QUIETISM

A name generally applied to the opinions of enthusiasts, who conceive the great object of religion to be the absorption of all human Sentiments and pa ions into devout comemplation and love of God. This idea has found its admirers and encomiasts in all ages. A sect called by this name (in Greek, Hesychasta) existed among the religious of Mount Athos; and in the 17th century it was giver, in France to a peculiar cla of devout persons with a tendency towards a higher spiritual devotion » Inch seems to have arisen, in great measure, out of a natural opposition [s. 1028]