Molinos, MIGUEL DE, was born of noble parentage at Patacina, near Saragossa, December 21, 1640. He received holy orders and was educated at Pampeluna, and afterwards at Coimbra. At Rome he soon acquired a high reputation as a director of conscience and a master of the spiritual life. An ascetical treatise which he published, under the title of Guida Spirituale, added largely to the popularity which he had acquired in his personal relations; but there were not wanting many who, in the specious but visionary principles of this work, discovered the seeds of a dangerous and seductive error. Among these the celebrated
Jesuit preacher Segneri was the first who ventured publicly to call them into question. By degrees reports unfavourable to the practical results of this teaching, and even to the personal conduct and character of Molinos, or of his followers, began to find circulation; and eventually, in the year 1685, he was cited before the Holy Office, and submitted to close imprisonment and examination. In addition to the opinions contained in his book, a prodigious mass of 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 condemnation of sixty-eight propositions, partly extracted or inferred from his Spiritual Guide, partly, it would appear, drawn from his papers or his personal professions. These doctrines Molinos was required publicly to abjure, and he was himself sentenced to close imprisonment, in which he was detained until his death, 28th December 1697. The opinions imputed to Molinos may be described as an exaggeration of the principles of Quietism (q.v.)—the utter indifference of the soul, in a state of perfect contemplation, to all external things. See John Bigelow's Molinos the Quietist (New York, 1882); J. H. Shorthouse, Golden Thoughts from the Spiritual Guide (1884).