Abstract

How can the evolution of the language in Ignatius of Loyola's writings between 1547 and his death in 1556 be explained? This article offers a new investigative path with the text itself as the point of departure; it challenges traditional theories based on the work of Juan A. de Polanco, Ignatius's secretary, and revisits the question of authorship in terms of Jesuit spirituality. To this end, it reviews several doctoral theses of recent years and utilizes the database Polanco and the Ignatian Concordances. Leaving aside the content analysis used previously, it studies the hapax legomena of Ignatian writings at three levels. Thus, it results in an index of the paragraphs of the Constitutions in function of the newness of their vocabulary leading to several conclusions. The final section offers an example of using this new method of analysis for the concrete case of the word 'discretion.'