The Cambridge Encyclopedia Of The Jesuits

Founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) has been praised as a saintly god-send and condemned as the work of Satan. With some 600 entries written by 110 authors - those inside and outside the order - this encyclopedia opens up the complexities of Jesuit history and explores the current life and work of this Catholic religious order and its global vocation. Approximately 230 entries are biographies, focusing on key people in Jesuit history, while the majority of the entries focus on Jesuit ideals, concepts, terminology, places, institutions, and events. With some 70 illustrations highlighting the centrality of visual images in Jesuit life, this encyclopedia is a comprehensive volume providing accessible and authoritative coverage of the Jesuits' life and work across the continents during the last five centuries.

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) obtained papal approval in 1540 for a new international religious order called the Society of Jesus. Until the mid-1700s the 'Jesuits' were active in many parts of Europe and far beyond. Gaining both friends and enemies in response to their work as teachers, scholars, writers, preachers, missionaries and spiritual directors, the Jesuits were formally suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 and restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814. The Society of Jesus then grew until the 1960s; it has more recently experienced declining membership in Europe and North America, but expansion in other parts of the world. This Companion examines the religious and cultural significance of the Jesuits. The first four sections treat the period prior to the Suppression, while section five examines the Suppression and some of the challenges and opportunities of the restored Society of Jesus up to the present.

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

Despite the significance of the Society of Jesus in Counter-Reformation Europe and beyond, important issues relating to the society's collective history are little understood. Harro Höpfl presents a pioneering study of Jesuit thinking, exploring how far the society developed and maintained a distinctive position on key questions of political thought.

In recent years scholars in a range of disciplines have begun to re-evaluate the history of the Society of Jesus. Approaching the subject with new questions and methods, they have reconsidered the importance of the Society in many sectors, including those related to the sciences and the arts. They have also looked at the Jesuits as emblematic of certain traits of early modern Europeans, especially as those Europeans interacted with 'the Other' in Asia and the Americas. Originating in an international conference held at Boston College in 1997, the thirty-five essays here reflect this new historiographical trend. Focusing on the Old Society- the Society before its suppression in 1773 by papal edict- they examine the worldwide Jesuit undertaking in such fields as music, art, architecture, devotional writing, mathematics, physics, astronomy, natural history, public performance, and education, and they give special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures, in North and South America, China, India, and the Philippines. A picture emerges not only of the individual Jesuit, who might be missionary, diplomat, architect, and playwright over the course of his life in the Society, but also of the immense and many-faceted Jesuit enterprise as forming a kind of 'cultural ecosystem'. The Jesuits of the Old Society liked to think they had a way of proceeding special to themselves. The question, Was there a Jesuit style, a Jesuit corporate culture? is the thread that runs through this interdisciplinary collection of studies.

The Tragic Couple is the first book length examination of the historical encounters between Jesuits and Jews from the modern period through the twentieth century where a special focus is placed on events leading to the Holocaust.

In the field of biblical hermeneutics one area which scholarship has neglected is Catholic biblical scholarship during the early modern era. A brief look through a standard textbook on hermeneutics reveals the all–to–common jump from Luther, Calvin and the other Reformers, straight to Spinoza and the pioneers of the historical critical method. Catholic figures during the Reformation and afterward are often considered too reliant on tradition, too entrenched in dogmatic disputes, and too ignorant of historical methods to be taken as serious scholars of Scripture. In this timely work, Dr. Murray addresses these misconceptions and systematically shows why they are inadequate and a more nuanced judgment is needed. Beginning with a much-needed overview of contemporary scholarship, the work examines the historical context and key influences on the Catholic approach to the Bible. After addressing the Council of Trent and the Jesuit Order, it then examines two influential Jesuit biblical scholars in the next two chapters, the Spanish Cardinal Franciscus Toletus (1532–1596) and the great Flemish exegete Cornelius a Lapide (1567–1637). Dr. Murray examines the life, works, secondary literature, and biblical hermeneutics of both great scholars showing that Catholics, just like their Reformed brethren, could be serious and quality exegetes. While they lacked the historical knowledge and tools of today, the work shows that the Jesuits were pioneers in showing how their faith and devotion could be compatible with a historical and scientific study of Scripture. Jesuit Biblical Studies After Trent is a must read for those seeking to understand how Catholics were approaching the Bible after the Reformation and for those seeking to learn how to integrate their personal faith with a scientific study of Scripture.