Quietism or mysticism is a doctrine whose main point is that one must annihilate oneself in order to unite with God and live thereafter in perfect quietude, that is, in simple contemplation without reflecting at all and without concerning oneself in any way about what might happen to one’s body. Miguel Molinos, born in the diocese of Saragossa in 1627, went to settle in Rome, where he gained great respect and spread this doctrine in several books, among others, that to which he gave the title: la conduite spirituelle , [spiritual conduct], as well as in his prayer de quietudine ; from which his doctrine came to be called quietism, and his disciples quietists . [1]

He already had many followers by 1680; their opinions which, like many others, are so humiliating for human reason, caused a great stir in Rome, where these sorts of disputes are disdained for their content and judged with great solemnity on their form. Molinos was a great spiritual adviser [ directeur de conscience ] and more importantly, a good man, according to the justice rendered him by the pope – two reasons to have lots of enemies. Those who were defensive about the governing of consciences did not fail to see a dangerous heretic in a man whose ideas on spirituality were more worthy of pity than indignation.

Christine, whether out of natural compassion, or from hatred of Molinos’s persecutors, or perhaps from a desire to play a notable role in an affair with which Christendom was then preoccupied, very publicly took the part of this Spanish priest, and it did not take long for this princess to be accused of a crime for having fulfilled the duties of humanity toward an unfortunate priest. [2] The spiritual peace that he preached and which was then taking up all the attention of the Holy Office, caused Pasquin to say, pleasantly enough: “If we talk, the galleys, if we write, the gallows, if we keep quiet, the Holy Office. What shall we do?”

But in the end, Molinos’s enemies were so powerful and pursued his condemnation so energetically that it was declared in 1687 by Pope Innocent XI, then seated on the pontifical throne. Molinos’s books were burned and, to save his life, he was obliged to renounce his errors before the sacred college from a scaffold erected in the church of the Dominicans. He was then condemned to life in prison, where he died on 29 December 1689.

At this point, the doctrine of quietism caused a split in France, amid the disputes over Jansenism, proof that the human mind still had not made enough philosophic progress.

The dispute over quietism that rose up in this kingdom, says M. de Voltaire, is one of those excesses [ intémperances ] of the mind and theological subtleties that would not have left any trace in human memory without the names of the two illustrious rivals who fought it.  [3] A woman without reputation, really without much wit, and who had only an overheated imagination, set in combat the two greatest men then in the Gallican Church; her name was Bouvieres de la Motte . [4] She was born in Montargis in 1648, where she had married the son of Guyon, the contractor of the Briare Canal. [5] Widowed at a fairly early age, with wealth, beauty, and a mind made for high society [ le monde ], she became obsessed with what is called spirituality . A Barnabite monk from Geneva named Lacombe became her advisor. This man known for a rather common mix of passion and religion, and who died insane, plunged the mind of his penitent into the mystic reveries by which she was already gripped. Her desire to be a Saint Theresa of France prevented her from seeing how the French mind is opposed to the Spanish, and led her to go much further than Saint Theresa. The ambition to have disciples, perhaps the strongest of all ambitions, took complete possession of her heart. She went with her advisor to the small country where the titular Bishop of Geneva lived. There she gained authority through the generosity of the alms she gave; she gave speeches; she attracted proselytes and was driven out by the bishop, as was her advisor. They retired to Grenoble; there she distributed a small book entitled Le moyen court [the short method] and another under the title torrens written in her conversational style; and was again obliged to leave Grenoble. [6]

Then she went to Paris, led there by her advisor, and both of them having taught false doctrine there in 1687, the archbishop obtained an order from the king to have Lacombe imprisoned as a seducer and to put Madame Guyon, who had already secured powerful protectors, in a convent. Her friends, male and female, complained loudly that M. de Harlay, known for being excessively fond of women, persecuted a woman who spoke only of God’s love. In particular, the all-powerful protection of Madame de Maintenon secured Madame Guyon her liberty; she went to Versailles to thank her, was brought to Saint-Cyr, and attended the sermons given by abbé de Fénelon who was then the tutor to the royal children.

Born with a tender heart, his spirit was nourished by the finest literature. Full of taste and grace, in theology he preferred everything that was touching and sublime to that which was somber and difficult. His imagination was warmed by candor and virtue, as others were inflamed by their passions. His was to love God for himself. He saw in Madame Guyon nothing but a kindred spirit and allied himself with her without scruple. Thus, Madame Guyon, assured and proud of such a supporter, continued to spread all her ideas at Saint-Cyr. The Bishop of Chartres complained about her, the archbishop of Paris threatened to start harassing her again. Madame de Maintenon, who thought only of making Saint-Cyr a peaceful retreat, and who had in mind nothing but her own reputation and repose, broke off all relations with Madame Guyon. Finally, abbé de Fénelon himself advised his friend, to submit herself to the wisdom [ les lumières ] of the famous Bossuet, regarded as a father of the Church. She did so, received communion from the hand of this prelate, and gave him her writings to examine.

However, after Fénelon was made archbishop of Cambrai in 1695, Bossuet became jealous of his disciple’s reputation and the esteem in which he was held. He demanded that he join him in condemning Madame Guyon and subscribe to his pastoral instructions. M. de Fénelon did not want to sacrifice either his opinions or his friend; but, to the contrary, as he left for his new diocese, he had printed in Paris his book on the maximes des Saints , a work in which he believed he corrected everything for which Madame Guyon was blamed, and developed the orthodox ideas of contemplative devotees who elevate themselves above the senses and who aim for a state of perfection to which ordinary souls hardly even aspire. M. de Meaux and his friends rose up against this book and denounced it to the king as being as dangerous as it was unintelligible. Madame Guyon, again accused of spreading false doctrine, was imprisoned at Vincennes, where she wrote a book of mystical verses; then she was transferred to the Bastille.

M. Bossuet wrote against M. de Fénelon, and their writings divided the court and the town. Both of them sent their works to Pope Innocent XII and submitted themselves to his decision. The circumstances were not at all favorable to the author of the book des maximes . Father de la Chaise, did not dare support M. de Cambrai to his penitent, the king, and Madame de Maintenon abandoned him. Louis XIV wrote to Pope Innocent XII that the Archbishop of Cambrai’s book had been turned over to him as a pernicious work, that he had had it put into the hands of the papal nuncio, and that he urged His Holiness to make a judgment.

The Congregation of the Holy Office appointed as examiners for the case a Dominican, a Jesuit, a Benedictine, two Franciscans, a Feuillant, and an Augustinian. The cardinals and prelates usually left the study of theology to these monks, in order to spend their time on politics, intrigue, and idle pleasures. The consultants met thirty-seven times to examine thirty-seven propositions, and a majority judged them to be erroneous. The Pope, as the head of the Congregation of Cardinals, condemned them in a statement published and posted around Rome on 13 March 1699.

The Bishop of Meaux triumphed, but the Archbishop of Cambrai pulled a greater triumph from his defeat. He submitted completely and without reservation. He mounted the pulpit in Cambrai to denounce his own book. He prevented his friends from defending it. This unique example of docility from a scholar who could have become the head of a great party out of that very persecution; that candor and that simplicity, won everyone over and almost made them hate the winner. He lived thereafter in his diocese as a worthy archbishop and man of letters. That same year, 1699, Madame Guyon left the Bastille and retired to Blois, where she died twelve years later, on 9 June 1711, with the most tender feelings of spirituality. Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV .

Quietism was not a new idea dreamed up by Molinos. The doctrine conforms closely to spiritual Origenism which spread everywhere and whose adherents, according to Saint Epiphanius, were of impeccable purity. Evagrius, deacon of the church of Constantinople, while confined to the desert, published, says Saint Jerome, a book of maxims by which he claimed to take from man all feelings of passion; this is precisely the so-called perfection of the Quietists.

If we look to the East, we will find mystics there who, from time immemorial, have taught the transformation of all things into God and who have reduced all creation to a type of nothingness, that is to say, of stillness, another view held by the Quietists. The Brahmins push apathy or indifference, to which they tie all holiness, to such an extreme, that one must become stone or statue in order to achieve perfection. It is, they say, this profound lethargy of the spirit, this repose of all one’s powers, this constant suspension of the senses, which leads to man’s happiness and makes him resemble perfectly the god Fo .

It also appears that this perfect indifference of the Brahmins is the dogma favored by the Quietists and that, according to them, true beatitude consists in nothingness. “Then, in the triple silence of words, thoughts, and desires, finding oneself in a spiritual trance, in a mystical drunkenness, or rather in a mystical death, all the suspended powers are recalled from the periphery to the center. God, who is this center, makes himself felt in the soul by his divine touch, by tastes, by illapses, [7] by his ineffable sweetness. Its feelings being thus stirred, it [the soul] allows them to rest softly . . . and finds a delicious repose which places it above delights and ecstasies, above the most beautiful manifestations, ideas, and divine speculations; one knows not what one feels; one knows not what one is.” Do not imagine that M. de la Buyère, in the words that we have just read ( second dialogue on Quietism, p. 33 ) exaggerated here: you will see that his book is furnished with proofs. You will find there this passage from Molinos: “It is then that the divine spouse, suspending its faculties, puts it [the soul] into a sweet and tranquil sleep; it is in this state of lethargy that it enjoys an inconceivable calm, without knowing the source of its pleasure.” [8]

You will find there “that a spiritual soul must be indifferent to all things, whether the body or the soul, or worldly or eternal goods: must leave the past in oblivion and the future to God’s Providence, and be entirely in the present. The abandonment of the soul must go so far as to act without knowledge, like a person who no longer exists. The soul should no longer feel anything, see anything; it does not see God, understands nothing, recognizes nothing; there is no more love, light, or knowledge. . .. That this soul, feeling nothing, no longer takes the trouble to seek, or to do anything; it remains as it is; it is satisfied; but what does it do? Nothing, nothing, always nothing. That the indifference of this lover is so great that it can lean toward neither pleasure nor privation. Death and life are all the same to it; and, although its love is incomparably stronger than it ever was, it [the soul] can nevertheless desire paradise, because it remains in the hands of its spouse like things which are no more. This must be the effect of the most profound annihilation. That the perfect prayer of contemplation puts man outside of himself, delivering him from all creation, makes him die and enter into the repose of God. It is in admiration of its unification with God, without doubting its difference from God: it is reduced to nothing and does not know itself; it lives and lives no more; it acts and acts no more; it is and it is no more.” Dialogues v, vi and vii .

Several writers have endeavored to refute these mad visions eloquently, but they deserve only compassion and only contain unintelligible jargon.

1. Miguel de Molinos (1628-1696), The Spiritual Guide, which disintangles the soul, and brings it by the inward way, to the getting of perfect contemplation, and the rich treasure of internal peace (London, 1689). The original Spanish edition was published in 1675; this English translation is based on an Italian edition published soon after.

2. Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689), who abdicated in favor of her cousin in 1654, converted to Catholicism, and moved to Rome, was a great hero of the philosophes for her integrity and her patronage. See, e.g., Jean le Rond d’Alembert, “Memoirs of Christina, Queen of Sweden,” in Miscellaneous Pieces in Literature, History, and Philosophy by Mr. D’Alembert (London, 1764), 197-247.

3. What follows is based on Voltaire’s chapter on Quietism in Le siècle de Louis XIV (1751). See The Age of Louis XIV (London, 1779-1780), 2: 388-98.

4. Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon (1648-1717).

5. One of the oldest canals in France, construction on it began in 1604. Work was halted in 1611 and then resumed in 1638 when Jacques Guyon and a partner received letters patent from Louis XIII to complete the work. See Briare Canal.

6. Jeanne Guyon, Les Torrents Spirituels [Spiritual torrents] (1682) and Le moyen court et autres écrits spirituels [The short and easy method of prayer] (1685).

7. See Diderot’s article Illapse.

8. Jean de la Bruyère (1645-1696), Dialogues sur le Quiétisme. This work was published posthumously and its authorship called into question at the time. A recent scholar has described it as “a magnificently satirical vulgarization of the debates surrounding the theory and practice of Quietism.” Emma Gilby, review of Dialogues posthumes sur le quiétisme (1699), ed. Richard Parish (Grenoble, 2005) in French Studies 61 (October 2007): 514, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knm136.