Loyola and the Educational System of the JesuitsHughes, Thomas
History
Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits
Hughes, Thomas
Education -- History; Ignatius, of Loyola, Saint, 1491-1556; Jesuits
He had stayed only a year and a half in this rich variety of pursuits,
scholastic as well as apostolic, when the novelties apparent in his
manner of life ended by making him a suspected character to the
ecclesiastical authorities. To a few, among the population of the
city, his fruitful zeal made him distinctly odious. The result was
a juridical process against him, which issued in a complimentary
verdict, the Vicar of the diocese pronouncing him and his companions
quite blameless. But restrictions were imposed regarding his future
ministrations, since Ignatius was not yet in holy orders. During a
term of four years he was not to preach. After that time, his progress
in studies would enable him to honor that important ministry, without
giving offence. This was a deathblow to the aspirations of the student.
He made up his mind to go elsewhere, to the famous university of
Salamanca; and he turned his back on Alcalà.
The time was soon to come for a pleasant revenge; and apparently he
knew of it long before it came. Just six years after the foundation of
his Order, when he sent Francis Villanova to open a house at Alcalà,
not only did he find men of the university embracing his Institute,
but, two years after that, the whilom persecuted pilgrim received, in
a single twelvemonth, thirty-four Doctors into the Society, all from
that one seat of learning. The mere passing by of Francis Borgia, Duke
of Gandia, who had become an humble follower of Ignatius, made the
choicest spirits flock to his standard; and, all over Spain, colleges
sprang up as if from the soil.
In Salamanca, where likewise he and his were to figure in the future,
the personal history of Ignatius is briefly told. In ten or twelve
days after his arrival, he was thrown into chains. He spent twenty-two
days in prison. When released, with the same commendation for himself
and his doctrine as he had received at Alcalà, but with a similar
restriction on his action, he thought it was not worth his while to
repeat the same experiences at the same cost. So, in spite of all the
eloquence of dissuasion brought to bear on him by friends, he took a
new departure, which seemed plausible to him, and therefore feasible.
He would try his fortunes in another land, and continue his studies in
the greatest philosophical and theological centre of the world, the
University of Paris.
To any one who judged of things by an ordinary standard, the project
was not feasible. War was raging between Spain and France; the roads
were infested with hostile soldiery; many murders and robberies,
committed on the persons of travellers, were recently reported. But
these and other considerations of the kind had no weight with Loyola,
to stay him in a course once deliberately adopted. Accepting some alms
from friends at Barcelona, to obtain on the way the necessaries of
life, he accomplished on foot the whole journey from Barcelona to the
French capital; where he arrived at the beginning of February, A.D.
1528.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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