Counter-Reformation and Reformation Quatereentenaries
THE, quatercentenary of the death of Ignatius of Loyola on July 31, 1566, is commemorated by two works of pietas from the pens of members of the Society which he founded. Fr. Brodrick is already well known as the historian of the early Jesuit Order, by his studies of The Origins and of The Progress of the. .ientits and by his biography of one of the greatest of Ignatius's sons, Francis Xavier; and his present volume has the character- istics of these 'former volumes, a thorough and critical acquain- tance with the sources, written and manuscript, of his subject, an intimate knowledge of the geographical terrain, and a warm sympathy with his theme. He confines himself to 'the pilgrim years' of Ignatius's life, and does not pursue his biographrto the saint's death. The companion volume, translated from the German by Fr. John Murray, is described as 'a pictorial biography' and is lavishly illustrated by photographs. It is indeed a work of art; for the photographs are masterpieces, not only making the history alive and vivid, but leaving a powerful impression on both the eye and the mind of the reader. This is a sumptuous book and a worthy memorial of its subject. Nor, should it be supposed that its verbal biography of Ignatius is in all respects inferior to that of Fr. Brodrick, though conceived on a different plan. It covers the whole of the saint's life and it lacks the footnotes and other apparatus eritic:us of Fr. Brodrick. But it is well translated, informative and interesting, and is worthy of purchase for itself.
The story which both studies relate is well known to students of history. Inigo of Loyola, al Basque cavalier of noble birth and family, followed at lirst the fashionable career in war and love of young gallants of his race and class. He was devoted to feats of arms and to seductive exploits of affection until severely wounded at the siege of Pamplona in 1521. The unskilfulness of surgeons and the tigours of the campaign brought him untold suffering as the broken leg-bones were set, re-fractured and set again, and this episode left an abiding impress on his physique no less than on his character. During the long solitude of his convalescence, moreover, he turned to reading the lives of the :litItS; and from the histories of SS. Francis and Dominic there ,rirang his own conversion and resolve to do for Christ and the hurch of Rome equally great things. Exchanging the rich clothes of a nobleman and soldier for the sackcloth of a beggar, hence- forth quite literally he begged his bread. At Manresa he under- went a mystical experience of great intensity; and there worked out the main outline of his Spiritual Exercises, and further debilitated his constitution by extreme asceticism. Moreover he undertook the exhausting physical pilgrimage by land and sea to Jerusalem. But he lacked an essential weapon of spiritual war- fare in his times—learning; so he set himself to learn Latin as the instrument of literacy. At Alcala and at Salamanca he fell under suspicion of the Inquisition; so he transferred himself to the University of Paris, where he fulfilled the requirements for the mastership of arts. But his sojourn there was of far greater than merely academic importance; for he gathered the first company of his followers, six men (only one of whom was a priest), who pledged their vows of chastity, poverty and of pilgrimage to the Holy Land at sunrise in the Martyrs' Chapel at Montmartre on the Feast of the Assumption, 1534. The last vow could not be fulfilled owing to the Turks; and instead the little company offered themselves to the Papacy for its service hic at ubique. The story of the recognition of the Society of Jesus by Paul III, and of its phenomenal expansion both in numbers and fields of service dur- ing the rest of its founder's life is writ in large letters so that he who runs may read. But its inner meaning and the interpretation of Ignatius's own personality and of his Exercises and of the Constitutions of his Order are the province of these books. Of their success in these respects there can be no doubt; nor can any reader deny the tribute of admiration for the gesta Dei per Ignatium.
It is one of the ironies of history that the quatercentenary of the death of Ignatius should be also that of the burning of Thomas Cranmer and others of the leaders of the English Reformation, whose martyrdoms likewise have evoked a series of commemorative volumes. It may be surmised that Fr. Brodrick would deplore the association of Ignatius and Cranmer in a review as cordially as he would regret the chronological coincidence of their deaths. For he can see nothing good in the Reformation or the Reformers. He scarifies equally Erasmus and Luis Vives amongst the humanists, and Luther, Zwingli and Calvin of the reformers. Nor does he acknowledge any justice in their work or ideals. Yet nearly all these men, together with Cranmer, were clerics of the medimval Church whose rebellion cannot be ascribed wholly to a superficiality of naughtiness in themselves. The need for reform of the Church tam in Ca pile quam in membris was too clamant and justified thus to be discounted. Mr. Bromiley, who has already published a study of Cranmer as theologian, has no easy task in essaying to rehabilitate his personal character from the denigrations of a series of writers from Macaulay to R. W. Dixon. Between the personalities of Ignatius and Cranmer indeed there may seem to exist only the relation of contradiction. The one was cast in a heroic mould, the other in a pliable; the one was clear-cut and decisive in all his convictions, the other uncertain, hesitant and vacillating; and the one utterly devoted to the Church of Rome, to the Mass and to our Lady, whilst the other repudiated the authority of the Papacy and rebelled against the sacrifice of the Mass, transub- stantiation and Mariolatry. Ignatius left his memorial in the Society of Jesus, Cranmer in the Book of Common Prayer. If Mr. Bromiley does not altogether succeed in his apologia for Cranmer as a personality, neither does Fr. Brodrick in his argument for the unlimited and unquestioning obedience of Ignatius to the Roman Church and Papacy. Considered as works of pietas, called forth by quatercentenary celebrations, all three books are to be read 'for example of life and instruction of manners.' But, however, schisms which divided the Western Church in the sixteenth century have not yet lost their divisive potency for us; any more than for Ignatius who lived for Church and Papacy or for Cranmer who died for the supremacy of the Word of God over the traditions of the Church.
NORMAN SYKES
Previous page
