The First Jesuits and the First Jesuit Universities

Abstract

John W. O’Malley, S.J. in The First Jesuits described well the basic principles of the Jesuit educational ministry that shaped Jesuit schools and universities. He did not discuss what constituted a Jesuit university because that was not the purpose of the book. After assessing the major contributi ons that O’Malley made to define the principles of Jesuit education, this article will pick up where O’Malley left off by describing the first Jesuit universities. Because Europe had different kinds of universities, the Jesuits adapted their university mission to them. They taught in four kinds of universities before 1773: the all-Jesuit university, the civic-Jesuit collegiate university, the civic-Jesuit Italian law and medicine university, and the civic university in which individual Jesuits taught but the Society had no institutional role. The First Jesuits of John W. O’Malley is a broad study of the first twenty-five years of the Society of Jesus. The book focuses on the development of Jesuit ministries, Jesuit culture, and their “way of p roceeding.” Indeed, the title of the manuscript that he submitted to Harvard University Press carried the title The First Jesuits: Their Ministries, Their Culture, and Their Way of Proceeding, 1540-1565 . But the press shortened it to The First Jesuits . 1 Even though the original title was long, the press should have kept it, because it exactly describes the book. It explains the principles and actions by which the first Jesuits defined and formed the Society.