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On Some Political Theories of the Early Jesuits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. Neville Figgis
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From Hildebrand to John Stuart Mill is a far cry. Yet there is a common element in the thought of the two. Both held the same purely secular theory of the civil State. Both were jealous of State interference and would have narrowed the scope of governmental action. Both held that there are limits, especially in religious matters, which the State may not over-step, and both, though in different ways, would admit the right of an oppressed people to rebel against its sovereign. Their horizons were different, and their objects looked at in one point of view are even opposed. For Mill believed in the Divine right of the individual, or something like it, while, if Hildebrand would have bound kings with chains, it was only that he might forge more enduring fetters of iron for their peoples. Yet I believe that there are links of connection between the two; and of these the earlier Jesuits were not the least important. From the days of Hildebrand down to our own time there appear to me to have been two mutually opposed theories of the State, taking different shapes according to the needs of different ages, and defended by controversial methods and arguments which changed with the facts to which they owed their force. Indeed, so Protean were their manifestations that they commonly meet with nothing but contempt from us who owe much to both theories, and have entered into the heritage prepared for us by conflicts of which we have forgotten the meaning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 11 , December 1897 , pp. 89 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1897

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References

page 90 note 1 Illustrations of the History of Mediæval Thought, chap. viii.

page 91 note 1 I.e. De Auferibilitate Papæ, De Statibus Ecclesiasticis, and De Potestate Ecclesiastica.

page 91 note 2 De Schismatibus Authoritate Imperatoris tollendis.

page 91 note 3 See, for an account of this controversy, Creighton, , History of the Papacy, i. 372–4Google Scholar.

page 93 note 1 The will is printed in Legrelle, , La Diplomatie Française et la Succession de l'Espagne, i. 458Google Scholar.

page 93 note 2 I do not understand why Ranke, , in his brief essay, Der Idee der Volkssou-veränetät in den Schriften der Jesuiten (Werke, xxiv. 225)Google Scholar, denies the formation of any general theories of popular rights before the Jesuits. Buchanan, whom he regards as merely concerned with the affairs of Scotland, spends more than half his work in laying down universal principles. The Vindiciæ is at least as wide in its scope as most Jesuit writings.

page 93 note 3 Knox, Works, passim.

page 93 note 4 Hoiv to Obey or Disobey.

page 93 note 5 De jure Regni apud Scotos.

page 93 note 6 Declaration of Discipline: Second Admonition to Parl., ઇc.

page 93 note 7 Sermons de la Simulié Conversion.

page 94 note 1 Premier et second avertissements. Apologie ou Défense des Catholiqucs unis les uns avec les autres.

page 94 note 2 Most of the decrees of the Parlement of Paris on the subject are to be found in a Recueil de Pièces touchant l'Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus, Liège, 1713.

page 96 note 1 Gretser gives a vivid description of the evils of leaving the civil magistrate supreme in religious matters. He pertinently asks whether passive obedience is to be exhibited to a monarch who turns the churches into mosques and tries to replace the cross by the crescent.— Commentarius Exegeticus, c. vi.

page 98 note 1 The following is the proposition condemned, ‘Tyrannum posse et debere occidi quocunque subdito non aperta vi modo sed etiam per insidias et fraude.’

page 99 note 1 A book directed against the oath of allegiance to James I., which was expressly framed so as to be admissible for Catholics.

page 99 note 2 This book was written by Father Parsons, or Persons. It was so regarded even at the time. I do not know what grounds Father Gerard has for denying the authorship. The question is discussed in Tierney (Dodd, iii. 31 sqq.) and indeed he appears to settle it in favour of Parsons's authorship. See also Law, , The Quarrel between Jesuits and Seculars, pp. 27, 64Google Scholar, and The Archpriest Controversy, passim.

page 101 note 1 Santarelli, , Tractatus de Hæresi, I. 31, 2Google Scholar.

page 101 note 2 Ibid.

page 101 note 3 de Salas, Jean, Disputationes in Primam Secundæ S. Thomæ, viii. 3Google Scholar. Dante expounds precisely the same view of the functions of the electors in the Empire, Holy Roman, De Monarchia, iiiGoogle Scholar.

page 102 note 4 Eudaemon-Joannes, , Apologia, 81Google Scholar.

page 102 note 1 Osorius, , Conciones, t. iii. 42Google Scholar.

page 102 note 2 Santarelli, , De Hæresi, I. 31, 5Google Scholar.

page 102 note 3 De justitia et jure, Tr. V. Disp. 46, and Tr. II. Disp. 22.

page 102 note 4 Conciones, iii. 39; cf. also de Salas, Jean, In Thomam Aquinatis Quæstiones, vii. § IGoogle Scholar.

page 104 note 1 De Justitia et Jure, lib. ii. c. 4, d. 10. Cf. also Molina, Tr. III. Dis. i. and Jean de Salas, vii. § 2. The view here taken is that power of life and death comes from God, not the people, because man has no dominion over his own life.

page 104 note 2 Tanner, Adam, Defensio Libertatis Ecclesiæ II. cc. 3, 4Google Scholar, and De Salas, Disput. vii. § 2, 114.

page 104 note 3 Becanus, , Controversia, 150Google Scholar.

page 105 note 1 De Rege, i. 7.

page 105 note 2 Commentarii, Disp. cl. 3; and see for a discussion of this point, Janet, , Histoire de la Science Politique, ii. 57, sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 106 note 1 De Legibus, vii. 2, 3.

page 106 note 2 De Legibus, ii.19.

page 106 note 3 De justitia et Jure, lib. ii. c. 2, d. 3.

page 106 note 4 Theologia Moralis, Tr. III. disp. I. p. 3.

page 107 note 1 Commentarii, Disp. cl. 3.

page 108 note 1 De Rege, i. 10.

page 108 note 2 Ibid. i. 6. Father Gerard asserted that there was only one sentence on this subject; and that this was expunged in the second edition. I have compared the two editions 1599 and 1605, and find that not only are there more than two pages about the matter, but that the only material alteration is that, in describing the death of Clement, the words ‘æternum Galliæ decus, ut plerique visum est,’ are omitted in 1605. There are two other slight verbal alterations in the chapter, and in describing Henry IV. the clause is changed to ‘nunc quod gaudendum in primis mente mutatâ Christianissimo Galliæ regi.’

page 108 note 3 Ibid. i. 599.

page 108 note 4 Ibid. i. 8, 9.

page 109 note 1 Sidney, Algernon, Discourses on Government, iii. § IIGoogle Scholar.

page 109 note 2 Ibid. i. § 2.

page 109 note 3 In one way Suarez, (De Legibus, iii. 3)Google Scholar and Molina (III. i. I) seem to be nearer Rousseau than Locke. Unlike both they place political power in the community by the act of God, as Author of nature, and not by a definite contract. But they seem to incline to the view expounded by Rousseau that kings and other governors are mere delegates of the sovereign people, and that there is no contract with them.

page 111 note 1 Defensio Fidei Catholicæ.

page 111 note 2 Cf. Janet, ii. 63: ‘Elle [la souveraineté du peuple] est surtout nvoquée par les partisans du pouvoir ecclésiastique, très clairvoyants sur les limites du pouvoir politique.’