Section 10
LONG TEXT
terror and turmoil of the fiends: See ST .
three wounds: Cf. ST , where Julian explains that she was influenced by the legend that Saint Cecilia had received three literal wounds in her neck.
Benedicite domine: ‘Blessed be thou, Lord!’
Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: Luke 1:38.
intermediaries: For ‘intermediaries’ Julian’s word is menys. She urges that God is more honoured by being prayed to directly, as God; at the same time, she is careful to add that he is not displeased by prayers directed to his Humanity, to the saints, etc. – a necessary addition at a time when the Church was persecuting Lollards.
pills: For ‘pills’ the original has pellots. This Middle English word could refer to many kinds of round object; ‘pills’ (which would have been globular) seems a likely translation, given its domestic associations.
eaves: Julian would have imagined drops continuing to fall thickly from the eaves after a rain-shower, because she would have had in mind roofs without gutters, and probably made of thatch rather than tiles or slate.
showing … same thing as our faith: This is one of many places where Julian is careful to state that her showings serve to confirm the existing belief of the Church.
vernicle: The cloth, supposed to have belonged to Saint Veronica, with which Christ’s face was wiped as he was bearing the cross to Calvary; as Julian explains later, it was thought to have retained an impression of his face.
sea bed … sand: Here Julian’s imagination may have been stimulated by the visions of divine protection beneath the sea in Jonah 2 and in Psalm 68, usually associated with Jonah; but it is also worth bearing in mind how close the connections were between Norwich and the North Sea.
complete: Julian is playing on the word rightful (righteous), which is made up of right (just, justice) and ful (complete).
a vision of naked sin, as I shall recount later: This is in showing 13.
Lord save me, I perish: See ST .
slashed through: Julian’s word, daggyd, could refer to an ornamental slash in clothing, which would give a harshly ironic contrast with the mutilation of Christ’s naked flesh.
Saint Denis of France: According to The Golden Legend, written in the thirteenth century and very widely read in Julian’s time, Dionysius (Denis) was a Greek philosopher converted to Christianity by Saint Paul after witnessing the natural disturbances that occurred at the time of the crucifixion. He was later sent as an apostle to Gaul, where he was martyred and became the patron saint of France.
unknown God: These two quotations resemble what is recorded in the widely read encyclopaedic Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor (ch. 75, in Patrologia Latina, vol. 198, col. 1631), though we cannot be certain that this was Julian’s source. For the second quotation, cf. Acts 17:23.
blesed Manhood of Christ: See ST .
Jesus by his buying: The Son’s ‘buying’ of mankind as opposed to the Father’s ‘gift’: here and in other places we follow Julian’s own use of bey, bowte, etc., to mean ‘redeem’ (which itself derives from Latin redimere, ‘buy back’).
ever: This is in Jesus’s words at the beginning of : ‘It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me that I ever endured suffering for you.’
the same wound: John 19:34 describes how, after Christ’s death on the cross, a soldier pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water flowed from the wound. The wound giving entrance to Christ’s heart was a favourite topic of medieval devotion.
the longing I had had for him: See ST .
our Lord is our portion: See ST .
privy counsel should be undisturbed: See ST .
Holy Church teaches us to believe: The absence of evil and of hell and purgatory from what Julian was shown puts her in danger of heresy; this is one of the places where she is most insistent on her full acceptance of the Church’s teaching.
Jews … through grace: Theological antisemitism, directed against the Jews as (it was supposed) collectively responsible for Christ’s death and subsequently antagonistic to all Christians, was a prominent feature of medieval Christianity. One manifestation that would have been familiar to Julian was the accusation that the twelfth-century child-martyr Saint William of Norwich had been the victim of Jewish ritual murder. But she evidently accepted the condem nation of the Jews only because it was taught by the Church, not because it was part of her own religious vision.
endures: The verb used by Julian here and elsewhere, suffren, means both ‘suffer’ in its modern sense and ‘endure, permit, tolerate, put up with, be patient’. Similarly, Latin patior, ‘I suffer’, is the origin both of ‘passion’ (including the Passion of Christ) and of ‘passive’ and ‘patience’. Patience is a virtue highly valued in medieval religious thought, and Julian, like the Gawain-poet in his poem Patience (a retelling of the story of Jonah and the whale), attributes it to God even more than to human beings.
soul that truly sees … rejoices without end: The problem of reconciling God’s mercy with the perfect ryhtfulhede, meaning both ‘righteousness’ and ‘justice’, attributed to him from the Old Testament on, was a central task of medieval theology.
Mary Magdalene … Saint John of Beverley: See ST . John of Beverley was an eighth-century monk who became Bishop of York and later retired to the abbey at Beverley. He was greatly revered in medieval England, and Julian’s younger contemporary Henry V attributed his victory at Agincourt to John’s intercession; but it is uncertain into what sin Julian believed John to have fallen.
spiritual thirst was shown: In .
receiver: In the sense of ‘collector’ or ‘treasurer’, an official whose task is to take in funds and store them in a treasury.
action: Julian’s word werkyng probably refers to inward, spiritual activity.
Truth sees … is love: See ST .
parable of a lord and a servant … as I shall recount later: In .
God wants to be revealed and known: By ‘the simple soul’ Julian presumably means herself. Whatever she has understood from her showings God must have wished her to understand, for he reveals only what he wishes to reveal.
neither can nor may separate them: Julian’s acknowledgement that she can no longer separate the vision as she originally saw and understood it, the deeper understanding that came subsequently and the interpretation implied by the whole sequence of showings, helps to explain the difficulty of this chapter, and especially the frequent shifts of tense between past and present. These we have generally let stand; they also reflect the way that the parable, revealed at a specific moment, has a meaning that stands outside time.
within him … endless heavens: Cf. , where Jesus shows the place of salvation within his wounded side.
My understanding was led into the lord: See p. 116.
the scourging … the bone: See .
root: This image, appropriate to the gardening imagery of the whole parable, may allude to the ‘root’ of 4 Kings 19:30 (2 Kings 19:30 in Protestant Bibles), the ‘remnant’ of those who would be saved even if disaster came upon Judah. The notion of the saved remnant reappears in Isaiah 10:20–22, and Saint Paul takes it up in Romans 9:27–9. But for Julian the ‘remnant’ seems to have included all humanity, and the manuscript grit rote might also mean ‘great crowd’.
the spouse … eternal joy: An allusion to the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), which was read allegorically, with the spouse (sponsus) representing Christ and the bride (sponsa) the Blessed Virgin, the Church or the human soul.
holy thirst: Christ’s thirst in its spiritual sense is described in .
But through grace … strength allows: Julian draws the orthodox Catholic distinction between mortal sins, which, if not absolved, lead to damnation, and venial, or lesser, sins, which receive a more limited punishment in purgatory. She seems to be expressing tacit scepticism about the Church’s doctrine of eternal punishment.
in the making: I.e. when Christ’s human nature was created (which is also when his soul was created).
I should look up to heaven: See .
double nature: I.e. composed of sensory being and essential being.
seven sacraments: These are Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders and Matrimony, all regarded by the medieval Church as instituted by Christ, though there was disagreement as to the occasions and order of their institution.
we are all enclosed … in us: This is not an exact quotation from the first showing.
kind: Throughout this chapter and the next, Julian plays on multiple senses of the Middle English word kind, meaning ‘kind’ (noun), ‘kind’ (adjective) and ‘nature’, in ways that cannot be exactly reproduced in modern English.
All shall be well … things shall be well: .
joy: As quoted above, God said ‘love’.
And you shall … my glory: Again not quoted verbatim.
Why should you fret … my glory: .
And at this moment … taken from me: .
red like newly fired tiles: Norfolk floor and roof tiles are typically bright red and unglazed.
endless: I.e. both eternal and boundless.
By this is the Fiend overcome: .
It is I … who am all: This is a somewhat different version of God’s words in .
the wisest thing … the most foolish: Julian goes on to explain which is the wisest thing, but she does not appear to identify the most foolish, unless it is the ‘folly and blindness’ mentioned four sentences on.
I love you … not be divided: .
I thank you … suffering: These words are not an exact quotation from .