History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1MacCaffrey, James
Religion
History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1
MacCaffrey, James
Catholic Church -- History -- Modern period, 1500-
Fenelon, then a priest and tutor to the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of
Louis XIV. and prospective heir to the throne of France, was deeply
interested in the teaching of Madame Guyon whose acquaintance he had
made in Paris. Fenelon, while rejecting the false mysticism of de
Molinos, agreed with Madame Guyon in believing that the state of
perfection in this life is that in which all righteous acts proceed
from pure love without any hope of reward or fear of punishment, and
that all virtuous acts to be meritorious must proceed directly or
indirectly from charity. This teaching found a strenuous opponent in
Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. A commission consisting of Bossuet, de
Noailles, then Bishop of Chalons, and Tronson, superior of the
Sulpicians, was appointed to examine the whole question (1695). A
little later Fenelon, who had just been promoted to the Archbishopric
of Cambrai, was added to the list. The conference met in the Sulpician
seminary at Issy, and as a result thirty-four articles were drawn up,
all of which were accepted by Madame Guyon and Pere Lacombe. The
former having returned to Paris was arrested, and forced to sign
another recantation of her theories and to promise that she would
never again attempt to spread them. From that time till her death in
1717 she took no further part in the discussions.
But the controversy regarding Semi-Quietism was to be carried on
between the two greatest churchmen and literary giants of their age,
namely, Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai.
Bossuet, not content with the partial victory that he had secured at
the Issy conference, determined to expose the dangerous tendencies of
Madame Guyon's teaching by a short statement of the Catholic doctrine
on perfection and the spiritual life. This he did in his book
/Instructions sur les etats d'oraison/, which he submitted to Fenelon
in the hope of obtaining his approval. This Fenelon refused to give,
partly because he thought Madame Guyon had been punished severely
enough and should not be attacked once she had made her submission,
and partly also because he believed the views of Bossuet on charity
and self-interest were unsound. Before Bossuet's book could be
published Fenelon anticipated him in a work entitled /Explication des
maximes des Saints sur la vie interieure/, in which he defended many
of Madame Guyon's views. This book was submitted to the Archbishop of
Paris, to Tronson, and to some of the theologians of the Sorbonne,
from all of whom it received the highest commendations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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