jesuits

"Let Man remember that he is the Master, but not a Tyrant."

"Ribas wrote under the most favourable circumstances and made good use of his opportunities."

"His reputation as an historian rests secure upon his history of the Jesuit missions of Mexico."

"(About the Assumption of Mary) It is not likely that assumption should be understood of the soul only, both because local assumption properly and strictly refers to the body, and because the souls of other saints also were taken up into heaven though the Church professes and celebrates no assumption for them, but only their passing over, their departure, their birthday."

"[...] qui expresse non dicit substantiam, neque accidens, neque Deum, nec creaturam, sed haec omnia per modum unius, scilicet quatenus sunt inter se aliquo modo similia et conveniunt in essendo."

"There is no doubt that God is the sufficient cause and, so to speak, the teacher of natural law, but it does not follow that he is the legislator."

"How is it possible we should taste true joy for one moment, in this life, in which we are beset with miseries, and sin, — are continually in danger of being lost forever, and are exiles from Paradise, our true country?"

"I desire, if by any possibility I should become a priest, to be a missionary, and if I am a missionary to be a martyr."

"I know that the Chief will kill me, and I am delighted to receive such a happy end from the hand of God."

"Persecution is upon us; it will be terrible; we will pass through torrents of blood."

"There will be sacrifices in thus referring everything to God; there are sacrifices, and there will be always. But what matters it ? This is our life, the end for which we were created, our destination, — to sacrifice everything to God with devotion and courage, and to find everything in God in eternity."

"France must have the blood of the pure to raise her again; which one of us indeed, is worthy to offer his life, and what a joy, should we be chosen."

"Antonio Possevinus represented the literary, scientific, and diplomatic type of Jesuit, performing important political missions, establishing schools of science and letters, and applying himself to diplomatic protocols and classical authors with equal assiduity. Had he not met with insurmountable difficulties in Sweden and Russia, and in negotiating the treaties between Poland and the empire, he would have left a still deeper trace on the political history of the Church and of Europe."

"In the typical sense God does not merely select an existing person or object as the sign of a future person or object, but he directs the course of nature in such a way that the very existence of the type, however independent it may be in itself, refers to the antitype. Man, too, can, in one or another particular case, perform an action in order to typify what he will do in the future. But as the future is not under his complete control, such a way of acting would be ludicrous rather than instructive. The typical sense is, therefore, properly speaking, confined to Gods own book."

"Much of what he says is of necessity erroneous, because it is influenced by the standard of knowledge of his time; but his criticisms are remarkable, while always dignified. He reflects the scientific errors of the period in which he lived, but with hints of a more advanced understanding."

"Let no man thinke (speaking of the Indians,) that they are men of nothing; but if they thinke so, let them go and make triall."

"Apart from his sophistical defence of Spanish colonial policy, Acosta deserves high praise as an acute and diligent observer whose numerous new and valuable data are set forth in a vivid style."

"At the express wish of the pope, he became cardinal bishop of Palestrina, to the government of which he applied himself with untiring energy."

"Comprehensive books are very useful in the hands of those whose minds are already formed ; but experience has taught us that a judicious parsimony proves more successful in encouraging the mental efforts of young beginners, amid the many difficulties arising from the giddiness natural to their age, as well as from the number of their scholastic duties."

"Only the young men who sat under him could know his fascination as a teacher."

"It may be asked what possible object a redactor could have had in combining the narrative of a rebellion against civil authority with another having for its moral to warn against usurpation of the priesthood. The story presents nothing improbable. We need not search deeply into history to find similar examples of parties with different, or even conflicting interests, uniting for a common end."

"Regarding the sun Saint Anastasius of Sinai, he held a strange opinion that it was created by God here on earth, then lifted it up and transported it to the fourth heaven, where the virtue that lay low below could spread for the benefit of a few, spread for the benefit of all, and there was like the heart of nature, from whose vital heat it is animated and from whose spirits it has the vigour to move and operate. (Book II, Chapter VII; 1839, p. 240)"

"And since we want to know everything, let him take them out and show us his hands and measure them, if by chance they were like those of King Ahasuerus of Persia, that is, of Ahasuerus, husband of Esther, nicknamed Longimanus, because one hand was longer than the other; and understand why he gives sparingly to some, and only when necessary, either the help of grace or the goods we call fortune, while to others he gives abundantly, exceeding and overflowing. (Book II, Chapter III; 1839, pp. 201-202)"

"The Marino of prose was Daniello Bartoli, a highly skilful and unsurpassed craftsman of periods and phrases, with a style that was both refined and ornate. He travelled to almost every corner of the earth and produced thousands of descriptions and narratives: one never sees that the prohibition of so many new things has refreshed his impressions. A rhetorician and abstract moralist, his head full of mythology and sacred scripture, copious in words and phrases in all fields of knowledge, a brilliant colourist, he believed he could say everything, because he knew how to say everything well. Nature and man were nothing more than stimuli and opportunities for him to draw out all his erudition and vocabulary. He has no other, more serious purpose. Unfamiliar with the European cultural movement and all the struggles of thought, stuck in a second-hand classicism and Catholicism that came to him from school and was not explored by his intelligence, his brain remains as idle as his heart, and his attention is entirely focused on the technical and mechanical aspects of expression. He treats the Italian language, like Greek or Latin, as a dead language, already fixed, and fully possessed by him."

"I have never wanted to fight anyone, neither in open battle nor in a duel. But if ever I did, it would certainly not be with Grammarians; terrible men, like those whose words are not words, but deeds. And may God protect me from ever provoking them; for they are quick to anger, and if they take up their open dictionaries, as if they were Michele Scotto's Scongiuratore, just by opening them, they bring forth, like spirits ready to obey their every command, so many, I do not say nouns and verbs, but nicknames and proverbs, that it would be less dangerous to find oneself in the midst of a swarm of angry hornets than among them."

"[...] the most beautiful part of a discourse is the beauty of the subject: and those who work with their brains know from experience that an ingenious subject wonderfully sharpens the intellect and it seems almost as if the noble subject itself provides thoughts worthy of itself, ambitious to be treated nobly."

"The two boundless oceans, which descend from opposite sides of Africa and meet at this Cape of Good Hope, collide with each other with such furious force, as you can see here. Alps, I would say, and [Apennines] of waves, driven to break against each other: with which the storm is so strangely disrupted that there is no rule of art for turning the rudder that is sufficient to receive it with a slanted side and dampen the impetus of the furious beating of the waves. Here, then, the sea is as deep as an abyss, and full of terrible monsters, heralds of the approaching storm, when they raise their heads and gasp, and throw a river of water into the air with their great trumpets: sometimes so many together, as I have witnessed, that as far as the eye can see to the last edge of the horizon, everything appears crowded with such hideous creatures. On land, everything is rocks, mountains and cliffs of inaccessible height, cut vertically into the sea, so that the breaking of the waves against their sides causes a formidable crash that terrifies and deafens us. Along them runs a violent south-westerly current, which, when it meets the sea pushed against it and the opposing wind, either rebounds or overcomes them, doubling the fury of the storm and causing the waves to boil and swirl in such violent and rapid circles that each of them, when it pulls down any large ship, is a Charybdis. Finally, this endless ocean, which stretches from here to who knows how far beyond the Antarctic, is an open field for the winds to battle, which, being unbroken and unobstructed, are all the more capable of turning the sea upside down, as they have no obstacle to break their course and their forces. (Part I, Chapter XII, “Capo di Buona Speranza”; 1664, pp. 176-177)"

"[...] working on Grotesque [...] everything is, one might say, a mosaic of disproportionate elements put together, all the more beautiful because the parts are taken from further afield and come together in more foolish forms. The neck of a crane sprouting from the stem of a flower, ending in a [scimia] head, with four snail horns that shoot fire: a peacock's tail blooming on an old man's chin as a beard, and a thick mop of coral hair; another has vine arms, twisted legs, and two little lights shining in the shell of a conch; a nose like a flute, ears like a pair of bat wings, and when he looks at himself in a net, he sees the image of a mammoth behind him: and such fantastical oddities, as painters are wont to imagine. But even in this, he needs wisdom, for just as not every tree can be grafted onto every other tree, so not every part can be well joined to every other part in the grotesque, and it must be whimsy, not nonsense, nor should the wisdom of [judgement] in arranging it be less prominent than the madness of ingenuity in inventing it. (Book I, Chapter XVI; 1659, pp. 284-285)"

"Here no sail is lowered, here no hand is removed from the oar, here no anchor is yet thrown to drop. Terra Incognita} Just to name it is to understand how much there is to know about it. Here are the shores of this sea, visible to the eye but not yet to the foot of anyone who knows it. If you are not satisfied with just seeing it, and you wish to venture forth to inquire about it, turn towards it and cry out: O you over there, what world is yours? What region? What country? Is it an island in the sea or mainland? Is it cultivated or uncultivated? Is it deserted, solitary, uninhabited or inhabited? And by what multitude of men? And of what language, customs, religion and God? Are there kings, magistrates, people; are there assemblies and cities, or do they live in uncertainty, like the Scythians, wandering and roaming? No one shows up to answer: so the answer is a profound silence, which is nevertheless the true answer to those who have good ears, because only by remaining silent can one say what it is, that is, Terra Incognita. Now, let us believe that this concealment of such a large part of the world is done for the sake of Nature's reputation; otherwise, as the Stoic said about philosophising about this great universe, “Pusilla res mundus est, nisi in illo quod quærat omnis mundus habeat” : thus, once the Earth has been completely discovered, it would cease to appear to us as a world, and we would begin to consider it as nothing much ,so much remains unknown in the North, so much in the South, so much in its parts far from the sea, and so many islands, small worlds in themselves, scattered and lost in the immensity of the ocean, as in the infinite spaces of the void, the worlds seen in their philosophical dreams by Democritus and Epicurus. Thus, one might say that the Earth is so great that for as many centuries as time has recorded in its annals, people have laboured to discover its parts, and yet God knows how many centuries remain for others to discover. (from “'Terra incognita”', pp. 330-331)"

"[...] this incomparable King of the Mountains, Atlas towering above us. Behold how he rises up, how he rears himself, and how his proud head [raises] and turns towards the ever-feared and ever-hostile Europe, in an act of recognition and spying: and how he spreads his immense back towards that jealous frontier of his Africa, in the act of securing and defending it with his shoulders. However much we see of him, he is neither the whole of Atlas, nor more than that; but only the summit. (from “'L'Atlante,”' p. 79)"

"Great mutations must be undertaken with great counsel and proceed slowly in order to proceed safely: otherwise, instead of one good from a wise man, two evils from a fool are encountered, which are to decide without judgement and to repent without remedy."

"I would not want you to falsely imagine that seeing the Antipodes, where I am now taking you, would cost us a journey of at least eleven thousand miles, which is the distance from here to the opposite side of the world. This is quite the opposite of the truth; indeed, the way to never reach them is to go there, and the reason for this is very clear: because there are no Antipodes, except [opposite] feet against feet; nor can they be [opposed] except on the points of the earth's diameter: therefore we must be half a world away. (Part I, Chapter XIX, “'The Antipodes”'; 1664, p. 295)"

"It is interspersed with very strong and thick towers, which rise above the wall in beautiful proportion and space and height; and there are perpetually garrisoned soldiers, as many as are needed to defend the many passages of the curtain wall that flank the tower they guard. There are also very strong castles defending the few gates that had to be opened in the wall."

"There are a hundred thorns for every rose."

"Bartoli represents the typical mentality of the seventeenth-century man of letters: marvellous mastery of form, absolute lack or deficiency of thought. One would not really say that he came into the world a generation after Galileo and Sarpi."

"Uomo che fra tutti del suo tempo, e fors'anche di tutti i tempi, fu quello che e per teoria e scienza e per pratica, meglio e piú profondamente e pienamente conobbe la nostra lingua."

"Daniello Bartoli, Della Geografia trasportata al Morale, Egidio Ghezzi, Roma, 1664."

"Daniello Bartoli, La geografia trasportata al morale, dalla tipografia di Giacinto Marietti, Torino, 1839."

"Acquaviva was chosen by a strong majority. His subsequent career justified the wisdom of the choice."

"Hear: the day might seem too honoured with the works of the hand, of which the night is deprived, if the works of the mind were not given in exchange for those. The day therefore has its labours, the night its thoughts; and appropriate to each, the former has noise, the latter silence. (Book I, Chapter X; 1839, p. 97)"

"Daniello Bartoli, La ricreatione del savio, Ignatio de' Lazzeri, Roma, 1659."

"A negative precept of natural law which prohibits a thing intrinsically evil can never be lawfully transgressed not even under the influence of the fear of death."

"But before I bring you the snails, I must do as that wise painter Theon recounted by Aelianus, who did not reveal the image of a soldier in arms exposed to a large crowd eager to see it until a full choir of musicians had played a sonata in a martial style, as if challenging two armies to battle. When he saw that the spectators had conceived a certain martial spirit, he drew back the curtain from the painting and revealed the soldier in such a fierce act of charging the enemy that, as the historian describes him, he seemed to have lightning in his eyes and thunder in his right hand, so terrible was his gaze and formidable his sword, running in a manner and with a bearing befitting one carried away by the impetus of fury. Such was Theone's soldier, for which reason he first disposed the minds of the onlookers with that sonata inviting them to a true spectacle of battle. (Book I, Chapter XI; 1839, p. 101)"

"Il p. Dan. Bartoli è il Dante della prosa italiana. Il suo stile in ciò che spetta alla lingua è tutto a risalti e rilievi."

"And has God not shown himself to be supremely admirable in varying in a hundred and more different ways the circling and coiling of a snail within itself? Could anything be more equal, more determined, more simple? And yet, in his hands, it has become capable of such great art. Some turn with volutes, one inside the other, as if they were twisting around a spindle: and as they proceed lengthwise, they become thinner and gradually taper to a point. Others, on the contrary, all return to themselves: and tell me, Archimedes, who wrote so ingeniously about them, who teaches them to draw a line so perfectly that it is not out of proportion in any way? Tell me, architects, who struggle so much to draw volutes with a ruler, and yet never anything but false ones, while, not knowing any better, they compose them from some part of a circle, and they are not circles, even though they are circular: who has instilled the rule in snails? Born masters of an art, of which they are not yet good disciples. (Book I, Chapter XI; 1659, pp. 173-174)"

"Daniello Bartoli, Dell'uomo di lettere difeso e emendato, Giacinto Marietti, Torino, 1834."

"Daniello Bartoli, La ricreazione del savio, Borel e Bompard, Napoli, 1839."

"Influence exercised by the Jesuits, in their golden age, was largely due to the far-seeing policy of Aquaviva, who is undoubtedly the greatest general that has governed the Society."

"(About the Great Wall of China) All walled with square stones, strong enough to withstand any torment of air and water; and, whether true or plausible, it is nevertheless rumoured among the Chinese that King Cin ordered the execution of the master builders of the work if, where one stone meets and fits together with another, the joints were so loose that a nail could be driven into them: which, even if it is nothing more than an expression of exaggeration, would still have no reason to be feigned, if the squaring and fitting of the marble were not exquisitely executed."

"Even from these and individually from the Tartars of Niuche called Chin, who are more eastern, China is defended by hand ammunition, that is, the famous wall, which is worth discussing here. The head or founder of the imperial Cin family, one of the most ancient, a prince renowned for his prowess in arms and his works of more than royal magnificence, glorious above all others in Chinese history and for various reasons remembered by scholars, whether it was a dream he had or a prediction made by soothsayers (on which writers disagree, and perhaps there was nothing more than a good omen of providence), foresaw that the Tartars, as soon as the opportunity arose, would make every effort to break through the borders and descend to flood and fill China with their nation. Therefore, after consulting with his great heart, he decided not only to close the borders to them in the present but also to build a shelter that would secure them for centuries to come. He determined to arm those northern borders with a wall that would be invincible against both the Tartars and the weather. He did not delay in setting to work."