The Company of Jesus was far from obtaining the immediate approval of the Church. Paul III. indeed, perceived its utility, and showed marked favor to the associates when they arrived in Rome about the end of 1537. The people, too, welcomed their ministration gladly, and recognized the zeal which they displayed in acts of charity and their exemplary behavior. But the Curia and higher clergy organized an opposition against them. They were accused of heresy, and attempts to seduce the common folk. Ignatius demanded full and public inquiry, which was at first refused him. He then addressed the Pope in person, who ordered a trial, out of which the brethren came with full acquittal. After this success, they obtained a hold upon religious instruction in many schools of Rome. Adherents flocked around them; and they saw that it was time to give the society a defined organization, and to demand its official recognition as an Order. It was resolved to add the vow of obedience to their former vows of chastity and poverty. Obedience had always been a prime virtue in monastic institutions; but Ignatius conceived of it in a new and military spirit. The obedience of the Jesuits was to be absolute, extending even to the duty of committing sins at a superior's orders. The General, instead of holding office for a term of years, was to be elected for life, with unlimited command over the whole Order in its several degrees. He was to be regarded as Christ present and personified. This autocracy of the General might have seemed to menace the overlordship of the Holy See, but for a fourth vow which the Company determined to adopt. It ran as follows: 'That the members will consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the Lord and the Roman Pontiff as God's vicar upon earth, in such wise that they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or excuse all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of heretics, schismatics, or believers of any kind.'