Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 6.3
What you will learn
- Describe how spiritual pride arises and why the tradition treats it as the most dangerous fault.
- Explain quietism, the Messalian controversy and the debates over Molinos and Fenelon.
- Explain why traditions insist that spiritual experience be tested by doctrine, Scripture and fruit.
- Apply a short set of questions to a spiritual practice to see whether it is going wrong.
The big idea
Prayer and discipline can fail in several ways. One is pride: a person uses spiritual progress to think better of themselves. Another is quietism, a name for teachings that treat passivity, with no effort or resistance of the will, as the highest state, and that the church judged to be harmful in several forms. A third is spiritual experience cut loose from doctrine, in which feelings or visions are trusted as their own authority. The great traditions answer all three with the same remedies: humility, Scripture, the faith of the church, wise counsel and the test of love.
Key terms
- Spiritual pride
- Pride in one’s own holiness or spiritual gifts, which Christian writers hold to be especially hard to see in oneself.
- Quietism
- A name for teachings, especially in seventeenth-century Catholic Europe, that stressed passive resting in God and discouraged active effort, petition and attention to one’s own sins.
- Messalians
- A fourth-century movement, also called Euchites (those who pray), accused of teaching that prayer alone was needed and that sacraments and work were useless. Historians debate how accurate the charges were.
- Enthusiasm
- In older usage, the claim to direct divine inspiration apart from Scripture and church.
- Heresy
- A teaching on a matter of the faith that a church holds to contradict its core doctrine. Churches differ on what counts as one.
- Orthopraxy and orthodoxy
- Right practice and right belief. The tradition teaches that each depends on the other.
- Fruits of the Spirit
- The qualities that Paul lists as marks of life in the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance (Galatians 5:22-23).
Background
Earlier lessons have set out the cautions within the traditions of prayer. This lesson gathers the three most common ways in which practice goes wrong and how the tradition has answered them. Each has a history. Pride was named by the desert fathers as the root fault. Quietism and the Messalians belong to specific controversies. The problem of experience without doctrine appears in every century and in every church, and it has recently grown in the culture around the churches.
A word about fairness. Controversies like these involved real persons, some of whom were treated harshly by church authorities, and historians continue to debate how fairly their teachings were represented. The lesson describes the charges and the answers, and notes where scholars disagree. The aim is not to condemn individuals but to understand the dangers that churches have named.
The remedy is not to give up prayer. The tradition’s critics of abuse are among its most devoted practitioners.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Spiritual pride
Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows a man thanking God that he is not like others and a man who beats his breast and asks for mercy (Luke 18:9-14). The desert fathers took this to heart. Cassian named pride the last and most dangerous of the eight thoughts, since it grows from success in the others. The more advanced the person, the subtler the danger: pride in fasting, pride in humility, pride in being unlike the proud.
Teachers offer practical signs. A person growing in grace tends to see their own faults more clearly and others’ more gently. A person caught in pride tends to see the reverse. Contempt for ordinary believers, impatience with correction and fascination with one’s own experiences are warning marks.
Step 2: The Messalians
In the fourth century, in Syria and Asia Minor, a movement of wandering ascetics came to be called Messalians or Euchites. Church writers accused them of teaching that a demon dwells in every person from birth and can be driven out only by constant prayer, that the sacraments do not help and that work is unnecessary. Local synods and the Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned them. Historians doubt that the accounts are wholly fair, since most of the evidence comes from opponents, and some think the movement was loosely defined. Some of the Macarian Homilies have been suspected of Messalian influence, which scholars debate.
The principle that remained is that prayer does not replace the sacraments, labor or the community of the church.
Step 3: Quietism
In seventeenth-century Catholic Europe, some writers taught a prayer of pure rest. Miguel de Molinos, a Spanish priest in Rome, taught in his Spiritual Guide (1675) a path of passive contemplation. Critics said that his teaching led people to abandon active prayer, petition, the use of the sacraments and resistance to temptation, on the grounds that effort disturbed union with God. In 1687, Pope Innocent XI condemned sixty-eight propositions drawn from his teaching, and Molinos was imprisoned.
A later case was that of François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, who defended a prayer of pure love, together with Madame Guyon, against Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. In 1699 Pope Innocent XII condemned propositions from Fénelon’s Maxims of the Saints, though in mild terms, and Fénelon submitted. Historians differ on whether the condemned views were truly held by those accused, and on how much politics shaped the affair.
Step 4: Experience without doctrine
A third failure is to trust experience on its own. Montanism in the second century claimed new prophecies. Medieval and Reformation groups claimed immediate revelations that set aside Scripture. Today many people describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, and some take up prayer methods without a doctrine to explain what they are for. The traditions respond that experience needs interpretation, since the same feeling can be taken in many ways. Doctrine, Scripture and the church supply a framework and a test.
The test of 1 John 4 is both doctrinal and moral: confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and love one another. Neither alone is enough. A person with correct doctrine and no love, or warm feeling and no truth, is out of balance.
Step 5: A set of questions
Teachers across traditions might offer a short list for self-examination. Does this practice increase my love for God and neighbor? Does it make me humbler or prouder? Is it in harmony with Scripture and the church’s faith? Can I speak of it openly to a wise person? Does it leave me able to do my duties? Is my health sound? If the answers are troubling, the tradition advises seeking counsel and, where appropriate, medical help, and being willing to stop or change a practice without shame.
- Where in my own life do I see subtle pride about spiritual things?
- What do I do with the idea that effort might disturb union with God?
- How do I tell the difference between resting in God and avoiding responsibility?
- What doctrine do I rely on to interpret my experiences?
- Do I trust a feeling more than Scripture, or the reverse?
- Whom could I ask to tell me honestly how my practice is affecting me?
Examples
Pride in humility
A man reads many books about humility and begins to note, with satisfaction, how humble he has become. A friend asks whether he has apologized to his brother, and he realizes that his attention has been on his own image. Cassian would recognize the pattern. (A constructed example.)
Passive resting
A woman reads that effort in prayer is unnecessary and stops confessing her faults, reasoning that God works without her. A friend points her to James 4:7 and Luke 11:9, which command resisting and asking. The church’s judgment on quietism rests on texts like these. (A constructed example.)
A feeling without a framework
A young man has a strong experience during a meditation retreat and concludes that all religions are the same. He does not examine what Christian doctrine says about this. A teacher asks him what the experience reveals about God, and what Jesus said about himself. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catholic Church condemned propositions of Molinos and Fénelon while keeping a contemplative tradition. It teaches that contemplation is a gift that does not dispense with effort, petition and the sacraments, and that private revelations must be tested. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila are held up as examples of balance.
Orthodox
Orthodox teaching regards prelest and the neglect of the church’s sacramental life as the chief dangers, and values the Fathers’ warnings against Messalianism. It stresses that prayer must be joined to repentance, the liturgy and obedience to a guide.
Protestant
Protestants worry about enthusiasm, the claim of private revelation, and about spiritual pride, which Edwards and Wesley both discussed. Their remedy is the word of God and the fruit of love. Some Protestant critics also see quietist tendencies in contemplative practice, and others find that charge unfair.
Scholarly view
Historians of religion note that accusations of quietism and Messalianism were often used in disputes about church authority, and that the accused views are hard to reconstruct. Scholars generally agree that the traditions took real dangers seriously, while cautioning against treating all contemplative prayer as suspect.
Why it matters
A student who takes up prayer seriously will meet these dangers. Naming them in advance, with the tradition’s own answers, makes it easier to recognize pride, passivity and unmoored experience in oneself. It also guards against two opposite errors: abandoning prayer because of its risks, and ignoring the risks.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: The church condemned contemplative prayer.
Correction: It condemned specific propositions it judged to deny effort, petition, the sacraments or moral struggle. Contemplative prayer remains honored in Catholic and Orthodox tradition.
Misunderstanding: Quietism and Messalianism are the same thing.
Correction: They belong to different centuries and settings, though critics saw similar tendencies: neglect of effort and sacraments. Historians distinguish them.
Misunderstanding: Doctrine is the enemy of spiritual experience.
Correction: The traditions hold that doctrine gives experience its meaning and its test. Without it, the same feeling can be taken in contradictory ways.
Misunderstanding: Pride is a problem only for beginners.
Correction: The desert tradition says the danger grows with progress, and may be hardest to see in the advanced.
Knowledge check
Why did Cassian regard pride as the most dangerous fault?
He taught that pride is the root of other faults and that it often grows out of success in overcoming them, so the more advanced a person is, the subtler the danger. Pride takes the form of spiritual self-congratulation, which the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector warns against.
What was condemned in Molinos and Fénelon?
Propositions that critics said taught passive rest in God that dispensed with effort, petition, the sacraments and resistance to temptation. Innocent XI condemned sixty-eight propositions linked to Molinos in 1687, and Innocent XII condemned propositions from Fénelon in 1699. Historians debate how fairly they were represented.
Who were the Messalians?
A fourth-century movement of ascetics in Syria and Asia Minor, accused by church writers of teaching that prayer alone was needed and that the sacraments and work were useless. They were condemned by synods and the Council of Ephesus in 431. Historians doubt that the reports are wholly fair.
What is the problem of experience without doctrine, and how do traditions respond?
Experience can be read in contradictory ways, so a feeling cannot interpret itself. The traditions respond with Scripture, the faith of the church, wise counsel and the test of fruit, following 1 John 4. Both belief in Christ and love of others are needed.
Think it through
- Which of the three failures do you find easiest to fall into?
- What does it mean to hold both the gift of prayer and the need for effort?
- How could you invite honest correction without becoming anxious about every fault?
Independent assignment
A check-up for a practice
In your notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Using the questions in Step 5, examine one of your own practices of prayer or discipline. Write your honest answers, and name any signs of pride, passivity or unmoored experience. Then write what you will change and whom you will tell. If your answers raise concerns about health or distress, note that you will seek medical or pastoral help. Do not share this with anyone.
Further study
- John Cassian, The Institutes Read the book on pride, the last of the eight faults.
- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ Read the passages on humility and on interior consolation.
- John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions Read Wesley’s sermons on enthusiasm and on the witness of the Spirit.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read for the Orthodox concern that experience be tied to doctrine and the church.
- Luke 18:11 The Pharisee’s prayer.
- 1 John 4:2 Confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
- James 4:7 Resist the devil.
- Galatians 5:22 The fruit of the Spirit.