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Anna Maria van Schurman and Antoinette Bourignon: Contrasting Examples of Seventeenth-Century Pietism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Joyce Irwin
Joyce Irwin
Affiliation:
research associate in philosophy and religion inColgate University, Hamilton, New York. This article was awarded the inaugural Jane Dempsey Douglass prize.
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Extract

In the study of women and religion, it has long been common to suggest that women were particularly attracted to nontraditional theology, often of a spiritualistic nature. In earlier days, women's heretical inclinations were explained by their weaker minds and their irrational nature which made them susceptible to the influence of demagogues and false preachers. In more recent feminist interpretations, mysticism and sectarianism are seen as providing opportunites to women for religious expression and forms of leadership not open to them in established churches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 301 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1991

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References

1. That women were being drawn to heretical sects was noted by church fathers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian (see Pagels, Elaine, The Gnostic Gospels [New York, 1979,] pp. 59–60)Google Scholar, but the correlation of women's weak nature and religious deviance was most explicitly and virulently espoused by witch hunters such as Kraemer, Heinrich and Sprenger, Jakob in their Malleus Maleficarum in 1486.Google Scholar For excerpts, see Clark, Elizabeth and Richardson, Herbert, Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought (New York, 1970, pp. 121–130).Google Scholar

2. See, for example, Ruether, Rosemary Radford and McLaughlin, Eleanor, eds., Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York, 1979)Google Scholar, esp. the chapters by Smith, Catherine F., “Jane Lead: The Feminist Mind and Art of a Seventeenth-Century Protestant Mystic” (pp. 184–203)Google Scholar and Zikmund, Barbara Brown, “The Feminist Thrust of Sectarian Christianity” (pp. 206–224);Google Scholar also Wyntjes, Sherrin Marshall, “Women in the Reformation Era,” in Bridenthal, Renate and Koontz, Claudia, eds., Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, 1977), pp. 167–191.Google Scholar

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6. “Significant” in this usage is a matter of perspective since more recent centuries have virtually forgotten these women. Ronald Knox even wondered why one of them, Antoinette Bourignon, achieved such acclaim in her own time: “The chief interest about her, when the whole of her story has been read, is how she came to interest anybody” (Knox, Ronald, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the Histosy of Religion, [New York, 1961], p. 352).Google Scholar

7. The only English-language biography is by Birch, Una (Pope-Hennessy), Anna van Schurman: Artist, Scholar, Saint (London, 1909).Google Scholar Extensive bibliography is included in the Dutch biography by Douma, Anna M. H., Anna Maria van Schurman en de Studie der Vrouw (Amsterdam, 1924)Google Scholar and in the more recent study of Schurman as an artist by Stighelen, Katlijne van der, Anna Maria van Schurman, of ‘Hoe hooge dat een maeght kan in de konsten stijgen’ (Louvain, 1987).Google Scholar See also Irwin, Joyce, “Anna Maria van Schurman: From Feminism to Pietism,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 46 (1977): 46–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Anna Maria van Schurman: Learned Woman of Utrecht” in Katharina Wilson and Frank Warnke, eds., Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century (Athens, 1989), pp. 164–185.Google Scholar

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14. An Apology for M. Ant. Bourignon, Pt. IV, Containing an Abridgment of her Life (London, 1699), pp. 298–299.Google Scholar

15. See Yvon, Pierre, Kurzer Begriff Unterschiedlicher gottloser und irriger Reden und Sätze (Altona, 1673), pp. 77–89.Google Scholar

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19. Bourignon, Antoinette, Suite du Tombeau de la Fausse Theologie, in vol. 5 of Oeuvres de Mlle Antoinette Bourignon, contenues en 19 volumes (Amsterdam, 1679), pt. 2, pp. 18–24Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated as ST and noted in the text). On Eukleria, see note 22.

20. Bourignon, , La Pierre de Touche, in vol. 14 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1679), p. 176Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated as PT and noted in the text).

21. Bourignon, , Le Temoignage de Verité 1, in vol. 11 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1682), pp. 316–318Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated TV 1 and noted in the text).

22. Schurman's response to Bourignon constitutes the fifth chapter of the posthumously published second part of her autobiography, Eukleria Seu Melioris Partis Electio II (Amsterdam, 1685), pp. 113–165.Google Scholar

23. Eukleria II, ch. 5, sect. 23, p. 163.

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26. Unpublished letter from Schurman to Johann Jakob Schütz, dated 21/31 December 1676, Basel University Library, manuscript G2.II.33, fol. 19v. This letter, written to an associate of Spener in Frankfurt concerning Bourignon and Poiret, is part of a collection of Schurman's letters which yields important insights into the origins of Pietism. See Wallmann, Johannes, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus (Tübingen, 1970), pp. 290–300.Google Scholar

27. Eukleria II, ch. 4, sect. 3, p. 84.

28. Schurman, , Eukleria seu Melioris Partis Electio I (Altona, 1673), pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

29. On women in the Labadist community, see de Baar, Mirjam, “En onder 't hennerot het haantje zoekt te blijven’: De betrokkenheid van vrouwen bij het huisgezin van Jean de Labadie (1669–1732),” Vrouwenlevens 1500–1850 (Nijmegen, 1987)Google Scholar (Jaarboek voor vrou wengeschiedenis 8), pp. 11–43.

30. Reitz, Historie de Wiedergebohrnen, fol. 5.

31. Bourignon, , La vie extérieure: par elle même, in vol. 1 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1683), pp. 143–144Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated VE and noted in the text).

32. Bourignon, , L'Étoile du Matin, in vol. 14 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1684), pp. 61–62,Google Scholar letter 7, 20 May 1680.

33. Bourignon, , Traitté Admirable de la Solide Vertu 2, in vol. 9 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1678), p. 201,Google Scholar letter 14, 12 May 1676.

34. Bourignon, , Le Temoignage de Verité 2, in vol. 13 of Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1684), p. 61Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated TV 2 and noted in the text).

35. This has obvious Boehmenist elements, but there is no evidence Bourignon had read Jacob Boehme's works. Concerning her relationship to the Boehmenist circle in the Netherlands, see Kolakowski, Leszek, Chrétiens sans Église, tr. Posner, Anna (Paris, 1969), pp. 682–683.Google Scholar