CHAPTER VI

THE REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE

IGNATIUS had been away from Spain for about twelve months. This Wanderjahr proved to be a revolutionary education. He turned his back on an apostolic life, and started on the long road to a university degree. It is true that for fifteen years, on the surface at least, he adhered to his early project of going to Jerusalem, and laid that project down as the basis for the permanent association of his disciples; and yet, it is very difficult to understand why he should think that, in order to convert the Turk, an elaborate instruction in the humanities, in philosophy and theology, would be of advantage. There was nothing in his experience in Jerusalem to lead him to infer that the infidels would yield to a scholastic exposition of Christian dogma, when they were deaf to the simple beauty and pathos of Christ's own teaching. The end and the preparation seem to be at odds. I think that the man's extraordinary tenacity of purpose held tight hold of his conscious intentions, but that underneath, in that psychical laboratory that evades the waking consciousness, in the arrièreboutique of his mind, the experiences of his foreign travels were gradually shaping a conception of the policy that he finally in fact did pursue. This complete rearrangement of his plan, the putting aside of St. Francis's example, of the joyful preaching of the gospel out of a passionate heart, and the substitution of Thomas Aquinas and conventional education, grammar school, colleges in Spain, the University of Paris, twelve years in all, was due to his new knowledge of the world, or, to be more precise, of the two great movements that affected educated men, the Renaissance and the Reformation.

It is appropriate here to make some reference to both those movements, for it will appear, I think, that the formative influence acting upon Ignatius at this time, persuading him to the course he took, was repugnance to the spirit of the Renaissance far more than opposition to the Reformation. He saw the effects of the Renaissance in Italy, whereas of Germany and German affairs he was wholly ignorant. I lay stress upon this, for we are apt to think of the Society of Jesus as one of the main factors, perhaps the most influential, in that revival of vigor within the Roman Catholic Church, usually known as the Counter Reformation, which displayed itself in all Latin countries, but chiefly in Italy, after the Protestant secession had roused the Catholic world. The instinct of self-preservation, loyalty to the unity of Christendom, devotion to what the Church held to be the truth, wounded pride and the mere joy of combat, brought to the front able and highminded Catholics, who in the earlier period of self-indulgence and Roman riot, had been pushed aside or left unregarded, and enabled adherents of the old order, under the lead of Spain, "to keep back," in the words of Menendez y Pelayo, "the northern flood within the dykes it has never since passed, and to save Spain, Italy and France from the Lutheran infection.") During this struggle of self-defense and counter attack the Jesuit Fathers furnished the vanguard, often the forlorn hope. But one must not carry back the situation of 1556, the date of Loyola's death, when his Society was an active power, north, south, east and west, to this present year 1524, when he returned to Barcelona. To make this clear, and for the sake of bringing the general situation before our minds, I will refer briefly to the religious movement in Germany and then to the intellectual condition of Italy.

It is convenient and reasonably accurate to ascribe the first beginning of the Protestant schism to the sharp issue raised by the sale of indulgences. Underneath, larger causes of disruption had been at work, national sentiment indignant at foreign ecclesiastical tyranny, as the discontented termed it, moral revolt at the vicious lives of prelates,

priests and monks, democratical dissatisfaction that the bishoprics should be but chattels of the great nobility, unwillingness to pay taxes to the Roman curia, anger at the papal judicial system, and so forth; and, long before this, frequent protests, not without ample justification, had made themselves heard in Germany and elsewhere, against the doings of the Church. The danger of schism had been threatening enough, but until this time, when the humanists, with their pagan interests, their speculations and their indifference to Christianity had prepared the way for a rending asunder, the unity of the Church had managed to maintain itself. The doctrine of indulgences had not up till then been the point of danger; it had been generally, if not universally, believed in and accepted. The doctrine is this: The merits of Christ more than suffice to redeem the sin of Adam, and this superfluity constitutes a great treasure ready to be applied to the needs of sinners. The saints also have contributed their extra sum to the general store. In its essence the doctrine is true. Christ's goodness still serves to wash away the sins of men, and the virtues of saints support waverers and raise up many that fall. It is the property of one man's goodness to help and strengthen his neighbor. Because my friend forbears, I am enabled to forbear; because he turns his back on temptation my feet. are brave to keep the narrow way. Take St. Ignatius himself. It is not a mere allegory to say, that his doings have heaped up stores in a treasure house, that are lent to the poor without usury. His example is like the grasp of a helping hand, his Spiritual Exercises enable many to unbar the door that shuts them from a love of God. The Church, however, went further than this doctrine, and ascribed to the successors of St. Peter the power of giving or withholding the alms of superabundant righteousness. Such an addition may be, perhaps, open to question. Anyhow, the Church took that position. But the Church did not profess to give these alms except to the penitent. A contrite heart was an indispensable prerequisite; and good works were, naturally enough, the best evidence of repentance and a resolution to do better. Unfortunately in practice the pre

requisite good deeds shrunk and shrivelled into the mere payment of money. Buying and selling polluted the temple of the Lord.

Perhaps the Papacy had an itching palm. At any rate Leo X, who, quite apart from the expenses incident to maintaining the papal dominion over sundry Italian cities, was put to considerable outlay in paying for his hunting lodge at La Magliana, for Latin and Greek manuscripts, for jewels, and for the encouragement of art, needed large sums of money for the construction of the new basilica of St. Peter's, on which Bramante, Raphael and others had spent and were to spend their genius. In order to procure money for this purpose he issued indulgences. The details of the story need not be retold here. I will confine myself to one quotation from a proclamation hawked about by pardoners: "Whoever puts into the box a tester for a soul in Purgatory, at once sets that soul free, and the soul infallibly goes to Paradise; so, by putting in 2 testers for 2 souls, or 1000 for a 1000 souls, they go forthwith to Paradise." These indulgences were hawked about Germany, as a mountebank might sell lottery tickets at a county fair. All persons of religious mind were of one accord on this practice; and Luther became their spokesman. Satirists joined in the attack. A passage from a Spanish classic of Loyola's time, Lazarillo de Tormes, may serve to indicate the popular opinion in Spain.

Lazarillo is a poor little boy cast on the world for a living. He takes service with an itinerant friar who travels about selling indulgences. This friar made a practice, on entering a village, of giving little presents to the priests so that they should commend him to their parishioners. If he thought the priests knew Latin he spoke to them in Spanish, but if they were reverendos, that is, better furnished with money than with scholarship, he discoursed for hours in what he called Latin. Nevertheless, in a certain town, he had no luck at all, not a soul would buy. Not discouraged, he arranged to be present at service in church on Sunday. Saturday evening he and the alguazil dined together at the inn. At dessert, all of a sudden, they fell into a quarrel,

called one another names, shouted curses, snatched weapons, and made such an uproar that all the town-folk gathered about them. The two were parted with difficulty, the alguazil bellowing that the friar was a fraud. The next day the church was crowded. The friar got up in the pulpit and exhorted the people to buy indulgences and shorten the torments which their relations and friends were suffering in Purgatory. In the midst of his passionate exposition, the alguazil entered with great bustle, and bawled out loud that the friar was a cheat, a scurvy knave, and that his bulls were bogus. Some pious folk started to put the calumniator out, but the friar raised his hand, bidding no man touch him, and then fell on his knees and, rolling his eyes to heaven, entreated God to judge between them; if he were a cheat let the ground open and swallow him up, but if the bulls were genuine let it so appear by a miracle. Hardly had he spoken, when the alguazil fell down with a bang, foamed at the mouth, writhed and wriggled in a frenzy. The crowd tried to seize him but he kicked and struggled like one possessed. The friar remained kneeling, lost in divine contemplation. Several people ran up and besought him to save the poor sinner who was dying, since it was plain that he was a liar, that the friar was innocent and that the bulls were full of salvation. This brought the friar back to earth, and he prayed aloud for the sinner. The alguazil slowly came to his senses, crawled to the altar, and asked forgiveness, pleading that he had been possessed by a devil, who was trying to forestall the immense good that the bulls would do. And so on. The bulls were bought like hot cakes. Of course the pair were in collusion.

If this was the way in which orthodox, pious Spaniards spoke of indulgences, it is easy to imagine that Germans might pass from speech to action. So they did. When Tetzel, the Dominican friar, came peddling indulgences near Wittenberg, Martin Luther posted on the door of the parish church ninety-five heads under which he offered to debate their value. This was the famous year, 1517, when, as Father Ribadeneira says, Luterus ab obedientia ecclesiæ ad castra diaboli descivit. A year later came his debate with