Jesuits

The aristocratic scumbag who founded the Jesuits was Ignatius of Loyola, though he changed both his first & last name. He started as an assistant to the royal treasurer, to whom he was related, but spent most of his time “dancing, fencing, gambling, pursuit of the young ladies, and duelling”. Some injury then made him limp, so he had to give up his hobby of military violence, and apparently chose a career in spycraft instead. This Spanish origin may explain the Jesuit pun.

I actually don’t think that this Jesuit pun has much to do with the original Jesus in the New Testament. Just so that there’s no misunderstanding: I don’t trust the New Testament to be untainted. Any story can be rewritten to get a 2nd meaning, even a good & true story. But this Jesuit pun simply wouldn’t have worked when it was written, and Greek & Aramaic would’ve been the pun languages: In Aramaic, Jesus is called Yeshua, and “spy” is gashosh (Aramaic G is Arabic J). Those words are not similar at all, and the pun is also not similar to Greek Iesous.

But Ignatius grew up in Spain, which bordered Arab-speaking regions and had been ruled by Arab-speaking Moors. He also had studied in France and likely knew a bit of English too. So he probably made up this pun from Arabic jasus pronounced with /dʒ/, and either English Jesus also pronounced with /dʒ/, or French Jesus pronounced with /ʒ/. All these languages hadn’t yet been spoken by the international elites in ancient times, so the pun wouldn’t have worked then. But after Christianity had spread usage of the name Jesus, and Islam had spread usage of Arabic terms like jasus, the spooks had the chance to add yet another perversion to their pile of puns.