Quietism

QUIETISM. — A mystical-religious conception that tends toward the attainment of union, indeed of identification, with God through an acquired state of total passivity, involving a diminution or denial of personal human responsibility. In the general meaning of the term, it is a deviation of the interior life, occurring in different places and periods, including among non-Christian religions; it nevertheless acquired a precise meaning in designating a broad movement that developed in the 17th century.

Quietist motives may be discerned in Brahmanism, in its longing to attain absorption into the great All, with renunciation of action and existence. In Buddhist treatises, the ecstatic practice to which the monks devote themselves is precisely defined: meditation consists in thinking of nothing; the long hours spent in this exercise often provoke nervous excitement. In the West, there were motifs derived from the Stoic ἀνάθετα, or from the Neoplatonic ecstasy described by Plotinus as a “bath of light,” through which the soul has an immediate vision of the One and becomes confused with it, divesting itself of every form.

In the history of Christian spirituality, the quietist strand emerged in the East with the Messalians or Euchites, condemned by the Council of Ephesus (451), with the doctrine of continual prayer, which was believed to have the absolute efficacy of expelling the devil from man. For them, dominated by a Manichaean vision of the struggle between Satan and the Spirit, human nature remains totally corrupt even after Baptism. Only continual prayer could uproot the roots of evil, produce impeccability in those who prayed, and transform the soul into the divine and immortal nature through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, sensibly perceived. From the concept of impeccability they drew immoral consequences (a phenomenon that later also occurred in other movements containing quietist infiltrations): “cum aliquie post imperpessionem se tradit delicia et libidini, id caret culpa et periculo” (Presbyter Timothy, De receptione huereticorum: PG 86, 51). Accentuated quietist tendencies are found in the 14th century among the Hesychast monks (v.) of Mount Athos; they sought the vision of the divine light through contemplation, extending to introspection of the heart, until God caused them to see within their own entrails his wondrous light, bearer of heavenly joy and invulnerability to the assaults of the enemy; the perfect even exempted themselves from vocal prayer (Gregory Sinaita, De quietudine et duobus orationis modis: PG 150, 1313 ff.). Pronounced quietist errors recur in the 13th century among the Brothers of the Free Spirit (v. FRATELLI DEL LIBERO SPIRITO) and among the Beguines or Beghards, implicated in the same condemnation by the Council of Vienne (1312). In all of them the impeccability of the perfect man is emphasized; he considered himself free from every obedience and from every ascetic practice, since the body and the senses were subject to the soul and to reason. In Eckhart, quietist motifs emerge in the 28 propositions condemned by John XXII. Moreover, quietist strains should also be sought in medieval lyrics and treatises on pure love: “O annihilated soul,” transformed in him (God), “care not for yourself” ... “For you there is neither war nor peace — neither summer nor winter — paradise or hell — for you there is only love” (Giannuzzo Sacchetti).

Among the Spanish Alumbrados, or illuminists, of the 16th and 17th centuries, the quietism of the Beghards was justified by a special theory of the contemplation of God and of the sufficiency of mental prayer (vocal prayer, whether private or collective, was disdained). Only mental prayer was obligatory by divine will and was to be placed before the obligatory Mass and obedience to superiors. For them, prayer essentially consisted in recollecting oneself in the presence of God, whereby “faith” ceased. In this state, acts of virtue and will, and even the faculties of the soul themselves, were suppressed, because one was guided by Grace and the Holy Spirit, to whose inspiration one had to abandon oneself. Some among them even claimed to justify illicit sexual relations as a communication of the Holy Spirit and a manifestation of divine union. They were persecuted by the Inquisition throughout the 16th century. On 9 May 1623, Andrea Pacheco, archbishop of Seville, condemned 76 of their propositions. Circles of illuminists were also formed in France, among whom the Guerinets, who arose in Picardy in the first decade of the 17th century, must be “numbered.” Perhaps other branches, still unexplored, existed in Italy. In Rome, in 1615, Fr. Aniello Arcieri and the “bizzocca” Sister Giulia de Marchi were condemned as “Beghards”; they had gained a large following in Naples and confessed to having taught and practiced a sensual pseudo-mysticism (cf. Bibl. Vat., codd. Urb. lat., 1696 and Vat. lat., 1273).

In the seventeenth century, quietism appeared as a coherent system, arising from the debate between predestination and free will, as a reaction against religious formalism, and as liberation from the fear of God projected into consciences by Protestantism and Jansenism; it claimed to be linked to the Spanish and Italian Rhineland mystics (from Ruysbroeck and Suso to St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, and St. Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi). It received its most famous MOLINISMO (v.), but had been prepared and cultivated by various tendencies and currents. Like the earlier analogous mystical conceptions that exacerbate the voluntary annihilation of the human will in divine transcendence, it is radically undermined by two fundamental errors: love (v.) and abandonment to the divine will must be carried as far as absolute indifference, even with regard to one’s own salvation; and true prayer is only that of pure faith, “acquired” contemplation, which leads the soul to total passivity, a state in which not only the operations of the intellect fall silent, but also the love of the will.

In Spain, Falconi (v.), in his posthumously published books, advocates, in the impossibility of meditating, the contemplative method, with total abandonment to the divine Will. In France, the Capuchin Benedetto da Canfield, in his Règle de perfection (Paris, 1609), teaches that perfection consists in the union of the intellect and will of the creature, which is “nothing,” with God, who is “everything,” through conformity to God’s essential will. This doctrine, which inspired a large part of the mystical Capuchin authors, was abusively interpreted by later Quietists; consequently, his work was placed on the Index (1689). Quietist leanings are found in the teachings of Jean de Bernières, p. Mauro del Bambino Gesù, Malaval (v.), who urged the faithful toward the nakedness of the spirit, requiring the destruction of every sensible image or intelligible species. In Italy, the first pre-Quietist text, dating from the end of the sixteenth century, is the Breve compendio intorno alla perfezione cristiana Bellinzaga (v.), written with the collaboration of the Jesuit Achille Gagliardi. But Italian Quietism took definite shape and centered on Card. Pier Matteo Petrucci (v.), who unified the Quietist theories of various Italian and foreign predecessors and owed more to the elaborations of Achille Gagliardi, Angelo Elli, Sisto de Cucchi, and Paolo Manassei than to Molinos. In Petrucci, the mysticism of love has anti-intellectual premises (God wishes to be loved, not known); and it differs from that of the other Quietists through its exquisitely Christocentric theocentric position. He was obliged to abjure his errors, expressed in 54 propositions, on 17 December 1687. Italian Quietism lived through medium-sized and minor figures of exceptional driving force, and through groups and conventicles, from the Pelagians to the Casale group of Scarampi, that of Matelica, and Lambardi’s Spoleto circle, to mention only the best known. Mons. Spina, Archbishop of Vercelli, was a precursor of Fénelon’Quietism (v.); the movement reached the eighteenth century with the Sicilian Quietism of the Augustinian friar Romualdo and of Suor Geltrude Cordovana, who ended on the stake.

To attain quiet and immersion in God—according to G. P. Rocchi, one of the various theorists—the soul must pass beyond the first degree of pure faith, still situated on a discursive-meditative plane, and reach the second, in which one acts through judgment. At that point, one must set aside “all the figures and images, even those with which people customarily meditate on the mysteries of the humanity of Jesus Christ” (vocal prayers not of precept are also omitted), and attend purely to God, with the simple gaze of the intellect. Remaining at this degree, the soul must neither renew nor perform distinct acts of virtue, nor linger over examinations, meditations, or general confessions, but listen to the Lord’s inspiration. In 1682, Card. Caracciolo of Naples denounced the danger of illusions in this regard: “They live in such deception that they consider all the lights and inspirations to be from God—those thoughts which the mind suggests to them during that act of silent prayer.”

The concept of deification, already expressed by p. Gagliardi, and of a consequent impeccability, enabled certain unscrupulous persons, such as Pandolfo Ricasoli and Suor Maria Cristina Rovoles, to justify their carnal pleasures. In some, Quietism took on vivid chiliastic coloring, as among the Leoni brothers, condemned in Rome on the day following Molinos’s abjuration (4 September 1687). In them, the sentiment of deification and a radical devaluation of sacramental life were joined to an eschatological expectation of Christ’s imminent reincarnation.

Of the Quietist chapels and groups, that of the Pelagians is the best known. Founded by Giacomo Casolo in Milan, at the Oratory of S. Pelagio, it developed chiefly in Val Camonica under the direction of the incardinated priest Marcantonio Recaldini, and took deep root “because of the crudeness of those ignorant peoples.” The followers, laymen and laywomen, met at night to pray, devoting themselves to mental prayer. They believed that no one could be saved without it and that it should be preferred to the reception of the Sacraments and to veneration of the Eucharist; they disdained vocal prayer. They despised marriage, fasts, penances, and other meritorious works. They asserted that eternal salvation could be attained only by belonging to their group and boasted of being authorized interpreters of Sacred Scripture and filled with the Holy Spirit. In 1656 the Pelagians were dispersed and Recaldini was banished. The group of Matelica, perhaps the most typical, founded and directed by the Oratorian Pier Matteo Romiti, consisted of thirty unmarried women; bound by the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they lived with their families and wore a collar that distinguished them. At Mass they kept their eyes lowered, not raising them at the Elevation, and did not move their lips. They held “meetings in the house of one of them to discuss spiritual matters.” P. Romiti initiated them into the prayer of quiet, at the beginning of which acts of faith and love had to be made but did not need to be renewed (and one of them stated that she had not repeated them for many years). They did not attend other churches and did not confess to other confessors without the permission of their director. Some said that they experienced illuminations, revelations, and visions, and suffered distress and languor arising from love of God. In such cases, P. Romiti, in order to increase divine love, would place “one hand on the side of the heart, squeezing it and telling them to love Jesus Christ.”

MOLINISMO (v.), the most famous representative of Quietism, worked in the Roman milieu. Its extreme consequences formed part of an esoteric teaching imparted in spiritual direction and correspondence, which came to light during the proceedings against him (1685–87) and was set forth in 68 propositions condemned by Innocent XI (bull Coelestis Pastor, 20 November 1687). Together with P. La Combe and M.me Guyon, of whom the former was both director and directed by her, Molinos’s sensualistic excesses are rejected; M.me Guyon develops and refines the motifs of pure love of God and places perfection in the passive life of faith, in which the soul, having returned into its interior, “with the impetuosity of the Alpine torrents,” is reunited with God, its center; and, annihilating itself, is lost in God. Through spiritual trials, the soul arrives at mystical death and resurrection in God: little by little God loses it in himself and communicates his qualities to it, depriving it of whatever belongs to II. While P. NICCOLÒ (v.) was among the principal opponents of Quietism in France, Fénelon always proved a staunch defender of the person and doctrine of M.me Guyon, while rejecting certain excesses; in 1695 he induced her to submit her doctrine to the examination of Bossuet, M.me de Noailles, and M. Tronson (v. AMORE PURO). After two years of passionate discussions between Fénelon and Bossuet—not always conducted serenely on the latter’s part—came the papal condemnation (12 March 1699) of the book L'explication des maximes des saints (Paris, 1 February 1697): Innocent XI’s brief Cum alias noted in 23 propositions of the Maximes various errors, ill-sounding phrases, or propositions verging on heresy, clarified by Fénelon, who fully submitted in the Instruction pastorale (15 September 1697) and in other writings. The principal errors may be reduced to four: 1) pure charity is the love of God considered in himself, without

mescolanza di motivo interessato, né timore delle pene né desiderio delle ricompense. 2) Nelle prove supreme della vita interiore, un'anima può essere persuasa d'una persuasione invincibile e riflessa, d'essere giustamente riprovata da Dio; e con questa persuasione fare a Dio il sacrificio assoluto della sua felicità eterna. 3) Nello stato di puro amore l'anima è indifferente quanto al suo perfezionamento nella pratica delle virtù (proposizione che Fénelon spiegò: i perfetti ricercano unicamente la gloria di Dio). 4) L'affermazione, infine, che le anime contemplative perdono, in certi stati, la vista distinta e riflessa di Gesù Cristo, fu spiegata nel senso che tale privazione è limitata al periodo della visione. È innegabile che questa ed altre affermazioni si prestavano alle esagerazioni quietiste.

Nella storia della spiritualità cristiana, il q. è stato un'esperienza negativa che ha dimostrato l'assurdo di un'ascesa mistica, che non sia basata sull'ascetismo quotidiano.

BIBL: documenti pontifici in Denz-U, 50-130, 1221-89, e in J. de Guibert, Docum ecclesiast. christ. perfectionis spectantia, Roma 1931, pp. 42-54, 115-27, 153-66, 228-40, 252-327. V. FENELON e MOLINOS e bibl. ivi citata; inoltre: C. Gennari, De falso mysticismo, Roma 1907; P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne, II, Parigi 1923, p. 323 sg.; III, ivi 1925, pp. 121 sgg.; IV, ivi 1928, capp. 5-9; P. Dudon, Le quiétisme au XVIIe siècle, in DFC, IV (1928), coll. 527-42; P. Pourrat, Le faux abandon, in DSP, I (1932), coll. 25-49; Melchior a Pobladura, Hist. generalis Ord. Fr. Minorum Capuccin., I, Roma 1947, pp. 197-200; I-II, ivi 1948, pp. 262-68; M. Petrocchi, Il q. italiano del Seicento, ivi 1948; S. Mottironi, Un nuovo documento per la storia del q. italiano, in Riv. d. st. d. Chiesa in Italia, 3 (1949), pp. 409-15; R. Guarnieri, Il q. in otto manoscritti digiani, ibid., 5 (1951), pp. 381-412; C. Truhlar, De experientia mystica, Roma 1951, pp. 93-112; P. Pirri, Il «Breve Compendio» di Achille Gagliardi al vaglio di teologi genuiti, in Arch. histor. S. J., 20 (1951), pp. 231-33 (con bibl. precedente).