MOLINOS, MIGUEL DE: The founder of Spanish quietism; b. at Saragossa Dec. 25, 1640; d. at Rome Dec. 28, 1697. The son of noble parents and educated at Coimbra, where be received his doctorate in 1669 or 1670, he settled at Rome, where he gained the friendship of distinguished ecclesiastics, through his personal piety. Among

Life and his patrons was Benedetto Odeschal- Writings. chi, who ascended the papal throne as Innocent XI. in 1676. In the previ ous year Molinos had published the work on which his fame rests-the Guida spirituale, the disinvolge l'anima a la conduce per l'interior camino all aquisto dells perfetta -contemplazione a del ricco tesoro della pace interiore (Rome, 1675; Eng. transl., The Spir itual Guide which Disentangles the Soul, and Brings it by the Inward Way to the Getting of Perfect Con templation, and . . . Internal Peace, London, 1688, and often; reprint, Glasgow, 1885; Golden Thoughts from the Spiritual Guide, Glasgow, 1883). To this was usually appended (after 1687) the Breve trattato della cottidiana communione. Though pub lished with reluctance by Molinos, both works proved most popular among Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. Long before the appearance of the "Spiritual Guide" the Jesuits had begun their propaganda in France against Jansenism and mysticism as well as against Protestantism. Even Molinos' favor with the pope and the esteem in which he was held as a priest and confessor in Rome could not prevent the Jesuits from regarding his concentration on inward piety to the neglect of outward religion as perilous. The first formal at tack was by the Jesuit Paolo Segneri, in his Cony cordia tra la fatica a la quiete nell' oratione (Bologna, 1681). Feeling ran high in favor of Molinos, and the Inquisition appointed a committee to investi gate the writings of Molinos and the Contemplazione mistica acquistata of his friend Petrucci, bishop of Jesi. The result was a complete approval of the writings of Molinos and Petrucci (1682) and the more or less complete condemnation of the polemics against them.

The struggle was now transferred from literature to the political arena. In 1585, at the instance of Pbre La Chaise, Louis XIV. urged the pope to proceed against Molinos' doctrines, which Teachings were endangering the Church. At first Condemned. referring the matter to the tribunal of the Holy Office, Innocent soon found that his favor to Molinos gave rise to suspicions of himself, and felt himself obliged to change his course. In 1685, accordingly, Molinos was placed under arrest. His position was rendered still more grave by the revelations of some 20,000 letters from all parts of the Roman Catholic world, showing not only the wide diffusion of his mystical teachings, but also their danger for the Church and even for morality. Molinos was now kept in confinement until he should recant, and in Feb., 1687, about 200 persons, some of high rank, were suddenly arrested by the Inquisition for "Quietism." In August of the same year the Inquisition pronounced its condemnation, and three months later the verdict was confirmed by the pope. Molinos escaped the stake by recantation, probably in harmony with his own teachings of submission, but was confined in a Dominican monastery until his death. While the records of the trial have never been published, though preserved in manuscript at Munich, the nineteen articles of accusation issued by the Inquisition (La Condemnation du Docteur Molinos et de la secte des Quietistes, Cologne [7], 1687), and the sixty-eight propositions on which the condemnation was based (reprinted from the decree of the Holy Office as an appendix to A. H. Francke's Latin translation of the Guida spirituale, Manductio spiritualis, Leipsic, 1687, and repeatedly since, e.g., in H. Denzinger's Enchiridion symbolorum, pp. 266-274, Würzburg, 1888), suffice to show that the unfavorable verdict was rendered partly because of unhappy expressions and partly because of pas. sages where misinterpretation might readily have been distinguished from true opinion. In any case a man who declared that meditation, confession, and outward mortifications were only for tyros, and who counseled monks and nuns to discard their rosaries and relics to serve God inwardly, could only have been regarded by the Jesuits as perilous to the traditions of the Church and as opening the way for the inroads of Protestantism. The excitement roused by his trial at a time when the continued triumph of the Jesuits and the still undecided struggle between papal authority and the Gallican Church formed the center of attention, was intense among both clergy and laity. In Germany this interest was heightened by the affinity between Molinos and the Pietists, who, feeling the common bond of inward piety, saw in Molinos an innocent victim of Jesuit intrigue. The persecution of his adherents lasted into the eighteenth century.

The teachings developed by Molinos in his Guida spirituale are based on principles adopted (on a Neo-Platonic basis) by the Church,

His developed by Dionysius the AreopaDoctrines. gite, and maintained more or less by the foremost ecclesiastical authorities. Mystical phenomena and testimonies were especially rich in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and Molinos himself was deeply influenced by St. Theresa (q.v.), St. John of the Cross, the Mexican hermit Gregorio Lopez (d. 1596), and Madame de Chantal. Otherwise his sources were such fathers and mystics as Augustine, Thomas Aquinds, Bernard, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Bonaventura; and the true bases of his doctrines were simple experiences of Christian piety. Endeavoring to reconcile the life of active service with the life of contemplation, Molinos seeks in his "Spiritual Guide" to show the way to inward peace. This way is fourfold: prayer, obedience, frequent communions, and inward mortification. Yet he is so far from urging abstraction from external affairs of life, that he characterizes the exercise of one's ordinary calling, provided it be done with true inward concentration and devotion to the divine will, as "virtual prayer." At the same time, he is in harmony with those who see the highest degree of mysticism in an inward abstraction which even excludes either theoretical speculations on the Godhead or practical longing for it. From meditation, necessary for the beginner, the mystic must pro-

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need to contemplation. As a practical counterpart to this, there must be a progressive resignation to the divine will. Thus there is an earthly counter part to the bliss of the saints in heaven, " the only difference being that they see face to face, we in dim faith." In this way the requirement to ab stain from speculation on, or longing for, the God head looses its harshness, and at the same time Molinos gives a rational basis to hypermysticism. Finally, the author advances to the still more ab struse height of "passive infused contemplation," a state of complete quietism and resignation in which contemplation has become habitual. At the same time Molinos clearly sees the dangers that be set the contemplative life-aridity, dim faith, and the temptations of the world. In obedience, abso lute subjection to the father confessor and subjection of self-will are required by Molinos as by many others. External mortifications, being too often mixed with this self-will, and even confession are enjoined by him only for beginners, the latter being merely a preparation for inward peace. Frequent communion, on the other hand, is recommended, because of the ineffable mystery in which the in finite God becomes incarnate in the finite creature.

(O. Zöckler�� .)

Bibliography: J. Bigelow, Molinoa the Quietist, New York, 1882; G. Burnet, Three Letters concerning the Present State of Italy, Written . . . in 1687 Relating to the Afair of Molinos, and the Quietists (London?), 1688; J. M. Guyon. The Life of Lady Guyon . . . . to which are added . . . the Lives of Worthy Persona . . , 2 vols., Bristol, 1772; J. B. Bossuet, Instruction cur les &aft d'oraison, Paris, 1687; idem, (Euvrea, xxvii. 493 sqq., Versailles, 1817; C. E. Welamann, Memorabilia eccleaiaatica, vol. ii., Stutt gart, 1745; K. E. Scharling, M. de Molinoa, Gotha, 1855; H. Heppe, Geschichte der quidiatischen Myatik in der katho lischen Kirche, pp. 110-135, 26G-282, Berlin, 1875; Men endea Pelayo, Hist. de loa hderodoxaa BepaRolas, vols. iii.-iv., Madrid, 1880; F. H. Reuseb, Index der verbotenen Bacher, ii. 610-619, Bonn, 1885; E. de Brogue, J. Ma billon d la eociM de 1'abbaye de 3t. Germain, i. 397 sqq., Paris, 1888; J. Kbhler, in 2KG, 1898, pp. 572-595; R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, ii. 171, 180, 242, 245, 8th ed., London, n.d.; KL, viii. 1750-57.