The Jesuit Order

The Jesuit order was the work of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). He was born in Spain, into a Basque minor noble family, and was severely wounded as a soldier in 1521. During his convalescence he read religious works and suddenly converted. In Manresa, Catalonia, he undertook spiritual exercises and experienced visions. He was tormented by desperate guilt over the transgressions he had committed during his military career and sought the path to justification. But he soon overcame the crisis and came to the conviction that despair over sins already repented and confessed was the work of the devil and should be ignored. He was greatly influenced by Kempis's work The Imitation of Christ. In 1523 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, then studied at Spanish universities and began spiritual counseling. He was summoned before the Inquisition, but managed to prove that he was not an alumbrado, that is, an "enlightened one." He also traveled to Paris, where he encountered Luther's teachings, which he rejected firmly from the outset.

He developed a highly effective practical method of spiritual guidance: the Spiritual Exercises. The practitioner identifies his sins and the means by which he can free himself from them. He meditates on Christ's sufferings and is thus almost reborn, gaining great moral strength. Loyola solved the problem of how one might renounce the world without abandoning it. He led his followers into a heightened spiritual state, but unlike the mystics, he did not leave them there—he brought them back into the world, strengthened and endowed with a certain indifference toward worldly matters, ready to serve God and humanity. The educated Jesuit combines justice, the knowledge of God, controlled mystical experience, and practical determination to carry out tasks. The exercises, however, truly help only those who are already advanced in their religious life.

In 1534 he and six companions took a vow to undertake missionary work in the Holy Land—or, if that was impossible, to perform whatever task the pope assigned them. They did not reach the Holy Land; instead they went to Rome, and after some hesitation the pope allowed them in 1540 to found the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus. They set as their goals the spreading of the faith, conducting spiritual exercises, and performing good works. They wished to place emphasis on educating children and the ignorant. They vowed complete obedience to their elected general (the head of the order) and military-like obedience to the pope, who nevertheless accepted them only reluctantly.

Loyola was a short man and remained sickly throughout his life due to his wounds. After his conversion he had visions for 35 years, yet remained simple and practical. It is telling that while Luther struggled with his spiritual problems for nearly a decade, Loyola overcame his within a few months and concluded that humans can actively seek God and that grace is not received independently of one's inner state. (Luther, by contrast, emphasized human helplessness before God.) Loyola brought spiritual comfort to those who longed for salvation while wishing to preserve authoritarian structures. Not everyone found comfort in the Reformation's ideas, which promised greater spiritual independence but also greater responsibility and uncertainty. Loyola had great insight into human nature and could exert extraordinary influence on others—just as Luther did. He intended his order to convert the pagans of the newly discovered lands. Only carefully chosen individuals were admitted to the order after long years of training. The pope wished to use them in Germany against the Reformation; this idea did not originate with the order itself. At Loyola's death the order already had some 1,000 members. But Pope Paul IV hated the Spaniards and wanted to abolish the Jesuit order; his death prevented this. Under his successor the triumphant career of the order began.

With Loyola's death the first, initial phase of the order's history came to an end, just as he had confronted only the first phase of the Reformation. After 1560 the main adversary was no longer Lutheranism but Calvinism. The second and later generations of Jesuits significantly altered their methods: from teachers of the poor they became a religious order seeking to influence the powerful, adept in international diplomacy, learning and applying some of the Reformation's most effective methods.

Zimányi Vera "Későközépkori és koraújkori egyetemes történelem jegyzet", Pécs, 1989