MOLINOS, DE, was b. of noble parentage at Patacina, in the kingdom of Aragon, Dec. 21, 1627. He received holy orders and was educated•at Pampeluna, and afterwards at Coimbra, at which university he obtained his theological degree. After a career of considerable distinction in his native country, Molinos went to Rome, where he soon acquired a high reputation as a director of conscience and a master of the spirit ual life. His private character was in keeping with this public reputation. He steadily declined all ecclesiastical preferment, and confined himself entirely to his duties in the 'confessional, and in the direction of souls. An ascetical treatise which he published, the title of The Spiritual Guide, added largely to the popularity which he had acquired in his personal relations; but there were not wanting many who, in the spe cious, but visionary principles of this work, discovered the seeds of a dangerous and :seductive error. Among these, the celebrated preacher, F. Segneri, was the first who ventured publicly to call them into question; but his strictures were, by the friends of Molinos, ascribed to jealousy of the influence which Molinos had acquired with the -people. By degrees, however, reports unfavorable to the practical results of this teach ing, and even to the personal conduct and character of Molinos or of Ids followers, began to find circulation; and eventually, in the year 1685, he was cited before the holy 'Mike, and submitted to close imprisonment and examination. In addition to the opin ions contained in his book, a prodigious mass oi papers and letters, to the number, it is said, of 20,000, found in his house, were produced against him, and he was himself rigorously examined as to his opinions. The result of the trial was a solemn condemna
tion of 68 propositions, partly extracted from 'his Spiritual Guide, partly, it would appear, drawn from his papers or his personal professions. These doctrines Maims was required publicly to abjure, and he was himself sentenced to close imprisonment, in which he was detained until his death in 1696, when he had entered on his 70th year. The opinions imputed to Molinos may be described as an exaggeration of the worst and most objectionable principles of quietism (q.v..). According to the propositions which were condemned by the inquisition, Molinos pushed to such an extreme the contempla tive repose which is the common characteristic of quietism, as to teach the utter indif ference of the soul, in a state of perfect contemplation, to all external things, and its 'entire independence of the outer world, even of the actions of the very body which it :animates; insomuch that this internal perfection is compatible with the worst external -excesses. These consequences are by no means openly avowed in the Spiritual Guide, but they appear to follow almost necessarily from some of its maxims, and they are said have been plainly contained in the papers of which were produced at his trial, and to have been admitted by himself. After the death of Molinos, no further trace of his teaching appears in Italy, but it was revived in more than one form in France.