theology is not a science of the imagination, but of feelings; we do not
understand it by study, but we receive it from heaven. Therefore in this
little work I have received far greater assistance from the infinite
goodness of God, who has deigned to inspire me, than from the thoughts
which the reading of books has suggested to me." The object of the work is
to teach that the pious mind must possess quietude in order to attain to
any spiritual progress, and that for this purpose it must be abstracted
from visible objects and thus rendered susceptible of heavenly influence.
This work received the approval of the Archbishop of the kingdom of
Calabria, and many other theologians of the Church. It won for its author
the favour of Cardinal Estraeus and also of Pope Innocent XI. It was
examined by the Inquisition at the instigation of the Jesuits, and passed
that trying ordeal unscathed. But the book raised up many powerful
adversaries against its author, who did not scruple to charge Molinos with
Judaism, Mohammedanism, and many other "isms," but without any avail,
until at length they approached the confessor of the King of Naples, and
obtained an order addressed to Cardinal Estraeus for the further
examination of the book. The Cardinal preferred the favour of the king to
his private friendship. Molinos was tried in 1685, and two years later was
conducted in his priestly robes to the temple of Minerva, where he was
bound, and holding in his hand a wax taper was compelled to renounce
sixty-eight articles which the Inquisition decreed were deduced from his
book. He was afterwards doomed to perpetual imprisonment. On his way to
the prison he encountered one of his opponents and exclaimed, "Farewell,
my father; we shall meet again on the day of judgment, and then it will be
manifest on which side, on yours or mine, the Truth shall stand." For
eleven long years Molinos languished in the dungeons of the Inquisition,
where he died in 1696. His work was translated into French and appeared in
a _Recueil de pieces sur le Quietisme_, published in Amsterdam 1688.
Molinos has been considered the leader and founder of the Quietism of the