Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

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Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon , called Madame Guyon, (born April 13, 1648 in Montargis , France , † June 9, 1717 in Blois , France) was an important Roman Catholic mystic who was accused of quietism , which Assignment however is dubious and further controversial.

Life

Madame Guyon (as she is usually called simply by historians and consistently referred to in historical documents) was the daughter of a well-to-do judge who came from the bourgeoisie but was aspiring to the nobility by virtue of his office. During some time in a monastery, she came into contact with mystical ideas. a. thanks to the writings of François de Sales or Johanna Franziska von Chantal . However, her intention to become a nun did not materialize. Rather, she was married against her will by her parents at the age of sixteen, with the wealthy Jacques Guyon, Seigneur du Chesnoy , who came from a noble family in Montargis , 22 years her senior . Madame Guyon is therefore sometimes called Madame du Chesnoy . Their marriage was unhappy and two of their five children, including their favorite son, died.

In Paris, Madame Guyon came, at the age of 23, on the advice of mother Geneviève Granger (1600–1674), the superior of the Benedictine convent in Montargis, under whose influence she was for some time, in 1671 in contact with the teaching of Jacques Bertot , which was to have a strong influence on her. In the first part of her autobiography, she mentions that she went to Paris “to have my eye treated there, but much less with this intention than to see Mr. Bertot, whom Mother Granger had recently recommended to me for counseling and who was a man of high enlightenment . ”From Bertot, who becomes her soul guide and confessor, later referred to as his“ eldest daughter and the most advanced ”, Madame Guyon was for a few years part of a pious circle around Bertot in Paris.

Due to the early death of her husband (1676), she became a widow at the age of 28. A little later, she let her children down to a well-cared for at home and took over after the death Bertot 1681 in Gex in Geneva to manage a community of Calvinist convert Interior ( "Nouvelles Catholiques"), where they the from Thonon coming Father François La Combe (also ' Lacombe '; 1640–1715), a Barnabite monk whom she had met for the first time in Montargis in 1671, took as her new confessor. However, in view of the great opposition to her, she soon gave up her activity in Gex in order to devote herself to the writing of mystical writings in Thonon, encouraged by Father La Combe, with which, measured by her effectiveness, she was the most important exponent of mystical quietism has been. At the same time, however, she came into conflict with the Catholic Church because of her increasing reference to her own visionary experiences.

In 1686 she settled in Paris, where she resumed contact with the mystically pious circles, including some noble pious ladies, including Madame de Maintenon , the king's mistress (or, as suspected, secretly wedded wife) Louis XIV. In 1688 she was interned in a Paris monastery on the pretext of the Archbishop of Paris, who was irritated by this fascination. After her early release on the intervention of Madame de Maintenon, she met the newly appointed tutor François Fénelon , whom she also deeply impressed and who remained closely connected to her.

With her growing influence on the named and other high aristocratic persons, she became suspicious of the powerful at the French court; H. those who supported the aggressive policy of great power that Ludwig had been leading since 1667, and to whom Madame Guyon's teachings probably appeared too pacifist and tended to support the opposition forces in the country. Most of the dignitaries in the church were also suspicious of her because of her religious independence.

When she fell out of favor with Madame de Maintenon in 1693, the former tutor and powerful bishop of Meaux , Jacques Bénigne Bossuet , broke the so-called quietism controversy by stating more than 30 "errors" in a theological examination of her writings (1694). Her friend Fénelon wrote a defense, the Explication des Maximes des Saints , and Madame Guyon herself obediently withdrew in the end, since Bossuet had also obtained the support of the Pope. Nevertheless, in 1695 she was interned again, like an enemy of the state, first in the fortress Vincennes, then in a monastery and from 1698 to 1703 even imprisoned in the Bastille , which served as a prison for higher-ranking people.

After her release she retired to one of her sons in Diziers near Blois . Here she spent the last years of her life, only connected by letters to her growing following, which she found not least in Protestant circles in England and Germany.

Impact history

“The diverse writings of the woman from Guyon, her letters, her spiritual currents, her songs, her book about inner prayer, child rearing, her Bible explanations, her biography etc. gave her an astonishing reputation in all of Europe, but especially in Germany “(Jung-Stilling, see below, p. 19). This is not an exaggerated word, Madame Guyon's writings (in the partly German translation and edition of the complete works by Fénelon's student Pierre Poiret ) have a significance in the history of German Pietism that can hardly be overestimated . Their influence can also be demonstrated in its most outstanding representatives, e.g. B. Gottfried Arnold , August Hermann Francke , Gerhard Tersteegen , Nikolaus von Zinzendorf and Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling , as with his enthusiastic fringe groups ( Berleburger Bible ). God's love for man and human love for God, like the power of mystical silent prayer, are an integral part of late Pietism as well as early revival .

And the “holy indifference of an altruistic, not calculating love” (amour désintéressé), of a “granting” God (laissez faire Dieu), may have comforted some contemporaries of consistent determinism . Also not to be underestimated is the influence of this quietistic lay piety on the biographical, autobiographical and edifying literature of Pietism, which grew like an avalanche in the 18th century.

But Madame Guyon's writings also worked outside the limits of pietism, albeit strongly influenced by it. Reference should be made here above all to the so-called " Sensibility " and its literature, "The most beautiful and purest mysticism [Mme Guyons] in the gentle and louder language of the heart, without pomp and fanaticism, took high and low, learned and ignorant" (Jung-Stilling, ibid.). The friendship of the "beautiful souls" belongs in this environment as well as the serene poetry of Matthias Claudius .- "This happened in the first twenty years of the 18th century, and from here the power of enthusiasm spread across Germany." (Jung-Stilling, see below, p. 21). In Karl Philipp Moritz 'Bildungsroman Anton Reiser (Berlin, 1786–1787) the effect of Madame Guyon's writings on the young Anton and his father is vividly described.

Works

Œuvres spirituelles, 42 vols., Ed. v. Pierre Poiret, Amsterdam, 1713 to 1722.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ronney Mourad, Dianne Guenin-Lelle: Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon, Madame du Chesnoy. In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Accessed July 22, 2019 .
  2. Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse 2005, ISBN 2-84713-044-6 , p. 51. (PDF; 37 MB) Retrieved October 6, 2019
  3. 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 on October 6, 2019
  4. Jeanne-Marie Guyon: Letters from… Madame de la Mothe Guion to the Frey-Herr von Metternich , 1769, p. 127 ff. (PDF; 48 MB). Retrieved October 6, 2019. - In the announcement of a letter from Jacques Bertot to her from 1672, which she sent Wolf Freiherr von Metternich (1669–1731), Madame Guyon wrote: “I am sending you a letter from a great servant of God, who died many years ago. He was a friend of Mr. von Bernières and he was my guide in my youth. "
  5. Dominique Tronc: Jacques Bertot - Directeur Mystique , p. 35 f.