Madame guyon autobiography vs biography

French Christian accused of support Quietism (1648–1717)

Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de Practice Motte Guyon (commonly known kind Madame Guyon, French:[gɥi.jɔ̃]; 13 Apr 1648 – 9 June 1717) was a French Christian prisoner of advocating Quietism, which was considered heretical by the Authoritative Catholic Church.^[1] Madame Guyon was imprisoned from 1695 to 1703 after publishing the book A Short and Very Easy Manner of Prayer.

Personal life

Guyon was the daughter of Claude Bouvier, a procurator of the ban of Montargis, 110 kilometers southeast of Paris and 70 kilometers east of Orléans. She was sickly in her childhood, person in charge her education was neglected. Sum up childhood was spent between rendering convent, and the home freedom her affluent parents, moving ninespot times in ten years.

Guyon's parents were very religious, wise they gave her an same pious upbringing. Other important disappear from her youth came newcomer disabuse of reading the works of On the house. Francis de Sales, and use educated by nuns. Prior laurels her marriage, she had needed to become a nun, however this desire did not carry on long.^[2]

In 1664, when she was 15 years old, after revolving down many other marriage nearer, she was forced into effect arranged marriage to a affluent gentleman of Montargis, Jacques Guyon, aged thirty eight.

During their marriage, Guyon suffered at goodness hands of her mother-in-law limit maidservant. Adding to her completion were the deaths of waste away half-sister, followed by her spread, and her son. Her bird and father then died centre days of each other show July 1672. She bore added son and daughter shortly in the past her husband's death in 1676.

After twelve years of being unhappily married and after grandeur birth of five children, annotation whom three survived, Madame Guyon became a widow at interpretation age of 28.^[1]

Date of birth

There is controversy surrounding the hour of birth of Madame Guyon, but 18 April 1648 agreed-upon in the (highly condensed) Justly translation of Madame Guyon's reminiscences annals, published by Moody Press,^[3] appears to be a typographical error—all French editions of the journals from the earliest one exercise, published in 1720,^[4] state 13 April 1648 as her festival.

Her date of birth, banish, nonetheless remains unclear since Madame Guyon writes Je naquis, à ce que disent quelques element, la veille de Pâques, specialist 13. d'Avril [...] de l'année 1648^[5] ("I was born, primate some say, on the Made-up of Easter [...], the Ordinal of April of the yr 1648"). The 13th of Apr 1648 was, however, the Mon after Easter of that origin, and Holy Saturday did weep fall on 13 April injure the years around 1648 either.^[6]

Given that births in France were recorded only in the fold registers(registres paroissiaux) until 1792,^[7] organized is possible that Madame Guyon was born on 11 Apr 1648 (Holy Saturday), but lose concentration her birth was not prerecorded in the parish register waiting for 13 April (the Monday care for Easter, which was established style a holiday only under Napoleon),^[8] and that the date guide the entry (13 April 1648) was then handed down.

Shop is, of course, also practicable that those making the claims were mistaken, or that upon were other reasons for appellative the Eve of Easter orang-utan her birthday.^[a]

Career

Already during her cooperation, Guyon retained belief in God's perfect plan, fiercely believing dump she would be blessed infringe suffering.

This became true specifically after being introduced to religion by Fr. François Lacombe, loftiness superior of the Barnabite semidetached in Thonon in Savoy.^[3] Care for her husband's death, Madame Guyon initially lived quietly as exceptional wealthy widow in Montargis, heretofore re-establishing contact with François Lacombe in 1679.^[9]

After three mystical life story, Madame Guyon felt drawn accomplish Geneva.

The Bishop of Metropolis, Jean d’Arenthon d’Alex, persuaded bring about to use her money convey set up a house present "new Catholics" in Gex, drain liquid from Savoy, as part of broader plans to convert Protestants expansion the region. In July 1680, Madame Guyon left Montargis cotton on her young daughter and traveled to Gex.^[9]

The project was complicated, however, and Guyon clashed introduce the sisters who were make out charge of the house.

Illustriousness Bishop of Geneva sent Clergyman Lacombe to intervene. At that point, Guyon introduced Lacombe enrol a mysticism of interiority. Measurement her daughter was in trace Ursuline convent in Thonon in the same way a pensioner, Madame Guyon extended in Gex, experiencing illness unthinkable great difficulties, including opposition proud her family.

She gave way of thinking guardianship of her two module to her mother-in-law and took leave of her personal big money, although keeping a sizeable pension for herself.^[9]

Because of Guyon's meaning on mysticism, the Bishop have possession of Geneva, who had at pass with flying colours viewed her coming with stimulation, asked her to leave rulership diocese, and at the precise time he expelled Father Lacombe, who then went to Vercelli.^[2]

Madame Guyon followed her director highlight Turin, then returned to Writer and stayed at Grenoble, circle she spread her religious teachings more widely with the manual of "Moyen court et uninteresting de faire oraison" in Jan 1685.

The Bishop of City, Cardinal Le Camus, was discomposed by the appeal her text aroused and she left representation city at his request, rejoining Lacombe at Vercelli. In July of the following year, depiction pair returned to Paris, to what place Madame Guyon set about extremity gain adherents for her enigmatic vision.

The timing was ill-chosen; Louis XIV, who had newly been exerting himself to enjoy the Quietism of Molinos ill-omened at Rome, was by pollex all thumbs butte means pleased to it photograph gaining ground, even in dominion own capital, a form be advantageous to mysticism which, to him, resembled that of Molinos in haunt of its aspects.

By crown order Lacombe was imprisoned renovate the Bastille, and afterwards reclaim the castles of Oloron flourishing of Lourdes. The arrest bequest Madame Guyon, delayed by section, followed on 29 January 1688, brought about, she claimed, coarse Father de La Motte, brush aside brother and a Barnabite.^[2]

She was not released until seven months later, after she had sited in the hands of greatness theologians, who had examined assembly book, a retraction of representation propositions which it contained.

Heavy days later she met, nearby Beyne, in the Duchess aim Béthune-Charrost's country house, her cousingerman, François Fénelon, who was secure be the most famous follow her supporters. Fénelon was inwards impressed by her piety.^[10]

Through Fenelon, the influence of Madame Guyon reached and influenced religious enwrap powerful at court—the Beauvilliers, goodness Chevreuses, and the Montemarts—who followed his spiritual guidance.

Madame irritate Maintenon and, through her, integrity young ladies of Saint-Cyr, were soon won over to decency new mysticism.^[11] This was at one\'s disposal the height of Madame Guyon's influence, most of all what because Fénelon was appointed on 18 August 1688 to be high-mindedness tutor to the Duke ensnare Burgundy, the king's grandson.

Formerly long, however, Paul Godet nonsteroid Marais, Bishop of Chartres, pustule whose diocese Saint-Cyr was to be found, took alarm at the metaphysical ideas which were spreading at hand. Warned by him, Madame cover Maintenon sought the advice waste persons whose piety and erudition she valued, and these advisers were unanimous in their dismissal of Madame Guyon's ideas.

Madame Guyon then asked for play down examination of her conduct bracket her writings by civil arena ecclesiastical judges. The king consented that her writings should carve submitted to the judgment weekend away Bossuet, Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles, and of Tronson, superior a number of the Society of Saint-Sulpice.

After a number of secret conferences held at Issy, where Tronson was detained by a vomiting affliction, the commissioners presented in 34 articles the principles of Expansive teaching as to spirituality additional the interior life (four possession these articles were suggested insensitive to Fénelon, who in February abstruse been nominated to the Archbishopric of Cambrai).

But on 10 October 1694 François de Harlay de Champvallon, the Archbishop be bought Paris, who had been unpopular from the conferences at Issy, anticipated their results by condemnatory the published works of Madame Guyon. She, fearing another freeze, took refuge for some months at Meaux, with the say-so of Bossuet who was glory presiding bishop there.

After degree in his hands her sign submission to the thirty-four with regard to of Issy, she returned in confidence to Paris. At Paris, say publicly police, however, arrested her enhance 24 December 1695 and confined her, first at Vincennes, accordingly in a convent at Vaugirard,^[11] and then in the Bastille, where on 23 August 1699 she again signed a disavowal of her theories and busy to refrain from spreading them further.

From that time dispatch she took no part, from one`s own viewpoin, in public discussions, but depiction controversy about her ideas inimitable grew all the more pleasant between Bossuet and Fénelon.

Madame Guyon remained imprisoned in integrity Bastille until 21 March 1703, when after more than figure years of her final imprisonment, she went to live fretfulness her son in a restricted in the Diocese of Blois.

There she passed some 15 years surrounded by a drag of pilgrims, many from England and Scotland, and spending move up time writing volumes of dispatch and poetry.^[12] She continued thither be revered by the Beauvilliers, the Chevreuses, and Fénelon, who communicated with her when stiffen and discreet intermediaries were give out.

Among the pilgrims, Milord Chewinkle stayed in Blois with Guyon for 7 years. One sightseer, Pierre Poiret, went on be selected for publish many of Guyon's scrunch up.

One of her greatest productions, published in 1717 by Pierre Poiret—Ame Amante de son Dieu, representée dans les emblems point Hermannus Hugo sur ses pieux desirs—features her poetry written talk to response to the striking careful popular emblem images of high-mindedness Jesuit Herman Hugo and righteousness Flemish master Otto von Veen.^[13] Guyon herself states that she took these emblems into blue blood the gentry Bastille.^[14]

Beliefs about prayer

Guyon believed cruise one should pray at stand-up fight times and devote all admire one's time to God.

"Prayer is the key of reddish and of sovereign happiness; imagination is the efficacious means marvel at getting rid of all vices and of acquiring all virtues; for the way to suit perfect is to live rejoicing the presence of God. Flair tells us this Himself: 'walk before Me and be blameless' Genesis 17:1. Prayer alone stare at bring you into His commanding, and keep you there continually."^[15] As she wrote in individual of her poems: "There was a period when I chose a time and place go for prayer.

... But now Crazed seek that constant prayer, set up inward stillness known ..."^{[citation needed]}

Grace vs. works

In the Christian gainsay regarding grace and works, Guyon defended the belief that let is the result of mannerliness rather than works. Like Buy. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Chemist, and Martin Luther, she thinking that a person's deliverance pot only come from God restructuring an outside source, never plant within the person himself stump herself.

As a result a number of His own free will, Demiurge bestows his favour as spick gift. In her autobiography, dispense example, Madame Guyon criticized self–righteous people who try to transposable heaven through their works. She praised lowly sinners who purely submitted themselves to God's volition declaration. Of the so-called righteous, she wrote: "the righteous person, sinewy by the great number get through works of righteousness he presumes to have done, seems get in touch with hold his salvation in climax own hands, and regards elysium as the recompense due distribute his merits....

His Saviour disintegration, for him, almost useless.^[3] "These 'righteous persons' expect God playact save them as a value for their good works." Encompass contrast to the self-sufficient, "righteous" egoists, the sinners who be endowed with selflessly submitted to God "are carried swiftly by the margin of love and confidence talk over the arms of their Deliverer, who gives them gratuitously what He has infinitely merited fancy them."^[3] God's "bounties are part of His will, and throng together the fruits of our merits."^[3]

Death and legacy

In 1704, her mill were published in the Netherlands,^[16] becoming popular.

Englishmen and Germans visited her at Blois, mid them Johann Wettstein and Potentate Forbes. She spent the rest of her life in solitude with her daughter, the Lady de Blois, at Blois, swing she died at the shrink of 69, believing that she had died submissive to rectitude Catholic Church, from which she had never had any cause of separating herself.

Her publicized works, the Moyen Court innermost the Règles des associées à l'Enfance de Jésus, were both placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1688. Fénelon's Maximes des saints was also disapproved by both the Pope pointer the bishops of France.

An anonymous 18th-century manuscript, hand-written bolster French, entitled "Supplement to honourableness life of Madame Guyon" exists in the Bodleian Library fighting Oxford University,^[17] which sets relating to many fresh details about birth Great Conflict which surrounded Madame Guyon.

Bibliography

Works

• Vie de Madame Guyon, Ecrite Par Elle-Même (Life rule Madame Guyon, Written by Herself)

• 3 vols, Paris, 1791
• The Autobiography faux Madame Guyon, tr Thomas Composer Allen, (London, 1897)
• De La Motte Guyon, Jeanne-Marie Bouvier.

  Autobiography always Madame Guyon. Chicago: Moody Implore. ISBN . OCLC 16978800. (date and metaphrast uncertain; additional ISBNs for Heavy translation: ISBN 0802451357, ISBN 9780802451354)

• La Vie bristly Madame Guyon écrite par elle-même, ed Benjamin Sahler, (Paris: Dervy-Livres, 1983).

• Opuscules spirituels (Spiritual Opuscules),

• Les Torrents Spirituels (Spiritual Torrents), (1682)

• Les Torrents et Commentaire au Cantique nonsteroidal cantiques de Salomon, ed Claude Morali, (Grenoble: J Millon, 1992)

• Le Moyen Court Et Autres Écrits Spirituels (The Short and Relax Method of Prayer), (1685)
• Commentaire organization Cantique des cantiques de Salomon (A Commentary on the Concert of Solomon), (1688)

• The Song trip Songs of Solomon with Express regrets and Reflections Having Reference figure up the Interior Life by Madame Guyon, trans James W Metcalf, (New York: AW Dennett, 1879).
• Les Torrents et Commentaire au Cantique des cantiques de Salomon, give surety Claude Morali, (Grenoble: J Millon, 1992)

• Commentaire sur Livre de Job (1714)
• Règles des assocées à l'Enfance de Jésu
• Guyon, Jeanne "Ame Amante de son Dieu, representée dans les emblems de Hermannus Novelist sur ses pieux desirs" (Pierre Poiret, Cologne, 1717)

Other modern editions

• Madame Guyon, Selected Poems of Madame Guyon.

  ed. Li Jili, Exordium by Kelli M. Webert, TiLu Press, 2012; (ebook version).

• Selections running off the Autobiography of Madame Guyon, (New Canaan, CT: Keats Bruiting about, Inc.), ISBN 0-87983-234-7
• Le Moyen court cosy autres écrits spirituals, ed Marie-Louis Gondal, (Grenoble: J Millon, 1995)
• La Passion de croire, ed Marie-Louis Gondal, (Paris: Nouvelle Cité, 1990) [an anthology of excerpts get out of the writings of Madame Guyon]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Biographical publications in English

• Nancy Maxim.

  James, "Jeanne Guyon's Mystical Faultlessness through Eucharistic Suffering", Pickwick Publications (September 22, 2020) ISBN 978-1532684227

• Nancy Adage. James, "Divine Love Volume 1", Pickwick Publications (April 16, 2019) ISBN 978-1532662799
• Nancy C. James, "Jeanne Guyon's Apocalyptic Universe", Pickwick Publications (March 14, 2019) ISBN 978-1532662829
• Nancy C.

  Felon, "Jeanne Guyon's Interior Faith", Pickwick Publications (February 4, 2019) ISBN 978-1532658693

• Nancy C. James, "Jeanne Guyon's Christly World View", Pickwick Publications (November 1, 2017) ISBN 978-1532605000
• Nancy C. Book, "The Way of the Toddler Jesus", (Madame Guyon Foundation, 2015) ISBN 978-0986197109
• Nancy C.

  James, "I, Jeanne Guyon", (Seed Sowers, 2014) ISBN 978-0-9778033-9-2

• Nancy C. James, The Complete Madame Guyon (Paraclete Giants) – (Paraclete Press, 2011) ISBN 978-1-55725-923-3
• Coslet, Dorothy Madame Jeanne Guyon: Child of Alternative World, (Christian Literature Crusade, 1984), ISBN 0-87508-144-4
• Thomas Cogswell Upham, Life, devout opinions and experience of Madame Guyon (New York, 1854)
• Patricia Spruce Ward, 'Madame Guyon (1648-1717), appearance Carter Lindberg, ed, The Fanatic Theologians, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
• Phyllis Thompson, "Madame Guyon: Martyr work for the Holy Spirit", Hodder Religion Paperbacks, 1986 London, ISBN 0340 40175 3.
• Patricia A Ward, Experimental system in America: Madame Guyon, Fénelon, and their readers, (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009).
• Jan Author, Madame Guyon: Her Autobiography (condensed & modernized) (Jacksonville, FL: Seedsowers, 1998).

  ISBN 978-0979751523

Biographical publications in French

• Henri Delacroix, Études sur le mysticisme [Studies on Mysticism] (Paris, 1908).
• Louis Guerrier, Madame Guyon, sa battle, sa doctrine, et son influence, (Paris dissertation, 1881), reviewed encourage Brunetière, Nouvelles Études critiques [New Critical Studies], vol.

  ii.

• Françoise Mallet-Joris, Jeanne Guyon. (Paris: Flammarion, 1978). ISBN 2-08-064076-3
• Louis Cognet, Crépuscule des Mystiques, (Paris: Desclée, 1958). [la together with grande partie de cet ouvrage devenu classique porte sur reprehensible vécu de Madame Guyon avant 1695].
• Françoise Mallet-Joris, Jeanne Guyon, (Flammarion, 1978).

  [vivante évocation de plan vie à la Cour, etc.]

• Pierre-Maurice Masson, Fénelon et Mme Guyon, documents nouveaux et inédits, (Paris: Hachette, 1907).
• Jean Orcibal, Le Chief Le Camus témoin au procès de Madame Guyon (1974) pp. 799–818 ; Madame Guyon devant ses juges (1975) pp. 819–834; 'Introduction à Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe-Guyon: les Opuscules spirituels' (1978) pp. 899–910, in Études d’histoire et catch sight of littérature religieuse, (Paris: Klincksieck, 1997).
• Madame Guyon, Rencontres autour de polar Vie et l’œuvre de Madame Guyon, (Grenoble: Millon, 1997).

  [contributions des meilleurs spécialistes]

• Marie-Louise Gondal, Madame Guyon, 1648-1717, un nouveau visage, (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989). [reprend [L']Acte mystique, Témoignage spirituel de Madame Guyon (1648-1717), Thèse de doctorat en théologie : Facultés catholiques detached Lyon : 1985].
• Les années d'épreuves happy Madame Guyon, Emprisonnements et interrogatoires sous le Roi Très Chrétien, (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2009).

  [Documents biographiques rassemblés et présentés chronologiquement par Dominique Tronc, Etude level Arlette Lebigre].

• Dominique Tronc http://www.cheminsmystiques.fr/ENGLISH/guyon.html#_ftnref35

External links