The Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a religious order founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola. Designated by him "The Company of Jesus" to indicate its true leader and its soldier spirit, the title was Latinized into "Societas Jesu" in the Bull of Paul III approving its formation and the first formula of its Institute ("Regimini militantis ecclesia", 27 Sept., 1540). The term "Jesuit" (of fifteenth-century origin, meaning one who used too frequently or appropriated the name of Jesus), was first applied to the society in reproach (1544-52), and was never employed by its founder, though members and friends of the society in time accepted the name in itsgood sense. The Society ranks among religious institutes as a mendicant order of clerks regular, that is, a body of priests organized for apostolic work, following a religious rule, and relying on alms for their support [Bulls of Pius V, "Dum indefessae", 7 July, 1571; Gregory XIII, "Ascendente Domino", 25 May, 1585].

As has been explained under the title "Ignatius Loyola", the founder began his self-reform, and the enlistment of followers, entirely prepossessed with the idea of the imitation of Christ, and without any plan for a religious order or purpose of attending to the needs of the days. Unexpectedly prevented from carrying out this idea, he offered his services and those of this followers to the pope, "Christ upon Earth", who at once employed him in such works as were most pressing at the moment. It was only after this and just before the first companions broke to go at the pope's command to various countries, that the resolution to found an order was taken, and that Ignatius was commissioned to draw up Constitutions. This he did slowly and methodically; first introducing rules and customs and seeing how they worked. He did not codify them for the first six years. Then three years were given to formulating laws the wisdom of which had been proven by experiment. In the last six years of the Saint's life the Constitutions so composed were finally revised and put into practice everywhere. This sequence of events explains at once how the society, though devoted to the following of Christ, as though there were nothing else in the world to care for, is also excellently adapted to the needs of the day. It began to attend to them before it began to legislate; and its legislation was the codification of those measures which had been proved by experience to be apt to preserve its preliminary religious principle among men actually devoted to the requirements of the Church in days not unlike our own.

The Society was not founded with the avowed intention of opposing Protestantism. Neither the papal letters of approbation nor the Constitutions of the order mention this as the object of the new foundation. When Ignatius began to devote himself to the service of the Church, he had probably not even heard of the names of the Protestant Reformers. His early plan was rather the conversion of Mohammedans, an idea which, a few decades after the final triumph of the Christians over the Moors in Spain, must have strongly appealed to the chivalrous Spaniards.

The name "Societas Jesu" had been born by a military order approved and recommended by Pius II in 1450, the purpose of which was to fight against the Turks and aid in spreading the Christian faith. The early Jesuits were sent by Ignatius first to pagan lands or to Catholic countries; to Protestant countries only at the special request of the pope and to Germany, the cradle-land of the Reformation, at the urgent solicitation of the imperial ambassador.

From the very beginning the missionary labours of the Jesuits among the pagans of India, Japan, China, Canada, Central and South America were as important as their activity in Christian countries. As the object of the society was the propagation and strengthening of the Catholic faith everywhere, the Jesuits naturally endeavored to counteract the spread of Protestantism. They became the main instruments of the Counter-Reformation; the re-conquest of southern and western Germany and Austria for the Church, and the preservation of the Catholic faith in France and other countries were due chiefly to their exertions.