MOLINOS' GUIDE;--THE PART PLAYED IN IT BY THE DIRECTOR;--HYPOCRITICAL
AUSTERITY;--IMMORAL DOCTRINE.--MOLINOS APPROVED OF AT ROME,
1675.--MOLINOS CONDEMNED AT ROME, 1687.--HIS MANNERS CONFORMABLE TO HIS
DOCTRINE.--SPANISH MOLINOSISTS.--MOTHER AGUEDA.
The greatest danger for the poor paralytic, who can no longer move by
himself, is, not that he may remain inactive, but that he may become
the sport of the active influence of others. The theories which speak
the most of immobility are not always disinterested. Be on your guard,
and take care.
Molinos' book, with its artful and premeditated composition, has a
character entirely its own, which distinguishes it from the natural and
inspired writings of the great mystics. The latter, such as Sta.
Theresa, often recommend obedience and entire submission to the
director, and dissuade from self-confidence. They thus give themselves
a guide, but in their enthusiastic efforts they hurry their guide away
with them; they think they follow him, but they lead him. The director
has nothing else to do with them but to sanction their inspiration.
The originality of Molinos' book is quite the contrary. There,
internal activity has actually no longer any existence; no action but
what is occasioned by an exterior impulse. _The director_ is the pivot
of the whole book; he appears every moment, and even when he
disappears, we perceive he is close at hand. He is _the guide_, or
rather the support, without which the powerless soul could not move a
step. He is the ever-present physician, who decides whether the sick
patient may taste this or that. Sick? Yes; and seriously ill; since
it is necessary that another should, every moment, think, feel, and act
for her; in a word, live in her place.
As for the soul, can we say it lives? Is this not rather actual death?
The great mystics sought for death, and could not find it: the living
activity remained even in the sepulchre. To die, singly, in God, to
die with one's own will and energy, this is not dying completely. But
slothfully to allow your soul to enter the mad vortex of another soul,
and suffer, half-asleep, the strange transformation in which your
personality is absorbed in his; this is, indeed, real moral death; we
need not look for any other.
"To act, is the deed of the novice; to suffer, is immediate gain; to
die, is perfection. Let us go forward in darkness, and we shall go
well; the horse that goes round blind-folded grinds corn so much the
better. Let us neither think nor read. A _practical_ master will tell
us, better than any book, what we must do at the very moment. It is a
great security to have an experienced guide to govern and direct us,
according to his actual intelligence, and prevent our being deceived by
the demon or our own senses."[1]
Molinos, in leading us gently by this road, seems to me to know very
well whither he is conducting us. I judge so by the infinite
precautions he takes to re-assure us; by his crying up everywhere
humility, austerity, excessive scrupulousness, and prudence carried to
a ridiculous extreme. The saints are not so wise. In a very humble
preface, he believes that this little book, devoid of ornament and
style, and without a protector, cannot have any success; "he will, no
doubt, be criticised; everybody will find him insipid." In the last
page, his humility is still greater, he _lays his work prostrate_, and
submits it to the correction of the Holy Roman Church.
He gives us to understand, that the real director directs without any
inclination for the task: "He is a man who would gladly dispense with
the care of souls, who sighs and pants for solitude. He is,
especially, very far from wishing to get the direction of women, they
being, generally, too little prepared. He must take especial care not
to call his penitent _his daughter_; the word is too tender, and God is
jealous of it. Self-love united with passion, that hydra-headed
monster, sometimes assumes the form of gratitude and filial affection
for the confessor. He must not visit his penitents at their homes, not
even in cases of sickness, _unless he be called_."
This is, indeed, an astounding severity: these are excessive
precautions, unheard of before the days of Molinos! What holy man have
we here? It is true, if the director ought not to go of his own accord
to visit the patient, he may, _if she call him_. And _I_ say, she will
call him. With such a direction, is she not always ill, embarrassed,
fearful, and too infirm to do anything of herself? She will wish to
have him every hour. Every impulse that is not from him might possibly
proceed from the devil; even the pang of remorse, that she occasionally
feels within her, may be occasioned by the devil's agency.
As soon as he is with her, on the contrary, how tranquil she becomes!
How he comforts her with one word! How easily he resolves all her
scruples! She is well rewarded for having waited and obeyed, and being
ever ready to obey. She now feels that obedience is better than any
virtue.
Well! let her only be discreet, and she will be led still further.
"She must not, when she sins, be uneasy about it; for should she be
grieved at it, it would be a sign that she still possessed a leaven of
pride. It is the devil, who, to hinder us in our spiritual path, makes
us busy with our backslidings. Would it not be foolish for him who
runs to stop when he falls, and weep like a child, instead of pursuing
his course? These falls have the excellent effect of preserving us
from pride, which is the greatest fall of all. God makes virtues of
our vices, and these very vices, by which the devil thought to cast us
into the pit, become a ladder to mount to heaven."[2]
This doctrine was well received. Molinos had the tact to publish, at
the same time, another book, that might serve as a passport to this, a
treatise on _Daily Communion_, directed against the Jansenists and
Arnaud's great work. The _Spiritual Guide_ was examined with all the
favour that Rome could show to the enemy of her enemies. There was
scarcely any Religious Order that did not approve of it. The Roman
Inquisition gave it three approbations by three of its members, a
Jesuit, a Carmelite, and the general of the Franciscans. The Spanish
Inquisition approved of it twice;--first, by the general examiner of
the order of the Capuchins; and, secondly, by a Trinitarian, the
Archbishop of Reggio. It was prefaced with an enthusiastic and
extravagant eulogy by the Archbishop of Palermo.
The Quietists must have been at that time very strong in Rome, since
one of them, Cardinal Bona, was on the point of being made pope.
The tide turned, contrary to every expectation. The great Gallic
tempest of 1682, which, for nearly ten years, interrupted the
connection between France and the Holy See, and showed how easily one
may dispense with Rome, obliged the pope to raise the moral dignity of
the pontificate, by acts of severity. The lash fell especially upon
the Jesuits and their friends. Innocent XI. pronounced a solemn
condemnation upon the casuists, though rather too late, as these people
had been crushed twenty years before by Pascal. But Quietism still
flourished: the Franciscans and Jesuits had taken it into favour; the
Dominicans were therefore averse to it. Molinos, in his _Manuel_, had
considerably reduced the merits of St. Dominic, and pretended that _St.
Thomas, when dying, confessed that he had not, up to that time, written
anything good_. Accordingly, of all the great Religious Orders, that
of the Dominicans was the only one which refused its approbation to
Molinos' _Guide_.
The book and its author, examined under this new influence, appeared
horribly guilty. The Inquisition of Rome, without taking any notice of
the approbations granted twelve years before by their examiners,
condemned the _Guide_, together with some propositions not contained in
it, but which they extracted from the examination of Molinos, or from
his teaching. This one is not the least curious: "God, to humble us,
permits, in certain perfect souls (well enlightened and in their lucid
state), that the devil should make them commit certain carnal acts. In
this case, and in others, which, without the permission of God, would
be guilty, there is no sin, because there is no consent. It may
happen, that those violent movements, which excite to carnal acts, may
take place in two persons, a man and a woman, at the same moment."[3]
This case happened to Molinos himself, and much too often. He
underwent a public penance, humbled himself for his morals, and did not
defend his doctrine: this saved him. The inquisitors, who had formerly
approved of him, must have been themselves much embarrassed about this
trial. He was treated with leniency, and only imprisoned, whilst two
of his disciples, who had only faithfully applied his doctrine, were
burned alive without pity. One was a curate of Dijon, the other a
priest of Tudela in Navarre.
How can we be surprised that such a theory should have had such results
in morals? It would be much more astonishing if it had not. Besides,
these immoral results do not proceed exclusively from Molinosism, a
doctrine at once imprudent and too evident, and which they would take
good care not to profess. They spring naturally from every practical
direction that lulls the will, taking from the person this natural
guardian, and exposing him thus prostrate to the mercy of him who
watches over the sick couch. The tale told more than once by the
middle ages, and which casuists have examined so coldly, the violation
of the dead, we here meet with again. The person is left as
defenceless by the death of the will, as by physical death.
The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the _Spiritual
Guide_, says that this admirable book is most especially suitable to
the _direction of nuns_. The advice was understood, and turned to
account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, "That sins,
being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven,"
the Molinosists drew this consequence--the more we sin the higher we
ascend.
There was among the Carmelites of Lerma a holy woman, Mother Agueda,
esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring
provinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the
spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the
church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir; and there she
cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain
miraculous stones which she brought forth, as they said, with pains
similar to those of childbirth. This miracle lasted twenty years. At
last the report spread that these confinements were but too true, and
that she was really delivered. The inquisition of Logrogno having made
a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the
other nuns, among whom was the young niece of the Saint, Donna
Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the
commerce that her aunt, herself, and the others had had with the
provincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Lerma, and other friars of
the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece
showed the place where the children had been killed and buried the
moment they were born. They found the skeletons.
What is not less horrible is, that this young nun, only nine years of
age, a dutiful child, immured by her aunt for this strange life, and
having no other education, firmly believed that this was really the
devout life, perfection, and sanctity, and followed this path in full
confidence, upon the faith of her confessors.
The grand doctor of these nuns was the provincial of the Carmelites,
Jean de la Vega. He had written the life of the Saint, and arranged
her miracles; and he it was who had the skill to have her glorified,
and her festival observed, though she was still alive. He himself was
considered almost a saint by the vulgar. The monks said everywhere
that, since the blessed Jean de la Croix, Spain had not seen a man so
austere and penitent. According to their custom of designating
illustrious doctors by a titular name (such as Angelic, Seraphic, &c.),
he was called the Ecstatic. Being much stronger than the saint, he
resisted the torture, where as she died in it: he confessed nothing,
except that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred
masses that he had not said; and he got off with being banished to the
convent of Duruelo.
[1] Molinos, Guida Spirituale (Venetia, 1685), pp. 86, 161.
[2] "Scala per salire al cielo,"--_Guida_, p. 138. lib. ii. ch. 18.
[3] Condemned articles, pp. 41, 42., Lat. transl. (Lipsiae, 1687.)