236 



JESUITS. 



the foundation of the order of Jesuits, John Petit, 

 doctor of the university of Paris, asserted, without 

 any qualification, the legality of the murder of a 

 tyrant. The cause was the murder of the duke of 

 Orleans, in broad day, in the streets of Paris, at the 

 instigation of the duke of Burgundy, his competi- 

 tor for the regency of the realm during the insanity 

 oi Charles VI. John Petit wrote a defence for the 

 duke of Burgundy, in which he defends this horrid 

 act, on the ground that the murder of tyrants is 

 justifiable. The archbishop of Paris condemned 

 this publication ; but several French theologians, 

 among whom there were even bishops, defended 

 John Petit's doctrine ; and when, some years after, 

 Chalier, a doctor of the Sorbonne, denounced 

 Petit's doctrine, at the council of Constance, before 

 the assembled fathers, Martin Poire, bishop of Arras, 

 defended it as being a doctrine which had been 

 maintained by many learned men and theologians 

 without contradiction. The council was at first 

 undecided, but, at last, condemned, not all the posi- 

 tions of John Petit, but only this one : " Every tyrant 

 may be legally killed by his subjects." According 

 to this sentence, it appears as if the murder of tyrants 

 is permitted under certain circumstances, and this 

 question became a common subject of investigation 

 among the theologians and scholars of the fifteenth 

 century, and down to the middle of the sixteenth. 

 In spite of the condemnation of the main point of this 

 doctrine by the council of Constance, many theo- 

 logians, chiefly belonging to the order of Dominicans, 

 supported it. At a later period, also, distinguished 

 Protestants upheld the doctrine, as Milton, Buchanan, 

 Bodin, Beza, Du Moulin, and others. The Jesuits 

 took part in this as in all theological questions, but 

 not, as has been said, in order to develop this 

 obnoxious doctrine, but rather to put it down by 

 argument, or to make it as little obnoxious as possible. 

 The learned Jesuit, Salmeron, Loyola's companion, 

 says explicitly, nobody is authorized to kill a prince, 

 even if the latter has obtained possession of the 

 government by violence, particularly if he is once in 

 quiet possession of power. Salmeron, indeed, in 

 another passage, teaches that, if an illegitimate ruler 

 attacks a city, and is just on the point of getting 

 possession of it by arms, in such case, he may be 

 lawfully killed by a private person, having received 

 a commission to such eflect from the legal authority. 

 Here Salmeron indeed wrote in the spirit of his time; 

 but it was no small step to confine within such nar- 

 row limits the authorized destruction of a tyrant, 

 whilst the principle had been laid down with very little 

 qualification, by many Catholics and Protestants of 

 distinction. In the same sense other Jesuits have 

 written, of whom some declared themselves still more 

 distinctly against the doctrine : thus, for instance, the 

 Jesuits Molina and Lessius said, " A regent, be he 

 even a tyrant, is, nevertheless, the legal sovereign : 

 hence the Holy Scriptures commanded obedience, 

 even to heathen princes, in every thing which is not 

 against the ordinances of God, even if they were the 

 greatest tyrants, persecuted the church, and strove to 

 force Christians to give up their faith. Hence it 

 follows, that the murder of a regent is in no case 

 permitted." Of all the Jesuits, about twelve in the 

 whole, who occupied themselves with this question, 

 only Mariana, in his book De Rege et Regis Instituti- 

 one, upheld the doctrine authorizing the killing of ty- 

 rants, and even he with some restrictions. But hardly 

 had Mariana's l>ook appeared, when several Jesuits, 

 particularly Bellarmin, completely refuted his doctrine 

 de tyrannicidio ; and Aquaviva, the general of the 

 order, after some years, condemned this doctrine, and 

 prohibited all the men of the society from touching the 

 question any more, either directly or indirectly. From 



this time, this subject has been banished from the!/ 

 schools and their works. Hence Voltaire, when he 

 was believed to make common cause with the ene- 

 mies of the Jesuits in the accusation of their defence 

 of tyrannicide, says, " Posterity would unanimously 

 exculpate the order, if I were to accuse them of a 

 crime, of which every man of sense, nay, all Europe, 

 and even Damiens, have acquitted them long ago." 

 Another and equally unjust reproach against the 

 Jesuits is, that their system of morals was lax, that 

 they adhered to probabilism. Probabilism was, even 

 100 years before the foundation of the order, the 

 common doctrine of all bishops, the most distinguished 

 universities, and all the regular clergy. Under cer- 

 tain restrictions, this doctrine is far from being 

 injurious to pure morality. The substance of it is, 

 that where a law is not pronounced clearly, it is per- 

 mitted to follow that opinion which, being likewise 

 supported by good reasons, favours the natural 

 liberty of man rather than the severity of the law. 

 Next arose the question, whether it was permitted to 

 follow the probable meaning, in preference to the 

 more probable. The probabilists answered in the 

 affirmative. This was asserted by many theologians, 

 particularly Dominicans, long before the origin of the 

 society of Jesus. But, as this doctrine is susceptible 

 of an application really dangerous to morality, the 

 Jesuits had the undeniable merit of having been the 

 first who wrote against probabilism. The writings 

 of the Jesuits Robello, Molien, Gisbert, Aquaviva, 

 Gonzalez, Darnel, and others, contain unqualified 

 attacks on probabilism, and attempts to reduce it 

 within reasonable limits. The Jansenists, who were 

 ready to make any charges against the Jesuits, first 

 attacked them on the ground of their upholding pro- 

 babilism. Pascal and Nicol were the first assailants : 

 the former wished to make the Jesuits ridiculous, the 

 latter, to make them odious. Perault and Arnaud 

 joined them at a later period. But all these publi- 

 cations were declared by the parliaments of Paris 

 and Bourdeaux, who were by no means generally in 

 favour of the Jesuits, " calumnious writings, filled 

 with injustice, deceit, falsifications and ignorance." 

 If Pascal's Lettres Provinciates are regarded as an 

 authority against the Jesuits, we should at least con- 

 sider what Voltaire says : " It is clear that this work 

 (the Lettres Provinciates) rests upon a premise to- 

 tally erroneous, attributing the insane opinions of 

 some Spanish and Flemish Jesuits to the whole 

 order. In the casuistry of the Dominicans and 

 Franciscans, many absurd things might also be found. 

 But the Jesuits alone were to be held up to general 

 derision. The same letters even attempt to prove 

 that it is the plan of the Jesuits to make men worse, 

 instead of correcting them ; but such a plan is so sense- 

 less, that no sect in the world ever had or could Iiave 

 it." The private lives of the Jesuits were exemplary. 

 The purity of their morals is evident from the dis- 

 gust which all Europe felt when a thing unheard of 

 happened, when a Jesuit one of a hundred thousand 

 who composed the order Girard by name, was 

 accused of rape. There has never existed a society 

 where such deviations from virtue have been rarer, 

 even if we allow the Amores Marelli, published by 

 Von Long, to be true. The least suspected witness 

 of the Jesuits is probably Voltaire : he says " What 

 have 1 seen during the seven years that I lived with 

 the Jesuits ? A very active life, connected with 

 many labours, and, at the same time, very frugal and 

 orderly. All their hours were appropriated to their 

 school labours, and to the exercises which their 

 severe order bound them to perform. I call thousands 

 and thousands to witness, who, like myself, have 

 been educated by them. I dare to affirm, that 

 nothing more repulsive and dishonourable to human 



