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The question of what makes a Jesuit, the quidditas jesuitica, is thrown into stark relief by the extraordinary case of Diego de Alfaro (d.1639) and its apologia, written in 1644 by the former provincial of the Paraguayan province, Diego de Boroa (d.1657).2 Alfaro—superior of the missions of Guairá in the province of Paraguay—took up arms in 1639 and fought alongside his Guarani faithful against bandeirantes (slave raiders) from the Portuguese city of São Paulo; in the gunfight with these slavers, Alfaro was killed. Portuguese and Spanish detractors of the Society alike decried the scandal of a priest under arms, yet the Jesuits of the Paraguayan province rallied around their provincial in defending Alfaro’s actions as both heroic and virtuous. From their perspective, his actions were necessary, and he was, according to Boroa’s apologia, even a martyr for the faith. Documented cases of fighting Jesuits are, it would seem, extremely rare, and Boroa’s letter defending Alfaro’s actions is also remarkable in the claims it makes. Yet, the contention of this essay is first that the presence of the Jesuits in frontier missions around the Paraguay and Uruguay rivers was essential to the way events unfolded in the region, the very same events that brought about Alfaro’s violent death. Second, it was Alfaro’s Jesuit formation and mission that

Priestly Violence, Martyrdom, and Jesuits: The Case of Diego de Alfaro (Paraguay, 1639)