Quiddity, or Quidity (quidditas, from quid,-wheLt), a term employed in scholastic philosophy as equivalent to the to tI i]v t'ivai of Aristotle, and denotes what was subsequently called the substantial form. It is the an- swer to the question, What is it? — quid est ? It is that which distinguishes a thing from other things,and makes it what it is, and not another. It is synonymous with essence, and comprehends both the substance and qual- ities; for qualities belong to substance, and by qualities substance manifests itself. It is the known essence of a thing, or the complement of all that makes us con- ceive of anything as we conceive of it as different from any or every other thing.— Krauth's Fleming, Vocab. of Philosophy, s.v.
Quien, Le. See Le Quien.
Quiercy, Council of (Concilium Cai-isiacense). An ecclesiastical council was there held in 849 by Hincmar and thirteen other bishops, who condemned Gottschalk, a Predestinarian, and sentenced him to be flogged and imprisoned at Hautvilliers, where he wrote a profession of faith similar to that which he had pre- sented at the Council of Mayence in 848. See Labbe', Concil. viii, 55.
Another council was held at the same place in 858. From this body the bishops of the provinces of Kheims and Rouen wrote a long letter, full of reproaches, to Louis, king of Germany, blaming him for invading France upon the invitation of the disaffected nobles of Charles, and declaring that it had come to their ears that, in the course of his march through the various dioceses, cruel- ties and abominations had been committed surpassing those of the heathen themselves. See Labbe, Concil. viii, 654.
Quietism is the doctrine that the highest character of virtue consists in the perpetual contemplation and
love of supreme excellence. It recognises this excel- lence only in God, and maintains that perfect union with God must be effected, and that it is best attainable by a state of passive rest or quiet, more or less absolute. The quietude aimed at, beginning with an act of so-called resignation of self, is a state of mental inactivity, without thought, reflection, hope, or wish. In this state it is supposed that the soul is brought so immediately into the divine presence as to be merged in it by an essential union. Quietism, accordingly, is not peculiar, for it re- quires no basis of Christology. It results from every philosophical system by an excess or perversion of con- templation, when the ethical tendency of the mind is too weak to preserve a just balance with the contemplative. Vaughan (Hours with the Mystics, vol. i, ch. ii, p. 43) observes that " the same round of notions, occurring to minds of similar make under similar circumstances, is common to mystics in ancient India and in modern Christendom." He gives a summary of Hindu mysti- cism, that it (1) lays claim to disinterested love, as op- posed to a mercenary religion; (2) reacts against the ceremonial, prescriptive, and pedantic literalism of the Vedas; (3) identities in its pantheism subject and ob- ject, worshipper and worshipped; (4) aims at ultimate absorption into the Infinite ; (5) inculcates, as the way to this dissolution, absolute passivity, withdrawal into the inmost self, cessation of all the powers — giving recipes for procuring this beatific torpor or trance ; (6) believes that eternity may thus be realized in time ; (7) has its mythical, miraculous pretensions, i. e. its theur- gic department ; (8) and, finally, advises the learner in this kind of religion to submit himself implicitly to a spiritual guide — his yaru. Of these articles, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth give quietism, properly so called; and it is a question whether the manifestation of this doctrine in Christianity adds anything essential to the definition of article five, so as to save Christian quietism from the pantheistic conclusions of articles three and four.
In the Christian Church this mystical theology is defined by its professors to be that doctrine which re- veals to man the hidden essence of God's Being. The way to this wisdom is in three stages, the purgative, the illuminative, the unitive ; the first purging the will from low affections, the second communicating to the intellect the knowledge of God, and the third leading the soul thus prepared to union and deification.
The table at head of page 846, and taken from Ar- nold's Historia Theologice Mysticce, gives this theology in outline. Some parts of it need an initiated inter- preter.
It is evident that this scheme, if at all carried out to its legitimate consequences, leads directly to the error of those enthusiasts who supposed the kingdom of Christ to be an earlier and inferior dispensation, the reign of the Spirit the later and perfect dispensation. Men are taught by it, not the superiority of love to knowledge in St. Paul's sense, but that they may become more perfect by disregarding the knowledge of an earlier state, by becoming again children in understanding. To that earlier state are referred the power of Christ's resurrection and the sacrament of the holy eucharist. What the higher sacrament of unction is does not ap- pear. In working out this scheme, Molinos taught as follows: 1. The perfection of men, even in this life, consists in an uninterrupted act of contemplation and love, which contains virtually all righteousness; that this act once effected lasts always, even during sleep, provided that it be not expressly recalled ; whence it follows that the perfect have no need to repeat it. 2. In this state of perfection the soul ought not to reflect either on God or on itself, but its powers ought to be annihilated, in order to abandon itself wholly and pas- sively to God. 3. Perfect prayer is this state of quie- tude, in which there should be absolutely no thought or wish or hope. Vocal prayer, confession, all external things, are but hindrances. 4. In prayer the first act of