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PREFACE
Some years ago the writer of these pages,
when on his way to what is called a general congregation of the Society
of Jesus, was asked by a fellow-passenger on an Atlantic liner, if he
knew anything about the Jesuits. He answered in the affirmative and
proceeded to give an account of the character and purpose of the Order.
After a few moments, he was interrupted by the inquirer with, “You know
nothing at all about them, Sir; good day.” Possibly the Jesuits
themselves are responsible for this attitude of mind, which is not.
peculiar to people at sea, but is to be met everywhere.
As a matter of fact, no Jesuit has thus far ever written a complete or
adequate history of the Society; Orlandini, Jouvancy and Cordara
attempted it a couple of centuries ago, but their work never got beyond
the first one hundred years. Two very small compendiums by Jesuits have
been recently published, one in Italian by Rosa, the other in French by
Brucker, but they are too congested to be satisfactory to the average
reader, and Brucker’s stops at the Suppression of the Society by Clement
XIV in 1773. Cretineau-Joly’s history was written in great haste; he is
often a special pleader, and even Jesuits find him too eulogistic. At
present he is hopelessly antiquated, his last volume bearing the date of
1833. B. N. (Barbara Neave) published in English a history of the
Society based largely on Cretineau-Joly. The consequence of this lack of
authoritative works is that the general public gets its information
about the Jesuits from writers who are prejudiced or ill-informed or,
who, perhaps, have been hired to defame the Society for political
purposes.
Other authors, again, have found the Jesuits a romantic theme, and have
drawn largely on their imagination for their statements.
Attention was called to this condition of things by the Congregation of
the Society which elected Father Martin to the post of General of the
Jesuits in 1892. As a result he appointed a corps of distinguished
writers to co-operate in the production of a universal history of the
Society, which was to be colossal in size, based on the most authentic
documents, and in line with the latest and most exacting requirements of
recent scientific historiography. On the completion of the various
parts, they are to be co-ordinated and then translated into several
languages, so as to supply material for minor histories within the reach
of the general public. Such a scheme necessarily supposes a very
considerable time before the completion of the entire work, and, as
matter of fact, although several volumes have already appeared in
English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, the authors are still
discussing events that occurred two centuries ago. Happily their
researches have thrown much light on the early history of the Order; an
immense number of documents inedits, published by Carayon and others,
have given us a more intimate knowledge of the intermediate period; many
biographies have been written, and the huge volume of the “ Liber
saecularis ” by Albers brings the record down to our own days. Thus,
though much valuable information has already been made available for the
general reader the great collaborative work is far from completion.
Hence the present history of the Jesuits.
Volume 1 | Volume
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