Anti-Jesuit literature developed mainly from the seventeenth century onward. In the first hundred years of its life, the Society of Jesus experienced a strong numerical expansion and found success and favor among people. In addition, the Jesuits were becoming increasingly important in the ecclesial and political life of catholic Europe. This generated an excess of pride in some Jesuits, and aroused hostility and envy in those who did not view them favorably. This was probably the emotional ground that fueled a controversy of theological-pastoral origin. The Jesuits had insisted in the exercise of their ministries especially on God’s love for sinners and the abundance of his grace for all. They therefore invited the faithful to have frequent recourse to Communion as a means of allowing themselves to be transformed by God’s grace. This pastoral approach generated as a reaction the so-called “Port-Royal movement” (Jansenism). The adherents of this movement insisted above all on the necessity of ascetic rigor to obtain salvation. Per loro, l’accesso alla Comunione doveva essere raro e condizionato da una preparazione scrupolosa. The controversy between Jesuits and Jansenists flared up, and it was easy for the latter to discredit their opponents by accusing them of laxity. The Jansenists were fortunate to have among them one of the finest pens of the century, Blaise Pascal, whose polemical pages (“The Provincial Letters”) against the Jesuits had a considerable influence on the history of literature that followed, creating the commonplace of the lax and hypocritical Jesuit, ready to compromise by tempering moral rigor to please the powerful.