Ignatius of Loyola

The rules that close the Spiritual Exercises ask the retreatant to lay aside private judgment and be ready to obey "the true Spouse of Christ our Lord", the hierarchical Church, and to praise both positive and scholastic learning. The thirteenth rule grounds this in one Spirit governing Christ and his Bride: what the hierarchical Church defines is to be held even against what one's own eyes report. The Autobiography adds a personal note that sits beside this rather than replacing it: his visions at Manresa so confirmed him that he would have died for the mysteries of faith "even though Scripture did not bear witness" to them.

we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides itSpiritual Exercises, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church militant", Thirteenth Rule [365] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Nothing found. Neither the Spiritual Exercises nor the Autobiography raises which books belong to the Old Testament. The Exercises' mysteries of the life of Christ draw on the Gospels, and nothing read cites a deuterocanonical book either as Scripture or as something less. His Constitutions and letters were not read.

Nothing found on whether creation and conscience reveal God clearly enough to leave everyone without excuse. The nearest material is devotional rather than epistemic: the Contemplation to Gain Love asks the retreatant to look at how God dwells in creatures and how every good descends from above, and the Autobiography records that God let him understand how He had created the world. Neither asks what a person without the gospel can know of God.

Devotion to the three Persons runs through both texts. The Autobiography says that at Manresa he prayed every day to each of the three Persons and also to the Trinity, wondered how there could be four prayers to the one Divinity, and was then given an understanding of the Trinity under the image of a single instrument. He could not hold back his tears that day, and for the rest of his life prayer to the Trinity brought him great devotion. The Exercises open the Second Week with "the Three Divine Persons" looking on the world and deciding together that the Second Person should become man. He never argues the doctrine; he prays it, and the prayer presupposes three Persons in one God. The 1900 English edition renders the image as "a lyre or harp"; modern translations from the Spanish give three keys of a keyboard instrument.

he had a great devotion to the Blessed Trinity. Every day he prayed to each of the three PersonsAutobiography, ch. III (ed. J. F. X. O'Conor, Benziger, 1900), p. 53

The Exercises speak of one Christ in whom divinity and humanity are both at work and distinguishable. In the Incarnation contemplation the Second Person of the Trinity becomes man; in the Third Week the retreatant is asked to consider how, in the Passion, the Divinity hides itself, choosing not to destroy Christ's enemies, and leaves the most sacred Humanity to suffer. The language is devotional rather than conciliar, and the Chalcedonian terms are not used, but the one who suffers is the Second Person made man [102], with power ascribed to "the Divinity" and suffering to "the most sacred Humanity", which is the shape of the two-natures view. Without the conciliar terms the cell leans rather than affirms.

the Divinity hides Itself, that is, how It could destroy Its enemies and does not do it, and how It leaves the most sacred Humanity to suffer so very cruellySpiritual Exercises, Third Week, First Day, First Contemplation, Fifth Point [196] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Never posed as a question in these terms. The unseen world of the Exercises is Lucifer, "the enemy of human nature", his demons and the good angels; the Two Standards meditation sets Christ's camp against Lucifer's. The other elohim of the Hebrew Bible, and whether they are a council, human rulers or nothing at all, do not come up in anything read.

The First Week has the retreatant consider Adam and Eve, who lived "without the original justice which they had lost", and "how much corruption came on the human race" through their sin. Yet the rules on thinking with the Church warn against preaching grace so insistently that "works and free will receive any harm, or be held for nothing". The fall is real damage and grace is necessary (no one is saved without it, the fourteenth rule says), but the will is not destroyed. Read together, the three passages fit the wounded view, though he states it as a caution about preaching rather than as an account of the will, so the cell leans rather than affirms.

Likewise, we ought not to speak so much with insistence on grace that the poison of discarding liberty be engendered.Spiritual Exercises, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church militant", Seventeenth Rule [369] (Mullan trans., 1914)

No position found on the basis of election; what the text gives is a rule about how predestination is preached. Mullan's English grants "much truth in the assertion" that no one is saved without being predestined and without faith and grace, and the rule then turns to caution: "We ought not, by way of custom, to speak much of predestination", and when it is spoken of, it should be done so that ordinary people are not led to think their works and prayers make no difference. Nothing read says whether election rests on God's choice alone or on foreseen faith.

Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestinedSpiritual Exercises, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church militant", Fourteenth Rule [366] (Mullan trans., 1914)

The sixteenth rule warns against speaking of faith without distinction in a way that leaves hearers careless of works, and the phrase it uses is the scholastic one: faith "formed in charity". The rule is about preaching and does not say which faith saves, but he uses the distinction without arguing for it, which suggests it was the frame he thought in: faith brought to life by love.

occasion be not given to the people to be lazy and slothful in works, whether before faith is formed in charity or after.Spiritual Exercises, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church militant", Sixteenth Rule [368] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Nothing found that says what justification is. The rules on faith, grace and free will (the fourteenth to seventeenth) are the nearest material, and they are about how to preach those subjects without making people careless of works; they never define whether justification is a declaration, a transformation or an infusion of grace. The Exercises were largely written before the Council of Trent's decree on justification (1547), and his Constitutions and letters were not read.

No position found on extent. The Incarnation contemplation has the three Divine Persons look on the whole world, see that all are going down to hell, and decree that the Second Person become man "to save the human race". The scope is the whole race and nothing in the text restricts it, but whether Christ died for the elect or for all, a question the schools of his day discussed in Lombard's terms, is not asked in the texts read. The passage is evidence about the purpose of the Incarnation, not an answer on extent.

that the Second Person shall become man to save the human raceSpiritual Exercises, Second Week, First Day, Contemplation on the Incarnation, First Prelude [102] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Nothing found on whether someone genuinely in grace can finally fall away. The hell meditation ends in thanks that God has not let the retreatant die in mortal sin, but nothing read addresses whether the regenerate will certainly persevere or receive perseverance as a further gift.

Nothing found on when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in a person. The Exercises speak much of the movements of the good spirit in the soul, but as a matter of discernment, not of when or how the Spirit takes up residence.

No position found on casting out spirits, though much on the fight itself. The Rules for the discernment of spirits are a manual for it, written for people on retreat. Against desolation he prescribes more prayer, meditation, examination and penance; the "enemy of human nature" loses heart when the person "opposes a bold front" to his temptations, and loses his hold when his suggestions are revealed to a good confessor or another spiritual person. In the Autobiography he comes to judge a recurring luminous apparition "the work of the devil". Nothing read speaks of commanding, rebuking or casting out a spirit. That is a silence in two texts about one's own soul, not a rejection, and the Church of his day used exorcism in its rites, so the cell is left without a stance rather than read as ordinary means only.

by insisting more on prayer, meditation, on much examination, and by giving ourselves more scope in some suitable way of doing penanceSpiritual Exercises, Rules for perceiving the movements caused in the soul (First Week), Sixth Rule [319] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Nothing found. The Exercises contemplate the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, but neither they nor the Autobiography say who should be baptised or what baptism accomplishes. His Constitutions and letters were not read.

Nothing found that names how Christ is present. What he wrote is devotional: the rules praise confession and frequent communion and hearing Mass often, and the Exercises say that at the Supper Christ instituted "the most sacred sacrifice" of the Eucharist. The Autobiography says that at the elevation he saw white rays descending and that "the manner in which Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament" was stamped on his mind, but it does not say what that manner is. The cell is left blank rather than filled from the teaching of his church; his Constitutions and letters, not read, are the place to look.

Nothing found on whether tongues, prophecy or healing continue. The Autobiography records visions of the Trinity, of Christ's humanity and of creation, and the Exercises' rules allow for consolation given by God directly "without preceding cause", so he expected God to act directly on the soul. But he never asks whether the miraculous gifts of the apostolic church continue, and his visions are not that question.

The First Week turns on it. The retreatant considers one who for a single mortal sin has gone to hell, "justly condemned forever", and the hell meditation asks for an interior sense of the pains the damned suffer, seeing "the great fires, and the souls as in bodies of fire", so that at least the fear of punishment may keep one from sin if love fails. The punishment is conscious and without end.

with the understanding how in sinning and acting against the Infinite Goodness, he has been justly condemned foreverSpiritual Exercises, First Week, First Exercise, Third Point [52] (Mullan trans., 1914)

Nothing found. Revelation 20 and the timing of Christ's return do not come up in the Exercises or the Autobiography; the Exercises' mysteries end with the Ascension.