The role of Ignatius Loyola in the founding of the Jesuits was absolutely crucial. Portrayed here in armor with his holy lance and the Christogram of IHS, the name of Jesus in Greek, below the nails of the cross and above the cross itself. Here, seen later in a Jesuit church IHS with the cross and a representation of the nails below. This would become the very symbol of the Jesuits. But who were they? They started as this small group of friends who had been in Paris, who had degrees from the university. They were centered around this extraordinary figure about whom we have already heard. And also his great work, the spiritual exercises. It was the spiritual exercises that was really the glue that held them together. A commitment to renewal of the spirituality of the faith, but also to a method of prayer and transformation of the way in which one lived one's life. They had gone to Venice, hoping to go to Jerusalem. So they were, by nature, pilgrims seeking out the transformation of Christianity, seeking out the holy city. And although they never reached it, that ideal remained at central to who they were and would become integral to their work as missionaries across the known world, represented here in a Portuguese map of the 16th century. The Jesuits were really defined by two commitments that shows their roots in the 16th century. First, the spiritual renewal, we've had the opportunity to hear, with the Capuchins and the Theatines, and the oratory of how the renewal of the church was through good works, prayer, and a discipline of life, charity, a transformation of the world. And the Jesuits very much belonged to that spirit. And they also stood in the tradition of Erasmus, and that was of education. The belief that education is a way in which the world can be made more like the kingdom of God, that individuals can be transformed. Was an idea that they shared in many ways with the Calvinists, that puts education just as Calvin founded his Academy in Geneva, in 1559. So too, the Jesuits, before even Ignatius was dead, would have established colleges across Europe, and would so in the lands of the new world. Where people would be educated, mostly young men but also women, would be educated. And this would break the Jesuit's distinctive. They would become the educators of Catholic Europe. And for many distinguished figures in the 17th century. What they had in common from Galileo to Decat, whether they had been educated by the Jesuits. But, that takes our story some way into the distance, with the founding of the order in 1540 by of Paul the third, we had the emergence of a small number of men. Who were committed as they had expressed in their formula drawn up 1539 and then integrated into the Bull. That they would be a missionary church. Now this was expressed in their fourth vow. That in addition to obedience and chastity, and poverty. They would swear allegiance to the Pope. Now this is often misunderstood, as simply a blind adherence to what the Pope says, as if the Jesuits were some sort of personal bodyguard that could be sent wherever the Pope wanted. Rather it should be understood as the seal of the Jesuits those first circle to go and do the work of the church in foreign lands. To go where to the ends of the earth, to go where they were sent by the Pope, now that proved ultimately impractical so it became the general of the order who would be give the guidance for where the Jesuits would go. But it was the sense to go wherever they were sent and they had this expression that they would go where the church is not. Because central to the Jesuit ethos right from the beginning, was to convert. Remember the spiritual exercises was largely about the conversion of the individual. Ignatius had to had a conversion experience. Now their role was to convert the world. And with the fourth vow that they made, they committed themselves to doing this. But their work as an emerging order was not limited to missions, except perhaps it's better to say some of the missionary work that they did was actually within Europe itself. With the breakdown of the Catholic church very much at the parish level, many Jesuits went into Catholic parishes to serve as priests. And they did so diligently because they were well educated and well trained and disciplined. But what the Jesuits did was problematic for the church. Because the Jesuits were responsible only to the responsibility to Rome. Not to local bishops. Not to local hierarchies. And this often created difficulty, conflict and resentment. But nevertheless, the Jesuits played an essential role in the second half of the 16th century and into the 17th century, of reclaiming large areas for Catholicism, of rolling back Protestantism. And their tools were preaching, they were distinguished preachers and were trained to be preachers and the place of the spiritual exercises. The spiritual exercises were wildly popular as a means of instruction. But the Jesuits drew on other forms, such as drama. Jesuits became masters of writing place and performing drama. And they knew how to use the dramatic to bring about conversions. They would stage events. So the Jesuits, because they were so well educated, they were so highly trained and because in many ways they were the elite, were extraordinarily talented and successful. But the story of their missions, as we shall hear, was often one of difficulty, extreme difficulty, and tragedy. But out of this, they fostered a means of engaging with other societies, other cultures, indigenous peoples that proved highly successful. A method of missionary work. A method of bringing about conversions, in which they entered into those cultures. In which they cast off literally western garb by which they learnt the languages of the people. All of this was part of the culture of the Jesuits that emerged from 1540 onwards. And the success of the movement was such, that by 1549, less than 10 years after the founding, of the order. Hundreds and hundreds of young men had joined. They were of course attracted by the possibility of missionary work abroad. But already in those years, the church, the Jesuits were to be found in Brazil, and in India, and in Africa. Those first Jesuit missionaries suffered greatly, largely because they had no idea of the cultures they were encountering. They had no idea how to bring Christianity to people who knew nothing of it. And had no vocabulary for it. It would be, as we shall see, the work of men like Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci, who would begin to change all of that. But central to this culture of missionary work was the relationship between the Jesuits and the Portuguese. John the Third, King of Portugal, saw himself as the great patron of the Jesuits. That he saw the Jesuits as part of his imperial expansion. Therefore the Jesuits would travel with Portuguese trading ships. And it would take them along the routes that were well established. We see even in this Portuguese map how these routes were spreading across the world. That relationship would prove to be extraordinarily fraught, because the needs, interests, and desires of the Jesuits, and their purpose, were often at considerable odds with their Portuguese masters. Whose primary goal was economic profit. Nevertheless, the Jesuits were dependent upon them. And one way to understand what happens is this, as we particularly, we think of Goa in India, is this troubled relationship between the temporal and the spiritual. And that was something that they had to work out if they were to develop a fuller relationship with their goal of missionizing the new world and Asia.
