For ten years he was the most famous spiritual director in Rome. Cardinals sought his guidance. Even the Pope admired him. His book, "The Spiritual Guide," was translated into every European language. Then they destroyed him.
Miguel de Molinos taught Quietism — a path of radical passivity before God. "Cease all activity," he wrote. "Let go of meditation, of contemplation, of every effort to reach God. Simply be still. In the stillness, God acts. In your passivity, God is active."
"The soul must be like a corpse,
Moved only by the hands that move it.
It must abandon all desire,
Even the desire for holiness.
It must abandon all will,
Even the will to abandon will.
Then, in this emptiness, God enters."
This teaching had dangerous implications. If the soul must abandon all will, even the will to resist evil, what becomes of morality? If God acts in our passivity, are we responsible for what we do? Molinos's enemies twisted his teaching into antinomianism — the doctrine that the saved can do no wrong.
They arrested him in 1685. They accused him of teaching immorality. The charges were exaggerated or fabricated, but that mattered little. His real crime was threatening the Church's power: if souls could reach God through stillness alone, what need for priests, for sacraments, for Rome itself?
"There are three kinds of silence," he wrote.
"Silence of words, silence of desires, silence of thoughts.
The first is easy. The second is difficult.
The third is the work of a lifetime.
But in the third silence, God speaks."
They forced him to recant publicly. They condemned him to life imprisonment. For the remaining nine years of his life, he lived in darkness, forbidden to write, forbidden to teach, forbidden even to speak of spiritual things. He died in prison in 1696, broken in body but — his followers said — unbroken in spirit.
His teaching survived. Quietism influenced Fénelon, Madame Guyon, William Law. The path of stillness could not be silenced.
Teaching 34
In stillness, God acts. Abandon all activity, all desire, even the desire for holiness. Become like a corpse in the hands of God. This radical surrender threatens all institutions, which is why they persecute it. The silence they cannot silence speaks louder than their condemnations.