not the slaves of the pope. They obeyed the general, and not the pope, unless ordered to do so by the general, in which case they paid obedience only to the latter. But Paul III did not detect the well-concealed purposes of Loyola, and may not even have suspected them, in view of his anxiety to arrest the disintegration of the Church and the threatened decay of the papacy. Howsoever this may have been, the cunningly-contrived concession made to him by Loyola was satisfactory to him, notwithstanding the opposition of one of the committee of cardinals, and he issued his pontifical bull approving the society of Jesuits as a religious order. This pledge of fidelity to the pope, however, has been kept or evaded accordingly as the interests of the society have from time to time demanded. Its history shows prominent instances when the decisions of the popes have been denounced and resisted, and when the popes themselves have been treated with contempt and defiance. When the Jesuits have found shelter and protection under the authority of the popes, they have exalted them to absolute equality with God; when otherwise, they have disobeyed and traduced them. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: Crit. and Phi. Dictionary. By Bayle. Article "Loyola," Vol. III, p. 889, note.] [Footnote 5: History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol. I, p. 14. This work was translated by Clements, and published in Cincinnati by Walsh, in 1865.] [Footnote 6: History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol I, p. 22.] [Footnote 7: _Ibid._, p. 40.] [Footnote 8: History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol. I, p. 40.] [Footnote 9: Lives of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler. Vol. XII, article "St. Francis Xavier," December 3, p. 603.] [Footnote 10: Daurignac. Vol. I, pp. 11-12.] [Footnote 11: History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 27.] [Footnote 12: History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 27.] CHAPTER III. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY.