Note 107 — Chapter V · MYSTICISM.[1] (continued 2)

Trois lettres touchant l’Etat present d’Italie, pp. 90-120 (Cologne, 1688)

These nineteen errors are here printed with their confutations, but without indication of date or of the authority under which they were prepared. They are also contained, with a different series of confutations, in the mass of papers concerning the Pelagini, in the Ambrosian Library, H, S., VI, 29, fol. 28.

This also contains (fol. 30) a series of instructions for detecting the Quietist heresy, consisting of a list of forty-three errors. Some of these set forth so concisely the leading tenets ascribed, with tolerable accuracy, to the Quietists, that they are worth presenting here.

21. They seek to annihilate the memory, the intellect and the will; to remember nothing, to understand nothing, to desire nothing, and they say that when they have thus emptied themselves they are refilled by God.

22. They say that God operates in their souls without coöperation; that their spirit is identified with God, so that they are purely passive, surrendering their freewill to God who takes possession of it.

23. Thus such souls are preserved from even venial sins of advertence and, if they commit some inadvertently they are not imputed.

24. Also some proceed to claim impeccability, because they cannot sin when God operates in them without their participation.

25. If these souls commit sinful acts, they say it is through the violence of the demon, with the permission of God, for their torment and purgation.

28. Examination of conscience to ascertain if there has been consent to such acts is not expedient, for it distracts introversion and disturbs the quiet of the soul.