Divine Love: The Emblems of Madame Jeanne Guyon and Otto van Veen, Vol. 1

By Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon, William Bradley Roberts and Otto van Veen

In this book, visual and poetic emblems of God's love, created by Otto van Veen and Jeanne Guyon, symbolically represent spiritual meaning and, as such, offer a gift of revealed strength and purpose to the aware reader. In our age, when love seems almost forgotten, this emblem book uniting Guyon's poetry and D'Othon Vaenius's illustrations give us a faithful look into what might be. What if Divine love becomes part of the human endeavor and joins to human souls? Otto van Veen and Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon internalized this hope and here reveal to us their vision of the love of God bonding and becoming one with the human soul. Translated into English for the first time here, these emblems of divine love become available to postmodern readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Apr 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532662812

Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon

Nancy Carol James is a priest associate at St. John's, Lafayette Sq., Washington, DC, and works as adjunct faculty at Grand Canyon University. She has written ten books about Jeanne Guyon.

Book preview

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Divine Love

The Emblems of Madame Jeanne Guyon and Otto van Veen

volume 1

poetry by

Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon

illustrations by

Otto van Veen

introduction and translation from the original french by

Nancy Carol James

foreword by

William Bradley Roberts

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Table of Contents

Divine Love

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Love Penetrates and Sustains the Universe

Poems for the Christ Child

Second Poem for the Christ Child

Prologue

Emblem 1

Emblem 2

Emblem 3

Emblem 4

Emblem 5

Emblem 6

Emblem 7

Emblem 8

Emblem 9

Emblem 10

Emblem 11

Emblem 12

Emblem 13

Emblem 14

Emblem 15

Emblem 16

Emblem 17

Emblem 18

Emblem 19

Emblem 20

Emblem 21

Emblem 22

Emblem 23

Emblem 24

Emblem 25

Emblem 26

Emblem 27

Emblem 28

Emblem 29

Emblem 30

Emblem 31

Emblem 32

Emblem 33

Emblem 34

Emblem 35

Emblem 36

Emblem 37

Emblem 38

Emblem 39

Emblem 40

Emblem 41

Emblem 42

Emblem 43

Emblem 44

Emblem 45

Emblem 46

Emblem 47

Emblem 48

Emblem 49

Emblem 50

Emblem 51

Emblem 52

Emblem 53

Emblem 54

Emblem 55

Emblem 56

Emblem 57

Emblem 58

Emblem 59

Emblem 60

Epilogue

Divine Love

The Emblems of Madame Jeanne Guyon and Otto van Veen, Vol. 1

Copyright © 2019 Nancy Carol James. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-6279-9

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-6280-5

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-6281-2

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte,—1648–1717, author. | Veen, Otto van, 1556–1629, illustrator. | James, Nancy Carol, translator | Roberts, William Bradley, foreword writer.

Title: Divine love : the emblems of Madame Jeanne Guyon and Otto van Veen, Vol. 1 / Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon ; translated by Nancy Carol James.

Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-6279-9 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-6280-5 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-6281-2 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte,—1648–1717 | Veen, Otto van, 1556–1629 | Emblems—Early works to 1800 | Love in art | Christian poetry | Religious poetry | Spiritual life—Catholic Church

Classification: n7745.l6 a25 2019 (print) | n7745.l6 (ebook)

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 03/06/19

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to this volume. I am grateful for the support of Dr. Carlos Eire during my dissertation work on Jeanne Guyon. In particular, I wish to thank G. Richard, Dimler SJ for his excellent scholarship on religious emblems.

I want to thank the parishioners of St. John’s, Lafayette Square, Washington, DC for their dialogue about Jeanne Guyon and her rich theology.

Many thanks go to my family, who share my passion for the work of Jeanne Guyon. Roger, Hannah, and Melora have read, explored, and researched Jeanne Guyon along with me. I am grateful that we share this love.

Above all, I think my readers who share a love for Jeanne Guyon and her ideas about interior faith. Guyon’s books have been kept alive by those who continue to seek a profound interior life where Jesus Christ lives and moves and has his being. I hope that Guyon’s Christian interior faith lives for centuries yet to come.

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The Soul, Lover of God

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O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. Psalm

38

:

9

Foreword

Emblem Books were a literary genre of the Renaissance. This popular form wielded a powerful influence over art, literature, and culture for over two hundred years. The subject matter might be secular or sacred in nature, the latter category often reflecting the concerns of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Three broad categories of emblem books prevail: material from natural history following the bestiary tradition; episodes from fables, ancient history, or proverbs and other religious subjects; scenes from everyday life. The intent of the books was intellectual delight, or, in the case of Madame Jeanne Guyon, religious devotion.

An individual emblem consisted essentially of three parts: inscriptio (the motto); pictura (the picture); and subscriptio (a brief poem).¹ Though examples exist of emblems with up to twelve parts, the three-part emblem came to be the standard form. (An exception, the naked emblem, had no pictures.) Typically an Emblem Book contained between ten and one hundred emblems,