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The Marquis de Marsay: A Quietist in ‘Philadelphia’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Geoffrey Rowell
Geoffrey Rowell
Affiliation:
Assistant chaplain and Hastings Rashdall Student at New College, Oxford, England.
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Extract

Charles Hector de St. Georges, Marquis de Marsay (1688–1753), lived for the greater part of his life in the small and obscure principality of Wittgenstein in the upper Eder valley between the Rhineland and Hesse-Kassel. In his earlier years he was a disciple of the Flemish mystic, Antoinette Bourignon, and later came under the influence of the works of Madame Guyon. In Wittgenstein he attempted to put their teachings into practice by following an ascetic pattern of life. He attracted a number of followers, not only from the sectarian groups which had taken refuge in Wittgenstein, but also farther afield, notably in Switzerland, which he visited on a number of occasions. The fact that he was known in Britain to John Wesley and William Law, as well as by the group of mystically inclined gentry in north-east Scotland, is an indication of the contacts that existed between pietistic groups in different parts of Europe. The details of Marsay's life are not without interest is a considered attempt to practice the quietist spirituality of Madame Guyon in a Protestant context.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 1972 , pp. 61 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1972

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References

1. The chief source for Marsay's life is his autobiography, preserved in manuscript in the Evangelische Kirchenarchiv in Dusseldorf. The greater part of it was printed by de Valenti in his System der höheren Heilkunde (Elberfeld, 1827)Google Scholar, but I have been unable to obtain sight of this. The material for this article has been largely drawn from the English translation of the German autobiography, which is preserved in Dr. Williams' Library as Walton Ms. I.i.44. According to Christopher Walton this translation was made in 1772, probably by a Moravian preacher named Sülger, at the instance of Henry Brooke of Dublin, the nephew of the author of The Fool of Quality. (Walton, C., Notes and Materials for an adequate Biography of the celebrated Divine and Theosopher, William Law, (London [privately printed], 1854), pp. 158, 596)Google Scholar. See also Goebel, M., Geschichte des christlichen Lebens in der rheinisch-westphalischen evangelischen Kirche, III, (Koblenz, 1860).Google Scholar

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27. The full title of the Berleburger Bible is Die Heilige Schrift nach dem Grund-Text aufs neue übersehen und übersetzt; nebst einiger Erklärung des buchstäblichen Sinnes, wie auch der fürnehmsten Reich…welchem allem noch untermängt eine Erklärung die den innern Zustand des geistlichen Lebens zu erkennen gibt.

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36. Possibly Friedrich de Watteville (von Wattenwyl), father of Zinzendorf's close associate at Herrnhut, and a relative of the Abbé Gabriel de Watteville.

37. Walton Ms. Chapter III (Life of Lady Callenburg).

38. Ibid., p. 31.

39. Ibid.

40. Eckhardt, pp. 11–12; Wernle, I, p. 141.

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53. Ibid., p. 56.

54. Ibid., p. 58.

55. Ibid., pp. 59–62. Marsay considered emigrating to Pennsylvania at this time, where many other Wittgenstein sectaries had gone.

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61. Bodleian Library, Add. Ms.A,24, f.27; See Henderson, G. D., Mystics of the North-East, (Aberdeen (Third Spalding Club), 1934), p. 48.Google Scholar

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71. Walton Ms., p. 76.

72. Ibid., pp. 76–77, 79–80, 86; See Wernle, I, p. 172.

73. For example, Edelmann, Dippel and certain of the Swiss pietists. See Tillich, P., Perspectives on Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Protestant Theology (London, 1967), p. 19.Google Scholar

74. See Benz, Die protestantische Thebais.

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