Jeanne Guyon

Guyon's theology and spiritual writing opened new doors to people from all walks of life who yearned for spiritual joy and wisdom. These new translations include her popular A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, as well as her biblical commentary on the Song of Songs. The Complete Madame Guyon also presents examples of her passionate poetry, some of which has never before been translated into English. Nancy James's historical introduction explains the events of Guyon's life first as an aristocratic wife and mother of five, and later as a wido traveling around Europe as an author, who ended up incarcerated in the Bastille by the direct order of Louis XIV. Guyon suffered ten years of incarceration, along with accusations of heresy. Cleared of all charges at the end of her life, in all of her writing Madame Guyon testified to the goodness and holiness of God.

In this compelling study of two seventeenth-century female mystics, Bo Karen Lee examines the writings of Anna Maria van Schurman and Madame Jeanne Guyon, who, despite different religious formations, came to similar conclusions about the experience of God in contemplative prayer. Van Schurman was born into a Dutch Calvinist family and became a superb scriptural commentator before undergoing a dramatic religious conversion and joining the Labadist community, a Pietistic movement. Guyon was a French layperson whose thought would be identified with Quietism—a spiritual path that was looked upon with suspicion both by the French Catholic Church and by Rome. Lee analyzes and compares the themes of self-denial and self-annihilation in the writings of these two mystics. In van Schurman's case, the focus is on the distinction between scholastic knowledge of God and the intima notitia Dei accessible only by radical self-denial. In Guyon's case, it is on the union with God that is accessible only through a painful self-annihilation. For both authors, Lee demonstrates that the desire for enjoyment of God plays an important role as the engine of the soul's progress away from self-centeredness. The appendices offer facing Latin and English translations of two letters by van Schurman and a selection from her Eukleria.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Spiritual Torrents" by Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

At one time this book was publicly burned in France and yet it has also been received by seeking Christians as one of the most helpful and powerful Christian books ever written. Jeanne Guyon's has played a major part in the lives of more famous Christians than perhaps any other Christian book. Here is the very first edition written in modern English.

In seventeenth-century France, Jeanne Guyon wrote about God, “I loved him, and I burned with his fire because I loved him, and I loved him in such a way that I could love only him, but in loving him I had no motive save himself.” She called this the pure love of God. Guyon traveled throughout Europe teaching others how to pray and her books became popular bestsellers. She expressed her Christian faith that Jesus Christ lives within our interior life. As Guyon became increasingly popular, the church and state authorities used the power of the Roman Catholic Inquisition and arrested her, charging her with heresy. Guyon spent nearly ten years incarcerated, including five years in the Bastille, from 1698–1703. Finally the state authorities judged her innocent. After her release, she lived in Blois on the Loire River and welcomed visitors from Europe and the New World who talked with her about the Christian faith. This is the first English translation of Guyon’s Commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians with Explanations and Reflections on the Interior Life.