A Vanished Arcadia | Page 8

their own profit. In this, if it was the case, they do not seem to have been greatly different from every other associated body of men, whether lay or clerical. The celebrated Spanish proverb, `Jesuita y se ahorca, cuenta le hace', meaning, Even if a Jesuit is hung he gets some good out of it, may just as well be applied to members of other learned professions as to the Jesuits.
-- * Madrid, 1770. --
The world has rarely persecuted any body of men conspicuous by its poverty, or if it has done so has rarely persecuted them for long. The Inquisition of Spain, violent against the wealthy Jews and comfortable Moriscos, took little notice of the Gipsies; but, then, `Pobre como cuerpo de Gitano' was and is a common saying in Spain.
As in the case of the Templars, persecution only began against the Jesuits when it became worth while to persecute them. Ignatius Loyola, Francisco Xavier, and Diego Lainez, as long as they confined themselves to preaching and to teaching, were safe enough. Even the annals of theological strife, bloodthirsty and discreditable to humanity as they are, contain few examples of persecutors such as Calvin or Torquemada, to whom, ruthless as they were in their savage and narrow malignity and zeal for what they thought the truth, no suspicion of venal motives is attributed.
Of the Jesuits' intrigues, adventures, rise and fall in Europe, much may be said in attack or in extenuation; but it is not the intention of the present work to deal with this aspect of the question. It was in Spanish America, and especially in Paraguay and Bolivia, where the policy of the Company in regard to savage nations was most fully developed, as it was only the Jesuits who ever succeeded in reclaiming any large number of the nomad or semi-nomad tribes of those countries.
Many excellent works in French, and the celebrated `Christianismo Felice nel Paraguay' of the Abbate Muratori in Italian, certainly exist. But neither Father Charlevoix, the French historian of the missions, nor Muratori was ever in Paraguay, and both their books contain the faults and mistakes of men, however excellent and well intentioned, writing of countries of which they were personally ignorant. Both give a good account of the customs and regimen of the missions, but both seem to have believed too readily fabulous accounts of the flora and fauna of Paraguay.* The fact of having listened too readily to a fable about an unknown animal in no way detracts from the general veracity of an author of the beginning of the eighteenth century, for in all other respects except natural history Charlevoix keeps within the bounds of probability, though of course as a Jesuit he holds a brief for the doings of the Company in Paraguay. Muratori is more rarely led into extravagances, but is concerned in the main with the religious side of the Jesuits, as the title of his book indicates.
-- * Though in this respect Charlevoix is not so credulous as Padre Ruiz de Montoya and the older writers, he yet repeats the story of the bird that cleans the alligator's teeth, the magic virtues of the tapir's nails, and many others. See Charlevoix, vol. i., bk. i., p. 27, Paris, 1756. [The story of the bird that cleans the teeth of alligators is very nearly true -- `Pluvianus aegyptius' has a symbiotic relationship with crocodiles in parts of Africa, and similar relationships exist throughout the natural world. -- A. L., 1998.] --
Many other French writers, as Raynal, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, have treated of Paraguay under Jesuit rule, but their writings are founded on hearsay evidence. A German, Father Dobrizhoffer, stands alone.* His delightful `History of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay', is perhaps the most charming book dealing with the subject. A simple and easy style, a keen habit of observation, long acquaintance with the country, a zeal for the conversion of the infidel, not only to Christianity, but to a more comfortable mode of life, to which he adds a faith sufficient to move the Cordillera of the Andes, but at the same time restricted by a common-sense and veracity not always observable in religious writers, render Dobrizhoffer a personal friend after the perusal of his writings.
-- * Dobrizhoffer's book was written in Latin, and printed in Vienna in 1784 under the title of `Historia de Abiponibus', etc. A German translation by Professor Keil was published at Pesth in the same year. The English translation is of the year 1822. --
English is singularly barren in regard to the Jesuits in Paraguay. Father Falconer, an English Jesuit, has left a curious and interesting book (printed at Hereford in 1774), but he treats exclusively of what is now the province of Buenos Ayres, the Falkland Islands, and of