Disclaimer: This lecture does not have any corporate or religious sponsors

"The World is Our House": The Sixteenth Century and the Society of Jesus

Let's take a poll.... Image 1 and Image 2

A. Globalization before "Globalization" -- Compagnia de Jesus

  1. A Religious Start-Up Company:
    Year
    Members
    1540
    10
    1556
    1,000
    1615
    13,000
    1700
    20,000
  2. Global Franchises (Europe, Asia, Americas and Africa); Roman Headquarters
  3. Backdrop: Colonial Expansion

Let's look at the European context... (I am a historian!)

B. Protestant Reformation: Re-thinking Salvation and Society

  1. A century and a half of turmoil, or why some decided separation of church and state is a good idea.... Map of 1555
  2. Crisis in spiritual health care: How will I be saved?
  3. Dominant view: faith *and* good works"
  4. A consequential piece of advice: "Go read St. Paul, Brother Martin"

    "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written: 'The one who is righteous will live by faith'" (Romans 1:17)


  5. Luther's Interpretation: Faith alone (Sola Fide); God's word alone (Sola Scriptura)
  6. Matrimony as the highest form of Christian Life: "Ex-Monk Marries Ex-Nun!"

[Note the difference: religious beliefs vs. social effects of these beliefs]

B. Counterreformation and Catholic Reform: The Papal Empire Strikes Back

  1. Jesuits on the forefront: "to help souls" (see Autobiography of St. Ignatius)
  2. Embodying clerical celibacy but different from traditional monks
  3. Traditional monks: stability, prayer, subordination to local authorities
  4. Jesuits: vow of obedience to Pope, complete mobility, active ministry
  5. Don't just read Paul, act like him (i.e., good works do matter, and so does free will)
  6. Global reach: "The world is our house" (Jerome Nadal)
  7. New military-style organization for operation under conditions of diaspora

Jesuits need new tools for their new organization. Luckily, someone helped out --

C. Renaissance Humanism: Re-thinking Education and Individual Identity

  1. An intellectual movement propagating new attitude towards learning and life
  2. Recover intellectual heritage of Greece and Rome
  3. "Studia humanitatis" (Cicero, 106 - 43 BC): How to make people better citizens
  4. Goal of education no longer knowledge of God but action in the larger public
  5. Emphasis on practical skills of reading and writing: rhetoric central subject
  6. Individual distinction, public recognition, and self-confidence as new values
  7. Clash with Christian values (humility; God's glory): Renaissance Man

D. Jesuits: Humanist Methods, Christian Goals

  1. Humanist rhetoric, humanist curricula (Jesuits make education major ministry)
  2. Not formation of citizien, formation of virtuous Catholics
  3. A telling motto: "ad maioram gloriam dei" (for the greater glory of God)

E. Men of Their Time: Protestant, Humanist and Jesuit Views of Women

  1. A cultural conversation about gender: what does it mean to be male or female?
  2. A common feature of three movements: empowering individual women but disempowering women as a group

I. Protestants: Women as Mothers and Wives

Individual women feel inspired to preach, publish pamphlets and launch public complaints

Argula von Grumbach (Germany):

"I am not unfamiliar with Paul's words that women should be silent in church but when I see that no man will or can speak, I am driven by the word of God when he said, 'He who confesses me on earth, him will I confess and he who denies me, him I will deny."

Martin Luther:

"Women are created for no other purpose than to serve men and be their helpers. If women grow weary or even die while bearing children, that doesn't harm anything. Let them bear children to death; they are created for that."

Only two female vocations: marriage and motherhood

[Note: When Luther encouraged interpreting the Bible according to one's conscience he obviously did not mean "anything goes"...]

II. Humanists: Women as Embodiments of Beauty and Morality

Individual women feel inspired to become very educated and eloquent. They found Humanist circles and publish their work

Madeleine des Roches (France) :

"Men have all the authority/Against reason and against fairness/It is enough if I can make men see/To what point their laws commit violence upon us."

Italian (Male) Humanist: "An eloquent woman is never chaste."

No rhetorical training for women; morality, religion -- and beauty: Renaissance Woman

III. Jesuits: Women as Obstacles to Male Mobility and Global Missions

Individual women are inspired 'to help souls', preach and teach the gospel. "Catholic" after all means "universal".

Isabel Roser (Spain) to Pope Paul III in 1545:

" Humbly I pray to Your Holiness to grant that I may be admitted to the said Society of Jesus, and command Master Ignatius to accept my solemn vows, that he may concern himself throughout his life with my salvation as with that of his own sons."

Ignatius of Loyola in 1546:

"The men of the Society do not take any kind of women under their obedience (...) We must always stand with one foot raised, so to speak, that we may be able to run freely from one place to another."

Society of Jesus is the only early modern religious order that does not take women: universalism coexists with exclusionary tendencies

 

QUESTION FOR YOU AND YOUR SECTION:

Some religious views clearly benefit men socially. Hmm... That reminds me of Prof. Mailloux's definition of ideology. What do you think? When is religion an ideology? Is there a difference between religion and ideology?

 

I cannot promise that staying until the end of my lecture will be good for your salvation. But I can assure you that it will be good for your grade.