Un dieu chirurgien ? L’imaginaire de l’ascèse chez Fénelon

Fénelon’s work is pervaded by ascetism and mysticism. The originality of this combination is examined here starting from Fénelon’s imagery and in particular from the recurrence of the images of divine “surgery” : the ascetism of “retranchement”, so familiar to the pen of our author, is in fact transformed into the mysticism of abandon or patient immobility according to the working of the God who injures and heals, twho analyzes the depths of man so as to consume his impurities. This complex theme is considered here in relation to an omnipresent phantom both in the narrative work and in the pedagogy of the spiritual master : the killing of a son. The article proposes to demonstrate how Fénelon’s spiritual reason fights with this primitive phantom, and ends up by producing it in a new synthesis, of which Abraham – Abraham the sacrificer, the figure of the Father who gives up his only son, Abraham who sacrifices himself in obedience to the faith – is the hero and the symbol.