The Passion as the Measure of God-as-Trinity
The Passion as the Measure of God‐as‐Trinity
Julian is for all those people who seek to love God, whatever their lack of hierarchical status.
In all this I was greatly moved in love towards my fellow Christians, that they might all see and know the same as I saw, for I wished it to be a comfort to them, for all this vision was shown for all men.
(Chapter 8) Julian's teaching about God and God's relationship with human beings is rich and complex. Because her Long Text has pastoral and spiritual teaching always in mind, her approach to the doctrine of God is woven throughout her teaching and is expressed in a variety of images that underline its practical and spiritual focus. At the heart of Julian's vision of God lies the Trinity – but the Trinity as expressed most graphically in the figure of a suffering and humble Jesus Christ. It is difficult to be precise or certain about connections between Julian's images and her cultural experience or theological background. Any comments must be tentative.
As we have already seen, there is no substantial evidence for Julian's sources beyond her own language. She does not explicitly quote any theological or spiritual sources nor does she make clear references to historical events. Again, as we have seen, the degree to which Julian was even aware of theological influences in an explicit way is contested among scholars. What is not a matter of dispute is that Julian's theological "method" is inductive. She proceeds by reflecting on her foundational visionary experiences, rather than by using the deductive, dialectical, and systematic approach of the theology of the "schools."
The Passion as the Measure of God‐as‐Trinity A major aspect of Julian's religious culture and of her own "showings" was the Passion of Jesus Christ. Devotion to the Passion of Jesus was widespread by the fourteenth century and so the visionary basis for Julian's teaching is not unusual. It is worth noting, however, that Julian is not unhealthily obsessed with the details of Jesus' sufferings as were some of her contemporaries.2 The visions are simply starting points for her teaching about God's love for humanity.
However, modern readers are frequently disturbed by Julian's admission (chapter 2) that she not only desired a vision of the Passion but also a bodily sickness that would bring her to the verge of death. Her own explanation is that the third gift she prayed for, the wounds of contrition, compassion, and longing, was far more important. She only desired the vision and the sickness conditionally if it was God's will and she stated that the
Love is God's Meaning
motive was "because I wanted to be purged by God's mercy, and afterwards live more to his glory because of that sickness." Strange though it may seem to us, the illness had a Christological trajectory. It was part of Julian's deep desire to participate more deeply in the Passion of Jesus. The text shows quite clearly that this was not merely a question of physical illness but of the spiritual temptation and desolation that she presumed was the experience of Jesus on the cross. This is part of the overall piety of imitatio
Christi that was characteristic of the great evangelical spiritual and reform movements that swept the Western Church from the twelfth century onwards. The particular desire for illness as a symbol of solidarity with Jesus seems to have been more common among women than men.3
Julian's foundational experience on which she bases her theological reflections consists of visions focused primarily upon the Passion of Jesus. Julian recognizes that everything she was taught was grounded in the First Revelation (chapters 2–9). That is, the whole of Julian's theology finds its focus in the Passion. Her teaching on God as Trinity and on the creation and Incarnation are ultimately measured by the standard of the cross. The Passion is understood fundamentally as the supreme revelation of the love of God. Love is God's nature and this love is directed outwards towards creation and humanity. Love itself, whether divine or human, is to be measured by the standard revealed in the Passion.
God's love is not an emotion. Nor is it one characteristic of God or simply related to God's external action. For Julian, love is God's very being or reality. Julian does not provide simple definitions to help us to understand what this means. Her pedagogical approach is to begin with the Passion as her foundation, expressed in visionary form, and then to proceed by means of other images and stories. In this way, Julian is able to teach a deeper wisdom beyond the language of logic. The Long Text begins with an overwhelming image of self‐giving love in the face of the crucified Jesus. Julian recognized that as she was apparently dying, she was being invited to contemplate the face of Jesus and to observe his crown of thorns and suffering. The details, while not extended or excessive compared to other contemporary piety, are nonetheless graphic.
I saw his sweet face as it were dry and bloodless with the pallor of dying, and then deadly pale, languishing, and then the pallor turning blue and then blue turning brown, as death took more hold in his flesh.
(Chapter 16) The point of the visions was to find in this broken figure the reality that this is God. Julian fully experienced God's presence in the crucified Jesus.
Yet, at the same time, to see God only in the flesh of Jesus or through God's "working" also serves to preserve the otherness of God: transcendence even in the immanence.
The Passion as the Measure of God‐as‐Trinity
I perceived, truly and powerfully, that it was he who just so, both God and man, himself suffered for me, who showed it to me without any intermediary.
(Chapter 4) Thus in Jesus Christ all humanity, creation, life, and eternal future are caught up with him into the very life of God as Trinity.
And in the same revelation, suddenly the Trinity filled my heart full of the greatest joy, and I understood that it will be so in heaven without end to all who will come there. For the Trinity is
God, God is the Trinity. The Trinity is our maker, the Trinity is our protector, the Trinity is our everlasting lover, the Trinity is our endless joy and our bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ and in our
Lord Jesus Christ.
(Chapter 4) On the cross, the relationship of God to humankind is shown to be identical with the love relationship within the Trinity – a dynamic and mutual indwelling in which each person of the Godhead is constantly giving to and sharing with the others. This way of being is also revealed as afflicted love, united through suffering to all humanity.
At the same time as I saw this sight of the head bleeding, our good Lord showed a spiritual sight of his familiar [or homely] love. I saw that he is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. He is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his love, which is so tender that he may never desert us.
(Chapter 5) From the vision of Christ on the cross Julian learned, and teaches through a mixture of complementary images, that everything is filled with God and enclosed by God. Through the cross, God offers intimacy, "familiar love." Julian does not suggest directly that God suffers. Yet there are hints that God is not untouched by our condition. In the Incarnation, God is indissolubly joined to the human condition and longs for us. Indeed,
Julian is careful to say that, in his divinity he [Christ] is supreme bliss, and was from without beginning, and he will be without end, which true everlasting bliss cannot of its nature be increased or diminished.
(Chapter 31)
Love is God's Meaning
Julian regularly employs paradoxical language. As second person of the Trinity, as God, Christ is impassable. And yet, as united to the human condition, Christ is still said to have the thirst and longing that he had upon the cross. This will remain the case "until the time that the last soul which will be saved has come into his bliss." Then Julian is bolder still.
There is longing and desire within God and this quality is part of God's everlasting goodness. Somehow, in Christ, God is touched by suffering out of love.
For as truly as there is in God a quality of pity and compassion, so truly there is in God a quality of thirst and longing…. And this quality of longing and thirst comes from God's everlasting goodness.
(Chapter 31) Because of God's indwelling, this image of God's thirst explains our own desire. God in Christ thirsts and because of our union with God we also thirst. Just as Christ's spiritual thirst is God's painful longing for us, so the longing and yearning we feel is our unsatisfied desire for God.
God's thirst is to have man, generally, drawn into him, and in that thirst he has drawn his holy souls who are now in bliss. And so, getting his living members, always he draws and drinks, and still he thirsts and he longs. I saw three kinds of longing in God, and all to the same end, and we have the same in us, and from the same power, and for the same end.
(Chapter 75) Julian is imaginative in her theology of God. Although she sometimes assigns traditional "roles" to one or other of the persons of the Trinity, it is fair to suggest that she breaches the boundaries that have sometimes artificially separated the persons of the Trinity in terms of their outward movement and action. Rather than the Father being the creator, the Son the redeemer, and the Spirit the sanctifier, all persons of the Trinity (God as God) manifest creative, redemptive, and sanctifying qualities.
For Julian the simple fact is that, in her understanding of the Passion, the Trinity as a whole participate in all activities relating to salvation even if only the "virgin's Son" may be said to suffer. "All the Trinity worked in Christ's Passion, administering abundant virtues and plentiful grace to us by him; but only the virgin's Son suffered, in which all the blessed Trinity rejoice" (chapter 23). The participation of the Trinity in salvation is also strongly implied in chapter 11 of the Long Text where she sees God "in a pointe."4 Here God is seen to be in all things, doing all things, and bringing them to their ordained conclusion.
The Passion as the Measure of God‐as‐Trinity
And therefore the blessed Trinity is always wholly pleased with all its works; and God revealed all this most blessedly, as though to say: See I am God. See, I am in all things. See, I do all things. See,
I never remove my hands from my works, nor ever shall without end. See, I guide all things to the end that I ordain them for, before time began, with the same power and wisdom and love with which I made them; how should anything be amiss?
(Chapter 11) Julian uses a range of triads in reference to the Trinity. These include might, wisdom, love; joy, bliss, delight; maker, keeper, lover; fatherhood, motherhood, lordship.5 Julian especially and classically links power or might with the Father, wisdom with the Son and goodness or love with the Spirit. Yet these qualities are not to be limited to specific persons of the Trinity. They are "properties" in God. Equally, in her teaching on God as Mother (imaging generativity and loving‐kindness) she is radically
Trinitarian. As we shall see, Jesus as Mother is not distinguished from the Father as Ruler or Judge – ultimately, the Trinity is our Mother. Julian maintains a delicate balance between distinguishing the persons of the Trinity from each other and, on the other hand, depersonalizing matters so as to deal only with abstract "attributes." Thus, as Julian "contemplated the work of all the blessed Trinity" (chapter 58) she saw the three "properties" of fatherhood, motherhood, and lordship "in one God." Our essential human nature (substance) dwells equally in each person and in all the persons together. "And our substance is in our Father, God almighty, and our substance is in our Mother, God all wisdom, and our substance is in our Lord God, the Holy Spirit, all goodness, for our substance is whole in each person of the Trinity, who is one God." Julian is clear about the fundamental unity of God as Trinity. "For the Trinity is
God, God is the Trinity. The Trinity is our maker, the Trinity is our protector, the Trinity is our everlasting lover, the Trinity is our endless joy and our bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ and in our Lord Jesus Christ"
(chapter 4). This early statement is further underlined in chapter 23 concerning our salvation. "All the Trinity worked in Christ's Passion, administering abundant virtues and plentiful grace to us by him."
The mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity one in the other (perichoresis) is affirmed at a number of points including at the end of the famous parable of a Lord and a Servant.
Now the Son, true God and true man, sits in his city in rest and in peace, which his Father has prepared for him by his endless purpose, and the Father in the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Father and in the Son.
(Chapter 51)