SOURCE: "Julian of Norwich: Writer and Mystic" in An Introduction to Medieval Mystics of Europe, edited by Paul E. Szarmach, State University of New York Press, 1984, pp. 195-216.

[In the essay that follows, Bradley places Julian's writings within the context of the traditions of Christian mysticism and the canon of English literature.]

Julian of Norwich is the first known woman of letters in English literature, and one is hard-put to find prose superior to hers in the Middle English period. She belongs, by right, to the mainstream of studies in literature and culture. This survey article undertakes to show that Julian deserves to be rated as a distinguished prose stylist and recognized as a gifted mystic. In support of this reading and in the light of emerging scholarship, I will examine Julian's Showings, first looking for its literary qualities, and then to its ideas and the account of Julian's experiences as they relate to mysticism. As background I will summarize what is known of Julian's life, and in an afterword take note of some signs of her influence among writers in modern times.

Julian's Life

Since Julian's book is practically the only source for reconstructing her life, it is scarcely a digression to begin with a short biography. (The only other sources are mentions in a few wills, a single contemporary witness, and what little is known of her surroundings and the life style of the anchoress, for whom there were specific rules.)' Julian was born in 1342 and died sometime after 1416. In her youth she heard the legend of St. Cecilia, the same story which Chaucer adapted in the Second Nun's Tale. Inspired to seek a deeper knowledge of the Passion of Jesus, Julian meditated on pictures and images of the crucifixion. In a prayer of petition she asked for three gifts from God: to understand his Passion, to suffer physically while still a young woman of thirty, and to have as God's gift three wounds. The first two prayers she left to God's will, but to the third she attached no condition:

I developed a strong desire to receive three wounds, namely, the wound of true contrition, the wound of genuine compassion, and the wound of sincere longing for God. There was no proviso attached to this third prayer.²

After she had forgotten about the first two prayers, she fell into a sickness so severe that she seemed to be at the point of death. Surrounded by her mother and friends, probably in her home, she was visited by a priest who counselled her to look upon the crucifix. This became the occasion for fifteen showings, which included visions of the Passion of Christ. At the end of the day she said to another priest that she had raved and been in delirium. But when the priest took seriously her mention of the visions, she was ashamed that she herself was doubting them. During the night she experienced what seemed to be an attack of the fiend. She survived the ordeal, her illness subsided, and in a final visionshe became certain that her experiences were genuine and to be believed. She ascribed to them a threefold meaning:

The first quality is the literal meaning of the words as I then received them; the second is the inner significance that I have discovered since; the third is the whole revelation itself, which, from beginning to end—covering the contents of this book—God in his goodness brings to mind, often and freely.³

Sometime after the revelations she became an anchoress living in a cell attached to the Church of St. Julian, Norwich, from which she is thought to have taken her name. (It was customary for anchoresses to take the name of the Church where they were enclosed.) It is probable that she was guided by a rule for anchoresses, such as the thirteenth-century Ancrene Riwle.⁴ As an anchoress she wrote two accounts of her revelations, the second after some twenty years of reflection on what had occurred, moving from a position of insecurity in writing the Short Version, to meditative certainty in the Long Version.⁵

She also became a spiritual guide as a result of her life as an anchoress. Visitors could speak with her through one of the small windows of her room. (The other window opened into the Church, so that she could follow religious services.) One account of her spiritual counsel has survived, in the Booke of Margery Kempe. Margery, who sought out Julian in distinguishing the stirrings of grace from the deceptions of the devil, reports that the "anchoress was expert in such things and could give good counsel."⁶ There is also internal evidence in the Showings that Julian meant to serve as a spiritual guide to others. She explains that "it is truly love which moves me to tell it to you, for I want God to be known and my fellow Christians to prosper … "⁷ And in another place she says: "I am not trying to tell the wise something they know already, but I am seeking to tell the uninstructed, for their peace and comfort."³⁸

Julian in English Letters

Transmission of the Text: But it was not to be easy for Julian's book to reach the audience she envisioned. She herself was aware of one obstacle she faced in making her message known—that, as a woman, she was not likely to be considered expert in theological matters. Scholars are uncertain about the extent of her education, but she pleaded to be heard, against any objections that might arise:

I am a woman, ignorant, weak and frail. But I know very well that what I am saying I have received by the revelation of him who is the sovereign teacher.… But because I am a woman, ought I therefore to believe that I should not tell you of the goodness of God? … ⁵

The general disregard accorded the writings of women may have worked to keep Julian obscure, since she herself felt she must offer such a defense of her authority.

But another reason for the long delay in giving Julian her rightful place in English letters is rooted in the sparse manuscript tradition, and the difficulties the few remaining copies of her work present to scholars. Only six manuscripts have been located, and of these only two—Amherst (BL Addit. 37790) and the Westminster Cathedral copy of selected chapters—date before the sixteenth century. The short text exists only in Amherst, dating from around 1450. Westminster was not discovered until after World War II, in 1955, and only in the 1960's did the Upholland manuscript, containing excerpts from the Showings, come to light. It originated in the seventeenth century and is copied in four different hands. There is also a short quotation from Julian in Colwich Abbey MS 18. Long text copies are preserved in Sloane I (BL Sloane 2499), Paris (BN Fonds Anglais 40) of the seventeenth century, and Sloane II (BL Sloane 3705), judged to be an eighteenth century imitation of a fifteenth century scribal hand. At this time there is still not firm agreement as to which manuscript should be considered the primary one for the long text, and hence there are problems over contested passages. Scholars generally agree though that the short text was written first, closer to the actual experience of the visions, and that the long text, while being faithful to the same facts, adds the insights gained from some twenty years of reflections.¹⁰

Those primarily responsible for transmitting Julian's text were the English Benedictines, exiled to the continent after the dissolution of the monasteries. The chaplain of the Benedictine nuns in exile at Cambrai, Father Augustine Baker, wrote back to England to Sir Robert Cotton, asking for a share in his rich library of spiritual writings known "in the olde tyme."" This request was in large part for the benefit of Dame Gertrude More, great-great granddaughter of Sir Thomas More, martyred chancellor under Henry VIII. These English Benedictines, it is believed, copied the complete versions of the long texts of the Showings that have been preserved. In addition, there is evidence that Julian's work was in the nuns' libraries of both the Cambrai and Paris foundations. From the exiled Benedictines also came the first printed text of the Showings, in 1670, edited by Dom Serenus Cressy, successor to Father Baker.

For two centuries this printed edition was virtually the only source of information on Julian's work. Then in the twentieth century many learned of Julian through the excellent translation made in 1901 from Sloane I by Grace Warrack, from Edinburgh, "who, suddenly, at the age of 46, produces this amazing book: a solid piece of independent research with excellent footnotes and cross references, a lucid introduction, and, above all, a wonderful feeling for the strengths and rhythms of Julian's prose."¹² Even now Warrack's edition stands as "an excellent introduction which has well stood the test of time, and has been used (not always with due acknowledgement) by many later writers."¹³ Through the Cressy and Warrack texts many Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants rediscovered Julian in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and for different and sometimes contradictory reasons, she began to gain an international audience.

The first major university research devoted to Julian is a Leeds University dissertation by Sister Anna Maria Reynolds, who produced a critical edition of the Showings in 1956, from all known manuscripts, with introduction, critical notes, and glossary. She edited the short and long version, including the Westminster chapters, and later published the short version in book form.¹⁴ In 1978 Fathers Edmund Colledge and James Walsh completed a critical edition at the University of Toronto. (See bibliographical notes.) In recent years translations of both versions have begun to appear in English, French, German, and Italian.¹⁵

Language of the Showings

Since Julian was not a scholar she did not have, as Chaucer did, models of discourse drawn from Latin, French, or Italian. True, as has been mentioned, she probably knew the Ancrene Riwle, but that work does not provide the theological terms she needed. There is no evidence that she drew to any significant degree on the mystical writings of her time. Instead, she drew on the Scriptures directly, and on the everyday language of Norwich. For example, this is the way she described her vision of the bleeding head of Christ:

Great drops of blood rolled down from the garland like beads, seemingly from the veins; and they came down a brownish-red colour—for the blood was thick—and as they spread out they became bright red, and when they reached his eyebrows they vanished … They were as fresh and living as though they were real: their abundance like the drops of water that fall from the eaves during a heavy shower, falling so thickly that no one can possibly count them; their roundness as they spread out on his forehead were like the scales of herring.¹⁶

Certain commonly-used alliterative expressions occur in the Showings, but these do not point to any borrowings or specific influences. Among these expressions are "meke and mylde," "wele and wo," and "doubtefull drede." These same alliterative expressions occur in such medieval writings as The Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, Hali Maidenhead, and Sawles Warde of the thirteenth century, and in the Lives of St. Katherine, St. Margaret, and St. Juliana.¹⁷

Even without extensive knowledge of works in Middle English, however, the reader will find few difficulties in Julian's language, though a few words require defining. "Sensuality and substance," for example, designate, respectively, the human mental structure—all that depends on the body—and the spiritual structure—that which shares in the life of God. These terms relate to the history of humanity: sensuality and substance were broken off from one another by sin, leaving a state of disharmony, but they can achieve unity again through Jesus Christ, who was fully human, and took sensuality, while remaining grounded in the Trinity. "Ground" is used to identify this unity of Christ in the Trinity, in this sense meaning also the ultimate base whereby humanity is linked to God. The "ground of being" is that which knits the human soul to Christ and is therefore the soul's deepest center, the mystic's point of contact with God.

"Kind" or "kindly" is used with overtones from the modern sense, to connote compassion; and with dependence on the medieval sense, to denote an individual species or nature—though it must be remembered that "unmade kind" is God. "Homely" is paired with courtly to suggest familiar, hospitable, being at home with, and is thus in tension with attributes of dignity and restraint associated with knightly conventions. Julian perceived these characteristics as co-existing in God's revelation of himself to his creatures.

Terms used in Christian catechesis, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, grace, and contrition, occur throughout the text, in senses close to those used in Langland's Piers Plowman and other contemporary medieval writings. But Julian taught a specific form of Christian theology, and therefore used some words with a special sense. For example, Adam means, in different contexts, the historical Adam of the Genesis account; Christ as the eternal Adam, first-born of all creatures, and the one in whom all humanity will be recapitulated; and even the total Adam, which is all humanity. And the word sin is used, not generally in a moral, but in an existential sense, connoting, in different parts of the Showings, non-being, a turning away from God, the consequence of not seeing God, a monstrosity contrary to human nature, a void where God is not, and all that is not good. Metaphorically sin is named a blindness, diverting one's sight from God, or a sickness. Once defined, these special terms, in their varied senses, add richness to Julian's text, without detracting from its unity of theme.

Rhetoric in the Showings

Julian used the common rhetorical devices employed by her contemporaries,"⁸ but of first significance is the overall rhetorical focus of her work, which distinguishes her from others of her time. Her text is set apart from other mystical tracts, not so much because of the person speaking, of whom so little is known, but because of the audience addressed. The practice in Julian's time of carefully ranking persons byprofession, position in religious orders or in the Church, or title in society frequently carried over into the life of devotion. The devout tried to achieve measurable progress, labeled by distinct degrees, as in William Langland's Piers Plowman, which uses the allegory of Do-Well, DoBet, Do-Best. But Julian spoke to all Christians. She spoke to all who are to be saved, men and women, without mention of grades, degrees of holiness, or hierarchical rank. The Cloud of Unknowing,¹⁹ by contrast, has for its audience a young man spiritually advanced above the ordinary. Furthermore, the author of that tract cautioned that his book is only for those who have forsaken the active life and have espoused the contemplative life, given over primarily to prayer. Likewise, Richard Rolle's Fire of Love is for a special class of exercitants, all of whom must renounce the love of women.²⁰ But Julian's Showings are not alone for anchoresses, but for the whole Church—all who make up the invisible and corporate body whose members will reach heaven (for those of the devil's party she has no revelation). She spoke to the person who had turned to God for one day of service or for a lifetime—all will share the bliss of heaven. This concept of equality, of universal love, permeates the treatise.

Furthermore, she meant by "all who are to be saved," not just individuals, no matter how numerous, but humanity corporately and collectively: all are one through their bond in the first-born of all that has been made—Christ—who is, in turn, grounded in the Trinity. Thus Julian is distinguished among her contemporaries by the audience she envisioned for her work.

Julian's treatise lends itself to literary as well as rhetorical analysis. One scholar has discovered, for example, that a musical dialectic pervades the treatise, stemming from concepts of looking, seeing, and beholding.¹¹ In whatever way one approaches the structure of the Showings, it becomes clear that literary devices bond with the underlying concepts and experiences. The most remarkable of these literary devices is an original parable added to the Long Version—the parable of the Lord and the Servant.

Julian as Mystic

The beginning reader of the Showings might do well to start with a study of this central parable of the Lord and the Servant and the attendant explication (chaps. 51-54). The total book might then be read in normal sequence. Repeated readings will unveil the essential ideas in Julian's mysticism. The text gives guidance as to the three ways in which Julian received her mystical knowledge:

All this blessed teaching of our Lord was shown in three ways: by physical sight, by words formed in my intellect, and by spiritual sight. With regard to the physical sight I have related what I have seen as truthfully as I can. For the words I haverepeated them exactly as our Lord showed them to me. About the spiritual sight I have already said a fair amount, but I can never describe it fully. So I am prompted to say more about it, if God will give me grace.²²

In the following section of this paper, then, I will deal: (1) with what Julian relates directly about her bodily visions and the words formed in her understanding; (2) with the metaphors and parables she employs, including the parable of the Lord and the Servant; and (3) with the overall question of Julian's mysticism.

The Experience of the Showings

Julian presents herself as one being continually taught by Christ, the divine teacher.²³ She learns progressively by attending to the bodily showings, by using her reason—sometimes to question, sometimes to relate one part of the revelations to another part—and also by opening her heart with desire and trust to the mysteries she cannot understand. This seeking, which sometimes breaks out into a beholding of divine wisdom and love, is sustained by persevering prayer.

In bodily visions Julian saw five phases of the Passion of Christ: his head bleeding from the garland of thorns; his face undergoing changes of color; his flesh marked with the scourging and the consequent profuse bleeding; his body drying from lack of moisture as it neared the moment of death; and the cloven heart, from which flowed an abundance of blood. These were only appearances, she insisted, for had the flow of blood been real, it would have saturated the bed. She also saw Christ transfigured in a glorified state.

The words formed in her understanding and the reflections and spiritual showings she reports are integral to all the sixteen showings. In the first revelation (Chap. 1-9), though visually she focuses on the crown of thorns, Julian understands in an interior way that the one who suffers is God and that he endures his pain for all God's people. Further, she knows that it is the Trinity which fills her heart with mystical joy. She thinks of this time of comfort as strength fortifying her for the hour of purifying struggle which she foresees may come. God Incarnate and the Trinity seem to her both homely and courteous. As an example of homely loving, she perceives that God enwraps us—clothes us—in his goodness. In fact, God is the goodness which is in all things as they touch and serve us. More comprehensively, in the vision of a little thing the size of a hazelnut, she sees that God is at work in all things that exist, making them, loving them, sustaining them. She arrives at the truth which Augustine had stressed in the Confessions: no one will be at ease or at rest in heart and soul, by seeking sufficiency in things that are made. Only God is rest. Her first explicit teaching about prayer comes also in this showing: prayer is cleaving to God's goodness—that which rightfully moves our desires. This goodness is at work for us in the lowliest of human needs and reaches to the true knowing of God himself.

Perhaps the most important line in the first revelation is: "For where Jesus is spoken of, the Blessed Trinity is always to be understood, as I see it" (Chap. 4).²⁴ Julian's mysticism takes its character from this belief:

… For Julian the Incarnation "manifests" the Trinity: that is, the relationship between the divinity and the humanity of Christ, in which the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, manifests the in-dwelling relationship of the Persons of the Godhead to one another … The divine Love which impresses Julian in this vision is… evident in the presence of the whole Trinity to humanity, in the person of Christ. This is the Love which brings God to man… his self-revelation, such that Julian herself is able to see the glory of God "without any intermediary."²⁵

Yet God's love for us is beyond our knowing: there is no creature who can grasp this immeasurable divine love. The effect of the vision on Julian is that her compassion and charity for all her fellow Christians expands while she seems very little in her own sight. This effect is strengthened by a sight of Mary, the mother of God, as she was as a young girl. Then in a spiritual sight Julian sees in part the wisdom and truth of God reflected in Mary's soul. But even this highest of God's creatures remains entirely other than God himself.

In the second showing (Chap. 10), Julian contemplates the bruised face of Christ and reflects on the love which moved him to take on our broken, helpless condition in order to restore us to the divine likeness: his fair face was bruised and blackened so that our face, wounded by sin, might become fair with God's own likeness. In a section that echoes the spirit of Psalm 68, she sees herself in the depths of the sea, but she finds hope there in the sight of "hills and green dales." These are symbols that God is everywhere, leading to safety and providing sustenance for all those who trust him, however limited their experience of seeeing the glory of God.

Then—in the third revelation (Chap. 11)—Julian sees that God does all things, that all his works are good, ordained to a purpose, undisturbed by chance, and all is rightly accomplished, though, from our perspective, his purpose may seem blocked by evil. At this point she does not see the workings of creatures but only of God; and as for sin, she concludes that it has no substance or positive reality—"no being in kind."

Among the good deeds which God does (fourth revelation, Chap. 12)is giving us the plentiful waters of the earth for our service and bodily comfort. But it is his blood—which is a human substance—that by its power purifies from sin. It is poured out in a cleansing stream on all sinful creatures of good will, bursting the hellish bonds of the fiends, and in Christ's glorified body, praying for us to the Father. Christ's blood is an image for his life, and for his power to give and restore life.

In the fifth revelation (Chap. 13) Julian sees how this power of God frustrates the malice of the fiend, who is, in fact, powerless. (It was this malice of the fiend she had feared would mislead her at the hour of her death). But all the woe and tribulation he has occasioned will be turned into an increase of joy for Christ's lovers.

That joy will reach its fullness in heaven, as the sixth showing portrays (Chap. 14). All service of God will be rewarded eternally. Heaven is like a great feast to which God welcomes all his friends, moving among them in intimate communion, but with a royal demeanor. His fair face is the music of this feast, filling heaven with "a marvellous melody of endless love."

In revelation seven (Chap. 15), Julian finds this heaven in her own soul, which was flooded with gladness and peace, emanating from God's presence. She is thereby taught that even when the absence of God does not result from sin, the pain of that absence must be endured patiently in faith. There are prayers which are appropriate to these alternating states of comfort and desolation. While in peace she protests like St. Paul "that nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ"; and in desolation she cries out with St. Peter, "Lord, save me, I perish."

In the eighth and ninth showings (Chap. 16-23), she learns to choose Jesus for her heaven, even when she sees him only in his suffering state. The highest reality of the Passion is to realize that it is the work of the whole Trinity. Though "only the maiden's son suffered," it is God who suffered: the one-ing with the Godhead gave strength to the humanity of Christ to travail without measure out of love. Since in the Incarnation the Son of God took upon himself all mankind—human nature, body and mind, physical and spiritual humanity—and since he is the "remaking" of that humanity in his Passion, he has lifted human lives into the being of God.²⁶ He continues to suffer in the people who are one with him. As a further consequence of his bond with humanity, all those whom he leads to heaven are the sign of his victory—his crown. That is the meaning of the second garland of dried blood formed over the crown of thorns: it is his eternal triumph. Under those perspectives Julian continues to contemplate the Godhead in its manifestation in Christ and in its bonding with humankind. About the one-ing with humanity she says: "The whole Trinity was involved in the passionof Christ, giving us an abundance of virtue and grace by him.…" (Chap. 23).

Elsewhere Julian speaks of this whole work of the Trinity as nature (the Father), mercy (the Son), and grace (the Holy Ghost);²⁷ Pelphrey explains how this mystery affects human lives:

… nature, mercy and grace work together, as the expressions of the Father, Son, and Spirit in our lives. In "nature" our capacity for God is established; in "mercy" this capacity is made an actuality, in the person of Christ; by "grace" it becomes true of ourselves … for Julian, nature itself turns toward God (for example, in the needs of our bodies, or in fear). In "mercy" God comes to meet humanity as a human being; and in "grace" we are enabled to respond to God.²⁸

In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth showings (Chap. 24-26), Christ further assures Julian of his love for mankind, whom he wills to bring to everlasting peace. Again, he relates to her not only courteously, but as a friend—as brother, savior, parent. As an example of full response to God Mary is shown again, this time not in bodily likeness but as a mirror of the Trinity, which is truth, wisdom, and charity (Chap. 25). The twelfth revelation is a profound mystical experience of Christ glorified.

Then the showings take a somewhat different turn. Revelations thirteen and fourteen (Chap. 27-63) deal with the obstacles on the human side for responding to mercy and grace, namely sin. These same revelations also treat of the means which open the way for receiving grace and comfort, especially prayer.

The problem of sin baffled Julian greatly—her own sin, the sin of mankind collectively, the sin of Adam, the sin of those to be damned. She put many troubling questions to herself and presented them in her prayer: Why was sin allowed? Why did she herself fall again and again? Why was not Adam's sin forestalled? How can it be that God's love never wavers, yet people are often alienated from him by their sin? If God loves us even in our sin, why do we blame ourselves, if he is not angry with us? How could anger be compatible with compassionate love? Even when reassured by the repeated promise that "all will be well," she asked how, then, there can be a hell for the damned, as her Church taught?

The words in her understanding let her comprehend that "sin is behovable"—that is, necessary. The key to the conflict, she learned, is in the first great secret, by which she means a mystery. The first secret is that all men are one man and one man is all men, with all that such a union implies. Our nature is wholly in God. The higher part is grounded and rooted in the Trinity; God is knit to the lower part in the Incarnate Word.

The meeting point of this union makes it possible for God always to love humanity, since he thereby loves Christ. Furthermore, in the perspective of eternity, he loves all that human beings will become, though we see them as they are in moments of time. Though sin is not to be taken lightly, there is no wrath in God—that is, no shifting, unpredictable, human-like displeasure. There is rather loving compassion, which is like what we know in human parents and marriage partners—father, mother, husband, wife.

This secret, though a mystery for us, has been made known for our belief. But there is a second great secret, which is a deed yet to be accomplished, and it will resolve the seeming impossibilities raised in her remaining questions. In some way, yet unknown, all that is good will be transformed—nothing will be lost or left behind—for God is the highest, the lowest, the all:

God was revealing that he himself would do it: this deed with all its qualities already mentioned.… But what this deed was going to be was kept secret from me.²⁹

In this context Julian heard again that all will be well, for he who made the greatest evil to be well—that is, Adam's sin—can make all else well. All manner of things will be well, and she herself, and her coChristians, will see for themselves that all will be well (Chap. 27).

She is counseled not to try further to probe the hidden things of God in this regard. Instead, she is to heed the lesson she learned in the first revelation, that God himself is sufficient for her:

And as long as we are in this life, whenever in our folly we turn to behold the reproved, tenderly our Lord toucheth us and blissfully claspeth, saying in our soul: "Let be, my love, my most dear child, and attend to me (for I am enough to thee), and take joy in thy Saviour and thy salvation.³⁰

This passage also relates to what Julian teaches about prayer in the context of the fourteenth revelation. It is in harmony too with the awareness Julian develops that Christ is mother. This metaphor, along with the parable of the Lord and the Servant which unveils the first secret, are communications which she calls spiritual sights. There is more in them than bodily visions or reason can comprehend.

The fifteenth and sixteenth revelations (Chap. 64-86) present Julian confronted alternately with comfort and with fear. She acknowledges that such is the human condition, as long as we are in this life:

The more clearly the soul sees the blessed face by grace andlove, the more it longs to see it in its fullness. Notwithstanding that our Lord lives in us, and is here with us; notwithstanding that he is nearer to us than tongue and heart can think or tell, the fact remains that we shall never cease from sighs, complaints, or tears—or longing—till we see clearly his blessed face. In that precious, blessed sight, no grief can live, no blessing fail.³¹

Julian's account closes with the final teaching of the Showings, received as a spiritual sight:

From the time that these things were first revealed I had often wanted to know what was our Lord's meaning. It was more than fifteen years after that I was answered in my spirit's understanding. "You would know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more. But you will not know or leam anything else—ever."³²

The Spiritual Sight in Metaphors and Parables: The spiritual sights are at times described in direct discourse and dialogue. More often they are conveyed through metaphors and parables, or at least amplified by such means.

Some of the metaphors in Julian's work are common to medieval writings, and to mystical writings generally. Among these well-known metaphors are the journey, to signify the spiritual life on earth, spiritual blindness, the ground of being, light and darkness, the city of the soul. Julian also develops concrete analogies from nature, with references to water, blood, rain, thirst, dryness, the seabed, the garden to be cultivated by God's servants, and the treasure hidden in the earth, which stands for humanity in its capacity to grow and flower into something greater than the seed of its common status.

But Julian adds metaphors of her own to this familiar list. Among these is the well-loved reference to the little thing in the palm of her hand, about the size of a hazelnut, which stands for all that has been made. Though this experience teaches her the littleness of creation, it also helps her see that nothing that has been made is to be despised, for it reveals God's goodness. In taking such a position Julian differs from many medieval writers, such as Walter Hilton, who often seemed to despise the flesh.

Julian further affirms how near God is to his creation by images of cloth and clothing. The torn flesh of Christ resembles a cloth about to fall into shreds; and the Church, considered as the body of Christ, because sorrows afflict it, is like a cloth shaken in the wind. Clothing images also amplify the parable of the Lord and the Servant: Julian describes the garments of both Lord and Servant and explains what they signify, both as to kind and color.³³

Julian also uses familiar metaphors in a new way. An important example is the likening of God to a point:

… I saw God in a point… by which I leamed that he is in all things … at this time the working of creatures was not shown, but only the Lord God in the creature; for he is the mid-point of all things and of all that he does …"See: I am God. I am in all things. I never lift my hands from my works, nor ever shall, without end."³⁴

Some writers have used the symbol of the point as if it related to a geometrical figure:

… all the radii of a circle are concentrated into a single unity in the center, and this point contains all the straight lines brought together within itself, and unified to one another, and to the one starting point from which they began.³⁵

The concept in this form is as old, at least, as the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius and occurs widely. Dante, for one, sees a point of light—the starting point in God's mind of all that is—radiating out into all that exists.³⁶ Father William Johnston describes still another variant on the metaphor, which he calls the "still point." It involves:

… vertical thinking, a process in which the mind goes silently down to its own center, revealing cavernous depths ordinarily latent and untouched by the flow of images and concepts that pass across the surface of the mind. It is that mysticism in which one descends to the "still point" or to the ground of the soul, thus finding a type of knowledge that is supra-conceptual and therefore ineffable, a species of super-thinking whereby one grasps the unity of all things.… ³⁷

But Julian's metaphor of the point suggests a more concrete reference than either the geometrical or super-conceptual figures of these others. For her, God is the central point of all, and human life is only a point in him. This concept extends to the idea that God is present to the lowest parts of human needs, even including the body's eliminative functions, for which the body is suited like a fine purse.³⁸ She may be thinking, then, of needle- or lace-point, which anchoresses made. In such a structure each point (or stitch) is everywhere the same, yet each is really distinct from the pattern which arises from the points. Also this pattern preexists in the mind of the worker, who, for a perfect work, never lifts his hands from what he makes. Such a metaphor conveys Julian's teaching that God is in all things, as maker and keeper, yet is really other from what he sustains in being:

To the same blessed power, wisdom, and love by which he made them are all things being continually led, and our Lord himself will bring them there. In due time, we shall see.… The reason for this was shown in the first revelation, and more clearly in the third, where it was said: "I saw the whole Godhead concentrated in a single point."³⁹

The metaphor which contains Julian's most intricate theology—those mysteries which she herself struggled with for nearly twenty years—is the great parable of the Lord and the Servant. This story conveys Julian's insights about the first Adam, the cosmic Christ, the Trinity, and the unity of all who are to be saved.⁴⁰ The one great reality in the parable is the person of Christ, in whom are mysterious compenetrations of other realities—the Adam of Genesis; the total Adam (all humanity); Christ as the second Adam (and in one sense the first Adam, since to his eternal image all things were made); and Christ, meaning all humanity to be saved. The basic parable weaves into other metaphors: for example, the sinful Adam fell in misery to the earth, but likewise the divine Adam falls on the earth—into human nature in Mary's womb—and makes the garden of the earth spring forth with food and drink for which the Father thirsts and longs, in his unending love for the treasure which was hidden in the earth.

The allegory of the Lord and the Servant, initially referred to in Julian's first revelation,⁴¹ flows easily into the second great metaphor—that of the motherhood of Christ. For the Lord in the parable "rejoices to be our mother," and the deep Wisdom seen in the Trinity "is our mother." Julian then devotes four chapters to explaining how Christ is mother. He is mother because he gives birth to us in creation, in our again-making, and in our dying, a birth to eternal life. He carries out all the functions of motherhood: he nurtures, feeds, chides, rewards, and loves tenderly with more compassion and tenderness than any other mother could exercise.

This striking metaphor, rooted in Scripture, existed in an unbroken tradition from earliest Christian times and had antecedents in Judaism. It fell into disuse only under the impact of systematic theology in the thirteenth century. An ancient Hebrew teaching placed the feminine in the Godhead,⁴² and Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jew who was a primary influence on early Christian exegesis, used maternal names for God. Among Christian exegetes who continued to use such images are Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome, and Ambrose. St. Augustine assimilated what these Latin and Greek Fathers had said, and transmitted the concept through such expressions as "Our Mother, the Wisdom of God." In sermons and commentaries on the Psalms, on Isaiah, and other Old Testamenttexts, he repeated maternal imagery in several forms: for example, he says that Christ became incarnate because weak human beings could not eat the bread that is God, our Father, until it became milk at the breast of Christ, our Mother. The New Testament event in which Christ compared himself to a hen who desired to gather her chickens under her wings occasioned repeated analogies and was blended with the metaphor from the Song of Moses which portrayed God as the eagle sheltering the fledgeling people of God under her wings.

Echoes of Augustine's metaphors, together with some new variations, occur in an unbroken sequence to the time of Julian's Showings. Maternal imagery for God, and sometimes for Christ, occurs in such diverse writers as Cassiodorus, Remigius, Rabanus Maurus, Peter Lombard, Anselm, Bernard of Clairvaux, Albert the Great, and Bonaventure. The image also appears in Thomas Aquinas' gathering of texts from the Fathers, the Catena Aurea.⁴³

Though there are these many suggestions in earlier writings giving a basis for applying the motherhood image to Christ and the Trinity, Julian worked out the appropriation more fully than any of her predecessors and with some original nuances. For her, Christ is our mother in the order of creation: "We have our being of him, there, where the ground of motherhood beginneth."" We are grounded in the Trinity through this motherhood: "And the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we are enclosed."⁴⁵ In this same motherhood our sensual being is united to God, redeemed, and restored to harmony with our substance: "… I saw that the second Person, who is our Mother substantially—the same very dear Person is now become our Mother sensually.… He is our Mother of mercy in taking our sensuality … in our Mother Christ, we have profit and increase; and in mercy he re-formeth and restoreth us; and by the power of his passion, his death and uprising, oned us to our substance."⁴⁶

Christ's motherhood in the work of grace has its roots in his experience of being formed by a mother—that is, of being a child in the womb and subject to a human mother:

But now I must say a little more about this "overflowing" as I understand its meaning: how we have been brought back again by the motherhood of mercy and grace to that natural condition which was ours originally when we were made through the motherhood of natural love (kind love)—which love, indeed, has never left us.

Our Mother by nature and grace—for he would become our Mother in everything—laid the foundation of his work in the Virgin's womb with great and gentle condescension. (This was shown in the first revelation when I received a mental picture of the Virgin's genuine simplicity at the time she conceived.) In other words, it was inthis lowly place that God most high, the supreme wisdom of all, adorned and arrayed himself with our poor flesh, ready to function and serve as Mother in all things.⁴⁷

Thus Christ, whom the Scriptures say "learned through suffering," although he was God (Hebrews 5:8), learned motherhood through Mary. He exercised his own motherhood as a service—a word which suggests both the official liturgical service and the lowly service of the mother; and as an office, which is the same word used to designate the functions to which members of the Church are called and for which they are publicly ordained. What is only implied in these words is made explicit when Julian says, with reference to the Mass and the Eucharist, ongoing workings of grace:

He might die no more, but that does not stop him working, for he needs to feed us… it is an obligation of his dear, motherly love. The human mother will suckle her child with her own milk, but our beloved Mother,. Jesus, feeds us with himself, and, with the most tender courtesy, does it by means of the Blessed Sacrament, the precious good of true life. And he keeps us going through his mercy and grace by all the sacraments.⁴⁸

John Clark summarizes what is apparently new and more fully developed in Julian than in any of her known predecessors with reference to this motherhood metaphor:

It is now recognized that the image of God as "Mother" can claim a continuous tradition, with roots in the Bible and the Fathers; in particular the appropriation of Sapientia to Christ opens the way to applying to him some of those texts in the Sapiential books of the Bible which speak of Wisdom, God's agent in the creation and ordering of the world, as a female figure. At the same time, no full antecedent has yet been found for Julian's bold appropriation to Christ of Motherhood in the order of creation as well as of redemption, nor of her explicit development of a fully Trinitarian theology in which Motherhood is consistently appropriated to Christ as Wisdom.⁴⁹

Thus, the metaphor becomes the most comprehensive, integrative, and significant one within Julian's Showings.

Is Julian a Mystic?

Those who study Julian's Showings, aided by recent research, should be able to grant that she is a writer of the first rank, and that she transmits an appealing message of love, expressed in skilled language, with consistent rhetorical strategies, and effective metaphors. It is also clear, from a survey of the meaning of her visionary experiences, that her book is not merely devotional but profoundly theological. But in what sense, if at all, is Julian amystic? Are the attributes of mysticism, as commonly described, present in her experience? It seems that they are indeed present, despite the surface simplicity of her treatise.

The core of mysticism in the orthodox Christian tradition is a way of life. The authentic mystic is purified, illuminated, and transformed as the God of love reveals himself in such a manner that the mystic is explicitly conscious of the way of life demanded by God's own self-communication. The goal of the mystic is conscious union with God. The fully matured contemplative is ultimately united with the source of Love in a profound union, in which, nonetheless, God remains God, and the creature remains a creature. Transformed by God's love and wisdom, the Christian mystic discerns more than ever before how the Christ-life affects every dimension of human activity—not only of the individual but of the people of God.⁵⁰

In general terms this view of mysticism applies to Julian. Yet, paradoxically, the very persistence with which she stresses that her way of life is for all who will be saved may distract us from her own path of purification, illumination, and transformation. Likewise, because what was revealed to Julian was not prophecy in the narrow sense but a deeper insight into the truths of faith already proposed for her belief, we may fail to attend adequately to the depth and breadth of God's self-revelation to her. It is useful, then, to review how Julian becomes one with the mystery of divine love, a growth experience comparable to what she invites her co-Christians to seek.

As the record of the two versions of the Showings witness, Julian persevered in her search of God from her youth, through the trials recorded in the revelations, and into some twenty years of reflection and prayer after the showings. Hers was a lifetime of purgation and enlightenment. However, unlike many other writers, she did not regard her spiritual journey as a series of progressive steps culminating in perfection. Rather, she saw human life as more like the teeth of a saw, a series of risings and fallings.⁵¹ She reduced meditations, asceticism, and reflections to a single turning of attention to God, with the eye of faith, or with the beholding of confident love:

If, because of our weakness, we fall back again into our old inertia and spiritual blindness, and experience suffering both spiritual and physical, God's will is for us to know that he has not forgotten us.⁵²

Mystics often speak of experiences which they call the dark night, when they seem abandoned and on the verge of extinction. We may look in vain for an explicit example of this experience in the Showings, partially because Julian was of a strong, positivedisposition, and experiences of the dark night are in some degree linked to the personality of the individual. Nonetheless, Julian explains that she shared in some way in the deepest desolation of Christ himself, in a mystical death which is followed by joy:

I understood that in this life (as our Lord sees it)
We are on his cross
 dying with him in our pains and passion.
Then suddenly his countenance shall be changed upon us
and we shall be with him in heaven.
Between this disposition and the other there will be no
break in time and then—
We shall all be brought into joy.⁵³

Some awareness of divine transcendence is also part of the mystic's experience and testimony. Julian witnesses to such an awareness repeatedly:

I had in some measure both touch, sight, and feeling of these three of God's attributes … the attributes are these three: Life, love, and light.… These three exist in one goodness.⁵⁴

Her awareness of God extended but was not limited to his presence in the human soul:

Our good Lord showed himself to me in various ways both in heaven and on earth. But the only place I saw him occupy was in man's soul. He showed himself on earth in his precious incarnation and his blessed passion. In another way he showed himself—on earth still—when I said, "I saw the whole Godhead as it were in a single point."⁵⁵

It is in the twelfth revelation, an experience to which she refers again and again, that Julian felt the most overwhelming sense of the presence of God, with the resulting joy which flooded her whole being:

After this our Lord showed himself, in glory even greater than I had seen before—so it seemed to me. By this was I taught that our soul can never rest until it comes to him, and knows him to be the fullness of joy, friendly and considerate, blessed and life indeed. And he said again and again "It is l; it is I; it is I who am most exalted; it is I whom you love; it is I whom you delight in; it is I whom you serve; it is I whom you long for, whom you desire; it is I whom you mean; it is I who am all. It is I whom Holy Church preaches and teaches; it is I who showed myself to you here.".… the joy I saw in that revelation surpasses all the heart could wish for or desire.⁵⁶

True, mysticism is not only the hunger of the heart of God, nor is it just an intellectual activity. Rather, it begets an energy that organizes the whole life in an arduous search which transforms the person. Julian speaks of this transformation, applying it not only to the individual, but to corporate humanity:

This blessed love works in us in two ways. In our lower part there are pains and passions, sympathy, pity, mercy and forgiveness, and so on …; in the higher part are none of these, but altogether the most tremendous love and marvellous joy. And in this joy all our sufferings are set right … he also showed the honor and nobility to which he will bring us through the work of grace in the lower part of our nature, transforming our blameworthiness into eternal worthiness.⁵⁷

Julian's Showings thus manifest characteristics found in other figures and writers whom we are ready to call "mystics."⁵⁸

Julian's Influence Today

Though, as stated at the beginning, Julian has not been given her rightful place in English letters, nonetheless traces of her influence exist. T. S. Eliot in Little Gidding has familiarized readers with a notable phrase from Julian—"All shall be well"—and has associated this saying with mystical symbolism:

And all shall be well and
 All manner of thing shall be well
 When the tongues of flame are enfolded
 Into the crowned knot of fire
 And the fire and the rose are one.⁵⁹

Likewise, Aldous Huxley ended the meditative chapter of Eyeless in Gaza with an echo of the same saying from Julian: "… he thought of what was in store for him. Whatever it might be, he knew that all would be well."⁶⁰

Closer to our own days such popular writers as Annie Dillard and Mary Gordon make Julian known in prose works. Annie Dillard in Holy the Firm⁶¹ has a Julie Norwich as a major character, in a prose-poem which presents some images and teachings from the Showings. And Mary Gordon in Final Payments has her narrator in the midst of a religious crisis discover a prayer card with words from Julian, printed in "the slant, liturgical script that had made its truth seem inevitable":

He said not thou shalt not be tempted
He said not thou shalt not be troubled
He said thou shalt not be overcome.⁶²

Among well-known writers on the contemplative life, Thomas Merton has called Julian one of the great theologians of all time—equal to John Henry Newman, superior to John of the Cross and even to Teresa of Avila.⁶³

Admittedly, these are small, scattered signs of recognition, and even the scholarship devoted to the Showings is recent and in need of supplements. But given these advances in scholarship and a growing interest in mysticism, Julian may soon attain the place she deserves in English letters.

Notes

¹ For the records in wills see Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, critical edition, A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1978), 1, 33-34. See also, F. I. Dunn, "Hermits, Anchorites and Recluses: A Study with Reference to Medieval Norwich," in Julian and Her'Norwich, ed. Frank Dale Sayer (Norwich, 1973), pp. 18-26; and Ann K. Warren, "The Anchorite in Medieval England 1100-1539," diss. Case Western Reserve, 1980 (available on microfilm).

² Chap. 2, tr. Wolters (Baltimore, 1973), p. 64. Unless otherwise indicated, all references in this paper are to the Long Version.

³ Chap. 3 (tr. Wolters), p. 143.

⁴ Tr. M. B. Salu (London, 1955). This guide for anchoresses contains directives for their daily lives, devotions, work, and relations with others.

⁵ See B. A. Windeatt, "Julian and Her Audience," Review of English Studies, n.s. 28 (1977), 1-17.

⁶ William Butler-Bowdon, ed., The Book of Margery Kempe (London, 1954), p. 38.

⁷ Chap. 6, Short Text (tr. Colledge and Walsh, Showings), p. 135.

⁸ Chap. 9 (tr. Wolters), p. 75.

⁹ Chap. 6, Short Text (Colledge and Walsh, Showings), p. 135.

¹⁰ For a fuller history of the manuscripts see Chaps. IV, Introduction, Part One of critical edition, Colledge and Walsh, pp. 1-33.

¹¹ T. A. Birrell, "English Catholic Mystics in NonCatholic Circles—I," Downside Review, 94 (1976), 60-81.

¹² Sheila Upjohn, Mind Out of Time (Julian Shrine Publications, 1979), p. 6.

¹³ Introduction, Colledge and Walsh, Critical Edition, Part One, p. 13.

¹⁴A Critical Edition of the Revelations of Julian of Norwich (1342-c. 1416), prepared from all the known manuscripts, presented as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of English Language and Literature, Leeds Univ., May, 1956: Amherst, pp. 1-52; Westminster, Appendix B., 36 pp.

¹⁵ See Valerie Lagorio and Ritamary Bradley, The 14th-Century English Mystics: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1981), items 503, 505, 512, 517-19.

¹⁶ Chap. 7 (tr. Wolters), p. 72.

⁷ Maisonneuve, Vol. I, 74-75.

¹⁸ See Donald F. Homier, "The Function of Rhetoric in Suggesting Stages of Contemplation in the Vernacular Writings of the Fourteenth Century English Mystics," diss., Northern Illinois Univ., 1975.

¹⁹ The anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing is an experienced spiritual director whose works come from the latter part of the fourteenth century. A widely-circulated edition is that of Clifton Wolters (Baltimore, 1961) and subsequent re-printings. See the essay by John P. H. Clark below.

²⁰ Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love, ed. Clifton Wolters (Baltimore, 1971), p. 136.

²¹ Roland Maisonneuve, "L'Univers Visionnaire de Julian de Norwich."

²² Chap. 73 (tr. Wolters), pp. 191-92.

²³ Ritamary Bradley, "Christ, the Teacher, in Julian's Showings: The Biblical and Patristic Traditions," The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, Papers Read at the Dartington Symposium, 1982 (Exeter, 1982), pp. 127-42.

²⁴ Tr. Wolters, p. 66.

²⁵ Brant Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning. The Theology and Mysticism of Julian of Norwich (Salzburg, 1982), p. 105.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 163.

²⁷ Chap. 58 (tr. Wolters), p. 166.

²⁸ Pelphrey, p. 193.

²⁹ Chap. 36 (tr. Wolters), p. 115.

³⁰ Chap. 36 (tr. Wolters), p. 106. This is the quotation contained in Colwich Abbey Ms. 18.

³¹ Chap. 72 (tr. Wolters), p. 190.

³² Chap. 86 (tr. Wolters), p. 211-12.

³³ See Ritamary Bradley, "Cloth and Clothing Metaphors in the Showings of Julian of Norwich" (to be published in Mediaevalia).

³⁴ Chap. 11 (author's translation from critical edition, Colledge and Walsh), p. 336.

³⁵ Sr. Anna Maria Reynolds, "Some Literary Influences in the Revelations of Julian of Norwich," in Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages, 7-8 (1952), p. 24.

³⁶Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto 27.

³⁷ William Johnston, The Still Point. Reflections on Zen and Christian Mysticism (New York, 1970), pp. 132-33.

³⁸ Chap. 6.

³⁹ Chap. 35 (tr. Wolters). The same idea is expressed again in Chap. 52, p. 152.

⁴⁰ For a systematic explication of the teachings underlying this parable, see Thomas Merton, The New Man (New York, 1961), pp. 134-37. Merton does not refer in this book to Julian, however.

⁴¹ Chap. 7.

⁴² Maisonneuve, Part One, pp. 349-50. See also David Biale, "The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible," History of Religions, 21 (1982), 240-56.

⁴³ Ritamary Bradley, "Patristic Background of the Motherhood Similitude in Julian of Norwich," Christian Scholar's Review, 8 (1978), 101-13. See also Carolyn Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1982).

⁴⁴ Chap. 59 (tr. Walsh), p. 161.

⁴⁵ Chap. 54 (tr. Walsh), p. 150.

⁴⁶ Chap. 58 (tr. Walsh), pp. 159-60.

⁴⁷ Chap. 60 (tr. Wolters), p. 169.

⁴⁸ Chap. 60 (tr. Wolters), p. 170.

⁴⁹ John P. H. Clark, "Nature, Grace and the Trinity in Julian of Norwich," Downside Review, 100 (1982), 211.

⁵⁰ Harvey D. Egan, "Mystical Crosscurrents," Communio, 7 (1980), 4-23.

⁵¹ Maisonneuve, Part II, p. 417.

⁵² Chap. 64 (tr. Wolters), p. 178.

⁵³ Chap. 21 (tr. Walsh), p. 82.

⁵⁴ Chap. 83 (tr. Wolters), pp. 208-09.

⁵⁵ Chap. 81 (tr. Wolters), p. 206.

⁵⁶ Chap. 26 (tr. Wolters), pp. 102-03.

⁵⁷ Chap. 71 (tr. Wolters), p. 188.

⁵⁸ These criteria are based on a standard work on mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (New York, 1961), Chap. 4, "The Characteristics of Mysticism," pp. 70-94.

⁵⁹ T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909-1962 (London, 1970), p. 223.

⁶⁰ Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza (New York, 1936), p. 473.

⁶¹ Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (New York, 1977).

⁶² Mary Gordon, Final Payments (New York, 1978), p. 300.

⁶³ Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, 1968), p. 211; and 14th-Century English Mystics Newsletter, 4'(1978), 2.