quietism, hesychasm, and catholicism

[FireDragon76]

Has there been any effort to reappraise the French Quietist movement of the 18th century among Roman Catholics? How can quietism be rejected as heresy when much of it sounds like the eastern practice of hesychastic theology, something that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as valid (at least for Byzantine Catholics and eastern Catholic churches)? Indeed, the late Fr. Thomas Hopko, the professor of dogmatic theology at St. Vladimir's Seminary, spoke favorably of Francois Fenelon's writings.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Interested.

That is a small part of what caused me some trouble, reading such works with no guidance. But I have found, under proper guidance, a better understanding (thanks TO the guidance). There is certainly a lot of commonality.

But I in no way know the answer to your question. I'm interested though.

 

[FireDragon76]

I am currently reading Madame Guyon's book on prayer. The similarity to hesychasm is readily apparent.

I think she was persecuted because the French court did not like religious controversy, so the motives were political. Fenelon got in to trouble for defending her mystical experiences as genuine, and furthering the controversy.

Roman Catholics seem most bothered by Quietists because of their seeming denial of the absolute obligation to participate in the sacraments. But I know from studying Orthodoxy, there is less emphasis on worship as an absolute obligation, with failure to comply with this obligation carrying mortal sin. I think its something left up more to the individual and their spiritual father or mother. Western Christians in general seem to focus on legal obligations to God, with scholastic Protestants and Catholics emphasizing different things (Protestants emphasize the futility of human works to merit salvation, catholics the necessity of them to merit salvation), but both suspicious of mysticism, perhaps because mysticism transcends legal categories of relating to God altogether.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I am currently reading Madame Guyon's book on prayer. The similarity to hesychasm is readily apparent.

I think she was persecuted because the French court did not like religious controversy, so the motives were political. Fenelon got in to trouble for defending her mystical experiences as genuine, and furthering the controversy.

Roman Catholics seem most bothered by Quietists because of their seeming denial of the absolute obligation to participate in the sacraments. But I know from studying Orthodoxy, there is less emphasis on worship as an absolute obligation, with failure to comply with this obligation carrying mortal sin. I think its something left up more to the individual and their spiritual father or mother. Western Christians in general seem to focus on legal obligations to God, with scholastic Protestants and Catholics emphasizing different things (Protestants emphasize the futility of human works to merit salvation, catholics the necessity of them to merit salvation), but both suspicious of mysticism, perhaps because mysticism transcends legal categories of relating to God altogether.

Ah, it was specifically Mme. Guyon's book and the practices therein that ... Made things begin to happen. With having already read a number of others and practiced different things. Not a happy state of affairs for a Baptist who had nowhere to go from there except Pentecostalism, but God brought me through in the end. Though I surely risked making a mess of things myself (and did). Lord forgive me. (Neither of those denominational groups are equipped to deal with what can happen as a result of such praying.)

It's difficult for me to shift sometimes into those different mindsets of what is "required" for salvation. As it stands now, I try to focus on my relationship with God, and (hopefully!) being made into the image and likeness of Christ. There are many tools offered by the Church to assist in this. Such kinds of prayers are one. (And yes, if anyone objects, there is of course belief in God, trust in the sacrifice of Christ, and repentance from sin, as well as baptism - all of that is a necessary foundation to even begin and continually necessary to progress.)

Legalism becomes either laughable or sad when one begins to understand a bit more of the nature of sin/hamartia/missing the mark.

 

[Thursday]

Has there been any effort to reappraise the French Quietist movement of the 18th century among Roman Catholics? How can quietism be rejected as heresy when much of it sounds like the eastern practice of hesychastic theology, something that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as valid (at least for Byzantine Catholics and eastern Catholic churches)? Indeed, the late Fr. Thomas Hopko, the professor of dogmatic theology at St. Vladimir's Seminary, spoke favorably of Francois Fenelon's writings.

Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation:

Quietism (Latin quies, quietus, passivity) in the broadest sense is the doctrine which declares that man'shighest perfection consists in a sort of psychical self-annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during the present life. In the state of "quietude" the mind is wholly inactive; it no longer thinks or wills on its own account, but remains passive while God acts within it. Quietism is thus generally speaking a sort of false or exaggerated mysticism, which under the guise of the loftiest spirituality containserroneous notions which, if consistently followed, would prove fatal to morality. It is fostered by Pantheism and similar theories, and it involves peculiar notions concerning the Divine cooperation in human acts.

In a narrower sense Quietism designates the mystical element in the teaching of various sects which have sprung 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 doctrine. Quietism finally, in the strictest acceptation of the term, is the doctrine put forth and defended in the seventeenth century by Molinos and Petrucci. Out of their teaching developed the less radical form known as Semiquietism, whose principle advocates were Fénelon and Madame Guyon. 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 explicit terms by the Church.

In its essential features Quietism is a characteristic of the religions of India. Both Pantheistic Brahmanism andBuddhism aim at a sort of self-annihilation, a state of indifference in which the soul enjoys an imperturbable tranquillity. And the means of bringing this about is the recognition of one's identity with Brahma, the all-god, or, for the Buddhist, the quenching of desire and the consequent attainment of Nirvana, incompletely in the presentlife, but completely 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 apatheia an ideal which recalls the indifference aimed at by the Oriental mystics. The wise man is he who has become independent and free from all desire. According to some of the Stoics, the sage may indulge in the lowest kind of sensuality, so far as the body is concerned, without incurring the least defilement of his soul. The Neoplatonists (q.v.) held that the One gives rise to the Nous or Intellect, this to the world-soul, and this again to individual souls. These, in consequence of their union with matter, have forgotten their Divine origin. Hence the fundamental principle of morality is the return of the soul to its source. The supreme destiny of man and his highest happiness consists in rising to thecontemplation of the One, not by thought but by ecstasy (ekstasis).

More here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12608c.htm

 

[~Anastasia~]

Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation:

Quietism (Latin quies, quietus, passivity) in the broadest sense is the doctrine which declares that man'shighest perfection consists in a sort of psychical self-annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during the present life. In the state of "quietude" the mind is wholly inactive; it no longer thinks or wills on its own account, but remains passive while God acts within it. Quietism is thus generally speaking a sort of false or exaggerated mysticism, which under the guise of the loftiest spirituality containserroneous notions which, if consistently followed, would prove fatal to morality. It is fostered by Pantheism and similar theories, and it involves peculiar notions concerning the Divine cooperation in human acts.

In a narrower sense Quietism designates the mystical element in the teaching of various sects which have sprung 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 doctrine. Quietism finally, in the strictest acceptation of the term, is the doctrine put forth and defended in the seventeenth century by Molinos and Petrucci. Out of their teaching developed the less radical form known as Semiquietism, whose principle advocates were Fénelon and Madame Guyon. 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 explicit terms by the Church.

In its essential features Quietism is a characteristic of the religions of India. Both Pantheistic Brahmanism andBuddhism aim at a sort of self-annihilation, a state of indifference in which the soul enjoys an imperturbable tranquillity. And the means of bringing this about is the recognition of one's identity with Brahma, the all-god, or, for the Buddhist, the quenching of desire and the consequent attainment of Nirvana, incompletely in the presentlife, but completely 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 apatheia an ideal which recalls the indifference aimed at by the Oriental mystics. The wise man is he who has become independent and free from all desire. According to some of the Stoics, the sage may indulge in the lowest kind of sensuality, so far as the body is concerned, without incurring the least defilement of his soul. The Neoplatonists (q.v.) held that the One gives rise to the Nous or Intellect, this to the world-soul, and this again to individual souls. These, in consequence of their union with matter, have forgotten their Divine origin. Hence the fundamental principle of morality is the return of the soul to its source. The supreme destiny of man and his highest happiness consists in rising to thecontemplation of the One, not by thought but by ecstasy (ekstasis).

More here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12608c.htm

Hmmmmm.

There is a great deal I do not recognize in these descriptions.

 

[Thursday]

Hmmmmm.

There is a great deal I do not recognize in these descriptions.

I don't know enough to comment, I just found the information. There is more detail at the link.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Has there been any effort to reappraise the French Quietist movement of the 18th century among Roman Catholics? How can quietism be rejected as heresy when much of it sounds like the eastern practice of hesychastic theology, something that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as valid (at least for Byzantine Catholics and eastern Catholic churches)? Indeed, the late Fr. Thomas Hopko, the professor of dogmatic theology at St. Vladimir's Seminary, spoke favorably of Francois Fenelon's writings.

Hesychasm is not quietism and Fr. Hopko had no credentials as a hesychast; he was not a monastic dedicated to continuous prayer, he is not known for having claimed to have attained unceasing prayer of the heart, and he also did not report seeing the uncreated light of Tabor.

The people best equipped to talk about Hesychasm are the Athonite monks who focus on it, and some Coptic monks who have also taken to pursuing it as part of the spiritual revival of the tradition of the desert Fathers in the Coptic monasteries, which have many more vocations now than in the past.

Historically, on Mount Athos, hesychasm or the practice thereof has come close to dying off every few hundred years, and has to be revived. So despite the initial work of documenting it under St. Symeon the New Theologian, who was a hesychast, and St. Gregory Palamas, who was a scholar and defender of hesychasm, hesychasm had become nearly extinct due to the hardships faced on the Holy Mountain during Turkish rule.

In the 1700s, St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius undertook to revive it, with the publication of the Philokalia.
This work was translated intk Romanian, Russian and other languages (and now English) and triggered a massive expansion of hesychasm in the late 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in Russia, where it revitalized the stagnant Russian church during the period of Czarist synodal control.

By the mid 20th century, Hesychasm had become nearly extinct due to the massive decline in the Athonite population owing to the rise of Communism. A new generation of Greek hesychasts, led by Elder Joseph the Hesychast, whose incorrupt skull I have venerated, brought it back, and they include Elder Ephrem, who founded a network of excellent monasteries in North America based out of St. Anthony's Monastery Florence, Arizona, and less notably, Elder Panteleimon, who founded the schismatic Old Calendarist jurisdiction HOCNA, from Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston, but who had succumbed to prelest, and was using Old Calendarism as a cover story or pretext to conceal his homosexual predation upon novice monks. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was in communion with HOCNA, but HOCNA broke off in 1986 to prevent ROCA from carrying through with an investigation of the elder. Only in the previous decade were his activities exposed and he resigned in disgrace. I have no idea if his monastery has any hesychasts or spiritual health after that episode; they do dominate the market for English language translations of the Greek Orthodox service books (arranged with /// notation for Byzantine Chant).

However one can certainly find some Hesychasts on Mount Athos or in the Egyptian monasteries. I expect it exists also to a large extent in the former Soviet union.

 

[FireDragon76]

I did not say that Fr. Hopko implied that the spirituality of Fenelon was identical to hesychasm, but clearly he saw a harmony between Fenelon and eastern Christian spirituality. He considered Fenelon more practical for laypeople.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

I did not say that Fr. Hopko implied that the spirituality of Fenelon was identical to hesychasm, but clearly he saw a harmony between Fenelon and eastern Christian spirituality. He considered Fenelon more practical for laypeople.

If he did, that would be another good reason to avoid his works.

SVS is hit or miss. Fr. John Behr is the first dean they have had who I like and agree with unequivocally. Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote brilliant works on the liturgy, but his proposed approach to liturgics was a trainwreck compared to tne approach taken by ROCOR.

A much more reliable seminary where one is more likely to find highly spiritually useful publications is Holy Trinity Seminary in nearby Jordanville. St. Vladimirs is the seminary of the OCA and also trains clergy for other jurisdictions, wheres HTS mainly trains seminarians for ROCOR.

 

[FireDragon76]

Your approach seems needlessly sectarian, honestly. Have you actually engaged with any of the French Quietists? Your argument seems to be that they are not worth considering because they are not eastern/byzantine.

 

[All4Christ]

If he did, that would be another good reason to avoid his works.

SVS is hit or miss. Fr. John Behr is the first dean they have had who I like and agree with unequivocally. Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote brilliant works on the liturgy, but his proposed approach to liturgics was a trainwreck compared to tne approach taken by ROCOR.

A much more reliable seminary where one is more likely to find highly spiritually useful publications is Holy Trinity Seminary in nearby Jordanville. St. Vladimirs is the seminary of the OCA and also trains clergy for other jurisdictions, wheres HTS mainly trains seminarians for ROCOR.

Fr Thomas Hopko (Memory Eternal) was extremely helpful for converts in my personal opinion. He has helped me through his writings and podcasts to understand much of Orthodoxy that I struggled with. Most people including priests have a few personal opinions that may not be perfect, but the vast majority of his works are very helpful. That's why we don't put all our faith in one person or have a pope (like the Catholic Pope, not like the Coptic pope).

 

[All4Christ]

If he did, that would be another good reason to avoid his works.

SVS is hit or miss. Fr. John Behr is the first dean they have had who I like and agree with unequivocally. Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote brilliant works on the liturgy, but his proposed approach to liturgics was a trainwreck compared to tne approach taken by ROCOR.

A much more reliable seminary where one is more likely to find highly spiritually useful publications is Holy Trinity Seminary in nearby Jordanville. St. Vladimirs is the seminary of the OCA and also trains clergy for other jurisdictions, wheres HTS mainly trains seminarians for ROCOR.

Also, SVS is the more liberal OCA school - St Tikhon's is more conservative - but SVS has been the seminary for some very pious and knowledgeable priests. On the other hand, there are some authors I don't read regularly that came from SVS, but I would say that about all seminaries. Even Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has a few controversial teachings, but the benefit of his work far outweighs the controversial parts.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Your approach seems needlessly sectarian, honestly. Have you actually engaged with any of the French Quietists? Your argument seems to be that they are not worth considering because they are not eastern/byzantine.

No, my approach is that they are not worth engaging with because of their deprecation of the Sacraments (similiar to the perversion of Hesychasm, the heretical Irmiaslavie movement of name-worshippers) and the divine office; also their idea of absorbtion into God comes across as Hindu and is soteriological heresy, to be blunt.

There are a large number of Roman Catholic monastic and mystical traditions I do love. I love the institution of Friars and particularly the Ransoming Friars like the Trinitarians, Servites and Mercedarians, who would collect the funds neccessary to purchase the liberty of Christians abducted by Moorish pirates (who were not just seafarers; several coastal roads even in Italy became extremely dangerous in the early Renaissance, and travellers on them risked murder or abduction by Islamic pirates of the Barbary Coast).

I also have an immense respect for the Benedictine monastic tradition, which is very similiar to our own Orthodox monastic tradition, and to the Carthusian system of organized hermitages or charterhouses, in which semi-solitary choir monks celebrate one mass together each day, then later pray a Missa Sicca and the Divine Office in their cells, which are very large, with two or more stories and an outdoor, private, walled garden to tend to; these monks are all priests, and so they in turn are assisted by the Lay Brethren, who live a more typical coenobitic existence. The choir monks aside from singing the hymns of the conventual office and mass, are silent most of the time, but do not commit to silence as severely as the Trappists; the choir monks go for a community walk through the woods around each Charterhouse on every Sunday in order to talk with each other and enjoy the company of their brethren, which comes across as a very healthy practice.

Thomas Merton wanted to be a Carthusian, but the lack of Charterhouses in the US at that time forced him to settle for the strictly observed Cistercian form of Benedictine monasticism, the Trappist tradition.

I would note however that in Orthodoxy he probably could have obtained a release to move to a Carthusian monastery; Orthodox monks are not as tightly bound by the rule of Stability, and many monks will move between monasteries in the course of their life.

 

[prodromos]

Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation:

Which reflects the opinion of the author of the article, Mr Adrian Fortescue, which in this case is absolute rubbish.

 

[FireDragon76]

No, my approach is that they are not worth engaging with because of their deprecation of the Sacraments (similiar to the perversion of Hesychasm, the heretical Irmiaslavie movement of name-worshippers)

I don't think Fenelon and Madame Guyon deprecated the sacraments (keep in mind this was a time when Catholic reception of Communion was rare). Some Quietists did not see the necessity of sacraments for a soul that had achieved divine union. Eastern Orthodox seem to have similar attitudes in regards to eremiticism.

also their idea of absorbtion into God comes across as Hindu and is soteriological heresy, to be blunt.

I don't think the "semi-quietists" taught this, but FWIW, hesychasts have been accused of the same thing by Roman Catholics.

 

[prodromos]

I don't think the "semi-quietists" taught this, but FWIW, hesychasts have been accused of the same thing by Roman Catholics.

Case in point, the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Hesychasm.

 

[FireDragon76]

That encyclopedia article would have to be over 100 years old, just doing a quick Wikipedia search on that name. I'd prefer to see more recent sources. At the time, a lot of Catholic theology was steeped in the oddities of Francisco Suarez's positivistic reading of Aquinas, which is a kind of fundamentalism that was responsible for a lot of the rigidity of pre-Vatican II Catholicism (an arid orthodoxy, something that plagued a lot of the Christian intellectual world).

 

[Paul Yohannan]

I don't think Fenelon and Madame Guyon deprecated the sacraments (keep in mind this was a time when Catholic reception of Communion was rare). Some Quietists did not see the necessity of sacraments for a soul that had achieved divine union. Eastern Orthodox seem to have similar attitudes in regards to eremiticism.

I don't think the "semi-quietists" taught this, but FWIW, hesychasts have been accused of the same thing by Roman Catholics.

Which is complete rubbish. Elder Ephrem, the leading surviving spiritual son of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, attends Matins and the Divine Liturgy on the dot at midnight health permitting. I once encountered him in the vestibule. waiting for the monk who helps him move around, and we had a blessed exchange.

Some of the "name worshippers" did deprecate the sacraments and thus are heretical.

Some Hesychasts since ancient times have replaced portions of the Divine Office with the Jesus Prayer as these arrow prayers were initially used by illiterate priests who could not use the Psalter. However, it is possible to achieve an unceasing prayer using the Psalter, and Coptic monks who focus on reading the entire Agpeya daily (which contains most, but not all of it) have been known to develop that faculty.

~

Quietism is profoundly uninteresting to me because its a heresy that developed within the RC church that the RC church extinguished that has parallels in our church but which offers no interesting new heresiological material to be digested. Its sort of like Jansenism, which was merely Calvinism operating under the cloak and cover of the Roman church; there was an attempt to set up a crypto Calvinism in the Greek church, but that was obstructed at the Council of Bethlehem at the reopening of the Church of the Nativity in 1672 by the bishops of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who produced a conciliar text which was accepted by the whole EO church denouncing it. Later, there was an attempt to get into the Coptic and Indian churches but that also failed.

Orthodox bishops, and the most orthodox of Roman bishops, are like good vinedressers, quickly snipping away any branches infected with the various diseases of heresy while nuturing the fruit-bearing vine.