Loyola's withdrawal from all participation in the nominal honor of his institution, his enrollment of the militia he had levied under the name of Jesus, and the combative functions which he ascribed to it, were very decided marks of originality. It stamped the body with impersonality from the outset, and indicated the belligerent attitude it was destined to assume. There was nothing exactly similar to its dominant conception in any of the previous religious orders. These had usually received their title from the founder, had aimed at a life retired from the world, had studied the sanctification of their individual members, and had only contemplated an indirect operation upon society. Ignatius, on the contrary, placed his community under the protection of Christ, and defined it at the outset as a militant and movable legion of auxiliaries, dedicated, not to retirement or to the pursuit of salvation, but to freely avowed and active combat in defense of their Master's vicegerent upon earth. It was as though he had divined the deficiencies of Catholicism at that epoch, and had determined to supplement them by the creation of a novel and a special weapon of attack. Some institutions of mediaeval chivalry, the Knights of the Temple, and S. John, for instance, furnished the closest analogy to his foundation. Their spirit he transferred from the sphere of physical combat with visible forces, infidel and Mussulman, to the sphere of intellectual warfare against heresy, unbelief, insubordination in the Church. He had refined upon the crude enthusiasm of romance which inspired him at Montserrat. Without losing its intensity, this had become a motive force of actual and political gravity.