IGNATIUS LOYOLA (c. 1491–1556) was the author of Spiritual Exercises, founder and first superior general of the Jesuits, and a Christian saint. Iñigo López de Loyola was born to noble, wealthy Basque parents in the castle at Loyola, near Azpeitia, Guipúzcoa province, in northernmost Spain. Beginning in the mid-1530s he more and more frequently called himself Ignatius, although he also used his baptismal name Iñigo (Enecus in Latin). Up to 1521 his career gave no premonition of his subsequent development into one of the most influential religious figures of the sixteenth and later centuries.

Early Life and Education

In the patriarchal family in which Iñigo spent his boyhood, loyalty to Roman Catholic doctrines was unquestioning, and observance of religious practices and moral standards was about average for its social class. At about the age of twelve Iñigo received the tonsure; but...