‘Upon the Quakers and the Quietists’: Quietism, Power and Authority in Late Seventeenth-Century France, and its Relation to Quaker History and Theology

This article poses a number of questions around its subject matter, from which I develop some explanatory frameworks and further conceptualizations of Quietism. It addresses, primarily, the questions: What is Quietism? What were the issues of power and authority leading to the infamous Quietist Controversy in late seventeenth-century France? And subsequently, what is the nature of Quietism’s connection to the Quaker theological tradition?