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Madame Guyon and Experiential Theology in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Patricia A. Ward
Patricia A. Ward
Affiliation:
Patricia A. Ward is professor of French and chair of the department of French and Italian at Vanderbilt University.
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Extract

Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) has been best known for her role in the Quietist controversy of late-seventeenthcentury France, leading to the public debate that pitted her defender, Fenelon, against Bossuet. Madame de Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV, also became an opponent, adding her influence to that of Bossuet, so that Madame Guyon was imprisoned in the Bastille from 1698 to 1703.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 484 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1998

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References

1. A useful summary of the Quietist tradition and its seventeenth-century manifestation is found in Jean-Robert Armogathe, Le Quiétisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973).Google Scholar

2. Marie-Florine Bruneau discusses the historiographical issues affecting the reputation of Madame Guyon in “The Writing of History as Fiction and Ideology: The Case of Madame Guyon,” Feminist Issues 5 (1985): 28–38.Google Scholar

3. Wheatley, Richard, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer (New York: W. C. Palmer Jr., 1876), 560.Google Scholar The history of the influence of Madame Guyon and of her appropriation by Protestants is complex. On contacts between Madame Guyon and English and Scottish intermediaries, see Cherel, Albert, Fénelon au XVIIIe siècle en Prance (1715–1820) (1917; reprint, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970), 3156.Google Scholar The role of Pierre Poiret as a major intermediary to German Pietism is treated in detail in Marjolaine Chevallier's recent Pierre Poiret (1646–1719): Du protestantisme à la mystique (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1994)Google Scholar and is summarized by Stoeffler, F. Ernest in German Pietism During the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 172–75, 191–95.Google Scholar Two articles by Orcibal, Jean treat the influence of Catholic spirituality in the British Isles: “Les Spiriruels français et espagnols chez John Wesley et ses contemporains,” Revue d'histoire des religions 139 (1951): 50–109;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “L'Influence spirituelle de Fénelon dans les pays anglo-saxons au XVIIIe siècle,” XVIIe siècle, nos. 12–14. (1951): 276–87.Google Scholar American reception of Madame Guyon as an exemplary figure and as a spiritual writer is illustrated by the entries in my “Madame Guyon in America: An Annotated Bibliography,” Bulletin of Bibliography 52 (1995): 107–111.Google Scholar A recent volume in French updates and adds to the preceding references. See Beaune, Joseph et al. , Madame Guyon (Grenoble: J. Millon, 1997). This volume includes essays on Madame Guyon in relation to Pierre Poiret, German Pietism, the Bible, Fénelon, along with my overview of her role in Quietist influence in the United States (131–43).Google Scholar

4. See my “Madame Guyon and the Democratization of Spirituality,” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 23 (1996): 501–508.Google Scholar

5. A classic treatment of this complex tradition remains Henri Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin des guerres de religion jusqu'à nos jours, 11 vols. (1916–1939; reprint, Paris: Armand Colin, 1967–1968). Volumes 5–7. are particularly helpful.Google Scholar

6. Kolakowski, Leszek, Chrétiens sans église: La Conscience religieuse et le lien confessionnel au XVIIe siècle, trans. Posner, Anna, rev. ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), 495. See also 515, 529, 533, and 544–45.Google Scholar

7. See the text of the “Moyen court et très facile pour faire oraison,” in Approches du quiétisme, Laude, Patricke D., a monograph published as a volume of Biblio 17: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 68 (1991): 105, 103. For the entire text of 1665, see 97–142.Google Scholar

8. Justifications de la doctrine de Madame de la Mothe-Guion (Paris: Librairies Associés, 1790), 1:249.Google Scholar Additional references to the certainty of experiential knowledge and to the nature of the subject within the system of Madame Guyon's mysticism are to be found in Marquet, J.-F., “L'Expérience religieuse de Jeanne Guyon,” in Fénelon: Philosophic et spiritualité ed. Seduc-Fayette, Denise (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 155–76.Google Scholar

9. Guyon, Madame, Justifications, 1:250.Google Scholar

10. See Sandei, , Pro Theologia Mystica Clavis elucidarium onomasticon vocabulorum et loqutionum obscurum (1640; reprint, Heverlee-Louvain: Éditions de la Bibliothèque S. J., 1963), 204–205.Google Scholar

11. de Sales, François, Lettres, vol. 9, bk. 2 of Oeuvres complètes (Paris: J. J. Blaise, 1821), 35.Google Scholar

12. Quoted by Bremond, in Histoire litteraire du sentiment religieux en France, 6:43; see also 6: 38–47.Google Scholar

13. LeBrun, Jacques, “Expérience religieuse et experience littéraire,” in La Pensée religieuse dans la littérature et la civilisation du XVIIe siècle en France: Actes du Colloque de Bamberg, 1983, ed. Tietz, Manfred and Kapp, Volker, published as a volume of Biblio 17: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 13 (1984): 123–46.Google Scholar

14. Bruneau, Marie-Florine, Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie de l'Incarnation (1599–1672) and Madame Guyon (1648–1717) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998)Google Scholar, relies heavily on the analysis of eighteenth-century pietism given in Gusdorf, Georges, Dieu, la nature, l'homme au siède des lumieres (Paris: Payot, 1972), to account for the interest in Madame Guyon within popular Protestant piety. She cites Gusdorf's linking of pietism to Catholic “apophatic mysticism” (148).Google Scholar

15. Complete bibliographic reference relating to the diffusion of Madame Guyon's thought in the United States through translations and abridgements of her works are in my “Madame Guyon in America: An Annotated Bibliography.”

16. Warren, Austin gives a survey of Fénelon's influence as a spiritual director, especially in New England, in his essay “Fenelon Among the Anglo-Saxons,” in New England Saints (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956), 58–73.Google Scholar Fénelon, not Madame Guyon, was of interest to certain New England Calvinists. Warren also gives some attention to interest in the Quietists among the Transcendentalists, a subject beyond the scope of this essay. Russell Pope provides a general description of Quaker interest in Madame Guyon in “French Quietism: Jeanne Marie Guyon,” in Concerning Mysticism: Being those lectures delivered at Guilford College Library in the Spring of 1938, Guilford College Bulletin 31 (Guilford College, N.C.: Guilford College, 1938), 11–25.Google Scholar

17. Dieter, Melvin Easterday, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1980), 53.Google ScholarSalter, Darius L. indicates that there were thirty-seven editions of Upham's life of Madame Guyon (Spirit and Intellect: Thomas Upham's Holiness Theology [Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1986] 12).Google Scholar On Wesley, see Orcibal, Jean, “L'Originalité théologique de John Wesley et les spiritualités du continent,” Revue historique, no. 222 (1959), 51–80., especially 70–76.Google Scholar

18. Dieter, , Holiness Revival, 53; Wheatley, Phoebe Palmer, 238–42.Google Scholar

19. Upham, Thomas, American Cottage Life: A Series of Poems illustrative of American scenery, and of the Association, feeling, and employment of the American cottager and farmer, 2d ed. (Brunswick, Maine: Joseph Griffin, 1836).Google Scholar This poetry began to appear in 1819. I have consulted the edition of 1836, which includes a translation of the famous poem by Madame Guyon regarding her state of mind during her imprisonment, “A little bird I am.”

20. Editions of Inward Divine Guidance, with a preface by Smith, Hannah Whitall, include those published at Philadelphia (G. W. McCalla, 1887);Google Scholar Syracuse, N.Y. (Wesleyan Methodist Publishing Association, 1905); Chicago and Boston (The Christian Witness Co., 1907); and Salem, Ohio (Schmul Publishing Co. [Wesleyan Book Club], 1989).

21. Poiret, Pierre, La Théologie de I'amour, ou La Vie et les oeuvres de Sainte Catherine de Gênes (Cologne: Jean de la Pierre, 1691), 129.Google Scholar

22. Poiret, , La Théologie de I'amour, 4.Google Scholar

23. Poiret, , La Théologie de I'amour, 5–6.Google Scholar

24. Upham, Thomas, Life of Madame Catherine Adorna, 3d ed. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1858), 57.Google Scholar

25. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 107.Google Scholar

26. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 114.Google Scholar

27. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 94.Google Scholar

28. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 138.Google Scholar

29. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 140.Google Scholar

30. Upham, , Life of Madame Adorna, 142.Google Scholar

31. On Upham and Phoebe Palmer, see Wheatley, , Phoebe Palmer, 518–23.Google ScholarUpham's intentions regarding his method of interpreting Guyon, Madame are to be found in his Life and Religious Opinions and Experiences of Madame de la Mothe Guyon (New York: Harper, 1847), 1:61, 188.Google Scholar For Knox's attack, see Knox, R. A., Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959), 235–36. Expanding the article cited in note 2, Marie- Florine Bruneau, Women Mystics, 168–96, outlines the historiographic tradition from Bossuet that invalidated Madame Guyon's mysticism as a bodily phenomenon or form of madness.Google Scholar

32. La Vie de Madame J. M. B. de la Mothe Guion: écrite par elle-même (Cologne: Jean de la Pierre, 1720), 1:185.Google Scholar

33. La Vie de Madame Guion, 1:263 f.

34. La Vie de Madame Guion, 1:267–68.

35. La Vie de Madame Guion, 1:191.

36. La Vie de Madame Guion, 1:249.

37. La Vie de Madame Guion, 1: 281–84.

38. La Vie de Madame Guion, 2:372.

39. La Vie de Madame Guion, 2:373.

40. Smith, Timothy L., Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (New York: Abingdon, 1957), 141.Google Scholar

41. Finney, Charles G., The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney: The Complete Restored Text, ed. Rosell, Garth M. and Dupuis, Richard A. G. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1989), 409.Google Scholar

42. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, “The Interior or Hidden Life,” The New-York Evangelist, 17 April 1845, 61. Stowe refers to the Oberlin doctrine in a letter to her husband Calvin in July 1845 (Stowe correspondence, folder 70, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College).Google Scholar

43. See Wheatley, , Phoebe Palmer, 44, 48, 77, 82–83., 129–30.Google Scholar

44. These editions are listed in an advertisement at the back of a version of Fénelon, Christian Counsel on Divers Matters (Philadelphia: G. W. McCalla, 1899).Google Scholar

45. Dayton, Donald, “The American Holiness Movement: A Bibliographic Introduction,” in The Higher Christian Life: A Bibliographic Overview, ed. Dayton, Donald W. (New York: Garland, 1985), 19.Google Scholar

46. McClurkan, J. O., ed., Chosen Vessels, (Nashville, Tenn.: Pentecostal Mission Publishing, 1901).Google Scholar

47. See Wynkoop, Mildred Bangs, The Trevecca Story (Nashville, Tenn.: Trevecca, 1976), 1–55. (I am grateful to Charles Edwin Jones for bringing McClurkan to my attention.)Google Scholar

48. Amicus, , “Points in Holiness Theology,” Living Water, 12 May 1903, 3.Google Scholar

49. de Tocqueville, Alexis, De la Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), 2:13.Google Scholar