Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/684

 QUIERZy

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QUIETISM

Quierzy, Councils op (Kierzy, Carisiacum). Several councils were held at Quierzy, a royal resi- dence under the Carlovingians, but now an insignifi- cant village on the Oise in the French Department of Aisne. The synod of September, 838, ordered the monks of Saint Calais in the Diocese of Le Mans to return to their monastery, from which they falsely claimed to have been expelled by their bishop. It also condemned some of the liturgical opinions of Amalarius of Metz (q. v.). The two succeeding councils, held respectively in 849 and 853, dealt with Gottschalk (q. v.) and his peculiar teaching respect- ing predestination. The first of these meetings sen- tenced the recalcitrant monk to corporal castigation, deposition from the priestly office and imprisonment; his books were to be burned. At the second synod the famous four decrees or chapters (Capilula) drawn up by Hincmar (q. v.) on the predestination question were published. They asserted: (1) the predestina- tion of some to salvation, and, in consequence of Di\'ine foreknowledge, the doom of others to everlast- ing punishment; (2) the remedy for the evil ten- dencies of free will through grace; (3) the Divine in- tention of saving all men; (4) the fact of universal redemption. The council held in February, 857, aimed at suppressing the disorders then so prevalent in the kingdom of Charles the Bald. The synod of 858 was attended by the bishops who remained loyal to Charles the Bald during the invasion of his do- minions by Louis the German. It addressed a firm but conciliatory letter to the invader stating its at- titude towards him for the intentions which he ex- pressed, but which his actions belied.

Hefele-Leclerq, Histoire des conciles, IV (Paris, 1911), i, 101-3, 150-6, 197-9, 212, 214-5, good bibliography.

N. A. Weber.

Quiet, Prater of. — The Prayer of Quiet is re- garded by all writers on mystical theology as one of the degrees of contemplation. It has to be dis- tinguished therefore from meditation and from af- fective prayer. It holds an intermediary place be- tween the latter and the prayer of union. As the name implies the prayer of quiet is that in which the soul experiences an extraordinary peace and rest, accompanied by delight or pleasure in contemplating God as present. In this prayer God gives to the soul an intellectual knowledge of His presence, and makes it feel that it is really in communication with Him, although He does this in a somewhat obscure manner. The manifestation increases in distinct- ness, as the union with God becomes of a higher order. This mystic gift cannot be acquired, because it is supernatural. It is God Himself who makes His presence felt in the inmost soul. The certain sight of God therein obtained is not the same as the light of faith, though it is founded upon faith. The gift of wisdom is especially employed in this degree, as it is in every degree of contemplation. According to Scaramelli the office of this gift, at least to a certain extent, is to render God present to the soul and .so much the more present as the gift is more abundant. Some authors say that this is not to be understood of the ordinary gift of wisdom which is necessarily connected with sanctifying grace and is possessed by every just man, but of wisdom as one of the charismata or extraordinary graces of the Holy Ghost, specially granted to pri\'ileged souls.

(1) .\t first the prayer of quiet is given from time to time only and then mcrpiv for a few minutes. (2) It fakes place when the soul has already arrived at the praver of recollection and silence, or what some authors call the pr.aver of simplicity. (3) A degree of prayer is not a definite state excluding reversions to former states. (4) A time often comes when the pr.aver of quiet is not only verv frequent but hnhitunl. In this Ciise it occurs not only .at the time set. for prayer, but every time that the thought of God presents itself.

(5) Even then it is subject to interruptions and al- terations of intensity, sometimes strong and some- times weak.

The prayer of quiet does not entirely impede the exercise of the faculties of the soul. The will alone remains captive. The intellect and memory appear to have greater activity for the things of God in this state, but not so much for worldlj* affairs. They may even escape the bounds of restraint and wander on strange and useless thoughts, and yet the will, at- tracted by the charm of the Divine presence, con- tinues its delights, not wholly in a passive way, but capable of eliciting fervent affections and aspirations. As to the bodily senses St. Francis de Sales tells us that persons during the prayer of quiet can hear and remember things said near them; and, quoting St. Teresa, he observes that it is a species of superstition to be so jealous of our repose as to refrain from cough- ing, and almost from breathing for fear of losing it. God who is the author of this peace will not deprive us of it for unavoidable bodily motions, or even for involuntary wanderings of the imagination. The spiritual fruits are, interior peace which remains after tlie time of prayer, profound humility, aptitude and a disposition for spiritual duties, a heavenly light in the intellect, and stability of the will in goodness. It is by such fruits true mystics may be discerned and dis- tinguished from false mystics.

St. Teres.\, The Way of Perfection; Idem. The Interior Castle; St. John of the Cross, The Obscure Niqht; Idem, Ascent of Mount Carmel; St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God; PouLAiN, The Graces of Interior Prayer (London, 1910).

A. Devine.

Quietism (Lat. quies, quietus, passivity) in the broadest sense is the doctrine which declares that man's highest perfection consists in a sort of psychical self-annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during the present fife. In the state of "quietude" the mind is wholly inactive; it no longer thinks or wills on its own ac- count, but remains passive while God acts within it. Quietism is thus generally speaking a sort of false or exaggerated mysticism (q. v.), which under the guise of the loftiest spirituality contains erroneous notions which, if consistently followed, would prove fatal to morality. It is fostered by Pantheism and similar theories, and it involves peculiar notions con- cerning the Divine co-operation in human acts. In a narrower sense Quietism designates the mystical element in the teaching of various sects which have spmng up within the Church, only to be cast out as heretical. In some of these the Quietistic teaching has been the conspicuous error, in others it has been a mere corollary of more fundamental erroneous doc- trine. QuietLsm finally, in the strictest acceptation of the term, is the doctrine put forth and defended in the seventeenth century by Molinos (q. v.) and Petrucci. Out of their teaching developed the less radical form known as Semiquietism, whose principal advocates were F^nelon (q. v.) and Madame Guyon (q.^v.). All these varieties of Quietism insist with more or less emphasis on interior passivity as the essential condition of perfection; and all have been proscribed, in very ex-plicit terms, by the Church.

In its essential features Quietism is a charac- teristic of the religions of India. Both Pantheistic Brahminism and Buddhism aim at a sort of self- annihilation, a state of indifference in which the soul enjoys an imperturbable tranquillity. And the means for Tsringing this about is the recognition of one's identity with Brahma, the all-god, or, for the Budd- hist, tlie quenching of desire and the consequent at- tainment (if Nirvana, incompletely in the present life, but <'ompletelv after death. Among the Greeks the Quietistic tendency is represented by the Stoics. Along with Pantheism, which characterizes their theory of the world, they present in their airiecia. an ideal which