Controversy around Quietism (mysticism) in the late seventeenth-century French Church.

What is it about?

Explores the Catholic Quietist Controversy and the issues involved, and begins to look at connections with Quaker spiritual history and how and why Quakers found similarities between their teachings and these Quietists.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

There has been almost no research in Quaker historiography since the Quaker historian Rufus Jones' somewhat negative account of Quietism in the early twentieth-century. This article re-explores the connection between the French Quietists, Guyon, Fenelon and further Quietists, and Quakers of the time, setting the Quietist Controversy in its cultural, religious and political context in later seventeenth-century France.