# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 07 08_S178
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

178

way to devise, namely, how that philosophical opinion concerning justification might be so adorned and clothed with words of the Holy Scripture, that not everyone would perceive it at once, but that they might to some extent endure the light given again by God out of His Word, or rather hide themselves from it. That this was the chief business in that transaction and deliberation, which lasted so many months, is testified both by the decrees of the Council itself and especially by the expositions of my opponent, the Jesuit Andradius. — (Since in this writing the Jesuit Andradius and the Jesuits in general are mentioned often, here and there, the following report of Chemnitz concerning the Jesuits, and in particular concerning his opponent Andradius, may first be inserted here:)

It is now three years, (writes Chemnitz in his own time, in the year 1565,) since I laid before my readers, in a brief survey, the chief articles of the doctrine of the Jesuits, taken from a compilation made by themselves, and that with the purpose that this sect, which quite recently, to the ruin of the churches which have accepted and confess the pure doctrine of the Gospel, was created by the Roman Pope, according to written accounts, should be made known and recognizable to our churches, and that not only by their peculiar monastic habit, but, as Christ, John 10, teaches us to distinguish a true shepherd from a hireling or wolf, by their voice, that is, by their doctrine, which they profess and spread abroad. And indeed I had, without further exposition, set down the bare chief articles of their doctrine, in order to give them occasion to explain themselves more plainly. But out of this whole faction or rabble, which they themselves call the Society of Jesus, none has until now (1565) been willing to enter the lists: but from what causes they so decidedly and obstinately decline this contest, men who are not altogether stupid can easily guess. But that it might not be charged against them that they had kept wholly silent, they pushed a certain hired emissary, a miserable wretch named Johann Alber, from the school at Ingolstadt, upon the stage, who played that part, masked, so ridiculously and wretchedly that already in the prelude of the piece, when he saw the following scenes from afar, he threw off the mask and fled in dismay from the stage, after he had first given the spectators hope that another actor would soon follow, who would perform the remaining parts of the play, if not more successfully, yet at least more becomingly. At length there came forward from the Council of Trent a bombastic declaimer to play the part of the Jesuits and to conduct their cause, Jacobus Payva Andradius, a Portuguese, who relates in his dedicatory epistle that the most distinguished Fathers of the Council of Trent had called upon him to refute my little book on the theology of the Jesuits, because the holy Fathers had learned from the mouth of many people that this little writing of mine had been received by the Protestants not without applause and congratulations. So he writes: but I conclude from this, that the Fathers of the Council gave this commission to Andradius not so much for the sake of the Jesuits as rather that through Andradius, as a fit expositor of the Council, they wished to scatter the interpretation of their decrees among the people: which the title also of the writing entrusted to him gives one to perceive not indistinctly. (The Jesuit Andradius, a member of the Council of Trent, was to conduct the cause of the Council, of the Roman Church, that is, of the Pope.)

In this present work, then, I shall have to do not so much with the peculiar cause and doctrine of the Jesuits, as such; for these flee the combat most decidedly, but rather with the decrees of the Council of Trent, to which Andradius, by commission of the holy Fathers, seeks to bring expositions to the people, namely through the writing named, which bears the title: "Orthodox (right-believing) Explanation of Disputed Articles of Religion." For since in my little book I had treated chiefly of two main points, first, of the origin of the Jesuits, and secondly, of their doctrine and theology; so the Ingolstadt Procurator Johann Alber sought to soften and to interpret otherwise much in the theology of the Jesuits: but Andradius seeks to maintain and confirm the same wholly and entirely, quite as it is set forth by them, unaltered and undiminished: yea, that he may by no means seem to be behind the others in anything, he enlarges it still further with a fair portion of yet greater impudence, and adds a multitude of unheard-of absurdities and nonsense; so that indeed on the whole round earth no better patron and advocate of the Jesuits could have been found or devised than Andradius. Let the theology of the Jesuits then remain as it is; we are quite content that Andradius sets it forth so unpainted, unmitigated, and unweakened; let it stand publicly as it is, until they themselves bring it again to light, increased and improved.

But as to the first origin, foundation, and antiquity of the Jesuits, or their creation, if they themselves would rather so call it: I will here adduce some things which I have learned from the narrative and report of Andradius, that I may, if they should before have been offended and angered by me, which however ought not to be suspected of their Holiness, appease and pacify them again, and obtain a peaceful and friendly dismissal from them. It is also useful that a true report of the plan and purpose of this papal foundation and offspring should exist and be known. For, as for me, I confess that from the writers of our time I have as yet been able to learn nothing certain; and for the knowledge of so wholly new a matter the documents of antiquity avail nothing. I have therefore followed their own notices and reports, so far as I could obtain them. So far as I hear, however, there has already now, among so many swarms of orders and religions of the papistical church, a confusion been made of the Theatines, who have their origin from Paul IV., with the Jesuits, whose birth has other authors. In order, therefore, that this error and oversight may become pardonable by a sufficient satisfaction and may be forgiven, I will set down here simply and briefly the report concerning the origin and other circumstances of the foundation of the Jesuits, from the high-sounding preface of Andradius. A certain Spanish soldier, named Ignatius Loyola, was at the siege of the city and fortress of Pampeluna in Spain severely wounded in one leg by a cannon ball, and in the other received a dangerous wound. Thereupon he soon forsook fatherland, house, and all his goods, and resolved to begin a new, strict, and humble life. But because he held the knowledge of the sciences to be useful for such a new manner of life as he intended to begin, he betook himself to Paris, where he studied 10 years, and drew to himself 10 companions of his new religion. After these 10 years he betook himself with his new fellows in religion again to Spain, in the year 1536. In the year 1537 they came to Rome, to obtain from the Roman Pope permission to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and other places of the Holy Land. But when the war of the Turks with Venice hindered this purpose, they changed their resolution, and resolved to devote their life, within the Roman Church, to the instruction of the people. At Venice seven of them were ordained by the papal legate, and received permission freely and unhindered to teach the people everywhere, to hear secret confession, and to administer sacraments. In the year 1540 they came, through the mediation of the Cardinal Contarenus, to Pope Paul III. with the petition that their manner of life and society might be confirmed as a new order by papal authority. The Pope was pleased with this petition and granted it on the condition that the society should number no more than 60 members. But soon it was perceived that for the restoration and strengthening of the shaken and tottering Papal Church this order was above all others especially fitting and suitable. Therefore the Pope resolved in the year 1543, that this society, marked with the name, should henceforth be limited neither by local boundaries nor by a fixed number of its members in its extension and efficiency. The nature and purpose of their foundation Andradius thus describes from their documents: "Everyone who is to belong to our Order and as a valiant soldier to serve alone the Lord and the Pope at Rome, his vicegerent