Some Books of the Week
The Spiritual Guide, by Michael de Molinos (Hodder and Stoughton, 68.), is a charming edition of the classic of Quietism, reprinted from the edition of 1688, with a preface and notes by Dugald lVfacfridyen. The editor offers it, not as a work of scholarship, but as a devotional manual for iiractical use. A re-reading of the 'Spiritual, Guide brings out once more the extreme difficulty Of determining the line which separates the ," quietism" denounced by mystical theologians from the "passive contemplation" which they approve. Most of the teaching of Molinos is neither original nor dangerous. It is simply the routine teaching of its period on the inner life, and could be matched from dozens of orthodox works ; especially those produced by the French School. Where he and other mystics of his type err, seems to be mainly by omission and by excess. He reduces the communion of the soul with the Divine to one method alone, implicitly rejecting all other paths ; , and hence tends to limit spiritual experience to "exclusive mystics," and dissociate it from all external and corporate religious acts. This extreme individualism, this general recommendation of a quietude divorced from the operations of the will (" to do nothing is to please God" was one of the propositions on which he was condemned), has its obvious dangers. It easily allows devotion to become a pious day-dream, and simplifies over much the many-sided spiritual life of man. The cruelty with which the Quietists were at one period treated by the official Church gave to them something of the status of martyrs. But the fact that they were earnest and pious persons who suffered much injustice from the ecclesiastical power, and the persuasive charm of such works as The Spiritual Guide, should not blind students of mysticism to the unbalanced character of their teaching.
• * * *
Previous page
