been Ignatius's:] she gave it to the Syracusan (it should have been said the Saragossan) college of the Society. In that picture the Virgin is beheld pierced through the breast with grief and a sword: the colors augment the value, pale and faded with age and so long a beneficial carrying. Moreover I found here among our matters the copy ectype of that image, which is noted as engraved at Rome after the exemplar, with this inscription subjoined to it: "St. Mary OF THE HEART, most like that one which is kept in the Saragossan college of the Society of Jesus, which St. F. Ignatius, Founder of the same Society, from the first day of his conversion, up to old age, always bore on his breast at his HEART, testifying that through her he was everywhere aided by God in wondrous ways."

More things Henao adds here in the Antiquities of Cantabria, book 3, in the citations and notes to chapter 35, where he relates that that Marina in the year 1595 wrote a letter to doctor Paschal Mondura, canon of the metropolitan church of Saragossa, and at the same time sent to him the image of which we here treat,

that she might refresh herself with it, and then deliver it to the fathers of the Saragossan college. Paschal obeyed, giving the delivery over to execution: which being understood, Peter Ribadeneira is affirmed to have written to Fr. James de Morales, who then presided over the said college, that he should direct that image to himself at Madrid for the sake of veneration. The rector of the college assented: but Ribadeneira, after he had satisfied his devotion, sent the image back to our fathers of Saragossa: where, splendidly adorned, and kept in the reliquary of the college's sacristy, but on great festivities placed in the middle of the altar of our holy Father Ignatius, it is exposed to public veneration, with the highest devotion of the faithful, from the cited author. I now exhibit to you, reader, the copy of the said image, had here engraved on copper, in imitation of the exemplar which is among us.

[652] The holy Man pursued the holy Martyr, his namesake, with a singular affection. For in a letter wholly autograph of his own, [qui singulari affectu coluit sanctum sibi synonymum — who venerated with a singular affection the saint of the same name as himself] which he gave to the duke of Gandía, St. Francis Borgia, in the year, as it is ascribed to it, 1546, from the testimony of Fr. Ignatius Pinius, these things are read in Spanish, which I thus render into Latin: "As to what pertains to your Lordship's past ill-health, I wrote in another letter that I had understood the infirmity together with the recovered health: from which I found no matter for grieving, but rather, as it seemed to me, for rejoicing, believing that this would not be without some increase of spiritual fruit. Now while I see that a visitation and gain of this kind began on the day of the glorious St. Ignatius, it brings me a much greater gladness in our Lord; and also, while I am convinced that in your Lordship's devotion the name of so blessed a Saint—to whom I am affected, or, to say less, desire to be affected, with a quite singular reverence and devotion in our Lord—will be increased." Moreover it is permitted piously to suspect, from the Father's singular veneration toward this Saint, that something also of pious affection was communicated to St. Francis Borgia, to whom he writes: for his religious profession, of which I have the exemplar before me among our Roman copies, is signed at Gandía on this day of St. Ignatius, the first of February 1548; the Chronicle agreeing, which I gave in paragraph 59; which heroic act I suspect that most pious Duke bound to this day out of a certain religious will toward this Saint, who was then venerated. But for that year the year 1547 is elsewhere noted; as is to be seen below in the notes to chapter 11, book 3, of the Life of our holy Father.

§ LXIV. Charity toward the neighbor, a mind grateful toward the well-deserving.

In book 5, chapter 2, Ribadeneira dispatches this subject. I add the following for its supplement. For indeed did not Ignatius breathe this sacred fire toward his neighbors as great as it was? [Ribadeneiræ locus de charitate erga proximum — Ribadeneira's passage on charity toward the neighbor] Besides Ribadeneira just now designated, turn over the rest of the context of the Life: and how many and how great marks of this charity will you find there? The deeds Nicholas Lancicius collects in the Spiritual Opuscula, vol. 2, opusculum 18, chapter 11; the progressions toward helping neighbors Orlandinus, book 16, num. 115. Of the charity of which we here have account, there is extant in Maffei the fourth chapter of the third book; but in the same place, chapter 11, he writes these things to our purpose:

"Of wondrous cleverness," he says, "was he in soliciting mortals, and in leading them across from the servitude of the devil to the service of Christ the Lord: [suppletur ex Maffeio, e quo discimus mirum Ignatii artificium, — it is supplied from Maffei, from whom we learn Ignatius's wonderful artifice,] and by whatever arts the demon uses for the ruin of souls, those same he himself (so far as it was licit and lawful) transferred to the salvation and benefit of men. To scent out swiftly the wills and natures of those with whom he dealt; to propose to the ambitious splendid things, to the avaricious useful things, to the voluptuous pleasant things, and, as they say, to fish each one with his own hook or bait. Now in an encounter, especially of princes, he observed this above all, that he gave them the beginnings of the conversation, [and] reserved the ends to himself; and he was careful not to treat even of divine things ineptly or to satiety and disgust. But a sad and rough wisdom (at least after he came forth into the light of men) he always avoided: and since he understood that the very name of philosophy, even if it be modestly handled, is yet odious enough of itself; he wished nothing in his habit, or in his manner of life, to be seen rare or notable, and always accommodated himself, in whatever things he honestly and religiously could, to the common custom, nor did he allow it that he should be thought to reprehend in others what he himself did not do: so that to one beholding his morals at first sight or from afar he seemed to be some one from the people: but the more nearly you inspected him, the longer and more familiarly you dealt with him, the more you felt the excellence and virtues of the Man, as an odor from rubbing against [him]."

[655] "And this itself is the cause why he enjoined on ours no mark in dress or ornament of a Religious Order; [quo omni hominum generi sese accommodabat. — by which he accommodated himself to every kind of men.] but that they might more easily creep into the assemblies and intercourse of men, and by timely colloquies help each one; wherever among the nations they lived, he ordered them to go in the most modest habit of that nation, and to give no sign of a mind abhorrent from common sense or from humanity. The same [man] much censured those directors of souls who tried to lead the rest also to the study of virtue by one and the same way, and almost that which they themselves had held; or who only undertook to form and rule someone if he were of his own accord inclined to piety: but he himself indeed did not hesitate to approach even fierce and barbarous men, so as to receive from each what was given: and those whom he could not advance to the counsels of Christ, he certainly strove gradually to allure to the precepts." From which we learn, in few [men], a rare industry of the holy Man in dealing with the neighbor, or rather the sole and true art of hunting souls. To these: "He discerned above all," as the same author writes, "what disposition, by what method it was to be handled, and to the same diseases often, according to the variety of nature, he was wont to apply not only diverse but even contrary medicines. But if, having tried all things, he had nevertheless been unable to extract someone from the mire of sins; he did not on that account contract his mind, or give himself to anguish, as if he had lost oil and labor; but content with the fruit of conscience and duty, he acquiesced in the deep counsel of divine providence."

[656] [Amor proximi probatur ex ejus zelo animarum. — Love of neighbor is proved from his zeal for souls.] From this most ardent study of the salvation of souls proceeded the fiery words which he set beneath the breasts of his own [men], when, saluting those sent to the prey of souls at their departure, he said: "Go, set all things on fire, and inflame them;" as Bartoli's interpreter has, book 4, num. 14; and at num. 15 he recounts the aids of helping souls prescribed by him to the Society. Urban VIII in the Bull of canonization says: "The assiduous service which he exhibited to the poor and the sick in the hospitals; and the distribution of alms which he collected from pious persons by his own effort; the greatest care and study also which from the very beginning of his conversion he placed in this, that the untaught and children should thoroughly learn the Christian doctrine; and the visitation and relief of those detained in prison, which he instituted and exercised accurately; and also the missions throughout the whole globe of lands, which he made; and the houses, churches, and colleges which he erected, and in the said City, besides the schools of grammar and of the more humane letters, which he opened gratis; the German college, and the houses of orphans and of catechumens, and the monasteries of St. Martha and of St. Catherine, and other pious places, which he took care to have raised; and the reconciliation of those at variance; the salutary counsels given; and the spiritual Exercises composed by him; the frequentations of the Sacraments procured; finally the remission of injuries, and prayer for enemies, plainly demonstrate how ardently he loved his neighbor for the sake of God."

[657] Gratus Ignatii animus — Ignatius's grateful mind Another virtue, which Ribadeneira in book 5, chapter 2, reckons among the virtues of Ignatius, is placed in the recollection of benefits received, and in their remuneration. Which things the praised author there summarily touches, and which can be further drawn out at more length. And since a grateful mind is chiefly discerned in two things, of which one is placed in having thanks being grateful; the other in returning them; let us see how these two endowments of a grateful mind shone forth in St. Ignatius. Maffei book 3, chapter 4 thus expressed it: "Men well-deserving either of himself privately, or of the Society in common, he most diligently cultivated; and omitted toward them, neither living nor dead, no office of a grateful and mindful mind. For not only did he pray to the Lord assiduously for their salvation through himself and his own; but also, while they lived, he often came to their house for the sake of saluting them, and received the same coming to him, although at an inconvenient time, cheerfully above all, and proceeded most amicably to make them more certain about the progress of the Society, and especially about Indian matters, whose very remoteness has a delight: and also, when there was need, by whatever things he could, benignly helped them." These things he in general; to which he subjoins these things severally:

[658] To Jerome Arzius indeed, a Spanish doctor (with whom he had great intimacy) not only did he himself frequently attend when gravely ill, erga bene de se meritos — toward those well-deserving of him but also, when he was destitute of faithful servants, he sent down honest and industrious men from the Society for the sake of ministering. But that Ignatius was not slothful in fulfilling generously and munificently all the parts of a grateful office, is concluded from another example, which is there thus narrated: "Andrew Lipomanus, a Venetian patrician, whom they called Prior of the Trinity, a man no less noble in piety than in birth, had assigned a rich priesthood benefice of the same city to the college of our men to be constituted at Padua, only half the part of the revenues being reserved to himself, as long as he should live. But Ignatius, lest he should suffer himself to be surpassed in office, by patent letters of his own accord declared him perpetual administrator of the priesthood; nor did he touch anything of the revenues, except what was afforded yearly by the Prior himself for feeding a few of ours through alms. Nay even to the son of his brother he decreed an annual pension of up to four hundred gold pieces: which, however, that good Prior by no means admitted. And the rest likewise, by whose benefits he had been prompted to gratitude, he pursued with a certain eminent zeal and observance."

[659] Bartoli, book 4, num. 8: "To John Pasqualius," he says, variis — to various persons "with whom he had for some time been a guest, what thanks he once repaid, we said at the beginning; how benignly he deigned him, now presented to heaven, with his visible presence, and confirmed the pledge given to him by himself while still placed on earth; namely that he would without doubt be saved. Also of the effigy of the Crucified, until then the companion and solace of his afflictions, which he left to him, a dear pledge of a grateful mind. Likewise to Cavellius, a pious cleric, who brought food to him when sick at Manresa, he handed over the one thing he had remaining, the Hourly Prayers of the Mother of God: slender monuments, I confess, but of a very grateful affection from one having nothing besides. Isabella Rosella, who had recognized him as holy at Barcelona from the rays flashing round about from his mouth, and [who] many

times had liberally helped [him], he was wont to call "mother," and to the same at Rome, after the Society was constituted, he was for a long time confessor. Of Cardinal Gaspar Contareni, as one among the chief benefactors supremely beneficent toward himself, as often as the discourse fell upon it, he spoke, that by his powerful advocacy he had obtained the confirmation of the Society from the Pontiff.

[660] What shall I mention of the Clerks Regular of St. Paul and Barnabas of Milan? documentis — by documents For indeed with a special love and zeal he embraced them, after they had cared for Emmanuel Miona, sick in their college, with the highest charity, while he came from Paris to Rome. The memory of this office the blessed Father always preserved most fresh: their intercourse and reciprocity of offices being thence increased, that venerable house honored Ignatius, [and] fled to him, no otherwise than to a common parent: nor did he otherwise regard them than as sons and dearest brothers, and, where the opportunity was given, adorn and protect them: which he had excellently done recently in a certain difficulty of theirs; as we have from Orlandinus book 12, num. 13, at the year 1552.

[661] But writing, says Bartoli at the place cited above, to the King and Cardinal of Portugal, he called the Society their affair, comprobatur: — it is proved: and committed it to their providence, because they had spread it in their dominions with plainly royal munificence. To the Duke of Ferrara, to the Cardinal of Santa Croce, to the viceroy of Sicily John de Vega, and to the Carthusian fathers, by whom the Society was fostered with a great signification of charity, he always professed eternal obliged thanks, and, where other things were lacking, strove by his own prayers and those of his own to God to discharge in some way the part of the debts by which he knew himself bound to them. Thus he. Further, how deeply engraved in his mind he held the immortal merits of that most praised King toward the Society, he wished to be established by a notable monument. The continuator of the History of the Society, Francis Sacchinus, part 2, book 1, num. 121, at the year 1557, describes a pious, so to speak, contest between that King and Ignatius, here indeed of thanks to be rendered, there of thanks to be conferred, on the occasion of the death which that mentioned king of Portugal, John III, then met. "He being taken away," he says, "the Christian cause lost a great pillar, our Society a great one: which, not yet, so to speak, born, that is, before the Pontifical approbation, he embraced, [and] so perpetually fostered, defended, advanced in his kingdoms, in Europe, Africa, and the farthest shores of Asia and the Indies, with royal munificence and paternal benignity, [and] so in the other lands of Christians with commendation and authority, that he ought to be, for all time, to our posterity in the place not more of a beneficent prince than of a most indulgent father."

[662] inter quæ datur epistola, — among which is given a letter, This can be understood so much from the old judgment and mandate of blessed Ignatius, which therefore I shall subjoin: "To the provincial Prepositi, the rectors of colleges, and the prepositi of the houses of the Society of Jesus, wherever in the lands and among the nations they may be, eternal greeting in our Lord. Although to God the procreator and our Lord, as to the perennial fountain and head of all goods, if there be any such thing in our least Society, glory and praise is owed; yet toward the cooperators and chief ministers of his divine providence, it is fair that we, according to the weakness of our strength, use toward them those offices which the holy rights of a grateful mind demand, to the glory of his divine majesty. Wherefore, as we consider how much, among all Christian princes, our whole Society owes to the most serene King of Portugal, by whose favor and quite liberal aid it began to be founded, and was propagated into so many fathers, with great produce of divine service, and spiritual help of souls; it has seemed good in the Lord to excite you through obedience to that to which I hold it certain that several of you are moved of your own accord through charity.

[663] [qua regem Lusitaniæ suorum precibus commendat. — by which he commends the king of Portugal to the prayers of his own.] Therefore all, whoever you are that preside, and who live under your obedience, both the priests in their Sacrifices, and the rest in their prayers, daily, and by name, will remember before God the same King, and at the same time the queen and their children. Since whatever of grace the highest goodness shall bestow on them, will return into their kingdoms: in which in a certain special manner it is to be wished by us that his most holy name be praised and glorified. And in this way we shall discharge some part of the office which we owe most greatly: but the rest he will fulfill who supplies all our infirmities. To whom may it please to impart help to you, that we may always feel his most holy will, and wholly execute it. At Rome the 14th of June, in the year of salvation 1553."

§ LXV. Certain other offices toward the well-deserving; gentleness, and love of peace.

How Ignatius was affected toward the Duke of Ferrara, you will understand from Orlandinus book 7, num. 35: Gratus animus erga ducem Ferrariæ, — A grateful mind toward the duke of Ferrara, where, consulted by Jaius how he should conduct himself with that Duke, "the blessed Father replied," says the historian, "that he desired with the whole Society to serve with his whole soul such a Duke, who among the lay princes had studiously favored the nascent Society; and that the occasion offered for attesting due and grateful memory was to be embraced most willingly. But as to what regarded the mode and form of acting; whether prayer was to be made to God, or the divine law to be explained, or any other duties to be piously discharged, he thought the answer to be one and the same, namely that he should wholly depend on the Duke. For it was fair that, since he had been granted by the Vicar of Christ for the uses and conveniences of the Duke, he should indeed suffer himself to be ruled by the Duke himself, and, as long as he was at Ferrara with him, should regard him in the place of a Superior and Preposit, as often as either the cause of God, or the good of the Duke himself and of the citizens should require. But if the power were permitted by the Duke, then he should be free for whatever offices he could for the discipline and morals of the Society." Thus there.

[665] Nor differently, as is related by Bartoli book 4, num. 8, [S. Franciscum Xaverium, Natalem, Turrianum, Lainium, ac Codacium: — St. Francis Xavier, Natalis, Torrius, Lainez, and Codacius:] did he conduct himself toward those members of the Society who had adorned it with some singular benefit. To Xavier indeed he wrote that he could at no time ever not be mindful of him, which to the holy man, and one affected with incredible love toward him, was in the place of the greatest reward. To Jerome Natalis he commanded that he should guard Michael Torrius as the pupil of his eye, to whom he confessed himself held by a huge obligation of thanks: but of Lainez he said that the Society owed more than to any other, and named him the chief affair of the Society, and its whole prosperity. But his signification of a grateful mind toward Peter Codacius was notable and unusual. He was the first of the Italians to embrace the Society, at whose desire he had bidden farewell to the great services of the favoring Pontiff, to whom he was very dear, and of the court. The Society being entered, he so loved it, and applied such solicitous and industrious labors so strenuously in sustaining it at Rome, that he even established a foundation, which then indeed was sufficient for the professed house, and the Society was called the order of father Peter.

[666] Therefore on a day solemn with sacred rites, dinner being finished, Ignatius rises up to Peter, and with head bared at length attests the gratitude which both he himself then, and the whole Society, owed to him as to a founder: [cui postremo, tamquam fundatori plurimum detulit Sanctus. — to whom at last, as to a founder, the Saint deferred very much.] and a wax candle being offered to him, he offered himself together, and a huge number of Masses and prayers; at which Peter, with much weeping, immediately after gave back the wax candle, received (since Ignatius commanded it), adding that, even by this one thing, that he had been admitted into the Society, and consigned to the divine service, he was bound by so great and so manifold a title, that by no offices could he attain any part of it. But with these testifications of offices toward a man so well-deserving Ignatius did not acquiesce; but he who had so earnestly honored him living, would not frustrate him even dead of his memory before God and men. For as Orlandinus testifies book 9, num. 9: "To him dead he granted, besides the accustomed suffrages, that a stone with an honorable inscription should also be placed on his tomb." So great was the holy Father's nobility of mind in returning thanks, not only to externals, but even to domestics, and those subject to himself.

[667] [Grati animi officium erga fundatores ac bene meritos — The office of a grateful mind toward founders and the well-deserving] But that this virtue might pass to his sons, and persevere in the whole Society, as long as it should stand, in the Constitutions, part 4, chapter 1, these things are prescribed: "First, in every college of our Society, perpetually, each week let a Mass be celebrated once for its founder, and for the benefactors living and dead. 2nd. Likewise at the beginning of each month let all the priests who are in the college be bound to offer the same Sacrifice once for the same, perpetually. Besides, each year on that day on which the possession of each college was delivered to the Society, let a Mass be celebrated with solemnity for the founder and benefactors: and at that time in the same college whatever priests are present, on the same [day] shall refer their Sacrifices. 3rd. On the same day let a wax candle be offered to the founder, or to one of his own who is most closely joined to him by kinship, or at last to him whom the founder himself shall have designated: on which candle let the insignia of the founder's arms, or of devotion, stand out. By that candle the Society will attest the gratitude which it owes to the founder in the Lord.

[668] de Societate, — concerning the Society, Fourth. As soon as the Society has come into possession of some college, let the Preposit General take care that it be enjoined throughout the whole Society, that every priest make Mass three times for the surviving founder of that college, and for the benefactors. Again, when they shall have departed from this life, the same Preposit General will take care, as soon as he shall have learned it, that throughout the whole Society each priest make Mass three times for their souls. But as often as it is said that Masses are to be celebrated by the priests, all the rest who dwell in the colleges, and are not priests, ought to pray to that same intention; since, in the name of the same gratitude, both are obliged in the Lord. But for each Mass which is announced to the priests, there are enjoined on those who are not priests single crowns rosaries or a third part of the Marian Rosary. 5th. Founders besides and benefactors of colleges are made partakers peculiarly of all the good works which are done, both in the colleges themselves and in the rest of the Society, by the grace of God. 6th. But in general, let the Society recognize from charity that it is peculiarly bound both to founders, and also to their relations, both while they live and after they have died, so as to pursue them with every office which can be performed by us, according to this our least profession, to the divine glory."

[669] [colligitur ex elencho Missarum, quæ pro ipsis fiunt. — it is gathered from the list of Masses which are made for them.] What would you require more than these, that it may most clearly be established concerning the munificent and generous thanksgiving of the Saint and his sons for benefits received? Which, because it is composed of so profuse a collection and extension of Sacrifices and prayers, not obscurely declares what and how much the Society owes to them, and wishes to return to them from whom it received benefits. And indeed this collection of Sacrifices and prayers is sometimes so much increased according to the measure of merits, that for one Henry IV, king of France, six hundred thousand Hosts by the Society

were immolated, Fr. John Rho being witness in the Various histories of virtues, book 4, chapter 8; where he adds: "That is by no means to be dissimulated, although it be done in that so great light of all nations, that in the City it was instituted, for recalling the memory of Gregory XIII, that his illustrious deeds should be praised by an orator in a great panegyric, both of Cardinals and of lesser prelates, and a most frequent assembly of learned men, [and] this even from the envious extorted more than once an illustrious confession of truth, most full of our commendation, [me] hearing," he says; "that with us benefits are best invested, whose memory, consigned to the eternal tablets of a grateful mind, fears not the injury of age." By these are supplemented the sayings of Ribadeneira concerning founders, book 3, toward the end.

[670] What of this, that the holy Father, besides those so notable monuments of a mindful mind which both he himself, S. Ignatius post mortem etiam gratus. — St. Ignatius grateful even after death. and through his spirit the whole Society, afforded when he himself had already been snatched from mortals, yet did not omit the office of a grateful will? For in the Life of the venerable servant of God, our Fr. Julius Mancinelli, turned from Italian into Latin, book 3, chapter 10, these things are narrated: "At another time once the Saint was visible to him on the Kalends of August in the year 1610, and signified to him some things for the good of the prince of Stigliano, who again and again was well-deserving of the Society, and then was hastening a most solemn preparation in our Neapolitan temple, on the day preceding the festal light of the holy Founder. Father Julius gave to be understood how great a need that prince had, through father Negrone his familiar, and through the father president of the congregation of nobles: at which congregation that prince was wont from time to time to be present. Nor did much time intervene, when that revelation was true, and completed in deed." Learn another fact from the Compendium of the Life of St. Ignatius, published in the year 1681 at Vienna in Austria; where in chapter 11 the following are narrated: "In Ireland, when in some place certain Religious had been suppliant to the Magistrate*, that he should eject from his city the Society, hated on account of the concourse of the people, and he, the memorial being torn up, had ordered the companions to be confident of the grace of God and the love of the citizens, Ignatius appearing with a lovable countenance, gave thanks for the patronage of the companions undertaken, and at his departure, his face turned, addressing one, said: Henceforth now follow me."

[671] The things which Ribadeneira narrates of peace and the flight of lawsuits, book 5, chapter 2, I illustrate from Orlandinus, book 14, [Mansuetudo ejus ostenditur ex facto episcopi Cameracensis, — His gentleness is shown from the affair of the bishop of Cambrai,] from num. 49, where he thus writes: "The prelate of Cambrai renewed that former edict by which he had forbidden ours to summon a sermon, no cause at all having been offered by the Fathers; and prohibited the men of the Society in his whole diocese, which was joined with Tournai, from the preaching of the divine word and the administration of the sacraments. But Ignatius, in no way moved by these difficulties … held it enough that commendatory letters be sent from Cardinal Carpensis to the Apostolic nuncio dealing with the emperor at Brussels. And meanwhile he admonishes his own (as always in causes of this kind he was wont) to conduct themselves as modestly as possible, and not to do anything harsher against the bishop, whence he might be the more irritated, nor to defend their rights against his edicts through Apostolic letters produced, although that was easy for them." Ours obeyed; for by Ignatius's prescription, as the same historian relates, thinking that submission and gentleness were to be used, they held themselves at Tournai, nor did they go out into the diocese of Cambrai, etc. Our Parent therefore preferred to seem and to be a gentle cultivator of ecclesiastical power, than a keen and rigid exactor of his own right.

[672] But the Sorbonne decree against the Society, of which I treated in paragraph 47 and paragraph 48, [decreto Sorbonico, ac puero inepte petulanti, — by the Sorbonne decree, and by a boy ineptly petulant,] brief indeed, but bitter, and very hostile to us, with how gentle and calmed a mind he received it, and wished it to be received by his own, you will understand from Ribadeneira book 4, chapter 11. What of this, that from all pride and imperious manners (Maffei being witness book 3, chapter 5) he vehemently abhorred. You would discern in him no trace of contumacy: and, which is most difficult, he so mixed mildness with gravity, that neither did affability detract from authority, nor severity anything from sweetness. Thus he. And a little after he subjoins this illustrious example of Ignatian gentleness: "When he was making a journey on foot from Venice to Padua, clothed in a domestic and quite worn cloak on account of his poverty, James Laine being his companion, a certain herdsman boy, who was pasturing cattle not far from the road, having spied the pilgrims from afar, suddenly flies nearer to them, and, moved perhaps by the novelty of the habit, fixing his eyes impudently on Ignatius, began to raise guffaws, and to mock the same more licentiously. And when Ignatius had stopped with a placid countenance, his companion, turning to him: Why, he says, do you not quicken your step, Father, and withdraw yourself from the petulance of that boy? Nay rather, said he, why should we defraud the boy of this so great delight offered to him beyond hope? And so, on purpose, he lingered even longer in the same tracks, and offered himself abundantly to the forward youth to be curiously beheld and laughed at; drawing indeed more pleasure from this contempt and mockery of himself, such as it was, than others perceive from the applause of the crowd and favorable acclamation. And this tenor of gentleness he diligently preserved in his whole life."

[673] atque aliis quibusdam factis. — and by certain other deeds. Conformable to this honeyed gentleness of the holy Father are certain other deeds. That above all which Maffei relates, book 3, chapter 9: "When Martin Olavius, who presided over the Roman college for some years with great praise, a man of excellent genius and doctrine, had proposed some theses according to custom, in which was a heading on the immaculate, as they call it, conception of the blessed Virgin; although about that matter Ignatius, according to his eminent piety toward God and the Virgin, by no means doubted; yet lest the Dominican Friars, who were invited to the disputation, should bear it ill, and think themselves by name provoked; he commanded that thesis, although Olavius groaned, to be altogether withdrawn and removed." And indeed what but peace and gentleness did Ignatius breathe, when he would not have the already-mentioned Martin Olavius, as Bartoli relates book 3, num. 48, return to theses set up by certain religious in the convention of the whole Order: because he had so shaken some of them that he snatched from the defender all reply. For that splendor did not please him, by which others should be obscured; nor would he purchase the glory of one by the malevolence of many: who, as being too prone, were about to interpret the shame poured over them as an injury. Both this deed of our Father in regard to Olavius is confirmed from those things which are narrated in the copies of our Roman archive among the Dichos y echos, etc.; that is, among the Sayings and deeds, etc., observed by certain fathers in St. Ignatius. Of peace procured by the Saint among the discordant, it is treated below §85.

* that is, the governor.

§ LXVI. Other specimens of Ignatian gentleness; the love of God.

Exemplum miræ mansuetudinis — An example of wondrous gentleness Nor indeed does that deed conciliate common splendor to the eminent gentleness of the holy Man, which Ribadeneira briefly touches book 5, chapter 2; but which Maffei expounds at more length, book 3, chapter 9. From his full narration of the matter, therefore, I supply that one's scantiness. "An admirable facility," he says, "or rather height of mind, the Father showed at Rome in bearing the most bitter injuries of a certain neighbor. For he, when he learned that ours had immigrated into the house next to him, which had been Peter Codacius's; since he most badly hated Ignatius and his companions, as many others, without cause; rejoiced greatly in one thing, that he thought an excellent occasion offered to himself of selling his house, as being very opportune for ours, and of making money. Therefore, that he might force the stranger to conditions however unjust, he resolved by various arts to exercise the man's patience. And first he impudently invaded the possession of a certain courtyard lying between, which was agreed to be contained within our bounds. Nor yet did Ignatius pursue that matter by lawsuit. Into that courtyard then he sent down peacocks and other fowls, which, our chambers being turned toward that part, kept up a most troublesome din day and night. By no means did Ignatius expostulate.

[675] When he the neighbor wished to perforate the walls of the dining-room toward that part for the sake of light, [in molestissimo quodam vicino sufferendo; — in enduring a certain most troublesome neighbor;] he resisted him with the utmost contumely. Nevertheless the Father was quiet, and on that very account for some years used a blind dark dining-room. When the neighbor did these things most of all, he besides of his own accord set to criminating Ignatius and his companions through the whole City, and to calling them the most worthless and most greedy of bipeds, who, in another's soil, not content with a huge sum of money ill-gotten, and with houses occupied through false religion, strove to continue their possessions daily, and to drive him himself almost by force from his ancestral house. Which things, when they had been reported to Ignatius, he not only bore with a calmed mind, like the rest, but even from that day began to entreat the Lord for his adversary more ardently. At last, when he the neighbor by long-lasting importunity had led ours to whatever unjust price, and the house had at length been bought up by the subsidies of the pious; he so migrated from it, that, as if it were soon to be leveled to the ground, so he carried off with him all the iron-work thence, the doors, the bars of the windows, and even of worked stone whatever he could. Nor yet did Ignatius complain more grievously about that matter: nor against such a man, or any mortal at all, did he ever on any account bring a lawsuit."

[676] Nor indeed did the holy Father, according to his gentleness and peace, approve the earnest zeal of our Adrian Adriani, [quæ alibi etiam se prodidit, & in Bulla canonizationis laudatur; — which betrayed itself also elsewhere, and is praised in the Bull of canonization;] of aggregating recruits to the Society with tumults; of which matter Orlandinus book 11, num. 46. Moreover all his affections warring with gentleness and internal and external peace he had so exactly attempered to the rules of mildness, that he seemed free of all commotion of mind and turbulent motion. And he had so attained this, that although he was hot by nature, and bilious by the constitution of his body; yet on account of the highest mildness which he employed in all speech and habit of life, he seemed to the physicians themselves cold and slow; from the testimony of Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 5. But that is quite consonant with Ignatian gentleness, that in the catalogue of Masses and prayers which are prescribed to ours, among the number of those for whom, according to the Constitutions, frequent prayer ought to be had, are reckoned those ill-affected toward our Society. What we have hitherto said of the gentleness of the holy Father, let us conclude with these words dug out of the Bull of his canonization: in which both his other virtues, and especially his admirable patience and gentleness, appear from his many and huge labors, from opprobria, confusions, and persecutions, willingly and alacritously endured for the love of God, from thanksgiving rendered to those speaking ill of him, and benefits conferred on those doing injury. Of gentleness and charity toward the neighbor these things [are] enough: now of charity toward God.

[677] But how greatly he loved God himself, as is said in the same place a little before, uti & amor ejus erga Deum. — as also his love toward God. is evident from that highest care and diligence with which he strove for the sake of

God always to do good to his neighbor in spiritual and temporal things; and from the greatest vigilance with which he took care to guard his heart pure. For from his conversion no saying or deed was discovered in him which could be judged to be a mortal sin. All his thoughts, words, and works he referred to God as to their end, and destined them to God, and to God's glory and honor: and these words, namely "To the greater glory of God," he always had in his mouth as a motto. But how familiar and frequent that motto or lemma was to the holy Father, is easily perceived from his writings, in which it recurs again and again; so much indeed, that in the compendium of the Viennese Life it is noted how many times that Ignatian axiom, or another equivalent to it, is repeated in them. For according to the things which are there said, "To the greater glory of God," "To the greater service of God," is repeated a hundred and eighty-eight times in the Constitutions; twenty-seven times in the Examen; a hundred and seventeen times in the Rules; forty-four times in the Declarations. So from the abundance of a heart most full of the greater glory and service of God did Ignatius's writings speak. With these accords that word of the Church in the canonical Hours: "To the embrace of his Lord, whose greater glory he had always had in his mouth, [and] had always in all things sought, he emigrated." Moreover the Saint's charity toward God was most perfect; as is established from the following case, which from the Spanish Madrid Life of the year 1594, book 5, chapter 2, I here transfer in these words:

[678] Casus plane singularis, — A plainly singular case, On a certain day of the month of July, in the year 1541, while father master Lainez was with our Father Ignatius; and Andrew Oviedus (who then was a brother, and afterward died patriarch in Ethiopia) and I, says Ribadeneira, were present, on the occasion of a certain conversation, our Father said to father Lainez: Tell me, master Laine, what do you think you would do, if God our Lord should propose to you this case, and should say to you: If you wish to die at once, I will draw you out of the prison of this body, and give you eternal glory. But if you should wish to live even now; I do not render you secure what is to be of you, but you will be left uncertain whether you will persevere in virtue. If you shall live, and shall persevere in virtue, I will give you the reward; but if you shall defect from the good, such as I shall find you, such I shall judge you. If our Lord should say this to you, and you should understand that you could, remaining for some time in this life, render some great and singular service to his divine majesty; what would you choose, what would you answer? And presently father Lainez is introduced there answering thus: I, Father, confess to your Reverence, that I would choose to depart at once, that I might enjoy God, place my salvation in safety, and free myself from dangers in a matter of so great moment.

[679] [quo amor benevolus Sancti erga Deum maxime commendatur. — by which the benevolent love of the Saint toward God is chiefly commended.] To whom our holy Father: I certainly would not so do: but, if I should judge that I could, remaining even now in this life, render some singular service to our Lord, I would supplicate him that he would leave me in it, until I should have rendered him that service; and I would turn my eyes upon him, not upon myself, no account being had of my danger, or of my security. And Ribadeneira presently subjoins the holy Father's reason: For what king or prince is there in the world, who, if he should offer some favor to a servant of his, and the servant should not wish at once to enjoy that favor, that he might do him some greater service; what king or prince would not think himself bound to conserve, nay even to augment, that favor to such a servant, since for the love of his Lord, and for his greater service, he had deprived himself of it? But if men do this, unmindful of benefits and ungrateful, what is to be hoped by us from God, who so prevents us with his grace, and conserves and amplifies it; and through whom we are whatever we are: how could we fear that he would desert us, and permit us to fall; because we have deferred our beatitude, and omitted to enjoy God for the sake of God? Let others think that; I, said Ignatius, do not wish to think that of so good a God, and of so grateful and supreme a king. This is a great and admirable argument of Ignatian charity toward God; of which Ribadeneira also treats in the briefer Life chapter 13; and the canonical Hours most compendiously touch it.

[680] Besides a notable act of Ignatius, loving God with a pure love for his own sake, [Alia ejus erga Deum amoris indicia cum aliunde, — Other indications of his love toward God, both from elsewhere,] you will find among those things which above in paragraph 42, num. 433, I brought forth from Orlandinus, on the occasion of Gehenna hell, of which there is discourse there. Nor only so far did he love the Lord, as Maffei writes book 3, chapter 3, that in comparison with him he reckoned all the rest as nothing, which is the chief part of this virtue; but there was in [his] love a wondrous pleasure: so wholly that, however pressed with cares and wearied with troubles, he acquiesced in the recollection of the one God, and as it were in his embrace, with the highest delight. Besides, the love of God toward us the contemplation inculcates, and provokes [us] to love in return, which is entitled "for exciting spiritual love in us," and is had in the fourth week of the Exercises of our holy Father: where, the benefits of creation and redemption being recalled to memory, and likewise the particular or private gifts, and the merits of the most benign Lord toward man being weighed with intimate affection, etc., there is subjoined this most pious, so to speak, enthusiasm: "Receive, O Lord, my whole liberty. Take my memory, understanding, and whole will. Whatever I have or possess, thou hast bestowed on me: I restore it all to thee, and wholly hand it over to thy will to be governed. Give me only thy love with thy grace, and I am rich enough: nor do I ask anything else beyond."

[681] For exciting and nourishing the fire of the holy Father, the greatest food was supplied by the consideration of the Mediator of God and men. [tum ex consideratione Mediatoris nostri, ac peccati gravitate. — both from the consideration of our Mediator, and of the gravity of sin.] Let Maffei be heard at the place cited: "But he burned with so great a desire of seeing Christ the Lord and liberator as he is, that for that very reason he wished the more vehemently daily to be loosed from the bonds of the body. And so if ever he fell into a graver illness, a hope of migrating being conceived, he was straightway abstracted from his senses, not without great detriment to his health. Wherefore he was again and again ordered by the physicians meanwhile to call away his mind from heavenly things: and since the most bitter death of Christ, undergone for the salvation of the human race, was always before Ignatius; he in turn desired to die a thousand times daily for Christ through the highest torments." Finally those things which, amid so great a mass of businesses, the Man now aged and Preposit General did, that he might reduce lost little women to virtue, deeming [it] worth all effort and vigilance, if he should hinder the crimes and injuries against God of any one of them, even for a single night; of which matter Ribadeneira treats book 3, chapter 9; those things, I say, do they not plainly demonstrate the singular flames of Ignatius's love toward God, since offenses against him so greatly burned him?

§ LXVII. The humility of St. Ignatius; and documents given concerning it.

Quam demisse de se senserit — How humbly he felt about himself It is truly wonderful, says Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 3, how ardently and eagerly Ignatius embraced humility, from the very beginning of his conversion, as the mother and foundation of all virtues; which is there drawn out at more length: to which we add these things. In the spiritual Exercises, how very little he was in his own eyes, he clearly showed. For in the second exercise, which is a meditation on sins, he has thus: "The third is to consider myself, who or what I am, examples being added which may draw me into greater contempt of myself: as if I reckon myself, how little I am, compared to the assembly of all men. What then the whole multitude of mortals is, if it be compared with the angels and all the Blessed. After this it must be attended to, what at last is the thing, whatever is created, in comparison with God the creator himself. Now what can I, one manikin, be? Finally I shall inspect the corruption of my whole self, the depravity of my soul, and the foulness of my body: and I shall reckon myself to be as an ulcer or abscess, from which so great a corruption of sins, and so great a plague of vices, has flowed."

[683] Vir sanctus; — The holy Man; "The fourth is to think what God is, whom I have thus offended, the perfections collected and compared, which are attributed to God as proper to him, with my opposite vices and defects: namely his highest power, wisdom, goodness, and justice, comparing them with my extreme infirmity, ignorance, malice, and iniquity. The fifth, to burst forth into an exclamation, from a vehement commotion of affection, wondering greatly how all creatures (a discourse being made through each) have borne me so long, and preserved [me] alive up to this point. How the angels, bearing the sword of divine justice, have borne me with an even mind, guarded [me], and even helped [me] with their suffrages. How the Saints have interceded for me. How heaven, the sun, the moon, and the other stars, the elements, and all the kinds of animals, and the germs of the earth, in the place of due vengeance, have served me. How finally the yawning earth has not absorbed me, opening a thousand hells, in which I should give perpetual penalties."

[684] [liquet ex libello Exercitiorum spiritualium, — it is clear from the little book of the spiritual Exercises,] But in the second week of the aforesaid spiritual Exercises St. Ignatius proposes three modes of humility, in which, ascending step by step, he leads us to the highest peak of that virtue: "The first mode of humility," he says, "is this, necessary to salvation, that I wholly subject myself to the divine law to be observed, and that not even, the dominion of the whole world being offered to me, or the extreme peril of life being set before me, I transgress from deliberation any command divine or human, which indeed binds us with the bond of mortal sin. The second is of greater perfection, that with fixed mind I be equally inclined to riches, poverty, honor, ignominy, shortness of life and length, where the occasion of divine praise and of my salvation is equal. And that, no condition either of human felicity however great, or of my own death, being proposed, I be ever led to decree to admit a fault, though only venial. The third is the mode of most absolute humility, that, having now attained the former two; even if, nothing being superadded, the praise of God were equal; yet for the greater imitation of Christ, I should choose rather with him poor, spurned, and mocked, to embrace poverty, contempt, and the title of folly, than riches, honors, and the esteem of wisdom."

[685] That our holy Father made this third grade of most absolute humility his own, ex Bulla canonizationis, — from the Bull of canonization, is persuaded from the various specimens which he afforded. Which is proved from the Bull of canonization from the enumeration of parts; where he is narrated to have given not obscure indications also of profound humility, when, girding himself for a new kind of life, he was unwilling to hear his

brother, representing to him the nobility of his family, riches, and strenuousness in warfare, and the future glory thence: but as soon as he recovered from his illness and wound, he bade farewell to the world. The same is celebrated also because, returning to his native land for the sake of his health, when he had noticed that he was already recognized by a certain one, fearing the honor which he understood both his brother and the inhabitants of Azpeitia would exhibit to him, he would not set out for Azpeitia by the direct way with him by whom he had been recognized; but through the mountains and by oblique paths he approached thither alone, and most willingly exchanged the noble palace for the vileness of a humble hospice: and by no prayers could he be led to enter his paternal house. Finally he despised with eminent magnanimity not only the vain glory of the world, but even himself. For, named Preposit General of the Society, he refused so long to undertake that office, until his confessor commanded him to receive the office committed to him. And after receiving the office, that he might confirm by example those whom in the Constitutions he exhorts by word to humility; first indeed he busied himself for some days in the ministries of the kitchen: then he set about to teach boys and the untaught the Christian doctrine. Thus there.

[686] John Rho in the Various histories of virtues, book 7, nec non ex Joanne Rho. — and also from John Rho. chapter 10: "That he obstructed the approach into the Society to dignities with a certain highest contention, and, lest the things once established could be shaken, confirmed [it] with the bond of a vow; that in that commonwealth of which he himself was the founder, he undertook the highest magistracy against his will by another's command, and was scarcely, by the highest contention of his companions, deterred from abdicating himself; that he loved flocks of the poor, and lived among them more willingly; that he suffered himself to be admonished by youths; that he discharged vile ministries at home; that abroad, while discharging the highest magistracy, he imbued boys with the Christian elements; that he quite often professed himself the worst of all mortals, because he corrupted the more gifts of God by which others would strive toward the highest honor; that he wished that after death he be cast out into a dunghill, with no honor of burial; that he obtained from God that James Eguia, conscious of the secrets of his mind, lest he should divulge things to be admired, which he had promised he would do while surviving [him], should die before [him]; that he most constantly dissimulated the hour of his supreme necessity, known divinely, lest any little glory should thence arise; these things," he says, "all clearly proved that there was no kind of humility in which his excellent virtue did not exercise itself, so that, if for man another goal than seeking the greater glory of God were to be sought, humility, namely the nearest, is to be placed there." From these it is established how sedulously the Saint moved all things that he might lie hidden under the obscure shade of humility; but how much he labored that he might promote this virtue in his sons, the following will teach.

[687] This is concluded from the Institute of our Society. For in the general Examen, chapter 4, num. 8, it is thus said: "For greater progress in spirit, and especially for greater submission and proper humility, let him be interrogated whether he will be content that all his errors and defects, [Ostenditur ex Societatis Instituto, quod Sanctus hanc virtutem — It is shown from the Institute of the Society, that the Saint wished this virtue] and whatever things which shall have been noted and observed in him, be manifested to the Superiors through anyone who shall have received them outside confession." But a plainly notable passage is in the same place, num. 44: "Besides, those who are examined … ought diligently to notice how much it helps and conduces to the progress of the spiritual life, wholly, and not in part, to abhor all things which the world loves and embraces, and to admit and covet with all one's strength whatever Christ our Lord loved and embraced. For as worldly men, who follow the things which are of the world, love and seek with great diligence honors, fame, the esteem of a great name on earth, as the world teaches them: so those who proceed in spirit, and seriously follow Christ our Lord, love and ardently long for the things which are wholly contrary to these; namely to be clothed with the same garment and insignia of their Lord, for his love and reverence: so much so that, if it were without any offense of the divine majesty, and without sin of the neighbor, they would wish to suffer contumelies, false testimonies, and injuries, and to be held and esteemed foolish (no occasion, however, being given for it by them): because they long to be assimilated to, and to imitate in some way, our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ; and to be clothed with his garments and insignia, etc. Therefore let them be interrogated whether they feel in themselves desires of this kind, so salutary, and so fruitful for the perfection of their souls."

[688] suis commendatissimam esse voluerit. — wished [this virtue to be most commended to his own.] And in the same place num. 45: "But if anyone, on account of our human debility and misery, should not feel in himself such inflamed desires in the Lord; let him be interrogated whether he certainly feels in himself a desire of feeling desires of this kind. If he shall have answered affirmatively, that he desires namely to conceive such holy desires; that one may better arrive at their effect, let him be interrogated whether he has resolved, and is prepared, to admit injuries, illusions, and opprobria of this kind, included in the insignia of Christ, and any others whatever which might be inflicted on him, whether by anyone from the house or Society (in which he longs to obey and be humbled …), or outside it by anyone of the living, rendering to no one evil for evil, but good for evil, and to bear them patiently with the grace of God." From which it is most manifest how much it was at heart to St. Ignatius that the men of the Society should excel in the most profound abasement of mind.

[689] [Hanc ille ad mortem usque comitem habuit. — He held this as a companion up to death.] Therefore this virtue was in the highest degree among the loves of our most holy Parent; concerning which consult Ribadeneira book 1, chapter 5, chapter 9, chapters 12 and 13; book 2, chapter 3; book 3, chapter 1, chapter 2 and 15; book 4, chapter 1; where you will find examples. And indeed the subscription of St. Ignatius's autograph letter, of which among our monuments dug out from the Roman archive we have a copy, and which he gave to the archdeacon Caçador at Venice in the year 1536, the 12th of February, to Barcelona; that subscription, I say (noted also elsewhere), "De bondad povre Inigo," that is, "Ignatius, needy of goodness," does it not indicate that the Saint, truly great before God and men, was of no worth to himself alone? Consonant is that which, among the Sayings and deeds, etc., of St. Ignatius, which I cited above, Polancus attested of him, that he was wont to say that he could not persuade himself that in any other more than in himself these two were joined; on his part, to commit so many sins; but on God's part, to do him so many benefits. This virtue he had as an inseparable companion even in the extreme close of his life. "A man," says Ribadeneira book 4, chapter 16, "truly humble, who, when he foreknew his death, would neither create a vicar general, nor summon his sons, nor admonish, nor exhort, nor bless them: that they might have all their hopes placed in God; [and] depend on him: [and] reckon that he himself had been nothing, was nothing." And in the same place, chapter 18, it is written: "That we have no image which represents him to the life: which nevertheless was not done by oblivion or negligence. But since Ignatius could suffer neither a painted nor a molded image of himself, nor anything which had vanity, or the shadow of vanity, so as to permit this to be done, there was found no one of ours who dared to ask it of him."

Among our Roman copies is a manuscript, taken from that source to which Fr. Natalis with his own hand inscribed this title: "Of Father Peter Ribadeneira on the Acts of our Father Ignatius." There therefore, to our purpose, it is thus narrated: "When in the election of Julius III our Father had had five suffrages toward the pontificate, and was interrogated by me whether it were true or not, the Father fell silent, and gave silence for an answer." To this is added that, as Bartoli's interpreter has book 4, num. 2: "He was often heard to say that to one striving to reach lofty and arduous heights, nothing ought to be more prior than that he descend to the lowest: for that the peak of the highest virtue rises up from the bottom, nor can be lifted to higher spaces than those to which he shall have depressed himself to the depths." To these add the Saint's saying to Francis Coster, still a recruit; which you may see below in paragraph 69. But because the holy Man was so small in his own eyes while he lived; there is no reason why we should wonder that God, who deposes the powerful from their seat, and exalts the humble, gave him, now dead, as a master of humility to St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi. The fact is narrated among us in volume VI of May, from page 136.

§ LXVIII. Examples and documents of St. Ignatius's obedience.

Although Peter Ribadeneira in book 5 of the Life, chapter 4, with no slothful effort scraped together very many notices by which it is concluded [Suppletur Ribadeneira circa obedientiam Sancti. — Ribadeneira is supplemented concerning the Saint's obedience.] in how great esteem this virtue was held by our holy Founder; yet the same writer of the Life left us an open field for running further, and re-reading the footsteps of our most holy Parent. For, that I may not heap up here those things which Ribadeneira noted in various places of the Life, and by which St. Ignatius proved himself compliant to the arbiters of his conscience, and to Superiors, in a few instances: namely at Manresa, book 1, chapter 6; at Barcelona chapter 10; at Jerusalem chapter 11; at Alcalá chapter 14; at Salamanca chapter 15; near Paris on the Mount of Martyrs, book 2, chapter 4, and at Rome, book 3, chapter 1; that I may not, I say, heap those up here; from elsewhere I shall add to these certain things, partly examples, partly documents.

[691] Maffei book 3, chapter 7 narrates the following example: Medico paret imperito, — He obeys an unskilled physician, "To a physician," he says, "as often as he was ill, he so showed himself obedient to his word, that he held his admonitions for oracles, and seemed in a certain manner wholly to have put off prudence, and to have cast all care and solicitude for his own health upon the same. When he once labored most gravely in his stomach, namely from the excessive heat of the liver, as we said above; the physician who was employed, whom the house used at that time, a youth, and not most skilled, straightway attributed the cause to the cold constitution of the body. And without delay: whatever he could devise for warming the body and the chest, he prescribed. And first he most diligently ordered the windows and doors of the chamber to be shut, lest any breath of air should blow in: then that the languishing patient should keep himself under much clothing: lastly that he be refreshed with the hottest possible food, and a little unmixed wine, but the most austere possible. All which things Ignatius, although he felt, by no light arguments, to be by no means accommodated to himself, and knew that the physician himself was neither most lettered nor most exercised; yet, not even with the extreme peril of life, ever uttered anything against his edicts.

[692] ea præscribenti, — to the one prescribing these things, It was the height of summer: the heats, as in the City, the greatest: Ignatius was pressed by the huge weight of bed-coverings, so great an abundance of sweat flowed from all his members that the mattresses and clothes were soaked; and nevertheless by precept, within the hot fomentations

the sick man confined himself. He burned with thirst; he asked for nothing at all: he was tortured with the most bitter pains; he uttered no word: he sometimes fainted; nor yet did he signify [it]. Finally by the perverse treatment he was brought to such a state, that, when he understood the last crisis to be at hand for himself, the administration of the Society being delegated to the fathers, he prohibited all the domestics from the entrance of his chamber, one excepted, the curator of the infirmary. And this at last stood as a sign of one who, his health now despaired of, was preparing himself for the exit of life. And so the fathers, in a matter so sudden, a council being held, since there were not lacking those who reprehended the opinions especially of the junior physician, order Alexander Petronius, a man advanced in age and excelling in the praise of the medical art, to be summoned at once.

[693] [quæ acerbissimos dolores ac vitæ periculum sibi crearent. — which created for him the most bitter pains and peril of life.] He, as he inspected Ignatius, and learned the kind and order of the medicine employed, cries out with the highest indignation that the man had been killed by heat; that the windows and doors be opened at once; that the bed be lightened of its coverings; he commands draughts of cold water to be given abundantly to the burning patient. Which matter plainly convicted the former physician's ignorance; since indeed, the liver being cooled, the gripings of the stomach were quieted: and the Father, augmented with the merits of obedience, besides shortly recovered his former health. You see how the most obedient Man postpones the health of the body and life itself to that prompt will by which, wholly and entirely, when custom so bore, he depended even on the arbitration of an unskilled physician. What of this, that those virtues which, while he was well, he held among his delights, by the sole rule of obedience, when he was of afflicted health, he measured?

[694] [Carnes comedit in hebdomada sancta, ut medico morem gerat. — He ate meat in Holy Week, to comply with the physician.] Let the narration of Maffei at the place cited be an example: "Again," he says, "when he had nevertheless perseveringly observed the Ash Wednesday fasts, or Lent, although with an afflicted little body; at last on the very fourth feria Wednesday of the more holy Holy week, he was seized with a fever: nor did the same Alexander doubt but that all this proceeded from excessive weakness. Wherefore he prescribed to him the eating of a chicken toward evening, and departed quite uncertain in mind whether Ignatius at such a time would do what was ordered. He returns then on the next day, and asks solicitously whether he had refreshed himself with the chicken. When Ignatius had assented: I will confess, said Alexander, ingenuously what the matter is. Several, the solemn abstinence not being kept, nevertheless in this three-day period have fallen into illness: to whom, when I, being summoned, enjoined the eating of meats, scarcely and with difficulty did I obtain from them that they should comply; because they deemed [it] too grave a sin to eat meats during these days. You on the contrary, the course being now almost run, at the very goal-posts did not refuse to desist at my admonition. This I, Father, cannot sufficiently wonder at. To these Ignatius, with a serene brow which indicated tranquillity of mind: And yet one must obey, he said. Nor did he utter more to that effect. With which reply Alexander, wondrously delighted, and looking up more and more to the sanctity of the Man, afterward narrated to me himself the whole series of the affair."

[695] But he who wholly composed himself to all the nods of obedience Subitis & improvisis casibus — By sudden and unforeseen cases also fashioned others thereto, sudden, unforeseen, and untimely probations being sought for this end, by which he accurately and artfully explored them. Hear the deeds from Maffei in the same place: "A certain priest, the signal being now given, prepared for the Sacrifice, and holding the chalice, when he was setting foot out of the vestry, is suddenly commanded through a messenger by Ignatius, who was observing the whole matter from near by, the sacred ornament being laid aside, to take a cloak for the sake of going out. He obeyed without tergiversation, and cloaked appeared at once before the Father. Then Ignatius asks of the man whether he had borne it ill, being now in readiness to immolate, to be suddenly commanded to lay aside the sacred vestments, and omit the divine thing. When he affirmed that he had not been moved even a little: And know, said Ignatius, that I did this on purpose, not because I have need of you at present, but for the sake of testing your obedience. And hold this: that you have merited more by deserting the Sacrifice than if you had performed that very thing at once, as you had destined. For although the mystery of the altar is of as great worth before God as it certainly is; yet, as we read written, Better is obedience than victims." This experiment of obedience is confirmed from the writing of Fr. John Baptist Viola, which seems to Fr. Ignatius Pinius autograph; transmitted to me among the Roman Spicilegium. Of Fr. Viola Orlandinus treats.

[696] Nor shall we suffer to be passed over in silence another example, by which the holy Man exercised a certain one of his own in a wondrous manner, probabat obedientiam suorum. — he tested the obedience of his own. and which next follows in the same biographer: "A certain one also, while he was most of all hearing the confession of a certain noble, he ordered on purpose to be called to him. When he had said that, the mystery being finished, he would soon be present; he summons him again. But he nevertheless, at the request of the one confessing, lingered a little; and to him coming at last Ignatius: So indeed? Must you, he says, be called a second time? And he received the man with graver words; not because he then indeed had need of his work; but he had wished to test [his] observance and agility … With these arts therefore and of this kind, he was wont from time to time to exercise the alumni, that, prepared for any voice or signification of the prefect, they would leave even a begun stroke in writing; and would present themselves ready, wheresoever there were need, at once." Many other examples are at hand. Here serve the things which Bartoli recounts book 3, num. 26.

[697] It was to him a fixed and immobile law, not to bear the stiff-necked, [Cervicosos non ferebat; pugnantia & intempestiva injungebat probationis causa; — He did not bear the stiff-necked; he enjoined contrary and untimely things for the sake of probation;] by whatever endowments or titles they were strong; and such [men] he not rarely dismissed in troops, prepared even to empty out and dismiss whole colleges entirely, than to tolerate in them any one of such. Wherefore to our scholars at Gandía, seen to bend somewhat in this direction, he gave ardent and long letters about the compliance with which he would have them subjected to those through whom they were ruled by God, and sanctioned all things with this clause: "Whoever lacks the mind ready to obey the rule of obeying which I write—whether of those who are there, or who are about to come to them, not even excepting their rector—let him indeed think of entering another way and life: for the Society admits no one, unless he can and will be formed to that norm of obeying which I have described in these letters." But in fashioning ours to it by use itself he enjoined sometimes idle, untimely, contrary things; as to preach and to act as procurator of the house at the same time; to profess philosophy together with grammar; to have the cook himself a mind compliant to teaching theology; the theologian to change the school for the kitchen. But now, as he was an accurate guardian of preserving obedience; so also he was a severe avenger of it when injured. Let us hear Bartoli in the same place: "To a priest more ardently urging a pilgrimage, for which he so ardently longed, he refused it, and enjoined some flagellations, not indeed condemning the petition as a fault, but its affection as being greater than that of obedience."

[698] [levissimas contra hanc virtutem castigabat transgressiones; — he chastised the lightest transgressions against this virtue;] To this responds that penalty, likewise quite unusual, which he imposed on Emerio de Bonis, scarcely yet a recruit. There dwelt opposite our temple a woman of fame not honest enough; to whom it was a daily custom to throw the sweepings of the house at the doors of the temple. Ignatius, having for some time borne the indignity of the matter, at last enjoined Emerio, who, as at first some [do], still indifferent to domestic and literary matters, was discharging the office of sacristan; he enjoined, I say, that he should ask the neighbor to lay her filth in a more fitting place. But Emerius, a youth of singular modesty, ashamed to speak with her, signified through another what he had been commanded. Which when Ignatius learned, he approved the grace of modesty; but avenged obedience, though most lightly grazed violated. He would have Emerius for six months be present at the dining-room with a little bell at his neck, and daily repeat aloud these words: "I-will and I-will-not do not dwell in this house." Of the same kind besides are the things which the author mentioned in the same place proceeds to relate: "Now if anyone, asking pardon or penance at his knees, as soon as he had nodded, did not at once rise up; he, absent, let him stay clinging in the same posture, that he might be admonished that that abasement lacked the merit which would comply with obedience. So to a lay helper, when he had indicated by a nod that he should sit, while he himself meanwhile conversed with a noble man, and from the observance of both the helper nevertheless continued to stand; he commanded [him] to remain with a stool placed on his head so long, until he had performed the quite long business with the noble which he had begun."

[699] idque satis severe. — and this severely enough. What shall I mention that which the Original commentary for the History of the Society of Jesus, sent from the province of Lyons in the year 1599, has, among the words of Fr. Hannibal Codrettus: "On a certain night he sharply reprehended a certain priest, whom on that very day he had seen walking through the house with a nightcap: and when that father had answered somewhat proudly that he knew such things better than the Father himself; Ignatius himself, seeing that obedience was not a little injured by those words, ordered that he be sent out of the house at once, although it was deep night (that is, evening). But he went away to the house of his brother, whom he had at Rome, and entered the Order of the Franciscans." Linek, whom I cited above, relates, part 3, chapter 41, from Gonsalvo's Diary Ms., that the holy Father ordered the prefect of the Province of Sicily, because he had not executed the things which he had commanded, in virtue of holy obedience … to fast once each week, content with bread and wine only (or menestra, that is, broth), and to scourge himself with lashes as many times, the course of the fiftieth psalm being defined as measure: nor to desist from that zeal of afflicting himself, until the holy Father himself should be made more certain of all the numbers of the thing formerly commanded being fulfilled. Of this place also seems to be another example in Orlandinus book 7, num. 31: "Silvester Landinus namely, that priest indeed honest enough and diligent; but in adverse health rather broken and peevish, ordered by Ignatius to be very diligently cared for beforehand, as soon as he recovered health, because he had profited less by his own example, is sent back into his native land, not indeed altogether and truly dismissed from the Society, although a vehement suspicion of that matter struck his mind, conscious of his softness and moroseness: but he was, on purpose and prudently, left ambiguous and in suspense by Ignatius, that he might give place to correcting himself …" But the Apostolic life, of which the mentioned historian writes in the same place, wholly merited pardon of the fault admitted amid the tediums of the tormenting disease; and that the Society should not dismiss from its flock him who had not dismissed the spirit of the Society; but he receives most longed-for letters from Ignatius, that he was retained in the number of the companions.

§ LXIX. Other specimens and documents of obedience.

Moreover so deliberate an exaction of perfect obedience from his own (as it is in Bartoli at the place cited) had so stripped them privately of the affection of anything whatever, [Volebat Ignatius negotia maximi momenti ab Araozio, — Ignatius wished that businesses of the greatest moment be dropped by Araoz,] that even intent on huge undertakings for the glory of God, if he should recall them to himself, they soon desisted from them; and, commanded to change office or seat, they continually removed the sickle from the harvest of souls, however most abundant, at his voice, just as if

they had heard the voice of God, not of man. Among these Antony Araoz, laboring at Barcelona with incomparable fruit, scarcely admonished by Ignatius through letters that he should thence as quickly as possible seek the interior of Spain, at once obeyed, and, alleging that nothing either of merit to himself, or of the greatest utilities to that people, or of the highest glory to God himself, would perish by that his departure, answered in these words: "What you command, that I go elsewhere at the beginning of September, I am prepared and not disturbed. With the good God, my eternal and best Lord, I shall comply not only entirely, but very alacritously, plainly secure and certain that your voice and that of Christ himself my redeemer are one, which his sheep hear. Although whosoever that message reached greatly complain that so much of goods, which had begun to be done, is taken away. And they were indeed being done: for so much do they suggest for me to do, that, if I wished to accommodate myself to all, I should be compelled to fail myself. Wherefore I pluck out for myself parts of the nights, in which I may spend on my [own] soul what by day I could not. By hearing confessions, and indeed not rarely of a whole life; by delivering the Exercises of the spirit; by reconciling grave discords among the chief citizens, I am sometimes so absorbed that scarcely is it even permitted to say Mass. Which I therefore relate, that commiseration of my soul may seize you."

[701] But in this kind of obeying whom would St. Francis Xavier find equal to himself? & a S. Francisco Xaverio obedientiæ postponi. — and [wished to be subordinated to obedience by St. Francis Xavier.] Where we may rather wonder whether at Ignatius commanding, or [at] the prompt will of Xavier to obey his commands. And yet who is ignorant, who is not ignorant of Xavier, of how great moment it was, that the great Apostle of the Indies should pursue things well begun, and press the gains of souls to the glory of God, and to the illumining of those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death? But how he was affected toward the least nods of Ignatius in that most grave matter, and in a business of so great moment, he indicated not obscurely in his letter to St. Ignatius; concerning which consult above this preliminary Commentary, §53: for "although I see [it] most difficult," he says (namely that the one should again embrace the other in this life), "yet," as he soon adds, "there is nothing which holy obedience cannot effect." And in Horace Tursellinus, book 2, epistle 4, he thus writes to St. Ignatius: "God is my witness how greatly I long to see you also in this Life, dearest Father, that I may communicate with you about many things which desire your help and remedy: for no spaces of places stand in the way of obedience."

And in the same author, book 4, epistle 6, he thus writes to the same his holy Father: "May God join us in the felicity of heavenly things, and (if it will be from his glory) in this life. For if this be commanded me, it can be effected by the force of obedience with no trouble." Such a spirit of obedience did St. Francis Xavier drink in, such did he conserve and foster; such finally did he express in the year 1552, in which he wrote those last things, the last indeed of his life. And unless death had forestalled these vows (as father Daniel Bartoli observes at the place here now quite often designated), posterity would have this example of wondrous obedience, and Ignatius would have received his Xavier, returned across eighteen thousand miles, in his paternal bosom, so great a document of obeying being preferred, and the hope of joining the Japanese and Chinese empire to Christ being omitted—a document more illustrious than that hope gained. For Ignatius had summoned Xavier to himself even by a precept of obedience; as he was sometimes wont with those most dear, either for the increase of merit, or for forestalling intercessions: and he was meditating, the governance of the Society being deposited on him, to form him for himself as a successor; but his death forestalled the arrival of the most grave mandate. These things of the examples of obedience: now of documents.

[702] Proferuntur — They are brought forth Certain chief documents by which our holy Founder instructed his own to the virtue of obedience, and fashioned them to all its excellence and splendor, we have from Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 4. The chief, I say; to which I add these. The interpreter of Bartoli, book 4, page 380, narrates this: "Francis Coster, still a recruit, and quite young, was rather effusive in laughter, which almost happens to novices. The holy Man once came upon him, and indeed laughing to himself apart. Having called him: Francis, he said, I hear that you laugh perpetually. At these things he lowered his eyes, and modestly expected something bitter. But I, infers the Saint, wish you to laugh, my son, and to be cheerful in the Lord: a religious has no cause for grieving; but many for rejoicing. Therefore again I exhort [you], be always of an alacritous and glad mind; and you will certainly be [so], if you shall be humble and obedient. But this I say for this reason, that in you I seem to discern no common genius, and endowments not unequal to great things to be done one day: which, if perhaps they be not entrusted to you, unless you shall be piously humble, you will receive bitterly and sorrowfully. I notice also the Roman food and climate less propitious to you: and you will wish perhaps to be sent into Belgium; but I destine you for Sicily. Now if you shall have designated for yourself certain offices or places, it will not rarely happen that obedience decides all other things about you: from which grief and trouble must necessarily be created for you. Wherefore, that you may always be glad and cheerful; be always humble, and always obedient."

[703] varia documenta, — various documents, Further, that golden letter of the holy Father on the virtue of obedience, with how great a heavenly unction and divine spirit is it furnished? And indeed, as it is taken up by Maffei book 3, chapter 7, both did he prefer this virtue in our Society before all others; and he said that nothing was so contrary to this praise as delay, or rather arrogance, in examining the commands and counsel of Superiors: and he denied that one ought to be held worthy of the name of an obedient [man], who did not submit to a legitimate Superior his judgment also, together with his will: for that this at last was a most grateful holocaust to God, when all the powers of the mind, and especially the intelligence and mind, which obtain the highest place in man, are forced into the service of Christ. But those who, unwilling and dissenting, execute the commands of the Prepositi only by the exterior act, these he said were to be numbered among the vilest slaves, or rather beasts. Fr. Nicholas Lancicius, vol. 1, spiritual opusculum 2, num. 172, teaching that a cloak is not to be put on by ours about to go out of the house, except after receiving from the Superior the faculty of going out; "When," he says, "a certain one had done this before St. F. Ignatius, he ordered him to go away, and to lay aside the cloak, and at last to return to ask, without the cloak, the license."

[704] But the holy Man expressed his most noble feelings concerning this virtue also elsewhere in living and perennial characters. quibus Vir sanctus — by which the holy Man For in the Constitutions, part 3, chapter 1, num. 23, it is said: "It is expedient above all for progress, and very necessary, that all give themselves to perfect obedience, recognizing the Superior (whoever he be) in the place of Christ our Lord, and pursuing him with internal reverence and love. And not only in the external execution of the things which he enjoins let them obey entirely, promptly, bravely, and with due humility, without excuses and murmurings, although he command difficult things, and repugnant according to sensuality, but let them also strive to have interiorly resignation, and true abnegation of proper judgment and will: conforming their will and judgment with that which the Superior wills and feels, in all things (where sin should not be discerned) wholly, the will and judgment of the Superior being set before them for the rule of their will and judgment; that they may be the more exactly conformed to the first and highest rule of all good will and judgment, which is the eternal goodness and wisdom." And in part 6, chapter 1, num. 1, that virtue is prescribed not only in obligatory matters, but also in others; although nothing else than a sign of the Superior's will, without any express precept, should appear. And a little after, the holy Father wishes that holy obedience, both in execution, and in will, and in understanding, be in us always in every part perfect; with great celerity, spiritual joy, and perseverance, performing whatever shall have been enjoined on us; persuading ourselves that all things are just; denying every opinion and judgment of ours that is contrary, by a certain blind obedience, and this indeed in all things which are disposed by the Superior, where it cannot be defined (as has been said) that some kind of sin intervenes.

[705] It will not be alien from our purpose, if from Bartoli's interpreter, book 4, subditos suos — his subjects page 384, we now take that saying of Ignatius: "That, namely, one ought to be an interior man, and to esteem the suppression of private arbitration more than life restored to a dead man." But of so great worth with him was interior virtue, and the things which shine and gleam exteriorly he so feared, that he from time to time broke off for his own the custom of spontaneous affliction, undertaken openly out of order beyond rule; both that they might remember that obedience surpasses victims; and lest the still infirm should thence vainly extol themselves. Then there is subjoined there a narration about a certain Spanish helper of ours; which from the original Commentary, sent for the History of the Society of Jesus from the province of Lyons, in the words of father Hannibal Codrettus, I here subjoin: "There was at that time at Rome a certain coadjutor by name James, Spanish by nation, very much addicted to mortification, who collected the letters which were sent to Rome, and brought them to the Father himself. He once, speaking familiarly with a certain one, said that he no more felt the things which are of the flesh than a wall feels; but that in this was for him the greatest difficulty, to conquer his own will, and to subject [it] to the will of the Superior. Therefore the Father, not ignorant of this, broke his will, in what ways he could, an occasion being offered: and when he had fasted a whole Lent in one year on bread and water; the Father himself, on Good Friday, when James had already lain down on his bed, and was still fasting, ordered fish to be prepared for him, and himself to eat: which he also did."

[706] ad perfectam obedientiam erudiebat; — he instructed [them to perfect obedience;] To these let us weave the following document, which is extant in Bartoli's interpreter, page 385: "Those who employ men of a religious Order for the procuration of the divine service with detriment to their common rule, lose the tree, that they may pluck the fruit." Which was the reason why he could not assent to the Duke of Ferrara, although very loving of the Society, and very beneficent toward it; when he desired one of the fathers as preceptor for his princely son, but one about to live outside the college in the court. Likewise he forbade those who ruled colleges to lend themselves to prelates, if the remoteness from their colleges should seem likely to be somewhat harmful to domestic discipline. And chiefly for this cause he shunned the office of the sacred Inquisition, which was offered to the Society in Portugal, namely from fear of the harm which was too prone to rush upon the Society; if it should undertake those offices, whose ministers would become, by a special privilege, immune from the law of obedience, and loosed from the command of the rectors.

[707] cujus hic producuntur — of which are here produced But since the whole force of obedience chiefly

is discerned in indifference of will, and abnegation of proper judgment, in the service of that virtue; our Roman monuments supply some instrument, from which it becomes clear what kind of men the holy Father wished his own to be in this matter; by this document, which I thus turn from the Italian: "These are the heads of the matters which our Father in Jesus Christ M. Ignatius proposed to all the domestics on the 27th day of February 1548, granting to each a term of three or four or five days, that he might collect himself, and commend himself to God, and, these being considered, might determine and write how he finds himself disposed in the same: since our said Father in Jesus Christ judges that a man is not fit for the institute of this Society, if he does not accommodate himself in all the following matters, as true obedience requires." These matters from the Italian I thus disclose: "First. Whether he finds himself indifferent, to go into Sicily, when it is commanded, or not to go; more approving that part which has been imposed on him by the Superior, to whose governance he has subjected himself in the place of Jesus Christ. Second. In case he must go, whether he finds himself indifferent, to accept whatever office shall have been imposed on him; such as would be, if lettered, that he go to serve in corporal matters and ministries: but if unlettered, that he teach theology, or Greek, or another faculty which he does not understand; and whether in this matter it seems to him expedient, what should be imposed on him through obedience. Likewise, sent to teach, whether he is disposed to accept any one of the four lectures courses, that is, of scholastic or positive theology, of philosophy, or of the more humane letters.

[708] Third. Sent to be a scholastic student, whether he is disposed quædam puncta de indifferentia — certain points about indifference to acquiesce in any study of the faculty indicated to him; of which kind are grammar, or philosophy, or theology; and with any lector designated to him. Likewise, about to go to minister, whether he will find himself prompt for the kitchen, and any other ministry. Fourth. Whether he is disposed to take care besides, that whatever shall have been shown to him, he reckon that to conduce more, submitting to the yoke of holy obedience not only the execution, but also his proper judgment and will; reckoning that more suitable for himself, acquiescing in it, and consoling himself, because his Superior will judge [it] to be more expedient for the particular and universal good; and demonstrating that he has confidence that divine providence will rule and govern him through his Superior."

[709] On the back is had: "On obedience, points of Father Ignatius upon the setting out into Sicily, 1548. ex parte subditi. — on the part of the subject. At Rome." But within, below the points themselves, in Latin is had: "I am prepared to execute all the above-said things willingly with the grace of God, affirming, denying indifferently all parts, as your Paternity shall have judged and willed. And again I offer my vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to you my Superior. Your servant and son in Christ, James Speg, publican." That is, sinner. Of Sicily embracing the Society, into which James l'Hostius first introduced our name, Ribadeneira treats book 3, chapter 19. In the brief Chronicle which was exhibited above §59, of this strictness of obedience especially of the understanding, mention is made at the year 1546; it seems, by anticipation; because in this year l'Hostius was sent into Sicily, Orlandinus being witness book 6, num. 10. Moreover, lest those points seem to anyone strange or exotic, it must be observed that, although the holy Man exacted so great obedience in them, yet he himself, endowed with singular prudence, had in commanding the greatest regard for the talents of each one. For in the Dichos y echos, that is, in his Sayings and deeds, Louis Consalvus attests these things among those which he has concerning governance, num. 35, and which I give to Latinity: "Our Father on a certain day said these words: I greatly desire in all things a certain general indifference, etc. And thus, obedience and abnegation being presupposed on the part of the subject, I have experienced quite good success by following inclinations." And in the same place num. 36 the holy Father "much praises those who never incline to anything, except to obeying." Thus there.

[710] He bore it very grievously when excuses were brought to him for defending errors: [Odit excusationes in erratis, candorem amat. — He hates excuses in errors, loves candor.] but a simple confession he much loved. The words are those of the Original Lyons commentary; of which I spoke above num. 276: and presently that matter is illustrated by an example in the same place: "To Fr. James l'Hostius, who first of the Society entered Sicily …, he had commanded that each week he should write to him what he was doing. Which he diligently observed, reserving the letters to the day on which they could be sent. But on a certain day, when the Father had received many at once from him, he fell at last upon one which had this: Most reverend Father; I this week have done nothing. Then the Father, laughing, testified to those who were present, that he had received more pleasure in the Lord from that one, than from the others in which deeds done were contained."

§ LXX. The Saint's observance toward the Vicar of Christ, ecclesiastical prelates, and secular princes.

Observantiam illam scripto — That observance by writing Our most holy Patriarch expounded the feelings of his mind to the present purpose, in express terms, in the Constitutions, part 10, num. 11, when he thus wrote: "To the same end it will make, in general to take care that the love and charity of all, even of externals, toward the Society be conserved; but especially of those whose will, well or ill affected toward us, has much moment, that the approach to the divine service, and the help of souls, be opened or closed." Nor indeed does he acquiesce in external observance alone toward them; but he requires from his own also an internal reverence toward them, presently subjoining these things: "But in the Society itself let there neither be, nor be felt, a propensity of minds to either part of a faction, which perhaps might be among Christian princes or lords: but let there rather be a certain universal love, which embraces all parts (though they be contrary to each other) in our Lord." And in his Declarations to the said place, opening his mind more explicitly, "First," he says, "let the benevolence of the Apostolic See be conserved, which the Society ought especially to serve: then of secular princes, and magnates, and men of the first authority: whose favor or alienation of mind does much, that the door be opened to the divine service and the good of souls, or closed. So likewise when some are understood to be ill-affected, especially if they be men of no common authority, one must pray for them, and use reasons that they may return into friendship, or at least not be adversaries; and this not from fear of contradictions, or because anything harsher could thence happen to us; but that through the benevolence of men of this kind, the service and glory of God may more increase in all things." Thus there.

[712] atque exemplo — and by example But what St. Ignatius wrote, that he taught by example: for how much observance he above all deferred to the Apostolic See; that one thing alone sufficiently evinces, that by a certain special and quite solemn sacrament oath he both swore himself, and wished his followers, all the professed of the Society of Jesus, to swear, to obey the commands of the Roman Pontiff concerning missions. But how, in a wonderful manner, and wholly contrary to human prudence, he felt concerning the commands of the Vicar of Christ on earth, you have in Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 4, toward the end. To these, he employed great caution in speaking; but especially in regard to the deeds of princely men, as is to be seen in Fr. Bartoli book 4, num. 11; concerning which each one arrogates to himself the right of judging and prattling: he never condemned anything, whatever mode of governing they held, even by the accusation of public speech: nor did he even touch those things which could conveniently be done by them, and would be for a huge good, if they were done: lest he should seem either to carp at the prudence of those who did not discern them, or the equity of those who, having them well perceived, did not act.

[713] docuit; — he taught; Of the four Pontiffs under whose rule he was, one fame openly tore, both for excessive severity, and for other causes. On the contrary he himself curiously investigated whatever made for his praise: opposed those things to externals complaining before him: but at home forbade that anyone should sow complaints about them, although he was held not ambiguously to be ill-disposed toward the Society. Wherefore to a certain father going from Rome into Belgium he greatly enjoined, that about his affairs, and his mind toward the Society, he should utter nothing except in the good part: and to one objecting that the excuses for him were not ready enough for himself: Therefore, he said, about him make not a word; be so good as to speak of Marcellus, who both as Cardinal, and then as Pontiff, deigned the Society with an affection worthy of eternal memory. Add that he seemed to measure all supports for conserving or fostering the Society by observance alone toward the See of Peter: for from the Memorial book of Fr. Louis Consalvus of 200 pages in folio, page 114, Fr. Ignatius Pinius transcribed for our Roman monuments the following, which I thus transfer from the Portuguese: "The protector whom we then had was Cardinal de Carpi, of great virtue, and excellently devoted and friendly to the Society. Yet our Father said quite often that this was not necessary to the Society, nor ought it to have another protector, except the Pope himself." Nor does it escape us how severely he animadverted, if anything in this kind had incautiously escaped anyone. Bartoli gives an example, book 3, num. 45, relating these things:

[714] Jerome Ottellius, puniens defectus in hac materia: — punishing defects in this matter: burning with avidity for seeking souls, and no less industrious in leading them back to Christ, was speaking at Rome to the people: whom, that he should be sent into Sicily, being thus snatched from her, an old woman at Rome so grieved, that to Ignatius saying Mass at the altar, at that "My greatest fault Mea maxima culpa," she cried out from behind: Beat, beat if you please, Father Ignatius, and acknowledge the fault, you who have bereaved Rome of a holy and supremely useful man. This man, carried away in a sermon by his accustomed ardor against the unbridled license of sinning, impetus so bore, that he said that, when neither the love of God nor the fear of eternal punishment restrained it, penalties were to be threatened by the Pontiff; that the wicked were to be driven by him from the holy place with a scourge. Summoned by St. Ignatius after the sermon, and interrogated how many Pontiffs there were in the world; when he had answered, one, who was at Rome: Do you dare therefore, the holy Man infers, not only to designate by name private persons from the pulpit, but the Pontiff himself; and not only that; but even to dictate to them rules of governing, as if you were wiser than they: or, if you are wiser, and see more things, is it permitted [you] to admonish them of those things from the pulpit?

[715] Go now, and collect yourself, that before God you may reconsider what you have deserved: and this before night report here to me. ut patet in Ottellio, — as is clear in the case of Ottellius, Quite sad, and

beyond what can be said disturbed, Ottellius withdrew, and, having searched his error through a long subtle examination, falling at Ignatius's feet, hands him a paper, in which he had described part of those things which he had determined to be owed by him on account of the fault; namely that for some days he should scourge himself by a public flogging through the City; that he should make pilgrimage to Jerusalem barefoot; that he should pass some years fasting on bread and water only: and whatever should seem to the Superior to be added to these penalties. But Ignatius, this so ample will of paying penance being imputed to him even above what was due, for the instruction of others prescribed to him only a certain number of flagellations, which he should perform privately.

[716] For indeed the holy Man could not digest even the least morsel in this matter, ac Laynio. — and to Lainez. which savored of only the mere appearance of a freer tongue: for Linek, part 4, chapter 3, citing Ribadeneira in the Spanish Ms., says: "Father Lainez, dear to him beyond others, when in the temple of St. Paul at Rome, speaking to the Spaniards, he had introduced certain things about simony, although they could not be reprehended, because they were certain and well-known; nevertheless, because they could be wrongly taken by some, as though the Pontifical consultations were not established according to equity enough, he rebuked [him] returning home, not without the threatening of grave penalties, because he had not sufficiently guarded his tongue, and had exposed the Roman Curia to the sharpness of the malevolent, certainly to more unjust judgments." Thus far he: although, as he adds, this matter had not been brought to that point of danger. But now who could sufficiently by speaking explain how the most circumspect Man thought nothing to be neglected, if any offense of the magnates had arisen, that it might be removed in the best way possible, and at the first time?

[717] [Subortas erga magnates offensiones tollit; — He removes offenses arisen toward the magnates;] We narrate a fact from Orlandinus book 8, from num. 35: "When a little book was published concerning the doctrine of the Catholic faith, and the rites which Germany should follow for the meanwhile, until the Council should decide matters: whence the name Interim was given to the little book: and in it some things were permitted, for the sake of peace, which seemed neither to accord well enough with Catholic morals, nor could be established by the emperor's authority; Bobadilla constantly opposed himself to such a kind of concord both by words and writings alike: and he proceeded so far by opposing and contradicting, that, although he was very dear to most in the court of the princes, yet by the imperial ministers, who desired that concord to be effected before the Emperor should withdraw into Belgium, he was ordered in the Emperor's own name to depart from Germany. Which he indeed counted among his gains, since the cause stood for him, and deemed [it] glorious for himself, to please God more than men. Therefore, furnished with a horse and the subsidies of the journey, and his good esteem before the Apostolic See (to which that concord could not be approved) not a little increased, he is sent back into Italy. But B. F. Ignatius, that dismissal being learned, and the cause not yet clearly enough ascertained, and likewise fearing lest Bobadilla had leaped over the just measure in resisting; thought that he, returning to the City, was not immediately to be received into his house: but so held himself in regard to his return, that neither to the Pontificals nor to the Imperials was any handle given for reprehending; nor was the approach for doing business rendered narrower anywhere for the other workmen of the Society." There are also other things which make for our purpose.

[718] [præscribit moderatum usum privilegiorum; archiepiscopo Toletano — he prescribes a moderate use of privileges; to the archbishop of Toledo] The holy Father, part 10 of the Constitutions, num. 12, says: "A moderate and prudent use of the graces granted through the Apostolic See will help: the end of the help of souls alone being most sincerely proposed to us." For although those privileges were most ample, and availed very much for the protection of our Society against our enemies, being propped up by the greatest authority of the Roman Pontiffs, the vicars of Christ among mortals; yet in the place already produced from the Constitutions he indicated not obscurely that he wished them to be brought forth into our use and defense then, when the greater service of God, and the salvation of the neighbor and the exigency of matters, should demand it. Of ours vexed by John Siliceus, archbishop of Toledo, Ribadeneira treats book 4, chapter 4, and also Orlandinus book 11, from num. 57. But that business between the said prelate and the Society being composed in our favor by the authority of the Apostolic See, by what method did the holy Father conduct himself? He gave letters (we use the words of Orlandinus in the same place from num. 61) full of courtesy to the archbishop, partly excusing the zeal of religion in that which he had already done; partly counting his most recent deed in the part of a benefit: and, that he might bind him with a closer bond, he deferred to him two things indeed grateful, and above all to be wished.

[719] The one, that the Society should thereafter receive no one there against his will: [nostris infenso, quantum detulerit. — to the one hostile to ours, how much he deferred.] the other, that, with the same not approving, and above all consenting, it should not use its privileges and immunities … For he said that the safeguards of privileges are then usefully employed in the cause of souls, when the will of the neighboring pastor accedes to helping them thus: and since for that cause privileges are granted by the Apostolic See, that the more easily souls may be cared for; unless from their use this utility be derived to souls; nay rather be retarded, because the pastors do not consent, it is better not to employ them at all, than, by employing them against their nod, to be frustrated of one's hope and labor. Of this place is the modesty which St. Ignatius prescribed to be employed by ours in the cause of the prelate of Cambrai; concerning which above §65, num. 671. Nay rather Ignatius wished the whole authority of the very vicars of the bishops to be conserved among his own.

[720] For in Orlandinus book 10, num. 74, [Episcoporum vicariis suam quoque auctoritatem constare voluit. — He wished the authority of the bishops' vicars also to stand firm.] among other things which are there related, the vicar of the prelate of Tivoli had asked of Fr. Michael Navarro, by what right at last, or by what authority he, a foreign man, should make words to the people, and administer the Sacraments of the Church. Letters were immediately brought from the City, which should make faith that it was everywhere permitted to the Society, through the rights and benefit of the Apostolic See, to discharge duly its own parts and functions. Thus silence was imposed both on the vicar and the bishop. But why that Prelate of Tivoli showed himself a sharp adversary to ours through his vicar at Tivoli, the same historian narrates; but yet presently at num. 75 in the same place he subjoins these things; whence you may understand Ignatius's observance in this case toward the said vicar: "Although Navarro did not escape Ignatius's reprehension, because he had somewhat too sharply restrained the vicar troublesome to him. For the blessed Father wished all his own, even then, when the cause stood for the Society, to conduct themselves submissively and modestly, not only against bishops, but even toward vicars."

§ LXXI. The love of voluntary poverty.

Ribadeneira touches this virtue quite in passing, book 5, chapter 3, saying: "He called poverty our mother; and affirmed it to be ignominious and unworthy, Arctam servat paupertatem — He keeps strict poverty if religious men were, or were held, moneyed." Yet it does not escape us that other things were premised in advance by the said writer concerning that virtue. And indeed, with what affection Ignatius pursued poverty, says Fr. Daniel Bartoli book 4, num. 7, with the same he exulted to gather its fruits pleasantly: for from the time he was fastened to the cross with Christ, he made nothing remaining for himself except Christ. Thenceforth for him hospitals poorhouses, or the open sky, served for a lodging; for a garment, cheap and rough hemp; the worst of collected alms, for daily food; to repudiate money offered; to distribute among the needy the benevolent gifts thrust in by the force of friends, or to cast them to the fortuitous one seizing them. Thus he.

[722] But let us dig these things out severally from Ribadeneira. Book 1, chapter 3: "He bought a garment," he says, "which, setting out for Jerusalem, he had resolved to wear, namely an ankle-length tunic of hempen cloth, rough, and prickly in the manner of a sack; for a military belt a rope, etc." Chapter 5: "When he arrived at Manresa, he first fixed foot in the poorhouse of mendicant men, etc." Chapter 10: "Thinking with himself about casting away the money which, about to sail to Jerusalem, he had received, he resolved at last to confer it on the poor and mendicants he met: which indeed he performed abundantly." In the same place: "While he tarried at Venice, by his old custom he collected alms: he passed the nights in the square of St. Mark, etc." Chapter 14: "In the town of Alcalá he turned aside to the hospital house of the poor, [and] from door to door begs bread for food according to custom."

[723] Societatem. — the Society. But in book 2, chapter 1, it is treated of alms collected in Belgium. Chapter 4: "Ignatius and his companions bound themselves by a vow, to renounce all things, except the viaticum, on the appointed day, of procuring the salvation of neighbors, of sailing to Jerusalem, etc." Chapter 5: "He came into his native land. But that he should turn aside to his brother, he could by no reason be led; but he lodged in a public and hospitable house, and began to collect alms from door to door, his brother much resisting. But thence about to depart, when he wished to go on foot, and without any money at all, another contention of Ignatius with his brother is renewed, etc." And at the chapter cited: "businesses with the parents of the companions being so transacted, that he received not even an obol from them, though they liberally offered money of their own accord, etc." Chapter 8: "Ignatius and two companions find outside the town of Vicenza a low and ruinous little house, etc. In this they place their domicile, a little quantity of straw being brought together, they strew the ground for lying sleeping. Twice daily they enter the town to seek food, which they brought back most slender: for they scarcely had bread, as much as would be enough to sustain life, etc." And do not all these things most clearly prove Ignatius's most strict poverty, before he had instituted the Society? But what afterward?

[724] [Factus ejusdem Præpositus, exemplar fuit summæ paupertatis. — Made Preposit of the same, he was an exemplar of the highest poverty.] But after these things, made Parent of the Society, as Bartoli writes book 4, num. 7, and its Preposit, he so loved poverty, that no one was poorer at home. The sacred pages Scripture, and a codex of the sacred rites for the divine thing, with the little book On the Imitation of Christ, were all his library furniture. The whole apparatus of his chamber was the same which the Shunammite once furnished for Elisha, a bed, and a table, and a chair, and a candlestick. The table, although those generally reclined at it who had either come to Rome from abroad, or some one of the first fathers, was so sparing, that nothing could be taken from it, but that it would be taken from necessary food. And so pleasantly once Bobadilla, plucking the part prepared for himself of the coarser food set before them, and which then was of worse worth, easily going to harm, smiling added, that a little poison does not harm. Noting namely that portion so small, that if it were even toxic, it could be eaten with impunity. He once treated the steward and minister rather severely, because they had brought him fresh grapes, when in the dining-room they had not set them before the rest. But in this his poverty there was something generous and noble; which could be praised as singular even in the wealthy: for however cut down his estate was, and almost none, he never moved a lawsuit against anyone for temporary reasons, and preferred to yield his own right, than, on account of things taken from him, to testify a more unjust mind. From which, besides the honor of Christian

magnificence, he said a double gain proceeded: the one of charity, to which no equal weight of gold would be equal: the other of divine liberality, abundantly supplying from its own what it saw despised of its own accord for its sake. Some of the things said are confirmed by the answers of John Baptist Velatus to the questions proposed to him by Lancicius: for thence we have that the furniture was so poor to the holy Man, that neither was his table covered, and his seats, which he used in his chamber, consisted of simple wood. And to the seventh question of the same Lancicius, among others proposed to Ribadeneira by him, it is thus answered: "The bed was poor and common, and accommodated to his weakness." But from those things which the often-praised digger-out of our Roman archive sent here from an autograph letter of Fr. Horatio Arnaldi to Fr. Daniel Bartoli, given at Savona on the 23rd day of September in the year 1650 to Rome, we learn that St. Ignatius was not wont to wear new garments, but old ones very clean. Let us proceed again with Bartoli to temporal matters:

[725] He guarded much more diligently, lest our [men] should wrangle among themselves about similar things: [Parvi facit pecuniam; uti ex factis quibusdam conficitur. — He esteems money little; as is concluded from certain deeds.] and when two rectors disagreed, each about the accounts of his own college, and made no end of altercating; by a sudden device he ordered them to change the care of the colleges mutually. Thus he beautifully quieted both. These things Bartoli. To which what prohibits [me] to add, with how great a spirit of poverty the holy Man conducted himself at Rome in the public scarcity of grain, expending all money on the relief of the outside poor; no part of the same being disbursed for his own or his companions' convenience; although he was not ignorant that he could do it even with the greatest will of those who had contributed; according to the things which have already been said §29. Nor was he only munificent of another's goods, as Bartoli relates in the same place, which he could by right make his own: but even from his domestic slenderness he most willingly supplied the necessities to another's scarcity. A very opulent Cardinal had indicated him to a certain quite needy noble, that he should ask some subsidy from him. To this [man], because nothing else was at hand, he liberally bestowed whatever money was found at home; grieving with him humanely, that he was not that rich [man] whom the Cardinal had feigned him to be, since he had preferred to destine him to himself, than to console his want easily at his own expense. He guarded besides with much industry, lest, relieving the poor, he should burden their modesty. Wherefore to those reduced to want, especially if they were of noble birth, and burdened with offspring to which the daily gains of their craft were unequal, he gave certain little things to be worked, and laid up a large reward for the labor; that what was a work of pious charity might be believed the price of labor. There can be consulted the things which are related below in the answers of Fr. Oliverius Manareus to the demands of Nicholas Lancicius, part 3, to the twenty-ninth.

[726] See now, I pray, how aptly and neatly these examples of voluntary poverty cohere with the document of the holy Father, [Paupertas spiritus Exercitiis spiritualibus S. Ignatii consona: — Poverty of spirit consonant with the spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius:] inserted into the meditation on the Kingdom of Christ, which is the first of the second week of the spiritual Exercises: whose sum is: "Behold, O supreme King, and Lord of all, I, though most unworthy, yet relying on thy grace and help, offer myself wholly to thee …, attesting that this is my mind …, that (provided it cede to the greater increase of thy praise and my service) as nearly as I can I will follow and imitate thee in bearing injuries, etc., with true poverty both of spirit and also of things, etc." Thus was St. Ignatius disposed. Indeed he most constantly cultivated voluntary poverty (which he called the wall of Religion) up to the very end, as Maffei writes book 3, chapter 8. Nor did he only himself, the same recording, have nothing proper of his own, but neither did he permit others, though noble by birth, and once accustomed to delights, to have anything. Nay even he forbade anyone from the professed house to eat at the German or Roman college, except quite rarely, and for a just cause: that namely, if there were need, he might more truly swear that nothing at all had come to the professed house itself from the fruits of the colleges. But he said at last that that [man] seemed to him poor in spirit, who toward those things which he used was so affected in mind, that he seemed to be like a certain statue, which in no way resists or refuses, so as not to be at once stripped of every covering and ornament however precious.

[727] cujus alia quædam specimina — of which certain other specimens A notable specimen of poverty St. F. Ignatius gave in Orlandinus book 6, num. 6. Receive the matter from him. Asked by the Portuguese that he should transact at the City concerning certain ecclesiastical revenues to be decreed to the college; he himself thought this care was to be referred back to the procurator of the Portuguese king, because he said it was more consonant to his men to treat divine and eternal things, than human and perishable. Behold for you another specimen, which soon follows in the same place: "But certain things, because they seemed to accord less with the morals of the Society, he did not suffer to be effected or treated even by externals. For when Ortiz, very studious of him, had liberally offered a rich benefice for nourishing the studies of ours at Alcalá, provided only some one of the professed should preside, through the authority of the Apostolic See, over the procuration of souls: Ignatius, in the highest dearth of money, forbade this to be asked of the Pontiff; and thanks being given for so great piety, wrote back to Ortiz, that wealth was not to be sought by the professed, but the want of poverty vowed to God was to be preserved with all faith." To these two specimens we join this third from the same historian book 3, num. 49:

[628] producuntur. — are brought forth. To Alfonso Salmeron and Paschasius Broet, sent with quite ample power as Apostolic nuncios by the supreme Pontiff into Ireland, various admonitions were given by Ignatius before they departed. But among others, while they were preparing themselves for the journey, "As to what pertains to money, he did not wish it to be touched by their hand; not even that which they should have exacted by the title of a fine for dispensations: but all money collected by whatever reason [was] rather to be divided among the poor and handled by others: that they might affirm by oath, if there were need, that from that procuration of the office they had touched not even an as or an obol."

§ LXXII. What sort of poverty was prescribed to the Society of Jesus by its Founder; the greatness of his mind.

Ex Constitutionibus — From the Constitutions "The Houses of the Professed can have no revenues (not even for the building of a temple, or its worship and ornament) nor any possessions privately or in common: nor the right of asking any perpetual alms, but they live on daily alms"; from Ribadeneira book 3, chapter 22, who embraced in these few words the sum of our most perfect poverty. But of the colleges and houses of probation the reckoning is different; as the same author presently indicates in the same place. Of these further our Institute can be consulted: from which I shall derive some things here against the detractors of our affairs; who, because they either do not understand or will not understand the poverty of the Society, wrongly traduce it. But for the sake of brevity, we shall read certain chief heads of this argument. In the Constitutions, part 3, chapter 1, num. 25, it is prescribed, "Let all love poverty as a mother, and according to the measure of holy discretion, at their times experience some of its effects."

[730] In the same place, part 10, num. 5: "Poverty is as a bulwark to Religious Orders, etc." Part 6, chapter 2, num. 1: Societatis Jesu — of the Society of Jesus "Poverty, as a firm wall of religion, is to be loved, and conserved in its purity." And presently: "Whoever shall have made profession in the Society, let them promise that they will do nothing toward the innovation of the Constitutions in those things which pertain to poverty: unless in some way, according to the reason of occurring matters, they should judge it to be more restricted in the Lord." The formula of that vow I shall give below. And in the same place num. 2: "In the houses or churches which shall be taken up by the Society for the help of souls, no revenues, not even applied to the sacristy or the fabric building, can be had." Num. 3: "Let the professed live from alms in the houses, etc." Further their houses have no right to any stable immovable thing, except the habitation; but only to movable things: but if anything stable be left to them, it ought to be sold as soon as possible, according to the things which are had there num. 5, and in its Declaration. Add from chapter 10 of part 4, that "the Professed Society … cannot seek anything of private utility from revenues, or convert [it] to its own use."

[731] Part 6, chapter 2, num. 7: "Let all who are under the obedience of the Society probatur paupertas ejus. — its poverty is proved. remember that they ought to give gratis what they have received gratis, neither by asking nor by admitting accepting any stipend or alms by which the Masses, or confessions, or lectures, or visitations, or any other office of those which the Society according to our Institute can exercise, should seem to be compensated. Num. 10: Let them be prepared to beg from door to door, when either obedience or necessity shall require it. And let there be one or more destined to ask alms, by which the persons of the Society may be sustained: which alms they will ask simply for the love of our Lord. Num. 11. Let each be content with those things which shall have been given from the common store for his necessary or convenient use, superfluous things being cut away. Num. 12. That the purity of poverty, and that quiet which it brings with it, may be better conserved; not only will the particular professed, or formed coadjutors, not be capable of hereditary succession; but neither the houses, nor churches, nor colleges by reason of them." Part 3, chapter 1, num. 7: "Let all be taught that they ought to use no thing as their own." And num. 8: "They can by no means lend or receive or dispense anything of those things which are at home; unless the Superior, being conscious, shall have given his consent." But in the general Examen, chapter 4, num. 26, its Founder wished to be proposed to anyone about to enter the Society: "Let him persuade himself that the reckoning of his food, drink, clothing, and bed, if he wishes to follow the Society, will be accommodated to the poor; and that the vilest of those things which are at home will be given to him."

[732] Moreover it was so severely and religiously provided, that the houses of the professed should not admit those subsidies from the colleges, [Severitas ejus circa domos professas: — Its severity concerning the professed houses:] which by the title of alms they commonly admit from others, however grave a want they were straitened by; that about that matter yearly at Christmas, by a singular decree of Lainez, Preposit of the Society, the rectors of the colleges, Bartoli being witness book 4, num. 7, once gave this oath: "I invoke as witness with all reverence God, who is eternal truth, that from the temporal goods of the college, nothing has been converted to the utility of the professed, or of their houses, against the Constitutions of the Society, which prohibit it: which indeed has come to my knowledge." Thus there. Ignatius had shone before set the example for this, when a huge weight of wax, sent to Rome as a gift to the professed house by the fathers of the Palermo college, he adjudged to the Roman college: from which if it were even

even a little flask of wine were to be asked from it for the solace of a sick man; he did not suffer even that to be done, except by refunding as much again; saying that between colleges and houses there intervenes a great chasm; as we have from the same place.

[733] votum, eam non relaxandi: — a vow, not to relax it: Moreover our most holy Patriarch wisely provided for the perpetuity and perfection of poverty, when by a peculiar vow of the professed, as by a most valid wall, lest it should be shaken by the lapse of time, he wished to fortify it. The sum of that vow is: "I promise to God almighty …, that I will never act by any reason, or consent, that the things which are ordained concerning poverty in the Constitutions of the Society be changed: unless when, from a just cause of exigent matters, poverty should seem to be more restricted."

[734] [responsa Manarei ad quæsita Lessii — the answers of Manareus to the questions of Lessius] But how restricted, severe, and perfect the observation of poverty was, while our holy Father Ignatius lived, and in the times nearest after him, those things will teach which are in Linek cited above, part 3, chapter 37: who published in print the answers of Fr. Oliverius Manareus to the questions of Fr. Leonard Lessius, which he had proposed by letters, returned to him in the year 1603, as he adds, on the 27th day of November by letter: from which I excerpt these: "There was once a rule handed down by our holy Father, that no one should affix or tear away an image, nay not even a nail, in his chamber, with the Superior not knowing. In place of which, although now the general rules 26 of the Summary, and the ninth of the Common, and others, are substituted, which provide that a subject should not dispense of a thing which is at home, or even usurp [it] to himself without the faculty of the Superiors; yet their interpretation, as to practice, seems to be sought from that ancient rule. And in the time of our holy Father it was a reserved case to do otherwise. Although, partly on occasion of the rules which were reviewed by various Fathers General, partly also on occasion of scruples, that reservation has been removed."

[735] in materia paupertatis. — in the matter of poverty. Among the rest likewise which are related in the same place, Lessius subjoined another inquiry, by which he asked: "What feeling there was, or had been, concerning those who had picked up apples, pears, cherries, grapes in the garden or storeroom, and freely turned them to their own uses?" He answered that this vice was so hateful to the holy Father, that chiefly for its cause he established that those about to wipe away their stains by confession should first make all their sins public, if they had taken anything without leave, if they had given anything. Which matter, transmitted to posterity, afterward came into a custom, and even now flourishes. Further, that for one picking an apple, pear, fig, or any fruit whatever, even a fallen one, taking [it] from the ground, there was a fixed public flagellation in the time of the holy Father, with no hope of remission. Nor was the judgment much different, if anyone had plucked a flower: and Oliverius subjoins that those moderators rectors act wrongly, who in the office of rectorship more remissly animadvert on such things: because from these, although little and moderate, no light dangers can arise, and great abuses creep in, which, if they do not go to ruin the Society, certainly cast and drive [it] into no common straits and calamities. Thus there, and many other things.

[736] Greatness of mind, according to the things which Ribadeneira has in book 5, chapter 9, is contained chiefly in four things: namely first in constant tolerance of griefs and afflictions; then in most firm hope in God, [Magnitudo animi S. Ignatii elucet in tolerantia ærumnarum, — The greatness of mind of St. Ignatius shines forth in the tolerance of afflictions,] with contempt of money; third, in a certain singular firmness in undertaking arduous matters; finally in a tenacious constancy of purpose in vigorously retaining those things which have once been undertaken, urging them strongly, and constantly bringing them to their conclusion. Let us discern each, how much it shone forth in St. Ignatius. And first indeed how great was his tolerance of griefs and afflictions, besides those things which Ribadeneira collects at the place cited, the Church in the canonical Hours, prescribing them to be read summarily, says: "It is wonderful what afflictions and mockeries he devoured everywhere, having endured all the roughest things, both chains and blows almost to death: for which, however, he always sought far more for the glory of his Lord."

[737] Cardinal Louis Ludovisi in his sacred Panegyric expounds this matter, as also its cause: ac plurimorum laborum; — and of very many labors; "He was struck by men, and by infernal enemies, and even left in the confine of death and life, ejected from cities, laden with chains, bound with fetters, and shut in horrid prisons, for this fault alone, that with all effort he recalled many from fault, [and] called them to God." But lest anyone think these said by him ornately rather than truly; if we run through his whole life from the first rudiments of the more sacred warfare up to his death, how many, how great, how illustrious traces of Ignatian patience and labors shall we find, which he left to posterity to be observed and read? Manresa is a witness, where his patience was wondrously tested by scruples, from Ribadeneira book 1, chapter 6. Italy is a witness; for sailing toward it, he is tossed by a great and foul tempest, ibid. chapter 10; where also of the grave and most troublesome inconveniences which he suffered on the Roman journey; and when he set out from Rome to Venice. But at Jerusalem an importunate and untimely departure from the holy places is commanded him, places no less avidly desired by him than piously saluted; chapter 11. Thence returning into Italy, and then setting out from Ferrara to Genoa, he sustained most unworthy things from Spanish soldiers, chapter 12. But now how great patience was needed by a Man of perfect age, to devour the first rudiments of grammar among boys, and even in a certain manner to become a boy again among them, chapter 13; to be cast into prison at Alcalá, chapter 14; to be seized at Salamanca, chapter 15; to be most cruelly tortured at Barcelona for a monastery reduced to virtue, from the things said in this our commentary paragraph 12? A witness and spectator of Ignatian patience also was Gaul France: for at Paris he is called into envy for offices of charity, from the Life book 2, chapter 2; nay he is even there sought unto death itself, book 5, chapter 2: where also he was nearest to the infamous punishment of the rods, book 2, chapter 3. A witness finally again is Italy: for at Venice he is accused, chapter 6: a great tempest arose at Rome chapter 14; and there finally, doing good for evil deeds, he is fined, book 3, chapter 13. From these, supply Ribadeneira from Ribadeneira concerning the adverse things most patiently tolerated by our Saint.

§ LXXIII. Other specimens of his greatness of mind.

Moreover, how much he held adverse things in esteem, he excellently proved both by words and by deeds, as one who rejoiced over storms stirred up against the Society without its fault. For while letters about the Toledan tumults were delivered to him, Gaudet Sanctus in rebus adversis, — The Saint rejoices in adverse things, far be it that he deviated even a little from his former state of a most calmed mind; but "the matter being known," Orlandinus being witness book 11, num. 60, with a straightway cheerful and open brow he said that what was announced by those letters seemed to be numbered among glad things; and that that tempest arisen against the Society without the Society's fault at Toledo was a certain signification of future produce in that city: for the soil of the earth pours forth the more abundant and gladder fruits, the greater the preceding sadness of the winter tempest: and that the Society had always been more fruitful in those places where it had been more commonly depressed, and tossed and agitated by greater injuries. But on the contrary the holy Father held glad and prosperous things in such a place regard, that he indicated that from them there was to be fear for himself. For, as the same Orlandinus book 14, num. 9, narrates: "When B. Ignatius was once conversing more familiarly with Louis Consalvus, since glad messages from all sides about the prosperous affairs and progressions of the Society were being brought, he said that he was in great fear lest the Society were not serving God strenuously enough somewhere." For he had learned by experience what is written by the holy Fathers, that perpetual felicity is not to be trusted enough; and that it is most to be feared, when all things flow according to one's will.

[739] dolet in prosperis. — he grieves in prosperous things. What of this, that St. Ignatius (as it is in Bartoli book 2, num. 18) feared no tempest more savage to the Society than tranquillity itself, no kind of adversaries more dangerous than to lack adversaries. Nor indeed did he feel thus secretly; but he betrayed it by external signs, according to these things which straightway follow in the same author: "But being noted once, besides that his perpetual serenity as of mind so of countenance, to be sadder in face, and sighing; he indicated the cause, that in a certain province a more prosperous breeze breathed on the affairs of the Society from the court and the people, and, while others attentive to nearer things, congratulating, gave thanks to God; he himself, discerning from the high watchtower of his mind more distantly, feared ambiguous outcomes, and said that he much suspected lest the course of divine service were there little happy." To which also pertains that which in Janinus is placed among the sayings of the holy Man, book 4, page 378: "If God shall afford you a rich harvest of tolerance; that will be an argument of great sanctity, into which he desires to lift you: and if you wish to be made very holy by him, ask of him much material of sufferings. For the bright flame of divine love rises no otherwise more ardent than from the wood of the cross, which Christ used for the sacrifice of his infinite charity." For he said that of whatever honey can be sucked from the flowers and delights of men, there is nothing to the sweetness which Christ's gall and vinegar pours in, that is, the bitter and rough things which are borne for the love of Christ with Christ. Finally, by way of a finishing touch, let us add to these that word of Ribadeneira from the things said in paragraph 54, num. 562, where, treating of the Saint's perpetual evenness, "But if any change of countenance," he says, "intervened, it was, when he showed a greater gladness than usual, if ever some great and sudden tribulation arose." These things being noted of the Saint's tolerance, it follows that we assign also our own supplement to illustrating his confidence.

[740] Summa in Deum fiducia: — The highest confidence in God: The Lord, as the Bull of canonization speaks, fortified him with the greatest hope; as his actions testify enough and more than enough. But besides those which Ribadeneira consigns book 5, chapter 9, there can besides be consulted the Life book 1, chapter 10; book 4, chapter 6. For indeed in this most firm hope in God and contempt of money, the height of his mind much excelled; being plainly certain that there was no need to fear lest he who feeds the birds of heaven, and clothes the lilies of the field with a most splendid ornament, the same should suffer his own workmen laboring in the vineyard of the Church for no wage, to lack the aliments necessary for supporting life. Let the Roman college be an example, of whose institution Ribadeneira treats book 4, chapter 3; where although the number of ours was vehemently multiplied, that I may speak with Ribadeneira, "the divine benignity nevertheless sustained them, even in a great dearth of grain, above the belief of men, but not above the confidence and hope of Ignatius, hitherto," he says. Certainly of this confidence, which, secure of divine protection, cast itself wholly

into the bosom of his paternal providence, the holy Father placed an illustrious monument in the foundation of the said college; "Lacking substance (the words are those of Bartoli's interpreter book 4, num. 23), bound by a great debt; excluded by the calamity of the times from the hope of subsidy; with no food-provision at home, he nevertheless admitted many there into the Society, whose expense therefore grew daily beyond measure. For thus it befits [it] to be done, he said, satisfying a certain father, by whom it could not be sufficiently grasped by what prudence these things were being managed. Thus, he said, one must sail against adverse waves and winds, and hope in God is to be firmed the more confidently, the more all things seem to be despaired of."

[741] But to this his unusual expectation those outcomes always responded, de providentia ejus — concerning his providence that at home want never grew, but that supplies were augmented. Whence to Bobadilla, wondering and inquiring whence he had sufficient for feeding so many companions, he wove for him a catalogue of the pious largesses which he had received from various persons. But to Bobadilla, computing that the sum of them did not equal even the half part of the expenses, "So then?" Ignatius answered, "do we therefore depend on God in nothing? And do we trust God only with the confidence of pious largesses? In the hands of God I find those things which I do not find in the hands of men: and so if these give nothing; I shall receive all things from God." Great admiration also of his eminent and rare confidence in God move the things which are subjoined in the same place: "But as he had given a beginning to that college by the expenses of divine liberality, so he promoted it by the same. There were in it twenty-eight fathers: Ignatius summons Manareus their rector; commands chambers, furniture, and food to be prepared there for as many more fathers, and as much as would be enough for a hundred companions. For this there were to Polancus, prefect of the building, five gold pieces; not indeed residual surplus, but because they were not of legitimate weight: he girds himself for the work none the less, trusting in the treasury of Him whose glory he served; by whose help indeed so prodigal, that shortly he furnished both the house, and every other apparatus for dwelling, for seventy-two new guests. What meanwhile the holy Father?"

[742] Ignatius approved, as is subjoined in the same place, all things except the granary, quam securissima habet sensa, — how most secure feelings he had, transformed indeed by beds and little tables into a hall capable of many, but under bare tiles, and with no flooring: and turning to the rector: "Certainly God wishes his own to dwell after the manner of the poor," he said; "but not so miserably as you seem to wish. Was money perhaps lacking to God, for putting there a paneled ceiling of boards, so that they should have almost to live under the open sky?" And he commanded that to be put in as soon as possible. And as all these expenses had been ascribed to God's account, so were they by him most quickly paid off: that it might be by no means doubtful that the accounts which Ignatius made in the service of God, God imputed to himself. But indeed while the hundred, whom I mentioned, inhabit the college, so great a dearth of grain at Rome, accruing to the war, brought in such straits of food and money, that even the very wealthy could scarcely guard their dignity not without inconvenience; so far was it that they could aid the needy, that nay even the Cardinals diminished the number of their households. Therefore those with whom the administration of the college lay approach Ignatius about this. For it seemed to some too arrogant to retain then that multitude to be fed, to which, alms being removed, nothing at all would remain. But indeed they saw [him] so averse from those being, as was being urged, sent elsewhere, that then also he was meditating for them a purchase of fifty thousand coins. Nor did his confidence in God fail him in supplying the necessaries for so ample a household.

[743] quem rebus in arctis — whom in tight circumstances For he attended his own not more sparingly by even an obol, than if that difficulty of the common grain-supply by no means pertained to them. Which Louis Gonzales admiring, when he attributed [it] to a miracle; "So then, a miracle?" he said; "it would rather be a wonder if it were done otherwise. Certainly it would be a miracle if God should fail those trusting in his help; but by no means, if he should succor them. Have you not yet hitherto noticed that, the more are joined to us, the more copiously has the grain been increased for us? Let us only attend to the divine services, God will provide the things which shall be opportune for us. I plainly, if there be need of the deed, as confidently as I admitted these hundred, so easily would I admit others up to a thousand: since to God it is the same to feed a thousand as a hundred, or ten." But in very truth that God provided the necessary conveniences for that his household by his own special expense, was manifestly clear by more than one indication. It happened sometimes that the signal was given for the table meal, when neither a crumb of bread was at hand at home, and at the same point of time large alms were sent, which would be abundantly enough for so great a number. At other times, when wine, bread, all things were lacking, suddenly all things were present.

[744] But deeds by which divine providence in a wondrous manner succored ours, miro modo — in a wondrous manner read in Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 9; and in Maffei book 3, chapter 9. To which can be numbered that from Orlandinus book 15, num. 6: "From the treasuries of God, as his own, and stored at his own home, the blessed Father dared to build in the City a villa from the foundations (of which above §50). And the work was scarcely finished, completed in all its numbers; when on the very day on which they demanded the price of the work, the wage of labor, it is largely sent by the beneficent, whence their wage could be paid to the smiths and builders." To these, from Maffei cited a little before, we subjoin that argument of divine providence toward his own:

[745] Societas sibi propitium sentit. — The Society feels [God propitious to it.] "On a certain day toward evening, when at home bread, wine, wood had wholly failed; the next day in the morning, beyond the expectation of all, a cart laden with wood is sent by a noble matron. While the janitor stores that wood in the wine-cellar, as is done, he imprudently left the door of the house, turned at that time toward the Capitol, standing open. Recollecting himself then, when he had run to shut it, he suddenly finds some measures modii of grain, and casks of wine in the very vestibule: nor, however great diligence being employed, could he ever learn who had sent those gifts." It pleases [me] to conclude this paragraph with the same words with which Maffei ends the ninth chapter of his third book: "These things therefore, and others of this kind, happened from time to time, which to one esteeming the matter with a political eyebrow might perhaps seem frivolous to someone: but certainly they both sufficiently declare the paternal providence toward the servants of God, and vindicate Ignatius's security and confidence from all infamy of folly or rashness." And these indeed are the arguments of Ignatian greatness of mind. Behold the rest.

§ LXXIV. The rest are given, from constancy in great matters. Evenness of mind; the victory by which a man conquers himself.

But he was, as strenuous in undertaking arduous matters, so most constant in retaining those undertaken, and of singular firmness of mind. Which two things, related by Ribadeneira book 5, Tenax Ignatius propositi fuit; — Ignatius was tenacious of purpose; chapter 9, are here to be declared by us somewhat more. In so many and so great difficulties for obtaining the confirmation of his Order before the Apostolic See, Ignatius stood with a strong and erect mind. See Ribadeneira book 2, chapter 17. He showed himself most tenacious of the name holily imposed by him on his religious family; from Bartoli book 2, chapter 50; Orlandinus book 2, num. 62. We spoke of this name above §32 and 33. With that axiom the holy Man was intimately imbued, which, among other of his sayings, Bartoli's interpreter records book 4, page 376: "He who much fears men, will never accomplish anything great for God. For nothing great can be undertaken for God, but that men continually stir up great fears and vexations for the one undertaking, and fill all things with tumult." The German college being scarcely erected, and even then, on account of the dearth of grain and warlike tumults, threatening ruin, how strenuously the Father persisted, Ribadeneira will give, book 4, chapter 6.

[747] To these, "The businesses undertaken," says Maffei book 3, chapter 9, "he urged perseveringly up to the very end: [id quod liquet ex superatis difficultatibus; — which is clear from the difficulties overcome;] nor indeed did he suffer those whom he had taken to himself as companions of his expeditions to grow torpid." Which things being pronounced in general of Ignatius's masculine mind, he subjoins these severally: "When he had destined a necessary journey, or something else of graver moment, for a certain day, especially if the occasion demanded, by no force of tempest, or any other difficulty, was he deterred from finishing his purposes at the constituted time. In approaching princely men, which he necessarily and often did, he devoured all the troubles of the court, and the indignity, and the contumacy and delicacies of the courtiers, with wondrous alacrity. And it happened once, that, excluded from access, he besieged a convenient admission for fourteen whole hours fasting. If he had decreed anything, the matter being well perceived, counselors also being employed, he did not so easily suffer himself to be led away from it. The following example is proposed: For helping ecclesiastical discipline for his part, he had established that no deserter from other Orders, however illustrious by erudition, or eloquence, or any other praise, should be admitted into the Society. Many offered themselves; neither by prayer nor by favor was he ever led to receive anyone."

[748] And indeed he was so tenacious of his purpose, of joining to himself companions constant in the institute once undertaken by him; that he would not bear even the lightest mark of fickleness in this matter. [non admittendis iis, qui ex aliis Ordinibus peterent Societatem; — of not admitting those who should seek the Society from other Orders;] For "if anyone," as Maffei proceeds, "had crept in through the imprudence of ours, who had been even one day in another's camp, with the newcomer's relatives and gracious friends sometimes striving against, he sent [him] back to his former standards, or if he obeyed less, certainly expelled [him] from the Society: lest namely the other Orders could complain about us, or the Society be thought to be as it were a certain refuge for deserters." But on the contrary, those who were constant to themselves, and persisted in their purpose, the holy Man made much of. Hear Maffei in the same place thus proceeding: "Nor did he show less fortitude of mind in protecting those whom, their spirit and vocation being approved, he had enrolled into the Society. Whose constancy, when by their parents (as is done) through even most powerful men it was sometimes most sharply assailed, Ignatius, where there was need, before the supreme Pontiff himself, defended the cause of his own against wealth and favor, relying on divine help, without any doubt or fear, not only, but even obtained [it]." (See Orlandinus book 14, num. 12.) And so even princely men Julius III, supreme Pontiff, festively admonished, not to contend with Ignatius; at least if they did not wish to depart from the contest conquered.

[749] [congregationibus Societati non uniendis; dando gratis, quod gratis acceperat; — of not uniting congregations to the Society; of giving gratis what he had received gratis;] He was also most constant to himself in uniting no congregation to the Society. This is declared from two exemplars of his letters which I have before me, transcribed from the Roman archive; of which one indeed is signed at Rome the 15th of March 1547; but the other in the same place on the 2nd day of November 1552. On the back of the former, Fr. Ignatius Pinius being witness, who transcribed both, are had these things in ancient character, which from

the Italian I thus turn: "Reply of Father Ignatius to brother Francis da Medde toward Perugia upon the union of the priests of Lombardy." And below: "Thus let it be conserved." And a little below: "It shows that the priests Somaschi of Lombardy had in mind to unite themselves with the Society." But the latter exemplar is noted to have been sent by St. Ignatius to the Vice-legate of Bologna, and that the requested union of certain priests with our Society was modestly refused by him. There were also others who had before attempted this in vain, Ribadeneira being witness, who among the Dichos y echos, that is, the Sayings and deeds of our Father, etc., deposits these things, turned by me from the Spanish: "In the year 1545 the Theatine fathers wished to unite themselves with the Society, and to make one body: and thus they proposed and sought it through father master Lainez; but our Father did not approve this; as neither that, that that union should be made with the Barnabites of Milan, who sought it in the year 1551, the patronage of Lord Sauli, archbishop of Genoa, being assumed."

Besides, by no conveniences or inconveniences of money could he be led to deviate even a nail's breadth from that most firm decree of his mind, of giving through his own gratis what they had received gratis. Let Maffei be heard again: "When he had provided by law," he says, "that none of ours should receive money, or any alms, by the title either of exequies, or of Sacrifice, or of any ministry at all, much less exact [it], he himself diligently and holily preserved that law in all his life; nor did he ever allow it that he should rashly oblige his pledge especially in sacred matters; or (what is most to be avoided) that he should seem to make gain under the appearance of piety." In which kind they mention this notable instance. Jerome Arzius was gravely ill, in age now declined. When Ignatius had come to this [man] for the sake of visiting [him] (for he was most diligent in cultivating friendships), and had tried to refresh the man with benign and spiritual address; he, solicitous about the future life, urged upon Ignatius two hundred gold pieces wrapped in a handkerchief for expiatory Masses to be made for himself. Which when the Father had rejected with a firmed mind; because he said that he, taught by another's peril, had for some time abstained from agreements of this kind, nor wished to undertake more of a burden than as much as he could faithfully perform; he, admiring the sanctity and integrity of the Man, sent that very sum a little after to the same without any condition. Then Ignatius of his own accord decreed several Hosts for expiating the sins of his friend: nor did he suffer himself to be conquered by a layman in the contest of duty and charity.

[750] Besides these, the Saint exhibited another specimen of eminent constancy in bringing to their conclusion the businesses undertaken for the cause of God. [negotiis ad Dei gloriam ad exitum perducendis; — in bringing to conclusion businesses for the glory of God;] On a certain day, as is recorded in Bartoli book 4, num. 19, being about to set out for Alvito, a village of the Neapolitan dominion, there was; but so great a force of rains intercepted that day, that he was asked by Polancus, solicitous for his health, to await a more convenient [day]. But he: "It is thirty years since I omitted or deferred anything, by the intervention of any chance, which I had undertaken in the service of God": neglectisque — and neglecting the winds and rains, Polancus being his companion, he gave himself to the journey. Nor does it irk [me] to add to this example another from our Roman copies: in which, among the excerpts from the Memorial book of Fr. Louis Consalvus of 200 pages in folio, it is said, page 12, that Cardinal de Carpi, to express the holy Man's constancy, frequently used this as a proverb: "He has fixed the nail." Now say, I pray, what did he leave unattempted, that he might proscribe banish ecclesiastical dignities from the Society, with Ferdinand the king and Charles V the emperor wishing the contrary in vain? For indeed the holy Man strained all his sinews to disturb this business; nor did he further acquiesce, until he had brought that which he had begun to an end. Ribadeneira describes the matter book 3, chapter 15.

[751] Which things being so; certainly this masculine greatness of mind in Ignatius, conflated from the aggregation of things which I indicated above, [Magnitudo illa animi laudatur in Bulla canonizationis. — That greatness of mind is praised in the Bull of canonization.] merited this brief eulogy in the Bull of canonization: "The illustrious greatness of mind appears from his penances, his service toward the sick, from works of charity, from which, on account of labors and difficulties, mockeries, injuries and contumelies, he did not recede; but constantly persevered in them up to the desired end." Moreover, with how singular a guardianship among mortals the Lord compensated this virtue, which, relying on God, reckoned all things as nothing before God, and for the sake of God; is clear from Bartoli, who in book 4, chapter 24, weaves a recapitulation conglomerated from the Saint's deeds.

[752] Let us return now to Ribadeneira: who in book 5, Mira in Sancto mentis æquabilitas, — Wondrous evenness of mind in the Saint, chapter five, to which he prefixes the title "On the mortified affections," on the occasion of those words inserted into the same chapter, "He held always the same tenor in managing affairs, and perpetuity in all his life," left us an open field of further commentation on this place. And that indeed was above all remarked by Lainez and Frusius, we learn from Bartoli book 4, num. 9, whom he relates to have said, "That in him the innate motions, [his] nature being changed, served grace, and this not so much by the will commanding, as of its own accord and by the genius of nature." And so St. Ignatius was always the same, always his own master as much as master of his own; in no dissimilitude and variety of things, various himself, and dissimilar to himself, that I may use the words of Ribadeneira. To this is added, that he in no way forced others to seek soft easy approaches to the Man, or convenient times of speaking. For "A certain one of the fathers," as Bartoli relates in the same place, "seeing [him] return wearied from the palace, after access to the Pontiff long awaited in vain, deferred the business which he was about to treat with him. His urbanity, excusing the cause of this delay before him the next day, he rejected so sharply, that that father writes that he did not dare for eight days to look upon him, much less to address him."

[753] An even serenity of mind also betrayed itself exteriorly in him. quæ externe etiam se prodebat, — which betrayed itself also externally, For in mind no otherwise than in countenance, as soon follows in the same place, in which the whole mind both paints and moves itself, he was imperturbed, and never not the same: so that it was said by his own that he bore the face of a Blessed one, namely everywhere and perpetually serene. Wherefore Gaspar de Quiroga, archbishop of Toledo, who at Rome had dealt with him again and again, could not be sated with beholding him. But that this most placid state of mind, of which the countenance was the index, was easily perturbed by no sudden and unforeseen event, the things make faith which we subjoin from the same place: "About to inspect something which was being built on our estate at St. Balbina, [his] footing failing, he fell headlong from the top of the stairs; and with so great an impetus, that Fr. James Guzman, who was present to him as companion, thought it was over with him, as [one] about to crush his brain against the opposite wall. And by an evident miracle indeed the impetus of the falling [man] was checked, when he was about to dash his head very near; but he, by the greatness of the sudden peril, changed neither color nor posture of mind, and did not even look back, as almost is wont, whence he had fallen forward; but so unmoved he went away, as if he had descended the stairs most conveniently." The deed is confirmed from the autograph testimony of Fr. James Gusman (of whom I spoke above num. 617), whose copy, inserted into the Roman Spicilegium, Fr. Ignatius Pinius directed to me from Rome.

[754] ad repentinos casus imperterrita. — undaunted at sudden chances. Here regard both the most moderate saying of Ignatius to a certain one of ours, perforating his little ear with a needle incautiously passed through; from Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 9: and likewise the most placid answer to the sudden and untimely message about the highest straits of domestic affairs; in the same place. Add another specimen of a most pacified mind from Bartoli book 4, num. 9: "When in the year 1555, Rome being disturbed on account of the movements rising at Naples, Paul IV sent the governor of the City with all [his] apparitor-train to our house, to search out the store of arms, of which hidden there the malevolent had made us suspected to the Pontiff: the holy Man received the inspectors with an open and cheerful brow; and commanded them to be led about through all the corners by the father who was his secretary; that they should see, seek, explore from the lowest to the highest parts of the house, as much as they pleased. When they had found not even the shadow of arms; the same as before, serene and alacritous, for the sake of honor led them to the door, as [men] who had discharged before him the officious duty of a courtesy visit." Finally, could anything more bitter be announced to Ignatius, than the destruction of the Society, by so many and so great ties so intimately beloved by him? And yet if even so hard a chance had happened to him without his fault; with how almost incredible an even and wondrous preparation of mind he stood ready to bear this placidly and tranquilly, a quarter of an hour being placed in prayer and self-recollection; we learn from Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 1.

[755] Victor sui erat; — He was a conqueror of himself; And so Cardinal a Monte in the Relation made in the secret consistory before our holy Lord Pope Gregory XV deservedly said: "Since he obtained the most perfect dominion over his commotions and perturbations, he can by right be said stronger than the stormer of cities, Solomon being witness in Proverbs, chapter 16." But how great that dominion was, is established from the mortification of the most blessed Father, absolute in every kind; of which matter Orlandinus book 16, num. 107. For indeed even in familiar speech he inculcated nothing more often, and urged, than that: "Conquer thyself"; Bartoli being witness book 4, num. 12. Which, as he adds, taken from his discipline, Xavier so deeply imbibed, that among the Indians he repeated nothing to ours so much as this same: "Conquer thyself …" And since so great a Man so many times re-cooked repeated that one word …, he was once asked why he always iterated the same: "Because," he said, "this I learned from our best Father Ignatius." And truly he had learned [it], not so much by hearing and meditating the necessity and price of that victory, as by acting, and fighting with himself, Ignatius [as] leader, and by the excellent use of daily victory, running to the palm of sanctity, which at last he attained. Let us return to St. Ignatius.

[756] For indeed to this virtue he gave the palm before prayer: & tales cupiebat esse — and he desired [his own to be such] for he did not esteem [him] holier, as is written in the same place, who prayed more patiently, but who had subdued himself more powerfully, and more generously trodden down the seditious motions of the senses and the mind: also not rarely asserting this, [as] explored by him by long use; that among a hundred who should seek the marrow of sanctity in perpetuating prayers, there would be found scarcely nine or ten, whom the blemish of private judgment, and the scurf of a genius obstinate in its own opinion and intractable, would not infect—a genius about to yield to no rule; as those who think they dictate laws and rule to others. But on the contrary he esteemed more highly the heroic act of a nature bravely subdued, and of one trampling down the great opinion of oneself with masculine contempt; than the gentle breezes of pious sighs, and the most sweet weepings of many hours. Another document also is reported in the same place that he gave.

For quite often he said that he feared lest we should think that we must go to sanctity by another way than that which is proper to the Society, and place in the assiduity of prayers what is to be placed in taming the affections.

[757] But to Natalis, striving so many times to produce extend spaces of prayer, homines Societatis. — the men of the Society. he answered that there was need indeed of prolix meditation, for obtaining the dominion of oneself, and that about it one must deal sedulously with God and with oneself: but that he who has once attained it, will within a quarter of an hour more readily and closely cleave to God, than in many hours anyone else of little subdued affections. For there is no graver impediment of rising up to God, and cleaving to him, than to be tenacious of oneself, and to cleave to oneself; than which nothing more hostile and more miserably depresses the soul striving upward. Louis Consalvus, what shall I mention, wondrously praising in a certain notable servant of God the zeal of praying, as is narrated at the place cited? For the holy Man praised in him the zeal of conquering and taming himself. But what judgment did he pass on two lay helpers? He ranked lower one of a placid, mild, and imperturbed disposition of nature rather than of virtue, below another violent, precipitate; and prone to grow savage into words and motions of impatience, but often striking away these boldnesses and impulses by a spirited effort, and re-swallowing words now burning his tongue. For to this [man], "Bravo for your spirit, brother," he said, "storm yourself bravely, and you will come forth twice augmented in merits than those others, and those, to whom a slow and mild genius makes no trouble."

§ LXXV. Other documents on the victory of oneself; the particular examination; affliction of the body, chastity, modesty, speech.

[Ex aliis exemplis ac documentis liquet, — It is clear from other examples and documents,] "Having likewise gotten another helper," says Bartoli just now cited, "withdrawing himself from the assembly of the rest, because he burned with fiery and easily irritable bile; You err, he said, my brother; nor is this enemy conquered by flight, but by battle; nor does solitude heal wrath, but dissembles and covers [it]: you will give more to God, and receive more, by breaking the innate roughness, either sometimes or more frequently, using well the occasion of domestic intercourse, than if, hidden a whole year in a cave, you lie mute. Finally those whom he knew eminently avid of purging their virtue, those he promoted to the victory of themselves with special zeal. Among whom was [one] who pleasantly excused himself to Ignatius inviting [him] to the seven temples for the sake of indulgence; saying that he obtained a plenary indulgence at home not once a day." Thus there. Which rightly accord with those things which Bartoli's interpreter, book 4, from page 380, notes among other of Ignatius's sayings: "Those who have a refractory and vehement disposition, and knowing no measure, let them not on that account despair of virtue, as being placed above their strength and reach; but let them take huge spirits for taming nature, and let them know that even one such victory of oneself surpasses very many illustrious deeds of others, brought forth by the benefit of a compliant and imperturbed genius, no one striving to the opposite."

[759] quanti esset apud Sanctum, se ipsum vincere: — of how great [worth it was with the Saint, to conquer oneself:] But that Ignatius bore more patiently men of this kind, seriously desirous of breaking themselves, although they sometimes burst forth turbulently, than certain others milder, or less to be blamed, is asserted in the same place, some things being interjected, and proved by this example: "When he reprehended two priests who had deserved ejection from a common cause, one poured out impatience with freer words; the other, turbid, lowered his face into his bosom, and, the petition of pardon being omitted, showed by indications the contempt which he was suppressing by silence. The Saint, well knowing the explored genius of both, retaining him who seemed more guilty, gave back this other one to the world." Add another saying of the Saint in the same place, page 384: "That, namely, one ought to be an interior man; and to esteem the suppression of private arbitration more than life restored to a dead man." And indeed that he directed the chief goal of the book of his spiritual Exercises to reporting a victory of this kind, quite clearly shines forth from that their title: "Certain spiritual Exercises, through which a man is directed, that he may be able to conquer himself, and to institute the reckoning of his life, with a determination free from noxious affections."

[760] [quo maxime conducit examen particulare. — to which the particular examination especially conduces.] But the most efficacious remedy for a man to conquer himself is the particular examination; so called, because it is occupied in assailing some singular vice so long, until it has utterly conquered it. But because all force bursts upon single enemies the slower, the more, divided among many, it is poured out, although the battle be continual, yet rarely does entire victory follow it: whence it comes that, besides the common battle against all, a singular contest apart with some one is entered more cautiously. Moreover our holy Parent hands down and teaches a further idea and laws of that most useful industry in his spiritual Exercises; and Bartoli book 4, num. 25; in whom you will find recorded, to the present purpose, these things: "Ignatius, assailing his importunate custom of laughing by a peculiar examination; as many times as he had laughed, so many blows inflicted on himself with an iron chain by night he discharged as penalty. Nay even by day, soon, as he had seen that he had erred, his eyes being at once raised to God, or his hand being applied to his breast, as if doing something else, he tacitly begged pardon: and while he lived at Manresa, that he might keep the number of lapses which he had noticed through the evening examination, he marked them by knots, tied in the rope with which he girded himself." Of laughter driven away by blows Ribadeneira also treats book 5, chapter 10. I learn from our Roman monuments, that in a paper booklet written by Fr. Leonello Gagliardi at Rome in the year 1560, these things are had under the title, "Certain things about B. F. Ignatius," which I thus interpret from the Italian: "Our Father was wont, that he might amend some vice of anyone, to tell him to make examination quite often in the day upon such a vice, and to indicate to someone deputed for this, how he had done [it] before supper or sleep."

[761] The most holy Man was much engaged in voluntary afflictions of the body, especially at Manresa; [Afflictationes corporis, & abstinentia: — Afflictions of the body, and abstinence:] from Ribadeneira book 1, chapter 5, and Orlandinus book 1, num. 20; likewise book 16, num. 104; and Bartoli book 1, num. 12. The highest abstinence and sobriety of the holy Father clearly prove those things which were said above §50, num. 528; the matter being confirmed by Maffei book 3, chapter 12: "Of food and drink," he says, "he was so sparing, that he seemed utterly to have lost [his] taste, except if ever he fed on a few chestnuts, to which as a boy by ancestral custom he had once been accustomed: he never smiled on any dish however famished and fasting: he enjoined no kind of food or condiment on anyone; he never complained about anything while eating, although through the ignorance or negligence of the helpers ill-cooked and ill-seasoned food, wine also musty and sour, was offered. Finally he never suffered anything to be set specially before himself: and he once gravely punished a minister, because he had brought a bunch of grapes to him alone beyond the rest." Which things certainly a skilled estimator of matters would deem by no means so light, if he consider either the very age of the Man, to whom many things are granted; or the infirmity of health commanding more; or finally the highest power and license among his own, so to speak, of living by his own arbitration.

[762] Afflictions of the body, and frugality of food, most conduce to conserving chastity: which by the benefit of God, [castitas, quam cum Societatis Parens in filiis suis, — chastity, which since the Parent of the Society in his sons,] as the same author writes book 3, chapter 8, he attained so great, that from the day he betook himself into the faith and patronage of the blessed Virgin by a vow, he thereafter felt no tyranny of the flesh, although fervid by nature. Of this his virtue Ribadeneira treats book 1, chapter 3. Further, in the Society, subjoins Maffei in the same place, he wished this most noble virtue to be guarded with so great zeal, that nothing at all either in words or in deeds should appear lascivious or petulant: and, as far as could be done, that ours should lead a heavenly life on earth, separated from all contagion of the body. Which the holy Father had thus expressed in the Constitutions, part 6, chapter 1, num. 1: "The things which pertain to the vow of chastity do not need interpretation, since it is established how perfectly it is to be observed: namely by striving to imitate angelic purity by the cleanness both of our body and of our mind." Maffei at the place cited, "Nay even," he says, "he forbade by name that Terence should be explained taught in the schools (unless he were thoroughly purged), although the best author of Latinity, and the prince of Roman comedy; because namely he judged him little modest and little chaste. He would not therefore that the minds of boys be imbued by that reading, lest it should harm morals more than profit geniuses." Nay there was a time when he would not have even the expurgated Terence read taught in our schools. I approve the matter, and thus transfer it here from the Spanish from the Dichos y echos, that is, Sayings and deeds, etc., mentioned elsewhere; in which, under the title concerning governance, num. 94, Ribadeneira narrates the following: "Father Andrew Frusius emended Terence, purging him of that which could offend, and changing into conjugal love that which is said of the dishonest; that thus in our schools he could safely be read. But it seemed good to our Father that he should by no means be read: since the matter is such that in whatever way it be treated, it cannot but harm youth."

[763] tum ipsa Societas maxime requirit; — so the Society itself especially requires; The Viennese Compendium of the Life of St. Ignatius, page 58, says, "Fr. Antony Ruiz, present, the Mother of God refreshed in Spain: in India, visiting [him] lying dangerously ill, with Christ, she reprehended [him], because he did not decently cover a part of his foot according to the rules of modesty." In the Life published by Carnolius, chapter 27, for this matter is cited Doctor John Francis Xarque in the Life printed. In the said Compendium in the same place from Polancus, it is narrated that in the highest degree: but from Lainez, that the holy Father obtained the most perfect grace of chastity which can be given; and that his eyes, lively by nature, never fixed on the other sex, which was so many times flowing to Ignatius in matters of the soul. Linek page 120 from Fr. Consalvi's diary relates these things: "A certain brother, engaged for nine or ten years in the administration of domestic affairs with praise otherwise of virtue and diligence, he expelled from the Society, because, when he washed the feet of a certain sick one of ours, he had extended his hand a little further than the knees went out beyond; although that handling was empty of suspicion of evil."

[764] nihil ferentes, — bearing nothing, But how cautiously and religiously our Society, heir of Ignatian chastity, fortified its sons, when the occasion offers itself of dealing with the other sex; is concluded from the rules of priests; for the fifteenth wishes that the confessions of women be not heard, except at the grate, even if they be little girls. The sixteenth prescribes, that in hearing the confessions especially of women, they show themselves rather severe than familiar. The seventeenth provides, that those who confess more frequently, especially women, they dispatch briefly … But outside confession, if it shall be necessary to address them, let it be done in an open place; and let them not mingle long speech, and let them have their eyes modestly lowered. By the prescription of the eighteenth, the companion …, as long as the priest shall speak with women, will be in that place

whence he can see them, but not hear the things which ought to be secret, etc. To this regards that edict of the holy Father; that none of his own should visit any women without a companion, who should always be present also as a spectator, Orlandinus being witness book 14, num. 7; "And that he might teach," he says, "how great a weight that law had with him, and might sanction the guardianship by example; when he had learned that one of the domestic priests, an old man, and of ancient goodness, had done contrary, but through good simplicity, so that he was wholly empty of fault: yet for the admonition of the rest he ordered eight priests to convene in one place, and in their midst the guilty one to scourge himself with a lash, until each one of them should pronounce single psalms from the Davidic Psalms: of which the first Psalm should be the fiftieth." Orlandinus book 5, among other things which he writes about the deeds of Araoz and Faber in Castile, and their pious labors at Valladolid, where then was the seat of the kingdom, supplies these things from num. 62: "To some the fathers were as it were a miracle, that with every kind and promiscuous sex they dealt so unharmed. Nor did Melchior Cano hesitate in the midst of the court to jest nicely, that the fathers of the Society of Jesus were wont to carry about with them a certain herb, which had the power of killing lust: and by that as it were antidote they could safely dwell among the flocks of women, and offer an ear to confessing girls with integrity safe. That herb namely was the fear of the Lord;" as you have from Araoz's answer, num. 63, where the narration of the present fact is woven.

[765] But so great is in the Society the observation of the angelic virtue, quod angelicæ huic virtuti — that to this angelic virtue that rule 34 among the Common rules prohibits that anyone touch another even in jest, except by embracing in sign of charity, when someone either departs or returns from abroad. It helps to learn from John Rho in the Various histories of virtues, book 7, chapter 3, among our matters num. 1, the origin of that rule and the most rigid scrupulousness of our holy Father in this matter: "That he himself," he says, "was so severe in this whole kind, the ninety-year-old old man James Crucius, of virtue no less than of most ancient age, General Assistant for the provinces of Italy, narrated to us, that himself—whom, being a boy led by his pedagogue on feast days, after Mass he had been wont to admit to the kisses of [his] hands, and to address humanely—when once nicely adorned, a purple fringe being sewn to his linen collar, Ignatius, as if he had not seen [him], passed by with a secure brow, asking the pedagogue where little James was? From which words when they had conjectured the offense; and he a little after, being now adorned by no ornament, had presented himself more choicely cultivated to the Father; he smiled graciously on him, and gave his hand according to the accustomed manner to [him] asking."

[766] Nay that most salutary law of abstaining from the contact even of a friend, we have received to have been passed especially on this occasion, that one of the elders had touched with his hand the crown top of the head of the same Crucius, an eleven-year-old boy of quite elegant form and most prompt genius, and had stroked his hair, as is the custom, Ignatius heard: and fearing lest that license should one day be drawn into an example by no means profitable, he sanctioned by a passed law that this should not be given allowed. To this is added, that, lest idleness, the nourishment of lasciviousness, and the origin of all evils, so far as it can be done, have place in our house, the Constitutions forbid, part 3, chapter 1, num. 6. And in the same place num. 4 he wishes that all most diligently take care to guard the gates of their senses (especially of the eyes, ears, and tongue) from all inordination: which guardianship is a great help for acquiring and conserving the angelic virtue of chastity; as also that external decorum in bearing, in gait, in words, in the whole composition of the body; which in the holy Father eminently shone forth.

[767] Carnolius chapter 27 relates that most grave persons deposed with an oath in the processes, Rara in paucis modestia S. Ignatii, — The modesty of St. Ignatius, rare in few, that they were quite often freed from impure temptations, the countenance of Ignatius alone being beheld. By the sole manner of speaking and eating St. F. Ignatius drew many to the Society; as we have in Nicholas Lancicius, vol. 1, opusculum 3, num. 285; from his diary, which Fr. Louis Consalvus wrote, an eye-witness. He had a divine modesty, from the words and oath of his familiar John Antony Viperani, bishop of Giovinazzo; in the same Lancicius, the Modena process being cited. To this regards that serenity which he always bore in his countenance, from the secret consistorial Relation before Pope Gregory XV. That Ignatius was so composed, that he moved neither hand, nor eye, nor other member without cause and reason, is extant in Carnolius, said chapter 17, from the Summary of the processes, folio 206. Rho in the Various histories of virtues, book 7, chapter 4, among our matters num. 1, "No one," he says, "of the sacred legislators composed laws of modesty, except Ignatius alone, and those not foreseen by human prudence, although also of this they are most full; but brought forth by divine nod; for observing which there was a long and ardent prayer of several days." Add tears from Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 1, and also the wondrous event in their promulgation, and the explanation made through Lainez by the command of the holy Father. But Lainez then said, Bartoli being witness book 4, num. 10, upon that text of the Apostle James: "Behold now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into that city, and will spend there indeed a year, and will trade, and make gain, etc."; and he treated of small things not to be made little of; where those small things are the safeguards of great gains.

[768] cujus & varias leges — of which also various laws The Saint wished the eyes of his own to be as most chastened; according to the third rule of modesty, which prescribes: "Let them keep their eyes lowered for the most part, etc." But how long a use of the particular examination he prescribed for Oliverius Manareus, on account of his gaze fixed on him, because Manareus presaged that he would scarcely be seen again by him on earth; you will learn below in paragraph 86, part 1, from Manareus's own answer to the second demand of Lancicius: who in vol. 2, spiritual opusculum 12, page 182: "He was wont," he says, "speaking of the holy Father, from a certain place to behold ours passing by, and if he had caught anyone proceeding with not due modesty, he ordered [him] to be punished." For indeed besides these, he loved cleanliness in food and dress; but easy, and by no means exquisite, of which kind befit both a traveler and a servant of Christ, from Maffei book 3, chapter 12. Lancicius vol. 1, opusculum 2, num. 258, brings forth St. Ignatius's admonition, which he gave to a certain one of ours, whom when he had seen about to go out of the house, [and] had approached the gate of the Roman college, wearing his cloak folded on one shoulder; he ordered [him] to return to his chamber, and there to put it on spread out, and thus go forth thence; according to the prescription of the rule forbidding anyone to go forth into public not decently clothed. This, he adds, Fr. Eleutherius Pontanus, a disciple of St. Ignatius, an eye-witness, narrated to Fr. John Deckerius; he to Fr. Martin Santinus, and he to me, he says.

[769] He had premised in the same place num. 250: "Going forth from the house cloaked, he thus came out, that not even the fingers of his hands could be seen by those he met, before it was necessary to put out his right hand, for honoring someone by the uncovering of the head, etc." Further, the modesty and religiously modest composition of the garments rule 8 of modesty prescribes. Of external cleanliness more will be given, paragraph 86, part 2, in Manareus's answer 17 to the demands of Nicholas Lancicius. But how great strength those rules of modesty of which we spoke had for the external edification of the neighbor, this is an argument: "That wherever," says Bartoli book 4, num. 10, "anyone of ours came forth, from the sole gait and habit of the whole face and body he was recognized to be of the Society, and, as the writer of that time says, from that modesty collected in one, all the others recurred to the minds of beholders. But to those with whom it had passed into a law, to take all our things for the worse, they called [it] simulated probity, and named [it] hypocrisy." To which, "May God grant," said Ignatius, "that something be added daily to this our hypocrisy": and noting Salmeron, who with Bobadilla was then present: "I," he said, "in the Society, besides these two, recognize no hypocrite and simulator": namely by a serious jest hinting that they had more virtue than they showed; and that by this name they could be held hypocrites, that they were better than they wished to seem. These things we give on the faith of him from whom we received them. To which strength accrues from that brief saying which Fr. Ignatius Pinius excerpted from the Memorial book of Fr. Louis Consalvus, page 13: "When someone of ours said that the modesty of the men of the Society was esteemed hypocrisy by some at Rome: Ignatius answered that it would be grateful to him, if the Society had more of such hypocrites."

[770] The eminent endowments of the tongue, and the efficacy of speech, Ribadeneira narrates book 5, Quem in objurgatione modum tenuerit: — What measure he kept in rebuking: chapter 6. From Bartoli book 3, num. 36, supply those things which Ribadeneira relates concerning the rebukes employed by the Saint. "Those, however," says Bartoli, "whom he had proved solid of robust breast and masculine virtue, and held therefore very dear, even for slight blemishes he was wont to chastise with harder words. Among whom I see that especially were Jerome Natalis and John Polancus, both of rare goodness, and uniquely beloved by him: in whom this vituperation of little blemishes from such a man, such as they knew him to be, supplied the food of virtue to those whom he knew avid and capable of heroic progress." I approve the matter from our Roman papers, making faith that in the archive there is extant a book entitled "Lives of the deceased"; and that in the Life of father Natalis, written by him who was companion to the aforesaid Father visiting the colleges of the Society of Jesus, are had things which I here transfer into Latin: "Our Father Ignatius tested Fr. Natalis, who was minister of the professed house: for for every least defect which occurred at home, he called him, and gave him notable reprehensions, and such, that he told me that father Natalis on a certain occasion all but trembled, when he appeared before Father Ignatius: who nevertheless composed all the energy and efficacy which he employed in reprehending him in a manner so wondrous, with the peace of his heart so entire, that Fr. Natalis himself told me, that, while sometimes he gave him a good reprehension walking about the chamber, the world seemed to fall upon him, when Fr. Ignatius, pacing toward father Natalis, repeated that defect which was being treated. Nevertheless he noticed, that, when he turned his back to him, he went away laughing. And that was the manner of acting of our Father Ignatius with subjects whom he knew to be of solid virtue. And on the contrary he treated the weak and imperfect quite sweetly and placidly, soothing them, and praising that good which they had … As also Fr. Louis Consalvus in his diary of some actions of Father Ignatius says, that he treated Natalis and Polancus without any regard; nay harshly and with severe reprehensions."

[771] To those things which in the same chapter 6 Ribadeneira writes about the efficacy of speech, summon from the same book

book 4, chapter 7, that brief saying, efficacia sermonis &c. — the efficacy of speech, etc. which he attests was said to him by Francis Borgia: "He spoke as [one] having power"; likewise the things which were said above from Ribadeneira §54, from num. 570. Our holy Founder was also accustomed to pious colloquies: whom, when the crowd, as is done, in prattling wished to describe by peculiar marks; "that [man]," they said, "who always looks up to heaven, always has God in his mouth"; R. A. P. N. Vincent Caraffa being witness, in the letter on the means of conserving the primitive spirit of the Society: which passage if the Saint should urge, I will give [it] presently.

§ LXXVI. Severity in vindicating religious discipline.

[Duos coadjutores desides plectit severe; — He punishes two idle coadjutors severely;] Ribadeneira book 5, chapter 7 shows how the holy Man tempered severity with benignity; which namely are two endowments especially proper to Superiors. We shall supplement here first Ribadeneira in those things which we find elsewhere concerning the holy and just severity of the Saint; then we shall speak of his benignity. He was above all a severe avenger of violated religious discipline. For Bartoli book 3, num. 46: "He noticed once," he says, "two lay helpers beguiling their leisure by narrating new things. Having summoned them, he ordered a heap of chance stones lying in the courtyard of the house to be transferred to the highest part of the building, as if for a present work then necessary: and as many times as he caught them playing the same game, so many times he commanded them to transfer the same stones up and down; until at last they should perceive that that was not the necessity of a work, but a chastisement of idleness, and should themselves seek for themselves things by which they might be usefully occupied. But their petulance stood them dear, if any had conducted themselves beyond decorum. Two others," as soon follows in the same place, "jesting immoderately among the ministries of the kitchen, had thrown water mutually into each other's faces. The indignity of the jest they first washed off by a long flogging of themselves: they were condemned to take their food for some days in the stable, to throw water at each other, the rest looking on, as they had done, but dirty water; to hear the most bitter rebuke by which they were received publicly. Finally they were permitted, if they wished, to depart. For if after ten," he said, "or twelve years now placed in the Society, they have not yet laid aside things so indecent; who would deny that they hold nothing of the Religious, except the exterior dress?"

[733] mitius alium, quia servaverat pomum; — [he treated another more mildly, because he had kept an apple;] The Saint had at hand more than one penalty according to the reason of defects. For he treated more mildly, as is subjoined at the place cited, Laurence Tristan, a stone-mason, an eminent tamer of himself, most addicted to prayer, and so tenacious of silence, that Ignatius said of him that more stones were laid by him than words. To this [man], paving the interior portico of the house, an apple fell from his bosom, which, given for soothing thirst, he had kept. This being noticed, and suspecting himself to be observed by Ignatius being present, he blushed of course, and, turning himself another way, left the apple behind [his] back, as if he saw it less pretended not to see it. But the Saint with the staff, by which always, while he lived, he sustained his lame leg, silent and as if thinking of something else, played on the apple, and rolled it before his eyes; which the brother, as many times as he averted them for shame, so many times the holy Man rolled the apple with the staff into his sight: until, content with this quite long modesty of his, he departed, not even by a word testifying that the matter had displeased [him]. Weighing the inconsiderate words of a junior master, who taught at Venice, in a far different balance, he taught likewise that they were to be committed to the scale weighed before committing them to the tongue: for because he had offended someone rather imprudently with them, he was sent to make pilgrimage on foot, and begging, for a whole three months.

[774] [gravissime quemdam valetudinarii curatorem ob jocos liberiores: alios item mulctat. — most gravely a certain curator of the infirmary for freer jests: he likewise fines others.] He accurately exacted from his own even the slenderest peaks finest points of angelic modesty. And this is clear from this fact, related in the same place in these words: "But a brother, curator of the infirmary, otherwise good, and notable in charity and patience toward the sick, he commanded to be dismissed as quickly as possible, because, beyond what the reckoning of most exquisite honesty and modesty bore, he had jested rather freely: and he had to go away, unless the fathers, as many as were then at home, had acceded as intercessors, and had confirmed his integrity of morals, and special purity, with one consent and testimony. He was nevertheless sent away outside Italy, in secular habit, beyond three hundred leagues, on foot, with no viaticum except of collecting alms." He likewise threatened dismissal to John Baptist Borellius, whom however he had long used as administrator of [his] private life; because he had furtively picked up from the little box of the holy Man an expiatory little bead rosary bead a little more elegant, substituting in its place a less elegant one, which he himself had had from the Saint. He helped the brother's cause, that he had then sinned such a thing for the first time, and had of his own accord confessed the matter; [and], seized by a most sharp reprehension, had shed tears.

But that one once narrated to me (See book; number 20) Soldevilleus could not by any prayers or tears defend himself from ejection, by which he had been condemned on account of the strangeness wandering of [his] spirit. Although, however, afterward, after a long grief of the thing admitted, and by no means doubtful arguments of an amended genius, he obtained the Society again; yet he was not received at home before he had given his effort in the poorhouse in the most abject offices for five whole months.

[775] But that the Saint was not excessively light or precipitate in penalties of this kind, [Sanctus non erat in inferendis pœnis præceps. — The Saint was not precipitate in inflicting penalties.] is understood from these things which are related in the same author: "This likewise was of custom to Ignatius, that he would sometimes expel from the house for a time, or keep at home as guests, those whose amendment was still obscure, and whose lapse had been worthy of that penalty. So Cornelius Vishaven, on the day he had come to Rome from Belgium, his traveling staff being received back, he sent through the City to beg, until he had collected as much money as was needful for a certain exemption which he had inconsiderately promised he would obtain in the Roman curia. Also another Belgian priest," as Bartoli proceeds in the same place, "sent to him from Gaul for this reason, that he might explain his visions about the destruction of a certain kingdom, which he had persuaded himself were divinely set before him; he admitted into the house by no other name and rite than that of a stranger, until he had committed those dreams to be inspected by six most learned fathers, and to be explored whether he was prepared by their judgment as much to condemn them, as to hold them for good. And happily indeed the good man consulted for himself: for he was otherwise pious and sufficiently sensible, and felt with them that he had been deluded by a false appearance of prophecies, and held them for trifles. Yet not with impunity did he bear that his former pertinacity, by which he had shown himself hard to his Superiors in Gaul. In the hospital at Rome he ministered to the sick, nor thence for six whole months did he ever move foot: then at home with the lay helpers he discharged the daily offices for some time: but everywhere he so approved himself to all, that the rector of the college at last returned into Gaul."

[776] What besides? "With a felicity," he says, "not much unlike, Antony Monizius, a noble Portuguese, closed an unhappy flight. [Hisce additur exemplum alicujus e Societate profugi, — To these is added the example of a certain fugitive from the Society,] Him, after the great expectation of illustrious virtue which at first he moved, a certain tedium of that life seized, which hitherto he experienced most pleasant to himself. Soon there acceded to the tedium of mind an equal alienation from it, and, what is consequent, negligence of discipline, and a desire of another condition, in which either God or the world should be pleasing to him: and at last a deliberated mind of departing from [his] station. He was pricked indeed by the robbery of the holocaust which he had offered of himself to God, and was terrified by the crime of sacrilege: yet he continued so long to perplex himself, that he feigned the biting conscience to his own arbitration; decreeing namely to follow a kind of life, be it honest and holy, but of his own right, and subject to no one. For that namely, not to retain even himself of his own, nor to be lord even of advancing or moving [his] steps, seemed to him a certain wasting, and a slow death. He wished therefore to lead the life of a pilgrim perpetually; from which, unwilling to be moved by any force or words, he fled from the Coimbra college, whither he had been sent to Peter Faber from Valencia, to be cured if in any way he could. His first pilgrimage was to St. James in Galicia, which he performed on foot, and alone: if however alone; to whom there was now a companion, but a late rebuker, the repentance of the thing admitted. He nevertheless followed his journey toward Montserrat; where, now unequal to the scourging conscience, [and] to the sadness and sufferings of the coldest and most needy journey, but aided most of all by the mercy of the most blessed Virgin, he resolved to make an end of his errors at Rome, and, cast at the feet of Ignatius, to ask back the good which, unless lost, he had not known how to esteem at its true price."

[777] [sed post severas pœnitentias ab Ignatio in gratiam admissi. — but after severe penances admitted into favor by Ignatius.] "Thus, by the desertion of [his] Parent, by ragged want and afflictions similar to the Prodigal, bursting forth also into his words, I will arise, he said, and go to my Father: and he seized the journey to Rome. Which, piously conceived in mind, a disease more deeply fixed confirmed, by which, afflicted at Avignon in the hospital for two months, he all but made an end of living before an end of making pilgrimage. But however restored, dragging with difficulty his invalid body, he at last arrived at Rome. There not daring to give himself into the sight of Ignatius, unless mitigated by a petition of pardon, from the hospital house of the poor Portuguese, whither he had betaken himself, he gave to him letters full of grief and tears, by which Ignatius, bent to mercy, took care to have [him] led out into another house, that there he should proceed to expiate the sacrilege of his infamous flight, before he should appear before [him]. But he meanwhile, by no means content with the expiation of that delay, naked to the girdle burst out into public, cruelly raging against himself with scourges, and openly in the light paying to God and the Society the voluntary punishment of [his] fault: about whom Ignatius wrote to the youth's kinswoman, a princely woman, that he had marked the ways of the sacred stations which he traversed with much blood. And he would have iterated that penalty on himself, unless he had been inhibited by the same Ignatius: by whom shortly after being called, he was received with such tenderness of benevolence, that he who had cast himself, confused with shame and tears, at his feet, could not, for interior joy, refrain from weeping, seeming to himself in a certain manner to be reborn, and to begin anew a new life. Certainly indeed hence he began to act with so great strenuousness of religious labor and sanctity, that he seemed to presage in [his] mind that a short space remained to him to the goal: for somewhat after, affected by a slow fever, he wasted away with a long torment."

[778] [Punit præsides in subditis; Lainium severe commonet: — He punishes superiors in i.e., for their subjects; he sharply admonishes Lainez:] The cited writer notices that the lapses of subjects were from time to time punished by Ignatius in those who presided, if they either did not cautiously forestall them themselves, or, when discovered, did not punish them. "Two helpers," he says, "when he had by chance met them with a less composed and modest gait, with a quite lively reprehension he ordered the inconsiderateness of the Minister to be censured, in joining together two, of whom neither could be an incitement of modesty by example or a companion to his own." He adds that Sebastian Romaeus, rector of the college, when he had suffered those about to go to the seven temples for the sake of indulgence to carry with them some bread and wine for dinner: nor did he approve the excuse of a custom by no means introduced by him; for he answered that it had been a fault, that he had not removed [it] now introduced once it had crept in: since one errs worse, as often as a fortuitous error is allowed to pass into a longer use.

What of this, that with the highest liberty he even dealt with men

who were of the first rank and dearest to himself, the holy Father admonished of their duty; as is clear in the case of Lainez in Orlandinus book 12, num. 21, and in Bartoli book 3, num. 45: "He was discharging the office of Provincial," says that biographer, "in Italy, and, seeing every best [man] summoned to Rome by Ignatius, as one to whom the common reckonings of the Society were always of more worth than the private, he took it a little unjustly, that one professed house should grow rich by the spoliation of so many colleges, and gave to him letters about this, by which he grieved this indeed before him, but yet reverently. When with these he had effected nothing, he added a second [set]: by which Ignatius, seeking nothing so much as to leave to the Society monuments of a judgment tamed to the nods of superiors, returned a serious and very sensible letter; that he should beware, while he strives to fill the parts of a good Superior, lest he fail the parts of a good subject; that he should search out the root of his emotion, by which, unless within his own judgment, he was not allowed to be at rest; that he should see whether he was led by mere zeal for the divine service, or by the silent channel of some self-love philautia, and, when he had caught himself guilty, by what penalty he thought himself to be punished, he should write to him." But with how great submission, and offering of himself to abjections and asperities, he answered the Saint, can be read in the same place.

[779] And some things being afterward interjected, "There acceded," the same author being witness, cum aliis sibi etiam egregie caris non dissimulat, — he does not dissimulate [it with others also eminently dear to himself,] "an equal vigor toward all: nor was there anyone who, secure of his special benevolence, believed that anything even the least was permitted to himself against the common discipline, or that an error, though most light, would be with impunity." Dear indeed among the few he held Martin Olavius, Peter Ribadeneira, Louis Gonzales: yet because, while they led two bishops of the Society destined for Ethiopia outside the City, they had incautiously gone further than the shortness of the hour bore, so that they should present themselves at home before night; besides the fast which he commanded them, he received Louis with so sharp a rebuke, that he even said: "What hinders, I know not, that I should send you away so far, that you should never afterward see me": than which he could threaten him nothing at all more bitter; by whom he was loved dearer than [by] a father. And this he nevertheless in part inflicted on him: for at that very hour, which then was already the second of the night, he ordered [him] to betake himself into the college: from which he was not recalled home by him, until some days had passed.

[780] Of Fr. James Eguia I made mention above paragraph 53, num. 558; who burst forth again and again (Bartoli being witness at the place cited) exclaiming [inter quos Sancti confessarius, rigide castigatus, quod virtutem ejus proderet. — among whom the Saint's confessor, rigidly chastised, because he betrayed his virtue.] that Ignatius was holy, and greater than a Saint, and other things beyond the common measure so grand, that he seemed to be carried outside himself more by simplicity than by admiration. Nor was there lacking [one] who was offended, hearing these things. The holy Father, conscious of the matter, not only ceased to lay down [his] sins, as is indicated there, in his ear; but he willed that he should scourge himself with lashes, as Bartoli narrates, for three days so long toward evening, until three psalms should be recited each day, with someone reminding [him] between each, that he should remember thereafter to be more considerate in words, and not to offer a handle of offense to the weaker, who would easily seize it even when not given. Behold for you now a few examples of another kind, by which it is shown that the Saint sometimes accommodated the penalties which he imposed not only to washing off the fault, but to instructing the guilty of it. The aforesaid author recounts these things in the same place:

[781] For thus to a certain one, who had undertaken the mastery of souls almost before he had well acted the disciple, from which much of harm had returned upon those whom he had undertaken to direct; to this [man], I say, [Alia quædam exempla ad instructionem eorum, qui deliquerant, accommodata. — Certain other examples accommodated to the instruction of those who had failed.] he enjoined public floggings, but with two wings tied upward toward his shoulders, with someone behind crying out, that he should not, being unfledged, wish to strive to fly. But another, whose furniture, turned upside down and mixedly bestrewn in his chamber, he ordered to be stitched up whole into a sack, books, woolens, linens, writings, finally all things confusedly, and with no order heaped together; and to carry the sack about the whole house, repeating from time to time the fault of ill-composed negligence. But that [was] pleasant, that he chastised a little boy, recently commended to us at home by his father, ^a Christian from among the Jews. The boy, being angry once, had imprecated a carcinoma or cancer on I know not whom. That he might inject into him the horror of that word, Ignatius took care that a crab cancer be bought from the larger ones, and, the boy being called: "Do you know," he said, "what animal this is? Is that the cancer which you imprecated? Now behold it and experience [it]." And his hands being led back behind his back, he had the crab hung on his neck. Which when the boy saw creeping upon his breast, and threatening with the distended pincers of its claws; as if about to be at once torn, he began to wail, to weep, to promise, if ever afterward he should do so again. Thus detained for some time, he was at last loosed, and the beast pulled from his neck. But he, much afterward from the Order of St. Dominic, and at last bishop of Forlì, often pleasantly narrated that deed, praising Ignatius, who by a penalty so suited to [his] age and fault had so utterly taken from him that custom of imprecating, that it never afterward came into his mouth. Thus he.

§ LXXVII. Other examples of vindicated religious discipline; flight from novelties; the manner of punishing defects, and of believing informers.

[Vi ac pondere verborum repressa audaciæ cujusdam insignis viri; — The audacity of a certain notable man repressed by the force and weight of words;] Maffei book 3, chapter 6 noted some things concerning the holy Father's severity in guarding discipline: for he narrates of him that, while he rebuked someone rather sharply, so great was the force and weight of the words, that against [it] no one dared even to open his mouth. And this, he says, appeared especially in the case of a certain notable man. Who, when he was more turbulent than that he ought to be borne longer; and when Ignatius had tried in vain to heal his mind with bland admonitions and precepts; at last, his speech being turned, testifying the divine justice, and threatening the menaces of heavenly wrath, he displayed so great an ardor of spirit, that the very walls and roofs seemed with no doubtful motion to nod and be shaken. Struck by which terror, those who were present, at once falling prostrate, demanded the peace of God with prayers and vows. But he himself who was accused, half-dead, immediately cast himself at the feet of Ignatius, and, suppliant, with confused voice, sought pardon of [his] fault, and promised that he would henceforth be at [his] duty. And this, as we saw, took place in the case of a certain notable man: for to such Ignatius's severity chiefly extended itself, on the faith of Maffei, who thus proceeds: "But he restrained in discipline both all the rest, and especially those who excelled either in notable erudition or nobility of birth: as being those whose words or deeds avail very much for an example in all directions."

[783] He did not so easily permit ours to be present at public spectacles, though otherwise licit, or even sacred. [nostros arcet a publicis spectaculis; plectit dissolutionem: — he keeps ours from public spectacles; he punishes dissoluteness:] But if any, permission being given, should betake themselves to them, he commanded all again and again to keep modesty and submission without any indication of arrogance or levity, to yield to all, and always to choose the lowest place (unless they were forced otherwise by the bystanders). And indeed he proved himself an austere avenger against transgressors of the laws of decorum, from the assertion of Maffei in the same place: "When he had seen from the Roman college, lately instituted by himself, some youths walking rather loosely in public, he took care to have them chastised openly, and exhorted with a grave oration, that the modesty and shame which they had implanted in their minds, they should likewise bear before them in the external habit of the body: and, since, the Apostle being witness, they had become a spectacle to all, they should beware again and again, lest by superfluous speech, curious gaze of the eyes, or any other uncomposed gesture, or motion of the body, they should offend anyone; especially since he himself had a little before published, written with much prayer and tears, most beautiful precepts about that whole subject."

[784] To these, "He suffered no new custom to be introduced into the Society, odit res novas — he hates new things himself not knowing; and vigilantly and sharply resisted [its] beginnings, as one who knew the force of example, and the deceiving increments of things"; in Maffei at the place alleged: Receive examples from Bartoli book 3, num. 47: "Martin Olavius, then the chief [man] of the Roman college, Ribadeneira, and others he severely reproved, because, while ours were on holiday from letters in the country, they had devised a certain new game, namely of throwing a gilt apple in a circle, on this rule, that, to whomever it fell, he should at once recite the salutation of the Mother of God from [his] knees." The constant alienation of the holy Founder from introducing new things obtained even in things otherwise pious and holy. "That abstinence," subjoins the same writer, "from the accustomed supper, which we hold on Fridays, some wished to be changed into a legitimate fast: that, although slight, he nevertheless rejected. He heard that Andrew Galvanellus, rector at Venice, held an address to his own on non-festal days for an hour; but on festal days for two. Although many profited by them, he judged one each week to suffice. The same Olavius he fined, because he had brought a book above i.e., to the table, honest indeed, and which he did not thenceforth refuse to be read; but then not yet approved by our use."

[785] The ardor of a good mind, but excessive, cost Jerome Natalis dear: etiamsi bonas; & qua de causa. — even if good [novelties; and for what cause.] for after Spain had been inspected by his mandate; once and again more vehemently than was fitting he tried to prevail from him, that the time should be extended which the rule prescribes to ours, while they study, for praying. This mind, hot with so unquiet a fervor, he both rebuked most sharply, and abrogated took from him a great part of ruling the Society, deposited on him somewhat before. Among the Dichos y echos, etc., that is, the Sayings and deeds of our Father Ignatius, under the title Concerning governance, from the relation of Ribadeneira num. 18, these things are noted: "In the Roman college on a certain occasion the Superiors wished to abrogate the hour of evening recreation in Lent, and on days of fasting, feeling that, since there was no supper, there was no need of recreation. This I said to our Father; who ordered the ordinary recreation to be held; and said, that recreation was held not only that study might not harm, immediately after supper; but also that the brothers might deal among themselves, confer conversations, know and love one another: that this was what kindled and fostered charity." For indeed rightly to our purpose observes Bartoli at the place cited, thus writing: "The holy Man understood that there were no other approaches more prone to the dissipating of an Order, than if you begin from somewhere. For as much as that change pleases you; twice as much will others please others, and seem necessary. Thus that chain of the Institute, as it were link by link, would necessarily be dissolved, which cannot stand except by [its] connection, since it has not coalesced except from the mutual reason and disposition of the parts. In which it is nothing wonderful that private persons often are blind, as those to whom that eye is lacking which in the founders of Orders the sun of wisdom kindles. Add, that the divine rules, divinely handed down through the founders, are quite wrongly commanded to give place to human rules." See Fr. Oliverius Manareus's answer 21 to the demands of Lancicius, paragraph 86, part second of this commentary.

[786] [Quem in quotidianis noxis puniendis modum teneret. — What measure he kept in punishing daily faults.] But in punishing, Maffei above being witness, he followed this above all, that the animadversion punishment should respond to the fault, and each be punished in his own vice: superfluous words he expiated by silence; sloth by labor; desire of honor by ignominy. And almost the kind of Ignatius's animadversions was this: to describe a circle on the ground, from which the guilty should not go out unbidden: to interdict by name the conversations of certain men: to enjoin floggings for a predefined space of time, and other things of this kind. But I understand lighter and daily faults, of which kind fall even upon men studious of perfection: for graver ones Ignatius would by no means have tolerated. He was also wont to bring in a rebuker to the guilty reclining at the low table in the dining-room, a man for the most part of the lowest condition, but ingenious and sharp: who, with all hearing, should reproach the vices of the guilty, and cast up to them the years of religion, and their negligence: and the same should suddenly censure the rest piecemeal and unexpecting; namely for the sake of taming pride, and exciting the mind from the torpor of sloth. But those who had failed, before they were punished according to custom, he most gently gave his effort that they might themselves acknowledge their own fault, and of their own accord impose a penalty on themselves: which however, if it seemed graver, content with confession, he so moderated, that he often diminished much of the bitterness. Thus he. The penalties which he applied to daily defects, of what sort they were, the Original Lyons commentary also teaches, of which elsewhere: for there among the words of Fr. Hannibal Codrettus, these things are recorded: "The penances which he imposed for errors were for the most part prayers before the Sacrament, sometimes of two or three hours, sometimes even indefinitely, until he himself should recall the man: and therefore he was wont to add: Pray to God that I may remember. Also a circle, by which he who had erred was enclosed, for a certain time, or indefinite, until he should be recalled. But it was permitted in the circle either to stand or to sit, if it were ample enough. But the circle was described by one of those who served the Father, or the first who should meet [him]."

[787] Delatoribus defectuum alienorum — To informers of others' defects But although the best Father was so severe in chastising, yet he was not excessively credulous to informers of others' defects; so that therefore no small part of bitterness in imposing penalties was thence mitigated. For Fr. Daniel Bartoli book 3, num. 40, from Louis Consalvus relates that he did not easily believe even Polancus, relating anything sinister of others: although the man was of equal virtue and judgment … But because it can as much harm governance, if no information at all be received, as if any whatever be admitted indiscriminately from anywhere, Ignatius frequently commanded those who should bring to him anything of others' errors, which they believed needed knowledge and remedy, to give [it] in writing: but then especially, if by narrating more vehemently they showed a more moved mind, and burning beyond measure with zeal for the right … But of the absent and those acting far off, whom the remoteness of places, and ignorance of the things which were written about them, kept from the repelling of accusations, he judged much more scrupulously, especially if they were to be corrected by some penalty. And there was a time when he sent from Rome into Corsica a priest of ours, cautious in i.e., among few and sagacious, that, [his] person being dissimulated, as if doing something else, he might certainly investigate the things which were cast up to a certain father, doing wonders there for the glory of God, by heretics lying falsely claiming the Catholic name.

[788] Those things are confirmed and declared from Maffei book 3, non erat credulus. — he was not credulous. chapter 10, where, from a passage of St. Bernard to Eugene, the memory of the facility of credulity being injected, he thus writes: "From this rock therefore, as from the rest, Ignatius greatly declined: as being sufficiently instructed for every animadversion by the very variety of his own times. And he was wont so to offer one ear to informers, that he always reserved the other for the absent guilty. Nay even the gestures, the eyes, and all the countenances of the accuser himself, while he was speaking, he attentively observed, and with frequent and minute interrogations fatigued the man, for the sake of eliciting the truth. The whole matter then, if there were need, he investigated by himself, and by suitable men, by all traces, gently, and without tumult; and he was careful not only that he should condemn no one with his cause unheard; but even that he should bring nothing at all prejudiced to the knowledge investigation of the cause. This also, especially in graver matters, he sometimes observed, that he ordered the accuser to write with his own hand the things which he brought forward: first, because he understood the nature of men to be prone to speaking ill, and the pen to be far more easily restrained than the tongue: then also, that if any lie, as is done, should arise as time proceeded, it could, by the very handwriting of the informer, be held and convicted." And by this tempering it came about, that neither, if anything graver had happened, was Ignatius ignorant of it; nor did he suffer the innocent to be circumvented or oppressed through calumny or through faction.

§ LXXVIII. Severity in dismissing from the Society the disobedient, the unfit, and those obstinate in evil.

Our most holy Parent was generous, and inexorable, in sending back from the Society to the world men of this chaff. Mens immota — An immovable mind Ribadeneira book 3, chapter 22, among very many other things by which he describes the institute and form of our Society, treats of the power and causes of dismissing ours. Likewise our Constitutions, part 2, chapters 1 and 2, can be seen. Our part, therefore, here is only, to supplement with historical examples dug out from elsewhere those things which Ribadeneira briefly writes concerning the great severity of the best Parent in dismissing the pernicious from the Society, book 5, chapter 7. Bartoli book 3, num. 19. "Some," he says, "sometimes interceding for the expulsion of someone, which he himself had decreed, And this [man], said the Saint, for whom you busy yourselves, were you about to enroll into the Society, if it had been established to you what sort he is? Suffer therefore that dismissed he go away: for they are received and proved for this, that they may be perceived: for this they ought to be perceived, that if they be discovered of bad fruit, they may be sent away. And to you, he added, let the care of admitting be yours; the care of dismissing permit to me." But to externals sometimes visiting, [and] led courteously about the whole house, at the departure to the door: "And this to us," he said, "is a prison, and by [the] benefit of this we neither have a prison at home, nor [any] whom we may shut in a prison."

[790] in dimittendo: — in dismissing: Further, the Saint's mind was immovable, and firmed against all external splendor of nobility or doctrine, when it was treated of dismissal. Thus he freed both himself and the Society of Theotonius, as you have in the same place, of a most unquiet disposition. And this was the son of the Duke of Braganza, and to be venerated on account of his great-uncle Emmanuel, king of Portugal. Thus in the case of the cousin of the Duke of Bivona, and the same a kinsman to John de Vega, viceroy of Sicily, the holy Man's friend among the few, and supremely beneficent toward him; not even Ribadeneira (to whom the youth, however prepared for any penalty, had commended himself with tears), persuading and supplicating, could prevail, that he should not dismiss him. Thus among other learned men (of whom a little after) he cast off Christopher Lainez, brother of James Lainez most dear to himself: for whom when the same Ribadeneira asked at least some money, because he lacked both food at Rome, and viaticum into Spain: "But for me, Peter, if all Peru should flow with gold, not even with an obol," he said, "would I succor those whom their own fault has thrust out from religious Orders." This last fact is confirmed from the Dichos y echos, etc., under the title On prudence and spiritual governance, num. 4; where the saying of the holy Father is woven by Ribadeneira [at] the year 1553.

[791] e Societate ineptis. — [dismissing the unfit from the Society.] And presently the causes of dismissing are shown in the same place, num. 20, in Bartoli, from the constant use of the Society rather than from the second part of the Constitutions, by transcribing them. Ignatius certainly, since he required angelic chastity in the Society, did not suffer its candor to be obscured even through the shadow of suspicion, as the same writer of the Life indicates, confirming the matter by an example: "Wherefore I know not whom," he says, "although most grateful to the Duke of Bivona, whom I already mentioned, he removed with eight others from the Society: about whom, he who was then the Saint's secretary had noted these things to memory: When this year, he says, a certain one in the college had conducted himself little honestly together with eight others, who seemed to have even the least of fault, he was expelled from the Society by Fr. Ignatius, and sent back into Sicily: although among these were some very noble, and excellently versed in Latin." To this kind are subjoined in the same place geniuses of a hard neck, and of pertinacious judgment; who, in what regard they were with the Saint, the following narration of the same author will teach: "Of which kind was a certain Francis Marinus from Baetica, a man of many letters, and previously engaged in the world in great affairs.

[792] [Id patuit in quodam Francisco Marino, — This was clear in a certain Francis Marinus,] This [man], in the office of minister, which he discharged in the professed house at Rome, showed himself so firmed in his own feelings, that on whatever point he had obstinated his mind, thence he was scarcely moved by any authority of command, much less of reason and prayers. Ignatius judged [him] unfit to be commanded, who knew not how to be bent to obey. Removed from the ministry, he tried to re-cook [him] by the spiritual Exercises into a softer tempering: and with great promises gave Ignatius hope of the wished result. But this piety was the sweat of marble at the South wind, and, seen outside wholly to liquefy, he came out no easier within than before. Which Jerome Natalis had nicely seen at the beginning, saying that he feared lest he should defame the Exercises, that is, defraud them of the solemn fruit of the expected conversion. Restored to the ministry, he soon returns to his former hardness: of which matter Ignatius, made more certain now deep in the night, sends [men] who should rouse the sleeper from his bed: he commands [him], without even that delay which he asked until the morning twilight, to depart, at once that he might terrify the like by [his] example, and teach by the very deed, what he had quite often said, that he would not tarry with a stiff-necked [man] even one night under the same roof."

[793] Akin to this genius was another Marinus, Antony by name, [& in Antonio Marino, ac in alio emotæ mentis. — and in Antony Marinus, and in another of a disturbed mind.] a Paris doctor, Spanish by birth, who first professed taught philosophy in the Roman college. This [man] disapproved some things in the Society, because namely they did not savor of his saliva: nor did he dissemblingly blurt out openly what he had wrongly felt. Ignatius summons the man: admonishes [him], that it does not befit the Gospel to be prescribed rules by Aristotle, nor philosophy to be held as arbiter of sanctity: and omits nothing by which he might lead him away from error; but he found [him] so tenacious of his own images, and fixed in his own feelings, that all fell back in vain. Wherefore he immediately sent him away from us. But at his departure, when from the scarcity of masters the course was straitened by great difficulties (for it was scarcely at last completed by a succession of ten professors), Fr. Gonzales could not refrain from deprecating before Ignatius the loss of that man, and grieving. To whom, smiling, "Go then," he said, "and lead him back to his right mind." Which was just as good as to despair of his healing; and certainly [men] of this kind can rather be broken than bent and corrected. Which was clear in a certain other student of theology, German by nation, whom the demon had so demented by a new kind of delirium, that he

boasted that he was subject to no one, obnoxious to the commands of no one; but depended on the arbitration of himself alone, because he was endowed with the spirit of St. Paul. Which folly, to be plucked out of his brain, when the theologians who were at home, others abroad, and Ignatius himself had labored in vain, nor could he be induced to comply, he had at last to be expelled.

[794] Besides these, Ignatius by no means tolerated the followers of a foreign and exotic piety. [Non ferebat sanctus Pater pietatem peregrinam, — The holy Father did not bear foreign piety,] The matter is clear from this fact: There was in the Roman college Soldevilla, a Catalan priest [and] theologian, as the same author, whom we quite often designated, reports. He, the form of praying customary by the use of the Society being cast off, had devised certain new forms fabricated by the contention of an imaginative head; to which none open the way more to illusion. Made also a master of them, in secret meetings by night in the chapel with those whom he had joined to himself, he wore away many hours, tormenting the brain by violent meditations. Thence some of his followers began to be tempted, and their health to decline: thence one also eminent among them to waste away: thence the Rector, anxious about the cause, began solicitously to search the veins of the insolent genius which he read in the mouth of certain of them. Whence it came about, that at last he discovered the nest of the appointed nocturnal meeting, and caught them incautious in it by a good art. The matter being reported to Ignatius, he threw back the error of all upon their author, and, [him] fined by a long flogging of himself in each dining-room of the college and the house, he expelled; [one] who would teach hence openly, if it pleased [him], what, unless secretly, he had feared to teach, as being conscious of a mastery arrogated to himself beyond his unskillfulness. Thus there.

[795] But let us transcribe here other things from the same place. Nor was it much lacking, [& solitudinem a more societatis abhorrentem, — and solitude abhorrent from the custom of the Society,] but that by the same right two others also, otherwise most excellent, should be dealt with, Andrew Oviedo (who afterward deserved to be patriarch of Ethiopia) and Francis Onophrius, whom the sweetness of contemplating had so allured, that they wished indeed to remain in the Society, but to lead life in deserted places: about which they gave to Ignatius letters of this kind, by which they sought rather that the reasons of the deed be approved, than the faculty of doing [it]. But since they were men of solid virtue, and did not wish, at the peril of losing the Society, to stand against obedience, they wholly permitted themselves to it obedience. But he, gravely rebuking them, and threatening a division worthy of the authors of schisms, commanded Francis Borgia by strong letters to lead them back into the way; but when, their eyes being wiped, they saw that the things which displeased those acting in the place of God by no means pleased God, they of their own accord returned into the way, with no labor of his.

[796] [nec censuram, qua unus carpebat alterius concionandi modum. — nor the censure by which one carped at another's manner of preaching.] Much less did he tolerate defects which would engender bad beginnings principles in another. Jerome Natalis had preached, the same writer relating, in the Argentario square the money-changers' forum, partly from zeal of humbling himself, partly of helping the hearer. To Francis Zapata, a noble of Toledo, that savored [as] vile, and unbecoming to an honest man. And so at home, as chance bore, he began to say sayings against Natalis, to carp, to call [him] a seplasiarius* preacher a quack. Scarcely did the matter come to Ignatius, and that now in the middle of the night, with no counselor, nay not even one conscious, he orders the guilty one to snatch his clothes from sleep: which he effected [him] conscious indeed then of his error, but too late: for although weeping he promised all things, and reported all things, he could never bend Ignatius from his begun purpose. Therefore, having embraced the Order of St. Francis, he lived in it with great praise of doctrine and piety; nor did he therefore ever desist from love and observance toward the Society and Ignatius. These things being expounded concerning the holy Father's accurate severity in purging his Order of the unfit, it helps from Bartoli to subjoin the famous William Postel.

[797] Famosum Guilielmum Postellum, — The famous William Postel, This [man], he says, was eminently versed in mathematics and philosophical matters, medicine, and theological matters; besides in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac also, Chaldee, and other tongues so instructed (for he even published certain rules of them), that he boasted that he would easily traverse without an interpreter from Gaul into China, and would be understood by so many peoples lying between, each in his own tongue. And indeed there is a report that he traversed the whole globe to learn the morals of all nations, and the form of empire government, and the rites of sacred things. With Francis I, king of the Gauls, he was in esteem, and with Margaret queen of Navarre, and many Cardinals. But at Paris, when he taught, he was a prodigy of a portentous genius and memory. This [man] therefore sanctioned by a vow his huge desire, with which he wondrously burned, of the Society, and at Rome on a certain day, visiting, as is the custom, the seven churches, at the chief altar of each, he confirmed that vow by his handwriting, and bound himself by this express law, by which he wished to be held, namely of obeying at [the] nod Ignatius, or any other, who should preside over him in the place of God. Enrolled among ours, he had once given an eminent specimen of future virtue: when suddenly and unforeseen a new prophet, he began to bring forth vaticinations predictions of things to come, from the deliriums of the Rabbis, and the indications of the stars, and adhered to them as to oracles with the highest faith. Lainez, Salmeron, [and] others sent to him by Ignatius, most cultivated in mathematics and languages, grave men, condemned those things as puerile and vain. They were refuted by plainly contrary events, and convicted of falsehood. Yet, affixed tooth-and-nail to [his] error, he could not be induced to abstain from [his] stupid arts.

[798] adhibita nequidquam omni curatione, — every treatment being applied in vain, It would be long to tell, by how manifold a treatment the holy Man strove to heal that head. Which when all fell back in vain, he commits the man to the Pontiff's vicar, about to try an unusual remedy for an unusual evil: that, by the prudence in which the skillful man was strong, both by [his] authority, and by the judgment of the most learned [men] whom he had at Rome, he might un-teach him his dreams: or, [if] thus he could not be corrected, that he should proceed to run about wandering, as before; but should not set foot again into our house. He effected, partly by himself the vicar, partly by reasons, and the just hootings-down of the learned, by which he was shown deceived by a manifest mockery of himself, that he confessed that he erred, and by a writing condemned of error and vanity whatever he had hitherto divined; and besides holily promised, that he would never lend his genius or pen to an art so noxious, or apply his mind to bringing forth vaticinations. Fortified with this solemn written pledge of his own hand, and with the vicar's commendation, by which he was asserted to be going to be wholly another, he is sent back to Ignatius, and is received no less humanely than cautiously. For, other codices besides the theology of St. Thomas being withdrawn, he is applied to domestic ministries, and is forbidden for the meanwhile to say Mass. All which things he seemed to bear with an even mind, the demon deferring his curiosity by short truces, that into it, at the first assaults, [he,] made more ardent by the retardation, a man, if any anywhere, most fickle, might relapse more dangerously, and, if occasion should favor, might meanwhile befoul others with that his pitch not only of divining, but, with that more criminal pitch which he thereafter betrayed, of feeling ill about the faith i.e., heresy, most badly.

[799] Yet his own counsel did not succeed for the malignant enemy. e Societate ejicit S. Ignatius, — St. Ignatius casts [him out of the Society,] For Postel being always suspect to Ignatius, as soon as he was discovered to repeat the perils of the trifles he had forsworn, was at once ejected from us, and it was severely enjoined on all at home, that they should abstain not only from his conversation, but also from the salutation of [him] meeting them, as [one] who seemed to tend headlong into little sound doctrine. Nor did Ignatius think it lawful for himself to yield to the purpled cardinal intercession, when he was demanding for him a repeated restitution. Wherefore, having tarried for some time with a certain Cardinal, and flattered him with many and grand promises of things to come, [his] sailing course being suddenly changed, [as] a preacher he traversed the Marches, and, the good spirit now deserting him, having lapsed into most grave errors, and into occasion of great offense to the people, he at last openly came out a master of heresies. Thence, when he had fled to Venice, he entered a most close intimacy with a certain woman, and, her horoscope being worked out from his deliriums, [he,] who dreamed himself inspired by God to speak forth things to come, was driven by the demon into such madness, that he divined that that woman would likewise be the redemptress of women, as Christ had stood forth redeemer of men; and this by a certain new advent of the Messiah, which he was inventing. But in this his wondrous expectation, he was given into fetters from Venice to Rome, and there macerated by a hard and long prison.

[800] Then now mindful of himself, and looking back at last thence, whence the pride of an adorer of private judgment had driven him thither, tragice in vita exercitum. — [one tragically exercised in life.] he wished by flight to elude the impending punishment. And so while he tries to let himself down by the window, he is dashed headlong with his whole body, and breaks his arm: being discovered by the cries wrung out by its pain, he is bound with a strong chain in prison: where for many years he learned, too certainly, the fallacy of his arts, which had not disclosed to him such sad and miserable outcomes. At last, his cause now absolved, or, as others write, eluded by flight, he withdrew to Basel, from time to time into Gaul, [and] there, being mentally impaired, by divining, teaching, he sustained the fame of a heretic; and at last, more than a centenarian, [his] errors, as is reported, being condemned, he died a Catholic. The dismissal of Postel Orlandinus most briefly touches book 5, num. 3; whose tragedy Bouhours drew out at length in the Life of St. Ignatius book 4, toward the beginning.

[801] [Salmeronis, & aliorum duorum e Societate de eo judicium. — The judgment of Salmeron and two others of the Society concerning him.] The judgment concerning Postel's spirit, etc., written by the hand of Salmeron, and subscribed by him and two others, and transcribed by the collector of Roman documents, Ignatius Pinius, and sent to us, thus sounds from the Italian: "Jesus. We three here subscribed, congregated together, as far as we could judge both from the writings and from the words of lord Postel, judge, that, although perhaps his will be good, nevertheless his spirit and prophecies seem to us manifest illusions of the demon, and phantasies merely human without any foundation, and apt for deceiving many curious persons, and for bringing great harm and scandal into the Church of the Lord God. And this we confess with all purity and sincerity of heart, desiring that he himself were removed and separated from things of this kind, which can profit neither himself nor another. And because we judge the matter to be so, we place here our names. Today the fifth Sunday after Easter, the tenth of May 1545. Alphonsus Salmeron, James l'Hostius, Elpidius Ugolettus."

* In the Italian ciarlatano, that is, a mountebank histrio.

§ LXXIX. Certain other examples in purging the Society of the unfit; benignity toward those who should wish to be dismissed from it.

[Die unico Pentecostes decem dimittit Romæ e Societate: — On the single day of Pentecost he dismisses ten from the Society at Rome:] Let us follow Bartoli, proceeding to other examples of Ignatian severity in purging the Society of bad leaven. "From these few," he says, "whom I have recounted [as] dismissed by Ignatius, lest anyone gather a scarcity of dismissing, on the very sacred day of Pentecost, from the Roman college he sent back twelve to their [own] home. And that it might be plain to all, that the wicked are ejected from us with no less of our profit, than the good are preserved, he displayed on that day an alacrity greater than usual." Imbued with which sense of a virile and right charity, B. Borgia said that three things happened to him gladly from ours: when they entered into the Society, and when they died in it: and indeed also when, expelled from it, they departed. Which as Ignatius brought forth by the very deeds, so he wished wholly it to be felt by those

who presided, [and] to be led into an example. For when he had learned that in Portugal some were turbulent and refractory to obedience, he sharply reprehended the imprudent charity of the Provincial in bearing them long: and commanded both him and the other Superiors throughout the Society by the bond of a precept, that whatever unquiet, rebellious, and disobedient [men] they should find, of however great a note standing they were, they should constantly dismiss.

[803] [Kesselius quomodo se gesserit in dimittendis: — how Kessel conducted himself in dismissing:] Wherefore Leonard Cleselius nay rather Kessel, rector of Cologne, insisting on the commands, ejected half the part of the college, which then was of fifteen companions. Linek part 3, chapter 50, page 516, from Ribadeneira in the Spanish Ms., relates that of those fifteen companions eight were ordered to depart; adding the cause, that they had not wished to accommodate themselves to the nod of obedience, by the persuasion of a certain Gerard the Hollander. Now let us proceed with Bartoli: "But struck by a certain consciousness of the too austere deed, he wrote to Ignatius, as it had been done, asking pardon, if, the causes of his penalty being read through, he should seem to have leaped over the lines. But he, in place of pardon (where there was nothing of fault), not only praised Kessel; but even those who were surviving, if they were like the former, he commanded to expel, and that Kessel alone should remain in the college. At another time also he sent away from himself ten at once on one day, and among them one who, beyond what modesty allowed, had grazed the head of another with a fillip* in jest." And thus the most keen-sighted Man, and most studious of conserving the Society, judged that one must proceed with his own, well knowing that the same obtains in the moral body which obtains in the physical body; for which, to conserve health, the cutting of a vein is often not only convenient, but even most necessary. Yet there are many things which mitigate this remedy, and persuade that it is not too odious. Let Bartoli be heard:

[804] "For the Society," he says, "by no means uses it, [quem modum in iis teneat Societas juxta mentem Fundatoris. — what measure the Society keeps in these things according to the mind of the Founder.] except after slow and serious consultations not only of the Rectors, if the matter bear [it]; but of the Preposit and the Assistants. But if in any part the Society ought—I will not say to be restored—but to guard and corroborate itself, in this certainly it ought to do so especially by conserving the integrity of its whole self, which is of so great worth, by the mature amputation of corrupt parts, before from them it draw a vice into what is sound." And he introduces our holy Father thus writing to a certain Provincial: "How much more preferable it would be, by the cutting off of a member seized by gangrene, to place the rest of the body in safety! I remember to have written, that by Fr. Kessel nine at once or ten were expelled at Cologne, and a little after as many; and that I praised it as by right done, because they had deserved it. If the iron had been more quickly applied to the evil, the loss perhaps of one or two would have conserved the rest." And at num. 21 in the cited author you will find that the same was the feeling of Xavier agreeing with Ignatius; and at num. 22, that the same also was the feeling of Simon Rodriguez with both this Saint, in purging the Society of the unworthy.

[805] Of the manner of dismissing, our Constitutions treat, part 2, Mitissimum se præbet Sanctus — The Saint shows himself most mild chapter 3. Here it will be enough for us to relate what manner our holy Patriarch kept in dismissing those who should ask dismissal. Linek just now alleged, chapter 51, page 517, treating of the Saint's manner which he employed in manumitting freeing deserters, says, "It is sufficiently explored, that nothing was milder than he, nothing more moderate, nothing more opportune; especially since those who demanded their release, had been led into this lethal fraud by the guile and art of a most worthless veteran the devil." He proves the matter from Ribadeneira in the Spanish Ms., thus: "For," he says, "besides those prayers which the best Father poured out for them, he wished also the companions who were at home to pray to God, and make vows, that by their help they the deserters, their mind being divinely admonished, might come to their senses, and betake themselves to a better course." And presently Linek thus proceeds: "He besides destined certain interlocutors, who should mingle divine colloquies with them, and by salutary admonitions lead them to taking better counsels …"

[806] Nor did he himself omit to approach, to address blandly, to ask humanely, [erga eos, qui rogabant dimitti e Societate; — toward those who asked to be dismissed from the Society;] and amicably, why they meditated desertion: that they should defer for the meanwhile, and, since they themselves had so greatly by their own will persisted in the Society, and that had been indulged them asking; now at least in turn of favor, for four or fifteen* days, they should give us the use of their presence, with no other law of obeying, except that which they themselves should have given to themselves, freely and of their own accord. Thus he flowed into the minds of the tempted, that he might contain them in the divine service. He subjoins: "But if not even thus did the business proceed; they say he was wont to convoke most of the domestics, or all, that before them he might ask the perplexed [men], for what cause they wished to send their notice of resignation to the Society? Which when they had told, he was wont to command each of the fellows to bear give his opinion about this purpose of mind; to show the emptiness of their reasons, and the blinding of the mind, by which they gave themselves to destruction. Which when each for himself did graphically and nervously, they quite often attained this, that, full of shame, covered with tears, they cast themselves at the feet of all, detested their own fault, and earnestly demanded permanence to remain": from Ribadeneira in the Spanish Ms.

[807] nihil intentatum relinquens — leaving nothing unattempted For indeed by nothing so much, as Bartoli relates book 3, num. 44, did the paternal mind of Ignatius pour itself out, as in forestalling with a present remedy the perils of his own, whom the demon, by the despair or tedium of religious perseverance, was alluring into Egypt. "Among them was [one]," he says, "whom, that he might obtain [him], he insisted for three days before God with tears, prayers, afflictions, abstaining himself plainly from all food. Another, in the silence of night, by the repeated assault of many hours, he at last stormed, by consoling, terrifying, [and], by reasons, with that efficacy in which he was strong, transfixing [him], so that he should burst forth into cries and weepings for fear, and detestation of [his] depraved counsel. Thus also by a prolix contention he softened the hardness of one so firmed, that, [he] who a little before had uncontrollably wished to be dismissed, so suppliant cast himself at his feet, asking and demanding to be retained, prepared to undergo any penalty for that his wavering. But the Saint, closely embracing him, Let this, he said, be part of his the deserter's penalty, that you never henceforth repent to serve God; the other part of it, which you have deserved, I myself will pay off, when the pains of the stomach shall have returned to me."

[808] in variis præscribendis remediis, — in prescribing various remedies, Amid these things, by that perspicacity in which he was strong, for detecting the roots of the emotions, if he conjectured the impulse of desertion to be incited by some crime, with the silent conscience badly oppressed; having assailed the seat of the disease, he stimulated them to a faithful and candid confession of their faults, knowing that, the malignity of the peril being thoroughly purged, the lethal paroxysms of it would cease. But to undertake that confession, if they seemed difficult to be bent; he used an art which he had once experienced to be happy effective for himself. He explained to them [his] life, spent, as he said, dissolutely in the world: whatever he had there ever sinned more grievously, he related indeed by a truthful narration, as to Christ present; but with such grief, and such tears, that the unhappy [men] might be softened, and their blind shame subdued. Whom, now docile to a sincere confession, with no delay interposed he commanded to be expiated: so much so that he even sometimes roused the domestic confessor from the middle of the night, to hear some one of this kind. Nor did his conjecture deceive him: for soon they returned to him from the confessor suppliant, and demanded pardon of their fickleness, being thenceforth about to be faithful and stable to God and the Society. Further, some of these treatments drew a certain occult force from himself, wonderful for breaking wills; others, greater human sagacity effected, by devising remedies for sudden healings of diseases, when they were believed incapable of healing.

[809] [quibus ex parte ipsius accedebat mansuetudo ac patientia. — to which, on his part, acceded gentleness and patience.] To which remedies acceded, on the part of the healer, a medicine of another kind, namely long-suffering gentleness and patience in tolerating defects; as was clear in the case of Ribadeneira; of whom in Bartoli cited it is written, "That many persuaded that he should be dismissed from the Society, because they thought it too absurd, that in an assembly of grave men and eminent in piety, the puerilities should be devoured into which he again and again burst forth. With great effort the demons urged that by a precipitate desertion he should forestall the dismissal which Ignatius denied him. Nor could they impel the youth to it by a stronger engine, than by a certain aversion of an indignant mind, so abhorring from Ignatius, that—not to say that he refused to deal with him in the domestic manner, as before—he could not even endure him with [his] eyes. In vain to this aversion were good words, alacrity of brow, and the affability of one soothing, by which those still almost boys are placated. Yet the good Father most patiently dissembled, as if he noticed none of these things; nor did he therefore ever exhibit to him another appearance either of acting or of countenance. But the mind of Ribadeneira was conquered": but how that happened, I do not transcribe from the same place: since I have given the testimony of Ribadeneira himself in paragraph 54, num. 571, and the following.

[810] Wonderful also, and akin to this, in the cited Bartoli, is the example of Ignatius in stabilizing the wavering of a tossed tempted recruit: [Tironem quemdam remedio sui exempli — A certain recruit by the remedy of his own example] "It was," he says, "Baldwin de Angelo, who, having scarcely entered the Society in the year 1551, soon began to look back behind. An alluring, I know not what, tenderness toward his brother's son drew the man back. Everywhere he recurred in mind, everywhere in [his] eyes, as if reproaching barbarism, that, since he ought to be in the place of a father to him, he was yet cruelly deserted by him. Thus, thinking that his entrance into the Society made him guilty of impiety before God and men, he was in readiness to go back; and it was already over, unless Ignatius could [do] more for him than the demon against him. He gained him first by suppliant vows before God, then by a simple little narration, which accomplished the whole business. For he calls [him] thinking nothing less: bids [him] courteously sit by him; and, as if setting about to talk with him, I, he said, when I once gave myself to God, and was, as you now are, new in the service of God, was assailed by a most troublesome assault of the demon; but how ridiculously, I pray you, attend, and by how wonderful a device I was taught by God to conquer.

[811] I recited daily from a little book the psalms of the B. Virgin. in societate retinet. — he retains [him in the Society.] Among the images painted in the little book, was [one] in which I seemed to discern a kinswoman female relative expressed to the life. As often therefore as I fell upon that picture, so often my mind poured out an innumerable swarm of profane thoughts, and of a stupid tenderness toward relatives and kinsfolk. That I might be freed from this importunity, I had now resolved to abstain from that kind of piety toward the Virgin, and I preferred to avoid the peril of evil, than to gain something of good. But then, taking counsel more cunningly, I noticed that I would give too much joy to the enemy, if, at his striving, I had desisted from the merit of so holy a work. He assailed me with a puerile dart, and puerile warfare; and I thought his blows were to be played with by a shield. I covered the image with glued paper, and by this one art I both withdrew it from my eyes, and withdrew from my mind the appearance of the kinswoman which it thrust in." Which things being said, he rose, and, having embraced the sad recruit with a great signification of benevolence, as always in such cases, and most humanely consoled [him], he sent [him] back from the chamber. But with what

mind, changed beyond what was necessary more than could be hoped, his words affirmed by his own oath testify. "Immediately," he says, "I wholly began to flow into tears, and to be suffused with such pleasures of pious feelings, and of heavenly affection, that whatever of love I had before conferred on [my] blood-relatives, I turned to God: nor did I afterward think of my brother's son except as of one unknown and foreign." From these it is concluded that severity was tempered with benignity by our best Parent, which is our supplement to Ribadeneira in book 5, chapter 7.

* In the Italian capezzone a fillip on the head.

* or five i.e., "five" rather than "fifteen"?

§ LXXX. Paternal solicitude in curing the diseases of body and mind of the subjects; their reverent affection toward the Saint; other arguments of his intimate love toward them.

[Curabat Vir sanctus, ut darentur infirmis ea, — The holy Man took care that there should be given to the sick those things,] Wholly moving are the things which Ribadeneira describes concerning the eminent commiseration of our best Parent toward his own, book 5, chapter 8, which he thus begins: "To the same benignity pertains that sympathy and mercy which he took from the diseases of his own." Then he confirms that matter by deeds; but rather briefly. Therefore, as far as it shall be in us, we shall summon aid to this subject from elsewhere. "He wished," says Bartoli book 3, chapter 42, "to be admonished quite often in the day as to who were sick: whatever was prescribed to them by the physicians, however least, he exacted from the curators of health, whether it was performed to the letter and fully: nor did he suffer [it] to be with impunity for them, if they had cared for something rather negligently. Among other things, when the Minister of the house, and the keeper of the infirmary, had forgotten to summon the physician for a sick one in time; he ordered both from the middle of the night to seek the physician, and not to return home except with the physician: whom, when they were prevented by the importunity of the hour from finding, they were compelled, for what remained of the night, to stay in the hospital." But to these things which Ribadeneira writes about the domestic furniture ordered to be sold, when money for expenses was not at hand, add that from Maffei book 3, chapter 4: "Indeed," he says, "when a certain one of the lay helpers was afflicted by a savage fever, and for refreshing him there was need of more delicate food; whatever of little coins was at home, three denarii, he ordered to be spent on that one thing. And to the caterer resisting a little, and saying that no money besides remained for feeding the rest, But we indeed, said he, are well: we shall be able to be content with dry bread. And thus the food was bought for the languishing [man]."

[813] The Original commentary of the province of Lyons, etc., of which elsewhere, writes these things among others, [quæ a medico ipsis erant præscripta. — which had been prescribed to them by the physician.] which it relates from the words of Fr. Hannibal Codrettus: "After supper and the recreation which he had with those who had supped with him, they being dismissed, he called those of the domestics with whom he was about to do business*, as the Minister and the infirmarian." And some things being interjected, it is thus said: "When the infirmarian had been rather negligent in procuring certain things for a sick one; and he, asking him by night, had understood whether all things had been done which the physician had commanded: he ordered him at once, two companions and a torch being taken, to seek that which the physician had prescribed, and not to return home unless he brought [it]. But there were certain more delicate skins leathers, which were applied for chafing warming the kidneys of the sick one: which were easily found and applied."

[814] [In plurium ægrotorum copia non patitur duos tirones alio dimitti. — In an abundance of many sick he does not suffer two recruits to be sent away elsewhere.] From our Roman transcript, which is entitled Dichos y echos, etc., that is, Sayings and deeds of our Father Ignatius, under the title On the governance and care of novices, among other things which Louis Consalvus is there reported to have said, I extract these: "Two novices of the first probation, William the Frenchman, and Alfonso the Spaniard, fell into illness. While the house was loaded with more than seventy persons, it seemed to some perhaps expedient, that, since they had not yet entered our common habitation, they should depart to the hospital, for the sake of curing their health. But our Father ordained, that the physicians and remedies should be given them at home. For it was not fair, that those who, the world being left, come to us for the love of God, we should thus desert in their necessity. The Spaniard had a little before been cured in the hospital; the Frenchman had tried to serve him, and they the hospital had not wished to admit him on account of the dearth of grain. The Father was conscious of this fact; neither of them knew letters; and nevertheless he ordained that they be cured at home." Thus there; which are turned by me from the Spanish. Bartoli also can be approached, book 3, chapter 42: where these things are narrated: "To a certain one also, consternated by black bile from the strangeness of the disease, he ordered novices to be present from time to time, who knew music, and to refresh him with pious songs." Maffei also hands down, at the place just now assigned: "The sick lying down he himself visited from time to time, confirming each one with words plainly divine and heavenly, and gave his effort, that, all solicitude being laid aside, they should feel without any doubt that they and their health were a care to the Superiors."

[815] You would say that the affection of the most benign Parent toward [his] sick sons was so tender, Antevertit morborum pericula, — He forestalls the perils of diseases, that he seemed to be sick together with them. Hence that solicitous love toward them, not only in curing diseases, but also in forestalling their peril. Fr. Nicholas Lancicius vol. 2, opusculum 12, chapter 8, num. 72 narrates these things: "When he had seen a certain novice paler than usual, at once summoning [him] he prescribed the remedy of a longer sleep, and thus cured him." And in the same place num. 73, "Of our holy Father Ignatius," he says, "his Minister Fr. Louis Consalvus writes, that our holy Father was wont, before the beginning of Lent, the physician being summoned home, to summon each of ours, and examine whether he could fast, or ought, weighing the strength and indispositions of each; and urging, that the physician should forbid the fasts to those whom his maternal bowels saw to be unable to fast, or only with great difficulty. Nor did he commit the care of that matter to the Minister, not trusting him, because he was held for less merciful than the holy Father was; as he himself writes this very thing of himself in the diary of the holy Father's deeds. Which custom even now," he says, "endures at Rome."

[816] He was solicitous in guarding against things contrary to the health of his own. [ac præcavet valetudini contraria: — and he guards against things contrary to health:] Afflictions of the body, especially if they the men languished, he judged were to be intermitted, or certainly to be applied with such moderation that they should not injure health, and bring it into danger; Linek relating page 222, from Fr. Consalvus. Nay even "When he had learned that in Sicily it was permitted to the novices and certain other juniors through all the ferias days of the great fast Lent, to live with that parsimony of food with which the rest [did]; he took care that a sharp reprehension should be written to the presidents, and transmitted; as is there read from father Consalvus's diary. To which are subjoined in the same place from Ribadeneira's Spanish Ms. these things: But when the physicians in the year 1545 had forbidden Fr. Peter Ribadeneira to fast; and he had objected to the holy Father that he feared lest, from the laxity of the fast, some of the companions should be offended: the holy Man replied: Would anyone be offended by that matter, and not rather give thanks to God, that he is not engaged in the same necessity with you? But at another time (namely in the year 1546), because something similar had been brought to his ears, he most firmly asserted that he would eject from the Society that man to whom an indulgence so fair had brought offense: which, once read at Toledo in the refectory, and received by the avid ears of the domestics, Ribadeneira testifies."

[817] afflictam fovet: — he fosters afflicted [health:] The Saint's paternal care commends the example of father Ottellius, when a disease had invaded him; of which Linek page 227 thus writes: "He was a sacred orator preacher in the professed house at Rome. Therefore when he had proceeded rather far with the vexations of the body, he reduced his little body to such a state, that there was danger lest he should be rendered useless for the duties of the Society. The holy Father took it upon himself to have him greatly cured that he should recover. He willed above all that he should abstain from all reading of books for the space of three weeks: likewise that he should lay aside for the meanwhile the zeal of praying; that he should indulge more largely in sleep, frequent the same table with himself, about to live on the same food, and go forth into the fields more frequently. When he had performed all these things entirely, he so restored the man, that, recalled into the ancient place state of health, and its bloom, for very many years thereafter he spoke to the people notably in the chief cities of Italy and Sicily, and made for himself a great name of an eloquent and also useful and fruitful orator." Thus he, citing Ribadeneira in Ms.

[818] abjectissimis ministeriis juvat; — he helps by the most abject ministries; But how great [is] that, that to cleanse the couches, to shake out the beds and coverlets of the sick, and vindicate free them from filth: and not only to help, but to act both the servant, and as it were a home-born slave, and to come into every aid, he was not rarely beheld? Thus in most clear words, an eye-witness himself, Ribadeneira in his written monuments; on the faith of the same writer, whose Spanish Ms. again Linek assigns: "I myself (he says), I saw him cleansing the beds of the sick from bugs, and killing them, lest they should proceed to be hostile to the ailing, and bring vexation to their miserable bodies." There was also in the holy Father no small care of convalescents. By a peculiar law he had prescribed to the Minister, that he should enjoin no burden on any of those recovering, before he himself was made informed of this matter. He wished likewise, although they had already gone out of the infirmary, that foods should be ministered to them not by whatever hands, but by those of him who presided, and that they should remain under the power of the physician, no less than before, until, all evils being utterly excluded, full health and integrity of strength should embrace them; as Linek has page 235 from Fr. Consalvus's Diary.

[819] [absentium etiam valetudini paterne consulit. — he paternally consults also for the health of the absent.] St. Ignatius's paternal care toward the sick even absent betrays itself in an Italian letter subscribed by himself, and hung at Rome in our domestic chapel, in which the holy Father once dwelt and died: which place, when that house was afterward built by Cardinal Farnese, was preserved as it had been. The letter, inserted into our Roman monuments, I thus interpret from the Italian: "May the highest grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be always in our help and favor. From your letters given at Rieti on the 27th, and Spoleto on the 29th of April, we understood the progress of your pilgrimage, and the ill-health of master Polancus and doctor Loarte: and considering that, if some discretion were not applied, it could get worse; it seemed good to us that, if all four of you or some of you, when you shall receive these letters, be at Loreto, your health bearing it, you at once return to Rome; and I burden your conscience, that you must come, all necessary convenience being applied, whether you be all on horseback, or partly on horseback, partly on foot; I leave that to your discretion. And that it may be provided for you concerning all necessaries, I write to the Lord governor, that he should provide for you, and that your return be directed straight to Rome, not going elsewhere, or clinging in other places: because the heats now begin to rush on. And commending myself to your prayers, I will say nothing else, except that I pray God our Lord, that he give to you all the grace of knowing and executing his most holy will.

Rome, the 4th day of May 1555. If any of the four shall perhaps have departed before, those who shall have remained there will signify to the others that which is here written, etc. Yours in our Lord, Ignatius. From our Roman Gleaning let us observe: 1. that this letter is indeed a transcript, but subscribed by the hand of St. Ignatius. 2. That it is directed to Loreto, to Giovanni Polanco, Luis González, Gaspar Loarte, and Diego de Guzmán, of the Society of Jesus.

[820] But since Ignatius proved himself a most loving father by so many and so singular offices of a most tender soul toward his own, The highest love and reverence in the sons toward the best Parent who could doubt whether he won for himself among his own such love and reverence, that, as the delight of all, he clung fixed in their hearts and senses? Let Ribadeneira be heard, whose words, translated from the Spanish Ms. into Latin, Lineck sets forth in part 3, chapter 10, and they run thus: Since therefore our Father was so loving to all his sons; they in turn showed themselves obedient sons, and gave him their hearts, that he might dispose of them and of all things without contradiction and reluctance. For by the force of this love he was not only father, but also servant of his subjects. He had care of them, and they thought not of themselves, and labored to weariness without regard for their own health, because they knew that the Father had great care of their health. And when they needed some relief in any necessity, they knew that they would receive it very abundantly. And so there was a certain holy contention between the Father and his sons, in that they wished to take on greater labors than their strength could bear. And in this manner with a religious emulation they revered the Father, and obeyed him. And the Father treated his sons with a solicitous and most sweet love, which cannot be explained in words. Concerning the reverence with which his own pursued him, brief is that passage in Maffei, book 3, chapter 6: Diego Laínez, who next after him held the helm of the Society, and the other fathers, although Ignatius dealt most kindly with them, yet so revered the surpassing virtue of the Man, that you would say well-behaved children stood before a parent, or disciples before a master.

[821] Nor did the charity of our most loving Parent rest in caring only for the sick bodies of his own, The diseases of the soul but played its part in caring for their souls. These specimens are given in Bartoli, book 3, num. 43: We know what kind of refusal Bobadilla, one of his nine companions, bore from him. He asked to exchange his narrow chamber for a more ample and more commodious one; because this paved a certain way for the rest to elude the inconveniences of poverty, Ignatius ordered it to be signified to him, nay rather that he should withdraw into one part of that chamber, which he called too narrow for himself, and leave room for two, whom he had resolved to give him as companions as soon as possible. Bobadilla answered that he would gladly do it, and religiously stood by his word. Yet to those whose stock of virtue was not yet very ample, he so seasoned a refusal, that they rejoiced more in things denied than if they had been granted: so far was it that they should draw thence anything of bitterness. For it was not dry, nor was it framed more for a show of power than for the necessity of the office enjoined, such as the incautious wrongly usurp … If he saw the studies of letters harming anyone, because he was thereby carried away too boastfully, or clung to the chimeras of new opinions; however sublime and subtle his genius, he removed him, adding that he was not born for the sciences, to whom the sciences were not suited … To certain men of disordered mouth and bearing he gave to interpret the rules of modesty, written by himself; and ordered them to hold domestic exhortations concerning them, by which, in teaching others, they might teach themselves, and by the same arguments move both themselves and them to the observance of them.

[822] he heals: But if in anyone something foreign to religion had become inveterate from secular life, he set over him a monitor prudent in charity, who should observe him, and whatever he had noted in him, should daily faithfully deliver to him in writing, by whose deliberate advice, as by a mirror, he might amend it. Although this very fruitful use of mutual admonition was then common among our men: for by a fixed law it had prevailed that on Fridays all should convene, to recognize their errors, which were openly narrated by four designated monitors: and indeed in the Roman college the beginning of this censure was led by Martín Olave, a man eminent in the eyes of all. But some indicated to Ignatius daily toward evening, how often they had slipped in that which, on his authority, they had undertaken to overcome; and he, comparing days with days, how much they had advanced, or on the contrary, set before them, that on both sides they might take courage, either to advance or to begin anew. Sometimes also he called one who had discharged some graver office to public censure, before he committed another to him. For Jerónimo Nadal relates that, after he laid down the office of rector, he was submitted to the examination of forty fathers, and the less considered harshness and acerbity which he had used toward his own was sharply reprehended by Ignatius.

[823] and toward very many others his paternal Besides these things, which the holy Man performed in caring for the bodies and souls of his subjects, there were very many others by which he proved his inmost love toward them. For some of the first fathers, as Bartoli relates, book 3, num. 41, having long experienced it, wrote that he was wholly compacted of charity and love; that to our men meeting him he unfolded such a countenance, said such words, that he seemed to receive them within the bosom of his breast; that never was any father dearer to his sons than Ignatius to his own; that there was none in the Society, now widely diffused, except one (wholly unknown to me), who was not affected toward him with his whole heart; none who did not reckon anything more tolerable to himself than to be far separated from him. Nor did this testification of paternal love toward our men pertain only to those present and dwelling at home, but equally to those far distant, and with one embrace he shared an equal affection to each of his sons. His discourse of them breathed a most loving father; he was vexed by their hardships, want, the troubles of their labors, their vexations; he commended them to God with assiduous prayers, and much shedding of tears: he also sometimes consoled them with benevolent and hortatory letters; than which no more pleasing reward of their sufferings could come to them.

[824] love he proves. And presently he confirms this by examples: Thus in the year 1555 he consoled some of our men in France, laboring under a most sharp persecution of the clergy, and added so much courage to them, that they preferred to die rather than to depart from the station in which they warred for the salvation of their neighbors. He also sent consolatory letters to Salmerón, sick from excessive fatigue at Padua: by which, greatly refreshed, as soon as he could, he returned this answer: From your Reverence's letters I have perceived with what feeling of soul you have been affected by this my sickness. I acknowledge in very truth the love and bowels of a paternal breast, in which he bears us deeply inscribed; and I persuade myself of this for certain, that it was done especially by his obtaining, which neither the physicians nor their medicines had accomplished. May God, ever beneficent toward His poor, add to this grace, that I may not sparingly respond to such great love, with which your Reverence, the true Father of us all, consoles us all and relieves us.

* that is, about to transact business

§ LXXXI. Other things which commend Ignatius's sweetness in governing.

But there were many other incitements in the holy Father to excite the most tender love of his own toward him. To pursue it in a few words with Luís de Cámara; he omitted none of those things by which he could render and preserve his domestics (and those joined to him in the Society) cheerful, for undergoing all the greatest things for the service of God. As the Saint took singular pains to deserve well of his own, His maternal heart removed not only every act, but even the shadow, of a stepmotherly affection, or of a more estranged soul. Which was the cause that, when, after various men set over the Roman college, in one of those fathers he had found the pleasantness of maternal bowels; he ordered him to govern the college in such a manner that, as long as he lived, he should not be dismissed from its government; judging that, he being dead, there would not easily be another who would equal his charity, from the diary of Luís González de Cámara in Lineck, page 213.

[826] Thence in the same place are reported the following endowments of the same argument, page 207: He avoided all occasions of seeming more devoted to any party, [so he took care not to be affected toward one before another in a determinate way.] or of being thought to hold anyone in singular love … And this was the reason that he himself imposed certain specious functions, and those joined with public honor, on no one, but permitted his consultors to make the selection themselves, and to nominate those whom they judged would be more apt for this or that office. Not, however, on that account, did he omit what was his own part, by directing and expounding graphically what endowments of soul were required for rightly administering a province of this kind. And so it came to pass that, the divine light infusing itself, they never failed to choose him whom he had in his soul designated as most worthy. In the election of the Prepositus General he gave his vote to none of his own in a determinate way; but to him in whose election the greater number of votes should concur, from what was said above, §35. See also Maffei, book 3, chapter 10.

[827] But since all pride was absent from his government; what wonder is it if, even thence, even had many other things been lacking, His manner of acting without pride, he had rendered himself an amiable Superior? And indeed he offered himself not as a Prelate to his brethren, but as a minister and servant, as Orlandini affirms, book 3, num. 3, treating of the manner in which St. Ignatius governed the Society at that time when he had not yet been elected its Prepositus. But what he afterward performed in this kind, when he now held the supreme power of affairs in the Society, understand from the praised author, book 16, num. 118: Nay even, he says, providing for the sweetness and perpetuity of obedience, and for the perfect administration of things to be done, he abstained altogether from precepts; if he could by another means obtain that which he wished. He therefore not only observed what was equitable and suitable to each one's strength and genius: but even, whether he was about to decree anything, or to impose a penalty, he so carried out the matter in simple discourse indeed, but skillfully, and with reasons set before their eyes, that those who heard were not led into his opinion, but came to it, nay seemed to go before, not to follow. Thus Orlandini; where he also treats of the prudence of the holy Father in entrusting affairs.

[828] and not suspicious, To these things is added, that the best Father abhorred that vice by which some Superiors are wont to take the sayings or deeds of their subjects in a bad part, and to interpret them otherwise than is fitting: whence it comes to pass that the souls of those whom they are over are estranged from them. Ignatius therefore thought the best of his own. For he treated of them, from the narrative of Bartoli, book 3, num. 40, as of men either

having attained the goal of eminent virtue, or eagerly tending toward it … Which excellent opinion of his own charity fostered, being alien from suspiciousness, nor lending a credulous ear to adverse delations. And indeed that the holy Man interpreted all things rightly, as far as he could, is gathered from this, that from the diary of Luís González Lineck writes, page 203, that thence arose a proverb, that Ignatius's interpretations, as the best, were called the Interpretations of the Father. The Saint moreover rendered the yoke of obedience sweet, because he received his own, returning to him after affairs well conducted, with a paternal soul. I declare the matter.

[829] the sense of gladness, the zeal to gratify, in the right-doings of his own, When, their office performed, they returned home, Ignatius could not abstain but that he should show himself to meet them, and receive the one arriving with glad eyes, wont to anticipate speech, and cheerfully to ask: Welcome, how goes the matter, happily, and to the satisfaction of your soul? Whom he both congratulated, if the matter had turned out well; but if less so, he consoled, and supplied fresh stimuli to his companions for strenuously accomplishing things now begun, and pressing them on. Thus it stands in Lineck, page 210, from the diary of González; and it is found, where Lineck adds, by not a few examples, that he was wont to show a great sense of gladness, as often as either he spoke of the affairs of his domestics, or heard them speaking; so much so that he had the letters, indices of the deeds of our men, read again and again; that they might, like good seed, descend more deeply into souls, and render him a more abundant harvest. Nor ought the zeal to gratify to be passed over, if anything had been done rightly and laudably by anyone: for then indeed he exulted with joy, approached, approved the deed, mentioned it, and set it before the rest for an example, showed his grateful soul, and seized all the least occasions of cheering and deserving well of them: he did nothing, in fine, whereby he might not leave his grateful soul attested by benefits, services, and every kind of office that he could: as Lineck narrates from the said diary, page 211.

[830] his paternal care concerning necessary things, Nor did it conciliate slight benignity to the Moderator of the Society, that he provided so accurately concerning all necessaries for his own. I confirm the matter from Bartoli, book 3, num. 42: Wherever there shone a hope that they could be succored by human diligence, he omitted nothing whereby he might be present to them: and for that cause, whether one were well or sick, he wished no one to be in any way solicitous for himself, or, whether for guarding or for restoring his health, to seek supports from any source other than from himself, which he supplied to all with most profuse accuracy; by no means waiting until they were asked for, but forestalling the shame of asking by provision and liberality. But lest they should slip from his mind, he noted them diligently: and it was observed, when, to dispatch the crowd of affairs by which the office of Prepositus is pressed, he entrusted various things to various men: that this alone he held peculiarly in mind, that he should not be lacking to the necessities of his own, and was the first, of his own accord, to recall it to the memory of his ministers, that they should provide. No one gave himself to a journey but that, the day before he left home, he presented himself to him: where he minutely surveyed in person whether he lacked any of the little things which are useful to a poor traveler. No one incurred danger but that, present or absent, he solicitously aided the one laboring. But what the holy Father did for Father Juan Guttano, captured by the Turkish pirates and led away into Africa, and with how great diligence he strove for his redemption, is reported in the same place: concerning which matter Orlandini too can be seen, book 14, num. 18.

[831] But although the holy Man was of the most slender diet, from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 18; yet he wished and the food, that his younger men should restore their bodily strength for the service of God with a savory meal. For in Lineck we have, page 220: As often as he saw any of the young men taking food with a pleasant taste, Ignatius was seen to exult with joy. For which cause also, when he had watched Benedetto Palmio, a somewhat plump youth, eating eagerly; he called him to himself, received him with a great token of cheerfulness, and, lest he should be put to the blush, further commended that he should continue, and prepare his strength for the divine services and labors to follow. Thus he, citing Father González in the diary.

[832] St. Ignatius also wonderfully bound to himself the souls of his subjects by that great confidence which he showed himself to have in them in conducting affairs; confidence in the capacity of his own whereby it came to pass that he neither importunately thrust himself into their offices, nor too strictly confined the limits of the power given for the execution of things. Let Maffei be heard, book 3, chapter 10: For offices or affairs which he could not discharge in person, to be transacted with princely men, he chose men endowed with experience of affairs and copiousness of speech, and gave them mandates, whether in writing or by word, in such a way that he left it wholly free to them, when they had come to the matter itself, without any regard to himself, to moderate all things according to the matter and the time. And the same, to any of them returning to him toward evening, when he demanded of him an account of the matter conducted, first of all, would say: Is it enough to the satisfaction of your soul? Which liberality of the man both greatly profited the cause itself, and wonderfully bound to him the souls of his own, and rendered them exceedingly alacritous and prompt for executing affairs.

[833] The matter shines forth in an example which he subjoins: In the year after Christ's birth 1553, when he sent Michele Torres to settle affairs in Portugal, and ample power in transacting affairs. admitted into the Society not so very long before; although he issued to him various instructions and admonitions consigned to letters; yet, since he well knew the fidelity and prudence of the man, he not only permitted that, when he had arrived in the province, he should adapt his counsels to affairs by his own judgment; but also gave him very many blank sheets, fortified with his own signature, on which that man, as need should be, might inscribe whatever seemed good, and then deliver the sealed letters, in his name, to whomsoever it should be expedient. And this custom of dealing loosely with procurators and envoys he always retained with great advantage. Thus he there. Worthy also to be read are those things which Father Oliverio Manare relates below, in paragraph 86, part 3, answer 22, to have befallen himself.

[834] But how little he intruded into the offices of the inferior prefects, Nor did that custom of the Saint obtain only in the graver affairs, but also in daily ones. Nay even (thus Maffei continues) he was by no means wont malignantly to impart to each of the inferior prefects his own right and power, and took diligent care not to usurp himself what was to be done through them, or by that thing to diminish at all, among his subjects, their authority or estimation. Nevertheless he so loosed the reins to them that he might draw them in whenever he wished, and also inquire, dissemblingly, into their institutions, morals, and manner of administering. There exists a letter of his to the Prepositus of the province of Portugal, written to this effect: of which he there inserts this part:

[835] it is established from his letter; Nor indeed is it the office of a Provincial or General Prepositus, he says, to follow after every minute and temporary thing, especially in administering: but as it is more honorable to the dignity of the person, so it is safer for the tranquillity of soul, to delegate these things to the inferior prefects, and then to demand of them an account of the matter completed. Indeed in discharging my own office I follow this very thing, and take a greater fruit of this counsel day by day: since I feel myself greatly relieved both of labor and of solicitude. And to you also I am strongly the author, that you fix your cares and thoughts especially on the advantages and welfare of the whole province: and in ordering and disposing individual matters indeed, when there is need, both busy yourself, and seek the opinion of men skilled in your judgment. But from the caring for and transacting of the same matters through yourself abstain for the most part, but, like a certain lofty mover, continue to set in motion the orbs subjoined to you evenly and with gravity: from which then, as from proximate causes, the proper effects of each may proceed.

[836] a fragment of which is produced. Which if you do, you will accomplish both more things, and things more suited to your office, without tumult and trepidation. Besides, there is this of advantage in this method, that, if anything be done amiss in acting, it is better that the fault of that fault reside in your ministers than in you: and it much more befits that whatever they themselves have offended in should be corrected by you, than that, if you have erred (which is very easy for one pursuing individual things too curiously), you should be amended by your inferiors. For the rest, may the Lord Jesus Christ, of His benignity, impart to us light and strength both for clearly understanding His will and for duly executing it. Rome, the 11th of the Kalends of January 1552. Thus far the Saint in Maffei, who there heaps up various reasonings to the present argument.

[837] Ample power given by Ignatius to St. Francis Borgia; But that ample power which St. Ignatius conferred on his ministers in the management of affairs, it pleases me to show from the letters patent by which he makes Father Francisco Borgia Commissary general in the Spains and the Indies. A copy of them, drawn up from our Roman archive by Father Ignacio Pinius, I here transcribe: Ignatius de Loyola, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus, to our most dear brother in Christ Don Francisco Borgia, commissary of the same Society in the kingdoms of the Spains and the Indies, everlasting greeting in the Lord. Since we greatly confide in the integrity of your life, long and much proved and known to us, in your doctrine, and in the prudence in conducting affairs which is in Christ Jesus, and in the rest of His gifts in you; and since in our four provinces of the Spains, and others of the Indies, subject to the most serene King of Portugal and also to the Caesarean Majesty, there are many things concerning persons, places, and other affairs of our Society, whether admitted or to be admitted, which need the presence of some one who may discharge our full authority; it has seemed good to us expedient, to the glory of God, and the good administration of our office, and the spiritual advancement of the aforesaid provinces, that we should commit this burden to you.

[838] We therefore, approving all things done and ordained by you after you received authority from Doctor Jerónimo Nadal, then our commissary in the said kingdoms, as is clear from the letters patent. confirming, declaring them ratified and grateful to us, appointing you commissary general, both in the four said provinces, of Aragon, Castile, Portugal, and Baetica or Vandalia; and also in the regions of the Indies pertaining to the jurisdiction of the aforesaid kingdoms, with all our authority, for governing the persons, houses, and colleges admitted and admitting new ones also, and for all other things which we can communicate through the concession of the Apostolic See, ordaining that all who are under our obedience in the aforesaid provinces should obey you just as us, and that you should freely proceed by our authority, as you shall feel to be fitting in the Lord, in all things which pertain to our office, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we commit, enjoin, and ordain: and we pray that the eternal Wisdom itself may deign to illumine and rule you in all things. Given at Rome in the halls of the Society of Jesus, on the Ides of November

1555. Ignatius. From what has thus far been said it is a consequence how strongly and how sweetly the holy Father governed.

§ LXXXII. What the holy Father showed himself to be toward the novices.

He had, says Maffei, book 3, chapter 10, a certain especial observation in men to be enrolled in the Society. [He reckoned it a matter of the greatest moment which men were admitted into the Society:] Which matter he judged to be of such great moment, that, although otherwise he desired to fly forth from the custody of the body as soon as possible, for this one cause he wished the spaces of his life to be prolonged for some years, until, namely, the formula and discipline of the novitiate should be well established for the use and institute of the Society. In our Spanish instrument Dichos y hechos, etc., among other things which are narrated under the title of those which regard the person of St. Ignatius, Father Polanco, num. 23, reports these things: He used to say that, if anything ought to induce him to desire life (although in this matter he did not determine himself), it was this, that he might be difficult in the men to be admitted into the Society. Moreover he required in them the following endowments, from the narrative of Maffei in the same place: He chose novices not from a certain natural goodness or rather slowness; but rather from vigor of genius, and helps for conducting affairs; and he denied that one who was not made for the business of the people was likewise fit for the ministries of the Society. But if anyone obtruded some dullard on the ground that he would at least escape from the shipwreck of the world; Ignatius nonetheless refused, affirming that no one was to be said to be of the Society of Jesus who could not, both sharply and knowingly, apply himself to the salvation not of himself alone, but also of others. And indeed the Saint himself expressly declares his opinion concerning those to be admitted to probation in the first part of the Constitutions, chapter 1, num. 3, saying: It very much conduces to the divine service that a fitting selection be made of those who are admitted, and diligence applied, that it may be understood what their endowments and vocation are.

[840] he wished men dead to the world, and living to Christ alone, But what endowments are required in them, you have in the cited place, chapter 2. Concerning horror at all those things which the world loves and embraces; and affection toward those things which the Savior of the world held in esteem, desiring to be assimilated to Him, and in some manner to imitate our creator and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be clothed with His garments and insignia, etc., there is treatment in the general Examen, chapter 4, num. 44. And in the same place it is prescribed that they be asked whether they feel in themselves desires of this kind, so salutary and so fruitful for the perfection of their souls. And presently, num. 45, it is thus said: But if anyone, on account of our human debility and misery, should not feel in himself desires of this kind so inflamed in the Lord; let him be asked whether he certainly feels in himself a desire of feeling desires of this kind, etc. For indeed, if we require the men of the Society to that standard which, as it may be read in Bartoli, book 3, num. 17, Father Jerónimo Nadal had marked, and, as the same Bartoli reports, long prefixed to the front of the Constitutions; see how great a self-abnegation, and contempt of perishable things, or at least a serious and efficacious desire of these virtues, it is fitting that its novices should bring to the Society, in whose souls indeed that standard, of which I was speaking, must be deeply engraved, expressed in these words:

[841] and clothed with Him. The plan of our life requires us to be men crucified to the world, and to whom the world itself is crucified. Men, I say, new, who have put off their own affections, that they may put on Christ; dead to themselves, that they may live to justice. Who, as St. Paul says, In labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, may show themselves ministers of God, by the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left; through glory and ignobility; through infamy and good fame; through prosperous things finally and adverse, may both themselves press on by great journeys to the heavenly fatherland, and compel others also, by whatever help and zeal they can, always looking to the greatest glory of God. Thus he there.

[842] He proves them by very many trials, But those whom he had admitted to probation, says Maffei of the holy Father in the cited place, he gave his endeavor to know their spirit thoroughly by as many trials as possible; and he trained them not only to a certain sweet sense of piety (by which the unskilled measure all things), but to true and solid virtues …, and especially that they should cling to the love of no thing, however otherwise amiable, as to a rock; but, loosed and free from every other cupidity, or even propensity, should depend on the mere nod and will of their Superiors, nor accustom themselves to search out their hidden thoughts, or to inquire into their commands; or whom, and for what causes, the same either exalted above the rest, or even depressed below, by their own judgment: but should think that all judgment and counsel was given them from Above; that to themselves was left the glory of simplicity and obedience; and were therefore most ready for all things, however arduous, and absurd, and sudden. Besides these, Bartoli, book 3, num. 18, from a certain letter of the holy Father, sets forth various other exercises by which he cultivated those new plants. To which, from the cited author, I add these: He ordered those who had entered the novitiate to walk about, in the same dress of garments in which they had come, so long until, torn by use, they fell off piece by piece. Thus once the duke of the citadel of Naples, a novice; thus his own kinsman Araoz, and others like them, splendid, as they were, with fine wool and gold, in the service of the cook, in carrying the wallet from door to door through the City for alms; in washing the platters before our house, conspicuous to the eyes of all passers-by, he held for a whole two years … Which the novices themselves best observed, to the great advantage of their own progress. Among whom Gonçalo da Silveira (who afterward, in the kingdom of Monomotapa, having poured out his blood, gloriously professed Christ, whom he had preached), as often as he put off those garments of his of the world, would say, reproaching himself: Wretched me, whom men imagine to be another, when I have not even changed my garment thus far. From these things it is understood how much the most holy Founder cared for the exercising of novices: concerning which Orlandini also writes, book 7, num. 2 and following; who, book 5, num. 1, at the year 1545, had premised these things:

[843] Ignatius, cautiously circumspecting all things, resolved in his soul and he admits candidates into the Society with selection, that two things would ever be most ancient (of highest priority) to him; the one, that he should receive no one into the Society without great selection: the other, that no one, once received into it, should be applied to the causes of souls before he had given many and great proofs of his virtue and prudence at home and abroad. For by daily use the blessed Father was rendered more skillful in treating of the Society, and, the ecumenical council now impending, he could easily be admonished that his family must labor for guarding the opinion already won, if he wished both his institutions to be approved by the Fathers of the council, and to declare to the whole Church at once what this Society was, and with what morals imbued. To these decrees and laws of his soul he so obeyed that, when he was pressed from many quarters by the requests of dynasts and prelates, he rather excused the paucity of his own than that he should offer the name of the Society to any danger, if he had rashly assented.

[844] And since very many of every age flocked together for the sake of entering the Society; having at heart, not how many, but of what sort he might aggregate into it, he so explored the nature and disposition, the strength and propensities of each; so shook out his whole life and morals, employing the testimony not only of his domestics, but also of externs and acquaintances, that he enrolled into his assembly and number no one who was not born, and almost made, for that. For he preferred, as he was wont to use in frequent discourses, that the Society should excel in virtue rather than in number: and be distinguished by the thing itself rather than by name and outward cultivation. And although he was carried especially by zeal toward those in whom he already discerned no small progress in doctrine; yet for the pressing times of the Church he demanded not so much those who were strong in doctrine, as those who were strong in experience of affairs, and excelled in some grade of dignity in the common assembly of men: because the fruit of these in the Society would soon appear, and the authority already won would be of very great moment, whether for conducting graver affairs, or for acting worthily with neighbors and princely men. Although the blessed Father tried this kind of men the more attentively, the more notable was expected the outcome of them on either side: who, if they by no means responded to his wish and expectation, he did not doubt to dismiss from his assembly, human judgments and discourses being neglected.

[845] But just as Ignatius strongly and sweetly presided over the Society, yet in such a way that he joined benignity toward them with accuracy: so with wondrous dexterity, tempering paternal benignity with an exact method of discipline, he cultivated and exercised these new shoots. He showed himself mild, as it is in Bartoli, book 3, num. 38, and affable to them, and, pitying them, exacted nothing else from them than what they could then represent, so long as that, however slight, seemed excellently to promise no common fruits of virtue. The matter is there set forth in an example: There had been admitted into the novitiate, for domestic works, a young man whose means were fairly abundant and commodious. He had brought with him an effigy of Christ hanging from the cross, and one of the Mother of God standing on a base, both of great price, and by which he was wonderfully affected, both on account of the excellence of the work, and on account of the sense of private piety. That he should keep this by him, the holy Man indulged, nor by any indication hinted either that it little befitted religious poverty, or that it must some day be taken from him. The virtue of the youth grew even above the veterans, especially by a strong subduing and contempt of himself. Which when Ignatius observed, It is well, he said; now, since he is entirely free not only from the world, but even from himself, the effigy of Christ, which he now bears in his mind, can be drawn from his hands. And so it was done, the young man of his own accord even yielding without any sense whatever of difficulty.

[846] as also his patience: But another example of paternal patience is there given in these words: More admirable was the patience of the holy Man in bearing with the levities of Pietro Ribadeneira, quite a young man, whose then more lively disposition scarcely applied its soul to the interior studies of the virtues, nor could bear the tenacious discipline of so many rules. Wherefore the fathers advised Ignatius to dismiss him. But he, by a sagacious presage concerning the nature of the soil, divining great and noble yields; and that the little youth erred rather by a vice of age than of soul; always patronized him, meanwhile bearing with and correcting his boyish pustules; so much so that, when he was either offended by the penalties inflicted, or wearied of a manner of life so sad, and repeatedly urging that he be dismissed, he ever, with skillful amiability, restored him to his place, and sustained him so long, until he had transformed him at length into a man, from whom the Society … received a great honor

.

[847] distinguished men he addresses honorably: Men likewise distinguished by nobility or letters, but new from the world, he did not by any means treat promiscuously; but, addressing them honorably, he did not even spare the titles of excellency, lordship, doctor, and the like, to which they had been accustomed, until they could now spurn them, or were ashamed to be affected by him with an honor so unequal among equals, and asked that thenceforth, those being omitted, they be treated by common right and manner. But truly, when he had seen them now resting on deep roots, and offering him safe material for an arduous virtue to be beaten out of them, he tried none so sharply. But for what causes he did this, you will find in the said author: One of these was, whose example is there set forth, Gaspar Loarte, a theologian celebrated in all Spain, sent to Ignatius by Master Juan de Ávila, a holy man, with some others; who, when he now saw him a match for the hammer to be borne, committed him to Luis González, Minister of the house, to be polished: the business being given, that he should not spare in hammering, cutting, pricking, but at the same time observe the progress of the trial. He himself meanwhile, as though ignorant of these things, refreshed the novice in wondrous ways with all benevolence: which was usual with him toward those whose constancy he tried, lest, pressed too grievously on every side, they should despair of perseverance … Moreover this twofold art of exercising by turns and consoling turned out so happily in Loarte, that, being asked once by the Minister what he thought of Ignatius; He seemed to himself, he said, a fountain flowing with oil, that is, wholly honeyed and sweet. But of me, added the Minister, what did you think? You, he said, very tranquilly signifying his asperity, seem to me a fountain flowing with vinegar. Which answer of the man greatly cheered Ignatius: who nevertheless thereupon ordered the Minister to deal more mildly with him.

[848] But, to pursue the rest, the best Father took pains he also indulges many things to the novices, that no just cause of sadness and groaning should be afforded to any even of the novices, from the diary of González in Lineck, page 248. He took care also that the novices, especially the younger ones, should perceive nothing at the instigation of anyone which might disturb the tranquillity of soul, and be adverse to our institutions and morals; as the same author reports, page 249, from the Ms. of Ribadeneira. But he indulged them certain interruptions and relaxations of soul. He therefore did not allow them to be burdened, nor to be so kept shut up within the domestic enclosures, but that they should quite often go to the green places of the garden, and by walking about move themselves and be restored: provided that they kept the law of silence whole and safe (when this was done at home), and cultivated the modesty which befitted novices; from the diary of González in the cited writer, page 258; where besides he adds these things:

[849] Not rarely also, setting sail to their youthful desires, he complies with their desire: that by that means he might soften whatever asperities were in the religious discipline, as with a certain seasoning, and render them more pleasing to the taste. This was shown, he says, in a novice disciple, who had gathered figs in the domestic garden, and secretly dedicated them to his gullet. For when, summoned by Ignatius, and asked about the deed, he had candidly and openly confessed that, allured by the sweetness of that food, he had wrongly prepared those delicacies for himself; It is well, said Ignatius: because you have spoken all things according to the truth of the matter, I will give you very many figs: and, calling the caterer, he orders him to go to the market, and buy a little basket full of figs, and bring them to the novice, that he might eat of them to satiety, if he wished. Thus he there, from the diary of González.

[850] Ignatius wished the novices to be excellent in obedience, he wishes them obedient; yet not to be induced to vows of devotion, etc. and prompt for all things. For he admonished those about to enter the house, on the faith of Bartoli, book 3, num. 39, on the very threshold, as on the confine of religion and the world, that there would not be for them there a perpetual and quiet seat, unless they leaped over the threshold with both feet joined, namely with will and judgment, ready for all their nods, whomsoever God should set over them. From the letter of Father Orazio Arnaldi to Father Daniele Bartoli, of which I shall speak presently, I cull hither these things concerning our younger men, from the Italian: Father Lelio Bisciola told me; that, while he himself was a young man at Rome under St. Ignatius, together with others, as often as the Father came to meet him in the morning, he would ask of him whether he had taken breakfast: if he denied it, he presently sent him to the Father Minister, that he might take it. But most of all he required in the younger men a prompt obedience in all things without reply. The deed of the holy Father, sharply rebuking a certain priest of ours, because he spoke with a novice of things alien from our institute, etc., Ribadeneira narrates, book 5, chapter 10. But although among us the fervor is laudable, by which novices in the novitiate itself, faculty being asked and received from the Superior, name vows to God which are called of devotion; yet the holy Father did not approve that anyone be induced to it before the two years of the novitiate were completed. This is gathered from our Roman transcript, which is inscribed Dichos y hechos, etc., under the title Of the government and care of novices; whence, Luís González reporting, num. 12, I transfer hither from the Spanish these things: January having elapsed, when Father Nadal was speaking with our Father about the emission of vows; the Father said that it had never pleased him to induce novices, before two years, to emit them. To these add another thing, which we have from the account of the same González, num. 4: Our Father is wont to be very rigid, that the novices should not speak with externs, especially with kinsmen and friends.

[851] Their Toni. To whom the common Toni (tones) of the novices, as they call them, are to be referred, we learn from the letter of Father Orazio Arnaldi, given to Father Daniele Bartoli at Savona on the 23rd of September 1650, and inserted among our Roman documents; whence I transfer hither these things from the Italian: The author of the Toni, which are declaimed by the novices, that they may learn to speak to a sermon (congregation), is Father Giovanni Battista Velati (of whom I made mention above, num. 596). He himself told me this. He, since he was a painter, had entered the Society, and discharged the office of coadjutor. This besides was singular in him, that he delighted in hearing sermons. With the doors shut he ascended the pulpit in the church, and preached. On a certain occasion St. Ignatius heard him from a little window, and it so pleased him that he applied him to studies, and he turned out a preacher in the first pulpits of Italy, and published many fine documents, accommodated to every state. When he was heard by the Saint, he then declaimed those same Toni which the novices now use.

§ LXXXIII. His industry in forming the presidents of the Society of Jesus; the frequent communication of letters.

St. Francis Xavier, at Cochin on the 4th of the Kalends of February in the year 1552, among other things which he writes to St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier proclaims the Saint's industry in forming Superiors. mentions these things in Pietro Possines, letter 17: I ask one grace of you, which, if I were present, kneeling on the ground before your holy feet, I would as a suppliant beg; and it is this, that you send hither some man thoroughly known and plainly approved by your holy Charity, to be set as rector over the college of Goa. For that college vehemently needs a man whom you shall have chosen, and whom you shall have formed fit, so to speak, by that hand of yours. And in the same year, on the 5th of the Ides of April, he thus writes from Goa: I pray you and beseech you by Jesus, that you appoint someone chosen by you yourself as rector of this college of Goa. For though he abound not in the science of doctrines; yet whoever shall be chosen by your judgment will assuredly be such as this house requires. For the fathers and brothers who dwell in these places wonderfully long for a moderator of this kind from the City (Rome), one who has been long and much with you. Thus the Apostle of the Indies writes concerning the excellent industry of St. Ignatius in forming Superiors to all the laws of good government, in Torsellino, book 4, letter 6.

[853] What endowments Ignatius required in them, But with what endowments he ought to be commended who presides over colleges, the holy Father himself expressed in the Constitutions, part 4, chapter 10, num. 4, namely: that he be of great example, of great edification, of great mortification also in all depraved inclinations, and especially proved in obedience and humility: who may have also the gift of discretion, fit for governing, versed in conducting affairs, exercised in spiritual things. Who may know how to mix severity, in its time and place, with benignity, etc. Certainly there is need of a great company of virtues for this office; namely, to have the movements of one's soul subdued, from Bartoli, book 3, num. 49, which is the fruit of a victory reported over oneself by assiduous effort; to have offered a long-lasting trial of oneself in the observation of even the least rules; to be strong in the cause and service of God; to foster a paternal soul, and to be ever ready to obey. Ignatius labored to make Superiors endowed with these gifts, and at first indeed he tried them in difficult affairs; and lest they should learn the use of governing too late, to the harm of their own, he taught them without their observing it in the least.

[854] He summoned them not rarely to a daily consultation, which was neither prolonged beyond an hour, and how he exercised them: removing the unfit from office. nor deliberated except concerning one only of those affairs which had then occurred: he commended to them any difficult men he had, and those wavering in their religious purpose: he committed to them certain peculiar things to be handled, and showed the way of happily extricating them, meanwhile leaving them the entire liberty of execution, not as of a thing entrusted by him, but of their own, and of which they themselves were the authors; for thus the genius is more subtly sharpened, and industry more pertinaciously presses on the work. But when the things which he had wished performed by them were completed, he called them back to the reckoning; asked whether they had satisfied themselves; praised their prudence, where it had turned out well: but where less so, indicated by what means it could have turned out more fortunately. Thus little by little he gave them both eyes and souls, for conducting affairs under their own auspices, after the manner of an eagle, provoking her chicks outside the nest, in a closer circle, to try their wings. But after he had sufficiently perceived that he could safely confide in them; then at length, being set to the helm, he wished them to conduct the matter by themselves: and if ever they asked what he ordered, what he was the author of, in anything doubtful, they bore from him no other answer than that they should discharge their own office … Finally, those whom he had ordered to preside over others, if they were a hindrance to the common discipline, whether by a vice of nature or by weakness of virtue, he constantly moved from their place, as he removed two of those first nine companions of the institute, one at Naples, the other in Portugal; because, though they were men of the best life and mind, yet they had too little prosperous outcomes in the interior government of their own. Consult Orlandini, book 12, num. 23 and 55.

[855] But now, in choosing presidents for governing, he did not measure their capacity by age alone, He measured the capacity of the presidents by their merits; spent in the religious institute; but in this he promoted even younger men, when capacity for conducting the matter supplied for age. Thus, Lineck reporting

, page 556, he sent Father Michele Torres, scarcely one year after the novitiate being completed, to the visitation of a certain province with the authority of a visitor. Thus he, from the diary of González, which he cites. Let there be also for an example Father Quintin Charlart; concerning whom see Father Matthias Tanner in the Society in Europe, page 53, column 2. By the holy Father the opportunity … of the Society was made to him in the year 1552; … when Quintin's virtue, confirmed by use, sufficiently displayed itself, within the year he set him as rector over the Roman college. There occurs in the same place, page 56, column 1, Father Bernard Olivier; whose disposition … Ignatius at once recognized as fit for conducting any affairs; and therefore, having initiated him in the sacred orders, a few months after the novitiate he ordered him to be Minister of the Roman house, that he might prove him in the religious life by himself, and in that modest magistracy imbue him with opportune admonitions for the ampler grades of governing.

[856] And, some things being interposed, we have from the same place that he, … now bound to the Society by vows, announced him rector of the Roman college after no long interval, namely in the year 1553. To these add from page 65, column 1, Father Francisco de Villanueva: not by age alone, who was ordered by Ignatius, not yet a priest, nay not having yet passed through the humaniore schools, to preside over his companions in the college with the title of rector. Why should I mention Father Leão Henriques? who, as is there narrated, page 221, column 1, power being made by the supreme Pontiff, was initiated into the priesthood in the 23rd year of his age; and straightway … acted as confessor of the very numerous college of Coimbra, and prefect of the spirit … It happened meanwhile, in the year 1553, that the Constitutions of the Society were published to be observed throughout the whole Society, in bringing which into custom, since St. Ignatius with singular care set the most fit Superiors everywhere, he gave Leão as rector to the college of Coimbra.

[857] nor even by homeland. Nor did St. Ignatius, when he chose and formed his own for the office of governing, consider homeland, but merits. For was it not, at the order of St. Ignatius, all approving, that a Frenchman was set as first rector over the Roman college, a Spaniard over the Parisian, a Belgian over the Perugian, a Frenchman over the Paduan; as we have from letter 2 of our most reverend Father Goswin Nickel, Prepositus General? But enough of these. Concerning the wondrous prudence of the Saint in governing, Bartoli writes, book 3, num. 35; concerning the dexterity with which he accommodated himself to individuals, in the same place, num. 37; concerning the bond of charity and concord among Ignatius's subjects, in the same place, num. 27 and 28.

[858] He urges most frequent letters in the Superiors, But although the holy Man deferred so much to the authority of the Superiors, as may be seen above, paragraph 81, from num. 832, yet he wished earnestly to be accurately and frequently made more certain of the state of affairs and their success from their letters. Witnesses are, on the faith of our Roman records, the encyclical letters of St. Ignatius, subscribed by his own hand, in which he enjoins upon all the Superiors of our Society, in virtue of holy obedience, that they write to him, whether by themselves or through others: those who are in Italy or Sicily, every week; those in Germany, Flanders, France, Spain, and Portugal, every month; those in India, every year. He excepts the Superiors of houses which do not exceed the number of two. These letters are noted as given on the Ides of January 1550. Among the said records, drawn from our Roman archive, there is given a certain notice of St. Ignatius's letters given to Father Pierre Favre and others on 10 December 1542; in which he asks that, when they write to him, they should not mix other matters with matters making for edification, concerning sermons, the administration of the Sacrament of penance, the Exercises, and other spiritual things: but that they write these separately, that they may be shown for the consolation and example of the brethren and of others: that they write every fifteen days: that he will answer every month.

[859] his own example being set before them. Moreover in the same letters the holy Father writes certain incitements for sharpening diligence; as is gathered from those things which the collector of the Ignatian documents at Rome noted for me, rendered by me into Latin to this effect: I, says the holy Man, strive to write the chief letters twice, because they contain a matter of some moment, and even many little notes besides. And these very ones I have written twice with my own hand. How much more ought each one of the Society to do likewise? For it is their part only to write to one; and it is mine to write to you all. And I can say in truth that this last night we made a reckoning, that the letters which we now send in every direction reached in number to two hundred and fifty. And if any are occupied in the Society; I hold it for persuaded that, if I am not much, I am yet not less occupied than any, and with less bodily health. Hence it is no wonder that so many letters of St. Ignatius survive in our Roman archive, partly wholly written out by his own hand; partly, in several places, polished by his hand. Concerning the said argument Bartoli too can be seen, book 4, num. 11 at the end. And indeed how great was the communication of letters of our fathers absent from Rome with their Prepositus General at Rome, is proved from the chronological little index of them which the said Father Ignacio Pinius directed to me from Rome, premonishing that there is there a tome in folio, three fingers thick, containing very many autograph letters of our fathers to St. Ignatius, from the year 1540 until the death of the holy Father; of which is that chronological little index which he sent hither.

[860] What, that, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 7, num. 12, He desires also a mutual commerce of letters in the Society. the blessed Father, for the wider celebrating of the glory of God, for confirming the frame of the whole body among themselves, and gluing together more and more day by day the souls of all, and at the same time exciting them with holy emulation, and sharpening them in the procuring of the public welfare, devised that every fourth month the whole Society should admonish one another by mutual letters concerning the affairs which each was conducting everywhere. Which custom long flourished most salubriously; until, the Society itself growing, semiannual, and then also annual, letters were given. See the decree 37 of the second general Congregation after the election of the Prepositus General.

§ LXXXIV. Certain ascetic apophthegms of St. Ignatius.

Now those things offer themselves to be inspected which Ribadeneira sets forth, book 5, chapter 10, concerning the prudence in spiritual things of our most holy Parent; Certain specimens concerning skill in spiritual things which, although they are amply enough deduced by him, yet some things can be joined to them. Among the sayings of St. Ignatius the interpreter of Bartoli, book 4, page 377, thus has it: Whoever is eager to know from God what God wishes of him, whether in choosing a rule of life, or in the other things which regard the soul; it is first necessary that he put off every private affection and propensity. Thereafter let him wholly commit himself thoroughly to God, equally prepared in soul for all things, whatsoever God may signify. After this, let him not dream of letters to come to him from heaven, in which God will set forth His mandates, but from the oracles of eternal and evangelical truth let him estimate on both sides what is to be done or omitted: he will foresee the things that will follow from each, referring them to the end for which he was made by God. Under which, if he still hesitate, perplexed and doubtful: from death at last, and the supreme judgment after it, let him decisively resolve to embrace that which he would most wish to have done at that dread entrance of eternity.

[862] Page 378: The approach to the Eucharist is not therefore to be forborne, because the softer senses do not experience divine things: they are given us from various sayings of the Saint, for it would be just as if one should wish to perish by starvation because he lacks honeyed bread, and to destroy his life by an insane desire of pleasant sleep. And a little after in the same place: The bright flame of divine love rises no otherwise more ardent than from the wood of the cross, which Christ used for the sacrifice of His infinite charity. He also used to say that whatever honey can be sucked from the flowers and delights of men is nothing to the sweetness which the gall and vinegar of Christ pours in; that is, the bitter and harsh things which are borne with Christ for the love of Christ. Page 382: When the demon is about to assail a man, he first looks around on which side he is weaker, and on which more neglected: there he brings up his engines; there he makes his impression. But whither nature by its own weight inclines, thither he impels the ruin, and conspires with it into our very selves by a perturbation of our soul; to which he shall have noted that the free judgment of ourselves was permitted by us. He uses also the present disposition of the soul, that he may hurry us into extremes: for whose conscience he shall have seen looser, he will act that it may become more licentious: on the contrary, if piously timid and more anxious; he will bind this one more fearfully; that the former may roll down from light things into capital ones; the latter may torture himself by weighing the minutiae of duties too scrupulously, and, agitated to madness by a perplexed disquietude of mind, may at last despair.

[863] which in this place His other arts of harming are thus there disclosed: No time is more commodious for him to invade than the nocturnal, especially suddenly when we awake, our reason still half-asleep, and the safe solitude of the enemy for these things, and no counselor besides ourselves. For the demon greatly promotes nothing except by hidden contrivances, and, they being made open, confused, he scarcely sustains the fight. It is also to be observed that the fear of falling is sometimes taken from us by him, that he may thrust us the more secure into a fall; that monstrous bugbears are sometimes cast before the fearful, that, broken in soul by a diffidence of our strength, we may cast off all hope of resisting, and almost give our hands to the victor. But then indeed, as women wont to quarrel with cowardly and timid husbands, he grows more insolently fierce and rages.

[864] in confirmation of this matter Page 387 these things are set down: In the assembly of holy men a wicked man cannot long remain, both because he does perpetual violence to himself by the constrained art of feigning himself to be what he is not; and because God does not long sustain him. There was at Rome a brother, from whom indications of no good fruit proceeded. Manare set these forth to Ignatius, asking whether he should be kept from the holy Eucharist, lest he abuse it sacrilegiously. By no means, said Ignatius; that it may not proceed to this, commit the matter to God; by this very way He will disclose the guilty man. And He plainly disclosed him, and the divine Host was to him what the bread received from Christ was to Judas. For a little after he laid down his person (part), and was cast out of the Society.

[865] there are gathered Page 389 these things are noted: Concerning … Antonio, a hermit of Majorca, that which Ignatius had foretold came to pass: for he made a pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1546, and, having conversed at length with Ignatius about his own affairs, admired him; yet was not equally approved by him, because he had taken upon himself a burden of such great asperity as he would never be able to bear. Therefore, when Nadal asked what at last seemed to him concerning that man? He answered that the three years would not pass but that the hermit would bid farewell to solitude and voluntary penances. The prudence of which answer that change ratified

made good, that change, reason and experience having been shown to him beforehand, which he could then use as a certain rule in divine matters. A fragment from a letter of St. Ignatius to the magnificent Lord Pietro Contarini, a Venetian patrician, which the often-named investigator of Ignatian matters there transcribed for me at Rome, does not seem alien from our present purpose. It runs thus: Thus far, by the benignity of God, we ever fare well. We experience day by day more and more that true saying: Having nothing, and possessing all things: all things, I say, which the Lord promised to add to those seeking first the kingdom of God and His justice: can anything be lacking to those who seek only the justice of the kingdom, and the kingdom itself? I mean those who are not divided; I mean those who direct both their eyes to heavenly things. May He Himself grant us this, who, when He was rich in all things, spoiled Himself of all for our instruction: who, when He was in the glory of such great power, and wisdom, and such great goodness, yet subjected Himself to the power, judgment, and will of a most infirm man. But enough of these things, especially to those whom Christ can also detain in another grade. For it more properly regards you, to consider that, if you have anything, you be held by none, be possessed by no temporal things, [but] refer all things back to Him from whom you have all things. For he who cannot be wholly occupied about that one thing which is necessary, it is next best that those very many things about which he is busy and solicitous be well ordered, etc.

[866] Father Adriaan Lyraeus, S.J., published the Sacred Apophthegms of St. Ignatius, or Aphorisms of heavenly prudence, they are gathered. illustrated with three commentaries for forming morals: where, from those things which he has in book 1 on the fifth apophthegm, for which he cites Maffei, Orlandini, Ribadeneira, namely the apophthegm, He used to say that for the most part more danger lurks in despising minute sins than in the greatest, the said writer, page 54, shows how great a care St. Ignatius took of the least things. Deservedly therefore you would call him greatest in the least, whether you weigh his sayings or his deeds. Book 2, page 186, he sets forth this apophthegm: Someone was going to extinguish his spirit by love of natural science: when Ignatius, having been dead for ten years, offered himself to be seen by the man, saying: Less of science; more of virtue: or, less of letters, and more of spirit. From Bartoli, book 5, num. 8; where the matter is narrated at greater length. Lyraeus in the same place, from the first letter of our most reverend Father Goswin Nickel to the whole Society, says: He is reported to have said this too strongly, that the laborers of the Society ought to stand with only one foot on the ground, the other raised for undertaking a journey.

The praised Lyraeus, near the beginning of his book, in the preface, as he calls it, sets forth certain things of St. Ignatius, which he affirms he obtained from ancient Mss. codices, sayings indeed excellent, he says, and singular documents, far most worthy to sound in the ears of all ascetics, and to be present before their eyes. Wherefore also, from the very beginning, they were bound in these verses by a more learned hand:

These documents Ignatius sets forth to his nurslings, That by a small method they may bear great advantage.

Resist no one, even the least, however with reason: Let it please you rather to yield than to overcome.

Study to render blind obedience through all things: And willingly subject your judgment to each one.

Look not on the vices of others, and, seen, conceal them: But look upon your own, and be willing to lie open.

Whatever you do, say, meditate, foresee first Whether it profit your neighbor, and please God.

Let his own liberty ever be to the spirit, and let Neither a powerful person, nor any cause, weigh it down.

Nor join all to yourself by easy familiarity, Let spirit and reason first prove each one.

Exercise pious deeds assiduously (in mind and body): Be foolish to the people; thus you are wise to God Himself.

See that morning and evening you turn over These with zeal, and, while you seek your bed, add prayers.

Concerning the author of these distichs, which were once wont to be prefixed to the little book of the Exercises, as is clear from various copies printed in the City (Rome), as Lyraeus says, there is treatment in the same place from Manare: concerning which see what is to be said below, §86, part 1, num. 886.

[867] I subjoin from the Roman copies our Blessed Father's viaticum, containing five memorable points for those going out, from the manuscript of the reverend Father Peter Canisius. 1. Remember, brother, that you are sent by Christ a pilgrim, and His procurator; they call it factor. Five points for those going out. 2. See that you take care of yourself, and guard yourself, as one dwelling amid perils and enemies. 3. Peculiarly restrain your senses, and above all keeping your eyes in check. 4. Preserve for yourself one and the same disposition, and be even in prosperity and adversity; in glad and sad things free from perturbations. 5. Do not let your mind be idle; but raise it to higher things, when you advance or transact affairs; especially at table and in conversations apply quiet, spirit, and weight, that neither the intention of acting rightly nor providence be lacking. To these sayings of the Saint I do not add his deeds or daily and domestic life; which stands in Maffei, book 3, chapter 12.

§ LXXXV. Certain opinions of the Saint concerning scholastics, masters of the humaniore letters, and the Prepositus General of the Society; the gift of procuring peace; his zeal for erecting seminaries in Germany, and for propagating the Society of Jesus at Jerusalem.

To the queries of a certain scholastic I have a certain Spanish writing, prefaced with this title: A transcript of certain queries which a certain Portuguese Father of the Society proposed to our Father Ignatius, and of his answers, extracted from the original, which is written by the hand of the said father (namely him who proposed them), and corrected by the hand of Father Polanco. This writing the often-cited clearer of the Ignatian notices there transcribed for me from the Roman archive, admonishing that it is long enough, and consists of sixteen points; and that he excerpts some points with the answers. But they are concerned with matters about which some scholastic of the Society desired to be made more certain, according to that which seemed good to our Father; as we have from the words prefaced to that document: of which I, the other points being passed over, cull only the sixth and seventh, and translate into Latin. The sixth query: In what things will he especially exercise himself, by meditating those things which make more for the purpose of our vocation?

[869] St. Ignatius answers The answer: Since the scholastics, the end of their studies being considered, cannot institute long meditations; besides the exercises of the virtues, which are the daily hearing of Mass, one hour of prayer, and the examinations of conscience, confession and communion every eight days; they can exercise themselves in seeking the presence of our Lord in all things, namely in conversing with someone, in going, seeing, tasting, hearing, understanding, and in all things which we shall do: since it is true that His divine majesty is in all things by presence, power, and essence. And this manner of meditating, which finds God our Lord in all things, is easier than that which elevates us to more abstract divine things, by setting us present to them with labor: and that good exercise will procure for us, by disposing us, great visitations of the Lord, although contained within a brief prayer. Besides this, he can exercise himself in offering more often to God our Lord his studies and their labors; observing that we accept them for love of Him, our own taste being postponed, that we may serve His majesty in something, by aiding those for whose life He underwent death. And concerning these two exercises we might examine ourselves.

[870] To these exercises can be joined the exercise of preaching in the colleges: St. Ignatius. for since one of the chief endowments, after a good life, which help the neighbor (to which the Society is especially ordained), is that which is placed in preaching; to our reverend Father not a small fruit seemed to be gained, if the scholastics exercised themselves in preaching, and preached on Sundays upon whatever argument they wished, and if, for the sake of exercise, lest they bring loss to their studies, on any evening two or three at supper should deliver that form of the Toni which they had been taught: and that at first that could be of use which we use at Rome; whereby it comes to pass that, through the development of that one, another is more easily assumed, and from it another is brought forth or augmented, according to the custom of the region. Great are the progresses of this good exercise. The seventh query: Will he in his confessions descend to very singular imperfections: or will he tell the greater ones, that the confession may be brief? The answer: That no one may be deceived in this matter; he can observe on which side the enemy assails him, and whither he wishes to lead him, that he may offend God our Lord. But if he render mortal sins easy to him, let him give his endeavor to weigh even the most minute imperfections, and accuse himself of them in confession. But if he feel himself led to a certain perplexity, by making a sin where there is none; he will not confess minutiae; but only venial sins, and indeed those which are greater. But if now by the grace of the Lord he has attained peace with our Lord, let him confess briefly of his sins, not descending to the least; but confounding himself for them in the divine presence; and considering that the object against which venial sins strive is infinite; but that by the supreme goodness of God our Lord they are forgiven by holy water, by the striking of the breast with displeasure, etc. Concerning the scholastics our Constitutions treat, part 4, chapter 3 and following.

[871] Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 24, showing why the Society has colleges for instructing youth, How much he esteemed the office of instructing youth in the humaniore letters. gravely and copiously describes the manifold fruits which from this salutary labor are diffused into the whole Christian commonwealth in every direction. Which if any professor of the more polished literature of the Society attentively peruse, truly he will feel great stimuli applied to him thence, both to esteem highly this task, most useful and most worthy of a man of the Society, and to adorn it studiously! For indeed our holy Father held it in the highest place. For, to say nothing of our Constitutions, part 4, chapter 7; let Orlandini be heard, book 6, num. 77; where, on the occasion of our men at Valencia, he says: Of those who were polishing themselves in the letters of humanity, he took care that their orations and verse be sent to him. Thus he. But to what end? that, namely, neither cold nor sluggishness should creep upon their souls in acquiring so great a thing. Nay even, so far did the vigilance of St. Ignatius proceed in this matter of which we treat, that, although he was burdened with the most grave mass of the affairs of the whole Society, he yet wished to be instructed from some source, even every week, concerning the success of the schools by their masters, on the testimony of Orlandini, book 9, from num. 19, where, among the affairs of Messina

thus writes to our purpose: Among these things, the well-known learning of the masters of the college, and their manner of teaching, corresponded to the opinion of men. And that provision might be made more abundantly not only for the youth already cultivated in humanity by the graver disciplines, which began to be done in the preceding year, but also for the most numerous boyhood and for those raw in the Latin tongue, the whole discipline of grammar was distributed into five schools: whose teachers and masters, as also those of the higher classes, that they might be more ardently incited, had, by Ignatius's prescription, each to write to him accurately every week concerning his own affairs. Hence measure the accurate industry of the holy Man toward the literary labors by which the youthful age is wont to be formed for humanity. But if you are one who desires to see, illustrated by examples, the things concerning the excellent men of the Society long versed in the exercise of this palaestra (school), let him consult the index of subjects of the Library of the Writers of our Society, chapter 19, §19. Father Francesco Sacchini published a Protrepticon to the masters of the lower schools of the Society of Jesus, and a Paraenesis to the same. Finally, Lineck scrapes together various things to the present argument, part 4, chapter 14 and following.

[872] [He requires of the Society care concerning the General, and wishes to be aided by his own,] The holy Man also noted certain things which he wished to be observed by the Society concerning the Prepositus General; as I read in a paper, inserted among our Roman records, to which the following title is prefixed, which, from the Spanish, as also the text of the paper itself, sound thus: All in the hand of our Father. Concerning the providence, authority, and care which the Society ought to have concerning the Prepositus General. The Society, or persons deputed by it, shall have due providence, with all love and charity, concerning the external things fitting or necessary for the Prepositus General, so that it may judge, provide, and determine concerning his food, clothing, sleep, and manner of proceeding, having full authority thereto. Which can help not a little in spirit for two causes. The first is: When the Prepositus is such as is hoped; it will be a great solace and spiritual joy to him that he has not the care of things of this kind, seeking and desiring, in the place of Christ our Lord, to obey the Society in them. The second: All the subjects of the Society, knowing this order of things, will have no occasion for anything except for edification in all things. Which greatly conduces to the greater union of the head with its members. Thus the holy Father resolved concerning the external things which regarded the person of the Prepositus of our Society. See, if you please, our Constitutions, part 9, chapter 4. To these, moreover, from the aforesaid paper, add certain things pertaining to the person of St. Ignatius; in which he desires to be aided and advanced by the Society in things external and internal; and which are written in the hand of our Father, as is noted upon them. These I set forth from the Spanish thus: Let anyone, on any day, thinking, praying, and celebrating, tell me, or write to me, that which seems to him to make for the divine glory concerning interior things, as regards me and as regards the neighbor: concerning exterior things, as regards me and the neighbor; concerning the care of the house, and outside, etc. And these names are subscribed: Laínez, Salmerón, Codacio, Doménech, Elpidio, etc.

[873] I exhibited above, §65, the holy Father as loving peace; but now I here represent him as a mediator, a peacemaker between the discordant: which distinguished endowment also deserves its own place among the Saint's virtues. Peace procured between the Pontiff, Orlandini, book 5, num. 27, among the things which he there narrates at the year 1545, has these: Although he busily occupied himself at home with his companions in every variety of pious office, yet abroad there were very often not lacking great burdens and cares, whether commended by the trust of princely men, or by common charity of its own accord. Such was that by which he strove to conciliate peace and concord between John, King of Portugal, and the Roman Pontiff. An arduous matter indeed, and complicated enough: in which the blessed Man had to sweat long and much, the minds on both sides being gravely exasperated, on account of Miguel da Silva, bishop of Viseu, and Cardinal of the same: so that God, by wondrous providence, preparing as it were a peacemaker for the difficulties of that time, seemed to have made Ignatius's authority so great both with the Pontiff and with the King.

[874] He, in proportion as both the gravity of the cause demanded, and as he understood that he and his family owed to each Prince, and the King of Portugal peace by Ignatius, as also among others at variance. with a strong soul undertook this province and these parts: and, pious prayers being enjoined upon the Society, after a long-lasting contention, by the singular benefit of God he found an outcome of peace which satisfied both parties, and bore the fruit of his industry and labor, and much more of his confidence and constancy in God, obtaining also from the Pontiff what the King demanded of the sacred tribunal of the Inquisitors. Nor indeed less happily did he explain the affairs of piety committed to him by Philip, prince of the Spains, before the Pontiff. The holy Father also, on the 2nd of September in the year 1545, testifies that, by his authorship and in his presence, Don Portocarrero was reconciled to Don Bustamante. The document of the testimony is for the greatest part autograph of St. Ignatius; of which I have a transcript drawn from our Roman archive; as also of another letter, which there is wholly autograph of St. Ignatius, and which contains the procuring of peace between Don Francisco Laso and a certain Hungarian noble. To this belongs the discord composed by the Saint between Ascanio Colonna and Giovanna d'Aragona, spouses: concerning which matter Orlandini, book 12, num. 11, at the year 1552, thus narrates: The year was now verging toward its close, when Ignatius thought he must go out of the City for a while, to conciliate to their former grace Ascanio Colonna and Giovanna d'Aragona, spouses, distracted alike in mind and in habitation, by that authority in which he was strong with each. The blessed Father went out sick and an invalid, the sky foul with rains, with Giovanni Polanco and two brothers. So much did the salvation and perils of souls stimulate him. And that he might more easily lead the beginning of conciliating peace from the wife, he betook himself to her in a town which they call Alvito, in the bounds of the kingdom of Naples. Where, having stayed scarcely three days, since the man also showed himself compliant, he transacted almost the whole matter to his satisfaction.

[875] He also profited much the peoples of Germany, and the clerical state among them, by his counsel which he suggested to Jay concerning the erecting of seminaries. Seminaries erected throughout Germany from the counsel of the same Saint. For, as Orlandini reports, book 5, from num. 31, The prudent pastors of Germany, having observed everywhere the fraud and rage of the wolves, who, in the garments of sheep, threatened the Lord's folds with wide-open jaws, directed their watches to the custody of the flock entrusted to them, using the best counsel of Jay. Who was strongly the author to them, that, since theological letters were commonly despised, when the priesthood itself, for the sake of which they are learned, lay low, and thereby Catholic doctors, parish priests, and preachers were failing; each bishop in his own diocese should institute colleges from most choice youths, namely the children of poorer Catholics, who should thoroughly learn the divine letters, for overthrowing the new inventions of opinions, after the manner of schools, and should grow up into pastors and guardians of the Christian people. This counsel Ignatius most opportunely suggested to Jay departing from the City; which was so far approved by those bishops, that the prelates of Salzburg, Eichstätt, and especially of Augsburg, were found most ready in soul to undertake and apply it. And so the Saint, amid so many proper and domestic affairs of his family, so busied himself with his own affairs that he had also at heart the care of others', by which something of advantage might accrue to the good of the Church.

[876] [The right given to Ignatius of erecting a college at Constantinople, in Cyprus, and at Jerusalem:] That St. Ignatius was most zealous for propagating his family throughout the Christian commonwealth is abundantly established: For he strove not to neglect the grace of God, but to disperse and distribute those very men whom he had into those places in which … more abundant fruits were hoped; from Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 10. And indeed that the Lord wonderfully favored the good and diligent endeavor of the holy Man is gathered from so many colleges erected, the holy Father being still alive; concerning which the said author treats: to whom join our Roman documents, which are inscribed Dichos y hechos, etc. For among those things which, from the account of Ribadeneira, Concerning the Saint's government, are there mentioned, num. 98, we have that in the year 1554 Pietro de Zárate received a certain Bull of Pope Julius III in favor of the affairs of Jerusalem; where among other things there was a certain clause, of erecting three colleges of the Society; one at Jerusalem; another in Cyprus; another finally at Constantinople. I have at hand a transcript of a Spanish letter, subscribed by the hand of St. Ignatius, and transcribed from the Roman archive by Father Ignacio Pinius, which is signed on 9 June 1556, and whose superscription is inscribed To Don Pietro de Zárate, knight of the most holy Sepulchre of Christ our Lord, at Brussels in the court of His Majesty. But since this letter is pierced through, and traces of a seal remain; it is clear that this very one was sent; as the just-named Father observes. Moreover thence it becomes plain that the holy Father was unwilling to renounce that right which he had acquired from Pope Julius III, of erecting a college at Jerusalem; which renunciation, however, some Religious desired to be made before a notary.

[877] the right of which last he refuses to renounce. But the holy Father answers that there is a certain person who, after his death, leaves revenues of five hundred ducats for a college of the Society of Jesus in that place; that he does not believe that anyone would with reason desire that that right be abandoned, or that its notice be sent back to them. But another right, which the Bulls of Julius III give by way of the confraternity of the holy Sepulchre, he affirms he never procured, or treated concerning it; nor even, after the Bulls were dispatched and published, did he ever promise the said lord that he would send a college to those regions, etc. To these things, not knowing, he says, what God our Lord will at some time effect through the useless instruments of this least Society; it does not seem consonant to reason and to the Spirit of God our Lord, to shut the door, by admitting a college in that Holy Land; and, even if I in fact renounced, it does not seem that it would be valid, nor bind the Society thenceforth; and so I do not seem to myself able, with a safe conscience, to institute a renunciation of this kind: although I see that things are but moderately disposed, so that, in the time of my life, a college is to be sent to those parts. And it is easier never to send such a college, than to bind oneself by a promise not to admit it. Do you see the stable will of St. Ignatius, so far as in him lay, for propagating the Society at Jerusalem?

§ LXXXVI. The virtues of St. Ignatius, and ascetic documents, confirmed by the testimony of Father Oliverio Manare.

In the year 1727, on the 21st day of November, there came to my hands various documents, and those of no small price, Certain notices are premised concerning our holy Father Ignatius, taken care to be transcribed from the instruments

of our college of Louvain, and then communicated to me by Father Ignacio Pinius, then in that place professor of sacred theology. Among other things, as I find noted in their transcript, There is kept in the chamber of the reverend Father Rector of the Society of Jesus at Louvain an autograph writing of the reverend Father Oliverio Manare, of the following tenor: An answer to certain requests concerning the virtues and documents of our Blessed Father Ignatius, made by Nicolaus Lancicius, student of theology at Rome. A great and celebrated name in our Society the venerable servant of God Father Nicolaus Lancicius made for himself, whose Life, enlarged, our Bohuslav Balbín published in print, edited at Prague in the year 1690. Concerning the books published by him there is treatment in the Library of our Writers.

[879] But since the said venerable Father was consecrated a priest at Rome in the year 1601, concerning the author from the said Life, book 1, chapter 7; it is a consequence that Manare answered his requests toward the end of the sixteenth century. Moreover the name of Oliverio Manare too is most illustrious in the Society; whose elogium Father Joseph de Jouvancy composed, book 25 of the fifth part of the History of our Society, page 882. Brief is that which I cull thence: In the year 1614 the Belgian province was bereaved of the distinguished man Father Oliverio Manare, in the ninety-first year since he was born; the sixty-fourth since he had been devoted to the Society. That he was admitted into the Society by our holy Father; and not so long after was set over the Roman college, and then over the Loreto college, which he established; besides, that he discharged the office of commissary, Assistant, Vicar general of the Society, and visitor of Austria, Germany, and Belgium; you will find in the same place; and, as regards his virtues, that he was endowed with a pious tranquillity of soul and confidence in divine help. It pleases me to weave to these the following testimony, given concerning him by the most illustrious William van Bergen of Antwerp, from a transcript of the instrument, which, as is noted upon the same transcript, exists in the chamber of the reverend Father Rector of the Society of Jesus at Louvain, and is a Testification of the reverend Father Oliverio Manare concerning the sanctity of our Blessed Father Ignatius, etc.; it pleases me, I say, to weave to these the following testimony, which is subjoined to the said instrument, expressed in these words:

[880] I the undersigned William, Bishop of Antwerp, attest him, that I have known at Rome, from the year 1575, the reverend Father Oliverio Manare, Assistant of the reverend Father Everard Mercurian, fourth General of the Society of Jesus, and afterward visitor and Provincial in Belgium, and that he was always held for a pious, good, prudent man, who in the Church of God in these parts, by word and example, has shown, and still shows, the greatest fruit; and therefore that credence is deservedly to be given him. In evident testimony whereof I have subscribed my name to these presents with my own hand, and fortified the same with my seal. At Antwerp in the year from the nativity of the Lord 1598, on the 4th of the Ides of April. William, Bishop of Antwerp.

[881] and his instrument, which is here given. But although those things which Manare answered to the requests of Lancicius Father Ribadeneira for the greater part touched; yet he did not so explain all things; as he indicates in the clause of his answer; so that both thence, and because he narrates not a few things in his own person; and finally because his whole narrative is sincere and genuine, and not yet anywhere, so far as we know, submitted to the press, it seems not without merit destined here to come to light. Moreover these answers of Father Manare were sent to the City (Rome): for on the faith of Father Ignacio Pinius, as he subjoined to their transcript, In the chamber of the reverend Father Rector of the college of Louvain of the Society of Jesus is kept a writing of the same Father Oliverio Manare, with this title: Notes on the preceding points sent to the City. Those things which you will discern enclosed in brackets [] were indeed added in the margin of the copy containing those points; but in the same hand, according to what Pinius, mentioned a little before, noted in our transcript. But since the instrument is for us longer than just, to be run through in a single paragraph; therefore we have divided it into three parts; of which behold for you, reader,

Part One.

You ask, dearest brother, certain things concerning our Blessed Father: to which I will answer in few words, as the memory of the past will supply.

First. Where, and in what chapel, did Christ, appearing to our Blessed Father, promise that He would be propitious to him? I answer that I do not know. This alone I once heard commemorated, that it was an oratory or chapel placed not far from the public road, between Bologna and Florence: for he had turned aside to it from the road, on account of the nearness and opportunity of the place, to pray. But see what I said above, §26.

Second. As regards the particular examen imposed on me by him; the matter was thus. When, about to set out from the City to Loreto, and first to lead the colonies (recruits), I had gone to our Blessed Father with my companions, Father Giovanni Polanco the secretary being present, that we might ask his benediction; I gazed rather fixedly upon his face and eyes, presaging that I should scarcely see him again on earth. This immoderation of mine the most wise physician, wishing to heal, applied this medicine, not in the place itself: because (as he was benign, unwilling, I think, to confound me before others with a sharper admonition, as I deserved) he detained Father Polanco with him for a while, until we had withdrawn from him. But when we had come almost to the outermost door of the house, lo, Father Polanco orders me to stay a while, until he should expound the Father's command. The medicine therefore was this: Because (says Father Polanco) our Father has observed in this last meeting that you held your eyes too fixedly fastened upon his face, which is an argument of arrogance; for a penance he commands that daily, at least once in the examination of conscience, you consider whether you have fastened your eyes too long upon the face of anyone to whom you owe reverence, while speaking; and that after the examen you recite the Lord's Prayer with the angelic salutation; and, as often finally as you write to him (and I had to write by the prescription of the rule every week), you report whether you have paid the penance or not. But this penance was extended into the fifteenth month: which having elapsed, the Blessed Father signified that thenceforth I should abstain.

[883] Third. Concerning his humility I have these things, besides those which the history of Father Ribadeneira contains. his humility, Worthy of note have always seemed to me: 1. That he admitted, nay very kindly invited, me, a novice, and those like me, to conversation, and to sit at his side, now in the garden, now elsewhere, as occasion came. 2. That, while I was sick, he was not loath to visit me, and lovingly and paternally to console me, offering a little box filled with manna, saying: Behold, Oliverio, manna, which I have just now received from the vicereine of Sicily. This very thing I give you, that you may be refreshed, and use it by the physician's prescription. 3. That, when he sometimes called me to his private table, he did not disdain to supply food, which he was wont to do to others also, with a little fork, and to hand an apple or pear neatly peeled by himself. 4. That we often heard him, of himself, while speaking, very humbly and submissively interpose an epithet of humility, e.g. my wretched soul, me a sinner, me a poor man, or my poor soul. 5. That, speaking or writing of the Society, he used a similar moderation: This least Society, concerning this our least Society, etc. 6. That he either did not praise it, or did it very sparingly and soberly. 7. That, as he had a lowly chamber, so he always had modest furniture, and that always slender. 8. That he studiously concealed his virtues, and did not manifest his secrets, devotions, and spiritual exercises, nor wished them to be known.

Let there be for an example, that Father Diego de Guía, a venerable and holy old man, more than once said to us: O if I could tell of Master Ignatius what I know! O if my mouth were not shut to me, how great and how many things I would tell you! For the Father had commanded him, in virtue of holy obedience, not to say anything of his more secret matters as long as he lived; for he was, or a little before had been, his confessor: but he himself died before the Blessed Father. 9. Although he was an invalid and weak; when he could a little more commodiously have dwelt in the college, he yet wished always to live on alms in the professed house.

[884] Fourth. Prophecies pronounced by him I never heard, his prophecies, nor do I know of others pronounced than that which our Father Laínez of pious memory and others reported, namely that Father Simão Rodrigues would not die, though he lay in a most grave disease, of that infirmity; which he foretold to Father Favre, his companion on the journey, while he was making the journey to see him sick at Bassano; which Father Ribadeneira too has. Likewise concerning the college of Paris I heard him, while I was in the City, say (for I dare not affirm that I heard it from himself) that the college of Paris, after the Roman (which was then most poor) and the Coimbra, then well founded, would be the chief in the Society. Moreover the Roman college afterward had its own house, when it then had only a rented one; but it had a revenue only of 500 crowns, which our father Francisco de Borja had given at his entrance: but on account of great debt, that revenue had to be sold to lessen the debts: but now it is so provided for that we ought to be in firm hope that what he foretold of the Paris one will come to pass. He said finally to Father Baudouin de l'Ange, when he was sent to the beginnings of the college of Naples, that he would indeed sustain grave persecutions in that college: but that tranquillity would follow a little after, and that college would be in Italy very commodious, and celebrated for its spiritual fruit. [I heard besides, unless my memory fails me, from Blessed Luís González, that, when some of the elders visited him gravely sick in the time of Julius III, and lamented that if God took him away, as he himself desired, the Society, bereaved of so great a Father while still as it were in its beginnings, would be in great peril lest it fall: I heard, I say, the Blessed Father, as a benign parent, to console them and raise their souls, say: The first, as I hope, were good; the second will be better in the Society; the third will be more tenacious read: more retentive of religious discipline than these: which I trust will come to pass: since it is clearer than light that the Society is now much better established than it ever was (not by the fault of the Blessed Father and the following Generals; for whatever good we have, we have from God through him;) but because then neither did the persons suffice, nor was the novitiate well established, nor were the means at hand, nor finally were the rules revised, and in that observance in which they now are.]

[885] his apparitions, Fifth. Whether he appeared after death or in life, I do not remember that I heard; except that from a certain domestic priest, chaplain of the Lady Giovanna Gaetana, I heard that at the time of the fourth congregation,

about the time of the election of the General, that man had seen our Blessed Father, appearing to him with a certain other one, indicate that he wished to have Father Claudio Acquaviva as his successor: and this very thing, if I rightly recall, he also indicated to our brother Ludovico Jappi. Other circumstances I do not hold. He will be better able to report them, as also concerning a certain matron of Florence, who was then said to have had a similar apparition.

Sixth. Concerning Father Luís González, that he said that our Blessed Father was seen by him in prayer, or appeared to him, I do not remember that I heard; just as I did not hear that he appeared to Father Cornelius Wischaven.

[886] [the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the little preface of the little book of the Exercises;] Seventh. As regards his Mass; I seem to have observed that ordinarily it lasted a little more than an hour; since frequent elevations of mind and tears impeded him: which was the cause that he celebrated more rarely, especially in public. There was added the not least impediment of debility: hence for many months I was wont to celebrate almost daily in his presence in the private chapel. He himself, however, took very diligent care that the priests of the Society should not exceed half an hour; and, as long as I was in the City, I always saw the sacristan, or him who ministered at Mass, have a water-clock (clepsydra) placed near the altar, that he might note and report those who either exceeded too much, or were too brief. As regards the little preface which is prefixed to the little book of the Exercises, whose beginning is (These documents, etc. See what was said above, num. 866), I heard that it was composed by Father André des Freux: others also say by Father Fulvio Cardulo; but revised by Father Giovanni Polanco. Moreover the Exercises themselves I saw printed while our Blessed Father was alive; and today there exists in this province a copy printed in the City in the year 1548: and Father Giovanni Polanco, in the compendium of the affairs of the Society up to the year 1550, reports that the Exercises, the duke of Gandía Don Francisco de Borja being the intercessor, were approved by Paul III, and printed with the ordinary license. Moreover in the examination made by certain Prelates concerning the Exercises themselves, by the mandate of the same Pontiff, not even a syllable was changed or taken away. But the examiners were the Master of the Sacred Palace, the Lord Vice-Chancellor, and also the Cardinal of Burgos.

[887] Eighth. Concerning the effigy of our Blessed Father: I have as yet seen none the effigy of St. Ignatius, which truly represents him; yet I have seen none better representing him than that which was recently here reviewed by us five, who once saw the Blessed Father: the fathers, I say, Francesco Costero, Baudouin de l'Ange, Éleuthère Pontanus, Henri Sommal, and myself. As regards that which is hung in the dining-room in which our Father is wont to dine; it represents him in almost no way. But that statue made of plaster, which was sometimes wont to be set out in the Roman college at the time of the renewal of vows, of which your Reverence makes mention, comes much nearer to our Blessed Father's countenance. When one day after the noon meal I was spending the hour of afternoon rest with our Father Everard Mercurian and the Assistants, and some other elders; our Brother Ludovico Jappi, to explore whether perhaps I retained the memory of our Father's face; when he had fitted that very statue in the porter's chamber, so that, after the manner of some father resting on a couch, it seemed clad in an ankle-length garment, and with a square cap; deliberately called me out, saying that a certain noble awaited me near the door. I went down, to meet the man. But Ludovico said that he lay in the porter's chamber on account of weakness. I enter, and, having caught sight of the statue from the very threshold; Ah (I say) Father Ignatius, Father Ignatius! By which exclamation and admiration they made an argument and conjecture that that effigy agreed most of all. But, as venerable Lord Filippo Neri of pious memory, prefect of the Oratory, told me at the time of the last congregation, because the face of the Blessed Father was sprinkled with a certain supernatural splendor, no effigy at all can be fashioned by the pictorial art which truly represents him. And these things indeed to your requests. [Father Muzio Vitelleschi was my companion when I visited Lord Filippo Neri: and he wrote to me that he very well remembered the things which that blessed man Filippo then said.]

Part Two.

I come now to the sixth head of your letter, that is, to his documents and examples, which he left us.

[888] Ninth. He was admirable in discourse: for he was grave, Manare's answers concerning the efficacy of St. Ignatius's discourse, not hasty, not precipitate, not empty; but solid and efficacious, and finally of a man truly holy. Nothing was heard to fall from him by chance and unexpectedly; but that blessed mouth always uttered serious and premeditated things. Therefore no one departed from him except well consoled, instructed with salutary counsel, and content, whether he obtained what he intended or not; because in the blessed Man there was a wondrous grace of speaking.

[889] Tenth. Nor did he keep less decorum and elegance in written discourses, elegance in his writings, especially when he wrote to grave men. And the same decorum he desired and exacted to be kept by his sons. I remember that I saw a letter to a certain man, in which, on account of a letter written to him, he struck him with a grave admonition, because he had sent it stained with erasures and blots. I (he says) this night dispatch about thirty letters, of which there is none which I have not once and again revised; but those which I have written with my own hand, and am wont to write to grave men, and to whom I owe deference, I sometimes write over twice and even thrice, lest I sprinkle them with erasures or blots, or insert anything inelegantly and incongruously. A copy of this letter I saw in a certain little book of Father Francesco Palmio, of good memory, in the college of Bologna, in which little book several letters of our Blessed Father existed.

[890] indifference toward the pleasure of Superiors, Eleventh. The resignation of soul and indifference which he himself had toward God, he likewise desired similar in the men of the Society toward their Superiors; which I understood from various sources, and knew from one deed of mine, afterward by the account of Father Sebastiano Romeo; namely that it pleased the blessed Father. When he had called me to him in the year 1553, and proposed to me three places, to some one of which he designated to send me; but wished (as he said) first to know my propensity, and therefore admonished that I should freely declare what, and whither, I felt myself impelled: but I, since I had no inclination at all except to obey, when he had several times encouraged me to express, or at least to give some indication of the propensity which I felt; but I always answered that I could truly say nothing else than that I truly could not observe or feel anything else in myself than that I was prepared for every place and for every obedience, even if I had to die; he benignly dismissed me, and afterward indicated to someone that this indifference and resignation in me pleased him, as the same Father Romeo reported to me some years after, on some occasion. Yet the holy Father willingly followed, resignation and obedience being safe, the propensity of his subjects, and rejoiced when it conformed itself with his own: for he said that in this way the government of persons fell out better, and was the sweetest of all.

[891] anger to be restrained, Twelfth. When at the beginning of the administration of the Roman college I felt reviving in me the old passion of anger, which as a subject and not a Superior I had scarcely ever felt, and which, being only lulled to sleep, I reckoned extinguished, but which brought me new trouble from unexpected disorder; I had recourse to the blessed Father for counsel and help. He himself animated me to the fight, saying that moderate anger is very useful for governing well, if it be tempered by reason and the fear of God: therefore I should only take care to bridle and repress it, that it should not burst forth outward: for the rest I should not be much solicitous.

[892] every perturbation of mind to be avoided; likewise concerning recourse to God, Thirteenth. I heard that Blessed soul say more than once that he desired that the men of the Society should be so constituted that, after the manner of angels, they should expend themselves wholly, and with all the charity and zeal they could, on caring for the salvation and advancement of their neighbors, and yet should nevertheless keep themselves altogether immovable and constant, disturbing themselves for no incident thing: just as the angels, into whom no passion or perturbation falls, although they omit nothing which they can and ought for our help and spiritual advancement; yet keep in themselves always the highest serenity, seeing the face of the heavenly Father, and always enjoying Him without any disorder or perturbation of themselves.

[893] Fourteenth. He used to say that nothing of any moment was to be done by us but that first, by a peculiar recourse to God, and at least a brief elevation of mind, we should implore counsel from God, as from the best and most wise Father, placing in Him all our confidence. Which done, and having heard what the Lord has spoken in us, we must do what we are taught.

[894] Fifteenth. When one of our men, whose name has slipped me, conversation with externs, complained to him that by externs, who frequently called him to the door, he was impeded from interior conjunction with God, and much distracted in soul; he answered: Those who come to you for spiritual help or consolation, receive with great charity; but always premise, after you are called, or while going, some ejaculatory prayer, asking God that He deign to help that soul by Himself; and thenceforth direct all your thoughts and discourses to this, that you may help the one coming in spirit; and you will not be uselessly distracted, but will profit more. But if you feel yourself not so conjoined with God as before, and as in quiet, be not therefore anxious; because that distraction will not be to your detriment, which is undertaken for the glory of God. But if they come to report news, or to converse of unprofitable things; prudently bring in to them discourse of death, of the enormity of sin, of the offense of God, of judgment, of the examination of conscience, and confession, etc.; and as often as they return to you, treat of such things: those who wish to be helped will return to you to profit: if they do not wish to be helped, they will leave you in peace, and will not return any more, or be troublesome.

[895] Sixteenth. He wished that we all should frequently read spiritual books; the reading of spiritual books; but with affection and devotion, both to kindle affection and promote devotion, and that we might become prompt to bring forth spiritual discourses rather than to pour out or make a show of doctrine: and he taught us indeed by his own example. For in his more secret chamber

he ordinarily had upon the table no other books than the New Testament and Thomas à Kempis; which he was wont to call the partridge (delicacy) of spiritual books.

[896] Seventeenth. He held very much commended, external cleanliness, silence, enclosure. and wished to be commended to his sons, especially the Superiors, three things which greatly pertain to external discipline and religious decorum; namely, the cleanliness of the whole house and of the garments, silence, and finally enclosure: which he said were indications, in a Religious house, that in it good discipline flourished. Moreover he was so zealous of cleanliness that not rarely he himself visited the chambers, considering whether the little beds were neatly made; the books upon the table well arranged, the chamber well swept: nor did he suffer anything to appear which was not put away in its due place, as the night-band behind the pillow, that it should not appear; the broom nowhere but under the couch or the bed-support, or in some obscure corner; the candlestick, the shoes, so that they should not appear, except to those inspecting more curiously. Silence he so cultivated that, outside the hour of rest or recreation after food taken, he did not suffer conversations to be held. If he heard the noise of a voice or a rather loud speech, or a noise greater than fair, of one walking or descending the stairs too vehemently; straightway, the door being opened, he called the offender, and admonished him of his duty. Hence there was frequent penance enjoined by the Minister, because we had not used a low or depressed voice, or because we had walked too immoderately through the corridors or shut the doors of the chambers. As regards enclosure; he did not bear that the door should remain open even for the least time, when it was not necessary; nor did he suffer the keys to hang from the door or the lock.

[897] Eighteenth. For conversing well with neighbors, he said, one must use a discreet and religious art; To which are added the discreet art of dealing with the neighbor, namely, that at first we should accommodate our discourses and actions to their disposition, or to those things which they treat, when we approach them: and at last should lead them to the matter proposed to us, that is, to the good of their soul and salvation.

[898] care for discipline, Nineteenth. He had great care for good discipline, and for the constant order of duties. For that cause, although he was otherwise most occupied, and of ill-affected health, he yet wished the Minister of the house to report to him daily whatever of any moment had happened that day, and to receive his mandates for the following day. Therefore the economy and discipline always proceeded in fair order; and by his example the custom and rule prevailed everywhere that the Rector daily summons the Minister to him.

[899] subordination, Twentieth. He greatly esteemed subordination. Let there be for an example: when once, present in the office of Rector, I was arranging and pairing our studious brothers at the door, that they might go in due order and series, as usual, to the sermon which was held in the professed house; a certain father, relying on his prudence and authority, and on the benevolence of the Blessed Father toward him (as he happened to be present), ordered one of our students, before he went out, to go and clean his shoes. I, dissembling, ordered without delay that all should proceed. He, because he had seen that I heard his admonition made to the brother, reported the matter to the Father, as it had happened. But the holy Man paternally taught him that account should have been had of subordination, and that he ought to have allowed him who presided over the college to freely discharge his office.

[900] the avoidance of novelties; Twenty-first. He did not bear that anything be introduced anew into use, however good it might be, without his consent, or that of him who presided. This regard, namely, he judged should be had toward the Superior. Father Martín Olave, a grave, pious, prudent, and most learned man, and a man most dear to him, although he was superintendent of the college, because contrary to custom he had ordered that the lection of the Roman Breviary (which had been composed by the Cardinal of Santa Croce, by Apostolic authority, and which the Society ordinarily used) be read at table, because for the most part it contained the history of the occurring Saint, was reprehended by him, and he had him reprehended publicly during supper, a certain brother from the professed house, whose name was Antonio Rion, being sent to render him this office, who was sharp and witty in giving public reprehensions.

[901] even if they were good, if the Superior does not approve them. Moreover this reprehension not only profited for better keeping discipline, but greatly edified us all who were present in the Lord, namely the distinguished humility and tranquillity of Father Olave, a man of such quality. But our Blessed Father did not disapprove the thing itself, because he wished it to be retained and continued; and the reading of the third lection of that lesson was continued, until the reformed Martyrology succeeded it: but the holy Father reprehended that a good thing had not been done well and in due order. Similarly Father Antonio Soldevila had introduced certain secret little conventicles into the college, in which those who were engaged in them exercised themselves at night in various kinds of mortifications, after all had gone to bed. When I had got wind of this, I feigned that I was affected toward an exercise of this kind, and desired to be present at the meeting: those colleagues rejoiced that they had the Rector on their side, hoping that on this occasion and by his example the fruit of the exercise would be more abundant. I was present, explored each thing; and, that I might discern all things more thoroughly, I exercised myself with them. On the following day I reported the matter to our Father. He ordered that father to make public discipline, and immediately sent him to Naples: for a certain one of that sodality, Pietro Silvio, a student of theology, a youth of great hope, had fallen into frenzy, on account of too assiduous meditation of heavenly things, as was believed; and it was little lacking but that many should be similarly harmed; but by the dissipation of the sodality all were admonished that, the Superior or spiritual father not being aware, they should attempt or introduce nothing new.

Part Three.

Twenty-second. He knew how to use great moderation with his subjects, and with wondrous prudence added courage to them The Saint was strong with wondrous prudence toward his subjects, where it was fitting. When he sent me to Loreto, to lead and preside over the college; but he himself gave me only instructions by which I might know how I ought to bear myself with the lord governor of the place, and the canons, and other externs; I asked what rules I should keep; for (I say) the rules of the Roman college will not suit that college, except very few, on account of the circumstances of the holy place and the concourse of pilgrims. Similarly, those of the professed house can scarcely be kept either. To these things he answered: Oliverio, do as you have seen, and as the unction will teach you. Accommodate the rules to the place, as you can. I asked concerning the persons whom he joined to me, whom I should distribute into what offices. Again in few words he answered: Prepare, Oliverio, the garments according to the cloth which you have; but how you have acted and distributed, teach [me].

[903] Twenty-third. But it happened once that I did something contrary to his mandate received by letter. wishing them to act discreetly and without scruples. Moreover I signified that I had so done because I had set him present before my eyes, and had seemed to hear him saying: Do as you have conceived in your mind: for I too, if I were present, would command you to do so. But he interpreted the matter thus, that he wrote back that I had done according to his will: Man gives, he says, the office; but it is God's to give discretion. I wish that henceforth you act without scruple, as you shall judge from the circumstances of things must be done, notwithstanding the rules and ordinances.

[904] Twenty-fourth. He always had great account of edification. He had edification at heart, Hence when I had to go to Loreto, Father Sebastiano Romeo, succeeding me in the office of rectorship, very dear to him for his virtue and prudence, sent with me to the seven churches some fathers with a flask of wine and bread to refresh our strength, if there were need. Learning this, the Blessed Father, after I had gone to Loreto, gave a penance to all who had made the pilgrimage, because the thing, he said, was of bad example and by no means fitting for the Religious of the Society. He added that it was an argument of slighter devotion, since all we pilgrims were quite well; and commanded that henceforth nothing of this kind be admitted.

[905] Twenty-fifth. This spirit he said he desired in the men of the Society (as indeed it was most proper to him) that they should have no less devotion in any works of charity and offices than in prayer and meditation; since we ought to do nothing at all except for the love and service of God, and to His glory and honor. true devotion in the offices of charity, right intention, perfect obedience, Twenty-sixth. Although (he said) all things are wont to delight us which we feel we do to the glory and honor of God; yet it helps that we should be even more intensely delighted when they are commanded us by obedience; because then we are certain that they most rightly tend to the honor and service of God. Twenty-seventh. Concerning obedience he frequently inculcated that that which flows from the will alone is not perfect, unless it have joined to it the submission and conformity of the judgment; so that he who in the Society does not conform his judgment with the judgment of the Superior is only with one foot in the Society, and hence very prone to a fall.

[906] poverty, Twenty-eighth. He so cultivated poverty in the professed house that, when some sick of that house had need of a certain kind of wine which we had in the college, he did not suffer that house to receive one jar from us, unless it returned as much of its own, which I have sometimes experienced. Moreover he measured the perfection of poverty in clothing, not from the cheapness of the cloth, but from its durability and moderate goodness. Therefore he suffered, while I was Rector, that the Roman cloth, which alone we then used, with great loss of health and of means (because when worn out it served no use; but whole it was so heavy that it wore us out), should be exchanged with another: he consented, I say, that from Flanders a cloth called ultrafine, which is moderate and durable, and, when worn, useful for patching, should be sought; which was done, and thenceforth the merchant whom we used furnished his shop with that and the like.

[907] charity toward the needy, Twenty-ninth. His charity was distinguished, and joined with distinguished prudence: for although he lived on alms with his whole family, yet learning sometimes that persons born of honest station in the City were pressed by great want of family means, and did not dare, for shame, to ask alms, that the most wise Man might provide for their necessity and their shame, he committed to them some office, so that on its occasion, as a reward of their labor and industry, they might receive a good alms: for thus they received from him the alms, clothed with the cloak of a reward, with less shame. I knew two or three whom he similarly aided, and that a certain one of them received not once fifty gold pieces.

[908] great confidence in God in straitened circumstances, Thirtieth. He had very great confidence in God: therefore, when occasion came, he omitted nothing which he judged necessary, although the expenses were great and the means very slender. I declare the matter by an example. The holy Father had ordered, when we were twenty-eight in the college, that chambers and furniture of every kind be prepared for increasing the number of the collegians up to a hundred, when there was no money either at home or in the college, except five crowns, and those not of legitimate weight, which Father Giovanni Polanco, to whom the pecuniary care was committed, kept for the college and the building. These he wished to give me, asserting that he had nothing else at all laid up at home. I, seeing much being built at home in the college, [and] at St. Balbina, which is the college's vineyard, was ashamed to receive them. We both gave our endeavor to comply; he by collecting money; I by preparing furniture from borrowing, and sustaining the college. Meanwhile the Blessed Father came to see how the college was accommodated for the brethren to come. He saw in it a great chamber prepared, furnished with bed-supports, and seats and tables: which, when he had weighed all, turning to Father Polanco, he said: Ah! Master Polanco; so here our brethren will be lodged? So they will be exposed to the injuries of the impending winter? Where is the ceiling (upper floor)? Will the brethren dwell immediately under the tiles and the roof?

[909] But, answered Father Polanco, there is no money, reverend Father; with happy success nor do we find any more by borrowing. Let a ceiling be made, he answered, Polanco, and let not the brethren sleep here without one: God will provide for His servants. But the house was a rented one; yet he wished it to be done. Father Polanco obeyed, because the Father's word was pressing, and experience had often taught that he commanded nothing rashly. And, behold, on the next day, when Father Polanco went to friends and bankers, to receive moneys by loan or at interest; a certain Spanish archdeacon from Navarre, Mondragón by name, well known to me, met him, asking Father Polanco to receive five hundred gold pieces, to be restored little by little when he had need. Likewise a certain procurator of the Order of St. Jerome, a Portuguese, brought a much greater sum, likewise on deposit, to be restored little by little; but so that it might be lawful to use it. But these sums of money were not so long afterward restored by the alms of the pious; and all the debt was paid off, by the prayers and merits, as we thought, of the Blessed Father, and provision made for every present necessity.

[910] Thirty-first. About the same time Father Guido Roillet, and with help. rector of the German college (of which our Father had been the promoter or rather author), when he was pressed by grave debt, came to the Father to implore aid: for this college the Blessed Father provided, alms being scraped together here and there, although the professed house, which lives on alms, was very numerous, and the college also pressed with great debt. But then the birthday of the Lord (Christmas) was at hand. Our blessed Father therefore, hearing Roillet from anguish of heart plead his cause, smiling, asked: Will the nurslings of the German college, Master Guido, have some recreation on the days of the Nativity? Oh Father, he said, they will scarcely have bread; for the baker will supply nothing more. Be of good courage (he says): God will be present. Buy meanwhile some kids for the nurslings, and something besides for the recreation of the young men, and let God act. He dismissed the man raised up and consoled. And, behold, on the next day Julius III sent our Father five hundred gold pieces, which he distributed to the Roman and the German colleges.

[911] Thirty-second. He was strong very much in prudence and counsel, He was a man of great counsel, and diligent in both examinations of conscience: and all everywhere marveled at his promptness and skill in giving counsels for all things which were proposed to him, or which came into deliberation, however difficult the question was concerning matters.

Thirty-third. I have often heard, and understood in particular from our Father Laínez, that he was very diligent concerning the examination of conscience, even the particular, and diligently compared examen with examen, time with time, week with week; so studious, namely, was he of his spiritual advancement. He was almost always intent on God, although he sometimes seemed to do something else. I saw him very often walking in the garden, and while walking fixing his step for a while, and lifting his eyes to heaven in meditation. Father Laínez added that he was also wont often to weep in the day, and had so free a dominion over the lower part of the soul that he scarcely felt the natural movements.

[912] Thirty-fourth. When at Paris the seeds of the future Society lay, as I have learned from Fathers worthy of credit, frequent in going to the church of the Blessed Virgin des Champs at Paris. on feast days and Sundays he was wont to betake himself to the church of the Blessed Virgin (which has its name from the Fields, des Champs) in the suburbs of Saint-Germain, a place secluded and solitary, but devout and once celebrated, that he might with his companions give himself to prayer, and refresh himself more commodiously with the most sacred body of Christ. This tradition remained so constant among our men who dwelt at Paris, that we often visited the place in memory of our Father and his companions, and that we might draw spirit in the place in which those blessed Fathers had received the first-fruits of the spirit. Nevertheless our men also sometimes betook themselves to the Mount of the Martyrs (Montmartre), where St. Dionysius with his companions had been beheaded for the testimony of Christ. (But concerning the place of that holy Martyr's struggle, it may be examined elsewhere, on 9 October.) In that church our Father with his companions had named to God the vows of chastity and poverty, and these they thereafter renewed. In that other church they had emitted the vows of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and of obedience to be shown to the Pontiff concerning missions. Outside the church of those holy Martyrs, in a certain pit from which stones are dug for preparing plaster, I have heard that our Blessed Father more than once spent the whole night in prayer. What Manare here affirms concerning the place of the vows of the Jerusalem pilgrimage, and of obedience to be shown to the Pontiff concerning missions, I weighed above, §18.

[913] He wishes the Superiors to be earnestly solicitous, Thirty-fifth. He willingly held that the local Superiors should be importunate in those things which they judged necessary or very useful for the well-ordering of the places over which they presided; e.g. in asking for more persons, or more sufficient ones: because he attributed that importunity to the necessary providence and solicitude of those who presided. To those excusing themselves through bashfulness and reverence, that they acted too importunately, he supplied courage, saying that it was not to be feared: because that insistence indicated that the Superior attended to his office; and he was wont to call such men angels of the places, as the angel of Tivoli, the angel of Siena, etc., because after the manner of angels they urged for help.

[914] [that divine things be discharged accurately; and that our men to be sent elsewhere be instructed for the journey.] Thirty-sixth. He wished that those things which were done especially in divine matters should be done neatly and accurately: e.g. when the Offices of Holy Week were celebrated in our church, he wished, our custom being retained, that they be celebrated in the best manner: therefore, before they were begun, he summoned to him those who had to give their labor to them, and once and again heard them, diligently considering all things, that he might correct anything he saw done not aptly enough.

Thirty-seventh. When he was about to send our men somewhere, he wished them to present themselves to him the day before, instructed for the journey with hats, staves, and little cloaks, that he might discern whether anything was lacking to them: which I often saw done.

These things, dearest brother, invited by you, I have drawn from the coffer of my memory, which I once either heard or noted concerning the virtues and documents of our Blessed Father; which, although Father Ribadeneira for the greater part touched, yet not so explicitly all things. I would wish you to take them in good part, and pardon my negligence for the innumerable other things which I could and ought to have noted, which have now utterly slipped my memory: and I attribute it to the merits of the holy Man, and to your prayers, that my memory has supplied these few things. May God keep you unharmed, and mindful of me in your prayers. Oliverio Manare.

And thus far indeed concerning the virtues and documents of our Parent: from which his eminent sanctity is gathered: although, on the testimony of Father Giovanni Ausonio in our transcript of the letter cited, num. 618, Father Hannibal (concerning whom there) closed his discourse with these words: In Father Ignatius the greatest sanctity was the dissimulation of sanctity. But now let us proceed from the graces which made the Man most pleasing to God, to the graces gratuitously given (gratiae gratis datae), as they call them.

§ LXXXVII. The prophetic spirit; the knowledge of hidden things.

[915] That our Patriarch was endowed by God with the prophetic spirit is proved by many arguments. 1. with the prophetic spirit The Society was foreknown by him before it was founded; from §34. 2. At Antwerp he foretold that a college of the Society of Jesus would be founded by Pedro Cuadrado at Medina del Campo, from those things which I said, §16. 3. A series of predictions Ribadeneira wove together, book 5, chapter 11. 4. He foretold various things to Juan Pascual; from the shorter Life of Ribadeneira in Quartemontius, chapter 17; likewise from Orlandini, book 1, num. 32, and from this our preliminary Commentary, §11, not to mention Maffei, book 3, chapter 14. 5. The death of Inés (Agnes), who was the mother of the said Pascual, most holily undergone at Barcelona, Ignatius at Rome foreknew by the admonition of God; so that the letters of Antonio de Araoz, who had been present with the dying widow, afterward brought him nothing new concerning that matter, on the faith of Maffei in the cited place. Ribadeneira too can be seen, chapter 17 in Quartemontius. 6. He foretold that Simão Rodrigues would escape from a grave disease; from Father Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 9, and his shorter Life, chapter 17, and Maffei just designated. 7. He foretold to Miguel Rodés a son, etc., as also that a religious family would be founded by himself. Consult this our Commentary, §13. 8. He also uttered two prophecies in his homeland: concerning which I spoke, §19. Concerning the death and soul of Osma Ribadeneira treats, book 2, chapter 12; concerning the departure from this life of Codure, foreknown, book 3, chapter 1, and Maffei, book 3, chapter 14.

[916] Ninth. He knows, God revealing it, the fluctuation of one of his companions in his undertaken purpose of life; and St. Ignatius was endowed with the perception of hearts. see Ribadeneira, book 2, chapter 9, and his shorter Life, chapter 17; and also Maffei, in the place indicated above. 10. He foretold that Jesus would be propitious to him at Rome, from the famous apparition, concerning which above, §26. 11. He was strong in the perception of hearts: for A certain man, as Maffei speaks in the cited place, not so long before engaged in the Society, when he was affected by so great trouble from the office imposed on him that he could scarcely take sleep, and thought of returning to the world; Ignatius, having divinely scented the matter, ordered the young man to be called to him from his little bed at an unseasonable hour of the night, otherwise wonderfully wont to spare the necessities of the brethren.

When he had come with a greatly perturbed mind; Ignatius, under a feigned person, asked of him what counsel he would give if someone were troubled by this or that temptation? And through that conversation he gradually laid open, to the man astonished, all the recesses and hiding-places of his soul, and at the same time calmed his perturbations with admirable dexterity: and with the same office of charity he discharged toward many others also with equal perspicacity: who, when they could not disclose their diseases through unskillfulness, he himself, before the medicine, of his own accord disclosed to them both the kind of the sickness and its causes.

[917] Twelfth. Favre being dead, he foretold that another Favre would be given by God to the Society in his place, who would much more augment and illustrate its affairs. Of things The outcome answered the prediction in Francisco Borgia. Go to Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 11; where the matter stands. 13. A certain moneyed man, says Maffei above, pitying the straits of our church, wished to build us a more spacious edifice. But when he followed a certain design of his own; with dignity indeed and elegance; yet little fit for the uses of our Religion; Ignatius indeed accepted the pious will of the man, and gave thanks, as he ought: but rejected the thing itself with a confident soul: because he said it was known to him that there would not one day be lacking one who would build a church accommodated to the offices of our men. Of which two forebodings the one the supreme piety and benignity of Pope Gregory XIII, as has been said, and the other the eminent religion and plainly royal magnificence of the most ample Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, approved. Thus he. 14. The very affirmative answer to the letters of Laínez concerning the difficulties occurring in the foundation of the college of Padua persuades that the Saint foreknew the good outcome. See Ribadeneira, book 3, chapter 6; and Maffei often now alleged. 15. Pietro Ferro of Padua was (we use the words of Orlandini, book 6, num. 9) very pious, and, if you regard external cultivation, one of the common people: if his life, a Religious.

[918] hidden Him a pestilential fever, which now held its sixty-third day, had brought to the last extremity. Nor in human arts was there any hope. Ignatius, according to custom, came to visit and confirm him, and with every asseveration foretold that he would shortly be healed by the Mother of God. On the following night, when the sick man was awake with all his senses, a matron, grave and comely to the sight, offered herself to be beheld, in a white garment, and surrounded by a noble choir of virgins: who, when she had asked of him whether he desired to convalesce and be restored to health; and he had straightway assented; gave the sick man an effigy of her face expressed on paper, similar to that which is piously venerated at Grottaferrata, at the ninth milestone from the City, and ordered it to be applied to his breast. Which he, having applied to his breast, was lulled to sleep by slumber. Then, roused after an interval, he felt himself free from all disease and empty of it, in no doubt of the health received and the fever banished; but of the little image found with him there was no mention. Doubtless that sight of the Mother of God had so impressed the image of herself on his soul that he had no need of an external effigy. On the next day Ignatius, returning, with a countenance cheerful beyond his custom, as though not ignorant of the new event, asks Pietro how he fares. When he had answered, Well; Ignatius subjoined: Did I not say that it would come to pass that the Mother of God would heal you? This was afterward found out from Pietro himself, an oath being interposed: who understood that that prediction arose from the prayers of the holy Father, which he had poured out before the knees of the Virgin for his health. 16. In the History of our Society, part 5, book 9, num. 46, at the year 1589, these things are had:

[919] foretold by him Giovanni Milano died, from long ago, from the year 1549, a helper (coadjutor) in domestic affairs: to whom, once solicitous concerning his perseverance in the service of God, blessed Ignatius is said to have said: Be secure; for if I shall persevere in the Society, you too will persevere. 17. Father Pietro Ribadeneira in the shorter Life in Quartemontius, chapter 17, relates these things: Doctor Arrouira of Barcelona, an honored and noble man, who afterward, having discharged an embassy for his republic before Philip II, King of the Spains, used the Blessed Father familiarly, as he told me, he says. He, when he was coming from Aracoeli, met the Father with letters sent to him by Don Francisco Borgia, duke of Gandía, who then governed the kingdom of Catalonia for the King, his wife also being then alive. When they were treating between them concerning these letters; You will know, said the Father, that the author of these letters will one day come to Rome, to be set over the Society. Which matter was then at last accomplished, when, his wife being dead, having professed the institute of our Society, after he had been for many years general commissary throughout Spain, he was set as its third master to govern it in the year 1565, on the day after the Kalends of July, on which day the commemoration of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated. 18. The same Michael Arrouira affirms, says Ribadeneira in the designated chapter, that then, when he was quite a young man, and uncertain about his manner of life, he had at last resolved to be joined in matrimony.

[920] But before he had opened his counsel to the Father, which he did not wish to be deferred by discourses, foreknown things, the Father forestalled him: and, You are thinking, he said, of a wife. O how many groans you will take on! With how great labors you will be exercised! Which prediction was assuredly most true: and, as he related to me privately, so, in the presence of the Bishop of Barcelona, he asserted on sworn testimony. 19. As he had foretold that Father Laínez would succeed him in the administration, so he himself, when he was dead, came to the helm of governing the Society; as Ribadeneira there testifies. 20. The fathers, as he adds, Jerónimo Nadal and Luís González de Cámara, about to sail to Spain, he ordered to embark on the ship at Genoa without delay, and asserted that they would have favorable winds: which also happened, although it was winter, wont to close the maritime courses. Concerning this navigation Orlandini too makes mention, book 16, num. 38. 21. Francisco García reports, book 6, chapter 2, that certain Religious in Spain invited St. Ignatius to take food in their convent; where he declared that there existed there two men who were fixed to lay aside the religious habit and flee from the monastery;

[921] But that, led by penitence, kneeling on the ground, they asked pardon before all, a long array from very many deeds and delivered to the Superior the instruments prepared for their flight. 22. In the same place he also reports that, Ribadeneira having suffered two relapses in one infirmity, a third was foretold by the Saint. 23. He also foretold that God would most providently provide for the straits of the Roman college, on the testimony of Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 9: consult Orlandini too, book 15, num. 6. 24. In a time of great want he foretold that the German college would afterward emerge to a happier state; as we have from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 6; Orlandini, book 12, num. 10, seconding him. 25. What Father Oliverio Manare reported concerning the holy Father regarding the Roman, Parisian, and Neapolitan colleges, and the men of the Society, was said in paragraph 86, part 1, answer four. 26. Our transcript of the Original commentary of Lyon (See above, num. 637), subjoining to those things which it narrates from Father Hannibal Coudret certain things which Léonard Patornay, a novice, received from the mouth of Father Edmond Auger concerning the holy Father in the year 1588, narrates these: The same Father Edmond mentioned that he had foretold that under Paul IV the Society would be proved, and exercised by the supreme Pontiff himself: to whom, when Father Laínez, the Vicar General, had gone, he was most kindly received; with whom also he dealt most familiarly in the inmost pontifical chamber. Wherefore Father Laínez, returning, ordered that they should give thanks to God, that he had, beyond hope, been so benevolently heard by the supreme Pontiff. Our men too began to doubt of the prophecy of Father Ignatius: but the outcome nevertheless approved it. For when, after some days, Father Laínez had several times returned to the Pontiff, and had not been admitted; at last, when by the effort of one Cardinal it was granted to approach, the Pontiff at once received him with an angry countenance, with words signifying an estranged soul. And when Father Laínez, fallen at his knees, asked to be heard; the Pontiff answered: Speak. And when he had spoken; he reported this only: We will declare. But afterward by the living voice he declared that the Prepositus General should be only for a triennium; and that in the professed house a choir should be held.

[922] an array is woven together. Ignatius therefore was a true seer. But that triennial rule Pope Pius IV abrogated, as is established from his decree concerning the perpetuity of the Prepositus General of our Society, which is signed on the 22nd day of June in the year 1561, and of which I keep a transcript, sent to me from our Roman archive by the very often now praised collector of the Ignatian documents at Rome, who, from the Ms. of Father Nadal, the year 1558 being appended to it, in the Roman Gleaning concerning the choir inserts these things: The edict of Paul IV pressed, that we should have a choir. And so we first accustomed ourselves to chant privately. Then we established the singing in choir of all the canonical Hours in the Theatine manner, as Paul had ordered, that is, without ecclesiastical modulation, in a continuous and single tone of voice, only so that the last syllable was as it were contracted. And this is the choir held in the (professed) house; not in the college. But, not to go further away; concerning both the above declarations of the Pontiff you may consult Sacchini, History of our Society, part 2, book 2, num. 55 and following. Concerning the choir, interrupted after the death of the said Pontiff, there is treatment in the same place, book 3, num. 30: but what was afterward done under St. Pius V, the same historian relates, part 3, book 4, num. 144, at the year 1568. But let us return to the prophetic spirit of the Saint. 27. That, finally, he was not ignorant of the last day of his death, we have from the Life of Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 16; and from his shorter one in Quartemontius, chapter 11. See besides those things which concerning this matter stand in Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 11; and in Bartoli, book 5, at the beginning. To the prophetic spirit, now established from so many heads, a certain singular favor of God added an external ornament, by which the heavenly conversation of the Saint among men on earth might be illustrated even from heaven.

§ LXXXVIII. His countenance illustrated with heavenly light; an apparition; his wondrous command over demons.

His countenance Nor indeed (the words are of the shorter Life, chapter 17) was the soul only of this Blessed Father illustrated with the heavenly light of which we have spoken; but even something from the fullness of that light so redounded into his body, that some even often beheld his face to shine with light, and rays to be emitted from it. That she had seen this at Barcelona Isabel Roser confirmed, when the Father, as we mentioned above, sat on the steps of the altar among the flocks of boys. This likewise Juan Pascual, son of Inés Pascual; who long benignly fostered the Father in his own house in the same city of Barcelona. The same at Loyola many noted, when he had returned thither from Paris, and had turned aside to the hospital house. Finally, also at Rome. For blessed Filippo Neri, a man of proved sanctity, author of the Oratory of venerable priests

of the Blessed Mary of Vallicella, who was incredibly profitable to the city of Rome, and whom I knew well, was most closely joined to our Blessed Father Ignatius; wont to have recourse to his counsel in doubtful matters: and by whose sight alone, when he was distressed in soul, he was refreshed. He therefore used to declare that the head of Blessed Ignatius was wont to sparkle, as it were, with certain heavenly rays, and to be wholly luminous.

[924] The Bull of the canonization of the holy Father thus expresses the matter: The Most High willed the excellent sanctity of His Servant to be proved also by the supernatural splendor of his countenance, with heavenly light which, while he lived, Blessed Filippo Neri, and formerly Oliverio Manare the Fleming, a Religious of the same Society, sometimes saw. I have before me a transcript copy which bears this title: A Testification of the reverend Father Oliverio Manare concerning the sanctity of our Blessed Father Ignatius, requested by the procurator general, sent to the City in 1598, before the process for canonization was made. Moreover I received that copy from Father Ignacio Pinius; to which the same Father noted that it exists in the chamber of the reverend Father Rector of our Society at Louvain. Thus therefore in it the said reverend Father Oliverio deposes: I attest, he says, I the undersigned, in the sight of the Lord, that I knew that holy Man well, and often treated with him concerning matters both private and of the Roman college, over which he had set me, and that I always returned from meeting with him suffused with a singular sweetness of spirit, and vehemently kindled to his observance and love, both for the sweetness and gravity of his discourse, and for the devout little sparks of piety which he cast forth. In his countenance I admired a cheerfulness and a certain almost divine grace, illustrated with a certain heavenly splendor, which so ravished me, etc.

[925] And, a few things being interposed, after he had subjoined that this splendor which shone forth from the face of the holy Man was illustrated, was considered not only by himself, but also by many others both at home and abroad, and especially by Filippo Neri, the parent of the Oratory; thus continuing, Whom, he says, when in the year 1593 I revisited after an interval of many years, and discourse had fallen upon the image of our Blessed Father; Do you think, said he, Oliverio, that the effigy which is with you truly represents that blessed Man? No, I say, Lord Filippo; but because the holy Man, as he was humble, never, as long as he lived, suffered himself to be painted; the Society did after his death what it could, that it might represent him by some image for the solace of posterity. So I think, said he: for his countenance was so sprinkled with a certain supernatural splendor that, even if some likeness of him can be fashioned, yet no art can with the pencil express to the life that countenance affected with splendor, such as it was.

[926] And presently, confirming the same illustration of the countenance by another event, it is established by various testimonies. Still, said Manare, when in the year 1580 I visited a certain Prelate at Rome lying ill of a disease, I found some Prelates who were present with him for duty's sake. There was present also Lord Alessandro Petronio, a celebrated physician. He, when discourse had fallen upon Father Ignatius, turning to me, said: I know, Oliverio, something of Father Ignatius which perhaps you have never heard: scarcely even another of your Order; because I never before turned my thoughts to this except on occasion. Manare, having thus spoken, narrates the deed from the mouth of the said Petronio; which he concludes with these words: Father Maffei, at my persuasion, related it in the history of his Life, though more strictly than the gravity of the matter demanded. Concerning it Ribadeneira also treats in the shorter Life, chapter 17. But it seems worth the effort to bring to light Petronio's own testimony concerning that matter from his own copy, as Father Ignacio Pinius took care to have it transcribed from our Roman archive, and sent it hither. Behold it for you.

[927] Concerning the shining countenance of the Saint In the name of God. Amen. In the year from the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 1586, in the fourteenth indiction, and in the second year of the pontificate of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord Sixtus, by divine providence Pope V; but on the 20th day of November, before me the public notary and the witnesses undersigned, specially called and asked to these things, personally constituted the magnificent Lord Alessandro Petronio, a Roman citizen of the region of Pigna, doctor of arts and medicine, at the petition and instance, as he asserted, of the reverend Fathers, clerics of the venerable Society of Jesus, in regard for the truth, and that it may always shine forth to the perpetual memory of the matter, by an oath which, the most holy Scriptures of God being touched, he made in my hands, testified and declared that in the time of the pontificate of Pope Paul IV of happy memory, when he himself dwelt in a certain house situated at Rome by the square of the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, the reverend Father Ignatius de Loyola, priest and founder of the Society of Jesus, with whom he had contracted friendship, once came to him, sick, to visit him in turn, although not at an opportune time then, yet on account of familiarity introduced by the domestics, the windows being closed, found him resting in bed, and from the darkness, judging that Lord Alessandro himself was sleeping, approaching silently with suspended step, sat down gently on the pillow, and when he had seen him lulled to sleep by slumber, withdrew.

[928] a sworn testimony is given. And nonetheless Lord Alessandro himself, roused from sleep, and suddenly calling upon Lady Felicita his wife, Whence this new splendor, what so great light, he said, fills the chamber? But she simply answers what was the truth, that the windows were closed, and that only Father Ignatius had come in. By which visitation Lord Alessandro himself was wonderfully gladdened, and a little after entirely convalesced, and, by no doubtful judgment interpreting the sanctity of the Man, from that day looked up to Father Ignatius more and more as loftier than a mortal man; and so, an oath being interposed, as above, he testified in every better manner. Concerning all and singular which he asked me the notary to make a public instrument and instruments, the substance of the truth not being changed. Done at Rome in the house of the usual habitation of the said Lord Alessandro of the region of Pigna, there being present, hearing, and understanding, Francesco Nicola Grossi of Mondovì, and Benedetto Paramento of Milan, witnesses called, employed, and asked to all and singular the aforesaid, the same Apostolic notary Sebastiano Crozio, being asked, subscribed. And I, Sebastiano Crozio of Rome, public notary by the grace of God, by Apostolic authority, because I was asked concerning all and singular the things faithfully written by another hand, as above, therefore have subscribed and published the present instrument, and signed it with my accustomed sign, being asked in faith and testimony of the premises, etc. Thus far Petronio in his sworn testimony, confirmed by public faith.

[929] Among the Saint's apparitions, distinguished above all is that which, while he himself was still living among mortals, occurred, described in the shorter Life of Ribadeneira by Quartemontius, chapter 16, in these terms: Father Leonard Kessel, The Saint, living, appears at Cologne to Father Leonard Kessel. a Belgian by nation, was in our Society an old man, and holy, and such in the judgment of all. I myself knew him at Cologne, where he laid the first foundations of our college; which he then administered for many years with the highest praise and glory of sanctity. This man, then, since he was held by a certain great and unwonted desire of seeing and enjoying the conversation of Blessed Father Ignatius, gave letters to him, in which he asked that it might be permitted him to go on foot from Cologne to Rome, distant thence more than three hundred French miles; only that he might come into his sight and his most holy discourses. The Blessed Father answered that his presence at Cologne, for the usefulness of others, was necessary; therefore that he should not depart from his station; that God would perhaps give him the opportunity of seeing him by a more easy and expedite way. Therefore on a certain day, to Father Leonard, awake at Cologne, blessed Ignatius, still alive and breathing, appeared, and conversed with him in a rather long discourse. But afterward, the vision being withdrawn, he left the man wonderfully exulting with joy, that he had so admirably attained a thing so longed for. Concerning the apparitions after the Saint's death, it will be said afterward among the miracles.

[930] He was strong with the greatest power and authority over demons; His command over demons, both from another source, against whom also they had conceived a great hatred, persecuting him as a most hostile enemy; which they even openly professed, says Ribadeneira in Quartemontius, chapter 18: where that hatred is proved from deeds. And so rightly the Church in the canonical Hours: Over demons he exercised a wondrous command. Ribadeneira, book 5, chapter 6, treats of this matter. But although concerning a possessed woman it was said in passing in this commentary, §19; yet we here deduce the matter from the shorter Life in Quartemontius, chapter 18: When he was staying at Azpeitia in the hospital house, a woman now for the fourth year agitated by an evil spirit was brought to him on account of the fame of his sanctity, that he might compel her by sacred exorcisms, and beseech God for her salvation. He answered, with great lowliness of soul, that he was not adorned with the insignia of the priesthood, nor did his merits toward God exist so great; yet that he would suppliantly pray for her. When he had discharged his promise, the woman was freed from the hostile tossing of the demon, and freed from all trouble. The consistorial Relation held before Gregory XV, from the processes, recounts among the miracles of the Saint while still living, That he entirely freed Éleuthère Pontanus, assailed for two years and more by certain most grave temptations from the devil, from them by his sight and discourse.

[931] Moreover most attested is the fact of the demons put to flight by the aid of the holy Father, as also from a certain while still living, from our house of Loreto, which they infested; which matter, although it be narrated in the shorter Life of Ribadeneira in Quartemontius in the cited place, in Maffei, book 3, chapter 14, and in Bartoli, book 5, num. 16; I yet prefer here to set it down from the authentic testification of Father Oliverio Manare himself, who then presided over that house as rector. The matter thus done is in our Roman Gleaning narrated distinctly and graphically in his words: The first witness of Flanders, the reverend Father Oliverio Manare, priest of the Society of Jesus, of about 86 years, examined in the remissorial process of Flanders, folio 11: who upon the 53rd article, folio 18, says, folio 29: Being asked whether he himself saw at Loreto visibly any of those specters which are said in article 12 of this chapter to have appeared and afflicted the college of the Society there, and vexed it with mockery; he deposed: As that malignant spirit saw many at Loreto recalled from sins, labors, and study of the Society to a better manner of life, so on the contrary he was inflamed the more vehemently and fiercely against the college, and vexed it in many ways.

[932] the infestation of them, First of all, to a certain Belgian novice, a tailor by condition, whose name has slipped me, who was exercising himself, in a place separate from the others, in the spiritual Exercises, he suddenly appeared in the form of an Ethiopian man, in green clothing (as the same novice reported to the Deponent, then Rector of the said college, about

the year 1555), and with many discourses striving to move him to inconstancy and desertion, by proposing the pleasures of the flesh which he could have in this mortal life; but on the contrary the inconveniences which he would suffer in the Society his whole life, if he dwelt among melancholy and scrupulous men; It is better, he said, that you delight this flower of your youth with honest recreations and pleasures, rather than that you wear yourself out with fastings and perpetual sadness. But the enemy harmed nothing, God bringing help to His soldier. Then that nefarious spirit, not bearing the sign of the cross which he made, and the pious rebuke of the pious youth: You will not, he said, follow my counsel? Let this then be for your consolation. Saying which, he breathed into his face a fetid smoke, which infected the chamber and the antechamber up to the second day with a foul odor, which stench the Deponent notably felt with many others.

[933] utterly wondrous things, Likewise to a certain other novice, sprung from Sardinia, in the form and likeness of St. Paul the Apostle he appeared exhorting him to read, instead of Cicero and the books of the Gentiles, his own Epistles, full of the Spirit of God and divine doctrine: for that novice was a student of grammar. And since he was too abundant in his own opinion, he did not manifest this temptation to his spiritual father; but, trusting in himself, lent a compliant ear to the malignant spirit, and, Cicero being laid aside, gave himself to the reading of St. Paul, taking from it an unspeakable pleasure, and so much the greater the further he went from the direction of holy obedience. At last he instilled in his heart this suggestion, that he who before in his father's house (he was that Sardinian) was fed with black bread and cheap food, now sometimes ate mutton and more delicate foods; he who lay on the bare ground, now used a mattress and good coverings; he who scarcely had a cheap cloak, now had a good inner and outer garment: and hence he concluded that he would render a more pleasing service to God if he embraced the eremitical life.

[934] in the college Then, he thought, it will be lawful to feed on roots, to lie on the ground, to fast, to pray, when and how long you will, which, while you exist a Religious, is not lawful to you by the rules of the Order, but you must follow the direction of your Superiors in all things, and retain it. And this latter temptation, together with the former, he at last opened to the Superior; but too late and not before he had been prostrated; therefore the manifestation profited him little: for on the following day, very early in the morning, when by chance the door lay open, all the domestics being engaged in the morning prayer, he departed, having laid aside the better black garments, and taken only the cheap domestic garment. So indeed the devil had bewitched him that, hearing Mass, while the sacred Host was being lifted up by the priest to be adored, he thought he saw the little boy Jesus (namely, the devil, interposing that appearance in the air, fashioned that likeness of a boy to mock him): so indeed the man, trusting too much in himself, was advancing for the worse. He at last, his evil being afterward acknowledged, the blessed Father being dead, came to Rome, and, made a suppliant to Father Diego Laínez, then General, was clemently admitted and received, and applied to the sacristy, that he might serve the sacred things: but even thence the crafty spirit drove him out by his illusions.

[935] Nor, however, did the ancient serpent take pains to mock one or another only; of the Society of Jesus but, when he especially infested one more remote chamber, turning everything upside down, as it appeared, by confounding and overturning all the furniture; when yet nothing was found moved from its place. But also, when some brothers were praying, he was heard to strike the footstool on which they leaned; sometimes above their head, from the ceiling, to murmur like a cat about to sleep. Once while dinner was being taken, he struck the right side of a certain young man, an Englishman of about 23 years, so vehemently that he cried out and fell backward, almost wholly pale and bent. Finally, to very many, while they lay in their little beds, creeping upon the coverings of the bed over almost the whole body, he was troublesome like a puppy; whence the brothers were much terrified; but the witness and three or four elders gave their endeavor that the good brothers should not cry out, but keep the matter secret, lest the evil come to the ears of the canons and citizens, and it be spread abroad that the college was vexed by demons. Therefore the witness was wont to walk in the corridor before the chambers for some hours of the unseasonable night, so that, if anyone were vexed, he might understand that either the witness or another elder father was present to bring aid.

[936] There were given him Agnus Dei, consecrated wax tapers, holy relics; of Loreto, exorcisms were applied, throughout the whole house Masses were made, prayers to God and to the ever Blessed Virgin Mary, that she might deign to help; the brothers were admonished to trust in the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to command the malignant spirit, in the power of God and of holy obedience, that, if it wished anything, it should go to the Rector, and let the subjects rest. But it happened not once that that evil spirit, in the power of God and of holy obedience sent to the Rector, came to the Rector's chamber, and knocked at the door; but it was more troublesome when the witness lay sick of a grave fever, and sleep had utterly withdrawn for many days and nights from the witness's eyes; at last once, when he was somewhat drowsing, it importunely knocks at the door of the chamber at midnight; the witness admonishes to open, thinking it was one of the brothers; but it knocks again and again; then the Deponent, conjecturing what it was, that is, that it was a demon, Open, he says, in the name of the Lord, and exercise the power which you have from God over me. Then it with great crash and noise opened the door of the chamber and the windows, which were opposite, so vehemently that he thought them broken. The Deponent, then gravely sick, struck the wall, and called a priest nearby to him, that he might shut the door and windows.

[937] On another day, that the witness might rest and make trial by the authentic [testimony of Manare, who presided over it,] whether he could conciliate sleep [and] when he had betaken himself to another lower chamber, the spirit rushed in, the infirmarian and the witness himself hearing, and perceiving it creeping through the whole chimney; when now the Deponent was somewhat better, and was in the corridor at midnight, and sat down, he perceives with his ears in the extreme part of the college or palace of the canons, as it were an earthquake, and the roof to be shaken in that part; then he rises, and walks a little; and lo, that noise is borne toward him; he at first shudders; but, courage being immediately resumed, and fortifying himself with the sign of the cross, he goes toward the refectory, where that crash and motion seemed to be, that he might discern what it was. The noise approaches him gradually more and more, and at last there came forth a huge black dog, with horrible and inflamed eyes, and heads straight toward the witness himself; he again fortifies himself with the sign of the cross, and stands still. Then it, running along his right side, yet not touching him, three times, if he rightly recalls, barked at him with a strong but depressed bark, as if it had uttered that voice from some vessel, lets him go away, and he saw nothing more.

[938] and corroborated by the testimonies of others, is proved. Seeing that the evil did not cease, nor that the sprinklings of holy water, exorcisms, and sacred prayers sufficed, the witness wrote to the reverend Father Ignatius, as he had done before; but he had referred the witness back to the sacred and pious offices mentioned. But he signified that he had performed all those things according to the rite of holy Church, as he had commanded, and nonetheless the evil increased; that the witness himself greatly feared lest the matter should burst forth outside, and many things be spread by the adversaries against the Society. Then the blessed Man gave other letters, in which he exhorted the brothers to patience, and that they should place their hope in God: that he would pray for them, and that he trusted that the brothers themselves would shortly be freed by the goodness of God. The letters of the holy Father being received and read, the fathers and brothers being convened, he read them at once, and ordered that all should hope well from the prayers and merits of so great a Father. Nor moreover was the faith and hope vain, for the letters being read, forthwith all that evil was taken away by the Lord, and the specters and mischiefs against the collegians thenceforth could do nothing: neither were they seen nor heard any more. But that happened in the year 1555. To these there are subjoined in our transcript others who attribute this effect to the letters of the Saint being read: namely: The first witness of Toledo, Father Pietro Ribadeneira of the Society of Jesus, 80 years old, examined in the remissorial process of Toledo, who according to the 15th interrogatory *, and in the 8th reason, folio 187, says: etc. And the third witness of the Curia, the reverend Father Benito Pereira of Valencia, professed of the Society of Jesus, 70 years old, examined in the process of the Curia, folio 20, who upon the 53rd article, and its 12th miracle, folio 33, says: etc. And the 40th witness of the Curia, the reverend Father Bartolomeo Ricci, priest of the Society of Jesus, 68 years old, examined in the process of the Curia, folio 79, etc.

* or: instrument:

§ LXXXIX. That miracles were wrought by the holy Man, Ribadeneira did not deny.

[939] It is given Although the Founder of the Society of Jesus was of such standing with the Most Eminent Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi that he said he was not to be separated from the number of the thaumaturges; nay rather believed that the greatest of all miracles was Ignatius himself; from what was said above, §55, num. 579; and it is established from another source that the Saint, through Him who alone works great marvels, wrought miracles; yet it is here asked what Ribadeneira thought concerning them. I say therefore that Ribadeneira never denied that miracles were wrought by the Saint. Thus I prove the assertion. Christian Simon Lithus Misenus, a Calvinian heretic, Father Jacob Gretser well combed down in various apologetic books published against the repeated calumnies of that babbler, by which he assailed the Life of the holy Father published by Father Pietro Ribadeneira. And in the second Apology indeed, printed at Ingolstadt in the year 1601, book 5, chapter 4, on the occasion of the miracles of St. Ignatius, concerning which that calumniator had objected that Gretser had omitted the refutation, as we have from the cited place; on that occasion, I say, he casts back at him the catalog of miracles, Which, he says, were recently added to the effigy of the same holy Father, and expressed both by writing and by painting. Nor indeed are those things far-fetched; but, as Father Julio Nigroni notes in the historical Disputation concerning SS. Ignatius and Cajetan, in the response to Castaldo, §16, num. 58, from Ribadeneira's Life itself, and also from a plate depicted in copper types, by the work of the same Pietro Ribadeneira. I report them in the words of the praised Gretser, to be read here by those who do not have either the said Apology or that historical Disputation at hand. Let Father Gretser therefore be heard. I. Appearing to one gravely sick, St. Peter restores his health. II. For seven days he persists in perpetual ecstasy. Often while praying he is abstracted from his senses.

[940] III. The knowledge of the greatest matters is divinely infused into him in almost a moment of time. of nine-and-twenty miracles, IV. Sometimes, lifted from the ground, he radiates with a wondrous splendor.

The Mother coming with the boy Jesus, he is adorned with the gift of chastity. V. A Venetian senator, admonished by a heavenly command, seeks him out lying in public by night, and leads him into his own house. VI. A certain man who had hanged himself out of desperation he raises up to grieve for his sins. VII. A woman whose arm had been withered for many years, washing his garments, he heals; from another he puts to flight the specters of demons. VIII. One laboring for many years with the falling sickness (epilepsy) he heals by his touch. IX. A long-lasting consumption he drives away from a woman by his prayers. X. He recalls the dying from death. XI. Many possessed he frees from demons; the sick from incurable diseases. XII. While, laboring with a daily fever, he often preaches in the field, his words are distinctly heard beyond three hundred paces. XIII. He foretells many future things; many hidden and absent things he knows divinely. XIV. A divine splendor illustrates his dark chamber while he is sick. XV. Commended by God the Father with his companions, Jesus receives him into His protection. XVI. He sees the soul of Blessed Osma, surrounded with a most clear light, entering heaven. XVII. A Jew, with obstinate mind rejecting the Christian sacred things, he suddenly converts with only three words.

[941] XVIII. In the most holy Eucharist he sometimes sees Jesus: a synopsis, from Ribadeneira, of those wrought by the Saint. he beholds the heavenly choirs of the Saints. XIX. His face, shining with divine light, is often discerned by diverse persons. XX. Very often, while sacrificing, he hears heavenly voices. Many things concerning the mystery of the most holy Trinity, God revealing it, he knows. XXI. Praying, sacrificing, making a journey, discoursing on grave matters, he very often sees Christ and the Blessed Virgin. XXII. The demon coming to tempt him he frequently drives away with a staff out of contempt. XXIII. By the splendor of his face he heals one gravely sick, and illustrates a dark chamber. XXIV. Demons often appearing at Loreto, after many remedies undertaken in vain by others, he puts to flight by a letter. XXV. A certain man who by injury imprecated a fire upon him is himself suddenly extinguished by fire. Of two who threatened his death, one suddenly grows stiff; the other is terrified by a divine voice. XXVI. To many he showed himself often after death, and at the same moment of time in which he died, he appears glowing with great glory. XXVII. His body, dug up, shines with many lights. Concords of heavenly harmony are often heard. XXVIII. He snatches many in childbirth from the peril of life; many from pestilence, and grave diseases, and temptations. XXIX. He frees the possessed. To the blind he restores sight, to the deaf hearing, to the dying salvation. Thus Gretser there.

[942] It is therefore a consequence that he feigns empty dreams for himself who dares to assert Whence it is gathered that it is false, that Pietro Ribadeneira denied that the holy Father wrought miracles. Is it so indeed, that he both brought these forth into the public light of the world, and yet Ribadeneira denied that he wrought miracles, as Giovanni Battista Castaldo will have it? But his false opinion in this matter — I had almost said an empty fabrication — Julio Nigroni rightly refutes in the historical Disputation just cited, num. 57, thus discoursing: That it may therefore be known … that the effecting of miracles was not denied to Ignatius by Ribadeneira; and lest this opinion of Castaldo (I will by no means call it an accusation), whom in reading Ribadeneira his eye seems to have deceived, stick in the readers of his letter; I exhort them that they attentively read the last chapter of the first Life (published in the year 1572): and first those words, page 208: "But someone may say: If these things are true, as assuredly they are, what is the cause why his sanctity is less attested by miracles, and, as the life of many Saints, declared by signs, and marked with the operations of virtues"? By these words the author speaks by prosopopoeia, and under another person, not from his own opinion does he ask this. Then those two words are to be considered, LESS ATTESTED; which do not deny all miracles, but the multitude of miracles.

[943] that according to that author St. Ignatius wrought no miracles: Then the interrogation is concerning signs, which designate those great miracles which the Apostles did, also called prodigies; of which kind were the raisings of the dead, the sudden healings of the blind and lame, the whole people looking on, in which the common crowd thinks the measure of sanctity is contained. A little after, page 209, he has these things: "But I am so far from thinking that miracles are lacking for illustrating the life of Ignatius, that I judge many, and those most excellent, to be in the midst of light." Having said this, he recounts what seem to him miracles, in the judgment not of the unskilled populace, but of the prudent. Not far from the end of the chapter he cursorily recounts the miracles, even according to the opinion of the crowd, narrated in the course of the history. "And so, he says, the things which were narrated by us above, although many of them could not be done without a miracle, as the fasting of so many days, the strength being in no way failing: the rapture of eight days, and the destitution from the senses: so many and so great illuminations of divine things; the healing of Father Simão, dangerously laboring, and the prediction of future health: the expulsion of a demon surpassing the way and manner of nature" etc. He subjoins also the healths restored to many fathers, and many predictions of future things, which the outcome proved to have been true. The very same words are read written in the second edition of the year 1586, in my copy pages 335, 337, 344: in which the healths and predictions, because he had narrated them in their places, he reduced to a compendium, lest he should repeat them anew to the reader's trouble. Nor do I doubt that, if Castaldo had read the whole chapter, he would have thought and written otherwise concerning the effecting of miracles. Thus Nigroni concerning Ribadeneira's opinion regarding the miracles of St. Ignatius. Far be it therefore that anyone should impute to Ribadeneira that falsity, as if he had said that no miracles were wrought by St. Ignatius; since he clearly and expressly attributes to him a double kind of miracles.

[944] which opinion is overthrown from Ribadeneira himself What need of more? Let Ribadeneira be heard again in the shorter Life in Quartemontius, chapter 18, where, rendering the reason of the manner which he observed in narrating the miracles of our Saint, he thus speaks: Because, he says, in the last chapter of the fifth book we treated briefly of miracles, as though he had done none, or as though they were not necessary for demonstrating his sanctity; I have now resolved to expound them a little more fully, not indeed all (for the matter would run out too long), but only a part of those which God deigned to effect through His Servant. For although, when in the year 1572 I first wrote his Life in Latin, I had known some other miracles done by him; yet they were not so certain and explored to me that I would persuade myself to publish them abroad. But afterward, the questions concerning his relation among the Saints being publicly held, they were proved by grave and fit witnesses. For indeed God, to exalt His Servant on earth, deigns him with miracles so frequent day by day that I reckon it to be my part to commit some to writing here, etc. What, even a shadow, in this text of Ribadeneira, that would deny the effecting of miracles to the Saint? Nay rather, how clear a light of notice shows that some miracles had shone before Ribadeneira, and were even then known to him, when he first wrote his Life in Latin?

[945] Meanwhile, however, a certain modern smatterer and gatherer of filth, against a detractor; in his historical and critical Dictionary, pronounces as from a tripod that Ribadeneira acknowledged in good faith that his saint Ignatius did not have the gift of miracles, etc. Whatever it be, says the ill-employed rhapsodist of the same Dictionary, he retracted himself in a new book, etc. Thus that impudent mouth: to whom it was too little to overthrow the miracles of the holy Father; unless also in his notes to this place he had proffered to his readers the pestiferous poison of impiety and blasphemy, by vomiting out his bile against this Saint, as against a wanderer, a man of deranged mind, senseless, and lost to fanaticism. Thus are the enemies of the cross of Christ and of the Saints wont to speak; whose idol is their own opinion, and to whom there is no religion except a fanatical enthusiasm, by which they impiously rage against all the most sacred records. But let us vindicate the credit of Ribadeneira against detractors of this kind.

[946] In the Examination at Madrid of the same Father Ribadeneira concerning the life and miracles of St. Ignatius, and the credit of Ribadeneira is established held in the year 1595, and sent to me together with other Roman documents; among other things asked of himself, and answered by him with the religion of an oath interposed, to the fourth Interrogatory, Whether the miraculous things which are narrated concerning the aforesaid Father Ignatius in the book of his Life are so certain and proved as they sound: or whether they are related with some exaggeration and amplification, so that they are of less certitude and truth. To the fourth Interrogatory, I say, Father Ribadeneira thus answered, That, although all the things contained in the said book of the Life which the witness himself wrote, of Father Ignatius, contain, in the judgment of the witness himself, that truth and approbation which he declared in the immediately preceding interrogation; he judges nonetheless that the miraculous and supernatural things which are narrated in the said book have less doubt, and a great certitude of truth; because the witness himself received them from persons every way worthy of credit, and wrote them with all simplicity and sincerity applied: to which end the witness himself wishes to declare how he received some of them.

[947] In the first book of the Life of Father Ignatius, chapter 6, it is said from various sources, that, when the Father himself was at Manresa vexed by scruples, he remained without food and drink from one Sunday to the following Sunday, asking of our Lord that He would free him from that terrible tempest which he suffered, and that at that same time he scourged himself with the whip thrice daily, and spent seven hours in prayer, and undertook other austerities; nor yet were his bodily strengths weakened. All which things, well examined with their circumstances, seem to the witness himself miraculous. But Father Ignatius himself narrated them to Father Luís González de Cámara, when, for a year before Father Ignatius himself died, induced by the prayers of the Society, he narrated to the same Father Luís the things which had befallen Father Ignatius himself; and that for our example. And the witness himself asserts that he has the writings which were then written, by which this truth is proved.

[948] which he deposed That Father Ignatius himself was in ecstasy for eight days in the same town of Manresa, as is had in the first book of his Life, chapter 7, Isabel Roser, a certain lady of Barcelona, very Christian and devout, had told the witness himself at Rome in the year 1544; who indeed aided and sustained Father Ignatius at the time when he gave himself to studies at Barcelona: and afterward came to the City, to see him, and be under his obedience. Which when she could not attain, she returned to Barcelona, and became a nun, and holily died in the monastery. This lady narrated to the witness himself that which he wrote concerning this rapture and ecstasy of eight days. But she narrated it in the manner in which it is there written, subjoining that those very men who at Manresa had been present with the Father even

at night, as long as he had remained in that rapture, reported the same things to the same lady in the same manner.

[949] in the Examination at Madrid of the year 1595. Similarly, when the witness himself in the year 1574 returned from the City into Spain, and passed through Barcelona, he found in that city a certain man, Juan Pascual by name, an old and very good Christian, and held as such in that whole city; whom, because he was from the town of Manresa, and the son of a certain Inés Pascual, who was a very pious woman, and devoted to Father Ignatius, whom she had received in her house at Manresa, and cared for; he asked whether he remembered that the said Father Ignatius had been at Manresa for eight days rapt, and as though dead: who answered: Nay, I remember very well: I was then sixteen or seventeen years old: and I found him in that state, and ran to my mother, and said to her: The master is dead, that holy man.

§ XC. The remaining vindications for the miracles of St. Ignatius asserted by Ribadeneira.

[950] The miracles related by Ribadeneira, In the same juridical Examination at Madrid Ribadeneira thus continues: That the eternal Father, and His beloved Son bearing the cross, appeared to Father Ignatius at the very entrance of the city of Rome, Father Master Laínez narrated to us fathers and brothers who were then at Rome, and in a certain exhortation, when he explained to us the general examen of Father Ignatius, and our institute: at which exhortation I was present: and I heard it in the same manner in which I wrote it. Father Ignatius himself also, being asked, while he lived, concerning some circumstances which had intervened in this admirable vision, referred the answer to the aforesaid Father Laínez; to whom he said that he had narrated it, when it was done, in the same manner in which it was done. And the same Father Ignatius makes mention of this vision in a certain writing which after his death was found written in his own hand: a copy of which, transcribed from the autograph itself, the witness himself has.

[951] That he restored to health by his prayers Father Simão Rodrigues, on what authority they rest, his companion, when he was sick unto death at Bassano, and it was certainly signified to him that Father Simão would not die of that infirmity, this witness said that Father Laínez had narrated to him. Which very thing Father Laínez himself reports in a certain writing of the year 1547 from Bologna to Master Polanco, written by the hand of Father Master Salmerón, and subscribed by the hand of Father Laínez himself: and the very autograph the witness himself has, who asserts that Father Simão himself acknowledged, proclaimed, and narrated to many this benefit which he had received from the Lord, through the mediation of Father Ignatius, as he reports in the ninth chapter of the second book.

[952] That he restored to health in the same manner Étienne Baroël, Ribadeneira himself who had entered the Society in the month of July of the year 1541, and after a few days had fallen into a disease, and lay at his last breath; the witness himself discloses that he knows it, because, when Father Ignatius was going to St. Peter's in Montorio to celebrate the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and to beseech God for the safety of the said sick Étienne Baroël, he accompanied Father Ignatius himself, and served at his celebration of the Mass. And that Father Ignatius, the Sacrifice of the Mass being finished, and thanks rendered according to custom, said to the witness himself: Étienne will not die this time. Which so came to pass: and it was the public report at home that by the prayers of Father Ignatius the sick man immediately fared better; as is reported in the fifth book, chapter XI, of his Life. Father Laínez too, in that writing given at Bologna, makes mention of this matter as miraculous: and Étienne himself acknowledged it: and he lived many years a priest in the Society, and died a few years ago.

[953] That he saw the soul of the bachelor Hoces enter heaven, in the Examination at Madrid who died at Padua, when Father Ignatius was very far distant in the kingdom of Naples, Father Ignatius himself narrated it to Father Luís González de Cámara, and Father Laínez mentions this matter in that writing which he sent from Bologna to Father Polanco.

That similarly he saw the soul of Father Jean Codure, who first of his companions died at Rome in the year 1541, on 29 August, sacred to St. John the Beheaded, and how it stopped at the Bridge of Sixtus, when he was going to St. Peter's in Montorio to celebrate Mass for him, Father Giovanni Battista Viola, who then accompanied Father Ignatius himself, narrated it to the witness himself in the same manner in which he wrote it, book 3, chapter 1, of his history. But he narrated it at Genoa in the year 1570.

[954] When Father Master Laínez was treating at Venice of the business of taking possession of the priory della Maddalena, juridically which Pope Paul III of good memory had annexed to the college of the Society at Padua; and found the greatest contradiction, distrusting that he could overcome the great difficulties which offered themselves; he wrote to Father Ignatius that that business had no other remedy than from God: for obtaining which, that his Reverence should celebrate one Mass: which Father Ignatius performed; and he wrote to Father Laínez: I have celebrated the Sacrifice of the Mass, as you asked: be not solicitous concerning that business, and hold it as dispatched. Eight days after those letters were written, the business was concluded with such great uniformity of the Venetian senate that men experienced in that republic came into admiration, as is reported in chapter 6, book 3, of his history. Which the witness himself knew from the account made to him by Father Laínez himself, whom the witness himself accompanied for some days, while he was transacting this business at Venice.

[955] he sets forth. That Father Ignatius restored to health that possessed man who was in the house of the Society, and was called Matthew, who afterward entered the Camaldolese Order, the witness himself asserts that he knows, because he knew the said Matthew both before and after he was vexed by the demon. And while he was vexed, he saw him and heard him speaking, and had the care of him, and knew that Father Ignatius called him into his chamber, and shut the door: whence the same Matthew came out unharmed, as is reported in book 5 of the history, chapter 6. Which things being so, with what appearance of truth can it be affirmed that Ribadeneira denied to the Author of our Society the miracle-effecting power communicated by God?

[956] The miracle-effecting power is confirmed from another source. For indeed it is confirmed: 1. From the Relation in the cause of the canonization of St. Ignatius before Pope Gregory XV; as may be seen below, paragraph 101, part three. 2. From Bartoli, book 4, num. 40, from whose edition of the year 1650 I learn that the most illustrious Lord Niccolò Zambeccari, consistorial Advocate, as they call him, before the said Pontiff, in the public consistory, put an end to the supplicatory little book for canonization, by saying that the miracles reported in the acts were above two hundred. Contrary to custom I here cited that edition of Bartoli which is at hand; because in his Latin interpreter, among other words of the aforesaid Lord Zambeccari, which he sets forth at the end of book 4, I do not find them. 3. From the hundred miracles, wrought by St. Ignatius both living and dead, and published in book 5 in Bartoli. 4. From our collection of miracles of every kind (add also benefits), which will be produced in the posthumous Glory of the Saint from Ribadeneira in the shorter Life, and other records, both published in print and written by hand, and brought down to these very times. And these are more than enough to vindicate the efficiency of miracles, by which God deigned to honor His Servant both living and dead.

§ XCI. The first Life received from the mouth of St. Ignatius and written by Father Luís González de Cámara, S.J.; Perpinianus meditated writing a Life of the same Saint; what and when Diogo de Paiva de Andrade wrote.

Who Father Luís González was. Among the first writers of the Acts of St. Ignatius, Father Luís González excellently commended his own name; or, as he is called in the History of the Society at the year 1545, num. 45, Luís González de Cámara; in which year he is there written to have been enrolled in our Society, being indeed the son of the praetor (magistrate) of the island of Madeira, a man born of illustrious station, and no less noble in genius and in the variety of his doctrine, learned in Greek and Hebrew letters; as one who had given his endeavor at Paris to the most excellent doctors. This Luís, moreover, drew out the deeds of our most holy Parent from his soul, and likewise received them by writing from his mouth, and that indeed in the last two years of his life. Which, how it came to pass, you will learn from the preface to those Acts, which is by Father Nadal, a man most known in the Society, taken care to be transcribed from the Roman archive of the same Society, and sent hither by Father Ignacio Pinius; who notes to our transcript that that preface was polished by second cares by Nadal himself, with his own hand; known to him, he says, from other writings of his. Which preface, since it has a different author than the Acts themselves have, to which it is prefixed; it seems not importune here to offer a place of producing it. Thus therefore it sounds: I had heard, both I and other fathers, from our Father Ignatius, that he had earnestly sought to obtain three benefits from God, before he departed from this life. The first, that the Institute of the Society should be confirmed by the Apostolic See. The second, that similarly the spiritual Exercises. The third, that he should write the Constitutions.

[958] When I remembered this, and saw that he had obtained all things; Father Nadal I feared lest he should be called from us to a better life. But since I knew that the holy fathers, authors of some monastic institute, were wont to give to posterity, in place of a testament, those admonitions by which they trusted they could be helped to the perfection of virtue; I watched for a time when I could conveniently ask the same of Father Ignatius. It happened in the year 1551, when we were together, that Father Ignatius said: Just now I was higher than heaven; having suffered (I think) some ecstasy of mind, or rapture, as he frequently was wont. Venerating, I ask: What is that, Father? He turns the discourse to other things. Judging that therefore an opportune time, I ask and beseech the Father that he would be willing to expound to us how from the beginning of his conversion the Lord had governed him, that that exposition might be to us in place of a testament and paternal instruction. For since you have (I say) obtained those three things, Father, which you desired to see before your death, we fear lest you be called to heaven.

[959] The Father excused his occupations; that he could not apply his mind or time to it. And yet, Celebrate (he said) three Masses concerning this matter, Polanco, Ponce, and you: and from your prayer report to me what you judge. The same, Father (I say), we will judge as now. He added most sweetly: Do what I say. We celebrated: we reported the same: he promised that he would do it. In the following year, when I had again returned from Sicily to be sent into

Spain; I asked the Father whether he had done anything. Nothing, he said. Returning from Spain in the year 1554, I again ask. He had not touched it. Then indeed, led by I know not what mind, I certainly said constantly to the Father: It is now nearly four years during which I beseech, not in my name only, but in the name of the other fathers, that you would explain to us, Father, how the Lord instructed you from the beginning of your conversion: that we trust this will be useful to us and to the Society above all. But since I see that you do not perform it, this I dare to affirm; if you do that which we so greatly desire, we shall use that benefit studiously: if you do not do it, we shall not therefore be of weaker soul, but as trusting in the Lord as if you had written all things.

[960] The Father answered nothing, but (on the same day, as I think) that he should dictate his deeds; having called Father Luís González to him, began to narrate to him the things which that father, as he is of excellent memory, afterward wrote. These are the Acts of Father Ignatius which are in circulation. But Father Luís was in the first general congregation an elector, and in it was elected Assistant of the Prepositus General Father Laínez. He was afterward the instructor in letters and Christian morals of Sebastian, King of Portugal, a father of distinguished religion and virtue. Father González wrote partly in Spanish, partly in Italian, as amanuenses were at hand. Father Hannibal Coudret, a very learned and pious father, rendered it into Latin. Both still live, both the author and the interpreter. Thus Father Nadal: to whose words we add these.

[961] which González received; Coudret rendered into Latin; And the mentioned author Luís González died in the year 1575, from the History of our Society, part 4, book 3, from num. 183: where his elogium is given. But those things in it which regard here are these: He once lived most dear to the holy Parent of the Society, Ignatius: and under him for some time presided as minister over the Roman house of the professed, a diligent observer of his virtues and likewise an imitator: from whose mouth also he related many things received concerning his life into commentaries. This matter is confirmed from our Roman copies, which are noted as excerpted from the Memorial book of the said Father Luís González, of 200 pages in folio; in whose preface he says that from September 1554, when he was made by St. Ignatius minister of the Roman professed house, until 23 October 1555, he noted his sayings, deeds, and examples. But that he did not do this perfunctorily, this is an argument, that John III, King of Portugal, commands Luís González (who had been confessor to Prince John his son), setting out for the City, to observe carefully all the sayings and deeds of Ignatius, and to write them diligently to him, etc., from Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 17. Father Hannibal Coudret … was a man admirable in every kind of the more polished literature, and in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and especially in the ease and gravity alike of his morals; as is said among several other of his praises in the Library of the Writers of the Society of Jesus, dead in the year 1599, as is there noted. But most celebrated in the Society was the name of Father Jerónimo Nadal, from the History of our Order; in whose part 4, book 8, num. 24, it is written that he departed from life in the year 1580, and he is excellently praised, num. 25 and following. The deeds of Ponce, surnamed Gogordan, who occurs in the said preface, Orlandini and Sacchini describe in the History of the Society.

[962] But Ribadeneira had it before his eyes. But now, that Ribadeneira had before his eyes the writings of Luís González, upon which the said Father Nadal composed his preface, and had them not idly, having indeed followed them; is clear from his preface, prefixed to the Ignatian Life, to the brothers of the Society of Jesus, where with great candor, We shall then say, he says, those things which, overcome by the assiduous entreaty of many years, and by the contention of almost all the fathers, the Father himself opened concerning the life led by him before, to Father Luís González: and that he did in the year which preceded his death, deliberately and with great counsel … Which he accurately and diligently received from Ignatius's mouth, and wrote out in almost as many words. And all those things, as they were then written, I have with me. Moreover the very copy of González, written partly in Spanish, partly in Italian, as amanuenses were at hand, according to what was said, lay open to Father Ignacio Pinius, who thus testifies concerning it: This original writing I have in hand. Prefixed to it, in the hand of Father Nadal, is this title: The Acts of Father Ignatius, as Father Luís González first wrote, receiving them from the mouth of the Father himself. Besides, the same Pinius, diligently versed in that original copy, drew from it very many notes for its Latin translation: as will be seen in its place.

[963] But the Father just praised sent hither also the preface of the author himself, Father Luís González, Various reasons are recounted, which he writes he found prefixed to the Acts in a certain Spanish copy; whence I received it, written in Spanish, and thence transcribed, endowed it with Latinity, and prefixed it to the Acts of González rendered into Latin from the version of Coudret, and submitted it to the press together with the Acts themselves. But concerning this matter I wish you admonished in a few words, benign reader. The author of the preface, the same as of the Acts, González, commends the eminent endowments of the Life written by him, the Saint dictating, from various notices of the same, which both he himself commemorates in his same preface, and leaves for us to observe. 1. Great in the said Life is the candor of writing, nor less the sincerity of narrating. 2. Accurately expressed is the marking of the time in which the author began to write, and in which he ceased. He began indeed in the month of September in the year 1553; but in the year 1554 the writing was interrupted; resumed on 9 March in the year 1555, and afterward in another month of the same year; which at last verging to its end, it too had its end; being finished indeed a half-year and about one month before the holy Father ceased to live. 3. The things narrated, and the manner of narrating, are expressed with the greatest fidelity, from the words of the author González, num. 3, cited in the preface. 4. That Life can and ought to be received as the last will of our best Parent, a pledge of love and a testament. 5. It gains for itself no common value, because it is the first; because authentic; because dictated by the Saint himself.

[964] Which things being so, there will be, unless I am mistaken, not a few for which the Life of González is given in print. who will think with me that that Life, venerable by so many titles, deservedly ought to be brought forth from the darkness in which it had hitherto lain hidden, into the light: not therefore because it contains many things which Ribadeneira does not have, since it is itself in some measure a compendium of his: but because the one aids the other, the González one namely by confirming the Ribadeneira one; but the latter by illustrating the former, and amplifying it with more notices, and enriching it with documents. To these, the González one serves to corroborate certain things said above in our preliminary Commentary: where we had regard of it. Moreover it is prefaced with this title: Certain Acts of our reverend Father Ignatius de Loyola, first, after God, institutor of the Society of Jesus. To our transcript Father Ignacio Pinius notes these things: This Latin copy of the Acts Father Nadal reviewed, and corrected in it certain faults of writing with his own hand. But if anyone, whether malevolent or unskilled, should rub a little stain of vanity upon the holy Man, otherwise most modest and most taciturn a guardian of his own affairs, as if indeed he had at last suffered himself to be entreated, to lay open the secrets of his soul, brought forth from the inmost recesses of his heart, with very many and great praises about to accrue to him thence; let him weigh what concerning that matter Ribadeneira inserts in his prologue to the brothers of the Society of Jesus; where he will have abundantly why he should approve and praise that deed as fair and good. There is added to this, that, having dictated toward the end of his life that simple and brief narrative, he admonished that for the rest not Father Jacobo Eguía should be consulted, who knew him intimately from his confessions; but Father Jerónimo Nadal, to whom, through intervals of time, he had opened his soul a little; striving indeed to persuade, as it is fitting to believe, by this deed, that he concealed nothing; and that all things were reduced to that which both he himself had there said, and Nadal could say. And that is what is called, to cover humility under humility, or indeed by that very avoidance of humility, estimation among others being shunned; as Bouhours observes, book 6 of the Life.

[965] In the History of our Society, part 2, book 2, num. 163, at the year 1558, there is set down another Pedro Perpinián had in mind to write the Life of St. Ignatius. who thought to commit the Life of our holy Founder to writing. Let us cite the words: Pedro Perpinián ravished all into admiration both by the other parts of eloquence, and especially by the dignity of his action (delivery), etc. Would that he had written, what he too at this time meditated, and Michele Torres was the author of, the life of Blessed Ignatius and the history of the Society!

[966] Diogo de Paiva to be numbered among the most ancient authors. Of St. Ignatius and our Society Diogo de Paiva de Andrade, a Portuguese, deserved excellently well, whom I cited above in this Commentary; and who among the ten books of Orthodox explanations, which he made public, inscribed the first Concerning the origin of the Society of Jesus, and beat back the audacity of Martin Chemnitz, who had assailed the institute of the same Society with impudent calumnies; into which book also he wove the series of the Ignatian life. Of the antiquity of the same writer judge from this, that on folio 11 of the Venetian edition of the year 1592, which I use, he reports: Of the first sons and fellow-soldiers of the Saint, four still survive alive today, namely Diego Laínez, the most worthy Prepositus General of this most holy Society, and, in the judgment of all good men, most excellently deserving of the Church of God; Alfonso Salmerón, Simão Rodrigues, and Nicolás Bobadilla. But since Laínez departed from life in the year 1565; it follows that Paiva did not write those things after this year; therefore he is to be reckoned among the most ancient authors who committed the deeds of Ignatius to writing. More concerning him Nicolás Antonio will give in the Spanish Library of Writers who flourished after the year 1500, tome 1, page 235. Wilhelm Eysengrein, false namely in this, that he believed the praised author to have been of the Society of Jesus, the Library of the Writers of our Society corrects, page 177; of which he was indeed a friend and defender, but not a nursling; as you will find in the same place.

§ XCII. The Life written by Father Pietro Ribadeneira.

The characters of Ribadeneira both from his own testimony, The author of this Life, in the Catalog of the Writers of the Society, which he published, page 225 of the second edition of the year 1613, thus speaks of himself: Pietro Ribadeneira, a Spaniard by nation, of Toledo by homeland, the least and most unworthy son of all the whole Society of Jesus, in the year of salvation 1540, on the 18th day of the month of September, was, by the singular benefit of God, led as a boy to our Society then being born, and not yet by the Apostolic See

confirmed, at Rome; and, admitted by our Blessed Father Ignatius, and having discharged many and great labors, I have hitherto written concerning the Life of our Blessed Father Ignatius, author of the Society, both in Latin and in Spanish, five books. Likewise another shorter Life of the same Blessed Father, but illustrated with many and new miracles, etc. Thus the modest man sparingly of himself; more Father Joseph de Jouvancy in the History of the Society of Jesus, book 25, part 5, §11; where concerning him, at the year of Christ 1611, in which he died, he mentions these things: When as a boy he gave his endeavor to letters, and flourished among his equals in nobility of birth and glory of genius, it happened that Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, sent by Paul III to Charles V, came to Toledo. Delighted with the eminent disposition of the youth, returning to Rome, he took him as his companion. There, when Ribadeneira went past the house of the Society, having entered from a desire of seeing it, he fell in with St. Ignatius: by whose discourse and first meeting wonderfully captivated, he resolved to give himself wholly to him and to the Society, which nine days after was to be confirmed by the supreme Pontiff. Nor did Ignatius, illumined by the divine light, hesitate to embrace the youth and add him to his own. He did not disappoint the hope of the blessed Father: and, having with the greatest speed grasped the tenets of the philosophers and theologians, he showed an excellent disposition for speaking, joined with equal prudence for acting.

[968] Wherefore, employed for conducting the most grave affairs, first by St. Ignatius, and from writers, his elogia. then by Laínez and Borgia, the successors of Ignatius, he did very useful service for establishing the Society in Belgium: he governed the provinces of Tuscany and Sicily: the same Sicily and afterward Lombardy (Insubria), he inspected, adorned with the appellation of visitor of the latter, of commissary of the former. Twice he discharged the office of Assistant, first of Italy, then of Spain: twice he was present at a general congregation … Death intercepted him as he was preparing to write the History of the Spanish Society, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, on the 10th of the Kalends of October, at Madrid. But of all the sons of our holy Parent who survived, he was the most ancient, from the preface to the reader of the shorter Ignatian Life, translated by Quartemontius, printed at Ypres in Flanders in the year 1612. The man's elogium, from his humility, piety, manner of governing and of writing, is woven together in the cited Jouvancy. His highest veneration toward St. Ignatius, long and thoroughly introspected by him, he laid down on earth only with death. For, asked by the fathers who stood around the bed of the dying man, that he would not be loath to console the mourners, and pursue them with a pious prayer; pointing his finger at the effigy of St. Ignatius, because his voice had failed, he hinted that it must be asked of him what they sought; as may be read in the cited place. Moreover to these add the Library of the Writers of the Society of Jesus, where among other things it is thus written: Many nobles, many Religious celebrated his funeral, and fixed kisses on his hands, for the sake of reverence. So great certainly was the estimation of his virtue, that Brother Francisco Tamayo, a most grave man of the family of St. Francis of Paola, qualificator of the holy Inquisition, applied to him that which St. Thomas once applied to St. Bonaventure, Let us leave the Saint to labor for the Saint; when namely he approved the Narration of the deeds in the business of the canonization of St. Ignatius, up to his beatification, which Ribadeneira wrote last: from which little book I will give very much, §97, num. 1014, and following. But in the year 1633 his head was found, as the cited Library mentions, so whole and sincere as if he had then first died; so that those who had known him while he was among the living now recognized him even from his countenance: for that reason it was raised to a more becoming place. Ambrogio Machin, archbishop of Cagliari, in the Appendix of the defense of the sanctity of Blessed Lucifer, calls Pietro Ribadeneira conspicuous for sanctity.

[969] Moreover in all the endowments of an excellent biographer Ribadeneira greatly excelled. The sources are assigned For he was most knowing of the things which he wrote; most instructed with documents whence he might write; most tenacious of truth in the matter and form of writing; but in the selection of things, if any other, accurate; to all which he superadds a great weight of authority, the integrity of a plainly singular life. Since, he says in that excellent preface of his to the Ignatian Life which we publish, the first law of history is truth, this above all I profess, that I will write nothing unexplored; but will bring forth in writing things known, certain, and attested to me. For we will bring into the midst those things which we ourselves either saw in Ignatius, or once heard from him. Since the Father of mercies used such benignity toward me that He led me, a boy, and scarcely fourteen years old, by no merit of mine (our Society not yet being confirmed by Paul III, supreme Pontiff), to the knowledge of Ignatius, and to such familiarity that I did not depart from his side; but at home, abroad, in all things was at hand to him, and observed his sayings, deeds, countenance, movements … On account, therefore, of this long-lasting intercourse and familiarity, not only the exterior and open things with many, but even the interior, and certain hidden things of Ignatius with a few, we often knew from himself.

[970] from which Ribadeneira drew his Life. Besides his own, and that so singular a perception of the life and morals of St. Ignatius, Ribadeneira presently assigns another source which he used, namely Luís González. Indicating finally another source in the same place, Lastly, he says, we will also narrate those things which we received from the reverend Father Diego Laínez, Prepositus General of our Society, whether by speech or by writing: who, on account of his most close conjunction, and highest fellowship with Ignatius in enduring for Christ and His Church almost immense labors, in those very first beginnings, when he was in time almost the first of the companions out of the ten, in love the most dear son of all, saw many things, noted many things, and often narrated them, in daily conversation, to me who desired it. From these sources, therefore, these our things flowed. Concerning the selection of things he thus testifies in the same place: But those things, he says, which could be said on uncertain authorities, or not sufficiently full, we thought ought not even to be written. For it is persuaded to us that, as in every matter to lie is base, so indeed in relating the Life of the Saints it is most base. For neither does God, for illustrating His glory, need our lies: nor is it right to wish to honor the first and highest truth with false and fabricated narratives. From what has been said it is clear that our historian came to writing instructed with distinguished supports of documents and of soul.

[971] The authority of the same writer But it pleases me to illustrate and confirm these things from the Examination of the said Father, juridically instituted at Madrid in the year 1595, especially because there he testifies the matter with the religion of an oath interposed. There, then, is set down the Interrogatory of Father Gaspar de Pedrosa, procurator general of the Society of Jesus in this curia, for examining Father Pietro de Ribadeneira, of the same Society, concerning the life, virtues, and sanctity of Father Ignatius de Loyola, founder of the same Society, distributed into various points; from which I bring forth those which regard here. 1. First, whether he knew the aforesaid Father Ignatius: how long and concerning what matters he dealt with him? 2. Likewise whether it is the witness himself who wrote the book of the Life of Father Ignatius published in Latin and Spanish under the name of Father Pietro de Ribadeneira? 3. Whether the things which are contained in that book concerning the life and morals of the said Father Ignatius are true, and by what reasons he is led to believe them to be true …?

[972] it is confirmed from the acts in the Examination at Madrid; In the town of Madrid (we give the words of the Examination) on 31 July 1595, before the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Camillo Gaetani, patriarch of Alexandria, Nuncio of His Holiness in these kingdoms, and in the presence of the notary undersigned, Father Gaspar de Pedrosa, procurator general of the Society of Jesus, produced as a witness, for the proof of those things which are contained in the above-set interrogations, Father Pietro de Ribadeneira of the aforesaid Society, from whom his most illustrious Lordship received an oath in legal form; which, when he had rightly and fully uttered, his hand placed on his breast, as befits a priest, he promised that he would tell the truth concerning those things which he knew, and about which he should be interrogated. And his most illustrious Lordship commanded that Lord Doctor Paolo Beni, his Auditor, in the presence of me, his undersigned notary, should receive the examination and deposition of the aforesaid Father Pietro de Ribadeneira: and thus he provided and commanded, there being present as witnesses Fernando de Montemayor and Álvaro Prieto, familiars of his most illustrious Lordship, in the presence of me, Francisco de Luna, notary: and after the premises, in the same town of Madrid, on the 5th day of August 1595, before the aforesaid Lord Doctor Paolo Beni, Auditor of the abovesaid most illustrious and most reverend Lord Patriarch and Nuncio, appeared in person the said Father Pietro de Ribadeneira, an inhabitant of the college of the Society, of this aforesaid town: and being interrogated under the due oath taken by him, as was said above, he said and declared before the aforesaid Lord Auditor the things which follow:

[973] To the first interrogation he said that he had known Father Ignatius, in which, being interrogated concerning St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, and had dealt with him very familiarly for some years. For when the witness himself was passing the fourteenth year of his age, not yet completed, and was in the city of Rome, our Lord deigned that he should enter the house and society of Father Ignatius himself, in the year of the Lord 1540, on the 18th of September, and finally Father Ignatius himself survived nearly 16 years: of which the witness himself dealt with him at various times for nearly eight years very intimately: as one who slept in his chamber, and in it served him, aided him in celebrating the Sacrifice of the Mass, and in writing: accompanied him when he went out of the house: performed also a certain journey with him: transacted many and grave affairs with him, when the witness himself was now a man: and when he was still a youth, saw him transacting the like. Finally, in the year 1555 he was sent by the same Father Ignatius into Flanders to the Catholic King Don Philip on grave affairs, and to expound to those who were of the Society in those dominions the Constitutions which Father Ignatius himself had written for the right government of the Society.

[974] To the second interrogation he said that he had written the book of the Life of Father Ignatius, and the Life written by him, published under the name of Father Pietro de Ribadeneira, in Latin and Spanish: which he wrote by the mandate of Father Francisco Borgia, General of the Society, who enjoined it on the witness himself, judging that he had the notice necessary for writing it. (Concerning this province of writing, imposed on him by St. Francis Borgia, he also treats in his preface, of which above.) To the third interrogation he said that there was nothing in the aforesaid book of the Life of Father Ignatius, which the witness himself wrote, which he knew to be false: at least not

does he recollect that he wrote anything false, knowing that it was false: nay he believes, and holds for certain, that all things related by him in the aforesaid book, morally speaking, are true: and therefore he applied great diligence and care in guarding the whole truth, and in writing those things which he saw and heard from Father Ignatius himself: or which he himself narrated concerning himself, or other grave men concerning him. 2. He also believes the truth of this his history: because before it was printed, it was reviewed and examined by the mandate of Father Francisco Borgia, Prepositus General, by most grave men of the Society, some of whom had been very familiar with Father Ignatius himself.

[975] by the vote of fathers worthy of credit Third. Because, when that book was published while many fathers were still alive, both the more ancient and the more intimate of our Father Ignatius, and among them three of his first ten companions, he does not know that any of them noted anything false of the things which are contained in the said book. 4. Because, when this book was published in Latin at Naples, and read at the table of all the fathers of the general congregation which was held at Rome in the year 1573, Father Everard Mercurian, who in it was elected Prepositus General, commanded Father Diego Jiménez (who still lives, and was procurator general and secretary of the Society at Rome) to ask, in the name of Father Everard himself, of the individual fathers of the aforesaid congregation, what seemed to them concerning that book, and whether anything was to be amended: since the witness himself, desiring that the book should be published corrected, the defects, if any there were, being amended by grave men, such as were in that congregation, asked of the aforesaid Father General that it should be so done.

[976] But when Father Jiménez himself had done what the Father General had commanded him, approved, there was no father at all of those congregated who doubted concerning the truth of this history, nor moved any difficulty in a matter of any moment; as may be seen from the writing and censure which the aforesaid Father Jiménez then applied with his own hand: which writing Father Ribadeneira the witness himself has with him. But it is to be observed that among those fathers congregated there were many who had dealt long and very familiarly with Father Ignatius, e.g. Father Salmerón and Father Nicolás Bobadilla, who were of the first ten companions of Father Ignatius, and also Father Jerónimo Doménech, Giovanni de Polanco, who was secretary, and as it were the feet and hands of Father Ignatius for nine years; Jerónimo Nadal, who was his commissary and vicar general; Doctor Cristóbal de Madrid, who was Assistant of the Society when Father Diego Laínez was Father General, and Father Everard the General himself; who all are now deceased. Father Benedetto Palmio also, and Father Oliverio Manare, who still survive; and are men grave enough, and known. Which things being so; what, pray, Life is worthy of credit, and to be held in esteem, if this is not? Yet to add greater weight to what has already been said, I subjoin the following.

[977] and published as by the common judgment, so to speak, of the whole Society, Father Ignacio Pinius sent to me from Rome a transcript with this title: Father Pietro Ribadeneira's certain heads concerning the miracles of our Father Ignatius of good memory; where Ribadeneira affirms these things to our purpose: Those things which were described by me concerning the virtues and most holy life of our Father, since they were published while many most grave and most approved fathers of the Society were still alive, who lived most familiarly with Ignatius — Salmerón, Bobadilla, Simão, Polanco, Nadal, Strada, Araoz, Luís González, Doctor Torres, Father Madrid, and many others; and they all read my book on the life of Ignatius, and approved what is related in it: are not to be received as the testimony of one author, but as the common judgment, so to speak, of our whole Society, and the corroboration of many witnesses greater than all exception. Which likewise must be said of many others of the Society, who enjoyed the intercourse of our Father, and confirmed by their testimony that the things which are contained in the little book of his life are true, etc.

[978] Father Giovanni Rho in his Achates, in the fourth ineptitude rightly imputed to his adversary, testifies that he has the duly sealed handwriting of Nicolaus Lancicius, it ought to make full faith. issued by him with an oath, while he governed the Society of Lithuania, in the year, as we have from the same place, 1638, on the 7th of the Ides of October: from which instrument the said Rho produces the following: Moreover it is to be known that the reverend Father Pietro Ribadeneira confirmed by express oath absolutely all things which he wrote in the three Lives of St. Ignatius: of which the first was published at Naples in octavo, 1572, from the printing house of Giuseppe Cacchi, subscribed by Dusimo the vicar general, and Giovanni Francesco Lombardo. The second, much more copious, was published by the same, in the year 1586, printed at Madrid at the widow of Alonso Gómez's *, and afterward reprinted in several places, and rendered in various languages. The third was published in Spanish in folio by the same, in the year 1604, printed at Madrid by Luis Sánchez; and again reprinted in the year 1606, and afterward rendered into Latin from the Spanish, and distributed into chapters by Gaspar Quartemontius, with a Greek translation appended opposite, and printed at Augsburg in the year 1616; which was then placed on 31 July in the later edition of the Lives of the Saints of Laurentius Surius, printed at Cologne in the year 1618, at the expense of Johann Kinck and Hermann Mylius. But Ribadeneira made his confirmatory oath of the things written in the Life of St. Ignatius, being juridically examined first in the year 1595 by the authority of Camillo Gaetani, patriarch of Alexandria, Apostolic Nuncio to the King of the Spains: then in the year 1606 in October, now an octogenarian, examined by Apostolic authority in the process of the canonization of St. Ignatius, before Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Toledo, and before Melchior de Soria, bishop of Troia, Apostolic commissary designated by authority of the Apostolic See, designated by authority of the Apostolic See through Paul V, from the Auditors of the sacred Roman Rota. On the occasion of the Lives, of which there was treatment, add: 1. That the Life published by himself in Latin, Ribadeneira afterward translated and enlarged in Spanish; as I shall say below, num. 985. 2. In the year 1585 he was occupied in writing the other Latin Life; from the Life which we publish, book 4, chapter 18 at the end.

[979] That we may briefly superadd to these certain things concerning the author's style; Joseph de Jouvancy, a most skilled author and judge of polished and refined Latinity, in the cited place thus resolves: A brief observation concerning the style of that author. Truly in his writings there shines a certain native candor, and an eloquent simplicity without pigments and disguise, marked with the golden age, almost unknown to ours: of which this among other things is the vice, that those writers flourish who either display the vices of others, or cover their virtues; wicked alike in speech and in silence. Thus Jouvancy. But it now remains that we propose and weigh certain observations on the Life published by Ribadeneira.

* perhaps: Gómez?

§ XCIII. Notes on the Life published by Ribadeneira; its vindications; the deeds of the Saint published by Maffei and Orlandini.

In our copies of the documents of the college of the Society of Jesus at Louvain, concerning the affairs of our most holy Parent, communicated to me by Father Ignacio Pinius, I find Father Oliverio Manare that there, in the chamber of the reverend Father Rector, is kept the following autograph of the reverend Father Oliverio Manare: Notes on the books concerning the Life of our Blessed Father Ignatius, written by Father Pietro Ribadeneira; with this beginning: By very many, at the time of the third congregation, and by name by Father Peter Canisius, it was noted that too many things were interspersed in the history, alien from the Life of our Blessed Father Ignatius undertaken. Likewise it was not approved that the beginnings and progresses of so many colleges were described, etc. And presently, But in the Latin edition, he says, the last, of the year 1587, and in the Spanish of the year 1595, many more things are added, which seem able to be more conveniently inserted, some indeed into the common history of the Society; but others into some apology or work in which the institute of the Society is explained. But the same Manare, writing on chapter 18 of the second book, says: The things which are brought forth in this whole chapter concerning the divine intention and counsel have too great and prolix a digression, and they seem to pertain more to the common history of the Society than to the peculiar one of our Blessed Father. Perhaps in this place there would be more conveniently set down a summary of the same, which is woven at the end of book IV. Similarly the things which are set down in chapter XIX of the same book seem to regard more the same history of the Society: nor do I doubt that the author was going to keep them for that use, if he had thought of writing it.

[981] And he adheres to the same observation, when a little after, concerning chapter 21 of the same book, he admonishes these things: It contains the bull of Julius III with its explanation. This I would think should rather be placed in the general history of the Society, or in some work in which the affairs of the Society are explained. Yet this labor of the good father Ribadeneira had great usefulness in these past years: but a simple and brief narrative concerning the Life and actions of our Blessed Father would delight and affect more. The same judgment I think should be made concerning the Gregorian Constitution, and concerning the whole chapter XXIV of the same book. The same he thinks concerning the things which are said in book 4, chapter 7, concerning Xavier: They could be rejected, he says, to his own history, a brief summary being retained here. In chapter XIV the whole Zaragoza history would more agree with the history of the Society, a few things being retained here. These notes, as also several others added in the same place, Manare thus concludes: These things I had, dearest brother, which, that I might comply with you, I collected from the Life written by Father Ribadeneira, worthy in my judgment of consideration … Pray, I beseech, for me. Brussels, 24 February 1600. Oliverio Manare.

[982] with observations on that matter directed to Lancicius; That dearest brother was Nicolaus Lancicius: for, as Father Ignacio Pinius noted in our transcript, it is immediately joined to the Answer sent to Lancicius; which I gave above, §86. This matter is more certainly confirmed from the original and wholly autograph letters of Father Oliverio Manare, given at Brussels on 25 February of the same year 1600, which as such the same Father Ignacio Pinius transcribed with his own hand from the Roman archive of our Society, and sent to me. In those letters therefore, I have noted, says Manare, certain things (the discourse is of the Life of our holy Father written by Ribadeneira) which the joined index comprises: concerning which the same Father Pinius, at the foot of the said letter, thus teaches me: The index, of which Manare makes mention at the beginning, I find here joined to this letter: and he adds that it is the same which he had taken care to have transcribed for me at Louvain: but that the Roman copy is not written in the very hand of Manare, but only subscribed by him; on the front of which index is inscribed: Al F. Lancicio; and so that index, or list of notes, was sent by Manare to Lancicius. Now to those notes, just proposed from the opinions of Manare, I answer with the very words of Pietro Ribadeneira in the prologue to the brothers of the Society of Jesus; where he thus writes:

[983] But concerning our purpose, and the whole manner of writing, to which it is answered from Ribadeneira himself: receive a few words. When at the beginning I had proposed to write only the Life of Ignatius, and to commend his distinguished examples to the memory of men: yet afterward I undertook in my mind somewhat more even. For because I saw it desired by the best men, and most loving of us, and that the knowledge of the origin and progress of our Society was required; I resolved to touch that also, and briefly to explain how far and wide Ignatius propagated the Society, and to comprise some of those things which in the whole Society, while he lived, seemed to me worthy of writing. Which indeed, since they were either done under his leadership, or repelled by his defense, or established by his moderation, seemed to me so implicated and connected with his life that they could not be conveniently separated and severed. Nor yet is this my purpose, to pursue all things: but to select certain few, which are either more illustrious, or declare, as it were, the course of the Society, and which, unless they be now consigned to writing with recent memory, may perhaps be overwhelmed by oblivion. Of the life of those fathers who were the first sons and companions of Ignatius, and died while Ignatius was alive; of some besides who, for enlarging the faith of Christ, poured out their blood, we shall make mention individually: of the former, because they begot us in Christ; of the latter, because they rendered the death owed to nature especially for Christ. Of those who still live, we shall speak sparingly; of the dead a little more fully.

[984] Let us therefore approve as fair and good that Ribadeneira wrote thus. 1. and an array of reasons is given why he thus wrote the Life of St. Ignatius; Because he supplied to the Order recently born an armory for its just and necessary defense against assailants. 2. Because he thus propagated the knowledge of the Order far and wide, by giving a singular idea of it. 3. Because, those things being mixed with the Life which could be present or absent to it, the Life remained the same in substance. 4. Because, although a simple and brief narrative concerning the life and actions of our Blessed Father would delight and affect more, as Manare said above; yet he also praises the labor of Father Ribadeneira, as one which had great usefulness, as he said, in these past years. 5. Because Father Luis of Granada, a man most celebrated in the whole world, pursues the labor of Ribadeneira with the highest praises, on the occasion of the Spanish Life of St. Ignatius, which after the first Latin one Ribadeneira published. From a Spanish letter therefore given to him in the year 1584 by Luis of Granada, and prefixed to the said Life, I thus render these things: In our language I have not hitherto seen a book written with greater prudence, greater eloquence, greater testification of spirit and of doctrine in history, and also with greater temperance in praising its own institute, without prejudice to all Orders (nay rather with great praise of all, and of the institutes themselves); nor more discreet and conclusive reasons for defending and approving its own men, of all which have been written in like or unlike matters.

[985] And from a fragment of another letter, which there follows, which Luis of Granada praises. written by the same Luis to Ribadeneira in the Spanish idiom, I render these things into Latin: There is nothing in the writing which displeases me; but all things edify me, and fill my soul: and I would wish on the one hand that they should not slip from my memory; and on the other, that oblivion should utterly delete them, so that I might often read the same book with that relish which I had the first time I read it. So highly did that man esteem the Life of the holy Father written by Ribadeneira. But that he translated the Life first published by him in Latin into Spanish, and enlarged it, we learn from his dedication, or prosphonetic letter to the Cardinal and archbishop of Toledo, Gaspar de Quiroga, which is set before the oft-named Life, and is signed as given at Madrid in the year 1583.

[986] That Life assailed by a slanderer; but defended by Gretser. The Life of our most holy Parent, which Ribadeneira composed, was assailed by the calumnies of slanderers. Besides those things which I said above at the beginning of paragraph 89 concerning Christian Lithus; Father Jacob Gretser, in five apologetic books published in the year of the Lord 1599, defended it against the calumnies of the same pettifogger; who in the year 1604 was for the third time hewn down in five books by the same author, for the defense of our holy Founder. Other silly triflers of the same bran we do not tarry over, whose filth to collect and whose ineptitudes to castigate is not of our court, but of those who write apologies.

[987] Maffei also wrote the Life of the Saint: to whom add Orlandini. To Ribadeneira in this task succeeded Father Giovanni Pietro Maffei, which, delivered to him by our most reverend Father Everard Mercurian, fourth Prepositus General of our Society, he carries out with no less elegance of oration than fidelity of matter: but he being snatched from the living before the author had published his lucubrations abroad, he dedicated them to Father Claudio Acquaviva, Prepositus General, at Rome on the Kalends of January in the year 1585; as we have from the preface, prefixed by the same writer to that life: which Life indeed, although brief, yet brought no unwelcome support to my Commentary. Maffei devoted himself to the Society of Jesus in the year 1565; and died in it in the year 1603; as is written in the Library of our Society. Father Niccolò Orlandini, weaving into the first part of the History of the Society those things which were done under the generalate of St. Ignatius, intermingles very many of his deeds scattered through the course of the said History: but with how great authority and fidelity, whether you consider the religion, prudence, and accuracy of the writer, or the helps of records which he used; the preface of Father Francesco Sacchini, inscribed to the fathers and brothers of the Society of Jesus, will teach.

§ XCIV. Lives published by others; our Roman manuscript records.

Notice is given of the Life published by Bidermann and Bombino, Father Jacob Bidermann published the deeds done by our holy Parent from the Spanish compendium of Ribadeneira at Munich in the year 1612; but then, according to what the Library of the Writers of the Society relates, in a fifth edition at Dillingen, enlarged into three distinct books, in the year 1621; and, a new recension being made, at Rome in 1634: and that last one was reprinted by the Plantin press in the year 1635, I gather both from the approbations given at Rome in the year 1633, and appended to it, and from the preface to the reader, signed in the same year 1633 at Rome: in which the author says: The reader seemed to judge that his labor had value, to whom in a few years this little book had to be reprinted more than six times. Meanwhile, when public honors were to be decreed to Ignatius, the Roman Curia undertook to review his whole life: which, approved by its grave judgment, it at last consigned to public documents. Which documents, the greater weight they ought to have for all, the more faith my narrative hoped to find, if it were shown to agree with them. For that reason the presidents gave me the business of comparing. When I compared, so great a concord of this with them at once appeared that most of my narrative seemed to have been drawn from the documents themselves, nor to differ in any other thing, besides the difference of style and method. The author also took care that, besides the Saint's virtues, he should mention certain new miracles of his, which, because they happened not long ago, could not be inserted into those Acts and documents. But neither are these things, he says, drawn by me from the rumors of the crowd, but altogether such as, reviewed and confirmed by legitimate authority, leave no place for suspicion. Paolo Bombino made the Life of the Saint public in Italian, his name being suppressed, in the year 1615; from the Library of the Writers of our Society.

[989] But by those things which Bidermann just now said concerning the Life of the Saint reviewed and consigned to public documents, and of another cited by Bidermann; I judge to be designated that Life and miracles of St. Ignatius, taken, as the title of the book indicates, from the authentic processes, Relations of the Rota, and the Congregation of Rites, held for his canonization, which, published in Italian, is there set down by the order of our most reverend Father Muzio Vitelleschi, Prepositus General of our Society. But that this happened about the very time in which the solemn honors of the Blessed were decreed to the Saint is clear from the approbations, signed at Rome on 10 March in the year 1622, and joined to its third edition, which I have before me, and which appeared at Naples in the year 1627.

[990] That the Glory of St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, was published in the year 1622 by Father Nicolaus Lancicius, as also of the Glory of St. Ignatius. is reported in the Library of our writers; and it is added in the same place that this work suggested to Juan Eusebio Nieremberg the matter and manner of writing, with much addition, under a similar title, the Life of St. Ignatius in Spanish. Moreover among the spiritual Opuscula, published by Lancicius in two tomes, that which is the eighteenth of the second tome is inscribed The Glory of St. Ignatius: where, besides the compendium of the Life and the miracles, he deduces the Saint's glory from St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa, St. Filippo Neri, and St. Charles Borromeo.

[991] Father Andrés Lucas de Arcones in the year 1633 published in Spanish an enriched Life of our holy Father Ignatius; The Lives of Fathers Andrés Lucas, as may be seen in the Library of the Writers of the Society of Jesus: which our Father Franciscus de Smit translated into the Flemish-Belgian language, published at Antwerp in the year 1654; and which I have. In the preface to the reader, §2, the writer of the Life recounts the authors who wrote concerning the Saint, and from whom the history of that Life was drawn; but he signifies the chief author, from whom especially he drew the singular deeds of his history, to be the juridical processes and informations which were held for the Saint's canonization, and which are there commemorated.

[992] The Life of our holy Patriarch was also committed to writing by Father Juan Eusebio Nieremberg; of Eusebio Nieremberg, of Daniele Bartoli, whom Giovanni Rho in his Achates defends against Pseudo-Constantine, as he calls him, from page 196. The copy of the Life which we have was published at Zaragoza in the year 1631. Father Daniele Bartoli excellently elaborated five books concerning the Life and institute of St. Ignatius, printed at Rome in the year 1650; but enlarged and reprinted there in the year 1659, Father Louis Janin endowed with Latinity, printed at Lyon in the year 1665. Yet this I shall by no means assume to myself, says the author in the preface, that I should intersperse among the ancient testimonies concerning him anything of less authority and weight; namely, being about to draw all things from the first sources, from which we have had whatever from the first

beginnings of the Society have been published; but from the more recent, nothing. From the first, I said, and the most ancient, from the manuscripts of Pierre Favre, Diego Laínez, Simão Rodrigues, Pietro Ribadeneira, Giovanni Polanco, Luís González, Jerónimo Nadal, Oliverio Manare, Diego Mirón, Edmond Auger, Hannibal Coudret, Diego de Guzmán, and men of this kind, of so many and such men, who led their life with him for some time; from letters likewise compacted into many thick volumes; and from those same authorities which were sworn to by six hundred and seventy-five witnesses, when it was treated of referring him to the sacred diptychs. For indeed Bartoli, a most diligent scrutinizer and clearer of the Ignatian matters, deserved well of our Parent by a singular title among the more recent writers. But there will be, as I suspect, those who desire greater perspicuity of writing in his Latin interpreter. Into his version, which I used, here and there I have interspersed certain things contained within brackets []. But let us give pardon to the aged vein, of which he makes mention in the vow, directed to St. Ignatius, and prefixed to the Life translated by him.

[993] The lucubrations of Bouhours, Carnoli, etc., on this subject. Father Dominique Bouhours in the year 1679 composed the Life of our holy Parent in the French language, and dedicated it to the queen of France; using, as he affirms in his preface, Ribadeneira, Maffei, Bartoli, the Acts of the canonization of St. Ignatius, and all the Bulls pertaining to his institute. He adds that in various places he had recourse to the History of the Society, written by Orlandini, and also to the history of the province of Portugal, composed by Baltasar Teles in Portuguese: from the book likewise of Illustrious Men, which Eusebio Nieremberg published, he affirms that he drew some new notices: nor does he confess that the various compendia themselves of the Life of the Saint were useless to him. In the same year also Father Jacques Coret published the deeds of St. Ignatius in French, under the title of The Fifth Angel of the Apocalypse.

What shall I say of Father Luigi Carnoli, who published the deeds of St. Ignatius to be read in Italian under the name of Vigilio Nolarci? I have at hand his edition, published at Venice in the year 1680: as also the later one, which is the fourth, and appeared there in the year 1687. From the Venetian edition of the year 1680 was collected the Compendium of the Life of St. Ignatius, printed at Vienna in Austria in the year 1681.

Father Francisco García in the year 1685 committed to print the Spanish Life from Ribadeneira, as he reports in his prologue, Maffei, Orlandini, Andrés Lucas, Eusebio (I mean Nieremberg), and Bartoli; and also from the manuscript papers of Laínez, Salmerón, Polanco, Ribadeneira, and Luís González: from the points likewise which the Saint noted concerning the favors granted to him by the Lord; finally from the processes formed for his canonization, which original and authentic papers, as he calls them, he testifies that he found in the archive of the Imperial college of the Society of Jesus at Madrid, and that they had been with him. I pass over the well-known legendarist, who inserted a collection of the Ignatian Acts into his French work on the Lives of the Saints, on the 31st day of this month, collected from Ribadeneira, Maffei, and Bouhours. But most recently Father Carl Lineck in the year 1717 exhibited the Image of the virtue and sanctity of the holy Father; concerning which matter I also spoke, §60, num. 616. The book is inscribed to our most reverend Father Michelangelo Tamburini, of pious memory, and is divided into four parts. The first teaches what St. Ignatius showed himself to be in the worship of God and of His Saints: the second, what toward himself: the third what toward his own: the fourth, what toward externs.

[994] A place here offers itself of suggesting a brief notice concerning the Roman records, so often cited, Notice is given concerning our Roman documents. and again henceforth to be cited. Their diligent and laborious clearer is repeatedly named in the course of this preliminary Commentary. The unwearied effort of the Man, and his wonderful diligence, undertaken from a singular desire of illustrating our holy Parent among mortals, I forbear to pursue with deserved praises. But whence those documents were drawn, he writes in a letter, given to me from Rome on 4 March of the year just elapsed, 1730, in these words: The records concerning our holy Father Ignatius which I sent to your Reverence, I all transcribed myself, or ordered to be transcribed in my chamber, from the archive or record-office of this Roman professed house, or rather of the Society, with the Father Secretary and archivist. Those which regard the burial and translations of the body, I received from the archive of the Father procurator general. The transcripts I compared with the instruments not only diligently, but scrupulously. After you have read my doubts concerning certain words, and the very letters or apices noted in the margin; you will understand how much I have studied your security. If anywhere I have erred, I was a man, less accurate I was not. I know the hypercritical fastidiousness of our times. Thus far he. Concerning the Roman Gleaning, submitted to me afterward by the labor of the same collector, I made mention above in this Commentary, paragraph 15 at the beginning.

§ XCV. The first burial, and the translations of the body of St. Ignatius.

The documents suited to this purpose we owe to Father Ignacio Pinius, who collected them at Rome from the archive of the Father procurator general of the Society of Jesus, according to what has just been said. But since we have no need to premise more, we now subjoin the notices upon the subject which we have in hand, from the manuscript collection, and the words of the collector himself, here and there intermixed by him with it; the reader being first admonished, however, that the first Italian edition of Bartoli is cited by the said collector.

The first burial in the year 1556, 1 August.

The Roll of the Remissory in the cause of the canonization of Blessed Ignatius has thus: "On the following day, which was the first of August, The time, the exequies, the deposition, the concourse, the veneration the exequies were celebrated by his sons then dwelling at Rome, with great token of grief and piety, toward vespers, in the church of Blessed Mary della Strada of the same professed house, with the greatest concourse of people. Which being completed, his body, enclosed in a certain wooden coffin, was deposited by the same sons in a certain separate sepulchre, newly constructed for this in the greater chapel of the same church, at the Gospel side, in the ground, until they should deliberate whether it should afterward be placed in a more celebrated place. Upon this sepulchre they placed a great stone, to be removed whenever necessary."

[996] In the Roman Process it is read: "Lord Alessandro de Cancellariis, in the first burial of the body. 71 years old, says (the words said in Italian sound thus in Latin:) Father Ignatius died at Rome in the house which was at Santa Maria della Strada; and I know that he died in the year 1556, and I recollect that on the day on which one goes to St. Peter in Chains, he was already dead, and I saw him dead, and carried out to the sepulchre." But this day is 1 August.

The same witness in the same Process: "And when he was placed in the sepulchre, he was affected with great honor: for all the religious families of the city of Rome were present, and so great a concourse of men was there that it was for a stupor. Many also flocked together in the church, to kiss his hands; and so great a multitude of noble women, and others, flowed together, that the church could not be shut until the first hour of night. But he was buried in the same church, which was called Santa Maria della Strada, at the Gospel side of the high altar." Ribadeneira, book 4, chapter 16, and Bartoli, book 4, §38, page 620, agree.

The first translation in the year 1568, 31 July.

This translation, why, by whom, and how it was made. The Roll of the Remissory in the cause of the canonization of Blessed Ignatius testifies these things: "The body of the said Father Ignatius remained in the said sepulchre until the year 1568, in which year, on 31 July, on account of the foundations of the new church to be laid, it was reverently translated by the most reverend Father Francisco Borgia, then Prepositus General, and other sons of the same Father Ignatius, to another part of the church, from which the sacristy was afterward made, which the sons themselves now use in the said professed house."

In the Roman Process it is had: "Father Francisco Gómez, a Religious of the Society of Jesus, said that he did not know Father Ignatius de Loyola; yet, in translating him from one burial-place to another, in the year sixty-seven or sixty-eight, a little more or less, in the city of Rome, the witness himself saw his body: which translation was made very much by night: the witness himself saw that all who were present venerated it, kissing his garments, and taking care to receive from those garments and from the body some relics, until the precept came that they should restore them."

Another witness in the same Process: "The body of Father Ignatius remained in the said sepulchre until the year 1568, in which year, on 31 July, on account of the foundations of the new church to be laid, it was reverently translated by the most reverend Father Francisco Borgia, then Prepositus General, to another part of the church, from which the Sacristy was afterward made." The same is testified by Father Christoph Clavius, who was present at this translation (I shall give his words at the second translation:) and Father Bartoli, on the life of St. Ignatius, book 4, §39, page 620.

The second translation in the year 1587, on 19 November.

The Roll of the Remissory in the cause of the canonization of Blessed Ignatius has these things: "And afterward, The second translation under Claudio Acquaviva, the fabric of the church of the name of Jesus being completed, near the abovesaid church of Santa Maria, and the said professed house, magnificently constructed for the same Society by the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, the most reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva, Prepositus General, and other sons of the same Father Ignatius, and the procurators of almost all the provinces of the Society, who had then come to the City for the congregation of the said procurators, on the 19th day of the month of November of the year 1587, translated the abovesaid body from the said sacristy into the said church piously and reverently, and placed it in a leaden coffin, near the high altar at the Gospel side, in the ground, where today with great concourse of people it is piously venerated. Above which they placed a black marble stone, on which such an epitaph is read: an epitaph placed over the body.

D. O. M.

TO IGNATIUS, FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

HE FELL ASLEEP IN THE LORD

IN THE SIXTY-FIFTH YEAR OF HIS AGE:

THE SIXTEENTH OF THE ORDER CONFIRMED BY THE APOSTOLIC SEE:

OF HUMAN SALVATION 1556.

ON THE DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF AUGUST.

HIS SONS IN CHRIST PLACED [THIS] TO THEIR BEST PARENT.

[999] In the Process Father Christoph Clavius thus speaks (I render the Italian words into Latin:) "While the new church was being built, [Father Clavius's testimony concerning this translation; as also of another concerning the chasuble found over the body,] the body was translated into the sacristy; from which it was last translated near the high altar, at the Gospel side, where it is at this time: and I was present at these translations." A letter of Father Giuseppe da Fano, S.J., written from Florence to Rome to Father Girolamo Benci, S.J., 21 March 1598, rendered by me into Latin from the Italian autograph: "Reverend father in Christ.

The peace of Christ, etc. That I may answer your Reverence's letter: concerning that old and almost consumed chasuble, which Father Baltasar Sebastini some months ago found in the professed house, in a certain little chest, in which I had placed certain writings of ours; your Reverence will signify to our reverend Father General, that, as I now recollect, when I departed from Rome, I kept the said chasuble in a case within the same little chest; and I thought it was still left by me in the sacristy. And by these letters I make assurance to your Reverence that, at the time when the body of our blessed Father Ignatius was uncovered before our Father General and the Assistants and others; I, as prefect of the church, received the aforesaid chasuble, which was over his body. But this chasuble, although for a long time it had been under the ground in a wooden coffin, and, as far as I heard, that body had suffered from the Tiber, which once overflowed above it; yet it had been preserved in the manner in which I saw it.

[1000] I remember also that besides I preserved his shoes, as also the Saint's shoes: as also the bones and ashes placed in the coffin, which were very good: which I seem to have given, with the faculty of the Father vice-Prepositus, to Father Francisco Rodríguez, or Father Alfonso Sánchez, who desired to send them into Spain. I add likewise, if it be not out of place, that with great solace of mine and spiritual relish I was a helper in receiving those bones and ashes of our blessed Father Ignatius, that they might be placed in the leaden coffin: nor did I then feel any stench, nor did I turn away from anything, although by nature, in seeing the dead bodies of men, I am affected with a certain horror.

[1001] And when the body of our blessed Father Ignatius was translated near the high altar, and translated with a private procession. at the time of the congregation of the Father procurators, all others of our men existing at Rome were also summoned, and a procession was made within the church, the doors being shut; and it belonged to me to make the Office: and when I hesitated in doubt whether at the end of the psalms I should say ETERNAL rest, or Glory be to the Father; although I was admonished by no one, I said in a higher tone Glory be to the Father, etc., and all likewise answered me in a higher and more alacritous tone: and afterward the fathers said to me that, if I had recited ETERNAL rest, no one would have answered me. And this is what occurs to me for an answer, etc."

[1002] This translation confirmed by other testimonies. The manuscript book of our Antonio Presutti, which is kept in the archive of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, has these things in Italian: "In the year 1587, on 19 November, sacred to St. Pontian, Pope and martyr, the body of St. Ignatius was most solemnly translated into the new and sumptuous church of the professed house, which Alessandro Cardinal Farnese had ordered to be built. It was placed within a leaden coffin in a sepulchre at the right of the high altar; a flat stone placed over the sepulchre, and in the wall a shining black marble, on which is engraved this inscription: D. O. M. To Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, etc., as was said above." Moreover Antonio Presutti had entered the Society at Rome in the year 1583: and there dwelt in the Roman college for very many years (nay, as I think, for the whole rest of his life:) there he died, as is established from the catalogs of the Roman college: so that I do not doubt but that he saw this translation. This translation is testified also by Muzio Vitelleschi, General of the Society of Jesus, as will be clear at the fourth translation.

Father Bartoli, on the life of St. Ignatius, book 4, §39, page 621: "The fabric of the new church of the name of Jesus being finished, the work of the royal magnificence of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, Father Claudio Acquaviva the General, the procurators of all the provinces and other fathers dwelling at Rome being present, on 19 November 1587, translated the sacred body into it, and placed it in the greater chapel, at the right side of the altar: and over it was placed a stone with this brief inscription: To Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus. In this second translation an admirable thing also happened: namely, that, while those blessed bones were in the sacristy, near which they had been received, many fathers flocking thither to see and venerate them, to some of them they appeared wholly sprinkled with stars of the size of a Venetian gold piece *, very splendid and vivid."

* zecchino. It is a little larger than the Hungarian ducat.

The third translation in the year 1622, on 28 February.

The third translation under Muzio Vitelleschi, The book in which are noted the names of those buried in the church of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, from the year 1578, has in Italian what I render into Latin: "On 28 February 1622 the body of our holy Father Ignatius was translated from the high altar, where it was at the Gospel side in a leaden coffin, and placed in a sculptured marble coffin: (but the remaining ashes, which the said coffin could not contain, in a little cypress box:) and it was placed under the altar, situated in the transept of the church at the right of the high altar, in the chapel of the Sabelli, our most reverend Father Muzio Vitelleschi the General being present, the Father Assistants, the Father Secretary, and the other fathers and brothers of the house."

[1003] who with the Father Assistants of the Society of Jesus carried the sacred body. The book which is inscribed in Italian, Inventory of all the things of the sacristy of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, made by Father Giuseppe da Fano, prefect of the church in the year 1604, has these things, which I turn into Latin: "On the 28th day of February 1622, the translation of the body of our holy Father Ignatius was made from his sepulchre, situated by the high altar at the Gospel side, where it was in a leaden coffin, all our fathers and brothers accompanying in a nocturnal procession with torches and candles. Our Father General Muzio Vitelleschi, and the Father Assistants, carried his sacred body, placed in a coffin of white marble, distinguished with marbles of various colors artfully mixed together: and they placed it under the altar which is in the transept of the church near the chapel of the most blessed Virgin, the coffin being closed with liquefied lead, so that it cannot be opened. And because the sacred ashes could not be contained in the said marble coffin, the residue of the same ashes was placed in a little cypress box, and this was placed beside the abovesaid marble coffin."

[1004] The manuscript book of our Antonio Presutti, which is kept in the archive of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, Other testimonies concerning that translation. has in Italian what sounds thus in Latin: "On the 28th day of February of the year 1622, the body of St. Ignatius was translated from the place of deposition, which was at the right of the high altar. It was carried to the apartments of the Father General: then by night borne with a procession to its chapel, which is situated at the right of the transept of the church." Antonio Presutti then dwelt in the Roman college, in which he also died in 1629, on 25 March: these things are clear from the catalogs of the Roman college of that time. Nor can there be any doubt but that he was, if not a part, at least a spectator, of the procession made in this translation. See the testimony of the whole Society of Jesus at the fifth translation. But Father Muzio Vitelleschi the General himself also testifies that both this third translation, and then the fourth in the year 1637, were made by him, in words to be cited presently.

The fourth translation in the year 1637, on 23 July.

The testimony of Father Muzio Vitelleschi, by which also the things hitherto said concerning the first burial and the second and third translation are confirmed: [From the testimony of this translation are confirmed the first burial, and the second and third translation.] "Muzio Vitelleschi, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus. The body of our holy Father Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, which from the departure of his most blessed soul on the day before the Kalends of August 1556 had lain 31 years in the old church of Santa Maria della Strada: and thence in 1587 was translated to the new church of the name of Jesus by the then Prepositus General Claudio Acquaviva, our predecessor, and had rested 35 years on the right side of the high altar: then for 15 years had lain hidden under the altar dedicated to St. Ignatius at the right arm of the church, transported into the same by us, unworthy of so great an honor and gladness, in the year most auspicious to the whole Society, 1622, on the day before the Kalends of March, twelve days before he was duly inscribed among the Blessed by Gregory XV, supreme Pontiff: we finally in 1637 enclosed it in a little chest of excellent work of bronze; and under the same altar, but likewise more magnificently fabricated of bronze metal, and on every side open to view, so that with the very eyes his most holy deposit might be adored, with most humble homage, and in the embrace of the whole Society, on the 10th of the Kalends of August we placed it: suppliantly beseeching from our most blessed Parent himself, that he who extends the care of his piety to all the people of God everywhere (which St. Gregory once said at Rome concerning the Prince of the Apostles, Peter) may so much the more deign to bestow his help on us his nurslings, with whom in the sacred couch of his sleeping he rests in the same flesh in which he presided. In faith whereof we have placed this record of the whole matter, subscribed with our hand and sealed with our seal, for posterity to come into a share of so great a felicity, in the year of salvation 1637, on the 10th of the Kalends of August, at Rome. Muzio Vitelleschi. Vincenzo Guinigi, secretary. A testimony twin to this was enclosed in the little bronze chest itself together with the body of St. Ignatius."

[1005] Another testimony is superadded concerning the transposition of the body, etc. The book which is inscribed: Inventory of all the things of the sacristy of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, adds these things in Italian, which I transfer into Latin: "On the 23rd day of July 1637 the body of our holy Father Ignatius was transposed from the marble coffin into a gilded bronze coffin, made at the expense of Lady Francesca Giattini, and a bronze altar was erected, delineated by Signor Pietro da Cortona: and on that occasion the altar of the said Saint, and of St. Francis Xavier, was consecrated by the most illustrious Lord Giovanni Battista Altieri, Vicegerent; and at the aforesaid function were present our Father General Muzio Vitelleschi and all the fathers of the professed house and of the college." See also the testimony of the whole Society, presently to be exhibited.

The fifth translation in the year 1695, on 29 August.

The testimony of the whole Society concerning this fifth translation: The testimony of the whole Society of Jesus stands in the Chapel of St. Ignatius at the Gospel side, engraved on marble:

TO ST. IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA,

TAKEN FROM THE LIVING IN THE YEAR 1556,

BY GREGORY XV, SUPREME PONTIFF,

IN THE YEAR 1622 INSCRIBED ON THE ROLLS OF THE SAINTS,

TO ITS FOUNDER,

FIRST PREPOSITUS GENERAL, BEST FATHER,

AFTER THE SACRED BODY WAS TRANSLATED IN THE SAME YEAR

TO THIS ALTAR

AND THEN LAID UP IN A BRONZE COFFIN,

THE CHAPEL SPLENDIDLY RAISED BY [ITS] MUNIFICENCE,

AS A MONUMENT OF PERENNIAL HOMAGE

THE SOCIETY OF JESUS GIVES, DEDICATES, DEVOTES [THIS], IN THE YEAR 1695.

[1006] [the circumstances of which translation, by the hand of the Father procurator general of the Society of Jesus] Father Pietro Francesco Orta (then procurator general of the Society of Jesus, in the Roman professed house of the same Society, in the first book of Miscellanies, folio 123, wrote with his own hand in Italian, what sounds thus in Latin: "On the 29th day of August 1695. Today, Monday, at the hour of 19 and a half, was translated

the urn, in which is the body of our holy Father, to the high altar, under the table of the said altar, that a beginning might be given to the building of the new chapel. To make this translation, faculty was had from the most illustrious Lord Vicegerent, by a decree given on 8 August. In the translation a procession was made. The brothers went before with the pall and lighted tapers: then the scholastics with surplice and lighted tapers: afterward the priests, likewise with surplice and lighted tapers. There was sung: Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and, This Confessor.

[1007] are distinctly and accurately described, In the procession the urn was borne. That it might be borne, it had been well bound with ropes, covered with red Damascene silk: there were four huge poles crosswise, and three lengthwise. It was borne by ten brothers, and by ten fathers clothed in surplices. The greater weight the brothers sustained on their shoulders: the priests helped to sustain the coffin with their hands. The priests who helped were the Father General, the Father Assistants of France and Portugal, the Father procurator general, the Father vice-Prepositus, the Father Rector of the novitiate, the Father Rector of the German college, and three other fathers. After the urn came Father Filippo Grimaldi, prefect of the church, with surplice and stole, who, the urn being replaced, recited the prayer. There were present a few nobles, and others."

The sixth translation in the year 1699, on 7 October.

The same Father Pietro Francesco Orta, then procurator general of the Society of Jesus, and dwelling in the Roman professed house, [What was done in this sixth and last translation, from the account of the said procurator general] in the first book of Miscellanies, folio 188, wrote with his own hand in Italian what I give in Latin: "On 7 October 1699, Wednesday. Since on the next Saturday the new chapel of our holy Father Ignatius is to be opened, on the day sacred to St. Francis Borgia; today at the hour of 20 and a half was translated the gilded bronze urn with the relics of the holy Father contained in it, from the high altar to the new chapel erected in honor of the Saint. The procession was begun from the sacristy, going to the high altar. First went the brothers with the pall, then the scholastics with their own proper gown *, then the priests in cloaks. There followed twelve priests with surplices and lighted torches: afterward ten fathers who were to help in carrying the urn, that is, the five Father Assistants, the Father Secretary, the Father procurator general, the Father Provincial, the Father vice-Prepositus, and the Father Rector of the Roman college: there followed the Father General with a white cope, then the Most Eminent Cardinal Colloredo, who wished to be present at the function. After they had come to the high altar, where the urn was already disposed with two poles lengthwise, but four crosswise, clothed with red silk, our Father intoned, This Confessor, and the procession proceeded.

[1009] The heavier weight of the urn the brothers sustained, the abovesaid fathers with surplices, and without torches, helped to sustain. they are graphically mentioned. The Most Eminent Cardinal Colloredo also himself wished to put his right shoulder under one of the longer poles. A circuit was made through the church, and the urn was then borne to the new altar. The urn was placed on the highest platform of the said altar, below its table, and the singing of the hymn Te Deum was finished: after which our Father said the prayer of the Saint, and thus the function was completed. But the function was performed with the doors of the church shut: whereby it could not be brought about but that a great number of nobles were present. Many boarders and nurslings of the Roman seminary surrounded the urn with lighted torches. The Most Eminent Cardinal Colloredo, prayers being poured out at the altar, departed, our Father General and other fathers accompanying him for homage's sake.

* in Italian vestone.

§ XCVI. Brief observations on the second and third translation for the identity, stable possession, and perpetual presence of the body of St. Ignatius at Rome. The body of the venerable servant of God Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino borne into the sepulchre of the Saint.

If the body of the Saint suffered anything from the Tiber, it was little: The same who was the collector of the above translations is also the author of these observations, Father Ignacio Pinius: from whose autograph I transcribe these things, which he noted on what was said concerning the second and third translation: Father Giuseppe da Fano there says: "Although, as far as I heard, that body had suffered from the Tiber, which once overflowed above it, yet" etc. If what he heard is true: this overflow was either that which happened in the year 1557, on 14 September, or that which happened in the year 1572, on 31 December. Filippo Maria Bonini in his Tiber Enchained, book 1, chapter 8, enumerating the overflows of the Tiber, proves that the one which happened in the year 1557, on 14 September, at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, on the 15th was 14 palms, from a stone raised to that height there on the front of the church, with this inscription: 1557, on the 15th day of September. Hither the Tiber came, while Paul the Fourth, in the third year of his reign, was supreme Rector of the world. Concerning that which happened in the year 1572, on the last day of December, he notes that St. Pius V, then Pontiff, gave a certain archbishop a waxen Agnus Dei, and enjoined that he should cast it into the Tiber, in the place where it most swelled: which done, the river immediately subsided, and contained itself in its channel. If the body of St. Ignatius suffered from one or the other of these overflows, it does not seem to have suffered much, since it was buried in the ground, under the stone pavement of the church, enclosed in a coffin.

[1011] but from the other inundations of the Tiber it suffered nothing at all. But that it suffered nothing from the overflows which either preceded or followed the two already mentioned is easily demonstrated. For the overflow of the year 1557, in the cited Bonini, was immediately preceded by that which happened in the year 1530, on 8 October, Clement VII being Pontiff. But St. Ignatius lived until the year 1556. The overflow of the year 1572 was immediately followed, in the same Bonini, by that which happened in the year 1589, on 10 November, under Sixtus V; but two years before, namely 1587, the body had been placed in a leaden coffin. But in the year 1622 it was transposed from the leaden coffin into a marble one, closed with liquefied lead, and placed under the altar. In the year 1637 from the same leaden coffin it was placed in a bronze one, and again placed under the altar. In this bronze coffin it always afterward remained; in this it was translated in the year 1695, and brought back in the year 1699 to the chapel magnificently erected for the same Saint. But that bronze coffin is seen best closed on every side: so that, although the Tiber should overflow above the body enclosed in it, the body could suffer nothing from it. But of these things perhaps more than enough. Nor indeed is there anything that should move anyone in the passage of the History of our Society, part 3, book 4, num. 143, of Sacchini, concerning the waters of the Tiber: For, Sacchini's words being attentively considered, I have found, says Father Ignacio Pinius in the Roman Gleaning, that there was not properly an overflow, but only a subterranean flux, which could not reach to the body of St. Ignatius, even if it had then existed in that part of the church in which the foundations were laid: which is improbable; since it is established that it was translated elsewhere TO MAKE the foundations of the new church, and so before they began to be made from that part in which it had been buried. Nor does it matter that the first stone of the foundations was laid on 26 June, and the body of St. Ignatius was only removed on 31 July. For the foundations of so great a church require a long time; nor were they begun at one time ON EVERY SIDE; but that from that part where the body of St. Ignatius was buried they were not begun before it was removed thence, is clear from what has been said. See the instruments which I first transmitted: at the end of which he adds these things:

[1012] To be noted on the third translation in the year 1622. The body of Cardinal Bellarmino translated into the sepulchre of St. Ignatius. When the body of the holy Father Ignatius in the year 1622, on 28 February, had been translated from the sepulchre on the right side, or at the Gospel side of the high altar, under the altar dedicated to St. Ignatius: into the said sepulchre of St. Ignatius, in the same year 1622, on 17 September, was brought the body of Cardinal Bellarmino, who in the preceding year on that day had died, and been buried in the common sepulchre. This is testified by the book in which are noted the names of those buried in the church of the Roman professed house, from the year 1578: likewise Fuligatti in the Life of Bellarmino, book 7, chapter 4; Alegambe and Southwell in the Library of Writers, under the word Roberto Bellarmino. Moreover that sepulchre, first of St. Ignatius then of Bellarmino, is close to the wall of the church in the very ground under the pavement: it is covered by a rather large stone: in the wall a polished and shining marble is erected, on which is read engraved this Inscription:

TO ROBERTO

CARDINAL BELLARMINO

OF MONTEPULCIANO, OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS,

SON OF THE SISTER OF MARCELLUS II, SUPREME PONTIFF,

ODOARDO

CARDINAL FARNESE

PLACED [THIS] AS A MONUMENT OF HIS NEVER-DYING LOVE

TOWARD THE MAN WHOM

HE ALWAYS REVERED IN THE PLACE OF A FATHER.

HE FELL ASLEEP IN THE LORD

IN THE YEAR OF SALVATION 1621,

IN THE 79TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

The ornament of this monument, which is seen above and around the said inscription, was added by the same Cardinal Odoardo. "In the year of the Lord 1623," says our Antonio Presutti, who then dwelt in the Roman college, in his Italian book, which is kept in the archive of the professed house, "Cardinal Odoardo Farnese ordered to be erected a most beautiful monument at the right of the high altar, remarkable with three statues: one of Cardinal Bellarmino, another representing the Church, the third representing Wisdom." Over the statue representing the Church is read this inscription: I have loved the beauty of Thy house. Psalm 25. Over the statue representing Wisdom, this: I have trodden down the necks of the proud by virtue. Ecclesiasticus 24.

§ XCVII. The Acts for the canonization of St. Ignatius under Pope Clement VIII; the public cult begun at Rome.

[1013] [After various processes were collected, the Society resolves to seek the canonization.] Scarcely had our Patriarch departed from the living, but that presently there was thought of instituting a certain apparatus, that the way to public cult in the Church might be gradually paved for him: for among our Roman collectanea I find this title noted: Various processes collected from the year 1556 to 1569. Likewise this, by which the continuation of the same matter is indicated: Various processes collected from the year 1587 to 1598 inclusive. This finally, by which we are led further in this business: Various processes collected from the year 1599 to 1600 inclusive. But in the index of the things contained in the various processes, also sent hither from Rome, we learn how many and various processes were formed in the Ignatian cause, when there are noted the processes of Montserrat, Minoressanus, of Barcelona twofold, of Alcalá and Toulouse, of Azpeitia, the Italian, the Belgian, of Burgos, of Majorca twofold. Of others there is mention in the Relation made to Pope Paul V; concerning which below, §99. Meanwhile, although our whole Society had most greatly in

its wishes that sacred honors should be decreed to its Founder by the Apostolic See, yet first, the endeavors of all being earnestly brought together, that business began to be seriously and strenuously treated in the fifth general congregation, which was protracted from 3 November 1593 to 18 January 1594, when there it was proposed in the name of several both provinces and individuals, that the canonization of Ignatius of holy memory, Founder of our Society, be sought from the holy Apostolic See. But the congregation decreed, etc. As is had from its decree 71: the day and year of which decree are distinctly noted in the Relation just cited, in which I read these things, folio 2: The Society of Jesus, generally congregated at Rome to transact its affairs on 13 January 1594, among other things decreed that from the Apostolic See his (there is treatment of St. Ignatius) canonization be sought.

[1014] Princes, and other persons shining with dignity and authority, seconding it, This matter, instructed in due manner and form through processes, the secular princes of the Church, and likewise ecclesiastical and civil persons distinguished by dignity and authority, had at heart, incumbent especially upon this endeavor, that by their commendations, wishes, and prayers they might open easy approaches to this cause at the tribunal of the Apostolic See. Let us hear the matter from Pietro Ribadeneira's Narration of the deeds in the business of the canonization of St. Ignatius, up to his beatification: whose French version from the Spanish idiom, by our author Father Antoine de Balinghem, published at Tournai in the year 1610, is in my hands; from which hereafter I shall cull very much, contracted into a compendium. Philip therefore the Catholic King, the second of this name, his Council on this matter being first heard, most earnestly promoted and urged it. His letters given to the Roman Pontiff on 6 August in the year 1594, you have there from page 9. That he also wrote to the Cardinals Aldobrandini, Deza, Ávila, and Guevara, is said on page 11. Other letters of the same king to the most holy Father on 19 July 1597 stand from page 12; and to his Orator (ambassador) at Rome, the duke of Sessa, from page 13, given on the same day and year. There is subjoined, page 15, a copy of the letters which the empress Maria directed to the Vicar of Christ on 8 August of the same year 1597. These letters of the Catholic king and of the empress, his sister, being delivered by his Orator to Pope Clement VIII, together with them there was also delivered by him into the hands of the most holy Lord a supplicatory little book of Philip II, the empress, and the Society of Jesus, which is there produced from page 17.

[1015] Nor indeed were the prayers vain: for His Holiness referred this business to the congregation of Rites; that business is promoted. to which, on the part of the Society, was exhibited a compendium, and then another more prolix narrative of the virtues and miracles of our holy Father, and also of the inquisitions formed in Spain by the order of the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Patriarch Camillo Gaetani. All things therefore being seen, examined, and that matter diligently agitated, the Congregation decreed that His Holiness could expedite the remissorials, and command that the inquisitions necessary for canonization be made; according to what is reported in the cited Narration from page 23. Nor indeed only the Catholic king and the empress, his sister, are said, page 24, to have often written to His Holiness that he should expedite this business; but also by letters the emperor Rudolf interpellated him, the Most Christian King Henry IV, Sigismund King of Poland, and other pious Christian princes; especially of the house of Austria and of Bavaria; the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and their viceroys and governors; likewise the province of Biscay (or rather Cantabria), in which the Saint drew the airs of his birth; besides the church of Toledo, Seville, Granada, and their archbishops; to which are added the bishops of Córdoba, Segovia, Valladolid, and Guadix. What, that the council of Tarragona in the year 1602 most urgently insisted with the same Vicar of Christ Clement VIII for the happy success of that business; as is clear from the letters of the same council, full of veneration toward the Saint, and given to Clement in the said year, which you have in the same place from page 26. Thus far, therefore, the undecided cause of beatification hung in the Roman tribunal; but divine providence, beyond expectation, promoted it by a certain plainly singular deed.

[1016] For in the year 1599, on 31 July at Rome among our men the cult of the Saint was begun in a wonderful manner: concerning which matter Orlandini, book 16, From the letter of an eyewitness num. 136; Bartoli, book 4 of the Life of St. Ignatius, num. 40, and Joseph de Jouvancy, History of the Society of Jesus, book 15, part 5, num. 43. But since I have with me a fragment of a letter of Father Alfonso Agazzari, then vice-Prepositus of the Roman professed house, and an eyewitness, which Father Ignacio Pinius there excerpted and transcribed for me; and since it teaches us singular circumstances concerning that deed, which I do not find in the cited authors, I cannot but render it here from the Italian. Thus therefore it sounds: Cardinal Baronius went straight to the sepulchre of our blessed Father, and Cardinal Bellarmino followed him, and both, kneeling there, gave themselves to prayer long enough; and while they were rising, Cardinal Baronius prostrated himself on the ground, and kissed the pavement of the burial-place, and, reverence being afterward shown to the most holy Sacrament, they returned to the (Professed) house: and the people were numerous in the church … Some, following this example, went immediately afterward to do this same thing: and by externs flowers were sprinkled on the sepulchre … When the time of the exhortation was at hand, and we were now about to go out of the hall, Cardinal Baronius, his eyes lifted to the image of Father Ignatius, fixed his gaze on it, saying that it would be well if it were placed over his sepulchre; and by various examples he proved that this was not unfitting. And, turning to me, he said: Father vice-Prepositus, you must enter into a certain favor from me: and this will be done, if you order to be made at my expense a fine gilded border which shall go round that picture, and then that it be set out in the church over the burial-place of St. Ignatius. Remind me: for I wish to bear the expense.

[1017] it is narrated, Then Cardinal Bellarmino subjoined that this was his part: that he would pay for the expenses. Baronius said: I wish to do it. And so we proceed to the church, and a beginning was made to the exhortation, which lasted a good large hour, and was quite fine, and full of the praises of our blessed Father Ignatius, this theme being taken up: The Lord loved him, and adorned him; He clothed him with a robe of glory, and crowned him at the gates of paradise … The exhortation being finished, prayers were briefly performed; then the Cardinals betook themselves to the burial-place, and there again bent their knees: and Cardinal Baronius again bent himself to kiss those bricks. Afterward, when they had risen, Cardinal Baronius said that he greatly marveled that that sepulchre was so despoiled, and deprived of every ornament of sanctity. It was answered him that in past time various votive offerings had been offered for favors obtained at the intercession of Father Ignatius; but that our Father General had never wished to permit that they be hung on the sepulchre. The Cardinal asked of me where those votive offerings were deposited. I answered that some were kept in the chapel of the Saints under the high altar. He enjoined me that I should immediately order them to be brought: nay even he himself went to the Saints to fetch them. But when he held them in his hand, he said: I myself wish to hang them on the sepulchre. And tell the Father General that I have done it: for I am certain he will acquiesce.

[1018] And he ordered a ladder to be brought, that he might hang them on high. And so it was done. Afterward he said how Cardinal Baronius that it seemed to him very fitting that the image of Father Ignatius should be there; and by the same authority he commanded that that which was in the hall should be brought down, being fixed in his resolve not to depart thence until he had placed it there with his own hands; that the border would afterward be made … That which brought no less admiration than consolation to all our fathers and brothers, was to see that good old man, clothed in pontifical vestments (for they were clothed with surplice , pall , and shoulder-cape *), climb the ladder up to the summit, carrying the image of Father Ignatius with him. And however much I strove with all my strength to hinder this, doubting whether he might not fall, or bring some misfortune upon himself; yet he, incited by that fervor, altogether wished to ascend, until he had with his own hands placed that picture over the border of the sepulchre, asking us, who below were occupied in holding the ladder, whether the picture was straight or not; and whether it was in the middle. Presently, when he had descended, I seem to myself to have said that I doubted whether it would please the Father General. But he again replied: Tell the Father that I have done it with my own hands: and moreover I will tell the Pope what I have today done here. And, prayers being again instituted, he lifted his eyes to heaven with a great sigh; and then bent himself to give a kiss to the sepulchre. Risen to his feet, and turned to all the fathers and brothers, he said to them: Next year I wish to be reminded eight days before: and I here before the sepulchre will spread a carpet, and I wish that we keep a solemn and public feast, the doors being open. And as he passed, with paternal affection, by voice and by head he saluted, and congratulated himself with all …

[1019] In the hall Cardinal Baronius wished that Father Vázquez should relate minutely began the public cult at Rome, how his miracle had happened. And when Cardinal Bellarmino had said that it could have happened by a natural cause; Baronius, the matter being heard, said again and again and often that it was a manifest miracle. On this occasion many things were reported to him which had happened at Rome and elsewhere. Then they departed. But Cardinal Baronius promised that he would come the next morning (it was then Sunday), to administer the holy Communion to our brothers. As soon as the church was opened after the exhortation, the report now spread abroad, a numerous people flocked together: and very many went straight to the sepulchre, to pray, and fix kisses on those stones. At that morning time, at sunrise, the Lady duchess of Sessa sent three silver candlesticks, equaling in height the stature of a man; and, no word being said to the sacristans or to any other, she ordered them to be set at the sepulchre of Father Ignatius, together with a triple great torch placed over them and lighted … And the whole of today there was a concourse like that of a station, to that holy body.

[1020] At the eleventh hour the Cardinal appeared; and presently, for the sake of praying, betook himself to the church; which the duchess of Sessa augmented, where he remained about one hour. Afterward he began Mass; which being finished, the Cardinal with his own hand distributed the sacred feast to about four hundred persons: and I, with much solace of mine, held the paten, while the Cardinal administered the Eucharist, who wished also to be present at the sermon: but while

I saw him wearied and bathed in sweat, I advised him that he should not remain there. The wife of the Spanish Orator, when she had come early to the sepulchre, for the sake of praying, having brought also all her children and her female retinue, that they might communicate in the body of the Lord from the Cardinal's hand, said to Father Bastida (complaining that with such great haste and so unexpectedly had been celebrated that year the happy memory of the passing of the blessed Father Ignatius) that she alone the following year wished to adorn that sepulchre in such a manner that not even the Father General himself would recognize it; and that she wished now to begin to make flowers, and to weave other ornaments for this end, to compensate for the negligence of this year …

[1021] It seems that blessed God this year excited a singular devotion toward this holy Servant of His, and a great confluence of people, which suggests to me an indication that He also desires something singular and extraordinary; just as singular [and] unexpected, against the will of many, and beyond the will of all, happened that whole series of the matter which I narrated above to your Reverence. But it is manifestly perceived that God so willed. And if our Father General himself with the Father Assistants, and at the same time your Reverences, who for the best reasons concluded the contrary, had been present here, they could not and would not have resisted the abovesaid … At this morning time, when it was said to Cardinal Baronius that those candlesticks and torches had been sent by the duchess of Sessa, he answered: It is not so; but God sent them to honor His Servant. While the Cardinal was distributing the body of Christ, which happened immediately before the sermon, the whole church was full of people: of whom many went, even at the time of the sermon, to the sepulchre, to make prayer there, and to give kisses. Here a writer failed me, but not matter, etc. These are the things which I have translated hither from Father Agazzari's letter. Father Francisco García in the Life of St. Ignatius, book 4, chapter 18, from the letter of Father Bartolomé Pérez, Assistant of the provinces of Spain, given to Father Pietro Ribadeneira on 2 August 1599, also describes the deed of Bellarmino and Baronius. Orlandini, book 16 at the end, says: This was observed a clear indication of the divine will, that, when Claudio Acquaviva the Prepositus General had written from Frascati (Tusculum), and had forbidden for certain causes that anything of this kind be attempted; although the letters of the Prepositus General are wont to be delivered with such great diligence, those, partly by the forgetfulness of one of the brothers of the Roman college, partly by the sloth of a muleteer, who, ordered to leave them at the house of the professed, carried them back to Frascati, were never delivered to Alfonso Agazzari, president of the professed house, to whom they were sent. Which if he had received in time, he would undoubtedly have disturbed the whole matter. Thus he.

[1022] God so disposing the matter that the cult was not disturbed. Nor would I pass over producing a certain excerpt from the Italian letter of Father Bernardino Rossignoli, given at Rome on 2 August 1599, according to our Roman copies, among which I find the following, from which we learn that divine providence in a certain singular manner watched over the business of the beatification of St. Ignatius. Hear the words: We see in it God acting by an extraordinary way: of which the argument is, besides the case of Father Vaschel (read Vázquez, from num. 1019), another case of a certain Auditor of a Most Eminent Cardinal, who, offended by this little word BY RIGHT HE OUGHT, set about writing against it: and suddenly began to feel a pain of the head, which grew always by the same degrees as the writing: so that, while he was offering the writing to his Cardinal, from the magnitude of the intolerable pain he seemed to faint. Returned home, he took to his bed, with a flux of the belly. Then indeed the good Auditor acknowledged his error, and, compunct, and commending himself to the holy Father, began to fare better: he ordered relics to be sought, and now is quite well. And now he ordered to be said to his Cardinal once and again the contrary of that which he had written.

Jouvancy, in the place cited above, after he had treated of the above deed of Baronius, subjoins: Nor content with these things, on the same day toward evening, addressing the people from a higher place in the sacred edifice of the Oratory, he brought in discourse concerning Ignatius, and exhorted all to his veneration: at last in the sacred congregation of Rites, which was held three days after, namely on the 3rd of the Nones of August (Sextilis) in the year 1599, he openly proclaimed what he had done, and confirmed his deed by ancient and recent examples. But so far was it that this deed of Baronius was disapproved by the Cardinals, that rather the authority of so great a Man moved the purpled Fathers, and forthwith a decree was composed, the same author reporting these things, in these words: When the congregation of Sacred Rites had considered the just requests, not once proposed by the Society, its reasons being read through and considered, among which many miracles were reckoned, and the distinguished fame of the sanctity of Ignatius was set forth: and likewise observed that he had been the founder of a Religion so holy and approved by so many Pontiffs, which throughout the whole world, scattering with such great fruit the seed of evangelical doctrine, and even its own blood, brings great advantages to the whole Church by its doctrine and examples: and also regarded the prayers of magnates and princes and peoples, and especially of the whole Society itself; it decided that, if it seemed good to the Pontiff, the business should be given to the pontifical Nuncio in Spain, and to one archbishop, and to three or four bishops of those lands where Ignatius had been born and passed his life, and the same be permitted to the most illustrious Vicar at Rome, that they should generally take cognizance of his life, sanctity, and fame of miracles: whence then it might be reported to the Pontiff, and the cause of canonization begun. Thus he there. But let us proceed to the following years.

[1023] Father Ignacio Pinius, among other things which he transmitted hither in the Roman Gleaning, Deeds of Cardinal Baronius in the year 1600. testifies that he found the undersigned in our archive, namely those things which Cardinal Baronius said in the exhortation which he held in our church, at the time of the prayer of the forty hours before Lent, this, as is had from the same place, in the year 1600. The Italian, which I have before me, contains a certain renewal of the cult begun in 1599 by Baronius; thus I translate them: When I see this apparatus, and so great a concourse in these days, I feel excited in me a great affection of praising God; since it appears to me that, just as temples dedicated to idols were anciently wont to be consecrated to the true God with the sacred ceremonies of Christians, so the time of the bacchanalia, which used to be dedicated to the demon, is now consecrated to the Lord our God by the devotion of these forty hours. A great reason for praising and blessing God. To this greatly conduces the zeal of these fathers of the Society, who, rich in spiritual inventions, thus procure the salvation of souls: the piety and help of these lords of the congregation concur: the elegance of this ornament helps, these lights, this pomp; but the root of all these is under the ground; we do not see it. We see the foliage of these ornaments; we see the fruit, which is the salvation of souls; we see the branches, which are the congregation; we see the trunk, which is this holy Society: but the root is hidden under the ground. And what is this root, if not blessed Father Ignatius, who very opportunely is here buried under the ground? etc.

In passing let it be permitted here to indicate that the solemn prayers of the forty hours, which are instituted every year on the last three days of the bacchanalia (carnival) in the churches of the Society of Jesus, have St. Ignatius as their author, on the testimony of Bouhours, book 5 of the Life; but on what occasion, you will find in the same place. But what was elsewhere done for the progress of the beatification, the Narration of Ribadeneira cited above will give. For from page 46 is set forth a letter of the Catholic King Philip III to Clement VIII; another of the same king to the Duke of Sessa, his Orator at Rome, given on 3 May 1602, occurs from page 48; another again of the same king to the same on 27 August in the year 1603, from page 50; which there from page 52 is followed by another of the same monarch to the Duke of Escalona, then his Orator at Rome in place of the Duke of Sessa, on 24 May in the year 1604.

* Italian rochetto * Italian mantello * Italian mozzetta.

§ XCVIII. The beatification promoted and obtained under Pope Paul V; the Decree of the sacred congregation of Rites.

Clement VIII, who died in the month of March of the year 1605, was succeeded by Leo XI: whom the very brief duration of his pontificate did not hinder from promising (on the faith of the aforesaid Narration, page 58) to give a remissorial letter for the canonization of St. Ignatius; but, prevented by death, he contributed nothing to it, Paul V designates the judges of this cause: according to what is there reported, besides good will. Him succeeded Paul V in the month of May of the same year 1605; for whom divine providence reserved these happy parts. For the same most holy Vicar of Christ was instructed by the Society concerning the state of that business, and concerning the endeavors applied to its success, and it was besought of him that he would order to be expedited the compulsory and remissorial letters for making the inquisitions and diligence necessary in this cause. His Holiness assented: and therefore he named and deputed the judges of that cause, the lords Alessandro Ludovisi, Alfonso Manzanedo de Quiñones, and Giovanni Battista Pamphili, Auditors of the Rota; who sent their remissorials to the archbishops, bishops, and prelates of the places in which the inquisitions for the said canonization were to be instituted; according to the said Narration, page 59.

[1025] remissorial letters are dispatched into Spain, Moreover the remissorials were six in number for the provinces of Spain, namely for the province of Toledo was named the Most Eminent Lord Bernardo de Rojas y Sandoval, Cardinal and archbishop of Toledo; to whom was joined the bishop of Segovia; although afterward, that it might be done more conveniently, there was substituted for him Don Melchior de Soria, bishop of Troia. In the kingdom of Valencia, Don Juan de Ribera, patriarch of Antioch and archbishop of Valencia: to whom was joined the bishop of Chinerbia (Xinquer?), of the Order of St. Francis. In the province of Castile, Don Alonso Manrique, archbishop of Burgos; to whom was joined Don Alonso Henríquez, bishop of Sidonia, and a Religious of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. In the same province, Don Antonio Venegas, bishop of Pamplona; to whom was joined the same bishop of Sidonia. In the principality of Catalonia, the bishop of Barcelona, and the bishop of Vich. In the island of Majorca, which belongs to the province of Aragon, Don Alonso Laso, formerly archbishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, then bishop of Majorca; to whom was joined he who shone forth with the primary dignity of that church; concerning whom the cited little work from page 60; from which I have drawn these things. The remissorial letter to the archbishop of Toledo follows there from page 61; and is signed in the year 1606, on 27 May.

[1026] The remissorial first opened was that which was directed to the bishops of Barcelona and Vich, because it came before the others, and are opened there, each to its own prelates presented on the 10th day of April of the year 1606, those lords sitting in tribunal in the collegiate church of St. Anne, which is of the regular canons of Barcelona, quite well

adorned, and full of persons who shone above the rest, both ecclesiastical and secular, of the whole city; in which on the same day had been begun the provincial congregation of the province of Aragon of our Society; and all the fathers of the same were present at this quite solemn act; according to what is there narrated from page 80. The affairs at Barcelona being finished, the aforesaid prelates betook themselves to Manresa, that both there and at Montserrat they might inquire into the deeds; page 81. What was done at Madrid, where Pietro Ribadeneira, the author of this Narration, then dwelt, on 4 September in the year 1606, you have there, page 82; concerning the acts on 2 October of the same year, regarding the remissorial with the patriarch and archbishop of Valencia, there is treatment from page 83; who then, having set out for Gandía, devoted himself to the cause of St. Ignatius; and the matter being done, on the fourth Sunday after Easter of the year 1607 there gave a sermon in praise of the Saint and of the Society; in the chapel likewise, in which was the image of the blessed Father; for nine days he made Mass at the altar; on the last of which he imparted with his own hand the holy communion to a great multitude of people; and offered to the blessed Man a precious cross, which he had used at the time of the Mass.

[1027] I should be longer, if I mentioned individually the deeds done by the archbishop of Burgos, with solemnity. on 27 October of the year 1606. What was done both by the city of Pamplona on 20 December of the same year 1606, and by the garrison soldier of the citadel which had given Ignatius the occasion of a better life, under the viceroy of Navarre Don Juan de Cardona, in the business of the remissorial presented to Don Antonio Venegas, bishop of Pamplona, and to the prelate of Sidonia, you will find there from page 88; but what at Majorca, page 90. The same author there begins to report those things which followed after those eight inquisitions or processes, namely the Barcelona, Manresa, Madrid, Valencia, Gandía, Burgos, Pamplona, and Majorca, being closed and fortified with the seal of the prelates who had completed them, approved and sent to Rome, and presented to the sacred tribunal of the three Auditors of the Rota, judges delegated in this cause by Paul V, together with the process formed at Rome, and others sent from elsewhere from Italy and Belgium, whither the remissorials had been directed; and then subjoins that a very exact compendium of all those inquisitions and processes was made at Rome with the greatest accuracy, which was consigned into the hands of the said Auditors of the Rota for the easier and more certain investigation of the truth of this cause. But what under Clement VIII the kings of Spain had performed by their letters, as I said above; the same under Paul V it seemed good to Philip III to perform: whose letters to that supreme Pontiff are given in the Narration from page 92, dispatched on 7 March 1609. Margaret, queen of Spain, had preceded on 16 February 1609, from page 94; but the letters of the said king to his legate at Rome, the marquis de Aitona, on 7 May of the same year 1609, from page 96.

[1028] But seeing, according to what follows from page 98, that the Society of Jesus would not so soon obtain the canonization of its holy Founder, The Society meanwhile obtains the beatification: as it had in its wishes, on account of the extraordinary diligence which the holy Apostolic See applies in a business of such great moment; and because in it it proceeds, certain times being observed, according to its custom and style, with such great weight and maturity that nothing is beyond; seeing, I say, that these things were so, the Society resolved to beseech His Holiness that it might please him to command that, as regards the canonization, it should be accelerated; and that meanwhile he would not be loath to honor our blessed Parent Ignatius with the appellation of the Blessed, and to permit to the whole Society, in whatever direction it extends itself through the world, to recite the Office and Mass in his honor. To the wishes there responded a happy success in the manner and order which are contained in the following instrument, from the original decree of the sacred congregation of Rites on this matter, transcribed by the hand of Father Ignacio Pinius, in these terms:

[1029] Domenico, bishop of Ostia, Dean of the sacred College, whose decree Cardinal Pinelli of the Holy Roman Church, prefect of the congregation of Sacred Rites. To all and singular who shall inspect, read, and hear these presents, everlasting greeting in the Lord. Whereas, on account of the excellence and sanctity of life of Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, founder of the Society of Jesus, which not without the greatest advantage and increase of the whole Christian commonwealth has been diffused and dilated throughout the whole world, and on account of the coruscation of miracles which almighty and merciful God, beyond the accustomed use of nature, by the merits and intercession of the same Ignatius, both while he lived and after his happy falling asleep in the Lord, deigned to work, and daily from day to day still does not disdain to work, almost all the Catholic kings and princes, and some chapters of metropolitan and cathedral churches, and many cities, and the whole Order of the same Society of Jesus, with repeated prayers, both by letters and by voice and in writing, have humbly besought our most holy Lord Pope Paul V, and with the most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinals prefects in the sacred congregation of Rites have very often insisted, that for preserving and augmenting the devotion of the peoples, which is greatly and everywhere diffused in the whole world, toward the same Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, on account of the innumerable graces received from God by his merits, since now the processes concerning the purity of faith, excellence of morals, sanctity of life, and coruscation of miracles of the same Ignatius of good memory had been made by Apostolic authority, and presented in the same sacred congregation, to the glory of God and the increase of the Catholic Church, His Holiness would deign to commit and ordain that one should proceed to further steps in the canonization of the said Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, and that meanwhile, until effectually the aforesaid canonization be reached, and the said Ignatius be referred to the number of the Saints, he might and ought to be called Blessed; and that concerning him, as of a Blessed, Mass and Office might be recited as of one confessor not a pontiff, both in the City, where his body is buried, and everywhere, by the fathers, clerics, and Religious of the same congregation of the Society of Jesus, which Ignatius himself, while living, instituted and founded:

[1030] from the transcript of the original itself And whereas the same most holy Lord referred all the aforesaid letters, processes, and writings to the same sacred congregation of Rites, that, all things being maturely examined, it might report to His Holiness what the sacred congregation of Rites thought concerning the aforesaid instances and petitions: at last the same sacred congregation of Rites, the compendium or summary of the deeds of the life and miracles of Ignatius himself, transmitted through the hands of the individual lord Cardinals of the same congregation, being seen, and the relation of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinal Pamphili being heard, to whom in particular this business had been committed by the same sacred congregation to be diligently seen and examined, in a full congregation held in the halls of our usual residence, in which together with us there were present the most illustrious and most reverend lords Antonio Maria, bishop of Palestrina, a Frenchman; Francesco Maria, of the title of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, of Monte; Roberto, of the title of Santa Maria in Via, Bellarmino; Girolamo, of the title of San Biagio dell'Anello, Pamphili; Giovanni Garzia, of the title of the Santi Quattro Coronati, Mellini; Giovanni Battista, of the title of San Sisto, Leni, priests; Andrea, of the title of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, Peretti; Giovanni Battista, of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Deti; and Luigi, of Sant'Agata, Capponi, deacons, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, prefects of the congregation of Sacred Rites, all things to be discussed and examined being maturely discussed and examined, all the abovesaid most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinals decided and declared (if it should so please our most holy Lord) that the same Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, founder of the Society of Jesus, might and could henceforth be called Blessed, and that concerning him, as of a Blessed, the Office and Mass, as of one confessor not a Pontiff, might and could be recited by all the priests, clerics, and Religious of the said Society of Jesus, in their churches and places only, freely and licitly, on the day of his happy falling asleep in the Lord, the day before the Kalends of August; and in the City on the said day, in the church of the Society of Jesus only, where his venerable body rests, all priests, both regular of whatever Order, and secular, according to their devotion, might and could celebrate Mass concerning him.

[1031] And the same most holy Lord Pope Paul V, is here produced. having heard the relation concerning all the premises, made to His Holiness by us, approved and praised the opinion of the congregation, and granted and conceded that the said Ignatius de Loyola might and could henceforth be called Blessed, and that concerning him, in all the churches and places of the Society of Jesus, by the priests and clerics of the same Society only, the Office and Mass of the common of one confessor not a pontiff might and could be recited and celebrated freely and licitly, on the day of his happy falling asleep in the Lord, the day before the Kalends of August; and in the City on the said day, in the church of the Society of Jesus only, where the body of the said blessed Ignatius rests, all priests, both secular and regular, might and could freely and licitly celebrate Mass in honor of the same blessed Ignatius according to their devotion, he granted and conceded.

In faith and testimony of all and singular which, we have ordered these presents to be made by the undersigned secretary of the same congregation, and have subscribed with our own hand, and caused to be fortified with the impression of our accustomed seal. At Rome on the 27th day of July, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand six hundred and nine, but in the fifth year of the pontificate of the aforesaid most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the fifth. I, Domenico, bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Pinelli. And the seal of the same Cardinal is affixed, as also this subscription: J. P. Mucanzio, secretary of the congregation.

§ XCIX. The public joy of the City and of the world at the said beatification; the same confirmed from heaven by prodigies; the Brief of Pope Paul V, by which the Office and Mass of the Blessed is extended to the whole Society; the deeds under the said Pontiff for the canonization.

The public joy of the Catholic world at the sacred honors conferred on the Man so abundantly deserving of them, Father Joseph de Jouvancy expresses, History of the Society of Jesus, book 15, Signs of joy at the beatification of Ignatius part 5, §7; where he thus speaks: That happy appellation, sought by the wishes of so many kings and princes, of so many peoples, as soon as it was issued by the oracle of Paul V, supreme Pontiff; then, as if the dikes were broken, the public piety of mortals poured itself forth toward a Man born for the public salvation, and with all the arguments of joy, with all the monuments of glory, cities, kingdoms, provinces vied to pursue the blessed name. Rome, the prince of cities, shone before the rest. Naples, following the example, brought forth whatever of pomp and celebration could be devised. The viceroy, the urban cohorts,

the troops of nobles, the religious Orders, an innumerable multitude of citizens filled the churches of the Society. Toward evening the whole city blazed with harmless fires, which, added to the windows of the houses, scattered through the crossways, placed on scaffolds and stages, gave various spectacles to the congratulating people, and drove sleep and night far away. On the next day the sea took its part, and exhibited friendly vessels meeting with hostile fronts, and the feigned perils of a playful Mars on the placid water. The grim lawsuits and the sad forum were silent for many days: only the applauding Muses were heard in the lyceum, and, eagerly desiring to adorn the public rejoicings by turns with literary offerings. The crowd flowing together from the neighboring towns and villages augmented the joy, with votive gifts and offerings, which, hung here and there on the altars and domes, testified the distinguished esteem of the people concerning Blessed Ignatius, and their minds mindful of the benefits received from him.

[1033] excellently diffused throughout Europe: Equal was the token of joy in the other cities of Europe, equal the pomp. The life, virtues, and famous deeds of Ignatius here were interwoven into tapestries, there brought upon the stage; elsewhere shadowed forth by ingenious symbols; engraved in bronze and marble, painted on banners glittering with gold and purple, lay open. It would be long to report the triumphal arches erected, the obelisks, the machines adorned with exotic figures, the trophies, the pyramids; the festive plays of fires departing into all forms with wondrous variety; the illustrious offspring of piety, genius, and doctrine published in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland; so that no element, no order of men, no part of the world even the most remote, was idle in the common joy. India, China, Japan, Peru, Mexico, the Philippines, strove to compensate the tardiness of their homage (for the pontifical diploma was not brought thither until the following year) by the magnificence of their spectacles and their splendor, and thought their native riches, gold, pearls, gems, well bestowed in venerating him from whose sons and nurslings they had received the treasures of the heavenly kingdom and the hope of blessed immortality. But that joy did not stand among men alone:

[1034] heaven confirming it with miracles For the endeavors of mortals, on the testimony of Jouvancy just designated, heaven confirmed by unusual prodigies, and the miracles which had been scattered in past years flowed as though collected into this. Workmen in several places, while they too incautiously hastened the extemporaneous machines, fallen from lofty scaffolds or ladders, Ignatius, whose glory they served, as it were putting a hand under them, returned to their work not only unharmed but stronger. A young man of Naples was preparing food with artificial fires: an unexpected flame foully injured his hand: the autograph of the Blessed Father being applied, he received it whole. A Neapolitan matron could not bring forth her offspring, dead, as the midwife thought. The husband, saddened by the peril of his offspring and his wife, suppliantly implored divine help, Ignatius being the mediator and interpreter, grief and weariness brought sleep: in it he seemed to see Ignatius beseeching God for the boy, that he might not perish eternally. At the same time the wailing of a boy sounds in his ears. He rises, and sees that the infant, his wife being safe, had come forth. Immediately dipped in the sacred laver (baptized), it closed its mortal life in one day, for that end obtained by entreaty, that it might live an immortal and everlasting one.

[1035] At Donauwörth, when now religion restored had recovered its former beauty, a pregnant matron was suddenly seized by the falling sickness (epilepsy). the endeavors of mortals in this matter. The midwives called had despaired both of the mother and of the fetus. There is a running to our men: the woman meanwhile dies. The husband suspended from his wife's neck the relics given by the fathers of St. Ignatius: the infant puts forth its hand from the womb and is baptized. At Innsbruck a woman was wont to cast forth untimely fetuses: she conceives a vow that, if she brings forth a male offspring in a mature birth, she will give it the name of Ignatius: she brought forth; she imposed it. At Tarragona, Nancy, Avignon, Valencia, Lérida, Majorca, Madrid, Lima, at the name of Ignatius and the sacred ashes, diseases, fevers, wounds fled away. To many was restored the use of eyes, ears, voice, feet. A citizen of Potosí now for a whole four years could not stand on his feet, nor take a single step, unless sustained by a double staff: He, having heard the alacrity of the people dancing and saluting Ignatius the blessed: Shall I, he said, sighing, alone lie here bound, while the city exults! He feels in the midst of his voice his feet strengthened, casts away one staff, then the other; and finally flew to the college, to make our men more certain of the miracle. Thus he there. Concerning the rest, which are subjoined, it will be seen in the posthumous Glory of the Saint.

[1036] But now Rome recalls us, intent henceforth on amplifying the cult of the new Blessed: The Brief of Paul V of the beatification is produced, for I have at hand the Brief of the beatification of St. Ignatius by Paul V, taken from the Roman original, by which his Office and Mass is extended to the whole Society. It is signed on 3 December in the year 1609, and thus has: Pope Paul V. To the perpetual memory of the matter. Constituted in the seat of the Prince of the Apostles by the Lord, although no merits of ours seconding it, we willingly assent to the pious wishes of the faithful, by which the Lord of virtues is honored in His servants, and by Apostolic authority we grant, as we see in the Lord to be expedient. Indeed it was lately set forth to us in the name of our beloved sons Claudio Acquaviva, Prepositus General, and of all the Religious of the Society of Jesus, that Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, Founder of the aforesaid Society of Jesus, was illustrated by the Lord with many and eminent gifts of virtues and graces and miracles, and therefore great is the devotion of the faithful of Christ toward his name and memory.

[1037] Wherefore not only the whole aforesaid Society, whereby, at the supplication of the Society, of the Catholic princes, etc. but also almost all our most dear sons in Christ the kings, and beloved sons the nobles and Catholic princes, and also some chapters of metropolitan and cathedral churches, and the communities of many cities, and men, have caused humble supplication to be made to us with repeated prayers, that, until they obtain from the Apostolic See the honor of canonization, which they hope will one day, the divine grace inspiring it, be had for the said Ignatius on account of his excellent merits, the same Ignatius might be called Blessed, and concerning him the Office and Mass, both in the City, where his body is asserted to be buried, and everywhere, might be recited by the priests, clerics, and other Religious of the same Society, as of one confessor not a pontiff.

[1038] Wherefore we, the matter being first maturely discussed through our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church prefects of the sacred Rites, [he extends the public cult of the Blessed in the Office and Mass to the whole Society:] to whom we committed it to be examined, on the counsel of the same Cardinals, inclined to supplications of this kind, that the same Ignatius de Loyola of good memory, Founder of the aforesaid Society, might henceforth be called Blessed, and that concerning him, as of a Blessed, in all the churches and places of the same Society of Jesus, by the priests and clerics of the said Society only, the Office and Mass of the common of one confessor not a pontiff, on the day of his falling asleep in the Lord, the last day of July, might and could be recited and celebrated; and moreover in the same City, on the said day, in the church of the Society of Jesus only, where the body of the said blessed Ignatius, as is set forth, is asserted to rest, all priests, both secular and regular, might and could freely and licitly celebrate Mass in honor of the same blessed Ignatius according to their devotion, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, we perpetually concede and grant.

[1039] notwithstanding, etc. Notwithstanding the Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and those of the said Society, and statutes and customs corroborated by oath, Apostolic confirmation, or any other firmness, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. But we will that to the transcripts of these presents, subscribed by the hand of some public notary or secretary of the same Society, and fortified with the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, or even of the same Society, the same faith be given everywhere which would be given to these presents themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 3rd day of December 1609, in the fifth year of our pontificate. S. Cobelluzzi. On the back is a seal in red Spanish wax.

[1040] Notice is given of various things, And thus indeed stood the public veneration of our Parent up to this year; but what was done after the said year 1609 for promoting his canonization, I shall now expound. Our Roman copies, directed to me by the oft-praised collector, supply a manuscript copy prefaced with this title: Propositions confirmed concerning the canonization of Blessed Father Ignatius by the Auditors of the Rota. But the day of the week and of the month, and also the year, are appended, in which the individual classes of propositions were approved by those lords. The time extends from the 29th day of October 1611 up to 2 January of the year 1615, which I read there noted as the last. Whence it is a consequence that, after the solemn appellation of the Blessed, and the Office and Mass concerning him granted to the Society, it proceeded not idly to labor for promoting his solemn canonization. But now, what besides was performed in favor of this cause by the Roman Curia, I learn from our codex written by hand; which is inscribed: The Relation of Francesco Sacrati, archbishop of Damascus, of Alfonso Manzanedo de Quiñones, of Giovanni Battista Pamphili, Auditors of the Rota, made to our most holy Lord Pope Paul V, concerning the life and miracles of Blessed Father Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, formed concerning his canonization, extracted. Concerning which Relation, from those things which are there on folio 3 verso and folio 4, observe: 1. That, Alessandro Ludovisi (who above was named in the first place among the Auditors of the Rota) being assumed to the church of Bologna, there was afterward subrogated Francesco Sacrati, archbishop of Damascus. 2. That that authentic Relation is at Rome, and is subscribed at the end by its three aforesaid authors; from the Roman papers sent by Father Pinius.

[1041] which were done at Rome to hasten the canonization of the Blessed Now I extract certain points from the said Relation, for whatever knowledge of the things done in it. Those things therefore being premised which had preceded for the mature instruction of this cause, the aforesaid Auditors of the Rota, being about to make a relation to His Holiness, divide it for the sake of perspicuity into three parts. And in the first indeed there is treatment concerning the validity and legality, as they call it, of the processes made by Apostolic authority; and individually, concerning the remissorial processes of Modena, Majorca, Burgos, Valencia, Barcelona, Pamplona, Toledo, Juvenac (Genappe?), the compulsory of Madrid; and concerning the Roman process made by them. In the second part there is treatment concerning the sanctity and excellence of his life, the eminent works of faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and also other arguments and the common fame being proved; among which in the last place is adduced that public honor which by the Apostolic letters of beatification on 3 December in the year 1609 was granted. The third part is concerning the select miracles, and those proved by judgment, ten in number. After these the aforesaid Auditors of the Rota, putting an end to their Relation, say: From all which we have concluded that this cause is in such a state that Your Holiness can, as often as it shall please you, solemnly canonize this Blessed, and refer him among the Saints in the form customary to the Church.

[1042] This was the state of the cause of canonization of which we treat, were done at Rome, on the 7th day of March, of the year 1617, to which the said Relation is attached; as we have from what is to be said in the next number, and from paragraph 101, part 2, num. 1080. But in the Italian enumeration of the Documents which it was necessary to exhibit, inserted in our Roman copies by their collector, there are noted, expressed in their terms according to the style of the Curia, the Original informative documents with many other writings. The original informative of Gandía; the original remissorials of Brussels, Florence, and Modena; the Majorca, Barcelona, Valencia, Gandía, Toledo, Burgos, Pamplona, Juvenac; the Molsheim, the original compulsory of Madrid. There are subjoined those in Latin: the Broliardus, as it is called, of all the acts, with its copy; the remissorial Roll on parchment, the Relation of the lords Auditors for the supreme Pontiff. The supreme Pontiff held [it] on 7 March 1617. The Register of the Cause. Part I. The Register of the Cause. Part II. Thus he there. To which add two bundles of letters from princes to the supreme Pontiff and to the congregation, given after the beatification. Likewise two little bundles of letters from Spain concerning the validity of the processes; according to our said transcript. The Broliardus (in Italian brogliardo) here is the register or public tables of the deeds in the cause of canonization.

§ C. The letters of Louis XIII, King of the French, for the canonization of the Blessed; those of Gregory XV in reply to them.

In our Roman documents these things are noted, excerpted from an Italian writing: After various supplications in the cause of canonization of others, The Most Christian King, when he had undertaken the promotion of the canonization of Blessed Ignatius, from that time received the blessed Father as his patron and tutelary, especially for purging his kingdom of heresy. And when he had already written letters for the canonization of Blessed Ignatius to Paul V; having heard of his death, he sent others written with his own hand to his successor Gregory XV; which, rendered from French into Latin, thus sound:

[1043] Most Blessed Father. Since the beginnings of matters to be done are taken more happily from no thing than from that action which tends to the divine glory: it will, I think, be most pleasing to His Holiness that in this entrance upon his administration of the Church, the first petition which is made by me should be King Louis XIII of France, best affected toward the Society, of that work which may no less illustrate his paternal piety than augment the inmost sense of devotion which God deigns to inspire in my soul. My first instruction, both in the matters of faith and also in good morals, flowed from the fathers of the Society of Jesus: they have hitherto governed, to my greatest good and consolation, the secret of my conscience; and I desire also to bring it about that their whole Order should feel the fruits and effects of my benevolence. Wherefore, when I had learned that the process of the canonization of Blessed Ignatius, who is the leader and author of those of the Society, was now completed, and that nothing else remained for the accomplishment of so great a work than the will of His Holiness, I thought it must be besought of him, which indeed I do with all affection and desire of soul, that he would be willing to declare him by public testimony, and refer him into the number of the Saints whom holy mother Church pursues with solemn honor.

[1044] he holds and asks it in place of the greatest benefit, Which favor, or what graces might befall me, however many and great; yet they will by no means be able to equal that consolation of soul which this one thing will bring me; which, besides those benedictions which I trust I shall receive, will complete his whole administration with great and eminent felicity. Divine providence, which breathes upon the wills of men, and rules the movements of the soul, permitting it, it came to pass that hitherto I did not declare this sense of devotion, for some years deeply impressed in my soul, since it also reserved for His Holiness so celebrated an action, but for me that felicity, that I might be able to offer him a petition of this kind, which he will judge worthy of the firstborn son of the Church. This title of praise and glory, no less piously engraved in my soul than justly once possessed by my ancestors, both adds sharp stimuli to me for the amplification of the Catholic religion and the extinction of heresy, and inflames me the more vehemently to seek the aforesaid canonization, because I promise myself with sure hope that the intercession of this Blessed, and his favor with God, will be for me a most powerful protection and help for performing those things for the cause of which he himself was sent by God into this world, and in which this religious Order labors with such great usefulness to all.

[1045] that Ignatius be referred among the Saints. My kingdom has divinely obtained this good and illustrious benediction, that so great a Servant of God came to my city of Paris to acquire learning; that in the same place he joined pious fellow-soldiers to himself; that in the church of the Mount of the Martyrs religiously consecrated to the Apostle of France he laid the foundations and beginnings of his Society. Great hope holds me that new benedictions and singular gifts from God will befall me, if His Holiness gives and grants this, that at my request he be referred into the number of the Saints as soon as possible. Which, as it is the first thing which I thought should be delivered to him, so I pray and beseech him that it may obtain the same place in those holy and praised actions which are expected from his Pontifical administration: which administration I pray may be dear and acceptable to God, the supreme Creator of all, to His honor and glory, to the edification of the Church, and to the good and propagation of the whole Christian name. At Paris, 24 February 1621. Louis. Father Ignacio Pinius notes that those things which above are enclosed in brackets do not stand in his French copy: then that for the day 24, in the French is had 14.

[1046] Thus far the pathetic letters of the Most Christian King; which Father Dominique Bouhours published in French at the end of his Ignatian Life. What the supreme Pontiff answered. Father Ignacio Pinius subjoins that to the king's letters were joined, to the same most Holy Father, the epistles of the Cardinals de la Rochefoucauld and de Retz; that the Pontiff answered by letters given at Rome on 22 March 1621 (of which, he says, a copy here stands); and praised the distinguished piety of the king, and his desire of amplifying the divine cult: but since the canonization of the Saints among the actions of the Roman Pontiffs has always had a certain chief place, in which they have proceeded as the Holy Spirit led them, that he could not resolve concerning it without the greatest consideration. But that it would be most pleasing to him if he could satisfy the king: and that he hoped it would come to pass that God would suggest that which would conduce both to the divine glory and to the solace of the royal piety. Then, when the king's Orator at each audience recalled to His Holiness the memory of the royal petition and grace, which the king reckoned the greatest; the Pontiff, the matter being maturely weighed meanwhile and commended to the Lord, on 30 April announced to the Orator that he wished that one should proceed to the canonization, and that he should signify this in his name to the king. Afterward the Orator insisted that as soon as possible the business should be referred, according to custom, to the congregation of Rites, and that into it should be enrolled the most illustrious Cardinal Sacrati, who had treated that matter when he was Auditor of the Rota: to both the Pontiff assented; as is clear from the twin letters of Cardinal Ludovisi, given on 12 May 1621, the one to the Orator of France, the other to the Father General of the Society of Jesus. Thus, by the grace of God, it was begun on 29 May to treat of the whole matter in the aforesaid congregation. Thus he.

[1047] Moreover, on the 26th day of February in the year 1621, the lord de Modène had given a letter to Gregory XV, To the noble Man seeking the canonization in the name of the King of France, by which he asks in the name of the King of France the canonization of Blessed Ignatius. It is in Italian, and proposes various reasons which move the aforesaid king to this. The reply of Gregory XV to the preceding, transcribed from a copy, is in my hands, inserted among the Roman copies, of this tenor: To our beloved son, the noble man, the lord de Modène, Pope Gregory XV. Beloved son, noble man, greeting, etc. We read long since with great pleasure the letters of your nobility, in which you eloquently enumerated the causes which impel the mind of the Most Christian King to seek the heavenly honors for Blessed Ignatius of Loyola. Truly you offered us no ordinary occasion of joy: for in them we beheld graphically expressed the royal mind, which would think that it rashly possessed the kingdoms of St. Louis, unless it also imitated his piety. In truth there is hope that a young man will reign to the greatest good not only of France but of all Europe, whom so anxious a care of amplifying the Catholic religion solicits. We indeed, who desire that felicity may be divinely joined to such great virtue, are also most willingly ever ready to gratify his will; then the Society of Jesus itself, which has propagated the bounds of the Christian commonwealth even into new worlds, is worthy that the suffrage of so great a king be held both powerful and gracious with Us in that cause.

[1048] But indeed your nobility is not ignorant that men eminent in sanctity, the same most Holy [Father answers.] whom virtue is believed to have borne to heaven, are not to be venerated at altars and in temples before, the matter being longer weighed, and the Holy Spirit dictating, we supreme Pontiffs are impelled to decree it: for in so great a matter we ought to obey the divine command, not human authority, we who render vicarious service to God on the summit of the Apostolic dignity. What therefore is in us, we will suppliantly and humbly pray Him, that He may lay open to us His opinion, and persuade us to decree that which is both salutary to the Catholic religion, and also most pleasing to the Most Christian majesty. But your nobility, which with such great zeal seconds the glory of holy men, we also pursue with our praises, hoping that the authority in which you flourish with so great a king will be a most safe refuge for virtues, and a most certain protection of true piety in France. Given at Rome at Santa Maria Maggiore, etc., on the 25th day of September 1621, in the first year of our pontificate, etc.

§ CI. The Relation made to Pope Gregory XV concerning the life, sanctity, acts of canonization, and miracles of St. Ignatius.

The first part, which is concerning the virtues.

Still these things were thus; when at last the business of Blessed Ignatius, to be numbered on the solemn rolls of the Saints by the oracle of the Apostolic See, came to that point, that it now remains to be said of the Relation of that cause; which, published in print, is prefaced with this title: The Relation made in the secret consistory before our most holy Lord Pope Gregory XV, by Francesco Maria, bishop of Porto, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, of Monte, on the 19th day of January 1622, concerning the life, sanctity, acts of canonization, and miracles of blessed Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus. But the text of the said Relation is expressed in these words:

[1050] The prologue being premised Most Blessed Father. When the hostile man in the past age, in the field of the Church well subdued and prepared, had oversown tares, and in Germany by the blasphemous tongue of Luther, and in England by the unheard-of savagery of Henry, strove to withdraw and extinguish all possession of religion and of the more perfect life, and all observance toward the Vicar of Christ: the ineffable goodness and mercy of God, which in past ages against the springing-up heresiarchs destined Athanasius, Basil, Nazianzen, Cyril, Jerome,

Augustine, Bernard, Francis, Dominic, and the other men illustrious in sanctity; in these last times raised up the spirit of Ignatius of Loyola, who, called from the midst of the course of honors, and from the secular and earthly warfare by a certain admirable method, so permitted himself to be ruled and formed by the divine command that at last, a new Religion being founded by the authority of this holy See, which by its institute expends itself wholly upon converting the gentiles, recalling heretics to the truth of the faith, and defending the power of the Roman Pontiff, he concluded a life passed in admirable sanctity by a pious departure in the Lord, and after his death was illustrated by many miracles.

[1051] and the division of the present cause being premised, Being about, by the command of Your Holiness, to make words concerning this Man before the most ample Senate, and to report the state of the whole cause, the merits of the canonization instituted for him, and the opinion of the sacred congregation of Rites; I have proposed to myself three things briefly to explain. First, the life and actions of this Servant of God, remarkable and excellent in sanctity. Second, the things done in this cause. Third, the miracles exhibited by God through his intercession: so that, if Your Holiness shall have judged the first two worthy of approbation, and shall have decreed the last part to be recounted, the opinions of my individual most reverend Lords being asked according to custom, you may be able to resolve, according to the mind of your soul, that which you shall judge more expedient for the glory of God and the propagation of the Catholic faith.

[1052] Ignatius of Loyola was born, Most Blessed Father, in that region of Spain which pertains to the Pyrenees, the Saint's birth, secular life, and conversion are narrated. in the town of Azpeitia of the diocese of Pamplona, in the year 1491, of Beltrán of Loyola and María Sánchez, noble, Catholic, and pious parents, who took care to have their son educated with like piety. Having become a youth, since he was of eminent disposition both of soul and body, he was sent to the court of Ferdinand the Catholic King: where, when he had remained for some time among the honorary pages, he betook himself to Antonio Manrique, duke of Nájera, viceroy of Navarre, dwelling at Pamplona, a noble and princely city of that kingdom, and began to give his endeavor to military affairs. And when that city was besieged by the army of the French, to Ignatius himself, who among the other soldiers had betaken himself into the citadel and had undertaken to defend it, fighting before the others, a stone struck out from the wall by the force of a cannon injured his left leg, but so broke his right that he fell half-dead. The bitter, grave, and long-lasting cure of which wounds he bore so patiently that he was in the admiration of all his domestics. But when by the benefit of God he had begun to be a little relieved of his pains, and had escaped the peril of death, fixed to his bed, for the sake of beguiling the time, he ordered some book of the profane ones, which he had been accustomed to read, to be given him: which, when they were not found at home, two books written in Spanish were delivered to him, one of which contained the life of Christ the Lord, the other of the Saints. By the reading of them he was so ardently kindled that he resolved thenceforth to change his life, to follow the footsteps of Christ and of the Saints, and to set out for Jerusalem, that he might venerate those holy places, promote the faithful in spirit, but lead the infidels to the Gospel.

[1053] Therefore, his wounds being cured, his homeland, his parents, all fleeting and perishable things, Martín García his brother resisting, he left; and, about thereafter to war for Christ, he went to the monastery of Montserrat; his departure from the paternal house; the deeds at Montserrat and at Manresa; and there, a general confession being made, his sword and dagger being hung up in the church of the same monastery, clothed in a rough ankle-length tunic, girded with a rope, his head bare, holding a staff in his hand, that whole night, on which the feast-day of the Angelic salutation (Annunciation) dawned, keeping watch before the altar of the most holy Virgin, now standing, now kneeling, and asking pardon for his past sins, he consecrated himself to the divine cult. Thence he went to Manresa, a neighboring town, and turned aside to the hospital of St. Lucy; and there, and in a certain cave by the bank of the river running through the plain of Manresa, making worthy fruits of penitence, he passed a poor and rough life among needy and sordid men, whom also he served with the most humble services.

[1054] When therefore in that place he had for some time exercised himself in this palaestra of penitence and of the virtues, at Rome, at Jerusalem, in Spain, at Paris, and in his homeland. thence the noble pilgrim came to Rome in the year 1523, where on the very day of Easter, the Apostolic benediction being received from Adrian the sixth, the Pontiff, now the predecessor of Your Holiness, he hastened first to Venice, then to Jerusalem. And when, after having surveyed the holy places, he was forbidden to remain there and give his endeavor to the salvation of souls, he returned into Spain: where, that he might better be able to bring usefulness to his neighbors in spirit, being now thirty years old, he studied first at Barcelona grammar, then at Alcalá philosophy and theology for a year and a half: then at last at Paris he repeated all those studies, living on alms, and not intermitting the offices of charity, humility, and penitence. At Paris he collected companions of the same purpose; and together with them named a vow of this kind, that, their studies being finished, and all things being despised, they should go to Jerusalem, and there give themselves wholly to the salvation of souls: but that if within a year an occasion of sailing did not offer itself, or they were prohibited from remaining at Jerusalem, that vow being now discharged, they should go to Rome, and offer their own labor to the supreme Pontiff for the spiritual help of the neighbor. But when from the labors and watchings of his studies he had contracted a grave disease of the stomach at Paris, by the order of the physicians and on the counsel of his companions he returned to his homeland in the year 1535, and there for three months in the hospital of the Magdalene, begging his food from door to door and serving the poor, he diligently passed his time.

[1055] [He is initiated into the priesthood; the vows, the labor offered to the supreme Pontiff, the Society instituted, etc.] Which being passed, when he had convalesced, having himself also set out for Venice, whither his companions by agreement were to come, he wished in that city to be promoted to the priesthood; and emitted the vow of poverty and chastity into the hands of Verallo, archbishop of Rossano, Apostolic nuncio, who afterward was a Cardinal. But the year now agreed among them being elapsed, and the navigation into Palestine, on account of the peace between the Turks and the Venetians removed at that time, being cut off, he came to Rome with his companions at the beginning of the year 1537: where, received in hospitality by Quirino Garzoni, a Roman citizen, in a certain villa of the same Garzoni under the Pincian hill, he offered his most ready labor to the supreme Pontiff for the salvation of the neighbor. Here, by begging and by living piously and laudably, he instituted the Society of Jesus for the defense and propagation of the faith, and for the fruit of souls, and took care that it should be confirmed by the authority of this holy See. But although in that Society he made three solemn vows; yet to those which are common with other Religions he adjoined a fourth, by which he promised a peculiar obedience to the supreme Pontiff, for undertaking missions without provision, even to the Turks, and for teaching Christian doctrine to boys. Thereupon he composed the Constitutions of the same Society: and afterward, being elected Prepositus General, he moderated it with the highest praise of prudence and probity: and at last, after many labors, the Apostolic benediction with the plenary indulgence of his sins being received from the supreme Pontiff, calling upon Jesus, he piously fell asleep in the Lord at Rome on the day before the Kalends of August 1556.

[1056] The Saint is praised for his faith, This man, whom the Lord had chosen beforehand, that he might be the leader of those who should bear His most holy name before the gentiles and peoples, and recall the rebellious heretics to the unity of the faith, and defend the authority of His Vicar on earth, the Holy Spirit adorned with every kind of virtue, as the reverend Fathers, the delegated Auditors of the causes of your sacred Apostolic Palace, well observed in their Relation; which the sacred congregation of Rites itself, now having embraced, approved. He adorned him, that I may begin first from the head, with the greatness and excellence of Faith. For when in those books which we commemorated above he had read the great things which God did with those Saints, he believed that He would do the same with him, if he himself trod in the footsteps of those Saints. Therefore, all things being left, he followed Jesus. The excellent faith of this Man is likewise discerned from the great confidence which he had placed in God: for, instructed with this, humbly and patiently he bore many labors, and overcame the greatest difficulties and adverse things which befell him in the execution of those things which for the glory of God and the salvation of souls he undertook.

[1057] There are besides very many arguments of the same faith, proved by very many arguments. which I shall recount summarily. From the poor and laborious life which from the beginning of his conversion he had instituted for the glory of God and the help of his neighbors, he never departed; but persevered, all obstacles which stood in the way being overcome, and from the formula of the institute offered to this holy See, confirmed it by solemn vows duly named. The mysteries of the sacrosanct faith he believed with such great firmness that he was wont to say: even if there existed no records of Scripture by which we are taught; yet that he had resolved and willed to die for it from those things alone which our Lord had imparted to him and made manifest at Manresa. With great zeal and diligence he gave his endeavor to the conversion of heretics, schismatics, Moors, and Jews: to the Indians, barbarians, and other nations which utterly knew not God, through Francis Xavier and his other companions, sent thither by the order of the Roman Pontiff, he announced the faith and the Gospel: sound and Catholic doctrine he always taught and held. New opinions he never admitted, and in scholastic theology he followed the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor.

[1058] The perfect contempt of temporal things, from which he utterly renounced himself, His Hope, the harsh works of penitence which he did, his great distrust of himself in all his affairs, the eminent greatness of soul with which he dared, undertook, and prosecuted wondrous and arduous things for the glory of God and the salvation of souls: the gladness and pleasantness which he perceived from the labors, inconveniences, ignominies, and persecutions which he suffered for Christ and justice: the most sweet meditation of death, in which he was assiduously engaged, sufficiently and more than sufficiently testify with what hope the Holy Spirit had adorned and fortified that man.

[1059] How ardently he loved his neighbor for God's sake, these things plainly demonstrate. his charity The assiduous service which he showed to the poor and the sick in the hospitals, serving them with great humility and charity, in all things however abject: and not only caring for their bodies, but even licking their ulcers and sores. The distribution of alms which he himself, by his own endeavor, gathered from pious men. For daily, both for his own and for the poor's sake, he begged from door to door; and the alms collected he so distributed to the poor of the hospital in which he dwelt, and to other needy men of the city in which he stayed, that he gave the greater and better part to the poor, even with tears flowing from piety; but retained for himself the lesser and worse: for to give alms, when you yourself are most in need, is the highest sign of love and of mercy toward the neighbor. The eminent charity which he showed toward the sick, and other calamitous men of the city, namely by visiting, aiding, consoling them, when they labored under ill health, or another kind of misery. The greatest care and zeal which from the very beginning of his conversion he placed in this, that the ignorant and boys should thoroughly learn Christian doctrine.

The great zeal for souls by which he was held: for he refused, for their sake, no labor, no inconveniences, no watchings, or pains and afflictions of the body. But in particular this zeal and endeavor of procuring the salvation of others made him go on pilgrimage into Palestine to help those who were pressed by harsh servitude at Jerusalem, and, after his studies were finished at Paris, vow that journey, and promise that he would go thither with his companions.

[1060] toward the neighbor; The visitation and relief of those who are detained in prison, which he instituted and exercised carefully: the reconciliation of those at variance, which he earnestly procured: the salutary counsels which he gave to his neighbors, and the spiritual Exercises composed by him and put into a book: and finally the other efforts by which he strove to draw all whom he could, by the word and example of his life, to penitence and the way of salvation. Nay, that he might better help his neighbor in spirit, being now thirty years old he learned letters, and to the same end collected companions of the same purpose, and together with them emitted a vow at Paris, and offered his labor to the supreme Pontiff, as was said above. To this belongs that in his homeland he wonderfully aided the institution of the confraternity of the most holy Sacrament, and took care that at noon a signal be given by the bell; on hearing which all should pray God for those who were either held by mortal sin, or tortured by the fire of purgatory; and that the game of dice should be abolished; and the life and morals of the inhabitants be reformed to the norm of Christian discipline. To this also belongs that, for the same cause, he instituted the Society of Jesus itself, and propagated it most widely throughout the whole world by missions, by the erections and constructions of houses, colleges, and churches: that here at Rome, besides the schools of grammar and of the humane letters which he opened freely, he took care that the college of the Germans, the houses of orphans and of catechumens, the monasteries of St. Martha and of St. Catherine, and other pious places (concerning which there was report in the said Relation of the Auditors of the Rota) should be raised.

[1061] which is persuaded from many heads. That he diligently administered the Sacrament of penitence and of the Eucharist, and exhorted all to them, and introduced the frequency both of the same Sacraments, and also of Masses, sermons, and sacred lections in the churches. Finally, this love toward the neighbor is declared by the remission of injuries and prayer for enemies. For, gravely scourged at Barcelona, and led almost unto death, while he most sharply defended the glory of God and procured the salvation of his neighbors, he not only complained of nothing, but gave thanks to God, spared his assailants, and, fulfilling the Lord's precept, prayed for them. And thence charity so grew in him that, his health being recovered, he did not hesitate to return to the same work of charity, and to lay down his life for his brothers, the dissuasions of his domestics profiting nothing, to whom he thus answered: What is more desirable to me than to die for Christ and the salvation of my neighbor? which assuredly is the highest degree of charity according to St. Bonaventure.

[1062] He was with the greatest love toward God, But how greatly he loved God Himself is clear from that supreme care and diligence with which he studied always, for God's sake, to do good to his neighbor in spiritual and temporal things; and from the greatest vigilance with which he took care to keep his heart pure: for from his conversion no word or deed was detected in him which could be reckoned to be a mortal sin. Very often, on any day, with the greatest scrutiny he examined his conscience, not only concerning grave faults, but even concerning errors in the daily meditation; which is an efficacious sign of a Charity now corroborated. Nor indeed did he only guard his heart from those things which are against love, but even utterly cast from himself the love of all things which are not God, and transferred it to the same God, and strove to refer all affection to the love of God. It is clear also from the meditation of divine things which he used assiduously: and from a certain pious prayer which he put in the little book of the Exercises, and often used, when he excited himself to divine love. The beginning of this prayer is, Receive, O Lord, all my liberty, etc. This charity toward God, so pure, he nourished and retained in his heart; that he even utterly banished from himself the love of his own self. For he said once that, if the option were given, he would rather live with uncertainty of blessedness, and meanwhile serve God, than die then with certainty; and that he judged it would be more hard and painful for him to hear blasphemies against the name of the Lord, than to suffer the pains of hell, if he were ever thrust down to the lower regions by God.

[1063] In which argument of love he renewed the examples of the Martyrs and of many Saints, wholly burning with desire of the divine glory. who, utterly forgetful of themselves, labored only for the divine glory. In fine, he burned with so great a love toward God that all day he sought Him, and thought of nothing else, spoke of nothing else, desired nothing else, than to please God and obey His will: and so he committed himself wholly to Him, had resolved to follow Him utterly, even if he were deprived of the whole of heaven and earth. All his thoughts, words, works, he referred to God as to their end; to God, and to the glory and honor of God, he destined them: and this as it were a motto, TO THE GREATER glory of God, he always had in his mouth. From these things indeed arose that great spiritual joy with which this Servant of God was plainly filled and refreshed, that serenity which he always displayed in his countenance; that interior peace of soul, and that power and dominion which he held over his movements and perturbations. For truly the Prophet says: Much peace to those who love Thy law.

[1064] Prudence in him was quite rare and excellent. His other virtues, namely prudence; For in affairs to be performed for the honor of God, he first indeed commended all things to God, then, skillful consultation being held and reasons called to examination, he applied means suited to obtaining the desired end: and so he easily avoided contingent evils.

[1065] His justice toward God and men is sufficiently commended by his charity toward the neighbor, already expounded above, his justice from penitence, and by the penitence with which he wore himself out at Montserrat, at Manresa, and at Barcelona. In which places, clothed with a hair-shirt, and girded with a chain or iron girdle to his bare flesh, sleeping on the ground and on boards, walking with shoes without soles, or with perforated shoes, often also with bare feet, afflicting himself besides with iron scourges and other penitential punishments, and fleeing the company of men, he led a life rough indeed, but most sweet by the meditations of heavenly things: for by these voluntary penances he thought to satisfy God, now offended.

[1066] His justice is commended also by the devotion of spirit and religion [by religion toward God, the observance of his vows, a grateful mind toward the well-deserving.] with which he rendered to God the due cult and honor. For besides those things which have already been said concerning his charity toward God; endowed with an abundance of tears, he was most given to prayer; to which from the time of his conversion he assiduously gave himself; the sacrifice of the Mass and the divine Offices he heard daily, and after he was made a priest (while by his health it was permitted him) daily celebrated Mass and recited the divine Office; the sacrament of Penitence and of the Eucharist, while he was a layman, he frequented; churches and pious places, especially of Palestine and of Jerusalem, in the habit of a pilgrim and with bare feet, he surveyed, living on gathered alms and begged food. The cleanliness and restoration of churches, and the veneration of sacred relics, he diligently procured; toward the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels, and all the Saints he was affected with distinguished devotion and piety; the vows of poverty, chastity, and perpetual obedience emitted through him in the Society he perfectly rendered to God. Finally, his justice is commended by the gratitude which he always showed toward his own and toward the benefactors of the Society; and the pure truth which proceeded from his mouth without any fallacy, disguise, fiction, or obscurity: it is commended by the purity and simplicity of heart with which he always took all things in a good part.

[1067] He excelled in greatness of soul, Greatness of soul in him was remarkable: because in the undertaking of the new life, assailed by grave temptations of the evil demon, he resisted undaunted, and overcame them with a strong soul. From penitence, from service toward the sick, from the studies of letters, from the works of charity which he had begun, he did not depart on account of the diseases contracted thereby; or on account of the labors which he had to undergo; or on account of the difficulties which he had to overcome; nor on account of the mockeries, injuries, and contumelies inflicted on him; but in them he constantly persevered unto the desired [end]. And since he obtained, as we have said, a most perfect dominion over his commotions and perturbations, he can rightly be said to be stronger than the taker of cities, on the testimony of Solomon in Proverbs, chapter 16.

[1068] as also his patience, His admirable patience and meekness are demonstrated by the many and great labors which he willingly and alacritously bore for the glory and honor of God: they are demonstrated by the mockeries, opprobria, confusions, injuries, and persecutions which he suffered with great endurance and meekness for keeping the service of God: it is demonstrated by the gladness which he enjoyed when he discerned something inflicted against his own person and honor: it is demonstrated by the very thanksgiving which he rendered toward the slanderous and contumelious: they are declared by the pious works and benefits which he conferred upon those by whom he had been assailed with injuries: all which things are contained in a copious discourse in the abovesaid Relation of the Auditors of the Rota.

[1069] by fasting, Fasting he so cultivated that at that time when he was at Manresa and at Barcelona, fasting the whole week, Sundays excepted, he fed on bread alone, and drank water. On account of his continued prayers and abstinences, once in the chapel of Villadordis, and again in the abovesaid cave, he was found weak, emaciated, and almost without strength. In fine, so great was his abstinence and penitence that from weakness he fell into a grave disease: of which indeed he would even have died, had not a certain woman of Barcelona taken his care: whom, however, he at last with great difficulty admitted, with these words: Suffer me to suffer these light things, that my soul may be saved.

[1070] by chastity, Of chastity he was so diligent a guardian in himself and in others, that in the Constitutions of the Society he said that it was to be so perfectly kept by his men that they ought to strive by the cleanliness of body and mind to imitate the angelic purity.

[1071] by profound humility, These not obscure indications of his profound humility are recounted. While he was girding himself to the new manner of life, he would not hear his brother, representing to him the nobility of his family, his wealth, the strenuousness of the Servant of God himself in warfare, and the future glory thence; but as soon as he had convalesced from his disease and wound, he sent notice of dismissal to the world. Returning to his homeland for the sake of his health, when he had observed that he was already known by a certain man, fearing the honor which he understood both his brother and the inhabitants of Azpeitia would show him, he would not, with him by whom he had been recognized, go straight to Azpeitia

set out; but through the mountains and by-paths he went thither alone; and most willingly exchanged the noble palace for the cheapness of a humble hospital: and by no prayers could he be induced to enter the paternal house. The nobility of his family, as far as he could, he concealed; the conversation and intercourse of those by whom he might be recognized he avoided. But if ever he were recognized anywhere by anyone, he no longer returned to that place.

[1072] Nor indeed did he despise only the vain glory of the world, but even himself, with remarkable magnanimity. and by contempt of himself, For from the first day of his spiritual warfare, clothed in cheap and abject garments, he dwelt in the hospitals with the poor and the beggars; begging and living with them, and using the same table, drink, and bed, and finally serving them, as was declared above concerning his charity toward the neighbor. The same empty glory and worldly praises he not only fled, but, if he ever observed anything done against his honor, it smiled upon him most, as was said above, when there was treatment of his patience. The Society of Jesus, which he instituted, he wished to be held and called least among all other Religions: and when he himself had been announced its Prepositus General, he refused to undertake that office so long, until his confessor commanded him to receive the office committed to him. But, a decade having elapsed, persisting in the same humility, he most greatly strove to abdicate that magistracy, affirming that he did not have endowments fit for administering it. After that office was received, that he might confirm also by example those whom in the Constitutions he exhorted by word to humility, he first indeed engaged for some days in the ministries of the kitchen; then he undertook to teach boys and the ignorant Christian doctrine, according to the laws and Constitutions which he had composed.

[1073] His virtues and the heavenly visions which he had, he diligently concealed; and by the concealment of his virtues. and always in speaking mixed in some words which were indications of humility: such as were those, Wretched me: my wretched soul. Nay he was wont to say that, if he were to ask anything of God in the hour of his death, he would in particular ask this, that He would permit him to be buried in dung, since he was dung; and he added very often that he was edified by the example or the intercourse of all his domestics except himself; and in a certain letter he wrote that he dealt with no man, even the most wicked, concerning spiritual things, but that he received some advantage from him.

[1074] These are the things, Most Blessed Father, which concerning the life and virtues of the servant of God Ignatius six hundred and seventy-five witnesses deposed, The sanctity of Ignatius by 675 witnesses, duly and rightly examined in the processes of this canonization; and on account of which the same Auditors of the Rota judged, the congregation of Rites also subscribing, that the sanctity of this Man was sufficiently proved. To which things, however, both they and also we have judged that there should be added, for greater proof, the great knowledge of spiritual things which this Servant of God had in performing and composing his spiritual Exercises, which are especially salubrious, full of piety and sanctity, and most useful for spiritual advancement, as, from the opinion of the Inquisitor of the City and Master of the sacred Palace, Pope Julius III, the predecessor of Your Holiness, testifies in the letters of confirmation of those Exercises.

[1075] and established also by various other arguments. There is added that supernatural splendor which shone in his face while he lived; which Blessed Filippo Neri and Father Oliverio Manare saw: there is added his election, by which the Lord separated him from the rest, that he might be the author and parent of this Society: there is added his happy death, already expounded above, and the immediate concourse of the people to his body: there are added the celebrated exequies, the honorable burial, the veneration, and the continued frequency, not only to his sepulchre, but also to the chamber in which, sick, he was divinely called to a better manner of life, and to the cave, and to the other places in which he did penance: there is added the distinguished and uniform testimony which concerning the sanctity of his life great men and noble writers gave in their histories and books, who in the abovesaid relation are recounted in order and number: there is added the celebrated fame of the sanctity and virtues of this Servant of God, proved by the same witnesses whom we mentioned above: which, since it lasted until his death, nay even in death, and after death was more augmented, and everywhere is greatly augmented, greatly conduces to accomplishing the canonization: there is added finally the beatification of the same Servant of God granted in the past years by this holy See, with the Office and Mass of the common of one confessor not a pontiff.

And these things had to be said concerning the life, actions, and excellence of the Servant of God Ignatius. Now it will have to be briefly explained concerning the acts of canonization.

Part II. Concerning the acts of canonization.

The acts of canonization When the fame of the sanctity and miracles of the servant of God Ignatius in diverse parts of the world increased day by day; Father Gaspar de Pedrosa, procurator of this Society in the kingdoms of the Spains, conscious of the decree made by the whole Society concerning the canonization to be sought, on the 19th day of July 1595, lest the memory of deeds of this kind should be deleted by the injury of time, sought and obtained from Camillo Gaetani, patriarch of Alexandria, nuncio of Clement VIII, the predecessor of Your Holiness, and of this See to the King of the Spains, that witnesses should be examined for the perpetual memory of the matter, and that for examining them various judges should be given in diverse parts of those kingdoms. Who by name in the towns of Azpeitia and Azcoitia, of the diocese of Pamplona, in which this Servant of God had been born and educated, were decreed and given these: Domingo Martínez de Assurdui, of the collegiate church of St. Michael of Oñate, and Diego Moro de Alva, canon of a like church of Vitoria, and any of them. But in the city and diocese of Barcelona, the bishop of Barcelona, or his Official: and in the city and diocese of Vich, its bishop, or his Official. These Judges instituted three processes concerning the sanctity of life and the miracles of this Servant of God, and sent them, subscribed, closed, and sealed, to the said Nuncio: who received, opened, saw them, and granted authentic copies of them to the same Father Gaspar seeking them.

[1077] These copies the Father Prepositus General of the said Society delivered to the same Clement together with the letters of Philip II of illustrious memory, and Philip III, Catholic kings, under Clement VIII, of the empress, the queen of the Spains, and of many bishops and peoples; a supplicatory little book of the Society itself, the petitioner, being besides added, in which it asked that, for having and making greater progress in the said canonization, remissorial and compulsory letters be granted. And it pleased the same Clement by a peculiar rescript to commit this cause to the said congregation of Rites to be examined: which, the said processes being seen, judged that the said petition should be satisfied, if it so pleased the same Clement: but he, intercepted by death, could resolve nothing in that matter.

[1078] But Paul V of happy memory, likewise the predecessor of Your Holiness, being promoted to the government of the universal Church, and under Paul V, since the prayers of the same Society and of the abovesaid princes, to which was added also the request of Henry IV, Most Christian King of France, not only persevered with him, but even were augmented; and since the same fame of sanctity and the continuation of miracles daily took greater increases; it pleased the same Paul to give in mandate to three Auditors of the Rota, namely to Your Holiness, while you discharged the office of Auditor of the Rota, to Alfonso Manzanedo, and to Giovanni Battista Pamphili, that, resuming a cause of this kind in the state and terms in which it was found, and proceeding jointly, they should weigh all the acts and proofs, and receive others anew, if there were need, by themselves or by others, and interpose their own judgment upon these: so that, if it were established from it that the inquisitions, proofs, and processes of this kind had been legitimately made, and the cause sufficiently instructed; the most Holy Father might execute those things which the dogmas of the holy Fathers and the ordinances of the sacred canons demand. The Auditors commemorated above, the processes exhibited before them being seen and diligently discussed, judged that with them ought to be joined processes to be made by Apostolic authority; and therefore that there should be granted, as they were granted, to the same Society remissorial letters, instructed with their articles and interrogatories formed by themselves, to some archbishops and bishops subdelegated by them, constituted in diverse parts of the world, and also general compulsory letters for extracting rights (documents). But meanwhile they themselves upon the same articles in this Curia examined indeed many witnesses.

[1079] The archbishops and bishops subdelegated, when they had diligently examined the witnesses, in summary as they had received in mandate, extracted the rights, and made the juridical processes, transmitted them to Rome to the said Auditors of the Rota: who, having opened them, by the order of the same Paul the predecessor, sent them to this congregation, that, when it had seen and weighed those things which in seeing and weighing the matter it should judge, it might say its opinion concerning the beatification sought: which indeed it afterward said.

[1080] Finally, when the prayers of the said Society and the supplications of the abovesaid, they are recounted; and besides of other princes and prelates and peoples concerning the said canonization, became daily more numerous with the same predecessor, it pleased him to command anew the same Auditors of the Rota that they should see and weigh the proofs and processes already made: repeat the examined witnesses, if they so judged, and induce others anew concerning the fame of sanctity and concerning the miracles; and in particular concerning the truth of all which we have said, as far as there was need; and, for caution, in the Curia and outside, by themselves and others, examine them; and report, according to custom, that which seemed good to them. But the aforesaid Manzanedo and Pamphili, and Francesco Sacrati, archbishop of Damascus, subrogated in place of Your Holiness, assumed to the church of Bologna (whom Your Holiness for his known merits created a Cardinal), having first examined, by themselves in this Curia, and by other judges subdelegated by them outside the Curia, other witnesses upon the premises; and having extracted from the archive of the said Society some rights conducing to the said cause, in several congregations held among them, saw and examined the said processes, and when they had learned that they were juridically and legitimately made, and the proofs duly and rightly performed, and the sanctity and miracles proved sufficiently and more than sufficiently, and had judged that the cause was so instructed according to the canonical sanctions that one could safely proceed to further steps: on the 7th day of March 1617 they made to the same Paul the predecessor their Relation, distinguished into three heads, and also offered it in writing.

[1081] then others, done under Gregory XV. But the death of the same Paul, the predecessor of Your Holiness, intervening, and Your Holiness being assumed to the supreme summit of the Apostolate, there came the letters of Louis XIII, Most Christian King of France, most insistently supplicating, and most devotedly asking of Your Holiness, that you would deign to proceed further to the canonization of the same Servant of God, and bring it as soon as possible

to effect: to whose request, often repeated, benignly assenting, Your Holiness in the past months referred the abovesaid Relation to the said congregation to be discussed. Presently also Maximilian, duke of both Bavarias, and a little after Ferdinand, King of the Romans, elected Emperor, with the highest wishes and the greatest prayers demanded the same: and their requests Your Holiness likewise paternally received.

But we, Most Blessed Father, the said Relation being received, and the will of Your Holiness perceived, several sessions being held upon the said Relation, in which we accurately and diligently examined the conclusions of the said Auditors, by unanimous consent judged that all the abovesaid processes had been and were valid, legitimate, and legal.

Again we judged that the proofs comprehended in those processes concerning the sanctity, excellence of faith, and distinguished miracles of the servant of God Ignatius had been legitimate and sufficient. Which if Your Holiness resolves to be such that they seem to suffice for canonization; those things which remain to be said in the third place concerning the miracles, I shall summarily and most briefly pursue.

Part III. Concerning the miracles.

The miracles wrought by the Saint while living. In the processes made in this cause some miracles are recounted wrought by the merits of the Servant of God Ignatius while still living.

That to Lyssano, who on account of a lost lawsuit had hanged himself with a noose, and was judged by all to be dead, he obtained from God by his prayers so much space of life that, returning to life, he was able to grieve both for that sin and for others, and to confess the same.

That a certain man by the name of Bastida, laboring now for many years with the falling sickness, he suddenly healed by his prayers and benediction.

That to Giovanni Battista the cook he restored, whole and sound, on the following day, a hand scorched and quite useless for manual works, by his prayers.

That Éleuthère Pontanus, assailed for two years and more by certain most grave temptations from the devil, he entirely freed from them by his sight and discourse.

That he rendered the college of Loreto free from the nocturnal apparitions and frequent infestations of the demon, by his prayers and a letter.

That he illustrated the chamber of Alessandro Petronio, the physician, sick and lying in bed, dark and, on account of the windows quite closed, gloomy, with the supernatural splendor of his face; and performed certain other things similarly admirable.

[1083] Which being deliberately omitted, only the more illustrious ones published after his happy passing (which especially are required in canonization), selected and proved first by the Auditors of the Rota and then by the sacred congregation of Rites, I shall recount with as great brevity as I shall be able. Miracles after his death in a broken hip,

I. Isabella Rebelles of Barcelona, a nun in the monastery of St. Elizabeth, of the rule which received its name from the Observance, nearly 67 years old, while she was working at something in a high place in the year 1601, suddenly fell to the ground with so grave a fall that the whole bone of the hip, or thigh, which is the greatest in the human body, was broken. The physician and surgeon being called, applied all the medicaments which their art demanded, with the greatest diligence, for forty days and more; but with a plainly vain outcome: because the pain and fever which had supervened from the said fracture did not cease; and the hip and the whole leg was still swollen and immovable, nay other graver symptoms had accrued, namely vehement and almost lethal anxieties: at last her health had come to such a state that the sick woman was, in the eyes of all, without any hope of recovery, which could be procured at least by natural remedies, and was believed about to die the same day. So destitute of human protections, she fled to divine remedies: nor in vain: for a relic of the servant of God Ignatius being with pious religion begged and obtained, refreshed at the sight of it, she devoutly applied it to the hip, where the bone was broken, the bandages and medicaments being taken away, and the Lord's and the Angelic prayer being recited, and the said Servant of God being invoked; and immediately she was healed: the hip and leg, before swollen and immovable, she began to move expeditely and without pain; and asked for her garments, that, clothed with them, she might rise and walk. Which the nuns did not permit her, thinking (though falsely) that she was too weak on account of that infirmity. But on the next following day she received her garments, rose, and freely and perfectly walked without any pain and swelling; she tossed and twisted her hip and leg upward and in every direction; and afterward, even in the changes of the moon and of the seasons, she continued so to walk.

[1084] II. What miracle was wrought in Giovanni Leyda of Majorca, a fuller of cloth, a dangerous fever, passing the thirty-first year of his age, seems indeed eminent and memorable. He in the year 1605 fell into a very acute and dangerous fever: a very great nausea of the stomach increased the danger, so wholly that he rejected the little sips of broth, and utterly all food. After the twelfth or thirteenth day from the disease, he fared so ill that the physician said that he was very much in danger, unless at that hour his vein were opened: Giovanni, however, since it was late, did not suffer his vein to be cut that day: meanwhile he earnestly commended himself to God through the merits of the servant of God Ignatius; which also Anna his wife did. Nor was their hope vain. On the following night, roused from sleep, he saw the whole chamber surrounded with great splendor, and, calling upon his wife, Do you not, he said, see that I have been healed by Blessed Ignatius? The wife denied that she saw anything: and, thinking that her husband was raving, prevented him, wishing to rise from the bed: but at daybreak Giovanni, sound and strong, rose from the bed without anyone's help, clothed himself with his garments, and, having gone out of the house, expeditely went to the church of the Society: and in thanksgiving, his soul being duly purified by confession, he was present at the sacrifice of the Mass, religiously and piously refreshed himself with the holy Communion; afterward he returned home, and was always well.

[1085] being restored to health from a lethal wound. III. Another miracle no less distinguished, wrought by the intercession of the Servant of God, shone forth in the person of Girolamo Onofrio Etruschi, a boy of ten years, an inhabitant of the town of Gandía, of the diocese of Valencia. He, when in the year 1601 he had received a lethal wound in the eyebrow near the temples, on account of which a swelling of the whole eye and a vehement fever had accrued; his parents called Pietro Manare the surgeon to the care of that boy, who for a whole month applied medicaments according to the prescription of the art; but all with a vain outcome. For the wound not only was not solidified, but was so wide and deep that a finger-sized lint had to be inserted; and it flowed with such great gore and putridity that the surgeon himself sufficiently marveled; and believed for certain that some bone within was broken. But since the inspection and opening of the wound, which were judged altogether necessary, seemed to Pietro himself full of danger; that he might provide for his conscience and reputation, on Monday evening, after the accustomed medicaments were applied, he ordered to be called, and to be present the next following morning, Giovanni Battista Cuevas, another surgeon, that both, counsel being communicated, might prepare a medicine for that wound daily rushing for the worse. They met at the appointed hour before the sick boy: and, a report of the treatment applied being made by the said Pietro, the bandages with which the wound was covered and bound being removed, beyond all expectation, by the merits of the Servant of God, to whom the boy's mother, a vow being already made, had commended him, they found that wound utterly grown over, closed, and solidified: which both parents and the surgeons themselves attributed to the intercession of the Servant of God, and alike proclaimed God wonderful in His Saints.

[1086] Dropsy, IV. A miracle besides which happened the same year in Magdalena Talavera, an inhabitant of the same town, has also just admiration. She, when for three years she had labored under grave obstructions, which had now brought upon her the dropsy which they call confirmed, and had rendered her belly so swollen and inflated that she could not move from place to place except with great trouble; nor was she fit for doing any work at all: seeing that the remedies applied by two physicians had profited her nothing, and that she was already left by the physicians themselves as incurable, she had refuge to divine supports: and at the beginning of the month of April she made a vow to God, and promised that, if by the intercession of the servant of God Ignatius she should recover her former health, she would daily once recite the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic salutation. The vow being named, with an eminent sense of piety, she applies the image of the Servant of God to her belly greatly swollen and inflated; and immediately she fared better, and the disease of obstruction and dropsy was driven away, so wholly that both within three or four days her belly subsided, and she was always well until the year 1606: at which time she died of the disease of pleurisy.

[1087] V. The recovery also of Fernando Pretel de Mendoza, procured by the merits of the Servant of God, greatly illustrates his sanctity. a pestilential fever, He, when on the 29th day of September 1603 he had fallen into a tertian fever, which presently had degenerated into a double, then into a pestilential one together with a certain stupor of mind, and extraordinary horrors, occurring from the abundance of humors and the defect of natural strength, many purgations being applied in vain, the force of the disease had so increased that, deserted by the physicians, he was now in the utmost peril of death. Meanwhile, however, he himself, having duly confessed and been instructed with Communion, begged for the holy Oil, with which he was anointed. Which being thus performed, on the third day of December, holding in his hands the image of the Servant of God, which he wore hung from his neck, he cried to him, and with his whole heart commended himself to him for obtaining recovery: forthwith he began to convalesce, and was freed from the disease; and on the 13th day of the same month, sound, in the greatest force of winter riding through the cold mountains, he set out for Valencia, which is distant from Valladolid a journey of nine days.

[1088] VI. In Anna Barzellona, dwelling in the same town, paralysis, a very evident miracle once shone forth. She was nearly sixty years old; and now for a whole space of two years and more had been so gravely vexed by the disease of paralysis that she was immovable for every work of labor, and could not ascend the stairs, or descend from them, except leaning on staves: by whose benefit, however, she rather crept and dragged the members of her body with her than walked. When she was thus, and the medicaments applied had profited nothing; behold for you a new disease of apoplexy accrues on the other side: on account of which, made utterly powerless and immovable, she lay in bed, in which she could not move herself. And since from the sharpest pains she had been able to take no part of nocturnal or diurnal rest for eight days; she had now been made very weak and feeble. Understanding therefore that she was utterly destitute of human remedies, and discerning that recourse must be sought to divine help; to the chapel of the Servant of God, situated in the church of the college of the abovesaid Society, aided by the help of Margarita her sister, and by the supports of staves, within the space of two hours she came, and there, ardently pouring out prayers, bound herself by a vow, and promised that, if by the merits of the Servant of God she recovered the desired health, she would make one novena in his honor; and would take care

besides that once the sacrifice of the Mass be offered; and that she, confession going before, would take the most holy Eucharist; and would hang up a waxen image, as a monument of the benefit received, in the same chapel. The vow being thus named, she immediately began to fare better: the knee, which was utterly immovable, she at once bends, she finishes the prayer instituted: suffused with a certain singular sense of pleasure she rises, and returns home rejoicing with an expedite step; and all that day and the following night the recovery begun was so augmented that now, at daybreak, sound she ran most expeditely to the college, to render thanks to God and to His servant Ignatius.

[1089] VII. To Juana Clara, and Noguera, a widow of Majorca, blindness, about 56 years old, laboring under blindness, the Servant of God restored the faculty of seeing. She for a whole two years had labored under a grave disease of the eyes, and at the end of the first year had utterly and entirely lost the sight of one eye: but with the other she saw very little. When the medicaments applied had brought her no fruit; nay rather had cast her into a worse state; so, I say, that she was now deprived of the sight of the other eye, distrusting human protections, she turned to divine ones. When therefore first she herself thrice recited the Lord's and the Angelic prayer, and then ordered the same to be recited on bended knee by her brother and her domestics, she wished a little piece of bone and a certain subscription of the Servant of God to be placed over her eyes. Which when it was done, the pain of the eyes immediately ceased, and she began to see. Then, the same prayers being again thrice recited, and the relics again placed on the eyes, she saw better; and was utterly freed from every defect of the eyes and from blindness.

[1090] sharp and long-lasting pains of the head, VIII. Bartolomeo Contesti, a citizen of Majorca, a surgeon, passing his 62nd year, experienced no less a benefit in the imploring of this Servant of God. He was oppressed with such sharp and long-lasting pains of the head that from excessive pain he was often dashed to the ground. There accrued in one of his eyes so grave a disease of ophthalmia, that is inflammation of the eyes, that it also vexed the other by a certain, as it were, sympathy, and brought it about that he could not bear even the thinnest ray of light, or eat anything, or rest a little; and on account of this, hidden in a dark chamber, he did not go out of it. But if he was at last compelled to take some food, it had to be taken by the ministry of another's hand. Human remedies were applied, very many and manifold; but all in vain, the disease always rushing for the worse. At last it came to such a point that Bartolomeo, from intolerable pain, did not hesitate to affirm that, if a certain shepherd-surgeon were living, he would order his eye to be plucked out and extirpated by the roots. Placed in this state, having heard many miracles which were wrought by the intercession of the Servant of God, great hope being conceived, and inflamed with eminent religion toward him, in the year 1597 he ordered his subscription to be brought to him, and at the same point of time in which that relic was brought to him, he fared well; the pain of the head and eyes ceased, he recovered his sight and bore, without any offense, the splendor of the light which before he so shunned. He rose at last from the bed, and, asking for food, ate, and rested with a great sense of pleasure. And that it might be understood that so sudden a cure was to be attributed to the divine power and the intercession of the Servant of God, twice or thrice the sacred relic being carried out of the chamber of the same sick man, forthwith the pain before removed returned; and the same being brought back into the chamber, forthwith the disease departed. Which being done, Bartolomeo, being admonished, retained the sacred relic with him. And so within three or four days he was so perfectly healed as if he had never been sick.

[1091] pain of the head with blindness, IX. Not long after in the same city, in the person of Columna Cortei, and Vich, another very similar miracle happened by the intercession of the Servant of God: who was so vexed by a pain of the head that neither by day nor by night did she rest. There supervened, for two or three months, in one of her eyes so great a torment that she could neither lift her eyelid nor see the light. At last she became utterly blind. Nay, the pain was so vehement that on some nights the eye itself seemed to her to have gone out of her head, and therefore she called her husband to put the eye back in its place. When in human remedies, of which very many were applied, she placed no more hope, the disease always taking increases; in the year 1599, she was made more certain of the miracle already wrought by the intercession and relic of the Servant of God in the person of the same Bartolomeo Contesti, who had labored under a similar disease. Which having heard, she sent [men] to bring that relic to her: which being brought, and placed over her eyes (the invocation and prayer of the Servant of God going before), the eyelid, which before could not be opened by the surgeons, forthwith began of its own accord and by itself to be opened: the pain ceased: she bore the splendor of the light: and within three days she gradually recovered her sight altogether, and perfectly convalesced.

[1092] X. In the last place the Relation concludes with a remarkable miracle, a tumor and hardness of the breast are healed. wrought by the intercession of the Servant of God in the person of Doña Giovanna d'Aragona and Pignatelli, duchess of Terranova, widow left of Don Carlo d'Aragona, duke of Castelvetrano in the kingdom of Sicily, passing her 35th year. She, while she was at Naples with Ettore, duke of Monteleone, her brother, in the year 1599, was for four months tortured with the most vehement pain, from a tumor and hardness of one breast, in the upper part. Remedies were applied by the most excellent physicians and surgeons of the said city, very many, but with no fruit. The pain therefore growing more and more, the sick woman was at last reduced to such a state that she could move neither her feet nor her arms, but that her inward parts seemed in a manner to be pierced through. When therefore she had resolved to flee to the aid of the servant of God Ignatius, she sought and obtained his image from Girolama Colonna her mother: which, having religiously venerated, she more earnestly commends herself to him. In the morning these things were done: in the evening of the same day Giovanna herself was found sound, without tumor, without hardness, and without any sense of pain.

[1093] These are the things, Most Blessed Father, which from the legitimate acts of this cause had to be said concerning the life The conclusion of this Relation. and morals of the servant of God Ignatius, and concerning the miracles already wrought by his intercession. Which being more copiously weighed and discussed in many congregations, the Cardinals of the congregation of Sacred Rites came unanimous to this opinion, and thus decreed: that Your Holiness (if it shall please you) can proceed to further steps, and accomplish the canonization of the servant of God Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, according to the sacred rites of the Roman Church, and solemnly celebrate it, and refer Ignatius himself among the Saints.

§ CII. St. Ignatius next after St. Isidore in canonization; his elogium; the day of that solemnity; the opinions of the Cardinals pronounced concerning it.

The often-named compiler of our Roman documents affirms that he found there an Italian writing, thus sounding in Latin: Some reasons why the canonization of blessed Ignatius should not be preferred except to that of blessed Isidore. They were delivered to Cardinal Farnese and Cardinal Sourdis, that they might exhibit them to His Holiness. 1. The Most Christian King obtained from His Holiness that blessed Ignatius should be canonized first after blessed Isidore; and this his majesty has hitherto expected. And so, if now it were done otherwise, it is not known how he would take it. 2. This will and promise of His Holiness made to the Most Christian King has been published throughout the whole world, and all expect it to be given effect: so that, if a change be made, it will offer cause for wonder. And besides that it will afflict all devoted to blessed Ignatius, it will not be free from the danger of the reputation of that Blessed being in some part diminished. 3. Blessed Ignatius is more ancient in time than blessed Teresa: his Religion is more ancient: the dispatch of the remissorials in order to canonization is more ancient: more ancient besides is the beatification: finally the dispatch of the processes in the Rota and in the Rites is more ancient. He does not seem, therefore, to be postponed in canonization. 4. Things now so long before established cannot now be changed, unless the canonization of blessed Isidore be deferred for a notable time: but hence it will come to pass that the canonization of blessed Ignatius will be much longer deferred, not without those inconveniences which everyone easily perceives: because the preparations are already made, etc. From what is said in the fourth place, it seems there had been treatment that St. Teresa should be preferred to all.

[1095] Three consistories held; The same collector of the Roman notices concerning St. Ignatius transcribes these things, drawn from another Italian writing: His Holiness, moved by the prayers of various princes and by his own devotion, the judgment of the congregation of Sacred Rites being added, decreed to refer among the Saints five Blessed together, in this order: Blessed Isidore, at the prayers of the Catholic King, because it had been already published by Paul V of happy memory, and because he had lived five hundred years ago: Blessed Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, Blessed Xavier, apostle of the Indies and of Japan, on account of his own peculiar devotion: Blessed Teresa, and Blessed Filippo, founder of the Oratory. And therefore, according to custom, he appointed three consistories. The first secret, of the Most Eminent lord Cardinals, who by the greatest consent said that one should proceed. The second public, such as is wont to be given to princes; in which the canonization of Blessed Isidore was sought by the King of Spain, of Blessed Ignatius by the Emperor, the King of France, the King of Spain, the churches of Spain, and other princes: of Blessed Xavier by the Indies and the fathers of the Society: and it was answered in the name of His Holiness in commendation of the Blessed, and that prayers should be made to God for a matter so arduous. The third semipublic, of all the Most Eminent lord Cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, protonotaries who were at Rome, which was resolved almost entirely into the praises of the Society, founded by Blessed Ignatius. Other three were held for Blessed Teresa and Blessed Filippo, of which there is no treatment here. In the third consistory it was established that the canonization should be celebrated on 12 March, the feast of St. Gregory, the Saturday Ad sitientes. I set forth the following documents on this matter, drawn also from the Roman archive of the Society of Jesus, and transmitted hither by the often-cited Father Ignacio Pinius.

[1096] his canonization is decreed: At Rome at St. Peter's on Wednesday, 16 February 1622, there was a semipublic consistory, in which our most holy Lord Gregory XV was present with the reverend lord Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, who sat behind the benches of the aforesaid reverend lord Cardinals. There were besides the protonotaries of the number, and the Auditors of the Rota. There was present also the procurator of the fisc, and the reverend lord Ciampoli, secretary of His Holiness, together with the master of the chamber and the cupbearer, the rest being dismissed. And the same most Holy Father, adorned with a golden mitre and a red cope, sat in the simple accustomed consistorial seat, led by the Cardinal deacons and the protonotaries, the cross going before; and with a grave and pious oration treated of the canonizations of the Saints, and at the same time demonstrated the authority of the Church; and of the blessed Isidore the husbandman, Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, and Francis Xavier of the same Society, concerning

whom there was now to be treatment, narrated the lives, morals, and miracles, and ordered that the opinions be given. Whence the reverend lord Cardinals in order first uttered their votes concerning the aforesaid Blessed to be canonized; while they spoke, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, and all the rest stood with head uncovered. Then the same patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops spoke and approved. Lastly the Auditors of the sacred Palace affirmed the same. Which being done, the procurator of the fisc asked that His Holiness should command the protonotaries to note all these acts and preserve them according to custom. But meanwhile the same His Holiness, after he had judged that Blessed of this kind should be referred into the number of the Saints on 12 March next to come, exhorted all that with fastings, alms, and prayers they should supplicate for the divine grace of the Holy Spirit. These things being premised, there is subjoined in the same place the laudation of Blessed Ignatius and Xavier on 27 January 1622. But, these being passed over, I proceed to the proposition of Pope Gregory XV and the asking of the opinions concerning the canonization of Blessed Ignatius, and also to the suffrages of the Cardinals and of the other prelates concerning it; according to our transcripts drawn from the Roman archive; in which the said Pontiff thus speaks concerning Blessed Ignatius:

[1097] Deservedly by this holy Apostolic See honors are owed to him he is praised by the Pontiff, and the opinion of the Cardinals is asked by him. who for its defense and championing most holily devoted himself and his family. You understand, I think, most beloved brothers, of whom we speak. To us assuredly it seems that there can be applied to Blessed Ignatius that eulogy which Scripture commemorates concerning Joshua: He was great according to his name, greatest for the salvation of the elect, to storm the rising-up enemies (Ecclesiasticus 46), that he might obtain the inheritance of Israel. For Ignatius both burned with the fire of charity toward God, and ceaselessly sent that fire into those who are predestined by God; and at the same time began to storm the enemies rising up against the elect of God, a sacred warfare being enrolled and instructed with contrary arms, and daily, God leading, to the great good of the Church, storms them: so that therefore, just as he obtained the inheritance of the blessed fatherland by his merits, so we judge it fair that this be declared by our definition. His life, passed continually through admirable virtues, salutary to the human race, persuades us of this, and illustrated divinely by miracles wrought before and after death. Yet it will be pleasing to us if you, brothers, report at present what you think upon this matter.

[1098] The suffrages of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, contained in our abovesaid Roman transcripts, The suffrage of Cardinal del Monte, are these: Of Francesco Maria Cardinal del Monte: Ignatius of Loyola, called by God from human to heavenly warfare, besides the innumerable praises of his virtues, and his immense labors, undertaken for the glory of the divine name and brought to the desired end, by instituting, God helping, a most ample Society flourishing and adorned with every kind of virtue, raised up and wonderfully amplified the Catholic faith and religion, which the enemy of the human race, by stirring up heresies, tried to shake. Whence from so many and so strenuous soldiers of the Catholic Church innumerable helps and ornaments of the Catholic faith are seen to accrue to the whole Christian world, and to increase day by day. Rightly therefore, deservedly, as a lamp burning in the sight of all men, I judge that he can be co-opted into the number of the Saints by Your Holiness.

Cardinal Bandini: Great and wonderful are the things which Ignatius did while he lived; Cardinal Bandini. but he must be said to do many other things daily, and perhaps greater. For however many seeds of heavenly doctrine the Society instituted by him scatters everywhere in the world; however many gentiles or heretics it calls away from their errors, however many gymnasia it nourishes for promoting wisdom, are to be attributed to Ignatius, not only because he taught these things, but because, while living, he also completed them by work. He therefore who shines not only by past but by future, daily more illustrious, merits, is indeed worthy, that to the greater glory of God, to use the words of Ignatius, which he always had in his mouth, he be referred into the roll of the Saints, if it shall seem good to Your Holiness.

Cardinal Peretti, Cardinal Peretti: Since the admirable zeal of Ignatius of Loyola toward the Apostolic See existed, by the best right he seems to vindicate for himself the appellation of Saint from it. For, several examples of distinguished probity being published, he at last instituted that Society which should bind itself by perpetual vows to the services of this holy See.

[1099] Cardinal Ginnasi, Cardinal Ginnasi: To blessed Ignatius the greatest light was from God: for, omitting the things which are said, proved, concerning his laudable life and miracles, in the foundation of the Society he seemed to shine the more, since from it arise so many eminent doctors, martyrs, confessors, through whom the faith of Christ is preached into the whole world, the true light which shines from the light. This one reason seems to me sufficient, that he be judged a Servant dear to God.

Cardinal Mellini, Cardinal Mellini: Most Blessed Father. Blessed Ignatius of Loyola is to be proclaimed not only for those virtues which pertain to rightly instituting life and fleeing vices; but also as the author of that great Society, which in the whole world can rightly be called the propagatrix of the Catholic faith, the fruitful mother of Martyrs, and the mirror and exemplar of all virtues; he filled the world with the most sweet fragrance of sanctity and the splendor of miracles. I judge it therefore just, and reckon it expedient for the Church of God, that by Your Holiness he be referred among the Saints.

Cardinal Madruzzo, Cardinal Madruzzo: I admire the sanctity of the life of blessed Ignatius, most proved to the City and the world, and his eminent faith, on account of which I think he deserved to be chosen the Founder of so great a Religion, heartily incumbent upon the propagation of the same faith, to the honor also of which faith he seems to be inscribed in the number of the Saints.

Cardinal Lante, Cardinal Lante: Most Blessed Father. Since those things which concerning the life of blessed Ignatius, passed with admirable example, both in the secret and in the public consistory were brought into the midst, rest upon true proofs, the zeal and endeavor of the salvation of others, in which praise especially blessed Ignatius flourished, seem to me to demand that Your Holiness decree him to be of the number of those whom Christian piety venerates with daily honors. For him whom, as a leader, Marcellus II ordered to furnish warriors for defending the Catholic faith, that he himself afterward, and other supreme Pontiffs, might use them, it befits at some time, the banner of sanctity being raised, to triumph in the camps of the Church militant, and in the most crowded theatre of all nations.

Cardinal Borgia, Cardinal Borgia: Since Ignatius of Loyola, by his eminent virtues, and by the Religion of the Society instituted for the propagation of the faith and the defense of the Catholic Church, brought the greatest protection and ornament to the same Church; it is most fair that Your Holiness, Vicar of Christ, decree to Ignatius those honors with which men distinguished, and most excellently deserving of the same spouse of Christ, are adorned.

[1100] Cardinal Ubaldini, Cardinal Ubaldini: However many are, everywhere in the world, the distinguished merits of the Society of Jesus toward this holy See and the Catholic religion; so many assuredly we have miracles of blessed Ignatius of Loyola, so many arguments of sanctity: which, duly and legitimately proved, while the whole Christian world acknowledges, France especially now for some time poured out in prayers, having admired the great virtue of the Spanish man, and experienced his aid, deservedly Your Holiness ought to inscribe to the Church triumphant him who so happily inscribed so many thousands of warriors to the militant.

Cardinal Savelli: Blessed Ignatius, the great Founder of the most fruitful Society in the Christian commonwealth, Cardinal Savelli. the most religious cultivator of this holy See, to which by a solemn vow he devoted himself and his own with perpetual bonds of obedience, illustrious for deeds loftier than a mortal hand, who cultivated the vine of the ecclesiastical field with harsh, but to himself most sweet, labors, watered it with glorious sweats, and, having purged it as far as his strength allowed from the sprouting thorns of heretics, made it fruitful with heroic examples of virtues and most holy institutions, and who, when he had put on Jesus Christ, and bore His name more deeply engraved in his heart, and breathed the whole Jesus everywhere in deeds and words, wished the distinguished family which he instituted to be adorned also with the character of the same most sacred name, and ordered his sons no less to give to Jesus than to receive their name from Him, that they might by this name also be bound to our Lord Jesus by mutual ties; this man, I say, far greater than an earthly lot, I judge most worthy that by Your Holiness the heavenly honors be at last decreed to him, that so day by day more and more the auxiliary number of heavenly warriors may be augmented to the militant Church.

Cardinal Bentivoglio: Most Blessed Father. Since from the Ignatian family so many excellent men in every kind of virtues have come forth among all the nations of the Christian world, Cardinal Bentivoglio, it was not to be doubted but that the Parent himself of so great a family, blessed Ignatius of Loyola, had offered in himself a certain singular example of all those same virtues, to be perpetually imitated by his nurslings. Which, since it abundantly appears from those things which have been related concerning his life and miracles, therefore I would think it would be excellently done with the whole Christian commonwealth, and especially with this holy Apostolic See, if Your Beatitude now decreed to co-opt him into the order of the Saints. Nor do I doubt but that especially the Most Christian King, who with the highest prayers demanded this from Your Beatitude, will also as soon as possible render the highest thanks to it for this, as for a benefit received.

Cardinal Sforza: Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, of the whole Church of Christ, Cardinal Sforza, and of this holy See, both by his own labors and by those of his sons in Christ, has so well deserved, that I judge nothing more apt can be done than that public cult be shown to him.

§ CIII. The remaining suffrages of the purpled Fathers concerning the canonization of Blessed Ignatius.

Cardinal Barberini: Let no one deny that by the gift of God blessed Ignatius was given to us at the time Cardinal Barberini, in which he might raise up a bulwark against the raging heresies and against the rebels to this holy See, from which not only he himself, but the religious men of his institute, continually and strongly fought. His name is celebrated among all peoples on account of those things which he wonderfully performed above human powers, and his life most holily passed: he has been judged worthy in the Auditory of the sacred Palace, and by the fathers of the sacred Rites, that to him, with radiated head, the cult of the Saints be deferred; to whose deliberation the authority of Your Holiness will deservedly accede. To the Christian world the labors undertaken by him for the Catholic faith were most salutary; the honors added will be no less glorious.

Cardinal Aldobrandini, Cardinal Aldobrandini: From the time when blessed Ignatius of Loyola, called from the court and secular warfare, gave his name to God the commander, he himself was a distinguished leader of a religious Order in the Church, and in it so piously and holily warred unto the very end, that, while living by the works of virtues, and after death by many miracles, God being the author, he proved the fame of Sanctity. And so I judge that Your Holiness can place him in the number of the Saints.

Cardinal d'Este, Cardinal d'Este: The innocence of life, the offspring of a wondrous birth, and the miracles of blessed Ignatius merit

that Your Holiness add him to the number of the Saints.

[1102] Cardinal Filonardi, Cardinal Filonardi: On every side shine certain and undoubted proofs, duly and rightly proving the distinguished sanctity, piety, and illustrious example of the virtues shining forth to all orders, of blessed Ignatius de Loyola, first institutor of the most celebrated Society of Jesus, and his miracles both in life and after death. Beyond those, legitimately and in order set down in the acts of this canonization, there stand also other proofs, and witnesses clearer than the noonday light. A witness is the distinguished Religion instituted by this Blessed himself, adorned with most holy laws, and diffused far and wide throughout the whole world with the increase of the divine cult; which, like the sun by its splendor, always illumines even those who hate the light, willing or unwilling. Witnesses are not only the faithful, but even the infidels, who by the work of this Blessed, as erring sheep, have been recalled to the region of the Catholic Church. Not obscure testimonies are the so many distinguished monasteries founded by this Blessed, the colleges erected, the seminaries built, and the ample churches most munificently constructed for the divine cult; a witness finally most abundant is not only this City, in which God deigned through this Servant to work so many miracles, and where the most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul promised the same Blessed that God Himself would be propitious to him, and where his body rests; but the whole world; and most distinguishedly there testifies also the new world, in which the name of the Lord, by the work of this Blessed and through his sons, was brought to its peoples. Whence from all these things I most justly judge that Your Holiness ought to come to the canonization of this Blessed, and to set him forth to the veneration of all, and that he ought to be honored by all, whom God honors in heaven, to the consolation of the faithful who demand it, to the confusion of the heretics, to the glory and honor of God Himself.

[1102] Cardinal Verallo, Cardinal Verallo: Although there are many miracles which through the processes juridically fabricated, and by the sacred congregation of Rites, were approved concerning blessed Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, that he may be inscribed into the assembly of the Blessed: yet humility and charity, in my judgment illustrated by many miracles from God, rendered that Man most worthy of heaven. Truly he who was to raise an edifice of such great loftiness, deservedly thought of the foundation of humility, through which, the more he concealed himself and his virtues, the more manifest God rendered him. For Alessandro Petronio, a man worthy of credit, while he lay sick in bed in a dark and gloomy chamber, saw Ignatius sparkling in his whole face with divine splendors. To this humility he joined so great charity that amid perpetual labors and troubles he could say with the Apostle: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ, tribulation, or distress, or famine, or perils, or persecution, or the sword? It is now your part, Most Blessed Father, to bring it about that he who humbled himself be exalted, and that he who undertook so many labors out of charity, that he might render God more propitious to the world, be recompensed with these supreme honors of canonization.

Cardinal Campori: Most Blessed Father. That Ignatius of Loyola was called from earthly to sacred warfare, Cardinal Campori, that he passed his life in admirable sanctity, that he recalled almost innumerable heretics to the truth of the faith, is indeed the greatest argument of God's love toward him: but that a most ample Society, founded from slender beginnings, he propagated in so short a time into all the most remote provinces, and illustrated them with the light of the Christian faith, must be judged to have come to pass not without a special favor of heavenly grace, and the merit of a certain distinguished communion with the divinity. I therefore judge that he ought to be adorned with the honors of the triumphant Saints.

[1104] Cardinal Valier: Most Blessed Father. Since the processes and acts concerning the sanctity and miracles of the servant of God Ignatius of Loyola have now been diligently investigated by the prudence of Your Holiness, Cardinal Valier, first in the sacred Rota, and then in the congregation of Sacred Rites, at which I too was present, and there by the unanimous consent of the fathers a decree emanated, that he is most worthy who (if it shall please Your Holiness) be inscribed by solemn rite into the number of the Saints: it remains that, what I judged on other occasions, I now also without any hesitation judge, namely that blessed Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, most excellently deserving of the Christian commonwealth and of this holy See, for the splendor of the Church of God, by the quite distinguished devotion of kings, nations, and peoples, can this present day be solemnly referred into the order of the holy Confessors.

Cardinal Leni: With what great excellence of virtues and sanctity of morals blessed Ignatius led his life, Cardinal Leni, was plainly attested: it now remains that by Your Holiness he be co-opted into the number of the Saints in name and cult.

Cardinal Rivarola: Among his eminent charity toward the neighbor, Cardinal Rivarola, Most Blessed Father, and his assiduous endeavor of praying, there shines in blessed Ignatius the zeal of propagating religion, which in our times sparkles with the sanctity of so many most illustrious sons in Christ. This man I judge worthy of divine honors.

Cardinal de Trejo: That Ignatius of Loyola, the parent of the Society, Cardinal de Trejo, bore most abundant fruits of all the virtues in the field of the Lord, both the sacred congregation of Rites and daily experience testify. But since the excellence of each tree, according to the sentence of our Savior, is known from its fruits, fruits of such eminent sanctity cannot but have flowed from a holy tree: and therefore I judge the aforesaid Ignatius worthy that by Your Holiness he be inscribed into the number of the Saints.

[1105] Cardinal Sacrati: Most Blessed Father. If men who, adorned with private virtues, gave themselves to themselves and to God, Cardinal Sacrati, have been judged worthy of heavenly honors by this holy See; how much more does this seem to be bestowed on those who, besides private virtues, intent on the common usefulness of others, led very many mortals indeed to the cult and service of God? That blessed Ignatius, of whom Your Holiness made words, was of this kind, is shown on the one hand indeed by his heroic virtues and miracles, with which the divine goodness adorned him living and dead; but on the other hand by the plan of the same life, which from the very beginning of his conversion the Man, born for the good of men, perpetually directed wholly to the glory of God and the salvation of mortals, a Society of pious and learned men being therefore instituted, and propagated throughout the whole world with incredible speed, by which we daily see, with truly opportune support, resistance made to the heretics rising up against the Church of God, and them routed, the fanes of idols and the cult of demons overthrown, the corrupt morals of Christians corrected. Wherefore I judge that blessed Ignatius ought deservedly to be referred into the number of the Saints.

Cardinal Gozzadini, Cardinal Gozzadini: Since Blessed Ignatius, for defending and propagating the authority of the Apostolic See, devoted himself and his family to the supreme Pontiff, and before God wrought great virtues, and with all his heart praised the Lord, and both in life and after death shone with many miracles, as is established from the processes made concerning his canonization; deservedly public honors are owed to him, and he seems to be numbered among the Saints.

Cardinal Pignatelli, Cardinal Pignatelli: With the fire of unfeigned charity Father Ignatius wonderfully burned, Most Blessed Father, which both the name of Ignatius indicates, and all the actions of his life testify. The plan of Your Holiness, of reckoning him among the sons and Saints of God, I judge to be approved and praised.

Cardinal Gherardi, Cardinal Gherardi: Our God, Most Blessed Father, who, as He is a consuming fire, had come to send fire into the world, gave Ignatius to His Church. For if all things which the fire has invaded are turned into fire; assuredly the Society of Ignatius was called the Society of Jesus for no other reason than that Jesus had turned Ignatius into Himself. Its pious and learned offspring fosters Catholics by piety, burns heretics by doctrine. This is the fiery column, which, when by Luther the sun of Catholic truth set, then first appeared, and presently shone before in the Indian desert. Its parent Ignatius, if we regard his miracles, shines; if his virtues, when he seemed to be extinguished, he flew straight into his own orbit, that is, into heaven. Receiving this very thing as a divine oracle for asserting the Sanctity of Ignatius, I judge that by Your Holiness he ought deservedly to be referred among the Saints.

[1106] Cardinal Sourdis, Cardinal Sourdis: The wise man brings forth from his treasure new and old things: for the treasures of the Church are the Saints, whose merits are reserved as in a treasury, about to profit many. Ignatius, born not for himself alone, but that he might profit others, called his Society least; but the outcome demonstrated it greatest in number and virtue. Who, although born in Spain; yet his Society had its origin at Paris, where he gave his endeavor to letters, and joined companions to himself, and he himself on the mount of the martyrdom of St. Dionysius was anointed with the oil of gladness, and received the spirit of adoption of the sons of God, and was girded with virtue for war. By a just title therefore your firstborn Louis, the Most Christian King, showed himself the special protector of the Society everywhere in the world, and desires to join Ignatius to himself and to his kingdoms as a patron in heaven, and most insistently demands from Your Holiness that, in the hundredth year from his conversion, he may obtain the appellation of Saint by the sacred oracle of Your Holiness, whom Spain gave to the world, France to the Church, Rome to heaven.

Cardinal Ludovisi: Those titles of sanctity which for blessed Ignatius of Loyola the suppliant letters of Kings, the assiduous prayers of peoples, Cardinal Ludovisi. and the wishes of almost the whole Christian commonwealth now for a long time demand, I judge ought to be bestowed on him as soon as possible, Most Blessed Father, on account of the bounds of the Apostolic empire propagated, on account of the Society of Jesus instituted, most celebrated for the increase of the divine cult and the oppression of heretical impiety, on account of the sanctity of his life salutary to both worlds.

§ CIV. The suffrages of the archbishops and bishops; the reply, decree, and sentence of Gregory XV.

Those things which we designate under this title stand, in the following order and form, in our oft-named Roman documents. And first occur the suffrages of the archbishops and bishops.

Of the Archbishop of Rhodes: I indeed judge and desire, Most Blessed Father, that Ignatius of Loyola should long since have been referred among the Saints: this, for my piety toward him, and my observance toward the Society of Jesus, of which he himself is the Founder; that, for his merits and miracles. For the City and the world acknowledge him the stormer of heresies, the destroyer of idolatry, the champion of that most august See of Peter, the most praised hero of Christ.

Of the Bishop of Bellicastro: The fruitful offspring of Ignatius, pleasing to God, of the Bishop of Bellicastro, Most Blessed Father, clearly demonstrates the ardent love of so great a Father toward Christ, his contempt of the world, and the sanctity of his life proved by miracles. Wherefore I judge it to be the part of Your Holiness to set him forth at the altars to be venerated by the faithful, that, as a most shining torch of the virtues, from a lofty place he may show mortals the way of perfection.

Of James, Bishop of Vercelli: This man ought both to have glory with Christ, of the Bishop of Vercelli, who tolerated evils for Christ, and who desired to be anathema from God for the salvation of another, with whom there is no such sacrifice as is the zeal of souls.

Of Don Francesco Muttini, Bishop of Brugnato: The conversion of blessed Ignatius, of Brugnato, Most Blessed Father, singularly took its beginning from the apparition of the Prince of the Apostles; an argument, namely, of the Apostolic institute,

about to proceed afterward from so great a Patriarch: therefore, since the Apostle chose him for himself as the amplifier of his authority, it is fair that by the same Apostolic See it be declared that he too has a seat in heaven with him.

Of Don Sébastien Bouthillier, Bishop of Aire: By the best right also blessed Ignatius obtained Louis XIII, of Aire, the Most Christian King, the firstborn of the Church, as his intercessor, who made the whole world a debtor to himself by the splendor of his virtues, and by his own and his men's perennial labors and watchings, keeping guard for the salvation of the Christian commonwealth.

[1108] Of Don Luca Alemanni, formerly Bishop of Volterra: Ignatius, of Volterra, whom I would rather call Ignitus (kindled) on account of the eminent charity toward God and neighbor with which he burned, the Society of Jesus acknowledges as father and founder. How much the Christian commonwealth owes to this Society, there is no one who does not know: equally known to all is the sanctity of this man, and his contempt of all earthly things, but especially his self-abnegation; wherefore I judge him most worthy to be referred among the Saints, provided the good pleasure of Your Holiness accede.

Of Don Bovio, Bishop of Bagnoregio: Blessed Ignatius of Loyola, remarkable for innocence of life and miracles, of Bagnoregio, while I regard the most noble Society founded by him, I dare to call not unlike the great Patriarch Jacob, since in blessed Ignatius there seems fulfilled that office similar to it which had been promised to Jacob by the Lord, namely that his seed should increase above the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea: for so many doctors, so many Martyrs his great Society has brought forth, and brings forth day by day, that it seems to be a perpetual miracle of the blessed Founder. I judge therefore that he ought to be numbered among the Saints by Your Holiness.

[1109] of Cavaillon, Of Don Octavio, Bishop of Cavaillon: I too judge that the honor of canonization is owed to blessed Ignatius: since the innocence of his life, his piety, purity, and the other distinguished virtues by which he shines, and also his wondrous deeds indicating his sanctity, not undeservedly demand it, but especially because he was the light of the world, a light, I say, shining now in the heavens, shining also on earth. He shone while he lived, when with the splendor of his face he made a dark and gloomy chamber shine again. Nay Ignatius shone forth, rather burned, with the fire of charity, he shines forth more, and will shine perpetually in his offspring; since he was the parent of the most illustrious Society, by which he day by day more augments the evangelical light and the cult of God. Wherefore I judge that he too ought to be augmented with honors, and, as a sparkling star, or a lamp burning and shining on the high candlestick of the Church, that it may shine to all, ought to be set up, and therefore inscribed in the catalog of the Saints (if it shall be the good pleasure of Your Holiness).

of Tagaste, Of Brother Giovanni Vincenzo Spinola, Bishop of Tagaste, and sacristan of Our Most Holy Lord: There is no reason that I should strive to recount at greater length the laudable norm of the life of blessed Ignatius. For if that rich cluster of grape was an argument to the Hebrews that they should assert that its vine had been propagated in the land of promise; so I too, feeling so great a sweetness of graces and divine virtues diffused everywhere from this cluster of the most illustrious Society of Jesus, judge that the vine of the same cluster has rightly and deservedly, as heavenly and mystical, attained the promised beatitude of the land, and ought to be inscribed to the assembly of the Saints.

The reply, decree, and sentence of Pope Gregory XV. The reply, decree, and sentence of Our Most Holy Lord Gregory XV are there also given. And the reply indeed thus has: We have heard what you, most beloved brothers, think by your suffrages; nor do we doubt but that God, to whom we give immortal thanks, has put such a mind into you, that He so liberally remunerates those who serve Him with all their strength. And so, as you have thought, we too think; and therefore, the divine help being implored, we decree the twelfth day of the month of March, which day is sacred to St. Gregory, for this business, which is the greatest of all. You meanwhile, brothers, with repeated prayers, fastings, alms, and other suppliant vows, pray God that He may be propitious and merciful to us, lest we propose anything against His honor to His holy Church.

But the decree of the Most Holy Father is established in these words: It is well, most beloved brothers. This unanimous consent of yours has heaped us with great joy, and confirmed us in the undertaken opinion of referring this pair of Blessed, on the appointed day of St. Gregory, into the number of the Saints. Wherefore give thanks with us, for that which has hitherto been done, to the immortal God, who bestows on His Saints through us on earth something of that honor which He grants them far greater and more perennial in heaven; and at the same time by your prayers, alms, fastings, and other supplications, assiduously knock at the gates of heaven, that God our Lord may in that which remains lay open to us His will, and clemently show to His holy Church that which is best.

But the sentence of the same Most Holy Lord was pronounced in this tenor of words: To the honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, and the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of the same God almighty, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, on the counsel of our brothers, we decree and define that Isidore the husbandman of Madrid of good memory, Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Jesus of Ávila, foundress of the discalced Carmelites, and Filippo Neri, Founder of the congregation of the Oratory of the City, are Saints, and are to be inscribed in the catalog of the Saints, and them and any of them we inscribe in a catalog of this kind, ordaining that by the universal Church, every year, on the day of their happy passing, their feast and Office, namely of Isidore, Ignatius, Francis, and Filippo, as of one confessor not a pontiff, and of Teresa, as of one virgin not a martyr, be devoutly and solemnly celebrated.

Moreover by the same authority to all truly penitent and confessed, who every year on the same feast day shall devoutly come to the burial-places of the same, one year and forty days, but to those coming every year within the octaves of the said feast to the burial-places, forty days of the enjoined penances we mercifully relax.

[1111] To these is subjoined the juridical attestation of those acts: We make faith and attest The juridical attestation of those acts, how Our Most Holy Lord Gregory, by divine providence Pope XV, on Wednesday the 16th day of the month of February 1622, in a semipublic consistory, held in the Apostolic palace of St. Peter in the hall of the Apostles before the chapel of His Holiness, a brief discourse being first held to the most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops concerning the instituted canonization of the blessed Isidore, the husbandman of Madrid, and Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, and Francis Xavier of the said Society, and the suffrages upon it of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops being required, and they being received in favor of the canonization, by the common consent of all decreed to refer the said blessed Isidore, Ignatius, and Francis, God helping, into the number of the Saints on the 12th day of the month of March, which is sacred to St. Gregory. In faith whereof we have subscribed the present, and fortified it with our seal. Given at Rome this 18th day of February 1622. Stefano Sauli, Apostolic protonotary, deputed and asked, etc. And below is placed the Place ✠ of the seal.

[1112] From the Italian narratives of the apparatus and solemnity Father Ignacio Pinius suggests these things to be noted. 1. the adornment of the solemnity, That Cardinal Farnese and others said that never in an action of this kind had the church of St. Peter been so beautifully adorned. 2. On the day of the canonization the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome bestowed an alms of white bread on a great multitude of the poor, who had flocked together from the whole City. On Tuesday, that is 15 March, the solemnity was celebrated in the church of the professed house at Rome: which that week gave alms twice to all the poor. 3. On Saturday, that is the eighth day of the canonization, in the morning to the church of the professed house came the German college, the English college accompanying, to receive from the hands of our most reverend Father General its banner, acknowledging St. Ignatius as its Founder: after the noon meal the novitiate of St. Andrew, to receive its banner also; more than three thousand poor accompanied, to all of whom alms was given.

[1113] and the esteem of Gregory concerning the Society. By way of conclusion to these things which I have brought into the midst concerning the canonization of the Saint, I weave from our Roman records these words, which Gregory XV in the Brief by which he granted to Charles of Lorraine, bishop of Verdun, the faculty of renouncing the episcopal dignity, says, and they are the following: That therefore it may be happy and auspicious to you and to the whole Church. Go, with our good leave, whither you desire, and give your name into that warfare of the Society of Jesus, whose so distinguished trophies of routed heresies stand, and no less august monuments of the Christian faith defended and exalted. Truly with what affection we were toward that Order, we lately magnificently declared to the whole world through the celebrated canonization of two of its most holy men, Ignatius and Francis Xavier, whose heroic deeds in subjugating both worlds to the empire of Christ had wonderful successes. In those camps, fortified with the shield of faith and armed with the sword of charity, you, son, will show a greater fortitude than that which the princes of your most illustrious family proved by their most famous expeditions, etc. At Rome, 22 April 1622.

§ CV. Indulgences, the Collect for the Pontifical Mass, the Bull of canonization; the propagation of the cult in Spain; the same sought elsewhere.

Indulgences: the Pontifical Collect; Gregory XV, on the 11th day of March in the year 1622, granted plenary indulgences on the day on which the feast of the canonization of the blessed Ignatius and Francis Xavier should be celebrated by us; on the faith of the documents received from Rome; where Father Ignacio Pinius testifies that the authentic Bull is had; who also affirms that the Collect for the Pontifical Mass of Saints Ignatius and Francis was this prayer; which he adds is known to him to be recited daily throughout the whole Society after the Litanies of all the Saints. The prayer: O God, who glorifiest those who glorify Thee, and art honored in the honors of Thy Saints: grant propitiously, that we who venerate the glorious merits of Thy blessed Ignatius and Francis may feel their pious patronage. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy son, etc. The Secret: May the benign suffrages of Thy Saints Ignatius and Francis be present, O Lord God, to our offerings: that the sacrosanct mysteries, in which Thou hast established the fount of all sanctity, may also sanctify us in truth. Through our Lord, etc. The Postcommunion: May the Host of praise, O Lord, which we have offered, giving thanks for Thy Saints Ignatius and Francis, lead us by their intercession to the perpetual laudation of Thy majesty. Through our Lord, etc. The same Pope Gregory XV granted a perpetual plenary indulgence for the churches of the Society of Jesus on their feast. The Bull (of which I have a transcript from the original among the Roman documents) is signed on the 8th day of June 1622, and is inserted among the Apostolic letters joined to our Institute, page 24 of the Antwerp edition of the year 1665.

[1115] In the aforesaid Roman documents is assigned the original Bull of the canonization of St. Ignatius by Urban VIII, etc., the Bull of canonization was dispatched by his successor. given in the year 1623, on the 8th of the Ides of August,

with the subscriptions of the same Pontiff and of the Cardinals. I have a copy, printed at Rome by the presses of the reverend Apostolic Chamber, in the year 1626. This Bull also stands among the Apostolic Letters issued in favor of the Society, and published at Antwerp in the year 1635, from page 319. Likewise in Cherubini in the Bullarium, tome 4 of the Roman edition of the year 1632, from page 191. Moreover it was dispatched by Pope Urban VIII, successor of Gregory XV, because by Gregory himself, death coming upon him, it had not been completed. See the said Bull, §48. What concerning the deeds for the canonization; concerning likewise the Saint's life, virtues, and miracles are mentioned in it, you will learn from the consistorial Relation which I gave, §101.

[1116] Now those things must be set forth which afterward, through various intervals of times, happened concerning the extension of the public veneration of St. Ignatius, The propagation of the cult preserved in those documents of the Roman archive of our Society, from which their collector excellently illustrated the Ignatian matters there. Receive therefore the instruments, partly cited, partly transcribed from that place by his own hand. Among those, then, is named the original decree of the most illustrious and most reverend patriarch and archbishop of Seville, Diego de Guzmán, of 28 June 1628, that the feast of St. Ignatius be celebrated with double rite, with a proper prayer: O God, who glorifiest those who glorify. In the first nocturn the lections: Let us praise glorious men. In the Mass also the proper secret and postcommunion: May they be present, O Lord God. May the Host of praise, O Lord.

The original decree of the Most Eminent Lord Agostino Spinola, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, of the title of Saints Cosmas and Damian, archbishop of Granada, of 27 July 1628, that the same feast be celebrated with double rite, with three proper prayers, as above. And presently is designated

The decree of the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Cuenca, Enrique Pimentel, of 26 July 1628, that the same feast be celebrated with double rite, with the prayer: O God, who glorifiest those who glorify. The lections of the first nocturn: Let us praise glorious men. In the Mass three proper prayers, as above. On the 30th day he is set down in the Martyrology at Prime: At Rome, the birth (natalis) of blessed Ignatius, a Spanish Cantabrian, priest and confessor, Founder of the Society of Jesus, who, the earthly warfare being left, wonderfully called to institute a certain heavenly warfare, burning with zeal for souls, having discharged the greatest labors and cares, and the companions of his institute, the Apostolic benediction being received, being sent into the whole world to the greater glory of God, at last, many miracles being wrought, calling upon Jesus, fell asleep in Him.

[1117] The decree of the most illustrious and most reverend Don Martín Terrer, in Spain. archbishop of Zaragoza, concerning the same feast to be celebrated with double rite, with three proper prayers, as above. The decree was given on 14 July 1631. Note. The archbishops of Seville, Granada, and Zaragoza say in those decrees that all the feasts of the Saints of Spain are celebrated with double rite. But although this, as regards Ignatius, was done out of pious zeal toward him; yet that it was not permitted, in sacred rites of this kind, to anticipate the decrees of the Apostolic See, Rome asserted: for in the year 1641, on 11 May, the sacred congregation of Rites declared that this was not lawful. The words of the declaration are: Ottaviano Ragi, protonotary, etc. Know ye, that on the undersigned day, on the part and at the instance of the reverend clergy of the kingdom of Aragon principally … there was exhibited a decree of the sacred congregation of Rites, of the following tenor, namely: The Most Eminent and most reverend lords: In the church of Zaragoza, by the decree of the then most reverend Lord archbishop, from the year 1631 the Office of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, is recited under double rite, to whose example the same is done in all the churches of the kingdom of Aragon. But because it seems against the declarations of this sacred congregation approved by Our Most Holy Lord, and appended at the beginning of the Breviary, it is besought to be declared whether it is lawful, and would be lawful, for the aforesaid Office of St. Ignatius to be recited under double rite. For the clergy of the kingdom of Aragon. The sacred congregation of Rites answered that it had not been lawful, nor is it lawful, by any rite in the case proposed, to recite the Office of St. Ignatius. On the 11th day of May 1641. The bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Pio, Giulio Cinci, secretary. Then the aforesaid protonotary urges the execution of the aforesaid answer. Given at Rome in the year 1641, on the 25th day of May, etc.

[1118] The same is sought at Innsbruck and Avignon. To Germany pertain two letters. The one of Archduke Leopold, given at Innsbruck on 11 September 1628, by which he asks of the Pontiff that St. Ignatius be inserted into the Calendar with a proper Office. The other, the original letter of the most serene Claudia, given at Innsbruck in 1644, to the Most Eminent Cardinal Rossetti, by which she demands the Office of St. Ignatius. From France is designated the original supplicatory little book of the Provost and canons of the distinguished collegiate and parochial church of St. Didier at Avignon, by which they set forth to the Pontiff that, from a foundation approved by the bishop, they are bound every year to celebrate solemnly the Offices of Saints Ignatius and Francis Xavier: but that those Offices are celebrated in the said church with the same rites and ceremonies, as regards exterior pomp, with which Easter, Pentecost, etc., are celebrated: yet under semidouble rite according to the rubrics. But that this seems unfitting. They therefore supplicate for the double rite of both Offices. There are the subscriptions of the Provost and canons, but the year is lacking.

§ CVI. The proper Offices of the Saint.

[The decree concerning the Office of the Saint to be referred into the Calendar and Breviary.] The public veneration of St. Ignatius took the greatest increase from those things which in the years 1644, 1646, and 1667 were done at Rome concerning his ecclesiastical cult. But what these are, the instruments teach, which the scrutinizer of our Roman archive, repeatedly mentioned by us, cites: from whose handwriting we transcribe them hither, namely the original decree that the Office of St. Ignatius be set down in the Roman Calendar and Breviary on 31 July, under semidouble rite of precept; transcribed in these words: The supplications of the priests of the Society of Jesus, humbly offered to the Apostolic See for many years, even through the supreme princes of the Christian commonwealth, concerning the Office of St. Ignatius confessor, Founder of the same Society, to be set down by the aforesaid authority in the Roman Calendar and Breviary, being referred by Our Most Holy Lord Pope Innocent X to the examination of the sacred congregation of Rites, on the 29th day of October 1644, the Most Eminent and most reverend lord Luigi, of the title of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Prior of the priests, called Cardinal Capponi of the Holy Roman Church, reporting, it judged (if it shall please our most holy Lord) that the aforesaid Office of the common of a confessor not a pontiff, besides the lections of the second Nocturn and the prayer proper, to be approved by it, ought to be set down in the Roman Calendar and Breviary under semidouble rite, to be henceforth recited by all the faithful of Christ who are bound to the canonical Hours, on the 31st day of July, according to the rubrics of the same Breviary, of precept. Which opinion of the sacred congregation being reported to His Holiness, he praised and approved it, and commanded it to be done as is set forth. P. Bishop of Porto, Cardinal Crescenzi. C. Paolucci, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites.

[1120] To the year 1646 pertains the original Office with the lections of the second Nocturn and the prayer proper. The transcript of the Decree thus sounds: The lections of the second Nocturn, the proper prayer, Of the Society of Jesus. Since the sacred congregation of Rites on the 29th day of October 1644 by a decree approved by the Most Holy Father commanded that the Office of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, in the Roman Calendar and Breviary, of the common of a confessor not a pontiff, besides the prayer and the proper lections of the second Nocturn, to be approved by it before they be inserted in the Breviary, ought to be set down under semidouble rite, and to be recited by all the faithful of Christ who are bound to the canonical Hours, on the 30th (nay 31st) day of July according to the rubrics of the same Breviary of precept; therefore the undersigned lections of the second Nocturn, revised and maturely examined, and the prayer, to be recited on the feast day of St. Ignatius according to the rubrics of the Breviary and Roman Missal respectively, as above, the Most Eminent fathers, prefects of the sacred congregation of Rites, approved, and granted that they can be printed, and also inserted in the Roman Breviary. On the 21st day of April 1646.

[1121] On the faith of him who transcribed these things, I subjoin these to be observed. as they were printed at Rome in the year 1646. The lections of the first Nocturn, from the occurring Scripture. Here follow the lections of the second Nocturn, and the prayer, as they also were printed at Rome in 1646, and are still had in the Breviary. In the fifth lection, however, in manuscript it has: And Paul III first received him. A little after: to preach the Gospel to the Indians, to St. Xavier (Francis being omitted). In the sixth lection: St. Filippo (Neri being omitted), and others beheld. In the copy printed in 1646 at Rome, by the presses of the reverend Apostolic Chamber, all these things are had, as now in the Breviary. Concerning the lections of the third Nocturn nothing is had in the original Ms.: and so they were then of the common of a confessor not a pontiff. In the printed copy of 1646, it has: In the third Nocturn the Gospel: Let your loins be girt: the Homily of St. Gregory the Pope of the common of a confessor not a pontiff. The Mass, The mouth of the just: the first prayer, as above. The Secret and postcommunion of the common. After the proper lections and prayer, there follow in the original these subscriptions: A. Cardinal Capponi. M. Gallio, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites.

[1122] Let us come to the year 1647. The Milanese Office of St. Ignatius, The Office of the church of Milan concerning the prayers, antiphons, then published in print at Milan, the collector of these documents with faculty extracted from the Roman archive, where it was duplicated, and sent hither. It is of the following tenor: The Office of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, confessor priest, translated to the 11th day of August, not solemn; by the order of the Most Eminent and most reverend lord Cesare Cardinal Monti, archbishop of the holy church of Milan, recently added to the Ambrosian Calendar. All of the common of one confessor priest except the following. The first prayer. O God, who madest Blessed Ignatius the confessor, the eminent propagator of Thy glory, Founder of the Society of Jesus; grant propitiously, that, by his intercession, we may deserve to be partakers of Thy heavenly glory. Through our Lord, etc. The second prayer. O God, who glorifiest those who glorify Thee, and art honored in the honors of Thy Saints, grant, that we who venerate the glorious merits of Blessed Ignatius Thy confessor may feel his pious patronage with Thee. Through our Lord, etc. The antiphon at the Canticle Magnificat and Benedictus. Whoever shall glorify me, I will glorify him; but those who despise me shall be ignoble. The Psallenda. But to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Glory. But to the King.

[1123] and the third lection The third lection. Ignatius of Loyola, a Cantabrian, born of most noble parents, passed his boyhood in the paternal house, his youth in the court of Ferdinand the Catholic King: presently a soldier, and a leader most strongly defending Pamplona (Pompeiopolis), by a wall-cannon-ball, and a stone struck out from it, was gravely injured. While he is cured, the Lives of the Saints being read, St. Peter first appearing to him, then the blessed Virgin, the chamber trembling, he is converted to better things. At Manresa, after his conscience was purged at Montserrat, clothed in sackcloth, girt with a chain, lying on the ground, nearly killed with tears, fastings, scourges, watchings, he laid down the roughest novitiate of sanctity. So great amid these things was the abundance of heavenly pleasures, that he thenceforth called that sojourn his primitive Church. There, a man rude in letters, by divine illumination, he wrote the book of the Exercises.

There he received from heaven the delineation of the Society of Jesus, and, after a most difficult pilgrimage to Jerusalem and laborious studies of letters begun at Paris, he founded it at Rome, Paul III approving, who, the formula of the Institute being seen, pronounced that the Finger of God was there.

[1124] proper. He sent companions in every direction to preach, and among the rest Francis Xavier, the new apostle of the Indies, into the East. He opened schools everywhere among the nations for the erudition of Christian youth freely; he recalled into custom the frequent use of the Sacraments. At Rome he founded several public domiciles. He often saw the heavenly ones. He heard Jesus promising him patronage in those words near the City: I will be propitious to you at Rome. Illustrious for many miracles while living; he shone with more and greater ones after death; whose day he foreknew, and, fortified with the Apostolic benediction, invoking Jesus, he passed into heaven; leaving more than a hundred houses of the Society, and great and admirable examples of every kind of virtue, on the day before the Kalends of August of the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-six, himself passing his sixty-fifth year. Paul V inscribed him on the roll of the Blessed, Gregory XV ordered him to be venerated with the honors of the Saints, Innocent X added him to the Roman Calendar.

[1125] The indulgences and Office translated in the Roman college. There is had also in our Roman records the original translation of the indulgence, and the recitation of the Office of St. Ignatius for the Roman college: concerning which these things are noted: There is found in the Register of the reverend Father Bernardino Rocci, formerly secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites, on the 13th day of July 1652, a decree of the tenor set down below, namely: Roman. Since the Fathers of the Society of Jesus of the church of St. Ignatius of the Roman college of the City have obtained from Our Most Holy Lord the translation of the indulgence granted by Gregory XV of happy memory, on the feast day of the said Saint to the Sunday immediately following; they besought the sacred congregation of Rites that it would deign to impart to them also license to recite on the same Sunday the Office of the same holy Founder of the Society, and titular of the church, under double rite. And the same sacred congregation judged that it could be benignly granted, if it should please Our Most Holy Lord. Which decree then, although under Innocent X of happy memory, being not dispatched, Our Most Holy Lord Alexander, by divine providence Pope the seventh, afterward approved, and commanded to be dispatched. On the 17th day of the month of June 1655. Charles, bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Medici. Pancus. Maria Febei, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites. Let us proceed further.

[1126] The original mandate of Clement IX, concerning the feast of St. Ignatius to be celebrated under double rite, the collector of these things transcribed in these terms: The feast of St. Ignatius under double rite. Of the City and of the world. Our Most Holy Lord Clement the ninth, that he might augment the cult of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, so well deserving of the universal Church, everywhere in the world, commanded that his feast, which up to this day has been celebrated under semidouble rite, be celebrated under double. And therefore he enjoins that all, both secular and regular, of whatever sex, who are bound to the canonical Hours, henceforth recite them under the aforesaid rite, and that under the same it be set down in the Roman Calendar. This day, 27 September 1667. M. bishop of Porto, Cardinal Ginetti. Bernardo Casali, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites. According to this mandate, a decree was made on 11 October of the same year; for in our copies collected at Rome it is affirmed that there stands the decree of Clement IX concerning the Office of St. Ignatius to be recited everywhere in perpetuity under double rite, given on 11 October 1667. To this belongs the following observation of Father Ignacio Pinius: Our most reverend Father General Giovanni Paolo Oliva in the encyclical letters given to our men on 15 October 1667, after he had narrated this benefit conferred on us by Clement IX, subjoined: The manner of conferring augmented the benefit, by which not to our prayers (although I had offered a supplicatory little book concerning it), but on account of the eminent merits of the holy Father toward the Church of God, and on account of the singular veneration with which His Holiness venerates him, he wished this grace to be dispatched.

§ CVII. A peculiar indult concerning the recitation of the Office of St. Ignatius; his former apartments, now domestic chapels at Rome; and his sacred relics there.

Pope Clement X, the reverend Father Prepositus of the Society of Jesus asking it, concerning the recitation of the Office of our holy Father, deigned to grant a singular indult to the Assistancy of Spain: [A privilege concerning the recitation of the Office of St. Ignatius, granted to the Assistancy of Spain,] concerning which matter this decree stands, published in print: Of the Society of Jesus. Our Most Holy Lord Clement X, the reverend Father Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus, humbly supplicating, benignly granted that the provinces of the same Society, pertaining to the Assistancy of Spain, and the individual persons of the same provinces and of the Assistancy, once a week, on a day not impeded by a double or semidouble feast, may licitly and freely celebrate and recite the Mass and Office of St. Ignatius, Founder and parent of the Society, under semidouble rite, excepting, however, Advent and Lent. On the 5th day of January 1673. F. M. bishop of Porto, Cardinal Brancati. Bernardino Casali, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites.

[1128] and granted to Germany. The same Most Holy Lord afterward extended the aforesaid favor to the Assistancy of Germany, as is established from this printed decree: Of Germany, of the Society of Jesus. Whereas on another occasion, on the 5th day of January 1673, Our Most Holy Lord Clement the tenth granted that the provinces of the Society of Jesus pertaining to the Assistancy of Spain, and the individual persons of those provinces and of the Assistancy, once a week, on a day not impeded by a double or semidouble feast, may licitly and freely celebrate and recite the Mass and Office of St. Ignatius, Founder and parent of the Society of Jesus, under semidouble rite, excepting, however, Advent and Lent: Now the same His Holiness, the procurator general of the aforesaid Society supplicating, benignly extending the aforesaid grace, granted that also the provinces of the Society of Jesus pertaining to the Assistancy of Germany, and the individual persons of those provinces and of the Assistancy, may and can recite and celebrate the Office and Mass of the said Saint, as above. This day, 29 January 1676. V. Cardinal Carpineo. Bernardino Casali, secretary of the sacred congregation of Rites.

[1129] As regards the domestic chapels, formerly the apartments of St. Ignatius, and also his sacred relics; The apartments of the Saint, now chapels enriched with indulgences: I give those things which I received concerning them from Rome from Father Ignacio Pinius: St. Ignatius had there three small apartments. These, when afterward, long after his death, the new professed house was built, were preserved, enclosed in the new fabric. They were also, I know not when, changed into chapels. In two of those chapels is an altar: the third is a sacristy. The very doors are the same which St. Ignatius opened and shut, as is read inscribed on those doors. Innocent XI on the 9th day of April 1686 granted "A plenary indulgence to all and singular the priests who shall have devoutly celebrated the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass on the feast days of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ, of Saints Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, and Francis Xavier, and of St. Francis Borgia, and also of the Assumption of the Blessed immaculate Virgin Mary, in one of the chapels existing in the professed house of the said Society of the City, which were formerly the chambers of the same St. Ignatius, and in which Mass can be celebrated by license of the Apostolic See, and there for the union of the Christian princes, etc." Likewise "To all the faithful of Christ, men only, truly penitent and confessed, who shall have taken the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist in one of the said chapels, and on the aforesaid feast days, and there, as above, prayed." These are the words of the Pontiff, which I transcribed from the Brief. Benedict XIII in the year 1727, on the feast of St. Joseph, on which he there made Mass, bestowed a perpetual indulgence of seven years and as many quarantines to anyone making Mass or communicating in these chapels: as is clear from the Italian tablet hung at the entrance of the chapels.

[1130] In the fourth apartment nearest to these chapels, among many relics of the Saints, his sacred relics there, first of all of the Saints and Blessed of the Society of Jesus, also of three Japanese Martyrs, is kept a tooth of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus: a not small part of the priestly garment, clothed with which St. Ignatius sacrificed, and was buried. See the letter of Father Giuseppe da Fano, above at the second translation. It is of a golden color (or of quince-yellow), and not hitherto corrupted, nay it shines as if new. Likewise the greater part of the breast-cloth (thorax), sprinkled with the blood of his scourgings, with which St. Ignatius clothed himself, lest the bloody drops should be discerned on his undershirt. It is of a blackish color.

[1131] These apartments or chapels of St. Ignatius are celebrated with a frequent concourse of those celebrating there. the concourse, and the inscriptions. But on the feast day of St. Ignatius the concourse of the Roman people is most frequent and perpetual. In the Latin tablet, hung at the entrance of the chapels, there is among other things:

St. Francis Borgia died here. St. Francis de Sales prayed here frequently.

In one of the chapels, formerly the apartments of St. Ignatius, near the window stands a painting which exhibits St. Ignatius sacrificing, little flames hovering over his head, and the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity appearing to him. To the painting this inscription is added, on the side nearest the window:

Here St. Ignatius made the Divine service, the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity very often appearing to him.

Between the aforesaid painting and the altar, or on the side of the painting which recedes from the window, is read this inscription:

In this place St. Charles Cardinal Borromeo celebrated his second Mass.

At the back of the altar, or against the wall which is perpendicular to the altar, is a painting exhibiting the Mother of God, with the boy Jesus, and St. John the Baptist. To the painting is subjoined this epigraph:

Here before this very effigy of the Virgin Mother of God St. Ignatius both sacrificed and prayed.

In another of the aforesaid chapels, formerly the apartments of St. Ignatius, stand the following inscriptions:

Here St. Ignatius, writing the Constitutions of the Society, sees the Mother of God approving them from heaven.

Here to St. Ignatius, writing the Constitutions of the Society, the divine Persons often appear, and illustrate him with wondrous lights.

Here to St. Ignatius praying the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of fire, as once to the Apostles.

Here St. Ignatius gave himself to rest: where also Father Diego Laínez, the second General of the Society, happily expired.

§ CVIII. The skull of St. Ignatius in the sacristy of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome; whether and what [is] with the Camaldolese Fathers near Frascati in Latium?

Father Ignacio Pinius in the Roman Gleaning says: We have here in the sacristy the skull of our holy Father Ignatius in a cylindrical silver case, The skull of St. Ignatius bound around with red silk fillets, sealed in six places with the seal of the Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus. On this silver case is engraved this inscription in capital letters; which, rendered by me into Latin from the Italian original, thus sounds: In this vessel is the WHOLE SKULL of the head (in the Italian it is TUTTA LA COCCIA della testa) of Blessed Father Ignatius, placed there by the very reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus, 30 July 1610.

And presently the same gleaner, continuing, says: This case I handled with my hands, and from it I copied the aforesaid inscription. It is set forth for public veneration on the feast of the Circumcision, on all the feasts of the Saints and Blessed of the Society, etc., in a silver bust.

[1133] it is kept at Rome with our men in the professed house. Moreover he confirms the truth of this sacred deposit from a manuscript Italian book, whose title is: The Inventory of all the things of the sacristy of the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Rome, made by Father Giuseppe da Fano, prefect (understand of the church), 1604. But that in the following years there were added to the same instrument those things which accrued to that sacred furniture, I have from the said collector, who affirms that there are noted in the same place those things which I turn from the Italian tongue into Latin: 1610, on the 30th day of July THE HEAD of our blessed Father Ignatius placed in silver: Lady Ortensia Borghese made it (that is, ordered the silver bust to be made), which is worth 700 scudi. From these things its own truth stands for this sacred deposit; and the existence of the whole skull of the holy Father with our fathers of the Roman professed house is proved. But if this is so, what now will remain for the Camaldolese hermit Fathers of Frascati in Latium? Let us weigh the matter.

[1134] There are set forth To the said collector of the Gleaning Father Giovanni Battista Tosi, Rector of the college of Frascati of the Society of Jesus, gave his labor, through whom the same Father the gleaner writes that he sought in our name: 1. a transcript of the authentic testimony concerning the relics of our holy Father Ignatius, which the reverend Camaldolese Fathers of Frascati have. 2. Whether those relics are in their first state; or on the contrary, whether they suffered from a fire, as report has it. The aforesaid reverend Father Rector, together with a letter given at Frascati on 17 December 1729, sent to Rome the following writing, drawn up in another hand, namely of some reverend Camaldolese Father, unless I am much mistaken, says the same collector of the Gleaning, which from the Italian thus sounds: Notices of the skull of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which is preserved in the church of St. Romuald of the Camaldolese fathers. In the year 1607, the hermitage of the Camaldolese Fathers in the Frascati wood having begun to be built by Pope Paul V, his kinswoman, the wife of Francesco Borghese, the Pope's brother, Lady Ortensia della Santa Croce, built within the church of the fathers a certain most beautiful chapel, adorning it with very many relics of the Saints; among which also there was the skull of St. Ignatius, the Jesuit fathers receiving in exchange for it the head of St. Ignatius the martyr, bishop of Antioch. Which chapel was built in the year 1613, and there were placed the aforesaid relics. In the following year 1612 (nay 1614, from the Pope's Bull to be given below) the Bull was dispatched concerning the said holy relics not to be extracted, with the accustomed penalties, etc.

[1135] various notices But to our greatest misfortune, in the year 1647, in the month of April, at the hour of Matins, the aforesaid chapel and the treasury of relics were found to be all burning and blazing, so that it could not even be ascertained the manner in which it happened, and the origin of so great a fire. The fragments and bones which survived were placed under the altar of the same chapel. But the finger of St. Antony the abbot, and a certain small particle of the bone of the skull of St. Ignatius of Loyola were reserved, and placed in two small silver reliquaries, of a height a little greater than one palm, and are preserved in the sacristy of the aforesaid Camaldolese Fathers. Moreover in the year 1703, in the general visitation of Frascati, instituted by the most illustrious lord d'Aste, bishop of Otranto, and Apostolic visitor, the aforesaid relics were visited, with all the others existing in the sacristy; and, authentic testimonies of them being found, they were anew confirmed, and set forth for public veneration: as also the custom is on feasts of the first class, when the Superior celebrates. But of the other relics, whose authentic testimony was lost and perished, the approbation was not made, which were suspended. This happened on the 13th day of May 1703. Besides, that there were left by the aforesaid Apostolic visitor on the tablet of the relics subscribed by him these words, which I thus render into Latin, Relics of St. Ignatius of Loyola, consisting in one particle of the skull of the same Saint, the praised Rector of the college of Frascati testifies in a letter given on 17 December 1729 to the reverend Father Orazio Olivieri, S.J., Assistant of Italy; adding that he had observed that that very remarkable relic showed the color of ash; and that this is an evident sign that it is a remnant from the fire.

[1136] With these Father Ignacio Pinius was not content; but afterward again sought, through the said reverend Father Rector of the college of Frascati: 1. concerning a part of the same skull; Who had written the notices sent by him. 2. a transcript of the authentic testimony which was said to have been found in the year 1703: to which queries, that he received two letters; the one of the reverend Father Rector; the other of Dom Paolo, a Camaldolese hermit; who also wrote the notices given above, he affirms from the identity of the handwriting. Moreover from the letters of the said dom the hermit, given on 27 January 1730 from Camaldoli of Frascati, I extract these things. He signifies then that in a certain Ms. inventory of the sacred furniture which is kept in their sacristy, he found a note and catalog of all the holy relics of that church; and among them, also these of St. Ignatius, with this very inscription, which from the Italian says in Latin: A very large relic of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola. But because, he says, in the Apostolic visitation held here on 23 May 1703 by the most illustrious d'Aste, a notice of this kind written in the year 1616 was not manifested, perhaps because not read by any of the fathers dwelling there at the time of the aforesaid Apostolic visitation; therefore it was necessary to seek instruction from a certain octogenarian old man, a Camaldolese hermit of Frascati, Father Simone of Macerata, professed of Monte Corona in the year 1644, at the same time that the treasury of relics had been consumed by fire: who testified that in that burnt treasury there existed the finger of St. Antony the abbot, this of St. Ignatius, and many others, surviving and rescued from the fire. But whether the testimony of this father was made juridically and in the notarial way, he confesses he does not know; but he believes that there was a certain simple faith made orally, another form being set aside. And these things indeed from the fairly recent testification of the aforesaid dom Paolo.

[1137] Another, signed on the 3rd day of June 1700, our reverend Father Ignaz Diertins, S.J., Assistant of Germany, formerly sent hither from Rome; which is said to be kept in which Brother Cerbonio of Bologna, a Camaldolese hermit of Monte Corona, makes faith that he, while he was Prior of the sacred hermitage of Frascati in the year 1672, visited the sacristy of the said sacred hermitage, and in particular of the holy relics, nay even of the holy ashes of the relics burnt in the chapel or sacristy of Lady Ortensia della Santa Croce; which ashes were preserved in certain glass vessels, existing in the said sacristy; that among these ashes were some parts of the fragments of relics which were not burnt in the said fire of the mentioned chapel and holy-treasury; that those parts of relics were wrapped in papers, with the name of that Saint whose relics they were noted; and that among others found there by him were some from the skull of the glorious patriarch St. Ignatius, and one finger of St. Antony the abbot: that these, because they were such distinguished relics, he took care to have bound in crystal, and had with him; and that, a scruple afterward supervening on account of the papal excommunication of Pope Paul V, he consigned them to the very reverend father Benedetto of Macerata the visitor; then that they were bound in silver; and are kept together with other authentic relics in the sacristy of the said hermitage of Frascati.

[1138] among other sacred relics But from the transcript of the papal excommunication I extract these things: Paul V to the future memory of the matter. Whereas, as our beloved daughter in Christ, the noble woman Ortensia della Santa Croce, wife of our beloved son the noble man Francesco Borghese, our brother according to the flesh, lately caused to be set forth to us, she, led by a pious affection of devotion, has taken care that in the church of the hermitage of St. Romuald of the Camaldolese Order, of the diocese of Frascati, one chapel be built and adorned at her expense in honor of the Holy Cross, and that in it several relics of Saints, both male and female, be placed and decently preserved: We, wishing to provide that the sacred relics of this kind may not, by the progress of time, be moved and extracted thence, inclined to the supplications humbly offered to us on this matter in the name of the same Ortensia, that henceforth no one, exercising any authority whatsoever, dare or presume to extract or carry away the aforesaid relics or any part of them under any pretext or sought color, cause, reason, or occasion, from the said chapel, or to permit that they be extracted or carried away, under the penalty of excommunication of latae sententiae to be incurred, by Apostolic authority by the tenor of these presents we interdict and prohibit. Notwithstanding, etc. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 20th day of February 1614, in the ninth year of our pontificate. S. Cobelluzzi.

[1139] with the Camaldolese Fathers near Frascati. There stands at the back of this aforesaid transcript the following testimony, concerning the truth of the same transcript: We the undersigned testify that we have transcribed the aforesaid Brief, inscribed on a marble tablet, and placed at the entrance of the said chapel of the Holy Cross. Likewise we testify that we have seen the inventory or catalog of the relics which are preserved in the aforesaid chapel, written on parchment, and that among the other names are contained these words: Of the head a notable part, namely the skull of St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus; on the 3rd day of June 1700. Ignaz Diertins, Assistant of Germany of the Society of Jesus. Jacques de la Fontaine, priest of the Society of Jesus. Philippe Amyot d'Inville, priest of the Society of Jesus.

[1140] [The first origin, by which the skull is said to have been brought thither, is false.] False first of all are those things which concerning the first origin of this skull brought to the Camaldolese Fathers near Frascati were said above, num. 1134. For the praised gleaner thus writes: We have here in the sacristy of the professed house, in part, the head of St. Ignatius the Martyr, bishop of Antioch, and we set it forth for public veneration on 1 February,

with an Office and Mass of double rite: but this we did not receive about the year 1607, nor for the skull of St. Ignatius of Loyola, nor from Lady Ortensia della Santa Croce, or another at Rome: but already from the year 1598, or a little after, without any exchange with other relics, from Lady María Manríquez de Pernstein, widow of Lord Wratislaw of Pernstein, chancellor of Bohemia; who had obtained it in the year 1572, on 14 June, through her husband, from the archbishop of Prague, and the abbot of Osek; and on 8 April 1598 delivered it to Father Melchior Trivinio, rector of the college of Prague, that he might take care to have it consigned to our most reverend Father for the church of our Roman professed house. These things are proved from the testimonies of the archbishop of Prague and of the bishop of Cremona, given at Prague. I excerpt a few things:

We, Antonio, … archbishop of Prague, … make known … to all, that we, together with the reverend father lord Balthasar, abbot of Osek, have diligently reviewed the relics of the Saints held in the greatest veneration continually in the same place from the first foundation of that monastery, … and from them, at the devout instance of the illustrious and magnificent lord Wratislaw of Pernstein, chamberlain of the Sacred Caesarean majesty, and supreme chancellor of the kingdom of Bohemia, etc., which he required of us in the name of the illustrious lady María Manríquez, etc., his most beloved consort, have given and offered as a gift the image of a head of gilded plate, in which a fragment of the head of St. Ignatius, third bishop and martyr of the church of Antioch after St. Peter the Apostle, is enclosed … On whose festivity these holy Relics were always set forth at the high altar in the monastery of Osek … Given at Prague … on the 14th day of the month of June in the year from Christ's birth 1572. Cesare Speciano, … bishop of Cremona … and Nuncio of Our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII to the Sacred Caesarean majesty … Know ye, that today the most illustrious lady María Manríquez de Pernstein, the relict widow of the once most illustrious lord Wratislaw of Pernstein, …, by an oath, the sacred Scriptures being touched, reported that she had given as a gift to the reverend father in Christ Melchior Trivinio, priest of the Society of Jesus, and rector of the college of Prague of the same Society, the head of St. Ignatius enclosed in silver, to this end, that he might take care to have it consigned to the most reverend Father General of the said Society, for the church of the professed house of the same Society of the City …, and that that same head is the very one which we not long ago … visited in the chapel of the same most illustrious lady …, and, after a diligent inquiry made upon it, approved. And that it may everywhere be so established, and that by all the faithful of Christ the said holy head may be held in due veneration and honor, etc. Given at Prague … on the 8th day of the month of April 1598, etc. These things the Gleaning gives: from which it plainly follows that the skull of St. Ignatius our founder, or a part of the same skull, did not come to the Camaldolese Fathers near Frascati by way of exchange.

[1141] Another foundation for the possession of that relic with them, Certain other things concerning that sacred pledge are weighed. is the inscription of the most illustrious Apostolic visitor, of which I was speaking; but I wonder, says the author of the said Gleaning, that the authentic testimony concerning the relics of our holy Father Ignatius, which is asserted to have been found in 1703, was not communicated; since I expressly demanded it. But the present controversy cannot be patronized by the decree of Pope Paul V, adduced above; because no Saint in it is determinately expressed. Besides, that sacred relic is now called a skull; now a very large relic of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola; now something from the skull; as is clear from what has been said; now of the head a notable part, namely the skull of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus; as may be seen in the same place; but in what way can it be understood that the whole skull of our Saint, or the greatest part of the same skull, or at least a notable part, before the fire of the Camaldolese sacristy near Frascati or after it, was ever with those Camaldolese Fathers; when that whole skull existed with us at Rome, well sealed, and already from the year 1610, placed in a vessel by our most reverend Father Claudio Acquaviva, Prepositus General of the Society of Jesus, and today stands in the same place, as I said above, from the testimony of him who handled the case with his hands, etc.; and so how do those things stand, which on the occasion of this sacred pledge with the Camaldolese, as they will have it, of Frascati, concerning the fire of their sacristy, which happened in the year 1647, were said above?

[1142] which, however, is left in their possession. Which, although they be of such a kind that they move in me a suspicion whether that sacred deposit, which with the aforesaid fathers under the name of St. Ignatius of Loyola is set forth for public veneration, and is held as such, be perhaps not of some other Saint; yet because by another way than that which was rejected above, some part either of that skull, or of another bone of our holy Father Ignatius, could perhaps have come thither from some source; it shall not stand with me but that those religious fathers continue to possess that pious pledge, which they judge that they possess in good faith, and offer it to the pious veneration of others to be venerated, with ever that fruit indeed of religion; that God may in our St. Ignatius be honored in that place with a certain singular and stable affection of mind.

§ CIX. Other sacred relics at Rome; in Spain, France; at Cologne.

Other relics of the Saint in the City, Before, leaving Rome, we survey elsewhere the sacred relics of St. Ignatius, I premise a few remaining things concerning the Roman ones. Father Daniel Papebroch in his Mora (Delay), as he calls it, at Rome, in manuscript, among the things which toward the end of the year 1660 he noted concerning our novitiate there at St. Andrew, makes mention of two square reliquaries, in one of which was a discipline (scourge) of our holy Father Ignatius, very similar to our Belgian ones, but with a larger handle: in the other, a letter written by his hand, and a fragment of his shirt. Moreover that scarcely anything more now remains at Rome of the holy Man's garments, others having indeed long since been transmitted for the sake of veneration, is established from the testimony of our Giovanni Battista Vanner in Rho, in the seventh ineptitude, num. 26; where on the Ides of January in the year 1643 at Rome he makes faith that all the garments which, of those which our holy Father Ignatius formerly used, came to us, he says, he had often seen and handled in this Roman professed house from the year 96 of the past century; but for these last 20 years had had them under his custody … But now he adds that scarcely anything of them remains at home; since they were carried elsewhere for the sake of veneration, as relics of the Saint. Only half a chasuble and one linen breast-cloth remained to me; concerning whose meaning and use I spoke above, num. 1130 at the end.

[1144] likewise in Spain, The letters patent of St. Ignatius, by which he makes Father Francisco Borgia commissary general in the Spains and the Indies, I produced above, §81, num. 837, from a transcript of them; in which besides it is noted that the original of them was given by our most reverend Father General to Father Pedro Jerónimo de Córdoba at Rome in the month of March 1666, that it might be offered to the lord marquis de Alcañices and Oropesa, heir of the house of Loyola. But of the letter of St. Ignatius to Father Nadal the commissary in Spain and Portugal, signed at Rome on 7 January 1554, the original copy was given by our Father Giovanni Paolo Oliva to the aforesaid Father Pedro Jerónimo de Córdoba, president of the Castilian province, on the 29th day of December 1665; on the faith of our Roman records.

[1145] But a plainly singular honor among the Spaniards deservedly claims for itself the finger of St. Ignatius, especially at Loyola; as also elsewhere: which is kept at Loyola: concerning which I shall report more after the Life of the Saint published by Ribadeneira, in his posthumous Glory from his birthplace. Concerning the Manresa cave, and the other places in the town of that name or near it, held in veneration for the sake of St. Ignatius, consult his posthumous Glory from his sojourn at Manresa. Above, §63, from num. 650, there was treatment of the image of the Virgin Mother of God, which, given by St. Ignatius to Father Araoz, afterward passed to our fathers of Zaragoza. In Bartoli, book 1, num. 28, on the occasion of the things done by the Saint at Barcelona, there is treatment of his hair-shirt, which, as is added, healed many sick there.

[1146] Our Father Baudouin Willot in a letter to Father Heribert Rosweyde, in France which he gave at Mons on the 23rd day of April in the year 1623, says: Have you heard that our reverend Father General sent to the King of France the finger of St. Ignatius; who is building a church for the Society at Toulouse, and wished it dedicated to St. Ignatius? I received from Rome, from the archive of the Society, a transcript of the original approbation of certain relics of St. Ignatius, made at Eu (commonly Eu) in Normandy, together with a narrative of the celebration with which they were there brought to the church of the Society of Jesus, on the 30th day of June 1626. From the instrument made upon this matter, I contract these things: Nicolas de la Place de Saint-Étienne, abbot of the abbey of Our Lady of Eu, of the Order of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Rouen, of the councils and alms of the queen mother of the king, vicar general of the most illustrious and most reverend François, archbishop of Rouen, primate of Normandy, sets forth how by the Rector and other fathers of the college of Eu it was exhibited to him that they had before deputed Father Christophe le Jeau as procurator, that he might seek from the aforesaid bishop the approbation of the relics of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus, which the most reverend Father Muzio Vitelleschi, General of the same Society, had sent to the most exalted princess Lady Catherine de Clèves, duchess of Guise, widow, Countess of Eu, and which she had consigned to the reverend father Pelletier, abbot of the abbey of Foucarmont, that a little while after he might bring them to the church which she had ordered to be newly built for the college of Eu: lest anyone might afterward call into doubt the translation of the said relics; and that they might be affected with public veneration.

[1147] That the archbishop of Rouen committed to him the cognizance of the whole matter, with solemn approbation. as also the approbation of the relics, that they may be received with that honor and reverence which are owed to the memory of so great a Saint. And so that he today, 30 July 1626, convened the clergy of four parishes, and the Capuchin Fathers, to the church of the aforesaid abbey of the holy Virgin of Eu: into which, when also the fathers of the Society of Jesus had come in a body, as they call it, clothed in surplices and led by the Father Rector, who bore the banner of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier, together with his whole gymnasium, about the ninth or tenth hour of the morning, he with the Regular canons of the same abbey and the whole clergy, from the same church went in procession to meet the said relics, up to the middle of the suburb of Mathomesnil of that city of Eu; where the said relics, with the seemly apparatus and retinue which he there sets forth, and also with the adornment of the crystalline reliquary in which they were enclosed, being deposited and becomingly covered, and then uncovered by Noël Cointerel, abbot of the abbey of Lieu-Dieu, of the Cistercian Order, he signifies, namely a fragment of bone, which seems to be from the extreme part of the side; that for confirming the truth of this sacred pledge, there was given to him a rescript of the said Father General, signed at Rome on the 18th day of December 1625, together with a letter written by him in Italian to the said lady Duchess, and noted on the 29th day of November of the aforesaid year 1625: which, being ordered to be read and read publicly, in a loud voice, and verbatim, by the dean of Eu, he testifies that he received the said relics from the hand of the said lord abbot of Lieu-Dieu, and roused the people to show honor and reverence to them, according to the custom and use of our holy mother the Church; and that he, after he had brought them with all the clergy and people

had venerated them, and held them with his own hands, he began to sing the hymn Te Deum, and that in the same order in which they had come, they returned to the said city, and bore the said relics to the church of our college, of which above, and deposited them in the hands of the said Father Rector, and permitted that they should be set forth for public veneration, as the most genuine relics of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

[1148] There are also various relics Ægidius Gelenius, dwelling at Cologne, in his book on the greatness of Cologne Agrippina, book 3, syntagma 46, §3, no. 11, when treating of the sacred treasure of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, enumerates the relics of our Founder in this order: The first, and that the most noble, is the whole TUNIC of the holy Man, if you except one sleeve, which, when it was first brought, was divided among the members for the sake of piety and veneration; if likewise you except the inner border, which had immediately encircled the neck, which the most serene Wilhelm, duke of Bavaria, obtained, when he was staying at Cologne in the old college in the year …; thereafter so great a benefactor of the college, that he may be reckoned among the number of the founders. Further, concerning the aforesaid tunic brought to Cologne, there survives a testimony written out by the hand of Father Leonard Kessel of blessed memory, first rector of the Cologne college, in these words: In the year 1553, in November, the Reverend Father in Christ Bernard Oliverius brought us from Rome the tunic of Father Ignatius of Loyola of holy memory, first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, and Founder of the same Society. One sleeve was cut off out of the devotion of certain fathers, and divided into many parts on the day of the holy Martyrs Fabian and Sebastian in the year 1566. Leonard Kessel.

[1149] At Cologne Agrippina: The same tunic has lately been enclosed in a silver casket of exquisite workmanship and in red silk, which is religiously kept at the altar of St. Ignatius. The remaining relics of the same Saint are a part of the undershirt with ashes, enclosed in a little casket adorned with gems; the bar of his chamber, and a small piece from the leaden case in which the holy body rested. These the Reverend Father John Ziegler, returning from Rome, brought to Cologne. But again, among the most noble relics of the Saint are four autographs of St. Ignatius, of which two, enclosed in gilded cases, are continually carried about through the city to women in labor, of whom in that necessity he is so frequent a patron, that the day of the 31st of July has almost passed into a feast sacred to Ignatius by the tacit usage of those who have not laid aside the memory of the benefit conferred upon them. Certain silver statues of these relics, namely of St. Ignatius, are enclosed.

[1150] concerning which some things are observed. Observe. First. In the manuscripts which were sent to us concerning St. Ignatius from Cologne, that is charged with falsity which Gelenius reported above concerning the one sleeve cut off: but it is hard to impute falsity to Gelenius in a matter which he supports with so clear, distinct, and weighty a testimony. Secondly. As to the four autographs, concerning which Gelenius above; I find in the cited manuscripts that the history and the annual letters of the college teach the same thing; but that only two were found in the year 1729. Thirdly. In the same place it is affirmed that the Carthusian Fathers of Cologne have a complete copy of the letters of our holy Father.

§ CX. Sacred relics in Germany and Belgium.

At Munich, among the Friars Minor, is kept a skullcap of St. Ignatius; as is established from a testimony sent hither from there, A skullcap at Munich, as also at Augsburg, which runs thus: In the convent of the Friars Minor, of the Order of St. Francis Reformed, at Munich in Bavaria, is preserved the head-covering of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the illustrious Society of Jesus, which, as the archival tradition of the said province of the Friars Minor sets forth, was given by our Most Holy Lord Paul V, Supreme Pontiff, to the most illustrious lord Julius Caesar Grivellius, baron of Gudo, chamberlain of the most serene Duke Wilhelm, as also afterward of the most serene Elector Maximilian, and prefect in Tölz, while the said lord baron was discharging a legation to the Apostolic See, entrusted to him by the most serene house of Bavaria: who afterward, about the year 1624, when the convent of the Friars Minor was being erected at Tölz, gave the aforesaid head-covering as a gift to the same Friars; whence, translated to Munich, and there in great veneration even yet, up to the present day, it is devoutly applied, with immense fruit, to countless sick persons, especially to infants laboring under catalepsy or frenzy, indeed also to adults afflicted with pain of the head; so indeed that almost always, especially in the case of frenzied infants, experience is had that after the application of this holy object, either at once, or a little after, they are cured of their infirmity, or by a sweet and gentle death are transcribed to a better life. Our Father Papebroch, in his manuscript Roman Journey, reckons among the furnishings of our church at Augsburg a square skullcap which St. Ignatius used. Now let us pass into Belgium.

[1152] At Louvain, among ours, in the chamber of the Reverend Father Rector, is kept the shirt or linen undergarment of St. Ignatius, [in the College of the Society of Jesus at Louvain there is an autograph; likewise a shirt, with a testimony] according to what I read in the copies of the documents of the Louvain college, communicated to me by Father Ignatius Pinius in the year 1727: which also testify that there are kept in the same place letters patent, subscribed by his own hand by St. Ignatius at Rome on the Ides of January in the year 1550. Here for you is a copy of that autograph engraved on copper.

Concerning that linen undergarment and the letters patent (of which the manuscript History of the Louvain college of the Society of Jesus makes distinct mention already from the year 1556, there on the reverse folio) there exists in the same place, on parchment, a testimony of the Reverend Father Oliver Manare, visitor for Belgium, given at Louvain on the 18th of November 1602. It runs thus: Oliver Manare, visitor for Belgium of the Society of Jesus, to all who shall see, read, and likewise hear these presents, greeting in the Lord. Since certainty concerning sacred things has much weight for increasing the veneration and devotion of the faithful toward them; and since we see that by the lapse of time nearly all things become obscured and rendered doubtful, which before were most clear and most certain; it seemed good, by some certain attestation, to bring it about, that by one and the same fitting remedy both oblivion may be met and the affection of devotion consulted for.

[1153] of Father Oliver Manare: Wherefore, since it is ascertained by us that in the Louvain college of our Society there is kept the linen undergarment of our Blessed Father Ignatius of Loyola, first parent after God of our Society, which the Reverend Father Bernard Oliverius of good memory, first designated Provincial superior of this Belgic province, coming into Belgium from Rome, had once brought with himself for the sake of observance and veneration, and on which persons devoted to God had embroidered with the needle, in red byssus thread, the name of our Blessed Father himself: I judged it worth the pains, for the future memory of the matter among posterity, and for the increase of devotion, by these letters to make public faith of that matter, and to attest, that this is that undergarment, which, because he knew that our Blessed Father Ignatius had used it, the aforesaid Reverend Father Bernard Oliverius, out of zeal of veneration, departing from Rome with himself, carried over into Belgium.

[1154] by which he makes faith of the truth of both matters. By the tenor of these presents likewise we attest, that those letters patent, which are kept in the same college, given at Rome on the Ides of January 1550, signed Ignatius, were subscribed by his own hand by the same our Reverend Father. In faith of these matters we have hereunto subscribed with our hand. Given at Louvain on the 18th of November in the year 1602. Below is added: Oliver Manare, who above, testify that I knew the mentioned Father Bernard Oliverius, rector of the Roman college, in the time of our Blessed Father Ignatius, and that he was very dear to him for his virtue, so that he deservedly ought to be believed concerning the aforesaid undergarment. The rest I testify in my own name.

[1155] The relics which are there venerated in the church were first at Ghent, At Louvain, in the church of the Society of Jesus, is venerated a part of a bone of St. Ignatius, and his ashes: concerning which I read, in the copies cited above, that these authentic testimonies are kept in the chamber of the Reverend Father Rector there. From these, moreover, I excerpt the following: I, the undersigned priest of the Society of Jesus, in the faith of a priest affirm and testify, that by Father James Rassenghiem, priest of the same Society, there was religiously kept a certain reliquary; whose form and size is here expressed in the margin. Moreover, that I heard the said Father James de Rassenghiem affirming, that he had received the reliquary described above from his nephew, the most excellent prince de Mammines, who affirmed that it had been given to him at Rome as a singular gift by the Father General of the Society of Jesus, Mutio Vitelleschi. In faith of which I have hereto subscribed with my hand at Ghent on the 28th of December 1662. Melchior van Delft.

[1156] by the most illustrious of Antwerp, There follows in the same place a testimony of the Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Ghent, in which he makes faith that he received the reliquary mentioned above, left by Father James de Rassenghiem aforesaid, when on the 27th of December 1662 he died in our said college of Ghent, and that Father Melchior van Delft deposited into his hands, he says, verbally the same things which he attested above in writing. Done in the college of Ghent, and signed with our hand, and fortified with the seal of our office, on the 28th day of December 1662. And it is subscribed: G. Hesius, as far as one can make out from the name, not clearly enough expressed; and it is gathered from what follows. On the reverse side is a testimony of the most illustrious of Antwerp, by which he approves the relics, given at Antwerp on the 27th day of September 1663. Fr. Ambrose, bishop of Antwerp.

[1157] The most illustrious of Mechlin thus confirms and extends these things: [then approved by the most illustrious of Mechlin, and given by one of ours to the church at Louvain.] Since by Father William Hesius, priest of the Society of Jesus, there had been exhibited certain relics of the holy Father Ignatius, Founder of the said Society, and moreover there had been shown to us sufficient and signed testimonies, and also the letters of the bishop of Antwerp approving the said relics… We too approve and confirm, by the tenor of these presents, the same relics of St. Ignatius, that they may be set forth for public veneration also in our diocese. And moreover, for the greater glory of God through St. Ignatius, and to promote the devotion of the faithful, to all who on the feast day of St. Ignatius, and to all who throughout the octave, shall piously have venerated his said relics there, where they shall be exposed, as often as they shall do this, we graciously bestow in the Lord an indulgence of 40 days. Given at Mechlin on the 6th day of October 1663. Andreas, archbishop of Mechlin. Finally, with the ready faculty of the Reverend Father Francis de Cleyn, Provincial superior of the Flandro-Belgic province of the Society of Jesus, William Hesius applies these relics to the new church of the college of the Society of Jesus at Louvain, to be there exposed for public and perpetual worship, and not to be transferred elsewhere without the mandate of the Provincial superior for the time being, according to the exigency of circumstances; and it is subscribed, on the 23rd day of July 1664, William Hesius, S.J.

[1158] That a part of the sack, Relics were brought to Brussels from Spain, with which the holy Father was clothed while doing penance, was brought to Brussels from Spain, is clear from the authentic testimony of our college at Brussels; in which, among other things taken by me from there, the undersigned priest of the Society of Jesus

speaks thus: I assert and affirm that the Reverend Father Peter de Ribadeneyra, priest of the Society of Jesus, gave to me at Madrid in Spain (while, my business there being finished, I was preparing my journey into Belgium in the month of September 1595) a part of the sack, with which our Blessed Father Ignatius of Loyola, being clothed, did penance: which, when our aforesaid Reverend Father departed from Spain, was left behind at Barcelona, and cast upon the dunghill of the mules, and there lying long neglected, was so far from rotting, that it even remained whole. Whence at length drawn out, and washed from its filth, and hung upon a tree to be dried, and then cut into parts, it was distributed variously. Now from that part which had been given to the aforesaid Father de Ribadeneyra, the same father, when I was departing, gave me as a gift a portion of the most beloved pledge: which I, carrying with me into Belgium, gave to the college of the Society of Jesus at Brussels. And since I received all the aforesaid things thus from the mouth of the aforesaid Father Ribadeneyra, and in the truth of the matter they are so, in faith that all and each of the aforesaid things are so, I have written and subscribed this present testimony with my own hand. Given at Brussels on the 10th of February 1604. James de Zeelandre.

[1159] Besides, another sacred deposit was brought from Rome to Brussels by a father of tried renown of our Society. and brought from the City: among which the remnant of the candle, Understand the matter from the authentic testimony of our college at Brussels, which, because it is brief, I transcribe hither in full: Francis Coster, priest and doctor of theology of the Society of Jesus, to all who shall see or read these presents, greeting in the Lord. Since posterity is by no other thing better provided for, than that testimonies of deeds be left, and as they were done in truth; Hence it is, that as true, certain, and undoubted I assert, that in the year of the Lord 1565, I brought from Rome to Cologne, and thence to Brussels, and there gave to the house or residence of the Society, the remnant of the candle of all graces, with which our Blessed Father Ignatius of Loyola, dying, rendered his soul to God. And that this may be established to posterity, I have subscribed and signed these presents, faithfully written by another hand, with my own hand, in faith and testimony of the premises, and have caused them to be fortified with the accustomed seal of our Society. Given at Brussels on the 27th of May, in the year 1601. Francis Coster, priest of the Society of Jesus. That remnant, moreover, of the said candle remained there in veneration among ours, for the solace indeed of those to whom it should befall to depart from life in that place, enclosed in a candlestick, of glass and translucent in its middle part, so that this venerable memorial can be seen from without. What more? I display the very thing engraved with the graver, according to the drawing sent hither from there, which however has been contracted to a smaller form, in this manner in which you behold it:

The remnant of the candle of all graces, with which our Blessed Father IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, dying, rendered his soul to GOD. Which Father Francis Coster brought from Rome to Cologne, in the year 1565.

[1160] whose use etc. are described. Further, concerning the ornament and use of the candlestick I received these things: The candlestick itself, as to its uppermost and lowest part, is of gilded silver: the middle part is of crystal, upon which the remnant of the candle has been set. The candle indeed, overlaid with a golden thread, has been affixed to a silk cloth of white and red color interwoven with gold, and adorned with various pearls. On the opposite part of the candle, applied to the same silk cloth, is this inscription on parchment: The remnant of the candle etc. The lowest part of the candle is overlaid with a green color. This candlestick is kept in the infirmary of the Brussels college: upon it a blessed taper is set, if anyone be dangerously sick, and thus the candlestick is delivered by the priest administering the Sacrament of Extreme Unction into the hand of the sick person, who holds it in his hand, if indeed he can by his strength. The same is done, when in his last agony he is giving up the ghost.

[1161] Our professed house at Antwerp, rich in sacred relics, Concerning the professed house of Antwerp, the college of Roermond, has three little particles of our holy Father, lawfully approved and exposed for public veneration; as is clear from an instrument, subscribed on the 26th of August 1684 by the Reverend Father Louis de Camargo, superior of the same professed house. Concerning the sacred relics of St. Ignatius among our Fathers at Roermond I have a testimony, noted on the 30th of December, in the year 1653, by which the Ordinary approves them.

[1162] In our Gallo-Belgic province there exist these sacred relics, and the Gallo-Belgic province. on the testimony of Rayssius in the Gazophylacium Belgicum; namely at Douai in the greater church, the Manual, as he writes on page 480, the seal of St. Ignatius, together with a part of his garment, enclosed under glass in a silver tablet, a most excellent remedy for women in labor, and illustrious with various miracles in this peril. At Lille, moreover, he reports on page 492 that there is a most elegant, large effigy skillfully wrought of silver; which so notable an ornament contains the hairs, and other relics from the bones of the same Saint. But let us here make a halt, and at the same time set a boundary to our Commentary prefixed to the Ignatian Life. Behold now therefore for you, kind reader, the

MOST ANCIENT ACTS OF THE SAINT,

Taken down by Father Luís Gonçalves, S.J., from the mouth of the Saint: and translated into Latin by Father Hannibal Coudret, of the same S.J.

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, at Rome (Saint) ^a

By Father Luís Gonçalves.

PREFACE OF THE WRITER.

Jesus Mary. In the year 1553, on a certain Friday morning, the 4th of August, the eve of Our Lady Ad Nives, The writer of this Life prefaces, while the Father was in the garden near the house or chamber which is called the Duke's, I began to render him an account of certain particular concerns of my soul, and among other things I spoke to him of vainglory. The Father gave me this as a remedy, that I should more often refer all my things to God, striving diligently that whatever good I should find in myself, I should offer it to Him, acknowledging this to be His, and giving Him thanks for it. And in this matter he spoke with me in such a way that he afforded me much solace, so much so that I could not refrain from tears. And thus the Father narrated to me how for two years he had struggled with that vice; so indeed that, when he embarked on ship at Barcelona toward Jerusalem, he did not dare to tell anyone that he was thinking of Jerusalem. And so in certain other particular matters of this kind. And he added besides, how much peace concerning this matter he afterward felt in his soul. An hour or two thereafter we went to table; and while Master Polanco and I were occupied in eating with him, our Father said, that Master Nadal and others of the Society had often asked of him a certain thing, and that he had never determined anything about it; but that, after he had spoken with me, and had collected himself in his chamber, he was so piously affected and inclined to carry it out (he spoke in a manner which showed that God had given him great clarity in effecting this) that he had altogether determined himself to it (the matter consisted in this, that he should declare whatever had passed in his soul hitherto), and had held it fixed, that I should be the one to whom he would reveal those matters.

[2] how the holy Father resolved to disclose his actions, The Father was at that time very infirm, nor was he ever wont to promise himself a single day of life: but rather, when someone said: I will do that within fifteen days, or within eight days; the Father, as if astonished, always said: How? and do you think to live so long? Nevertheless this time he said, that he hoped he would live three or four months, to accomplish the matter. On another day, when I inquired of him when he wished us to begin, he answered, that I should refresh his memory each day (but on how many days, I do not remember) until he should have obtained an opportunity for this: which since he did not have, partly on account of his occupations, it came about that I should recall it to his memory on each Sunday. And so in the next month of September (on what day, I do not remember) the Father called me, and began to tell me his whole life, even the freer license of living in his youth, clearly and distinctly, with all the circumstances that attend the matter: and afterward he called me in the same month three or four times, and carried the history down to his sojourn at Manresa for some days; as is seen written in a different hand.

[3] and in truth on different occasions carefully In the manner of narrating which the Father keeps, the same holds which is wont in all his affairs: which is so clear, that whatever is past seems to stand present to a man: and so it was not necessary to ask him anything: for whatever it concerned to be learned, the Father remembered to say. I came immediately at once to write, without forewarning the Father, first by points with my own hand, and afterward more fully, as the writing stands. I labored to put no word except those which I heard from the Father. And as far indeed as concerns the substance; wherein I fear lest I have slipped, it is this, that, lest I should deviate from the Father's words, I could not well explain the force of some of them. And thus I wrote these things, as was said above, up to September 1553. And thereafter, until Father Nadal came on the 18th of October in the year 1554, the Father always excused himself on account of certain infirmities, and various affairs which occurred, saying to me: When such an affair is finished, put me in mind of it: which being finished, I put him in mind. And he would say: Now we are in that other one: when it is finished, put me in mind.

[4] dictated them to himself, But when Father Nadal had come, very glad on account of the matter begun, in order that I might be importunate to the Father, he charged me, saying to me often, that in no matter could I do more good to the Society than by doing that; and that this was truly to found the Society. And so he himself often spoke with the Father. The Father told me to put him in mind, when the affair of the founding of the college ^c was finished. Which after it was finished, and the affair of Prester John ^d dispatched, and the courier had departed, we begin to prosecute the history on the ninth day of March in the year 1555. Soon Pope Julius began to be in danger of his life, and on the twenty-third he died. But the Father continued to defer the matter, until a new Pope should succeed: who, as he too straightway fell into sickness, and departed from life, the Father drew out the matter up to the creation of Pope Paul; which, with great heats coming on, and many occupations, made no progress, up to the 21st day of September, when it began to be treated of sending me into Spain. Therefore I greatly pressed the Father, that he would complete what he had promised me. And so he now appointed it for the 22nd of September in the morning, in the Red Tower. But I, when Mass had been said, went to him, to ask whether it were time.

[5] He answered me, that I should go, that he would await me in the Red Tower, [writing them down for him as he uttered them from his mouth, and setting an end to it in the year 1555.] so that, when he should be there, I too should be present. I understood that I should have to wait for him there a long time; and while I detained myself in a certain portico with some brother, who was inquiring of me about some business, the Father came, and reproved me, because, transgressing obedience, I had not waited there: and he was unwilling to do anything that day. Then we press upon him very strongly. And so he returned to the Red Tower, and dictated as he walked, as he had always dictated. I, in order to gaze upon his countenance, always drew a little nearer, the Father saying to me, Observe the rule: and when on one occasion I approached, neglecting it, and had relapsed into the same twice or thrice, he said this to me, and departed. And at length afterward he came, to make in the same tower an end of dictating what is written. But since I had now for a long time stood ready for the journey (for the day previous to my departure was the last on which the Father spoke with me about this matter) I could not write everything at length at Rome. And because I had no Spanish amanuensis at Genoa, I dictated in Italian what I brought with me from Rome written by points, and set an end to the writing of it in the month of December of the year 1555 at Genoa.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The military life, the wound in the defense of Pamplona, the healing; the sacred reading, the apparition; the gift of chastity, the desire of the Jerusalem journey and of a more perfect life.

Ignatius, having professed the military life, Up to his twenty-sixth year ^{a b} he was given over to the vanities of this world; but especially he delighted in the exercise of arms, led by a great and vain desire of acquiring honor. And so when he was in the citadel of Pamplona, which the French were besieging, and there was one consent of all, that they should surrender on this condition, that they be allowed to depart unharmed (for in truth they could not defend themselves) ^c he brought forward to the commander so many reasons, that he nevertheless persuaded him, contrary to what all the other nobles thought, that the citadel must be defended against the enemy . So great indeed was his spirit, that he by his own sense and courage brought spirit to the rest of the nobles. When the day came, on which the battle was expected to be, he made to one of the nobles, with whom he had often contended in arms ^d, confession of his sins, and that one in turn to him ^e. He persisted, moreover, fighting most constantly, even after the walls were demolished, until by the stroke of a cannon-ball one of his legs was wholly shattered.

[2] he is most grievously wounded in the defense of Pamplona, And since the ball was borne between both legs, the other leg also received a most grievous wound. Whereby it came about, that, as he fell, the rest also, who were in the citadel, surrendered themselves to the French. Who, when they had gained possession of the citadel, treated and handled him well and humanely. And after 12 or 15 days spent at Pamplona [in the same lodging which he had had before, though he was cared for during all that time by the best physicians of the French army ,] he was carried in a litter into the house of Loyola . There, since he was and fared very ill, physicians and surgeons summoned from many places judged that the leg must be broken apart again, so that the bones which had ill knit together might be replaced in their proper places, asserting that on this account, because they had been ill set at first, or because they had been disjoined on the journey, they were out of place, and thus could not be cured. And so he suffered this butchery to be done again upon his body, in which, as in all the others which he had borne before or afterward endured, he never uttered a word, nor gave any other sign of pain, than that he clenched his fists vehemently.

[3] his health verging for the worse, but then faring better. Meanwhile his health always went off into the worse, nor could he take food, and the remaining symptoms were present which are wont to indicate death about to follow. And when the feast-day of the divine John had come, because the physicians had little hope of his recovery, counsel was given him to confess his sins. Having therefore received the Sacraments on the day before the day which is sacred to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, toward evening the physicians said, that if up to the middle of the night nothing better should befall him, he might be held for dead. Now he was wont to be of devout mind toward the blessed Peter; and so by God's clemency it came to pass, that at that very midnight he began to fare better, and such increases of convalescence were made, that some days afterward it was judged that he was out of all danger of death.

[4] But when now the bones began to solidify and to be knit together one to another, one bone, left below the knee, overtopped the other; To remove the deformity of the leg, whereby it came about that the leg was shorter, and the bone, rising up as it were into a mound, rendered the place foul to look upon. Which, not being able to bear it, since he had resolved in his mind to remain in the world, he asked of the surgeons whether that bone could be cut away. They indeed said that it could, but that the pains would be more grievous than all the others * that had gone before, for this reason, that all things there were now sound, and time would be needed for it to be cut away. He resolved nevertheless to undergo that martyrdom, by which he might satisfy his own will: although his elder brother marveled and was astounded, and asserted that he himself would never have so much spirit as to be willing to try that pain; which yet the sick man endured with his accustomed patience.

[5] The flesh being cut away and the bone which projected, remedies were applied, he sustains a most bitter butchery; occupying himself with reading lest the leg should be left so short. There were applied to it unguents and machines, by which the leg was continually stretched out with the assiduous and grievous pain of many days. But at length the Lord conferred on him health, and so he came off sound; so that, being strong for the rest, he only fared ill in this, that he did not easily stand upon the leg: for which reason he was compelled to lie in bed. And since he was most given to the reading of idle and lying books, which are entitled concerning the exploits of illustrious men; when he felt himself sound, he demanded that some of these be given him for the sake of beguiling the time. But in that house no book of that kind was found: wherefore that one was given to him which is entitled the Life of Christ, and another which is inscribed the Flower of the Saints, and these in the native tongue .

[6] Therefore by the frequent reading of these he acquired for himself some affection ^f toward those matters which were there written. Sometimes also from the reading of these he transferred his mind to considering those things which he had read in an earlier time; while he was convalescing, sometimes to those idle notions of the mind which he had before been wont to think of, and many things of this kind, according as they should present themselves to him ^g. Among these there was one thought, which above the rest had so occupied his heart, that straightway, as if immersed and absorbed in it, he was detained by it two, three, and four hours, without perceiving it himself. And this indeed was, what above all he would do in the service of an illustrious lady, by what means he might be able to set out to that city in which she herself was, with what words he might address her, what jests and witticisms * he might employ, what specimen of warlike exercise he might display for her sake. And he was so carried away by the force of this thought, that he did not even see how much that matter, which he desired to obtain, was above his own powers, since indeed she was a woman of very illustrious and eminent nobility ^h.

[7] Meanwhile the divine mercy was at hand, which from his recent reading substituted other thoughts for these. and reaping fruit from it, For when he read the Life of Christ our Lord and of the Saints, then he pondered with himself, and thus gathered with himself: What if I should do this, which the blessed Francis did? What if this, which the blessed Dominic? And so he revolved many things in his mind, and always proposed to himself difficult and grave things: which while he did, he himself seemed to feel in himself a facility for attaining them, no other reasoning being proposed to himself, than that he thus gathered with himself: St. Dominic did this, therefore I too will do it: the blessed Francis did this, therefore I too will do it. Now these thoughts remained long enough, and then, other matters being interposed, those idle and secular ones succeeded, which themselves also were protracted over a long space of time. Long did this succession of thoughts detain him; and these of God, those of the world, occupied his mind up to the point, until he himself for weariness cast it off, and turned his mind to other things.

[8] as also the instruction But in these thoughts there was this difference, that, when he was intent on the secular ones, he was taken with great pleasure; but when, wearied, he desisted, he felt himself sad and dry: but when he thought of the Jerusalem journey, and of eating only herbs, and of pursuing other rigors of this kind, which he observed holy men to have used; not only when he revolved these things in his mind did he take pleasure in his mind, but also when he had laid them aside, he found himself glad. Yet he himself neither noticed nor esteemed this difference:

until, the eyes of his mind being one day opened, he began to marvel at this difference, understanding by the very experience of the matter, that from one kind of thoughts sadness was left him, from the other gladness. And this was the first reasoning which he gathered concerning divine things.

[9] But afterward, when he had entered upon the spiritual Exercises, hence first he began to be enlightened for understanding for discerning the diverse spirits. what he taught his followers concerning the diversity of spirits. In this manner, when he had gradually recognized the diverse spirits by which he was agitated, the one of God, the other of the demon, and had acquired for himself no small spiritual light from that reading of pious books; he began to think more seriously of the life led by him before, and also to weigh how much penance he needed, in order to expiate the sins contracted through it. In which thought indeed, those pious desires of imitating holy men presented themselves to him, with no greater reasoning than that he promised himself, with the divine grace aiding, that he too would do what they had done. But he desired to do nothing further, as soon as he should have recovered, than to set out for Jerusalem, applying as many scourgings and fastings as, in so great a spirit and inflamed with the Spirit of God, the desire of penance commanded ⁱ.

[10] A vision with the gift of chastity confirms the desires of a holier life. By these desires those idle thoughts were gradually diminished, and consigned to oblivion. Which desires indeed were not moderately confirmed by a vision of this kind. On a certain night, being awake, he plainly saw the image of the most blessed Mother of God with the holy child Jesus, by whose sight for a notable space he received a most abundant consolation, and so great a loathing of his past life seized him, especially of those things which pertain to the lust of the flesh *, that it seemed to him that he felt all the images which he had conceived to have gone out of his mind. And from that hour up to that time of August in the year 1555, in which these things were written, he never admitted even the least consent to lust. From which it may be estimated that that matter befell him by divine agency, although he himself did not dare to affirm it, nor to say anything else, than to confirm what has been said. But his brother, and all the rest who were in the house, easily recognized from those things which appeared outwardly, how great a change had befallen in his mind.

[11] He describes what he read with fruit, Meanwhile he himself, solicitous about no matter, continued his reading, and assiduously preserved what he had holily proposed in his mind. But the time which he gave to the society of the household, all this he spent upon divine matters. In which thing he not a little aided their minds. Since he was very greatly delighted with the reading of these books, it came into his mind to excerpt some things from them, and as it were to copy out in a compendium those things in the life of Christ and of the Saints which were more especial. And so with great diligence (for now he was gradually beginning to rise from his bed) he set about to write a book, in which there were three hundred leaves folded in quarto. The words of Christ were in it written in red color, but those of the blessed Virgin in blue; the paper itself carefully polished, with lines also drawn to the rule; the characters excellent: for he knew how to paint letters very handsomely. While he was making this book, he consumed the time partly in writing, partly in praying. But no consolation was then greater to him, than to gaze upon heaven and the stars, which he did often and long, because from it he felt in himself a certain great effort to serve God. Often he recalled the purpose of his mind, wishing that he were now entirely sound, that he might set out upon the journey.

[12] And when he revolved in his mind what he should do on returning from Jerusalem, He resolves to go to Jerusalem, and meditates a more perfect life. so as to lead his life always in penance; that thought occurred to him, that he should enter the Carthusian house at Seville, giving no indication who he was, that they might make less account of him, and there never eat anything but herbs. But, the memory of the penances recurring, which he desired to undergo journeying through the world, he restrained the desire of entering the Carthusian house, fearing lest he might not be able to exercise the hatred conceived against himself. Nevertheless he charged a certain household servant, setting out for Burgos, to inquire concerning the institute and rule of the Carthusians. What was reported of it pleased him: but he did not apply his mind much to it, both for the reason which was said before, and because he was wholly in the journey which was soon to be, since concerning that other matter he must not treat except after his return. And so when he had now recovered no little of his strength, it seemed to him that it was time to depart; and to his brother, My lord (he said), the Duke of Nájera, as you know, is not ignorant that I have recovered: it will be good that I go to him. (The Duke was then in the town of Navarrete.) But the brother, who suspected, and some others of the household, that he was contriving some great change, leads him first into a certain one, then into another chamber, and most gravely protesting and adjuring, entreats that he not go to ruin himself; but that he see how much hope men have conceived of him, and how illustrious he can render himself by exploits, and many other things of this kind; all which had this aim, to call him away from the pious institute. To which he answered in such a way that, departing in nothing from the truth (for concerning this he had now great scruple), he extricated himself from his brother.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Departure from his country; deeds at Montserrat, and at Manresa.

Departing from his country He set out therefore seated on a mule, and from that day on which he departed from his native soil, he scourged his body always on each night. His other brother wished to accompany him as far as Oñate; whom on the journey he persuaded to keep one vigil at the shrine of the most blessed Virgin, which has its name from Aránzazu. On that same night, when he had prayed there, that he might procure for himself new strength for the journey, his brother being left at Oñate in the house of his sister, whom he was then visiting, he set out for Navarrete. And when it came into his memory that a few coins were owed him in the Duke's house; it seemed good to him to demand them; which also he did, a note being written to the treasurer: but he ordered them to be distributed among certain persons, toward whom he felt himself bound by a certain obligation: some, however, he spent on the restoration ^a of a certain image of the most blessed Virgin, which was ill kept up. After these things, dismissing two servants whom he had with him, alone borne on the mule he departed from Navarrete to Montserrat, [which is a mountain in Hither Spain, in that region which at this time is called Catalonia *.]

[14] On this journey what befell him it will be convenient to relate, that it may be understood how God directed this soul, still blind, he conceives the best desires, of serving God, and pleasing him: although inflamed with great desires of serving God in those things which he knew. Wherefore he resolved with himself upon great penances, being led not so much now for the sake of making satisfaction for his sins, as that he might gratify God. Nay rather, he says, although he vehemently abhorred his past sins, yet so lively was his desire of doing great things for Christ, that, although he did not judge that his sins were remitted to him, yet in those penances which he proposed with himself to undergo, he did not much recall them. In this only was his thought, when he remembered some penance with which holy men had afflicted themselves, that he should take the same and even a greater upon himself. And in this was all his consolation, no account being had of any interior matter; since he did not yet know what humility was, or charity, or patience, or discretion, which sets a measure to these virtues; but he saw this one thing, that he should perform such great deeds outwardly, because holy men had performed them for the glory of God, being led by no other particular circumstance.

[15] Therefore while he pursues his journey, a certain Saracen * follows him, who a certain perplexing incident of his who was seated on a mule. And when they went on speaking together, they fell into a discourse concerning the most blessed Virgin: and the Saracen indeed said that it seemed well to him that the Virgin had conceived without the work of man; but that she had remained a virgin after the birth, this he could not believe: from which opinion by no reasons, which

the Pilgrim brought forward in great number, could he be led away. Meanwhile the Moor ^b went before with such speed, that the Pilgrim now no longer saw him. Who, perceiving what had been done, felt his mind moved by a certain sadness, because he did not seem to himself to have discharged his own office, and at the same time by indignation against that man, since he judged that it had been ill done by him, that he had permitted the Saracen to say such things concerning the most blessed Virgin, and that therefore he ought, for the sake of his own honor *, to turn back. And so he felt himself driven by desires to seek the Moor, and to run him through with strokes of the dagger ^c, on account of those things which he had said against the most blessed Virgin.

[16] And when a battle of thoughts of this kind had held him, he brought to a kindly conclusion with good success. at length he remained doubtful, nor could he determine what he ought to do out of obligation. The Saracen, who had gone before him, had said that he would go to a certain place, not much separated from the highway. Wearied therefore by that examination, since he did not find what certain thing to resolve, he decided to give the reins to the mule; and when he came to a fork in the road, if the mule should turn aside to the place where the Saracen was, he would seek him and run him through with the dagger : if the mule should go along that royal way, he would let him go. And when he had done as he had decided, it happened by God's clemency, that, although the place was a little more than 30 or 40 paces distant from the royal road, and the way which led to it was very broad and easy; the mule nevertheless, leaving that, followed the royal way. When he had been carried into a certain large village, before he reached Montserrat, it pleased him there to buy a garment which he would wear when setting out for Jerusalem. And so he bought cloth of that kind from which sacks are made, not very closely woven, and rough with many prickles, and straightway he ordered a garment to be made for himself from it, let down to the feet. He bought also shoes woven of broom; but of these he took only one, and this not for the sake of ceremony, but because he wore one of his legs bound with a bandage and ill affected, so that on each night, although he was borne on the mule, it swelled up. Wherefore it seemed to him that this foot ought to be shod. He also procured for himself a staff, the badge of pilgrims, which they call a bordón*, and a little gourd ^d; all which he placed upon the mule, tied to the saddle.

[17] In this manner he pursues his journey to Montserrat, Deeds at Montserrat; revolving in his mind, as he was always wont, the great things which he would do for the love of God. And since he had his mind filled with those matters which were written by Amadis * of Gaul ^e, and by writers of that kind, some like to those occurred to him. And so he resolved to keep vigil at his arms (as it is said among soldiers) throughout one whole night, neither sitting nor lying, but by turns standing and bending the knees, before the altar of Our Lady of Montserrat, where he had resolved to lay aside his garments, and to put on the arms of Christ. Departing from this place, he thinks on those things which he always did, namely those which he had proposed in his mind. When he reached Montserrat, prayer being poured forth and the consent of a confessor ^f received, he made a general confession of his sins, and that in writing; which was protracted for three days. It was agreed between him and the confessor, that he should order the mule to be led away ^g, but that the sword and the dagger should be placed in the church at the altar of the most blessed Mother of God. Now this was he to whom, first of all men, he opened the purpose of his mind; for to no confessor before that time had he laid it bare.

[18] whence, his garments being handed to a beggar, he betakes himself to Manresa. On the eve of the Annunciation of the most blessed Mary in the year 1522, by night, as secretly as he could, he went to a certain beggar, and stripping himself of his garments, gave them to him; but he himself put on that desired garment of his, and set out to fall upon his knees before the altar of the most blessed Mother of God, and now thus, now upright, bearing his staff in his hand, he passed the whole night. Day coming on, the sacred Eucharist being received, he departed, that he might not be recognized. But he went not by the direct road, which leads to Barcelona, on which many would have met him, who would have known him and treated him with honor; but by a deflected one, by which he was carried into a certain town, which is called Manresa, where he resolved to make a stay of some days in the hospital, and also to note down some things in that book of his, which he carried with him with great care and consolation. When he was now one league distant from Montserrat, a certain man overtook him, who was following him with great swiftness, and questioned him, whether he had given certain garments to a certain poor man, as the poor man himself affirmed. To whom he answered, that he had given them; then indeed tears rose to his eyes out of compassion for the beggar, because he learned that he was being harassed, for the reason that he was thought to have gotten those garments by theft. Although, moreover, he greatly fled the esteem of men, yet he could not bring it about that he should be long at Manresa, without great things being spread abroad concerning him, a reputation being born from what had been done at Montserrat, and thus increasing, so that they now said more than the matter held, that he had left such great revenues, and other things of this kind.

[19] where he leads a poor and austere life; and a diabolical temptation. At Manresa he lived daily on alms sought out, abstained from flesh, nor drank wine, although they had given it. On Sundays he did not fast: if a little wine was given, he drank it. And since he had been very careful about his hair, which he wore at that time, and it was not unbecoming to him; he resolved so to leave it to its nature, that he should neither comb it, nor cut it, nor cover it by anything, either by day or by night. For the same cause he trimmed neither the nails of his feet nor of his hands: for in these too he had been too carefully occupied. While he lived in this hospital, it often happened that in clear light he beheld a certain thing in the air near him, from which, since it was most beautiful, he took great pleasure and consolation in his mind. He did not easily discern its appearance, so as to know what it was, or of what it consisted; but it seemed to him to bear somewhat the appearance of a serpent, shining as it were with eyes (although they were not eyes). He took very great delight in the sight of this thing, and the more often he beheld it, the greater the consolation; which, when it vanished from his eyes, he bore ill.

[20] Up to this time he had always remained in nearly the same interior state, he detects and despises it. with a certain great equability of gladness, without any knowledge of interior spiritual things. During the time that vision lasted (and it lasted not a few days) or a little before it began, a vehement thought invaded and vexed him, the difficulty of that life which he had entered upon being set before the eyes of his mind, as if he heard it said to him inwardly: How will it be possible, that you endure this kind of life for the 70 years during which you are to live? Which, understanding it to have proceeded from the enemy, he repelled also with this interior answer: Can you, O wretch, promise the life of one hour? In this manner the temptation was conquered, and he felt himself quiet. And this was the first temptation after that which was said before. Now this happened, when he was entering the church, in which daily he was present at the sacrifice of the High Mass, and at Vespers and Compline: in which things he took great consolation. It was his custom, in hearing Mass, to read the history of the Passion, that equability of his always enduring in his mind.

[21] But after that temptation, which we have just related, he began to experience great varieties in his mind, He is exercised by aridities, and now to be so destitute of all relish, that neither in reciting prayers, nor in hearing the Sacrifice, nor in other prayer, did he perceive any sweetness; now, on the contrary, and so suddenly to be much affected, that all sadness and desolation seemed taken from him, as if someone should take away a cloak from another's shoulders. Which when he noticed, he began to marvel at these varieties, which he had not before experienced, and to say with himself: What is this new life which we now enter upon? At this time he made use of the society of certain spiritual persons, who had faith in him, and gladly conversed with him, because, although he was less skilled in spiritual matters, yet his discourse bore before it the greatest fervor, and a desire of advancing in the way of God. There was at Manresa a certain woman advanced in age, and now for a long time devoted to the service of God, and on this account known in many places of Spain, so that even the Catholic king had once summoned her, that she might communicate to him certain counsels of hers. This woman, dealing one day with the new Soldier of Christ, said to him: O that my Lord Jesus Christ might be willing to appear to you some day! To whom he, astonished at her saying, taking the matter in so gross a manner, And how (said he) would Christ appear to me? Now he never desisted from his begun custom of confessing and communicating on each Sunday.

[22] In which matter he sustained very much labor, vexed by the anxiety of scruples. and by scruples. For although he had made a general Confession from writing and diligently enough at Montserrat, yet certain things seemed to him sometimes not confessed, which indeed afflicted him not moderately. For although he confessed that, yet never from it did his mind rest. Hence he began to seek spiritual men, from whom he might receive a remedy; but nevertheless he profited nothing. At length a certain doctor devoted to the spirit, who preached there in the greatest church, admonished him in Confession, that he should write whatever he could remember. Which he did so. And when he had confessed, the scruples recurred, and certain matters more minute day by day. In this manner he was vehemently distressed, not being ignorant that those scruples very much harmed him, and that it would be useful, if he could cast them off: but this he could not attain. Sometimes it came into his mind, that it would be useful, if he should receive a command from his confessor * in the name of the Lord Jesus, that he should confess nothing of past things; and this he desired to be enjoined him by the confessor; but he himself did not dare to tell the confessor.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Scruples; heavenly favors; the journey to Barcelona.

By continual distresses of scruples But the confessor, though he too said nothing, enjoined him that he should confess nothing of past things, unless what should occur very clear and manifest. But since he held all those things for manifest, this command helped him nothing. And so he was always in distress. At that time he dwelt in a little cell which the Dominican party had lent him in their monastery, and he pursued the custom he had established of praying seven hours a day on bent knees, rising assiduously at midnight; nor did he intermit the scourgings which he inflicted upon himself three times each day with great rigor, nor his other exercises: but none of these dispelled the scruples, although they had now afflicted him for many months past. But on a certain day, when he was greatly afflicted by these, he gave himself to prayer; in the fervor of which, being kindled, he began to cry out to God with great voices: Succor me, Lord, for I find no remedy in men, nor in any creature: but if I thought I could find it, no labor would be great to me. Show Thou, Lord, where I may find it: but I, even if it were necessary to follow a puppy, that I might receive the remedy from it, do not refuse to do it.

[24] being brought to extremities, When he was agitated by these thoughts, he was often gravely tempted with great force, to cast himself down from a large opening which was in the cell. Nor was the opening far from the place where he poured forth his prayers. But when he saw that it was a sin to kill oneself, he cried again: Lord, I will not do what may offend Thee. These and other words being often repeated, there came into his mind the history of a certain holy man; who, in order to obtain from God I know not what, which he vehemently desired, passed many days without food, until he obtained it. And when he had been longer in this thought, he resolved at length to do the same, and that he would neither eat nor drink, asserting with himself, until God should have provided for him, or he should behold himself altogether near to death: for if he should have seen himself reduced to that extremity of life, that, unless he ate, he would die, then he resolved to ask for bread and eat.

[25] This was done on a Sunday after Communion, nor during the whole week did he put anything into his mouth; at length by God he is freed from these; the accustomed offices of penance being meanwhile not intermitted, so that he went to the divine Offices, that he prayed at his hours on bent knees, that he rose at midnight, etc. But when the following Sunday came, on which by his custom he had to make Confession; since he was wont to open to his confessor all things which he did, even the most minute, he indicated this too, that during that week he had eaten nothing. Wherefore the confessor enjoined him to break that fast. But he, although he still felt his strength sufficient for him, nevertheless obeyed the confessor, and on that day and the following he felt himself free from scruples; but on the third day, which was Tuesday, when he stood at prayer , there came into his mind the thought of his sins, and so, one being born as it were from another, the thought of the time of his life passed from sin to sin was drawn along, judging that these things must again be confessed by him. But after these thoughts a certain weariness of the life which he led seized him, not without an impulse to lay it aside. These things being so, it pleased God that, as if awakened from sleep, he should emerge from those evils. For since he had now acquired for himself some experience for discerning the diversity of spirits, from those lessons which he had received from God; he began to notice by what means that spirit had invaded him: and so with great alacrity he resolved that he would never say anything of past matters in Confession. Thus thereafter he was free from scruples after that day, holding it for certain that our Lord, out of His mercy, had willed to free him.

[26] Besides the seven hours which he spent on prayer, he was also occupied in aiding the souls of some, with whom he was assiduously joined. who came to him. Whatever was left of the day, he assigned to thoughts of God from those things which on that day he had either read or meditated. But when he committed himself to bed, often very great illuminations, and immense spiritual consolations, were sent to him, so that they snatched away much of that time which he had destined for sleep, which was not long. When he himself once thought of this matter, he considered that only so much time had been appointed for him to deal with God, and besides that, all the rest of the day too; and therefore he began to doubt whether those illuminations were from the good Spirit; and at length he resolved with himself, that it was better, these being rejected, to assign the appointed time to sleep: which also he did.

[27] Again, since he firmly persisted in abstaining from flesh, The manner of acting concerning abstinence from flesh, and familiarity with God: nor thought that this must in any way be changed by him; it happened one morning after he had risen, that flesh was made present to him fit for eating , as if he beheld it with the eyes of the body (although indeed no desire whatever of flesh had preceded in him); and at the same time also that he experienced and felt in himself a certain great assent of the will, that he should afterward feed on flesh. But although he was mindful of his former resolution, yet in this he could not doubt but that he should determine that flesh must be eaten by him. When he had reported this to his confessor, he admonished him to see whether this was a temptation: but he, weighing what had happened, could doubt nothing about it. At that time God so dealt with him, as a schoolmaster with a boy, when he instructs him. Now whether on account of his rudeness (as he himself speaks ) and gross wit he felt thus , or because he had no other by whom he might be taught, or on account of the stable will of serving God, which God Himself had put into him; [which indeed could not be without a fuller light, that he might advance in the divine service :] yet he clearly judged, and always judged, that God had thus dealt with him for a better end ; nay rather, if he should doubt in this matter, he would think that he offended the divine majesty. Now some confirmation of what is said may be taken from those five heads which we shall subjoin.

[28] For, first, he was affected with great devotion toward the most holy Trinity, and on each day poured forth prayers distinctly to the three Persons: and when he also poured them forth to the most holy Trinity; it was objected to his mind, how he directed fourfold prayers to the Trinity. which shines forth from his devotion toward the Most Holy Trinity. But this thought caused him little or no trouble at all. But on a certain day, when he was reciting the Hourly prayers of the most blessed Virgin on the steps of the same monastery, his intellect began to be elevated, as if he beheld the most holy Trinity under the appearance of a triple string or of the keys of a struck clavichord *, and this with so many tears and sighs, that he himself could not refrain from them. And when on that day he accompanied a procession which went forth from that church, he never could restrain himself from tears up to dinner, nor after dinner could he speak of anything else than of the most holy Trinity, and that with many comparisons or similitudes employed, and very diverse ones, with great joy also and consolation. From which there was left to him for his whole life this impression, that when he made prayer to the most holy Trinity, he felt great devotion.

[29] [Visions concerning the creation of the world, the Eucharist, and the humanity of Christ.] At another time there was presented to his mind, with great alacrity of spirit, the manner in which God founded the world. And he seemed to himself to see a certain white thing, from which some rays went forth, and from which God emitted light. Yet he could neither explain these things sufficiently, nor remember those illuminations which then God imprinted upon his mind.

While he was still at Manresa (now he was there almost a whole year); and there also, after he began to perceive consolations from God, and perceived the fruit which he brought forth in aiding the souls of others, he desisted from those outward rigors which he had before used; and now he trimmed his nails and his hair. But while he was still there in the church of the same monastery, and was present at the Sacrifice, he saw one day with interior eyes, while the body of the Lord was being elevated, certain white rays as it were let down from on high. Although, moreover, he could not, after so long an interval of time, remember and explain this; yet that which he clearly saw is this, in what manner our Lord Jesus Christ was in that most holy Sacrament.

Often and long he saw with interior eyes the humanity of Christ, when he was at leisure for prayer: but the figure which he seemed to himself to behold was as it were a white body, neither great nor small; but he did not discern the distinction of the members. This he saw at Manresa several times; and if he should say twenty or forty times, he would not dare to affirm that he was lying. Once he saw it, when he was at Jerusalem, and again also when he was walking near Padua. He saw also the most blessed Virgin Mary in the same form without any distinction of members. By these sights he was then not moderately confirmed , so that he often even thought this, that although no Scripture taught those mysteries of the faith, yet he himself, on account of those very things which he had seen, would resolve that for these he ought to die.

[30] He went one day, for his devotion, into a church (I believe entitled of divine Paul) which is distant a little more than a thousand paces from Manresa. By a notable illumination Now the way which leads there is near a river. And when he thus went along, intent on his devotions, he sat down with his face turned toward the river, which flowed deep. Meanwhile, while he sat there, the eyes of his mind were opened, not so that he saw any vision, but that he understood and knew many spiritual things, such as those which pertain to the mysteries of the faith and to skill in letters; and this with so great an illumination, that all things seemed new to him *. Nor can the single things which he then understood be clearly related, although they were very many, but only this, that his mind was illuminated with a certain great clarity, and in such a manner, that, if

all the helps which throughout the whole course of his life up to his sixty-second year and more he received from God, be gathered into one, and whatever he knew, he does not seem to have obtained so much from all those as at that one time.

[31] Hence his intellect was so illuminated, as if he had been made another man, and he is anticipated with the knowledge of spiritual things. and had been allotted another intellect. When this had lasted long enough, he bent his knees before the cross which was there, to give thanks. There presented itself to him that sight which had often appeared, but of which he had never known what it was: I mean that which was said above, most beautiful and resplendent as with many eyes, which was wont to set itself before his eyes. But before the cross he easily perceived that that thing was not of so specious a color as it was wont to be: and he very clearly recognized, with great assent of the will, that it was the demon. And so afterward, however great a length of time it appeared to him more often, yet he always drove it from himself with the staff which he was wont to carry in his hand.

[32] When at Manresa he lay sick of a most grievous fever, so that death seemed to be at hand, The sick man arms himself against vainglory, and he himself plainly judged that his soul would straightway depart; there came upon his mind the thought that he was righteous. Against which he labored so much, that he did nothing else than resist it, his own sins being set before his eyes: but not even thus could he overcome the thought; which indeed afflicted him much more than the fever itself, on account of the effort which he applied to overcoming it. And when he now had the fever somewhat lighter, and had somewhat withdrawn from that extreme term of life, he began to cry out to certain noble matrons, who had come there for the sake of visiting him, that for that love with which they loved God, when they should behold him at another time placed at the point of death, they should cry out with great voices: O sinner, and, Remember those things with which thou hast offended God.

[33] At another time, when he was sailing from Valencia into Italy, by the force of a tempest the rudder was broken, which he also repels in a shipwreck. and the matter came to this, that in his own and others' judgment they could not naturally escape death. Then therefore, examining and preparing himself for the coming death, he could be affected by no fear of his own sins or of condemnation: but meanwhile he was held by great confusion and sorrow, because he thought that he had not well used those gifts and graces which the Lord had communicated to him. Again at another time, in the year 1550, he labored under a most grievous sickness, which both he himself and many others judged would be his last. But then, when he thought of death, he was affected with so great spiritual consolation at his being about to die, that he was wholly melted into tears. And this became so continual to him, that he often called away his mind from the thought of death, lest he should feel so much of that consolation.

[34] After his illness he is clothed with a coarser garment: Winter coming on , he fell into a vehement sickness; from which that he might be cured, the city placed him in the house of one who was father of a certain Ferrera, who afterward came into the service of Balthasar Faria: where he was cared for with the utmost care and diligence. And since now many noble and chief matrons were affected with devotion toward him, they came to keep watch about him by night. When he had recovered, yet his strength was very feeble, and a grievous pain of the stomach was left him. And so, both for this cause and on account of the winter cold, which was very great, they prevailed with him to put on garments and shoes, and to cover his head. He therefore, compelled, took two scanty garments of a grayish color, of very coarse cloth, and of the same color a kind of half-cap. Now he had long since at that time desired to treat of spiritual matters, and to obtain some who should be capable of them. Meanwhile the time was approaching, at which he had resolved to undertake the Jerusalem journey.

[35] [He departs to Barcelona, to sail into Italy, admitting no companion, or provision:] Therefore at the beginning of the year 1523 he departed toward Barcelona, that he might embark. But although some offered themselves to him as companions; yet he did not admit them, but wished to set out alone, because he placed very much in this, that he should have God alone for his refuge. Whereby it came about that to some who insisted more vehemently (for he knew neither the Italian nor the Latin tongue) that he should take to himself some companion, the advantages being set forth which he could thence perceive, and that companion much praised; he himself answered, that even if he were the son or brother of the duke of Cardona, yet he would not have him for a companion, because he desired to have three virtues, faith, charity, and hope: for that if he should take a companion, when he labored with hunger, he would expect help from him, and if it should happen for him to fall, he would confer his aid to rise; and by these reasons he would confide in him, and be affected toward him: but he wished to place this confidence and hope and affection in God alone. And this which he thus said, he also felt in his mind.

For this cause he desired not only to embark alone, but even without any provision. And when he had begun to treat of the passage, he obtained from the shipmaster that he should be carried free, since he had no money; but on this condition, that he should bring into the ship only so much of the ship's bread, which they call biscuit, as he himself in sailing could consume for his own sustenance; otherwise that he would in no way admit him.

[36] [nevertheless by the judgment of his confessor he admits the bread, renouncing the rest of his money.] When therefore he wished to treat of seeking that bread, he began to be agitated by great scruples: Is this that hope and faith in God, by which thou heldest for certain that He would not fail thee? and this with so great force and efficacy, that they vehemently vexed him. At length uncertain what to do (for on both sides he saw probable reasons) he resolved to leave the matter in the judgment of his confessor. To whom indeed he first opened with how great a desire of the journey he was held, and of following that which would be for the greater glory of God: then he showed the causes by which he had come into doubt, whether he should carry provision with him. The confessor's judgment was, that he should ask for what was necessary, and put it with himself in the ship. Therefore when he asked this of a certain noble woman, she asked whither he was about to set out. He stopped, somewhat hesitating whether to open it to her, nor at length did he dare to tell her more, than that he wished to come into Italy and to Rome. To whom she, marveling and as it were astonished, To Rome? (she said:) and yet those who betake themselves there, I know not of what sort they return. Now the woman signified by these words, that from Rome men return a little better, because they generally set out there, not on account of piety and devotion. That he did not disclose to the woman his journey to the holy City of Jerusalem, the cause was the fear of vainglory, by which he was vehemently afflicted, so that he did not dare to indicate even the place where he was born, nor his family. The bread being received, he embarked. But since there still remained to him five or six coins (which the Spaniards call blancas) of those which he had received by begging from door to door, in the manner in which he was wont to live; he left them near the ship's station, placed upon a bench.

[37] He had spent at Barcelona a little more than twenty days, He is borne along with great affection toward spiritual persons. before he entered the ship. During which time, as was his custom, he sought out all spiritual persons, although they dwelt in hermitages far from the city, that he might deal with them. But neither there, nor at Manresa, as long as he was there, could he find anyone who should advance him so much as he desired. One woman seemed to him thoroughly entered into the secrets of spiritual matters, who had said to him that she prayed that Christ Jesus might appear to him. And so, after he departed from Barcelona, he laid aside that anxiety of seeking spiritual persons.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

Arrival at Rome, Venice, Jerusalem; and to the holy places.

While sailing they used a vehement wind from the stern, whereby it came about that within five days [By a vehement wind swiftly carried to Gaeta he succors some whose chastity is in peril:] and nights they made from Barcelona to Gaeta ^a, though not without great fear of all on account of the grievous tempest. The fear of plague held all that region: nevertheless he himself, when he descended from the ship, began to make his way toward Rome. There added themselves to him as companions some of those who had been in the same ship, a mother together with a daughter, whom the mother led in the habit of a nun ^b, and a certain young man; for these too sought their living by begging, for which cause they followed him. When they came into a certain village, they found many standing about a very great fire; who gave them food, and very much wine, inviting them earnestly, so that it easily appeared that they did this in order to warm them. After these things they thus separated them: they placed the mother with the daughter in an upper cell; the pilgrim and the young man in the stable. At midnight he himself heard very great cries uttered in the upper part of the house. And when he had risen, to inspect what the matter was; he found in the hall the mother with the daughter, both lamenting and complaining, that certain men had wished to offer violence to them. From this matter so great an impulse invaded him, that he began to cry out: Is this to be borne? and other complaints of this kind, which he uttered with so great efficacy, that all were astounded; nor yet was there any who dared to harm him. The boy * had already fled; those three together entered upon their journey at that hour, although it was night.

[39] he obtains entrance into the city: then he enters Rome: Near was a city: to which when they had come, they found it shut. And so they spent that night in a certain church drenched with rain; nor even in the morning was entrance into the city permitted them. But outside they found no alms,

although they had set out to a certain village which seemed to be not far off from there. There the Pilgrim halted, being unable to go further for weakness. The mother and daughter made for Rome. On that day a great multitude of men went forth from the city at once: and the Pilgrim, being informed that the Lady of the city was arriving among these , meeting her, discloses that he was ill only from weakness; and that therefore he asked to be permitted to enter into the city, that he might be allowed to seek a remedy. This indeed she readily granted. But he himself, setting about to beg, sought out a good many farthings or quatrini: with which, his strength being restored, he pursued his journey after two days, and reached Rome on Palm Sunday.

[40] [whence he proceeds to Venice, that, others vainly dissuading, he may make for Jerusalem.] There those who spoke with him, knowing that he had no money for undertaking the Jerusalem journey, began to dissuade him from this, confirming it with many reasons, that it could not be that he should sail there without money. But he himself was held with a certain great certitude in his mind, so that he could not doubt but that he would find a means and a way by which he might set out thither. And so on the eighth * day from the feast of the Resurrection ^c, the benediction being received from Adrian VI, he departed from Rome toward Venice. He had meanwhile six or seven gold coins, which they had given him, that he might have whence to pay the sailor from Venice as far as Jerusalem; but he himself had received them somewhat from the fear which they had struck into him, that he could not otherwise reach there. But on the third day, from his going out of Rome, he began to recognize that this had proceeded from distrust, and grieved that he had received them, and thought whether he should let them go. At length however he resolved to spend them liberally on those who should offer themselves, who for the most part were beggars. And this he did in such a way, that when he came to Venice, he had nothing more than a few quatrini ^d, which were necessary to him for that night.

[41] On the Venetian journey he is refreshed by a vision, and enters the city; On this journey up to Venice, on account of the guards which had been set out of fear of the pestilence, he always kept watch in porticoes: and once it happened, that to him rising in the morning a man meeting him gave himself to flight with great terror, for this reason namely, that he had seen him exceedingly pale and very bloodless. Pursuing his journey in this manner he came to Chioggia ^e with some who had joined themselves to him as companions. There he learned that entrance into Venice would not be granted. And so his companions proceed to Padua, that thence they might receive a certificate, by which they might testify that they were in health, and not infected with plague. He too went with them: but since they went along very swiftly, he could not follow them, being deserted by them toward night in a certain very wide field: in which Christ appeared to him in that form in which, as we said before, He was wont, and very much strengthened and confirmed him. Animated by this consolation, on the next morning, no certificate being forged (which the companions are believed to have done) he came to the gates of Padua, and entered, the guards meanwhile asking nothing; which same thing befell him also in going out. Which matter the companions greatly marveled at, who had received a certificate, that they might be able to enter Venice, which he himself did not even care to receive.

[42] When Venice was reached, guards came into the little boat, where, poor, and having questioned each one, as many as were in it, to him alone they said nothing at all. At Venice he begged his living, and slept in the square * of divine Mark; nor ever would he go to the house of the emperor's legate; nor did he apply any particular diligence to seeking money by which he might sail to Jerusalem; and yet he held it most certain with himself, that God would show him a means by which he might reach there. Wherefore he was so confirmed, that by no reasons, whatever they objected, could he be brought into doubt. On a certain day he fell in with a rich Spaniard, who asked of him whither he wished to set out; and his intention being known, he led him into his own house to dine, where he also kept him some days, while his departure was being prepared. It was the custom of the Pilgrim, ever since Manresa, that sitting at table with others he never spoke, except briefly for the sake of answering; but he listened to what was said, and noted down some things, on the occasion of which, the food being now taken, he might speak of God.

[43] From which matter that upright man and his whole house were so affected toward him, [and leading a life of the best example, he is not called away from the Jerusalem journey by illness.] that they wished to retain him and to compel him to remain with them: and that same man, who afforded him hospitality, gave him entrance to the Doge of Venice. Whom when the Doge saw, he ordered him to be admitted into that ship in which the governors and prefects were to be conveyed to Cyprus. Many pilgrims had that year betaken themselves to Venice, that they might set out for Jerusalem: but the greater part had gone back on account of the recent fall of Rhodes ^f, which had been occupied by the Turks. There remained, however, in the pilgrims' * ship thirteen in number (this one moreover sailed first): but eight or nine awaited the governor's ship. And when the time came for it to sail, behold a most grievous fever invaded the Pilgrim, from which, when it had ill affected him some days, he was freed. The ship was to sail on that day on which he had taken a medicine, and when the household asked whether he could enter the ship, the physician answered, that he could indeed, but only if he wished to be buried there. He nevertheless entered, and departed that day, and vomited so much that it made him lighter; and he altogether began to convalesce. In that ship certain shameful things were committed, which he reproved with great severity.

[44] The Spaniards, who were in the same ship, admonished him [Having been in peril because he reproved vices, and also refreshed by apparitions along the way,] not to do that, because the rest were treating of leaving him on a certain island: but the wind so blew, that in a short time they reached Cyprus; where, that ship being left, they set out to another port, which they call Salinas, distant ten leagues from there. Having entered the pilgrims' ship, he brought in no more of provision than he had into the other, namely the hope which he had conceived in God. During all that time the Lord often appeared to him, and brought great consolation and effort. And he seemed to himself to see a certain round thing, as of gold, and great, which made itself present to him. Thence they came to Jaffa ^g, and when, seated on asses (as is the custom) they were proceeding toward Jerusalem, two miles from the city, a certain Spaniard, a man, as it seemed, noble, by name Diego Nuñez *, with great devotion said to all the pilgrims: since a little after they were about to come there, whence the holy City could be seen, it would be pious and good, that each should prepare his conscience, and go along in silence.

[45] he enters the holy City: When this matter had been approved by all, each collected himself, and a little before they had come to that place whence the City is beheld, they descended from the asses, because they beheld monks with a cross awaiting them. The City being beheld, the Pilgrim was affected with great consolation, and, as the others said, there was common to all a certain hilarity which did not seem carnal . The same devotion also he always felt in visiting the holy places. Now he had firmly resolved to remain at Jerusalem, that he might always visit those holy places, and be of profit to souls; and for this cause he had letters to the Guardian, by which he was commended to him. Which when he delivered, he opened to him also the purpose of his mind, that he was about to remain there for the devotion of his mind. But the other cause he did not indicate, of aiding souls: for this he opened to no one; but that other he had often disclosed. The Guardian answered, that he did not see how it could be that he should remain: for the house labored under so great want that it could not even feed its own; and therefore that he was minded to send some into the West with the pilgrims. The Pilgrim said that he wished nothing else, than that he should hear his confession, when he should approach to make it. The Guardian asserted that this could be done: but that he should await the coming of the Provincial (Now I believe that this was the supreme superior of this Order in those regions) and yet he was at Bethlehem.

[46] but forbidden By this promise, as if secure of it *, the Pilgrim began to write letters to Barcelona to spiritual persons. He had now written one, and was writing another; when on the day before he had to depart, they come to summon him, in the name of the Provincial (for now he had returned) and of the Guardian. Then the Provincial, addressing him kindly, explains that he had heard of his pious purpose, by which he had resolved to remain in those holy places, and that he had diligently thought about that matter: for that many carried away by the same desire, some had met death, others had been captured; and that thereafter an obligation was left to his Religious order, of redeeming captives: wherefore he should prepare himself for the journey, to be undertaken the next day with the pilgrims. To this the Pilgrim answered, that this purpose was most firm to him, nor did he think that for any cause he would give it up without executing it; and he modestly insinuated that, although it seemed by no means so to the Provincial, yet if his precept did not bind him under sin, he would not omit through any fear to follow the purpose of his mind. The Provincial said that he had authority from the Apostolic See, to send away or retain those whom he judged should be sent away and retained, and also to excommunicate those who would not obey, when they were sent away by him; but that he judged concerning that matter thus, that it was not expedient for him to remain.

[47] [from drawing out a long stay in it; he visits certain holy places without a guide:] And when he wished to show him the Pontifical diplomas, in which the authority of excommunicating was contained; he said that there was no need; for that he believed them, and since it so seemed to them, and they had that authority, he would obey them. After these things, having returned to where he had been before, he was seized with a great desire to visit again the Mount of Olives before he should depart, since the will of God did not bear that he should abide in those holy places. In that mount there is a certain rock, from which our Lord ascended into the heavens, in which his footprints are even now beheld impressed: and this was what he desired to see again. And so, no one being informed, nor any guide received (now it is a thing full of peril, unless some Turk accompany one as a guide) withdrawing himself secretly from the others, he alone makes for the Mount of Olives, and when the guards would not permit him entrance, he brought forth and gave them a small knife from his pen-case. Prayer being made, with great consolation, there comes upon his mind a desire of going to Bethphage; where when he was, it again occurred to him, that he had not sufficiently observed on the Mount of Olives, in which part was the right foot, and in which the left. Having returned therefore thither, he gave, I believe, the scissors which he carried, to the guards, that they might permit him to enter.

[48] After it was learned in the monastery that he had thus gone off without a guide, and therefore he is brought back by the labor of the monks. the monks applied diligence in seeking him. Descending therefore from the Mount of Olives, he fell in with a Christian, one of those who are called "of the girdle," who ministered in the monastery. This man, bearing on his countenance the look of a vehemently angered person, threatened him with a huge staff, as if about to strike him, and coming up to him firmly seized him by the arm. He himself indeed readily allowed himself to be led: but nevertheless that good man, having once seized him, never let him go; by whom while he was thus led along, grasped, he received in that journey great consolation from the Lord, since indeed he seemed to himself to behold Christ always going before him above. And this endured continuously with great abundance, until he returned to the monastery.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

Arrival in Apulia, Venice, Ferrara, and Genoa; captured as a spy, despised as a madman; studies at Barcelona and at Alcalá.

[In a wonderful manner the ship which carried the Saint is preserved from a tempest:] On the next day the pilgrims went off from there, and having been carried to Cyprus, were dispersed into different ships. There were in that port three or four ships, whose journey was to Venice; one of the Turks, another very small, the third very rich and strong, of a wealthy Venetian man. The shipmaster of this one some of the pilgrims asked to carry the Pilgrim: but he, when he learned that he had no money, refused; although many were asking, and praising the Pilgrim: to whom also he answered that, if the Pilgrim were a saint, he should cross over just as the blessed James, or something similar. From the shipmaster of the smaller vessel these same men easily obtained what they wished. On a certain day in the morning they sailed with a favoring wind: but toward evening a tempest coming on drove the ships apart: and that great one, dashed against that same island of Cyprus, perished; that which was of the Turks, it too with all its passengers perished. But that small one, although it long struggled with the tempest, nevertheless made a certain shore of Apulia. It was the time of winter, huge frosts, and snows were falling; nor did the Pilgrim have any other clothing than breeches down to the knees of a certain coarse cloth, and shoes, his legs meanwhile entirely bare; besides a doublet of black cloth open, and cut with many slashes at the shoulders, and a very scanty garment of thin hair.

[50] [who in the year 1524 came to Venice; and setting out thence, at Ferrara distributed his money to the poor.] In the middle of January in the year 1524 he reached Venice: the other part of that month, and all November and December, he had spent on the ship from Cyprus. At Venice he found one of those who had received him into their houses, before he set out for Jerusalem. This man bestowed on him 15 or 16 giulios ^a in alms, and some cloth, which he himself, folded, placed upon his stomach, on account of the vehemence of the cold which then prevailed. The Pilgrim, after he learned that it was God's will that he should not remain at Jerusalem, on his return always thought within himself what he should do. At length that opinion pleased him more, and he was more carried to it, that he should give some time to letters, whereby he might be able to bring aid to souls; and for this cause he resolved to go to Barcelona. And so from Venice he again set out for Genoa: and when he was at Ferrara, and was praying in the greatest church, a beggar asked alms of him; to whom he held out a marchetto, which is worth five or six farthings; again another after him, to whom he gave a little coin worth somewhat more: after these succeeds a third, and since he now had nothing more of the smaller coin, but only giulio coins, he gives one of these. The beggars, when they saw him thus bestowing alms, did nothing but flock together; and in this manner he spent whatever money he had. At length, many arriving at once for the same cause, he answered that they should pardon him, for now nothing was left to him.

[51] Thus he departs from Ferrara, to make for Genoa. There met him on that journey some Spanish soldiers, who that night treated him humanely, On the road to Genoa he is captured as a spy, and marveled not a little that he made his journey by that road, since it was necessary that he should pass through the midst of both camps, of the French and of the Imperialists: and they asked that, the royal road being omitted, he should follow another, safer, which they indicated. Not following their counsel, he sets out straight, and falls in with a town girt with walls. There the guards, having seized him, cast him as a spy into a little house not far from the gate, and, as is the custom in suspicions of this kind, began to question him about very many things. He answered to each thing he was asked, that he knew nothing of them. Wherefore they, having stripped him of his garments and shoes, searched him in every part, whether perchance he carried any letters. But when they learned nothing from him, they lead him to the prefect of the soldiers; nor could he obtain that he be covered with his garment, but only with his doublet and breeches.

[52] While he was going along in this manner, there presented itself to him the recollection * of Christ captured and led away, and having affected a stupid manner of acting, although it was not a vision like the others. Now he was led through three streets of that town, and those large ones, without any sadness, nay rather with joy and consolation. It was the custom of the Pilgrim to address anyone whatever with YOU the familiar form, with no title added either of lordship or of reverence, devoutly conceiving that the Apostles and Christ himself had used this simplicity. Meanwhile therefore, while he was thus led through those streets, it came into his mind that it would be good, that omission being made of that custom, to honor the prefect then with the term of lordship; nor this without some fear of the punishments with which they could afflict him. But when he recognized that it was a temptation; Since (he said) it is so, I will neither address him with the term of lordship, nor bend the knee before him for the sake of honor, nor take my cap from my head.

[53] When he came into the prefect's palace, he is dismissed for a while in a lower hall; then a little after the prefect addresses him: he is led to the prefect, and held for a madman. he, no kind of civility being shown, answered certain few words, distinguished also by a long enough interval. From these the prefect held him for a madman, and to those who had brought him, This man (he said) is void of sense; give him what is his, and cast him out of doors. As he went out of the palace, a certain Spaniard met him; who, just as he was, led him to his own house, and gave him a breakfast, and whatever was necessary to him for that night. In the morning, pursuing his journey up to evening, he was beheld by two soldiers from a certain tower, and captured and led to the leader of the French soldiers. This man among other things asks whence he is: and the Pilgrim answering that he was from the province of Guipúzcoa; And I, says the leader, am not far from there; and straightway he ordered him to be led down, and supper to be set before him, and that he be well treated. Certain other matters of less moment befell him on that journey. At length when he reached Genoa, he was recognized by a certain Cantabrian by name Portundo, who had at another time addressed him, when he was in the household of the Catholic king. By his help he was admitted into a ship which was making for Barcelona; in which it very nearly came about that he was captured by Andrea Doria ^b, then following the French party; for he pursued the ship.

[54] At Barcelona he shared the purpose of his mind * with Isabella Roser ^c, a chief matron and especially pious, Studies at Barcelona, and with a certain Ardèvol, a grammarian, master of a school: both approved vehemently; and the latter promised that he would teach him gratis, the former that she would furnish all the supports of life. There was at Manresa a monk (I think of the family of St. Bernard) very spiritual: with him the Pilgrim desired to dwell, that he might advance more in spirit, and be of profit to souls. And so he accepted the offered condition, if only he should not find at Manresa what he hoped. Then, having set out there, he found that the monk had died. Wherefore, having returned to Barcelona, he began to apply himself diligently to letters; but this much stood in the way of his purpose, that, when he tried to commit the lessons to memory (which is necessary in the first principles of grammar) new understandings of spiritual things and new relishes were infused into him, and this so abundantly, that he could grasp nothing by memory, nor cast it off from himself, although he struggled very much.

[55] Since therefore he often thought within himself: I, when I compose myself to pray, and am present at Mass, do not experience such efficacious understandings; their advancement being impeded by the demon through other appearances. he gradually recognized that this was a kind of temptation. And so, prayer being made, he asks his teacher to hear a few words from him in the church called of the most blessed Mary of the Sea, which was not far from that teacher's house; and after he had sat down,

he faithfully opens whatever he himself experienced in his mind, and how little up to then he had for this cause profited. But, he says, I promise, that I will not fail your school, but that I will hear you these two years, if only I can find at Barcelona bread and water, whereby I may be nourished. This profession being uttered with great efficacy, he never thereafter experienced that temptation. The pain in the stomach, which had seized him at Manresa, and for the sake of which he had put on shoes, had now ceased, and now from that time when he had departed for Jerusalem, he had been well in the stomach. And so when he was giving his labor to letters at Barcelona, a desire seized him of returning to his former penances. A hole therefore being made in the soles of his shoes, he broke them day by day more and more, until now nothing else remained but the upper covering.

[56] After two years spent in the study of letters, He explores through another how much he had profited, and thinks of Alcalá: in which they said he had profited very much, his master said he was fit to enter upon the studies of philosophy (they commonly call them Arts), and for that cause exhorted him to make for Alcalá. But he himself wished first that an examination of his progress be taken by a certain doctor of theology. Who when he had given the same counsel, the Pilgrim departed to Alcalá alone, although now at that time he had (as I think) some companions. At Alcalá he began to beg, and to live by alms: and after 10 or 12 days, since he had followed this kind of life, a certain priest, and with him some others, having beheld him asking alms, began to hold him in mockery and to affect him with the insults which are wont to be cast at those who, though they are healthy, yet beg. When he who was in charge of the new hospital heard these things, pitying him, as it seemed, he led him, called to himself, into the infirmary , and there furnished him both a cell and whatever besides he needed.

[57] The twenty-fourth year above 1500 was passing, when he reached Barcelona came in the year 1526, with fruit. at the time of Lent. Now he was there two years. Wherefore in 1526 he came to Alcalá: there he spent one year and a half, during which time he expended his study upon the terminos and the Summulae of Soto, the Physics of Albert, and the Master of the Sentences. He was also exercised in giving spiritual Exercises, and in teaching Christian doctrine. From which things a profit was gathered to the glory of God; since indeed very many were brought to a great knowledge and relish of spiritual things: others however were held by various temptations, such as that man who could not inflict scourgings upon himself, as if his hands were held back by someone. From these and other things of this kind rumors were created among the people; but especially from the very frequent concourse of men gathering there, where he handed down the Christian instruction. When he first came to Alcalá, an acquaintance grew up for him with Diego Guya ^d, who dwelt in the house of his brother, a printer, nor was there wanting to him any of those things which are necessary for life. And so he also conferred alms for feeding the poor, and had at home three pilgrim companions . On a certain day the Pilgrim came to him asking alms, that he might provide for the necessities of some. Diego affirms that he had no money; yet he opens a chest, from which he might take ornaments of a bed of various colors, candlesticks, and some other things of that kind: all which the Pilgrim, folded in a linen cloth, placed upon his shoulders, and departed to bring aid to the poor.

[58] At Alcalá, as I had said, great rumors had been excited from those things which were done there, Rumors are stirred up there against the Saint on account of his dress: the whole town saying one thing and another, so that the matter came even to Toledo to the Inquisitors. Who when they had come to Alcalá, the host of those pilgrims admonished them that he himself and his companions were called by them sagati* ^e, and (as I think) Illuminati ^f, and that they were about to make a butchery of them. And an inquisition being straightway held into their life, since they had come to Alcalá for that one cause, they returned to Toledo without even summoning them, the whole matter being left to the Vicar Figueroa, who now deals with the Emperor. This man after some days, having called them to him, said that inquiry had been made into their life, and the whole matter had been written up by the Inquisitors, but no error had been found either in doctrine or in the manner of life: wherefore they could do what they did before, without impediment: but since they were not Religious, it did not seem well to him that they should all use one habit, and that it would be better, and that he enjoined them, that the Pilgrim and Arteaga should use black garments, Calisto and Cáceres tawny ones, and that Juanico, a French youth, should remain just as he was.

[59] The Pilgrim answers that they would do what seemed good *: But meanwhile, who is also ordered to be with covered feet. he said, I know not what fruit these inquisitions bring, since to a certain man some days ago a certain priest was unwilling to hold out the Sacrament, because he communicated every eighth day, and to me too he gave it grudgingly and with difficulty. We should wish to know this, whether he has detected any heresy in us. No, said Figueroa; for if they had detected it, they would have burned you. And they would burn thee too (said the Pilgrim) if thou wert convicted of heresy. The garments are dyed, as had been enjoined them. Hence after 15 or 20 days Figueroa orders the Pilgrim not to go about with bare feet: and he indeed put on footwear, being, as he was, readily compliant in matters of this kind, when they were enjoined him. Four months after, the same Figueroa again exercises an inquisition against them, and besides the accustomed causes, I believe an occasion being thence taken, that a certain woman of no contemptible condition and married to a husband was held by a singular devotion toward the Pilgrim, and at daybreak, veiled (as is done at Alcalá), came into the Hospital, and having entered there, the veil being removed, went to the Pilgrim. But not even then was anything found, nor was the Pilgrim summoned, the matter being weighed, nor was anything said to him.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VI.

The prisons at Alcalá and at Salamanca.

He is sent away to prison Four months again having elapsed, when now he dwelt in a little house outside the infirmary , on a certain day at his door a bailiff stands, and calling him, Come (he said) with me; and having cast him into prison, ordered him not to go out thence, until otherwise it should be ordered. It was then the time of summer; and since he had a rather loose prison, very many came to him, to whom, just as if he were free, he explained the Christian instructions, and handed down the Exercises. He never wished to use the service of an advocate or of a procurator, although not a few offered themselves. But he mentions particularly the lady Teresa de Cárdenas, who sent someone to visit him, and often offered him that she would lead him out from there: but he himself admitted none of these things, saying even this : For whose love I entered here; He will lead me out from here, if it shall seem good to Him. He had now spent seventeen days in prison, when he still did not know for what cause he had been cast there; nor had they questioned him about anything. But then Figueroa came into the prison, and asked many things of him, and among these this too, in jest *, whether he ordered the sabbath to be kept.

[61] Besides, whether he did not know two women, a mother and a daughter. He said he knew them. Then that man insisting; did you know nothing about their departure, guilty of no fault: before they went away? No, said the Pilgrim, by that holy oath to which I bound myself. Then the Vicar, laying his hand on his shoulders, as if he rejoiced; And yet this, he said, is the cause why you have been cast here. Among those who generally followed the Pilgrim, were a mother and a daughter, both widows: but the daughter very young and beautiful. These had made great progress in spiritual matters, especially the daughter; so that, although they were born in a noble place, yet they had gone on foot to visit the Veronica, which is in the city of Jaén ^a, and I know not whether even begging their living, and alone: from which matter a great rumor arose at Alcalá. Doctor Ciruelo ^b, who bore a certain care of one of them, thought that they had been induced to it by the Pilgrim, and for that reason had caused him to be shut in prison. The prisoner, when he heard what had been said by the Vicar, said to him: Do you wish me to speak somewhat more at large about this matter? Speak, said he. Then the prisoner; Often (he said) these women urged upon me, that they wished to set out through the whole world, to minister to the poor now in these, now in those infirmaries *. But I always dissuaded them from this, because I saw the daughter of that age, and beautiful; asserting, that if they were held by the desire of visiting the poor, they could do that at Alcalá, and accompany the holy Sacrament. Figueroa, these things being thus bandied to and fro, went off together with the notary, carrying a writing of whatever had been done.

[62] At Segovia ^c then dwelt Calisto, the Pilgrim's companion: who, having learned that he was imprisoned, by which at length after 42 days he is freed. although he had recently recovered from a grave infirmity, straightway came to him, and together with him shut himself in prison.

But he himself admonished him, that it was better that he go to the Vicar; who received him kindly, and forewarned that he would send him into prison, because it was necessary that he be imprisoned , until those women should return, whereby it might be adjudged whether they said things conformable with those which the Pilgrim said. Some days Calisto was in prison: but the Pilgrim, seeing that this was done to the detriment of his health (for he had not yet fully recovered), by the labor of a certain doctor most friendly to him caused him to be led out. From that day, on which the Pilgrim was cast into prison, up to that on which he was led out, forty-two days were counted. Which being passed, since now those women had returned, the notary came to the prison, to read to him the sentence ^d, by which he was permitted to depart free, and they were ordered to be clothed in the same garments which the rest of the scholars also used, and were forbidden to speak of matters of faith for four years from thence, when they should have given fuller labor to their studies, since they were little skilled in letters. But in truth, the Pilgrim was indeed more skilled than his companions; but that not very solidly : which also he himself was wont to say before all things, before he was examined.

[63] This sentence being heard, the Pilgrim halted somewhat, hesitating what he should do, since they seemed to him to close the way to aiding souls, and that with no other cause brought forward, than that he had not further studied letters. At length he resolved to set out to Fonseca, archbishop of Toledo, and to commit the whole matter to his judgment or decision. [The sentence being heard, which forbade the study of aiding souls, he departs to Valladolid;] He departed from Alcalá, and found the archbishop at Valladolid. And the matter being faithfully narrated to him, he said that, although he was now no longer in his jurisdiction, nor now subject to that sentence, yet he would do concerning that matter what he himself should resolve. The archbishop received him kindly, and when he understood that he wished to set out for Salamanca, said that he had there friends and a college, and, all offices being offered him, ordered four gold crowns to be given him as he went out.

[64] When he had come to Salamanca, and was praying in a church, thence to Salamanca; and there questioned a certain devout woman recognized him (for now four companions had long before begun to remain there) and asked him his name, and led him where the companions dwelt. At Alcalá, when the sentence was passed for him, that they should be clothed in the garments of scholars, the Pilgrim answered: Yet you ordered that we should dye our garments, and so we did: but what you do not order, we cannot perform; because we have not whence to buy. On this account the Vicar procured for them garments and caps, and the rest after the manner of scholars. Clothed in these garments they departed from Alcalá. At Salamanca he made confession to a Dominican monk in the college of St. Stephen , and after 10 or 12 days from their coming, the confessor said to him: The monks of this monastery would wish to speak with you. But he, In the name of the Lord, he said. Again the confessor: It will be good, on Sunday you come here to dine; but this I warn you, they will ask many things of you. On Sunday therefore he came together with Calisto: and after they had dined, he who was in charge of the rest, the Prior being absent, the confessor and another monk, as I think, being taken, leads the Pilgrim into a certain chapel, and affably recalling how good were those things which he had heard concerning his life and morals, as one who went about after the manner of the Apostles, said that it would be pleasing to him to hear about these matters more singly and particularly. And first he asks in what kind of study he had labored. The Pilgrim said that he was the one who among his companions was the most learned , and at the same time also plainly opened how little he had studied, and on how weak a foundation.

[65] What is it therefore that you preach, said the monk. We, said the Pilgrim, do not preach; concerning doctrine but only speak familiarly with some concerning divine matters, as, when a dinner has been taken, with those who invite us. And concerning what (said he) divine matters? for this is what we should wish to know. Now, said the Pilgrim, we commend one virtue, now another, or blame this vice or that. Then the monk: You are not learned, and yet you speak of virtues and vices. But of these no one can speak, unless either instructed by doctrine, or by the Holy Spirit. You do not have it from doctrine: it follows therefore, that from the Holy Spirit. And this is concerning the Holy Spirit that we should wish to know. Here the Pilgrim halted somewhat, since he did not much approve that manner of reasoning: and after a little silence he said that there was no need to speak more of these things. Then the monk, urging: And now, he said, when so many errors of Erasmus and of others have come forth, who have imposed upon the world, do you not wish to make plain those things which you say?

[66] and concerning the habit of his companion, To whom the Pilgrim: I, father, am about to say nothing more than what I have said, except before my Superiors, who can oblige me to do it. Before this the monk had asked why Calisto went about in that habit: for he wore a short cloak, a large hat on his head, in his hand a staff, booted to the middle of his legs; and since he was tall of stature, he seemed thereby the more deformed. The Pilgrim explains how at Alcalá they had been imprisoned, and it had been enjoined them to be clothed after the manner of scholars, but that companion during the summer time had given his garment to a certain poor priest. Here the monk, as it were muttering and indicating that this did not please him, Charity (he said) begins with itself. But to return to the narration of the matter undertaken, the monk, seeing that he could hear nothing else from the Pilgrim than what he had said; Therefore, he said, remain here: for we shall easily bring it about that you tell everything. Thus all the monks depart with a certain haste: he meanwhile asking whether they wished him to remain in the chapel, or elsewhere. In the chapel, said the sub-prior; and all the doors of the monastery being shut, they treated of these matters (as it seems) with the judges. Meanwhile both, the Pilgrim and his companion, spent three days in the monastery, before anything was said to them in the name of the judges, taking food with the monks in the refectory, and almost always their cell was crowded with monks, who visited them: to whom the Pilgrim always spoke of those things of which he was wont. From which there arose among the monks a certain quasi-division, many showing that they were well affected toward them.

[67] After three days the notary came, and led them into prison. he is committed to prison with him, and to a chain; and each is examined. Now they were not cast into the lower prison with the criminals; but into a certain upper dwelling; where there was very much filth, both on account of its antiquity, and because it was not inhabited. Now both were bound with the same chain, each by one foot: the chain was long, 10 or 12 palms, tied to a beam set in the middle of the cell. So that if one had to withdraw to do anything, it was necessary that the other accompany him too. That night they spent wholly awake. But on the following day, when it was learned among the citizens that they were imprisoned, there was sent whereon they might sleep, and the other necessaries abundantly ministered. And as very many came to visit them, the Pilgrim after his manner held discourses concerning divine matters. The bachelor Frías examined each one separately; to whom the Pilgrim delivered all his papers (now in these were written the Exercises), that he might weigh whether all things there were rightly held: and when he had asked whether they had other companions, and where they were, and they had indicated it; he sent to lead the companions Cáceres and Arteaga into prison, but to leave Juanico, who afterward became a monk. These two they placed, not above with the two companions, but below with the common crowd of the fettered. The Pilgrim not even here wished to employ an advocate, nor a procurator.

[68] And some days afterward he was called into the sight of four judges, The Saint then answers the four judges concerning various questions, three doctors, and the bachelor Frías; for they all had inspected the Exercises. Now they asked many things of him, not only concerning the Exercises, but also concerning theology, as concerning the Trinity, concerning the most holy Sacrament, in what manner he understood those articles. He, before all things, made protestation *, then, ordered by the judges, so spoke of these matters, that they had nothing to answer. The bachelor Frías, who had shown himself sharper than the rest, also asked somewhat in these matters, which pertained to the Pontifical or Canon law. He was compelled to answer to all things: yet he himself always premised that he did not know what the Doctors said concerning that matter. He was then ordered to explain the first commandment of the Decalogue, as he was wont: which when he set about, he said so many things, and detained them so long, treating of the first precept, that he took away the will of asking anything further. Before, while they spoke of the Exercises, they insisted very much on that which is at their beginning, namely when a thought is a mortal sin or when a venial; because, though he was not imbued with doctrine, he was defining concerning that question. But he: Whether it be true or otherwise, you yourselves shall see; but if it is not true, condemn it. At length they themselves, nothing being condemned, went off.

[69] Among those who came to the prison to speak with him, there came once Francisco de Mendoza ^e, who now is Cardinal of Burgos ^f. Now he came with the bachelor Frías: and to him asking familiarly how he did, and whether he bore the prison ill; I will answer, he said, and he shows that he is held by a great desire of more chains. what today I answered to a noble woman, who uttered certain words testifying commiseration, because she beheld me imprisoned; By this very thing (I say) you teach, that you do not desire chains for the love of Jesus Christ; since prison seems to you so great an evil. And yet this I affirm, that there are not so many fetters, manacles, and chains in all Salamanca, but that I desire more for the love of God. It happened at that time that all the fettered fled from the prison: and those two, and the companions who were with them, were found in the morning alone in the prison with the doors open. Which matter, by the frequent rumor of the citizens, was heard with great edification in the city, and for this reason there was given them the whole palace, which was near, that they might have it for a prison.

[70] A sentence is passed upon him, and he is declared innocent: yet because he saw, After 22 days from their capture, they were called to hear the sentence which was to be passed upon them. Now it was of this kind: that no error had been detected in their life or doctrine: and so that they could do those things which they were wont to do before, in handing down the Christian doctrine, and holding conversations concerning divine matters: yet on this condition, that, until four more years in the study of letters

they should have spent, they should never define anything to be a mortal or venial sin. This sentence being read, the judges displayed great benevolence, as those who wished it to be accepted. The Pilgrim answered that he would indeed do what was contained in it; yet that he did not accept it, since, nothing being condemned, his mouth was closed, that he might not in what he could aid his neighbors. But although Doctor Frías insisted very much, who displayed a benevolent affection toward them; yet the Pilgrim said nothing more, than that he would do what was enjoined, as long as he was in the jurisdiction of Salamanca. They were straightway led out of the prison, where these things were transacted. But he himself, the matter being commended to God, began to think what he should do: for it seemed difficult to him that he should remain at Salamanca, since he reckoned that the way to aiding his neighbors was for that reason closed to him, the faculty of defining what was venial, what mortal sin being taken away.

[71] that by this the access to aiding souls was closed to him, he thinks of Paris, Wherefore he resolved to go to Paris for the sake of studies. When the Pilgrim was deliberating at Barcelona, whether he should give his labor to letters, and how long; all his thought was, whether, after he had studied letters, he should enter some Religious order, or whether in this manner he should wander through the world *. And when it came into his mind about undertaking the Religious life, straightway there came the desire that he should enter into some one which was more relaxed, and less keeping to its institute: for thus he thought that he would suffer more, and hoped it could come about that he should aid the rest of that institute, God giving him no small confidence, that whatever of injuries and insult they should dare against him, he himself would easily bear it. At the time when he dwelt at Salamanca, there were not lacking the same desires of aiding souls, and of studying to that end, and of gathering some of the same purpose, and of retaining and preserving those whom he already had.

[72] the matter being communicated with his companions. When therefore he had resolved to set out for Paris, it was agreed with those whom he had already gathered, that they themselves should await him there where they were; but that he would go, to see if he might find some means whereby they might be able to be at leisure for letters. Not a few, and those of chief authority, insisted that he should not depart; but this they could in no way obtain: nay rather, on the fifteenth or twentieth day from his going out of prison, he departed alone, some books being placed upon a little ass. After he came to Barcelona, well-nigh all dissuaded him from his journey into Gaul, on account of the huge wars which were then being waged. Then some related to him many examples of cruelty, and among others, that Spaniards were transfixed by the French with spits. But no fear from these ever occupied his mind.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

The studies at Paris, and other things done there.

And so he went off to Paris on foot and alone, and reached there about February, in the year, as he himself reckons, At Paris he takes up again the humaner studies in the college of Montaigu: the twenty-eighth above one thousand five hundred. When he was in the prison at Alcalá, the prince of the Spains was born: from which token all the years even past can be reckoned up. At Paris he dwelt with certain Spaniards, and heard the lectures of humaner literature which were given in the college of Montaigu. For since he had been hastily promoted to the higher studies, he returned to these lower ones, when he perceived that he was very much destitute of foundations. And so together with the boys he studied after the Parisian manner. When he first came to Paris, a merchant paid him 25 gold crown coins for a bill sent from Barcelona. These he gave to a certain Spaniard, of those with whom he dwelt, to be kept: but he a little after spent them for his own use, nor had he whence to repay them. Whereby it came about that, Lent being past, nothing more was left to the Pilgrim, both on account of what we have said, and because he himself, if anything was left, had spent it. He was therefore compelled to seek his living by begging, nay even to leave the house in which he was.

[74] He was then admitted into the hospital of St. James ^a beyond the church of the Innocents. but thence, on account of a theft done to him, to an inconvenient dwelling Which matter impeded his studies not a little, because the hospital was distant by a long interval from the college; and it was besides necessary to return in the evening before the angelic salutation, otherwise he would not have been admitted; nor in the morning before daylight was it allowed to go out. Wherefore he could not conveniently be at leisure for and present at his lessons. There was also another impediment, that alms had to be sought, whereby he might be nourished. Now nearly the fifth year was passing, since he had felt no pain of the stomach, and so he began to afflict himself with graver penances and abstinences. After some time spent in this manner of life, that he should dwell in the hospital and beg his living, noticing that he made little progress in the study of letters, he began to think what he should do: and seeing that there were some who served the lecturers in the colleges, and yet had time enough for study, he resolved to seek someone whom he might serve in the same manner.

[75] and reducing himself to want, Now he considered within himself and proposed in this manner, and that not without consolation: I will imagine in my mind (he said to himself) that Christ is the master, and I will impose on one of the scholars the name of Peter, on another that of John, and the rest of the names of the Apostles on the others. Then if the master should enjoin me anything, I will think that Christ enjoins; when another shall order, I will reckon that the blessed Peter orders. He applied great diligence to find a master, and about that matter he spoke also with the bachelor Castro, and with a certain Carthusian monk, who knew many masters, and with others: nor could it ever come about that he found one.

[76] he makes an excursion into Flanders and England for the sake of support. At length, destitute of every remedy, he was admonished by a certain Spanish monk that it would be better that he should set out every year into Flanders, and by the expense of two months procure the sustenance of a whole year. This counsel, when he had commended the matter to God, he approved; and using it he brought back every year from Flanders whence he might somehow live. Once too he crossed into Britain *, which is England, and brought thence more alms than he had brought in the previous years.

[77] Three students at Paris being greatly changed through the Exercises; Returning first from Flanders he began to attend more earnestly to his spiritual dealings and conversations, and at nearly the same time handed down the Exercises to three, Peralta, the bachelor Castro, who dwelt at the Sorbonne, and a certain Cantabrian, who dwelt in the college of St. Barbara, by name Amador. These made great changes in their life, and straightway distributed whatever they had, even their books, among the poor: and they themselves had begun to live by begging and to dwell in the hospital of St. James, where the Pilgrim had before dwelt, and whence he had gone out for those causes which we have said. Great was the uproar which this matter excited in the University of Paris, because those former two men were most celebrated: whom straightway other Spaniards set about to attack; and when they could by no reasons persuade them to return to the University, many with an armed hand went to the hospital, and led, or rather dragged, them out from there.

[78] he is called into odium and peril of infamy. Those men being brought back into the University, it was agreed between both parties, that these should complete the course of their studies, and then at last should prosecute what they had resolved in their mind. The bachelor Castro afterward set out into Spain, and having preached for some time among the people of Burgos, afterward gave himself over to the institute of the Carthusians at Valencia. Peralta, having entered upon a journey to Jerusalem on foot and after the manner of a pilgrim, in this habit was captured in Italy by a certain leader of soldiers, his kinsman, who found a means whereby he brought him to the supreme Pontiff, and obtained that he should enjoin him to return into Spain. But these things were not done so immediately; but some years after. Huge rumors arose at Paris against the Pilgrim, especially among the Spaniards, and from our master de Govea, who said that he had reduced Amador to insanity, who dwelt in his college. He thus resolved and said, that when first he should come into the college of St. Barbara, he would publicly flog him, which the Parisians call "to give the Hall," as a seducer of scholars.

[79] The Spaniard who had consumed his money, and had not repaid it, He compensates the loss unjustly inflicted upon him by another with a kindness; set out on a journey into Spain; and when he awaits a ship at Rouen, meanwhile he fell into a sickness: which when the Pilgrim had learned, he was seized with a desire of visiting and aiding him, hoping also by this joining of minds to lead him to this, that, the world being left, he should devote himself wholly to the service of God. Which indeed * that he might attain he desired, and to accomplish those leagues by which Rouen is distant from Paris on foot without any food and drink, and with bare feet. And when he prayed on account of this, he felt himself seized with great fear, until, entering into the church of St. Dominic, he resolved to set out in that manner. Now that fear had departed, by which he feared lest this were to tempt God: when, behold, on the next morning while rising so great a fear seized him, that he seemed to himself unable even to put on his garments. In that conflict he goes out from the house and even from the City before the rising of the light, the fear enduring up to three leagues from Paris. In which place is a village which the inhabitants call Argenteuil ^b, where also the garment

of our Lord is said to be kept. After he had departed thence with great spiritual labor, and had come to a higher place, that fear began to slip away, and a certain great consolation occupied his mind, and spiritual effort, with so great joy that he began to cry out through those fields and to speak with God. He rested that night with a certain beggar in a hospital, fourteen leagues having been accomplished that day; on the day after next he was received for the night in a straw hut; on the third day he reached Rouen on foot, as has been said, no food and no drink being taken, just as he had resolved. He brought consolation and aid to the sick man, so that he was put on board a ship which was about to sail into Spain, and gave him letters to his companions who were at Salamanca, Calixtus, Cáceres, and Artiaga.

[80] And so, that we may once speak of these companions, what the end of each of them was: and he relates what end his first companions had. when the Pilgrim was at Paris, he often gave them letters, as had been agreed among themselves, in which he signified how little hope was left that he could summon them to Paris for the sake of studies. Yet he dealt by letters with Doña Leonora de Mascareñas ^c, that she might by letters to the king of the Portuguese bring aid to Calixtus, so that he might receive a purse (they call a "purse" a certain subsidy for each single year :) out of those which the Portuguese king himself had established for certain persons at Paris. Doña Leonora gave Calixtus a mule and money, that he might betake himself to the court of the Portuguese king; and he indeed set out thither, but did not come to Paris; nay rather, having returned into Spain, he went off into the India of the Emperor with a certain spiritual woman: then returning into Spain, he again sought India, whence too he afterward returned rich into Spain; which thing was a matter of wonder at Salamanca to all who had known him before. Cáceres, Segovia being sought again, which was his native soil, began to lead his life in such a manner that he seemed to have forgotten his former purpose and life . Artiaga was first made a Commander: then, when the Society was already at Rome, a bishopric in India was given to him. He wrote indeed twice to the Pilgrim, that he should give that bishopric to someone of the Society. But when it was answered to him that this was not to be done, he went off into the India of the Emperor, having been made bishop, and there died by a very rare occurrence. For it happened, while he was sick, that, two little vessels of water * having been cast into water for cooling—one of his own, which the physician had ordered for him; the other of water infected with poison, which they call Solimannus—he who reached him the drink, slipping by an error, brought the poisoned potion, which being drunk, he made an end of living ^d.

[81] He takes thought for his reputation, The Pilgrim, having returned to Paris, met with many rumors there about himself on account of the bachelor from Castro and Peralta, and learned that he had been summoned by the Inquisitor ^e. Nor indeed did he wish to wait in doubt; but going to the Inquisitor, whose name was our master Ori, of the Dominican family: I have heard, he said, that I have been sought by you: I am here therefore, ready for whatever you shall wish. Meanwhile he asked him that, whatever he was going to do, he would dispatch it quickly; for that he had resolved to enter upon the course of Arts at the feast of St. Remigius, which was at hand: wherefore that he desired that before that time all things which were to be dealt with concerning him might be transacted, so that he might then be able more conveniently to bend himself to his studies. The Inquisitor said that it was indeed true that certain things had been reported to him about him: but for the rest he permitted him to depart free, nor did he afterward summon him.

[82] [and he undertakes philosophical studies, contracting familiarity with Faber and Xavier.] At the feast of St. Remigius, which is the first day of October, he began the course, under the teacher M. Joannes Pegna, with this mind, that those whom he had of his purpose, that they should be willing to serve God, he might foster and preserve; yet that he should not seek others to be joined to them, that he might the more easily be able to expend his labor upon his studies. After he began to be present at the philosophical lectures, he began to labor under the same temptations under which he had labored when at Barcelona he gave his labor to grammar: and as often as he heard the master lecturing, he was disturbed by so many spiritual things that he could not listen attentively. Noticing therefore that he made little progress by studying, going to his teacher he promises that he will be his hearer through the whole course, provided that bread and water be not lacking to him seeking them, whereby he might be nourished. This promise having been made, all those unseasonable devotions departed, and he pursued his studies in quiet. At that time he had familiarity with M. Peter Faber and M. Francis Xavier, whom he afterward led to the service of God, the Exercises being handed to each. At the time when he was in the course, they did not persecute him as before. Wherefore Doctor Fragus one day said to him that he wondered that they let him be so quiet, and that no one was troublesome. To whom he: This, he said, comes about for this reason, because I speak with no one about divine things. But, the course being finished, we shall return to our accustomed manner.

[83] He conquers an apprehension arisen from the touch of a plague-stricken man; Meanwhile, while these were speaking, a monk went to Doctor Fragus, asking that he would lend him his help in finding a house: for that in the one in which he was, many had died, and that he thought this had so happened from the plague; for the plague was then beginning to rage at Paris. Doctor Fragus and the Pilgrim wished to visit that house, a woman being brought who was very skilled in discerning that disease. She indeed, having entered the house, asserts that it is truly the plague. The Pilgrim too wished to enter into the house, and when he had consoled and somewhat encouraged the sick man found lying there by them, having also applied his hand to the sick man's sore, he departed alone. Then his hand began to pain him, and he seemed to himself to be seized by the plague; and that apprehension was so vehement that he could not conquer and cast it off: until, with great force having thrust his fingers into his mouth and long turned them about, If you (he said) have the plague in your hand, you shall have it also in your mouth. This being done, at once both that imagination left him, and the pain which he had before felt in his hand ceased.

[84] But into the college of St. Barbara, where he then dwelt, all fleeing from him, [but for that reason he is avoided by others: he takes the baccalaureate, contracts a disease;] he was not permitted to enter, since they had learned that he had entered into that house infected with the plague: wherefore he was compelled to tarry some days outside the college. It is the custom at Paris for those who are engaged in philosophical studies, when about to receive the baccalaureate, to receive the "stone," as they call it, now in the third year: which those who are very poor cannot do, because it is necessary that one gold crown-piece be expended upon it. The Pilgrim therefore doubting vehemently whether he too should receive it, committed the matter to the judgment of his teacher. Who, when he had given him counsel to receive it, he received it indeed, but not without the muttering of certain persons, especially of a certain Spaniard, who marked that deed. At the time when he was at Paris, he was now very badly off from his stomach, and every twenty-fifth day a most grievous pain of the stomach seized him for one hour, which also brought a fever. On a certain day indeed that pain of the stomach held him for sixteen or seventeen hours. He had by then already finished the course , and had spent some years upon the study of theology, and had gathered companions.

[85] But the disease increasing day by day, and no remedies (although many were applied) helping, [he seeks again his native soil, matters concerning the journey to Jerusalem having been arranged beforehand.] the physicians said that this only of remedy remained, that he should seek again his native soil; that he could be helped by that native air, by nothing else. The same thing his companions also advised, even vehemently urging that he should do it. The plan had by that time already been made by them all, what they were going to do, namely that they should seek first Venice, then Jerusalem, where they should spend all the time of their life in aiding souls: but that if they should not be allowed to remain at Jerusalem, then they should return to Rome, and offer themselves to the supreme Pontiff, the vicar of Christ, that he might use their labor in such a way as he should judge would be for the glory of God and the advantage of souls. This also had been agreed among them, that they should wait one year at Venice for ships, whereby they might seek Jerusalem: but that if in that year there were none, they should be released from that vow of going to Jerusalem, and should betake themselves to the supreme Pontiff. The Pilgrim at length obeyed the counsel of his companions, so that he might also be able to accomplish the business of the Spanish companions, which they had to transact in Spain. It was agreed therefore among them that, his health being recovered, he should betake himself to carrying through their business, then return to Venice, and there await them.

[86] He himself departed from Paris in the year [15]35; but the companions were to depart thence in [15]37, Before he departs from Paris, his Spiritual Exercises are approved. on the day of the Conversion of the blessed Paul (for so it had been established by agreement among them;) but on account of the wars they were compelled to anticipate that time, and to migrate from Paris in the month of November in the year [15]36. In the very readiness for setting out, the Pilgrim, having heard that his name had been delated to the Inquisitor, and seeing that he was not called by the Inquisitor, went himself to him, and related what he had heard: adding also that he had companions, that he was in readiness to set out into Spain, [and] asking him that he would pronounce sentence. The Inquisitor confesses that he had indeed been accused, but that in that accusation he discerned nothing that was of any importance; only that he wished to inspect his writings (these were the Exercises:) which when he had seen, he approved very greatly, and begged the Pilgrim to give him a copy, which he also did. Meanwhile the Pilgrim urges that the case be brought to an end, and sentence pronounced. And when the Inquisitor declined this, he himself brings a notary with witnesses into his house, and received testimony in writing about all these things ^f.

ANNOTATIONS.

In Spanish there is only: a Inglaterra* (to England).

* Here begins the fourth hand, in the Italian language.

* The things contained in the parenthesis are not in the original.

* It is not in the original.

* From the original: with two flagons of water.

In Italian: un scudo* (one scudo).

* From the Italian: at least.

* In the original it is: 15.

* From the original add: of Arts.

CHAPTER VIII.

His coming into his native land, the virtues there exercised; his journey into further Spain; thence into Italy; the famous apparition there, and his deeds.

In his native land, when he arrived, he turns aside to the hospital; After these things he himself mounted the small horse which his companions had bought for him, and began to set out for his native land, being now already much better on the way. When he came into the province of Guipúzcoa, namely his own native land ^a, the common route being left, he made his way through the mountains, because that road is less frequented. Having advanced somewhat upon it, he saw two armed men coming toward him (and moreover that place is ill spoken of under the name of assassins), who, having passed him by a little, and then having turned, followed him hastily. And he indeed feared somewhat; but nevertheless, accosting them, he learned that they were servants of his brother, sent to meet him by him. For at Bayonne ^b (it is a city in France) his brother had been advised that he was coming, as is credible: for there too the Pilgrim had been recognized by some. And those two went ahead. But he himself, pursuing the journey begun, a little before he entered into the town, fell in with priests coming to meet him: who vehemently insisted that they should conduct him into his brother's house, which however they could not effect. He went off therefore into the public hospital house, and afterward at a convenient hour sought alms through the town ^c.

[88] and among his own townsmen he makes great fruit, by removing abuses, Into the hospital many came for the sake of visiting him, conversing with whom about divine things, he gathered no small fruit by the grace of God. When first he came, he resolved to teach the boys Christian doctrine daily: to which his brother was opposed, asserting that no one would come; but he, To me, he said, one is enough. But when he had made a beginning of teaching, many flocked assiduously, his brother himself coming among them. Besides this, on the Lord's days and feasts too he held sermons to the people with great fruit, many coming even from many thousands of paces to hear him. He also gave his labor that certain abuses might be removed, and by the grace of God it was brought about that provision was made for some. For (to say this by way of example) he obtained by his exhortations that the magistrate should forbid gaming, and that with execution. He also corrected a certain huge vice that had arisen from a custom of the country. It was the custom in the region that girls should always be with head uncovered, and not veiled, until they marry: but the concubines of priests * and of others, just as if they were wives, keep faith. Wherefore these too covered the head: and to such a degree was the thing done publicly and without shame, that the concubines themselves did not fear to say and confess openly that they had covered the head for the sake of this man or that, and were commonly held and recognized as such.

[89] From which perverse custom very many evils * arose. and by introducing good usages. The Pilgrim therefore persuaded the governor that he should pass a law, whereby those women should publicly be punished, whoever should veil the head in the name of anyone, unless they were his wives. In this manner an abuse of this kind began to be abolished. He took care also and brought it about that the poor should be provided for publicly and regularly, and that thrice in the day, as is done at Rome, at the angelic salutation a sign should be given by the striking of a bell, and the people should pray, namely in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. But although at the beginning he was well, he fell nevertheless afterward into a very grievous sickness. From which after he had recovered, he resolved that he must depart, that he might accomplish the business of his companions which he had undertaken. Now he had resolved to set out on foot and without money: which thing, as one that would be to his shame, his brother bore most grievously. And so at length toward evening he thought that this must be granted to him, that he should be conveyed as far as the borders of the province, accompanied by his brother and other kinsmen.

[90] But when he had gone out of the province, he descended from the horse, and, no provision for the journey being taken, sought Pamplona ^d, His journey through Spain, his voyage toward Genoa, thence Almazán ^e, the native land of father Laínez, thence Sigüenza, and Toledo, and then from Toledo Valencia. But in all these places whence his companions had sprung, he would never take anything from their kinsmen or parents, although they offered very much, and vehemently begged that he would take it. At Valencia he spoke with the bachelor from Castro ^f, now a Carthusian. But when he was about to embark at Valencia, to sail to Genoa, those who wished him well dissuaded him, asserting that Barbarossa ^g was on the sea with many triremes. But although they told him very many things which could deservedly strike fear, they never nevertheless brought him to the point of doubting.

[91] Having entered therefore a certain large ship, he fell into that tempest of which mention was made before, a tempest, a straying in Italy with the utmost peril of life. when it was said that he came thrice into peril of death. And in that journey he suffered many things; but most of all in that which I shall now relate. When on a certain day he had strayed from the road, he was following a way which was next to a river. And the way indeed was lofty, but the river was much lower, being carried down cast and lowered: and the more he advanced, so much the more did the way tend into a narrow space; and it came to this, that he could neither advance nor go back. And so he began to go upon his hands and feet, and with great fear thus went a long time, because, as often as he moved, he seemed to himself about to fall into the stream. And this was the greatest of all the bodily labors that he ever experienced. Yet at length he escaped; and behold, about to enter Bologna, he slipped from a little bridge, and so, wet and soiled with water and mud, afforded a laugh to the spectators, who were not few.

[92] At Bologna he falls sick: at Venice he hands down the Exercises: Seeking alms at Bologna from his entrance to his departure, although he had run through the whole city, he received not even a farthing. For some time he lay sick at Bologna. Thence he set out for Venice, always in the same manner. There he then gave his time to handing down the Exercises and to other spiritual conversations. The chief to whom he handed them were Peter Contarenus, Gaspar de Doctis, Rozes a Spaniard, and another Spaniard, Hozes, who had great familiarity with the Pilgrim, and with the Bishop of Ceneda : and although he felt himself drawn to the Exercises, yet he did not carry it out. At length he resolved to undertake them, and after the third or fourth day from when he had begun, he opened his mind to the Pilgrim, saying that he had feared lest in handing down the Exercises he should imbue him with some depraved doctrine; for he had so been persuaded by a certain man that he should beware for himself: and for that cause he had brought certain books with him, whose remedy he might use, if by chance he wished to impose upon him. This man profited very much in the Exercises, and at length followed the manner of life which the Pilgrim had instituted, and this man too was the first who died.

[93] [he suffers a persecution, sends his companions to Rome; the priesthood at Venice.] At Venice also another persecution was stirred up against the Pilgrim, very many asserting that his statue or image had been burned with fire in Spain and at Paris. And to such a point did the matter proceed that it came into judgment: but the Pilgrim gained his case, and sentence was pronounced in his favor. Nine companions came to Venice at the beginning of the year 1537, and were distributed in the city into various hospices, that they might serve the sick. After two or three months, all set out for Rome, that they might receive a blessing from the supreme Pontiff, being about to set out for Jerusalem. The Pilgrim, however, did not set out for Rome, on account of Doctor Ortiz and the Cardinal Theatine ^h recently created. The companions, returning from Rome, brought bills of exchange of two hundred or three hundred gold crown-pieces , which had been given them in alms on account of the appointed journey to Jerusalem. But they themselves would not receive except by bills of exchange; and when they could not sail to Jerusalem, they gave them back to those who had given. But they returned to Venice in the same manner in which they had set out for Rome, namely on foot and by begging, distributed into three parts, so that they might always be of different nations. Those who were not priests were promoted at Venice to the priesthood, faculty being received from the Nuncio, who was then at Venice; who afterward too was called Cardinal Verallus. They were promoted under the title of poverty, and having uttered vows of poverty and chastity.

[94] [The journey to the East being cut off, the Saint and his companions are divided into various places of the Venetian dominion.] In that year the ships did not cross into the East, on account of the broken treaty between the Venetians and the Turks. And so when they saw that the hope of crossing was deferred, they were dispersed into various places of the Venetian dominion with this mind, that they should wait one year, as they had before proposed; which being passed, unless the power of sailing should be granted, they should return to Rome. To the Pilgrim by chance Vicenza fell; his comrades were Faber and Laínez. There they came upon a certain house outside the city, in which there was neither door nor any windows. In it they dwelt; but they slept upon a little straw which they themselves had brought. Two of the three entered the city daily twice to seek alms, morning and evening; and they brought so little that it scarcely sufficed for feeding them. Their ordinary food was a little baked bread, if only they had it; which he cooked whom it fell to remain at home. In this manner they passed forty days, attending to no other thing than to prayer.

[95] After forty days master Joannes Coduri came; and these four resolved to make a beginning of preaching, [Sermons, heavenly visitations, a foreknowledge of a companion to be restored to health.] and on the same day and at the same hour all began to preach in different squares, a great cry being first raised, and the cap waved with the hand, that they might call the people together. These sermons stirred up frequent rumors in the city, and led many citizens to devotion: and now the things necessary for their sustenance were more copiously supplied to them. While he was at Vicenza, many spiritual visions were shown to him, and many and, as it were, ordinary consolations were sent in: but especially at Venice, when he was preparing himself to undertake the office of the priesthood and to celebrate Mass. And in all those journeys he received great visitations above nature, of the kind which he had been accustomed to receive when he was at Manresa. While he was still at Venice, he learned that one of the companions was laboring unto death from sickness at Bassano, being himself too then seized with a fever: and yet he entered upon the journey, and went along so swiftly that Faber, his companion, could not follow him. But in that journey he received a certitude from God, and indicated to Faber that the companion was not going to die of the sickness. As they came to Bassano, the sick man received very much consolation, and not long after the sick man recovered. After these things all returned to Vicenza, and there ten together tarried for some while, some going around the neighboring towns to seek alms.

[96] With the year come round again, when no means could be entered upon of sailing to Jerusalem, they set upon the journey to Rome, the Pilgrim too. He is refreshed by a famous apparition in the Roman countryside: For those two about whom he somewhat doubted had first shown themselves benevolent toward the companions, when they had set out with him. They sought Rome distributed into three or four parts. The Pilgrim's comrades were Faber and Laínez: and in this journey he experienced singular visitations of God. Now he had resolved, after receiving the grade of the priesthood, to defer for one year the offering of his first Sacrifice ⁱ, that in the meantime he might prepare himself for it, and might beg the most blessed Virgin that she would place him with her Son . But when on a certain day, some thousands of paces before he entered Rome, having entered a certain church he was praying, he felt his mind so moved and changed, and saw so manifestly that God the Father was placing him with Christ His Son, that he did not dare to doubt of it, that God the Father was placing him with His Son. I , who wrote these things, said to the Pilgrim, when he narrated this to me, that certain other things about this matter were related in detail by Laínez. Then he: Whatever, he said *, Laínez shall have said about this, it will be true; for I do not so remember it in detail: but (he added:) When I narrated those things, I know for certain that I narrated nothing but the truth. These things he said about this vision of his; which he told me also about some other matters, referring the credit of the things narrated by him to Laínez ^k.

[97] But although that visitation was singular; yet when they were approaching Rome, he foretells adverse things that will befall at Rome: he said to his companion that he saw the windows shut; signifying that they would have many adverse things there. He said also: It is necessary that we act very cautiously, and not enter into familiarities with women, unless they be very illustrious. To this pertains, that at Rome master Francis was receiving the confession of a woman, and sometimes visited her, that he might instruct her in spiritual things; who afterward was found pregnant: yet it pleased God that the author of the crime should be detected. The same happened to Joannes Coduri, whose spiritual daughter was caught with a certain man.

[98] [On Monte Cassino he hands down the Exercises, as also at Rome; persecutions, pious works:] The Pilgrim withdrew at one time from Rome to Monte Cassino, that he might hand down the Exercises to doctor Ortiz, and spent forty days there ^l. At which time he saw on a certain day the bachelor Hozes entering into heaven; in which vision he poured forth many tears, and was affected with great consolation of spirit. And this he beheld so clearly that, if he should say the contrary, he would seem to himself to speak a lie. From Monte Cassino he brought with him Francis de Strada. Having returned to Rome, he gave his labors to aiding souls, while they still dwelt in the vineyard ^m: and at the same time he handed the Exercises to different persons, of whom one dwelt at the bridge of Sixtus, the other at St. Mary Major. Then they began to persecute them. First of all Michael was troublesome, and preached ill of the Pilgrim, who calls him before the governor to law, a certain letter of the same Michael being first shown to the governor, in which he commended the Pilgrim very much. The governor examines Michael; and it was at length effected that he pronounced Michael an exile from Rome. After this Mindarra and Barrera followed, asserting that the Pilgrim and companions had been put to flight from Spain, Paris, and Venice; yet at length, the governor and the Legate being present (for there was then a Legate at Rome), each confessed that he had nothing whereby he could speak ill of them, neither as regarded doctrine nor as regarded life. The Legate orders this suit to be suppressed in silence. The Pilgrim opposes, asserting that he wished sentence to be pronounced so that the whole matter be defined. This did not please the Legate and the governor, nor even those who had before favored the Pilgrim. Some months after, the Pontiff returned to Rome; whom, when he was at Tusculum, he went to, and having set before him some reasons, brought it about that he obtained that which he sought. And so the Pope orders sentence to be pronounced, which was pronounced in favor of the Pilgrim and companions. At Rome, by the labor of the Pilgrim and companions, certain pious works were done, such as those of the Catechumens, of St. Martha, and of the Orphans. The rest master Natalis ⁿ will be able to relate.

[99] The Saint relates certain things concerning his Exercises, his union with God, I, after these things narrated, asked the Pilgrim about the Exercises and the Constitutions, that I might understand in what manner he had composed them. He answered that the Exercises had not all been composed at once, but that, as he had observed each thing to profit himself, so he had noted down in writing what he had thought could be useful to others also: such as is that method of examining the conscience, with those lines applied, and others of this kind. The method of the Elections, he asserted, he had drawn in detail out of that variety of spirits which he felt at the time when at Loyola he lay sick from his leg. About the Constitutions he said that he would answer in the evening. On the same day, before he supped, he summons me. He was then of such aspect as sufficiently showed a man more collected within himself than in his ordinary manner. And he used a certain protestation, whose sum was well-nigh in this, that he might show with what intention and simplicity he had narrated those things, asserting that he knew for certain that he was recalling nothing more than as the matter stood: and that although he had often offended the Lord, after he had begun to serve Him, yet he had never consented to a mortal sin, nay rather devotion had ever grown upon him, that is, the facility of finding God, which he then too had more than in all his life; and that as often, and at whatever hour he wished, he could find God, and that then too he received many visions, those especially of which it was said before, of seeing Christ as it were a sun, and that this often happened to him when he spoke about matters of great moment; and that thing led him into confirmation.

[100] And when too he celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, visions often happened to him; also very frequently, visions, while he was framing the Constitutions, when he was framing the Constitutions ^o. And this he said he could then affirm the more easily, because he wrote daily the things that came about in his mind, and then found them written. And so he showed me a fairly large bundle bound together out of writings, of which he read me a good part. The greater part were visions, which he had seen in confirmation of some of the Constitutions. In these he beheld now God the Father, sometimes the three Persons of the Trinity, sometimes the most blessed Mary, now interceding, now confirming. In detail he spoke of two, in the determination of which he consumed forty days [p], and indeed daily celebrating the oblation of the Mass, and that daily with copious tears. Now the matter dealt with in them was whether the church should have revenues, and whether the Society could use * them.

[101] The method which he observed in framing the Constitutions and the method observed by him in framing them. was this, that daily he should say Mass, and set before or offer to God the point which he was treating, and pray upon it: but always [q] both Mass and prayer were done with tears. I desired to read all those papers of the Constitutions: and asked him that he would permit me to have them for that while: but he himself would not.

ANNOTATIONS.

p A specimen of the marvelous affections of St. Ignatius, while he was framing the Constitutions during the time of those forty days, I gave in the prefatory Commentary §42.

q "Always," from the observation of Father Ignatius Pinius, morally speaking: for in the manuscript Diary of St. Ignatius himself, there is sometimes WITHOUT TEARS. As for the rest, concerning the gift of tears and the heavenly delights from the Saint's Diary or Journal, it is spoken of in our Commentary §61.

* From the original: but they are many.

* Original: which to them,

* In the original: many. In this whole document the translator has put "very many" for "many."

* In the original: Rocas.

* In the Madrid Process it is: Septensi.

* In Italian it is only said: scudi.

* From the original: for instituting.

* In the Madrid process: he would deign to place.

* Here begins another hand, in the Italian tongue.

* From the original: whatever Laínez says is true:

* From the original: to help himself by them.

SECOND LIFE,

Written by the Reverend Father Peter Ribadeneyra, contemporary and intimate of St. Ignatius:

Reprinted here from the Plantinian edition of the year 1587, and the Cologne edition of the year 1602.

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, at Rome (St.)

By Peter Ribadeneyra.

THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE TO THE READER.

Peter Ribadeneyra to the candid Reader, greeting in Christ. This little book concerning the life of Ignatius of Loyola, the parent of our Society, fifteen years ago, by order of our father Francis Borgia, then Superior General, The author sets forth what things he observed in the making of this book; I wrote in Latin. In the writing of it I proposed to myself three things especially to be observed. First, that I should not affirm anything doubtful for certain, nor anything uncertain for ascertained. Second, that [not] by the abundance of things which, in so fertile a subject, many,

great, and various offered themselves, I should burden the reader: but rather, a selection being made, out of so many and such great examples of virtues, I should excerpt only certain more illustrious ones, and those more apt either for moving minds to piety, or for explaining as it were the course of our Society. The third was, that I should not amplify the things proposed with an empty affectation of style, and (as they say) hang out ivy over less saleable wine. These things I followed then in the making of this little book: whether I have attained them, I know not. From this counsel of mine it certainly came about that I passed over some things which seemed to me uncertain, though certain to others: and certain things too I passed over in silence, because they seemed to have a certain similitude and kinship with others which were narrated by me in the history. Finally, while I labor to be brief, and flee copiousness of speech, I have perhaps fallen into obscurity: and certain things, while I would not adorn with words, I have briefly touched, and rather grazed than explained.

[2] Wherefore, when by the order and will of our Father Claudius Aquaviva I wished to review this little book, and commit it again to the press, what things likewise in the revision of the same, I judged that many things must necessarily be added by me. First, certain new things which, after the little book had gone out, most grave men, and very familiar with Ignatius, and before the Society was founded intimate acquaintances, related to us about Ignatius himself as it were eyewitnesses. Then other things which had before been doubtful to me, and, investigated afterward by diligent inquiry, I found to be certain. Then also I added some sayings and deeds of Ignatius which pertain to the discipline of a most holy life, and to an excellent prudence of governing others. Namely, that the sons of the Society (whom this labor of mine especially regards) may look into this as into a mirror: and may have the express example of all virtues of their best and wisest master and parent set before their eyes, which they may imitate. Yet I left and suppressed many things, lest perhaps I should be prolix and troublesome. And I undertook this labor of reprinting and augmenting the Latin book the more willingly, because these same things I also wrote in Spanish long ago, and sent forth among the common people, and they are in the hands of our men, and (such is the goodness of God) are read, as I hear, with fruit and pleasure: whence they seemed to be written in Latin too, and to be communicated with the rest of the fathers of other nations, the things which pertain to all: that their usefulness may lie more widely open.

[3] giving the reason of his purpose in publishing it. For there are many things (unless I am deceived) in this little book, which not only for virtue and our own progress, but also for prudently instructing others, can greatly help. For assuredly our Ignatius excelled most of all, both in the praise of all other virtues, and indeed of spiritual and divine prudence, and that eminence appears no more in the Constitutions, rules, decrees, and answers, than in his deeds. Besides, why I should undergo this labor, this cause too there was, that I saw that certain illustrious writers of our age had handed down to memory many things about our Ignatius, both in Spanish and in Latin, learnedly indeed and elegantly; but such as show the genius and piety of the authors more than they fill the incredible longing of ours, and quench the kindled thirst of hearing all the things of Ignatius. Whose history I, since from boyhood I was a spectator and admirer of his most holy life, shall be able to write more fully and with greater fidelity of matters, and to express him in his own colors. These things, candid reader, I wished you to be admonished of in this revision of ours: do you, according to your candor, take it in good part, and farewell in Christ.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR TO THE BRETHREN OF THE S.J.

The author prefaces some things, To the dearest brethren in Christ of the Society of Jesus, Peter Ribadeneyra gives greeting. I undertake to write the Life of Ignatius of Loyola, the author of our Society, and the best parent of us all. A great task truly, not to obscure with words so great a splendor of excellent virtues, and to bring a writing equal to the things! But in bearing this burden, many things surely console me. First, that I undertook it not of my own accord: but led by the will of him whose authority with me is, as it ought to be, most weighty. For the Reverend Father Francis Borgia, Superior General of our Society, imposed this burden upon me: whose voice I ought to think the voice of Christ, and to look upon his nod, with the utmost religion and observance. Then, that to God, who is wonderful in His Saints, and the fount and origin of all sanctity, I trust that something of praise will come from this labor of mine.

[5] For He it is who established all religious institutes: and taught that the way is narrow and the gate strait unto blessedness: and lest, deterred by the labor or the difficulty of arriving, we should despond in mind, He Himself, what things in the undertaken task of writing who is both the door and the way, deigned to be also our leader: and by His own example to make for us the way both compendious and straight, and indeed easy and expedite. He, by admirable providence, sends into the lands, in well-nigh all ages and times, certain divine men, as it were heavenly torches: that, burning with a singular ardor of evangelical discipline and of Christian perfection, they may rouse up that fire which He Himself came to send into the earth, and by inflamed voices and examples not suffer it to be extinguished. He gave Ignatius to us. Wherefore let the things which shall be said by us about Ignatius, proceeding from God, all be referred unto God: whose goodness toward all men is so great, that He wills those to be their merits which are His own gifts. Which the Saints themselves acknowledge and testify, when before His throne they reverently lay down their crowns drawn from their heads.

[6] To this is added, both of others, whom I understand to be very many, by the burden of the Ignatian Life and indeed of you all, brethren, a certain kindled zeal of hearing and reading these things: which zeal I indeed vehemently desire, for my part, to satisfy, being especially so honest and pious. For who, when he understands that this Society, constituted by the benefit of God the Best and Greatest in those last and most calamitous times, and disseminated so far and wide, and in the briefest time propagated through well-nigh the whole globe of the lands, would not rightly seek its origin, beginnings, and progressions? And this reason indeed, brethren, is common to us with the rest: that special one, that we should imitate also the virtue of him whom we follow as leader. For as the nurslings of illustrious families each set their own leaders before their eyes, that to their standard they may direct all their life and actions: so we ought to set before ourselves Ignatius, the leader given us divinely, and the standard-bearer and prince of our sacred warfare: and the eminent form of all his virtues, if not to express in our morals, at least, as far as we can, to shadow forth. This labor of ours will perhaps also be to you not only useful, but even not unpleasant. For those who desire to follow the footsteps of anyone, are delighted also by the explication of his life: and with pleasure we hear the things which with fruit we imitate.

[7] What of that which, though placed by me in the last place, ought not to be last with me, may be for a consolation to him. namely the piety of a grateful mind, and a certain pleasant remembrance of that Man, who begot, nourished, and educated me in Christ: to whose pious tears and prayers I plainly ought to account my life and salvation as received? Wherefore the memory of his life, now nearly growing old, I shall try for this reason too to vindicate from the oblivion of men: that, since I cannot return an equal grace of the benefit, I may certainly return the greatest I can. This labor of mine of writing will therefore be, as I hope, not ungrateful to God: due to Ignatius himself: to you, brethren, perhaps fruitful: to strangers by no means, as I think, troublesome: to me indeed, although on account of the weakness of the body burdensome, yet on account of the office of piety pleasant; which I hope indeed will be made lighter by this compensation of so great things.

[8] And since the first law of history is truth, this above all I profess, that I shall write nothing unexplored: but shall hand down in letters things known to me, certain, and attested. For we shall bring into the midst those things which we ourselves either saw in Ignatius, or at some time heard from himself. Then, besides those things which he himself saw, or heard from him, Since the Father of mercies used such goodness toward me, that He led me, a boy, and scarcely fourteen years born, by no merit of mine (our Society not yet confirmed by Paul III, Supreme Pontiff), to the acquaintance of Ignatius, and to that familiarity, that I did not depart from his side; but at home, abroad, in all things was at hand to him, and observed his sayings, deeds, countenance, and motions, with great fruit of mind indeed, with great admiration. Which admiration indeed was daily the more increased in me, the more both the virtue of Ignatius shone forth more day by day, and it was permitted me, as age advanced, to perceive more his splendor. On account therefore of this long-continued intercourse and familiarity, we often knew from himself not only the exterior and open things with many, but also certain interior and hidden things of Ignatius with few.

[9] he assigns various sources, Then we shall say those things which the Father himself, overcome by the assiduous entreaty of many years, and by the contention of almost all the fathers, opened to Father Ludovicus Gonzalus ^a concerning the life led by him before: and this he did in that year which preceded his death, with deliberation and great counsel. For from the time when our Society was first instituted, and the most clear rays of all virtues, with which God had illumined the soul of His servant Ignatius, began to break forth and to shine: we were all, his sons, affected with a great desire of knowing those things which pertained to the life and morals of our Father. By what means, namely, God had called him forth, by what beginnings, means, and progresses He had purged, illumined, and perfected him. For it seemed just, and consonant to reason, that those who should be stones of this spiritual building should know and altogether understand upon what foundations this very building rested: and should especially tread in the footsteps of that Father whom they had received from God as master of heavenly doctrine, and leader of this way.

[10] out of which Nor indeed could it be brought about that we should rightly imitate the things which were not fully known to us. Wherefore, with the utmost diligence we investigated all the things of Ignatius, and desired, demanded, and earnestly begged so greatly to hear from himself the account of his past life: but he at length yielded to continual prayers, and to the ardent zeal of ours, and suffered himself to be conquered. For the benefits which God confers upon His servants, He confers not upon them alone, but also for the utility of many: and although those very ones who receive them often conceal the things they receive, and cover them with the veil of silence and of humility: yet God sometimes moves them, and impels them to bring them forth. Whence, when the blessed Francis wished at first indeed to conceal the sacred stigmata, with which he had been marvelously marked, yet afterward he began to doubt whether to make them known would be more grateful to God. Which when the holy Father had brought into consultation, and had asked of his companions whether

he ought to disclose a certain illumination which he had received from God, or to dissimulate it, and press it with silence; one of the companions answered what has been handed down to memory by St. Bonaventure in these words: Brother, not only for your sake, but also for the sake of others, know that the divine sacraments are sometimes shown to you: it seems therefore rightly to be feared, lest, if you conceal what you received to profit many, you be judged reprehensible for the hidden talent.

[11] his own, This therefore was the cause why very many most holy men brought forth, and produced for the utility of men, those things which secretly, in the secret of the heart, and in the intimate feelings of the mind, they had received from God. Nay rather, very many wrote down these very things, and consigned also to letters the liquid and most pure pleasures of the mind, the sweetnesses of the spirit, the plainly divine consolations, and those which surpass all sense, with which the most benign Lord roused, sustained, inebriated them, and (so to speak) transformed them into Himself. All which would certainly lie in darkness, unless they themselves had brought them into the light: and unless God, who was so liberal toward them, had, with the utmost benignity toward us also, moved His Saints, that the things which they had received in darkness they should tell in the light, and the things which they had heard in the ear they should preach upon the housetops. Wherefore He put this mind into our Ignatius also, and was the author, that he should himself narrate about himself those things to Ludovicus Gonsalvus, which the latter accurately and diligently received from the mouth of Ignatius, and wrote out in well-nigh the same number of words. And all those things, just as they were then indeed written, I have with me.

[12] Lastly we shall also narrate those things which we received from the Reverend Father James Laínez, which he wove concerning Ignatius, Superior General of our Society, either by discourse or by writing: who, on account of his very close conjunction and highest fellowship with Ignatius, in enduring for Christ and His Church almost immense labors in those very first beginnings, when in time he was well-nigh the first of the companions out of ten, in love the dearest son of all, saw many things, noted many things, and often narrated them to me, desiring them, in daily conversation. From these fountains therefore these our writings have flowed.

[13] But those things which could be said on uncertain authorities, or not sufficiently substantial ones, he drew the history, with uncertain or fabulous matters set aside. those we did not even think ought to be written. For we are persuaded that, while to lie in every matter is base, yet in relating the life of the Saints it is most base. For neither does God, for illustrating His glory, need our lies: nor is it lawful to wish to honor the first and highest truth with false and fictitious narrations. And this too I approach with the greater hope of writing, because I have not to deal with the sanctity of some most ancient man, in whom it may be lawful to feign anything to the truth, no one now refuting on account of antiquity: but we bring forth these things to be known by those, very many of whom lived most closely and most familiarly with that very one of whom we speak: that we may commend a supreme man to those who did not see him, by the testimony of those to whom he was most known, the testimony of the living and present.

[14] But concerning our purpose and whole manner of writing, receive it in few words. I, when at the beginning I had proposed to write only the life of Ignatius, and the whole manner of writing and to commend his illustrious examples to the memory of men, afterward however undertook in mind somewhat more even. For because I saw that it was desired by the best men and most loving of ours, and that the knowledge of the origin and progress of our Society was sought, I decreed to touch that also, and briefly to explain how far and wide Ignatius propagated the Society, and to embrace some of those things which in the whole Society, while he lived, seemed to me worthy of writing. Which indeed, since they were either done with him as leader, or repelled with him as defender, or constituted with him as moderator, seemed to me so implicated and connected with his life, that they could not conveniently be separated and severed. Nor however is this my purpose, to pursue all things: but to select certain few, which are either more illustrious, or declare as it were the course of the Society: and which, unless now, while the memory is fresh, they be consigned to letters, may perhaps be overwhelmed by oblivion.

[15] Concerning the life of those fathers who were the first sons and companions of Ignatius, and died while Ignatius lived; concerning some besides, he instructs the readers, who for amplifying the faith of Christ poured out their blood, we shall make mention singly: concerning the former, because they begot us in Christ: concerning the latter, because they rendered the death due to nature especially for Christ. Concerning those who still live we shall speak sparingly, concerning the dead a little more fully. Before death, says the Wise Man, praise no man: as if he should say, praise after life, magnify after the consummation. It remains, brethren, that we pray God that He breathe upon our undertakings, and that He benignly receive these five books, as it were five mites, piously offered by us for the edification of the holy Church into its treasury, unto His glory, and unto the salvation and utility of men.

[16] and he commends himself to the prayers of the brethren. But you, brethren, by our fraternal and mutual charity, I vehemently beseech, that you obtain from God that He grant me this highest benefit, that I may be able to imitate at least in some part the sanctity of the morals of Ignatius. Whose constancy indeed in depressing himself; severity in chastising; fortitude in dangers; tranquillity in turbulent matters; moderation in joyful ones; in all things peace and joy in the Holy Spirit: if finally the choice retinue of all virtues attending him shall assiduously be before our eyes, we shall have a most right and most certain rule, to which we may not only conform our morals and life, but also examine the true and genuine spirit of our vocation: whose solid effigy, expressed, is plainly beheld in his life.

ANNOTATIONS.

THE ANCIENT PARTITION OF THE LIFE IN RIBADENEYRA.

And this indeed is the ancient partition of the Life edited by Ribadeneyra: but our new one is as follows:

CHAPTER I.

The birth of St. Ignatius; his life led in the world; his conversion to a better life.

Book I.

Chapter I.

Ignatius of Loyola, the author and institutor of the Society of Jesus, was born in a noble place ^b, in that part of Spain and Cantabria which is commonly called Guipúzcoa, or ^c the Province, The Saint's parents, brothers, and sisters, his education in the year of human salvation 1491 ^d, under Innocent VIII, Supreme Pontiff, Frederick III Caesar Augustus, Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Kings of the Spains. He had for father ^e Beltran, lord of Loyola, the head of the very ancient and illustrious family of Loyola. But for mother Marina Sonez, an equally noble woman, who bore five daughters, eight sons: of whom ^f she brought forth Ignatius last by a happy birth. Who, his boyish age being passed, was sent by his parents into the court of King Ferdinand. But having entered upon adolescence ^g, and moved both by military glory and by emulation of his brothers, he placed much labor in this, that he might be illustrious in the praise of military affairs ^h.

[18] In the year therefore of the Lord 1521, when the Gauls were besieging ⁱ the citadel of Pompeiopolis more vehemently (now Pompeiopolis is a city, the head of the kingdom of Navarre), and the leaders themselves, the matter being desperate, Bearing himself strenuously in the defense of Pamplona, and gravely wounded, were thinking of surrender; especially by his labor it was brought about that the matter was deferred, and that resistance was made more sharply by the Spaniards. But when the Gauls had brought up all their engines to the assault, and continuously beat the walls with artillery, a bronze ball of a bombard, driven into that part of the wall where Ignatius was defending, utterly broke and shattered his right leg: but the left a stone, struck out from the wall by the force of the ball and shaken loose, gravely wounded. Ignatius being laid low, all the rest, who relied on his valor, the hope of defense being cast away, made surrender to the Gauls, by whom Ignatius, captured and led into the camp, was humanely received, and diligently cared for by the physicians.

[19] After some days, dismissed also liberally to his own, he is dismissed to his own, and after the grievous butchery of the cure, he was carried back into his native land on the shoulders of litter-bearers. There, when the wound, especially of the right leg, grew worse day by day, physicians and surgeons were summoned anew, who judged that the shin must again be disjoined: that the bones which, whether by the carelessness of other physicians had been less aptly set together, or by the agitation of the journey had been dislocated, being restored to their places, might coalesce. Which butchery he so endured that he neither groaned, nor changed his countenance, nor gave any sign of a weaker mind: which both before and afterward he always strongly showed in the rest of the torments of the body which he suffered. Meanwhile the disease grew stronger daily more, and had now proceeded so far that he seemed not to be far from the extreme peril of life.

[20] And so, being admonished, he made confession of his sins, being brought into the extreme peril of life, he recovers; and fortified himself with the arms of the Sacraments on the day before that day which is sacred to the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. When therefore the matter had now been brought to the utmost peril of life, and the physicians judged death to be imminent, if until midnight nothing better should turn out: at that very hour the force of the disease openly began to remit: which we believe was done not without the counsel of divine providence, St. Peter being intercessor, whom Ignatius had always cultivated with a certain special religion, and whom he seemed to himself to see present, and bringing health ^k. The peril of death being driven off, the bones had now begun to be solidified, and to be more tightly bound: yet two inconveniences remained; the one a bone left under the knee produced, which projected outward more foully, the other the shortness of the contracted shin, which prevented him both from walking rightly and from standing firmly on his feet.

[21] That he might remedy these inconveniences, since he was most studious of elegance and of the habit of the body, sustaining new torments, that he might consult the elegance of the body. and had resolved to pursue the begun course of military life; he first asked of the physicians whether that bone, which projected deformedly, could be cut out. They affirmed indeed that it could, but with the most grievous pain, and the greatest of all which he had tolerated in the cure. But he nonetheless, that he might satisfy his own will, and (which he narrated in my hearing) that he might be able to wear handsome and elegant urban boots, ordered the bone to be cut; nor could he be led away from his purpose, and forbade himself altogether to be bound, and with the same firmness of a constant mind endured that torment with which he had conquered the former ones. And by this remedy the deformity of the bone was removed. The contraction of the shin was somewhat cured, both with other medicines and with certain engines, by which, with great pain of many days, its shortness was continually stretched out, nor however could it be produced so far that the one was not left somewhat shorter than the other.

Chapter II.

[22] Meanwhile, when he was compelled to lie in bed, and had been accustomed to place much time in reading profane books, From sacred reading he is moved to a change of life, he ordered some book of that kind to be given to his hand, that by its reading he might beguile the time. His household denying that there were books of that kind at home, two written in the Spanish tongue

he received, that he might not be wholly idle; of which the one contained the life of Christ our Savior ^l, the other the lives of the Saints. And indeed by the reading of these books his mind seemed gradually to be changed, and to be affected with a certain zeal of imitating the things which he read. But since the habit of his past life had been strengthened, they were again overwhelmed by the concourse of vain thoughts, lest those seeds of piety, then first received, should coalesce. Yet the divine mercy was present to its soldier, and roused up at times the drowsy virtue, and again cast before the sportive and fallacious thoughts true and solid thoughts from the recent reading. Moved by which, his mind was so vehemently kindled to the imitation of Christ and the Saints, that by no difficulties (of which many occurred) was he deterred from that purpose.

[23] In this vicissitude of contrary thoughts he was drawn into various opinions, and he is distracted by the vicissitude of contrary thoughts: and impelled hither and thither by the doubtful care of deliberating: while the world tried to retain Ignatius with itself, but Christ called and drew him to Himself. Yet there was in this variety of thoughts this difference, that those fluid and vain ones had beginnings glad, ends bitter. For when present, they indeed sweetly flattered the senses, but receding, as if with a certain sting fixed in, they left the mind dry and displeasing to itself. But those thoughts about God, about the journey to Jerusalem, about the asperity of life to be followed, about the dignity of virtue to be embraced, were not only, while present, most full of pleasantness; but also, departing, left behind the illustrious impressed vestiges of their light and sweetness. Upon which difference, passed over and unknown to him for many days indeed, one day, divinely illumined, he began to bend his mind, and then at length to understand how much difference there was between the two kinds of thoughts. Which comparison of thoughts with thoughts, and contention of spirit with spirit, he declared to have been the first of all the ratiocinations of those very many which afterward Ignatius had about divine things.

[24] whence the criterion of discerning spirits flowed forth in him. From which, increased afterward by a richer use of spiritual things, flowed forth the rivulets of all the precepts which he handed down in the Exercises concerning the diversity of spirits. For he noticed first that there are two spirits, of God and of the world, not only diverse, but also utterly fighting between themselves; then he diligently observed the properties of each spirit. From which observation, by the divine gift, both a light followed in the reason for discerning and judging spirits of that kind ^m, and a certain excellent force in the will for constantly repudiating the things which the world suggests; but for seeking and undertaking those things which the spirit of God proposes and persuades. Which principles he afterward most diligently observed in his whole life. In this manner therefore, the mist being driven from his eyes, when he had now made some progress, and had, by the assiduous reading of pious books and the long-continued consideration of divine things which he had conceived in his mind, strengthened himself against all the assaults of the devil; he began seriously and gravely to undertake the thought of changing his life, to recall to mind the stains of his sins, and to weigh with himself with what punishments he might blot them out. Which when he turned in pious thought, and those holy desires of emulating Christ and holy men recurred to his mind, he judged himself sufficiently fortified by that thought to break through all difficulties: In God I shall be able to do all things; He gives the willing, He will give also the accomplishing.

[25] Since therefore it had now been deliberated and determined by him to change his life, Certain to change his life, by night (as he was wont) he rose at length from his couch to prayer, freed from that anxious and doubtful care of deliberating, that he might offer himself a perpetual and most sweet sacrifice to God. But while he falls upon his knees before the image of the immaculate Virgin Mary, and offers fervent prayers mingled with humble confidence to the most benign and most sweet Son through the most pure Mother, and pledges himself, the camp of vanity being despised, to be in His power, to follow His standards bravely and perseveringly, and under that Emperor altogether to serve: behold, an earthquake being suddenly made, the whole house trembles, a huge crash is heard, the chamber where Ignatius was is shaken from its foundations. And so, just as the place in which the Apostles were praying divinely trembled; and the prison where Paul and Silas, bound, watched in prayer by night, was shaken by an earthquake, and by that sign the Lord declared both the virtue of His servants and the efficacy of prayer: so now, Ignatius praying and the chamber trembling, the same Lord perhaps wished to show the prayers of Ignatius grateful to Himself, and efficacious for obtaining; or certainly, which we read in other histories of the Saints, the demon, now conquered and overcome by Ignatius, fled, and gnashing and roaring gave no obscure signs of his fierceness and indignation.

[26] These things were done. Yet nothing else certain was determined by Ignatius, and inflamed with pious desires, he is strengthened by a heavenly vision, except that he should set out for Jerusalem, when he had recovered, and should first wear himself out with scourges, fasts, and asperities of that kind, with a certain generous indignation. And with these desires so kindled those sordid and vain thoughts gradually grew cold. But these desires of his, now excited and confirmed, a certain illustrious and admirable vision inflamed much more ardently than before. For, Ignatius watching on a certain night, the most clear appearance of the most blessed Virgin Mary, together with the holy boy Jesus, was set before him: by which, remaining for some while, he was marvelously refreshed, and suffused with a certain divine pleasure. Whence so great a weariness of his past life seized him, and especially of those things which are joined with obscene delight, that all images of unchaste things seemed altogether to flow out of his mind. And indeed that the vision had been true and fruitful, the thing itself proved, since from that hour to his last breath he preserved the integrity of chastity by the divine benefit.

[27] His brother and the rest of the household he gives his time to heavenly things and the deeds of the Saints. detected, not with great trouble, that he had become unlike himself, [him] meditating these things and contriving the greatest things in his mind. For although he disclosed the feeling of his mind to no one, yet his countenance sufficiently spoke, though he was silent: since especially there was added continual prayer, and frequent reading, no longer sportive discourses with his household, but colloquies about divine things, full of piety and gravity, and much and diligent writing. For he wrote all the most beautiful and most notable things, both the words and the deeds, of Christ, of the blessed Virgin, and of the other Saints, and referred them, for the sake of memory, into a well-polished and elegant book, with the best characters of letters; and indeed the examples of Christ in golden letters, of the blessed Virgin in crimson, of the other Saints in various colors. But although he took great pleasure from these occupations, yet that was the greatest which he perceived from the fixed aspect of the heaven and of all the stars, which indeed he did both often and long, because he felt himself vehemently kindled to serving God by the contemplation of the heavenly orbs: which he preserved not only at that time, but in all his life afterward. For we often heard him, even in extreme old age, when he had lifted his eyes to heaven, where it was freely surveyed, and had held them fixed for some while, tears arising from joy, saying: Alas, how vile the earth is, when I look upon heaven! At this same time, [him] being engaged in the pious exercises which we have mentioned, and preparing his mind for greater things, that thought also came upon him, what he should especially do, returning from Jerusalem. For he sought out the best state of life, in which he might place his whole self, all things being postponed, and might waste himself with the utmost parsimony and austerity of living.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The journey to Montserrat; the things done there; the life instituted at Manresa; scruples.

Chap. III.

His health being somehow recovered, under the pretext indeed of visiting the duke of Nájera (with whom there was a great and old conjunction of the Loyola family;) but in reality, that he might go out from his house and kindred, Ignatius prepares a journey. Whom Martin Garcia, his eldest brother and head of the family, having smelt out the matter, called aside into an inner chamber

asks and beseeches him that he not go to destroy himself and all his own; that he consider again and again into how direct a road to glory he had entered; what things he had achieved, of what hope both of spirit and of talent he was. All things, he said, in you are great: talent, judgment, spirit, nobility, the favor of princes, the benevolence of the citizens, the practice of military affairs, prudence: besides these a flourishing and firm age, the great expectation of all: will you thus overthrow so many hopes, so solid, so flourishing? Will you deceive the expectation of all? Will you despoil our family of so many ornaments, which are set before you as you press on the begun way? Although I am the greater in age, yet you are the greater in authority. See, I pray, that you admit nothing in yourself which not only takes away the honor hoped for us and for our family, but also brands us with the marks of ignominy.

[29] To these things Ignatius briefly: that he was mindful of himself and of his ancestors; [deserting the paternal house, and revolving great afflictions of the body in his mind,] that he would give his labor that he might not seem to have degenerated from them, or to have obscured the splendor of his family. By which words he did not so much appease the mind of his brother as shake him off from himself, and gave himself to the journey. In this journey therefore, which he made to the church of the blessed Virgin at Montserrat ^a, having dismissed his two servants, he afflicted himself gravely with blows each night: which indeed from that day, which was the beginning of the journey, he always kept on the way. And that we may understand by what steps, as it were, God increased in His soldier the knowledge of divine things and the virtue of the mind: at that time he by no means investigated what charity, what humility, what patience, what self-contempt, what the force and nature of each virtue was, by what bounds he should circumscribe the mode of temperance, what reason, what spiritual prudence demanded: but, having embraced that which then seemed best, and most agreed with his present state, he was wholly in this, that he might accomplish the greatest and most arduous things which are placed in the affliction of the body: and this, led by this reason, he decreed, because to this standard the holy men (whom he had set before himself for imitation) had conformed themselves. For even then God so ruled Ignatius that he always looked to this, sought this, which he judged would be for the greatest glory of God, and this he always held as most primary. Yet that addition had now been made, that in following those bitternesses of the body he took account not so much of his sins as of pleasing God. And so he indeed detested the crimes of his past life, yet in those penances which he willingly underwent to wash them away he was so kindled, and inflamed with a certain zeal of gratifying God, that when he undertook them, he set before his eyes not so much his sins as the honor and glory of God.

[30] he seeks Montserrat; on whose journey Ignatius proceeding on the begun journey, and advancing straight toward Montserrat, a certain Saracen, or Moor, overtook him. (There were at that time in Tarraconensian Spain still some of the ancient remnants of that people.) As they went together, there fell (as happens) between them talk about the virginity of the blessed Virgin Mary, which, when the Moor conceded it in the conception of the Son, but denied it after the birth, and brought forward some natural reasons for that matter, nor could be bent to the truth by Ignatius, he swiftly went ahead, and left Ignatius alone, hesitating long, and much doubting whether Christian piety demanded of him that he should follow the Moor and run him through with a dagger, because he had spoken ignominiously in his presence about the most blessed and immaculate Virgin. For being a military man, and once deluded by the fallacious imitation of true honor, he reckoned it a disgrace to himself if anything were, in his hearing, impunely detracted by an enemy of the Christian religion from the inviolate integrity of the most sacred Virgin.

[31] divine providence moderates the perplexed chance arisen for the Saint. Which thought indeed, pious in appearance, long and much tortured the then rude soldier of Christ, and at length led him into this deliberation, that, when he had halted at the crossroads (whence the Moor had turned aside from the public road to a neighboring town), he should let go the reins of the mule on which he rode, and, if it turned aside to the place where the Moor was, he should seek him out and, when found, kill him; but if it went straight on, he should let it be. And so by divine providence it came about that the beast, the broad and easy way being passed by, followed its own road. That all may understand by what beginnings and by what progresses God led His soldier to the highest things. For, as St. Augustine says, souls capable and fertile of virtue often send before them vices, by which they indicate this very thing, to what virtue they are especially fitted, if they be cultivated by precepts. Whence also Moses, killing the Egyptian, still uncultivated, poured forth signs indeed vicious, but of great fertility.

[32] He procures for himself the dress of pilgrims, and utters a vow of chastity. When therefore he was not far from Montserrat, he came to a certain village, where he bought that garment which he had decreed to wear, setting out for Jerusalem, namely a full-length one, of hempen cloth, rough and prickly, a tunic in the manner of a sack, for a military belt a rope, shoes woven of esparto grass, a staff the badge of a pilgrim, and for the use of water a little gourd. But since, fearing the weakness of his flesh, he distrusted himself (although both more erect by the divine vision, and much now more confirmed by the zeal of pleasing God), fixing his hopes on the patronage of the most blessed Virgin, he bound himself on this journey by a vow of chastity, and, fervent in spirit, consecrated it perpetual to Christ, and to His most chaste and most pure Mother: by whose benefit he always obtained it wholly entire (as was said a little before). So much do both the ardor of devotion and the pious patronage of the Virgin herself avail with God.

Chap. IV.

[33] As he came to Montserrat (that place, dedicated to the Mother of God, is distant by a journey of one day from Barcelona, He institutes a general confession, gives his clothes to a poor man, and is most celebrated both for the excellent monastery of the Benedictine family and for the concourse of those flocking thither for the sake of religion:) there to an excellent confessor ^b he confessed the crimes of his whole life for three days from writing, and to that man, first of all, opened the purpose of his mind; he left the beast, [and] ordered the sword and dagger, with which he had served the world, to be hung up before the altar of the most blessed Mother of God. But on the day before that day which brought to men, by the Word of God incarnate, the beginning of salvation, of the year 1522, covered by the darkness of night, as secretly as he could, he goes to a certain beggarly and ragged man: he gives to him as a gift his own clothes drawn from himself: but he himself is clothed with that desired garment of his, and takes his stand at the sacred altar of the divine Mother.

[34] But since he had read in profane books the rite by which new soldiers were of old inaugurated, he keeps vigil before Our Lady of Montserrat; that he might spiritually represent in himself a certain image of that rite, girt with new arms against the devil, partly standing, partly falling on his knees, he passed that whole night sleepless before the most sacred image of the Mother of God, commending himself to her, weeping for his misdeeds, conceiving better things in mind, and, that he might not be recognized by anyone, in the morning before light (not indeed by the straight road which leads to Barcelona, but by a deflected one) he turned aside in haste ^c into the town of Minorissa, which today is called Manresa, and is distant from Montserrat by nine thousand paces, covered with a cheap covering ^d of cloth (as we said), armed with a staff, girt with a rope, with bare head and one bare foot. For the other, which he still had weak from the recent wound, and the leg, wrapped in bandages, swelled each night, he judged must be defended by a shoe against the injury of the weather and the ground.

[35] Scarcely had he advanced three thousand paces from Montserrat, when a certain man, and thence he departs, his secular garments being given to a beggar. overtaking at a run him, filled with unwonted joy and exulting with the gladness of the new habit, began to inquire whether he had given as a gift his clothes to a certain needy man, whom, affirming this very thing, the magistrate had cast into chains, thinking them taken from him by theft. On hearing these things, Ignatius changed his countenance and voice, and even poured forth tears, thinking with himself again and again that he had not even been able to do good without the loss and injury of another. That he might rescue the undeserving man from that peril, he confessed that he had given the clothes: nor however, being asked who, whence, and of what country he was, did he answer anything else: since these things pertained nothing to the liberation of the wretched man.

Chap. V.

[36] When he came to Manresa ^e, he first fixed his foot in the hospice of beggarly men, At Manresa he turns aside to a hospice; there he prepared himself to contend strenuously with himself and with the devil: and he held nothing before this, than that he should conceal his family and the account of his past life, and lie hidden, unknown to all. His dress was that which we mentioned above: but because in caring for and combing his hair, and in adorning the rest of his body, he had been rather curious in the world, that he might compensate the excessive care by diligent neglect, he left the hair, which he had elegant according to the manner of that age, loose and uncombed: he kept his head always bare day and night: he let his nails and beard grow through carelessness: he moreover scourged himself sharply thrice each day, placed seven hours in prayer, with knees fixed on the ground: and that with great and ardent zeal. He was present at the sacrifice of the Mass, and at the prayers of Vespers and Compline, and from that thing took great pleasure in his mind.

[37] where he lives abjectly and austerely, He collected alms daily, sustained his life with water and bread, always abstaining from meats and wine, fasting all days except the Lord's, lying on the ground, waking the greatest part of the night, each Lord's day washing away his sins by confession, and confirming himself with the aid of the sacred Communion: so intensely reducing his body into servitude that whatever could bring any delight to the body, he studiously fled. Wherefore, since he was of the greatest strength, and excellent in firmness of body, in a short time all his vigor withered, and by this bitterness of life he was not moderately weakened. By these things it came about that he turned and drew to himself the minds of men, who, very many coming to him, and desiring to insinuate themselves into his familiarity, were even much more inflamed by his discourses. For although he was still rude in spiritual things, and little versed in the exercise of virtues: yet he was kindled with such torches of divine love that easily what he contained within, he bore forth outward.

[38] with the edification and fruit of others. And so his ardent discourse about divine things, and vehement exhortation to virtue, joined with the example of a holy life, could easily, the Holy Spirit helping, both conciliate the minds of men to God, and bind them to himself by benevolence, and even hold them suspended in admiration. Since especially there was added to this the now widespread opinion of his nobility, which, increased by rumors, was celebrated in the talk of many even above the truth (as is the custom). For it had spread abroad by rumor's message what, at Montserrat, witnesses being removed, Ignatius had done, and although he himself hid the lamp under a bushel, yet the Lord placed it upon a candlestick, that it might shine to all.

Chap. VI.

[39] Our soldier, having entered into this wrestling-place, had now dragged out four months in fighting, To the devil tempting him utterly ignorant of the cunning of the demon, with whom he had entered into combat, and of his thoughts. For he kept the same tenor of life, and stood firm in the even tranquillity of conscience. Not yet had Satan put forth the stings of temptations, not yet had he threatened his terrors and menaces against the recruit of Christ: not yet, the darkness being driven off, had the light of consolation returned again, not yet finally had he perceived the changes of things, and the vicissitudes and conversions of the spiritual man afflicted and glad, prostrate and exulting; when he assailed him on a certain day, worn out with squalor and filth, and dwelling in the hospice: And why, he said, do you lie in these sordid things, in this filth? why do you go about soiled in vile and worn-out garments? and why, sitting with abject men, do you obscure the nobility of your race?

[40] he resists bravely; But Ignatius straightway joined himself as a closer companion to the beggars, and began even more familiarly to converse among them, and by this deed of his the devil was repulsed. Likewise on another day, when he was very weary, he suffered also that most troublesome thought. How (it said) can it come about that you endure this hard and savage life of rustic men for seventy years, which you are to live? To whom he: Will you then guarantee me the certain space of one hour? for the moments of life are not in your power, but in the Lord's: and what are seventy years of labors and penance, compared with eternity? And with these two darts only, openly aimed, his mind was through his whole life assailed, that he should draw back his foot from the begun course of living. Which, since his whole life was most full of labors, perils, troubles, and vexations (as easily appears from the things which he did and suffered), is a clear proof of the divine benignity toward Ignatius, with which the Lord prevented him in the blessings of sweetness.

[41] Yet this new thing happened to his mind from this temptation, he is also agitated by various spirits; that he began sometimes to feel great changes and, as it were, contrary impulses of spirits. For to him praying at some time, and religiously engaged in pious exercises, his mind suddenly sometimes grew dry, and fell into such straits that he could scarcely extricate himself: and he displeased himself, and by no means felt the sweetness of the divine spirit. Again, so great, so copious a force of divine consolation flowed in, that in its light the mist of the preceding sadness did not even appear. Attending to which difference and variety, wondering and struck by the novelty of the thing, What (he said) is this matter? what way do we enter? what kind of warfare do we seize?

[42] But meanwhile he began so to be pricked by the stings of scruples, and to be tortured by the conscience of his sins, and tortured by scruples of conscience, that, weeping, he joined the days with the nights, always anxious and always solicitous. For although he had confessed as accurately as possible all the crimes of his past life: yet he was always goaded by this care, Have I confessed this? have I explained that well? have I added openly enough the things which pertained to the matter? have I either feigned or omitted anything? by which stings indeed he was so vexed that he nowhere found rest, was relieved by no prayers, vigils, fasts, or finally scourges: but, prostrated by grief, and, as it were, killed and worn out by a certain butchery of the most bitter pain, he lay. To the most sacred Eucharist, according to custom, as to a sacred anchor he fled: but when the life-giving bread was now brought to his mouth, snatched away by the force of scruples and, as it were, by a sudden concourse of winds, he rose, and gave himself wholly to tears and groans, and cried to the Lord: Lord, I suffer violence, answer for me: and, Unhappy man that I am, who shall free me from the body of this death? There occurred indeed to him one remedy, and that most immediate, if the spiritual father, to whom he wholly opened his conscience and the internal motions of his mind, should bid him be of a tranquil and pacified mind, and command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that he should not confess any more the sins of his past life. But nevertheless, lest a medicine proceeding from himself should not make health, but increase the pain, he did not dare to say this to that spiritual father.

[43] When therefore he had for some while endured this vexation of mind, he is cast into the extremest straits, on a certain day he was so gravely and grievously held by those torments of scruples that, destitute of all solace, he gave himself wholly to prayer, and, kindled by the fervor of faith, with a clear and loud voice even cried out: Unhappy man that I am, who shall free me from the body of this death? Lord, I suffer violence, answer for me: succor, Lord, help, Lord, send forth Thy hand from on high, Lord, my mercy, my refuge, my liberator, my protector, in Thee I hope, because I find no peace or rest from men, none from any created nature. Attend, and do: enlighten Thy face upon Thy servant: show me the way in which I may walk, because Thou art my God. But if Thou shalt give me even a puppy as instructor, and pacifier of my perturbed mind, I indeed do not refuse: gladly will I follow that leader, that master of life, Thou being the author.

[44] with a suggestion of desperation, and the utmost austerity: Amid these things again a most vehement thought invaded the man, that from the little cell where he was (for from the hospital house of the poor he had removed into the monastery of the Dominicans ^f) he should cast himself headlong. But he: I will not do it, I will not offend Thee, Lord: because Thou art my God, my strength: why hast Thou repelled me, and why do I go about sad, while the enemy afflicts me, while it is said to me daily, where is thy God? To him bursting forth into these words, and groaning for pain, there came to mind a certain holy man who, that he might obtain I know not what from God, abstained from food so long until he obtained it. In imitation of whom, he resolved to take no food or drink beforehand (unless perhaps death should threaten him) until he should find the desired tranquillity of mind. Wherefore for seven whole days he was so fasting that he tasted nothing at all, while nevertheless in the meantime he relaxed nothing therefore, either of the daily prayer (to which he gave seven hours with bent knees), or of the scourgings, which thrice each day he practiced, or of the other accustomed offices of his institute. And when he saw himself with strength still entire, and by no means weakened, and wished to proceed further, he was prohibited by the confessor and vehemently deterred, and ordered to take food, when on the Lord's day, according to his custom, he had indicated to him his sins, and what also he had done.

[45] but at length he is freed from that disease. He obeyed the confessor, who denied that he would give absolution unless he took food, and exhorted that he should piously believe his sins, trusting in the benignity of God, to be remitted to him by Him, lest he should seem to wish to resist God, and on that day and the next he felt himself free: but on the third day after he was again assaulted, but the end of the assault was, that, the darkness being dispersed which the devil tried to draw over the clearest things, and the divine light restored, as if with opened eyes, roused from sleep, he decreed with great clarity and constancy of mind to overwhelm with oblivion the memory of his past life, and no more in confession to reopen the covered wounds of his sins: and he obtained from God so great a tranquillity of mind and discretion of spirits, and grace of curing scrupulous minds, that scarcely anyone affected with this sickness did not find health ^g from Ignatius. For Ignatius was not only being approved for himself, but was also being instructed for us. For God proves both all His soldiers, and especially those who are to be leaders of the rest: He consoles the humble and approved, that they too may be able to console those who are in every affliction.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Divine illustrations; the book of the Spiritual Exercises; a grievous disease.

Chap. VII.

Since therefore by the mercy of God he had emerged from the straits of temptations, and yet on that account relaxed nothing at all of the utmost contention of mind for expressing in himself the true image of all virtues: He is wondrously affected toward the Most Holy Trinity; it pleased God, the rewarder of all good things, to soothe His servant with divine consolations, and to illustrate his mind with knowledges of the heavenly mysteries, that according to the multitude of the sorrows which he had endured in his heart, the consolations of the Lord might gladden his soul. Therefore, although from the very beginning God treated Ignatius (as he himself was wont to say) in the manner of a teacher, forming the tender mind of a boy: yet after the first rudiments of temptations He instructed him more fully. Whence, since he was held with great devotion ^a toward the three Persons of the most holy Trinity, and daily paid to each his prayers and fixed hours, on a certain day, standing on the steps of the stairs of the church of the Dominicans and reciting the hourly prayers to the blessed Virgin, he began so to be borne into God by his intellect, as if he beheld the most holy Trinity, by a certain visible appearance signifying outwardly that which he perceived inwardly, with such greatness and abundance of divine consolation that he could not restrain himself from sighs, and even from weeping, amid those very public supplications which he then pursued, until dinner, nor indeed after dinner think or speak anything at all else than about the most holy Trinity, with so great and so varied an abundance of reasons, similitudes, and examples, that he was a wonder to all who heard him.

[47] Which thing so inscribed and, as it were, imprinted this ineffable mystery in his mind, that at that very time, concerning which he even then wrote a book. a man knowing only how to read and write, he undertook to write a book about it, and to his whole life the vestiges of that engraved truth remained. For always, when he poured forth prayer to the most holy Trinity (which he did frequently and long), he perceived an exceeding sweetness of divine consolation, and sometimes indeed felt a certain singular devotion toward God the Father, the fount of all divinity, and the origin and beginning of the other Persons: then also toward the Son: lastly toward the Holy Spirit, singly commending and delivering himself to each Person, and at the same time out of all, as out of one and the same most full fount of all graces, abundantly drawing all virtues.

[48] Likewise at another time, with great alacrity of spirit, the manner was set before his mind by which God founded the world: which, after a long interval,

when the Father himself narrated these same things, he affirmed that he could not sufficiently explain. [There is set before him the manner of the world's creation, a vision of the humanity of Christ, and of the Mother of God,] In the church too of the same monastery, when he was present at the divine service in a venerating manner, and the body of the Lord was set before the people to be adored, he clearly saw on a certain day with the eyes of the mind that in that august and dread Sacrament the Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is most truly contained. Very often intent on prayer, and long indeed, he saw the humanity of Christ our Redeemer with the interior gaze of the mind, and sometimes also the most blessed Virgin Mary: and not only at Manresa, but afterward also at Jerusalem, and not far from the city of Padua, and often elsewhere. By which visions indeed he was so confirmed in faith and spirit, and filled with heavenly light, that often, reflecting these things with himself, he even determined this, that if either the mysteries of faith were not consigned in the monuments of the sacred letters, or certainly if sacred Scripture (which cannot happen) had perished, yet to him they were so certain and deeply fixed that from those things only which he had seen he would not doubt both to understand them rightly and to hand them to others, and even to meet death for their defense.

[49] and also a certain notable illustration of the mind. Having gone out on a certain day from Manresa to a church which is distant a thousand paces from the town, suspended in the contemplation of divine things, he sat down a little on the road along which a river flows past, and turned his face to the river: there the eyes of his mind were opened and illuminated, not indeed so that he saw any appearance or image falling into the senses, but so that he very well understood very many things, both those which pertain to the mysteries of faith, and those which pertain to the knowledge of the sciences; with so great and so clear a light that by him the things themselves were discerned with a certain new light. [Moreover, this illustration of the mind was so copious and excellent that Ignatius himself denied that all the rest of the illuminations and divine helps which through his whole life, up to the sixty-second year of his age, he had received from God, heaped together into one, could be compared with this one alone: and that whatever he had at other times learned, either by study, or by labor, or by supernatural light, was less than as much as he then indeed received ^b.] Which thing, when it had held the man fixed and clinging long, he fell prostrate with bent knee at the cross which was near, that he might give thanks to God the Best and Greatest for this so great benefit.

[50] He recognizes a certain diabolical illusion. But before he was illuminated by visions of this kind, when he still lived in the hospital house, and frequently at other times, there had presented itself to him in a clear light a certain beautiful appearance, which he could not sufficiently discern, or distinguish what it was, from what it was, or of what it consisted: except that it seemed to bear before it some form of a serpent, resplendent as it were with many eyes, from whose presence, as much as he seemed to be refreshed by the aspect, just so much of pain and sadness he felt from its departure. This vision therefore, very often present before his eyes, yet never known, presented itself again to him lying at that cross: but now full of divine light, and falling prostrate before the cross, he easily perceived that that thing was not of that beauty and splendor with which it before offered itself to him, and openly recognized that it was the demon. Whence, even long afterward, it more often appeared to him, not only on the road, but also at Paris and at Rome, no longer glittering with light, but deformed and abject in aspect, so that with the staff which he was wont to carry in his hand he easily drove it from him.

[51] Moreover, while he still dwelt at Manresa, so ardently given to the occupations which we have mentioned, it happened He has an ecstasy for eight days. that on a certain day of the Sabbath, about the hour of Compline, he was so deprived of his senses that, found by certain pious men and women, he was held for dead; and unless certain persons had detected the faint palpitation of the heart, they would without doubt have committed him to burial. But he remained in this ecstasy ^c or abstraction from the senses until the next Sabbath day of the following week: on which day, about the hour of Compline, as if roused from sleep, many being present who observed him, he opened his eyes, redoubling the most sacred name of Jesus. And of this thing indeed those who were witnesses are also the authors of the account: for Ignatius himself marvelously concealed this so notable benefit of the Lord, and (so far as I indeed know) opened it to no one.

[52] These things will perhaps seem incredible to someone, and above the order and course of reason, Ribadeneyra teaches the unskilled why God so acted with the holy Father. especially in that man who was as yet a recruit and altogether rude soldier of Christ, who had scarcely enlisted, scarcely bound himself by the military oath, scarcely deserted from the camp of the enemies to the standards of Christ our Lord. But as it is agreed among all the wise that these are truly great, illustrious, admirable gifts of God: so they ought not to seem incredible, except perhaps to those who have not even in a dream heard of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the inestimable treasures of the divine benignity: who neither ever saw the light of heaven, nor were made partakers of the divine illustrations: who think that there is no liquid and solid pleasure of souls: but define all pleasures by the sense of the body, and seek and catch them from every side, and always add new ones to old, those most base indeed, and contrary to honesty, and unworthy of man himself. Who in this matter indeed are not to be heard. The animal man (says the Apostle) perceives not the things which are of God, for neither can he: for the blind man does not judge of colors.

[53] Yet there are other learned men, and versed in the monuments of the Saints, Yet in illustrations fallacies are to be guarded against. who know that illustrations of this kind of God are indeed extraordinary; but yet are wont sometimes to be granted to those who are chosen and treated by God by a certain excellent and special right. In whom above all great caution must be applied, lest we be deceived. For there are some who, deceived by a false persuasion, think those to be gifts of God which are the tricks of Satan transfiguring himself into an angel of light. Others, whose mind is mobile, and easy through levity, or obscured by the hidden pride of the heart, or by black bile, or by weakness of the head, think that they see and hear those things which in reality they neither hear nor see. Which although they be so, yet we cannot deny that there are in the Church of God true and divine revelations, with which God sometimes benignly and sweetly soothes His friends and familiars.

[54] But if Ignatius was in the number of those servants with whom God thus communicates Himself, The author shows that Ignatius and bestows so great goods with a fuller hand, it ought to seem a wonder to no one. For although a recruit, yet he had even then much advanced in virtue, and was chosen by God Himself, that he should be the father of innumerable sons, and the standard-bearer and prince of this sacred warfare, that he should lead an army, draw up battle-lines, and strenuously and bravely join standards with the enemy of the human race. Which without doubt is more excellent, and a greater gift of God, than to receive the understandings of hidden things. Certainly indeed, if we attentively consider who Ignatius was, and what he accomplished, we shall easily understand that he could neither by the powers of nature, nor by the arts of his own industry, undertake and accomplish so great a thing; but needed a certain heavenly and peculiar gift of God, that he might effect the work which we see. For how can it come about that a military man, unlettered, a vile slave of vanity, should hold a levy, enlist soldiers, gather a Society, institute this Religious order, and in the briefest time propagate it through the whole globe of the lands, and rule it with the utmost prudence, and repel the assaults of adversaries, and gather so great fruits, unto the glory of God, from his labors, unless God Himself had adorned him with His spirit, instructed him with prudence, armed him with virtue?

[55] by true and marvelous ways What idea, or what exemplar, did he have set before him, from which he might draw the pattern of this Society? In what book did he read its rules, constitutions ^d, documents? Whence did he receive the appearance and form of the Society: which indeed, as in those things which contain Religion is one and the same with the other Religious orders, so is disjoined and distinct from them in many things which are congruent with our times, and necessary to the present state of the Church? He received it forsooth from Him who alone could give these things, who raises up from stones sons of Abraham, and calls those things which are not as those which are; who, to subject and prostrate the vanity of this world, chose twelve fishermen, that, the light of the Gospel being laid open, the darkness of errors and of all vices, driven from the minds of men, might utterly vanish.

[56] was prevented and illustrated by God. For by this method He shows Himself most truly the Lord of all things, and as He bestows on all things their own force and nature, so He imposes on each a name and a price, so that each thing is worth as much as God esteems it. For neither is God like the princes of this world, who indeed choose ministers, but cannot make them good ministers: but He Himself chooses the ministers of the new Testament, and by His choice makes them fit, and apt and instructed for all things which He wills. Wherefore, since we see so many and such admirable effects of the divine power in Ignatius, and they are so open, exposed, and subjected to the eyes of all, that they cannot be denied (except by him who would deny that the sun shines at midday), and we are compelled to give to Ignatius greater things: let us also give to him these things, which are of less account, and understand that all those rays of a perfect life, from this light of divine illustrations, and as it were from the most copious fount of heavenly grace, flowed forth as so many rivulets. Which illustrations indeed we have partly narrated, partly are about to narrate hereafter.

Chap. VIII.

[57] At this same time he wrote the book of the Spiritual Exercises (as they call it) from an accurate observation of the things which had happened to him ^e. Of which Exercises how much help ^f the use has brought to the Christian commonwealth in every part, is sufficiently agreed. For, to say a few things out of many concerning their use and utility, first to those very Exercises we ought to account the institution of our Society as received. For almost all those first fathers ^g, whom Ignatius had as helpers and companions in instituting the Society, he excited through the Exercises to the zeal of perfection, and the contempt of the world. Those who afterward followed, and entered into the Society now established, men notable either for doctrine, or for genius, or for nobility, or for other ornaments of nature and fortune, were for the greatest part led by Exercises of this kind to embrace this kind of life. Nor indeed is this so great benefit proper only to our Religious order: but is even common with the rest. The method of meditating

of this kind has filled many monasteries: has confirmed many wavering Religious men in the counsel of life undertaken: has bound the loose and wandering with the bonds of a severer discipline.

[58] Yet their fruit is not circumscribed by the spaces of the Religious orders: nay rather to every kind of men; for they comprehend every kind of men, state, office, age, and manner of life. For both men, princes of the Church and of the world, and the lowest men; the learned, the unlearned; the married, the celibate; the young in age, and the old; those already dedicated to God, and those altogether free; having entered into this meditation of the Exercises, have made much progress either in the amendment of a lost life or in the increase of a good advancement. And, what is more worthy of admiration, many men flourishing in erudition, and princes by the consent of all in wisdom, after so many praises of their doctrine, gained by teaching and disputing, became disciples of Ignatius: and were led over from that knowledge which puffs up, to salutary and heavenly wisdom. For what we learn in this spiritual school of proper self-knowledge pertains not only to cultivating the intellect, but also to inflaming the will: and so it is perfected not so much by cognition as by action: and has for its end not knowledge itself, but operation. Whence this cognition makes not subtle, and clever, and sharp disputers; but strong, efficacious, and ardent doers; and vehemently moves them, and impels them to living well and blessedly. For this is the heavenly wisdom which edifies, anoints, inflames: that other often puffs up, dries out, renders a man windy and empty.

[59] But while their utility lies open as widely as possible, they are especially wont to shine forth in those who consult about the kind of life to be chosen, especially useful to those, and desire to establish it from the divine will; lest (which happens to very many) they be entangled in some certain course of living, before they have been able to judge what is most right and most conducive to themselves. For neither do all things suit all men: nor does the same kind of life fit all, but different things are congruent, and more apt, to different men. But what is more expedient for each, He alone knows who created us undeserving unto His glory, and by His blood made us worthy of immortal and everlasting blessedness. Wherefore the kind of life must be chosen by each sincerely, considerately, and attentively, and the Lord must be invoked with great and assiduous prayers, that, with Him as author and leader, each may choose that kind of living which is best and most apt for each. But now it is done otherwise. For very many mortals, either blinded by a certain lust, or deceived by an appearance of utility, or induced by the example of parents or friends, or finally impelled by other less suitable reasons, at a weak age, when neither the force of the mind nor counsel yet flourishes, precipitately and rashly cast themselves forth, and are entangled in that kind of life, of which a late repentance straightway seizes them: for the penalties of their error, through their whole life, they pay with tears indeed incredible, but useless. And deservedly indeed. For while they most diligently inquire into, discuss, and examine on both sides, and compare, the rest of their affairs: the highest affair of their very selves ^h, which is placed in choosing the kind of life, and is the greatest of all affairs, they treat supinely and yawningly, and imprudently; and, as lot or lust has brought it, they seize some course of living which they can neither hold pleasantly nor desert honestly. Which certainly would not happen, if in choosing the kind of life they had the will of God set before their eyes, looked to their last end, and directed thither their counsels, whence all certain and right deliberation depends. Finally, if they did not pervert the nature of things, but rather followed it, using the end as an end, the means as those things which are referred to the end.

[60] For which indeed we above all need the grace of God, which by prayer, meditation, who deliberate about choosing a state of life. solitude also, and vacation from the rest of affairs, we shall more easily obtain. For the mind, free, and empty of alien cares, will be more freely at leisure for itself, and will give its labor that, if any affection lodges within, which could corrupt a sincere judgment about things, it may cut all that away, and amputate it, and show itself worthy of God, with whom going before and shining before our mind, nothing will be not right, useful, and salutary to us: but without God all our counsels must necessarily be blind, preposterous, and perverse. Which although they be so, yet on that account there have not been lacking adversaries ⁱ who have tried to disparage this thing, proved both by reason and by perpetual experience. But their attempts fell back into nothing, as soon as the Apostolic See, after diligent investigation, the Exercises being seriously examined, opposed itself to the adversaries, and by its authority not only permitted their use, but even praised and advised it. Which is evident from the Apostolic letters ^k of Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, which he ordered to be written in the year 1548, by which, the book of the Exercises being fortified, it was afterward printed and published.

Chap. IX.

[61] While he was engaged in that manner of life which we mentioned above, it happened to him very often, The Saint is seized by a grievous disease; when at night he had given himself to rest, that very great illustrations and marvelous spiritual consolations were sent into his mind. Which, since they snatched away much from the small time destined for sleep, and compelled the man to pass the nights almost sleepless, more diligently noticing this, he began to doubt with himself from what fount they fell. All things being prudently discussed, he resolved at length, those consolations being rejected, that it was altogether better to grant the appointed time to sleep. Yet from his great labors, and the perpetual contention of mind, he fell into a grievous disease. To him sick the magistrate of Manresa most liberally supplied all things, and most honorable matrons officiously ministered. But the force of the disease so prevailed that death seemed to be at hand for him. As he prepared himself for death, that thought came upon him, that he was just; which when he tried to resist with the utmost force, recalling to memory even the sins of his past life, and yet profited nothing, he was tortured in marvelous ways, so that he reckoned the force of the disease raging in his innermost bowels light in comparison with that trouble which he felt from the effort applied to resisting.

[62] but, a little restored to himself, he relapses on account of austerities. When he had been a little better off, and seemed to have receded somewhat from that extreme peril of life, he began openly to vociferate, and to address some who had come there for the sake of duty, and to adjure them that, when they should see him again laboring in his last extremity, they should cry out with loud voices: O wretched sinner, O unhappy one, consider again and again with what crimes you have bound yourself, with what vices you have provoked the wrath of God against you. When he had somewhat recovered, he straightway returned to his accustomed penances and the same austerity of life, and fell anew into the disease: which he did even a third time, when with unwearied zeal and obstinate mind he strove utterly to conquer himself, and to resume and endure labors greater than his strength. But nevertheless, taught by experience, and harassed by the most grievous and that frequent pain of the stomach, and moved by the wintry harshness of the rigid weather, he was compelled to obey the counsels of pious men, and to receive, of rather coarse cloth of a grayish color, two small garments, and, as it were, a half-cap of the same cloth, for covering himself.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

The journey to Jerusalem; the survey of the holy places; the return into Spain; the study of letters at Barcelona.

Chap. X.

He passed a year, more or less, at Manresa, in that austerity of life which we mentioned, which having elapsed, the time meanwhile was approaching in which he had resolved to undertake the journey to Jerusalem. Therefore he departed from Manresa toward Barcelona ^a, and indeed alone; for so he had decreed to travel. [St. Ignatius, relying on the sole providence of God, having meditated the journey to Jerusalem;] For although there were those who of their own accord offered themselves to him as companions, and who exhorted and urged him more vehemently that he should take to himself someone knowing either Latin or Italian, as it were a leader of the way and interpreter of speech: yet he admitted none, led especially by this reason, that he desired to have all his hopes placed in God. And if he should have a companion of the way with him, he feared lest that excellent confidence in God, derived into a companion, should be diminished. Nor indeed did he exclude only the help of companions, but also the anxious care of all provision for the journey: lest there should seem to be anything which might break his hope, and render his mind, hastening to heavenly things, slower in its course. There was at Barcelona a light galley, and there was also a merchant ship prepared for Italy; he wished therefore to embark on the galley, because he hoped the crossing would be shorter: but this was the cause why he did not do it:

[64] but a certain matron at Barcelona, having beheld his radiant countenance, A certain principal and most honorable matron

Isabella Rosella ^b, in a certain church ^c was at some time attentively hearing a learned man making words to the people from a higher place. Who, intending her eyes by chance on the rest of the congregation, beheld Ignatius sitting on the very steps of the altar with the boys: and, moved by the novelty of the thing and the aspect of the man, began to gaze upon him more attentively. For she saw (as she herself narrated to me at Rome) the head of Ignatius shining round about, and emitting as it were most clear rays, and that she was inwardly admonished, and, as it were, urged more vehemently by certain goads, to summon the man and address him. Isabella dissimulated then indeed, according to the place and time; but the sermon being dispatched, as soon as she returned home, she narrated to her husband, noble equally as herself, but blind, the whole matter which had happened to her in the church; and asked her husband that he would order the man to be sought out on the spot, and brought to her.

[65] she kindly receives him, and provides a ship for him; Ignatius, being brought, dined with them: the table being removed, he set up a discourse about God, about the virtues, about the blessed life; and marvelously inflamed all who stood by to piety. It was then learned from Ignatius that he was awaiting a convenient weather for sailing into Italy. On which a bishop too, connected by blood with that most noble man, was sailing. And so, seized with admiration of the sanctity of Ignatius, they ask him that he should embark with the bishop, and leave the galley, into which he had also cast his little books. Which was so done. Moreover, in the very sight of Barcelona, the galley perished by shipwreck, and was swallowed by the waves. But by the master of the ship he was admitted on this condition, if he should bring aboard as much ship's-bread as was needful for him for sustenance in that voyage: otherwise he denied that he could be admitted. Ignatius began therefore to deal about seeking that bread; but when this seemed to conflict with his purpose, at the same time he began to be gravely anguished, and said with himself: Is this that so stable, so secure confidence, that nothing shall be lacking to you from God? Will He not be able to give bread, and prepare a table for His pilgrim?

[66] Since he could not by himself go out from these thorny thoughts, to his confessor, admitted into it on this condition, that he contribute his sustenance. as he was wont in matters of this kind, he brings the causes of doubting on both sides: he sets forth with how great, how kindled a desire of perfection he burns, and that of embracing, according to his strength, that which is most grateful to God: then he commits the whole matter to him, and, following his judgment, he placed the loaves in the ship. But when a few small coins remained to him, about to ascend the ship, out of those which he had begged from door to door, he left them in the public place beside the station of the ships, lest he should carry with him any more provision than what seemed altogether necessary. So great was the zeal of perfection in him, and so kindled the love of poverty. At this time he was very much goaded by the stings of vainglory, so that he dared not disclose either his native land or his race, but much less whither he was directing his journey, lest perchance he should swell up with the good opinion of men about himself.

[67] But I return to the voyage into Italy, by which voyage, [Having suffered many things, he comes to Rome; and the Pontiff prays well for him:] tossed by a great and foul tempest, in the space of five days he put in from Barcelona to Gaeta ^d. That was a grievous and pestilent year for Italy. For in many places pestilence raged: wherefore the utmost caution was applied by the guards of the towns, lest any newcomer be admitted. Whence, setting out for Rome, he suffered many grievous and most troublesome things on the journey. For he was often kept from the entrance of the towns; and was so weakened by hunger and leanness that he sometimes halted, and could not advance further because of the weakness of the body. Yet he came to Rome on Palm Sunday of the year 1523, piously visited the sacred places of the city: and reverently received the blessing of the supreme Pontiff Adrian VI.

[68] But when very many deterred him from the counsel of the journey to Jerusalem, and denied that it could come about Having thrown away the money given for provision: that without money he should arrive there, nor however had been able, by a long enumeration of perils, to move his unbroken mind, fixed in God, from its opinion, they presented him, departing on the eighth day ^e after the Lord's resurrection, with six or seven gold crowns, which Ignatius, overcome by fear of the things he had heard, accepted, that he might be able to pay the sailors. But a little after, when he recognized that this had proceeded from diffidence and human fear, and was bitten by conscience, not as if it were a fault to accept money, but as if it conflicted with his desire, and he seemed to remit something of his purpose of following the most perfect poverty in all things, accusing and condemning himself, and thinking with himself about throwing away the money, he decreed at length to bestow it upon the poor and beggars whom he met; which indeed he abundantly performed.

[69] In this journey, which he had from Rome to Venice, he endured many rough and bitter things. on the journey from Rome toward Venice he suffers many rough things; For, on account of the fear of the raging plague, he was compelled either to keep watch in porticoes, or to pass the night under the open sky. And travelers, beholding him bloodless and wan, and worn out with the utmost leanness, sometimes betook themselves to flight. But others, who had joined themselves to him as companions on the way, deserted him toward night, walking more slowly because of the tenuity of his strength. But He who said: I will not desert you, nor forsake you, He visited the deserted Ignatius, took up the abject one, and embraced him. For Christ offered Himself to him on the next night, after he was left, in a certain very broad field, as he was going from Chioggia ^f to Padua: and refreshed his mind very much by His aspect: and strengthened him to endure graver things, and so directed his journey that the guards of the city of Padua in no way delayed or interrupted him entering or going out, and he had a very easy access to Venice. For, the public inspectors examining everything, he alone was passed by untouched: whereas nevertheless those deserter companions underwent much labor to find a free entrance into that city.

[70] He would never meet the Legate of Charles V, Emperor and King of the Spains. About the money with which he might sail to Jerusalem, yet he proceeds, trusting in God: he by no means labored, relying on the most certain hope that God would give him an expedite voyage, that he might at length enjoy the sight of the holy places. And although many brought forward many things against it, and a good part of the pilgrims, terrified by the recent and pitiable storming of Rhodes, had drawn back, yet it was implanted in his feelings that, even if only one little vessel should direct its course thither, he would arrive at Jerusalem that year.

[71] [at whose warning he is kindly treated by a senator; and obtains a ship from a Spaniard;] While he tarried at Venice, according to his old custom he collected alms: he passed the nights in the square of St. Mark. But a certain man of the senatorial order ^g, being at night in his house, felt himself suddenly roused by voices of this kind: Do you, it said, that you should be clothed in soft garments in your house; while my servant lies half-naked in a portico? do you sleep softly in a precious bed; while he lies on the hard ground? Stirred by which goads the senator rises straightway, rushes forth outdoors, wanders through uncertain places, comes upon Ignatius lying on the ground, leads him home that night, and treats him liberally. Then, lest he should be held in honor, Ignatius departed from him, and, at his request, turned aside to a Spanish man. Having addressed in Spanish the Doge of Venice, Andrew Gritti, he easily obtained that on the flagship, on which the prefect of that island was crossing, he should be transported free of charge as far as Cyprus. Moreover the flagship was awaiting a suitable weather for sailing, whereas the other, on which the pilgrims were carried, had first put out from the port.

[72] which he boards with grave peril of health. As he awaited the ship, and prepared to embark, a most grievous fever suddenly seized him: and when it had afflicted him some days, at length departed: but this fell out inconveniently, that the time of setting sail ran into that day on which he had taken a medicine prescribed by the physician, who indeed denied that Ignatius could ascend the ship on that day without great peril of life. But he, led by the counsel of a wiser and divine physician, on that very day, the medicine being drunk, embarked. And so it happened that, when he had vomited much from the tossing of the sea, that day brought great alleviation of the beginning of the disease, then also entire health. But when he bore gravely the misdeeds of certain persons, and with great liberty of spirit and prayer more sharply inveighed against them: nor could he in any way be repressed by the other passengers, who feared some destruction to him: the sailors took counsel to set him out on a certain deserted and waste island. But when the ship had almost been driven to the destined place, being repelled by a sudden and vehement wind, they could not perpetrate the meditated crime. And so in a short time he reached Cyprus: and having found the pilgrims' ship, he crossed over into it: bringing with him no more provision than he had brought into the former one, namely the most true hope in God: who often, through the whole time of the voyage, showed Himself to Ignatius, and soothed and sustained him with incredible consolation, and at length brought him into the port so often and so vehemently desired by him.

Chap. XI.

[73] On the fourteenth day of the month of July, of the year of the Lord 1523 (as I find in a certain little memoir, He reaches the Holy City, with a desire of remaining there; written by his own hand), he set sail from Venice. What was left of this month, and the whole month of August, he consumed in the voyage. And so on the day before the Kalends of September the ship put in to Joppa ^h. But on the fourth day of September, toward noon, he entered into the Holy City. For even from this so diligent observation of days, and curious annotation of time, it can easily be conjectured how great even then was the piety of Ignatius toward God, how great the meditation in all his counsels and deeds. When therefore he first came to Jerusalem, he perceived an admirable consolation in the very sight of the Holy City, which he always had constant and perpetual, as long as he was in that city. It was deliberated by Ignatius to remain at Jerusalem, and to pass the rest of his life in religiously cultivating and visiting the sacred places, which, from the impressed footsteps of Christ our Lord, breathe a marvelous piety, and to serve the salvation of his neighbors according to his strength. The one part of which purpose, concerning his abiding (for the other, concerning caring for the salvation of souls, he opened to no man), he indicated to the prefect of the monastery of St. Francis at Jerusalem, and delivered for that matter the commendatory letters which he brought: and lest he should be a burden to them, laboring perhaps under want, he said that he wished nothing else than that they should hear the confession of his sins.

[74] By whom he was bidden to hope well, the matter however being deferred to the arrival of the minister Provincial. but thence he is bidden to depart: Who, when he had returned a little after, exhorted Ignatius that he should return into Italy, lest, deceived by a pious indeed, but precipitate counsel, he should fall into those perils of death or servitude into which very many others, led by a similar appearance of piety, had run. But when the mind of Ignatius could not be deterred from the undertaking by the greatness of the perils, and he altogether showed that he would remain in his opinion (unless perhaps he were hindered by conscience, or by some religious scruple); the minister Provincial said that he had power from the Apostolic See of sending away or retaining,

those whom he should judge ought to be sent away or retained: and besides of interdicting the sacraments to those who should not obey him. Let him therefore depart with a good and willing mind, since he could easily persuade himself that this was the will of God, which he himself, knowing the place and the nature of things, amicably and fraternally declared; lest he be compelled to use against his own will the power given to him. To which words he gave credence, and, following the counsel of God calling him elsewhere, said that he would be obedient to the word.

[75] When he thought about the return, kindled with a great desire of revisiting the mount of Olivet (on a certain stone of which the footprints of Christ our Savior ascending into heaven are seen impressed), before his return he curiously surveys certain holy places. he secretly withdrew himself from his companions, and alone, with no guide, no companion, no Turkish guard (which thing is most perilous), flew to the mount. And when nothing else was at hand to him, he gave to the guard, as a reward that he might be admitted, his little writing-knife: and, suffused with exceeding joy, he hastened to Bethphage: but straightway ran back to the mount of Olivet, that he might more diligently notice in which part was the footprint of the right foot, in which that of the left, and, the scissors being drawn from their case, that he might again be admitted, he gave them to the guard. But as he returned, exulting greatly with joy, a certain Christian, sent by the Franciscans to seek him out, assailed Ignatius, threatening many things, and gnashing with a savage countenance because he had cast himself into so great a danger, and, his arm being seized, dragged him all the way to the monastery. But he himself easily suffered himself to be led, and received in that journey a great and singular consolation from the Lord, when, so seized by the arm, and pushed, he beheld Christ, always standing above him, and walking, and, as it were, going before him all the way to the monastery.

Chap. XII.

[76] After he understood that it was not the divine will that he should remain at Jerusalem, he girded himself for the return, in which return some things worthy of memory happened to him. It was the depth of winter, a rigid and snowy sky, and he had no more of clothing than breeches of a certain coarse cloth let down to the knees, Certain marvelous things on his return. and a doublet of black cloth, cut in many places at the back, a very small garment, and that worn and vile. In the island of Cyprus he found three ships, of which the first was of the Turks, the second of a wealthy and powerful Venetian man, huge and strong, and sufficiently, as it seemed, armed and equipped against the assaults of the sea and winds: which, that it might admit Ignatius, when the pilgrims asked the master, and praised the man: If he is a Saint, said he, he does not need a ship, let him be carried over the waves. And so he embarked on the third, small, and ill joined at the seams. On the same day, with a favorable wind, the three set sail together from the port: but a most grievous tempest arising, that ship which carried the Turks perished together with its passengers. The Venetian ship, dashed against a rock, made shipwreck, the men being safe. That small and least stable one, in which Ignatius was, with difficulty indeed, but yet reached a certain port of Apulia.

[77] Having set out from Venice to Ferrara; thence he seeks Genoa: Thence he came safe to Venice, two months and more being consumed in that voyage. In that city he is somewhat refreshed. He receives fifteen or sixteen silver coins by the liberality of a certain host of his, and, for warming his stomach weakened by the force of the cold, a little cloth: thence he departs toward Spain. At Ferrara, while he prays in a church, from him (as happens) a certain beggar too asked alms: Ignatius kindly gives: at the prompting of him who had received, the rest of the needy, who stood before the doors of the church, flock in rivalry to Ignatius: to whom he bestows all the coins he had, to the last one: and going out of the church (all the beggars crying out to him with loud voices that he was a saint), he himself straightway begins to beg bread, on which he might feed that very day. From Ferrara he set out for Genoa: but since, with an atrocious war between the kings of the Spains and of the Gauls, all Cisalpine Gaul was ablaze, he was advised to turn aside from the way, lest, taken by the soldiers, he should pay the most bitter penalties which many before had paid. But he himself, who had the Lord as leader, girt with firm confidence in Him, went on to go.

[78] Having advanced a little, he came into the power of Spanish soldiers. on which journey he is unworthily treated by the soldiers, Who, thinking him a spy from his habit and appearance, first indeed soothe the man with words: then diligently search him, and even more petulantly scrutinize all the parts of his body. When they had found none of the things which they suspected, they lead him, stripped of his garment, to the prefect. And before that time indeed, that he might be held rustic and boorish, he had been wont to address all the men whom he addressed, even princes, uncivilly, and against the common custom of others. But while he is led to the prefect, seized by a certain new dread, he began to doubt whether it were expedient to intermit that custom of his, and to adopt another more urbane manner of speaking, and nearer to common usage, and to address that commander more honorifically than he was wont to address others; lest he perhaps, thinking himself despised, should appoint bitter punishments against him.

[79] Yet, understanding this thought to have proceeded from human fear, he so repelled it held for a fool by their commander on account of his manner of acting. that for that very cause he decreed to show plainly no honor to the commander: which also he did. For from that moment the commander asks of what country he is? But he is silent: whence he comes? he is silent: he inquires his name: he answers nothing: finally to various and manifold interrogations he perseveres silent, with eyes fixed on the ground, his mind in heaven, [and] to that one, Are you a spy? only says, I am not: lest he should seem to have given a just cause of injury. Then the commander, stirred by anger, sharply rebukes the soldiers, accuses their folly, that they had brought a mad man to him, and at the same time orders that they remove him, and permit him to depart. Here the soldiers, irritated by the commander's rebuke, beat the man with fists and heels, and afflict him in an unworthy manner with various contumelies. He himself afterward narrated that he had received at that time a certain marvelous consolation, when there came to his mind that ignominy with which Christ our Redeemer was afflicted by Herod and by his soldiers. After this derision, and leading through the mouths of men, God was not lacking to His soldier. For a certain Spaniard, led by common humanity, refreshed Ignatius, still fasting and wearied, and most ill received. Who, the next day pursuing his journey, was again captured by French scouts keeping watch from a tower, and led to the commander: by whom he was most humanely received and dismissed: and reached Genoa: and thence, by the help of Rodrigo Portundo, a Cantabrian man, prefect of the Spanish triremes, once known to him in the court of the Catholic king Ferdinand, he embarked; and sailed back to Barcelona not without peril.

Chap. XIII.

[80] He returned into Spain with this counsel, that he might give his labor to the study of letters, At Barcelona he begins the study of letters in the 33rd year of his age; and for that matter had chosen Barcelona ⁱ as a convenient and most opportune seat for himself. For, excluded from the sacred places of Jerusalem, he began to turn himself in every direction, and to seek especially what he should do that might be most grateful to God. When he had more diligently weighed all things with himself, at length he resolved, that his labor might be more useful to his neighbors, to join to the unction of the divine spirit the knowledge of letters too. Wherefore with a certain principal woman ^k, and one who had deserved excellently of him, and with a certain schoolmaster, by name Ardebalus, a good man, and inclined to all piety, he communicated this his counsel: which being approved by each, the one promised the expense, the other his labor and industry. He began therefore in the year of our salvation 1524, now advanced in age (for he was in his 33rd year), to exercise studies suited not to his age, but to his spirit, and to devour the first rudiments of grammar.

[81] But since neither the meanness, and subtlety of thorny things, whose fruit the demon marvelously tries to hinder, but in vain. nor the labor of the unwonted study affected his mind with any trouble: yet there disturbed him both the magnitude and the frequency of the illustrations which he perceived amid those very studies. For when he wished to commit to memory the inflections of nouns and verbs, his mind was illuminated with so great a splendor for understanding divine things that he could learn nothing new: and if anything had before been committed to memory, all that easily flowed away. Nor could he, with all study and contention of mind, either keep off the approaching or drive away the entered thoughts of this kind. Struck by the novelty of this thing, What (he said) is this matter? When we pray, when we confess, and receive the supersubstantial bread, when we watch, when we beat ourselves with scourges, when we go about all spiritual and divine offices, illustrations do not offer themselves to us so frequent, nor so great, nor so vehement: [but] when we do childish things, and do not think about God for God's sake, then specious images and heavenly illustrations meet our mind. I recognize, I recognize the cunning of the most importunate enemy: I recognize the wiles of the old trickster, and his craftiness. That he might meet his attempts, and elude the counsel of the devil maliciously calling him away from studies, he asks his teacher to come into the church which has the surname of St. Mary of the Sea. He narrates to him the temptations of the demon: he promises his assiduity for the two next years, and binds his faith that he will not be absent from the lessons (provided only bread and water be at hand to him for sustenance). And at the same time he casts himself at his feet, and again and again asks of him that he would hold him for a boy, and receive him gravely with scourges, if anywhere he should detect him to be less attentive or diligent. And by this so vehement contention of his mind the fraud of the devil was repelled, and peace then divinely restored to him.

[82] To him engaged in this wrestling-place of studies, certain pious and learned men gave counsel He abstains from the reading of Erasmus of Rotterdam, uses Thomas à Kempis. that he should read the little book of Erasmus of Rotterdam, who at that time was held a good author of Latinity, On the Christian Soldier, that he might, namely, join elegance of speech with piety. Of which counsel the confessor too was added as author to the rest. Which when Ignatius had simply done, he observed that by the reading of that little book the spirit of God grew cold in him, and the ardor of devotion was gradually extinguished. Which thing being noticed, he threw the book altogether from his hands, and so turned away from it that neither did he himself any more read the books of that author, and he forbade them to be read everywhere in our Society. He then very much used the little book of Thomas à Kempis On the Imitation of Christ ^l, and always greatly approved the reading of it, and so drank in the spirit and doctrine of that book, so avidly seized it, so perfectly expressed it in himself, that (in the judgment of many) the life of Ignatius was a certain solid, eminent, and living image of all those precepts which are contained in that golden little book.

[83] By the judgment of others he proceeds to philosophy. After he returned to Barcelona, he was of a stronger stomach than he had been at Manresa: wherefore he resolved to resume sharper penances, intermitted on account of the weakness of the stomach and the difficulties of the journey: and he began to perforate the soles of his shoes, and little by little more and more to cut them open;

so that, at the beginning of winter, the soles being now dissolved and broken, with the soles of his feet altogether bare, his feet covered only on the upper part, to avoid ostentation, he walked. At Barcelona he diligently gave his labor to Ardebalus for two years; and had so profited in the knowledge of the Latin tongue that he seemed to his teacher now fit for graver studies. To whose judgment when some other learned men also assented, and all exhorted him to take up the study of philosophy: he himself, however, who desired to lay the best foundations of Latinity for the rest of the disciplines, did not obey their counsel until a certain doctor, and excellent theologian, having learned how much he had profited in letters, approved the opinion of the rest, and, that he might more conveniently be at leisure for the studies of philosophy, advised him to set out for the University of Alcalá, which he also did in the year of the Lord 1526.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

The acts at Alcalá and Salamanca; the journey to Paris.

Chap. XIV.

To him entering Alcalá ^a a boy, Martin Olave ^b, met him, and first of all imparted alms, At Alcalá he gives his time to alms and pious works: he who, long afterward, his age now confirmed, excelling in outstanding doctrine and great authority, entered our Society. In that town he turned aside to the hospital house of the poor, [and] begs bread from door to door for his sustenance, according to custom. While he does this at some time, he is mocked by a certain priest: by other idle men too, passing by, he is afflicted with contumelies. But the moderator of the new hospital of Altozano, bearing this gravely, called Ignatius to him, and led him into his hospital. There, kept in a more convenient place, he applied his mind both to the study of Logic and philosophy, and indeed to religiously cultivating piety, and studiously procuring the salvation of his neighbors. For he undertook both to feed the needy and those pressed by hunger, alms being sought everywhere, and to form many to piety by spiritual Exercises ^c, and to explain the rudiments of Christian doctrine to the rude people, with so great and so notable fruit that that whole city seemed moved after his coming. Which thing the enemy of the human race, not bearing, resolved to pour out the hatred conceived against him.

[85] At that time Ignatius had three companions, who, moved by the man's life, there is inquiry into his life and that of his companions: had joined themselves to him as followers of his life, clothed in the same cloth; to whom a certain French youth had been added as a comrade. Whom on that account, from the similitude of the cloth, they commonly called by the Spanish word ensayalados ^d. And so, both by the society of these, and by the concourse of men to hear Ignatius, and indeed by the exceeding utility that followed, many being excited, many, as happens, spoke many things, each according to his opinion, and various things, even increased above the truth, were scattered among the common people on both sides. Rumor carried the matter to the Inquisitors of the faith at Toledo: moved by the novelty of the thing, that they might meet the nascent evil (if any there were), they come to Alcalá: what Ignatius teaches, what he does, in what manner he lives, they most diligently inquire. But when they had found all things in order, both his words and his deeds consonant with right faith and piety, without even summoning him, they leave the matter entire to the vicar of the archbishop, who was then Joannes Figueroa ^e, [and] themselves return to Toledo. Some days intervening, the vicar, Ignatius and his companions being called to him, said that inquiry had been diligently made into their life and morals, and that the whole inquisition and cause had been accurately written out: yet that no error in doctrine, no vice in the manner of life, was found. Wherefore they could act according to their own will, and, without any impediment, apply themselves to the salvation of their neighbors. Yet this did not please him, that they all used one dress, since they were not Religious: that it would be better, and that he wished it, and even ordered it, that two companions should be clothed in black garments, two others in red, [and] the French youth should retain his own habit. Ignatius answered that they would do what was ordered: which also they did. Likewise after a few days the vicar forbids Ignatius to walk with bare feet: but he puts on shoes, being, as he was in matters of this kind, when they were ordered, easily obedient.

[86] innocent, he is sent to prison: Some months had flowed by, when again inquiry is made into his life: but after great inquiry, then too he is left untouched. Nor however was it therefore permitted him to be at rest thereafter. For in the number of those who had much profited in piety by the counsels of Ignatius, there were two widow women ^f, mother and daughter, noble and honorable, the daughter too flourishing in age and beauty. Who, moved indeed by a pious, but not according to knowledge, desire, first indeed with Ignatius disapproving, but afterward even without his knowledge, alone, on their own feet, and in the appearance of beggars, had undertaken a long pilgrimage for the sake of religion. Which thing kindled great undeserved odium against Ignatius. For to him, now dwelling outside the hospice, and suspecting nothing such, came the apparitor of the vicar; [and], him easily following, leads him to prison. It was then summer-time, and he used a freer prison: wherefore frequent hearers flocked to him, to whom he himself unfolded Christian instructions, and handed the spiritual Exercises no more remissly than before. To certain illustrious men and women (among them Teresa de Cardenas, excelling in birth and piety, and Leonora Mascareñas, afterward governess of Philip, prince of the Spains) professing their zeal to free him, he sent back word, and suffered neither their authority to be interposed, nor any patron or advocate at all to be present for him before the judge. For, since he was conscious of no fault, he did not think a defense necessary, and at the same time desired to undergo many troubles for Christ, and to be directed by the ecclesiastical magistrates, to whom he always showed himself obedient and compliant. One of the companions was at that time at Segovia, not yet fully confirmed from a grievous disease. Who, when he had heard that Ignatius had been cast into chains, came quickly to Alcalá: shuts himself of his own accord into the same prison: at the warning of Ignatius, presents himself to the vicar: by his order is led back into prison. But a little after, by the care of Ignatius, he is taken out, they being more solicitous about his weak health than about their own safety.

[87] interrogated, he answers; and hears the sentence: Ignatius was now spending the seventeenth day in prison, when he himself could neither know nor attain by conjecture for what reason he had been delivered into custody by the judges. Then Figueroa came to him in the prison, inquires many things about the man, among others, whether he knew those, whom I mentioned, the mother and daughter? Ignatius assents. Then the vicar: Were you the author or accomplice of their journey, before they departed? Nothing certainly less: nay rather, this I affirm to you, that I dissuaded them altogether from such wanderings, lest the daughter, of that age and beauty, should run into the petulance of anyone. That they could, within their domestic walls, be at leisure for piety no less than abroad, and indeed more safely and more freely. To whom the judge, smiling, But this very thing, said he, is the cause why you have been arrested. Forty-two days had passed from that day on which he was first sent to prison: then, the women being now returned and interrogated, the public scribe of the vicar met Ignatius: read the sentence of the judge. In that sentence three things were contained. First, that Ignatius and his companions seemed wholly entire and innocent. Second, that they should have the same habit as the rest of the scholars, and the same dress. Lastly, that, since they were rude in the sacred letters (which Ignatius himself, on purpose, not obscurely made evident), they should not speak to the people about the most sacred secrets of the Christian religion for the four next years, in which indeed they should have procured for themselves a greater knowledge of things.

[88] That sentence being heard ^g, Ignatius answered the judge concerning that part [which, because it hindered the Saint in the salvation of souls, he thinks of going elsewhere.] which pertained to dress: When you ordered us to dye our garments, we obeyed without reluctance: because it was easy to induce another color upon the same cloth: but now, when you command a precious habit, and by no means suited to the needy, we cannot obey: for neither is it in our power to furnish it. And so the judge ordered garments, caps, and the rest, to be bought for them by himself, after the manner of scholars. But Ignatius, after the sentence, somewhat hesitated, because he perceived his course to be hindered, and the access to the salvation of his neighbors to be cut off from him. And so he resolved to betake himself to the Archbishop of Toledo, Alfonso Fonseca, dwelling at Valladolid ^h; and to stand by his judgment: to whom, dressed in the manner which we mentioned, he departed with his companions. The archbishop received him kindly and fostered him, and helped with provision him of his own accord inclined toward the University of Salamanca, and most humanely offered his own labor and that of his men, and every kind of office.

Chap. XV.

[89] At Salamanca he began (as he was wont) to sharpen the minds of the people to the imitation of Christ. [At Salamanca, in the monastery of the Friars Preachers, he is interrogated on many things:] According to custom he confessed more often to a certain pious and Religious man of the Dominican family, who dwelt in that most learned convent of St. Stephen. Not so long after he came to Salamanca, the confessor signifies to Ignatius that the brethren of his monastery are held with a great desire of addressing and hearing him. When he had answered that he was ready, he invites him to dinner on the Lord's day, and at the same time forewarns him that he should fortify himself; that they wished to inquire many things about him, [and] to learn many things. On the appointed day Ignatius came with his companion; having dined, they come together in the little chapel—Ignatius, the confessor, and two brethren besides, of whom one governed the monastery as Prior. He, gazing on Ignatius blandly and benevolently, I rejoice, said he, when I hear so many things preached everywhere about your virtue and morals, and that you are one who serves not only your own salvation, but that of others also, and, going about in the Apostolic manner, teaches the peoples. Nor is this joy peculiar to me, but common also with the rest of ours. Which that we may rejoice more solidly, we desire to hear from you some things about these matters, one by one, and above all in what kind of study you have watched, in what letters you have been versed.

[90] When Ignatius had simply and candidly answered that which was the case; What is it then, said he, to which he answers, that, endowed with such slender doctrine, and scarcely imbued with the first letters, you preach? But we, Ignatius

said Ignatius, do not preach, but sometimes, when the matter bears it, we speak familiarly about divine things. And he: About what divine things? said he; for this is what we most desire to know. Then Ignatius: We sometimes, father, speak about the dignity of virtue, and the baseness of vices: we exhort those who hear us to the virtues, [and] lead them away from vices. You, said the Prior's vicar, are unlearned, as you yourselves profess; yet you have discourse about virtues and vices: but concerning these no one indeed can rightly make words, unless with doctrine either gained by labor, or divinely infused: doctrine does not furnish this to you: therefore the Holy Spirit does. And this is what concerning the Holy Spirit we desire to know. Here Ignatius hesitated a little while, moved by that new kind of arguing.

[91] rendering the reason of his manner of acting: But after a little silence, when he had collected himself, Let it be, said he, enough: for there is no need that we go further. When the vicar pressed with a word about the Holy Spirit, and vehemently urged Ignatius to answer, he could draw from him only this: I, father, will say nothing more indeed, unless perhaps those command it who are superiors, and who can deal with me by their own right. When so many errors infest the world, said the vicar, when so many new plagues daily arise; the things you teach, will you not explain? But we will easily bring it about that you tell all things. Remain here, said he. Ignatius and his companion remain in the chapel. They depart hastily. They order all the doors of the monastery to be shut, [and] lead the men into a chamber: they retain them three whole days in the monastery: which days indeed were most joyful to Ignatius. They took food together with the monks: where Ignatius was, thither many of them came to hear him: the chamber was almost always crammed with hearers, to whom he himself boldly and openly spoke about divine things according to his custom, and approved to many his institute and manner of teaching. Wherefore a dissension in a manner arose among them, since some approved, but others disapproved his doctrine.

[92] then he is thrust into prison by the bishop's vicar, and interrogated: Meanwhile the Religious fathers, admonished by the calamities of the times, and moved by the force and liberty of Ignatius in speaking about divine things, by the concourse of men to him, and finally by rumor itself (which always feigns something to the truth), lest perhaps some evil should lurk, refer the matter to the bishop's vicar. The apparitor of the vicar came into the monastery after three days: seizes Ignatius and his companion: thrusts them into prison, not indeed into the lower one with criminal men, but into a certain upper one, separated from the common dwelling, ill built, very old, filled with filth, foul with stench, and with the same chain of twelve or thirteen palms' length binds the two by one foot each, and so constrains them that the one was compelled always to be present to the other. In this manner they pass that night, wide awake and praying. The next day, when it was learned that they were in custody, pious men, of whom a great number ran together, for the sake of hearing, to Ignatius, abundantly supplied the coverlets of beds, foods, and the rest of the necessaries of life. But he retained that custom of his of adorning the virtues, accusing vices, [and] exciting all to the contempt of human things. A certain bachelor Frías, the bishop's vicar, came to them in prison: interrogates each separately: to him Ignatius delivers his writings, that is, the book of the spiritual Exercises ⁱ, to be examined: warns [him] that he has two companions (besides the one who was with him): indicates the place where they are.

[93] [afterward he is brought to four judges; who examine the little book of the Exercises, etc.] Those companions, by the vicar's order, are thrust into the lower prison, where the rest of the prisoners were kept, that they might be separated from Ignatius by walls. In this tossing too, and the tempest offered to him, he employed no defender of his innocence. Some days had now passed, when Ignatius is brought to four judges, learned and grave men. Among them there were three doctors, Isidore, Paravigna, Frías; the fourth was he who was named by me the bachelor Frías, whom we have already said to have been acting for the bishop. These all had read the delivered book of the Exercises, and had even more curiously weighed it. They ask Ignatius, produced before them, many things, [and] inquire many things not only about that book, but about abstruse and recondite questions of theology, about the inexplicable mysteries of the most holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist, and other things of that kind. To which Ignatius (having modestly premised that he was unlearned) answered so learnedly and gravely that there was rather place for admiration than for reprehension.

[94] Then the bishop's vicar proposed to Ignatius a question from the canon law to be unraveled: which he (having first said that he was ignorant of the opinions of the Doctors on that matter) so resolved [They forbid him for a time to teach the distinction between mortal and venial sin.] that he touched the very mark. Finally he was ordered to expound the first precept of the Decalogue, as he was wont to the peoples. But he discoursed so many and so exquisite things on that matter that they cast away all further desire of interrogating him. There was one thing which the judges did not seem sufficiently to approve: namely that, placed near the beginning of the spiritual Exercises, there is that doctrine by which we are taught truly to separate the thought which is a venial sin from that thought which is deadly. This they turned to a fault in Ignatius, not because it was false, but because, being less cultivated in doctrine, he laid down things which cannot be discerned without great doctrine. To which Ignatius answered only: Whether the things I wrote be true or false, is of your judgment (for I do not interpose mine:) if they are true, approve them; if false, reject them. Yet they in no way dared to disapprove them.

[95] Many, as we said above, came together to Ignatius for the sake of seeing and hearing him; Ignatius both bears the prison gladly, and desires to suffer graver things: of whose number Francis Mendoza ^k (he who as Bishop of Burgos, and afterward a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, departed from life), grieving for his lot, once familiarly asked him whether he bore that prison and chains with grief. To whom Ignatius: Does prison seem to you so great an evil? But indeed there are not so many fetters at Salamanca, not so many chains, but that I desire more for Christ. And even certain consecrated women, moved by the opinion of Ignatius's sanctity, and once kindled to piety by his private colloquies, wrote a letter to him, shut up in prison; in which they both grieved for his injuries, and gravely accused those who had cast Ignatius into that peril and danger: to whom Ignatius wrote back that he greatly wondered that they, to whom the mystery of the cross of Christ ought to be known and thoroughly considered, were utterly ignorant of the immense treasures of glory enclosed in the cross: that he indeed exulted with joy, and vehemently burned with the desire of suffering and enduring greater and graver things for his Lord. And this he wrote with the gravest and most ardent words, so that they were both ashamed of themselves, and a certain kindled desire of imitating Ignatius and of suffering for Christ came upon them. While the companions of Ignatius were held in custody, it happened that the rest of the prisoners, except them, the prison being opened, all escaped by flight. And so the companions the next day in the morning were found alone, the doors being open. And this had much of admiration both among the judges and among the people: wherefore they were let out of prison, and led over into an ample house.

[96] On the twenty-second day from that on which they had been captured, they were summoned by the judges to hear the sentence which was pronounced upon them. The sum of this sentence was, that the life and doctrine of Ignatius and his companions seemed entire, and sprinkled with no stain at all: that it was free for them, according to their custom, to teach the people, [a sentence about the Saint's integrity; yet then forbidden to define mortal and venial sin.] and to converse about all divine things: [but] this one thing let them beware, that they should not define what was mortal sin, what venial, unless they had placed four more years in the study of letters. Which sentence Ignatius said he would observe as long as he was in their jurisdiction and power. For neither was it just that, no vice being detected in his life, no error in his doctrine, they should block the door for him to the utility of souls, and snatch away the faculty of speaking freely: that he was of his own right, and would consult the reasons of his own life.

Chap. XVI.

From the time when Ignatius first applied his mind to studies, he began to be troubled with a great deliberation, He departs from Salamanca to Barcelona, whether, the course of studies being run through, he ought to enter some Religious order, or, free and expedite, to wander for the salvation of souls, and to join to himself other companions of the same purpose. Which consultation indeed held his mind very much troubled. For if a Religious order were to be embraced, that at length seemed to be followed which was shaken and quite dissolved, in which, namely, he should be compelled to suffer many things, to endure many things from men refusing a severer discipline. But in this deliberation his mind was much more inclined to that part, that he should gather companions, that he might more freely and fully consecrate all his cares to the advantages of his neighbors. Which opinion, because better, prevailed. And so he had this mind even then, when he was bound with that iron chain; from which as soon as he was set free, and saw that at Salamanca so great an impediment was cast against his counsels, he judged that he must migrate elsewhere. Which he also did, many excellent and most illustrious men resisting, and bearing his departure with trouble.

[98] and thence to Paris. The matter therefore being communicated and settled with his companions, alone, driving a little ass laden with books, he set himself on the way toward Barcelona, that he might betake himself to Paris for the sake of studies. When he came to Barcelona, all his acquaintances and familiars, having learned his mind, vehemently dissuaded him from the Parisian journey. It was the depth of winter, the war between the Spaniards and Gauls huge and savage, the road infested and perilous, [and] many examples of cruelty, and those recent, and drawn forth in hostile manner by the soldiers upon travelers, were brought forward. Yet all these things could not retard the constant mind of Ignatius, roused by a divine impulse. Wherefore he committed himself to the way, and, God being leader, so accomplished that journey on foot that at the beginning of February ^l, of the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-eight, he came to Paris sound and unharmed.

ANNOTATIONS.

h That is, Valladolid.

may be consulted the author of this Life book 3, chapter 16, and book 4, chapter 4; more concerning him is given in Alphonsus Ciaconius in the Lives of the Pontiffs and Cardinals, tome 3, from column 690.

CHAPTER VI.

The studies at Paris, offices of charity called into odium.

Book II.

Chap. I.

Ignatius, having entered Paris, applied his thoughts especially to this, that he might find some means The progress of his studies being retarded by the straits of temporal things, by which, freed from the care of the things necessary to life, he might sedulously be engaged in the studies of the liberal arts. Which thing fell out far otherwise: for he sustained great trouble and difficulty in that handling of studies. At the beginning, he received a certain sum of money sent to him as a gift from Spain, and delivered it to be kept to a certain tent-mate of his: he converted it to his own uses and advantage: afterward was not able to pay: and so it was lost to Ignatius, who was brought into such straits that he was compelled to turn aside to the hospital house of St. James ^a, and daily to beg his sustenance from door to door. Which, although it was customary to him, and pleasant of itself: yet brought much impediment to the progresses of his studies. Then that [was] most troublesome, that it was so far distant from the school where he learned. For since the explications were held by the teachers in winter before light, [and] the evening ones were produced into the night, he was compelled to go out from the house with the sun (that he might keep the laws of the hospice), [and] to return with the sun. Since therefore the begun studies proceeded by no means to his satisfaction, and with great labor he took small fruit, he at length devised this plan, that he should seek for himself some master, above all a learned man, whom he might serve, that whatever time was given from domestic ministries, he might consume all that in the meditation of letters. Whom if he had found, he had resolved to hold him in the place of Christ, and in his fellow-disciples to behold the Apostles themselves, and to represent to himself by pious thought Christ Himself, and the most holy college of His disciples. Which, as it were, heavenly picture of his, and conformation, in the common intercourse of life, and the religious communication of the brethren among themselves, was greatly commended by our Father, inasmuch as it availed very much for retaining observance toward Superiors, [and] fraternal charity toward equals. A master, sought out with great diligence among many, he could not find.

[100] Wherefore, when this did not succeed, he entered upon another more convenient way. The matter being diligently commended to the Lord in prayer, he seeks alms in Belgium. following the counsel of a certain Religious man, he resolved to go each year into Belgium ^b, that he might beg from the Spanish merchants, wealthy men who traded in that province, some money for his expenses, and by the loss of a few days redeem the perturbation of all his studies. By this way, he brought back each year, by the liberality of the merchants, as much money as would suffice for frugally sustaining life. In the first and second year he set out into Belgic Gaul, in the third he also made an excursion into England. But after three years, he was freed from the care of going and returning. For the merchants themselves of their own accord sent money to Ignatius each year, which, added to that which was supplied from Spain, was neither altogether slender, nor so narrow that it did not suffice for him, living sparingly and moderately, and for feeding also another companion. And in this manner Ignatius sustained life.

[101] [The success of his studies is hindered by the frauds of the devil, and by diseases.] But his studies were affected not only by the inconveniences of want, other impediments also arose. For the devil, who feared vehemently for himself from Ignatius, endeavored to turn aside his roused course into the studies of letters. Wherefore, as he entered the course of philosophy, he brought upon him the same impediments from the importunate abundance of spiritual thoughts which he had cast before him when engaged in the rudiments of grammar at Barcelona. But he easily drove off those fallacious images, and refuted and broke the assault of the crafty enemy by the same method by which he had broken that former one. He was also most grievously afflicted with diseases toward the end of his studies. For although at the beginning he was somewhat better off in his stomach; yet afterward the voluntary vexation of the body, and the penances (which in some part he either increased when relaxed, or sometimes recalled at Paris when intermitted), the labor of studies, the grave and perpetual contention of mind, [and] the very Parisian sky, unhealthy and adverse to him, so afflicted Ignatius that, to spare his ruined health, he was compelled to interrupt the course of his studies. And yet, oppressed by these so many inconveniences, he so profited in letters that the fruit seemed by no means to be repented of.

[102] [He resumes the studies of Latinity, and obtains the master's laurel in philosophy;] In Spain, induced by the counsel of certain persons, and incited by a certain desire of aiding souls more quickly, he had less unfolded plans of his studies. For he embraced at one time the studies of Logic, philosophy, and theology: which too-hasty haste brought upon him great delay. Wherefore, that he might correct his course by slowness, he first delivered himself at Paris, in the school of Montaigu ^c, to good teachers of Latinity to be reformed, and consumed almost a biennium in that study: then, now sufficiently ready in the Latin tongue, he entered the course of philosophy in the year 1529; which indeed he happily finished. Wherefore he obtained the master's laurel ^d, when a trial had severely been made of his knowledge, by the "stone" (as they commonly call it) examination, which is wont to be the most grievous of all in that University. This, on the authority of his master, Ignatius permitted to be done not for futile ostentation, but for a testimony of his erudition: since he revolved in mind that many impediments to the salvation of his neighbors had been cast against him at Alcalá and Salamanca on account of the poverty of his doctrine.

[103] he studies theology; taught by his own inconveniences The space of philosophy being measured out, he gave the rest of his time, up to the thirty-fifth year going out, to sacred theology ^e; and a fruit equal to the labor undertaken answered, by the benignity of God. That indeed, since the matter admonishes, I will not pass over in silence; that from these so many and so great difficulties, in which the studies of Ignatius were entangled, was born that care which the provident father took concerning us. He himself was pressed by great want: but he desired, and diligently cared, that while ours were engaged in the studies of letters, it should be so provided for ours as to the necessary uses of life, that they might live without any solicitude of seeking sustenance. For he said that in the utmost mendicity the study of wisdom could not easily consist, and that the culture of the mind was impeded by that anxious care of feeding the body. Whence he tempered our Society with these institutes, that it should be permitted our colleges to have in common those goods which were of no detriment to poverty, [and] of great help to acquiring knowledge. He was vexed by the not opportune images of heavenly things. But lest ours should be called away from literary exercises by things of that kind, he willed that, in the time of studies, both the meditations and the very occupations of aiding one's neighbor should be moderated for ours.

[104] Diseases weakened him, and therefore he consulted most diligently, by himself, for the health of his sons to succor the inconveniences while he lived, and, that the same might always be done, and that the efforts of our scholars might be lasting without intermission, he provided in the constitutions. He confusedly embraced at the beginning many disciplines at one time. Which, lest it happen to us, he wisely provided that the studies of ours should have nothing either preposterous, or mutilated and cut short; but that all things should be done rightly, and in order: for in that in which he himself suffered and was tempted, he learned to help those who are tempted. And so, speaking of this very matter, Ignatius said that he greatly desired to find someone from the number of the students who, bound by so many and so great difficulties and inconveniences as he himself had been, would have placed with such contention an equal number of years in the studies of letters. And deservedly indeed he said this, for he himself studied pressed above all by great poverty, and that voluntary, and altogether spontaneous, and in no way proceeding from obedience; then worn out by many and long diseases; then looking neither to honors nor dignities, nor to any human reward at all, which is wont to attract men, and animate them to endure labors; invited moreover by no allurement of the pleasure which he might take from studies, which is a great inducement to labors for mortals.

[105] Nay rather, both by his own nature, and on account of his now mature age, of his sons, and less suited to learning the disciplines, and on account of the sweetness of the spirit he had tasted, he shrank from the studies of letters. He had finally through the whole time of his studies many occupations, most troublesome persecutions, great and innumerable cares, which either impeded or retarded the course of his studies. And yet, entangled in so many adverse things, in such great troubles, he assiduously and strenuously gave his labor to letters for twelve years, breaking himself, obeying the divine will in all things, and subjecting his own. And that he might do this more intently, he studiously removed all things which could be an impediment to him. Wherefore at Paris, between Ignatius, having entered the course of philosophy, and Faber, it had been agreed that in the very time of studying they should not speak about spiritual things, because, if by chance they had fallen into a colloquy of such things, Ignatius was so snatched away by, as it were, a certain heat and impulse of divine love, that, forgetting the rest, he was carried further in conversing, and consumed the time, and all that was subtracted from the manner and utility of studying. For the same cause, he abstained from handing down the spiritual Exercises, and from other pious occupations, at this very time of philosophical study, lest, distracted by alien business, he should be more remiss and slower in the purpose of studying.

[106] At which time, when he enjoyed great tranquillity, no one then persecuting him, made an example to them. a certain familiar of his said to Ignatius: Do you not (said he) see how great a vicissitude of things, how great a change of wills has been made? Those who a little before depressed you, and desired you extinguished, they now extol you, and bear you to heaven with praises; what is this matter? To whom Ignatius: From those (said he) chains I will extricate myself, wait until I finish the course of philosophy, and then you will understand the cause of this tranquillity. For while I am silent, they are silent; while I rest, they rest: when I stir myself, straightway a tempest of envy arises, and I am agitated as it were by its waves. It happened as he foretold it would happen, and, the space of philosophy being run through, when he betook himself to aiding men, and began to act more intently, the stings of hatred and envy, which seemed to have been shaken off, were again sent out against him, as I will explain a little after. Which things have been said, that the strength of Ignatius, and the contention of his mind in studies, may shine forth more.

Chap. II.

[107] In the time of his studies, he gave his labor not only to studies, Because he promotes his neighbors to a more perfect life, but also to moving the minds of the scholars by the example of his life, and to leading them to Christ by counsel and warnings. For even before he approached the study of philosophy, he so inflamed some honorable youths, excellent in genius and doctrine, that they straightway renounced all things. But in the very course of philosophy, from this occupation (as we said) of aiding others, as less proper and apt to studies, he almost abstained. But the course being finished, all the best, and the youths most suited to the culture of heavenly doctrine, he so [led] to this discipline of perfection

that, at his departure from Paris, very many of his familiars sent word back to all things i.e., renounced everything, and betook themselves to the port of sacred Religion. Namely, the mind of Ignatius was kindled with such an ardor of divine love that, wherever he came, with the fire with which he himself burned, he easily kindled the minds of men. Yet envy was always the companion of that virtue.

[108] Crowds are stirred up against him. Whence great tempests at Paris were stirred up against him. For, since by the labor of Ignatius certain Spaniards had made such a change of morals and life that they bestowed all their goods on the poor, begged alms from door to door, and, their houses being left, lodged in the hospital house of St. James; the fame of this thing gradually began first to be spread: then by the discourses of men so grew common that it pervaded the whole University of Paris, and filled it with various opinions on both sides. Certain Spaniards indeed, noble men, and joined by friendship and intimacy with these now disciples of Ignatius, bore this deed of theirs most grievously. Wherefore they quickly come to them; exhort the men to return to their house; contend with prayers, urge with threats, mix all things; yet cannot persuade. Then, stirred by anger, many, armed, drag the men away by force; drag them into that part of the town in which the University is; at length extort this, that they should put an end to their studies, [and] thereafter obey their own mind.

[109] He presents himself of his own accord to the Inquisitor general; But since Ignatius was held the author of such counsels, he was in the greatest offense among many. Among them Peter Ortiz, flourishing in the praise of erudition, was perhaps moved by the novelty of the thing to have his doctrine, about which he heard so many things bandied on both sides, examined, and even more inwardly inspected. And so Ignatius was accused before the Inquisitor of the faith. Which as soon as he understood, no delay being interposed, of his own accord he presents himself to the judge. He was then a certain learned and grave doctor, Matthew Ori, a theologian of the Dominican family. To him Ignatius narrates what he had heard; that, whether it be true, or whether he himself wishes something else, he is ready to render account of himself. The judge bids the man be of a tranquil mind; that his name indeed had been delated to him; yet that nothing seemed to him why he should fear. Likewise at another time, when, his studies being now finished, a necessary journey into Spain was at hand for him, it was reported to Ignatius that inquiry had been criminally made into his life, [and] the matter delated to the Inquisitor of the faith. Which hearing, thinking that he must not delay, he meets the judge himself: begs him again and again that he would take cognizance of the cause, and pronounce sentence for the truth: saying that he was now not alone, but had companions, for whose fame and estimation he labored: that it was not open to him to neglect so great a matter, and, setting out into Spain, to leave false and empty rumors scattered about himself.

[110] The judge denies that there is any crime in the accusation who approves his spiritual Exercises. which is to be feared by Ignatius; [and] says that certain vain and empty things, bandied by the error or wickedness of men, are contained, which, because he himself understood them to be false, he had not even summoned Ignatius [for]: yet that he desired to read his book of the spiritual Exercises. Which when he had read, he so approved it that he asked that the faculty of copying it be given him. But about judging the cause, when he seemed either to procrastinate or to dissemble to Ignatius, lest the truth should lie sunk in the darkness of falsehood, he brings a public scribe to the judge: bids witnesses to be called: demands a testimony of his innocence. Which the judge gave to the truth: the scribe entered it in the records: Ignatius received the writing, that against the infamy of a false crime, if ever there were need, he might use this testification. I have authors from our Society, suitable and grave, who relate a certain deed of Ignatius, most pertaining to the matter of which we treat; which indeed I, although in another edition of this little book I passed over, because Ignatius himself in the narration of his life omitted it, yet now thought must be written. For it is consonant with the morals of Ignatius, and very agreeable to the fortitude of his mind, and to his prudence.

[111] Those fathers therefore narrate that, at that very time in which Ignatius, with bare feet, fasting, kindled with so great an ardor of charity, set out for Rouen ^f, that he might raise up that man who had defrauded him of money, lying in bed, and refresh the afflicted one (as I will say in book V), The Saint, absent from Paris and rashly suspected, protects his own fame. he was then accused before the Inquisitor of the faith, and false rumors were scattered through the whole University of Paris, and much was detracted from his good estimation among the unskilled. For some affirmed that he had fled from conscience; others said that that vain appearance and ostentation of the man's sanctity had at length burst out, and fallen into nothing, and that all excessive and extreme things were both suspicious and perilous: others spoke other things, each according to his own sense and affection. These things a certain friend wrote to Ignatius, and permanently informed him of all the things which were commonly bandied. Ignatius received the letters of his friend at Rouen, standing by chance in the square, and straightway, a public scribe being summoned before witnesses, showed the letters which he had received from the carrier, and shows that the man, as soon as he had read them, neither returned to his lodging, nor spoke with any mortal, [but] resolved to set himself on the way, and to return to Paris. And he asks a testimony of this thing from the scribe, with whom, and with witnesses following, he departed from Rouen. Having entered Paris, he held nothing before this, than to go straight to the Inquisitor of the faith: to him he faithfully and simply sets forth what he had learned at Rouen by the letters of his friends, [and] what he had done to dispel that false suspicion; and (said he) that he would be wholly in his power.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

Liberation from the public infamy of the rods; companions joined to the Saint; return into Spain.

CAP. III.

Out of the number of his fellow-disciples Ignatius persuaded many that they should break off familiarities Ignatius, leading his fellow-disciples to piety conciliated rather by the allurement of pleasures than by the conjunction of studies and virtue; that on feast-days they should sedulously be at leisure for piety and religion, and duly receive the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist. Wherefore it happened that they were sometimes absent from the appointed schools of letters during those days ^a. Which the teacher of Ignatius bearing with trouble, and interpreting, otherwise than was fair, that his disciples were slipping away, [and] that he was deserted, warned Ignatius to care for his own things, [and] leave alien things, [and] lead his disciples into no fraud, unless he wished it to be a fraud to himself, and to experience his force. But Ignatius, not even admonished a third time, desists from his purpose. The teacher therefore, the matter being communicated with James Govea (who presided over the school), began to bandy his threats in his name, and to threaten the terror of the rods: but Ignatius was in no way moved by the threats. Wherefore the teacher says to Govea the moderator that Ignatius is the one man who, by I know not what vain simulation of sanctity, perverts the excellent state and discipline of that school: that he had admonished the man not once and again, [and] had mixed threats with prayers; that yet he had so hardened himself against all things that, fearing neither his authority nor his own, he departed not a whit from his obstinate opinion.

[113] he is condemned to the infamous punishment of the rods; These things being said, the teacher of Ignatius more ardently inflamed Govea, already then irritated on account of a certain Spaniard, Amator ^b by name, who, having left his school, naked had followed the naked Christ, Ignatius being the author, and of his own accord sufficiently kindled, inflamed him to resolve to take penalties of him, as of a disturber of the common leisure. He orders therefore that, as soon as Ignatius should come, the doors of the school be barred, a sign be given, the man be seized, [and] the rods be made ready. Which thing, when it had leaked out, and been carried to the ears of the friends of Ignatius, he was admonished by them to beware for himself. But he, filled with joy, thought that so illustrious an occasion of triumphing over himself must not be passed over. To that very school, where torment and ignominy were being prepared for him, he turned his feet. Here the flesh of Ignatius began to grow pale with fear, to tremble, to refuse the command. But he, Thus do you kick against the goad? I, said he, will teach you letters, you ass: and at the same time he quickly enters the school.

[114] The doors are shut, the sign for scourging is given, of which, although he was greedy from the contempt of himself, the teachers are armed with rods, all the disciples come together into the hall. Then indeed two things, contrary to each other indeed, yet looking to the same [end], began to agitate the mind of Ignatius, and to draw it in various directions. For the charity of God, the highest desire of suffering and bearing ignominy for Christ, impelled him to that part, that he should of his own accord cast himself to the scourges and the prepared infamy. But on the other part, the love of his neighbors urged, and those thoughts recalled his mind, now inclined, by their weight: What will become of those who now first have entered the way of God? How many will fall away from the life they have begun? Shall I place their loss in my gain? How base moreover is it, and unworthy of the Christian name, that a Christian man be beaten with rods in an assembly of Christians, because he follows Christ, because he leads others to Christ? Not so; but let the love of God conquer the love of God, [and] let that love, conquered by it, conquer, and blaze up more: let my utility yield to the utility of the brethren: let us now indeed serve God by the desire of suffering adverse things, and by the will; in deed, when it can be done without the detriment of anyone.

[115] These things he said with himself; and at the same time he goes to Govea the moderator, still lingering in his chamber: yet for the glory of God he removes it from himself. he sets forth the counsel of his deed: that to him indeed nothing could happen in life more pleasant than to experience scourges for Christ, who had experienced even prison and chains: yet that he feared for the weakness of the little ones; that he took account of them, not of himself. What more? Govea ^c, his hand being seized, leads Ignatius into the hall; here suddenly, all looking on, he casts himself at his feet: with tears begs pardon: cries out that he was too credulous; that he Ignatius is a holy man, who is touched not by the terror of the threatened torment, but only by the honor of God. This being done, both the wicked were struck and afflicted, and the good were raised up, and more ardently inflamed to virtue: and the force of the words of Ignatius, and the strength of his mind

shone forth more, and all learned how opportunely the Lord frees those who hope in Him ^d. But how great emoluments from this threatened punishment redounded into the Church of God, I will say in another place of this history.

CAP. IV.

[116] From the time when he first applied his mind to the studies of letters, Ignatius's first companions having slipped away elsewhere, Ignatius always inclined to this, that he might aggregate to himself some fellow-soldiers, and companions of his counsels. Whence, from that time in which he was in Spain so variously and gravely harassed, he had those comrades who had given themselves into his society. Which, however, recently glued together, was easily torn apart by the separation of Ignatius and his departure from Spain. For when Ignatius was pressed at Paris by so many straits, he informed them of the state of his affairs, from which they easily understood how little hope of feeding them at Paris was shown. Wherefore they slipped away one in one direction, another in another. When therefore Ignatius applied his mind to the studies of philosophy at Paris, Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, in the college of St. Barbara, were companions not only of studies, but also of the same chamber, and had now almost finished the course of philosophy. Into the same lodging and society of life Ignatius was admitted, who began little by little to bind to himself those youths, excellent in nature and doctrine, by good offices.

[117] He joins to himself Peter Faber, cultivated by the spiritual Exercises; Faber above all he most bound to himself, whose labor he much used in repeating the lessons he had heard. Whence he became his disciple in the Aristotelian and natural doctrine: [and] his master in the spiritual and divine: and in a short time so moved the man by the admiration of his life that he joined his studies with the studies of Ignatius, [and] his will with [his] will. Nor however did Ignatius suddenly pour out all his force in winning him: but proceeded little by little, and step by step. For he taught him, first, to examine his conscience daily: then to wash away the crimes of his whole life by a general confession: then, every eighth day, to receive the most sacred Eucharist. Finally, when he had now consumed four years in this manner of living, and there seemed to be a maturity of the matter, he polished Faber, burning with a great desire of serving God, with the spiritual Exercises ^e. Who took so great fruit from them that he said that then at length he had breathed again, and rested from the great tossing of his past life. For before those exercises, Faber himself writes, he had no security. Led by which, he betook himself wholly to Ignatius.

[118] [Francis Xavier, Laínez, Salmerón, Rodríguez, Bobadilla, binding themselves by a vow;] Francis Xavier, although familiar by intercourse, yet in the beginning was more alienated in mind; but he at length could by no means sustain the force of the spirit speaking in Ignatius. James Laínez, a youth, the course of philosophy being finished, had come to Paris from the University of Alcalá, with Alfonso Salmerón, likewise a young man; both for the sake of studying, and also of inquiring after and seeing Ignatius. Whom he had heard to be already then, at Alcalá, much celebrated in the talk of men for the integrity and parsimony of his life: and upon that very man he first of all fell in at Paris, and was not long after joined to him in familiarity; and at the same time as Peter Faber; together also with Salmerón, was instructed in the spiritual Exercises. And in this manner there were also added to Ignatius Simon Rodríguez, and Nicholas Bobadilla. All these, seven in number, the course of philosophy being finished and marked with the master's laurel ^f, in the year 1534, on the day sacred to the Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary, came together all at the church of the blessed Mary, which is commonly called Montmartre, and is not far distant from the city of Paris. There, duly, confession being made, and the sacred Communion received, they bound themselves by a vow of renouncing all things (except provision for the journey) on an appointed day, of procuring the salvation of their neighbors, [and] of sailing to Jerusalem; and that at a prefixed time, and on this condition, that if within the prescribed time of a year it should not be permitted to sail thither, or afterward to live in the sacred places, they should return to Rome: [and] cast themselves at the feet of the Roman and supreme Pontiff, that he might use them, at his own discretion, for the salvation of souls ^g. And this vow, in the two following years, they confirmed on the very same day, ceremony, and place.

[119] But then indeed three others, Claude Jay, John Codure, Paschasius Broët ^h, to whom add three others, companions of the same purpose. companions of the same purpose, had now been added to the seven ⁱ first. From which things done then by our fathers, the fourth solemn vow, which our professed members utter, of rendering obedience to the Supreme Pontiff in missions, and likewise the renovation of the simple vows, which is practiced by ours before profession, had their origin. Meanwhile, lest the gathered spirit should gradually slip away, Ignatius had so instructed and fortified them that their efforts should neither fall nor languish, above all by prayer and meditation of divine things, by frequent confession of sins, and the reception of the most sacred body of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the very handling of letters, which, because they were sacred, and were even then referred to God, brought a great help even to piety; by the ardent desire of consecrating themselves to God, the vow of poverty being now uttered, and renewed each year, by frequent and almost daily meeting, by the intercourse of a most concordant life, and the communication of all things and of minds. They were wont also, according to the old custom of the Saints, to sup with one another, and to incite themselves by spiritual colloquies to the contempt of the world, and the zeal of divine things. By which things it came about that, through the whole time in which they remained at Paris, to finish their begun studies, not only was there no diminution of their ardent will, but even a great increase was made day by day.

Chap. V.

[120] Meanwhile Ignatius was worn out by the most grievous pains of the stomach: His affairs being settled with his companions, wherefore, when, all things being tried, he found no remedy for the disease, by the counsel of the physicians, and the exhortation of his companions, he was compelled to return ^k into Spain, and to try whether the change of place, and the salubrity of his native soil, could bring either health, or at least some alleviation of the disease. Which Ignatius did the more willingly, because some of his companions had business in Spain, which, if he himself had dispatched it, would have freed them from great care and trouble. And so in the year 1535 Ignatius and his companions so settle affairs among themselves that he himself should return to his native land, [and] confirmed from his disease, diligently transact the business of his companions; then set out for Venice: but that his companions, until the eighth day before the Kalends of February 1537, should be at Paris in the study of letters, and on that very day should depart toward Venice, that they might join themselves with Ignatius.

[121] Ignatius therefore, a beast being bought by his companions on account of his great weakness, [he returns into Spain; he hands down Christian doctrine to the boys among his own people,] enters upon the journey into Spain: and comes into his native land a little stronger than he had departed from Paris; where all the priests came out to meet him. But that he should turn aside to his brother ^l, he could by no means be brought; but lodged in the public and hospital house, and began to collect alms from door to door (his brother much resisting), and to teach the boys the rudiments of the Christian faith. From the explication of which indeed his elder brother, that he might turn Ignatius away, alleged the future paucity of hearers. But Ignatius said that even one boy alone would be to him instead of all: and, fearing nothing either the will or the prudence of his brother, he undertook to hand down that very instruction of the faith, to which afterward his brother himself too came, and a great abundance of men flocked.

[122] But to the sermons which on each Lord's day, he delivers a sermon with a signal contempt of himself, and on some feasts, he held to the people with great fruit of the hearers, so great a concourse was made from the distant places of that province that, on account of the multitude, he was compelled to preach in the fields, and the hearers to fill the trees. But in the first sermon which he held at Azpeitia, a great multitude of the whole nobility and people hearing, Ignatius is said to have said a certain thing, which I will here subjoin, both that we may see with how great zeal he consulted both his own mortification and contempt, and the fame and estimation of another; and indeed that we may understand how great a difference there is between the ways of God and of the world, and how diverse and altogether contrary a path those follow who live with God as leader and author, from others who serve flesh and blood, and wallow through every kind of misdeed. Which is also to be seen in the book of the Confessions of the most blessed father Augustine, in which he most bitterly bewails the errors of his adolescence; and enumerates as a great and most grievous crime what he did as a boy; similar to this example is that which Ignatius narrated about himself, and the histories of the Saints are everywhere filled with similar examples.

[123] openly accusing himself of a certain fault, Ignatius therefore said in the sermon that he had indeed returned to his native land, both for other causes, and indeed especially, that those peoples whom he had of old, as a grievously erring youth, offended by depraved morals, he might, by some change of a better life, if he could, edify, and might wipe the stains of his past life with tears, and openly expiate the faults contracted, by good deeds, that the same might be witnesses of his penance who had before been witnesses of his loose and profligate life. But especially he said that he had long and much been in great grief and sorrow, and harassed by the most bitter stings of conscience, because as a youth, together with other youths, he had entered at the same time into the garden of a certain citizen, and had stealthily carried off a little abundance of fruits, to the great loss of the owner. Who, because he did not know the author of the theft, deceived by a false suspicion, had caused a certain man to be delivered into custody, and to be fined a certain sum of money: and so, by no fault of his own, by no desert, that wretched man had been despoiled both of his fame and of his goods. I, said he, am guilty: he is innocent; I offended, I erred; he paid penalties not due: and calling the man himself, who was by chance present in the sermon, by his own name, he again and again asks him that he would forgive him. That he indeed had wished publicly to satisfy his good estimation (as was fitting): and that he might also repair the loss of goods which he had suffered on his account, and, as far as he could, compensate it, he said that he had two possessions, which he gave to him as a gift, all hearing.

[124] and removing the abuses of others there. By which works indeed, and by the example of his life and prudence, he so profited among those men that he corrected many errors; he did not cease to amend vices which had crept even into the morals of the priests, and which by long custom had now besieged the name of honesty: and he established many things which pertained to conforming the morals of men, and augmenting piety. Among these severe laws were passed by his labor by the magistrates, concerning dice-play, concerning the concubinage of priests. For since by ancestral custom the virgins, until they were delivered to a husband, were with head uncovered, many, by a most evil example, when they lived basely with clerics, likewise veiled the head, just as if they had been joined to them in legitimate matrimony: to whom they kept faith, as to husbands. Which nefarious and sacrilegious practice he took care should be utterly removed: and provided that expense for sustaining life should be supplied to needy and beggarly men: and even that thrice in the day, morning, noon, [and] evening, the people should be summoned to pray,

be admonished by the striking of a bell, and that supplication should especially be made to God for those who were held bound by some deadly sin. By which things, and other things established of this kind, relieved of the disease, by which he was hindered even in his native land, he departed to transact the business of his companions.

[125] He goes to various places of Spain; thence sails into Italy, But since he wished to go on foot, and altogether without any money, another contention of Ignatius with his brother is renewed. For he, who had reckoned it a shame to himself that his brother had turned aside rather to the poor than to himself, [and] had lived, abject and despised, with the utmost contempt of himself, even by begging in his sight, that he might remedy this disgrace, and repair the loss of his obscured honor (as it could seem to less prudent estimators of things), vehemently contended for this, that he should depart on horseback, and well provided with money, and accompanied. Whom, that Ignatius might soften, it did not cost much labor to prevent his brother and the rest of his kinsmen from accompanying him as he set out. When the companions had departed, and he himself had gone out of the borders of that province, he left the horse, and, empty of feet and of money, came first to Pompeiopolis: then traversed Almazán ^m, Sigüenza, [and] Toledo, that he might transact the business given him by his companions. Which being so transacted with their parents that he did not accept even a farthing from them, even freely offering money of their own accord; at length he came to Valencia ⁿ. There, his friends contradicting and dissuading the voyage (because Barbarossa, the noble arch-pirate of the Turks, was then by chance said to beset the Tyrrhenian sea with a strong fleet), moved nothing by the greatness of the peril, he embarked. That voyage was grievous and perilous: for the mast of the ship being broken, and much of the rigging either lost or shaken by the force of the tempest, there seemed to be no hope of safety: from which all prepare themselves for death.

[126] Of whom Ignatius, diligently searching himself, and thoroughly testing and exploring his mind, and with the greatest peril comes to Bologna. could in no way fear. Yet he was pricked with a sharp bite of grief, because he had not hitherto sufficiently answered the divine gifts: because, so many benefits with so full a hand having been conferred on him by God, he had used them less strenuously and diligently, either to his own or to his neighbors' utility. That peril being gone through, and the waves appeased, he came to Genoa; thence to Bologna with the greatest and most grievous danger of life. For when he was making his way alone along the roots of the Alps, he strayed from the way, and fell at one time into such straits that, in a high and precipitous place, with a river deep below and most rapidly gliding beneath, he could neither advance nor go back, since, wherever he turned himself, a precipice of wondrous height, and the horrible dread of an impending fall, met him everywhere. But he accomplished a good long space of the way, creeping on hands and feet, and by the mercy of God at length escaped. At the very entrance of the city of Bologna, he fell from a little wooden bridge into a ditch, from which, when he had emerged smeared with mud and defiled with filth, he moved the spectators to laughter: and so, having entered the city, and walking about the whole of it, asking alms, he found no one who would give him a farthing or a little morsel of bread. Which in so opulent, and so celebrated and benign a city, is very marvelous: but the Lord sometimes proves His own. There however he contracted a disease, which a little after he drove off, and betook himself to Venice in the manner in which he had come. There he awaits his companions who were to come, as had been agreed among them.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VIII.

Accusations at Venice; the arrival of the companions; labors in the Venetian dominion.

Cap. VI.

Nor however was Ignatius idle at this time: At Venice he applies himself to the salvation of his neighbor, for with his wonted vigilance and charity he applied himself to the salvation of his neighbors. Wherefore he moved some to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord. In this number are placed two full brothers, James ^a and Stephen Guia, honorable men, and advanced in age, who, returning from Jerusalem, fell in with Ignatius, whose familiars they had been at Alcalá, at Venice, and afterward died most holily in the Society. Among these too is numbered a certain Hozes, a Spaniard, a learned and honest man, who was indeed much taken with the virtue and doctrine of Ignatius; yet did not dare to commit himself wholly and utterly to him, because he had heard many things about him, either maliciously fabricated by the wicked, or imprudently believed by the unskilled. But Ignatius at length impelled the hesitating man to incline himself to making the spiritual Exercises, doubtfully indeed and timidly at first, but afterward even of his own accord and confidently. For when at the beginning, lest any poison should be instilled into him by Ignatius, he had brought with him many books into his chamber, to whose standard he might test the truth of his sayings; and, if any error were infused, might heal it by this, as it were, present medicine: yet afterward he joined [his] Society and mind with him, and was numbered among the rest of the companions.

[128] He contracts familiarity with the Cardinal Theatine, At Venice too he had familiarity ^b with John Peter Caraffa, who afterward was called Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff. Who, the Theatine bishopric being left, had joined himself as a companion to Cajetan ^c of Vicenza, Boniface of Piedmont, and Paul the Roman, noble and pious men. From whom the Order of those men drew its origin, who are commonly called Theatines: because the Theatine (as we said) bishop had embraced the institute of that life. From whom, by the error of the common people, the false appellation of Theatines was transferred to us, and the surname. For since both Orders, ours and theirs, are of Clerks Regular, and were born at almost the same time, and not very dissimilar in habit; the rude people, deceived by the external appearance, imposed an alien name on ours, first at Rome; whence it then flowed into other cities, and penetrated even into remote provinces.

[129] He also cultivated some noble Venetians, and patrician men, with the spiritual Exercises, he helps noble Venetians to virtue, and is falsely accused. and much helped them by counsel to pursue virtue. But certain persons, either suffused with malevolence, or deceived by a false persuasion, spread the rumor that he was a fugitive, that in Spain he had been more than once bound in custody: that, his statue being delivered to the fire and burned, he had fled: that not even at Paris had it been permitted the man to live: and that, fleeing even from that city, he had consulted his own safety. At length it came to this, that the matter was brought into judgment: and inquiry was diligently made into his life and morals. And since the whole matter rested on a lie, it easily fell. For Ignatius, now providing not for his own, but for his companions' fame, lest the undefended truth be oppressed, contended with all zeal, and obtained, from Jerome Verallo, who among the Venetians filled the office of Legate of the supreme Pontiff, that he should declare by his sentence the whole matter, diligently investigated and known. And of the sentence, by which the integrity of Ignatius was made manifest by the Legate through his ordinary judge, there is with us a copy ^d.

Cap. VII.

[130] While Ignatius awaits his companions at Venice, a grievous war suddenly blazed up in Gaul. For Charles V, emperor of the Romans, Of his companions, setting out from Paris to Venice, with a great army, invaded Gaul through the borders of the Insubrians. Wherefore ours, who had appointed for their setting out that day which is consecrated to the Conversion of St. Paul, of the year 1537, were compelled by the warlike tumult to anticipate it, and to depart from Paris on the fifteenth day of the month of November 1536. But they arranged the journey ^e in well-nigh this manner. All, each laden with the little bundle of his writings, in vile and abject dress, made the journey on foot. Those who were priests (and there were three, Peter Faber, Claude Jay, Paschasius Broët) performed the divine service daily: the other six fortified themselves against the grave difficulties of the long and troublesome way by the virtue of the heavenly bread. As they entered a lodging, and as they went out, prayer was the first care. On the very way meditation succeeded prayer, [and] discourse about divine things succeeded meditation: their food frugal and sober. In deciding matters, they stood by the opinions of the majority, and that with the utmost concord.

[131] They endured daily rains through Gaul, the wintry harshness through Germany. Yet glad At the manner of the journey, and their arrival. and alacritous they underwent the unaccustomed and hard labor: and, God being leader, they were freed from many and the greatest perils (which in such long journeys is wont almost to befall especially newcomers, unknown and needy men). Moreover, on the very day on which they went out from Paris, some, admiring the habit, gait, [and] number of our fathers, familiarly asked of a certain rustic, who by chance was gazing rather curiously on them as they passed by, who those men were? and he, by I know not what afflatus, in French, They depart, said he, to reform some province. They came to Venice on the eighth ^f day of January, of the year 1537, where they joined themselves most alacritously with Ignatius, awaiting them (as had been agreed among themselves), and with another priest, whom we have already said to have joined himself to Ignatius.

[132] They labor in the hospices; Xavier signally triumphs over himself: And since the time did not yet seem ripe for going to Rome, and asking a blessing for the journey to Jerusalem from the Supreme Pontiff, meanwhile, all things being intermitted, five of them go to the hospice of Saints John and Paul, [and] as many, to the care of the sick poor, to the hospice which they call that of the Incurables. Where, while with singular charity and diligence they undergo all the vilest offices, while they refresh the afflicted with whatever things they can, they attained a great estimation of probity and religion. But when of the rest

of all the rest, and indeed especially the kindled charity of master Francis Xavier, and his full and perfect victory over himself, most shone forth then indeed; who, not content to perform sedulously those things which were the most filthy, that he might more perfectly conquer the horror which he felt, sometimes even licked the ulcers running with matter. Such was his beginning: nor was the progress, or the end, unlike. By those fathers then, the foundations of the probations of the Society were laid.

[133] they set out for Rome wretchedly; Toward mid-Lent they set out for Rome ^g: Ignatius however remained at Venice on purpose ^h. But the manner of the setting-out was this. Three went together; one priest, two laymen; Gauls and Spaniards always mixed. The priests performed the Mass daily, the others communicated. They fasted (because it was the time of Lent) each day; and took so much only for food as was supplied from alms; which was so slender that not rarely bread only was their food, water their drink. Wherefore our fathers went through many and great labors and troubles in this journey: and it happened that on a certain Lord's day, when they had taken in the morning only a little morsel of bread, with bare feet, in the greatest and continuous rains, they accomplished eight and twenty thousand paces, amid so great an abundance of inundating waters that sometimes they stood out only as high as the breast. Yet they proceeded alacritous, and exulting with the utmost gladness of mind, [and] chanted the Psalms of David. And even master John Codure, who had his feet sprinkled with the itch, was healed on that very day.

[134] The fathers on that journey felt many proofs of the divine providence toward them; but God favoring them there, by Ortiz, and were affected by God with pleasures so solid and exceeding that they equalled, or even conquered, the magnitude of their labors. There was then at Rome doctor Peter Ortiz, sent into the City by Charles Caesar, that he might plead before the supreme Pontiff the cause of the violated matrimony of Catherine, queen of England, the emperor's aunt, against Henry VIII, who, she, his lawful wife, being alive, had married another ⁱ. He, against their opinion ^k, moved by a divine impulse, embraced our fathers, who had entered the city, with the utmost benevolence, and led them to the supreme Pontiff.

[135] The Pontiff was very much cheered by the sight of ours ^l, and wished that on that very day on which they had first come to him, they should dispute before him about a proposed theological question. Venice being reached again they become priests. Besides, he contributed sixty gold coins for their provision: and most benignly imparted his blessing, and the faculty of going away to Jerusalem. To those also who were not initiated in sacred orders, in the name and title of voluntary poverty and sufficient literature, the power of receiving sacred Orders was liberally granted ^m: others too, especially Spaniards, each according to his ability, supplied money for the expenses of the journey. And so the sum gathered [was] ten above two hundred ducats: which money, without the peril of transport, was procured at Venice from merchants. For neither did ours, until they should ascend the ship, wish to touch anything of it: but altogether beggars and empty, in whatever manner they had come, they returned to Venice to those hospices of theirs. A little after, at the feet of Jerome Verallo, then archbishop of Rossano, Legate of the Apostolic See among the Venetians, but afterward also a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, the vows of poverty and chastity being piously undertaken, they were initiated in sacred orders, and Ignatius ⁿ, and the other six ^o, obtained the dignity of the priesthood on the very day of St. John the Baptist, from the bishop of Arbe. On which day indeed, in the very consecration, both the bishop and they themselves felt a very great and even singular pleasantness of mind.

Cap. VIII.

[136] While the fathers prepare themselves for the voyage, all hope of sailing was taken away. For since at that very time Excluded from the voyage to Jerusalem, the Venetians, against the tyrant of the Turks, had conspired with the supreme Pontiff and Charles Caesar, the sea being strewn with fleets, the voyage of the pilgrims to Jerusalem had ceased. Which indeed for many years before had never happened: nor from that time up to the year of the Lord 1570 did it afterward happen. For God, who most wisely moderates and rules all things, was planning something greater and ampler than what our fathers were contriving, they neither thinking nor knowing. Wherefore by a plainly admirable and divine providence He interrupted the appointed course of ours to Jerusalem, and turned it elsewhere. Therefore ours, after they see that no hope of sailing that year is shown, to fulfil the religion of their vow, and to free their faith, nevertheless resolve to wait an entire year: but, that with a freer mind, and empty of other occupations, they might prepare themselves for performing the sacred rites of Mass, they judged that they must withdraw elsewhere.

[137] Wherefore Ignatius, Faber, [and] Laínez [go] to Vicenza; they labor in various places of the Venetian dominion: Francis Xavier and Salmerón to Monselice: John Codure and Hozes (whom we have already said to be numbered among ours) to Treviso: Claude Jay and Simon to Bassano: Paschasius and Bobadilla withdraw to Verona. All are engaged in the dominion of the Venetians, nor do they anywhere go out of their borders. Ignatius therefore and his companions find, outside the town of Vicenza, a low and ruinous little house [p], its doors torn off, its windows removed, pervious to the winds blowing around. In this they place their dwelling; a little abundance of straw being brought in, they strew the ground for lying down. Twice daily they enter the town, to seek their sustenance, which they brought back most slender: for they scarcely had bread, as much as was enough to sustain life; to which if a little oil or butter had been added (which however was most rare), that indeed they numbered among delicacies. Of the three, one remained at home, to macerate with water and cook through the hard and moldy bread. That one was generally Ignatius, who then labored most grievously in his eyes, on account of the very great force of flowing tears. What time was given from procuring alms, all that was given to prayer and the meditation of divine things.

[138] In this manner of life they placed forty days: which being finished, They preach at Vicenza. John Codure came to them at Vicenza: then by common counsel they resolve to undertake preaching. On the same day therefore, and at the same hour, in four different squares of the city, they begin first to cry out with a clear and loud voice: they call the men together with their caps shown by hand and turned about, and invite them to hear the sermon. A multitude of the people being then gathered, they make words about the foulness of vices, about the beauty of virtue, about the contempt of the world, about the magnitude of the divine love toward us, about the rest of the things which conduce to declining the servitude of sin, [and] to pursuing a good and blessed life. Their speech indeed was ineloquent and unpolished, and, because they were then rude in the Italian tongue, conflated from a mixture of very many languages; but pious and learned, and, as it were, a hammer crushing rocks. Wherefore from unpolished words indeed a great emendation of morals followed.

ANNOTATIONS.

p In a deserted, half-ruined little hut of the suburban field, pervious to the winds, they tarried forty days: in which place the fathers of the Capuchin family afterward built themselves a house; from Ribadeneyra at Quartemont chapter 8. But from Carnolius chapter 13 we have that this place was part of the ancient monastery of the fathers of the congregation of St. Jerome of Fiesole, etc., and that the Capuchin fathers hold in veneration a certain chamber, called St. Ignatius's, by a tradition confirmed from an old manuscript, that the Saint dwelt there: where also these verses are read: Venerate this place: here Ignatius was a guest: A Saint, who was greater than the whole world.

CHAPTER IX.

A companion cured by St. Ignatius; the universities surveyed; the apparition of the Lord Jesus; the entrance into the City; the stay of the Saint on Monte Cassino.

Cap. IX.

While Ignatius is engaged in these works, and applies himself with all the powers of mind and body to the glory of God and his own mockery, St. Ignatius marvelously heals Simon Rodríguez at Bassano; at Vicenza, broken by labors, he fell into a fever. Father Laínez likewise was assailed by a disease: and at that very same time Simon Rodríguez too was gravely affected at Bassano (which town is distant from Vicenza by a journey of about one day). But when Simon's disease grew worse, and seemed lethal; Ignatius received news of that matter, and straightway, and indeed at that very time laboring with a fever (Laínez being left sick in the hospice of the poor), he set himself on the journey on foot together with Peter Faber toward Bassano with such ardor of mind, such swiftness of feet, that Faber could scarcely follow Ignatius going before and preceding by a long interval. When they had advanced a little, Ignatius turns aside a little from the way, pours forth prayers to God for the safety of Simon, [and] is made certain by God about the future health of the man. Rising moreover from prayer, he says to Faber: There is no reason, Peter, why we should now labor so anxiously about the safety of Simon: for neither will this disease, which vexes him grievously, also extinguish him. When he had come to Simon, lying in bed and almost consumed by the force of the sickness, embracing the man: There is nothing, said he, Simon, that you should fear, you will be healed: and so he recovered. And this deed of Ignatius Peter Faber, the companion of that journey, when he returned to Vicenza, narrated to Father Laínez, [and] Laínez narrated to me thus, as it has been set forth by me. But Father Simon, as long as he lived, both acknowledged and proclaimed this benefit.

[140] At Bassano there was a certain Antony, an Italian by nation, who on a high hill outside the town, where Antony the hermit dwelt: where there is a certain church of St. Vitus, and a most pleasant view of the lovely valley which the river Medoacus ^a waters, cultivated a solitary life. Now Antony was an old and aged man, of ancient severity, unlettered indeed, but candid and of notable opinion of sanctity, who by his morals and even by his very aspect would recall to us that great Antony, or

some Hilarion. I myself afterward knew the man. This Antony, since he did not greatly esteem Ignatius, who displayed nothing extraordinary, nay rather in his heart reckoned him imperfect, being once intently given to prayer, learned by an appearance, the Lord showing it, that he was a lofty and admirable man, and sent down from heaven for the salvation of many: and began to be ashamed of himself, and gravely to reprehend himself and his judgment, as he himself afterward confessed.

[141] Seized therefore with admiration of the life of Antony, one of the ten fathers, [whom, that one of Ignatius's companions might not follow, befalls by a marvelous chance.] when he was at Bassano, and Ignatius together with him, began to fluctuate and doubt whether it would be more grateful to God and more useful to himself to pursue the begun course of life, or to transfer himself to Antony, and, being at leisure for contemplation, to pass a heavenly life, and one empty of the noise of men and cares. When he was pricked longer by the stings of these thoughts, having gone out of the house at one time, he resolved to go to Antony, that he might, namely, communicate his counsels with him. As he advances, a certain man of terrific aspect, armed with a threatening countenance, meets him, standing in the way with a drawn sword. Struck by the aspect of the man, the father first stops; then, when he had collected himself, went on to go; but he, threatening and fierce, makes an assault, and, as he was with the sword drawn from the sheath, pursues him. Ours betook himself to his feet as much as he could, and, trembling, began by flight to consult his own safety. The armed man pursued him fleeing for some while, the inhabitants seeing and wondering at ours fleeing and trembling; not seeing the other pursuing. At length, anxious at the novelty of the thing, killed by fear, panting with the long running and fatigue, he hastily bursts into the house where Ignatius was. To whom straightway Ignatius: Do you thus, N. ^b, waver? Of little faith, why did you doubt? Which signification of the divine will took away all doubt from the father, and dispelled the mist poured over his mind. This he who saw it, who suffered it, narrated to have happened to him.

Cap. X.

[142] After those light excursions of our fathers, all came together to Ignatius at Vicenza: They divide themselves into various universities, which city had been greatly moved by his life and doctrine and that of his companions. Wherefore, in the city in which three at the beginning scarcely sustained life with bread and water only, and were compelled to beg their sustenance from the neighboring villages, that city at length, eleven being gathered into one, abundantly supplied all things necessary. The new priests had performed their first Sacrifice, except Ignatius alone. In this assembly, when they see the hope of sailing to Jerusalem to be drawn out longer, they resolve to go about some illustrious and celebrated universities of Italy, and those most filled with studious men; to see if perhaps God should deign to rouse someone out of so many ingenious youths, of whom those universities abound, and lead him to the same institute of life. At the beginning of winter therefore they so allotted the provinces that Ignatius, Faber, and Laínez, the chief companions, should go to Rome itself: Salmerón and Paschasius to Siena: Francis Xavier and Bobadilla should set out for Bologna: to Claude Jay and Simon fell Ferrara; Padua fell to John Codure and Hozes.

[143] and they are at leisure for their own salvation and that of their neighbor, In which province, besides that care which was to each the greatest and proper, of thoroughly purging his mind, and of not only amputating from it the branches of desires, but even tearing out the fibers of the roots; they strove, as much as they could, to join also the salvation of their neighbors with their own salvation, and to kindle them in all ways to the zeal of divine things. Moreover the method of administering the province was this. On alternate weeks each companion had power over the other: they begged their sustenance from door to door: they preached in the public squares. Before the sermon, he who obeyed placed under the feet of the companion who was to preach a bench borrowed from some shop for a pulpit: with voice and cap he called forth the people to hear the word of God. In the sermon nothing was asked: nothing was afterward received from the surrounding multitude, not even offered of their own accord. If they had found anyone more desirous of heavenly doctrine, him indeed they most gladly instructed privately, and, as occasion was given, even polished.

[144] by exercising apostolic labors. They heard the confessions of many: to boys and rude men they handed the instructions of the Christian faith: to the sick and afflicted poor lying in the hospices (where, through their greater occupations, it was permitted) they sedulously ministered. Finally they omitted nothing which made for augmenting the glory of Christ, and for deserving well of men. By which things they were everywhere the good odor of Christ, and many perceived a singular fruit from their intercourse. And from that slender and small beginning, both the name of our Society became known and its fame grew common, and its fruit was propagated through Italy and amplified. This I will not omit: at Padua ours were cast into prison by the bishop's vicar, and bound with chains. In which prison indeed they passed one night so gladly and cheerfully that Hozes could scarcely restrain the laughter bursting forth from the gladness of his exulting mind. But the next day, the matter being better perceived and known, they were freed by the same judge, and thereafter always held in the place of sons. And these things indeed [did] the other companions. Now let us pass to those things which Ignatius did in his journey and administration of his province.

Cap. XI.

[145] Being therefore now adorned with the priesthood, he took an entire ^c space of a year for preparing himself, and collecting his mind more, [When the holy Man was preparing himself for his first-fruits, he was heavenly illustrated;] that he might more purely offer first to God the Father the most august body of Jesus Christ our Lord, the living and true victim for our sins, in an odor of sweetness. At which time, with his whole heart he applied himself to the meditation of divine things, and day and night besought the most blessed Virgin and Mother of God that she would place him in grace with her Son: and that she who was the gate of heaven and the singular conciliatrix of God and men, would herself open for him access to the Son, that, recognized by the Son, he himself might recognize and find the Son. And so through this whole time he had marvelous illustrations, at Venice, at Vicenza, in other cities, on the way: so that he seemed restored to himself into that state which he had had at Manresa, where beyond measure (as we said) he was illustrated. For at Paris, in the time of his studies, he received neither so notable nor so many notions about divine things. Moreover, in the whole journey which he had appointed, together with Faber and Laínez, toward Rome, to go about his province, he was singularly both illuminated and confirmed by God, and daily, his companions performing the Sacrifice, was refreshed by the body of the Lord, and perceived marvelous and plainly heavenly pleasures of the mind.

[146] But it happened, when they were approaching the City, that, having entered a deserted and solitary church, he prayed more ardently. refreshed too by a famous vision in the Roman countryside: There his heart was utterly changed; and the eyes of his mind were so illumined with the clearest light that he clearly saw how God the Father most lovingly commended Ignatius and his companions to God the Son bearing the cross, and delivered them into His invincible right hand and patronage. Whom, when the most benign Jesus had received into Himself, with a bland and placid countenance, as He was with the cross, turned to Ignatius, I (said He) will be propitious to you at Rome. By which admirable and divine vision ^d Ignatius was marvelously refreshed and confirmed; and after the prayer he said to Faber and Laínez, What will happen to us at Rome, I plainly know not: whether God wishes us to be driven to the cross or to the wheel: yet this I have found out and ascertained, whatever end awaits us, that Jesus Christ will be propitious to us. And he laid open to his companions the whole matter which he had seen, that he might add both courage and goads to them. Whence it also came about that, when afterward, about the Society to be instituted, it was agreed between Ignatius and his companions, yet a name was sought by which, marked and noted, it might be confirmed by the Vicar of Christ; Ignatius obtained from the rest of his companions that it should be open to him, at his own discretion, to impose on the Society what name he wished. Which he did, all approving and most willing.

[147] And both by that illustrious vision, and by other divine illustrations, many and great, the Lord Jesus so impressed and deeply fixed His most sacred name in his mind whence he gave the name to the Society of Jesus: that from His name he imposed a name on the Society, illumined with so clear and firm a light, and so holding it for certain that God willed this, that he said he could never be moved from this mind. And what he did with his companions willing and consenting, that he would altogether have done with them resisting and dissenting, on account of the clarity of the divine light. And so he willed it to be called ^e the Society of Jesus; that those who should be called hither might recognize themselves as enrolled not in some Order of Ignatius, but called into the Society of the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord: that they should serve under that supreme emperor, follow His standards, eagerly take up their cross, and look to Jesus, the author and consummator of faith, who, joy being set before Him, endured the cross, contempt being despised. And lest, failing in their minds, they should be wearied, let it be certain and persuaded to them that their leader is at hand to them: let them hope that He will be always propitious not only to Ignatius and his companions, as we see Him to have been hitherto, but to themselves also, if indeed they show themselves true sons of the Society, and imitators of their fathers.

[148] the truth of which vision is corroborated, The things which about this admirable vision, and most sweet and lovely promise, I have hitherto said, by which Christ our Redeemer promised Ignatius that He would be propitious to him at Rome, father James Laínez, when he was Superior General of our Society, and made words at Rome in a certain assembly of all of us (at which I too was present), narrated in this very manner in which they have been written out by me. And Ignatius himself, while he lived, being interrogated about certain things of this very heavenly illustration, Seek (said he) from James Laínez; to whom, when the thing was done, I truly and faithfully narrated the whole matter. Moreover in a certain little memoir ^f and Diary (in which, while he wrote the constitutions, Ignatius daily referred with his own hand his affections in prayer and, as it were, spiritual tastes) I found written, Such (says he) an affection I felt today as when the eternal Father commended me to His Son. And these things indeed about the most clear and divine illustration I wished to explain one by one, and, as it were, to show with the finger the founts whence they were drawn, because it is exceeding, and most suited to raising up and strengthening the sons of Ignatius in hope. I could indeed, in similar benefits which God conferred on Ignatius, that He might instruct him and illustrate him with the splendor of heavenly things, which this history of mine embraces, do this very same thing, and refer by name what authors I have; but, lest I be longer, I omit to do it.

Cap. XII.

[149] Having entered Rome, he began attentively to survey all things in mind, to look around at all things: The occupations of Faber, Laínez, and Ignatius in the City. and above all to prepare himself to sustain all the assaults of the devil. For he foresaw that a great tempest was impending over him and his. Wherefore he once said to his companions, I see all approaches closed: a certain great storm of a perilous time

is prepared for us; but we rely on Jesus; He will be propitious to us. A little after, the doctrine of the companions of Ignatius being explored, they were ordered by the supreme Pontiff publicly to profess the sacred Letters. In the school of the Sapienza therefore Faber unfolded the recondite and manifold senses of sacred Scripture: Laínez explained the questions of theology, which uses more of method and reasoning: each discharged his office learnedly and gravely. Ignatius's care was to move men, and to snatch them to heavenly things.

[150] Wherefore he attacked with great counsel Doctor Ortiz (of whom we made mention above), a most grave and most learned man. Whom, once alienated from him, afterward less averse, he so bound to himself and obligated by intercourse When on Monte Cassino Ignatius imbued Ortiz with the Exercises, that a man of that age, and conducting a public business with the greatest estimation, desired to be instructed by Ignatius, and reckoned the doctrine of the spiritual Exercises of higher priority than all those things: to which, that he might be wholly polished, he resolved to give himself, at Ignatius's discretion. But that he might be freer, and more empty of interrupters, he judged that he must withdraw ^g for a while from Rome to Monte Cassino, a place above all ennobled by the life and burial of St. Benedict, and by the very religion and solitude of the place most suited to divine contemplation; there for forty days he was instructed by Ignatius, and made such progress in heavenly doctrine and true self-knowledge that he professed that he had learned a certain new theology, hitherto unheard by him, and far preferred it to that erudition which he had procured for himself by the utmost study of so many years. For he said that there was very much difference between meditating to teach others, and meditating to do it oneself: because the former illumines the mind; the latter also inflames the will. Wherefore he always judged that he had received a great benefit from Ignatius, and even showed it: and that he might return the favor, he was afterward the greatest both friend and defender of the Society.

[151] While Ignatius is on Monte Cassino, Hozes (to whom, we said, Padua fell as a province together with John Codure) departed from life, he sees the soul of a companion entering heaven. and being consummated in a short time, fulfilled long times ^h. Who, when alive, was blackish and deformed, so much of comeliness and splendor was added to his dead face that Codure could not satiate himself with gazing on him, [and] made no end of looking upon him, with great gladness of mind and abundance of tears. His death the mind of Ignatius divined long before, who also on Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict saw the soul of Germanus, bishop of Capua, borne into heaven by angels in a fiery sphere, himself saw the soul of that one surrounded with the clearest light, and penetrating into heaven, and recognized it to be the soul of Hozes. Then also, when he gave his labor to the sacred rite ⁱ, and in the general confession (which is premised before Mass) had come to those words, and to all the Saints, he saw a great number of the Saints, shining with glory, set before his eyes; among whom Hozes too was present, in a more splendid habit than the rest, and with a much more illustrious glory, not because he was holier or more blessed than the others: but because God had wished the glory of the man to be, by this more notable form, ascertained by Ignatius (as he himself related) and attested. From which thing his mind was filled with such gladness of mind that for many days he could not repress the most sweet weeping from the recollection.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER X.

The deliberation about constituting the Society; a great tempest at Rome; the labors of Ignatius and his companions both within and without it; St. Francis Xavier and Simon Rodríguez destined for the Indies.

Cap. XIII.

The peoples among whom they had lived being moved, and the cities incited to piety, [From the sermons of the Fathers at Rome the frequency of the Sacraments introduced.] toward mid-Lent in the year 1538, all the fathers come together to Ignatius at Rome: they turn aside into the house and vineyard of Quirinus Garzonius, a pious man, which is situated not far from the monastery of the Minims of the most holy Trinity ^a: there in great poverty, bread being sought day by day, they live: then they begin to preach: Ignatius in Spanish in the church dedicated to the blessed Mary of Montserrat; Faber in that of St. Laurence in Damaso; Laínez in that of the Savior at the Laurel; Salmerón in that of St. Lucy; Claude in that of St. Louis; Simon in that of St. Angelo at the Fish-market; Bobadilla in that of St. Celsus. By these sermons it was effected that the people, after a long interval, was moved piously to frequent ^b the Sacraments of confession and the Eucharist. Whence that ancient and most holy custom of confessing sins and communicating more often, now intermitted for so many ages, then first began to be recalled in the City.

[153] They deliberate about constituting the Society, Besides, cast down from the hope of the journey to Jerusalem, they restore entire the sum of money which they had received for provision, to him from whom they had received it. And since a departure, by the order of the supreme Pontiff, was at hand for some in various directions, they deliberate among themselves also about coming together into a Society, and about constituting their life for the future: and they decree, above all with the consent of all, to apply themselves more fervently than usual to prayers, meditations, and Sacrifices, and to beg grace of establishing rightly and holily from Him who denies to no one the good spirit asking, but gives to all abundantly, upbraiding no one. By day they diligently gave their labor to the salvation of their neighbors; by night they were at leisure for prayer and consultation.

[154] having first held On the first night of consultation ^c therefore, it was asked whether, when they should be separated from one another, and sent by the supreme Pontiff into various and disjoined regions, they ought to be so bound among themselves, and joined together by mutual charity, as to be in one body, so that some should take care of others, and no separation of bodies, however great, should effect a separation either of mutual care or of solicitude, much less of love. By the common consent of all it was decreed that the benefit of God must be acknowledged, who had willed men from such diverse provinces, morals, geniuses, [and] conditions to conspire into one body, and the utmost consensus of minds: and that His conjunction, marvelously consenting, must not be disjoined, nor the unity torn asunder, whose virtue is always more robust for undertaking arduous things and pursuing them, and for sustaining and repelling all adverse things. In the second place it was proposed whether it were expedient to add to the vows of perpetual poverty and chastity, uttered by them already at Venice before the Legate of the Apostolic See, a third of perpetual obedience; and to choose someone who should be the head and parent of the whole Society. In untying this knot much and long labor was spent. At length some things were devised and undertaken by them for the easier explication of the proposed difficulty.

[155] The first was, that they should remit nothing of the utmost contention of praying and beseeching the Lord: but should apply themselves with their whole heart to this one thing, about the things to be done that they might find joy and peace in the Holy Spirit in obedience, and, as far as was in them, might have a will more inclined to obeying than to commanding. The second, that they should not converse among themselves about this matter, lest anyone perhaps, by the counsel or persuasion of anyone, should lean to either side. The third, that each should call himself away in thought from this congregation, and reckon himself as an altogether alien man, so that, the affections which do not permit judging incorruptly about things being laid aside, all deliberation might be sincere. Finally, for many reasons, which it would be long to enumerate, and especially that, according to their measure, they might be like the head, Christ, who, lest He should lose obedience, lost His life, made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and that they might retain that virtue which is the chief in the state of Religion, and the greatest: and might follow altogether the afflatus of the Holy Spirit, exciting them to perfection, and to a victory over themselves absolute in all respects: all, with one mind, with one mouth, decreed that obedience ^d must above all be retained in the Society: and that someone must be chosen who should be set over the whole Society, to whom all should submit their judgments and wills.

[156] In this same manner many other things were established by the fathers through three months with the utmost zeal, and defined with the greatest consensus of minds: by mature consultation. of which kind are those which follow. Whoever shall profess, let them utter an express vow of obedience, by which they may offer themselves ready to the supreme Pontiff, to whatever provinces of the faithful or infidels they be sent ^e. But concerning their mission let them deal nothing, either through themselves or through another, with the same Pontiff. Let them teach boys the rudiments of the Christian faith ^f. Those who shall wish to be enrolled in the Society, let them be proved by the spiritual Exercises, by pilgrimage, and by the hospices. Let the Superior General be perpetual ^g. In counsels and deliberations, let the greater part of the opinions ^h be superior i.e., prevail: and some other things of that kind. From which arose that formula of the Institute of the Society which afterward the supreme Pontiff, it being proposed to him, approved.

Cap. XIV.

[157] While these things are done by the fathers, that grievous tempest, long before foreseen by Ignatius, arose. Infamous calumnies scattered against him For when a certain friar, Augustine of Piedmont, of the Augustinian family, was preaching in the City, and secretly infusing into the people the poison of the Lutheran doctrine, being recognized by our fathers, he was refuted in public sermons. Certain Spanish friends of his (whom it is not necessary to name ⁱ), trusting in their wealth and authority, in turn undertake, for the Augustinian, an accusation against Ignatius and his companions, a minister being employed for that matter, a certain Michael ^k, a Spaniard, toward whom at Paris there had been many and great merits of Ignatius. Therefore they scatter most iniquitous rumors, both about the rest of the companions, and indeed especially about Ignatius: that in Spain, at Paris, [and] finally at Venice he had been condemned of heresy: that he was an altogether criminal and lost man, who perverted all divine and human laws: they cast besides many crimes upon the spiritual Exercises ^l, upon the companions themselves.

[158] The holy Man wishes the matter to be juridically cleared: And Ignatius resisted those waves spiritedly and bravely, and pursued the matter by judgment, and took care that the truth should be illustrated and laid open. For when he noticed that the very throat of the Society was aimed at,

and that it was being done by the common enemy of the salvation of all, that he might either stifle the now approaching and almost mature birth of our Religion, or pollute it with some infamy; he thought that he must strive with all contention against his attempt. And so, the wiles being uncovered, that Michael was condemned by the judge, and sent into exile: but the other accusers, princes in authority, first remitted much of the accusation, then even trembled, [and] at last turned the accusation into praise; and that before the Cardinal of Naples, then Legate of the supreme Pontiff, and before the governor of the City. Who, judging that enough had been done to the truth by their confession, wished the controversy to be settled in silence. Which indeed, his companions and friends approving, Ignatius alone approved less; lest anything of disgrace should sometime break out into the Society from the oppressed truth. Namely, the judgment being cooled, and the memory of the thing done growing old, since about the accusation it was agreed, [but] about the absolution it was kept silent, men would easily suspect that this had been given to favor, and to the zeal of men contending for Ignatius and his companions, that the truth might lie hidden in darkness, and be covered with silence.

[159] nor does he abstain from his undertaking; but urges the matter with the Pontiff: Which was the cause why, moved by the authority or power of no one, not even by the will of his companions, or the counsel of his friends, Ignatius suffered himself to be moved not even the least from his opinion; but stuck in this, and most insisted, that the matter, being brought into judgment, should be altogether declared by the sentence of the judges: a man inglorious to himself, but most honored by Christ and the brethren. Who, as long as it was treated only of himself, wished to use the patronage of no one for his defense: [but] when he saw the glory of God, and the salvation of others, brought into peril, he strained all the sinews both of mind and body, that, the mist being driven off, the light of truth might show itself. Wherefore, when he noticed the judges averse from pronouncing sentence, Ignatius goes to the Supreme Pontiff himself at Tusculum: sets forth the matter in order in the Latin tongue: how often he had been in chains, how often in custody, and for what causes, candidly and entirely lays open: shows how great an impediment would be cast upon divine things, if that matter should lie lulled and despised in silence: briefly enumerates the reasons by which, led, he desires the end of the matter. Which when the Pontiff had approved, he commands the judge that he hasten the matter, and pronounce sentence for the truth: which he also did.

[160] [In the judges deputed to this cause the marvelous providence of God shines forth.] But in this judgment this fell out divinely, that those who in Spain, at Paris, [and] at Venice had been judges of the life of Ignatius, they at one and the same time from those very places, one for one cause, another for another, had come together into the City, and, produced as witnesses, all gave an illustrious testimony of his virtue and innocence. For there had come from Spain John Figueroa, he who at Alcalá, as vicar general of the Archbishop of Toledo, had cast Ignatius into prison, and, his integrity being known, had freed him: who, afterward raised to the most ample grade of dignity, president of the royal council of Spain, died in the year 1565. There had come from Gaul Doctor Matthew Ori ^m, a theologian of the Dominican family, as we said, before whom, as Inquisitor of the faith, Ignatius had been accused at Paris. There had come Doctor Gaspar de Doctis, by whose judgment Ignatius had been absolved at Venice, and defended against his calumniators, since he was in that city the ordinary judge of Jerome Verallo, Legate of the supreme Pontiff: these were the witnesses of the virtue of Ignatius. But the copy of the sentence by which Ignatius and his companions were absolved, since it embraces others passed before that time, we have judged must be added word for word.

[161] B. Conversivus, elect of Britonoro, Vice-chamberlain of the fostering City, and general governor of its district ⁿ. By a juridical sentence the Saint with his companions To all and singular, to whom our present letters shall come, greeting in the Lord. Since it much concerns the Christian commonwealth that those who, in the dominical field, by the example of their life and by their doctrine edify very many unto salvation; and likewise those who, on the contrary, rather seem [*] to oversow tares, be publicly known: and since certain rumors had been spread, and delations made to us about the dogmas and conversation of life, and the spiritual Exercises, which they confer on others, of the venerable men, the lords Ignatius of Loyola, and his companions, namely Peter Faber, Claude Jay, Paschasius Broët, Diego Laínez, Francis Xavier, Alfonso Salmerón, Simon Rodríguez, John Codure, and Nicholas de Bobadilla, masters of Paris, secular priests, of the diocese respectively of Pamplona, Geneva, Sigüenza, Toledo, Vich, Embrun, and Palencia. Which dogmas of theirs indeed, and Exercises, were said by certain persons to be erroneous, superstitious, and somewhat abhorrent from Christian doctrine.

[162] We, according to the duty of our office and also by a special mandate of our most holy Lord the Pope, innocent diligently observing about these things, inquired into what seemed opportune for a fuller cognition of the cause, to see if perhaps we should find true the things of which the aforesaid were blamed. Wherefore, having first examined certain gainsayers against them; and having considered partly the public testimonies, partly the sentences from Spain, Paris, Venice, Vicenza, Bologna, Ferrara, and Siena, which were brought forth in favor of the aforesaid venerable men, Lord Ignatius and his companions, against their accusers, and, in addition to these, having judicially examined certain witnesses, greater in morals, doctrine, and dignity than every exception: at length we found that all the murmuring and gainsaying, and the rumors spread against them, were supported by no truth.

[163] Wherefore we have judged it to be of our part to pronounce and declare, as we pronounce and declare, it is declared; that the aforesaid Lord Ignatius and his companions, from the aforesaid delations and whisperings, not only incurred no mark of infamy, either of law or of fact; but rather brought back a greater clarity of life and of sound doctrine: since we certainly saw [*] that the adversaries had objected vain things and utterly alien from the truth: and, on the contrary, that the best men had exhibited the best testimony for them. This our sentence and pronouncement therefore, that it may be a public testimony to them against all adversaries of the truth, and for the serenation of all, whoever shall have conceived that sinister suspicion about them, under the pretext of such delators and accusers, we have thought must be made: warning moreover and exhorting in the Lord, and asking all and singular of the faithful, that they may have and hold the said venerable men, Lord Ignatius and his companions, for such as we have found them to be, and Catholics, all suspicion whatsoever ceasing. Yet so, insofar as they shall have remained in the same tenor of life and doctrine, God helping (which we hope). Given at Rome, in our houses, on the eighteenth day of November ^o of one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight. B. the Governor, who signed above. Rutilius Furius, secretary [p].

[164] but the accusers wretchedly close their lives. Moreover that Augustine of Piedmont, who was the fount and origin of all this accusation, the mask being laid aside, afterward openly and publicly became a Lutheran [q]. But such was the end of the accusers, that, ours being silent, and praying for them, both their life and their doctrine betrayed them: which was so foul and detestable that the statue of one was burned at Rome, when he himself had snatched himself by flight from the fire: the other, condemned to perpetual prison for heresy, who however toward the end of his life repented, and condemning his own life and errors, so died at Rome that one [r] of our fathers received the last breath of the man.

Cap. XV.

[165] A great tranquillity followed the storm of the false accusation: That tempest conciliated authority to the companions even outside Rome; and the things which had been prepared by the devil to obscure the truth, they (as is wont to happen in all things which indeed rely on divine patronage) had availed rather to illustrate it more. Wherefore many supreme men ask of the Supreme Pontiff some of ours, some for one place, others for another: the Pontiff willingly grants them. There were sent therefore master Paschasius to Siena, that he might reform a certain monastery of consecrated virgins: which he both accomplished, and by the integrity of his life, meekness, and notable candor of Christian simplicity, excited the zeal of many toward God. To Brescia master Claude Jay, who by the sweetness of his morals, and every kind of virtue, obligated to himself the minds of that city, and joined them to Christ. With Ennio Filonardi of Veroli, Cardinal of St. Angelo, went to Parma and Piacenza master Peter Faber and master James Laínez; who in those cities gathered very great fruits from their labors, and joined to the Society not a few both men and youths of excellent nature. But into Calabria set out master Nicholas Bobadilla, where he much cultivated to piety certain rude and rustic peoples.

[166] But at Rome a great name in the time of the dearth. Nor indeed were those who had remained at Rome idle: for since the dearth of grain in the city was so great that many either perished of hunger, or, consumed in strength, lay everywhere in the squares: the fathers, that they might remedy this evil, as far as it could be done, began to beg money from every side, to seek out bread, to cut herbs into a pottage, to gather the greatest crowd of beggarly men they could, to lead them home, to wash their feet, to refresh with food those worn out by fasting, to cure the ulcerous, to teach the rude, [and] finally to omit no office which pertained both to the cure of the body and to that of the mind: and it happened sometimes that the whole house was so filled that it scarcely held the needy men sought out and snatched from the midst of the squares, when three hundred or four hundred lay on hay strewn on the ground. Which thing affected the people with great admiration, and excited the piety of others to a similar zeal [s]. For many most illustrious men, and among them some Cardinals, moved by this example, strenuously gave their labor, lest the poor should be oppressed by the want of provisions. And so they fed three thousand needy men in various places. To ours besides some, and those illustrious, both youths and men, were joined.

Cap. XVI.

[167] We have said that at Paris there was a certain doctor of theology, James Govea by name, he who, as moderator of the college of St. Barbara, moved by unjust indignation, first appointed the punishment of the rods upon Ignatius; Workmen for the Indian vineyard then, appeased by the truth and the innocence of the man, turned the prepared punishment into honor and reverence. He was a pious and grave man, and most closely joined with Ignatius, benevolence being gained from that error. Who, affected with a great desire of the glory of God, and having explored the equally kindled will of Ignatius and his companions, and their feelings consenting to the salvation of men, wrote to Ignatius that a great door had been opened in the India of the East; that a most broad field lay open to him and his companions, if any perhaps should wish to seek those regions: that he desired to know what he thought; with what mind he himself, with what mind his companions were. To these things Ignatius replied that he and his were in the power of the Supreme Pontiff: that they looked to His command, His nod: and that, wherever on earth they might be sent by the Vicar of Christ, they would not refuse the command.

[168] This response being received from Ignatius, Govea informs John III, being asked of by John III, king of Portugal, his king of Portugal, of the whole matter. The king, affected not so much with the desire of propagating [his] empire, as of amplifying the Christian name,

and most desirous of the salvation of the Indians, commands Peter Mascareñas, his Orator before the supreme Pontiff, that he deal with Ignatius about this matter: that he send his letters to Govea, [and] Govea's to him: that he obtain from the supreme Pontiff, if not more, at least six: finally that he give his labor that, in order that he might accomplish the matter, he spare neither labor nor expense. The Orator discharged his office diligently: he addresses Ignatius: shows the king's letters. Moreover from Ignatius he receives this, that he and his were not of their own right: that it was the supreme Pontiff's to command: his own and his companions' to obey: that to obtain two indeed would not be, as it seemed to him, laborious; but more, very difficult. But when the king's legate insisted, and more vehemently urged Ignatius that, out of the ten companions, six at least should, according to the king's will, receive that province, Ignatius, with a serene and placid countenance, answered in well-nigh these words: If out of ten, for one province you take away six, what, good Jesus, will you leave to the rest of the globe of the lands?

[169] In sum, the Pontiff, being asked, orders that two of the fathers, and two being ordered by the Pontiff to go thither, at the discretion of Ignatius, set out into India: and there were chosen for this province master Simon Rodríguez and master Nicholas Bobadilla. Simon was then laboring with a quartan fever, and was carried by ship into Portugal. From Calabria Nicholas was summoned into the City, who, worn out by want and continual labors, and moreover laboring gravely in his leg, came at that very time in which Peter the Orator was preparing his departure into Portugal. Who, since he wished neither to defer the time of departure, nor to go away at all without another of ours as companion, and master Bobadilla, hindered by disease, could not follow the Legate: by a happy lot master Francis Xavier was substituted in his place in this manner. Ignatius lay sick, and, Francis being called to him, It is not, said he, Francis, hidden from you, that two of us must set out, by the order of the supreme Pontiff, into India: but that Bobadilla, destined for this office, is not permitted at present, through disease, to go, nor [is] the Orator permitted, on account of his haste, to wait. This is your office, Francis; this is your province.

[170] [by the marvelous providence of God Xavier is substituted by Ignatius for one of them.] Then he, most alacritously, Behold, I am ready. And so the next day he departed with the Orator: since he had had the time of a very few hours for saluting his friends, embracing his brethren, [and] mending his vile tunic. And he departed with such a mind and such a countenance that you could even then easily conjecture the providence of God most wisely and most sweetly disposing all things, and calling Francis to such glorious labors. And at that time Ignatius, the Society not yet constituted, although he held the place of parent, as one who had begotten those sons in Christ; yet was not Superior, so that he could command in the name of God. Whence the virtue of obedience and the ardor of charity in Francis shone forth more. This I will add, which I have several times heard about father master James Laínez. Long before, while James and Francis, traveling, made their way through Italy, it happened not rarely that Francis, awakened from sleep, roused James, and said: How wearied I am, good God! Do you know, brother, what happened to me in my rest? I dreamed that I had lifted an Indian, or an Ethiopian, on my shoulders, and carried him for some while, but so heavy that he almost oppressed me by his weight: and so I am very tired. Akin to this is what I received from master Jerome Domenech, who had great familiarity with Francis at Bologna. He affirmed that Francis, even from that time, was wont most gladly to speak about the affairs of India, and about the conversion of those peoples to the faith: as if his mind presaged that this province would sometime fall to him, and [he] displayed a kindled desire of that thing.

ANNOTATIONS.

p Of copies of this sentence sent elsewhere the just-cited Orlandini makes mention. There are here (at Rome), says Father Ignatius Pinius, five copies, all original, given on the same day, subscribed by the same governor and his secretary, and fortified with a seal. There may also be seen the things which the Apostle of the Indies writes to St. Ignatius in the second letter in Possinus, given at Lisbon on the 5th day before the Nones of July 1540.

q Concerning these things, as also concerning the end of the accusers, Orlandini treats book 2, no. 53.

r Father Avegnialeda, from Carnolius chapter 14.

s Among whom was Margaret of Austria; whose letter to the Saint is given in the Commentary §29, no. 299.

read: conantur* (they try).

read: viderimus* (we have seen).

CHAPTER XI.

The Society confirmed by Pope Paul III; the marvelous counsel of God in constituting it.

Cap. XVII.

But since Ignatius hoped that his labors and those of his companions, and the counsels undertaken for the salvation of their neighbors, would only then at last be both grateful to God and useful to their neighbors, The Saint obtains from the Pontiff the praise of the Society's institute, if the supreme Pontiff had approved them by his authority and judgment; he signified to Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, through Gaspar Contarini ^a, a Cardinal, his purpose and that of his companions: that he and his had devoted themselves wholly and utterly to the obedience of the Pontiff himself and of his successors: that they had consecrated all their labors and cares to the salvation of their neighbors: that he desired, and with the utmost vows sought, that the desires with which they had been kindled by God of cultivating the field of the Lord, might not be extinguished together with their life; but might grow up for the example of others, if perhaps God should deign to rouse some imitators of them. Whose Religion indeed should be that of Clerks Regular; but whose institute should be that they should be at hand at the nod of the supreme Pontiff, and altogether direct their life to that standard which, long before meditated, had been established by them. Which indeed the Pontiff, on the third of September, at Tivoli ^b, willingly heard and praised, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-nine.

[172] But afterward, Ignatius demanding a written confirmation of the institute of this kind, the business was given by the Supreme Pontiff to three Cardinals. then, three Cardinals opposing themselves in vain at the beginning, Who greatly fought that the matter should not be accomplished: but especially Bartholomew Guidiccioni ^c, a Cardinal, a pious and learned man indeed; but who less approved so great a multitude of Religious orders as is now indeed seen in the Church of God: moved perhaps by the decrees of the Councils of the Lateran and of Lyons, by which namely the multiplication of new Religious orders is prohibited: or certainly on account of the lapsed and fluid discipline of certain orders, which he judged must rather be recalled to its pristine state than that new Religious orders must be instituted: and he is said to have written a book on that matter. Wherefore, since he thought this, he sharply resisted ours, and alone of all most sharply opposed the confirmation of the Society, and some others joined their efforts with his; that, in proportion as the matter had been more vehemently agitated, and more slowly approved, so the will of God, confirming this institute through His Vicar, might be more attested and more illustrious. For all the envy was conquered, and all intercession removed, by the continual tears and prayers of Ignatius to God: who also resolved to offer to God, through himself and his own, some thousands of Masses, to obtain a happy end of so great a matter.

[173] but their minds being changed in Ignatius's favor, Whence both the heart of the rest of the Cardinals, and indeed that of Guidiccioni, was so changed that from an adversary he suddenly became a helper; and he, a little before so sharp a persecutor of new Religious orders, the end of the Society being perceived, exceedingly praised its institute. For he was so moved in mind that he even sometimes said: New religions I do not approve: this one, however, I dare not not approve. For I am so inwardly affected, I feel those motions of the mind divinely ^d, that whither human reason does not lead me, thither the will inclines; and I embrace by affection, in a manner unwilling, the things which before by arguments I rejected. Therefore he himself commended the institute of the Society to the Pontiff. The Pontiff, when he had read it through, comprehended in a certain formula ^e, vehemently approved it, and, by a Pontifical afflatus, said that the Spirit of God was here, and that he hoped that not slender fruits, nor small utilities, would come to the Church of God from so small and slender a beginning.

[174] he obtains the confirmation of it, with a certain restriction for a time. The Society therefore was confirmed in the year 1540, on the 5th day before the Kalends of October: yet definitely and cautiously: for the number of our professed was then circumscribed by these bounds, that it should not exceed sixty. Which we believe was also done divinely, that the middle things might agree with the first, [and] the last with the middle. For this Society, not yet born, in its author Ignatius, was first proved in Spain; then, now brought forth into the light, was gravely assailed in Italy and Gaul, before this confirmation of the supreme Pontiff: who, that he might proceed step by step, and by his very confirmation might prove the Society even more, added a certain number. Whence this confirmation of his was, up to the year 1543, a certain probation: in which year indeed, when, the Lord cooperating, and confirming the discourse of ours by its own virtue, the success was that which was hoped; by the same Pontiff that definition of number was removed. Then indeed from the year 1543 to the year

1550 it became more vigorous and robust, and, confirmed by Julius III and other Pontiffs, and augmented with many and great privileges, and more vehemently stabilized, as I will say in its place.

Cap. XVIII.

[175] And since we have arrived here, and have treated of the institution and confirmation of the Society, it will not be (as I judge) beside the point, if we investigate, according to our measure, what was the counsel of God in this very confirmation of the Society. The providence of God shines forth in founding the Society of Jesus For He sent Ignatius to His wavering Church, by a certain singular providence, as a help, that he might set both himself and his sons as a wall for the house of God against the fury of the assaulting enemies. And that this purpose of God the Best and Greatest may shine forth more, it is necessary that we diligently consider in what state the holy Church was at the time when Ignatius lived. For from this we shall better understand how great was the necessity of this help: [and] from the necessity the counsel of God will also more appear. Who indeed, like a certain most vigilant father of a family, never fails to hire workmen into His vineyard; but then most, when it seems more uncultivated and deserted. And, as king of kings, and lord of lords, most powerful and most wise of all, He does not cease to fortify the most ample kingdom of His Church: and to place in it the sacred Religions, as it were certain most fortified bulwarks, and to gird them with garrisons of the strongest soldiers, and to equip them with arms, provisions, and the things necessary for defense: lest the monsters of vices, heresies, and errors break in hostilely, and impunely declare war on virtue and truth, and seem to triumph over our most holy religion.

[176] God does nothing rashly, nothing by chance. For if a leaf of a tree does not fall without His nod; from its end, if He has all the hairs of our head numbered; and by His own providence reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly; how much more, in the institutions of Religious orders and sacred Orders (which are indeed far nobler and more excellent works of His), ought God to betray this His admirable providence, and to bring it forth more illustriously? And that we may gather something more certain, and attain the counsel of God by less doubtful conjectures; let us set before our eyes the end for the sake of which the Society was instituted; which indeed is that which the present time of the Catholic Church required.

[177] The Society of Jesus is therefore, as is contained in the letters of the Apostolic confirmation, which is engaged in defending and amplifying the orthodox faith: instituted especially for the defense and propagation of the faith. The faith is defended against heretics, [and] propagated among the heathen. Let us see therefore what need there was in our times, either to defend the Catholic faith from the assault of heretics, or to amplify it among the nations: for from those two heads it will perhaps be permitted to conjecture the counsel of divine providence. For at this very time, in which Ignatius drew this light, the Church of God suffered innumerable and most atrocious calamities from the infidels and from the heretics, and was vehemently weakened and diminished. And yet (such is the benignity of God toward His spouse) to repair these so great ruins, and to make good the losses which she suffers in Europe, the Lord marvelously laid open a new world, hitherto unknown, in which the light of the faith might spread itself more widely, and traverse innumerable and most broad provinces. I pass over now what slaughters it made, what provinces of Christians the Ottoman empire occupied, from about the year 1300, when it began, up to the year of the Lord 1491, in which Ignatius was brought forth into the light, what nations it subdued, what kingdoms it subjugated; in which, namely, the religion of Christ was either extinguished, or at least in a great degree afflicted and shaken, and the foul and hideous sect of Mahomet introduced.

[178] From which, at the first indeed when Ignatius received the use of this light, [to whose ruins, especially that which was brought in through Luther, God opposed Ignatius;] the light of our religion was in great part obscured in Lower Pannonia, its king Louis ^f being slain: likewise in Dalmatia and Illyricum. We lost Rhodes ^g, the bulwark of the faith, and the terror of the enemies, the island of Chios ^h, the kingdom of Cyprus ⁱ, Coron ^k, Modon ^l, Nauplia ^m, Malvasia ⁿ, Naupactus ^o, La Goletta [p], Tripoli [q], Bugia [r], and very many other most fortified places, once stormed by Christians, that in them the faith of Christ might flourish. What shall I say of the portents of heresies and errors which arose in our unhappy age? How many provinces they overturned; how many kingdoms they afflicted; how many commonwealths of Catholics they devastated; what calamities they did not bring in; with what evils they did not affect, vex, [and] ruin the whole Church? In the year of human salvation 1483 there was born in Saxony, a province of Upper Germany, the destruction of the human race and the most certain plague, Martin Luther. But in the year 1517 he began impiously to rave against the pardons of sins and remissions granted by the Roman Pontiff. And, the Furies driving him, in the year 1521 he openly declared war, by the highest crime, on the Catholic Church. In which very year God wounded Ignatius in the citadel of Pompeiopolis, that He might heal him, and make out of a vile slave of vanity a strong leader, and oppose him to Luther as a sharp defender of His Church. This is proper to the divine goodness. This is the most certain method of the divine counsel. Never does God desert His Church; but where it is most assailed, He rouses the strongest defenders.

[179] as He roused other men in other times. Thus to Simon Magus He opposed Simon Peter the prince of the Apostles, to Arius Athanasius, to Nestorius Cyril; to Jovinian, Vigilantius, [and] Helvidius Jerome; to Mani and Pelagius Augustine; to other heresiarchs and enemies of the faith He opposes other most illustrious defenders. Whence it was prudently observed by the writers of ecclesiastical History that, on the day on which Pelagius was born in England, that he might spread the darkness of errors over the world: on that very day, Augustine, the light of the Church, shone forth in Africa, that he might drive off the mist of the impious and nefarious man, and illumine the whole Church with his light. At the time when the Albigenses, and other masters of perverse doctrine, more importunely disturbed the peace of the Church, and the growing thorns malignantly choked the seed sown by the heavenly sower—those two lights and ornaments of the world, Dominic and Francis, as it were slipped down from heaven, that through themselves and through their sons they might bridle the assault of the heretics, tear out the roots of errors, remove vices, compose morals, [and] finally illumine the whole globe of the lands with their admirable life and doctrine, and kindle it to the love of God: as we read to have been done by those most holy fathers, and see to be done daily by their best sons. Those Religions which are called Military [s] were constituted in those times in which the holy Church, marvelously harassed and oppressed by the arms of the infidels, was to be defended and vindicated into liberty by the valor of Christian soldiers too.

[180] Which likewise holds especially in the Society concerning Luther, Which likewise is to be understood of the rest of the sacred Religions, and especially of that of which we treat, the Society of Jesus. For when Martin Luther, a monk, together with the habit of his Religion had put off shame also and the fear of God, and had most impudently celebrated sacrilegious and incestuous nuptials with a virgin consecrated to God, he raised the standard against the Catholic Church, declared war on the Vicar of Christ, enlisted soldiers, [and] finally incited all nations to arms with dire clamors and horrid blasphemies. There followed Luther on the spot profane, lost men, lovers of themselves, proud, elated, and desirous of new things. Among them were, in great number, frivolous poets, garrulous orators, [and] arrogant grammarians, who by verses, ditties, rhythms, comedies, [and] declamations both extolled their master Luther with marvelous praises, and most atrociously inveighed against the traditions, ceremonies, [and] ecclesiastical dignities.

[181] A great flock then of priests and monks joined itself to Luther: who, because with weak eyes they could not bear the most clear light of the Religions in which they lived, and its most corrupt followers, that they might more licentiously loosen the reins to lust, and wallow in the mire of the most base pleasures, left the cloisters of the Religions themselves. And, lest it could be doubted what impelled them to so great insanity, they burned like an oven kindled with fire; and, like stallions incited to pleasure, they neighed at the discourse of Luther, [and] took wives; deceived poor women, and even violated, by the highest crime, virgins consecrated to God: and indeed so impudently, so wickedly, that at the nuptials of a certain one of them, they even composed a Mass (if the name of the most sacred thing can be squared with so monstrous an insanity) most full of execrations and blasphemies, in which they praise the incestuous and covenant-breaking and impure priests, call them holy, [and] proclaim them illumined by God, because, the yoke of continence being shaken off, they clung to the embraces of wives; and they exhort the rest to do the same. Namely the heretics, as they are detestable in life and deeds, so are they far more detestable by the very incredible license of sinning and by unchastity.

[182] These nefarious and most lost apostates therefore began to preach liberty, apostates, that they might make men slaves of sin: to announce with the voice Christ crucified, but in very truth the Antichrist: [and] finally to persuade the faithful that they should cast away penance, the cross, [and] the true imitation of Christ, and be driven headlong through every kind of misdeed and baseness. At this very time the world was so contaminated with those vices, so worn out by those diseases, and wounded with wounds so incurable, that many easily admitted this doctrine, and drank the poison sweetly, and gave it as a draught to others too, as a salutary medicine. There were among them, from the dregs of the commonwealth, cobblers, tanners, dyers, [and] butchers, criminal men, and commonly infamous, and publicly condemned, and branded with the marks of ignominy, who arose as the new masters and preachers of this new gospel. For what other teachers would doctrine of this kind have?

[183] Nay rather, the audacity of certain garrulous and impudent poor women advanced so far and troops of impudent women; that, that modesty which is innate and proper to them, being wiped off—the modesty of women—and the precept of the Apostle Paul being neglected, [who] bids the woman to learn in silence in her house, and forbids her to speak in the Church, they ascended the pulpit, expounded the word of God, disputed in the assembly about sacred Scripture, provoked the most learned theologians to combat, [and] proposed old-womanish assertions and theses, or rather certain ravings, to be publicly defended: so that that saying of St. Jerome is true: What is the business of physicians, physicians promise, the business of smiths, smiths handle: the art of the scriptures alone is that which everywhere all claim for themselves: "We write, learned and unlearned, poems everywhere." This the garrulous old woman, this the doting old man, this the wordy sophist, this all presume upon, tear apart, [and] teach, before they learn. Others, led by their eyebrow i.e., haughtiness, weighing grand words, philosophize about the sacred Letters among poor women: others learn (oh shame!) from women what they may teach to men; and, that this be not too little, by a certain facility of words, nay rather audacity, they expound to others what they themselves do not understand. Thus he Jerome.

[184] This poison began to creep by contagion, and this Babylonian conflagration to diffuse itself daily more widely, and to acquire strength [by] certain great

princes' zeal: who indeed, the evil being augmented by the perverse desires of princes, either on account of ambition and wicked cupidity, and on account of the great gain which they hoped from ecclesiastical goods; or to nourish and sustain the enmities which they carried on with others: or blinded by other more turbulent motions of the mind, augmented by their power and benevolence the insanities of the lost preachers: and, by a certain color and pretext of religion, abused them, by the highest crime, for more easily attaining their own lusts. And since God had decreed gravely to punish our evils, He permitted us to be involved in other greater and more pernicious evils, and in well-nigh the greatest of all, which is heresy. And so there arose at this very time cruel wars between Christian princes, which are the torches of heresies and errors, and, the shepherds sleeping deeply, and the dogs being mute, the rapacious wolves made so great a slaughter (as, alas for grief, we see!) in the fold of Christ, and there followed innumerable and most grievous calamities from this new gospel, which most bitterly afflicted and deformed the whole Christian commonwealth; of which I will relate some: for to review all would be infinite.

[185] and the monsters of the old heresies and impieties being revived; At the beginning, they recalled from below almost all errors and pestilent heresies, which from the very beginning of the nascent Church have hitherto existed, now long buried: for scarcely out of the memory of all past ages was there any opinion so absurd, or blasphemy so impious, or doctrine so pernicious, or dogma so insane, which in our most unhappy time did not revive, and was not roused from Orcus by Luther and his disciples. Against the most holy Trinity, against the divinity of Christ our Lord, against the person of the Holy Spirit, against the most blessed Mother, and immaculate virgin Mary, against the most pure minds of the angels, against the Saints, against the souls which are expiated by the fire of purgatory, they raved with impure mouth, [and] finally, in hell itself, they found something to lie about and blaspheme. There is no Sacrament in the Church of God which they do not pervert: no sacred ceremony which they do not deride: no Apostolic tradition which they do not tear away: no part of divine Scripture which they either do not exclude, or do not deprave and corrupt with inept and pernicious translations, annotations, [and] interpretations.

[186] the councils, fathers, and Roman Pontiff being scorned, What shall I say of the most sacred councils, celebrated with the Holy Spirit as author and inspirer? What of the decrees of the most holy Pontiffs, publicly consumed with fire by Luther? What of the monuments of the most learned and most blessed fathers, who by the example of a heavenly life, and by admirable doctrine, illumined the whole Church of God, and inflamed it to the imitation of Christ our Savior: which, as antidotes and salutary medicines, and altogether contrary to their poisoned errors, those impostors mutilate, tear, [and] deprave? I pass over what they say and do, against the supreme power of the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth, and successor of Peter. For, like robbers and most foul parricides [who] pursue laws and magistrates with hatred: so all heretics always dread and shudder at the Roman Pontiff as judge. In sum, there is nothing so holy which they do not profane: nothing so firm which they do not try to shake: nothing so certain, so fixed, so received and established in the Catholic Church by the consensus of all ages, nations, [and] fathers, which they do not call into doubt, which they do not weaken, which they do not tear away.

[187] And since truth is always one, [but] falsehoods are many, and heresy being propagated through the various heads of the sects: and adverse and contrary to themselves: so many heads arose out of Luther as out of the Hydra of Lerna, so many sects and heresies came forth, that to enumerate them all is very difficult. For even out of the one sect of the Anabaptists, twelve other sects emerged, so fighting among themselves that, in whatever cities those and other similar plagues rage, you scarcely find a house where the wife believes what the husband believes; and where the son and servant follow what the father of the family embraces; and indeed with such inconstancy that they are most constant in that alone, being more changeable than the tide and every wind. They wage moreover among themselves the most grievous enmities, and pursue one another with more than Vatinian hatred: in this alone do they agree, that they make war on all Catholics, that they pertinaciously assail the Church of Christ with joined forces, and, like the foxes of Samson, set fire to the crops of the Catholics.

[188] Nor indeed was it enough for them to have roused pernicious errors, of which most mournful tragedy the scene and to have poured more than Cimmerian darkness over mortals, and to have ruined their souls with pestilent doctrine; but they raged monstrously against bodies too, and violently snatched this mortal life from almost infinite Catholics, from whom they could not take away the eternal. Most holy bishops, most religious monks, most sacred priests, most honorable virgins, and even those consecrated to God, innocent boys, old men venerable in age and hoariness, were slaughtered by them: and indeed so atrociously, so truculently and direly, that they devised new and exquisite torments, and even surpassed the savagery and monstrosity of all the tyrants over whom the strongest and most blessed martyrs of old triumphed. Let him read, who will, the histories of our times, which he will find filled with innumerable examples of unheard-of cruelty. How many most chaste virgins, to whom violence was offered by the heretics, because they would not abjure the Catholic faith, then, their breasts compressed within the bars of chests or presses, perished by a most wretched and slow death! How many men of sacred families and priests experienced the truculent barbarism of the heretics! Some were buried alive in the earth, others cast headlong from towers, others flayed: others boiled, or roasted alive; others [had] their skull transfixed with nails; others, gunpowder being cast into the mouth and kindled, burned, and torn into the smallest pieces. How often, from the ripped-open bellies of Catholics still breathing, and barley being cast among the very bowels of the pious as they were groaning, was food set out for the horses themselves, which shuddered at the unwonted fodder?

[189] How often were the wombs of pregnant and living women cut, and their palpitating fetuses drawn out before their eyes, in living colors dashed against stones, or cast into the fire, or bound to spits, [and] roasted with a slow fire? Who would believe that heretics are agitated by the Furies to such a degree, and destitute of all sense and humanity, that they cut off the nostrils and ears of priests, and God's inviolate ministers, and adorned with them the bridles of their horses; and, as it were, carried them about in public rejoicing, with great pomp, ferocity, [and] triumph? Who would believe them to have amputated the shameful members of most religious and most holy old men, to have cooked them, thrust them into their mouth, [and] compelled them to eat them with incredible impurity and violence? Yet these things, and others worse than they, have been perpetrated by the Calvinists in France, in our age. But if this ferocity and insanity of lost men raged only against men, [and] glutted its insatiable rage only with our blood; it would indeed be grievous, but yet less to be grieved over. But, oh wickedness! it makes war on God, on the Saints, on all sacred things, mingles heaven with earth, and, after the manner of the giants, fights with God. Temples, dedicated to God in honor of the Saints, they made profane: chalices, vessels, sacred vestments, the water of baptism, the oil of the sacred Unction, the bones of holy men, they polluted, violated, [and] scattered. Who could embrace in narration, or review by enumeration, the temples burned and leveled to the ground; the monasteries of men and women plundered and overthrown; the instruments of all sacred things trampled underfoot, and derided with the utmost ignominy, the relics of the most blessed men and those now reigning with God in heaven scattered and trodden underfoot?

[190] With what fury and rage they burned the bodies of the holy bishops Irenaeus, Hilary, Martin, Anianus, is represented: Thomas of Canterbury, Bonaventure, and others, reduced them to ashes, [and] cast them headlong into the river, demolished the images of the Saints, [and] delivered even crosses, and the image of Christ hanging on the cross, to the flames? But that which surpasses all impiety by infinite degrees, and which even the demon himself would shudder to think of, is that with which they many times most unworthily treated the most august and divine Host, in which the most true body of our Lord Jesus Christ is contained (O immense goodness, O clemency, and infinite patience of God!). Who is so stupid that he is not here roused; so alien from reason and humanity that he does not feel these things; who is there, who has even a spark of faith, whose mind at these things does not stupefy, whose tongue does not stick, whose senses do not fail? Nor indeed ought we to think that God suffers these things, and dissembles and connives at the most grievous injuries to Himself, for this reason, that He cannot animadvert against the most wicked and most flagitious men:

[191] There is not here, there is not a defect of power, but an excess of goodness: [God not punishing the sacrilegious here on account of the excess of His goodness:] God has not hands invalid for vengeance, but easy for pardoning: He proves our faith, gives certain proofs of His infinite clemency, waits that He may correct; awaits sinners, that He may heal; that they may either be amended by penance, or, by pertinacity and the stubbornness of an obstinate mind, be punished more slowly indeed, but more gravely. For God is wont to compensate slowness by the gravity of the punishment. For this Host, whom we see so impiously and nefariously received and treated by the heretics of our time, is the same Lord who struck and slew Uzzah, because he had incautiously and less reverently touched the ark of the Testament, which yet was only a figure of this divine Sacrament. He it is who slew fifty thousand of the Bethshemites, because they had too curiously looked upon the same ark. He it is who, in all ages and times, and even in our times, by the most clear miracles, in almost all provinces and regions of the globe of the lands, has many times attested the most true presence of His body, and the dread majesty of His divinity. He it is who not once affected the Jews, [and] the less pious Christians, with the most just and most grievous penalties, because they had treated Him unworthily and irreverently in the most sacred Sacrament of the Eucharist. And what He did upon those, He could certainly do upon the heretics, who surpass the Jews in perfidy, and the lukewarm Christians in impiety. But nevertheless God dissembles and acts patiently, on account of those causes which we have mentioned, and on account of others hidden to us, but most known to that immense wisdom of His.

ANNOTATIONS.

p To the French la Goulette; it is a citadel between the Mediterranean sea and the lake of Tunis.

q It is a most well-known city of Africa on the shore of the Mediterranean sea.

r In the kingdom of Algiers.

s Concerning the monastic, religious, and military Orders there is extant the History of Father Hippolyte Helyot.

CHAPTER XII.

Other proofs of divine providence in the institution of the Society.

And although, compared to those things which we have related, the rest are less, yet what shall I say of the thefts, robberies, All things turned topsy-turvy by the heretics in Germany, plunderings, rapines, burnings, [and] slaughters, with which, by the utmost injury and tyranny, the ministers of Satan harassed an infinite multitude of men? What shall I speak of the conspiracies, rebellions, tumults, dissensions, perturbations, [and] discords of citizens, which, as soon as the plague of heresies arose, wandered through the most peaceful provinces and the most flourishing kingdoms? In Germany, Luther being author and impeller, the peasants took up arms against their lords; and it was fought with such contention that a hundred thousand of the peasants were slain by slaughter; so great slaughters were made that in the single province of Franconia above 200 castles, and monasteries of Religious men, were utterly overthrown. The Catholic Cantons (as they call them) of the Swiss, for their ancestral religion, with a small band, fought with the heretical Cantons, standards being joined, and routed and defeated them, though they were relying both on number and on the valor of their soldiers, in three battles, and burned Zwingli, their master and leader of error. A great part of the states of the Empire revolted from Charles V, the emperor, held a levy, enlisted soldiers, [and] gathered an innumerable army, that they might oppress him, and drive him from all Germany: but the true religion, whose cause was being pleaded, God being leader and author, brought back a glorious victory over the most powerful enemies.

[193] and Gaul, What is left of any calamity which the once flourishing kingdom of France has not suffered? How long-lasting and cruel wars often waged; how much blood was shed, how often between Catholics and heretics, and with how great contention it was fought, the victory always inclining toward the true religion? How often did most lost and nefarious men conspire against the kings of France, Francis II, Charles IX, [and] Henry III, that they might slaughter the parents of the fatherland, devastate the most noble and most powerful kingdom, [and] destroy the Catholic religion? And unless God, regarding the vows, prayers, [and] tears of pious and most upright men (who in France are still innumerable), had unwoven the counsels of the impious enemies, repressed their attempts, [and] retarded their assaults; it would have been all over with that most Christian kingdom: in which there was so great, and so open and nefarious, a rebellion of the Huguenots, that there are those who have handed down in letters, to their everlasting ignominy, that they crowned Louis of Bourbon, prince of Condé, as king, and that he struck a golden coin, on which was this inscription: "Louis XIII, by the grace of God king of the Franks, the first Christian." Which inscription is most arrogant, and injurious to all the most Christian kings of France.

[194] the help of the Turks being even implored for this: Nor content with these things, that nothing might be lacking to the utmost wickedness, they even sent their orators to Byzantium to the emperor of the Turks, that they might solicit that most foul enemy of the Christian name to move arms into Gaul, Spain, [and] Germany, and promise their aid, and show the hope of the matter being well conducted, intestine discords and tumults being excited in those kingdoms by their labor: that by this means they might perturb the state of the most powerful kingdoms, and extinguish the Catholic religion, if they could. But such is the estimation of prudent men about monsters of this kind, that even the Turk himself scorned to hear their embassy, because he said that the Huguenots were so abject and despised that it was unworthy that the supreme emperor of the globe of the earth should be joined with them in any friendship or treaty, [men] who were impious toward God, rebels toward their king, [and] perfidious toward the rest.

[195] likewise in England, Finally, the disturbers of the common peace and tranquillity conspired even against the Catholic and most approved woman Mary, queen of England, and besides against Philibert, duke of Savoy, because he had extirpated the heretics from the Vale of Angrogna, lest their evil should creep more widely through his dominions: and against very many other princes they contrived ambushes, that they might take them out of the way. In whose number is the king of Scotland, whom the heretics tried to kill: but his mother, the queen, they captured, and cast into custody, because she was Catholic, and delivered her into the power of Elizabeth, queen of England, who was burning with hatred of her. Which Elizabeth, although she is a woman, wishes to be called and held the supreme and spiritual head of the whole English Church: and by sowing discords, bringing aids, [and] supplying expenses, craftily and cunningly nourishes, augments, [and] inflames war against other kings: but against the Catholics of her own kingdom she rages with such implacable monstrosity and ferocity that all barbarism seems surpassed by her.

[196] Who is ignorant in what mourning it lies, in how great sorrow it is, with what and how long-lasting calamities it is oppressed, in Lower Germany, the once flourishing and most happy province of Lower Germany? which are so grave and bitter that they pervade even to other kingdoms far situated, which are bloodless, emptied, [and] exhausted, all things—the people's sustenance, the sinews of the taxes, the blood of the treasury—being consumed in war for defending religion. How much human blood, from the time when Luther first sounded the trumpet, has been shed, for the sake of religion, through all the provinces of the Christians? How many depopulations of fields, plunderings of cities, overthrows of towns, burnings of temples, spoliations of monasteries, slaughters of peoples, disasters of provinces, [and] destructions of kingdoms have followed? In the very space of eleven years, I have read in a grave writer, in Gaul and Flanders five hundred thousand and more men were slain in war. But in another writer, I read that in one year only, which was of our salvation 1567, in Gaul alone above 600 monasteries were burned and overthrown, and five thousand priests and ministers of God were slaughtered, with the utmost cruelty, by those bloodthirsty preachers of the new gospel.

[197] In silence I pass over very many other provinces shaken and afflicted by the grave commotion of the heretics. and various Northern provinces I will not say what regions they infected, in what kingdoms these furies and plagues either destroyed or shook the Catholic religion. Nor will I record Upper and Lower Pannonia, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, and other innumerable provinces toward the North, miserably defeated and convulsed, lest my discourse exceed measure. One example only of a thing done will I relate, by which the things which have hitherto been said may be better understood. Münster is a city, the most noble metropolis of the province of Westphalia: from it the heretic Anabaptists violently ejected all the priests, the monks, the most honorable knights, and all the most prudent Catholic citizens opposing them, plundered their houses, [and] pillaged their goods. Then they create a certain cobbler, a most despised and contemptible man namely, king, [and] place a diadem upon his head, with that pomp and all the solemnity which is wont to be employed in the coronation of true kings. This one is called the king of justice upon the earth: he takes very many wives: out of them he chooses one chief, as it were a queen more honored than the rest, with whom he undertakes to preach and to perform the office of a priest: he sends twenty-eight insane and fanatic preachers, and, as it were, apostles (for so he named them), into various regions to disseminate his impure gospel.

[198] What more? The end of this fable was tragic and mournful. being truculently afflicted, For the king ordered his wife to be struck with the axe in the middle of the marketplace, because she wept and lamented, like a woman, the miseries and calamities which that city was suffering from the army of the Catholics besieging it. But the King himself, the city being captured, first torn apart with the most atrocious torments, at length by the extreme punishment paid the most just penalties of his impiety and madness. Are these evils enough many? Are not the fruits of the new gospel rich and copious? Yet this is not the end. For besides other infinite damages which those destructive prodigies brought into the globe of the lands, this certainly is not the least, that they corrupted nature itself, and so perverted and changed for the worse the laudable and most approved morals of certain nations, that many who before were honorable, temperate, and almost cold i.e., passionless, from the doctrine of those men are most flagitious and most profligate, and inflamed with certain torches of lust. Those who once excelled in fidelity and modesty, are now unfaithful, and always intent on fraud. Those who by virtue and fortitude of mind were wont to join hands with the enemy, to close foot i.e., stand their ground, and, fighting most bravely, either to fall or to conquer, have now learned to turn their backs to the enemy, to flee, and, their arms being cast away, to tremble. Where the zeal of doctrine and of wisdom flourished, now is the utmost ignorance of letters. Nor indeed is it a wonder; for always power and wisdom follow the true religion, as certain companions: but, that being taken away, which is mistress and governess; these, as it were handmaids, follow their mistress departing.

[199] Luther especially sounding the trumpet. That I may therefore collect myself, and contract my discourse: these are, out of the almost infinite number, some fruits which sprouted from the doctrine of the heretics, as from a root: for a bad tree does not make good fruits, and from a turbid and pestilent fount, wholesome and sweet water does not flow. For the spirit of the heretics is the spirit of license, of blasphemy, of evil-speaking, of tyranny, of cruelty, of pride. For it is the spirit of Satan, by whom they are instigated, impelled, [and] agitated. But the spirit of Luther was fouler than the rest, and more detestable, and far surpasses the wickedness and impiety of all past heretics. Which, that it may become manifest, and be established more clearly than the sun, Luther himself did not hesitate to write that the devil was known to him by face: that he often appeared by night, that he ate pecks of salt with him, and even disputed with him, and heard from him sophistical and, in appearance, probable reasons and arguments, both against other true and solid and ancient dogmas of our most holy faith; and indeed especially against the truth of the most sacred Eucharist, and its worship and veneration. That we may namely clearly and certainly understand that the injuries and contumelies of Luther's disciples against the most august and most excellent of all Sacraments, which we touched above, flowed, as it were rivulets, from the fount of Luther.

[200] Add Calvin and the Huguenots; the kingdom of Spain Although, if we wish to bring forth that which is the fact, the spirit of the Calvinists and Huguenots surpasses this pestilent spirit of Luther in impiety, violence, truculence, and every monstrosity: and is most pernicious and most calamitous not only against Catholics and the true religion, but against the very provinces themselves, and commonwealths, kingdoms, [and] finally against every kind of men, and can truly be called the conflagration of the globe of the lands. And these so great evils which other nations, infected with the stain of heresies, experience, and the goods of peace and of entire religion, which Spain by the grace of God enjoys, ought vehemently to excite us

both to make much of this so great benefit of God, and to render to Him for it the greatest and immortal thanks. Both these will they do more willingly and more readily, whoever, having gone out from Spain into other provinces, have gone about and surveyed those regions which the unbridled fury of the heretics depopulates and afflicts. They will be able, with less trouble indeed, to weigh the infinite evils of heresies according to the atrocity of the matter, and to compare them with our peace, and the tranquillity of the public state. We ought also to strive, as much as we can, and to give our labor, that we may correct our vices, lest by our sins we lose the singular gift of the faith, which other nations by their sins have lost: and day and night to appease and weary God with our prayers, that He may keep Philip, the Catholic king, unharmed and most happy as long as possible: who, according to his ancestral and exceeding piety, the utmost prudence, incredible vigilance, [and] the greatest power among all the kings who ever were, sets himself as a wall for the house of God, and defends the Catholic faith.

[201] Which indeed he furnishes not only by invincible arms, Spain being marvelously preserved from the heretical plague: and salutary counsels, but also by those watches of the sacred fathers who preside over the senate of the Catholic faith, and, sitting in a certain perennial vigil, avert the fury of the heretics from our necks, and the most certain plague from the borders of Spain. Which most holy tribunal of the faith, for the conservation and defense of the faith itself, God the Best and Greatest, by admirable providence, instituted in the kingdoms of Castile and León in the year from the birth of the Lord 1481: but in Aragon, Valencia, [and] Catalonia, in the year 1483, in which very year Martin Luther was brought forth into the light. So that even from this very conjunction of so opportune a time, the counsel of God may become manifest, most providently opposing to the enemies of the faith the tribunal of the faith as an antidote to poison. For although, when this most holy council of the faith was first instituted, men, ignorant and improvident of things to come, thought that it was instituted only for this, that through it Spain might be purged of the foul superstitions of the Jews and Saracens: yet God, who, by His immutable prescience, equally embraces from all eternity things past, present, [and] future, foreseeing the most profligate and most pestilent heretics who would arise in our times, constituted the senate of the most holy faith in Spain to ward off from it also the future calamities of the heretics.

[202] But let these things be said in passing; let us return to our purpose: to which the divine providence and let us inquire into the causes of the divine counsel in the institution and confirmation of the Society. At the time therefore when Martin Luther, as a certain destructive fury, with a band of the wicked and lost, emerged from Orcus, that he might shake and tear apart the state of the Catholic Church, and, like a certain dragon falling from heaven, drag with him into ruin the third part of the stars: at that very time God, who has the very greatest care of His Church, roused another Man, unlike Luther, and utterly contrary, a defender of the Church, a most sharp enemy of the heretics, an amplifier of the empire of Christ. But since it was decreed by Luther and his sons both to pervert all other divine and human laws, and especially to make an assault on the sacred Religions, and to overthrow, if it could, and extinguish, the apostolic men living most holily in them: that, those being taken out of the way, as it were shepherds and dogs, he himself, like a bloody and fierce wolf, might more impunely snatch and disperse the sheep of Christ; by the incredible providence of God it was brought about that this new Society was instituted especially for the defense of the faith itself.

[203] The institute of this Order is to help the other most strong leaders and soldiers of the rest of the Religions, He opposed the Society of Jesus, for the defense of the faith. strenuously fighting for the faith and the glory of Christ, and to bring help and aid to those laboring. But where the garrisons of others are lacking, to send its own soldiers, armed: soldiers who suffer not the enemy to advance further, break his furious assault, and snatch the prey from his bloody jaws. This the Society furnishes especially in those regions and provinces which are more perilously infested by the arms and cunning of the heretics: in which, namely, because the other Religious, who illustrated them by life and doctrine, have either altogether failed, or very few (and those indeed prostrate, weakened, and worn out) remain, the Society necessarily took this province, that it might, according to its slenderness, repair the so great ruins of the Church, and repress the heretics hostilely breaking in, lest they seem to exult in a lie, and, before the imprudent and simple, to celebrate a triumph over truth and religion. Moreover, by what method the Society furnishes this, and with what fruit, it will be permitted to read summarily hereafter in some books of this history ^a.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIII.

The orthodox faith propagated among the Indians.

Cap. XIX.

And these things indeed pertain to coercing and bridling the heretics, The marvelous providence of God and to the conservation of our most holy faith. Now let us pursue in this chapter, if it please, the things which pertain to the propagation and amplification of that same faith (which indeed is no less either necessary or admirable). Into which propagation if you intend your eyes, a great admiration will seize you, perceiving the infinite wisdom of God and His providence in this matter: a great admiration again, [and] piety of a grateful mind, considering the inexhaustible treasures of His mercy. For to me indeed certainly the opening of the new world, discovered by our men, is for a miracle; and without doubt he will judge the same, who has attentively weighed with himself first, how many ages have flowed by from the time when first the use of contracting affairs began among the nations, and commerce, from the facility of navigating, and the opportunity of passing into other provinces: then how curiously the most illustrious and most powerful kings of old searched out hidden provinces and regions, and took care to subject them to their empire: then with how kindled a zeal, and exquisite diligence, most learned men, and most excellent cosmographers, applied themselves to this care, that they might review, divide, [and] distinguish all the parts of the globe of the lands, and set them before our eyes, depicted and expressed. Lastly, the insatiable cupidity of mortals for gold and silver, and the immense thirst for riches, inflamed by which, "The tireless merchant runs to the farthest Indians, fleeing poverty through the sea, through rocks, through fires":

[205] in the detecting of the new world; concerning which various [statements among the ancients:] These things, I say, if anyone rightly and diligently consider with himself, he will assuredly wonder at the secret counsel of God, who hid so great a thing for so long, and in our age laid open to us innumerable provinces, most powerful kingdoms, most noble commonwealths, immense seas, unheard-of regions, most broad coasts of lands, [and] finally, in a manner, another world, most full, most filled with gold, silver, gems, spices, [and] perfumes, most heaped with an incredible abundance of all things. For so great is the quantity, variety, beauty, salubrity, [and] price of the things conveyed to us from the new regions, that it exceeds all credence. And he will wonder more, if anyone read the vestiges of the new world, and, as it were, certain indications, among the ancient writers. For both in Plato, under the name of Atlantis, some (though obscure) mention of it is made: and openly in the tragic Seneca, in those verses: "There will come in later years ages, in which the Ocean shall loosen the bonds of things, and a vast land lie open, and Tiphys shall detect new worlds, nor shall Thule be the last of the lands." By which he seemed to some to have pronounced things to come, as if inspired by a poetic spirit. And the Carthaginians had some knowledge of unknown regions, and found a certain remote, deserted, [and] fertile island: and the Phocaean inhabitants of Cadiz, having gone out from the Strait of Hercules, sailing most prosperously with the East wind, were driven to new lands, as has been handed down to memory by Aristotle. And Strabo, from Heraclides of Pontus, narrates that a certain Eudoxus, sailing from Cadiz into India, arrived in Ethiopia. Nor are there lacking those who write that in the India which is toward the West, an effigy of Augustus Caesar was found in the veins of gold, and was sent to Rome, to the supreme Pontiff, to prove the truth of the matter.

[206] But these and other arguments of the same kind are light and uncertain. as God repaired in it the loss of the orthodox faith. This [is] most certain, that God (whose judgments are hidden, whose counsels can by no reasoning be investigated) reserved this so great miracle for our times. Both because the power and tyranny of the Turks daily more and more greatly contracted the borders of the Christian empire: and because the fury of the heretics day by day more and more devastated the Catholic religion: and because He willed this greatest benefit to be proper to Spain, that from it, namely, those first authors of exploring new provinces should come forth: and that, by the invincible arms of the most powerful and most happy kings of Castile and Portugal, this new world should become known to us, and, subdued, should submit to the yoke of Christ.

[207] The navigation into India, which looks toward the rising sun, The origin and progress of the navigation into eastern India Henry ^a, the son of John I, king of Portugal, is said to have been the first to attempt. Who, since he was a learned man, and excellent in the science of the motions of the heaven, and the course of the planets, and of geography, gave himself wholly to the study of natural things, and placed much labor in seeking out and investigating the secrets of nature. From which investigation he was gradually and little by little led into this opinion, that he believed one could sail from Portugal into India. To make trial of this thing, he sent most well-equipped ships at his own expense, and skilled men, who explored the coasts of Africa, found some unknown islands of the Atlantic sea, [and] announced the faith of Christ to the natives. Finally, by the labor and industry of Henry, the island of Madeira ^b, and some others, began to be known to our men: and many peoples dwelling on the coasts of that sea in Western Ethiopia were cultivated with the Christian religion. But this illustrious undertaking, and most worthy of the excellence of so great a prince (in which he persevered unto death, and Henry consumed his whole life), John II, Emmanuel, and John III ^c, kings of Portugal, afterward most happily pursued: and sent their fleets, full of the strongest soldiers, and equipped with all things for navigating, into Brazil ^d, Angola, Congo, Monomotapa, Guinea, Ethiopia ^e, the Persian Gulf, Diu, Calicut, Goa, Malacca, China, Japan ^f, and other most remote provinces, with great daring and felicity. Which indeed crossed the immensity of the ocean by new and unwonted navigations: penetrated to monstrous and barbarous nations, and either allured them to friendship by intercourse and benevolence, or subdued them by valor and arms, by the greatest benignity of God.

[208] the origin and progress; For God so strengthened the Portuguese, and by His heavenly grace protected and fortified them, that they themselves many times, with a small band, routed innumerable forces of the barbarians: and opened by steel and valor the way to the preaching of the Gospel which was obstructed and shut off, and led the uncultivated and blind peoples to the splendor of the Gospel. And so, by a great, unwonted, and unheard-of miracle, we saw in our home Japanese youths, illustrious above all in the nobility of their race, who, washed in the font of sacred baptism, and initiated in the Christian sacred rites, left their native seats, the familiarities of friends, the intercourse of parents,

and the benevolence of their citizens, with whom they are joined by blood and kinship, postponing all these to the love of Christ, [and] sailed from Japan even into Spain, in the year of our salvation 1584, having gone through immense labors and perils. For these, following the fathers of the Society of Jesus, by whom they had been educated from infancy to the faith and all probity, set out to Rome itself, as it were to the citadel of our religion, that they might in person recognize, cultivate, [and] venerate the supreme Pontiff in it, the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter; and might offer to him, in the name of themselves, and of the kings of Bungo, and of Arima, and of Fiungo, their kinsmen, as it were the first-fruits of the Japanese Christians (who indeed are innumerable, converted to the faith by the disciples of Ignatius), the gift of due obedience.

[209] and nations led to the faith and to the Vicar of Christ. Whom Gregory XIII, the most prudent Supreme Pontiff, embraced with admirable benevolence; and attended with every office of humanity and piety, with the huge congratulation of the whole City. For the most holy Pastor judged that it pertained to the great glory of God, and even to his own (nor that unjustly), that, he being Pontiff, the Christian empire was circumscribed by no other bounds than those of the globe of the lands: and was so diffused and propagated to new and unknown nations, and hitherto unheard of from the memory of all men, that through the immense tracts of seas and lands, those sheep which were not in this fold sought their shepherd, heard his voice, and adored in him the prince of all shepherds, and there was made one fold and one shepherd. These things pertain to the India of the rising sun.

[210] Into western India, sought out, But toward the setting sun, Ferdinand and Isabella, the most illustrious kings of Castile, Christopher Columbus of Liguria being leader, sent their fleets to seek out, and subject to their empire, new provinces. And Charles V, Caesar Augustus, their grandson by a daughter, and Philip, the son of Charles, more vehemently augmented the illustrious undertakings of their ancestors: and propagated the borders of the Spanish empire so far that the land lately found, and for a great part tamed by the invincible arms of the Castilians (if it be coasted around along the maritime shore, with its winding turnings), amounts to nine thousand leagues, as has been handed down in letters by some skilled writers. And yet the circuit of the globe, and its circumference, contains only seven thousand and five hundred leagues, if we believe Ptolemy; if Alfraganus, even fewer; if Fernel, a little more. But the modern curious investigators of the stars, and most skilled in navigating, count only 6360 leagues, 53 thousand paces on the earth being attributed to each degree of the heaven, that is, well-nigh 18 leagues, if each common Castilian league comprises three thousand paces. And there happened in our age another miracle, likewise plainly new and unheard of, and which has no less either of admiration or of stupor than what we said a little before of the Japanese embassy. For a ship of the fleet of the kings of Castile, John Sebastian Cano, a Cantabrian, being pilot, coasted around the whole circumference of the globe of the lands, and, returned unharmed to Seville (whence it had set sail), was deservedly indeed called the Victoria.

[211] That you may acknowledge the greatest benefit of God the Best and Greatest toward us, most corrupted with abominations who indeed, as He was the author and effector of so great a good, so to Him is all praise, and the glory of the most excellent work, to be wholly referred. For He Himself hastened the matter, found the opportunity, [and] moved the Catholic kings that, the long, grave, [and] perilous Granadan war ^g being now finished, or rather concluded, and the yoke of the ignominious and most bitter servitude (which for well-nigh 800 years ^h the Spanish nations had endured) being driven off, and the dignity of the Christian name being restored to its pristine splendor as it were by postliminy, and they being freed from other warlike cares, might conceive in mind so great a thing, undertake it in hope, [and] accomplish it with the utmost felicity. Add that, to lay open this new world, and subdue it by arms, God employed those administers whose either paucity, or virtues of mind, and ornaments of fortune, if you consider, you will assuredly understand that not by human strength, but by the will of the supreme and most wise Governor, so many and so great provinces were aggregated to the Spanish empire. Which is even much more eminent, and stands more illustrious, from the very course of events, and from the most rich and copious fruit which God Himself, the immortal, gathered for the salvation of mortals.

[212] For who could review by enumeration the nations, innumerable in multitude, by the divine providence infinite in places, barbarous in monstrosity, idolatrous in impiety, blind in nature, most corrupted with all vices, so abhorrent from all sense of humanity that they slaughtered innocent sons, and offered them as it were precious victims to their gods: finally, nations which cultivated the demon himself for God, often spoke familiarly with him, [and] lived at his discretion—who could review how they were so recalled from error to truth; from the shadow of death to the light of life; from a most wretched servitude to the glorious liberty of souls, that they recognized Christ, God and our Lord, [as] Redeemer, put off their ferocity, shattered their idols, either overthrew the temples dedicated to the devil or converted them to the worship of the true God, and began to live a life worthy of a man, worthy of the faith, worthy of a Christian breast? All which, however, in our age, by the labor of the Catholic kings, were divinely effected.

[213] At this time therefore, so opportune, so necessary, the trophy of the cross by an admirable and plainly divine counsel, God chose our Ignatius, that he might bear the trophy of the cross into the most disjoined lands and provinces, and might, through his sons, illumine infinite, rustic, and barbarous nations, the darkness of ignorance and infidelity being driven off, with the most clear light of the Gospel: [so] that the disciples of Luther, the false prophet and true impostor, might gnash with their teeth and pine away, because, when they themselves so furiously rave among us, and violate all divine and human laws, plunder shrines, burn monasteries, demolish the crosses of Christ, overthrow the Sacraments, [and] separate themselves from the most blessed Roman Pontiff, and fall away: at that very time in other far very many and very great regions, new temples are built to the true God, the standard of the cross is raised for the salvation of all peoples, the most sacred Sacraments flourish, the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, is recognized and adored, [and] finally this very Catholic religion, which they so greatly desire extinguished, is preached, thrives, [and] flourishes from the rising of the sun to the setting, from the North to the sea. And God Himself, who in Europe endures so many and so bitter contumelies and reproaches continually from the heretics, in the new world, at this very time, has accomplished many, great, attested, [and] admirable works. And it is agreed that, at the presence of the body of Christ our Lord placed in the temples, the demons became mute, fled, and did not afterward appear, or (as they were wont) speak with the idolaters: and that very many mortals oppressed with various and incurable diseases, by the touch of the most holy cross, by the sprinkling of holy water, [and] by expiatory grains applied, were freed from every sickness.

[214] He brings the faith in through Ignatius, after He had before sent others. Others, because they had borne themselves irreverently and less honorably in the church where the Eucharist was, were affected by God with many, and those most grievous, inconveniences: and many other things have been consigned to letters which God effected, both that He might recall the heretics of our time (if they still have any part of sense) to a saner mind, and that He might lead the blind nations to the knowledge of the true light. These things, because they are well-nigh infinite, and not proper to this narration, I pass over in silence: it will be permitted to seek them from the histories of both Indies ⁱ, if anyone desires a fuller knowledge of things of this kind. But although God the Best and Greatest sent before other forces of the strongest soldiers to this most illustrious expedition of the Indies, and to it many most holy men of other Orders apply themselves with all their strength and with their whole heart; yet so widely does this field lie open, so spacious, deserted, [and] uncultivated is this vineyard, so horrid in aspect, full of roaring beasts, [and] made savage by the monsters of vices, that it needs still more cultivators. Add that, to soldiers either besieged or sharply fighting, new auxiliaries add great courage, [and] are often of great help. Which indeed let these things be said especially of the India toward the West, which obeys the kings of Castile: in which there is namely a great force of sacred men cultivating those regions.

[215] The author records For in Eastern India there is a smaller supply of workmen, both because the navigation of the Portuguese is longer and more perilous: and because war must be continually waged with many, various, [and] most powerful kings, doubtful, uncertain, and full of innumerable difficulties: and because for that cause the kings of Portugal have not yet subjected to their empire the places remote from the sea, and the inmost of the land, nor established so many assemblies of sacred men as are necessary for leading over innumerable peoples from the darkness of infidelity to the light of the faith. Wherefore in Brazil, the Molucca islands ^k, Japan, and other most broad and most remote regions of the East, there are well-nigh no men from other regions who have undertaken the province of propagating the Christian faith, and the procuration of souls, except the sons of Ignatius. Which Ignatius indeed, by admirable providence, God (as we said) chose at a most opportune time, and constituted a sharp defender of His Church. Nor indeed will anyone be able to doubt of the divine counsel, who has prudently weighed the fruits and utilities of the Society disseminated by Ignatius himself through the whole globe of the lands: and who has perceived a certain ardent and kindled desire of ours, of pouring out life and blood for Christ: and either the assiduous prayers, that they may be sent into distant and barbarous nations; or the alacritous obedience, when they are sent of their own accord by their superiors, that they may find an illustrious occasion of meeting death for the amplification of the faith. For they do not hold it enough, by life and doctrine either to expose themselves to the raging heretics, or always to carry about the mortification of our Lord Jesus Christ in their body, that the infidels may obtain salvation and life: but since they understand that no more magnificent and illustrious testimony can be given by men to the Gospel than if they pour out their very blood for its truth, they think it must be done by every means, that they may render their life especially for Him who offered His life for us all on the cross to the Father.

[216] Seventy-seven of our fathers and brothers (so far as I indeed know) were slain by heretics and gentiles for the faith of Christ up to the year 1585, various men of the Society, in which we write these things. Of them 24, in various places and times, were killed by infidels, either Mahometans or gentiles, with exquisite kinds of torments. Of whom the leader and chief was father Antony Criminali ^l, who, by the Badagas, at the promontory of Comorin, praying and falling on his knees, with eyes and hands raised to heaven, was transfixed with darts in the year of our salvation 1549. In which same year and place father Alfonso Mendez, beheaded, attained the glory of martyrdom. In the province of Brazil Peter Correa and John Sosa ^m, brothers of our Society, in the year 1554 were pierced and slain by the Caribs, fierce and barbarous men, with arrows, while they were praying. In that very year, another of our fathers in the India of the rising sun, first indeed half-burned, afterward also taken off by poison

was taken off. But at the Molucca islands, in the year of the Lord 1558, by the Mahometans, father Alfonso de Castro ⁿ was dragged, hauled through rough places, and cast headlong. What shall I say of father Gonsalvo Silveira ^o, a man most noble both in birth and in sanctity? Who, when he had converted the king of Monomotapa to the faith of Christ, by the order of that same king prevaricating, and induced by the counsels of perverse men, holding in his hands the effigy of our Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, a rope being cast around his neck, was dragged, and slain by a most cruel kind of death (which he himself had foretold) in the year 1561. Father Francis Lopes, and two other brothers of ours [p], making their journey from Cochin to Goa, intercepted by the Moors, most hostile to the Christian name, perished, pierced through with darts, in the year of the Lord 1567 [q].

[217] In that part of western India which is called Florida, who were slain for the true faith in various places of India. three fathers, sons of the Society of Jesus, Peter Martinez, Baptist Segura, [and] Louis Quiros, and six other brothers, having set out to those coasts to preach the faith of Christ, were slaughtered by those bloodthirsty men. And the most recent of all, in the year 1583, in the region of Salsette [r], which is separated from the city and island of Goa only by a strait, five others attained the same palm of martyrdom. In whose number was father Rudolf Aquaviva, son of the brother of the duke of Atri, Claude Aquaviva, Superior General of our Society, and full brother of the Cardinal Aquaviva.

[218] Fifty-three others escaped happy by the hatred and cruelty of the heretics, and experienced the highest benevolence of the divine love toward them: for fifty-one, because they were sailing to announce to the nations the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman faith, were captured by the heretics and direly killed. To whom add others consumed by the Huguenots; and by the queen of England. The standard-bearer of all these was father Ignatius Azevedo, a man most illustrious not so much by the blood of his ancestors as by his own poured out for Christ: who, when he was sailing to the province of Brazil, that he might discharge in it the office of Provincial superior, and of evangelical herald, being captured by French Calvinist pirates, James Soria being leader, he himself and thirty-eight other sons of the Society, companions of the same purpose and comrades of piety, out of hatred of the most holy Catholic faith, were all consumed, not by one kind of death, but yet by one spirit, in the year 1570. Whom, with equal faith, constancy, and felicity, in the following year twelve others imitated, who, father Peter Diaz being leader, when they had undertaken the same voyage and cause, were affected with the extreme punishment by John Claude, a Huguenot Gaul. Nor indeed were there lacking most strong soldiers who, because they held the Catholic faith with their teeth i.e., tenaciously, sharply defended it, [and] wisely taught it, being first marvelously tortured by the very heretics whom they desired to heal, and torn apart with the most monstrous torments, by a most blessed end brought back a glorious victory over perfidy. Of this kind were the most illustrious martyrs of Christ Edmund Campion and Thomas Cottam, Englishmen, most illustrious sons of the Society of Jesus, who in the years 1581 and 1582, for the Apostolic and Roman faith, were atrociously slaughtered by Elizabeth, queen of England.

[219] Blessed be God, who decorated the Society with the laurel of martyrdom, Wherefore, who would not admire the counsel of God? Who would not look up to His providence? Who would not love in return His immense charity toward mortals, would not cultivate His infinite benignity with the piety of a most grateful mind, extol it with praises, [and] venerate it with observances; who gave to this least Society both the garrisons of martyrs and their ornaments? Namely, that by this argument too we may understand that the family of Ignatius is the family of God: not otherwise than the rest of the assemblies of sacred men, which other most holy patriarchs divinely instituted and founded in the Catholic Church. Which religious assemblies indeed abound in most perfect men, who exposed their bodies to all torments, [and] finally, glad and alacritous, suffered themselves to be torn apart and killed for the name of Christ: and this not only in past ages, but even in ours. Witnesses are the strenuous athletes of Christ, the Carthusians, who, because they defended that the one and supreme head of the Catholic Church was the Vicar of Christ, were hauled, hanged, disemboweled, cut limb from limb, boiled, [and] raised on a stake, by Henry VIII, king of England, unto everlasting ignominy (which was true glory to them).

[220] not otherwise than He decorated other Orders! Witnesses too are many other sons of the most holy Dominic, Francis, and other blessed men, who attained the same crown in our age in France by the fury of the heretics, who are new Neroes, Domitians, [and] Maximins. Blessed therefore [be] God, and glorious unto the ages, who raised up the most fortified bulwarks of the Religions in His Church: and constituted in them garrisons of soldiers of such a kind, who, fighting most sharply, fall: and, over impiety, by the innocence of their life; over heresy, by the integrity of their faith; over death, by giving their necks; [and] finally over the most foul enemies, by their blood poured out for the Gospel and the truth, most amply and most honorably triumph! For it cannot be but that, with these leaders and most strong soldiers, the holy Church may rout and disperse all the battle-lines drawn up against her with perfidy and ferocity (which she has always hitherto done), and beat back her enemies, elated with audacity, and repress those puffed up with swelling: and either despise those who are hardened, and pertinacious in their depravity, or benignly receive those who are humble, and acknowledging their error.

ANNOTATIONS.

p The life and death of these and the following members of the Society of Jesus is in Alegambe: whose index of names see.

q The year 1568 the same writer marks.

r It Salsette is described by Alegambe, page 116.

CHAPTER XIV.

The election of Ignatius as Superior General; the profession of himself and the fathers; the Saint's governance; the setting out of St. Francis Xavier into India, and of others elsewhere.

Book III. Cap. 1.

The Society being confirmed by Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, the fathers held nothing before this, than that they should create as Superior him who should preside over the whole Society, and by whose spirit and prudence all things should be administered, both at Rome and abroad. the state of the Society being set forth, But the state of the Society was then well-nigh of this kind: Francis Xavier and Simon Rodríguez were in Portugal, Peter Faber, having set out to the imperial diet of Worms with Doctor Ortiz, [was] in Germany; James Laínez was at Parma; at Brescia Claude Jay; at Siena Paschasius; in Calabria Nicholas Bobadilla; Ignatius himself, Salmerón, and John Codure had remained at Rome. Besides, at Paris some youths, who had applied their mind to the Society, were even then engaged in the studies of letters, sent from Rome by Ignatius for this very cause. But in the City itself, well-nigh twelve had been added to the fathers; and we dwelt indeed straitly and very narrowly, opposite the old church, in a hired house, ill built and ruinous, which was removed for the building of the new church. And because I was of that small number who then dwelt at Rome in the Society, and did not depart from the side of Ignatius (as I said), I will hereafter narrate the following things not as a hearer, but as a spectator, and present, and most certain witness. In this state of affairs therefore, those of the ten fathers who were in Italy were called to Rome: and all came about Lent of the year 1541, except one, Nicholas Bobadilla, whom the command of the supreme Pontiff retained at Bisignano ^a, laboring fruitfully. But the matter could not be deferred longer, because the same Pontiff had resolved a little after to send away some others of the fathers into various provinces. Through the time of Lent therefore Ignatius, Laínez, Salmerón, Claude, Paschasius, and Codure come together for the election of the Superior General: the matters being agitated, they resolve to place three days in prayer, to keep silence about this matter among themselves, [and] then that each should bring his vote written by his own hand ^b, by which the feeling and will of each might be declared. After three days they come together again: they join their votes with the votes of the absent fathers, which they had either left written, or afterward sent: after the third day likewise, by all the opinions of all ^c, both those present and those absent, Ignatius is declared Superior General.

[222] the author relates that the Saint was chosen Superior General Here he, when he had shown himself from his heart more prepared to obey than to command, said to his companions, I, brethren, said he, am neither worthy of this office, nor truly fit to rule others: for I, who know not how to rule myself, how shall I rule others? Which I, truly and sincerely before God and our Lord, while I consider; while I diligently reckon with myself the perverse habits of my past life, and the sins of my present life, and my many miseries; I cannot bring myself, that,

that I should take upon myself the burden which you impose on me. Wherefore, I pray you, take this in good part, and afresh, through three or four other days, commend the whole matter to God more ardently, that by His divine afflatus and impulse, we may choose as father, especially out of all, him who will best of all govern the whole Society. The fathers indeed at the beginning oppose Ignatius; but at length compelled to acquiesce, they take time for deliberating anew. Four days being interposed, they come together again; but with the same consensus of minds Ignatius is chosen Superior General. Then he, lest either he alone should resist all, or should undertake an office which he judged not sufficiently fitting for himself, I, said he, commit the whole matter to my confessor: I will open to him the crimes of my whole life: to him I will set forth the diseases of my mind, and the sicknesses of my body: which being heard, if he nevertheless, in the name of Christ our Lord, either command me, or give counsel, that I should undergo so great a burden, then at length I will obey.

[223] Here the rest make an uproar and cry out, and say that the will of God is sufficiently explored, resisting in vain. and urge Ignatius not to protract the matter longer by the objection of humility, lest he seem to resist God. But since he could not be moved from his opinion, at length, that that might be done which he wished, they decree it unwilling. In the monastery of St. Peter, which is on the Golden Mount Montorio of the Friars Minor, he was altogether three days, applying himself to this one thing with his whole heart. And indeed, the Society not yet founded, he confessed to Friar Theodosius ^d of the same monastery, a man of singular sanctity and prudence. After the confession therefore, on the very day of the most joyful Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Ignatius asks the confessor what seems best: he says that it seems to him that Ignatius resists the Holy Spirit. Then Ignatius beseeches the man that he weigh the whole matter more attentively, and commend it to God, and then at length refer to the rest of the companions what he thinks. He did what he was asked. He reports to the fathers that it altogether seems to him that Ignatius should accept the government of the Society: he, with the greatest congratulation of all, says that he will do it ^e.

[224] They appoint the sixth day from Easter, the nearest to the 10th before the Kalends of May, He utters his solemn profession, on which day they should both go about the seven more notable churches of the City, and their stations, and in the church of St. Paul, in a place empty of the crowd and most opportune, each should utter his profession: which was done in this manner. When they had come to the church of St. Paul ^f, and had briefly confessed their sins to one another: Ignatius, in the chapel of the blessed Mary ^g (in which the most sacred body of Jesus Christ was then kept), performs the sacred rite: when it was come to the reception of the body of the Lord, holding it with one hand on the paten, [and] with the other the formula of profession ^h, turned to his own, he pronounced his vows with a clear voice in these words: I, Ignatius of Loyola, promise to almighty God, and to the supreme Pontiff, His Vicar on earth, before His virgin Mother, and the whole heavenly court, and in the presence of the Society, perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to the manner of living contained in the Bull of the Society of our Lord Jesus, and declared, or to be declared, in its Constitutions. Moreover I promise special obedience to the supreme Pontiff concerning the missions contained in the Bull. Again I promise that I will take care that boys be instructed in the rudiments of the faith, according to the same Bull and Constitutions.

[225] The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ being received by Ignatius, five other fathers, before the reception of the body of the Lord, no order of seniority being observed, uttered their profession, whose formula is thus: I, N., promise to almighty God, as also the other five fathers: before His virgin Mother, and the whole heavenly court, and in the presence of the Society, and to you, reverend Father, holding the place of God, perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to the manner of living contained in the Bull of the Society of the Lord Jesus, and declared, or to be declared, in its Constitutions. Moreover I promise special obedience to the supreme Pontiff concerning the missions contained in the Bull. Again I promise that I will obey concerning the instruction of boys in the rudiments of the faith according to the same Bull. The divine service being finished, and the sacred places of that church being piously and holily gone about, the fathers take their stand at the high altar, under which the bones of the most blessed Peter and Paul, princes of the Apostles, are laid: there they mutually and lovingly embrace one another: bind their minds more: and with the utmost devotion, and ardor of piety, tears flowing, give thanks to God the Best and Greatest, because He had deigned to perfect the things which He Himself had begun: and because it had been permitted them to see that day on which He had willed to admit them as a holocaust in an odor of sweetness, and willed men gathered from so many provinces to coalesce into one body.

[226] [of whom Codure first blessedly died, Ignatius, who was absent, being conscious of his death.] Moreover master John Codure on that day felt a certain singular and exceeding devotion, and so vehement a consolation of God that he could by no means restrain it from boiling over and bursting forth outward. And so we heard him ⁱ, walking through the streets, filling the heaven with loud voices, and so crying to the Lord that, for the magnitude of his affection, he seemed altogether to be bursting: as if his mind presaged that he was soon to be led out from this brief prison. For in this very year, he who first of the ten after Ignatius had uttered his profession, first of all departed from life on the 4th before the Kalends of September. This father, born in the Province Savoy, in the town of Seyne, on the very natal day of St. John the Baptist, died on the very day of his the Baptist's death, and at the same age as he; when also on the very natal day of the blessed John he had attained the dignity of the priesthood. He was a man excellently exercised in hearing confessions, and effective in handling the souls of his neighbors, and in promoting them to piety, and of singular prudence: from which thing he had attained great authority among the highest men. His soul, when dead, was beheld by a certain person praying, entering heaven, surrounded with the most clear light of glory, and mingled with the choirs of angels, which Ignatius wrote to Faber. But at the hour in which he died, Ignatius himself, who was going to sacrifice for him at the church of St. Peter in Montorio, on the bridge of Sixtus, suddenly, as if suffused with a certain horror, stopped, and, turned to his companion Baptist Viola ^k, who still lives, John (said he) Codure has now departed from life.

[227] [He mingles the affairs of his prefecture with the offices of the kitchen and the exposition of Christian doctrine.] The office of Superior General being undertaken, Ignatius began gravely to establish those things which pertained both to the administration of the whole Society, and also to the domestic discipline. And that, the higher he had ascended, so much the more submissively he might bear himself, and by his example provoke all to the zeal of true humility; he straightway entered the kitchen: and in it, for very many days, began both to act as cook, and to go about other vile domestic ministries, so accurately and seriously that, like some novice, he seemed to do it only for the sake of his own progress. And since, through his occupations (which many and great daily befell him), he could not freely and entirely be at leisure for offices of this kind: he so divided his times that he was both present at graver affairs, and yet was not lacking to the kitchen. Then he began to hand down the rudiments of Christian doctrine, and to instruct boys, which he did in our church for six and forty days continuously: and very many came to hear him daily, and not so much boys as men and women, the unlearned and the learned. And although he said things pious rather than learned, and used unpolished and improper words: yet those rude and uncultivated words were strong and robust, and moved the minds of the hearers not to empty applause and admiration; but to weeping, and the salutary detestation of vices.

[228] And so, when Ignatius had made an end of speaking, very many, groaning, cast themselves at the feet of the priests, from which the highest fruit, so changed in mind, and moved by grief, that for tears and sobs they could scarcely confess their sins. Which father Laínez, who then gave his labor to hearing confessions, often affirmed to me. Nor however does this seem to me new or admirable, when I recall to memory the things which I then saw. For I remember that Ignatius was wont to make words with such energy, and fervor of spirit, that he himself seemed to blaze with charity, and, in a manner, to hurl the ardent torches of divine love: so that even, while he was silent, his very countenance, and the inflammation of his whole face, could easily kindle the hearers, and impel their minds whithersoever he wished.

[229] the Spirit of God speaking through him. And that the power of God speaking in him, and at the same time the humility of Ignatius, and his contempt of himself, may shine forth more, I will not pass this over. At this time I was a boy, and repeated the next day the things which Ignatius had taught the day before. But when I feared ^l lest the illustrious sentences, and most useful for confirming the morals of men by piety, might be carried [too] contortedly, and be obscured by the impropriety of the words, I admonished Ignatius that he should place some care in polishing his discourse. And he, with the humility and incredible modesty with which he was endowed, blandly and sweetly, You admonish [me] well (said he); observe (I pray) diligently me speaking; and whatever shall seem faulty, note, that you may correct me. The next day I did what Ignatius had commanded; I began to note with my pen the errors of the Italian tongue. Moreover so many occurred that I judged that not some part, but the whole discourse, must be thoroughly purged of Hispanisms. And so, correction being despaired of, I ceased to annotate, and referred to Ignatius what had happened. Then he, with the cheerfulness of countenance with which he was wont, What (said he), Peter, shall we do for God? As if he should say: No one can receive anything, unless it be given him from above: but I have received from the bestower of all good things no more than what you see: yet I will contribute this, whatever it is, to His praise; which, that I might render it to God, I received from Him. And so his discourse and his preaching [was] not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power. For the kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power.

Cap. III.

[230] In this same year 1541, on the 7th of April, master Francis Xavier, from the port of Lisbon, in the flagship in which Martin Alfonso Sosa the governor was carried, happily set sail for India ^m. But master Simon remained in Portugal: and the cause of his remaining was of this kind. While both await a suitable weather for sailing to India, lest they should be idle in the meantime, according to their custom they begin to excite men to the zeal of true piety, and among these especially the nobility of Portugal: and by the example of their life, and pious warnings, they profited very much. For which cause the most noble men of the court teach the king himself how great virtue and prudence is in the men: and warn him to consider with himself whether men of this kind will be more useful in Portugal than in India. Which ours, having got wind of, write to Ignatius what they perceive: that they fear lest, by the king's authority, against the mandates of the supreme Pontiff, in Portugal

they be compelled to stick remain longer. Ignatius, when he had brought it about that the Pontiff understood the whole matter, and the Pontiff had left it free to the king, informs them by letters that the whole matter had been referred back by the Pontiff to the king: and so let them obey the king in all things: let them be moved by no religious scruple of the former mandate. Yet that to him (if the king perhaps wish to know what he himself thinks) it seemed best that Francis should set out for India: [and] Simon remain in Portugal: which counsel indeed the king approved. These are the beginnings of our Society, disseminated in Portugal and the most remote regions of India.

Cap. IV.

[231] Likewise in this year, master Alfonso Salmerón and master Paschasius Broët, Salmerón and Broët are sent into Ireland; with very ample power, were sent as Apostolic Nuncios ⁿ by the supreme Pontiff into Ireland. Which power they used chastely and prudently, and discharged their office diligently: they strove to retain those rude and uncultivated peoples, wavering by the power and neighborhood of the king of England, in the true religion: they explained the dogmas of the Christian faith to the unskilled: they neither ever exacted money, nor accepted it when offered of their own accord: if they had imposed anything by way of a fine, all that was given to the needy, they themselves touched nothing at all. And having been engaged for some while in that province with this sobriety of life and moderation, they returned into Gaul, because they had found the access to the truth closed, and ambushes to be made against them by certain lost men, who had sold their life for a price to the English merchants, that they might deliver them into the power of Henry VIII, king of England, whose hands they themselves, while they were sailing thither, had divinely escaped.

[232] but thence they are recalled: Faber goes into Spain. The supreme Pontiff, informed of the peril, had indeed ordered that they should transfer themselves into Scotland ^o, with the same power: but since that province was even then most ill-affected toward the Apostolic See, and the minds of the nobles alienated from reverence for it, the Pontiff, thinking the time inopportune, recalled the men to himself. And so from Paris they entered upon the journey into Italy on their own feet, and with slender money, the two Apostolic Nuncios. And since Gaul was preparing war against Spain, they were intercepted at Lyons as if spies, [and] cast into chains: then, recognized by the Cardinals of Tournon [p] and Gaddi [q], they are led out, and, kindly presented with provision and horses, are sent back to Rome to Ignatius. Meanwhile Faber, with Doctor Ortiz, set out into Spain in this very year 1541: in whose place Nicholas Bobadilla, his profession being uttered, was sent into Germany, by the order of the Supreme Pontiff. And, as can be perceived from the things which we have said, from the time when our Society was confirmed by the supreme Pontiff, scarcely with a year turning, it is permitted to see it disseminated into Italy, Gaul, Spain, Germany, India, and Ireland.

ANNOTATIONS.

D.O.M. In this most sacred basilica, and before this icon of the most blessed Virgin, St. Ignatius Loyola, institutor of the Society of Jesus, uttered the solemn vows of the Professed of the Society, and received the same duly uttered by his companions, in the year of the Lord 1541, on the 10th before the Kalends of May. The Abbot and the Benedictine monks of St. Paul of the Cassinese congregation set up this monument for posterity.

p Not "of Tours," as it was in the text. His deeds Ciaconius gives, tome 3, column 506 and following.

q Concerning whom ibidem, column 480.

CHAPTER XV.

Various colleges of the Society; a more ample confirmation of the same by the Apostolic See.

Cap. V.

In this state of affairs, John III, king of Portugal, that he might consult the salvation of the Indians, Ours are sent to the College of Coimbra. Francis Xavier being sent to the Indians, thought about by what means he might be able to send others of ours each year, and decreed, first of all, to institute a college for our Society, which should be, as it were, a seminary for propagating it in Portugal. Wherefore to the celebrated University of Coimbra, founded by him, he added also our college: the propagation and offspring of which college is the origin of the rest of the colleges in Portugal. To establish which indeed, Ignatius, out of ours who were both at Rome and at Paris, sent into Portugal some youths, and most approved men, to Simon, in the years 1541 and 1542. But ours were sent at that time by Ignatius (that we may also say this in passing) even into the most remote lands, well-nigh in this manner.

[234] What manner was observed in the missions, is narrated. They traveled on their own feet, not all in one habit, but always a vile [one]: they lived by begging: they slept in the hospital house of the poor, where there was an abundance of it. If ever either sustenance from alms was lacking, or a bed, they sustained themselves with some slender little money, reserved for that very end. In the squares, according to place and time, they preached: they exhorted whomever they had found to the detestation of vices, to confession and prayer, and the worship of true piety: prayer armed them as they were going out of the lodging; [and] received them as they were entering. On Lord's days, those who were not priests, or even more often, confessed and communicated: among them the utmost peace, the utmost concord; and, what is more marvelous, in great labors great alacrity, and a mind always glad, and, for the desire of laboring and suffering for Christ, thinking not even of the troubles or perils of the longest journey. He who was weakest in walking went before the others, that the stronger might accommodate themselves to that which he could [do]. And since no colleges then met them on the way, [and] no certain place (the Society being still unknown) to which ours, if anything happened on the way, might betake themselves; this too was enjoined by Ignatius, and diligently observed, that if anyone perhaps, hindered by some disease, could not pursue the journey, according to the condition of the disease, for a short time indeed, all the rest should halt: but if it seemed likely to be longer, at least one should remain, who should seem most fit for relieving the sick man. In this manner in those beginnings ours were sent by Ignatius from Rome both to Paris and into Spain: in this manner they set out even into Portugal, who laid the foundations of the College of Coimbra: who, kindly received by the king, while at Coimbra the things for the future college are prepared, [and] having tarried for some while at Lisbon, also made the beginning of the house of St. Antony.

[235] But even in India, as soon as the virtue and prudence of Francis Xavier began to be handled and recognized by those men, The College of Goa: it produced rich fruits from itself, as I will say in its place. For straightway in the year 1542, at Goa, which is a royal city, and the metropolis of all the Indian cities which obey the Portuguese king, a college which, to feed and educate the sons of the gentiles converted to the faith of Christ, had even then been formed by the liberality of the Portuguese, was given to ours: that they might undertake the care of forming those very boys to piety, and receive their brothers coming from Portugal, and prove the neighboring inhabitants wishing to enter the Society: and that that college might be, as it were, a certain bulwark opposed to the enemies of the Christian faith. Much from a humble beginning drawn, these two colleges, that of Coimbra and that of Goa, grew. For the Coimbra college contains about two hundred of ours: the Goa college about 120; and in each all the liberal disciplines, which indeed are not alien from a theologian, are explained: and whatever was done by ours among the Indians; whatever was effected among the Japanese, the Chinese, the Persians, the Ethiopians, and other innumerable nations, blind with the ignorance of the true God; proceeded especially from these two colleges. Whence we understand that, of the colleges which have hitherto been constituted in the whole Society, the Coimbra college holds the first place of all,

formed even then by the munificence of the king of Portugal, but afterward even perfected.

[236] I say "of the colleges"; for the Roman house is the parent of the rest of the Society: [the Roman house, parent of the rest of the Society, is adorned with a notable church:] from which, as from a certain mother-city, by the labor and counsel of Ignatius, colonies were led out into various lands and propagated. Which Roman house indeed was born with the Society itself: since at the end of the year 1540 the church of the blessed Mary (as they call it) della Strada was added to us by the industry and benefit of Peter Codacio ^a. But this church was then low and very small; and since, on account of its narrowness, it did not hold the peoples flocking to the word of God, it was afterward augmented with many additions, and at various times changed into various forms: until, in the year 1568, Alexander Farnese, a Cardinal, grandson of Paul III, the most wise Pontiff, and Vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, a prince of excellent authority and exceeding prudence, who embraced our Society from its very beginning with singular patronage, that he might deserve well of his fellow-citizens, and even of the whole Church of God, and might consecrate to immortality the greatest benefit of his grandfather, the Supreme Pontiff, toward our Order, and leave attested his excellent beneficence toward us, resolved to raise from the foundations a church ^b ample, magnificent, [and] most beautiful, at royal expense, with illustrious workmanship, [and] marvelous structure, in which he might be buried when dead. And deservedly indeed, that, since the family of the Farnese was the chief in constituting our Society; he himself, who is the ornament and light of that same family, might obtain the chief place in that church, and in that house of the professed, which is the head and parent of the Society itself.

[237] But in the year 1543 the church of St. Andrew, most opportune and near, the church and house of St. Andrew: by the labor and zeal of Philip Archinto ^c, bishop of Saluzzo, and vicar of the supreme Pontiff then in the fostering City, and one who deserved excellently of the whole Society, was joined to us by the decree of the Supreme Pontiff himself. For Philip, by the order of the Supreme Pontiff, when he went about and surveyed all the churches of the City, that he might look to the maintenance of their roofs, and the things which pertained to their worship and adornment, fell upon the church of St. Andrew, which indeed had the care of souls, but was deserted by its pastor, and committed to the custody of a woman. Moved by the indignity of which thing, the Pontiff, at the warning of the same Philip, decreed to join it to ours, who in the neighboring church of the blessed Mary were exciting the Roman people to living well and blessedly by every office of piety. A few days after, there was an outcry against this decree of the Pontiff by many. But Archinto, a prudent man, and of a sharp and great mind, vehemently resisted their efforts, and persuaded the Pontiff, by the truest and gravest reasons, to hold his decree ratified, and to permit ours to remain in the possession now delivered to them. And so in this very church of St. Andrew the house which we inhabit began to be built in the year 1543 ^d. Moreover the care of souls of each church, of St. Mary della Strada and of St. Andrew, lest it should be an impediment to ours, by the authority of the Pontiff was transferred, with its revenues, into the neighboring and most celebrated church of St. Mark.

Cap. VI.

[238] About the same time, the Venetian Commonwealth requesting it, in the year 1542 father James Laínez was sent by the supreme Pontiff to Venice, The beginnings of the College of Padua that he might promote certain works of piety: who, when he strenuously discharged his office, fell upon Andrew Lippomano, Prior of the church of the most holy Trinity, a patrician and religious man, and at his request turned aside to him. Who, perceiving by domestic intercourse the morals and genius of James, and understanding the institute of our Society, was so moved that he straightway dealt with James about building a college at Padua. For he had also at Padua the priorate of St. Magdalene, of the hospital Order of St. Mary of the Teutons, once constituted by the Germans in the expedition of the Christians against the Turks: which he resolved to contribute to the institution of a college of the Society: and, while the matter is being obtained from the supreme Pontiff, to feed some of ours, that he might enjoy not only the hope of the future benefit, but also the utility of the present. And so some were sent from Rome to Padua by Ignatius in the year 1543, who joined themselves with John Polanco and Andrew Frusius, who were even then at the University of Padua giving their labor to the studies of letters, and laid the foundations of the college.

[239] Then in the year 1546 the priorate was obtained from Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, and the difficulties concerning it removed by the industry of Laínez, and, by the authority of the Apostolic See, consecrated forever to the uses of the college. But in the year 1548, when ours petitioned the Venetian senate that they might be put into possession, a certain man, most closely joined by blood to the Prior Andrew ^e, vehemently opposed: and, as he was excellent among his own in senatorial dignity and wealth, he easily made trouble for James Laínez and Alfonso Salmerón, who managed the matter, newcomers, and unknown and poor men. It happened even that, having once entered the senate, to set forth the reason of their petition, they were almost hissed off: because in that assembly of the fathers senators, men to be despised in appearance and habit, they seemed unworthy. But silence being at length obtained, and the cause pleaded through by James, a great rising up of all was made, and a most honorific address: since they admired in the man his prudence, and force of speaking, and modesty. But when ours could not break through the difficulties, nor resist the counsels of the most powerful adversary, Laínez wrote to Ignatius in what state the matter was; and asked that, to accomplish it, and to obtain a happy end from the Lord, he would deign to offer to God the most sacred sacrifice of the Mass.

[240] Ignatius did what he was asked, on the very natal day of the blessed Mary; by the prediction of St. Ignatius, in marvelous ways. and wrote back to James: I have done ^f what you asked: be of good courage, and let not this matter hold you solicitous, but reckon it accomplished. Nor did the event deceive [him]. On the eighth day after the Sacrifice, a full senate was held on that matter, and by well-nigh all the opinions of all, the possession was adjudged to ours. But it seemed very marvelous to those skilled in that commonwealth, and it was whispered, that there should be so great a consensus of a most full senate, for strangers against a citizen. And that an event of this kind might be attributed to God, not to men; on the day on which it was reported to the senate about this matter, the most approved senators, who pleaded our cause, did not come into the senate that day: lest men should pluck for themselves anything of the divine praise, and that we might learn to rely not on men, but on God: who also effected salutary outcomes from the things which were prepared for [our] destruction by the adversaries. For when many things had been bandied by the adversaries about us who were in the College of Padua, that they might bring us into the suspicion of peril, by a decree of the senate inquiry was diligently made into our life: and things were found and written by those to whom it had been mandated, and sent to the senate, which freed us from suspicion, and commended our Society by the testimony of [its] probity.

[241] In the same year 1542, into Belgic Gaul ours entered, On what occasion ours entered Belgium. not so much by their own will as by a certain necessity: for when war between Charles V, the emperor, and Francis, king of the Gauls, had suddenly blazed up, all the Spaniards and Flemings who were engaged in Gaul were ordered to depart from Gaul: at which time, fifteen or sixteen of the Society, partly Italians, partly Spaniards, were giving our labor to letters at Paris. Of whom, that satisfaction might be made to the royal edict, the Italians remaining at Paris, the Spaniards set out into Belgium, a friendly province, Jerome Domenech ^g being leader and moderator, and pursued the studies of letters in the University of Louvain. There indeed so much was effected by the example of ours, and by the Latin sermons of Francis Strada, that many studious and excellent youths, and men noble in doctrine and authority, avidly seized our institute: whom master Peter Faber, having returned from Spain, [and] descending from Upper Germany into Lower, afterward confirmed by his counsels. And this indeed is the seed and origin of the Society propagated in the Belgic province ^h.

Cap. VII.

[242] Ignatius therefore, noticing that not only illustrious youths applied their mind to the Society, but even grave and learned men, [The Society is again confirmed, and the restriction of those to be admitted is removed:] and that colleges, in which they might be fed, were instituted, and that great fruit was produced by his men: nor however was it permitted him, by the decree of the supreme Pontiff, to co-opt into the Society, by uttering profession, all who were called by God; he contended with the Vicar of Christ that he would deign to confirm the Society itself anew, and to enlarge that contracted and brief number by which, in the first approbation of the Society, he had hedged in the admission of ours. Which indeed the Pontiff (as has been said) did in the year 1543, on the day before the Ides of March, with great willingness: since he understood that our fathers had, by their life and doctrine, borne rich fruits to the Church of Christ, [and] hoped that they would bear even richer. From which time, our Society took a great increase. Meanwhile, when that seed which Peter Faber and James Laínez had scattered in the soil of Parma was happily growing up, and there were many priests, disciples by their zeal, companions by their will, who watered and cultivated what those had planted, and at Parma a great increase of piety was daily made: the enemy, a man, tried through a certain heretical preacher to oversow tares: who bandied many impious and heretical things from the pulpit: and undertook to burden those priests, whose life and doctrine he understood to stand in his way, with the odium of a false crime.

[243] and in vain the matter is called into suspicion of error. And so a grave tempest arose against them (although utterly harmless), whom they called Contemplants, which broke out even against our name. For although they were ours only by benevolence, and by imitation rather than by profession: yet upon us, as upon the authors, the fault was cast, or at least communicated with us. Ignatius therefore took care above all that the supreme Pontiff should understand what had been done at Parma. Moved by which thing (as was fitting) gravely, the Pontiff, and admonished by other contagions of evils, which were reported to creep daily more in some cities of Italy; out of the whole college of Cardinals chose altogether six, who, with the utmost power, should inquire into the heretics, and be in a certain perennial vigil against the enemies of the Church. Which illustrious device proved salutary not only to the City, but even to the whole of Italy. Ignatius also sharply fought that the things which were cast upon those priests should be shaken out examined by judgment, and brought forth into the light, lest from silence any mark of infamy should be branded upon their life, and our name: which, many resisting and struggling against it, he at length conquered. Therefore they, sentence being pronounced by Louis Milanesio, Apostolic protonotary, and Vice-legate, were freed from all suspicion of crime.

Cap. VIII.

[244] Of the number of those whom we said to have been sent from Rome by Ignatius, in the year 1541, to establish the College of Coimbra, The beginnings of the College of Alcalá was Francis Villanova. Who, when, from the labors of the long journey, he had inconvenient poor health, by the counsel of the physicians, and the will of our fathers, that he might change the climate, came to Alcalá. Where, somehow confirmed recovered from his disease, by the order of Ignatius he fixed a seat

and, a man advanced in age, having approached the study of grammar, began to meditate the inflections of verbs and nouns, and studiously to devour the boyish rudiments. In which labor he placed two years, with the utmost want and endurance, and contempt of human things; but with equal either admiration of men or fruit. For a man rude in letters, humble in condition, unknown in name, so bound to himself, by intercourse, the most learned and grave men, in a most noble University, that, admiring the man's spirit and prudence, they referred to him about their affairs; took him to themselves as master of exercising piety, [and] followed him as leader; and the opinion of his virtue added more of authority to him among the good than the want of doctrine took away.

[245] and the progress. There were joined a little after three others, by whose example some scholars, moved, applied their mind to the institute of our Society. Who indeed went through many troubles, the men being moved both by the novelty of the thing and by the suspicion of a false crime. From which suspicion ours, the truth being known, were freed by the public testimony of Master Vela, rector of the University; and the matter, both by the benignity of others, and indeed especially by the zeal and beneficence of doctor Vergara, canon of Cuenca, so advanced that we have at Alcalá a convenient and numerous college. From which it would indeed be long to enumerate how many youths, either of the greatest talents, and of excellent hope of knowledge and virtue, or men illustrious in the praise of wisdom and prudence, have entered our Society: so that to me indeed the College of Alcalá seems to have been the beginning of constituting and propagating the Society in the provinces of the Spains, and, as it were, the chief seminary ⁱ.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XVI.

Pious works at Rome; various colleges; the death of Father Peter Faber.

Cap. IX.

But Ignatius bore the solicitude not only of domestic affairs and of the whole Society; but even derived what part of his care and thought he could into the utilities of externs outsiders. Wherefore he took care that many vices, which had grown by custom, should be abolished; and that many things should be instituted in the City which were joined with the salvation of men: The Saint urges the Decretal of Innocent III, that above all the Decretal of Innocent III, most necessary and salutary to the life of men, should be restored ^a: by which namely it is provided that physicians should not first apply their hand to curing the body before the soul of the sick person has been cured by confession: yet the severity of that decree being mitigated, and this moderation being applied, that on one day and another the physician may attend the sick; but on the third by no means, unless they have first confessed. Which decree indeed the most holy Pius V, at the beginning of his pontificate, sanctioned forever with even severer laws.

[247] He consults intensely Besides, since in the City there was so great a crowd of Jews, yet there was no place to which those might betake themselves, if any perhaps, that veil which is still placed over their heart, by the mercy of God, being lifted, should turn themselves to the light of Christ; no fixed teachers who should instruct them coming to the bosom of the Church, no revenues appointed for relieving their want. Therefore, lest so great a fruit should perish, Ignatius did not hesitate, out of our straits, to sustain them in our home for some years, to instruct them, and to place them in a certain kind of life: and many of the Jews, either allured by the charity of ours, or moved by the example of their own people, were converted to Christ: in whose number there were even chief men of the Jews, who brought very much of weight to amplifying the Christian faith. For they vehemently refuted the Jews, showing through the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. But lest this utility should be of a short time, Ignatius employed his diligence in this matter, that a place should be established in the City which should be fit for receiving and sustaining Catechumens: which he at length accomplished with great labors.

[248] to the salvation of the Jews; And that the way to Christ might be smoother for them, he obtained from Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, that they should lose nothing of their goods, nor should the faith of Christ be a detriment to those who acknowledged Christ the Savior: nay rather, that the children of Jews, coming to Christ against the will of their parents, should have all their goods altogether entire: and that the things which had been gained by them by usuries, whose just owners were unknown, and which therefore, through the hands of the Church, were to be converted to pious uses, should be given, to the Jews themselves converted to the most holy religion, in favor of the received baptism. To which this also was afterward illustriously added by Julius III and Paul IV, that each of the synagogues of the Jews of Italy should each year pay a certain sum of money, to this house of the Catechumens, for feeding those who escape from the Jewish perfidy: and many other things were most wisely established for either inviting them, or retaining them in the faith of Christ. Whence a great access was opened to the salvation of that people, and many of the remnants and dregs of that Israel joined themselves to Christ.

[249] as also of unchaste women Besides, at Rome a great multitude of those poor women was seen, who made gain from prostituted chastity (for greater at that time was the license of morals in the City, which was afterward, by the vigilance of the most holy Pontiffs, repressed by severe laws) and the City itself was growing foul with harlot filth: and there were some of poor women of this kind who, by divine instinct, desired at some time to betake themselves from that impure gulf of misdeeds into the port of salvation. For feeding whom, a monastery of St. Magdalene (commonly they call it of the Converted) was instituted. But yet they are admitted, coming, on this condition, if they consecrate themselves to perpetual religion, and enter its threshold with this mind, that they resolve nowhere to bear their foot out from it. Whereby the fruits of that monastery lie the less widely open: for very many of them are married, who are excluded by this refuge; to whom, however, some place must be given, to which they may betake themselves, while they are reconciled to their husbands, that from the honesty of life which they seek, peril may be absent.

[250] to their amendment; Moreover, others would indeed wish to emerge from those dregs; but not straightway to give themselves to a lasting penance: nor, if they are prepared to flee the worst things, do they therefore desire to follow the best: to whom the laws of that monastery do not permit a reception for a time to be given. Ignatius therefore, that he might consult the salvation of all, and that there might be none who should pretext the difficulty of seeking sustenance to her own baseness, took care that a most opportune place should be instituted, which should be a common refuge of all. When therefore he had communicated this laudable counsel of his, and of an excellent work, to many chief men and women, by whose authority and benignity it might be accomplished; they indeed promised him their labor and means, if anyone should be found who would wish to be the chief and author of accomplishing that thing. For each wished to show himself a companion rather than a leader of the glorious work to others. But when Ignatius saw the matter dragged from day to day by this refusal, and the pious work impeded; that he might cut off from the devil every occasion of taking away time, he devised this method.

[251] From a certain area of ours, which at Rome is before our church, in the monastery of St. Martha: Peter Codacio, procurator of our house, at that very time had caused huge stones to be dug out from the ruins of the ancient City. Then Ignatius says to Codacio: Sell the stones, Peter, and make me from them a sum of a hundred gold pieces. He did, in the great want of ours, what he had been ordered. This money Ignatius, first of all, contributed to the excellent work. If there is no one (said he) who wishes to go before, let him follow me as leader. The rest followed after: and so in the church of St. Martha the excellent work was begun and perfected; and a confraternity instituted, to which the name of the Grace of the blessed Mary was given. But into this monastery of St. Martha the poor women drawn away from base gain he himself many times, lest they should perish, or into the house of some honorable matron, to be instructed to the zeal of virtue, led—a man of that age, and Superior General. In which kind, the piety and benignity of Leonora Osorio (she was the wife of John Vega, imperial legate before the Pontiff) especially shone forth. But when it was objected to Ignatius that labor was ill placed in caring for poor women of this kind, inasmuch as they had now grown hardened in vices, and easily returned to their vomit: By no means indeed, said Ignatius: but if, by all the cares and labors of my life, I could effect this, that even one of those should wish to pass even one night void of sin; I indeed would strain all my sinews, that even for that so small a time God and our Lord might not be offended, even if I knew that she would straightway return to her [old] nature.

[252] For the desolation of orphans too, that it might be consulted [for], he labored much: solicitous also for orphans and for endangered girls. and so by his labor also two dwellings were established in the City, in which boys and girls, deprived of the protection of parents, and destitute of the conveniences of life, are snatched from the perils of their age, and from the troubles of want, and separately are instructed in morals, doctrine, [and] arts. This too he devised, that for the virgins engaged in a slippery situation,

he should succor by some means: lest, namely, girlish chastity should either lose its flower by the baseness or carelessness of the mothers, or by poverty. Wherefore an illustrious monastery, worthy of all praise, was constructed, of St. Catherine, as they commonly call it, of the Rope-makers De Funariis; into which, as into an asylum and citadel, young girls who are engaged in peril of their chastity are transferred. And these things indeed Ignatius, at Rome, and some others of that kind, effected for the salvation of his neighbors.

[253] But in establishing those works he observed this method. He communicated his counsel with certain men; grave, prudent, and inclined to all charity; of whom James Crescentius, a noble Roman, an intimate friend of Ignatius, The method which the Saint employed is set forth. and always inclined to all piety: likewise Francis Vanutius, almoner of the supreme Pontiff: Laurence Castellus, and some others, stood out; whom Ignatius used as counselors and helpers. The matters being agitated and settled among them, the work itself was proposed to chief men, wealthy, [and] benign, on whose means and authority it might rely: and above all some Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church was chosen, who should seem most fit to undertake the patronage of that work. Then, the confraternity being established, the laws sanctioned, [and] the order and method of the whole government prescribed; when he now understood his labor to be less necessary, Ignatius handed over his vigil to others, and gradually turned himself to beginning other equally useful things. For his charity could not be idle, but always meditated something new, salutary to men.

Cap. X.

[254] While Ignatius did these things at Rome, wholly intent on the glory of God; God bore His care, The College of Valencia; that of Valladolid, and propagated the affairs of the Society, and moved the minds of men, excited by the integrity of our fathers and their zeal of charity, so that they either benevolently sought them, or, when summoned, studiously retained them, and placed them with themselves in fixed seats. And although satisfaction could not be made to all who asked, in so great a paucity of ours; yet Ignatius tried not to neglect the grace of God; but to disperse and distribute those very ones whom he had into those places in which, either on account of the opportunity and nature of the places themselves, or on account of the genius of the citizens, and their benevolence toward ours, richer fruits were hoped. When therefore Jerome Domenech, a citizen of Valencia, had resolved not only to consecrate himself (which he had done long before), but even to consecrate all his goods to the Society, and to begin a college at Valencia out of his revenues; Ignatius, reckoning with himself the amplitude and nobility of that city, and the celebrity of the university, and the abundance of neighboring towns and villages, to which ours could make excursions, and among them usefully at some time be engaged, destined James Miron (who from Paris in the year 1541 had come to Coimbra, and had for some while presided over the college of that city), and some others, in the year 1544 to Valencia, that they might lay the foundations of the College of Valencia. Which they indeed faithfully accomplished. But in the year 1545, a diploma being obtained from the supreme Pontiff, that college was established with fixed revenues, which, both by the copious income of the best youths entering the Society, and by the fruit of the citizens themselves, has hitherto always flourished by the benignity of God.

[255] and that of Gandía. At the same time Peter Faber and Antony Araoz, in the retinue of Mary, daughter of John III, king of Portugal (who had married Philip, prince of the Spains), by the king's order, set out from Portugal into Castile: and, dwelling at Valladolid, laid the first foundations of that college. Which, slender indeed and very narrow at the beginning, was afterward so amplified that, on account of the greatness and populousness of that town, and the fruits which are perceived gathered, a house of the professed too was added to the college. But even in the town of Gandía, near Valencia, excellent in the amenity of the soil, at this very time a college was begun for us: which the duke of that town, Lord Francis Borgia, incited by the exceeding opinion of the Society, and [by] benevolence, raised from the foundations, and stabilized with perpetual revenues in a fit place, and most opportune both for the convenience of the people and for the domestic quiet and relaxation of ours, and adorned with a church: and there were sent from Rome by Ignatius in the year 1545 five of ours, who should join themselves with others in Spain, and first inhabit the College of Gandía.

Cap. XI.

[256] The birth and education of Father Peter Faber The chief adviser and helper of the College of Gandía was master Peter Faber, who at Rome in the year 1546, on the Kalends of August, on which day the Chains of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, are celebrated, migrated from this life to the Lord. A plainly admirable man, who among the Allobroges, in the village of Villaret of the diocese of Geneva, in the year 1506, was born in a humble place, of parents indeed farmers, but pious; treading in whose footsteps, he gave even from his early age such indications of religion that he seemed to be singularly chosen by God. For both in the seventh year of his age he felt certain exceeding instincts to piety, and in the twelfth, kindled with a certain illustrious zeal of preserving chastity, he uttered a vow of it in the field, and was incited with so ardent a desire toward the study of wisdom that his father, against his own will, was compelled to lead him over from the pastoral care and the custody of the flock to the school of letters. In which school he gave a specimen of the best nature and excellent genius: and, moderately instructed in grammar, he set out for Paris, being in his nineteenth year.

[257] There, after the course of philosophy happily measured out, his progress in philosophy, his access to Ignatius, his expeditions; adorned with the master's laurel, when he was worn out by great stings of scruples, and set before himself either to hide himself in a desert place, and live on roots, or other equally grave remedies, to drive off that anguish; nor however did his mind acquiesce in any thing; he fell upon Ignatius (as we said), by whom, altogether freed, he was first led to that course of life which afterward all the companions entered. His studies being finished, he came into Italy as leader of the rest. Then from Rome he was sent, first to Parma, then into Germany, by the supreme Pontiff, afterward also with Doctor Ortiz into Spain; not so long after he was again recalled into Germany. In which province, by his notable doctrine, gravity of life, and prudence, he marvelously obligated to himself the minds of the Catholic princes. He was most acceptable to Albert, Cardinal of Mainz ^b, with whom he dwelt for a longer time, and interpreted the Psalms of David in the theological school at Mainz: acceptable to Otto, Cardinal of Augsburg ^c, then bishop of Speyer, and to many magnates and Catholic princes.

[258] He vehemently repressed the fury of the heretics, and with their standard-bearers and masters, confutations of heretics, the gain of Father Peter Canisius. and especially with Bucer, he often engaged, so sharply and bravely that (unless they had hardened themselves) he could easily have proved to them the faith which he himself professed. He had received from the Lord an admirable spirit of praying for the heresiarchs and the whole of Germany, and he felt, and even openly preached, that the Catholic religion was then at length to be restored to its integrity and pristine splendor, when the wrath of God had first been appeased by the blood of certain good men. Of the Germans ^d, he gained for Christ Peter Canisius, excited by the fame of the man, and having set out from Cologne to Mainz from a desire of seeing him, and first joined him to the Society ^e. His host at Mainz he made a Carthusian. At Cologne he held many Latin sermons often, not only in the assemblies of sacred men, but even in the whole University, and those seasoned with marvelous and grave piety. But in the church of St. Ursula, a sacred place (which they most truly call the Golden chamber), most filled with the bones and relics of the most blessed Virgins, and breathing a certain heavenly odor, cast on the ground, he long and much venerated. Where, while sacrificing, as often elsewhere, he received illustrious knowledges about divine things.

[259] [He despises calumnies and evil-speaking for the glory of God, being held in great veneration.] With ever unbroken breast he despised the calumnies of perverse men, the threats of the furious, [and] the evil-speaking of the clamorous: [and] finally scattered everywhere the good odor of our Society: and opened for it a way into that most noble and once most religious province, in which he himself sowed with tears, which posterity might reap with exultation. Moved by his example, the Carthusian monks, in a public assembly, made our whole Society a partaker of all their good works and merits ^f. Then in the Belgic province, Portugal, Castile, [and] all Spain, he was for a veneration to all with whom he lived. Lastly, while from Spain, summoned by the Supreme Pontiff, that he might be present at the Council of Trent, he enters the City at a most grievous time of the year, he quickly falls into a disease, and in a short time was extinguished ^g. But his loss James Laínez and Alfonso Salmerón made good, who were even then dwelling at the same Council ^h in the name of the Supreme Pontiff.

[260] [The other gifts of his are recorded, from a letter which he gave to Father Laínez.] Faber was altogether a most pious man, learned, excellent in the discretion of spirits, adorned with the gift of healings, [and] outstanding in the assiduity of praying and meditating ⁱ: but of such great abstinence that he sometimes for six whole days ^k took nothing of food or drink. Above all a cultivator and tenacious holder of obedience, an excellent despiser of himself, most desirous of the glory of God and the salvation of men: most effective, above all, in familiar and daily discourse, for moving minds: venerable by the gravity of his morals, and a certain solid sweetness. He marvelously abounded in divine illustrations. This is clear both from a certain little book which he wrote as it were a commentary about things of this kind: and from those letters which he sent from Germany in the year 1542 to Venice to Father James Laínez, most closely joined to him by the same spirit, and charity, and intercourse, as to another self, fraternally. A little portion of which letters, in which he speaks of himself, we have judged must be added, that this may be more fully understood: Would that (says he), dearest brother, I could explain to you what and how great goods, from the time when I departed from you at Piacenza, up to this day, have both entered my soul and remained in it; what things I have known, what I have felt in those things which pertain to God, and to His most sacred Mother, and to the most blessed angels, as well as the souls which are either in heaven or in purgatory. But what shall I relate of my interior experiences; my elevations and depressions, the entrances into me, and the exits from me; how I have learned to cleanse the body, and the soul, and the spirit; to purify my heart, and, the impediments being cast off, to prepare it, that it may receive, retain, [and] preserve the liquors of the divine graces: by asking for all these various gifts, by seeking, [and] by knocking?

[261] But of the things which pertain to my neighbor, no less many things could be said, in which the Lord God gave me methods and ways, showed me truths and lives ways of living, that I might know him, rejoice with him over his goods, have compassion over his evils in Christ, love him, bear him, suffer him, and suffer with him, both give and ask thanks for him, and seek pardon and remission, and find excuses for him, and speak good things about him and for him before God and His Saints. In sum, James, dearest brother, never could I, I will not say pursue it by deeds or words; but not even by thought comprehend, what benefits my God has conferred upon me, and is prepared to confer, my

binding my contritions, healing all my infirmities, blotting out my iniquities: to Him [be] glory. Amen: to Him praise, to Him honor, and blessing from every creature. I indeed say, Amen: but do you also (I beseech) praise Him for this your brother, [and] bless Him, which I, concerning the whole Society, and concerning the mercy of the Lord so abundantly hitherto poured out upon it, do not cease to do daily. Thus he.

[262] But when some of ours grieved at the death of so great a father, [that the loss from his death is to be repaired is foretold by Ignatius through Francis Borgia.] whose life seemed to have contributed very much to the Society, [and] to be able to contribute more still, Ignatius said to them: There is nothing that we should grieve for: for the Lord will repair this loss for us, and will give to the Society another Faber for this one, who will even much more both augment and illustrate its affairs. Which indeed was certainly so done. For the duke of Gandía, Lord Francis Borgia, not content to have built the college for ours at Gandía, resolved to offer himself, a living stone, to Christ, into the structure of the spiritual building. And so he wrote to Ignatius that he had resolved to send word back to the world renounce it, and to follow Christ naked, naked, in the Society: and after the death of Faber he first of all uttered [his] profession ^{l m}: so that he seemed altogether substituted for him, and to have entered his place. But how much of increase, no less by notable sanctity than by nobility, the affairs of the Society received by the example and care of this man, there is no one who is ignorant: since we see so many colleges established by his labor, so many youths of exceeding nature, so many old men of mature gravity, so many men most illustrious either by blood or by doctrine, moved by his example, in the Society. And these things indeed before he was Superior General.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Carthusian Fathers marvelously affected toward the Society; ill deeds repaid to St. Ignatius for good deeds; the Society freed from the care of women; the access to ecclesiastical honors shut off.

Cap. XII.

And since we have made mention of the illustrious zeal and benevolence of the Carthusian Order toward the Society, it will not be beside the point The affection of the Carthusian Fathers toward the Society, to relate one by one those things which pertain to the esteem and testimony of that most holy Order concerning the Society. For he who shall read these things will assuredly understand how sweet an odor of probity and holiness our fathers, from the very beginning of the Society, scattered everywhere, and how great an admiration of themselves they excited: and their sons will give their labor to tread in the footsteps of the best parents: and the whole Society will endeavor to show itself most grateful to the religious Carthusian fathers, by whom it sees itself bound by so many bonds of charity and fraternity, and to remunerate them, according to its slenderness, with a most similar gift. So great therefore was the gravity of the morals of Father Peter Faber, and the integrity of his life, that he allured all to the admiration of himself: whence he so took captivated the Cologne Carthusian fathers ^a that of their own accord they dealt with the most reverend Father Peter de Sardis ^b, supreme and General Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and, in a public chapter which was held in the year of the Lord 1544, took care that the Carthusian Order should contract a certain most holy friendship with the whole Society, and admit us into a part of all their goods, and, as it were, of their inheritance. Which indeed was done with the utmost consensus of minds, and the greatest benevolence of those fathers, as will become manifest from those letters which I will here subjoin:

[264] it is clear from their public letters. Brother Peter, humble prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and the rest of the definitors of the general chapter of the Carthusian Order, to the reverend Father in Christ, and devout men, the lords Ignatius the Superior, and his brothers of the new Society of the name of Jesus, established in whatever places, wish the salvation which God has prepared for those who love Him. The fragrant fame being heard, brethren most beloved in the Lord, of your exemplary conversation, salutary doctrine, and voluntary poverty, and the rest of the virtues, by which, shining forth in the darkness of our deplorable age, you are reported to recall men wandering in the way of perdition to the narrow way of salvation, to stabilize the wavering, and to goad those standing to advance in the virtues, and to bring great fruit in the Lord to the Catholic Church: we have rejoiced in the Lord, giving thanks to Him, that in so great a calamity of His desolate Church, by which we are pressed, He has deigned to rouse up, and to send new workmen into His vineyard, being mindful of His mercy. In which holy work indeed, desiring to cooperate with you according to our measure, we beseech your fraternity, by the charity of Him who did not hesitate to lay down His life for us, that you receive not the grace of God in vain: but, persevering in your holy purpose, in all things show yourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, not failing amid the labors, perils, and persecutions which are wont to befall all who wish to live piously: for in its own time you shall reap, not failing. And we, brethren, if we shall be able to avail anything with the Lord, by divine Sacrifices, prayers, abstinences, and the rest of the pious exercises, of all which we grant to you and to your successors, in life equally and after death, a singular participation, will gladly cooperate with your pious efforts in the Lord, asking that you in turn deign to receive us, commended, into the participation of your prayers and good works. Given at the Chartreuse under our seal, in the year of the Lord 1544, on the Thursday after the Sunday Cantate. Our general chapter sitting. Let it be sealed. The Father Prior of the Chartreuse.

Cap. XIII.

[265] The Society being confirmed in this manner, great and turbulent storms were stirred up to shake it. [A woman being withdrawn from a certain unchaste man, Ignatius is basely traduced; but in vain.] At Rome a certain man had snatched a wife from her husband: this woman Ignatius took care to transfer from familiarity with him into the house of St. Martha, recently established. This deed he, because he was wretchedly perishing with love of the woman, bore most grievously: and, as he was a sharp and fierce man ^c, he began to rage even against the very monastery of St. Martha with nocturnal stonings, and to rave against ours with iniquitous accusations: and to scatter among the people many things which were not only false, but even most base to say. And he proceeded so far (relying perhaps on the favor by which he had very much power, and on his authority) that he publicly assailed and tore the name of Ignatius: and cast in the face of ours, through himself and his men, such things as could not honorably be heard. He composed besides infamous libels, and bandied them among the people, in which many nefarious and impure things, many impious and wicked things, were contained: so that ours could scarcely go out in public, scarcely deal with men about their salvation: so were they received either with revilings by every most wicked person, or with evil-speaking. Nor had this infamy pervaded only the minds of the unskilled, but had filled also the ears of chief men, and of the Supreme Pontiff himself. Which infamy, that Ignatius might meet it, and might not suffer it, swelling by patience and dissimulation, to be strengthened longer, he obtained from the supreme Pontiff that the whole matter should be committed to the best and most upright judges, and that inquiry should be made by name concerning those accusations which had been slanderously bandied by that man against ours. The matter was committed to Francis Michaelio, governor of the fostering City, and Philip Archinto, Vicar of the same City. They most diligently inquire and scrutinize all things: [and] finally pronounce sentence in the year of the Lord 1546, on the 3rd before the Ides of August; they not only free ours from infamy, but even adorn them with praises; they enjoin silence on that calumniator, [and] coerce his petulance by penalties proposed; they do not animadvert more gravely against the man, and that indeed with Ignatius himself as intercessor. He however, once the harasser of the name of Ignatius and of ours, when that blind ardor of insane love cooled, and the disease was cured, sang a palinode: he began to love the physician whom he had hated, and to affect with benefits those whom he had affected with contumelies, so officiously and copiously that he seems to have redeemed his past fault by present benevolence.

[266] A no lesser, and I know not whether [not] fiercer, storm, Another storm of accusation driven off from the Society: was stirred up against Ignatius and ours out of the house built for the Catechumens. That [one] lust begot, this ambition, which is equally headlong and mad. For a certain priest ^d having the care of that place, because he thought Ignatius his adversary, or at least, in administering that care, saw his counsels preferred to his own; incited by the stings of envy, so blazed up that he tried to call him into odium by false and odious accusations, and to sprinkle ours with the stain of infamy. For he was not ashamed to object both the calumny of heresy, and the most sacred rights of heard confessions violated, and other things which cannot honorably be said: and to bandy that Ignatius himself should be burned alive in the flames. But because he burned with the flames of divine love, he thought this languishing and weakened assault of the wretched man ought not even to be repelled: but resolved to pray to God for him in silence and hope, who indeed, His servants being silent, is wont to fight for them. Wherefore he did not suffer this injury to be unavenged: for the priest was condemned by the Judges, and perpetually suspended from the divine offices, and deprived of all benefices and offices, [and] condemned to prison ^e in perpetuity, on account of his crimes: which, covered for some while by a certain artifice of dissimulation, the day time at length laid open.

Cap. XIV.

[267] About the same time the Society was assailed in another way. For some women, which care the Saint frees the Society from,—the care of women, from a zeal of retaining piety, and a desire of perfection

blazing, obtained from the supreme Pontiff that it might be permitted them to live under the obedience of our Society, and to obligate themselves by the vows of Religion; and this they afterward did. In the number of these was Isabella Rosella; who, since she was a most honorable matron, and one who had deserved excellently of Ignatius, had come from Spain even to Rome from a desire of seeing him: and, the rest of things being held for nothing, had altogether resolved to deliver herself to be ruled by his prudence. To whose mind Ignatius, otherwise vehemently desiring to gratify it, could not however not resist in this matter by every means: since he perceived that her desire was indeed pious, but very inconvenient to us, and greatly alien from the institute of the Society. Which opinion of his, proceeding from a certain sound reason, experience itself afterward proved. For it is marvelous how much trouble and occupation the governance of three poor women brought him in a few days.

[268] interposing for this end the authority of the Pontiff, Therefore he teaches ^f the Supreme Pontiff how great an impediment that thing would be to the Society: he prays and beseeches the Pontiff that he would free him from the present trouble, [and] the Society from perpetual fear: and would not permit our men, occupied in other great, useful, [and] necessary matters, to be entangled in this less necessary care of women. Which indeed the Pontiff, approving the reasons of Ignatius, granted to the Society: and ordered Apostolic letters to be written, by which ours are exempted forever from the burden of nuns, and from the care of women of whatever kind wishing to live under the obedience of ours in common, or otherwise, in the year 1547, on the 12th before the Kalends of June. With which not content, Ignatius, that he might fortify this most perilous place, and block all approaches, obtained this also in the year 1549, from the same Paul III, that we should not be bound to receive the care of nuns, or of any religious persons whatever, by Apostolic letters obtained, or to be obtained in the future: unless making express mention of that indult, and of our Order. For so many are the words of the Pontifical diploma ^g: and wisely too, in the Constitutions, Ignatius removed the Society from that care of women, honorable indeed, but adverse to our occupations, and less deserted i.e., not sufficiently attended by others. But that he might exempt himself from this burden more sweetly, he wrote to Isabella Rosella, to whom Ignatius was bound by many benefits of hers, a letter in Spanish, which I will relate in the same words:

[269] To the venerable (says he) Lady Isabella Rosella, mother and sister in Christ our Lord. and letters being given about that matter Since I truly and from my heart desire to comply with your zeal unto the greater glory of God, and to direct you, remaining in my obedience, to the salvation and perfection of your soul: yet by what means I may do this, I indeed do not find. For both my strength fails me, affected by continual diseases, and my time fails, distracted and entangled by many and great occupations, which to cast off or pass over, since they are proper to my office, I cannot indeed, without the loss of my [own] salvation, and of that servitude which I owe to Christ the Lord, and to His Vicar. Besides, that consideration goads my conscience and vehemently urges me, that I see, and truly and from my heart judge before the Lord, that this peculiar and special care of women, who should live under the obedience of ours by uttered vows, in no way suits this least Society. Which, and the causes why I so think, I explained to the most blessed Roman Pontiff some months ago.

[270] Wherefore I judge that it will be for the greater glory of God (since it is permitted me through obedience) to lay down this province charge, to a woman who had deserved excellently of him. which I had undertaken by the precept of the same obedience. You therefore I will thereafter hold not as a spiritual daughter living under my obedience, but, as a good and pious mother, such as you have always shown yourself to me, I will cultivate you with every office and piety, unto the greater glory of God and our Lord. Regarding and looking to whom alone, and having before my eyes only the praise and richer worship of His everlasting goodness, as much as I can and ought, I lay down this care (obedience being always safe), and commit and altogether leave you to the most prudent judgment, obedience, and will of our most holy Lord the Pope, praying meanwhile the Lord that your soul may have peace in God Himself, the author of all consolation and true peace, and may enjoy the abundance of divine sweetness, unto His greater glory. Rome, the Kalends of October 1546. Thus he ^h. Who also at Ferrara, when the Duke earnestly demanded that ours should for a time undertake the care of the sacred sisters of that monastery which the Duke's mother had founded, refused the very Duke thus earnestly asking. And at Valladolid, a certain one of ours, who, almost compelled by the tears of women, and overcome by obedience, had taken a very similar care, when Ignatius learned of it, he ordered to lay it down.

Cap. XV.

[271] Those tempests being calmed, another most grievous one was stirred up against the Society: In removing the bishopric of Trieste the more perilous, the more hidden, and more bland, and less commonly formidable. For Ferdinand, king of the Romans, that he might repress the plague of the heretics daily flowing more into his provinces, sought out all the most approved and most learned men, who might be set over the destitute churches as pastors. Whence to master Claude Jay ⁱ, of whose integrity and doctrine he had a great opinion, he offered the bishopric of the church of Trieste. Which when he had constantly refused, Ferdinand wrote most diligently to the supreme Pontiff about the state of that church, and the devastation impending (unless it were quickly resisted) from the wolves rushing in: and at the same time added that he had indeed wished to set Claude Jay over that church as pastor, on account of the man's notable probity, joined with equal erudition; but that he had refused with an obstinate mind: and he asked of the Pontiff with the utmost contention that he would compel Claude by command to undertake the bishopric, whom he himself could not persuade by his authority. The Pontiff embraced the will of the king, and resolved to create Claude bishop with the utmost consensus of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.

[272] by Father Claude Jay, When Ignatius learned this, he straightway resolved to strain all his sinews that it might not be done. And so, other means being tried in vain, he confidently addresses the Supreme Pontiff himself: he sets forth many reasons why it is not expedient for Claude to be made a bishop: he, a suppliant, asks and beseeches the Pontiff that, being the pastor of all, he would consult for all, and would strive to cure the wounds of some without the wounds of others. He fears, he says, lest the efforts of the Society, and its labors up to that time, by the mercy of Christ not unfruitful to His Church, fall back to nothing: [and] the roots of poverty and abjection, on which they relied, withering, become useless and empty. That a great ruin impends over the Society itself, that there is a great peril lest what charity and humility have joined together, cupidity and ambition dissolve: and lest some, who have given their name in the Society to Christ, that, freed from the bonds of human things, they might more easily ascend to heaven by, as it were, certain steps of poverty and of self-contempt, draw back their foot, and desist from the undertaking. On the contrary, lest many, deluded by the appearance of the honors which they behold in others, and moved by the hope of attaining similar dignities, desire to apply their mind to the Society: to whom namely not the contempt of vanity, but vanity itself, persuades entrance.

[273] the holy Father Besides, that it is to be feared lest this bishopric deprive the Society not of Claude Jay alone, but of many, and shake and tear apart its state: for others would follow, and would do by [his] example what they would not have done without an example. Nor therefore (says he) do I dispute these things, that I might either disapprove honors themselves, or the very many Religious who discharge honors piously and holily, and with great utility of the Church: but this I contend, most blessed Father, that the condition of the other Religious orders is different from that of ours. That those, now strengthened by long duration and long use, are [fit] for bearing any burden whatsoever: [but] ours, still nascent and weak, will be oppressed by a graver weight: that those, in the army of the Church militant, lead, as it were, standing cohorts and fixed ranks, and can take their stand in a proper and stable place: [but] our men, like light-armed skirmishers, ready for the sudden ministries of war, run about hither and thither, and for that very reason ought to be empty and free of every office of that kind. For who doubts that, if we should wish to look not so much to the utility of the Society itself, which yet is not separated from the utility of the Church, but to the salvation of others, the Church of Christ will perceive richer fruits from ours being not bishops than from ours being bishops? For he who is a bishop, although he has greater authority and power, is yet contained within the fixed bounds of places, and is addicted only to feeding his own sheep.

[274] earnestly labored But it can be, and often is, that he is not received by his own; nor however can he transfer himself elsewhere, nor care for other sheep. But if he be free, and impeded by no fixed administration, when they persecute him in one city, he will flee into another, and, an inhabitant of the whole world, will show himself a minister to all bishops, a servant to all peoples. Add the estimation and fame of the Society, which is at stake in this cause. For, that you may move others, and impel them to virtue, it is of very great importance what opinion those whom you wish to persuade have about you: that it be namely ascertained to them that you seek not their goods, but them; that you do not covet riches, honors, [or] titles; but seek out only the glory of Christ, and their salvation, with all zeal and labor: which men can hardly be brought to believe of us, if in the very beginnings of our Society and fervor they see us adorned with the insignia of dignity. Nor indeed will they ascribe it to obedience and charity, but rather to ambition and cupidity: and they will lay aside that opinion which they have conceived about us, and which is above all necessary to the workmen of Christ for the salvation of their neighbors. But that loss is so great that it cannot be compensated by the fruit of one bishopric.

[275] By these reasons, and very many others, Ignatius tried to move the Pontiff, with the Pontiff, with God, and with King Ferdinand. that he would suffer Claude to live [as] a private person. From whom however he obtained only this at present, that, the matter being further commended to God, he the Pontiff would deliberate more attentively. Ignatius therefore both ordered the Sacrifices of all the fathers who were then at Rome to be offered daily to God; and the assiduous prayers of the brethren, that He would drive off the impending danger from the Society: and he himself gave himself wholly to tears and prayers: and, running hither and thither day and night, went about well-nigh the houses of all the Cardinals, and taught them how much of peril was in this matter. And so his prayers and tears availed so much with God, [and] his prudent solicitude and industry could [do] so much with men, that the matter, which seemed altogether certain and settled, was carried further off deferred, and time was given him for writing to King Ferdinand. Who, instructed by the reasons of Ignatius, when he noticed that what he wished could not be done without great inconvenience to the Society, being, as he was, a most excellent and most religious prince, and most loving of ours, did not suffer that we should be, by our own evil, [for] a good to others. Wherefore he commands his Orator that he desist from that cause: and in this manner we then escaped the peril.

[276] Thereafter too, when a bishopric and a cardinalate

were offered to our men, What the Saint did in this matter Ignatius always resisted, and fought against it with all his strength. For in the year of our salvation 1551 Julius III, Supreme Pontiff, at the request of Charles Caesar, resolved to co-opt Francis Borgia (who, preferring the poverty of Christ to the riches of the world, had lately entered our Religion) into the senate of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Which when Ignatius heard for certain, himself uncertain of the will of the Lord, doubtful and anxious in mind, resolved to explore the whole matter, and to investigate it by prayers. He commands therefore that all the Sacrifices of all the household, and prayers, be referred to that end for a whole three days. But he himself, the rest of his cares being renounced, hides himself in his chamber, applies himself to this one matter with the utmost contention of mind, loosens the reins to pious tears, and, with kindled desires and inflamed affections, day and night suppliantly prays and beseeches God that He would show him the light of His will; that, illumined by it, he might either labor nothing about this business, or at least, as far as was in him, give his labor that it be not transacted.

[277] On the first day therefore he was so doubtful and uncertain that he inclined rather to neither side: concerning Francis Borgia; on the next, he inclined to that side, that he should impede the matter, as far as it could be done. But on the third he was so filled with light divinely that he most clearly and most manifestly understood that, by the will of God, nothing was to be omitted by him, that he might disturb the whole matter and exclude it. Which he both did, and persuaded Pope Julius that he should indeed offer that most ample dignity of the Cardinalate to Francis if he was willing, but should not bring force to bear on him refusing. For thus it would come about that he would both satisfy the emperor Charles asking honorable things, and yet not perturb and afflict Francis, persevering in his undertaken purpose. And Ignatius himself said to me that he was then suffused with so great a heavenly splendor, [and] strengthened with such firmness, that by no one's power could he have been led away from that resolved counsel of breaking up a matter that was deliberated and now well-nigh accomplished.

[278] Peter Canisius, Likewise in the year 1553 Ferdinand, king of the Romans, desired Peter Canisius, a man excellent in the praise of modesty and wisdom in our Society, and a sharp defender of the Catholic faith against the heretics, to be created bishop of Vienna. For he saw that, both in the very city of Vienna, and through the whole of Austria, the plague of heresies raged with impunity: and that there was need of a most holy and vigilant pastor, who might ward off from the flock of Christ the rage of the wolves everywhere raging. When therefore King Ferdinand contended for this from Pope Julius III with the utmost prayers, the Pontiff referred the whole matter back to Ignatius, that, if he approved what the king asked, he himself should grant it. Ignatius denied that it could be done from the use and advantage of the Society. All engines were applied to storming his mind, but in vain: for he always remained in his opinion, nor did he suffer himself to be led away from it by any reasons.

[279] and James Laínez and the posterity of the Society. Finally, in the year 1555, at the beginning of the month of October, Ignatius understood, from most grave authors, that Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, held it resolved and deliberated altogether to aggregate James Laínez to the number of the purpled Fathers. About which matter, when we were having a discourse, Ignatius then said to me: Unless God oppose, and by His counsel and paternal providence impede the matter, in a short time James will be a Cardinal. But if this indeed be done, it will certainly be done in such a way that all may understand how reluctantly and resistingly our Society accepts honors and dignities of this kind. But the example of Ignatius all the Superiors General who afterward followed him diligently imitated, and gave their labor that no window might be opened to the Society for ambition. Nay rather, Ignatius obtained this from the supreme Pontiff, and diligently provided in his Constitutions, that it should not be permitted to anyone to admit any dignity outside the Society, without the faculty of the Superior General. Which he indeed will never give, unless compelled by the right of obedience to the supreme Pontiff; and to this our professed bind themselves by a certain peculiar vow. And since the matter of which we treat is of great weight for preserving the Society, and some will perhaps be of that opinion, so as to think that it would be more grateful to God, and more fruitful to His holy Church, if our Society (when it shall have been confirmed and robust) admit bishoprics or dignities, than if it live in holy humility (as it has hitherto done) and humble poverty: I will add also other things which pertain to a fuller explication of this matter.

[280] A disputation having arisen between Cardinal Cervini and Father Olave Marcellus Cervini, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, of the title of the Holy Cross, he who was afterward created Supreme Pontiff, [and] called Marcellus II, [and] in a short time, all good men mourning, was snatched from the Church of Christ: he, I say, a man excellent in the gravity of life and exceeding prudence, treating and disputing at some time with Doctor Olave (of whom we made mention in this little book) about this very matter, whether our Society did conveniently, and for the advantage of the Christian commonwealth, in rejecting ecclesiastical dignities and bishoprics, brought forward many reasons for the contrary side. For the Cardinal felt that our Society, if it supplied holy bishops to the Church of God, would do a thing so much more useful than it now does, while it furnishes to it excellent confessors, preachers, and doctors; by as much as a bishop excels and surpasses a simple priest in power and authority.

[281] But when Olave refuted the reasons, [about this argument, the matter is decided by the sole authority of St. Ignatius;] and most truly taught that by nothing could our Society so profit the holy Church as if it preserve itself as long as possible in the incorrupt integrity and abjection of its institute (for thus it will be able more lastingly, more securely, and more effectively to devote its labor to it); the Cardinal nonetheless persisted in his opinion; Olave subjoined: Not by reasons only, most illustrious Lord, will I deal with you, but also by authority. For the master and parent of our Society, Ignatius, judges this more useful, and greatly approves it: nor thinks it to concern only us, but much more even the Church of God. Then the Cardinal, Now I yield, said he, Olave, and give [my] hands surrender: for with me, in this cause indeed, the authority of Ignatius has more of weight than all reasons: and reason itself manifestly teaches this. For it is probable that Ignatius, who instituted your Society divinely at so opportune a time, and necessary for the Church of God, [and] most happily propagated it, [and] most prudently governed it hitherto; has rather ascertained the will of God, the will of Him who chose him alone for so exceeding a work, than we, who often hallucinate, and see not in the midst of the light. For who, who sees Ignatius endowed with so great grace and spirit from the Lord for founding your Religion, amplifying it, and administering it, would not also understand that he himself, illumined with heavenly light, has received a most certain account reason in which, namely, God wills that your Society should exercise itself unto His service, and preserve itself perpetually? Wherefore, in your affairs especially, Ignatius alone is to me instead of all reasons.

[282] But Ignatius himself, at the time when he first entered the City, who removes all suspicion of ambition from the Society. met the marquis of Aguilar, then Orator of Charles Caesar before the Roman Pontiff, both for the sake of duty, and that he might render account of his institute. But when they conversed mutually, the marquis signified in discourse, and hinted, that Ignatius had come into the suspicion, with many, of hidden ambition, as if by a splendid appearance of sanctity he poured darkness over the eyes of the beholders, and insidiously crept toward honors, and caught at some dignity by, as it were, the bait of feigned poverty and humility. Then Ignatius answered nothing at all by word, but by deed. For straightway, with the same gravity of countenance, he uncovers his head; fortifies himself with the sign of the cross; [and] binds himself by a vow that he will admit no dignity outside the Society, not even offered, unless he be so compelled by the Vicar of Christ that it be not permitted him to shift and refuse it without sin. And by this deed he then purged and removed the suspicion. Likewise at another time he did this same thing before a certain Cardinal laboring under the same suspicion, that he might block all approaches to falsehood, and by so certain and grave a testimony drive off the calumny of the fallacious suspicion of those men who almost measure others by themselves.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Various colleges of the Society; a eulogy of the same given by the Master General of the Order of the Friars Preachers; ours having entered Africa, Sicily, and Brazil.

Cap. XVI.

The Society, freed from these difficulties by the labor and toils of Ignatius, happily proceeded day by day, The Society growing in Spain, the holy Father divides the provinces there. and was augmented both in number and in fruit, and always by new colleges. For besides the College of Barcelona, which was begun by certain pious men on account of Doctor Araoz, dwelling for some while in that city; besides that of Bologna, which took its beginning in the year 1546; ours were summoned to Saragossa in the year 1547 by certain chief men, and especially by John Gonzales, conservator of the kingdom of Aragon. But they set about to exercise themselves in those works of piety which the Society is wont to administer according to its institute, and to move to every virtue the city, excellent in wealth, nobility, and authority, and suffered many things, as I will say in its place. Wherefore Ignatius, that he might better govern his growing family, the care being communicated with others, and might gradually reduce the Society into a fixed order, resolved to divide the colleges in Spain, and to designate provinces

and he wished master Simon, whom from the beginning he had set over all ours in Portugal, to be Provincial superior in that kingdom: in the rest of Spain, Doctor Antony Araoz.

[284] In which Province, at well-nigh this very time, a college was begun at Salamanca, The beginnings of the College of Salamanca, which had indeed a slender beginning (as almost the rest), but happy progresses. For Francis Mendoza, then bishop of Coria, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, moved by the life of Ignatius, and the fruit of our men, resolved to build a college for us in that University: which, although, hindered by various occupations, he at first deferred, [and] then also, intercepted by death, did not perfect, yet Ignatius, then embracing his will, ordered Doctor Michael Torrens, sent a little before into Spain, to go with two companions to Salamanca in the year 1548. Where, in a very narrow house, and that hired, he first began to dwell, and to excite the minds of the citizens and of the young scholars to piety, both by deeds and by words. But so many things were from the beginning bandied about us in that city, even by men notable in doctrine and the profession of Religion, [and] disseminated publicly and privately, in discourses and in sermons, that our name was commonly suspected and hateful: and not only the lowest men, who are almost led by the opinion of others; but even men excellent either in nobility or in letters, and in the use of affairs and authority, shrank from the intercourse of our men, and called even clear and honorable things into suspicion.

[285] But of those who at that time opposed us, with persecution; the leader and chief of all was a certain man ^a, illustrious both by the profession of Religion and by the praise of wisdom, and venerable by the admiration of a bishopric laid down refused. Who, that he might show himself a sharp and vigilant dog to the Dominical flock, began to bark at those whom he thought wolves, and gravely to assail our institute: whose authority and judgment many followed. But, time proceeding, the truth emerged, and every false rumor quickly (as is wont) flowed away, and by the life and works of our fathers, and especially by the sermons of Francis Strada, all license of gainsaying was repressed: and so by that harassment the knowledge of the Society grew, so that ours, who, if they had been untouched and quiet, would perhaps long have lain hidden in darkness; being harassed, came in a short time into the knowledge of men, and greatly moved that city. For besides those who, by the labor and counsel of ours, followed the institutes of the sacred Religions, in that most noble University (of whom the number is great), to this college especially, and to that of Alcalá, we ought to account the propagation of our Society in Spain as received.

Cap. XVII.

[286] But that seems by no means to be passed over which was done on the occasion of this college. but the General of the Order of Preachers praises the Society For when a most grave and most learned man, Francis Romaeus, Master General of the Order of Preachers, understood that some out of his family—most illustrious in the Church of Christ in sanctity, doctrine, number, and fruit—at Salamanca, through ignorance of our institute, publicly exhorted men to hold the novelty suspect, and to avoid ours; that he might free them from error, and render more cautious all who pertained to his obedience: he gave open letters to Ignatius, which he should use if there were need: in which he both illustriously commends the Society by his authority, and most gravely enjoins his subjects to embrace it, and to hold ours in the place of fellow-soldiers. A copy of which letters, that it may be more manifest how much we owe to the memory of the excellent man, and to his most holy Religion, and that we may study to pay it, we have judged must be added in this place:

[287] by these public letters To all the venerable fathers and brothers in Christ of the Order of Preachers, established in whatever parts of the lands, brother Francis Romaeus of Castiglione, professor of sacred theology, and humble General Master and servant of the whole said Order, wishes salvation and the consolation of the Holy Spirit. Let it be manifest to you how, in this calamitous time, in which the Christian religion is assailed by the darts of heretics, and shaken by the perverse morals of bad Christians, a new Order of regular priests, under the title of the name of Jesus, has been sent down from the City by the benignity of God, as a garrison band: which, on account of the huge fruits which it makes in the Church by lectures, and public sermons, exhortations of private persons, the hearing of confessions, and the rest of the sacred exercises, and the examples of holy morals, the most holy father in Christ, and our lord Pope Paul III, has approved and confirmed. Which therefore we have wished to be signified to you, lest anyone of you, seduced by the novelty of this institute, should perhaps by error assail his fellow-soldiers, tending to the same mark, and sent as reinforcements to himself by God, and detract from the institutes of those whose fruits he ought to have congratulated, and whose pious acts he ought to have emulated. We believe indeed that you all, as beloved and friends of the heavenly Spouse, will not detract from the variety with which His Spouse is clothed; but will rather embrace and kiss it with that charity which rejoices with the truth.

[288] given to his subjects, with a precept of obedience. Nevertheless, lest we fail in our office, and that we may prevent all movements, to all and singular of you, the aforesaid brothers, by the tenor of the present letters we command, and by the authority of our office, in the virtue of the Holy Spirit and of holy obedience, and under penalties to be taxed at our discretion, we enjoin, that you dare not in any way detract from the said Order approved and confirmed by the Apostolic See, or from its institutes, or speak against it, as much in public lectures, sermons, and gatherings, as in your private colloquies; but rather that you study to help it, and its priests, as your fellow-soldiers, and to protect and defend them against those who impugn them. In faith and strength of which, we have ordered these to be made, and to be fortified with the seal of our office. Given at Rome, the tenth of December, in the year one thousand five hundred and forty-eight. Brother Francis Romaeus, Master of the Order of Preachers, in the third year of our assumption to office, etc.

[289] The Minorites pass a decree in favor of the Society. Thus he, whose inclination and benevolence of mind toward the Society, seventeen years after, the whole Order of the Minors of St. Francis of the Observance, itself also a light and ornament of the Church, imitated with notable charity, when, in the general chapter held at Valladolid in the year 1565, among other illustrious decrees, it added this too about us: Besides, since our Order is that of the Friars Minor, and founded in especial humility and charity, let all the friars dispersed in whatever parts of the lands know that they are to treat the Religious of any Religion whatever with all humility and humanity, but especially those who are of the Society of Jesus, whom they ought to love and honor, and to invite and receive them with charity to literary acts, to the celebration of our Saints, and other public acts, to which the Religious are wont to come together, nor let anyone of us dare publicly or secretly to detract from them.

Cap. XVIII.

[290] In this year besides, one thousand five hundred and forty-eight, ours penetrated to the coasts of interior and exterior Africa. Two of the Society in Africa, For from Portugal into Mauritania, to redeem Christian captives, were sent Father John Nunes, he who, afterward patriarch of Ethiopia, died at Goa, and Father Louis Gonzales de Camara ^b; who placed excellent labor in the office committed to them, with great patience and vigilance of theirs, and no less salvation of the wretched men. For they confirmed many wavering in the faith, recalled the lapsed, consoled the afflicted and mourning; men, women, boys, [and] girls, a price being sought out, they redeemed from cruel servitude; and, having diligently discharged their office, returned into Portugal.

[291] But into Congo, the kingdom of farthest western Ethiopia, four in Congo, four of ours sailed. For when Emmanuel, king of Portugal, desired the name of Christ to be amplified, he sent fixed reliable men, and fit for that matter, who should bring the light of the Gospel into the maritime regions of Africa. Which indeed was done in many places, and the seed of heavenly doctrine scattered in the soil of Congo too. Yet it afterward withered, by the perversity or the want of cultivators; until, by John III, king of Portugal, the son of Emmanuel by his piety and inheritance, in the year 1548, ours were sent thither, that they might rouse up that oppressed seed of the faith (if anything still remained), and cultivate the deserted and uncultivated places: which they indeed at the beginning happily accomplished. For the king himself of Congo received baptism, and very many others followed his example. But afterward, when ours required their morals to be conformed to the faith, but they themselves twisted the faith to their own lust, and the barbarous king not only himself professed a life unworthy of a Christian man, but even invited others to the same, either by example, or compelled them by command, ours, lest they should cast pearls before swine, by which they would be torn, and, after knowledge, the swine being turned back, from that holy mandate which had been handed to them, the latter state should become worse than the former, transferred themselves elsewhere. For many, as Paul says, repelling a good conscience, have made shipwreck concerning the faith.

[292] Nor indeed did the setting-out of ours into Angola have a better end. others in Angola. For when the king of Angola had shown himself to be in a great desire of the Christian faith, the king of Portugal, led by his prayers, took care that some of ours should be sent to him: to whom he joined his Orator, with great gifts for the king himself, that they might be more benignly received. Who indeed, as they were at first received humanely by the barbarous king, but afterward, the gifts sent by the Portuguese king and the money being consumed, were cast into prison, where, with the royal legate, with great fruit of their patience, they were kept for many years. And so, although ours by this mission did not lead over those barbarous men to humanity and Christian meekness, yet they perceived the very greatest fruit of their patience and fortitude: and, by suffering many adverse things for Christ, and by the desire of dying, heaped up their merits.

Cap. XIX.

[293] At the same time too the island of Sicily embraced our Society, Sicily having embraced the Society into which James l'Hostius, a Fleming, a man of singular modesty and doctrine, first brought our name. That he should be sent to Agrigento, Rodolfo Pio of Carpi ^c, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and protector of our Society, and bishop of Agrigento, obtained from Ignatius. There followed him Jerome Domenech, whom in the year 1547 John Vega, viceroy of the kingdom of Sicily, brought with him from the City from the same Ignatius, that he might use his labor and counsel in the administration of pious matters: which indeed he did largely and very copiously. For, thinking it would be too little to gird the towns with walls and a garrison, to open the roads, robberies being removed, [and] to establish security in that kingdom, but the faith also, he wished the minds of those whom he governed to be filled with virtue and piety, and to begin from the propagation of the divine name: that those former things, established on this stable foundation, might be much more splendid and firmer. And since at Rome he had had great familiarity with Ignatius, and had perceived the morals and institute of ours, he chose for that matter those whom he judged congruent to his purpose, and likely to be of use to himself.

[294] the College of Messina; And that the fruit might be more lasting, he moved the magistrate of Messina by his authority,

to seek out and summon ours, and, a college being founded, to place them in a fixed dwelling with itself. But that city, both noble and opulent, and above all a cultivator of the sacred Religions, following the judgment of the most grave and most wise prince, began to love those whom it had not yet seen, [and] to desire those whom, by his testimony, it hoped would be useful to itself. And so in the year 1548, by the command of the supreme Pontiff, and the will of Ignatius, to whom both the viceroy Vega and the city of Messina had written about this very matter, there set out to Messina master Jerome Nadal, a Spaniard, Andrew Frusius, a Gaul, Peter Canisius, a German ^d, Benedict Palmio, an Italian, and some others likewise mixed from various nations, that they might establish a new college, and open a school of the best arts. Which, in an opportune place of the city, the church of St. Nicholas, a house being conveniently equipped by the benignity of the Magistrate, they indeed happily accomplished. Afterward the number of ours was augmented, and the first house of probation in the Society [was] instituted at Messina.

[295] Palermo; Venice and Tivoli. But the city of Palermo too, by the counsel and authority of the same Vega, and incited by the fruit of the College of Messina, since by its amplitude, the fertility of its soil, [and] the splendor and populousness of its men, it surpasses the rest of the cities of Sicily, did not suffer itself to be surpassed by any in the zeal of piety. Wherefore it asks by letters from Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, and from Ignatius, that, for instructing its youth in letters and morals, and for imbuing the minds of the citizens with piety, they should send some of ours thither. Ignatius therefore in the year 1549 sent twelve to Palermo, of whom were Nicholas Lanoy, a Fleming, Paul Achilles, an Italian, and other choice men likewise of various nations. He commands them to join themselves with James Laínez (who in that province bore the place of Ignatius himself, and, at the request of Alexander Farnese, Cardinal and archbishop of Monreale, was discharging the office of visitor in his diocese, to compose the inveterate discords of certain ecclesiastics), and with Jerome Domenech, and to lay the foundations of the College of Palermo: which was done with a great concourse of men, [and] great benevolence of the citizens. Moreover these two colleges, that of Messina Mamertine and that of Palermo, were founded with annual and fixed revenues by the benignity of Charles V, the emperor, and the liberality of the cities themselves. The rest besides, which we have in Sicily, [the] colleges, took their beginning and progress from these two. But that is the greatest and richest fruit which from those two colleges came to the whole kingdom of Sicily, that John Vega, by the counsel or the ministry of many of those fathers who were engaged in these colleges, instituted many things, [and] perfected many things, which pertained to augmenting the worship of true piety, and the salvation of men. In the same year 1549 ours were received at Venice, and placed in fixed seats by Andrew Lippomano, who had founded the College of Padua. The College of Tivoli too had its origin at this time, from ours who had set out thither, that they might pacify that city, and reconcile it, as it was gravely at variance with another neighboring city.

[296] In Germany besides, ours began to be engaged with greater utility. Things done by ours in Germany, For William, most illustrious duke of Bavaria, both the protection and ornament of the ancestral and Catholic religion in Germany, summoned ours, that they might profess the sacred Letters at Ingolstadt. And there were sent to the Duke by Ignatius Alfonso Salmerón, Peter Canisius, [and] Claude Jay, who had taught in that University some years before, and had been engaged with great praise. These fathers Duke William most lovingly embraced, and studiously commended to his supreme chancellor, Leonard Eck, a man most desirous of ours. And so Alfonso undertook to explain the Epistles of St. Paul, Claude the Psalms of David, Canisius the Master of the Sentences, each one learnedly and gravely, and with great admiration of men discharging his office. From which time that University began to grow green again and to be more celebrated, and the studies of theology, which lay convulsed and prostrate by the assault of the heretics, were roused. The neighboring bishops were raised up in hope, the Catholics animated, the fury of the heretics repressed, [and] many things everywhere effected in the praise of God. Moved by which, William resolved to build a college for the Society; but, intercepted by death, he did not perfect what he had illustriously conceived. And to his son Albert, most like himself in piety, prudence, [and] greatness of mind, he left the matter entire. Who, treading in the footsteps of his excellent father, always showed himself in Germany a most sharp defender of the Catholic religion. And although, at the beginning of his principality, distracted by most grave affairs, he deferred the foundation of the college for a long time (from which Alfonso Salmerón returned into Italy, Claude set out for Vienna, [and] Canisius, with Nicholas Gaudanus, remained for a time at Ingolstadt); afterward ^e however he so compensated this delay by his diligence and illustrious beneficence that he wished to have ours not only at Ingolstadt, but even at Munich with himself, and placed them in a fixed dwelling.

Cap. XX.

[297] While these things are done in Europe, into the province of Brazil, most vast, and most glad indeed in the salubrity of the climate, and in Brazil. but horrible with the ferocity of the man-eaters, and destitute of all humanity, in the year 1549, by the will of the Portuguese king, ours first sailed. Where, to this very day, they persevere with great praise of patience and charity, and utility of the natives. For many, the various and most monstrous figments and superstitions of idols being cast off, beheld the light of the one and true God: many, together with infidelity, put off also their monstrosity, and that cruel nature of devouring men, and were led over to meekness and humanity. And they bound the multitude of their wives by the most sacred laws of the evangelical marriage, and exchanged impure nuptials and wandering lust for Christian honesty.

[298] Likewise in this year 1549 Father Antony Criminali of Parma Father Antony Criminali was killed in India by the enemies of the faith. Who, sprung from honorable parents, in the very flower of adolescence consecrated himself to God, and entered the Society, and, sent in the year 1542 from Rome by Ignatius into Portugal, was to all with whom he lived an example of rare modesty and singular probity. Then into India, for the salvation of those nations, he is sent among the first: and, his virtue and prudence being known, he is placed by Francis Xavier himself in that tract which was formerly called the promontory of Cori, now of Comorin, and is set over the rest of ours. Where, on account of the continual wars of the neighboring kings, on account of the hostile hatred of the idolatrous priests, and the want of sustenance and clothing, he endured many inconveniences, and in illustrating the glory of Christ, and propagating it, bore the greatest labors. When therefore he was engaged in the province of the king of Menancor, and was nourishing with the milk of Catholic doctrine those whom he had begotten to Christ through faith, great forces of soldiers of the king of Bisnaga entered hostilely, to devastate that province, and to extinguish the faith of Christ in it. At whose sudden arrival being announced, Antony, when on that very day he had sacrificed, first fled into the church, that he might commend his sheep to God: then, having gone out to the shore, he drove the Christian women, and their little sons, into the Portuguese ships which were in the station (into which, however, he himself, that, the rest being left, he might embark and snatch himself from peril, could by no prayers before be brought by the Portuguese).

[299] slain for the Catholic faith in India. While therefore, forgetful of himself, he consults the salvation of the Christians, his return to the ships being cut off, the enemies the Badagas (for so they are called) approaching and rushing in, he goes intrepid to meet them, with bent knees, hands outstretched, eyes fixed on heaven, awaiting death, and offering himself, like a good shepherd, to God for his sheep. So found, he is left untouched by the first and second battle-line of the enemies, but by the third he is transfixed with pikes and spears, and, his head being cut off, the body, being despoiled, is hung up in the citadel. He was a man a despiser of himself, blazing with zeal of the divine honor, above all a cultivator of obedience, excellent in the assiduity and virtue of prayer, to whom Francis Xavier himself gave the testimony of a most approved life, and desired all who should be sent of ours into India to be like him. But I, who, in the year 1542 setting out from Rome to Paris, accomplished a good part of the journey with him, and was frequently helped and relieved by him, recognized a singular virtue in Antony, and many times admired with myself his charity and zeal of piety: so that it is no wonder that from such a beginning such an end arose.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Society confirmed by Pope Julius III, the idea of the Institute.

Cap. XXI.

Meanwhile, Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, being dead ^a, who first confirmed the Society by his authority, and adorned it with many privileges (which it would be long to record) and great ones, Julius III succeeds in the year 1550, The diploma of Pope Julius III, by which he confirms the Society, from whom Ignatius requested that he would hold ratified what Paul had done, whose successor he was, and would stabilize our institute, and would even more openly explain certain things which could seem more obscure in it. Which indeed the Pontiff, since he understood it to be for the advantage of the Christian commonwealth, did with a most willing mind, and ordered a pontifical diploma to be written, in which approbation of this kind, and confirmation, is contained. Which diploma I, since it briefly touches the confirmation of Paul III, and many of his privileges granted to the Society, and comprehends its Institute more fully than the others, and more distinctly, have judged it opportune to subjoin in this place. It has thus therefore:

[301] Julius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the perpetual memory of the matter. it is brought forth; the sum of the letters of Paul III being premised The duty of the pastoral office demands—the office to which the divine Majesty has preferred us, though unworthy—that we cherish with paternal affections any of the faithful, especially the Religious, walking in the way of the commandments of the Lord, unto His honor and glory, and the spiritual advancement of their neighbors: that the faithful themselves, the propitious right hand of the Lord assisting them, may more fervently seek out the reward of eternal salvation, and be cherished in their pious purpose. For some time ago, indeed, by Pope Paul III, of happy memory, our predecessor, it having been received that our beloved sons Ignatius of Loyola, and Peter Faber, and James Laínez, and also Claude Jay, and Paschasius Broët, and Francis Xavier, and also Alfonso Salmerón, and Simon Rodríguez, and John Codure, and Nicholas de Bobadilla, priests of the cities and dioceses respectively of Pamplona, Geneva, Sigüenza, Toledo, Vich, Embrun, and Palencia, masters in Arts, graduated in the University of Paris, and exercised for several years in theological studies, inspired by the Holy Spirit, having some time ago departed from divers regions of the world, had come together into one, and, made companions of an exemplary and Religious life, the allurements of this world being renounced, had dedicated their life perpetually to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of him and of his successors the Roman Pontiffs, and now for several years, by preaching the word of God, and by exciting the faithful privately to pious meditations and to living well and blessedly, by serving in the hospitals, by teaching boys and other rude persons the wholesome dogmas necessary for the instruction of a Christian man,

and finally by going about all the offices of charity which pertained to the edification of souls, everywhere in the lands where they had traveled, each according to the grace handed to him by the Holy Spirit itself, with much praise, they had laudably exercised themselves in the vineyard of the Lord, Paul III approved, confirmed, and blessed their Institute, under a certain formula of living published by them, conformable to evangelical truth and to the sanctions of the holy fathers, that the bond of charity and union might be preserved both in the companions themselves and in others who should wish to follow the aforesaid Institute; and took the companions themselves (whose number he then willed to be not beyond sixty) under his protection and that of the Apostolic See, and granted them license, by certain letters, of framing Constitutions and statutes whatsoever conducing to the confirmation and happy progress of the Society thus instituted and confirmed.

[302] And when afterward, in the progress of time, the Holy Spirit cooperating, concerning the Institute of the Society; the same predecessor had understood that the spiritual fruit of souls grew from the aforesaid Society, and that many who wished to follow the aforesaid Institute were studying in the University of Paris and in other Universities of general studies, considering the pious life and doctrine of Ignatius and of the other aforesaid companions, he granted to the same Society that they might freely admit any others who were fit, and proved according to their Constitutions. And nonetheless, that they might take on coadjutors, both priests, who should help them in spiritual matters, and laymen, who should help in temporal and domestic offices (which coadjutors indeed, the probations being performed, required according to the Constitutions of the Society of this kind, for their greater devotion and merit, might also utter three vows, namely of poverty, chastity, and obedience, not solemn; but by which, for that time in which the Superior General of the aforesaid Society should judge that they must be employed in spiritual or temporal ministry, they should be bound: and who should become partakers of all the good works which should be done in the said Society, and of all its merits, just as those who had uttered solemn profession in the same Society)—and he granted other graces and privileges, of the Apostolic benignity, for cherishing and helping the aforesaid Society in those things which pertained to the honor of God and the salvation of souls.

[303] and a more copious formula of the Institute being offered. Its vows and end: But that all the aforesaid, before granted by the same predecessor, may be more confirmed, and at the same time all things which pertain to the Institute of the aforesaid Society may be comprehended in the same letters containing the sum of the others: and that certain things said more obscurely, and which could inject a scruple and doubt, may be more exactly explained by us: it has been humbly supplicated to us that we would deign to confirm the formula in which the Institute of the aforesaid Society is comprehended more exactly and more distinctly than before, experience and the use of things teaching it, expressed yet in the same spirit, whose tenor follows, and is such: Whoever in our Society, which we desire to be marked with the name of Jesus, wishes to serve as a soldier for God under the standard of the cross, and to serve the Lord alone, and the Church His spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth, after the solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty, and obedience, let him set before himself in mind that he is a part of a Society instituted especially for this, that it may principally attend to the defense and propagation of the faith, and to the advancement of souls in Christian life and doctrine, through public preachings, lectures, and any other ministry of the word of God, and spiritual Exercises, the instruction of boys and of the rude in Christianity, [and] the spiritual consolation of Christ's faithful in hearing confessions and administering the other Sacraments: and nonetheless let him show himself useful for the reconciliation of the estranged, and the pious relief and ministry of those who are found in prisons or in hospitals, and the rest of the works of charity, according as it shall seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good, to be carried out altogether gratis, and no stipend being accepted for his labor in all the aforesaid: and let him take care to have before his eyes, first God, then the manner reason of this his Institute, which is a certain way to Him, as long as he shall live, and to attain with all his strength this end set before him by God, each one however according to the grace supplied to him by the Holy Spirit, and the proper grade of his vocation.

[304] the distribution of offices, the making and declaration of the Constitutions: And therefore, lest anyone perhaps use zeal, but not according to knowledge, let the judgment of each one's proper grade, and the discretion and distribution of offices, be wholly in the hand of the Superior General, or Prelate, to be chosen by us at any time whatsoever, or of those whom he himself shall substitute for himself with that authority, that a congruous order may be preserved, necessary in every well-instituted community. Which Superior indeed, by the counsel of his associates, shall have the right of framing Constitutions conducing to the construction of this end set before us, the greater part of the votes always having the right of establishing things, and the authority of declaring the things which could be doubtful in our Institute comprehended in this formula. But the council necessarily to be convoked for framing or changing the Constitutions, and other graver matters, such as to alienate or dissolve houses and colleges once erected, is understood to be the greater part of the whole professed Society (according to the declaration of our Constitutions) which can be convoked by the Superior General without great inconvenience. In other matters, which are not of so great moment, let the same Superior, helped, as far as he himself shall judge opportune, by the counsel of his brethren, have the whole right of ordaining and commanding by himself the things which shall seem in the Lord to pertain to the glory of God and the common good, according as it shall be explained in the same Constitutions.

[305] But whoever shall have uttered profession in this Society, a special vow of obeying the supreme Pontiff let them understand not only in the first doorway of their profession, but, as long as they shall live, let them be mindful, that this whole Society, and each who profess in it, serve as soldiers for God under the faithful obedience of our most holy Lord Pope Paul III, and of the other Roman Pontiffs, his successors. And although we are taught by the Gospel, and know by orthodox faith, and firmly hold, that all the faithful of Christ are subject to the Roman Pontiff, as to their head, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ: yet for greater devotion to the obedience of the Apostolic See, and greater abnegation of our wills, and surer direction of the Holy Spirit, we have judged that it conduces exceedingly that we singly, and whoever shall in the future utter the same profession, beyond that common bond of the three vows, be bound by a special vow to this, that whatsoever the present and other Roman Pontiffs, existing for the time, shall command, pertaining to the advancement of souls and the propagation of the faith, and to whatever provinces they shall wish to send us, without any shifting or excuse, straightway, as far as shall be in us (whether they shall judge us to be sent to the Turks, or to any other infidels, even in the parts which they call the Indies; or to any heretics, schismatics, or even to any of the faithful), we be bound to carry out.

[306] Wherefore those who are about to come to us, before they put their shoulders under this burden, concerning missions, which are not to be procured. let them long and much meditate whether they have so much of spiritual money among their goods that they can, according to the Lord's counsel, consummate this tower, that is, whether the Holy Spirit, who impels them, promises them so much of grace that they may hope, with His help, to bear the weight of this vocation: and after, the Lord inspiring them, they have given their name to this warfare of Jesus Christ, they must, day and night, be with loins girded, and prompt for the payment of so great a debt. But that there may be among us no ambition or refusal of missions or provinces of this kind; let each understand that he must procure nothing about missions of this kind with the Roman Pontiff, either through himself or through another, [and] that he must leave all this care to God, and to the Pontiff himself as His Vicar, and to the Superior of the Society: to whom indeed (as to the rest) it will belong to procure decisions about his own mission to either part, with the said Pontiff, only by the counsel of the Society.

[307] [Obedience to be rendered to the Superior General; his election, power, government:] Let each also vow that in all things which make for the observation of this our rule, they will be obedient to the Superior of the Society (who, being as fit as possible for this office, shall be chosen for more votes, according as it shall be declared in the Constitutions). But let him have all that authority and power over the Society which shall be useful for the good administration, correction, and government of the same Society. But let him command the things which he shall know to be opportune for the construction of the end set before him by God and by the Society, and in his prelacy let him always be mindful of the formula of the benignity, meekness, and charity of Christ, of Peter, and of Paul: and let both he himself, and the aforesaid council, assiduously look to this norm. But let each of the subjects, both on account of the huge utilities of the Order, and on account of the never sufficiently praised assiduous exercise of humility, not only be always bound to obey the Superior in all things pertaining to the Institute of the Society; but let them recognize Christ in him as it were present, and, as far as is fitting, venerate him.

[308] The vow of poverty concerning the professed houses. But since we have experienced that life is more pleasant, purer, and fitter for the edification of one's neighbor, when it is as far removed as possible from all contagion of avarice, and as like as possible to evangelical poverty; and since we know that our Lord Jesus Christ will supply to His servants, seeking only the kingdom of God, the things necessary for food and clothing: so let each and all vow perpetual poverty, in such a way that neither privately, nor even in common, may the professed, or any house of theirs, or churches, acquire any civil right for retaining any incomes, revenues, [or] possessions, nor even any stable goods (besides those which shall be opportune for their own use and habitation), being content with the things given them out of charity for the necessary use of life.

[309] Concerning the revenues and government of the colleges: But since the houses which the Lord shall have given will be destined for working in His vineyard, and not for exercising scholastic studies: since it would otherwise seem to be very opportune that, out of youths inclined to piety, and fit for handling the studies of letters, workmen should be prepared for the same vineyard of the Lord, who should exist as, as it were, a certain seminary of our Society, even the professed part: the professed Society may, for the convenience of studies, have colleges of scholars, wherever any shall be moved out of devotion to construct and endow them: which, as soon as they shall have been constructed and endowed (not however out of goods whose collation belongs to the Apostolic See), we supplicate that they be erected from now by Apostolic authority, or be held as erected: which colleges may have revenues, rents, or possessions, to be applied to the uses and necessities of the students, with every kind of government, or superintendence, over the said colleges and the aforesaid students, being retained in the hands of the Superior or the Society, as regards the election of the rectors or governors and of the students, and their admission, dismissal, reception, exclusion, the ordination of statutes, and concerning the instruction, erudition, edification, and correction of the students, the manner of ministering to them food, clothing, and the other necessary things, and every other kind of government,

regimen, and care, so that neither may the students abuse the said goods, nor may the professed Society convert them to their own uses, but [may] succor the necessity of the students.

[310] Which students indeed must be of such a nature of genius and morals [concerning the scholars, the recitation of the divine Office, the manner of living, and the coadjutors.] that it may deservedly be hoped that, after their studies are finished, they will be fit for the functions of the Society: and so at length, after their progress in spirit and letters is known, and after sufficient probation, they may be admitted into our Society. But all the companions, since they must be priests, are bound to say the Office according to the common rite of the Church, but privately, and not in common or in choir: and in those things which pertain to food, and clothing, and the rest of the exterior matters, they will follow the common and approved usage of honorable priests: so that what shall thence be subtracted, for the necessity of each, or the desire of spiritual progress, may be offered, out of devotion, and not out of obligation, as a reasonable service of the body to God, as shall be expedient. These are the things which, under the good pleasure of our aforesaid Lord Paul and of the Apostolic See, we have been able to explain, by a certain type sketch, about our profession, which we have now done, that we might summarily inform both those who question us about our Institute of life, and also our posterity, if any (God willing) we shall ever have as imitators of this life: which, since we have experienced it to have many and great difficulties annexed, we have judged it opportune also to establish, that no one be received to utter profession in this Society, unless his life and doctrine shall have been explored by long and most diligent probations (as it shall be declared in the Constitutions): because in truth this Institute requires [men] altogether humble, and prudent in Christ, and conspicuous in the purity of Christian life and in letters. Nay, even those who shall be admitted as coadjutors, both in spiritual and in corporal matters, and as scholars, both of which, after sufficient probations and the time expressed in the Constitutions, must utter their vows, for devotion and greater merit, not indeed solemn (except some, who, by the license of the Superior General, on account of their devotion and the quality of the persons, will be able to make three such solemn vows), but by which they may be bound, as long as the Superior General shall judge that they must be retained in the Society, as it shall be more amply explained in the Constitutions—let them not, unless diligently examined and found fit, be admitted, to the same end of the Society, to this warfare of Jesus Christ, who may deign to favor our slender beginnings, unto the glory of God the Father, to whom alone be ever glory and honor unto the ages. Amen.

[311] Wherefore, considering that nothing which is not pious and holy is found in the said Society, and its laudable Institutes, and the exemplary life and morals of Ignatius and of the other aforesaid companions, The Institute of the Society, and its privileges, is approved and confirmed. and that all these tend to the salvation of the souls of their own and of the other faithful of Christ, and to the exaltation of the faith: absolving, by the series of these presents, the companions and their aforesaid coadjutors, and the scholars of the Society itself, from any sentences of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, and from other ecclesiastical sentences, censures, and from penalties pronounced by law or by man on any occasion or cause, if by any they are in any way bound, only for the purpose of obtaining the effect of the present letters, and judging them to be absolved, and taking them under our protection and that of the Apostolic See, of our own motion, and from our certain knowledge, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of the present letters, we perpetually approve and confirm the erection and institution of the Society, and the extension of the number of its companions, and the reception and admission of the coadjutors, and all and singular the privileges, immunities, exemptions, liberties, and the faculty of framing and altering statutes and ordinances, and any other indults granted and confirmed to the same, to the Society and its Superior, by our predecessor and See of this kind under whatsoever tenors and forms, and the letters made thereupon, both under lead i.e., a bull and in the form of a Brief, and the things contained in them, and whatsoever followed thereafter; and we add to them the strength of perpetual firmness, supplying all and singular the defects both of law and of fact, if any have intervened, in the same; and we decree that all and singular of these obtain the strength of perpetual and unshaken firmness, and must be inviolably observed, and thus must be judged, interpreted, and decided by any judges and commissaries functioning by whatsoever authority (the faculty and authority of judging and interpreting otherwise being taken away from them and from any of them); and whatsoever it shall happen to be attempted otherwise upon these matters by anyone, by whatsoever authority, knowingly or ignorantly, we decree and declare void and empty.

[312] The judges, who are to assist. Wherefore to all and singular the venerable brethren, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and beloved sons, abbots, priors, and other persons constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, we mandate by Apostolic writings, that they themselves, and any of them, by themselves or by another or others, assisting the aforesaid Superior and Society in the premises with the aid of efficacious defense, cause, by our authority, all the aforesaid, and the present letters, to obtain full effect, and to be inviolably observed by all: not permitting anyone to be in any way unduly molested against their tenor, restraining any contradictors and rebels by ecclesiastical censures, and other opportune remedies of law (appeal being set aside), and aggravating the aforesaid censures, the legitimate processes to be had upon these being observed, even at repeated times, invoking also for this (if there be need) the aid of the secular arm.

[313] Notwithstanding, etc. Notwithstanding the Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and all those, and singular, which in the aforesaid letters the same our predecessor willed not to obstruct, and any other contrary things whatsoever: or if to any, in common or severally, it has been granted by the Apostolic See that they cannot be interdicted, suspended, or excommunicated by Apostolic letters not making full and express mention, and word for word, of an indult of this kind. Let it therefore be permitted to no man at all to infringe this page of our absolution, reception, approbation, confirmation, addition, supplying, decree, declaration, and mandate, or by rash daring to go against it. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God, and of the blessed Peter and Paul, His Apostles. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand five hundred and fifty, on the twelfth before the Kalends of August, in the first year of our pontificate. F. de Mendoza. Fed. Cardinal Cesi.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XX.

A fuller description of the Institute and form of the Society of Jesus.

Cap. XXII.

From this Pontifical diploma I think it is manifest The author, having prefaced some things what is the end of this Society, [and] what its Institute. But since that is briefly touched rather than explained; I believe indeed that the thirst of some is kindled, and, from those things which they have understood about this Institute, inflamed with a desire of understanding the rest. Whose pious desire I will try, for my part, to comply with: and to explain a little more distinctly and more fully the things which have been summarily touched. For this too pertains to the praise of Ignatius (whose life we write), that men understand with what Institutes he tempered this Society.

[315] The Society of Jesus therefore, marked with this name ^a by the supreme Pontiffs, sets forth the end and the means of the Society, both is and is called a Religion of Clerks by the Council of Trent ^b. Its life is placed neither in contemplation alone, nor in action alone, but in both together. The end ^c to which it looks, and to which it refers all its actions, is the care of its own and of others' salvation and perfection. This perfection, which consists especially in charity, it has set before it in all things: to its norm it directs both its own and externs. The rest of the things which are sought for the sake of the end ^d agree with this end: for it diligently carries out well-nigh all the offices of piety which conduce to this. For it assiduously preaches, instructs boys and the rude in the rule of believing rightly, teaches by precepts the virtues to be practiced and the vices to be fled: teaches a certain method of praying both with the voice and with the mind: exhorts to the pious and frequent use of the Sacraments: visits and consoles the sick: confirms the dying placed in anguish: strives to relieve the bound in custody, the poor in the hospice, the wretched everywhere and the calamitous: strives that hatreds be extinguished, and, discords being removed, the minds of enemies be glued together by benevolence: finally, that all works of piety be instituted, augmented, [and] preserved. All which indeed are common to our houses and colleges.

[316] But of the colleges (in which indeed ours teach) these are proper: to which it superadds the things which are proper to the colleges. to exercise sedulously the studies of letters, and diligently to explain, according to the faculty of each college, all the disciplines which indeed are necessary to a theologian: to join doctrine with piety: to form the morals of adolescence, and to fashion the soft and slippery age to every virtue. These it tries to effect not only among Catholic and entire sound peoples, but even much more gladly among barbarians and heretics: both because they are deserted and destitute of all help; and indeed because this Society, as is said in the Pontifical diploma, is instituted especially for the defense and propagation of the faith. From which the perfection and excellence of the Society itself, and of the other Religious orders which have the same Institute, easily shines forth. For the excellence and perfection of a Religion depends on the perfection of [its] end: and that Religion is more perfect which has a more perfect end, and the things which are taken for the sake of the end fitter, and more accommodated to attaining the end.

[317] In those offices which we have mentioned, for the salvation of its neighbors the Society so exercises itself that it carries out all things altogether gratis, and receives nothing for hearing confessions, sermons, lectures, Masses, and the rest of its functions. The Society gives gratis what it received gratis; and why? Nor however is it ignorant that the workman is indeed worthy of his hire, and that it is just that he who serves the altar should live from the altar, and that therefore alms due on this account are owed by the people to the sons of the sacred Religions: but at this time, in which certain priests are ill spoken of on account of cupidity, and the administration of the Sacraments is called by the heretics a trafficking and gain; that it may cut off the occasion of those who wish an occasion, the custom of others being otherwise praised, it itself in this part imitates Paul, and sets forth the Gospel without cost, and, lest its glory be evacuated, gives gratis what it received gratis.

[318] Why likewise in food and clothing it follows the common manner of living; From the same cause too it came about that in food and clothing it follows a certain common manner of living: sparing indeed and sober, yet moderate, and such as suffices for sustaining life. And so it has indeed no peculiar habit, but [one] common with the priests of those regions in which it lives: in which however the account both of honesty and of poverty may especially shine forth. Which indeed was done, both because this Society is a Religion of clerks (as we said), not of monks: and indeed because to heretics and

other lost men, greatly abhorring from the monastic habit both by their own and by the vice of the times (to recall whom especially into the right way it is instituted), it thinks it can profit more by this method. And it imposes on its men no harsher laws in food and clothing, and no ordinary castigations of the body, to which by reason of its institute all should equally be bound: so that to those coming to it, of every kind of men, every nature, health, [and] age, a certain common and even manner of living may be set forth, which all can undertake and hold. And also for this cause, because this Institute has more and greater difficulties, and its internal burdens are graver than they seem in appearance. Yet it does not spurn or cast away austerities of this kind, which it looks up to in other Religions, and sees most holily instituted: but where necessity demands, or utility, the Superiors either prescribe them as to be undertaken, or approve that they be undertaken. Which is often done so studiously and fervently that, by the grace of God, ours in this matter need rather a bridle than spurs.

[319] and why it does not have a choir, Distended by these its own and so great occupations, this Society ordinarily does not have a choir, where the canonical Hours are chanted. For neither is a choir necessarily required for constituting a Religion. For Religions can be instituted for various ends, and for exercising various works of mercy and piety: to which those who sedulously apply themselves, even if they be free from the choir, are nonetheless Religious than others who are distracted by the choir. And so the Order of St. Dominic seems at the beginning not to have had a choir, since we read that, the confirmation of his Order being obtained, all his disciples were sent by this most holy Patriarch into various provinces and parts of the globe of the lands, to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. At which time, since they were few, and dispersed, and vehemently occupied in teaching the peoples, it is likely that they could not frequent the choir. Nor however shall we say that that most holy Order was therefore then not a Religion, when its Religion most flourished, and by life and doctrine and miracles so greatly illustrated the Church of God. St. Gregory too, in the Roman council, severely sanctioned that deacons, whom it was fitting to be at leisure for the office of preaching and the zeal of alms, should not be chosen as cantors. Because namely (as the most grave holy fathers interpret) it is nobler to excite men to God by word and doctrine than by song.

[320] Wherefore those whose duty it is to teach the people, and to feed them with doctrine, namely its own affairs and to inflame them to heavenly things, they ought not to insist on songs, lest, while they are occupied with those, they be drawn away from more useful things. And even if that canon has now grown obsolete, yet it is not the less true which is contained in the canon, nor has that reason less force: namely that those who are distracted by more excellent and more necessary things ought to be empty and free both of the choir and of less necessary offices. And so we see that, at the beginning of the nascent Church, the Apostles rejected committed away the care of feeding widows to seven Deacons, lest, entangled in that holy indeed, but less necessary occupation, they should in any way be retarded from the preaching of the word of God, which was graver and more necessary. It is not (they say) good to leave the word of God and to serve tables. Wherefore in the other Religions (even those which have a choir by Institute) the public professors, scholars, preachers, and those occupied in the daily administration of domestic or graver offices, have a freer vacation from the choir, that, namely, being expedited from the choir, each may attend to his office according to its dignity. Which will be the more permitted to that Religion which does not have a choir by Institute.

[321] But in this Society you will assuredly find no one who is not either a scholar, or a public professor, busying itself, or a preacher, or a confessor, or a temporal coadjutor, or finally [who] is not at leisure for greater ministries by its Institute. Whence, since many other churches and Religions are most holily consecrated by their Institute to celebrating publicly the divine praises, from which anyone could seek this help for exciting the mind and inflaming it with piety, and this Society cannot embrace both, it thinks that it must, by every means, apply itself to that part which is less cultivated by others, and more necessary, and various and manifold. In treating and cultivating which, that it may always be intent, and remit nothing, it necessarily passes over, and yields to others, the rest, which are indeed honorable and illustrious in themselves, but alien to this its Institute: and imitates in this part too the Apostle Paul, who says of himself: The Lord sent me not to baptize, but to evangelize. Not because it is not illustrious, and necessary to salvation, to baptize (since indeed Baptism is the gate of all the Sacraments, and necessary to salvation), but because there were many others who could discharge the office of baptizing: but few who could sustain, according to its dignity, the person of an evangelical preacher. Manifold is the grace of God, and various and innumerable the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nor in war are the scouts, who investigate the counsels of the enemy, less useful than the soldiers who join hands with the enemy: nor do they profit less who, mines being driven, break up the opposing fortifications, than those who make an assault on them when they are already overthrown.

[322] Equal too is the part of him who goes down to battle, and of him who remains at the baggage, which suit its institute. and they divide alike: and Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy elders whom Moses chose, received from God an equal grace of prophesying, although they remained in the camp, as the sixty-eight others who stood before the tabernacle: so that he who eats may not spurn him who eats not, and he who eats not may not judge him who eats: but let all praise the Lord of all, who distributes His gifts as He wills. And the Society thinks that it, occupied fruitfully in so many labors and works for the salvation of souls, even by prayers and Masses, which it performs continually, even if it have not a choir, fully satisfies the people, and repays, according to its slenderness, the alms received from it.

[323] The endowments, kinds, and novitiate of those to be admitted: And since, for rightly and in order performing the offices which we have recorded, great virtue above all, [and] no mediocre doctrine, is necessary, besides a suitableness of nature, and a dexterity for dealing with men, and a good estimation among men themselves; this Society neither admits criminals, nor those infamous by the law itself, whether canon or civil, nor those whom it thinks likely to be inconstant in their vocation, and frivolous, or altogether useless to it, and inept. But no one who has received the habit of any other religion (for it desires that in whatever vocation each is called, in that he should remain: and that the other assemblies of sacred men may flourish in number, fruit, and the glory which is in Christ Jesus); it receives only those whom it understands to be called by God to its Institute. Of these there are four kinds. The first is of learned men, who, touched by the divine Spirit, desire to consecrate to God the erudition and praise of knowledge which they have attained, and in this Society to contribute it to the spiritual utility of others. The second is of those who, since they are of blameless life and sufficient doctrine, are admitted into the Society, that they may help the professed themselves in spiritual things. The third kind consists of those youths whom, endowed with a good hope of mind and genius, it admits, that they may learn and procure that doctrine which is necessary for aiding others. The last contains those men who, content with the lot of Martha, take care of the domestic ministries (that others, expedited by them, may more freely exercise the spiritual ones), whom therefore it calls temporal coadjutors. All these, whoever are admitted, are two years in the novitiate, within which they are compelled to utter no vow by [the] Institute, but themselves prove both themselves and the Religion.

[324] which in the Society But this time of probation, which is more prolonged than in the other Religions, and more copious, brings great utility to those who are proved, and to the Society itself. For since, in aid of human frailty, the space of probation was instituted, that I may use the words of Innocent III, and granted by the holy fathers not only in favor of the convert, but also of the monastery, that both the one may be able to experience the austerities of this life, and this the monastery the morals of that [one]: in this space of two years, our novices more diligently weigh the whole matter, and more slowly prove the Institute, considering long what they refuse to bear, [and] what their shoulders can bear (lest, impelled by a certain impulse of mind rather than by reason, or by the Spirit of God, they take up a burden which they cannot bear): and the Society in turn also proves them, and strives to know them within and in the skin: lest it burden itself with useless men, and admit less proved those whom a little after it must dismiss. And it is altogether both consonant with reason, and agreeable to the doctrine of the holy fathers, and not alien from the very ancient custom (which was formerly various and manifold in the Church of God), that each should the longer and more attentively ponder the Institute of a Religion, before he approaches and takes it up, the graver and more illustrious it is: and that a Religion should the more have known and explored those who come to it, the more arduous and excellent its Institute is. Wherefore the Apostolic See gave to the Society a space of two years for proving its novices.

[325] During which whole time, they are accurately proved in all things of their own Institute, and are exercised in praying, both with the voice and with the mind, by assiduous use, for grave causes it lasts two years. and by various methods which pertain to extirpating the depraved desires of the mind, and mortifying the members which are upon the earth, as indeed the Apostle says, and by the offices of humility are turned up and down. For in the time of probation, the prefects and masters of the novices diligently explore and judge their vocation: and labor greatly that they themselves may understand and confirm it: they studiously inquire into the genius and faculties of each: which when they have ascertained, they constitute each in his own place and grade, prescribe nothing above [his] strength, but rather relieve it, and serve the grace of God and nature. Moreover, when they hand them many things which pertain to confirming their minds, and to recalling them to the rule and norm of their own Institute, then indeed those four things which, from the discipline and example of Ignatius, are, as it were, the chief dogmas, and the founts, as it were, of the rest of the precepts. The first is, that they should strive to find God in all things. The second, that they should have this one purpose, that all things be done unto the greater glory of God. The third, that they should hold obedience with their teeth tenaciously, and place the utmost religion scrupulousness in cultivating it. The last is, that they should seek nothing else from this world than what Christ sought, that, as He came to make souls safe, to suffer for them, and to meet death, so they themselves may make souls

gain for Christ by every means: that they should even alacritously expose themselves to labor and to death for them: that they should receive reproaches and contumelies, if inflicted, not only with an even, but even with a willing and cheerful mind, for Christ; if they be not inflicted, that they should eagerly desire them, yet themselves giving no cause or occasion of evil-speaking. But if anyone either pertinaciously resists the counsels and warnings of the Superiors, or the Institutes of the Society, or does not sufficiently accommodate himself, he is dismissed from the Society. For this is most primary to this Society, that, in order to keep itself pure and sincere, it should cut off whatever is vicious and corrupt, and retain no one whom by its Institute it ought not to retain.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXI.

The continuation of the same description.

The biennium therefore being completed, those of the first kind whom we have recorded, sufficiently instructed in erudition, The method of the vows, and of dismissal from the Society: if to their doctrine they shall have added also virtue and probity, and shall have proved themselves to the Society, can utter their profession: if their virtue seem not sufficiently proved, it is explored further. But then indeed those very ones, and also those who are contained in the second kind, and are called spiritual coadjutors: besides, the scholars and the temporal coadjutors, bind themselves by vows of perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience after the novitiate. Which vows indeed are simple, not solemn: by which namely they are so bound that yet it is free to the Society, before profession, to dismiss those whom it does not approve, and to absolve those dismissed from all obligation of the vows. Wherefore in vows of this kind there is a certain pledge, voluntary and free, and a simple promise of the one offering, by which he who vows, as far as is in him, delivers himself in perpetuity to the Religion. Who indeed, the whole matter being explored and perceived through the biennium (as we said), wishes of his own accord to be held, and to live and die on this condition in the Society: which certainly, since before entrance he is free and of his own right and master, he could indeed have done with the matter less explored. But of the Society, although there is no peculiar and proper obligation which depends on their vows; yet that is the greatest and firmest which the Constitutions of the Society itself, and its laws, impose: which namely holily forbid that anyone be rashly or inconsiderately dismissed, or on account of a disease which, serving the Society, he contracted, or on account of causes which can otherwise be healed.

[327] of which the causes, cautions, and benevolence of dismissal are given, But the chief causes of dismissing (that I may say it in one word) are reduced to two: when it is expedient either to the one himself who is dismissed, or to the Society, that the man be dismissed: for then to retain him would be contrary to charity, to which all things ought to serve. And indeed, when he is necessarily dismissed, the Constitutions order that it be done so considerately, so cautiously, so benevolently and grievingly, that nothing may seem to have been omitted for the utmost moderation and religious prudence. And that this may be done as considerately as possible, the Superior General alone has the power of dismissing from the Society those who after the biennium are obligated by vows of this kind. Wherefore it is not in the power of those who rule to dismiss anyone from the Society at their own discretion, but [one] lives by prescript and law: and if in any matter they show themselves moderate and benign, in this (as is fitting) most of all. For besides that Christian charity demands this moderation, the interests of the Society itself vehemently require, and even earnestly demand, that men, now learned, and by its great labors and expenses of many years cultivated and polished, be not inconsiderately or easily dismissed, whom, rude and unpolished, it admitted slowly and with great judgment. For it would be inconsiderate to labor strenuously in sowing, [and] to neglect the time of reaping the mature crop, and of gathering the fruits. But since the end of the Society is excellent, and consequently full of innumerable difficulties, it altogether desires proved and exercised men, that it may be obtained without offense. Which is the cause why it thinks that no one is to be admitted to profession whose virtue and doctrine has not before been perceived by many and long-continued experiments: lest, namely, they take up a burden above their strength, and be oppressed by it, and be a destruction to those to whom they ought to have been a salvation. But while they are proved, while they are instructed, lest they be altogether wandering and free, they are bound by the religion obligation of vows of this kind (as we said), and step by step, and gradually, ascend from the lowest to the highest.

[328] the equity, utility, This method therefore is indeed new, but in this part suited to a new Institute, salutary to the scholars, necessary to the Society, most useful to the Church of God. For the scholars rejoice in the merit and fruit of the vows; and, obligated by them, are rendered firmer in their vocation. And the Society, having received such vows as it were hostages, will doubt less of their will and constancy; nor will it fear that the people lose their oil, and it its labor, and that both confer a benefit upon those who, having, by their benignity and labor, attained the good arts, when the time of returning the favor shall have come, are about to return to the world. Which certainly, if it were done, would be iniquitous, and no less unjust than if anyone, enriched with ecclesiastical goods, and rich in the patrimony of Christ, holding the plow-handle in his hand, should look back behind him, and, deserting the ecclesiastical state, should again entangle himself in the affairs of this world. Which, lest it ever be able to be done, it is provided by the sacred canons that if anyone assumed to the government of a parochial church be not, within a year, on account of study, promoted to the priesthood, he should yet receive the subdiaconate, and bind himself by a vow. Which vow indeed is, as it were, a certain surety to the Church of God of the future constancy of him who binds himself by vow, lest, as the Pontiff says, as is recognized to have been done of old by many raised up from the patrimony of Christ, he be able to draw back from the clerical state. But the Church of Christ is by this method freed from a great number of those apostates who, having gone out from the Society, would exist perpetually obligated by their vows, nor could safely undertake another manner of living: as experience itself teaches to happen to the apostates of other Religions.

[329] Nor indeed is any injury done to him who is dismissed, without any since, willing and knowing, he underwent this law when he was admitted; and altogether free and of his own right he is left when he is dismissed; and for the most part he goes out in a better condition than he entered. Nor is he dismissed, except for the good of himself, or for that of the whole Society: of which (since it is the common good of many) a greater account indeed must be had than of any private good. For as a greater good is preferred to a lesser good; so common utility is preferred to special utility. But if all Religions can, and are wont, to expel from their assembly even their own professed members who seem incurable, and admit not cure; when yet those thus ejected are bound to render their profession, as far as they can; it ought to seem a wonder to no one if the Society dismisses from itself those who have undertaken no profession, but have uttered only simple vows, [and] who, when they are dismissed, loosed from the bonds of these, have free power of going away wheresoever they will.

[330] Nor indeed, if he who enters the Society commits and entrusts himself to the Society, an injury to anyone. hoping that he will at no time ever be dismissed by it, except for some great reason; is it fitting that the Society should so trust him as to exact no security of his perseverance and stability. For the parts are not equal. Nor however, if you rightly weigh it, is the security which the Society renders to its sons by [its] Institute (as we said a little before) less or weaker than that which it receives from them by vow. And by these utilities this new Institute is confirmed. Nor however is it so new that we do not have many vestiges of it in the ancient seminaries of clerks, as may be seen in some of the councils of Toledo, and others, which to adduce here, and to bring forward other reasons, would be too long, and alien from our purpose, and by no means necessary. For, which is the chief point, both the whole Institute of the Society, and indeed especially this part of it, is approved by the judgment and institution of many supreme Pontiffs, and by the most sacred authority of the ecumenical Council of Trent.

[331] That we may therefore return to those four kinds of men who are admitted into the Society; those first, who are conspicuous in erudition, are admitted to the profession of four vows: The four classes of Religious in the Society are treated; the second are enrolled in the grade of formed spiritual coadjutors, through those three vows likewise public, but simple, uttered in the hands of the Superior: and in the same manner, those who are admitted to go about the domestic offices themselves also attain their fixed grade of formed temporal coadjutors: but both kinds of formed coadjutors are afterward capable of no hereditary succession, as may be seen in the Constitution of Gregory XIII (which I will subjoin a little after). The spiritual coadjutors, like subsidiary reserve soldiers, help and relieve the professed, and are ready for all excursions. But the temporal coadjutors relieve the rest of the care of domestic affairs. The scholars learn letters, and join doctrine with the spirit which they drank in the novitiate, and through the whole time of studies so are at leisure for the disciplines of letters that they keep piety, and omit not the mortification of themselves: nay rather they exercise themselves in many of the offices of the professed and of the spiritual coadjutors (according to the faculty and genius of each), that by the custom of acting well they may be more prepared, and, as it were, more exercised, to go about their ministries in due time.

[332] as also of the houses and colleges, This is done in the colleges: for the Society has houses and colleges, which are so distinguished. The houses are either of probation, in which, in the manner which we mentioned, the novices are conformed to the discipline of the Religion: or of the professed; in which, namely, those who have gone through the labors of the novitiate and of studies exercise themselves in confessions, preachings, and other ministries of piety, for the utility of their neighbors. The colleges are of the scholars: in them, although some offices of the professed are practiced, yet proper to them are whatever pertain to learning or teaching those disciplines which are necessary for rightly going about the ministries of the professed. The houses of the professed can have no revenues (not even for the building of a church, or its worship and adornment), nor any possessions, privately or in common: nor the right of asking any perpetual alms, but they live by daily alms.

[333] and of their goods. To the houses of probation and to the colleges it is permitted to have goods in common, that both the novices may not be a burden to the peoples, before they begin to be of use, and the scholars, expedited from the solicitude of seeking sustenance, may more freely apply themselves to the knowledge of things. But revenues of this kind are either publicly established by cities, or privately by chief and wealthy men, who think that by this method they rightly place their means, and illustriously deserve well of men, as I will say in chapter 24. The goods of the colleges the professed Society

administers: from which however no utility can come to it itself, but they are wholly consumed in the food and clothing of the scholars. So it comes about that those whose the fruit is are subject to command, nor have the faculty of abusing the goods: [and] those who preside perceive no proper utility from their labors, but convert it to the fixed and prescribed uses of their brethren. The scholars, their studies being finished, are again called back to the anvil, and, as it were, forged anew, that they may be enrolled in the number of the professed, or of the formed spiritual coadjutors.

[334] The chief part of the Society are the professed: But to the professed there is above all great authority, and the right of governing the Society. Out of them are created the Assistants, Provincials, Commissaries, Visitors, and the Superior General himself. Whence it is also fitting that they excel in the praise of proved virtue and erudition, and in the use of affairs, while yet living equally with all (as they do), and equalizing by humility and modesty the things which could seem unequal. But the professed utter three solemn vows, after the manner of the other Religions, of poverty, chastity, and obedience (for in those three vows the force and nature of Religion is contained), [and] they add a fourth, peculiar and proper to the Society, of obedience for missions to be faithfully rendered to the Roman Pontiff. Which indeed in these mournful and lost times, in which the authority of the most sacred See is most sharply impugned by the heretics, was a plainly divine device. For besides other utilities which it contains, many and great, which are touched in the very formula of the Institute, certainly it binds more tightly what the heretics strive to loosen.

[335] But that the Society may be governed excellently not only for the present, who also utter certain simple vows. but also for the future, and that cupidity and ambition, the most certain plagues of the Religious state, may, as far as is in it, be met; the professed utter other simple vows, and promise that they will not consent that the Constitutions concerning poverty, which now is in the Society, be changed, unless perhaps so as to contract and tighten it more, and that they will seek no dignity in the Society, either openly or secretly: but that if they shall have known anyone to have canvassed for one, they will faithfully betray him: and that outside the Society they will admit no dignity, unless they be compelled by the obedience of him who can command.

[336] Moreover the form and method of the government is this. The method of the Society in those things, Over the whole Society, with the utmost power, presides one Superior General. He is chosen by the vote of the Provincial Superiors, and besides of two professed members, who, chosen in the provincial congregation, come together with the Provincial from each province to the general assembly; and he is perpetual, and has the greatest authority among all. He, from the knowledge of all the affairs and persons of the Society, which he has very great, constitutes the rectors of the colleges [and] the superiors of the houses: creates Provincials, Visitors, and Commissaries. Which method is most convenient, and most fit for preserving peace, modesty, and humility: for it takes away and cuts off the perturbations of minds, dissensions, envies, [and] hatreds, which almost follow the elections of Prelates that depend on the judgment and will of many. The Superior General likewise, by himself or through his Provincials, governs the colleges: dispenses to his subjects the faculties given to the Society by the Apostolic See, and the privileges, restrains, relaxes, grants, [and] revokes their use: has the fullest power of admitting into the Society, and dismissing from it, of co-opting into the number of the professed, of convoking general assemblies (over which he himself presides) and of carrying them through: finally, to his discretion and judgment the sum of all affairs and counsels returns.

[337] Lest he perhaps abuse this power, besides that care which pertain to its Superior General; which is employed in choosing the best Superior General, and most fit for that office (which is the greatest, and is kept with equal religion scrupulousness), by whose vote the Superior General is created, by the same are chosen four most approved fathers, who are called Assistants, and are for a council to the Superior General. They moderate his food and clothing ^a, define his labors, [and] admonish him of his errors in humility: and for that matter an Admonitor (for so he is called) is established by the Society itself. If anything graver happen, if he be that [man] harsh, and more than fair, and violent, if he be perhaps a lavish or preposterous distributor of the goods of the colleges, if he be depraved in doctrine or in morals (for we are men), the right of convoking the general congregation (which, because it represents the whole Society, is even superior to the Superior General himself) is in the hands of the Assistants, in which the truth of those matters, and their weight, is examined, and, according to the measure of the fault, a penalty is imposed. For the Superior General can be deprived of the generalate, if the matter require, and be affected even with graver punishments.

[338] as also [that which pertains to the mode of government, which is mixed of two kinds.] Whence the government of the Society, since it comes very near to monarchy, has also much of aristocracy. For, that being avoided which can be vicious, the Society has taken that which is best in each kind. For that there should be one prince in the government is indeed illustrious, and firm for self-preservation: but only if he be moderate and wise: yet it is perilous lest, elated by honor, he follow his own lust, not reason, and convert what was handed for salvation into the destruction of many. And that this indeed be absent, and that he be most wise, one man certainly cannot know all things, and therefore, There is the salvation of the people where there are many counsels. For what each knows above others, he confers to the common stock. But this of peril is inherent in a multitude, lest there be as many opinions as heads, and that one thing by which above all the assembly and association of men is held together, being drawn apart into various directions, be dissolved. Which perils, that it might avoid in each kind, this Society both received unity from monarchy, and counsel from the optimates aristocracy, and so tempered each that the Superior General both presides over all, and himself in a manner is subject, and his Assistants are counselors, not judges.

[339] To each religion are its own proprieties, and to the Society. This is a certain appearance of the Institute of this Society, and the form of government, which Ignatius expressed and left to us. Which indeed, as is clear from the above, although it has many things joined and common with the other Religions, yet has some proper and singular. For since this Society is a Religion, it must necessarily have those things which the other Religions have, and which are so proper to a Religion that they cannot be torn and drawn away from it. But those are the three vows, of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in which the force and nature of a Religion is placed, and which, if they be absent, it cannot be, or be called, a Religion. But since it is also a Religion of clerks (as the Council of Trent testifies), it must differ from all monastic Religions in those things indeed in which they stand apart and dissent from the clergy. And although all Religions look to the same [end], and are referred to evangelical perfection as to one and the same last end; yet each one has its own chief and peculiar end, which it regards and follows. Which end, since it is different in different places, even the things which are directed to that end must be diverse, [and] different in different Religions. For the means depend on the extreme [end]; and the things which are sought for the sake of the end, on the end. Nor can any Religion be found which has so great a similitude and affinity with any other Religion that it does not also have many dissimilar and proper things. For if there were nothing at all of difference between the two, there would be not two similar, but one and the same Religion. Besides, every Religion has its own privileges, and dispensations of the common law, which the Vicar of Christ on earth, as, as it were, the author, interpreter, and dispenser of that common law itself, makes by his authority, unto the utility and ornament of the holy Church. Which indeed is clothed round about with this admirable variety, and, like the camp of God, has very many and invincible battle-lines of armed soldiers, fighting indeed most bravely for the common cause, but all using not the same, but each their own fit and proper arms. Which kinds of arms indeed differ as much among themselves as the soldiers who use the arms. Finally God, who most wisely governs all things, accommodates the medicine to the nature of the disease, and, according to the variety of the times, sends various Religions, for either cultivating or illustrating His Church, at ages prefixed by Him.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXII.

The Institute of the Society of Jesus is confirmed by Pope Gregory XIII.

Cap. XXIII.

When I had written these things, and wished to publish them and commit them to the press, a new Constitution of Gregory XIII, of happy memory, came into my hands: in which, as it declares the whole Institute of the Society, [The author, having prefaced some things concerning the Constitution of Gregory XIII in favor of the Society,] and approves and anew confirms all its privileges, constitutions, and statutes: so indeed it defines and establishes certain chief points out of those which have been explained by me in the last chapter, in such a way that it greatly illustrates the whole matter of which we treat. And it even binds with the anathema of excommunication of pronounced sentence latae sententiae those who shall have said or taught things contrary to these; and bridles the rash audacity of certain persons who dared to detract from this Institute, and from other Apostolic letters of the same Gregory likewise confirming it: and it pronounces all their assertions repugnant to this Constitution to be false and rash. For since this Religion is the Society of Jesus, it certainly cannot escape the calumnies which the Lord Jesus Himself, and all the other Religions, which are likewise Societies of Jesus, and true members of Him, have nowhere not endured. Which the sacred Orders of St. Dominic and of St. Francis abundantly testify, who at the beginning were most gravely harassed by the wicked, and pertinaciously assailed with all engines: but God, who is both the institutor of the holy Religions and their defender, divinely moved His Vicars, the Supreme Pontiffs, to undertake their protection and defense, and most providently sent to their aid, at that very time, the most illustrious and most holy Doctors Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, that they might retard the attempts of the enemies, crush the calumnies, break and beat down their audacity, and, by the splendor of heavenly doctrine, dispel the mist poured over men's minds. But that the reader may even more perceive all these things, I have judged that a part of the Constitution of our most Holy Lord the Pope himself must be subjoined here:

[341] Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, he brings it forth: in which the Society is praised to the perpetual memory of the matter. Our Lord and Savior ascending into the little ship, behold a great commotion was made in the sea; but He, being asked by the disciples, commanded the winds, and there was made a calm: which calm we, placed in the little ship of Peter, whirlwinds being stirred up, asking from the same Lord by assiduous prayers, do not meanwhile cease to expend our labor and toil in breaking the stormy waves; and since the divine providence has prepared for us companions of so great a labor, and strong rowers, it relieves us greatly by their labor in overcoming the tempests of the raging sea, companions who, for the common salvation of the fluctuating souls, their own

count their own comforts as nothing, and expose themselves to all dangers. In which, both the zeal of the other Religions, and the assiduous labor of the Society of Jesus for Christ, and also its perseverance up to the end, has shown itself ready; and since it has procreated offspring very profitable to the Catholic Religion, and prepared to undergo all perils for the universal Church, it daily substitutes one after another, not degenerate from the first, the grace of God furnishing it, so that their nurslings, advanced higher through the manifold grades of probations, may always be at hand to us: whom we may take on as fruitful workmen in undertaking arduous things: but them, that they may be able to render firmer aid to us for the aforesaid, we strive to preserve untouched from all not only injury, but even calumny.

[342] from the end and the means, Which, that it may be effected by us, we ought, by Apostolic authority, and by the example also of other Roman Pontiffs, to protect its Institutes, as the foundations of that protection which they expend on the Catholic Religion, unmoved and unshaken; of whom Paul III, of happy memory, and Julius III also, confirmed the Constitutions and the laudable Institute of the said Society; and the same Paul exempted it itself from all jurisdiction of any Ordinaries whatsoever: which Institute, examined by Paul IV, and commended by the Council of Trent, Pius V likewise, our predecessor, declared the Society itself to be a mendicant Order. All which were not undeservedly granted by them, on account of the excellent virtues and gifts divinely bestowed on the aforesaid Society, whose chief end is the defense and propagation of the Catholic religion, and the advancement of souls in Christian life and doctrine. It is also proper to the grace of its vocation to traverse the diverse places of the globe of the lands under the direction of the Roman Pontiff, or of the Superior General of the same Society, and to lead life in whatever part of the world, where a more copious income of souls to be saved by its labor may be hoped for, unto the glory of God. To which end the Holy Spirit, the rouser of Ignatius Loyola, of good memory, the Institutor of the Society itself, and of his companions, also accommodated the means of preachings and of any ministry of the word of God and of Christian doctrine, and of the spiritual Exercises, and likewise of other works of charity, and of the administration of the Sacraments, and especially of Penance and of the Eucharist, and of the more frequent use of these.

[343] and also from the long probation, before the vows: For which to be sufficiently and worthily rendered, and for the difficulties to be overcome, and the perils to be undergone, to which the Religious of the said Society are exposed in wanderings and ministries of this kind, it is necessary that they themselves, being about to go about such things, be fortified with a great protection of virtue and devotion, which are known to be furnished to them above all by the grace of almighty God, and at the same time by the education itself, likewise the long probation in the Society, and also the observance of the rules and Constitutions. By which Constitutions, that they may lay such great rudiments of the virtue for which they are nourished, it is established that the novices in the Society be proved for a biennium; which being completed, if they themselves shall have wished to persevere, and satisfaction shall have been made to the Society by them (since the Society itself does not consist of novices and professed alone, as the other regular Orders), they utter three substantial simple vows (unless someone should at times seem to be admitted to profession, or to the grade of formed coadjutors) of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the same Society, by Apostolic indult, and according to the formula of living expressed in the same Constitutions, and according to those they promise that they will enter the same Society, that is, some further grade of it, as it shall seem good to the Superior General.

[344] Which vows being uttered, they cease to be novices, and into the body of the Society, which being uttered, they obtain some one of several grades in the Society. those who have given, or are about to give, their labor to letters, are co-opted as approved scholars: but others are co-opted as temporal coadjutors not yet formed, and, as far as is on their part, in perpetuity; but on the part of the Society, according to the Apostolic indults and the aforesaid Constitutions, they are obligated so long as the Superior General shall judge that they must be retained in the Society. Which [is] most necessary for the preservation of the Society, and was provided from its beginning, and afterward proved by experiment: and this is explicitly manifested to them at the beginning of their entrance, and they themselves embrace this condition, which is much more convenient to them (if any must be dismissed), that they be dismissed free rather than obligated by vows, and for other just and reasonable causes. The temporal coadjutors not formed, who are destined not for the studies of letters, but for taking care of the domestic offices, after some years, in which they shall have satisfied the Superior General and the Society, through three vows likewise of poverty, chastity, and obedience, although public, and uttered in the hands of the Superior, yet not solemn: but they exist, both from the prescript of the Constitutions, and from the intention of the one vowing and the one admitting, simple, are admitted into the grade of formed temporal coadjutors. But the scholars, their studies in the Society being finished, before they become professed, or formed spiritual coadjutors, not only spend a third year still of further probation in the exercises of devotion and humility, that, if in any matter perhaps the fervor of these virtues shall have grown lukewarm through the occupation of letters, it may grow warm again through the more frequent exercise of the same virtues and the more ardent invocation of divine aid; but are also proved in the ministries of the Society of the word of God, of the sacred and scholastic lectures, and of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, so long as it seems good to the Superior General, nor before they are plainly perceived by the Superior himself, and have satisfied him in all things, are they promoted to grades of this kind.

[345] For those who are to be admitted to the profession of four vows, [Concerning the Professed of four and of three vows, and the spiritual coadjutors.] this vocation requires, according to the same Constitutions, and the Apostolic decrees and indults, that they be men altogether humble and prudent in Christ, and conspicuous in the purity of life and in letters, and proved by long and most diligent experiments, and priests, and before long and much engaged in ministries of this kind, inasmuch as arduous ministries await them. Whence it comes about that not all can be fit for the same profession, nor become, or even be known, such without long exercise and experiment. Wherefore the same Ignatius, by divine instinct, so judged the body of the Society must be disposed into its members and grades, that, besides those whom the Superior General shall have judged to be fit for the profession of four vows, and some whom he can at times admit to the profession of three, the rest of the priests too, whose life and doctrine had been long proved in the Society, and perceived by the Superior General, should, by his license, be admitted into the grade of formed spiritual coadjutors, through those three vows likewise public, but simple, uttered in the hands of the Superior. Which being uttered, both these who shall have been formed spiritual coadjutors, and those who shall have been temporal, have a fixed grade in the Society, and are incapable of all hereditary succession, and can have nothing at all of their own according to the same Constitutions. Nor, on account of such public vows uttered, or through death intestate, can any house or church or college of the said Society succeed to their goods, as neither to the goods of the professed.

[346] The fourth solemn vow, and the other simple vows of the professed, are reviewed. But those who are to be professed of four vows, they add to those three solemn substantial vows a fourth, likewise solemn, of special obedience to be rendered to the Supreme Pontiff concerning missions, for the surer direction of the Holy Spirit in the missions themselves, and the greater obedience of those to be sent to the Apostolic See, and greater devotion, humility, mortification, and abnegation of wills. But after uttering profession, whether of four or of three vows, the professed, for guarding the perfection of poverty, which is the wall and bulwark of the regular Institute, and for excluding all occasion of ambition, utter certain other simple vows: by which they promise that they will never in any way act or consent that the things which are ordained in the Constitutions of the Society concerning poverty be changed, except when, from a just cause of things requiring it, poverty should seem to be more restricted: and that they will not pretend aspire, not even indirectly, to be elected to any prelacy or dignity within or outside the Society: nor, outside the Society, will consent to their own election, as far as shall be in them, unless compelled by the obedience of him who can command it to them under penalty of sin. Likewise that they will manifest to the Society or to its Superior, if they know anyone to be contriving anything of this kind.

[347] [Concerning likewise the simple vows of the others, and their obligation and penalties;] Moreover not only the professed and the formed coadjutors, but of the others, whoever, the biennium of probation being finished, shall have uttered the aforesaid three substantial vows, even simple, if they depart from the Society without express license, even if they do it under the pretext of better fruit, and of transit to any other Order whatever (that of the Carthusians only being excepted), incur the penalties of apostasy and excommunication by the decree of the Apostolic See, from which they cannot be absolved except by the Supreme Pontiff or by the Superior General. For it would be iniquitously dealt with the Society itself, if it were deprived, to the detriment of the Catholic religion and of this See, of men instructed with much labor for arduous ministries, especially since the Constitutions of the Society, and the privileges, which contain the aforesaid, are handed to them to be considered more maturely, in a separate dwelling, before they be admitted to the common life of the novices. The biennium of the novitiate being completed, and the simple vows being uttered, there is one manner of living and obeying altogether for all: for all ought to obey in all things, and to live in common, the others not otherwise than the professed themselves and the formed coadjutors, and that indeed in the houses of probation and colleges from the revenues; but in the houses of the professed, which can have no revenues at all, from alms only. And although those who have not yet arrived at the grades of the professed and of the formed coadjutors may, both for other just causes, and also that the Society may have greater liberty of dismissing them, if there be need, with less offense, retain the right and dominion of their goods for a time to be prescribed by the judgment of the Superior General, that they may at length distribute them among the poor or [for] other pious uses according to their devotion, according to the evangelical counsel and the promise which they make at the beginning of the novitiate; yet meanwhile, as far as regards their use, they keep religious poverty, and can use nothing as their own, and without the faculty of the Superior.

[348] And although all those who, after the biennium of the novitiate, shall have uttered the said three simple vows, which those who have uttered, as is aforesaid, and, co-opted into the body of the Society, and made partakers of its merits and privileges not otherwise than the professed themselves, and who, as far as is in them, are even prepared to utter profession, if the Superior General himself shall have judged it to accord with the Institute of the aforesaid Society, and consecrated in perpetuity to the service of God by simple vows, and content with their lot, as the laudable Institute of the Society requires, are truly and properly Religious; and, if they fall away from the Society, are subject to excommunication and the other penalties of apostates: yet since not long ago we had understood that the minds of some, who were otherwise pious and useful workmen, were at times solicited and afflicted, as if they were not Religious, because they were not professed: nor even were there lacking those who, under the pretext of Religion, Satan transfiguring himself

into an angel of light, not only existed unquiet on that occasion; but even tried to disturb the peace and vocation of others, and to lead them into fraud and defection; whence this fruitful Religion could have received the most grievous detriments: therefore, since the divine providence has, according to the necessity of the times, produced various and salutary institutes of Orders in His Church, and, new diseases from time to time arising in it, new remedies; and, new impugnations of the enemies emerging, has roused up new aids of regular Orders; and has suggested to each of them, according to the vocation of each one's peculiar grace, certain peculiar marks, proper insignia, and means opportune to the end which it intends, and now especially (as the most happy successes throughout the whole world testify) brings forth marvelous fruits in the dominical field by the aforesaid institute of the Society of Jesus, which Society (as also the other beginnings of nascent regular Orders) is impugned by the spirit of contradiction: and since the Orders themselves were on that account wont to be fortified round about by the Constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs: of which thing the most illustrious Orders of Saints Dominic and Francis have abundantly supplied examples:

[349] So we, although we have otherwise confirmed and declared the aforesaid Institute, the privileges and Constitutions of the Society itself, truly and properly of our own motion: establishing that those who, the biennium of the novitiate being finished, have uttered the three vows, although simple, are truly and properly Religious; with a precept that no one dare to call these into doubt, and with an annulling clause, and other decrees, as is more fully contained in our letters made upon this: yet, since there has not been lacking the rash audacity of certain persons who, after our declaration, decree, precept, and interdict of this kind, are not ashamed not only to shake many of the aforesaid, and perhaps other things regarding the Institute of the Society and its form of living, but even to impugn, publicly and from the chair ex cathedra, with rash daring, the very Apostolic decrees and precepts, and perversely to interpret our mind; disputing, and calling the aforesaid into doubt; and measuring all things by the common reasons, forms, and statutes of the other regular Orders, being utterly ignorant of the Institute of the Society, its peculiar Constitutions, and the force of its simple vows, admitted by the Apostolic See in the Religion of the same Society when approved, and perversely interpreting some things by the old law, which afterward, by the process of times, are recognized to have been sanctioned and strengthened by the authority, approbation, and confirmation of this See, and by peculiar privileges, they strive to tear apart.

[350] These things the Pontiff; and below: We, providing for the utility of the universal Church, which we feel from the inviolate and unshaken Institute of the said Society, and the education of its Religious offspring, and hope greater day by day, are Religious: and besides wishing to consult for the indemnity, peace, quiet, and increase of the same Society, of a like motion, and from our certain knowledge, and from the plenitude of Apostolic power, approve and confirm, by the tenor of the present letters, the laudable Institute of the Society itself, and the things which concern it; all and singular the premises, and its aforesaid, and any other privileges, faculties, exemptions, immunities, graces, and indults, granted by our aforesaid predecessors, and by us also through communication; likewise the Constitutions, and statutes, and decrees of whatever kind, holding them as expressed, as if they were inserted word for word in the present letters, supplying all defects of law and of fact, if any have intervened in the aforesaid Constitutions and statutes. In addition to these, wishing to fortify the said Society with the firm protection of this See, by this our perpetual Constitution, of like motion, knowledge, and plenitude of power, we establish and decree, that the three vows of this kind, although simple, by the institution of this See, and by our declaration and confirmation too, are truly substantial vows of Religion, and, in the said Society as in an approved Religion, have been and are admitted by the same See, and are admitted by us, nor can be dispensed in them by anyone besides us and the See of this kind, nor can they cease in any other way than by legitimate dismissal from the Society, and that not only those who are admitted into the grades and ministries of formed coadjutors, whether spiritual or temporal, as is aforesaid; but also the scholars themselves, and all the other aforesaid, and any others, who, admitted into the Society itself, the biennium of probation being finished by each of them, have uttered, or shall utter in the future, the aforesaid three substantial vows, although simple, have been, are, and shall be truly and properly Religious, and everywhere always and by all ought to be esteemed and named [so], not otherwise than the professed themselves, both of the Society, and of any other Regular Orders, and that they must obey their Superiors in all things and through all things, and [are] immediately subject to this See, and altogether exempt from the jurisdiction of any Ordinaries, and delegates, or other judges, as we also, by the force of the present letters, exempt them.

[351] but those who fall away from the Society [are apostates; penalties being decreed against the impugners of the Institute, etc.,] Finally, as they are partakers of all the privileges of the Society according to the disposition of the Superior General, so also we decree that they are subject to major excommunication of pronounced sentence latae sententiae, and to the other penalties of apostates, if any fall away from the Society, and can be punished as true apostates, nor be absolved by anyone from the same penalties, except by us and the aforesaid See, or the Superior General, nor, before absolution of this kind and dismissal from the Society, contract matrimony; nay rather we decree that all these are incapable of contracting, and that contracts of this kind are null and void, as we make them void and annul them: and (that the audacity of the gainsayers may be coerced) we decree that all the aforesaid, and any other assertions similar to them, pronounced or written against the Institute of the said Society, or in any way to its prejudice, are and ought to be esteemed altogether false and rash. We enjoin therefore, in the virtue of holy obedience, and under penalties of excommunication of pronounced sentence, and also of inability for any offices and benefices, secular, and regular of any Orders, to be incurred by that very [act] without any other declaration, the absolution of which we reserve to us and our successors, that no one, of whatever state, grade, and preeminence he be, dare to impugn, directly or indirectly, the Institute of the said Society, the Constitutions, or even the present letters, or any article of them, or of all the aforesaid, or anything else concerning the aforesaid, under any sought color of disputing, or even of investigating the truth, or to contradict them; more strictly inhibiting that no one, whether outside or within the said Society, unless by the license of its General, or of the inferior Superiors, dare to make any notations, declarations, glosses, or scholia upon the premises, or to interpret them otherwise than as the very words sound, or to dispute about them, or inject a scruple to anyone, or call them into controversy or doubt in any way; nor presume to read, teach, hand to others, sell, or retain with himself glosses or interpretations, whether printed or written, pertaining to this: but if any doubt shall happen to arise about the same, let it be referred to the aforesaid See, or to the Superior General of the said Society, or to those to whom he himself shall have committed this.

[352] And thus we decree that in all and singular of the premises it must be judged and defined by any judges and Commissaries, even the Auditors of the causes of the Apostolic Palace, which are prescribed to be executed by all: and Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, in any cause and instance, the faculty and authority of judging and interpreting otherwise being taken away from them and from any of them, and that whatsoever it shall happen to be attempted otherwise upon these by anyone, by whatsoever authority, knowingly or ignorantly, [is] void and empty: mandating to all and singular the patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and the other Prelates of churches and places, even Regular, constituted throughout the whole world, that they cause the present letters to be inviolably observed by all, each in his own churches, provinces, cities, dioceses, and jurisdictions, nay rather that they defend the Superior and the persons of the Society of this kind, and cause them peacefully to enjoy and rejoice in all and singular the premises, not permitting them to be in any way molested by anyone, restraining the gainsayers by ecclesiastical censures, and other opportune remedies of law and of fact, appeal being set aside: invoking also for this, if there be need, the aid of the secular arm.

[353] Notwithstanding the constitution of Boniface VIII, of recent memory, notwithstanding, etc. which begins, Quod VOTUM, and other Apostolic constitutions, and even the statutes and customs of other Orders, strengthened by oath, Apostolic confirmation, or any other firmness, also the privileges, indults, and Apostolic letters granted to any Orders, Universities, places, or persons of this kind by any Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, and by us, and the aforesaid See, even of proper motion and from certain knowledge, and from the plenitude of Apostolic power, and with any irritative, annulling, cassative, revocative, modificative, preservative, exceptive, declarative, mind-attesting, and derogatories of derogatories, and other more efficacious and unusual and irritating clauses, and other decrees, in general or in particular, and otherwise in any way even several times granted, confirmed, and innovated. To all and singular of which, even if in them it be expressly provided that they can in no way, or not except under certain mode and form expressed in them, be derogated, and that for their sufficient derogation, special, specific, and express mention of them, and of their whole tenors, must be had, or some other exquisite form must be observed for this, holding tenors of this kind as sufficiently expressed by the present letters, they otherwise being about to remain in their strength, this once only we specially and expressly derogate, any contrary things whatsoever notwithstanding: or if to any, in common or severally, it has been granted by the same See that they cannot be interdicted, suspended, or excommunicated by Apostolic letters not making full and express mention, and word for word, of an indult of this kind.

[354] This Constitution is communicated with no one: the credibility of transcripts. But we altogether prohibit that the communication of the present Constitution and grace be made to all others who copiously participate their privileges with the Society itself, and shall be able in any way to participate them in the future. As for the rest, we will that to the transcripts of the present letters, even printed, subscribed by the hand of the secretary of the said Society, or of a public notary, and fortified with the seal of the Superior General of the same Society, or of another person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the same faith altogether be had, in judgment and outside it, which would be had for the original letters themselves, if they were exhibited or shown. Let it therefore be permitted to no man at all to infringe this page of our approbation, confirmation, supplying, decrees, statute, precept, interdict, derogation, and will, or by rash daring to go against it: but if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God, and of the blessed Peter and Paul, His Apostles. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1584, on the eighth before the Kalends of June, in the thirteenth year of our Pontificate. M. Cardinal of St. Stephen. Caesar Glorierius. A. de Alexiis. Registered with Caesar, secretary.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Concerning the colleges which the Society of Jesus has, for instructing youth.

Cap. XXIV.

Among the other offices and ministries in which, for the service of God and the utility of the holy Church, The Society has those colleges,

this Society, Ignatius being author and institutor, exercises itself, one (as we said), and that above all useful, is that of the colleges, in which youths are conformed to piety and to doctrine. Which office of teaching some, and indeed grave and prudent men, less approve in that part which touches the boys, and contains the first rudiments of grammar, as new, and alien from Religious gravity, and seek the causes why Ignatius instituted colleges, and ordered a school of letters to be opened for boys, and his men to be detained by that occupation, which is laborious and most troublesome, and seems in appearance abject, and not sufficiently proper to a Religion. To their question, God helping, I will respond, and open the reasons by which that which is done may be understood to be done rightly and wisely. Our colleges therefore are, as it were, seminaries of the Society itself, in which namely our scholars, after they have placed a biennium as novices in the study of virtue and in taming the depraved affections of the mind, join letters also to piety, that, according to the measure of the grace handed to them by the Lord, they may at some time be able to be useful to His Church. But colleges of this kind are so seminaries of the Society (as we said) that in them ours sometimes do not teach letters to others; but themselves learn them. Yet for the most part they are so instituted that ours profess and teach all the sciences necessary to a theologian, and, beginning from the first principles of grammar, as from the cradle, gradually and by degrees lead their hearers to the highest summit of sacred theology. Yet not all these colleges are equal and even, nor are all faculties taught in all, but in certain colleges all, in all colleges certain, in some some, faculties and disciplines are explained. Yet in all, or in most of all, boys are instructed in the precepts of the grammarians and the first letters. And this part indeed, as boyish, and not sufficiently congruent with Religious gravity and tranquillity, some reprehend.

[356] There are therefore many causes, and those most grave, which impelled Ignatius to establish schools of this kind; [that the deplored state of the Church may be restored by the good education of youth:] but that especially the greatest, which depends on his proper vocation, and the present state of the Church. For we see (and not without huge grief of mind) how calamitous and lost is the condition of our times: how great a conversion overturning of all things has been made in a short time: how great a ruin, destruction, and slaughter of all good things has followed. For the greatest part of the globe of the lands either infidels occupy, or heretics; and the part which is left to us, in which indeed sincere and Catholic doctrine still flourishes (which is indeed very small), that yet is most defiled in morals, and so contaminated with vices that it is to be feared lest corrupt and lost morals open the way (as they are wont) even to errors and heresies: and this, however little it is, which remains to us in Europe, fall, shaken by the same commotion. Many, says the Apostle, repelling a good conscience, have made shipwreck concerning the faith. And elsewhere: The root of all evils is cupidity; which some desiring, have erred from the faith. A perverse life therefore begets a perverse doctrine. For a heart occupied by vices, and hostile to virtue, always seeks and follows that doctrine, not which is true, but which is bland and sweet, and which offers pleasant things, [and] rejects unpleasant: and the will, blind of itself, and blinded by the darkness of perturbations, obscures the light of truth more, and dazzles and blunts the edge of the intellect, and drags the mind with it by a certain force, and easily persuades it to cast away that doctrine and faith which, as a certain parent and guardian of virtue, as it always flatters the conscience of the good, so gravely opposes the crimes of the wicked. We must therefore resist the beginnings, and the tree must be healed at the root. Which that it may be done more conveniently, labor must be given that, vices being extinguished and torn out by the roots, the fruits of all virtues may flourish. But that we may attain this, we shall find nothing easier, more excellent, more divine, than the right and accurate instruction of boys: that namely, with the milk of the nurse they may suck in virtue, imbibe the fear of God, and learn from the cradle those morals with which, when they are to live at a robust age, and to administer the commonwealth, they will be equipped.

[357] This they looked to, this they set before themselves in all ages, which is to be esteemed of how great worth, nations, [and] kingdoms, whoever wrote laws about the best commonwealth. This is well-nigh the sum of all precepts. To this are referred, in this are consumed, well-nigh all the sayings, deeds, [and] writings, whatever we read among all authors, and the most wise men, for establishing a certain illustrious form of civil government. For that a grafted shoot may coalesce, and a planted tree strike roots, it must be tender: for you would sooner break than correct the things which have hardened into a crooked shape. To such a degree (says he) is it much to grow accustomed from tender years. And a certain other: A jar, once it has been imbued when new, will long keep the odor. And that saying of the Philosopher: It differs not a little from one's youth to be so or so habituated, but much. Whom a certain poet, imitating, says: For it will be of the very greatest import with what arts, and with what morals, you instruct him. And a little before: Let nothing base to say or to see touch these thresholds within which is a boy; far hence, far thence away with the girls of pimps, and the song of the parasite passing the night. The greatest reverence is owed to a boy: if you prepare anything base, do not despise the tender years of the boy, but let your infant son stand in your way when you are about to sin. But far more illustriously and more wisely the Holy Spirit through Solomon testifies this same thing: It is a proverb, says he: A youth walking beside his way, even when he shall have grown old, will not depart from it. And, older than Solomon, Job said: His bones shall be filled with the vices of his adolescence. Plato indeed writes that nothing seems to him a thing on which more must be labored than that sons should be rightly instructed from the tender (so to speak) nails.

[358] unto the common good, And the blessed Augustine enjoins that greater care must be applied in the education than in the very procreation of children. Think more (says he) how you may nourish those who are born, than that they be born: for it is not now felicity to have sons, but to have good ones. And that same Plato, in the books which he wrote On the Republic and On the Laws, enjoins nothing more accurately than the best and diligent instruction of boys, on which alone the salvation of the commonwealth depends: and to the best written laws he prefers the best magistrates, as to inanimate laws animate laws. For a written law, if it have no magistrate who may, by his right, compel the citizens to obey the law, even if it be most salutary and illustrious, is yet a dead law; and must necessarily lie inert: but the best magistrate, although he lack a written law, is himself yet a law. As much therefore as the things which are endowed with life excel the non-living, and the animate the inanimate, so much does the best governor of the commonwealth, as a living law, surpass a law cut in bronze, which of itself indeed is dead. Plato adds that the best magistrates cannot be made, unless the citizens be the best men, out of whom the magistrates are created: and that men will never be such, unless the youths and boys be such. For out of boys arise men, who conduct the commonwealth with well-nigh those morals and opinions with which they were imbued from boyhood. Hence it comes about that, unless you have wisely laid, as a foundation, the right education of boys in administering the commonwealth, whatever of building you have superstructed must necessarily fall.

[359] by the testimonies of various writers Following Plato, Plutarch, a most prudent philosopher, and once the teacher of the prince Trajan, wrote a golden little book On the Education of Children, in which he pursues the whole matter most accurately. Whose very words are these: As the limbs of infants, as soon as they are born, ought to be formed and composed, that they may become straight and by no means crooked; so it is fitting to fashion the morals of boys at the beginning, aptly and neatly. For that young age is easy and tender for fashioning, and disciplines are better instilled into their minds while they are still soft; but the things which are hard are softened with more difficulty. For as seals are impressed on soft wax, so also doctrines are engraved while the mind is boyish. Most aptly therefore that divine Plato seems to have admonished nurses not to commit frivolous and base little tales to boys, lest they imbue their minds from the beginning with folly and corrupt morals. Beautifully therefore the poet Phocylides admonished: While the son is tender, instruct him in generous morals. Thus he, and a little after: I approach to say the greatest of all, and by far the first. Teachers are to be sought for one's sons, whose life is liable to no crimes, whose morals [are] irreprehensible, and who are of the best experience proof. For it is clear that the fount and root of honesty is to obtain a legitimate discipline. But as farmers place hedges around the little trees; so also most fair teachers insert into boys consonant institutes and admonitions, whence the most upright kinds of morals may sprout. But now some parents are to be spurned, and to be indignant at, who, before they have taken any experience of the teachers, commit their children to men sometimes wicked, and unskilled, and of notable ignorance. Thus Plutarch.

[360] He teaches besides that there is nothing in human affairs which is to be esteemed of so great worth; by testimonies, nor are riches, abundances, birth, glory, honors, beauty, health, strength, and the rest which are numbered among goods, in any way to be compared with the exquisite education of children: but that those are unworthy of the paternal appellation who place more zeal and time in procuring money than in fashioning to virtue the sons to whom they leave the money. And he says that this is nothing else than to have great sedulity for the shoes, but to reckon the foot itself of little worth: and that it is very ridiculous and absurd to rebuke children, and gravely reprehend them, if they take food with the left hand; but, if they be of distorted and depraved morals, to bear it patiently. The same opinion as Plutarch the blessed Chrysostom has in these words: We have a great and precious deposit, [our] sons; let us keep them with huge care; and let us do all things, lest a crafty thief take it away from us. But now we do quite the contrary. For that a field indeed may be the best, we contrive all things, and hand it over to a faithful man with great zeal, and seek out a groom, and a muleteer, and a procurator and steward, who may be affected toward us with great benevolence: but what is dearest of all to us, we altogether neglect, nor care by what means we may entrust our son to some faithful man who may be able to guard and preserve his chastity. And certainly no possession, no field ought to be equally grateful and dear to us: since all these are sought for [our] sons. Therefore we have greater care of the possessions than of those for whose sake they are procured: which assuredly is most absurd and most foolish. Let us therefore exercise the soft minds of [our] sons unto virtue and piety, [and] let us seek all other things in the second place. For if indeed they be wicked, money will profit them nothing: but if they be upright, they will be harmed nothing by poverty. Thus far Chrysostom.

[361] Xenophon indeed, a philosopher and excellent historian, by examples, teaches that Cyrus [was] educated by the laws of the Persians, who had the forum divided into four parts

distributed, of which one was of boys, the second of the youths pubescent, the third of men who now lead the perfect age, but the fourth of those who are veterans past service. And over each of these parts twelve chiefs presided. These indeed, he says, preside over the boys, [men] who, selected from the elders, may seem likely to render them the best. And he pursues most diligently the laws, pursuits, and those exercises of the boys, which cannot be read without admiration. That same Xenophon elsewhere relates that Lycurgus willed, in place of the slave pedagogues whom each privately sets over his own boys, that a man should preside over them out of the number of those who conduct the commonwealth; who, because he moderated the boys, was called Paedonomus. Then he records his office and institutes. And this institute of the Lacedaemonians Aristotle vehemently praises, and teaches that the first and greatest care of him who wishes to constitute a city by laws ought to be in educating the youth; which being taken away, the commonwealth must necessarily perish: and he denies that, where boys are educated, painted tablets in which there is anything of baseness, or naked images of the gods, are to be placed, or lascivious comedies to be exhibited in their presence. And deservedly indeed. For many are condemned to the perpetual darkness of the lower world, whose most evil life had its origin from bad education, and from the carelessness of parents: to whom certainly must be rendered an account of whatever, in a matter of so great moment, they offended through imprudence or sloth.

[362] by inductions, Philip, king of the Macedonians, his son Alexander being born, wrote a letter to this very Aristotle, who at that time flourished in the praise of wisdom; in which he says that he rejoiced less that he had received an heir of the kingdom, than that he had received him at that time in which so great a philosopher lived, to whose care Alexander could rightly be committed: and he vehemently asks Aristotle to undertake his son to be formed and educated in every kind of virtue and duty. For it is not of so great worth to be a king, as to be a wise and excellent king. A certain Greek poet: Blessed (says he) is he who is blessed in instructing children; signifying that the other things which are esteemed goods among human affairs are not of so great moment for true felicity. Those [are] the words of the parent of Roman eloquence: That no greater or better gift can be brought to the commonwealth than if we teach and educate the youth, especially in those morals and times in which it has so fallen into decline that it must be reined in and coerced by all means. And Quintilian, that he may fashion the perfect orator, absolute in all his numbers respects, undertakes to hand down precepts from the very cradle, and wishes great care to be applied in choosing the very nurse: whose morals and words too he bids to be diligently regarded. Jerome, a man of such sanctity and authority, amid the greatest and most grave occupations by which he was assiduously distracted, undertook the care of instructing a girl: and so wrote to Gaudentius a letter filled with the best precepts, about the education of the little infant Pacatula: and another to Laeta about the instruction of [her] daughter, in which he touches cursorily and briefly whatever is anywhere about this subject: and he pursues most gravely many minute and well-nigh boyish things, which cannot be read without admiration, on account of the utmost care which the greatest man exacts in the least things. In this letter therefore he says thus: A master of proved age and life and erudition is to be chosen: nor do I think a learned man will blush to do in a kinswoman or a noble virgin what Aristotle did in the son of Philip, that he himself, descending to the vileness of copyists, should hand down the beginnings of letters.

[363] drawn from profane and sacred antiquity, Things are not to be despised as small, without which great things cannot coalesce. The very sound of the elements letters, and the first instruction of the precepts, is uttered otherwise from a learned, otherwise from a rustic mouth. And a little after: With difficulty is that unlearned away which rude minds have drunk in. Who could recall the purple-dyed stains of wools to their pristine whiteness? A fresh jar long retains both the savor and the odor with which it was first imbued. Greek history relates that Alexander, the most powerful king, and tamer of the world, could not, in his morals and in his gait, be without the vices of Leonidas his pedagogue, with which as a little boy he had been infected. And below: I read once in the schools as a boy, You can hardly reprehend what you allow [one] to grow accustomed to. Thus Jerome. When a certain holy woman prayed the Lord more vehemently that He would reform His Church, deformed and overgrown, and restore it to its pristine splendor; it was asked of her by what means, out of a certain apple utterly corrupt and rotten, apples both beautiful to the sight and sweet to the taste could be procreated? And she heard at length that this could be done by no other means, unless the incorrupt and still entire seeds of the corrupt apple were committed to soft and worked ground, from which an apple-tree should be born, which would bring forth of itself the best and sweetest apples. Nor is it to be done otherwise in the reparation of the Church: and so, that the things which have either withered or are infected may grow green again, they must be roused and healed in the seed. Do we think it was done without cause that that Virgin, who was to be the spouse of God the Father, the mother of the Son, and the temple of the Holy Spirit, at three years old was presented to the temple of God? Or that John the Baptist, the precursor, the voice, the trumpet of our Lord, from his first age hid himself in the desert until the day of his showing? Or that very many other Saints, who ought to shine before others and go before them by the example of their life in the Church of God, began from boyhood to furnish the express documents proofs of sanctity? Of whose number are Nicholas and Ildephonsus, most holy bishops: Benedict and Dominic, institutors of most illustrious Religions: Thomas Aquinas, the ornament of sacred theology: Louis, king of France, the pattern of kings, and not a few others: who by their example teach us how much of weight a holy and diligent education from tender years has toward virtue.

[364] Most prudently St. Basil observed that St. Paul, it is shown. when he wished to praise Timothy his disciple, added to the other praises this also, that from infancy he knew the sacred Letters. For those things which are committed to memory from that age cling more tenaciously (as St. Thomas left written) and are more perfectly preserved. Which likewise was the cause why the most holy Apostles (as has been illustriously handed down by St. Dionysius the Areopagite) instituted that infants should be dipped in the water of baptism, and receive the splendor of heavenly grace: that namely, pure, holy, and free of all error and foulness, they might be educated to the obedience of the true and supreme God from the very womb of the mother, and suck in piety with the milk of the nurse, and, reborn in Christ, might savor and learn nothing else than Christ, whom, as soon as they had been brought forth into the light and received, they had put on through the sacrament of Baptism. The most cruel emperors, who harassed the Church of Christ with all fierceness and monstrosity, that they might utterly destroy our religion, and tear out by the roots from the minds of men the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and true piety, entered upon this method, that they might pervert the soft minds of boys, and imbue them with hatred of Christ. For the emperor Maximinus, the most foul of all tyrants, when by all kinds of torments and death he had profited nothing against the faith of Christ, thought to accomplish by cunning and craft what by violence and cruelty he had tried in vain to effect. For he ordered a book to be written (as has been handed down in letters by Eusebius of Caesarea), to which the title was Acts of Pilate, containing infinite lies and detestable contumelies against our Lord Jesus Christ: and enjoined that all the teachers and masters of boys should explain it to their disciples, and the disciples themselves should learn it by heart: that namely the boys might drink in impiety from earliest infancy, and, depraved with hatred of Christ, and gradually infected with the pestilent opinion, might through their whole life detest Christian men; whom they had learned from tender years to be execrable and pestilent.

[365] The heretics conspire unto the corruption of youth; This nefarious example of impiety the Lutheran heretics in Germany, and the Huguenots in France, followed in our age, that they might disseminate their errors far and wide, and fix them in the minds of men. For many things, both in loose speech prose and bound by numbers verse, by orators and poets learned indeed, but impious, against the supreme Pontiff, and ecclesiastical men, and the received dogmas of the Church, elegantly, wittily, and falsely written, they sent forth among the people, which the boys should learn in the schools, that they might sweetly drink the poison, and keep for their whole life the things which, at their early age, they had induced their mind to believe and keep. The Admiral Coligny certainly (whom, guilty of high treason, and of majesty divine and human injured, and marked with all reproaches, Charles IX, king of France, ordered to be killed), that he might bring heresies into France, and introduce the most certain plague into a most flourishing kingdom, in many cities and towns of that kingdom set up masters of girls, and masters of boys, most like himself, that is, heretical and pestilent, that they might corrupt their minds, and fashion them waxen and compliant in every direction to impiety. In which matter he placed so much (as I hear) of care and zeal, the enemy of the human race instigating him and adding oil to the furnace, that it seems scarcely credible. But if the ministers of Satan so watch to our destruction; what cause is there why the ministers of God should not strive according to their strength, and strain all the sinews of industry and genius unto the salvation of many?

[366] The fathers of the Church [labored in the instruction of boys] This same thing our most holy fathers set before themselves and looked to, who in many councils published illustrious and salutary decrees about the instruction of boys. For they order masters proved in morals and erudition to be set over the schools, who may instruct the youth; and stipends to be established for them; and they prescribe what they ought to teach: and what way to hold, that the disciples, instructed in the rudiments of our most holy faith, may be conformed to the express image of virtue, and the most certain rule of living well. And in the cathedral churches the name and dignity of Scholasticus was instituted, that, invited by honor and utility (which men almost always follow), there might not be lacking [one] who might exercise himself in this most useful and necessary office of teaching. In the canons which are circulated in the name of the sixth synod (which is the sixth universal, and the third of Constantinople) in certain copies, it is enjoined that the clerks open schools, and admit the sons of the faithful, and teach them with charity, and neither ask nor accept anything for their labor, except if perhaps the parents themselves offer something of their own accord: mindful of those words of Daniel, They who instruct many unto justice shall shine as stars unto perpetual eternities.

[367] and the instruction of the sacred ministers. Finally to this look the seminaries which the Council of Trent most recently orders to be instituted in the cathedral churches, in which those who are to be clerks, and ministers of the Church of God, may be instructed from boyhood unto religion and the worship of God and all piety, and adorned with those morals and disciplines which become priests and true ministers of God. And that it is of so great importance in a matter most useful of all to apply the greatest diligence, as to what kind of persons those to be admitted into the seminary ought to be, what arts to learn, and the whole form of government, the most sacred synod most diligently prescribes. To the same purpose is added the example of all the sacred Religions, which, for proving and forming their novices

designate a time, and place, and manner: because namely they understand that it can scarcely be that from a bad novice a good professed member arise. Just as from a dissolute and lost youth, scarcely any honorable and grave priest, or useful citizen of the commonwealth, and wise governor, will come out. For he is a rare bird in the lands, and most like a black swan. For the things which a man shall have sown in his adolescence, the same he will reap in old age.

[368] That we may therefore return to our purpose, this is the cause [Hence the Society esteems the instruction of youth of so great worth: to which antiquity had shone before,] why our Society undertook this office of teaching and instructing boys. Which indeed ought neither to be called new, nor unworthy of a Religion, nor vile or abject; but very ancient, and usual in the most holy institutes of the sacred Orders, and above all laudable and honorable. For at the very beginning of the nascent Church, men excellent and outstanding in life and doctrine were chosen, that they might hand down the catechesis and the rudiments of our faith to the peoples: and at Alexandria (Eusebius of Caesarea being author) a school was for that cause instituted, over which presided Pantaenus, an illustrious philosopher, and Clement of Alexandria, a most learned man, the teacher of Origen; and Origen himself succeeded Clement, and took to himself for that matter, as an associate, Heraclas, a most wise man. And Protogenes, a man most illustrious in sanctity and miracles, opened a school of writing, and by this bait, as it were, allured boys to the knowledge and love of Christ, as Theodoret is author, and this office of teaching grammar too was always held among the most praised offices of the Church of God. Which, that it may become more evident, I will relate what St. Basil, the light, institutor, and father of the monks in the East, hands down about this matter. He therefore asks whether it is fitting that among the brethren there be a master of secular boys? To which question he answers thus: Since the Apostle has said: Fathers, do not provoke your sons to anger; but educate them in the discipline and correction of the Lord, if those who bring them, bring them with this mind, and those who receive them are such as most fully trust that they can educate those who are brought to them in the discipline and correction of the Lord: let that be kept which was commanded by the Lord, who said: Suffer the little ones to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. But this purpose and hope being removed, I judge this to be neither grateful to God, nor from our decorum or utility. Thus he.

[369] And this which St. Basil writes was afterward received by usage. as also churches and monasteries, For both in churches and in monasteries there were literary schools, as is manifest from the canons of the sixth universal synod, which (as we said) are circulated: by which faculty is given to laymen of frequenting the schools established in churches and monasteries. And that same Basil teaches that not only boys, but girls too are to be admitted, and separately instructed, and, after the manner of wax, their minds forthwith from the very beginning fashioned by every exercise of good things. Which illustrious device St. Benedict, himself also the parent of monks in the West, imitated, who educated boys in the monasteries, and formed them to piety (in well-nigh the manner in which our Society now does separately in certain colleges). Thus we read that Placidus and Maurus, little boys, were received by Benedict, and cultivated and perfected in every kind of virtue. Which custom long afterward held. For St. Gregory ordered English boys to be sought out with great diligence, and to be fed and educated in the monasteries of his Order. And St. Thomas Aquinas, long afterward, was instructed from boyhood in the monastery of Monte Cassino. Nor indeed did the monks of St. Benedict fashion the boys only to every praise of virtue; but instructed them also in the disciplines and every kind of the sciences. For both in Germany, and in France, and in England, they taught with great praise, the venerable Bede being author and chief of this institute, who eight hundred years ago taught in England, and presided over a school: into whose place afterward succeeded Alcuin, teacher of Charlemagne, and into the place of Alcuin, Rabanus, abbot of Fulda, who afterward too was archbishop of Mainz. And the monks of St. Benedict had colleges (as we now have), in which namely they taught the things which we now teach, as may be seen in John Trithemius, a monk and abbot of the same Order, who pursues the whole matter most diligently. And by that thing the Order of St. Benedict so greatly flourished, and abounded in most holy and most learned men, whose doctrine illustrated the whole Church, and whose life inflamed it.

[370] fruitfully intent upon this office. Brother John of Vercelli, who was the sixth Master General of the Dominican Order, in a certain chapter of the whole Order established that Religious brethren of his family should everywhere be designated who should instruct and teach boys, [and] hear their confessions: which also had before been decreed in the general chapter held at Metz in the year 1251, and that most holy Order wrote a book and certain statutes pertaining to that matter, from which a marvelous fruit was perceived, altogether similar to that which we now see in the Society. At Pavia too a public school was placed in the convent of St. Augustine, by the men of which Order all the disciplines were handed down: as a certain monk of the same Order left written. And in Belgium up to now we see some assemblies of sacred men in which the discipline of the boys' schools flourishes. Which since they are so, who will esteem a most ancient thing new, or discrepant from the usage of Religion, which those men who begot the Religions for us confirmed by their example? Are our times perhaps happier than those in which they lived? Is this office of teaching boys now less necessary than it was of old? Nothing less. Is it perhaps more conjoined and congruent to the profession of a monk, who has the office of one lamenting, not of one teaching, than to the institute of that Society which God, in these most calamitous times, sent as an aid to His wavering Church, and marvelously called to this work?

CHAPTER XXIV.

The remaining advantages of the same subject are weighed.

[371] And so we see that, as from the rest of the ministries of the Society many and great emoluments redound into the Church of God, so from the use of our schools very many and the greatest. For, to omit the progresses of our disciples in letters, by no means to be repented of: and to speak only of that which is the greatest of all: by this method of teaching certainly, in the eight provinces which our Society has in kingdoms contaminated by heresy, namely two French, the Aquitanian, the Belgic, the Rhenish, the Suevic, the Austrian, [and] the Polish; it has attained incredible advantages and fruits: since the sons of those who still persevere in the Catholic faith, nourished by ours with the milk of true and Apostolic doctrine, both themselves retained the truth of the faith, and confirmed their parents, lest they should depart from it, by their example and innate love: and innumerable sons of heretics were by this same method confirmed, and through the sons the parents were recalled from error. But in the other provinces, entire and sincere sound, a great amendment above all of the boys' morals has followed. For the boys are more tractable at home than before, more obsequious to their parents, modest toward their equals, reverent toward their elders, imbued with the knowledge of God, solicitous with fear, [and] kindled with love. There was a city which, since it had boys intractable and contumacious, to bridle their audacity and coerce their license, many things being tried in vain, at length instituted a college of the Society, and that with happy success. For the boys, following the bland hand of our masters, and instructed in the precepts of Christian discipline, affected their fellow-citizens with great admiration, and taught by an illustrious example how much it avails to grow accustomed to virtue and the fear of God from the tender nails i.e., earliest years.

[372] But the Church of God perceived another fruit too from our colleges. many advantages redound into the Church. For it has many good, learned, [and] grave ministers, educated in our schools, and instructed from early age in ecclesiastical offices, and inclined to all piety. And the very assemblies of the sacred Religions took the greatest utilities from our schools. From which very many of our disciples, the allurements of the flesh being renounced, and all vanity of the world rejected, fled to the most holy Religions, as to a port, inflamed with so great a desire and love of evangelical perfection, [and] so exercised in the zeal of praying and of conquering themselves, that the masters of the novices, to confirm them, incited and running of their own accord, need rather a bridle than spurs. Nor however is it yet perceived how widely the fruits of these schools lie open; they will lift themselves up at some time, and in a short time will spread themselves more widely through all parts, and then at length men will understand what of good lies hidden in those schools, when these seeds shall have grown up: and they will supply most holy bishops to the Church of God, [and] the best and most wise governors of the Christian commonwealth.

[373] Let someone say; Whence is that so great and so excellent fruit from the schools of your Society? But why this especially happens Are not in other schools too the teachers modest, honest, learned, vigilant, and strenuously discharging their office? There are indeed very many; I do not deny it; but yet of this excellent and richer fruit which the schools of the Society bring beyond the rest, there are many causes. Of which the first and chief is the will of God, which, as it chose the Society for this work, so pursues it with its grace, that the office which at its instigation it undertook, it may laudably fulfill. Then there are also other things which conduce to this. For, that the disciples may profit in virtue, those things are employed by ours by which virtue itself is generated, preserved, [and] increased. Those are: morning prayer, to ask grace from God, lest one fall into sin: prayer too in the evening, and a diligent recollection of the things which on that day you have thought, said, [and] done; that you may wash away with grief and weeping the faults which you shall have committed: daily, attentive, and devout hearing of Mass: frequent and humble confession of sins before a priest: and, if it be permitted by one's age, and great devotion persuade it, and the counsel of the confessor too be added, the reverent and pious reception of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ: the handing down and explication of the rudiments of the Christian faith, by which the boys may be animated and kindled to living well and blessedly. Great care besides is employed both in investigating, knowing, [and] amending all the vices of the boys; and indeed especially those which are, in a manner, implanted and innate in that age.

[374] in our schools For tearing out and extirpating which, syndics, as it were defenders and patrons of the common good, are created, and curious decurions, the boys being distributed into decuriae groups of ten, are set over them: who may diligently observe the morals of each, and, if anything be wrongly said or done by anyone, may report it to the teachers. Add the grades of honor, by which those who excel more in virtue and modesty are preferred to the rest, and, as it were, placed in the midst for an example. Confraternities besides are established, into which no one is admitted and co-opted, unless studious and approved, and that with great selection.

But when they gather at these confraternities, the examples of all virtues are set before them, and they mutually help one another, and impel one another to every praise of probity. And to each are distributed their offices, burdens, [and] duties, in the going-about of which they are engaged: and in this exercise they meditate, in a manner, as in a shadow, the things which, their age being now confirmed, they are afterward to perform in the commonwealth.

[375] both concerning morals, This besides is most diligently guarded, that the disciples read no book, however learned and elegant, which could corrupt the untouched chastity of the boys and the integrity of their minds ^a: for the mind, made base by the reading of frivolous and base loves, is gradually tinged with the affection of the things which it reads, and, at length kindled with lust, begins to desire the things which before it knew not. Wherefore all the most holy and most grave men detest all little books about loves, about levity, and the corruption of morals, as enemies to virtue, and the destruction and plague of adolescence, and keep them away from well-constituted commonwealths, and interdict their use to boys. For the poison creeps by contagion, and, blandly drunk down, by its own force kills the man. Which when our Society noticed, and saw that the books of some authors are, for fashioning and polishing the tongue, most fit on account of their great elegance, but, on account of the lasciviousness joined with the elegance, pernicious to morals; it gave labor, and did most prudently, to castigate those books; and, those things being amputated which seemed pernicious to morals, to retain those which could sharpen and polish the tongue. By these methods therefore, and especially by the best example of life which our teachers, as men utterly dedicated to God, strive to furnish them, the minds of the boys are fashioned, and conformed to the most holy discipline. And these things indeed pertain to forming morals.

[376] then concerning erudition, But for augmenting erudition, there are not lacking other helps too of doctrine. Whence we see the boys profit more in our schools in a short time, and make greater progresses in letters, than in a long time in others; and we see this happen both on account of the method which they use, and on account of the assiduity and vigilance of the masters. For elsewhere, well-nigh one master leads many ranks classes, and expends his labor at the same time on the lowest, middling, [and] highest disciples, whom singly he can scarcely satisfy. But in the Society we have the disciples distinct, and divided into their classes and ranks, and to each class single teachers are set over them. For although not all colleges are equal, but in some there are more, in others fewer teachers; in certain ones greater sciences are handed down, in others only lesser: in others all disciplines, in some certain ones are explained, according to the institution and abundance of each college, as has been said: yet well-nigh all colleges have at least three teachers of grammar for educating the youth, others even five, others indeed more. And since this laborious care is undertaken only for the love of Christ, and to Him all the studies and labors of ours in instructing boys are referred: many things are devised, and many exercises employed, for exciting their minds even more, namely assiduous disputations, various contentions of talents, prizes set before those who excel the rest, and surpass them in the praise of genius and industry. For these prerogatives, and, as it were, testimonies of virtue, greatly move the minds of the scholars, and either rouse the sleeping, or incite and impel more those already roused and running of their own accord.

[377] For as penalty and ignominy, as by a certain bridle, coerce from evil; various reasons are assigned: so honor and praise marvelously kindle to the ornament of virtue and to glory: and most truly Cicero says: Honor nourishes the arts, and all are kindled to studies by glory, and those things always lie neglected which are disapproved by each. And a certain poet: And praised virtue grows, and glory has a boundless spur. And our Quintilian, a most exercised and most skilled master of educating boys, teaches that these honorary (so to speak) prizes have great force for sharpening and nourishing the youth. For boys are for the most part borne not by reason (which at that age is still weak and feeble), but by the affections. And ambition itself, and the immoderate appetite of honor, although it be in the class of vice, yet sometimes leads to virtue: and many criminal and foul things are avoided because baseness is joined to them; many things are illustriously done because they are to be for honor and praise. And these indeed are the chief causes, and above all the care, zeal, [and] labor of the masters, why so great a fruit, as we see, is gathered from our schools. For because our teachers are free from many troubles, and from the businesses and solicitudes of feeding a family, in which others are ensnared, they place more time in this instruction of boys, and, expedited from the bonds of the world, apply themselves to it with their whole (as it is said) heart.

[378] But the Lord pursues with His grace the efforts of ours undertaken for His glory: and He who gave the willing, God preserving these pious labors, gives also the accomplishing. For He is the fount from which every best gift and perfect boon is derived: to whom especially, nay to whom alone, all the fruit which proceeds from our schools, as to the author of all good things, is to be attributed. Who also, according to His benignity, so moved most grave fathers, and outstanding in our Society, and at some time kindled them by the magnitude and utility of the matter, that in this wrestling-place of teaching and instructing boys they long exercised themselves, and thought their labor and industry best placed in this one thing. Whom other grave fathers too imitated, ingenious, learned, and fit for any greater offices, who, when they had tasted this kind of teaching, weighing the matter not by the balance of the common people, but by the scale of the prudent, chose, sought, [and] obtained from their Superiors, and reckoned in the place of a great benefit, to pass their whole life in this exercise, and to grow old in it, because namely they hoped that they could gather richer fruits from it unto the glory of God than from any other ministry of the Society, however excellent, specious, [and] illustrious.

[379] for whose love they are undertaken according to the living examples Great forsooth is the force which the love of God has; it turns and drives in all directions the mind of him whom it truly and strongly possesses: and so fills him with its light, and kindles him with those torches, that he reckons all things as dung, that he may gain Christ: and whatever in the world flatters us, whatever anywhere there is either of authority, or of honor and glory, all that he reckons for nothing, that even by the least thing he may be able to please God and amplify His name. This the blessed Gregory Nazianzen, surnamed the Theologian (under which teacher St. Jerome glories to have learned the sacred Letters), teaches us by his example: who, when Julian the Apostate had interdicted to the Christians the reading of all the philosophers, orators, and poets, lest eloquence and elegance of words should be lacking to ours, applied his mind to writing verses of every kind, and published comedies and tragedies about the most honorable matters, and most apt for rightly instructing morals, with such gravity, ornament, and elegance that the Christian boys desired nothing more, nor sought the profane authors. And this same thing may be even more illustrious by the example of Gregory the Great, the supreme Pontiff, and most holy Doctor, of whom John the Deacon has handed down to memory that he, for restoring ecclesiastical chant, and exciting the minds of men more to piety by chant, built two houses at Rome, one at St. Peter's, the other at St. John Lateran; in which assemblies of boys sang. But the supreme Pontiff himself was present at those singing, and, as it were, presided, and, holding a scourge in his hand, corrected the erring boys with great authority and gravity. And John the Deacon adds that up to his own time there existed that house at St. John's which Gregory had built, and in it there was wont to be shown the little couch on which the most blessed Pontiff lay chanting, likewise the scourge and the book of the Antiphons which he used.

[380] the examples of holy men, Whom therefore would this so rare and unheard-of example of divine love not greatly move? Whom would it not affect with admiration? For what either gravity, or dignity of person, [is] equal to the majesty of the supreme Pontiff? Where are there either more occupations than in the supreme pontificate, or graver businesses? Yet the love of God conquered all. Is it perhaps less to the interest of the commonwealth that boys be imbued with good morals and letters than that they be instructed in musical measures? Are musical concerts more grateful to God than minds moderate and blazing with piety: [is] the modulation of voices sweeter than the harmony of laudable morals? Not so. For greater and better is the concert of actions than of sounds. For through charity, and the sanctity of life, a man is made a living temple of God: but by music God is praised in a visible temple. Nor indeed does it bring less admiration, what the blessed Jerome, in that letter (of which we made mention above) to Laeta about the education of [her] daughter, writes. For, exhorting Laeta to send her daughter Paula from Rome to Bethlehem to her aunt Eustochium and her grandmother Paula, by whom she might from infancy be educated to sanctity and every kind of virtue; he at length subjoined these words: I myself, if you send Paula, promise to be both master and foster-father, I will carry her on [my] shoulders, [and] as an old man will form her stammering words, much more glorious than the philosopher of the world, who instructed not the king of the Macedonians about to perish by Babylonian poison, but I will instruct a handmaid and spouse of Christ, to be inserted into the heavenly kingdoms. Thus far he.

[381] What [is] more admirable than this example? What stronger? left to us. What holier? For if St. Jerome, the light and ornament of the whole Church, to whom, as to an oracle, from well-nigh all parts of the globe of the lands, doctors, bishops, [and] finally the supreme Pontiffs themselves brought their questions to be explained, promises himself to be the master and foster-father of a little infant girl; if he reckons it not unworthy of his great gravity, age, authority, [and] wisdom to carry a little infant on [his] shoulders, and to form her stammering words, nay rather thinks he would place his labor more usefully and more gloriously in the education of a little girl than Aristotle placed his in the instruction of Alexander, king of the Macedonians: who will be so rude and unskilled in things as to think it unworthy of Religious men, and consecrated to God in perpetuity, to educate those boys who are to be preachers, canons, parish-priests, bishops, [and] governors of commonwealths? Since it is most certain that all these will at some time go about these offices, who now as boys frequent the schools, and that they will show themselves in old age such as they shall have been in adolescence. But that I may make an end of speaking, these are especially the causes why our Society opens a school and institutes colleges.

[382] But in those colleges the teachers receive no stipend at all from the disciples, In the colleges teaching is gratis; and they are endowed, but teach gratis and without any reward: which is done in the rest of the ministries of the Society too, as has been said. But they live not from daily alms (for this is proper to the professed houses); but from revenues. For, that the scholars may more diligently devote their labor to the one study of wisdom, and the teachers may strenuously apply themselves to the education of the boys, they must necessarily be expedited from other troubles, and especially from the solicitude of procuring those things without which life cannot be passed

lest namely they depend on food and clothing, and, distracted into the cares of feeding themselves, be retarded from the course of teaching and its laborious contention. For the study of wisdom grows cold in the utmost mendicity, and the lesser care of instructing others is for the most part overwhelmed by the greater care of living. Moreover the founders establish revenues of colleges of this kind, and other liberal and beneficent men, who think that they rightly place their means in feeding those ministers of God who are to amplify His glory, and, according to their strength, to confer their labors upon a thing most useful. And deservedly indeed. For all our alms ought to look to God, and regard His greater glory: but the greater glory of God seems to be placed in the salvation of souls than of bodies. Whence those alms which are referred to procreating and sustaining those ministers of God who have dedicated themselves wholly to the utilities of their neighbors by their institute, and procure the salvation of souls, are without doubt more grateful to God than those by which only the necessity and indigence of bodies is succored.

[383] This fruit too pertains to all, and embraces the whole commonwealth; and therefore is to be preferred to private advantages: especially since it is more solid and more certain. money fruitfully placed here by the well-deserving; For (as we said) the roots of diseases are cut off by this instruction of boys, and evils, before they happen, are guarded against beforehand: and this now indeed, on account of the calamities of our times, if ever at another time, is certainly most necessary. Which when many men of excellent prudence, abounding in resources and wealth, and desirous of the glory of God, wisely noticed, they applied their mind to building and stabilizing colleges for the Society.

[384] [among whom Pope Gregory XIII excellently shines forth, Pope Sixtus V having imitated him.] The Roman College ^b, which holds the first place, not in time, but in dignity and utility, among the colleges of our whole Society, the most blessed Roman Pontiff Gregory XIII founded with the utmost benevolence and liberality. And he began another in the Japanese island most remote from us. For so kindled with zeal of preserving and amplifying the Catholic religion was this most holy Pontiff, that in well-nigh all the provinces contaminated by heresy he built seminaries everywhere, for retaining or restoring the integrity of the Catholic faith. And that he might also propagate it far and wide, and diffuse [it] into the most disjoined regions, he did the same in Japan, for feeding and instructing the Japanese youths lately converted to the faith of Christ. Besides, he instituted a college for our Society, that our workmen, who set out to reap that most copious harvest, now ripe and whitening, might live without the expense of those among whom they set the Gospel, and might have other Japanese, having entered the Society, as their successors. Which illustrious undertaking our Most Holy Lord Sixtus V most benignly pursued, and heaped up by his liberality the beneficence of Gregory (whom he himself succeeded), and stabilized it with perpetual revenues, and augmented and adorned the Japanese Orators (of whom we made mention above) with most ample gifts and honors; and dismissed them, affected with admiration of the religion, majesty, [and] magnificence of the Apostolic See and of so great a City, glad and alacritous, into their native land.

[385] A catalogue is woven of very many colleges, and of those who founded them, Likewise the College of Loreto and that of Avignon two other supreme Pontiffs instituted. But that of Palermo Charles V, the emperor: those of Vienna, Prague, and Innsbruck his brother Ferdinand, likewise emperor: those of Coimbra, Goa, Lisbon, Évora, and in the islands of Madeira and Tercera (as they call them), in India too, Japan, [and] Brazil, John III, Sebastian, and Henry, kings of Portugal, founded for the Society many other colleges with no less piety than magnificence. Stephen Báthory, king of Poland, erected the college of Kolozsvár in Transylvania, that of Riga in Livonia, that of Polotsk on our borders of Muscovy; the college of Hall that of Magdalen, the daughter of the emperor Ferdinand; that of Graz, Charles, archduke of Austria, her brother; those of Ingolstadt and Munich, Albert, duke of Bavaria; those of Chambéry (which city is the head of the Allobroges Savoy) and of Turin (which is the seat of the princes of Piedmont), Philibert, prince and duke of Savoy; but of Florence, and Ferrara, and Mantua, and Parma, and Nevers, and Guise, and Arco, the Dukes established colleges in their dominions, and very many other secular princes did the same.

[386] with [that of ecclesiastical princes,] And, that we may come to the ecclesiastical princes, Alexander Farnese, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, at Monreale in Sicily; Otto Truchsess, a Cardinal, bishop of Augsburg, at Dillingen in Germany; the Cardinal of Tournon, at Tournon in France; Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine; Cardinal Hosius, at Braunsberg in Poland; at Milan Charles Borromeo, Cardinal and archbishop of Milan; Fulvio Corneo, a Cardinal, at Perugia; and most recently Gaspar Quiroga, Cardinal and archbishop of Toledo, at Toledo and Talavera; but at Mainz and Trier, the archbishops of those cities, who are also Electors of the sacred Empire, built colleges for ours. And in Spain Peter Guerrero, archbishop of Granada, at Granada; and Francis Blanco, archbishop of Compostela, at Compostela: and likewise at Málaga, where he had before been bishop: likewise the colleges of Murcia, Placencia, [and] León, the bishops of those cities founded. I omit the rest for brevity's sake.

[387] Nay, some cities publicly founded colleges at their own expense for the common good, then a catalogue of the seculars is woven: such as are most of those which we have in Sicily. Nor are they few or slender which we have [as] colleges founded indeed by private men, but most noble by the splendor of family, resources, and piety. Of this kind is the College of Alcalá, which Doña Maria Mendoza, daughter of the Marquis of Mondéjar, more illustrious even by piety and religion than by blood, founded by a notable benefaction to our Society and the University of Alcalá. Likewise that of Barcelona, which Doña Maria Manrique de Lara, daughter of the duke of Nájera, most illustrious both by the nobility of race, and by the example of exceeding virtue and most upright life, strengthened with perpetual revenues. The College of Villagarcía too, which Doña Magdalena Ulloa, wife of Luis Quixada, a man most approved in the arts of war and peace, lord of that town, built from the foundations with excellent liberality. Nor indeed, thinking she had done enough for her piety by this one college, she added another too in the city of Oviedo: that she herself might consume her means (which she has copious) in amplifying the glory of God, and that from that College of Oviedo the splendor of Christian doctrine might spread itself more widely, and penetrate to the rough and uncultivated places of that region. In this number too is placed the College of Villaret, erected and built by John Pacheco, a man of excellent religion toward God and outstanding prudence. And there are very many other founders of our colleges, noble by piety and illustrious zeal of deserving well of the Christian cause: but not all are to be pursued one by one, lest the discourse grow too much.

[388] But moreover, although the founders of the colleges especially expect from God the rewards of His benignity and beneficence, toward whom the Society shows itself most grateful yet the Society, by whatever things it can, shows how grateful it holds this benefit which it has received from the founders. And so it strives to gratify, obey, and satisfy them as much as it can, and to preserve the memory of the received benefit forever. It makes them partakers of all its merits, [and] establishes very many Masses for them each week, month, and year. But at the time when possession of a college is delivered, throughout the whole Society, however far and wide it is diffused, the single priests offer three sacrifices of Masses to God for the Founder; likewise three as soon as it is known that he has departed from life: at which very time, those who are not priests pay certain fixed prayers, and beseech God for him. And other things ^c are diligently prescribed (and are kept with great, as is fitting, religion) for declaring the memory of the received benefit, and the piety of a grateful mind.

[389] the Society exhibits. Wherefore all who are engaged in this Society are intercessors for the founders before God. Whose prayers, because they are consecrated to God forever, and of upright life and fame, it is likely merit more with God, and are more effective for obtaining, than those of others who are not such. Add that the Society is free from other obligations of Masses, inasmuch as it receives no alms for celebrating Masses: and therefore it comes about that it is more untrammeled and in a manner richer, and more wealthy, having more among [its] goods which it can confer to the use of the founders, and of men well-deserving of it. It grants therefore many things to them, because it acknowledges that it owes them many things, and has many things whence it may return the favor. Which although it be so, yet it knows very well that its founders are not moved especially to found colleges for this cause, that the Society show itself grateful to them and mindful of the received benefit: but because they plainly understand that the accurate instruction of boys is especially necessary, and that great fruits from it redound into the Church of God. And therefore they understand that this labor of teaching is acceptable to God the Best and Greatest, from whom they themselves expect the entire and full reward of His benignity.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXV.

The will of laying down the government of the Society; its Constitutions; the Roman College, and certain others in Spain; ours harassed there by the Archbishop of Toledo; the provincialate of Laínez; the death of Jay.

Book IV. Cap. I.

The Society therefore being again confirmed by Julius III, Supreme Pontiff, and by the very success of affairs more firmly stabilized, [Ignatius wishes to lay down the government of the Society, a letter being given to this end] in the year 1550 Ignatius called together to himself at Rome, from various provinces, all the chief fathers who could come for the advantage of the Society ^a: to whom, gathered into one, he sent a letter ^b written by his own hand in Spanish, in these words: To the dearest brethren in the Lord of the Society of Jesus, greeting. That which has seemed to me, considering many times about the reason of my office, without any perturbation interior or exterior, I will write: and I will open before my Creator and Lord, who is to judge me, what I understand will be for the greater praise and glory of Him. For I, myself looking around at myself, on account of my too many sins, my many imperfections, and the sicknesses of mind and body, have very often judged, and truly and from my heart do judge, that I am by infinite degrees distant from that grade which is necessary for sustaining this office of ruling the Society, imposed on me by His will. Wherefore I greatly desire, and ask of you, that, the whole matter being diligently weighed, another be chosen by you, who may bear this office better than I, or at least less badly, and administer the whole Society. Nor indeed do I ask only that this province charge be conferred upon a better [man]; but even upon an equal and even [one].

[391] That indeed this may be done duly and in order; I, in the name of the Father, a letter to the fathers: and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God and my Creator, lay down the Generalate simply and absolutely, and abdicate

myself from this office, and deprive myself of it; and I ask, and with all the powers of my soul beseech all the professed, and whomsoever the professed shall wish to join to themselves for this deliberation, that they admit this so just desire of mine, and vote for this pious oblation. But if those whose duty it is to pass judgment about this my petition shall by no means agree among themselves, by the charity and reverence of Christ Jesus I ask and pray those very ones that they earnestly apply themselves to prayers, and most accurately commend this matter to God, that in all things, and through all things, His most holy will be done, and that altogether which shall pertain more to His glory, and the common salvation of souls, and the good of the Society. This too I ask, that they receive this my petition and beseeching in the best part.

[392] This letter being read through, the fathers who had come together all with one mouth praised the deed and will of Ignatius, but they resist his will: his disease and desire of heaven. [and] admired his humility, who, when he especially excels in government, yet judges himself by no means fit to govern. Yet they deny that they can, with safe conscience, do what he asks; nor, while he lives, try another Superior General, and they order this to be reported to Ignatius, that he himself is the Parent of the Society, he the master of all, and leader, and chosen by God, that he might, as a wise architect, lay the foundation of this spiritual building, upon which they themselves, and the rest of his sons, as living stones superbuilt upon the very supreme corner-stone Christ Jesus, might grow into a holy temple in the Lord. That it must in no way be permitted to them that they be found either ignorant of this so great benefit, or ungrateful ^c. At the same time he fell into a most grievous disease, and, when he hoped that he would be expedited from the bonds of this mortality, he was so affected in mind that he could not for joy restrain the tears flowing abundantly, and was compelled, both by the prayers of his men and by the severe admonition of the physicians, to transfer his mind elsewhere, and to think less long about his desire, and himself less often.

Cap. II.

[393] Ignatius therefore, cast down from that hope of laying down the burden which he bore, and freed from the new disease, turned himself wholly, He writes the Constitutions, to what he understood God to will, to governing the Society and perfecting the things begun, and above all, that he might bind it by fixed laws, showed to the same fathers the Constitutions ^d written by himself, and delivered them to be discussed: which he himself was compelled by the prayers of the whole Society to write out. There is extant a Commentary ^e written by his own hand, found in a certain little chest after his death, into which, while he wrote the Constitutions, he referred, as into a journal, for the sake both of memory and of deliberation, the assiduous benefits of God and those illustrations with which he was suffused by God. From which writing the virtue of Ignatius is plainly perceived, and the fullness of the divine liberality toward him, and the weight and authority of the Constitutions themselves. I will omit the rest: I will speak of poverty alone. For forty continuous days he sacrificed to God the Best and Greatest, and gave himself to the divine prayers more ardently than usual, for this one thing, that he might establish whether it were expedient for the churches of our professed houses to have some revenues, for either the fabrication or the worship and adornment of the churches themselves. And, as I indeed think, that those former things which I mentioned might become more illustrious; and that the divine gifts which Ignatius, from the zeal of humility, concealed within himself, might come into the light, and be brought forth outward for our utility; God Himself incited him by His afflatus and instinct, that he might briefly and plainly write out what, in those forty days, had happened to him in the morning prayer, what in the preparation for the sacrifice of Mass, what in the sacrifice itself, [and] what after.

[394] with how great sedulity, preparation of mind, and feeling of piety. In it may be seen how great was his care of examining himself, and scrutinizing his conscience, how kindled and accurate his prayer, how great and almost continuous the effusion of tears: how often the magnitude of consolation redounded even into the body, and his voice, the breath being cut off, stuck, and he could not speak: and the veins of the whole body were sensibly (so to speak) moved. There is perceived how great and how assiduous illustrations his mind was filled with about the most holy Trinity, about the divine essence, about the procession, about the property of the divine Persons, and their operation; and how he was taught about that most sacred mystery, both by hidden intelligences and by external images. Nor indeed were those illustrations brief or fleeting, but sometimes prolix and long-lasting, and such as accompanied him in his chamber, at table, at home, abroad, and absorbed him with a certain heat of their magnitude. It is not necessary to pursue each one; this had to be touched, that we may understand in what place we ought to hold our Constitutions, with what veneration to receive them, with what zeal and care to observe them. Although Ignatius, endowed with the modesty of mind with which he was, after so many supernatural cognitions and testimonies of the divine will, did not take upon himself that the Constitutions should be firm and ratified, until the whole Society should approve them by its judgment. Which indeed was done at Rome in the year 1558, he himself being dead, in the public and universal assembly of the Society: in which all the Constitutions, as they had been written out by him, were received with great veneration, and confirmed by the utmost consent and will of all the fathers.

Cap. III.

[395] Of the number of those whom we said to have been called by Ignatius this year and to have come to Rome, The beginnings of the Roman College, was Francis Borgia, duke of Gandía, who indeed was the third Superior General of the Society. He, when he understood how great advantages a college of the Society would bring in that City which is the head of the globe of the lands: and thought it by no means fitting that she who first of all embraced the Society, and from whom the whole Society is governed, should lack that fruit which many other cities perceived from the labor and erudition of ours, at the exhortation and counsel of Ignatius took care that a college should be instituted at Rome: whose beginning was made in the year of the Lord 1551, on the 18th of February, at the roots of the Capitol, in a very narrow house. At which time there were in the college fourteen, over whom presided as Rector Father John Pelletier, a Gaul: for Francis had then supplied money for feeding well-nigh this number. Then in the month of September, the number being almost doubled, ours removed into an ampler house. And then indeed our teachers explained only three tongues—Hebrew, Greek, [and] Latin—and rhetoric, to their hearers, not without great offense of the schoolmasters of the City, and with such indignation that, surrounded by a troop of their disciples, they sometimes broke into our schools, and clamored against our teachers teaching, and more intemperately insulted them: until, in the year 1552, on the 28th of October, in the church of St. Eustace, in a very great concourse of Cardinals, bishops, most learned men, and students, orations and disputations were held by ours, by which their insolence was repressed.

[396] But much more, when in the year 1553 theses were publicly proposed by ours, the progress, not only about rhetoric and the three tongues, as had been wont to be done in the preceding years; but also about the whole of philosophy and theology. Which disciplines indeed then first began to be handed down in this college: over which then presided Doctor Martin Olave, a man of excellent doctrine, and noble by the opinion of [his] integrity, who at that time much illustrated the Roman College. The number of ours grew this year to sixty: but the following year to a hundred, whom, since the house could not conveniently hold them, removed into wider quarters in the year 1556. In them they dwelt for well-nigh four years, until, in the year 1560, by the authority and exhortation of Pius IV ^f, Supreme Pontiff, a most noble and most upright woman, Victoria Tolfa, daughter of the sister of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, we neither expecting nor thinking it, yet seeking a fixed seat for the college in the City, gave, by excellent liberality, a convenient, ample, salubrious, and most celebrated place. Which, thinking nothing less than about us, she had procured for a pious use out of the testament of her husband Camillo Orsini, Marquis of Guardia, and, many houses being joined by the command and power of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, had reduced altogether into an insula block: among which is both the house of Victoria herself, and that which Paul IV himself bought, and, for many years, when he was a Cardinal, dwelt in.

[397] In this place the number of ours was vehemently multiplied: the increases, for it was sometimes of two hundred and twenty, and that conflated from well-nigh all the provinces of the Christian world. For at the same time, brothers of ours, of sixteen or more most diverse nations, are often found in this college, distinct indeed among themselves in tongues and speech, but associated by the utmost concord of minds and by fraternal love. Whom the divine benignity, even in a great dearth of provisions, above the credence of men, but not above the confidence and hope of Ignatius, has hitherto sustained. But from this college flowed the rest of the colleges which were constructed in Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Flanders, [and] France. Which was the cause why Ignatius (whose thoughts and vigils were all consumed in the salvation of men) so greatly labored about this college: whose utilities he judged to pertain especially not to some one city, but to many and most noble provinces, to nations too depraved by the errors of heresy.

[398] Which indeed when the most blessed Pontiff Gregory XIII ^g had experienced by the thing itself, and saw that the fruits of the Roman College lay open most widely, the building and revenues. and were necessary for corroborating and augmenting the Roman seminary, and the German, and the English, and the other colleges of various nations built by him; he undertook a work worthy both of a most vigilant pastor and of a most liberal prince, and resolved to found, amplify, and stabilize the Roman College, above all with a magnificent and sumptuous building, and great and perpetual revenues: that in it a great number of our scholars, of all nations, might be fed, for propagating the Catholic religion, and defending and preserving the rest of the seminaries. And that this most wise counsel of his in founding the Roman College might shine forth more, he ordered these words to be cut under the first stone of the foundation: Gregory, Supreme Pontiff, out of his piety toward the Christian religion and that Order, built from the foundations and endowed the college of the Society of Jesus, the seminary of all nations, in the year of salvation one thousand five hundred and eighty-two, the tenth of his pontificate, at Rome.

Cap. IV.

[399] The foundations of the Roman College being laid, Francis Borgia departed from the City, The College of Oñate in Spain, that of Burgos, that of Medina. and returned into Spain: there he yields his dominion to his eldest son: puts off the secular dress; betakes himself into Cantabria, a remote part of Spain: initiated in sacred orders, he preaches: begs from door to door, with great admiration of men. Moved by the fame and example of this thing, certain most noble men come to him, and join themselves to our Society. Besides, the College of Oñate began to be inhabited by the same father, to which Peter Araoz had before bequeathed certain possessions of his, and their revenues. That of Burgos was begun likewise at the same time: for when Francis Mendoza, a Cardinal, created bishop of that city, had obtained from Ignatius two of ours for surveying his diocese, and ministering the word of salvation to [his] sheep: they, the office being imposed

upon them being fulfilled, gave an illustrious occasion of instituting a college, which Francis Strada afterward much illustrated by his sermons. To the College of Medina too Rodrigo Dueñas, a wealthy and pious man, gave the beginning: who, moved by the familiar discourse of Peter Faber and Antony Araoz, sought some of ours, for his own and the public utility of that city. But the presence of ours, and the sermons held in the squares, augmented the zeal of the citizens. And so in the year 1551 ours were first sent to Medina to establish a college: which afterward Peter Cuadrado ^h and his wife Francisca Manson, excellent in wealth and religion, built, and stabilized with fixed revenues.

[400] A grave tempest stirred up in Spain by the Archbishop of Toledo. But that adverse things might succeed prosperous, and the Society might never not be usefully exercised, about the same time a grave storm was stirred up in Spain against ours by the Archbishop of Toledo, John Silíceo. He, thinking otherwise than the matter is about the Institute of the Society, forbade all the priests who had been instructed by ours in the spiritual Exercises to hear confessions at Toledo: but at Alcalá, where alone they then dwelt in his diocese, by public edicts he prohibited the people from receiving the Sacraments from ours: those who should do otherwise, he interdicts these sacred things. Nor could he be brought to change his opinion, before the royal council, judging the deed of the archbishop to be against the authority of the supreme Pontiff (of whose will it was evident from the very Pontifical diplomas), willed that our Institute should be free to us. And the Supreme Pontiff himself, Julius III, made certain of the matter by Ignatius, wrote gravely to the archbishop, saying that he wondered and bore it with trouble that he should less approve the Society undertaken and approved by the Apostolic See, and, engaged with great utility in well-nigh all the provinces of the Christian world, and therefore deservedly sought by every best [man], he alone should repudiate and reject it. By which letters, and the royal edict, it was effected that the archbishop revoked his decrees, and permitted our faculty to be entire to ours.

[401] But as soon as Ignatius heard of this tempest stirred up against the Society by the Archbishop of Toledo, Ignatius's prediction about it. with a bland and most tranquil countenance, as he always was wont, he said to me: This adversity is to be numbered by us in the part of great felicity, since it has been contracted by no fault of ours. For it is an evident argument that our Lord will make great fruits at Toledo through the Society. For this is ascertained, that ours brought forth richer and sweeter fruits there where they suffered graver things. And he added also this: The archbishop is an old man, the Society [is] young; and so naturally the Society will live more longer than the archbishop. Moreover how true the words of Ignatius were, the things which afterward followed at Toledo, and in the present are done, easily show. And this was manifestly known from the very death of the archbishop Silíceo. For when, he being dead, ours were first summoned to Toledo, and entered a fixed dwelling to be inhabited in that most noble and most ample city: they dwelt in those houses which the archbishop Silíceo himself had built for the use of clerks, and had furnished. And it was noted by many, and observed, that all the efforts of that great archbishop against the Society had at length fallen back to this, that he seemed to have built a house for those whom, by good zeal perhaps, but not according to knowledge, he desired ejected from their own houses.

Cap. V.

[402] And these things indeed in Spain. But in Italy, in the same year 1551, the College of Florence took its beginning, by the benignity of the duchess Leonora, Father Laínez is set as provincial over various colleges in Italy. likewise the Neapolitan, and the Ferrarese. And to placing and stabilizing the Neapolitan indeed, master Alfonso Salmerón brought great help, sent to Naples by Ignatius for that very matter. But the Ferrarese Hercules II ⁱ, duke of Ferrara, began, who had familiarly used both Nicholas Bobadilla and Claude Jay, and had fostered the nascent Society: to whom Paschasius Broët, for the cause of establishing the college, was then sent by Ignatius. Over which colleges indeed, and the rest made through Italy, Ignatius set, and constituted Provincial Superior, master James Laínez, who about the year 1550 going out ending had returned from Africa: where he rendered excellent labor to the Christian soldiers in that war which, John Vega, viceroy of Sicily, being leader, was happily waged against the enemies of the Christian name, Aphrodisium Mahdia being stormed. For the defense of which town, now captured, [and] for animating the soldiers who were in the garrison, and helping them in piety, Jerome Nadal, having set out, escaped from shipwreck divinely, his companion of the voyage, Isidore Sbrando, being extinguished in the waves, in the year 1551.

[403] But even in Germany, at the same time, the Society grew. Claude, summoned to Vienna, dies there, For Ferdinand ^k, king of the Romans, that he might restore the studies of the University of Vienna, and repress the fury of the heretics everywhere raging, summoned Claude Jay to himself, and asked of Ignatius some professors of theology: who, having set out for Vienna in the same year 1551, lodged among the Dominicans in a set-apart part of the monastery: but afterward, lest they should be an impediment to the Religious fathers, they removed into the monastery of the Carmelites, deserted and ruinous, the prefects of that Order being most willing. In this College, in the year 1552, on the 6th of August, on the very day of the Lord's Transfiguration, Father Claude Jay, one of the first ten companions of Ignatius, an Allobrox Savoyard by nation, departed from life: a man who deserved excellently of the Christian religion, which in Italy, Bavaria, Suevia, Austria, [and] all Germany he did not cease to amplify by his great labors.

[404] Especially in the diet of Augsburg he rendered excellent labor to the Catholic religion and to the Society, with such approbation of men with great commendation of his name. that he seemed to have gathered no despicable fruits of his past labors undertaken for the salvation of Germany. He so explained the name, origin, progress, and Institute of the Society, and fixed them in the minds of the Germans, that he conciliated authority and faith credit to ours. He was invited by the Orators of the duke of Saxony to betake himself into Saxony, and dispute about religion with their masters; but, called by Ferdinand, king of the Romans, to establish the college at Vienna (as we said), he deferred that setting-out. He was a man endowed with a most mild genius, and a certain pleasantness of nature, seasoned with religious gravity: notable by the love of poverty; excellent in the assiduity of praying, sparing and tenacious of time; exceeding by the modesty and humility of [his] mind. The bishopric of Trieste he so gravely and firmly refused that for many days he lay in almost continuous mourning, because he distrusted that he could escape it: but, freed from that fear, he returned to his pristine pleasantness.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The German College; the death and eulogy of St. Francis Xavier.

Cap. VI.

Nor indeed did ours labor about the salvation of Germany in Germany alone, but even in Italy: Of the German College by whose labor the German College ^a was instituted by Julius III, Supreme Pontiff, at Rome in the same year 1552. Which college indeed, although it is not proper to our Society, yet, because it is governed by the Society, and its manifold utility depends on it; on that part I number it among ours. Its beginning was of this kind. Ignatius was intent both on curing, according to his strength, all the vicious parts of the Christian commonwealth, and indeed on that province of Germany which most labored suffered. To him therefore thinking about a medicine, John Morone, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, a man excellent in the praise of prudence, proposed this one, which, the German affairs being known and explored from the Apostolic legation which he had discharged in Germany, he hoped would have great force: and he was above all the author of establishing a German college in the City. For he noticed that what, by the ignorance of certain priests in Germany and by their not sufficiently approved life, had been lost and ruined, must be restored by the learned probity of doctors and pastors: and that it was very convenient that the doctors and pastors of the Germans should be Germans: for thus it would come about that, bound together among themselves by the laws, morals, nature, and love of the same nation, they should more easily flow into their minds, and, instructed in the maternal tongue, should have greater force for persuading.

[406] Moreover he noticed that the want of masters of this kind in that province was the utmost, the beginning; and that it became daily greater, those who remain gradually failing: but that the number of the heretics was great, and always more copious by new offspring. Whence no more salutary counsel could be devised than that a seminary be instituted, by which, before it should altogether wither, the stock itself might be roused in the seed: and illustrious youths, commended by the hope of genius and virtue, might, from that age which is flexible, be formed to every piety by Catholic morals, letters, and institutes. This seminary indeed could scarcely be made in Germany: for although you choose the most entire and incorrupt place, yet, amid the venomous bites of the heretics, the contagion would be easy: nor anywhere would adolescence be sufficiently safe from the crafty enemies. But outside Germany, neither a place fitter for that matter, nor a University more convenient, nor a city more opportune than the Roman could there be: in which namely the integrity of Catholic doctrine, the sanctity of the very place, the multitude and devotion of the men flocking into the City, the reverence of the ancestral and Apostolic religion, the beneficent and copious liberality of the supreme Pontiffs, can procreate and nourish piety in the youths themselves, and easily avert them from the fraud of the heretics.

[407] This was especially the reason of instituting the German College, its confirmation and discipline: the beginnings first, as we said, communicated by Cardinal Morone with Ignatius, then with other most grave men, [and] undertaken and confirmed by Julius III, Supreme Pontiff, and the whole senate of the Cardinals. And that the matter might rely on a certain and stable foundation, for their food and clothing the supreme Pontiff benignly paid each year the money promised from his own funds: and all the Cardinals, each according to his ability, eagerly followed his example. That the German youths themselves, freed from the trouble of the things necessary for life, might think only about piety and doctrine. To Ignatius therefore the care was given of calling forth youths for that matter from all parts of Germany, and of moderating them. Which province he most willingly undertook, moved both by the magnitude of the matter and by the command of the Supreme Pontiff. He set proved men over the college,

tempered it with the best laws; and took care with great care that the Germans might have suitable teachers in our Roman College. That he by no means undertook, that ours should touch the money accounts; or be entangled in exacting or distributing the things which pertain to the expenses.

[408] Yet, Julius III being dead, in that war which was afterward waged near the City, which in afflicted times Ignatius sustained, when Ignatius saw that, on account of the dearth of provisions and the warlike tumults, the German College was in peril; lest an illustrious and altogether necessary work should be dissolved, he dismissed a part of those youths, those willing it, into various colleges of the Society, in which, while that storm-cloud passed over, they might be more conveniently fed: a part he retained at Rome, and, money being sought out, sustained them with his great labor, and obligated his own faith credit; which the Lord beautifully freed, the debts being afterward paid to the coin.

[409] prophesying better things about it. At that very time of so great want Ignatius openly said, what he had often said at other times, that a day would at some time come, when the German College would not only be pressed by no straits of domestic affairs, but even abound in the necessary things, and overflow. And when Otto Truchsess, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, bishop of Augsburg, a most sharp defender of the Catholic faith, and an excellent patron of the German College, at the beginning seemed to fear somewhat the difficulties which, in establishing it, many and great, arose one after another one from another, Ignatius bade him be of good courage, and hope well in God. And he added that, if the Cardinal should refuse the province, he himself, trusting in the benignity of God, would undertake it with great alacrity of mind, and would submit to the burden laid down by others. Nor did hope deceive Ignatius. For God, as He was the impeller and author of the most illustrious work, so did not cease to be its helper and favorer. For He moved Gregory XIII, the most wise Supreme Pontiff, by His afflatus and divine instinct, to erect, augment, and stabilize in a fixed house with great and perpetual revenues the almost collapsed German College, and to deserve well of the most noble and most ample German nation; and to strain all the sinews of [his] mind, and either to preserve or to restore the Catholic religion in that province, which other most holy Pontiffs named Gregory had illustrated with the evangelical light, amplified, and, adorned with the most ample gifts of the Empire, had set before far the other provinces of the globe of the lands.

Cap. VII.

[410] In the same year Father Francis Xavier, having set out from India to illustrate the peoples of the Chinese with the splendor of the Gospel, The birth, studies, and labors of St. Francis Xavier; at the very first approach of that province departed from life. This Father, a Spaniard by nation, was born in a noble place in the extreme borders of the Vascones Basques of Navarre, which touch the Gauls, and was liberally educated by [his] parents. After the cradle of his first age and doctrine, for the cause of studies he betook himself to Paris, and so profited in erudition that he publicly professed the Aristotelian philosophy. At which time he fell upon Ignatius, engaged in the same studies: and, led over to a more useful philosophy, he joined his will and society with him. Into Italy he afterward came with the rest of the companions, and, many labors, in mendicity and pilgrimage for the instruction and salvation of men, being undertaken with marvelous patience and charity, in the year 1540 he was sent by Ignatius into Portugal, that he might sail into India, in the manner which we said above. In which journey, when he passed not far from his native land, and his kinsmen and acquaintances were by no means off the way, he could not be brought to turn aside a little from the road for the sake of saluting them. From Portugal, in which he had greatly approved himself to those peoples, on the seventh (as we said) of April, of the year 1541, he embarked, with two companions, Paul, an Italian, and Francis Mansilla, a Portuguese, in the ship of Martin Alfonso Sosa the governor. In which voyage, both long and perilous, he so bore himself that he imparted his labor to the sick, [and] doctrine to the healthy, left to ours a norm of the voyage, [and] finally was to all for an admiration and example. At Mozambique (which formerly had the name of the Prasian promontory) for six months he diligently gave his labor to many marines and sailors who were sick.

[411] Having sailed past Melinde, a town of the Saracens, and the head of the kingdom of Melinde, his deeds at Goa, and Socotra (which the ancients called Dioscoriada), a barren and rough island of the Christians, and leaving in them the impressed vestiges of his virtue, at length on the 6th of May 1542 he put in to Goa, and first turned aside into the hospital house of the poor, in which he passed his time in caring for the souls and bodies of the needy. In the morning he heard the confessions of the men coming to him, in the afternoon hours the confessions of those who were in chains and prison: then he imbued the boys with Christian instructions. On Lord's days he visited those laboring with elephantiasis, and the foul and hideous disease, placed outside the city, and mitigated their pain by his charity.

[412] By which things the whole city of Goa being moved, on the Fishery coast, and elsewhere. he then hastened into that tract of India which is commonly called the Fishery, from the fishing of pearls, or the promontory of Comorin. There he converted a great force of men from the darkness of infidelity to the light of Christ, and nourished them with the milk of entire doctrine, and left teachers by whom they should be fed also in the future, above forty churches being established in that tract. Then, having set out for Macassar, he led two kings, and a huge multitude of the people with them, to the faith of Christ. In the city of Malacca, especially noble, he then was for some while, altogether like himself; from which, carried to the Molucca islands, in the very town of Moluco he baptized almost innumerable infants; the rest he so taught that women, males, boys, [and] old men everywhere chanted the precepts of the divine law: and the fisherman in the sea, [and] the farmer in the field, chanted the rudiments of the Christian faith. But he himself, besides the occupations by which by day he was assiduously and continually distracted, by night with a little bell roused the people street by street, and warned them with his voice to bring aid by their prayers to the souls which are expiated in purgatory. After this he went round seven villages, Christian in name rather than in fact, in Amboina, and instructed them to the form of true piety.

[413] But when he had understood that in the island of Moro, next to Moluco, In the island of Moro, there was a great abundance of natives, whose ancestors had of old received the baptism of Christ, and, those being dead by whom they had been initiated in the sacred mysteries, had remained deserted by all, and from that time, on account of the truculent barbarism of those very men, and the certain peril of life, no one had dared to approach them; Francis resolved to go thither: both to consult their salvation and his own. For he judged that their spiritual, and even extreme, necessity was great, which he himself ought to succor and help, even if his life were to be placed at risk in that matter. For he meditated more attentively that word of the Lord: He who loves his soul life shall lose it; and he who shall have lost his soul for my sake shall find it. Which passage of the Gospel he affirmed to seem open to those reading it, [but] obscure to those experiencing it. Now that island is rough, horrid, plainly destitute of the things necessary for life; roaring again with a rumbling and horrible crash; trembling with the greatest earthquakes, and those almost daily. Moreover the natives have not the morals of men, but certain monsters of monstrous beasts, to whom namely no sport is more pleasant than the slaughter and butchery of men. If they cannot inflict death on strangers, the husbands do not spare their wives, nor the parents their sons, nor the sons their parents: and the sons kill those very ones now worn out with old age, and feed on them, and mutually accommodate them to themselves for that use.

[414] But when very many of his friends judged that he was casting himself into an open peril of life, prodigal of life for the salvation of souls, he does marvelous things. and therefore tried to retain him with prayers and tears, and said that in his life the salvation of many was reposited: he however, who thought the highest protection of his life to be established in God, and desired by his death to profit the life of many, could not be recalled from the begun course. Various kinds of antidote, which he should use if there were need, the same friends offering (for those men use even poisons), lest he should lose anything of that excellent hope of his in God, he sent back with the same virtue of mind. Having set out thither, he traversed the island, visited the inhabitants, or rather the wild beasts, illumined them with the faith of Christ, [and] tamed them by doctrine, with an admirable security of mind and tranquillity. For he knew that he was a care to God, with whom all the hairs of our head are numbered. For which cause he said that it must be called not the island of Moro (as commonly), but the island of Hope: in which he received from God consolations so copious and exceeding that they not only mitigated, but even exhausted, the greatest labors of the body: and he denied that a man could live longer in that island without losing his eyes by the consolatory tears.

[415] A certain gentile, pricked by the stings of conscience; While he is engaged in those islands, a certain Japanese, Anger by name, came to Malacca to seek him. This prudent and honorable man was pricked by great stings of conscience from the recollection of the sins which he had committed in [his] youth. Many things being tried to drive off that trouble, the Bonzes (for so they call their wise men and priests) being consulted, when he nowhere found rest, at the warning of certain Portuguese, with whom he had communicated the matter, that he should seek Francis, he came into India. For such was the estimation of the Portuguese about Francis that what he did not accomplish they believed could be done by no other mortal. And Anger himself indeed, although a gentile, and alien from the knowledge and worship of the true God, yet gave faith to the Portuguese, and was kindled with so great a desire of driving off that scruple and torture of conscience that neither the labors and perils of the long voyage, nor the profession of an alien and contrary faith, nor the difficulty of seeking out a most unknown man, retarded him from the undertaken counsel. Which when I attentively consider with myself, I am affected with great shame. For I weigh what a blind and unfaithful man did, that he might obtain the salvation of his soul; and I deplore the greatest negligence of many Christians in the greatest matter of all. Nor does less admiration seize me, thinking of the hidden counsels of the providence and predestination of God: who, for illuminating with the splendor of faith those innumerable nations, and illustrating the whole of Japan, used a Japanese man, likewise blind, as an administer.

[416] by a long journey he flees to Xavier, and becomes a Catholic: And so Anger put in to Malacca, that he might obtain from Francis, as from a most wise and heavenly physician, the medicine of his soul. He hears that Francis had set out for the Molucca islands: and so he returns into Japan. Him, as he approached, and beheld his native land, a tempest suddenly arisen carries back to Malacca: there he comes upon Francis returning from the Moluccas: he becomes a Christian in the College of Goa, and is called Paul. From whom especially—now both a Christian, and admitted into our Society, and a most acute and prudent man, and skilled in the sects of the Japanese—Francis learned that the Japanese islands are many in number: but that that which holds the chief place, especially noble by its magnitude and celebrity, and by the geniuses, culture, doctrine of the men themselves, the diversity of the sects, [and] of the priests

and by their frequency and variety, [is] excelling. [And] that the Japanese are truly so docile, and obedient to reason, that they easily follow that religion which they see neither abhorrent from reason, nor discrepant from the morals of him who professes it.

[417] Which since they agreed greatly with the discourses of the Portuguese and of [his] friends, he resolved to sail into Japan: under whose escort the holy man proceeds into Japan: and, accompanied by Paul himself, and by two Japanese Christian servants of his, and by some other companions besides, he penetrated thither, the great perils both of the voyage and the ambushes of the gentiles being overcome. The island being for a great part traversed, Meaco, the greatest and most ample city, being reached, more or less 1500 men at Cangoxima Kagoshima, Bungo, [and] Amanguchi being converted to the faith of Christ, [and] companions being left to cultivate the young plants and rule the churches already established by him, he returns into India; thence he sends new auxiliaries to ours in Japan. But he himself, because he had understood that the Japanese had of old borrowed all discipline and religion from the Chinese (whose province is most broad), and had received their institutes of living: both that he might bring the Gospel to the Chinese themselves, and that, that citadel being as it were stormed, and the leaders themselves and masters of errors being conquered, the Japanese might more easily be sent under the yoke of Christ, sets out into China itself, with no companion of ours, only two Chinese boys accompanying him. When he had come to the island of Sancian, next to China, and access into China lay by no means open to him, by the laws of the Chinese (by which it is provided that no foreigner enter there: nor any Chinese bring in or admit a newcomer: he who shall do otherwise is either given to death, or condemned to servitude), he himself yet promised that he would give to a certain Chinese the pepper which he had received from alms, and which was valued at three hundred gold crowns, if he would bring him by night, as secretly as possible, into the town of Canton, which first of the Chinese cities presents itself, and place him in some square of the city. And him, preparing these things, the Lord willed to reward, measuring his will, [but] reserving the matter entire to others of the Society who afterward entered thither.

[418] For on the day before the Kalends of December, when he was still in the ship, but thence he thinks of China; at whose near entrance he dies. oppressed by disease, within a barred chamber, void of all food, he kept himself the whole day, sighs being frequently drawn, repeating again and again: Son of David, have mercy on me, with a voice so clear that he was heard even by the sailors and passengers. The next day, signifying that he would in a short time migrate from this life, he ordered himself to be carried onto a high and rough rock: where, up to the midnight of the following day, speaking familiarly with God, and most sweetly, from the workhouse of this mortality he happily flew away to the Lord on the 2nd of December 1552. And these things indeed about his death were then thus written to Ignatius from India. Yet those who were present at [him] dying, and buried him when dead, afterward narrated that Francis had fallen into disease on the 12th before the Kalends of December, and in a certain low and straw-thatched hut of the island and port of Sancian had breathed out his most holy (as we said) soul on the 2nd of December. Nor is it a wonder that, in so great a diversity of lands and nations, certain things were at the beginning less ascertained.

[419] He was an admirable man, and venerable not only to Christians, but even to the gentiles themselves: utterly a virgin, Of his life and unpolluted: most studious of humility, which, though he retained it in all things, he yet marvelously concealed: of the slenderest food and dress: he used a vile garment, [and] begged his sustenance from door to door. If anything was sent to him by friends, he conferred it to the uses of the needy as secretly as he could. Once a day he took food, rarely fed on meats, scarcely drank wine, unless perhaps invited among friends: for then he used no selection of the viands set before him. He [was] of notable charity toward his neighbors, whom, that he might succor and be at hand to them, he spared no labors: [and] of singular dexterity in recalling criminal men to a better fruit amendment. If he understood anyone to be either ensnared in a flagitious love, or lost, by a certain marvelous artifice he insinuated himself into his familiarity: then, the man being now entangled by intercourse, he even of his own accord offered himself to dinner: when he was intimate, he took away from him his concubines and mistresses. But if he had several, and could not remove all at once; he so handled the man that he cast away all step by step and gradually: and it happened at some time that he took away eight concubines from a certain [man].

[420] the eulogy of a truly apostolic life; Of admirable prudence and pleasantness of speech: in adverse things altogether unbroken and robust: always fixed in the divine providence, by whose confidence he both sailed at an unseasonable time, and exposed his life to great perils, from which he was many times snatched. Thrice he made shipwreck, sometimes tossed for two or three days by the waves, [and] saved on a plank: long afterward, hidden in the woods, he avoided the hands and cruelty of the barbarians pursuing him: at other times, covered by a tree, and passing the night in it, he escaped the death prepared for him by the gentiles. In the greatest troubles he often prayed God that hard things might always succeed to hard, and that He would never diminish his labors, but rather augment them. Excellent in the spirit of prayer, in which he frequently placed whole nights, and passed them sleepless before the most holy body of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he could, or before the image of the Crucified. If he was oppressed by the weakness of nature, he often placed either a stone or a hard pillow under his head, and thus, lying on the ground, took a light and brief sleep, which however he frequently interrupted with a groan. He marvelously abounded in divine consolations. When he thought himself to be alone, his hand being applied to his breast, his eyes lifted to heaven, he often cried to God: It is enough, Lord, it is enough.

[421] likewise of heroic virtues, But in Japan, making his journey on his own feet, he was sometimes so received i.e., the ground so afflicted him that he entangled himself in brambles, struck against stones, [and] tore his feet, without pain, without feeling: so great was the magnitude of the divine heat ardor. The devil at some time gravely scourged him praying: but he did not on that account intermit his prayer. He was most studious of obedience: to which virtue he denied that any length of lands stood in the way, any immensity of the sea. Toward bishops, and men adorned with some sacred dignity, most reverent: and he taught that they must be cultivated with every kind of office and observance. I will add this: he who first received the faith of Christ in the very island of Japan was a certain Japanese from the town of Cangoxima, who not only in Baptism gave his name to Christ, but even in our Society, to whose vows he bound himself; and, by a new miracle, a Japanese man, Christian, and Religious, sent by Francis Xavier to Ignatius, came to Rome in the year 1554, with this counsel namely, that, the majesty of the Roman Church being perceived, and the institutes of the Christians known, he might return into his native land, and report to his fellow-citizens the things seen by him. With Bernard therefore (for so he was called) I had great familiarity at Rome: by whose examples I was inflamed to virtue, inasmuch as he represented to me by his life those primitive Christians. He narrated to me three things about Francis. First, that for seven months he had been with him together in the same chamber, and in the light and very small sleep which Francis took, had often heard his groans and voices, using again and again the name of Jesus: and had sometimes asked of Francis himself what he sighed for so frequently, what he groaned for? and that he had answered him that he knew nothing, felt nothing at all. Second, that in a great disputation with the Bonzes, and a grave altercation, many questions, and those most diverse, being proposed by many to Francis himself, most frequently (when Bernard himself too was present) he so satisfied all by one response, that he took away from all all doubts and scruples: and that much more evidently and illustriously than if he had answered each singly.

[422] Third, that with his own eyes he had seen very many oppressed by various diseases, and also the gift of miracles and of prophecy, who, carried to Francis, were straightway healed by him, either by the sign of the cross or by the sprinkling of holy water. Wherefore he said that to the Japanese he seemed as one slipped down from heaven, and above merely human. Nor is it a wonder: for he was illustrious by many miracles both in life and after death, by which up to this present day he is illustrated. He drove diseases of every kind from human bodies: he freed the possessed, illumined the blind, [and] finally restored the dead to life. In the gift of prophecy he especially excelled: he laid open many hidden things, saw very many things placed far off, and announced that those things had happened to peoples which, the days being repeated and enumerated, was ascertained to have fallen on that very day on which they had been divinely known by him, placed far off, and declared to others.

[423] His dead body, entire and solid, wrapped in the domestic and sacred garments which he used, and the marvelous integrity of the incorrupt body are reviewed. was covered with lime by the Portuguese merchants who had been present at [him] dying, and laid in the ground, that, the bones being eaten clean by the force of the lime, they might carry them into India. For so he, regarding the suffrages of the pious, and piously thinking about the resurrection, had ordered it to be done. After three months, the sarcophagus being dug up, the garments are found altogether entire: the body utterly solid and incorrupt, of a natural and vivid color, with moist and juicy flesh: nothing of foul or hideous odor. The merchants, moved by the miracle of the thing, place the body, as it was, in the ship: freed from great perils, they come to Malacca with unwonted celerity: there for twelve other months likewise it is kept, with utterly the same integrity. Then, carried to Goa, in a concourse of all orders and of the whole city, it is placed in the church of our college, and buried. And great is the veneration of the whole people toward him, great the opinion of his sanctity. To enumerate his miracles, produced both in life and after death, would be too long, and alien from our purpose. For it is not proposed to this narration that I should pursue all the things which were done in India through Francis: for they are many, great, [and] attested, and which ought to be explained in a just volume, [and] not to be very narrowly compressed. A little book about his life, and about the Japanese affairs, went forth printed; but brief, and which is more a commentary than a full history, which indeed will be ample, if it embrace the whole life of Francis, and diligently pursue those things which have been proved by many and most grave witnesses, and entered into the public records by the order of John III, king of Portugal. Yet certain things had to be briefly touched according to our manner ^b.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Corsica surveyed by ours; the spiritual Exercises delated to the Inquisitors of the faith; colleges and the provinces distributed in Spain; various colleges; the decree of the Sorbonne college against the Society.

Cap. VIII.

The College of Modena ^a was begun about the same time: likewise that of Perugia, At the request of the Genoese commonwealth two of ours are sent into Corsica: the rector being Everard Mercurian ^b, a grave and prudent man, who in the year of the Lord 1548, instructed both in the philosophical and theological disciplines, and cultivated in the more polished letters, and even then laudably engaged in handling the minds of men, at Paris

entered our Society. But in the city of Perugia James Laínez had a little before preached, who, the Genoese commonwealth requesting it, thereafter set out for Genoa, and vehemently moved that city, and by every kind of doctrine and virtue excited it to the zeal of piety. Which was the cause why the same commonwealth asked from the supreme Pontiff with great prayers that he would send some of ours into Corsica ^c, who might go about and teach those uncultivated and rude peoples, and therefore contaminated with many vices. Two were sent with great power of the supreme Pontiff, which they used for the salvation of many, with such abstinence and integrity of life that they moved men much by word, but more by example. They labored much in traversing the island, in composing controversies, removing vices (which had crept innumerable into their wedlock and nuptials), repairing and adorning the sacred buildings: admonishing the priests, and exhorting them to guard the priestly office, hearing the confessions of sins: finally in sermons, and every office of piety, they placed much zeal and labor.

[425] whose fruit was retarded by calumnies. But the devil tried to impede this course of theirs. For in the next year 1553 certain Religious, and priests (to whom perhaps a severer discipline was odious) carried to Rome many things against them, both false and bitter, and scattered them, and filled the ears of Cardinals and princes with iniquitous accusations. That Ignatius might meet these, he sent Sebastian Romaeus into Corsica, by whom in a short time many illustrious and most grave testimonies were brought: which the governor of Corsica and the rest of the magistrates and cities most willingly attributed to the truth and innocence of ours: and wrote them to Rome to the Supreme Pontiff and the most illustrious men, which, on account of the great praise, ours could not hear without shame.

Cap. IX.

[426] In Spain in the same year 1553 the Society was both proved and augmented. For the method of the spiritual Exercises ^d (whose use flourished in Spain, and brought the richest fruits to the Church of Christ) at the same time was gravely agitated: and by those good men indeed, but rude in our affairs, Spiritual Exercises suffer in Spain: many things were written and noted against that little book, and delated to the Inquisitors of the faith. But the truth at length dispelled all the darkness, and both defended itself by its own strength, and, by the authority of the most sacred See, easily repelled and broke the assault of the adversaries. And so the Society held its course. For the College of Évora was begun at the same time by Henry, a Cardinal, son of Emmanuel, king of Portugal, and the full brother of King John by blood and piety, on account of his exceeding religion, and benevolence toward the Society: and so thereafter amplified, and adorned and perfected with a new University and fixed revenues, that all the disciplines are handed down in it, with a very great number and concourse of hearers. But at Coimbra, for rightly instructing novices, and educating them to the norm of the Society, a house of probation was instituted. At Lisbon too, both a house of the professed was instituted, and the college, formed the previous year, was enriched with new lectures. Besides, the College of Ávila took its beginning in the same year 1553.

[427] To these add that of Cordova: to which indeed the entrance of Father Antony of Cordova into the Society gave the beginning. colleges erected there, For he, son of Lorenzo Figueroa, count of Feria and marquis of Priego, after he embraced our institute, held nothing more primary than to make our affairs, which were unknown, known: and, through his kinsmen, easily princes i.e., leading men in resources and clients, to place the Society at Cordova. To transact that matter with the Magistrate, Francis Villanova, with a companion, set out for Cordova. In which city was Doctor John of Cordova, excellent in wealth and authority, dean of the church of Cordova, and then indeed not best affected toward ours. He, when he hears that ours had come to Cordova, having them sought out from a desire of investigating and exploring, invites them home to himself, compels them, receives them with hospitality: curiously and assiduously, even by stealth, observes them, searches them diligently: by admiration of the life of ours he collects himself: he is taken by their intercourse and discourses: the truth being ascertained, he begins to love those whom before he seemed to hate. Within a few days, he gives to ours the house in which he himself dwelt, above all ample and magnificent: [and] besides much precious clothing, golden vessels, and not a few silver ones for the worship of God; he establishes annual revenues for food and worship so studiously and ardently that he said he could neither sleep nor wake, nor think of anything other than our college. And so what I said, he in a short time effected, and that change of will toward us, and of his very life, had great admiration among all. For neither had he before borne obscurely with what mind he was toward us; nor could what he did be ignored, on account of the man's dignity.

[428] And to accomplishing these things master Jerome Nadal contributed not a little, and the distribution of the provinces. whom Ignatius in this very year sent as commissary general into Spain, that he might promulgate to ours the Constitutions written out by him, inspect the order and discipline of the colleges, and, that they might be more conveniently governed, distribute them into more provinces than before: which he also did; and constituted ^e as Provincials of Castile Antony Araoz, of Baetica Michael Torrens, of Aragon Francis Strada, of Portugal James Miron (as he had been ordered). But over all he set, and instituted ^f as commissary general in all Spain, Father Francis Borgia; whose authority among all was above all great.

Cap. X.

[429] In this manner the affairs in Spain, being settled, had a marvelous progress. The College of Seville, that of Granada, that of Cuenca; For, invited by the example and fruit of the College of Cordova, many citizens of Seville sought ours. And so in the following year 1554 the College of Seville was formed by the arrival of Father Francis Borgia in that city and by his sermons. Besides, that of Granada was instituted, to stabilizing which Peter Guerrero, archbishop of that city, much helped, who in the Council of Trent, from the discourses of James Laínez and Alfonso Salmerón, had approved our institute, and, moved by the life and erudition of those fathers, altogether favored ours: but he was always, while he lived, the amplifier, and at length the founder, of the college now instituted. The bishop of Placencia too, Doctor Gutierre Carvajal, at Trent by the intercourse of the same fathers, [and] well disposed toward the rest of the Society, returned into Spain, and at Placencia illustriously and magnificently constructed a college from the foundations, and confirmed it with annual revenues. In this series and order I place the College of Cuenca, which likewise this year, by the counsel of Francis Villanova, Peter del Pozo, a canon of Cuenca, for guarding the health of ours who dwelt at Alcalá from the summer heats, then indeed began, but afterward augmented and perfected Peter Marchina, himself also a canon of Cuenca; most friendly to Ignatius while he lived, but afterward to the whole Society too. But on account of the multitude of those who at that time gave their names to the Society in Spain, that they might be more aptly formed to our institute, Bartholomew Bustamante being moderator, a house of novices was established at Simancas.

[430] But in Italy that of Genoa, that of Loreto: the Society in Sicily. Moreover in Italy the College of Genoa was placed by the labor of Father James Laínez: in which there stand out the notable offices of liberality and benevolence both of other citizens, and indeed especially of Paul Doria. But that of Loreto was founded by the counsel of Rodolfo Pio of Carpi, a Cardinal, and protector of the house of Loreto. Who indeed, for preserving the worship of the most sacred place, and fostering the piety of the pilgrims flocking thither, thinking that ours could contribute something by their labors, first sent some, obtained from Ignatius, to Loreto: whose fruit, when it was no less than the hope, the Supreme Pontiff afterward confirmed the college for ours by Apostolic authority. But even in Sicily during the same time the Society grew. For both the foundations of the College of Syracuse were laid by Suero Vega, son of John Vega the viceroy, governor of that city; and in the town of Monreale, at the expense of Alexander Farnese, a Cardinal, archbishop of that city, houses being bought together, and a new church being built, a dwelling was established for ours. And Sicily itself, Jerome Domenech being created Provincial, was reduced into the form of a province.

Cap. XI.

[431] These things in Italy and Spain. But in Gaul in the same year 1554 our Society began to have fixed seats. The Society presented with two colleges in Gaul For although from its very first beginning there had always been some of ours who gave their labor to the studies of letters in the University of Paris: yet privately, and in no fixed place, in no college of their own, did they dwell in that city. Until Doctor William of Prat, bishop of Clermont, who had known our institute at Trent, and had familiarly used the fathers James Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, [and] Claude Jay, resolved to build for us two colleges: one in his diocese at Billom, the other at Paris ^g, which he also did. Over which colleges, and for governing our affairs in Gaul, Ignatius made master Paschasius Broët Provincial Superior. But ours asking of the king that he would admit the Society, and endow its sons with the right of the kingdom naturalization; the matter was referred to the Parisian senate parlement. The senate (because that matter pertained to religion) mandates to the theological Faculty that it examine our Institute, [and] diligently inspect the Pontifical diplomas: [and] finally refer to it what seems best.

[432] There was at that time among the doctors of theology a certain man chief in authority, it is not admitted; but, a decree being published against it by the Sorbonne offended with ours, because they had received into the Society a certain youth joined to him by blood, he himself resisting. There were other religious doctors who, led by their own reasons, less favored our cause: some who labored nothing about the whole matter: many who, occupied by popular opinions and the widespread rumors against the Society, sharply opposed our Religion, on account of religion itself. Those judges therefore come together, consult among themselves, [and] at length write that decree, by which the Faculty of theology openly declares what it thinks about the Institute of the Society: altogether most similar to that decree which the same Faculty of theology is handed down to have written against the Religion of St. Dominic, at its very beginning. For it is severe, and grave, and most bitter, and such as would be judged by those reading it, and comparing its opinions with the thing itself, to have been made with the truth altogether unknown and unexplored ^h.

[433] This decree being made, ours were tossed by great and turbulent waves at Paris: great waves are stirred up: for, the business being fresh, they were cut down attacked by the scholars in the schools, by the monks in the sermons, by the people in the circles gatherings; by the senate in the court, [and] finally by the very bishop, they endured great troubles in the churches. This being carried to Rome, all the best and most learned fathers of the Society were of the opinion that they said that the decree must be responded to, lest some perhaps, ignorant of the truth, moved by the authority of the notable Faculty, and the most grave prejudice about us, should receive opinions alien from the truth. Nor indeed was it to be feared that the Faculty would not receive this defense of the truth, both just and necessary, in the best part. For such is its modesty and love of truth, that if it saw the matter as it is,

it saw the matter as it is, known, it would certainly antiquate repeal that its decree, and abolish it: which it would have made not from hatred, but from ignorance of the truth.

[434] But the fathers so thinking, Ignatius, with a most even mind, and a countenance, as he was wont, cheerful, these fathers raging, My peace, said he, I give you: Peace, says the Lord, I leave you. Nor must anything be written, said he, nor done, from which either hatred or anything of bitterness may be born. Nor indeed let the authority of the Faculty of theology perturb you, which, although it is great, yet will avail nothing against truth: which is indeed often pressed, but never oppressed. Another and less perilous medicine, if there be need (which indeed I do not hope), we will apply to this wound. Therefore he mandates to ours that they ask from all princes, bishops, magistrates, commonwealths, universities, [and] cities among which they were engaged, a testimony of their life: that they take care that the testimonies, written out and sealed, be sent to him, that, if there be need, he may oppose them to the Parisian decree, and to the opinions of a few men oppose the judgment and approbation of the globe of the lands.

[435] What Ignatius commanded is done: from almost all the provinces in which our Society is, the letters of almost all the magistrates are brought to him in a short time, all give a firm, grave, [and] illustrious testimony of their judgment to ours. Ignatius bears himself prudently and calmly. Yet Ignatius does not use these testimonies, because he saw that the decree itself had fallen of its own accord, and so vanished within a few days that its name scarcely existed. For falsehood falls of itself. Moreover in Spain, because the Sorbonne decree was against the most sacred authority of the Apostolic See, by which our Religion was approved and confirmed, the Inquisitors of the faith forbade it, by their decree, to be read, as false, and as something which would offend pious ears ⁱ. And this also followed, that, whereas before the decree our Society had no college in Gaul, after the decree, within a year, it had two.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Two of the Society, heralds of the Gospel, slain by the barbarians; another created patriarch of Ethiopia; the sedition of Saragossa turned to the praise of the Society; various colleges.

Cap. XII.

At the time when the Society was exercised in those ways in Gaul, at the same time Peter Correa, it poured out blood for Christ in Brazil. For Peter Correa and John Sosa ^a, Portuguese, sons of the Society, having set out to preach the Gospel to the peoples of the Ybirajaris, were pierced through with arrows by the Carigi, wild and barbarous men, and, praying on bent knees, were killed. Peter was a noble and strong man, who in Brazil, before he had entered the Society, incited by a certain zeal of amplifying the Christian name, that he might avert the force of the barbarians from the Christians, inflicted on the barbarians themselves what losses he could: then he joined himself, first of all, to our Society in Brazil: and, that he might redeem the faults of his past life, and repair, as far as he could, the loss inflicted on those peoples, he dedicated his life and labors to the salvation of the Brazilians. And so the five years which he afterward lived, with exceeding humility, obedience, and desire of perfection, he prudently and strenuously consumed in their utility: and profited much both by the example of his life, and by the knowledge of the Brazilian tongue, and by the use of affairs: until, at the end of the year 1554, in the manner which we said above, he was killed.

[437] The other, John Sosa, himself also among the first who followed the institute of ours in that province, and John Sosa are butchered by the barbarians. simple and upright, and endowed with excellent virtue of penance, humility, and charity, was assumed from the hearth and kitchen, in which he ministered to the brethren, to so glorious an end. But our affairs were so amplified among those peoples that in the villages and towns of Salvador, St. Vincent, Piratininga, Porto Seguro, Espírito Santo, Ilhéus, Pernambuco, and some others, we have dwellings: for establishing which, and for moderating ours, Ignatius created Emmanuel Nóbrega Provincial superior ^b.

Cap. XIII.

[438] These things were done in Brazil, when John Nunes is designated patriarch of Ethiopia. The reason of that thing was of this kind. John Nunes The Ethiopians are among the ancient Christians above all, who received the faith of Christ partly from the blessed Apostle Matthew, partly from the Eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, baptized by Philip. But either those first Christians retained the law of Moses, or their posterity resumed it when it had been cast away, and defiled the sincerity of the Christian faith with Jewish ceremonies. For they are both baptized and circumcised, and so confound Judaism with the Christian religion that, since they wish to be both, they are plainly neither Christians nor Jews. And from the Patriarch of Alexandria, infected with various errors of the modern Greeks, they seek the rule of believing.

[439] Moreover, on account of the distance of the lands, and the barbarous nations interposed, for which causes they were long since joined by no commerce or communication with our men: until the Portuguese, carried by navigation into Ethiopia, came to the king (they call him Prester John ^c), and so deserved of him by their intercourse and illustrious deeds that they opened an access into Ethiopia for their countrymen, and gave a place of commerce. Moved by which things, David, king of Ethiopia, seeks the friendship of Emmanuel, king of Portugal (who by most illustrious victories greatly amplified the Christian religion toward the East): writes to Clement VII, Supreme Pontiff, through the Portuguese men, saying that he acknowledges the Roman Bishop [as] the pastor of the universal Church: that he therefore desires, and with all prayers asks from him, that he, who is the master of all, would send teachers into Ethiopia, by whom they themselves might be instructed to the right norm of the sincere faith. He asks the king of Portugal himself to interpose his authority with the Pontiff.

[440] The matter was managed by the Portuguese king diligently indeed; he is created patriarch of Ethiopia. but, impeded by the perturbation of the times, and protracted even to Julius III. Who, led by the magnitude of the matter, and by the prayers of John III, king of Portugal, who had succeeded his father Emmanuel no more in the kingdom than in the zeal of amplifying religion, constituted John Nunes, a Portuguese (he whom, in the preceding years, we said to have given his labor to redeeming Christian captives in Mauritania), patriarch of Ethiopia with the utmost power: creates Andrew Oviedo, a Castilian, and Melchior Carnerio, a Portuguese, bishops, and joins them as helpers and successors of the patriarch. Which honors, after the Society had humbly and modestly repudiated them, it was at length compelled to accept: and that indeed with great commendation of the Society itself, because, the most ample honors being repudiated, the Pontiff yet said that the Society accepted those who, besides labors for Christ and perils of their head life, had nothing of splendor or fruit by which they could allure men to themselves: to the patriarch and the companion bishops Ignatius added nine other comrades, Italians, Flemings, Portuguese, [and] Castilians. All whom the same excellent king John most benignly embraced, [and], presented at royal expense with other gifts, and especially with sacred vestments, and all those things which pertain to pontifical worship and ceremonies, sent with a great fleet into India, that they might thence cross over to King Claudius, the successor of David, now dead, into Ethiopia.

Cap. XIV.

[441] About the same time, at Saragossa a grave tempest is stirred up against ours. Which, because I judge it the greatest of all with which the Society has hitherto been afflicted; but in [its] end even most joyful, I will explain a little more amply. A tempest For in a most noble and most ample city of Spain, the Society being now known to many and approved, the matter was managed by men Religious by profession. At Saragossa therefore certain friends bought with their own and also the city's money a house for ours, for establishing a college for the Society. A great concourse of citizens began to be made thither, who seemed to perceive excellent fruit from the intercourse of ours. This happened most troublesome to the Augustinian monks (who at that time lived more laxly, but now are more observant of their institute), although their monastery was farther distant from that house of ours. Likewise the parish-priest of St. Magdalene bore it very gravely that ours were neighbors of his parish. But the archbishop of Saragossa, a man most illustrious in the profession of religion, birth, [and] authority, was thought less propitious to us: whose power, which he had most ample, his vicar used for all things at his own discretion. Who indeed, on account of the parish-priest (whom we mentioned) of St. Magdalene, with whom he was believed commonly to be joined not only by friendship, but even by blood, was more alienated from us.

[442] a most grave one Therefore those Augustinian fathers grieve gravely that ours are in that city. The vicar is joined as a companion of the grief. Religious men of certain Orders, being solicited, join themselves with them: [and] finally by common counsel they conspire against ours: an honorable cause is sought: the institution of a chapel seemed best, which was being prepared by ours in a certain part of the house, that namely they might use it for that while, until God should build for them a new church. This chapel the adversaries deny can be instituted, because they said that it was contained within certain bounds (they call them "canes"), and that ours were excluded by their privileges obtained from the Apostolic See. The matter being diligently investigated, it was ascertained that nothing stood in the way of the chapel. For both our privileges, obtained later, derogated from their privileges: and in reality our house was more distant than that it should be comprehended by those limits and bounds. And so, when by reason they cannot, they contend to drive ours from possession by force and power. Ours go to the archbishop, ask the faculty of opening the oratory, show the Apostolic privileges by which it may be done, adorn and equip the chapel, [and] invite the viceroy and the first nobility.

[443] All things being prepared, at the very point of performing the most sacred mystery, a certain Augustinian monk, at Saragossa conservator of the Augustinians, because it was against the privilege of his order, interdicts ours from performing the Sacrifice in the chapel. Pious men, fearing God, prudent, [and] lettered, being consulted about that matter, it seemed to them that a prohibition of this kind was empty and null, and, for many other causes, by no means to be feared. When therefore ours persevered in the undertaking, the archbishop's vicar orders an edict to be proposed, and affixed to our doors, by which he mandates to all the parish-priests and vicars of that city that they not permit their flock to hear Mass or the divine Offices in our chapel, [and] pronounce the penalty of excommunication on the rebellious and disobedient. In sum, at length the matter proceeded to such a point that they publicly imprecated all curses and execrations on ours: and said that they must be held in the number of the impious and wicked

and that all should depart from them: [and] flee their approach and speech. For both it was interdicted to the people from the Sacrifices, if anyone should be joined to ours by approach or meeting: and most noble and most ample men, because they had not stood by the decree of the vicar, were ejected from the churches, and thrust out. In which churches indeed well-nigh all the preachers tore the name of ours: the archbishop condemned them by his power: all the convents of all Orders, likewise the assemblies of priests, publicly anathematized them with that rite, and with those most grave ceremonies, which are wont to be employed in matters of this kind. An interdict too was published, which should hold force as long as ours were in that city.

[444] By which things it came about that the common people fled ours as certain expiatory offerings i.e., accursed things, against the Society and desired them exterminated from their city, whom they saw marked with so many dire execrations. Especially since the adversaries fanned the flame of envy, and objected it [as] a matter of religion to the rude and unskilled, if anyone perhaps should still think ours not unworthy of speech and common salutation. Finally they proscribe the detestation of ours, publicly propose it on posts and the crossroads of the city: they depict ours in that appearance and habit that they could easily be recognized. That all error might be absent, they inscribe their names: they paint demons of horrible form snatching them, put flames beneath, add reproachful appellations, [and] even feign more things than are wont to be done against the most lost contemners of ecclesiastical discipline. Nay rather, the impudent and blind temerity of certain persons was carried further, and slipped so far that they depicted Peter Augustine, bishop of Huesca, a man exceeding in nobility and virtue, a citizen of Saragossa, in the same habit and form, because he was the conservator of ours. Ours kept themselves at home, the boys rushed in troops, assailed the door, roofs, and windows with stones; filled all things with clamors. But if some grave cause had compelled anyone to go out of the house, a crowd of boys, insulting, pursued him as some hateful monster.

[445] And these things indeed among the common people: which yet to prudent men, being stirred up and estimating the matter by its true weight, seemed grave, and unworthy of Christian morals. For they understood that the envy against ours had been kindled from no fault of theirs: nor however did they dare either to strive against the authority of the archbishop, or to expose themselves to the raging multitude, or to admonish the Religious men of their duty, and convict them of the stirred sedition. For it was a tumult of the seditious common people, and stirred by the clamors of the unskilled crowd, not a conspiracy of prudent and noble men against ours, or a consensus for the destruction of our Society. For all the most noble and most grave men stood by us. Wherefore, when lost men at some time rushed in troops to our house with a great band, and a rumor grew common that ours were in danger, and it was carried to many noble and excellent citizens who were either exercising or watching the game of the palm-ball handball, suddenly they, the game being left, some even half-naked, as they were, flew armed to our house, that they might both defend ours from injury, and snatch them from peril, and by their authority, and by arms too, if there were need, calm the clamors and assault of the unskilled common people, and repel by force the force of the hired hands.

[446] a funereal indeed Therefore, when ours saw the city armed against them, and themselves brought into contention and danger, the archbishop conniving, his vicar burning, the monks pressing, the common people urging, all things perturbed and confounded, and that so great a tempest could be calmed or mitigated neither by the Pontifical authority, which the Legate of the Apostolic See had interposed, nor the royal, which the most serene Joanna, daughter of Charles V, governess of the Spains, had severely interposed, nor by any means: what we read St. Gregory Nazianzen to have done at Constantinople for a lesser cause, they themselves resolved to do in so great a perturbation of affairs: and to depart from that city which, by no fault indeed of theirs, but yet on account of them, they saw perturbed. Therefore they come into the senate: one addresses it in the name of himself and his companions: teaches that ours had come to Saragossa at the request of the citizens, and by the order of their fathers: that they had for so many years been engaged in it in such a way that, as far as was in them, they had offended no one: that, according to the institute of the Society, they had taken care that no office of piety or observance should be lacking from them. That they had labored negligently indeed, and less strenuously (which they both acknowledged and grieved for); but certainly with good faith and will, and great desire of their salvation. But since neither is the mind of all one, nor the same judgment about matters, that they had not been able to approve this zeal of theirs to many, by whose labor so great commotions had been stirred: that the matter had come to the point which they see: that it was a wickedness to them to commit that, on account of them, there should be discord, or any perturbation, in the city.

[447] had a scene: God is not the God of dissension, said he, but of peace. If on account of us the tempest has arisen, take us, and cast us into the sea. What is in us, we wish to have peace with all, we seek peace, we pursue peace: which, wheresoever among the nations, God being leader, we hope we shall attain, and that the faculty of laboring for Christ will not be lacking to us. Behold the keys of your houses, we depart from this city, lest any root of bitterness, germinating upward, impede charity, and through it many be defiled: for the loss of the place is very small, [but] very great that of charity: which, lest we lose it, we willingly lose the city. Nor however (unless our opinion deceives us) shall we lose the benevolence of all of you toward us: which we have often experienced so benign, so ready, and both acknowledge and will preserve in grateful memory. And since, for remunerating, nothing else is at hand to us, we will assiduously pray God that He may repay to you the fruit of that charity toward us of which He Himself was the author, as heaped up as possible. It is resolved by us to depart. From you, who bear a public person office, we ask again and again that you forgive us the things which were contracted by our fault in procuring your salvation: that you approve our counsel, and hold it persuaded that we change only [our] place, not [our] will. Which indeed, when it shall be permitted to use it, the waves being appeased (which we trust will shortly be, in Him who after the tempest makes calm), will be no less obsequious to your advantages than it has hitherto been.

[448] To these things the Magistrate replied that both the perturbation of the city was troublesome to it, yet an end and the will of ours grateful: that it was manifest by whose labor the common people were in tumult, and that ours wished to be like themselves: so that, as their abiding had brought very much utility to the city, their departure from the city should bring no less admiration. That they would preserve the memory of this benefit, and not so long after would testify what had been their judgment about ours. The senate being dismissed, some senators come to our house, behold our poverty: the things which they had heard about the abundance and delicacies of ours, they prove their falsehood by the fact: some even, because they had given faith to the things heard, ask pardon of their facility and error with tears: they write inventory the furniture, accompany ours setting out, offer money, [and] ours give thanks and refuse it. They betake themselves into the town of Pedrola, which is in the dominion of the duke of Villahermosa. Moreover, Jonah being cast headlong from the ship, the sea stood ceased from its heat raging. For this being done, the adversaries are somewhat mitigated, remit much of the contention, [and] the friends of the Society take courage; those who had been either the authors or the ministers of harassing ours are tortured both by the fear of penalty and indeed by the anguish of conscience, because they understood that they had proceeded further than the account of equity and religion permitted. In sum (since later counsels, as is in the proverb, are wiser), the archbishop himself unfixes and changes his decrees: he orders what faculty ours have from the Apostolic See to be promulgated in the churches. Ours are called back by a certain man: to them coming the Magistrate wishes to go out to meet them. Which when it was reported to them approaching, ours ask and beseech, with many and suppliant words, certain most noble men, and most loving of them (through whom the matter was managed), that they not affect them with so great shame, and change the joy which they had taken from past ignominy into grief of present honor.

[449] When not even a third time do they, refusing, profit anything (because those said that the public contumelies must be obliterated by a public testimony of honor), most honorable to the Society; compelled by the right of obedience they approach the city. There come out to meet them at the gate all the Magistrates, the senate, and most illustrious men of the chief nobility, a great force of men, [and] finally the archbishop's vicar himself. They compel them to mount mules prepared for them: the very first chief citizens gird i.e., flank their side: they lead them home by a most celebrated and most frequented way, in which they were awaited by the viceroy and the Inquisitor of the faith. By Peter Augustine, bishop of Huesca (whom, and Augustine de Castello, a grave, learned, and prudent man, the Society had as chief defenders in those matters), the sacrifice of Mass being performed with pontifical rite, with the utmost joy of the good, they are restored to their seats by postliminy. This [was] the end of the Saragossa tempest: from which time this college received a great increase, and always thereafter experienced so inclined a zeal of the whole city, and benevolence toward it, that by the frequency and magnitude of the benefits the most noble citizens seemed to wish to testify that those waves had then been stirred not by their fault, but by that of the common people. Moreover the tranquillity that followed answered to the vows and words of Ignatius. For as soon as he heard that stormy whirlwind stirred against us, he exulted with joy: and with a certain singular gladness signified that our Society would produce fruits at Saragossa the richer and sweeter, the deeper it had struck its roots by patience and the endurance of evils.

Cap. XV.

[450] The return of ours into the city of Saragossa repressed that suspicion about us in Spain which the departure had moved. which too was afterward augmented by various colleges. And so from that tempest and storm, and that indeed so turbulent, not only was the opinion of the good about the Society not diminished, but even augmented and confirmed: whence some colleges were established at that time. At Murcia above all, by the benefaction of Doctor Stephen Almeida, bishop of that city and of New Carthage: at Monterrey (which is a town in Galicia), by the beneficence of the Count of that very town: at Ocaña, by the benignity of Louis Calatayud: besides, in the town of Montilla a college was instituted by the best and most illustrious Catherine Fernández de Cordova, marchioness of Priego, who embraced the Society with such benevolence that she seemed to have taken upon herself the proper parts of defending and adorning it. And so, besides this college, which she built at her own expense, and that of Cordova, which was begun by her labor and authority, in the town of Marchena too a most upright woman, Doña Maria de Toledo, her daughter, duchess of Arcos, imitating her mother, established for us an illustrious college.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The Society propagated in various provinces; the death of St. Ignatius.

But in the Belgic province, and Germany, the Society grew, The Society in Belgium, and daily spread itself more widely. For from that our departure from Paris, which we recorded above,

some members of the Society always cultivated Belgic Gaul:

who, both at Louvain under Adrian ab Adriano, and

at Cologne on the Rhine under the rectorship of Leonard Kessel,

pursued the study of letters and performed the offices of piety,

and drew many souls to the institute of our order.

Among the citizens of Tournai, moreover, the Society began to become known ^a through Bernard

Oliver and Quintin Karlat: and many desired either to join themselves

to our men or to have our men among them, not without

great grief to the heretics, whose poison,

already spread abroad in many places at that time, was advancing

ever further day by day. Ignatius, perceiving this,

sent Peter Ribadeneira thither, that he might communicate

the Constitutions to our men; and, because no religious order

can, under the laws of that province, obtain new houses within it

without the king's grant, that he might treat

with King Philip about establishing the Society in that region ^b. And he indeed, although many opposed him,

obtained from the king the approbation of the Society, and

the power of erecting colleges, through the zeal and authority

of the most illustrious prince Gomez Figueroa, duke

of Feria. By which faculty a readier way lay open

to our men, the impediments that had been raised against them

being removed. Over that province Ignatius set Bernard

Oliver as Provincial: who, however, cut off by

death, was not able to sustain that office of his.

[452] And these things indeed took place in lower Germany: but in

upper Germany the Society was propagated as well. It is propagated in upper Germany, likewise in Italy and Sicily. For at this

very time, by the command of the Sovereign Pontiff, master

Alfonso Salmeron first introduced the name of the Society into

Poland; and the college of Ingolstadt ^c was enlarged;

and at Prague ^d (which city

is the royal seat of all Bohemia) Ferdinand, king of the Romans,

moved by the fruit of the Viennese college,

established a college for our men, that they might by their labors drive off

the Hussites, Wycliffites,

and other heretics who are laying waste the kingdom of Bohemia,

and by the exercises of the Society convert them

to the truth of the Catholic faith. The foundations of that college were laid

by Peter Canisius, whom Ignatius appointed in Germany as Provincial

Superior. Furthermore, in Italy a college was begun at Siena,

through the work of Cardinal Francis Mendoza: at whose request

Ignatius sent four of our men into that city, that they might console

the state, worn out with grief and mourning, and

by their pious labors restore it, laid low by the ruins of war.

At Vibo also (which is a town in Sicily) Isabella

Vega, daughter of the viceroy John Vega, duchess

of Vibo, built for us a splendid college,

and endowed it with fixed estates. Her own brother

Ferdinand Vega, too, summoned our men to Catania (which

city he governed on behalf of his father):

and by his father's authority and the kindness of the citizens

established them in a fixed dwelling. For so great

was the piety of the father Vega and of his sons, and their goodwill

toward the Society, that they vied among themselves in enlarging it.

Chapter XVI.

[453] Such was the state of the Society when Ignatius,

weighed down with years, often harassed by illnesses, grieving over the disturbance

of the times, The Saint, steeped in the joys of heaven, and a foreteller of his own death, and over the new calamities of the Church,

languishing with the desire of flying away to Christ,

began to entreat the Lord more vehemently,

that He would bring his soul out of prison, to confess

His name. For although he sustained the infirmity of the body

by strength of soul, and with great patience

and constancy endured the hardships of his pilgrimage,

yet he was held by so ardent a desire of seeing God

and of enjoying Him, that concerning his own

departure (as we have shown above) he could not,

for joy, think without tears. But when

there was an encampment in the City, and, because of the war

that was being waged between Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, and

Philip, king of the Spains, the clash of arms

was heard, and all things were full of tumult and trepidation;

he withdrew into a vineyard somewhat more remote,

where, without interruption, he might more freely lament

so great an evil. There, by the heaviness of the sky, and the very great

heats, he began to fare worse than usual: and he came to know

that the laying down of his tabernacle would be swift.

Certainly a few months before, Ignatius himself wrote a letter to Leonora

Mascarenhas,

in which was this: "This is the last letter

that I shall write to you: I shall pray the Lord for you

in heaven soon (as I hope) more ardently." From the vineyard

he returned home, at which very time many of

our men were gravely ill.

[454] Ignatius therefore, when three days before he had received the most sacred

body of Christ, having sought the blessing of the Supreme Pontiff, and the physicians

suspected no danger to be present, on the third day before the Kalends of

August, at the third hour after midday, having summoned to himself John

Polanco (whom he had employed for nine years in every kind

either of writing letters or of affairs),

and while Polanco suspected nothing at all,

alone with him alone, with the greatest tranquillity of soul,

said that the day of his departure from this life was at hand. He

charged him to go to the Supreme Pontiff: to seek from him a blessing

and the indulgence of his sins, whereby he might depart from this life

more strengthened and more joyful: adding that he himself, if, as he hoped, by the Lord's mercy

he should come into His holy mountain, would not fail

to continue that care of praying to God for the Pontiff,

which, placed in the flesh and

anxious for himself, he had diligently and holily kept.

The Pontiff most willingly imparted his blessing,

with a great token of love and of grief.

But because the illness did not seem grave,

nor did the summoned physicians announce any

danger to life; and the Father himself had changed nothing

of his custom, and had that very night dealt familiarly

with our men about the completion of a certain

matter (although Ignatius's words kept them

anxious), yet, that they might do something more prudently,

the fathers determined to await the following day.

[455] Beyond the expectation of his own, he falls asleep in the Lord. When it dawned, they found him most sweetly

giving up the ghost: they hastened up, offered him broth;

he refused, saying it was not the time for taking it, and with hands joined,

his eyes fixed upon heaven, imploring Jesus with his heart, Jesus with his lips,

with a peaceful countenance he most holily departed to

the Lord on the day before the Kalends of August 1556, at the

first hour after sunrise ^e: a man truly humble; who,

though he foreknew his own death, willed neither to create

to admonish, nor to exhort, nor to bless them:

that they might have all their hopes fixed in God,

might depend on Him, and might judge that he himself

had been nothing and was nothing. And although this

may seem to conflict with the deeds of certain founders of other

religious orders, who at their death summoned

their sons to themselves and exhorted them to every kind

of virtue; yet it does not conflict with

the divine Spirit, who moved those men to set forth

such examples. Diverse and dissimilar deeds of the Saints, therefore,

are not opposed and contrary to

one another. For God, who by His own prompting incited them

to display the affection of His charity toward their sons,

by His own inspiration likewise impelled Ignatius

to suppress his paternal affection in the zeal

of humility: so that in the former charity might shine forth the more, and in

Ignatius humility the more.

[456] As a man most useful to the Church, he strengthens them by his patronage. Yet all his sons felt the patronage of him

dead, or rather truly living.

For from his death there followed a certain most sweet

sense of grief throughout the whole Society, tears

mingled with gladness, a longing full of hope, a vigor

of spirit stirred up everywhere: so that all men everywhere

seemed to burn with a certain new desire of laboring for Christ

and of enduring grave and difficult things.

A man, too (as may easily be judged), given to the Church in those times

by the gift and providence of God,

for resisting the attempts of the heretics.

And so at that very time, when Luther, by the utmost

wickedness, revolted from obedience to the Apostolic See

and declared a deadly war against the Catholic Church;

our Lord (as has been shown above)

raised up this most valiant leader and set him against the wicked

attempts of Luther, that he might enroll an army throughout

the whole world, and gather together

those soldiers who by a new and salutary vow

should bind themselves to obedience to the Supreme Pontiff, and

by their life and doctrine should repel the assaults of the Lutherans.

For those men indeed assail penance,

do away with the invocation of the Saints, subvert

the sacrosanct Sacraments of the Church, destroy the images

of the Saints, scatter and persecute their relics and

most blessed bones, overthrow

churches, mock the indulgences of sins, deprive

the souls of the faithful, which are expiated by the fire

of purgatory, of the suffrages of the pious; and finally, like certain furies,

they confound heaven with earth, and, as far as it lies

in them, desire justice, peace, and all Christian

religion to be extinguished.

[457] But Ignatius and his sons persistently teach,

by words His eulogy and burial and deeds, things wholly contrary to these: and they exhort

all men to worthy fruits of penance,

to prayer, and to the constant meditation of divine things,

to the pious and frequent use of the Sacraments,

to holding the images and relics of the Saints in honor,

and to aiding both themselves and

others by the remissions of sins and indulgences,

which are dispensed in the Church, through His Vicar, out of the most abundant

treasury of the merits of Jesus

Christ our Lord and of the Saints stored up therein.

Finally, all his counsels and pursuits were found

to have looked, whether through himself or through his followers,

either to preserving or to recalling the sincerity of the Catholic

faith. His body, on the Kalends

of August, was laid in a humble tomb in our church,

at the right of the high altar ^f. He died in the

sixty-fifth year of his age; but in the thirty-fifth after his conversion.

All which time he passed in the greatest poverty;

in penances, pilgrimage, the study of letters,

persecutions, imprisonment, chains, the greatest

labors, which he undertook for the love of Christ

and by the excellent virtue of his soul, and overcame with admirable

constancy: and in the sixteenth year of the Society confirmed by the Apostolic

See, which he saw propagated over almost the whole

world. He left twelve provinces established: of Portugal, of Castile,

of Baetica, of Aragon, of Italy, of Naples,

of Sicily, of Germany both upper and lower,

of Gaul, of Brazil, and of India, which is toward the East:

in which there were nearly a hundred colleges or dwellings of our men.

NOTES.

CHAPTER XXX.

The judgments of most weighty men concerning St. Ignatius; the constitution of his body.

Chapter XVII.

At the time when Ignatius most holily departed from

life, A magnificent estimation of St. Ignatius is proved from words and deeds, James Laínez was so ill at Rome

that the physicians despaired of his life. When Ignatius therefore

had died, some of the first fathers entered James's chamber,

to visit him and to conceal Ignatius's

death, lest, that is, so most loving a son should be affected

by any graver sorrow from it. From his countenance,

however (which is the index of the soul), James easily

conjectured what those Fathers were concealing. And so,

turning to them: "Is he dead" (he said), "is the holy

holy Father; is he dead?" When he heard that he was dead,

at once raising his hands, he cast his eyes to heaven

and most ardently commended himself to Ignatius.

And at the same time: "Thee, eternal Father" (he said), "I,

beseech, that Thou, who gavest us Ignatius Thy servant,

of this least Society,

and who this day hast mercifully gathered

his most pure soul out of the workhouse of wretched flesh,

wouldst by his prayers snatch me also out of the bonds

of this mortality, that I, an unworthy son, may follow my most holy

Father, and together with him (as

I hope) may enjoy Thee forever." But the matter fell out far

otherwise. For he at once became somewhat better, and was restored

to health: which Ignatius was believed to have obtained for him from God,

that he might govern the Society in his stead.

This Ignatius himself had long before foretold to James

would come to pass.

[459] The judgment of the Fathers James Laínez, Peter Faber, Nor is it any wonder, surely, that James Laínez in

that moment of time so commended himself to Ignatius,

of whose holiness, while still alive, he held so illustrious

an estimation. For I remember, when

we spoke familiarly of the beginnings, propagation, and fruit of our

religious order, and of God's kindness, who so liberally

had adorned and increased the Society, and had defended it

from innumerable and very great dangers, that James

very often was wont to say to me: "What wonder, Peter?

The Lord has been well pleased in the soul of His servant Ignatius." Which

he said, meaning of course to signify, that this abundant

grace was derived from the Lord upon his sons on account of Ignatius.

The same father James, at the time when

he was first sent by Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, to the Council

of Trent, vehemently

wished, and dealt with certain very weighty men,

most illustrious in authority and dignity, that Ignatius

might be sent to the Council: not that he might dispute

with heretics, or discuss controverted questions of religion:

but (as father James himself told me)

that he might sustain the Council itself by his prayers

before God, and by his exceptional prudence before men.

That same father Laínez always made great account

of Peter Faber, and looked up to him as a kind of heavenly

and truly spiritual master, and

especially learned in governing souls and in extricating them

from the straits of scruples.

And deservedly indeed. But yet James used to say to me,

that Faber was indeed such a man, if he were regarded in and of himself

and by himself; but yet, if he were compared with Ignatius,

he seemed to himself a stammering little boy

beside a most wise old man. In which certainly no injury was done

to Faber. For Faber himself both acknowledged and

proclaimed this; and he consulted and questioned Ignatius as his father

and master concerning the interior

dispositions and difficulties of his soul:

he hung upon his mouth, as an infant upon its mother's

breasts: he set him forth to all as a most perfect exemplar

of all virtues,

if any sought counsel from him about attaining

perfection. For he admonished all, and seriously and

gravely exhorted them, that, if they desired to attain

the excellence of a perfect life quickly and, so to speak,

by a shortcut, they should set Ignatius alone before their

eyes, should gaze upon him, and imitate him.

For thus it would come to pass in a short time that all

should fill up every measure of perfect virtue.

[460] Of Claude Jay, Simón Rodrigues, And since I have begun to relate what was the judgment of these

fathers concerning Ignatius, I shall add other

most weighty and most certain witnesses as well. Claude

Jay (while Ignatius was still living) was seized on a journey by a most bitter

pain of the stomach; and when

no medicine, no immediate remedy was at hand,

he began to entreat God that, through the merits of His servant

Ignatius, He would free him from that trouble; and as soon

as he had poured out his prayers, he was freed. This same thing happened to Nicholas

Bobadilla. When he, on a certain occasion, was suddenly aflame with a most burning fever,

commending himself to Ignatius, now dead,

he was at once relieved of the illness.

That Simón Rodrigues had his life prolonged by the prayers of Ignatius

we have written above. And so Simón held that opinion of Ignatius,

which it was fitting to hold of the parent of his own life.

Francis Borgia, the third Superior General of

our Society, and an illustrious example of humility and of all

holiness, admiring the force of Ignatius's words, used to say

to me: "He spoke as one having power." It would be a long task

to pursue the rest, and to recount what the best

and wisest fathers of the whole Society,

whether they have exchanged life for death, or

are still surviving, and had intimate acquaintance

with Ignatius, felt and proclaimed concerning his

holiness.

[461] Certainly one man, Francis Xavier (to pass over

the others), I ought not to omit, and of St. Francis Xavier. a man altogether

apostolic, and sent by God to illumine with the light of the Gospel

so many barbarous and savage nations,

and admirable in the number and magnitude of his miracles.

That Bernard the Japanese, therefore (of whom we made mention

above), used to tell me, that from Francis

Xavier, when he spoke of Ignatius, he had often

heard these words: "A great Saint is Father Ignatius, Bernard,

altogether a great Saint."

Francis himself indeed venerated Ignatius as a Saint.

And so, prostrating himself upon his knees, out of reverence

he often wrote letters to him: he sought counsel,

and instructions for the conversion of the Indians:

and in certain letters he says that he indeed sought these things from Ignatius,

lest, if he should omit to do so, he should be gravely

punished by God, for the reason that he had not used that spirit

and light of counsel of his most holy Father and master

for the salvation of so many peoples.

But against the force of all storms and the assaults

of dangers, he fortified himself with the name and intercession

of Ignatius: and he hung about his neck, as a most firm shield,

the name of Ignatius, written by Ignatius's own

hand ^a, and the vows of his profession.

[462] And lest I seem to bring forward only domestic

witnesses (although these are more certain), I shall adduce a few

foreigners ^b, most abundant, [Add the foreigners: Marcellus II, Pope; John III, king of Portugal; Cardinal Quiroga,] and

of singular authority. Marcellus the Second, Supreme

Pontiff, always most devoted to Ignatius, always made such account

of his judgment, both about other matters and about those pertaining

to the Society, that in these matters indeed he used to say

that the authority of Ignatius alone had more weight with him

than all the reasons to the contrary,

as has been shown in the third book. John

the Third, the excellent king of Portugal, and most fully endowed

with those virtues which are proper to a king, who from the very

beginning both most munificently adorned the Society

and most keenly defended it, applied great care

to knowing all the affairs of the Society, and

to testifying his zeal toward Ignatius. And so

to Luis Gonçalves ^c (who had been confessor to John,

the king's son and prince), setting out for the City,

he gave charge to observe all Ignatius's words and deeds carefully

and to write them out diligently to him: and whatever

he himself might think of the whole man, to inform the king himself.

Luis did what he had been commanded,

and after an exquisite investigation of all matters

(as I received from himself) wrote to the king; that he

had indeed surveyed everything, and had most diligently

observed Ignatius, as the king had commanded, and was so

captivated by the magnitude and excellence of his virtues,

that even the mere sight of him,

and the composure of his face, and the motion of his body,

vehemently inflamed Luis himself to the love of God.

Wherefore even from the mere gazing upon Ignatius

he took very much help toward virtue. Gaspar Quiroga

^d, who is still living, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church,

archbishop of Toledo, and president of the supreme council

of the faith, was joined to Ignatius in the greatest friendship

and intimacy, and treated many

and weighty affairs with him at Rome.

He makes no end of praising Ignatius, for his religion, holiness,

and prudence, and his other most illustrious virtues:

and he affirms that he saw in no

mortal so great a constancy of soul and countenance,

and so even and perpetual a tenor throughout

his whole life, as there was in Ignatius. Many leading men,

and men eminent in both ecclesiastical and secular dignity,

wrote letters to the Society after Ignatius's death:

in which they both praised the dead father

and consoled his living and mourning sons.

[463] John Vega, viceroy of Sicily; Of these one was John Vega, who at that time

was governing Sicily on behalf of King Philip,

but afterward, as president of the royal council, departed from

life in Spain. He (as we have said), when he was at Rome as ambassador

of the emperor Charles V with the Supreme Pontiff,

had contracted a great intimacy with Ignatius,

and thereafter pursued him with the greatest goodwill.

When Ignatius therefore had died, he wrote a letter to James

Laínez, now Vicar General,

one section of which, translated from the Spanish tongue

into Latin, I shall here subjoin, because I judged

it worthy of so great a man, and not foreign to our purpose.

"Three or four days" (he says)

"before the letter was delivered to me which

father Polanco sent me in your name about the death of the blessed Father Ignatius,

it had been announced to us that he had departed from

life, but obscurely. And so we were held by a great

desire of knowing and understanding everything more certainly,

and what had been the end of that most holy Man,

what the state of your holy Society and religious order.

For I did not doubt (which I have seen in this letter,

and also in that one which was written to father Jerome

^e) that both a glorious end had closed his life,

and that divine protection is advancing you and your Sodality.

But nevertheless I received very great

consolation and edification from this exact and diligent

narration of the things done,

which was, however, joined with a certain sense of grief.

For we cannot but grieve at the death and loss

of those whom we loved in this life.

[464] whose letter is set forth, Blessed be God, who called this His Servant

to Himself, having drawn him out of the prison of the body, at that time

which He judged most opportune for him: and who

so instructed him, and fortified him with His grace, that

he left so many monuments of his virtue, so many trophies

of holiness, which no antiquity shall consume,

nor day, nor air, nor water corrupt,

no force weaken and destroy; whereas we see

other things, which had been set up out of vanity

and ambition, ruined and consumed. But I

think within myself, with what pomp, with what triumph,

he must be received in heaven by those most blessed

minds, he who carried off so many most illustrious victories over nations

barbarous in savagery, infinite in multitude; who,

whether through himself or through his soldiers, carried the light of faith and

religion to those peoples and nations who

sat in darkness and the shadow of death: who conquered

the unbelief of very many mortals, softened their

savagery, drove away their ignorance, routed their lost

way of life. And so deservedly indeed and by the best right,

his standard shall be placed in heaven among the standards of St. Dominic,

and St. Francis, and other Saints,

whom God chose, that they might not only conquer

the enticements of the flesh and the allurements of the world themselves,

but teach others to conquer, and free

innumerable souls from hell.

[465] How sincere, moreover, will that glory of Ignatius be!

how free from the envy of the other Saints that

triumph! written to Laínez about the Saint's death. how unlike, how dissimilar, how

contrary to the specious but deceptive

triumphs of this world, which we see fleeting and brief, most full of misery and

envy, and exceedingly

pernicious to the commonwealth. All which things ought to bring us great

consolation, and either mitigate or take away the sadness

which, from the weakness of our nature, we have conceived

at the death of Ignatius: and to rouse our souls,

stricken with grief, and lift them up with hope,

that we may trust that he, now reigning and

truly living with God, forgetful neither of his

religious order nor of his friends, will stretch out his hand

to us, and will more readily bring aid to his sons;

and finally, will hold most highly commended before God

those who have acknowledged and venerated

God Himself in Ignatius." Thus far he.

[466] John Ávila, a man of excellent virtue,

prudence, The judgment of John Ávila. doctrine, and most widely known both in all Spain

and above all in the province of Baetica (which

he illumined with the word of God) ^f, when he first heard

that Father Ignatius with his companions had been sent by God into the world,

and understood his purpose and institute,

said that he himself had indeed long ago conceived in his mind

this same thing which the other brought forward, and had sought and

searched it out with great labor and zeal;

but that he had nevertheless not been able

to track it down and grasp it. And so he used to say that it had befallen him

as it does a boy at the foot of a mountain, who

for a long while and much turns over some burden of great

weight, and strives with all his effort to carry it up to the summit

of the mountain, yet cannot,

by reason of the weakness of his strength: which

burden, if some man, a giant in the mass and strength of his body,

should lift, he would with the least trouble transfer it

wherever he wished, and place it on the peak of the mountain.

And by this comparison, in his modesty, the excellent

man called himself indeed a little one, but Ignatius

a giant.

Chapter XVIII.

[467] His stature was moderate ^g, or rather short,

whereas his brothers were tall and beyond

the just measure: his face comely, his brow broad and

open: his eyes sunken by the force of tears: The constitution of his body, his eyelids

drawn and wrinkled: his ears moderate:

his nose more prominent at the top and more spread at the bottom:

his complexion lively and temperate: bald, and in his

whole countenance venerable. His face was pleasantly grave

and gravely pleasant; and such as by a certain tranquillity

and serenity would cheer beholders, and by its gravity

would compose them. He limped somewhat in one leg,

but becomingly, and so that it was concealed by his moderation in walking.

He had callused feet, roughened by

bareness and frequent journeys: and one leg, from a