Lordship and Familiarity
Love is God's Meaning
(chapter 1). Julian is always being gently taught the truth of God's love, often in answer to her questions or worries. This is part of Christ's
Motherhood and intimacy. God as revealed in Christ is not a remote pedagogue. Teaching is yet another dimension of love. It has as its purpose a deepening of the kind of knowing that is founded on love. "Our precious lover helps us with spiritual light and true teaching, in various ways from within and from without, by which we may know him" (chapter 71).
Given that Julian's strongly Christological framework is used to present her fundamental teaching about God‐as‐Trinity, the notion of "teacher" becomes one of her strongest images for God. Sometimes this is quite explicit. "He [God] is the foundation, he is the substance, he is the teacher, he is the end, he is the reward for which every loving soul labours"
(chapter 34).
In the first place, to image God as teacher turns our attention away from Julian's own importance to the source of her teaching which is God's revelation. In this context, "revelation" implies teaching rather than simply visionary experiences.15 No doubt, Julian's further purpose is to encourage all those who desire to be Christ's lovers to allow themselves to be drawn into him so that they may be taught spiritually as she has been taught. Teaching and learning are presented as something that takes time. Dramatic experiences such as visions are a starting point not an end in themselves. True teaching and deep learning involve years of further contemplation, reflection, and thought. However, it seems likely that another purpose in writing about God as the teacher is to deflect any criticisms that Julian is claiming theological or spiritual authority at a time when lay people, and women in particular, were not permitted to undertake that role in the Church. Julian's writings are aimed at all her fellow Christians. She feels compelled to teach and yet the Church says that she cannot. So the image of God as teacher is a rhetorical device to communicate the message without fear. In the meantime she safely remains one who has simply been taught, and continues to be, by God but also by "Holy Church." Thus, Julian frequently uses the phrase "as Holy Church teaches me to believe" (for example in chapter 32).
Lordship and Familiarity The image of the Lordship of God also appears throughout Julian's writings.
Sometimes the word "lord" refers to God as such, at other times specifically to Jesus Christ. As we saw in the last chapter, it seems likely that "lordship" in Julian is not merely a scriptural image but reflects the fourteenth‐century experience of feudal and hierarchical relations, albeit in a paradoxical and challenging way. While necessarily speculative, it may
Lordship and Familiarity
even be that Julian's challenge to traditional concepts of lordship reflects the serious questions being raised in her time concerning the established social order. The rapid growth of cities like Norwich and the expansion of urban industry and trade that we have already noted was an important sign of the new world that was coming to birth. Historic feudalism, based on land ownership and the obligations of military service, was essentially a rural concept and was in decline. This was further exacerbated by the decimation of the traditional peasantry by the Black Death and famine as well as by a growing cynicism with the system as a result of the interminable wars with France. As we have seen, the impact of both was sharply expressed in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
We might reasonably expect an image of lordship based on the world of feudalism to have produced an understanding of God as dominating and domineering. This is not the case with Julian. Overall, her life‐giving experience of the Trinity is attractive and convincing. It challenges both a distant, hierarchical relationship between God and creation and also the classic image of an angry Lord God generating a fear of damnation.
One aspect of the teaching that "all shall be well" is shown to Julian as an indication of God's homeliness and humility. "He wants us to know that he takes heed not only of things which are noble and great, but also of those which are little and small, of humble men and simple, of this man and that man" (chapter 32).
Early in her Long Text (chapter 7) Julian anticipates the parable of a Lord and a Servant. God shows her the example of "a majestic king or a great lord" welcoming a poor servant into his presence with familiarity
(another of Julian's favorite images for God's way of behaving) and in front of others. Julian contrasts this with merely showering a person with material gifts while remaining personally distant. Later, Julian is "lifted up into heaven." There, God is imaged as the lord who entertains all his friends to a great feast (chapter 14). The language Julian uses is almost lyrical:
I saw him reign in his house as a king and fill it all full of joy and mirth, gladdening and consoling his dear friends with himself, very familiarly and courteously, with wonderful melody in endless love in his own fair blissful countenance, which glorious countenance fills all heaven full of the joy and bliss of the divinity.
As we have seen, the parable of a Lord and a Servant in chapter 51 is central to Julian's overall teaching. It provides a key to understanding the nature of God's faithful love and God's union with humanity through suffering. While the language reflects feudal hierarchies, the context and dynamic of the story and its teaching contrasts sharply with social