MONITA SECRETA SOCIETATIS JESU, secret instructions for the Jesuitic order, in a volume first published at Cracow, 1612, in Latin from the Spanish, by an unknown editor. It was then and afterwards regarded by scholars as the work of Claude Acqua viva, the general of the order, exercising over it complete control, and esteemed the ablest, and most profound politician of his time. He did nothing to prove the book a for gery, and, so far as known, did not deny that he was the author. It continued unmo lested until his death. In 161,5 a commission was appointed to search out the author, but none was found. In the following year the book was placed in the Index. In 1633 Casper Schoppe, a German scholar, published an account of a book which had fallen into his hands, and. which proved to be the same as the lionita Privuta, but had been obtained from a source independent of the first. In the British museum there is a volume printed at Venice in 1596, which contains cm several manuscript leaves, in writing of an ancient date, the whole, of the Monita Secreta. In 1658, during Crom well's administration, an edition of the book was printed in England. On the continent a French version was printed in 1661, and a second edition of Schopp's book in 1668. In 1669 Henry Compton, canon of Christ church, Oxford, published an edition found in MS. in a Jesuit's closet after his death, thus supplying an additional copy independent of all the others. In 1713 Henri de St. lgnace published the Monita Secretes in an appendix to his work on the necessity of reforming the order. This passed through
four editions. In 1717 the book was published at Amsterdam, and in 1727 at Cologne. After the suppression of the order in 1773 several MSS. were found in their colleges and other resorts. In 1782 a MS. found in Rome was printed there, as was thought by the editor, for the first time. In 1831 an edition was published at Princeton, N. .1., and in 1844 it was reprinted at New York. In the 17th c. Dr. Johann Gerhard referred to the book as undoubtedly genuine, and his opinion was indorsed by nearly all Protestant church historians. M. Gachard, a man of great learning and sagacity, whose critical investigations Prescott and Motley highly esteemed, says that at the sup pression of the Jesuit order in the Netherlands there were discovered in one of their colleges some of their most important papers, among which were the Manila Sccreta; that a translation of the book was made by order of government, and still exists in the archives of the kingdom. This, he testifies, differs in nothing that is material from that which has been made public. On the other hand, the eminent chi•e]] historian Giese ler decided against the genuineness of the book; Isaac Taylor, in his article on the Jesuits, contained in the 8th edition of the Encyclopeedia Britannica, saysthat the Monita is believed to be a spurious production; and prof. Schem, in the Biblical Cyclopredia of McClintock and Strong, says that the book was not written by a Jesuit. but is a satire.