Jeanne Guyon's Christian Worldview

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.

""We owe Nancy James an enormous debt of gratitude for this marvelous translation of the seventeenth-century spiritual writer commonly known as Madame Guyon. Guyon's spirituality of passionate quietude and simplicity,highly controverted and repeatedly condemned during her life, needs a retrieval for our time of feverish multitasking and incessant distraction, and no one is more qualified to perform this task than Nancy James. May Guyon's commentaries on Pauline writings continue to nourish our souls!""
--Peter C. Phan, Author ofThe Joy of Religious Pluralism


Nancy Carol James is a priest associate at St. John's, Lafayette Sq., Washington, DC. She has written ten books about Jeanne Guyon.