Jesuit psychagogies: an approach to the relations of schooling and casuistry

Abstract

The article explores the usefulness of the term “psychagogy” for analysing the net of instruments used by contemporary authors for guiding or helping – that is, for intentionally transforming – the souls of early modern Europeans. The article analyses Jesuit anthropology (free will) and its links with the most important vocations of the order of prists of souls, the penance–confession sacrament and schooling. It studies also some of the relations among the latter. In particular, the article advances that the moral doctrine maintained by the Jesuits as basis for their casuistry, probabilism, was related to the focus on schooling. Probabilism, which was the direct legal–moral expression of free will anthropology, was fostered by the practices of the disputatio and Ciceronian rhetoric in Jesuit schools. However, Jesuits faced a contradiction, as the leniency of probabilism undermined one of the most important disciplining instruments of the Catholic Church: penance–confession. The article concludes with the argument that the experience of schooling allowed the accepting of probabilism, as school discipline compensated for probabilism’s leniency.

Keywords:

• Jesuit psychagogies
• probabilism
• Jesuit schools
• free will
• Ciceronianism

Notes

¹. Casuistry derives from cases of conscience – that is, moral doubt about concurrent options or about the perplexing application of principles to a circumstance. It was an instrument used in confession for solving difficult cases. Probabilism is a lenient doctrine for solving cases of conscience. Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 10; Benjamin T. Mayes, Counsel and Conscience (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 2011), 16.

². Heinz Schilling, “Confessional Europe,” in Handbook of European History 1400-1600, ed. T.A. Brady, H.A. Oberman, and J.D. Tracey (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Ute Lotz-Heuman, “Confessionalization,” in Reformation and Early Modern Europe, ed. David M. Whitford (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2008), 136–57. The Konfessionalisirungsparadigma explains the parallel process of the institution of the churches and confession-building and the consolidation of states/principalities – the creation of confessional–national identities and social discipline that took place between 1540 and 1648 in both Catholicism and Protestantism.

³. John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 202–8; Martin Stone and Thomas Van Houdt, “Probabilism and its Methods,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 75 (1999): 363–4.

⁴. John W. O’Malley, “How the First Jesuits Became Involved in Education,” in Jesuit Ratio Studiorum of 1599, ed. Vincent J. Duminuco (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).

⁵. Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997), 939–42.

⁶. Aristóteles, Ήθικά Νιkoμάχϵια/Ética a Nicómaco (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2002), 171–2 (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, C.9.).

⁷. Carlos Martínez, Anatomía de la libertad (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 2007), 34.

⁸. Elizabeth Asmis, “Psychagogia in Plato’s Phaedrus,” Illinois Classical Studies XI, no. 1–2 (2009): 153–72; Michel Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi et des autres (Paris: Gallimard, 2008), 387. We adopt here the “Cambridge School” methodological recommendations, the reason for sketching Calvin’s ideas.

⁹. Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 34.

¹⁰0. Lambert Vos, Louis de Blois (Tournhout: Brepols, 1992), 105–24. Louis de Blois titled a collection of texts by Church fathers “Psychagogy” and published Le directeur des âmes religieuses. Blois was appreciated by Jesuits. Philip Endean, “The Strange Style of Prayer,” in The Mercurian Project, ed. Thomas M. McCoog (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), 351–97, 381.

¹¹1. Ignatius a Loyola, “Hebdomada Prima, Cap. XII,” in Directorium in Exercitia Spiritualia (Romae: In Collegio Rom. eiude[m] Societat., 1606), 54–7; Philip Endean, “Applying Such Exercises: Early Jesuit Practice,” Review of Ignatian Spirituality XXXII, III (2001), 41–64. Ignatius divides the text into the contemplation of sins, the vision of the works of Christ (magnanimity), Christ’s Passion (sufferings leading to redemption) and his resurrection and ascension (renovation and union).

¹²2. Iehan Calvin, “Institution de la Religion Chrestienne,” in Ioannis Calvini Opera que supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss (Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964), II, III, 65; Martínez, Anatomia de la libertad, 67.

¹³3. Philip Endean, “The Spiritual Exercises,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, ed. Thomas Worcester (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 52–67; Marc Fumaroli, “The Fertility and Shortcomings of Renaissance Rhetoric,” in The Jesuits: Culture, Learning and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, SJ (Toronto University Press, 1999), 91–106, 95ff.

¹⁴4. Rafael García, Empresas Morales de Juan de Borja (Valencia: Ajuntament, 1998), 38; Giuseppina Ledda, Contributo allo studio della letteratura emblematica in Spagna (Pisa: Università di Pisa, 1970); Karel Porteman, “The Use of Visual in Classical Jesuit Teaching and Education,” Paedagogica Historica 36, no. 1 (2000): 178–96.

¹⁵5. François de Dainville, L’éducation des Jésuites (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1978), 167; Wim Decock, “Jesuit Freedom of Contract,” Revue d’Histoire du Droit 77 (2009): 423–58; Cayo González, El teatro escolar de los jesuítas (Oviedo: Universidad, 1997). See note 64.

¹⁶6. Philip Endean, “The Strange Style of Prayer,” in The Mercurian Project, ed. Thomas M. McCoog (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), 351–97; Henri Bremond, La Metháphysique des Saints (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1928); Thyrso González, Fundamentum theologiae moralis, id est Tractatus theologicus de recto usu opinionum probabilium (Antwerpiae: Verdussen, 1694).

¹⁷7. Andreas Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen. Katholische Konfessionalisierung im Sendgericht des Fürstbistums Münster 1570-1800 (Paderborn: Schöning, 2000). This temporalization problem has changed the original conception of the limits of the Confessionalization Age beyond 1640.

¹⁸8. O’Malley, “How the First Jesuits,” 161; Ignatius Loyola, “First Spiritual Exercise: Third Introductory Explanation,” Spiritual Exercises; Robert A. Maryks, Saint Cicero and the Jesuits (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

¹⁹9. Manetti’s De dignitate et excellentia hominis (1452), Mirandolanus’ De Hominis dignitate oratio (1484) vs. Inocencio III’s De miseria humanae conditionis (ca. 1195).

²⁰. Luther’s De libertate christiani (1520) and De servo arbitrio (1525) vs. Erasmus’s De libero arbitrio sive collatio (1524).

²¹. See note 48.

²². Julio Caro, Sistemas complejos de la religiosidad popular (Barcelona: Círculo de lectores, 1995), 187; Gerhard Schneemann, Die Entstehung der thomistisch-molinistischen Kontroverse (Freiburg: Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, 1879); Gerhard Schneemann, Weitere Entwickelung der thomistisch-molinistischen Kontroverse (Freiburg: Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, 1881); Vicente Beltrán, ed., Domingo Bañez y las controversias sobre la gracia (Madrid: CSIC, 1968); Johannes Stöhr, Zur Frühgeschichte des Gnadenstreites (Münster: Aschendorff, 1980).

²³. Luis de Molina, Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (Oniae: Collegium Maximum, 1953), 12–14, 160, 335–6, 504; Marcelino Ocaña, Molinismo y libertad (Córdoba: Cajasur, 2000), 232; Francisco Suárez, “En defensa de la compañía cerca del libre albedrío,” in Beltrán, Domingo Bañez, 418–26; Francisco Suárez, Disputaciones metafísicas (Madrid: Gredos, 1966), III, 326–7, 332–3.

²⁴. Antonio Queralt, Libertad humana en Luis de Molina (Granada: Facultad de Teología, 1977), 132; Molina: Liberi arbitrii, 384–5; Suárez, Disputaciones, II, 338, III, 429–31, V, 380.

²⁵. Calvin, Institution, II, 3, 335–54; Jan Hendrik Scholten, Der freie Wille (Berlin: Hensche, 1874), 12; Risto Saarinen, Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought (New York: Brill, 1994).

²⁶. Molina, Liberi arbitrii, 14; Ocaña, Molinismo, 259.

²⁷. Antonio Queralt, Libertad humana en Luis de Molina (Granada: Facultad de Teología, 1977), 44–5, 117; Molina, Liberi arbitrii, 14; Ocaña, Molinismo, 232; Luis de Molina, Los seis libros de la justicia y el derecho (Madrid: Cosano, 1941), Disp. 49. §6, 326.

²⁸. Heinrich Boehmer, Die Jesuiten: Eine Historische Skizze (Leipzig: Teubner, 1904).

²⁹. Mayes, Counsel and Conscience, 17; Henry Chadwick, Some Reflections on Conscience (London: Council of Christians and Jews, 1969), 7; Martínez, Anatomía, 63-70.

³⁰. Antonio Queralt, “El fin último natural en Luis de Molina,” Estudios Eclesiásticos 34 (1960): 177–216, 190; Queralt, Libertad, 60, 64–5; John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” in The Works of John Locke, (London: Thomas Davison, 1823), vol. I, Book I, Chap. IV, §8, 60.

³¹. Francisco Suárez, “De bonitate et malitia humanorum actuum,” in Opera omnia (Paris: Vives, 1856–1878), 4:d.12, s.5; Suárez, Disputaciones VI, 353–4; Queralt, Libertad, 93; Schüßler, Die scholastische Theorie, 93; Luis de Molina, De iustitia et iure (Madrid), l.6, p.2, d.47, 2 ff.; Francisco Suárez, De Legibus ac Deo legislatore, (Madrid: Centro de estudios políticos, 1967), v. 1, l.2, c.5, §15, 119.

³². Francisco Suárez, “De statu perfectionis,” in Opera omnia (Paris: Vives, 1856–1878), 1, c.4, 11.ss.

³³. Suárez, Legibus, v. 1, l.2, c.10–11, 138–48. Although he accepted adiáphora, Suárez subjected it in some cases to the neighbour’s edification (Romans 14).

³⁴. Molina, Seis libros, disp 48. § 2, 322.

³⁵. Suárez, Legibus, v. 1, l.2, c.13, §3–9, 150–53; v. 1, l.2, c.16, §16, 180; João M. Azevedo, Die Theorie der Interpretation des Gesetztes bei Francisco Suárez (Frankfurt: Lang, 2005), 153.

³⁶. Suárez, Legibus, v. 4, l.6, c.6, §4, 653–4; v. 4, l.6, c.7, §9–11, 657–9; Karl Hörmann, “Epikie,” in Lexikon der christlichen Moral, ed. K. Hörmann (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1976), 358–62.

³⁷. Rudolf Schüßler, “On the Anatomy of Probabilism,” in Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity, ed. Saari Knuuttila (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 91–114, 103; Theodore Deman, “Probabilisme,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. Alfred Vacant (Paris: Letouzey, 1936), XIII, 418–619; Ignaz von Döllinger and Franz H. Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der römisch-katholischen Kirche seit dem 16. Jahrhundert (Aalen: Scientia, 1889); Rudolph Schüßler, Die Herausforderung des Probabilismus (Paderborn: Mentis, 2006).

³⁸. Jerome B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 58ff.

³⁹. Knud Haakonnsen, “Republicanism,” in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. Robert E. Goodin (London: Blackwell, 2007), I, 729–35, 732.

⁴⁰. Rudolf Schüßler, Die scholastische Theorie des Entscheidens unter moralischer Unsicherheit (Paderborn: Mentis, 2003), 35–6; Suárez, Legibus, 6, c.8; Ilkka Kantola, Probability and Moral Uncertainity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Society, 1994), 133; James Allen, “Academic Probabilism and Stoic Epistemology,” The Classical Quarterly 44, no. 1 (1994): 85–113.

⁴¹. Suárez, Legibus, l.6, c.8, 4; Suárez, “Bonitate,” 4: d.12, s.4–5, 6, 8; Deman, “Probabilisme,” 418–619; Schüßler, “Anatomy,” 98ff; Molina, Iustitia, l.6, p.2, d.71, 12; El Digesto de Justiniano (Pamplona: Aranzadi, 1968) v.1,173 (Digest, 3.6.5.1); Kantola, Probability, 134.

⁴². Suárez, “Bonitate,” 4: d.12, s.6, 1.

⁴³. Maryks, Saint Cicero, 122, 118.

⁴⁴. Schüßler, Herausforderung.

⁴⁵. Molina, Liberi arbitrii, 12, 160; Suárez, Disputaciones III, 326–7, 333; Suárez, “En defensa,” 425.

⁴⁶. Döllinger and Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten I, 42; Schüßler, Herausforderung, 89, 107.

⁴⁷. Francisco Suárez, Conselhos e pareceres (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1952), I: 281–92; Deman, “Probabilisme,” 418–619; Molina: Iustitia, l. 4, d11, l. 6, p. 2, d.57, 5; Suárez, Legibus, 2, c.6, 6; Günter Virt, Epikie - verantwortlicher Umgang mit Normen (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verl., 1983), 190–1.

⁴⁸. John Stachniewski, The Persecutory Imagination (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

⁴⁹. See note 17.

⁵⁰. Alison Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education,” in The Jesuits, ed. John W. O’Malley, SJ, 522–38; Molina: Liberi arbitrii, 17–8; Molina, Iustitia, l. 6, p.2, d.47, 1; Aristotle, De Anima III, 4; Jon Amos Comenius, School of Infancy, ed. Ernst M. Eller, (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press,1956), 114–5; Locke, “An Essay,” vol. I, Book II, Chap. I, §2, 82; John Milton, “De doctrina christiana,” in Complete Prose Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–1982), VI, 75; Porteman, “The Use of the Visual,” 184.

⁵¹. Aldo Scaglione, The Liberal Arts and the Jesuit College System (Amsterdam: Benjamin, 1986); Gabriel Codina, “El ‘Modus parisiensis,’” Gregorianum 85, no. 1 (2004): 43–64; O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 217; Carlsmith, Struggling, 231.

⁵². Michèle Rossellini, “Words without Things: The Praelectio,” Langue française 121 (1999): 28–35.

⁵³. Farrell, The Jesuit Code, 38.

⁵⁴. Hugo Rahner, Man at Play (London: Burns & Oates, 1963); Richard Strier, Resistant Structures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 89.

⁵⁵. Michael Lackner, “Jesuit Figurism,” in China and Europe, ed. T.H.C. Lee (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991), 129–50; D. Walker, The Ancient Theology (New York: Ithaka, 1972); David E. Mungello, Curious Land (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989).

⁵⁶. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 212–3; O’Malley, “How the First Jesuits.”

⁵⁷. Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

⁵⁸. Christoph Carlsmith, “Struggling Toward Success: Jesuit Education in Italy, 1540-1600,” History of Education Quarterly 42, no. 2 (2002): 215–46, 220.

⁵⁹. Francesco Cesareo, “Quest for Identity: The Ideals of Jesuit Education in the Sixteenth Century,” in Jesuit Tradition in Education and Mission, ed. Christopher Chapple (London: Associated University Presses, 1993), 21.

⁶⁰. Marc Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence (Geneva: Droz, 2002), 179ff; Maryks, Saint Cicero, 83ff.

⁶¹. Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societis Iesu, “Rules of the provincial,” 13–5, “Rules of the Professor of Cases of Conscience,” 1–10; Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse, 144–50; Pierre Hurtubise, La casuistique dans tous ses états (Otawa: Novalis, 2005), 13–20; Allan P. Farrell, The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1938), 49–52.

⁶². Decock, “Jesuit Freedom of Contract.”

⁶³. See note 6; Francisco Echarri, Directorio moral (Barcelona: Altés, 1749), 140–2.

⁶⁴. Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse, 144; John G.A. Pocock, Obligation and Authority in Two English Revolutions (Wellington: Victoria University, 1973).

⁶⁵. Fumaroli, “Fertility and the Shortcomings,” 97.

⁶⁶. Aristotle, Rhetoric, I, II; Maryks, Saint Cicero, 83ff.

⁶⁷. Hilaire Kallendorf, Conscience on Stage (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); Elena del Río, Cartografías de la conciencia española en la Edad de Oro (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2008).

⁶⁸. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 136ff.

⁶⁹. James Keenan, “Casuitry,” in For That I Came, ed. William J. O’Brien (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1997), 96.

⁷⁰. Viviane Melinghoff, “L'écrivain au service des âmes,” Travaux de littérature 21 (2008): 117–30.

⁷¹. Decock, “Jesuit Freedom of Contract.”

⁷². Maryks, Saint Cicero; Dainville, L’éducation des jesuites, 199ff.

⁷³. Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education,” 528; Ratio atque Institutio Sudiorum, trans. Allan P. Farrell, SJ (Washington: Conference of Major superiors of Jesuits, 1970), 38.

⁷⁴. Döllinger and Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten, I, 42.

⁷⁵. Döllinger and Reusch, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten, II, 481; Juan de Mariana, “Discurso de los grandes defectos que hay en la forma del gobierno de los Jesuitas,” in Obras del Padre Juan de Mariana II (Madrid: Ribadeneyra, 1872), 596–617, IV, §33–36; Juan de Mariana, “Tratado contra los juegos públicos,” in Obras, 413–62.