The End and Institute of the Society of Jesus

Ae to thyself and to teaching, be earnest therein, for, so doing, thou wilt save thyself and them that hear thee (I Tim. iv. 16).

Attend to thyself, and attend also to the teaching and instruction of thy neighbor; apply thyself with all diligence to the one and to the other, for in this way thou shalt save thyself and also them that hear thee. In these two things consists the end for which the Society was instituted, as our Constitutions and the apostolic bulls say: “The end of this Society is not only to attend by the grace of God to the salvation and perfection of our own souls, but by the same to apply ourselves earnestly to the salvation and perfection of our neighbor.” And this is to be done not in any “as you like it” fashion, but “earnestly,” a word expressive of vigor, efficiency, fervor, and intensity. The Society looks for men who will go about attaining the end of their calling with fervor, vigor, and energy. Here we must take note that, as in our own case our aim should be not salvation merely, but salvation with perfection, so we are required by our institute not to be content with helping our neighbors unto salvation, but we should endeavor to get them to make progress and go forward in virtue and perfection, each one according to his state. And so Father General Claudius Aquaviva in his “Instruction for Confessors” recommends us not to set our eyes on having a great number of penitents, but on those that we have to deal with making good progress. We should take the same interest in the progress and perfection of our neighbor as in our own, using the same care and diligence over the one as over the other.

For this, the Society was founded in these troublous times. Our blessed Father Ignatius saw the Church of God well provided with religious orders that attend to their own spiritual progress, keeping up choir and divine service; but at the same time he saw her straitened and afflicted with heresies, sins, and great losses. Thereupon, inspired and guided by the Holy Ghost, he established this religious order, this troop and company of soldiers, to be, as he said, like so many light horse, ever ready to rush to the rescue against the sudden onslaughts of the enemy, and to defend and aid our brethren. And therefore he would have us free and disengaged from choir and other offices and observances which might hinder this end. The harvest is plentiful, but laborers are few (Luke x. 2). How can we have the heart to let our neighbor perish and go to hell when it is in our power to succor him? St. Chrysostom says: “If you saw a blind man likely to fall headlong into a morass, you would lend him a hand; now seeing daily our brethren on the point of falling into the abyss of hell, how can we hold back and fail to stretch out a hand to them?”

Even of those holy Fathers of the Desert, whom God had called to solitude, we read in the Church histories that, when they saw the Church afflicted and persecuted by tyrants and heresies and the faithful ill off for teaching and spiritual succor, they quitted the repose of the desert, and went round making excursions into the towns, answering heretics, teaching the Catholics, and encouraging them to martyrdom. So we read that the great Anthony did in the time of Constantine; as also did another holy man named Acepsemas, who had been previously enclosed for sixty years without seeing or speaking to mortal man. And we read the same of many others. One of these, named Aphraates, gave the Emperor Valens a wonderfully good answer in this matter. This holy man, postponing his own peace and quiet to the salvation of the faithful, had quitted the cave in which he dwelt, and set to work to guide and guard the Lord’s flock. For the emperor had given orders to banish the Catholics, not only from their temples and cities, but even from the mountains, where they used to make their processions, singing hymns and praising God. While Aphraates was thus engaged, he passed one day by the house of the emperor; and someone told Valens: ‘There goes that Aphraates, of whom all the faithful make so much account.” The emperor had him called, and said: “Where are you going?” He answered: “I am going to offer prayer for your empire.” The emperor said to him: “You would do better to pray at home, as monks generally do.” ‘To which the sagacious man replied: “Certainly you say well; that would be the better course if you left room for it; and so I did all the time that Christ’s sheep had the peaceful enjoyment of their pastures; but now that they are in great danger of being stolen or devoured by wolves, one is obliged to rush in all directions to the rescue. Tell me, serene highness, if I were a delicate young girl, and while I sat at my work in my room I saw my father’s house on fire, what would be the right thing for me to do? Would it be well for me to sit still, and for my tender years take no heed of the home of my father’s being burned, or should I run in search of water to put out the fire? Wherefore, seeing the house of God our Father is now on fire, and that you yourself, sir, have set it on fire, it is to put this fire out that we, who lived before in retirement, now come from all quarters to the rescue.”

St. Chrysostom, speaking of the care we ought to have for the salvation of our neighbors, makes use of another very pat comparison. Sailors on the vast ocean, says he, if they catch sight of a wreck a long way off, however good a wind they have to steer on their own course, nevertheless, in disregard of their own advantage, put their ship about, hasten to the spot, take in sail, anchor, and throw out ropes and planks for the drowning mariners to lay hold of and save themselves. So we ought to behave in our navigation of the wide ocean of this world, swept by many storms, pestered by many rocks and sand-banks, and the scene of so many shipwrecks. So, when you see a fellow voyager in danger, in the waves and tempests of this ocean, leave all your business and fly to his succor, for the necessity of a drowning man brooks no delay.

It was to this end, then, that God our Lord raised up the Society in such calamitous times, to succor and meet the particular need which the Church was then experiencing; it was a great stroke of His providence and a singular act of clemency. Writers of ecclesiastical history have noted and observed very reasonably that on the same day on which Pelagius was born in England to pervert and darken the world with his errors, there was born in Africa Augustine, that great luminary of the Catholic Church, to scatter by his radiant splendor the darkness of a malignant and dangerous heresy. Also the writer of our blessed Father Ignatius’ Life observes that in the same year in which that infernal monster, Martin Luther, threw off the mask and began openly to declare war on the Catholic Church by preaching his blasphemies and heresies—it was in the year 1521—that same year God our Lord broke the leg of Ignatius at the castle of Pamplona, to heal him and change him from a dissolute and vain soldier into His captain and leader, and the defender of His Church against Luther. Hereby is seen the providence and clemency of the Lord, always careful to send new succors and reinforcements to His Church in the hour of her greatest need.

That same writer very well enlarges on this subject, and goes on to show how, when the Albigenses and other heretics were most wantonly troubling the peace of the Church, and the thorns of vices and wicked deeds had reached their greatest growth, and were smothering the good seeds which the Heavenly Sower had sown, God sent into the world those seraphs and lights of heaven, St. Dominic and St. Francis, that by themselves and by their sons and disciples they might withstand heresies, uproot errors, correct sins and reform manners, and enlighten and sanctify the whole world by their admirable example and doctrine, as those holy Fathers did, and their sons are doing at this hour.

God sent to His Church the military orders of knights at the time when she was so close beset by her enemies that it was needful to defend her by force of arms. We may understand the same of the other religious orders, and particularly of the Society of Jesus, of which we are now speaking. For at the time when the heresy of Luther started—who withdrew his obedience from the pope, denied the truth of the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar, and gave up sacramental confession—in that hour God raised up the Society, which makes particular profession of obedience to the pope, and the professed take a particular vow thereof, and which also takes special care to preach up those holy sacraments of confession and Communion, and to exhort the people to the frequentation of them and the reformation of their manners. As the commander in chief of an army, when he has joined battle with the enemy, from some high and lofty position watches attentively the ebb and flow of the battle, and when and where he sees danger provides for it, now sending on the right wing a troop of light cavalry, now on the left wing a picket of riflemen; so Christ our Lord, Captain General of this Christian army, is at all times watching from the height of heaven the needs of His Church, sending as they require fresh aid of doctors and heads of religious orders to reinforce His army. Herein the providence and mercy of our Lord clearly shine forth, permitting on the one hand the blow, and on the other bestowing the treatment. This, then, is the end and institution of the Society, and for this we are called to it, as the apostolic bull of its confirmation [by Julius III] says: To defend our holy Catholic faith against heresies, to spread and extend it among the heathen, and to preserve it along with good works among Christian people.