GUIGO DE PONTE

Also known as (Guigue du Pont), Carthusian mystical writer; d. Oct. 29, 1297. He was prior of the Charterhouse of Mont-Dieu from 1290 to 1297. When a monk at La Grande–Chartreuse he wrote a still unedited treatise De contemplatione known chiefly, until recently, from the Contemplationum libri tres of denis the carthusian. Guigo distinguished three main types of contemplation: "natural," which arises from finding the Creator "mirrored" in His creation; "scholastic," which is an acquired "wisdom," an experimental knowledge, that results from finding God in the Scriptures; and "divinely infused," which is truly mystical. Denis in his classifications and descriptions was dependent on Hugh of Balma and Guigo, but he assimilated their teaching in his usual personal way. In matters of contemplation Guigo accentuated the affective element rather than the intellectual, though this emphasis is less marked in him than it is in Balma. Real mystical contemplation consisted for him in an odumbratio caliginis in cubiculo cordis (an overshadowing of darkness in the chamber of the heart), much as in The cloud of unknowing. His dependence on Pseudo-Dionysius is evident.

Bibliography: a. m. sochay, Catholicisme 5:374–375. j. p. grausem, "Le De Contemplatione du Chartreux Guigues du Pont," Revue d'ascétique et de mystique t 10 (1929) 259–289. denis le chartreux, Opera omnia, 44 v. (Tournai 1896–1935) 41:252–253.

[b. du moustier]