Historical Figure
Ignatius of Loyola
d. 1556
Basque Spaniard Catholic priest and theologian (1491–1556)
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Biography
Ignatius of Loyola, venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541.
Timeline
The story of Ignatius of Loyola, told in moments.
Born Inigo Lopez de Onaz y Loyola in the Basque Country. The youngest of thirteen children in a minor noble family. He grew up reading chivalric romances and dreaming of military glory.
A cannonball shattered his right leg at the Battle of Pamplona. During months of painful recovery, the only books available were a life of Christ and a collection of saints' lives. He read them because there was nothing else.
Gathered six companions at Montmartre in Paris and took vows of poverty and chastity. Francis Xavier was among them. This small group became the Society of Jesus. Ignatius was 43.
Pope Paul III approved the Jesuits as a religious order. Ignatius was elected the first Superior General. Within a generation, Jesuits would operate schools from Lisbon to Nagasaki.
In Their Own Words (9)
I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris; what have I learned? The language of doubt; but in me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men.
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 599., 1895
We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchical Church defines it thus.
No. 365., 1548
The picture. A great plain, comprising the entire Jerusalem district, where is the supreme Commander-in-Chief of the forces of good, Christ our Lord: another plain near Babylon, where Lucifer is, at the head of the enemy.
No. 138., 1548
Let me look at the foulness and ugliness of my body. Let me see myself as an ulcerous sore running with every horrible and disgusting poison.
No. 58., 1548
Imagine that leader of all the enemy, in that great plain of Babylon, sitting on a sort of throne of smoking flame, a horrible and terrifying sight. Watch him calling together countless devils, to despatch them into different cities till the whole world is covered, forgetting no province or locality, no class or single individual.
No. 140-141., 1548
Artifacts (15)
Christ, Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
Pieter de Jode I|Nicolaes Lauwers|Nicolaes Lauwers
Vita Beati P. Ignatii Loiolae
Saint Ignatius of Loyola|Peter Paul Rubens|Cornelis Galle I
Ignatius of Loyola kneeling before Christ, the Virgin and St Peter
Hieronymous Wierix
St. Ignatius of Loyola, from the series Male Founders of Religious Orders
Philips Galle|Hieronymus (Jerome) Wierix|Philips Galle
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: Based on Studies in the Language of the Autograph
“The intention is to produce a clear, idiomatic, and readable translation.” —LOUIS J. PUHL, SJ Louis J. Puhl’s translation of The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola has been a standard in the...
systematic use of terror against towns...an integral element of Tamerlane's stra...
00. An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers constructed of about 1,500 heads each. This has been described as a "systematic use of terror against towns...an integral element of Tamerlane's...
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