Notes

Notes meaning" to which she needs to return again and again. "So I saw him [God] and sought him, and I had him and I lacked him; and this is and should be our ordinary undertaking in this life, as I see it" (chapter 10).

Even at the end of the Long Text (chapter 86) she is clear that "this book is begun by God's gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it." This is both a reference to our incomplete understanding of our human nature and to an incomplete process of "becoming" (particularly in reference to the dimension of "sensuality") which will find completion only in heavenly joy.

Notes 1 This version is based on the modern translation of the Long Text by Edmund Colledge & James Walsh, in Julian of Norwich: Showings, Mahwah,

NJ: Paulist Press, 1978, p 183. However, there is an unfortunate misprint which has not been corrected since the text's original publication in 1978.

This misprint omits the answer to Julian's query. I have therefore inserted the answer as it appears in the Short Text, chapter iv, in Showings, p 130.

This corresponds accurately to the Middle English text.

2 See Nicholas Watson & Jacqueline Jenkins, eds., The Writings of Julian of Norwich, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006, p 138, notes on Chapter 5; also Bernard McGinn, The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism: 1350–1550, New York: Crossroad, 2012, Chapter 12

"Julian of Norwich: 'Love is oure lordes mening'," p 434 & note 53.

3 See Kerrie Hide, Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment: The Soteriology of Julian of Norwich, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001, p 66.

4 See Colledge & Walsh, Showings, p 197. The chapter overall suggests a spatial image. Thus, "By which vision I saw that he is present in all things."

Also, "For he is at the centre of everything."

5 See R.A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p 78.

6 See, for example Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich, 2nd edition, London:

SPCK, 2000, pp 137–149 and Joan M. Nuth, Wisdom's Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich, New York: Crossroad, 1991, pp 104–116.

Chapter 6 Sin and Salvation The themes of human sinfulness and of salvation are strongly present throughout Julian of Norwich's Long Text and are crucial to the development of her theological insight and teaching. In the context of her troubled times, Julian was gradually, and with considerable doubts and difficulties, led away from a conventional understanding of human sinfulness and of God's reaction to it. Eventually, albeit cautiously, Julian teaches a radically different understanding of sin and of the process of salvation.

In the context of the social and religious realities of Julian's times, the recurrence of the plague known as the Black Death reinforced a widespread emphasis in fourteenth‐century England on the plague as God's punishment for sin. Such an approach is illustrated, for example, in William Langland's famous vernacular poem "Piers Plowman." In general, people feared eternal punishment by a God who was conceived essentially as a great lord and an intimidating judge of human failure and this perspective was reinforced by popular preaching. Religious catechesis in Julian's time was predominantly focussed upon the themes of sin and salvation. In terms of humanity's relationship with God, fear of God's wrath was a determining factor. An emphasis on God's love and God's mercy (except in the narrow sense of a merciful forgiveness of repentant sinners who confessed to a priest as God's representative) was relatively uncommon. Given that background, it is understandable that Julian had a persistent, deep, and personal struggle, which she describes in her writings. This concerned the apparent contradiction between the conventional teaching of "holy Church" about sin and the very different understanding that Julian believed God had shown her through the medium of her mystical revelations.1

Julian of Norwich: "In God's Sight" – Her Theology in Context, First Edition. Philip Sheldrake.

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