ABSTRACT
The Society of Jesus was officially constituted on August 15, 1540 by the papal bull Regimini Militantis Ecclesiae. With this bull, Paul III sanctioned the institution created by Ignatius Loyola and his six companions who, precisely six years earlier, on the hill of Montmartre, had taken a solemn vow to put themselves at the Pope’s disposal for any mission that he might assign them. The first companions, including those who joined after 1534, were all students of the University of Paris. Some, such as Pierre Favre and Francis Xavier, were already graduates, and the others would become so before 1540. None of them, when they came together to form this fellowship, would have had an inkling of the field in which, more than any other, the Society of Jesus was to become famous throughout the world: education.
