2 Introduction
INTRODUCTION
ning If I myght suffer more (387.50), corresponds with 240.34-40. The beginning of chapter 23, And in these thre wordes ... the holy gost lykyth
(389.2-6) continues the short text without break (240.40-241.45); but 389.6-391.24 are a new reflection. Then the short text is taken up again without omission, but what there begins as a statement, Jhesu wille ..., becomes in the long text an apostrophe, A, Jhesu ... (241.45; 391.25).
The rest of the chapter, apart from a few lines indicated in the annotations, is new.
Revelation X, chapter 24, takes the opening sentence of chapter xiii, Fulle merelye ... that it do the (242.1-6), and uses most of the chapter as a frame for a new meditation on the vision of the Sacred Heart. The central idea of the short version, yf thow kan nought loke in my godhede, see heere how I lette opyn my syde, is suppressed, since Julian now has a different reflection; instead the pierced and wounded heart becomes a feyer and delectable place, and large jnow for alle mankynde that shalle be savyd
(394.6). There is allusion to the earlier meditation on the Precious Blood, and this leads to Julian's statement that the vision of the Sacred
Heart and of the Saviour's joy in it gave her 'understanding in part of his divinity', as much as then Christ wished to give. The locution, Lo how
I loue the (in the short text, 242.2, we read lovyd), inspires new passages to replaceyf thow kan nought loke ...: my darlyng ... enioye with me (395.1619), and behold and see ... and blysse with me (396.21-28).
Revelation XI, chapter 25, uses the same technique of commenting on a locution by attributing speech in the first person (that it is such a comment and not a locution always carefully specified). It continues the short text narrative (242.7-10) without break, reporting the locution
Willt thou see her? (398.5); and then Julian gives her own exegesis of this, as yftie had seyd ... (398.6-399.22). Then comes narrative from the short text (242.11-18; 400.24-31), Julian's answer to the locution, and her statement that although she had expected to see Mary in bodily likeness
(A's reading, 242.12, is probably superior to P's lykyng, 400.26, or the SS variant), in fact she saw her in apotheosis. Then comes, in the long text, the exsample, 400.32-34, not found in the short, after which the rest of the chapter follows the short text (242.18-243.24; 400.35-401.41) without omission.
Revelation XII, chapter 26, very brief, reports the 'I it am' locution when Christ showed himself 'more glorified' (243.25-36), closely following the elaborate rhetorical structure, but drawing from it a markedly different conclusion (cf. 243.28, 402.4 and notes).
Revelation XIII comprises chapters 27-40. Chapter 27, 404.3-405.13, follows exactly the short text, 243.37-244.43, with its statement that
IX. I THE TEXTS COMPARED
Julian in her folly had previously thought that if God had prevented sin, alle schulde hafe bene wele, which is preparing the ground for one of the most celebrated locutions. Then the long text telescopes a passage from the short, Butjhesu tliat in this vysyon enformyd me of alle that me nedyd answeryd by thys worde and seyde: Synne is behouely (405.11-13; cf. 244.46-52), and introduces for the first time the locution itself: but alle shalle be wele, and alle shalle be wele, and alle maner of thynge shalle be wele, not found at this place in the short text. What follows: In pis nakyd worde: Synne ... whych be nott very good (405.14-406.21), there is further omission of shorttext matter (cf. 244.53-245.60). The rest of the chapter follows the short text, 406.22-407.38, 245.61-246.75 (as it has been edited), though the final paragraph, And in theyse same wordes ... (407.39-42) is original.
Chapter 28's opening, Thus I saw ... alle my evyn cristen (408.2-5), is from the short text (246. 77-80), but, except for And than saw I... Crist in hym
(246.80-83), the rest of this chapter is new. The whole of chapter 29 (412.2-413.17) corresponds with the short text, 247.1-16. Chapter 30,
414.2-416.26, reproduces the short text, 247.17-248.41. Chapter 31 begins (417.2-418.20) by following the short text, chapter xv, 249.1250.18; but the rest of the chapter, For we know in ourefeyth ... (418.21 e.s.) is original, except for the concluding phrases (421.50-53; 250.1922). The next sentence in the short text, And in thies ... ere for to comme
(250.22-25), is reproduced in the middle of the long chapter 31 (423.2022), but with that exception the chapter is new. Chapter 32 omits what follows immediately in the short text,for ryght... nought wele (250.25-27), but repeats the following sentence, It is goddys wille ... alle that he schalle do
(250.27-28), towards the end of chapter 33, which otherwise is original.
So is the first paragraph of chapter 34 (430.2-431.14); but the rest follows the opening of chapter xvi (252.1-12), omitting the conclusion of chapter xv (250.29-251.35). The first paragraph of chapter 35, the anecdote of Julian's overanxiety for a serteyn creature (432.2-433.14), repeats the short text (252.13-253.23), though the long text has been edited to conceal that the 'creature' was a woman (cf. 432.4 note). The rest of chapter 35 is new, as is the whole of chapter 36. Chapter 37 takes up again the short text without omission, supplying, however, its own minor interpolations. The first clause of chapter 38 follows the short text (255.17-18) without a break; but the treatment of the theme of the famous penitents whose examples show that 'sin is no shame, but worship' (254.9-256.25; 445.2-448.36) has been drastically re-edited for the long text, and the 'example' of John of Beverley is new. The opening of chapter 39 (449.2-450.13) reproduces the short text (256.25-256.36) without omissions and with only minimal rewording; but the med-
INTRODUCTION
itation on humility which follows (450.13-452.29) is an addition.
This leads to the passage For by theyse medydns ...to worschyppe and to joy (452.30-453.40), which follows the short text without omission (256.3645) and with little re-editing; the conclusion of chapter 39 (453.40-48) is not in the short text. The first three paragraphs of chapter 40 (454.2456.24), though they reproduce odd phrases from the short text (454.6,
455.12 notes) are new; the rest, 457.33-459.54, is an expansion of what immediately follows the last borrowing from there (256.45-47).
Revelation XIV, pp. 460-618, comprises chapters 41-63, and constitutes one third of the entire long text. The opening of chapter 41
(460.3-4, 5-462.20) continues without omission to follow the short text (258.1-2, 259.13-260.29); but the rest of the chapter in the long text, with its analysis of the locution, and its exhortations to have trust in praying, is new. Chapter 42, a continuation of this theme, is wholly new. Chapter 43, also concerned with prayer, has some borrowing from the short text (258.4-261.53 = 475.2-476.17; 261.59-262.64 =
478.28-479.33), but much new matter has been added. Chapters 44, 45 and 46 are original, as is chapter 47, apart from one phrase (262.64-67;
496.16, 17, 496.19-20); and the whole of the rest of this revelation is not found in the short text. Elsewhere in this Introduction the basic unity of the entire revelation, which is its concern to comprehend and expound divine compassion, is suggested; and the editors have there attempted to demonstrate that this wealth of fresh material includes the showing of the lord and the servant, received along with the others but suppressed in the short text, because Julian could not reconcile her convictions about God's love with her age's preoccupation with his anger and what she had been shown — and not shown — about sin, and that this leads to her teachings on 'God our Mother', and on the unity of all mankind which will be saved, as her final resolution of the theological and emotional problems which had prevented her from writing the short text in accordance with what, she was told, was God's will for it.
Revelation XV is constituted of chapters 64 and 65. In accordance with her new insights,Julian omits the passage in the short text dealing with the quenching of God's wrath (262.69-78), and begins chapter 64 with a new sentence: Thus I vndentode that all his blessyd chyldren whych be come out ofhym by kynd shulde be brougt agayne in to hym by grace (619.3-4).
Then the second, third and fourth paragraphs follow (619.5-622.30), with little re-editing, chapter xx of the short text (263.1-264.25). Next there is the account of the swylge stynkyng myrre (622.31-625.60), and its application to the theme of 'merciful compassion', at the end of which
IX.2 CRITERIA OF ANALYSIS
Julian introduces, re-arranged from the short text, What shuld it than a greuyd... (625.59-626.67; cf. 265.57-58, 264.27-33). Chapter 65 is original to the long text.
Revelation XVI comprises the remaining chapters, 66-86. The beginning of chapter 66, 632.3-9, serves as preface to the whole revelation, and it is new. The rest of the paragraph, and soone I feelt... gostly and bodely (632.10-15) paraphrases and expands the opening of chapter xxi
(266.1-6). Then there follows, 632.16-634.35, the account of her conversation with the 'religious person' (cf. 266.7-267.25). Chapter 67 describes the nocturnal phantasm which assailed her sleeping, with much more vivid detail than in the short text (cf. 267.26-40). Chapter
68 follows the short text, chapter xxii, 268.1-269.27, but with an addition (641.17-643.36). Between chapters 68 and 69 the long text omits
269.28-42. Chapters 69 and part of 70 follow the short text's account of the second diabolic visitation (270.1-25), but with considerable reediting; the two devils, for example, are reduced to one. But at the end of this account, chapter 70 continues (651.17-653.40) with a general reflection on the revelations' authenticity, and on Julian's pusillanimity in this regard, whereas the short text's rhetorical apostrophe to sin
(271.26-36) is omitted, for reasons elsewhere suggested, as is the reflection on wrecchednesse (271.37-272.56). Chapters 71 and 72 are original.
Chapter 73 begins (666.2-11) by following the short text (272.57-274.8).
There follows a long new passage (667.16-669.38); and the chapter ends with two separated excerpts (669.39-673.19, 674.27-675.33), which together form the last quotation from the short text (275.25-277.23).
The rest of the chapter, and of Revelation XVI, is original.
2 Criteria of Analysis The problem facing the psychologist and the theologian concerning the relations between Julian's vision, her sickness and alleged cure have been canvassed too often for them to need detailed rehearsal here.
Molinari has carefully catalogued the various possibilities, from the only evidence available; her text, her apparent good health for at least forty years afterwards, and Margery Kempe's testimony that she was active as a spiritual counsellor at the age of sixty or thereabouts, and, most significantly, had a reputation for discerning truth from falsehood in the matter of visions and revelations. Molinari's criticisms of past judgments are well reasoned. 16° In the preceding section of this In160 Julian of Norwich, 22-31.
INTRODUCTION
troduction, and, frequently, in their annotations, the editors have remarked the scrupulous care with which Julian, in revising her short text, scrutinizes all that she had written about her state of mind and body at the time of the showings, and her passionate regard for objective truth about herself. The long text is more than sufficient testimony to the many hours of prayer and exacting study demanded by the editorial task she had undertaken.
Two points have perhaps escaped the notice of previous critics. The more important is the clinical precision with which she describes the progress of her sickness, and especially her symptoms when in extremis:
And when I was xxxth yere old and a halfe, god sent me a bodily sicknes in the which I lay iij daies and iij nyghtes; and on the iiij nyght I toke all my rightes of holie church, and went not to haue leuen tyll day (289.2).
It must first be noticed that all my rightes of holie church refers principally to the sacrament of the sick, or extreme unction, as it is officially entitled in the list of seven sacraments 'held and taught by the holy Roman
Church' composed at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274-161 By the middle of the twelfth century, the custom was to postpone the anointing until the sick person was near death, and it appears to have been Peter
Lombard who first called it the sacrament of 'extreme unction'.I62 After him, the great scholastics taught that the purpose of the sacrament was to prepare the soul for death and for immediate entrance into heaven.
Duns Scotus, for example, insisted that the anointing be administered only to those who are so close to death as to be incapable of further sin.163 The view of Thomas Aquinas became general: extreme unction frees the soul from the debt of temporal punishment, so that when it departs from the body, nothing can prevent its entrance into glory.I64 It is thus clear that in the common estimation of those who were with Julian, and of whatever medical competence was available, she was 'in danger of death by sickness'. It was on the third night, after she had received the sacraments, when she weenied often tymes to haue passed, and so wenyd thei that were with me (289.6); and she writes:
I vnderstode by my reason and by the feelyng of my paynes that I should die ... Thus I indured till day, and by then was my bodie dead from the miedes downward, as to my feeling. Then was I holpen to be set vpright
... vndersett with helpe ... My curate was sent for to be at my ending, and 161 Denzinger-Schonmetzer, no. 860.
162 Sententiarum libri quatuor IV dist. ii i; PL 192 841.
163 Qiiaestiones in IV librum sententiarum IV dist. xxiii (Paris, V ii 9).
164 Contra gentiles IV cap. Ixxii (Rome, 1934, 537-538).
IX.2 CRITERIA OF ANALYSIS
before he cam I had set vp my eyen and might not speake ... After this the over part of my bodie began to die so farforth that vnneth I had anie feeling. My most payne was shortnes of breth and faielyng of life. Then went I verily to haue passed (pp. 290.14-a9%. $5).
Specialists in diseases of the heart whom the editors have consulted accept the description of the extreme difficulty of speech, the loss of vision, the painful effort of breathing as that of an exceptionally observant and articulate lay-person reporting the symptoms of severe cardiac failure.
Secondly, Julian treats her cure as miraculous, in the strict theological sense, by applying the criteria demanded, then as now, in causes of canonization:165 it was so sudden as to be outside the natural processes of recovery; it was not a medicinal cure; and it was complete:
And in this sodenly all my paine was taken from me, and I was as hole, and namely in be over parte of my bodie, as ever I was befor. I merveiled of this sodeyn change, for my thought that it was a previe working of god, and not of kynd (292.35, and cf. 292.35 note).
The agnostics (and there have been several during this last century of continually awakening popular interest in fourteenth-century English spirituality) amongst Julian's critics, since they cannot accept the possibility of miracle, have naturally tended to overlook her careful and (to the unprejudiced) objective descriptions of her experiences of suffering. Finally, if one finds oneself out of sympathy with her theological world, attempts to explain her visions as hallucinations, showing an abnormal mental state,166 or even 'acute neurosis induced perhaps by an over-enthusiastic life of penance and solitude'167 are ultimately inevitable. In any discussion of the nature and meaning of her revelations, there are no criteria except those of Catholic theology as it reflects over the centuries on the Christian faith as contained in Scripture and authentic ecclesial tradition. This theology affirms that God can reveal himself (in the strict sense of verbal revelation) to an individual person; and he can give to the recipient a sufficient certitude of the divine origin of this personal experience by internal or external criteria. Such revelations are called 'private', not because they are in165 The best historical survey of the evolution of the processes is probably still that of Prospero Lambertini, Benedict XIV; and they can be observed at work in Julian's day in Isak Collijn's sumptuous edition of the documents dealing with Bridget of Sweden's first canonization. See E. Colledge: 'Epistola solitarii ad reges'.
166 R. H. Thouless: The Lady Julian, 25.
167 C. Pepler: The English Religious Heritage, 312.
INTRODUCTION
tended simply for the spiritual benefit of an individual, but because they are addressed through the beneficiary to the whole Church or to an important part of the Church.168 Furthermore, the immediate beneficiary, at the very least, can have the right and even the duty of adhering to the content of such revelations by an act of faith, even though such revelations do not belong to the deposit of faith, the public revelation, which was completed with the death of the last of the twelve apostles.169 But it does not follow that the authentic private revelation is merely an affirmation of what is already known (or can be known) by faith and theology, a kind of heavenly repetition of public revelation.
Its essential character is imperative; it is a specific command, a manifestation of the divine will inspired in a member of the Church which is to affect the conduct of the Church, or of some of its other members, in a concrete situation. 17° That Julian is constantly aware of this theology of revelation is evident throughout her showings, and in both texts. What gives her courage to publish her short text, despite the opposition which she is convinced that the publication will arouse, is her assurance that this that I saye, I hafe it of the schewynge ofhym that es souerayne techare (222.42); and she goes on:
Botte for I am a womann, schulde I therfore leve that I schulde noujt telle 3owe the goodenes of god, syne that I sawe in that same tyme that is his wille, that it be knawenn? (222.46).
That she is acutely conscious of her right and duty to believe without wavering that God has revealed himself and his love to her is shown in the distress she is still capable of communicating to us when she writes, more than twenty years afterwards, of her recklessness in doubting this even for a moment:
I waxsyd full grettly ashamyd, and wolde a bene shryvyn. But I cowlde telle it to no prest, for I thought, how shulde a preste belieue me when I by seaying I ravid I shewed my selfe nott to belyue oure lorde god? Nott withstanding I beleft him truly for the tyme bat I saw hym; and so was than my wylle and my menyng ever for to do without end. But as a fole I lett it passe oute of my mynde. A, loo how wrechyd I was! This was a grett synne and a grett vnkyndnesse (633.23).
It is hardly necessary to cite examples showing how totally she takes it for granted that the showings and the Christian faith must coincide. She is a simple child of God because she is a simple child of her mother,
Holy Church (cf. 494.49):
168 K. Rahner: 'Les revelations privees', 506.
IW Ibid., 512-513170 Ibid., 513.
IX.3 REVELATION I
Here may we see that we be all bounde to god for kynd, and we be bounde to god for grace. Her may we see that vs nedyth nott gretly to seke ferre out to know sondry kyndys, but to holy church into oure moders brest, that is to sey in to oure owne soule, wher oure lord dwellyth. And ther shulde we fynde alle, now in feyth and in vnderstandyng, and after verely in hym selfe clerely in blysse (612.22).
Julian knows well enough the part of the Church for which her revelations are intended. First, it is her fellow-Christians in England, for whom she writes so carefully in their mother tongue, translating and opening for them the Scriptures in the light of her showings and her experience, and sharing with them all that she has learned of contemplative life and prayer from the great monastic teachers of the West. She makes further specifications: alle men and wornenn tliat myghttelye and mekelye and wyrschipfullye takes the prechynge and the techynge ofhaly kyrke (252.1); what man or woman wylfully chosyth god in this lyfe for loue
(627.2);suylke menu and womenn that for goddess love hates synne and dysposes thamm to do goddes wille (274.6). The author of the prologue in A puts it succinctly: ...in the whilke visyonn er Julie many comfortabylle wordes and gretly styrrande to alle thaye that desires to be Crystes looverse (201.3), as does the colophon to S2:
Here end the sublime and wonderful revelations of J>e unutterable loue of God in Jesus Christ, vouchsafed to a dear lover of his, and in her to all his dear friends and lovers whose hearts like hers do flame in J>e loue of our dearest Jesu (734.29 note).
3 Revelation I In the summary of the sixteen showings which the editors believe to have been composed, by Julian herself, before she made the final redaction of the long text (cf. the annotations to chapter i), at the beginning of the first chapter, it is stated that here all the shewynges thatfoloweth be grovndide and ioyned (281.7). For purposes of illustration, one might say that Revelation I stands to the other fifteen in their final version as the Prologue stands to the rest of St. John's Gospel. The analogy is not so far-fetched as it may seem: the first showing concerns 'himself, God and man', God the everlasting lover, who comes down to us, to the lowest part of our need, born to her who was a simple creature of his making, dwelling in us, filling full all his creatures. Julian, like so many contemplatives of the Western Church before and after her, would know the Prologue by heart, as the final prayer of the daily Mass, associated with the blessing, and read indeed as a blessing in exorcisms and over
INTRODUCTION
newly baptized children and the sick. m Like the apostle, she is vividly aware that the Word was spoken to her — she saw his glory. But the purpose of her revelation could never be other than the purpose of the Gospel, spoken, shown, written that we 'may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and, believing, have life in his name' (John
20.31). It is goddes my lie that je take it with as grete ioy and lykyng, as Jhesu hath shewde it toyow (320.39). From the first she is anxious to efface herself as much as possible. She is aware that the one who is more then all that god made beneth her in wordines ... but the blessed manhood of Christ
(298.38) saw herself so lytylle and so [owe, so symple and so poer in regard of hyr god (311.8). But now, as Julian writes her long text, conscious of her gifts and developed talents, she begins by recalling that when she received the revelation, she had comparatively little learning (285.2), and that she was naive enough to ask for graces which, later, seemed to overwhelm her. Yff I had wyst what payne it had be, I had be loth to haue prayde it (371.21).
The editors have remarked on the 'Franciscan' influences in Julian's early piety, and particularly that of popular devotions to Christ's
Passion, as evidenced, for instance, by her obvious acquaintance with such well-known works as the Stimulus amoris and the pseudo-Bonaventure Meditationes. Though we have no means of knowing how long before her thirtieth birthday she had asked for the three gifts, including the three 'wounds', she obviously considers the interval between her petitions and her sickness to have been significant enough for her to write: This sicknes I desyred in my jowth, that I might haue it when I ware xxxih yeare olde (288.38, and note), a youth during which, it is believed, she was already serving God in the religious state (cf. 351.3 e.s.) But she is of sufficient spiritual maturity to distinguish her first two desires from the third:
These twey desyers of the passion and of the sicknes that I desyred of him was with a condicion; for me thought this was not the commune vse of prayer (287.34).
More than this, however, as will be seen in the analysis of Revelation XIII, the 'three wounds', of true contrition, kind compassion and wilful longing to God, are a concise description of the grace of compunction, integral to contemplative life and prayer in the Benedictine tradition, according to the teaching of Gregory the Great, the 'doctor of desire'. m
171 R. E. Brown: The Gosfiel according to John, i 18.
172 J. Leclercq: The Love of Learning, 39.
IX.3 REVELATION I
The first two gifts she sees as means to the third: the sickness is for passive purification (And this merit I for I would be purgied by the merrie of god: 287.29), the sight is for illumination (wher in I might haue more knowledge of the bodily paynes of our sauiour ... the more true mynd in the passion of Christ; 286.12-20), and the purgation and illumination, the fruits of her own sufferings and of her suffering with Christ, were to lead to union and to the fulfilment of her longing (For I desyred to haue ben soone with my god and maker; 287.32). It is perhaps unlikely that she saw so clearly, when she first conceived her 'mighty desire', which, she states,
'dwelt continually' in her consciousness, that she was longing and praying for a life totally given over to contemplation according to the classic triad. It is in the long text that she tells us that the desire was conceived not only by grace but also by the teaching of Holy Church
(288.40), in this case of the great masters of monastic living and contemplative prayer. What one is certain of is the mature quality of her life and prayer at the time of her sickness; her mind and heart were ready to receive the revelations. For Julian, the first showing properly begins, not (as the SS editors have unfortunately indicated) with the third but with the second chapter of the long text; she believes her sickness to be the direct answer to her previous prayer for purification.
'God sent me' is not merely pious jargon, as the ratiodnatio indicates:
For my thought all that tyme that I had leued heer so litle and so shorte in regard of that endlesse blesse, I thought: Good lordc, may my leuyng no longer be to thy worshippe? And I vnderstode by my reason and by the feelyng of rny paynes that I should die (290.12).
In this chapter also, she makes it clear that her miraculous cure (which has already been discussed) was, unknown to her, God's immediate preparation for her to receive the showing. In fact, the word 'suddenly' introduces a series of three graces, of which the cure is the first (292.35) and the bodily showing (294.3) the third. The second is what she clearly considers to be a divine impulse to pray for the second wound:
Then cam sodenly to my mynd that I should desyer the second wound of our lordes gifte and of his grace, that my bodie might be fulfilled with mynd and feeling of his blessed passion, as I had before praied, for I would that his paynes were my paynes, with compassion and afterward langyng to god (292.43).
This is really a prayer for and a description of the first gift (cf. 285.5 e.s.), but without a bodily sight, as well as the second wound; and it explains clearly what she understands by 'compassion'. This prayer is answered, first by the bodily sight, and then by all that she sees and understands in the entire first showing and beyond it, in particular, in the
INTRODUCTION
great showing of the Lord's compassion, Revelation XIII (cf., for example, 443.13-15).
It is noteworthy that her first description of the first bodily sight in chapter 4 (there is close correspondence with the short text) is very austere, by contrast with, in particular, Revelations II and VIII. The reason for this becomes clear in the long text, where she writes that the Trinity suddenly filled her heart with utmost joy (294.9). There is no reference, throughout this revelation, to the dolours of the Passion.
The stress is on the consolation; and she tells us what was her first reaction to the sight of Christ, glorified and exalted, yet on his cross:
Thus I toke it for that tyme that our lord Jhesu of his curteys loue would shewe me comfort before the tyme of my temptation; for me thought it might well be that I should by the sufferance of god and with his keping be tempted of fiendes before I should die (296.20).
The Trinitarian showing, which is apparently a 'touch' as well as a sight, has no place in the short text. This may be because initially she attributed her joy to a response of faith, and only perceived later that it was an earnest of the joy of heaven. Wher Jhesu appireth the blessed trinitie is understand (295.15). This is for her a truth of faith; she does not see it as belonging to the showing of the suffering Jesus until in the parable of the lord and the servant she understands how it is that the dolorous
Passion and the joy of the Resurrection co-exist. The same is probably true of the clear oppositio contrariorum which she introduces into the long text with the phrase so reuerent and so dreadfull (296.18, and note to line
16).
After the bodily sight of the bleeding head, and the wonder she experiences in her contemplation of it, in the short text she next records
'the ghostly sight of his homely loving' (212.2 e.s.); whereas in the long text there follow, first, the vision of Mary, seen 'ghostly in bodily likeness' (297.28 e.s.), which in the short text is placed after the showing of 'all that is made' (213.25 e.s.). It would appear that in neither text is Julian intending to record the various elements of the whole of Revelation I in chronological order. The 'bodily sight', she tells us in the long text, contynued tylle many thynges were sene and vnderstondyd (311.19); and this occurs after she has referred a second time to the showing of Mary (310.2 e.s.), a passage which has no correspondent in the short text. Here in Revelation I, though she will conclude
(in both texts) by telling us that All this was shewde by thre partes, that is to sey by bodyly syght and by worde formyde in my vnderstondyng, and by goostely syght (323.29; cf.
224.1).
IX.3 REVELATION I
and although she also offers us six headings under which she arranges its total content, none of this refers to chronological succession. It seems probable, however, that she has deliberately arranged the showing of Mary to follow that of Christ, man and God, not merely for the theological reason that she is more then all that god made beneth her in wordines and in fullhead; for aboue her is nothing that is made but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight (298.38), and therefore takes precedence of all else which is made, but also because of the movement in the showing from 'ghostly in bodily likeness' to vision of a higher sort. As Molinari has pointed out in his classification of the sights, this term occurs elsewhere only in chapter 51, where it is used in conjunction with another term, 'more ghostly without bodily likeness',173 also to describe the dynamic progress from a lower to a higher kind of 'ghostly sight'. It could well be that in chapter 51 Julian, seeing clearly for the first time the distinction, was then able to find language to express it. But the vision of Mary seems to have been clarified fully for her before that of the lord and the servant, in chapter 44, where she can tell us as she saw
(cf. p. 483), so that she has no need to make the sort of distinctions for the sake of clarity which she draws in chapter 51.
It has been noted that at the end of Revelation I Julian writes of three modes of manifestation, one of which is 'words formed in my understanding'. In both texts, Julian may be observed using ratiodnatio in various ways to communicate her assimilation and understanding of what she saw. This she never considers as a kind of negative exercise, arguing or reasoning with herself. The three answers in chapter 5 concerning the little thing, the size of a hazel nut, It is all that is made
(300.12), It lasteth and ever shall, for god loueth it; and so hath all thing being by the loue of god (300.15), Verely, the maker, the keper, the louer (300.19), are formed in her understanding. That the locutions, too, are of different kinds has frequently been noticed.174 Here Julian's own reflection on what she is shown produces the questions; but she is convinced that she cannot of herself find the answers.
Molinari argues with reason that here we have an intermediate type of locution, corresponding with the type of sight called 'ghostly in bodily likenesse',175 different from the dialogue between the Lord and Julian, at the beginning of chapter 22, for example, which Molinari sees as analogous to the bodily sight, which he understands as an 173 Molinari, 42.
174 Ibid., 67-69.
175 Ibid., 69.
INTRODUCTION
imaginative, not a bodily vision.I76 However, Julian affirms again in chapter 73:
Alle this blessyd techyng of oure lorde god was shewde by thre partys, that is to sey by bodely syght, and by worde formyd in myne vnderstondyng, and by gostely syghte (666.2); and she adds:
... for J>e words, I haue seyde them ryght as oure lorde shewde them me (666.5).
Thus we must conclude that in whatever form they were cast by Julian, she did not wish to differentiate one locution from another by applying to them the terms 'bodily' and 'ghostly'. She seems also to imply, not only here but in several other places, as will presently be considered, that often enough she sees the words themselves in the same way that she sees a ghostly sight, though not a bodily one. A clear example occurs in Revelation XI, chapter 25:
Wylte thou see her? I answeryd and seyde: 3e good lorde, grannt mercy, ye good lorde, yf it be thy wylle. Often tymes I preyde this, and I went to haue seen her in bodely lykyng; but I saw her nott so. And Jhesu in that worde shewyd me a goostly syght of her (400.24).
Just as with the bodily sights, she tells us as she sees, as truly as I can (666.5); and yet she can also say that these sights in the first showing are tokyns of the blessydfulle passion. So the words formed in her understanding, in so far as they are of human speech, are tokens of what
God wills to communicate to her. Teresa of Avila, in so many respects a woman of calibre like Julian's, has much to write on these interior words: they are very distinctly formed,177 much more clearly understood than if heard by the ear,178 of themselves convincing that they come from God,179 carrying authority,180 producing sudden change in the soul,181 persisting in the memory.182 All these are indeed Julian's convictions about the words formed in her understanding.
At this point in the short text, after the showing of Mary (pp. 213-14), Julian, writing of contemplative purification, observes:
176 Ibid., 68.
177 Autobiography, xxv a.
178 Ibid., xxv 6.
179 Interior Castle, 'Sixth Mansion', III 12.
180 Autobiography, xxv 12.
"' Ibid., xxv 5.
112 Interior Castle, 'Sixth Mansion. . , III 11.
IX.3 REVELATION I
Of this nedes like man and woman to hafe knawynge that desyres to lyeve contemplatyfelye, that hym lyke to noujt alle thynge that es made for to hafe the love of god that es vn made (215.41).
The editors have suggested in their annotation to this that Julian in the long text edited out the pericope because she did not wish to restrict what she had to say to ex professo contemplalives. In addition, the passage is part of a comparison which might appear to be universally condemnatory off all 'actives';Julian had no wish to criticize or to offer merely negative advice. On the other hand, in the text as she has rearranged it, her purpose remains unchanged: she is writing of a basic disposition for union with God which is offered to all Christians. In fact, the whole of Revelation I in the long text can be said to serve as an introduction to contemplative prayer and the way of thinking conducive to it. She tells us first, in chapter 4, of the God who communicates himself to us, by associating the great names of the Trinity
(295.11 e.s.) with his 'homeliness' and 'courtesy'. Next she shows Mary as the model of that reverent beholding in wisdom and truth (297.31), which is contemplation. Chapter 5 begins with an image of 'homely loving' compounded from Scripture: the Psalmist, speaking of the universe clad in the majesty of the transcendent God, united to the detail from Luke of the swaddling clothes of the manger at Bethlehem; and the showing of the little thing like a hazel nut has its purpose, to explain that the God who seeks us, and he alone, has and is what can fulfil us. The chapter ends with her own petitionary prayer for this unitive life, the expression of this natural yearning of the soul which is itself a response to the inspiration of the Spirit of God. If and when the devout
Christian has learned this lesson, that: he is the endlesshead and he made vs only to him selfe and restored vs by his precious passion, and ever kepeth vs in his blessed loue; and all this is of his goodnes (303.44), he will wish to examine his customary habits of prayer, to see how adequate his response is to the manifold expressions of this goodness.
To help him here,Julian describes her own devotional life; and we can see how closely she must have followed the patterns prescribed and recommended in the Ancrene Riwle. m She writes: We praie to god for his
183 In what follows here, and in the annotations to the text, quotations are wherever possible taken from the still unpublished Riwle text in the Vernon MS, since it, though retaining a spelling system by its time archaic, in many places has a modernized vocabulary closer than that of any earlier Riwle version to the speech of Julian's contemporaries.