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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
A noted scholar examines the work of the English mystic Julian of Norwich Julian of Norwich is the late fourteenth-century and early fifteenth-century English woman theologian. With her mystical writings, she has become one of the most popular and influential spiritual figures of our times. In Julian of Norwich: In God's Sight, the eminent scholar Philip Sheldrake offers a study of the theology that Julian expresses in her writings. The author examines what is known about Julian's mystical experience or mystical consciousness, discusses what can be surmised about Julian's likely identity and places her writings in historical, cultural and spiritual contexts. Julian of Norwich: In God's Sight is based on a faithful reading of Julian's texts, especially the Long Text, as well as on her own declared theological-spiritual purpose. This compelling book: * Presents a contextually-grounded and text-related study of the key elements of Julian's theology * Offers a scholarly work by a well-known expert in the field * Unlocks an ever-richer understanding of Julian's writings * Includes an examination of the key texts attributed to Julian Written for students of theology and those interested in learning more about this popular mystic, Julian of Norwich: In God's Sight offers ascholarly review of Julian's most important writings.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Table of Contents
Cover
Preface
Introduction
Julian as a Mystic
Julian’s Writings: The Authentic Julian?
About the Book
Chapter 1: Julian in Context
Who was Julian?
Evidence from Wills
The Visit of Margery Kempe
Julian’s Education and Previous Life
Julian’s Texts
Julian’s World: Society and Country
Julian’s World: Religion and Church
Julian’s Norwich
The Position of Women
Spirituality in England
The Anchoritic Life
Conclusion: Context and Julian’s Teachings
Chapter 2: Julian’s Theology
The Forms of Medieval Theology
Julian’s Theological Style
Scriptural Sources
Mystical Theology
Vernacular Theology
Pastoral Theology
The Heart of Julian’s Theology
The Centrality of Christ’s Passion
Julian’s Triadic Theology
Love as God’s Meaning
Julian’s Apophatic and Eschatological Theology
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Parable of a Lord and a Servant
The Exemplum and Lordship
The Parable
The Teaching of the Parable
Ways of Seeing
God, Time, and Place
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Love is God’s Meaning
A Practical Theology of the Trinity
The Passion as the Measure of God‐as‐Trinity
Grace
Love was His Meaning
God as Mother
God as Teacher
Lordship and Familiarity
The Stability of God
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Creation and Human Nature
Creation
Human Nature
The Influence of Augustine
Julian’s Anthropology
Substance and Sensuality
Julian and Apophatic Anthropology
Chapter 6: Sin and Salvation
Julian’s Understanding of Sin
The Importance of Chapter 27
Spiritual Pain, Repentance, and the Forgiveness of Sins
How God Sees Sin
God’s Mercy
Julian’s Theology of Salvation
Julian and Universalism
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Prayer
The Foundations of Prayer
Contemplation and Union
The Spiritual Senses
Prayer and the Spiritual Life
Prayer and Spiritual Practices
Vocal Prayer
Ejaculatory Prayer
Penitential Practices
Julian and Visualizations
Conclusion
Conclusion
Julian’s Eschatology
The Journey of Perpetual Departure
Appendix: The Fate of Julian’s Texts
Extracts
Full Texts
Differences between Manuscripts
Select Bibliography
Julian’s Texts: Scholarly Editions
Julian’s Texts: Modern Translations
Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Julian of Norwich: “In God’s Sight”
Her Theology in Context
Philip Sheldrake
This edition first published 2019© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication DataNames: Sheldrake, Philip, author.Title: Julian of Norwich : in God’s sight : her theology in context / Philip Sheldrake.Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |Identifiers: LCCN 2018024557 (print) | LCCN 2018031021 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119099673 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119099666 (ePub) | ISBN 9781119099642 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781119099659 (pbk.)Subjects: LCSH: Julian, of Norwich, 1343‐ | Devotional literature, English (Middle)–History and criticism. | Mysticism–England–History–Middle Ages, 600‐1500.Classification: LCC BV4832.3.J863 (ebook) | LCC BV4832.3.J863 S54 2018 (print) | DDC 230/.2092–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024557
Cover image: © The Walters Art MuseumCover design by Wiley
To Susie
Preface
Julian of Norwich, the late medieval English woman mystical writer, is one of the most popular and influential spiritual teachers of our times in the English‐speaking world. She has the capacity to inspire a wide range of people, whether they identify themselves as religious or not. Her message that the meaning of everything is “love” and also that, beyond our ability to understand, ultimately “all shall be well” speaks powerfully and paradoxically to our fragile human condition and to our often divided, dysfunctional, and violent world. Nevertheless, in this contextual‐theological study of Julian, I hope to demonstrate that this message of love is not comforting in a simplistic way but is profoundly challenging both theologically and spiritually.
Julian’s writings and teachings have had a significant influence on my own historical and theological studies of Christian spirituality over the last 30 years. I was first introduced to Julian in the early 1980s when I worked with the late James Walsh SJ as his assistant editor of The Way journal of Christian spirituality and its associated specialist supplements. In the 1970s James Walsh had been co‐editor with Edmund Colledge of a major scholarly edition of Julian’s texts as well as a modern translation in the on‐going Paulist Press series “Classics of Western Spirituality.” I am very grateful to James Walsh for his original inspiration and enthusiasm. In more recent years I was also in conversation with the late Grace Jantzen and with Joan Nuth, both of whom wrote insightful studies of Julian’s theology.
Since the late 1980s I have used Julian of Norwich’s texts in graduate courses at Heythrop College, University of London, at Sarum College (linked to the University of Wales), and in a range of MA and doctoral programs in the USA, most recently at Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Further insights have come from the lively exchanges with students that took place in seminars associated with these programs.
In recent years I have also led visits to Norwich focused on Julian for ordinands and staff at Westcott House in Cambridge, UK. In this context I am particularly grateful to Robert Fruehwirth, the former Director of the Julian Centre, to Christopher Wood, Rector of St Julian’s Church to which Julian’s anchorhold was originally attached, and to Peter Doll, the Canon Librarian at Norwich Cathedral. Peter Doll and Christopher Wood have also been helpful about contemporary perceptions in the city of Norwich and the nearby University of East Anglia about Julian’s life and context.
Finally, at various times while preparing this book I have been privileged to consult a number of scholars with an interest in Julian of Norwich. In particular, I would like to thank Bernard McGinn at the University of Chicago, Benedicta Ward at the University of Oxford, Rowan Williams at the University of Cambridge, Nicholas Watson at Harvard University, and Steven Chase at Oblate School of Theology and editor of Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality. All of these have been generous with their comments and advice. However, I take sole responsibility for final decisions while writing this book and for my overall interpretations of Julian.
It is important to underline that this book focuses specifically on the rich and complex theology of Julian of Norwich. Consequently, it makes extensive use of what is commonly known as her Long Text. This is the most theologically substantial of her writings. As we shall see, there are three surviving full manuscripts of this text and there have been extensive debates, often focused on linguistic questions, about which of them should be given priority. As a historian and theologian rather than a scholar of medieval English I am aware of these debates and make note of them in the Appendix to this book. However, I have tried not to become too focused on them in my analysis of Julian’s theology. I have therefore made prudential decisions in the light of mainly theological and contextual considerations about which scholarly edition and which modern translation to use for quotations.
Unless stated otherwise, all the quotations I cite in this book are from the Long Text. For Middle English quotations I have mainly chosen to use the hybrid scholarly edition by Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. For a modern translation I have used the still popular edition co‐edited by James Walsh and Edmund Colledge in the on‐going “Classics of Western Spirituality” series.
I am very grateful to Westcott House in the Cambridge Theological Federation for providing a friendly context within which I have been able to research and write this book. I am also grateful to Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio for the opportunity to work with MA and doctoral students with an interest in Julian. The book is also part of the research portfolio associated with my role as a Senior Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge.
Finally, as always, I dedicate this book to Susie whose own thoughtful interest in spirituality as well as her partnership, love, and conversation have been such a great support throughout this project. In addition, Susie has played a significant role in the design of the cover. The use of the color azure blue echoes Julian’s parable of a Lord and a Servant and, in medieval times, symbolized the qualities of nobility, faithfulness and what is truly spiritual. The image of a young woman swinging on the letter Q is taken from the Claricia Psalter (Walters Ms. W.26) in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore MD. Q is the first letter of the Latin word “Quid”. In its interrogative form this suggests “Which?” or “What?” which reflects Julian’s persistent curiosity and questioning in her writings.
Cambridge & San Antonio 2018
Philip Sheldrake
Introduction
And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellBy the purification of the motiveIn the ground of our beseeching…
…And all shall be well andAll manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flame are in‐foldedInto the crowned knot of fireAnd the fire and the rose are one
(From T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” in The Four Quartets)
Many people first come to hear of Julian of Norwich via the paraphrase of her words as they appear in T.S. Eliot’s poem, “Little Gidding,” quoted above. The lines, with their imagery of fire, also echo the incendiary bombing in 1942 of St Julian’s Church, Norwich (to which Julian’s anchorhold had been attached). This was the year before Eliot’s poem was published. In the midst of the Second World War, just as much as during the plague‐ridden and turbulent late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the notion that God’s message to humanity through Julian was that “all shall be well” resonated powerfully.
Julian of Norwich, the late fourteenth‐century and early fifteenth‐century English woman anchoress, with her mystical writings has become one of the most popular and influential spiritual figures of our times. Why is this so? Interestingly, Julian’s writings seem to have a capacity to address quite different audiences. Apart from scholars who are interested either in her literary importance as the first‐known woman writing in the English vernacular or in her substantial and challenging theological thought, Julian and her teachings also engage a wide range of people who are seeking significant guidance for their own spiritual journey.1 Perhaps more surprising, others see in Julian an iconic figure in relation to contemporary counter‐cultural standpoints such as feminism and lesbian theory.
As we shall see, the problem is that we actually know remarkably little for certain about Julian’s identity and life. Attempts to reconstruct Julian’s personal profile are really only a matter of guesswork. As a result, there is the gentrified Lady Julian but there is also the illiterate Julian (the “simple creature, unletterde” in her own words) who must have dictated her texts rather than written them herself. There is the educated daughter of the gentry or of the wealthy Norwich mercantile class but there is also the incomer from the North of England as is perhaps evidenced by Northern dialect words used in surviving manuscripts. There is the widow with the experience of childbirth and of raising children but there is also the former nun. There is the well‐read scholar of theology but there also the more modest thinker whose knowledge of the tradition was selective and probably based solely on conversations with someone who was more theologically educated. There is the feminist icon who, for example, writes about God our mother and, more recently, there is also the suggestion of a lesbian Julian who “lived with” someone called Lucy.2 This wide spectrum of possible life narratives underlines how important it is to take care to distinguish between what Julian was, or may have been, in herself and what twenty‐first century readers seek to draw from her and her writings which in some way addresses their preoccupations and sensibilities.3
Contemporary commentators highlight specific aspects of Julian’s writings that appear to commend her to present‐day readers. For example, she is a medieval woman who succeeds in producing significant theology at a time when this was officially and largely a male preserve. Then her teachings focus on a God whose meaning is love and only love. Julian also uses feminine, specifically motherly, imagery for God and employs this in constructive ways. In the midst of a violent, confusing, and often painful period of history, Julian offers a consistent vision of optimism and hope. Finally, her spiritual teachings are explicitly democratic and are aimed at a broad audience of readers (“mine evenchristen,” or “my fellow Christians”) rather than merely at some spiritual elite. This emphasis on Julian as wisdom figure and spiritual teacher is reflected in a wide range of spiritual and devotional literature.4 Julian of Norwich has also inspired what are known as “The Julian Meetings” or Julian Groups who foster the practice of contemplative prayer as well as an American Episcopalian religious order of men and women, the Order of St Julian.5 Having said this, in the midst of all Julian’s contemporary popularity it is important not to over‐simplify Julian or to reduce her teachings to what is immediately attractive in spiritual terms precisely because her thinking is theologically complex and also profoundly challenging.
In this book I will seek to offer a contextually related study of the theology that Julian expresses in her writings. I say “writings” in the plural because Julian wrote two distinct but closely related versions of the Revelations of Divine Love (sometimes known as Showings or, in her own words, A Revelation of Love). As we shall see in Chapter 1, there is the earlier more personal Short Text that directly expresses her visionary experiences and a later, much longer and theologically more complex Long Text. This later extensive work, the fruit of at least 20 years’ further intense reflection, is a rich and original work of theological‐spiritual teaching. For this reason the study that follows gives most attention to the Long Text while noting aspects of the Short Text where these are particularly interesting or relevant.
In brief, what was Julian? For many contemporary readers, Julian is essentially a visionary mystic whose writings continue to be both beautiful and inspirational. There is a great deal of contemporary fascination with mystics and the notions of mystical experience or mystical consciousness. I will return to the question of mysticism briefly in a moment. However, it is important to be clear at the outset that while Julian’s texts were provoked by her initial visionary experience, the Long Text in particular is not essentially a devotional work but is a work of “theology in context” in a variety of senses.
In Chapter 1 I will discuss what little we can reasonably surmise about Julian’s likely identity and will also seek to place her and her writings in historical, cultural and spiritual contexts. The aim will also be to draw out the likely connections between these contexts and her teachings. However, at the outset it must be constantly underlined that we know relatively little about Julian herself or about the progress of her life from her writings, from surviving wills or from the account of a visit to her by another of the so‐called fourteenth‐century English mystics, Margery Kempe.
As already noted, Julian’s writings, particularly the Long Text, have achieved immense popularity and spiritual influence since the early twentieth century. Alongside Julian’s popular public, scholars universally acknowledge that Julian’s texts are neither solely a record of her mystical visionary experiences nor essentially devotional. Rather, particularly in her Long Text, she offers theologically substantial, innovative, and important teaching. If we describe Julian’s writing as theological, a central question concerns the precise genre of theology that we are dealing with. Judgments about this vary. However, it is now widely agreed that the attempts made by the scholars Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, in their important 1978 two‐volume critical edition, to make Julian a detailed expert in relation to the Bible and with an extensive background in the longer theological tradition were misplaced. As someone who was first introduced to Julian of Norwich’s writings by the late James Walsh in the early 1980s, I feel sure that this judgment reflects the particular sensitivities of the editors’ own religious and intellectual context. It seems likely that they felt it was important at the time to defend the surprising notion that a medieval woman could be considered to be a theologian at all, let alone one comparable to medieval male thinkers.
As I will describe in detail in Chapter 2, I believe that it is useful to think of Julian’s theology in three important ways. First, it is what scholars now refer to as “vernacular theology” that is symptomatic of an emerging “age of the vernacular.” This notion has a number of dimensions which will be explained further but a significant aspect is that her theology addresses a broadly based audience of “mine evenchristen” (that is, “my fellow Christians”) rather than merely a readership of monastics, clergy, or scholars. Julian’s writing is also mystical theology in the classical sense. Finally, in describing Julian’s theological style we need to give prominence to Julian’s own stated purpose in relation to her transformative theological message. In summary, this purpose is to address the urgent needs of her audience at a time of great political and economic uncertainty, war, plague, social disturbance, and major divisions in the Christian community. In this “age of anxiety,” Julian’s theological method should also be considered as a form of practical‐pastoral theology, responding to her cultural, social, and religious contexts.
In terms of previous theological studies of Julian, the majority are at least 15 years old. Brant Pelphrey’s Love was His Meaning: The Theology and Mysticism of Julian of Norwich (1982) is no longer available. Grace Jantzen, the author of a particularly well‐known and respected historical‐theological study, Julian of Norwich (first published 1987), died prematurely in 2006. The 2000 edition of her book with its revised Introduction is still in print. However, while still an important contribution to our understanding of Julian, Jantzen’s book inevitably does not take into account some more recent developments in Julian scholarship. Another respected theological study of Julian by Joan Nuth, Wisdom’s Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich (1991), is now out of print. I am reliably informed that it is unlikely to be revised or reprinted. The volume by Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, Julian of Norwich and the Mystical Body Politic of Christ (1999), offers an interesting but rather particular interpretative stance in relation to political theology. Another book with a specific hermeneutic is Kerrie Hide’s Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfilment: The Soteriology of Julian of Norwich (2001). As the title suggests, this is essentially a study of Julian’s theology of salvation combining a close reading of Julian’s text, spiritual sensitivity, and dialogue with contemporary issues. Two other admirable scholarly volumes, Denise Nowakowski Baker’s Julian of Norwich’s Showings: From Vision to Book (1994) and Christopher Abbot’s Julian of Norwich: Autobiography to Theology (1999), are fundamentally historical and textual studies more than comprehensive theological essays. The recent extensive book on Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Rolf, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life and Revelation of Julian of Norwich (2013), is a passionate and compelling personal dialogue with Julian and her text. However, it is not an academic theological study. It is particularly useful in its broad account of Julian’s historical, social, and religious contexts. However, it is open to criticism that its reconstruction of Julian’s own identity and life is far too detailed, is based on creative imagination and prior assumptions, and goes well beyond the available evidence.6
The most recent book‐length, and explicitly theological, study in relation to Julian is Julian of Norwich, Theologian (2011) by Denys Turner of Yale University. However, several features stand out. First, there is no in‐depth survey of Julian’s historical, social, or religious contexts. Second, the book does not offer an extensive textual analysis. Third, rather than being a comprehensive study of all the elements of Julian’s theology, Turner focuses on his own philosophical‐theological questions and reflections that were provoked by studying Julian’s writings. In particular, Turner addresses the theodicy question and the theme of sin and salvation. While this study is interesting and rich, Turner’s approach underlines an important distinction that needs to be made between theological reflections provoked by Julian and a scholarly contextual study of Julian’s own theology in all its breadth.7
The present book seeks to take the second approach. It is intended to be a contextually grounded and text‐related study of the key elements of Julian’s own theology rather than a series of my own theological‐spiritual reflections. Consequently, it seeks to highlight how and why Julian’s understanding and teaching, even what she believes is provoked by her visionary insights, in some way reflects the world she inhabits and the needs of her contemporary fellow Christians and fellow citizens. The book will also seek to base itself as far as possible on a faithful reading of Julian’s texts, especially the Long Text, as well as on her own declared theological‐spiritual purpose in relation to her intended audience.
However, any process of textual interpretation is unavoidably complex. A historical text such as Julian’s is necessarily in dialogue with the very different horizons of the contemporary reader. With a theological or spiritual text like Julian’s, from a context other than our own, we are inevitably conscious of different perspectives. An important question concerns our motive for reading such a text and what we seek to gain from it. It is one thing to seek an accurate technical understanding of the text, held at a distance. However, if we also seek to engage with the theology or spiritual wisdom at a deeper level we cannot avoid the question of how far to respect a text's own values and assumptions in relation to our contemporary context. This is not a straight‐forward matter. Recent developments in interpretation theory (hermeneutics) promote an approach where the wisdom embodied in a text moves beyond the author's original framework of meaning to be creatively re‐read in the light of the new context in which a text finds itself. Thus, without ignoring the original context of Julian’s text, or her motives in writing it, we may unlock ever‐richer meanings that the author never considered. The pursuit of meaning undoubtedly demands that we understand the technicalities of a text. However, conversely, a real conversation with a classic text expands our vision rather than merely extends our pool of data. We may interrogate the text but our questions and assumptions are, in turn, reshaped by the text itself. This process is what is sometimes referred to as the “hermeneutical circle.”8
Julian as a Mystic
Julian of Norwich is conventionally described as a mystic. In many people’s minds this is associated with the fact that, according to her own testimony, she experienced a series of visions while seriously ill and apparently dying, aged 30 and a half, in May 1373. Through these visionary experiences of Christ’s passion and suffering, Julian believed that she had received sixteen “showings” or revelations from God which underpinned her later theological reflection, writings, and teaching.
The nature of mysticism, and the purpose of “mystical experiences” when they occur, is much debated. In popular writing, the word “mysticism” is often used to refer to esoteric insights or wisdom derived from some kind of direct and intense personal experience of God or the Absolute, however this is understood. However, the coherence and legitimacy of the terms “mysticism” and “mystic” have been frequently questioned in Christian and wider academic circles. This is precisely because they appear to bypass more rational approaches to religious language and religious knowledge in favor of a more experiential, interior, and non‐rational approach to spiritual wisdom. The terms also seem to promote subjectivity over established religious authority.9 One of the most original and influential twentieth‐century thinkers and writers about mysticism was the French interdisciplinary scholar and Jesuit priest, Michel de Certeau (1925–1986). He can be more or less credited with establishing that, as a distinct category related to religious experience, the concept of “mysticism” (la mystique in de Certeau’s words) originated in early seventeenth‐century France. Of course, as a historian, de Certeau was well aware that the remote origins of the concept lay much earlier in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially with the Rhineland mystics and the Flemish Beguines. However, the key point in its formalization as a framework of interiority distinct from doctrine or wider Church life was much later. Indeed, as de Certeau underlines, “mysticism” or “the mystical tradition” is an artificial construct that retrospectively recruits earlier spiritual writings into a framework of what he refers to as “experiential knowledge.”10
Is there a distinction to be made between “a visionary” and “a mystic”? In his theological reflections on Julian’s thought, Denys Turner questions both the legitimacy of applying William James’ experientialist notions of “a mystic” to Julian and other representations of her as “a visionary” in contrast to being a mystic.11 However, the Julian scholar Grace Jantzen, in a further book on gender and Christian mysticism, noted the importance of the “rootedness in experience” of medieval women who produced what are known as mystical writings. Such experience was often visionary. The point is that such visionary experience becomes the basis for the women’s authority as spiritual teachers. This made them different from many theological writers and even from many male mystics of Julian’s time. Unlike women, the men had often benefited from conventional theological education and had theological status.12
Jantzen asks why women of Julian’s time should have had more visionary experiences than men and valued these more highly. She judges that this cannot be reduced to stereotypical differences of temperament between women and men. The more likely explanation is differing perceptions of authority. Insofar as women had internalized the notion that conventional systems of religious “authority” were a male clerical preserve, they had to refer to some other form of validation. What better basis for authority was there than a direct vision of God? Jantzen points out that in Julian of Norwich, as in Hildegard of Bingen, “visions” were not merely heightened experiences or the medium for private enlightenment. Their value was that they paved the way for teaching. In Julian’s case, her visions offered her another way of seeing reality, which she understood as a gift from God. This other way of seeing might be a comfort to her fellow Christians who were struggling with despair at the horrors of their surrounding world as well with their own sense of failure and guilt. Visions therefore became the medium of a deeper spiritual understanding of who God is and how God works in the world and therefore of the ultimate hope of a positive destiny for all humanity.
Julian’s Writings: The Authentic Julian?
From the Long Text, chapter 37, it is clear that Julian intended her writings to be accessible to a general public. She insists on the importance of reaching a wide audience. Her visions, and the teachings that arise from them, are for the good of all her fellow Christians without exception. “I was lerned to take it to all him evenchristen, alle in generale and nothing in specialle.” However, Julian’s actual readership for some 200 years after her lifetime (which probably ended sometime in the second decade of the fifteenth century) is something of a mystery.
As I will mention in more detail in Chapter 1, Julian’s Short Text survives in only one fifteenth‐century manuscript belonging originally to the Carthusian monks of Sheen near London which also contains parts of other mystical writings. Nothing is recorded until 1910 when it reappeared in the sale of Lord Amherst’s library to the British Museum (now the British Library). It was first made available to a wider readership in the following year via a modernization by Dundas Harford. The more theological Long Text survives in variations of its complete form in three manuscripts, known as Paris, Sloane 1, and Sloane 2, which is essentially a copy of Sloane 1. There is also a selection of excerpts from the Long Text within a late fifteenth‐century anthology in the archives of the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral in London. It is difficult to establish with total precision what Julian originally wrote in her Long Text. First of all, there is a long interval between her lifetime and the probable dates of all three surviving manuscripts of the complete text. In addition, the three manuscripts differ from each other to some degree and so some judgment about their relative authority is important for our understanding of Julian’s theology.
There are three available scholarly editions that contain both of Julian’s Middle English texts: the Short Text and the Long Text. The first, dating back to 1978, was edited by the late Edmund Colledge and the late James Walsh and is entitled A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich.13 Colledge and Walsh also produced one of the most widely used modern English translations of Julian’s writings, again containing both Short and Long Texts. This is the 1978 volume, Julian of Norwich – Showings, in the extensive and continuing Paulist Press series, “The Classics of Western Spirituality.” This was based on their scholarly Middle English edition. However, in reference to this translation of the Long Text, it is important to note an unfortunate misprint. In Chapter 5, in the sentences about Julian being shown something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, the answer to Julian’s question “What can this be?” is omitted. It should go on to say “And I was given this general answer: it is everything which is made.”14 Both the Colledge and Walsh scholarly edition and their modern translation are based essentially on the Paris manuscript because they see it as more complete and more sophisticated. However, they adopt a few alternative readings from Sloane when they judge these to be superior.
The second available scholarly edition appeared in 2006, produced by Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins, and is entitled The Writings of Julian of Norwich. Overall, in recent years this has become the preferred edition among many scholars and students.15 In their introduction Watson and Jenkins offer a compelling argument, supported by evidence from the single fifteenth‐century Short Text manuscript (Amherst) that the Paris manuscript preserves Julian’s literary style plus passages that Sloane omits or abbreviates. However, their editorial decision is to provide a synthetic or hybrid edition of the Long Text while using Paris as the base manuscript.16
Finally, the third and most recent scholarly edition of Julian’s writings, produced by Barry Windeatt, appeared towards the end of 2016.17 Windeatt seeks to present a text that he believes is as close to Julian’s Middle English as possible. He therefore uses Sloane as the base manuscript because he judges that it is linguistically conservative while adding in material from Paris to cover the various omissions in Sloane.18 In 2015 Windeatt also produced a modern translation of both of Julian’s texts, with a significant Introduction, in the “Oxford World Classics” series.19
Another well‐known modern English translation of Julian is the current Penguin Classics volume, Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love, translated by Elizabeth Spearing.20 Her translation of the Long Text is based on the 1976 edition of the Middle English text (revised 1993) by Marion Glasscoe and this is derived from the manuscript known as Sloane 1.21 As Glasscoe mentions in her Notes, the Paris manuscript contains various passages that do not appear in Sloane. Thus, for example, on this basis the modern translation by Colledge and Walsh contains the striking section in Chapter 6 about how God’s goodness is shown in even “our humblest needs,” illustrated delicately and briefly by reference to the process of defecation! Spearing’s Penguin Classics translation, based solely on Sloane, omits this section.
As already noted, the so‐called Short Text survives in only one manuscript which is therefore the basis for all three of the scholarly editions as well as the modern translations by Colledge and Walsh, Spearing, and Windeatt.
Interestingly, while comparisons between the Short and Long Texts are regularly made, the differences between the historic manuscripts and the impact of these on what appears or does not appear in the widely read modern translations are rarely mentioned. The various theories about why the surviving Long Text manuscripts differ and about which may be closer to Julian’s original text are complicated. The different theories and the arguments in favor of each of them are outlined in the Appendix at the end of this book.
In the context of this book, I have chosen to follow the recent scholarly editions of Watson and Jenkins and also Windeatt although I have also consulted the older two‐volume edition of Colledge and Walsh. Quotations in modern English are mainly from the translation by Colledge and Walsh in the series “Classics of Western Spirituality” with some reference to Windeatt’s translation when I have some questions about the translation of Colledge and Walsh.
About the Book
The approach I have taken in this book is informed by my mixed academic background in history and historical theory, in theology and Christian spirituality, including the study of Christian mysticism, and in philosophy, including interpretation theory.
Chapter 1 on Julian’s context explores in some detail what we know about Julian and her texts. This embraces the main features of her overall fourteenth‐century and early fifteenth‐century context as well as the nature of Julian’s specific social, political, and religious milieux and how these seem to impact on her work and together provide an important interpretative key. We will explore briefly how Julian’s gender is a key consideration. I ask why it is notable that this is a vernacular Middle English work rather than one written in Latin. Indeed, the so‐called Short Text is the first text of any kind in English that we know for certain to have been written by a woman. Julian was a contemporary of the first major English writers Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland in what was a developing “age of the vernacular.”
Chapter 2 then examines why Julian can be described as a theologian alongside being understood as a visionary mystic. It also offers an overview interpretation of the nature of Julian’s theology, its genre, purpose, and audience, including a brief analysis of interpretations offered in previous studies of Julian. The chapter underlines the difference between exploring theological themes provoked by Julian’s writings and seeking to present a study of Julian’s own theology. The central theological themes addressed by Julian are then outlined. At the heart of Julian of Norwich’s teaching is an unequivocal sense of divine love based on what she understood to be God’s own self‐revelation. This message of love, and this alone, is “oure lords mening.” Julian clearly believed that this was both a vital and a challenging message for her fellow Christians. The remainder of Julian’s sophisticated theological insights and her urgent pastoral message, as expressed in her later and longer text, are built essentially on this foundation. The final chapter 86 of the Long Text underlines that Julian’s book, while begun by God’s gift, is “not yet completed.” This highlights the reality that Julian’s theological journey is necessarily incomplete. Authentic theological reflection, not least Julian’s, takes us to the frontiers of the knowable and into the realm of the unknowable (“a marvellous great mystery hidden in God” as Julian notes in her chapter 27).
Chapter 3 examines the central importance in the Long Text of the parable of a Lord and a Servant (chapter 51). I begin the theological study with this parable because in important ways I believe that it is a vital key to understanding the whole dynamic of Julian’s theology as well as its central themes. Even though the parable seems to have formed part of the original “revelations,” it was not included in the earlier Short Text. This is because, as Julian herself affirms, it took extensive reflection over many years as well as further divine revelation before the meaning of the parable became clear to her. The parable is presented as God’s answer to Julian’s various anxieties and questions about her experience of daily sinfulness yet her deep sense of God’s lack of blame. How are the two realities of human sinfulness and God’s lack of blame compatible? In many respects this chapter and its narrative are pivotal to Julian’s theological and spiritual quest. In my judgment, the focus is not so much on the classic philosophical theodicy question as on a radical realignment of Julian’s understanding of human identity, sin, and the nature of God as our lover rather than as our wrathful judge. In Julian’s own words, she affirms that “I saw no wrath in God” (chapter 46). The parable, with Julian’s explanation, provides the foundation of the themes explored in the following four chapters: on the nature of God and God’s action, on creation and human identity (Julian’s theological anthropology), on sin and salvation, and on prayer as a journey of desire.
In addition, Chapter 3 also briefly explores an important insight in Julian’s theology regarding “ways of seeing” and the radical difference between how and what we natively “see” from a human standpoint and what God “sees” and then shows in part to Julian. This difference is graphically illustrated in the parable. These “ways of seeing” relate closely to the notion of time and place – God’s and our own. In the light of Julian’s sense that God’s meaning is only love, I suggest that the theme of “seeing” – not only what is seen but also how it is seen – is an important thread running throughout Julian’s theological reflections in the Long Text. “Seeing” does not imply merely visual experience but also embraces epistemological issues – that is, what we understand and know and how we come to know truly. Thus, Julian’s repeated phrase “in my sight” means “as I understand it.” This contrasts with “in God’s sight.” The contrast between two ways of seeing is between Julian’s (and, by implication, every human being’s) natural and limited way of understanding human existence and God’s all‐embracing (and, by implication, the only true) way of seeing reality. Julian indicates that she was briefly, and necessarily partially, led to see reality from God’s viewpoint. This “seeing with interior eyes” is typical of what is known as mystical theology: borne not of rational analysis but of interior intimacy with God. A number of difficult questions emerge alongside the encouraging and life‐giving vision that God reveals to Julian. For example, what is she to make of the fact that “I saw not sin” (chapter 27)? Such issues not only stretch Julian’s understanding and sense of meaning but also raise questions about how she is to relate these mystical insights to the teachings of “Holy Church” about guilt, punishment, and human destiny.
Chapter 4 examines Julian’s imaging of God and of God’s “meaning.” This not only explores her famous theme of God as Mother but, more broadly, examines the riches of her Trinitarian theology which derived from her original vision of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Julian’s image of God as Mother is arguably one of the best‐known themes that contemporary readers highlight in her writings. However, despite some people’s misconceptions, I note that Julian is by no means unique among medieval spiritual writers, whether women or men, in using motherhood imagery for Jesus. However, Julian is distinctive both in the way she deploys the image of Jesus as Mother and in her unequivocal sense that this image expresses something essential about the nature of God as such. What is seen in the suffering figure of the crucified Jesus can be said of God‐as‐Trinity. Equally, there is considerably more to Julian’s “revisionist” portrayal of the nature of God, her Christology, and her Trinitarian theology – as well as her understanding of God’s relationship to humankind – than simply feminine imagery.
In the light of her theology of God, Chapter 5 examines Julian’s theological evaluation of the material order as created, loved, and sustained by God as well as her highly positive (yet partly apophatic) theological anthropology – her understanding and evaluation of human identity. In the light of Julian’s changed understanding of the interrelationship between God‐as‐Trinity, God’s Incarnation in the person of Jesus and Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, her evaluation of creation and her theology of human nature undergo a significant change. For Julian, echoing the theological anthropology of Augustine (whether consciously or not), there are two dimensions to human existence (or “the soul”). These are termed “substance” and “sensuality.” Importantly, this is not a dualistic distinction between soul and body or between spiritual and material aspects of human existence. “Substance” stands for that dimension of human identity that is forever united to God whereas “sensuality” stands for the contingent, changeable, incomplete (and potentially sinful) dimension of “the self.”
This theme leads naturally to Chapter 6 which considers in more detail Julian’s soteriology and eschatology, especially her paradoxical approach to sin. The theme of sin and salvation is strongly present in Julian along with the theme of God’s mercy. When Julian was briefly brought to see reality through God’s eyes she is led to exclaim, “I saw not sin” (chapter 27). Through this, Julian came to realise that “sin has no share of being” – that is, it has no ontological reality. Rather, it is a negation of reality, an “absence”. This has led some commentators to speculate that Julian, despite her instinctive doctrinal caution, is really a universalist. Ultimately, everyone will be saved. Perhaps Julian implies that the “great deed” that she is told God will perform on the last day, linked to God’s persistent affirmation that “all will be well and all manner of thing will be well,” may be the ultimate redemption of everything, even of hell. However, another alternative is that just as “sin has no share of being” neither has hell, the traditional consequence of unrepented sin. In the end, all that “exists” (and will exist eternally) is so only in the embrace of God’s love. On this reading, an alternative logic in Julian’s eschatology may be “non‐being” – that is, nothingness or annihilation. If we accept that Julian’s theology was firmly “in context,” her context implied limitations. Julian could not easily go against what she had inherited and what she understood as the teaching of “Holy Church.” In that sense, it seems unlikely that Julian was a universalist in a straight‐forward way even if, at some level, she may have worried that this was somehow implied by what she had been shown. Finally, important dimensions of Julian’s soteriology are a rich theology of hope and a sense of God’s mercy.
Finally, Chapter 7 discusses Julian’s understanding of prayer and of the spiritual journey: a journey of longing and desire that reflects God’s own eternal longing. Because prayer‐as‐relationship is central to Julian’s teaching, and because within this she explicitly links the nature of human longing to God’s eternal longing, the chapter is an appropriate conclusion to a study of Julian’s theology. It has been regularly noted that Julian says nothing directly about methods of prayer or about other spiritual practices. Nor does Julian refer to the classical stages of prayer or of spiritual development such as the triplex via or “three ways.” That said, it is arguable that, aside from her visionary experiences, Julian may have been influenced by the meditative tradition of visualization or imaginative participation in Christ’s Passion, as portrayed in scripture. This would have been accessible to Julian via Aelred of Rievaulx’s Rule of Life for a Recluse, in Part 1 of Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, also written for an anchoress, and in the famous Franciscan‐influenced Meditationes vitae Christi which was available in an English translation towards the end of the fourteenth century. Prior to her visions, Julian desires and prays for three things: recollection of the Passion, bodily sickness (which troubles psychologically attuned modern readers), and the three spiritual “wounds” of contrition, loving compassion, and longing for God. This
