The Pure Love of Madame Guyon: The Great Conflict in King Louis XIV's Court (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780761837572)

In seventeenth-century France, Madame Guyon wrote about the concept of "pure love." "Love pure and holy, is a deathless fire," she wrote, and is "ethereal fare." Her popular books spread quickly through Europe and the New World, drawing the attention of Louis XIV and the court at Versailles. The Inquisition attacked her writing and concepts, resulting in her decade long incarceration, including years in the Bastille. Archbishop Fénelon defended Guyon while the leading cleric, Bishop Bossuet, demanded that the Vatican condemn Fénelon and Guyon as heretics.

A contemporaneous historian wrote a history of the "Great Conflict" between Guyon, Bossuet, Fénelon, and the Vatican entitled Supplement to the Life of Madame Guyon, which is regarded as having been written in the eighteenth-century. Professor Nancy C. James's translation of this manuscript from the Bodleian Library at Oxford University is featured in this book, coupled with an analysis of the powerful theology of Guyon that influenced both the growth of the Quakers and Romanticism. This history addresses roots of our social conflicts as individual consciences struggle against destructive political power.

Author: Nancy C. James
ISBN-10: 0761837574
ISBN-13: 9780761837572
Publisher: University Press of America
Language: English
Published: 06/14/2007
Pages: 130
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.47lbs
Size: 8.94h x 6.59w x 0.41d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2007 pg. 36