Self-affirmation, not self-denial, is the predominant mode in present-day life – including our spiritual life – but are we thereby missing something important? That question underlies this well-written, thoughtful study of two seventeenth-century writers, Madame Guyon (1648–1717) and the much less known Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–78). Lee's work on them was inspired by the example of her own parents, in whom she witnessed ‘the beauty of a surrendered life, a life fully devoted to serving God even at apparent cost to themselves’, who exude joy and tireless love (p. ix). At first repelled by Guyon's emphasis on ‘self-annihilation’, Lee was then drawn to her joy in God and the strength she paradoxically drew from her spirituality. Lee was intrigued to discover similar teaching in van Schurman who, uniquely for a woman, studied languages and theology at the University of Utrecht. She later renounced ‘worldly’ intellectual theology which, she concluded, was at best affording her an external knowledge of God, and joined a Pietist movement headed by Fr Jean de Labadie, a Calvinist ex-Jesuit, in search of experiential intimate knowledge of God.
The two writers agree with Augustine that ultimate happiness is the enjoyment of God (frui Deo is the term in Augustine; the phrase Lee uses, fruitio Deo – or Dei – came later). Unlike Augustine, they hope to taste that enjoyment in this life. Lee might also have quoted Augustine on the two loves: caritas as love for God and of all else in and for God, and cupiditas as love for self in contempt of God. The practical effort to replace cupiditas with caritas underlies the writings she goes on to examine.
Both writers taught that ‘thoroughgoing denial or annihilation of the self was required for the greatest pleasure in God to be experienced’ (p. 5). Lee examines two works, offering gentle reinterpretations, seeking to retrieve what constitutes ‘right’ self-denial, as opposed to its abusive misuse.
Schurman penned, in good Latin, a treatise on ‘choosing the better part’: Eukleria: seu melioris partis electio (1673). Lee is translating it, and gives selected passages. Schurman insists that absolute self-surrender, renouncing self and all created things, comes at the start of the Christian life. It immediately frees the person to rest in, and enjoy, God. ‘Pure love’ of God is unalloyed by love of self, but Schurman does affirm that we come to a ‘pure love’ of all things including self, in and for God. So that Christ may become ‘all’, the individual must become ‘nothing’ – but, Lee glosses, the change is primarily one of perspective: the soul still exists, but regards itself as nothing in light of God's infinity.
Guyon's language is far more excessive. Lee examines self-annihilation in her commentary on the Song of Songs. The bride-soul must undergo crucifixion and ‘death’. Lee interprets: what must die is self-regard and self-interest, so that the bride may enter into the resurrection life where she finds joy and activity in Christ, in works of intellect and love of neighbour.
These writers’ ‘radical emphasis on self-denial’, Lee cautiously suggests, ‘may serve to counterbalance the love of comfort and consumption that marks our culture and even our faith’ (p. 6). Lee's questions deserve consideration. In what positive ways can we understand purgation and the way of the cross? ‘Perhaps the constant preoccupation with self, and with one's accomplishments and successes’, is an impediment to deeper union: ‘The self has become small, rather than enlarging into a generous, hospitable place for God’ (p. 107). Can these writers bring to us ‘something life-giving in their approach to the theological task and also their coupling of self-denial with the joyful pursuit of God?’ (p. 128).
