ABADIE, JEAN. - Quietist and Pietist, born in Bourg (Bordeaux) on 13 Feb. 1610, died in Altona on 13 Feb. 1674. After completing his studies at the Jesuit College in Bordeaux, he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest in 1635. Due to an illness contracted from excessive penances, he was able to leave the Society in 1639; he then lived in Abbeville, Bazas, and Toulouse. It was during this wandering life that he became initiated into the theory and practice of mystical Quietism of Molinist stamp; in 1649 he was in La Graville; in October 1650, in Montauban, he became a Protestant; in 1659, in Geneva, he founded a small group of his devotees; in Middelburg, in 1666, he gathered other disciples, including Antoinette Bourignon. The Synod of Naarden demanded a retraction from him; due to his refusal, he was exiled and died in Altona. His disciples, known as Labadists, survived until the first half of the 18th century, having even founded conventicles outside Europe, from Maryland to Surinam.
Labadie’s work is fundamental for the study of the transition from Quietism to Pietism: Labadie, in his opposition to the Sacraments and religious practices, starts from the sufficiency of mental prayer (as had been affirmed by Quietism) to arrive at the Pietist affirmation of religious aconfessionalism, precisely because religion is an exclusive matter of the heart.