Antoinette Bourignon
Antoinette Bourignon de la Porte (* January 13, 1616 in Lille, † October 30, 1680 in Franeker, Friesland) was a Belgian mystic and Separatist.
Life
The daughter of a wealthy Roman Catholic businessman Jean Bourignon grew up in what was then on to the Spanish Netherlands belonging Lille ( niederländ. Ryssel ). She busied herself as a child with saints and aimed at a monastery entrance, but was not approved by her father. Around 1635 it appeared St. Augustine, in order to entrust the reform of Christendom. Conflicts with the house, the expulsion of the Jesuits led by " Maison Notre Dame" and continue to frequent change of location were the result of her visions fed by another self-consciousness as Endzeitprophetin.
1648 brought her paternal inheritance in the orphanage " Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs " she later transformed into a monastery. After about allegations of harsh treatment of children in her care, of which she accused several of possession and witchcraft, Bourignon initially fled to Ghent and lived from 1662 to 1664 in Mechelen, where she wrote her autobiography, La Parole de Dieu ou Sa Vie Intérieure. 1667 she moved to Amsterdam and soon fell into a circle of religiously persecuted all directions as Johann Amos Comenius, Jean de Labadie and Anna Maria Schürmann. 1668 she called the Chiliast Peter Serrarius ( 1600-1669 ) as " divine light " from. Bourignon took on the role as a spiritual "mother" liked and collected by personal encouragement, as well as numerous letters a group which was made up of Calvinists, Lutherans, Mennonites, Quakers, and Jews Labadisten. Their supporters were among the famous naturalist January Swammerdam and Robert Boyle, who translated some of her writings, and occasionally Christian Hoburg. Bourignon published in French and Dutch. However, little systematic intuition is clear from their writings. As Eklektikerin she combined elements of classical mysticism (Johann Tauler, Thomas a Kempis ) with influences of quietism and the mystical spiritualism ( Jacob Boehme ).
From 1671 on she was looking for in the Duchy of Schleswig, a home for their community, as they had inherited from her late 1669 Trailer Christian de Cort part of the newly reclaimed island north beach. However, since this heritage consisted mainly of debt, led de Corts creditors a year long process against them, so that Antoinette Bourignon North beach was never allowed to enter. The group lived mostly in Husum, where conflicts with Lutheran pastors to the confiscation of their printing and 1676 led to the flight. In Hamburg she met the French Protestant theologian Pierre Poiret (1646-1719), the manager and propagandist of their intellectual heritage was after her death. Baron Dodo II to Innhausen and Knyphausen offered her in 1677 at his castle Lütetsburg ( Lützburg ) in Ostfriesland refuge. Due to the accusation of witchcraft they had to flee again in 1680 and died on the way to Amsterdam.
Aftermath
Pierre Poiret 1679-1686 published the complete works Bourignons ( Toutes les oeuvres ... ) in 19 volumes in Amsterdam and led, among others, Pierre Bayle, a fierce debate about their meaning. Great influence they had on the radical Pietism. Johann Jakob Schütz and Johanna Eleonora of Merleau received suggestions from her, Gottfried Arnold printed her autobiography in his Unparteyischen church and heretics history. The Roman Catholic Church continued her writings in 1669, 1687 and 1753 on the Index of Forbidden Books. In Protestant churches, as in the Church of Scotland, it was considered a heretic. Walter Mehring 1927 she made the object of his satirical political thriller Paris on fire.