Ways of Seeing
Ways of Seeing
Ways of Seeing What Julian comes to understand is that there are two ways of seeing
(that is, understanding) reality – "in my sight" and "in God's sight." As she suggests in chapter 10, in reference to her vision of the Passion, her "seeing" is natively partial and incomplete. "So I saw him [God] and sought him, and I had him and lacked him; and this is and should be our ordinary undertaking in this life, as I see it."
Following on from the ambiguities of chapter 32, already noted, in the following chapter 33 Julian still desires to see hell and purgatory. This is not to question her inherited beliefs but to understand them more clearly and therefore to live better. "But for all that I could wish, I could see nothing at all of this, except what has already been said in the fifth revelation."
This refers to the devil being scorned by God. However, Julian also learns that she must be content both with what God conceals and what God reveals. If we do anything else "the further we shall be from knowing."
A key feature of the parable is that the fallen servant sees neither his loving lord "nor does he truly see what he himself is in the sight of his loving lord." One of the effects of the Fall is that we cannot see ourselves truly. Indeed, as Julian suggests in the next chapter (chapter 52) "God sees one way and man sees another way." Alternatively, as in the Watson and Jenkins Middle English edition, "For otherwise is the beholding of God, and otherwise is the beholding of man." That is why the deep implications of the parable of a Lord and a Servant were initially unclear to Julian. Like the servant in the parable, she can neither see herself truly nor see the wider story of humankind. Therefore Julian needed to be shown the reality of the Fall as it is "in God's sight."
The notion of "beholding" – that is, an immediacy of God's presence and being in a state of connection with the divine – is a recurring theme in Julian's Long Text. As we shall see in the final chapter of this book, it is an important dimension of Julian's teaching on prayer and on spiritual growth. However, in the present context, Julian's remarks in chapter 9 about the three "parts," or levels, of beholding are highly relevant. "All this [that is, the revelations] was shown in three parts, that is to say, by bodily vision and by words formed in my understanding and by spiritual vision." Initially, Julian "sees," in her limited human way (bodily vision), the narrative of the parable which she struggles to comprehend.
Subsequently, 20 years or so later, she receives "inward instruction." It seems to me that this corresponds to the second level of beholding,
"words formed in my understanding." This then leads Julian on to the critical level of beholding, that is, "spiritual vision." This level of "spiritual vision" does not merely refer to a depth of awareness but also to the challenging nature of God's "inward instruction" or "inward spiritual
Parable of a Lord and a Servant
revelation." Thus, what becomes Julian's chapter 51 contains radical theological insights that take her way beyond her own capacity to reach through either the intellectual or contemplative reflections that presumably played an important role in her life.
Mystics make truth claims in the sense that their writings attempt to express what they have come to know inwardly about God. In quite singular ways, a mystic such as Julian of Norwich embodies God's presence.
What she seeks to articulate from her experience is not only something of what God is but also something of how God sees. Because of this, she offers a radically alternative vision of created reality, including human existence. We might think of this as Julian having been shown, albeit momentarily, "the world seen through God's eyes."
It is this perspective, among other things, that differentiates Julian's approach to the Passion from the more common medieval expressions of Passion devotion. Essentially her experience of God is centered on the cross of Jesus. However, she does not simply see the Trinity through the cross. She also sees the cross through the eyes of the Trinity. For this reason she can write of the cross as the Trinity's joy or bliss. The most concise statement is in chapter 1 in which Julian summarizes all of the revelations in turn.
The ninth revelation is of the delight which the blessed Trinity has in the cruel Passion of Christ, once his sorrowful death was accomplished, and that he wishes that joy and delight to be our solace and happiness, as it is his, until we come to glory in heaven.
Interestingly it is while Julian contemplates the blood running down Jesus' face (chapter 4) that "in the same revelation, suddenly the Trinity filled my heart full of the greatest joy" (the italics are mine). It was precisely in "this sight of his blessed Passion" that Julian understood the ultimate sense of security and comfort that was God's desire for all humanity.
Julian is led to view the world and especially human nature through God's eyes.7 This results in two striking assertions. First, there is neither blame nor wrath in God (chapters 45–49). Secondly, and related to it, sin is "nothing" (Short Text chapter viii) or "no deed" (Long Text chapter 11).
In seeing God in everything (Long Text chapter 11) Julian also sees all things in God and therefore "in all this sin was not shown to me." Later, as she considers how sin hinders her longing for God (chapter 27) she is taught that she could not see sin as she contemplated the Passion because
"it has no kind of substance, no share in being, nor can it be recognized except by the pain caused by it." As we shall see in Chapter 6, sin is the cause both of human pain and of the Passion and yet "sin is necessary"
Ways of Seeing
(in Middle English behovely, that is "fitting" or "opportune"). In an echo of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil, sin is the felix culpa that reveals so great a redeemer or, in Julian's teaching, enables us to experience more profoundly the reality of God's being as love.
In the end, as the exemplum in chapter 51 underlines, God does not "see" sin but only the bliss that will be ours. In God's vision this is the ultimate truth and so Julian, in her perception of God's eye view, cannot see sin even though humanly she knows its effects in her life and in the world. This is not to deny the reality of sin in the world of human actions and experiences. However, it is to say that the centrality of sin in human experience and theology is not reproduced on the level of God's essential relationship with humanity. Julian expresses this in terms of paradox at the end of chapter 34: "When I saw that God does everything which is done, I did not see sin, and then I saw that all is well. But when God did show me about sin, then he said: All will be well" (the italics are mine).
One might say that in her God's eye view Julian has a realized eschatology but that from the point of view of experience she necessarily has a proleptic eschatology. This is what saves her teaching from the accusation that it is unrealistic about the reality of sin and evil.
The two assertions are based on God's "great endless love" (chapter 45).
"God is that goodness which cannot be angry, for God is nothing but goodness" (chapter 46). However, as the parable of a Lord and a Servant makes clear, it all depends on a difference of seeing. The parable is really a response to Julian's questions and concerns about sin and why she cannot see it when she contemplates all reality in God. God looks on human beings and their failings with compassion and love and not with blame.
Interestingly, the only time that Julian suggests that God acts robustly towards humanity seems to be in reference to the tribulations of Holy
Church (chapter 28). In order to combat the dangers of "'the pomps and pride and the vainglory of this wretched life" God says "I shall completely break down in you your empty affections and your vicious pride." This is likely to be a contemporary reference to divisions in the Church, probably to the controversies surrounding a divided papacy and perhaps to the fears of heresy in England.8
In the parable, Julian is led to understand that essentially God cannot but see humanity in the light of his Son. "When Adam fell, God's son fell
[into Mary's womb]; because of the true union which was made in heaven, God's Son could not be separated from Adam, for by Adam I understand all mankind." Julian finally understands the parable when she begins to see matters from God's perspective. From this standpoint, the story of the Adam (the Fall) and of Christ (the Incarnation) are somehow the same. The moment of Adam's fall becomes the moment of salvation as well. The parable is an exposition of salvation history from God's
Parable of a Lord and a Servant
viewpoint. God looks upon us as we are in Christ and sees us in our final integrity: healed, sinless, and glorified. That is how God "sees" the fallen servant in the ditch which contrasts so radically with the servant's own experience of himself and his failure. In the light of eternity we are ever in union with God and always have been. This has already been implied in the phrase, "I saw God in a point," whether this is an "instant of time" or the smallest physical space (chapter 11). All that exists in both time and space is but a single "point" for God. "And for the great endless love that God has for all mankind, he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the least soul that will be saved"
(chapter 54).9
In the Sixteenth Revelation, chapter 68, Julian is led from her contemplation of the Lord's realm to seek where the Lord dwells.
And then our good Lord opened my spiritual eye, and showed me my soul in the midst of my heart. I saw the soul as wide as if it were an endless citadel, and also as if it were a blessed kingdom and from the state which I saw in it, I understood that it is a fine city. In the midst of that city sits our lord Jesus, true God and true man.
Julian's anthropology is complex and depends on understanding two dimensions to human existence, "substance" and "sensuality" (developed especially in chapters 54–59). These are not easy to define as the words have a number of implications. They will be examined in detail in Chapter 5.10 However, one aspect of them is to describe "substance" not simply as the dimension of ourselves that, by nature, is irrevocably united to God. It is also the self that God sees. "Sensuality," therefore, may stand for the self that we see. Neither is exclusively true and neither is untrue. The paradox of the self is somehow caught in the image of "the crown." We are God's crown. That is a crown of thorns as Jesus Christ suffers for our sins (chapter 4) and a crown of glory
"which crown is the Father's joy, the Son's honour, the Holy Spirit's delight, and endless marvellous bliss to all who are in heaven"
(chapter 51).
While Julian's theology is not architectonic or systematic in the classical sense, it is produced by a central image which holds together within it various "doctrinal realizations," to borrow a phrase from Joan Nuth. This central image is that of Julian's original vision (or "sight") of the suffering
Christ, "his precious crowning with thorns"; that is, the cross and Passion.
However, the original vision of the Passion of Christ reveals in a single moment the Trinity, the union of our humanity with God, and God's eternal and irrevocable love. In other words, this key image contains all when it comes to understanding Julian's theology.