Jacques Bertot

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Title page of the book The Divine Enlightened Leader , Part One

Jacques Bertot (born July 29, 1622 in Caen , † April 28, 1681 in Montmartre [now Paris ]) was a Roman Catholic mystic and the soul guide of Madame Guyons in her younger years. He was first head of the Ursuline convent in Caen and later of the Abbey of Montmartre .

Life

Little is known of Jacques Bertot's life. In the foreword to the book Der von Gott Illuminated Führer (picture) , published in 1740/41, with texts by Bertot, there is a biography (taken from the French-language source text Le Directeur Mistique ) with the note that it “contains everything that one has of him can experience ":

“Mr Bertot was born in the parish of Coutances in Normandy and was ordained a priest there . He was a great friend of one time [the late] Mr. de Bernières-Louvigny [...]. After the death of this dear friend of his, whom he regarded as his spiritual father, Mr. Bertot diligently took care of leading the souls in various nunneries . Many others, both women and men (whose some very important ranks at court and in the army), used his counsel to learn from him the ways of salvation , and he sought to help them both through his teachings and also to be helpful through his letters. He continued this practice until providence compelled him to take over the leadership of the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Montmartre near Paris, in which office he held about twelve years until his death [...]. His experience had taught him that if God wanted to serve in spirit and in truth, we would have to work, to give God more by the heart than by the mind, so you'd have more endeavor, his humor [his spirit ] and to overcome its nature in annihilation [spiritual self-abandonment] and through the practice of the cross [willing acceptance of all suffering] than to nourish oneself with empty and useless speculations of the humanly acquired sciences. After he worinnen in the congregation [community] he faded death, had been working with a lot of zeal, he died at the beginning of March 1681 after being at a wasting infirmity long time [...]. His body was buried in the church of Montmartre , on the right at the entrance [...]. "

Bertot was the only son of the cloth merchant Louis Bertot and his wife Judith Le Mière.

Environment Bertots - Working in Caen

The friendship with Jean de Bernières-Louvigny (1602-1659), who was a layman , went back to the time Jacques Bertot had spent in the Hermitage of Caen founded by Jean de Bernières . The spiritual line that they both followed and that should be continued by Madame Guyon (1648–1717) as their most famous representative, however, began earlier, with the Franciscan Jean-Chrysostome de Saint-Lô (1594–1646). As two letters in Le Directeur Mistique from 1673 and 1674 show, Jacques Bertot's connections also reached Canada with the seminary Séminaire de Québec , which François de Laval had founded in 1663 by François de Montmorency-Laval (1623–1708; canonized in 2014) - François de Laval also had (from 1654) lived for three years in the Hermitage of Jean de Bernières in Caen. Bertot's circle also included Marie des Vallées (1590–1656), venerated saint, Jean Eudes (1601–1690; canonized in 1925) and Catherine de Bar (1614–1698), the founder of the Institute of Benedictine Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and the Benedictine Convent Rue Cassette in Paris, which writes in a letter to Jean de Bernières dated July 30, 1645, how the then 23-year-old Jacques Bertot, through his presence, “renewed this poor little convent and the grace of fervor in the minds and desire has revived to holy perfection. "

In Caen, after studying at the university there, Bertot headed the Ursuline convent founded in 1624 by Jean de Bernières' sister Jourdaine de Bernières as a priest from 1655 to 1675. In 1675 he was appointed to the Abbey of Montmartre, at that time still "a village on a hill which gives it its name, near a suburb north of the city of Paris".

Act in Montmartre, Paris - Retraites fonts

Even before this time, Bertot's friendship with the abbess of Montmartre, Françoise Renée de Lorraine (1621–1682), had led to a pious circle around Bertot in Paris. In 1662, two volumes accompanying the retreat lectures that Bertot held in Paris emerged from this environment, in which he essentially addressed the beginnings of the path to perfecting a soul in the degree of contemplation. This series is completed by a third volume entitled Conclusion des Retraites , which, however, was published by the superior of the monastery of Montmartre only after Bertot's death; Bertot himself did not seek to "present himself as an author through printing". This last, very dense and detailed treatise, in which Bertot outlines the higher degrees of the mystical path with great authority and psychological finesse and discusses questions of behavior in different life situations, allows an overview of the main themes of the teaching of the then quite young Jacques Bertot.

No author is named for any of the three Retraites scriptures; these could only be ascribed to Jacques Bertot in recent times, the first two volumes probably being based on transcripts of his lectures and the third volume from Bertot's notes.

Relationship with Madame Guyon - Tradition and Effect of Bertot's Writings

The 26 years younger, then 23-year-old Madame Guyon, on the advice of mother Geneviève Granger (1600–1674), the superior of the Benedictine convent of her hometown Montargis , under whose influence she was for some time, met Jacques for the first time on September 21, 1671 Bertot together. On this point, Madame Guyon mentions in the first part of her autobiography that she went to Paris “to have my eye treated there, but much less with that intention than to see Mr. Bertot, whom Mother Granger recently recommended to me as a counselor of conscience and who was a man of high enlightenment . ”She, too, later referred to by Bertot as his“ eldest daughter and the most advanced ”, was part of the circle around Bertot in Paris for several years and took part in its retreat lectures.

It is thanks to Madame Guyon that the life and work of Jacques Bertot did not fall completely into oblivion: before her death she had given the collection of treatises and letters Bertot had already prepared for publication to Pierre Poiret (1646–1719), whose friends she had In 1726 it was finally published as a four-volume work under the title Le Directeur Mistique . A selection of the texts contained therein was translated into German and published under the title Der von Gott Illuminated Leader in the Secret Paths of the Life Hidden with Christ in God 1740 and 1741 in Berleburg , known as the center of the radical-pietistic inspiration movement in Germany (where between In 1726 and 1742 the Berleburg Bible , which was strongly influenced by Madame Guyon's teaching, was also printed). In 1742, a one-volume selection of texts from Le Directeur Mistique was edited in French in Berleburg . Various letters from Jacques Bertot to Madame Guyon can also be found in Madame Guyon's published collections of letters.

Jacques Bertot's writings, in their great density and severity, sobriety and simplicity, testify to his extremely deep spiritual experience and are in many ways unparalleled. With their strength and clarity, they are remarkable testimony to a direct, even abrupt, path that is far removed from any kind of complacency and from the passivity of simple idleness and idleness that the term quietism and the associated accusations, to which Madame Guyon was exposed , would justify. There is no doubt that the persecution by the Church in the 17th and 18th centuries was also motivated by power politics; the misunderstanding of this path can be explained primarily by its purely mystical character, which presupposes a complete turn to God and can only be grasped in its depth through personal experience.

Teaching

Jacques Bertot's teaching is free from theological speculation and firmly anchored in experience. The "very poorest, most ignorant peasant or allerbäuerischste little woman," he writes, can "the holy trinity truly and essentially find [...], as much as the Allergelehrteste and holiest."

This finding of the Holy Trinity (Trinity) is the union with God, the original ground of all being, which, since its existence is not that of a thing-like being, never grasps or with the means available to man (his senses and his understanding) understood, but in death everything that can be experienced through faith: Through “the gift of faith” the soul (man) “quickly and safely reaches the so much desired union […]. This gift of faith closes in itself and in its power the whole path of the union and perfection of the soul with God. ”It is faith - which“ can never settle down according to the senses nor [...] according to the understanding ”and this "On the contrary [...] arranges according to himself [...] by [he] ensures that such die and go out of their work and out of their way" - whereby the soul is surrendered to the Providence of every moment and through this into the being God's come.

Jacques Bertot leaves no doubt that the mystical union of God and man can in no way be achieved through the “work of the creature”, that is, by man using his senses and his understanding - which nevertheless “use all their powers "Become", "to keep oneself in life" - the approach to God and the union with him seeks. Rather, it is, according to Bertot, “very truthful and certain that a soul cannot take a single step in this path without surrender” - only “those souls who experience their inability to go further” and “instead of doing violence to themselves, to live to oneself, […] to die and abandon oneself to God ”, we will experience how“ this inability is transformed into a divine power and a divine faculty through this very death and withering away of oneself. ”

The part of man and all that he is by himself is only weakness and misery: His salvation consists only in the part of God. Only when the soul (man) recognizes this and, in complete spiritual self-abandonment, submits to the will of God - that which every moment of its existence brings with it - without choice or inclination, everything “without intention neither for its holiness nor for its spiritual progress nor even on her own bliss ”,“ in order to live without life, to see without seeing and to be everything in that one is nothing ”, she will“ lose herself without ever being able to find herself again ”and so to the union get with God.

“All of this,” Bertot assures, “is completely incomprehensible without just those who taste and experience it.”

Quotes

All the following quotations are taken from the book The Guide Enlightened by God in the Secret Paths of the Life Hidden with Christ in God .

“A large number of souls, who long to let God rule in them and strive for their perfection, never get there, for reasons because they do not begin it in the right way with regard to the faithfulness that they should have towards God, also in the destruction affecting them and in every cross that they bear when God moves away from them as well as through their faults, weakness and powerlessness, even if it seems to them that they consented to this. They always believe that perfection consists in a certain inner purity and sincerity [in the flawlessness of themselves] which they think they are defiled when they endure the torment of their uncleanness and misery; and instead of using this means [the experience and tolerance of their misery] to continue on their way at any time, they dwell on the fact that they [effectively] want to correct and make amends for what they either completely corrupted or at least weakened be believe. But this is not the real process of how to behave. It is true that God makes use of the fidelity and the purity of virtue; because it is a God of purity who jokes over ours: Just because the main decree of God is that he may truly rule in us as a sovereign ruler and as God, he is nevertheless very often more honored by the loss (if we lose ourselves by patiently and humbly enduring all of our misery and suffering, that we are troubled and tormented by our misery [instead of wanting to free ourselves from it] than by the purity of virtue that makes us calmer Serenity preserves what we often believe in, as if we were something, and this out of weakness that we have in order to always believe ourselves and respect ourselves highly. "

- First part, 1st letter, p. 60 f.

"Accordingly, it is of very great importance that one gradually wither the process and behavior of the senses as well as their lights [insights] and let all this go, so that when we use faith (which ensures that we are in God are, remain in a very easy way and find everything we need in it), so that, I say, we may find our true joy in the same faith and consequently in God as well as everything in general that we lack and lack. "

- First part, 2nd letter, p. 70 f.

"For the souls who are destined to die in this way in faith [a mystical death], these souls have to die off to themselves so completely that afterwards they cannot find a moment in which to choose, whether they want to be in one way or the other, whether they are in this or that place and want to be in one way they demand or in the other; rather, these souls will always remain in the hand of God in order to let everything be made with and of themselves that pleases God; therefore all things apply equally to them. "

- First part, 2nd letter, p. 76 f.

“[This] submission [must] have neither measure nor aim, but [must] be whole and complete, so that when one's own spirit truly submits, it then dies to its inclinations and thereby reaches where faith is certain and in which it is actually wants to have. On the contrary, if one's own spirit wants to guide itself in the least, and make rational conclusions and interpretations, both about the commands of God and about what his guidance is shown to us to be, it gets lost in its lights and in his own will, and since the soul falls from one labyrinth into the other, even if it covers a long way, it nevertheless never goes out, neither from itself nor from inclinations nor from its own demands and desires, and consequently the soul never reaches the point where it finds God, as who can never be found without just so much as one truly goes out of oneself. "

- First part, 4th letter, p. 92 f.

“How long do you think this death will last [this death]? This is all amazing! Alone, you will speak to me, tell me what things I have to die off so that I can make this death come soon? It is not you, dear sister, who is supposed to make you die, but God himself, who has taken possession of the bottom of your soul, must lead you into [mystical] death. So be like a lamb whose throat is stabbed: For this light works itself and does what it shows, if the soul only behaves passively or passively with regard to sotanic [the so constituted] light. "

- First part, 6th letter, p. 132 f.

“[It is] of great importance [...] to give respect to the present state of the soul (assuming that your will is honest) and that one goes to God through sotan present state without one to seek another; because if you don't do this you lose an infinite amount of time looking for what you will never find. God only actually works through the said present state of the soul. "

- First part, 8th letter, p. 156 f.

"If you are not ready for all of this with all your heart, you shouldn't hope for something and only believe that you will suffer a lot, but in vain."

- First part, 12th letter, p. 194

“Everyone always desires to be something, be it with regard to creatures or before God, and the light of God leads to the opposite and demands something completely different: But since one cannot accept it, the whole thing goes Lifetime gone by always doing the opposite and resisting and still finding nothing. "

- First part, 14th letter, p. 216

Works

Translations into the German language:

  • The God-enlightened guide in the secret ways of the life hidden with Christ in God . Retrieved July 26, 2020 - Translation of a selection of essays and letters by Jacques Bertot from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd volumes of Le Directeur Mistique :
    First part, Berleburg 1740 ( digital copy of the Berlin State Library - PDF; 230 MB)
    Second Teil, Berleburg 1741 ( digitized version of the Berlin State Library - PDF; 223 MB)

Published in French:

  • Le Directeur Mistique or Les Oeuvres Spirituelles de Monsr. Bertot, Ami intime de feu Mr. Bernieres & Directeur de Mad. Guion , 4 volumes, Cologne 1726. Retrieved on August 5, 2019 - Essays (1st volume) and letters (2nd and 3rd volumes) by Jacques Bertot (attached The 2nd volume also contains some sayings by Marie des Vallées') and (in the 4th volume) letters from some anonymous authors, the Carmelite Maur de l'Enfant Jesus and Madame Guyons:
    Premier volume - Plusieurs Eclaircissemens & Traités sur la Vie Intérieure & l'Oraison de Foi (PDF; 18 MB)
    Second volume - Ses Lettres Spirituelles sur plusieurs sujets qui regardent La Vie intérieure & l'Oraison de Foi (PDF; 17 MB)
    Troisième volume - La Suite de Ses Lettres Spirituelles sur plusieurs sujets qui regardent La Vie Intérieure & l'Oraison de Foi (PDF; 21 MB)
    Quatrième volume - Un Recueil de Lettres Spirituelles tant de plusieurs Auteurs Anonimes que du RP Maur de l'Enfant Jesus & de Mad.Guion Sur la Vie intérieure & l ' Oraison de Foi, qui n'avoient point encore vu le jour (PDF; 16 MB)
  • Le Directeur Mistique ou Extrait Des Oeuvres Spirituelles de Monsr. Bertot, Ami intime de feu Mr. Bernieres & Directeur de Mad. Guion , Berleburg 1742 ( digital copy of the Berlin State Library - PDF; 160 MB). Retrieved July 26, 2020 - A selection of essays and letters from Jacques Bertot, letters from Madame Guyon, and sayings from Marie des Vallées from the above four volumes.
  • Various Retraites Où une Ame apres avoir conneu son desordre par la lumiere du Sainct Esprit, se resoud à le quitter, & embrasser le chemin de la saincte perfection. Paris 1662. (PDF; 10 MB). Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  • Continuation of the Retraites Dans lesquelles l'ame puisera des lumieres pour travailler solidement à sa perfection. De plus les degrez d'oraison sont explicit, pour une plus grande facilité à fair usage de ses retreats. Paris 1662. (PDF; 12 MB). Retrieved on August 5, 2019 - As well as various retreats (see above), an accompanying volume to Bertot's lectures, presumably made from notes.
  • Conclusion des Retraites Ou il est Traité des Degrez, et des Etats differens de l'Oraison, & des moyens de s'y perfectionner. Paris 1684. (PDF; 5 MB). Retrieved August 5, 2019 - Presumably from the notes of Bertot, a treatise on the degrees of the mystical path, probably written no later than 1663 (the year the text was approved).

Web links

With regard to spelling and punctuation, modernized and annotated copies of the two parts of the work The Guide Enlightened by God in the Secret Paths of the Life Hidden with Christ in God (see Works ). Retrieved April 28, 2020.

Table of contents for the determination of the French-language source texts for The Leader Enlightened by God (PDF; 0.3 MB)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jeanne-Marie Guyon: Letters from […] Madame de la Mothe Guion to the Frey-Herr von Metternich , 1769, p. 127 ff. (PDF; 48 MB). Retrieved July 17, 2019. - Madame Guyon sent Wolf Freiherr von Metternich (1669–1731) a letter that Jacques Bertot had addressed to her in 1672, and remarked: “I am sending you a letter from a great servant of God, who died many years. He was a friend of the Lord of Bernières and he was my guide in my youth. ”(The translation of Bertot's letter to Madame Guyon is appended to the copy of the second part of The Guide [see under web links ].)
  2. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The leader enlightened by God in the secret ways of the life hidden with Christ in God , Part One , pp. 11-13 (see under works ).
  3. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , pp. 17 ff. - Bertot was actually born in Caen. Marie des Vallées, on the other hand, was born in the diocese of Coutances, who later lived in the city and was visited there annually for consultations by members of the Ermitage de Caen (see below), including Bertot, from 1641 until her death in 1656. A Claude Bertout , canon of the cathedral chapter of Coutances, was also involved in the case of the exorcism against Marie des Vallées, which could explain this confusion.
  4. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 35 f. - In a notarial document from 1684, April 28, 1681 is mentioned as the date of death.
  5. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 18
  6. ↑ a b Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 5, p. 36-37 (see under literature ).
  7. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Une filiation mystique - Chrysostome de Saint-Lô, Jean de Bernières, Jacques Bertot, Jeanne-Marie Guyon , pp. 95–116 (see under literature ). - The “mystical childhood” between the named personalities is examined for the first time in this article.
  8. ↑ Jacques Bertot: Le Directeur Mistique , Volume 3, pp. 471 ff. And 503 ff. (Pp. 325 ff. And 370 ff. In the first part of The Leader Enlightened by God ) - According to the Center d'Animation François de Laval (e-mail from Mgr Hermann Giguère PH, Séminaire de Québec, from 12.04.2018) is with the author of these letters likely to Jean Dudouyt (1628-1688) , who, like Bertot some time in the Ermitage de Jean Bernières -Louvigny had lived in Caen. There he also met François de Laval, the founder of the Séminaire de Québec (1663), for whom he held various important offices from 1663 in the Séminaire de Québec in Canada and from 1676 in France. De Laval himself is probably out of the question as the author of the letters, since he stayed in France from 1671 to 1675; possibly it is hidden behind the abbreviation N. (Paragraph 6 of the first letter). The Canadian historian and priest Auguste-Honoré Gosselin (1843–1918) writes about the Ermitage de Caen in Henri de Bernières: premier curé de Québec , Évreux 1896 (p. 10): “One can say that the Ermitage de Caen is the Was the cradle of the Church of Canada. "
  9. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 24 ff.
  10. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 23. - In 1624 Jourdaine de Bernières opened a school for young girls in Rue Guilbert with three Ursulines. In the following years an extensive monastery was built, which stretched from today's Place de la Résistance to Rue Saint-Louis; see. Quand les Ursulines deviennent normandes
  11. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 28
  12. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 32
  13. ↑ Jacques Bertot: Miscellaneous Retraites and continuation of Retraites , Paris in 1662 (see below. Plants ).
  14. ↑ Jacques Bertot: Conclusion of Retraites , Paris in 1684 (see below. Plants ).
  15. Jump up ↑ Jacques Bertot: The Leader Enlightened by God , Part Two , 2nd Tract, p. 180: - “Just as it never occurred to me, however, also, God willing, it will never come to portray me as an author through printing, so I just simply tell you my poor lights to help you and maybe also to help others. "
  16. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 41 f.
  17. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 51
  18. ↑ Jeanne-Marie Guyon: The life of the woman JMB from la Mothe Guion, described by herself , first part, Berlin 1826, p. 238 ff. (PDF; 17 MB). Retrieved July 5, 2019.
  19. ↑ Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 35 f.
  20. ↑ Jacques Bertot: Le Directeur Mistique ou Les Oeuvres de Spiritual Monsr. Bertot , 4 volumes, Cologne 1726 (see works ).
  21. ↑ Jacques Bertot: Le Directeur Mistique ou Extrait Des Oeuvres de Spiritual Monsr. Bertot , Berleburg 1742 (see under works ).
  22. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The Leader Enlightened by God , Part One , 10th Letter, p. 173.
  23. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The Leader Enlightened by God , Part One , 12th Letter, p. 182.
  24. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The enlightened by God Guide , part two, the second treatise, S. 154th
  25. ↑ a b Jacques Bertot: The leader enlightened by God , first part, 3rd letter, p. 89.
  26. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The Leader Enlightened by God , Part One , 5th Letter, p. 106.
  27. ↑ a b Jacques Bertot: The leader enlightened by God , first part, 6th letter, p. 139.
  28. ↑ Jacques Bertot: The enlightened by God Guide , Part 27 letter S. 369th

Remarks

  1. ↑ The mystical path is - especially in the higher degrees - dark and unfathomable to the understanding; its goal is spiritual self-abandonment. In this death and this gradual cutting off of all life of the mind and will, guidance is required from a person who has walked this path to the end, for which the old term soul guide (or spiritual guide ) seems suitable. Today perhaps due to the negative connotation of the word leader common name spiritual director (or spiritual director ), however, is adequate in matters of guidance on luminous spiritual paths whose goal is spiritual well and personal growth; on the mystical path that Bertot and Madame Guyon followed, assistance becomes an obstacle and accompaniment is of no use.
  2. ↑ The text passages and quotations listed here have been modernized with regard to spelling and punctuation, but the expression has been left unchanged. Insertions in square brackets are used for supplementation, explanation or clarification.
  3. ↑ a b c See the corresponding article in the French language Wikipedia.
  4. ↑ Cf. also Matthew 11:25. "At that time Jesus answered and said:. I, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have praise you have hidden these wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes" ( King James 2017 )
  5. ↑ Cf. Luke 17.33: “Whoever tries to preserve his soul will lose it; and whoever will lose her will help her to live. "( Luther Bible 2017 )
personal data
SURNAME Bertot, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Roman Catholic mystic
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1622
PLACE OF BIRTH Caen
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1681
Place of death Montmartre ( Paris )