Monism. See Monads.
Monita Secreta Societatis Jesu, or secret instructions for the Jesuitic order, is a work which has been the cause of much dispute, both as to its authen- ticity and as to the veracity of its contents. In Europe the book has attracted some attention, and, in conse- quence, some controversy ; but in America it has been the subject of a very animated discussion, and we are therefore warranted in giving a detailed history of the book, and the position of the acknowledged authorities in such difficulties.
I. History of its Origin, Editions, etc. — The Monita was first printed in Latin, from the Spanish, at Cracow, the capital of Poland, with this title : Monita Privata Societatis Jesu, Notobirgas, Aimo 1612, by an unknown editor, with various " Testimonies of several Italian and Spanish Jesuits" confirmatory of the truth of the Mo- nita. The " Constitutions of the Society," though print- ed as earh' as 1558, had never been published. Ev- erj'thing connected with the rules of the order had been carefully concealed from the public eye. The Monita, therefore, was rapidly bought and everj^where circulat- ed, not only in Poland, but in Germany, Italy, and France. It gratified an intense curiosity, and was gen- erally recognised at once as a faithful portraiture of Jesuitism. Claude Acquaviva. " the ablest and most profound politician of his time," and " the beau ideal of Jesuitism," was the general of the order, exercising over it a complete control. The Monita was regarded then, as it has been since by Yan Mastricht and many other judicious scholars, as the product of his pen. The book certainly does not misrepresent him. The tactics are his, and may well have derived their inspi- ration from his wily brain. It does not appear that he ever denied them. He took no steps to prove the pub- lication a forgery. Down to the day of his death (Jan- uary 31, 1615), nearly three j'ears, the book passed un- molested, though the Jesuits were all-powerful in Po- land. The circulation of the Monita finally occasion- ed the appointment of a commission, July 11, 1615, by Peter Tylick, bishop of Cracow. His confessor was a Jesuit, as was the king's. Tylick admitted that " noth- ing is certainly known of its author ; but," he affirmed, " it is reported, and the presumption is, that it was ed- ited by the venerable Jerome Zaorowski, pastor of Gozdziec." The commission were instructed October 7th to inquire whether " at any time or place Zaorowski had been heard to speak approvingly of such a famous libel, or to affirm that the contents were true, or to say anything of the kind from which it can be gathered that he is the author, or, at least, an accomplice in the writing of this libel." The papal nuncio, Diotallenius, a few weeks after (November 14), added his sanction to the investigation. Yet the author was not found, and there remamed no other step for the Papists than the condemnation of the book to prevent its circulation. It was therefore put on the " Index" May 10, 1616, and a professor of Ingolstadt, the learned Gretser, commission- ed to prepare a refutation of the Monita's disclosures. This refutation, entitled Libri Ti-es Apologetici contra Famosum Lihellum, was published August 1, 1617, and a second decree was issued by the " Index" in 1621 to make sure of suppressing the circulation of the Monita.
Notwithstanding these eftbrts on the part of the Jes-
uits to disprove the authenticity of the work, their op- ponents continued to assert it genuine. Thus e. g. in 1633 Caspar Schoppe (Scioppius), a German scholar, himself a Roman Catholic, but a genuine hater of the Jesuits, published his Anatomia Societatis Jesu, in wliich, among other things, he presents a critique on a book that had come into his hands, which he calls " In- structio Secreta pro Superioribus Societatis Jesu." His analysis of the book proves it to have been the same, with slight differences, as the Monita Privata. l3ut his copy could not have been of the 1612 edition, for he attributes the discovery of the work to the plundering of the Jesuit coUege at Paderborn, in Westphalia, by Christian, duke of Brunswick. That was in February, 1622, ten years later. If his copy had been of the Cra- cow edition, he could not have made so gross a mistake. This, then, was another source, independent of the first, from which the book was derived. It was credibly re- ported that another copy had been found at the capture of Prague in 1631, only two years before. The Jesuit Lawrence Forer thereupon pointed out the apparent anachronism in his Anatomia Anatomia, but he fail- ed to convince Schoppe, nor could he shake the pop- ular belief. This position now seems reasonable indeed, for there is in the British Museum Library a volume printed at Yenice in 1596, and containing, at the end of the book, several manuscript leaves on which the whole of the Monita Seci-eta is inscribed, the writing being evidently of ancient date. The remote date would rather lead to the conclusion that this work came from some convent, probably Jesuitical, in which the Monita had been introduced for service. The book had now at- tracted the attention of people everywhere ; not only all over the Continent, but even in England the Monita was sought after, and so great was the demand that an edition appeared in England in Oliver's time (1658). On the Continent several editions were sent forth. A French version, entitled Secreta Monita, ou Adris Se- : crets de la Societe de Jesus, was published in 1661 at Paderborn, under the eaves of the Jesuit college. A second edition of Schoppe's Anatomia appeared in 1668. To aggravate the difficulty, the next year Henry Compton, canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and after- wards bishop successively of Oxford and London, pub- lished, in 9 sheets 4to, The Jesuits' Intrigues, tcith the Private histructions of that Society to their Emissaries. The latter had been " lately found in MS. in a Jesuit's closet after his death, and sent, in a letter, from a gentle- man at Paris to his friend in London." This, too, was the Monita Secreta, entirely independent of the others. At Strasburg, in 1713, Henri de St. Ignace, under the pseudonym of '• Liberius Candidus," a Flemish divine of the Carmelite order, published his Tuba Magna, ad- dressed to the pope and all potentates, on the " neces- sity of reforming the Society of Jesus." In the ap- pendix the Monita Secreta is reproduced in fidl. In proof of its authenticity, he gives these three reasons : " 1. Common fame. 2. The character of the document — wholly Jesuitical. 3. Its exact conformity with their practices. Besides, its having been found in the Jesuit colleges." The Jesuit, Alphonso Huylenbrock, publish- ed his " Yindications" of the society in the following year. De Ignace could not be shaken from his belief in the authenticity of the book, and issued a second edition in 1714, in which he says that " nothing, or next to nothing, is contained therein that the Jesuits have not reduced to practice." A third edition of the Tuba Magna was published in 1717, and a fourth in 1760. In 1717 the Monita was published by John Schipper, at Amsterdam, from a copy purchased at Antwerp, with the significant title of Machiavelli Mus Jesniticusi This was followed, in 1723, by an edition in Latin and English, published at London by John Walthoe, Jun., and dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole. A second edi- tion was issued in 1749. Another edition in French (probably a reprint of the Paderborn edition of 1661) was issued at Cologne in 1727.