POLITABP) .
Accepting these seven as genuine letters of Ignatius, we learn to know their author as a fervent, enthusiastic Christian bishop, of intense zeal for martyrdom. He constantly insists on maintaining allegiance and obedience to the bishop. who is the centre of unity. It is evident that the monarchical episcopate. i.e. the system of having one bishop over each church, had al ready been developed in Syria and other portions of the East. whatever may have been the ease elsewhere. The heresy against which Ignatius warns is chiefly docetism. for he declares that Christ suffered in fact, not merely in appear ance. He also warns against Judaizing heresies. From the doctrinal point of view. is highly important. standing as he does in the line of catholic development which passes from Paul and John, through Ignatius and ire naus, to the full-grown Nieene theology. It is in his letter to the Christians of Smyrna that we meet for time first time with the Phrase the Catholic Church.' It does not, however, hear its later, technical sense of the exclusive orthodox Church, hut its earlier. etymological meaning of 'the universal Church.' We owe to Ignatius the application of the term Wucharist' to the Lord's Supper. But above all else, his epistles bear witness to the earnest. devoted spirit of early second-century Christianity, and to the vitality of faith in the age succeeding that of the Apostles.
For the best edition of Ignatius, consult: Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Part II.. S. Ignatius and S. Polyearp (London, I880). with English translation. Text and translation are also found in the small edition of Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, by Harmer (London. 18931; English translation alone in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Roberts and Donaldson. vol. i. (Buffalo, 1886). In general. consult: Crutt well. raro History of 1.nrly rtrisstniniIl ( Loudon, 1h9:1) ; lIas iiack, chronolago r rgst Itch( n 1.11 tt (whir I 1.vipzIg. 1;97 Von der t ;oh z. Ignatius ran (Leipzig, 1st) : smith And 11ate. Diet ionary of Christian Bing to, nrtiele "saint Ignntius." IGNATIrS OF LOYOLA, 1+1-yog5. SAINT (1491 or 1195-1556, The founder of the Jesuit:. laigo Lopez Ile Recable was the youngest of thirteen children. of a noble family. Until re• eently he was said to have been born on Christ• was night. 1191, but the Bollandists and Polanco are authority for the change to 1495. Ile was born in the .iinestral Castle of Loyola, near Azpeitta, in the Basque Provinves. not far from the Frem•Ili frontier. At fourteen. titer n seamy education, he became n page at the Court of Ferdinand the I atholie. Court life grew dis• tasteful after years• linweVer, and he be• came a soldier under his relative, the Duke of Najera. in 1517. Ile fought bravely against the Navarrese, the Moors, the Portuguese. and the French. Ile had reached the rank of captain when, while directing the defense of Paunplonn against the French in the war between Francis 1. and Charles V., he was wounded severely, May 20, IS I. Ile was taken prisoner and conveyed to the Castle of Loyrdn. As a result of the wound• one was badly deformed. This would have been very unsightly in the fashionable hose of the day, and he bade the surgeon reduce the deformity at any cost. The leg was rebroken and he hare the operation and consequent sutTer ing without complaint. convalescence was prolonged, and time hung heavily on his hands. Ile asked for some rimialmes of knight-errantry then popular, but there were none in the eastle. Instead they brought 111111 n of Ludolf of Saxony's life of Christ. rind some lives of the saints. Ignatius's life as n soldier had been far from a model. Polanco says: ''Up to the age of twenty-six his life hail been divided between the love of women and sports. and quarrels over points of honor." For want of anything better to dn. however. he read and reread these pious books. The spiritual achievements of Saint Francis and Dominic came to replace the deed. of his knightly hero; in his imaginatb n. As soon as lie was able. in the garb of a bt he went to the shrine of the Virgin at Montserrat, where after a confession of his whole life on the vigil of the Annuneiation. March 24, 1522. he hung up his arms as a votive offering and n symbol of his renunciation of his military career and of his entire devotion henceforth to the spiritual warfare. Then. barefoot, he went to the neigh boring town of Manre.a and served the sick and poor in Cie hospital. Ile lived in a ease. and his austerity finally impaired his health, though it was at this time that his Spiritual Excreiscg, from which he drew great spiritual strength, took form in his mind. After this he went on n pilgrimage to the Holy Land. and would have stayed nt Jerusalem to spread the gospel among the infidel., but was discouraged by the local authorities. lie returned to Barcelona in 1524. Realizing now that to do good he must have more knowledge, he began. at the age of thirty three, the rudiments of grammar in a public school beside boys. After two years he went to the new University of AlealS and later to Sala• manta. Because of public religious teaching with what was thought insufficient education, he incurred the censure of ecclesiastical authori ties at both places. In 152s he repaired to l'aris to continue Ile was robbed by II companion and had to lodge in a hospital, here he did menial work for his support while attending the university. During his summer :teat he V kit ell Spanish merchants in Ant Bruges. and London so ns to obtain money
to soonMile his studies. During his student years he had no resources but the charity of the faith ful. At Paris he formed, with chosen com panions, a pions confraternity, out df which de veloped la ter t he Society of .Jesus. ( JEst•rrs.) Ignatius's genius for knowing men can be inferred from the fact that of his earliest companions chosen this at the University of l'aris, one beealee later the great Apostle of the Indies. Francis Xavier• and three, Lainez, Sal meron, and Lejay, became the leading theologienl advisers to the Council of Trent. One of the others. Faber, received the honors of beatification from the Church. In the crypt of the Church of the Martyrs, on Montmartre, on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1534, the little band took their vows as Jesuits. At first their inten tion was to evntigelize l'alestine. They made their way to Venice for this purpose. but the war between the Christians and the Turks closed the way to the Holy Land, so they resolved to offer themselves to the Pope for any service he in•lit assign. Paul DI. received them with great kind ness. The pulpits of various churches were as signed to them, and their burning discourses and saintly lives soon attracted attention. other of them was so effective as Ignatius himself. who spoke as the plain. blunt, but intensely earnest, soldier. In 1539 Ignatius asked for Papal approbation of his Order.. In spite of opposition to the erection of another religious Order ill the Church, the Pope read the draft of the Constitu tions. and said: "The finger of Ooll is Imre." \\ occupied with his constantly growing so ciety, Ignatius found much to do besides its direction and the writings of the Constitutions. Though a Spaniard. he devoted himself to the care of the Jewish converts. and secured the correction of many :daises in the treatment of those who wished to remain orthodox Jews. Ile founded a house for fallen women. and was not ashamed to be seen conducting limn to it through the streets. He tried to prevent the occasions of their fall by providing a home for friendless lle established orphan asylums for hors and girls. The influence he acquired can he understood from the fact that lie was able to end a dispute between the Pope and John iIi. of Portugal that threatened serious harm to re• ligion at the moment, and another between the citizens of Tivoli and their ruler. Margaret of His writings consist only of the Constitutions and rules of the Society of Jesus. his Letters, and the ia Spirit ualia. This last little honk of scarcely a Imndred duodecimo pages has proved one of the most influential works ever written. From the very beginning it formed the basis of the spiritual training of the Jesuits themselves, and the mold in which their re treats and missions to the people were cast. It has come to be the acknowledged model after which the missions and retreats given by most of the other religious Orders of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted. Three things are treated of particularly in the hook: the ser vice of Jesus Christ, placed above all that the kings of the earth can offer; the discernment of spirits; and finally the choice of a state of life. It was this book that accomplished the reforms the Jesuits effected. The Constitutions of the Jesuits are entirely the expressions of Ignatius's ideas. They have been but slightly modified, never in any essential, by successive General Congregations. Great writers have called them one of the world's works of genius. It is often said that Ignatius founded the Jesuit3 to counteract the effects of the German Reforma tion, but there is good authority for believing that when Ignatius conceived the idea of his Order he had not even heard the name of Luther. Even more wan a decade later, he seems to have paid little head to the religious movements in Europe, especially in Germany. One year before his death in 1555 the society comprised eight provinces, divided as follows: Italy, two; Spain, three; Portugal, one; Brazil, one; India and Japan, one. In Germany there were but two residences—Cologne and Vienna. He died in Rome, July 31. 1556. He was beatified in 1600 and canonized in 1622.
Consult: Ribadeneira, Vita Ignatii Loiolce floe. Jesu Fundatoris (Naples, 1572; best re cent edition, Barcelona, 1885), translated into most modern languages. For Ignatius's life as General of the Jesuits, his letters, Cartes de San. Ignacio de Loyola (Madrid, 1874), are the authoritative sources of information. Ignatius dictated some autobiographical notes called the .4 eta, which must form the basis of an apprecia tion of the man himself. There are several Eng lish editions of this: Autobiography of St. Igna tius (ed. O'Conor, S. J., New York, 1900), and Rig, The Testament of Ignatius Loyola (Saint Louis, 1900). Of recent lives the most authori tative are: Clair, La vie de Saint Ignace de Loyola (Faris, 1891) ; in English, Stewart Rose (the Duchess of Buccleuch), St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Early Jesuits (New York, 1891) ; an excellent study of Ignatius the man, Joly, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (New York, 1399). in the Nonumcnta Ilistorica Sorietatis Jesu (Ma drid, 1894) there is a hitherto unissued life of Ignatius by Polaneo, who was a close personal friend. Consult, also, Hughes, Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits (Great Edu cators Series, New York, 1392).