ABSTRACT

Quietism, a polemical term that appeared in French, Italian, and Latin around 1680, designates a school of mysticism* characterized by the “prayer of quiet,” as opposed to asceticism and discursive meditation. It has its sources in the Scriptures* (Paul in particular) and in the teaching of the Fathers* (Clement of Alexandria); it is possible to follow its development in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Mary Magdalen Pazzi). The mystical renewal contemporary with the Tridentine reforms led in the 17th century to a dissemination of “heroic indifference” (Francis of Sales, Traité de l’amour de Dieu, 1619), in which the human will attempts to merge with the will of God*, without nonetheless disappearing: it was, as a matter of fact, in the context of Francis of Sales’s thought that the first quarrel concerning “pure love*” occurred, in 1641 (the Jesuit Sirmond, author of La défense de la vertu, was opposed to a disciple of Francis of Sales, Monsignor Camus, bishop of Belley, author of La défense du pur amour).