ABJECTION. — In ascetical theology, according to the etymology of the term (*abicere*), it signifies the generous renunciation of one’s own personality or dignity, not only by seeking or accepting humiliations but by embracing a habitual state of life held in contempt by men. Thus understood, abjection is therefore an attitude of the most excellent, indeed heroic, humility. Its inspiration is the example of Christ (Phil. 2:6-7), and hence it is frequently encountered in the lives of the saints and is proposed by the doctrine of perfection (*Imitation of Christ*, I, 2, 9; II, 2; III, 13, 20, etc.).
God often contributes to the formation of this state of abjection, especially in souls called to mystical union. These souls are subjected to particularly painful trials, independent of their free choice: external trials (repulsive illnesses requiring care that is disagreeable to others, persecutions, calumnies, deprivation of temporal goods or freedom, etc.) and internal trials (vehement temptations, darkness of conscience, vivid awareness of one’s sins or defects, desolation and sadness, repugnance toward good, doubts about the illusory nature of divine gifts, fear of one’s own damnation, etc.). «These are states in which the soul seems to succumb, decompose, and fall into ruin or vanish. Its faculties become inert; all the springs of its life are relaxed: it is like a spiritual paralysis. The soul has only the feeling of total annihilation» (C. Gay). Cf. passive purifications, the nights of the senses and of the spirit, in the doctrine of St. John of the Cross. Yet in such a state, the soul must be far from voluntary inertia; it must, on the contrary, struggle more than ever by corresponding to actual grace and remaining with Jesus in tribulation (cf. Lk. 22:28). As in abjection it dies and is buried with Christ, so with Him it will rise, freed from many obstacles to union with God, especially from vanity and pride.
In this regard, grave and most disastrous errors have not been lacking in the past: thus Luther, due to his pessimistic conception of fallen nature and his confusion of original sin with concupiscence, affirmed that all movements of concupiscence are already sins; and since such movements are inevitable, sin would likewise be inevitable. Similarly, the Quietists, whose MOLINISMO (v.), by making perfect life consist in a state of total annihilation of the soul’s faculties and of voluntary inactivity («to wish to act is to offend God, while He alone wishes to act in us»; he who has attained mystical death «no longer has a will, for God has taken it from him») arrived at moral irresponsibility, openly drawing the consequence that it is lawful to yield to temptation and commit nefarious acts, since this serves humiliation (Propositions 1-4, 41-52, 55-57, 61, etc., condemned by Innocent XI). Such enormities have nothing to do with the state of abjection as conceived by Catholic doctrine; hence the Church has condemned Quietism in its various forms, especially that of passivity in temptation.
In the 17th century, Fr. Giovanni Crisostomo of Saint-Lô, of the Third Order of St. Francis, founded in France the *Society of Holy Abjection*.
BIBL. — G. B. Scaramelli, *Direttorio mistico*, Venice 1754, treatise V; P. Dudon, *Le quietiste espagnol Michel Molinos*, Paris 1921; id., in *Recherches de science religieuse* (May-June 1914); P. Guerrini, *I Pelagini di Lombardia*, in *Scuola Cattolica*, 50 (1922), pp. 267-86; 358-81; A. Poulain, *Delle grazie d'orazione*, Italian trans., Turin 1926, ch. 24; J. de Guibert, *Documenta ecclesiastica christianae perfectionis*, Rome 1931, pp. 269-310; C. Gay, *Vita e virtù cristiane considerate nello stato religioso*, Italian trans., I, Padua 1937, pp. 452-56. Ambrogio M. Fiocchi