Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon in an extended version, alo linking to free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. REVELATIONS of DIVINE LOVE Recorded by JULIAN, Anchoress at _NORWICH_ ANNO DOMINI 1373 _In lumine tuo videbimus lumen_ A version from the MS. in the BRITISH MUSEUM edited by GRACE WARRACK Methuen & Company 36 Essex Street Strand London 1901 DOMINI, REFUGIUM FACTUS ES NOBIS, A GENERATIONE IN GENERATIONEM. RESPICE IN SERVOS TUOS, ET IN OPERA TUA: ET DIRIGE FILIOS EORUM. ET SIT SPLENDOR DOMINI DEI NOSTRI SUPER NOS, ET OPERA MANUUM NOSTRARUM DIRIGE SUPER NOS: ET OPUS MANUUM NOSTRARUM DIRIGE. "Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is a holy, marvelling delight in God; which is Love." CONTENTS PAGE I. NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS OF THIS BOOK. xi II. NOTE AS TO TWO JULIANS. xv III. INTRODUCTION:-- Part I. The Lady Julian. xvii Part II. The Manner of the Book. xxxiii Part III. The Theme of the Book. lv IV. "REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE":-- (_editorial account_) i. A List of Contents, called "A Particular of the Chapters". 1 ii.-iii. Autobiographical. 3 iv.-ix. _The First Revelation_: The Trinity is shewn, through the Suffering of Christ, as Goodness, or Love all-working. 8 x. _The Second Revelation_: Man's Sight of God's Love is but partial because of sin's darkness. 21 xi. _The Third Revelation_: All Being is Being of God and is good: Sin is no Being. 26 xii. _The Fourth Revelation_: The stain of sin through lacking of human love is cleared away by the Death of Christ in His Love. 29 xiii. _The Fifth Revelation_: By Love's Sacrifice, in Christ, the evil suffered, for Love's Increase, to rise, is overcome for ever. 30 xiv. _The Sixth Revelation_: The travail of Man against evil on earth is a glory accepted by Love in Heaven. 33 xv. _The Seventh Revelation:_ It is of God's Will, for our learning, that on earth we change between joy of light and pain of darkness. 34 xvi.-xxi. _The Eighth Revelation:_ Of the oneness of God and Man in the Passion of Christ, through Compassion of the Creature with Christ and of Christ with the Creature. All compassion in men is Christ in men. 36 xxii.-xxiii. _The Ninth Revelation_: Of the worshipful entering of Man's soul into the Joy of Love Divine in the Passion. 46 xxiv. _The Tenth Revelation_: Of the thankful entering of the soul into the Peace of _the Endless Love_ opened up for Man in the time of the Passion. 51 xxv. _The Eleventh Revelation:_ Of Christ's Raising, Fulfilling Love to the souls of men, as beheld in the love between Him and His Mother. 52 xxvi. _The Twelfth Revelation:_ All that the soul lives by and loves is God, through Christ. 54 xxvii.-xl. _The Thirteenth Revelation:_ Man's finite love was suffered by Infinite Love to fail, that falling thus through sin into pain and death of darkness, the creature therein might more deeply know his need and more highly know, in its succouring strength, the Creator's Love, as the Saviour's; that so being raised, and for ever held clinging to that through the grace of the Holy Ghost, he might rise to fuller and higher and endless oneness with God. 55 xli.-xliii. _The Fourteenth Revelation:_ Beginning on earth, Prayer makes the soul one with God. 84 xliv.-lxiii. Regarding these Revelations and the Christian Life of Love's travail on earth against sin. 93 lxiv.-lxv. _The Fifteenth Revelation_ (Closing): Of Love's Fulfilment in Heaven. 159 lxvi. Autobiographical: The fall through frailty of nature, by self-regarding, into doubt of the Shewing of Love; the rescue by mercy; the assaying of faith and the overcoming by grace. 164 lxvii.-lxviii. _The Sixteenth Revelation_ (Confirming): The Indwelling of God In the Soul, now and for ever. "_Thou shalt not be overcome._" 167 lxix. Autobiographical: The second assaying of faith, through the horror of spiritual darkness; the overcoming by virtue of the Passion of Christ, with help from the Common Belief of the Christian Fellowship. 170 lxx.-lxxxv. The Life of Faith is kept by Charity, led on by Hope 172 lxxvi. The Meaning of the Whole. Of learning more on earth and In Heaven of the One thing taught in the Revelation: _the Endless Love_; in Which Life is everlasting. 201 V. POSTSCRIPT BY AN EARLY TRANSCRIBER OF THE MANUSCRIPT. 204 VI. GLOSSARY. 205 _The Title-page is from a design by Phoebe Anna Traquair._ NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS This English book exists in two Manuscripts: No. 30 of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (_Bibliotheca Bigotiana_, 388), and No. 2499 _Sloane_, in the British Museum. The Paris Manuscript is of the Sixteenth Century, the Sloane is in a Seventeenth Century handwriting; the English of the Fourteenth Century seems to be on the whole well preserved in both, especially perhaps in the later Manuscript, which must have been copied from one of mixed East Anglian and northern dialects. This manuscript has no title-page, and nothing is known as to its history. Delisle's catalogue of the _Biblioth. Bigot._ (1877) gives no particulars as to the acquisition of No. 388. The two versions may be compared in these sentences:-- Chap. II., _Paris_ MS.: "This revelation was made to a Symple creature unlettyrde leving in deadly flesh the yer of our Lord a thousande and thre hundered and lxxiii the xiii Daie of May." _Sloane_: "These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature that cowde no letter the yeere of our Lord 1373 the xiij day of may." Chap. LI., _Paris_ MS.: "The colour of his face was feyer brown whygt with full semely countenaunce. his eyen were blakke most feyer and semely shewyng full of lovely pytte and within hym an heyward long and brode all full of endlesse hevynlynes. And the lovely lokyng that he lokyd on his servant contynually. And namely in his fallyng ÷ me thought it myght melt oure hartys for love. and brek them on twoo for Joy." _Sloane_: "The color of his face was faire browne, with ful semely features, his eyen were blak most faire and semely shewand ful of lovely pety and within him an heyward long and brode all full of endles hevyns, and the lovely lokeing that he loked upon his servant continuly and namely in his fallyng me thowte it myte molten our herts for love & bresten hem on to for joy." The Sloane MS. does not mention the writer of the book, but the copyist of the Paris version has, after the _Deo Gratias_ with which it ends, added or transcribed these words: _Explicit liber Revelationem Julyane anatorite_ [sic] _Norwyche cujus anime propicietur Deus_. Blomefield, in his _History of Norfolk_ (iv. p. 81), speaks of "an old vellum Manuscript, 36 pages of which contained an account of the visions, etc.," of the Lady Julian, anchoress at St. Julian's, Norwich, and quotes the title written by a contemporary: "Here es a Vision shewed by the godenes of God to a devoute Woman: and her name is Julian, that is recluse at Noryche, and yett is on life, Anno Domini mccccxlii. In the whilke Vision er fulle many comfortabyll words, and greatly styrrande to alle they that desyres to be Crystes Looverse"--greatly stirring to all that desire to be lovers of Christ. This Manuscript, possibly containing the writing of Julian herself, was in the possession of the Rev. Francis Peck (1692-1743). The original MSS. of that antiquarian writer went to Sir Thomas Cave, and ultimately to the British Museum, but his general library was sold in 1758 to Mr T. Payne (of Payne & Foss), bookseller, Strand, and this old Manuscript of the "Revelations," which has been sought for in vain in the catalogues of public collections, may perhaps have been bought and sold by him.[1] It may be extant in some private library. Tersteegen, who, in his _Auserlesene Beschreibungen Heiliger Seelen_, gives a long extract from Julian's book (vol. iii. p. 252, 3rd ed. 1784), mentions in his preface that he had seen "in the Library of the late Poiret" an old Manuscript of these Revelations. Pierre Poiret, author of several works on mystical theology, died in 1719 near Leyden, but the Manuscript has not found its way to the University there. Poiret himself refers thus to Julian and her book in his _Catalogus Auctorum Mysticorum_, giving to her name the asterisk denoting greatness: "_Julianae Matris Anachoretae, Revelationes de Amore Dei. Anglice. Theodidactae, profundae, ecstaticae._" (_Theologiae Pacificae itemque Mysticae_, p. 336. Amsterdam, 1702.) The earliest printed edition of Julian's book was prepared by the Benedictine Serenus de Cressy, and published in 1670 by permission of his ecclesiastical Superior, the Abbot of Lambspring, under the title of _Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love_. It agrees with the Manuscript now in Paris, but the readings that differ from the Sloane Manuscript are very few and are quite unimportant. This version of de Cressy's is in Seventeenth Century English with some archaic words, which are explained on the side margins; it was re-printed in 1843. A modernised version taken from the Sloane MS. was published, with a preface, by Henry Collins in 1877 (T. Richardson & Sons). These three, the only printed editions, are now all of great rarity. For the following version, the editor having transcribed the Sloane MS., divided its continuous lines into paragraphs, supplied to many words capital letters, and while following as far as possible the significance of the commas and occasional full stops of the original, endeavoured to make the meaning clearer by a more varied punctuation. As the book is designed for general use, modern spelling has been adopted, and most words entirely obsolete in speech have been rendered in modern English, though a few that seemed of special significance or charm have been retained. Archaic forms of construction have been almost invariably left as they are, without regard to modern grammatical usage. Occasionally a word has been underlined for the sake of clearness or as a help in preserving the measure of the original language, which in a modern version must lose a little in rhythm, by altered pronunciation and by the dropping of the termination "en" from verbs in the infinitive. Here and there a clause has been put within parentheses. The very few changes made in words that might have any bearing on theological or philosophical questions, any historical or personal significance in the presentment of Julian's view, are noted on the margin and in the Glossary. Where prepositions are used in a sense now obscure they have generally been left as they are (_e.g., of_ for _by_ or _with_), or have been added to rather than altered (_e.g., for_ is rendered by the archaic but intelligible _for that_, rather than by _because_, and _of_ is amplified by words in square brackets, as [_by virtue_] _of_, [_out_] _of_ rather than changed into _through_ or _from_). The editor has desired to follow the rule of never omitting a word from the Manuscript, and of enclosing within square brackets the very few words added. It may be seen that these words do not alter the sense of the passage, but are interpolated with a view to bringing it out more clearly, in insignificant references (_e.g._ "in this [Shewing]"), and once or twice in a passage of special obscurity (see chap. xlv). [1] v. Nichol's _Literary Anecdotes_, vol. iii. p. 653. NOTE AS TO THE LADY JULIAN, ANCHORESS AT ST JULIAN'S, AND THE LADY JULIAN LAMPET, ANCHORESS AT CARROW In _Carrow Abbey_, by Walter Rye (privately printed, 1889), is given a list of Wills, in which the name of the Lady Julian Lampet frequently occurs as a legatee between the years 1427 (Will of Sir John Erpingham) and 1478 (Will of William Hallys). Comparing the Will of Hallys with that of Margaret Purdance, which was made in 1471 but not proved till 1483, and from which the name of Lady Julian Lampet as a legatee is stroked out, no doubt because of her death, we find evidence that this anchoress died between 1478 and 1483. As even the earlier of these dates was a hundred and thirty-six years after the birth of the writer of the "Revelations," who in May 1373 was over thirty years of age, the identity of the "Lady Julian, recluse at Norwich," with the Lady Julian Lampet, though it has naturally been suggested, is surely an impossibility. There were anchorages in the churchyards both of St Julian's, Conisford (which belonged to the nuns of Carrow in the sense of its revenues having been made over to them by King Stephen for the support of that Priory or "Abbey"), and of St Mary's, the Convent Church of the nuns. See the Will of Robert Pert--proved 1445--which left "to the anchoress of Carhowe 1s., to ditto at St Julian's 1s.," and that of the Lady Isobel Morley, who in 1466 left bequests to "Dame Julian, anchoress at Carrow, and Dame Agnes, anchoress at St Julian's in Cunisford"--no doubt the same Dame Agnes that is mentioned by Blomefield as being at St Julian's in 1472. This Agnes may have been the immediate successor of Julian the writer of the "Revelations," who is spoken of as "yet in life"--as if in great age--in 1442, when she would be a hundred years old. Perhaps the almost invariable use of the surname of the Carrow Dame Julian (who was, no doubt, of the family of Sir Ralph Lampet--frequently mentioned by Blomefield and in the _Paston Letters_) may go to establish proof that there had been before her and in her earlier years of recluse life another anchoress Julian, who most likely had been educated at Carrow, but who lived as an anchoress at St Julian's, and was known simply as Dame or "the Lady" Julian. * * * * * From Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_, vol. iv. p. 524: "Carhoe or Carrow stands on a hill by the side of the river, about a furlong from Conisford or Southgates, and was always in the liberty of the City [of Norwich].... Here was an ancient Hospital or Nunnery, dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint John, to which King Stephen having given lands and meadows without the South-gate, Seyna and Lescelina, two of the sisters, in 1146 began the foundations of a new monastery called Kairo, Carrow, Car-hou, and sometimes Car-Dieu, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint John, and consisted of a prioress and nine (afterwards twelve) Benedictine black nuns.... Their church was founded by King Stephen and was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and had a chapel of St John Baptist joined to its south side, and another of St Catherine to its north; there was also an anchorage by it, and in 1428 Lady Julian Lampet was anchoress there." ... "This nunnery for many years had been a school or place of education for the young ladies of the chief families of the diocese, who boarded with and were educated by the nuns." From Dr Jessopp's _Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_, 1492-1532, Introduction, p. xliv.: "The priory of Carrow had always enjoyed a good reputation, and the house had for long been a favourite retreat for the daughters of the Norwich citizens who desired to give themselves to a life of religious retirement." INTRODUCTION PART I THE LADY JULIAN _Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum coelorum_ _S. Matth. v._ 3 Very little is known of the outer life of the woman that nearly five hundred years ago left us this book. It is in connection with the old Church of St Julian in the parish of Conisford, outlying Norwich, that Julian is mentioned in Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_ (vol. iv. p. 81): "In the east part of the churchyard stood an anchorage in which an ankeress or recluse dwelt till the Dissolution, when the house was demolished, though the foundations may still be seen (1768). In 1393 Lady Julian, the ankeress here was a strict recluse, and had two servants to attend her in her old age. This woman was in these days esteemed one of the greatest holiness. In 1472 Dame Agnes was recluse here; in 1481, Dame Elizabeth Scott; in 1510, Lady Elizabeth; in 1524, Dame Agnes Edrygge." The little Church of St Julian (in use at this day) still keeps from Norman times its dark round tower of flint rubble, and still there are traces about its foundation of the anchorage built against its south-eastern wall. "This Church was founded," says the History of the County, "before the Conquest, and was given to the nuns of Carhoe (Carrow) by King Stephen, their founder; it hath a round tower and but one bell; the north porch and nave are tiled, and the chancel is thatched. There was an image of St Julian in a niche of the wall of the Church, in the Churchyard." Citing the record of a burial in "the churchyard of St Julian, the King and Confessor," Blomefield observes: "which shews that it was not dedicated to St Julian, the Bishop, nor St Julian, the Virgin." The only knowledge that we have directly from Julian as to any part of her history is given in her account of the time and manner in which the Revelation came, and of her condition before and during and after this special experience. She tells how on the 13th day of May, 1373,[1] the Revelation of Love was shewed to her, "a simple creature, unlettered," who had before this time made certain special prayers from out of her longing after more love to God and her trouble over the sight of man's sin and sorrow. She had come now, she mentions, to the age of thirty, for which she had in one of these prayers, desired to receive a greater consecration,--thinking, perhaps, of the year when the Carpenter's workshop was left by the Lord for wider ministry,--she was "thirty years old and an half." This would make her birth-date about the end of 1342, and the old Manuscript says that she "was yet in life" in 1442. Julian relates that the Fifteen consecutive "Shewings" lasted from about four o'clock till after nine of that same morning, that they were followed by only one other Shewing (given on the night of the next day), but that through later years the teaching of these Sixteen Shewings had been renewed and explained and enlarged by the more ordinary enlightenment and influences of "the same Spirit that shewed them." In this connection she speaks, in different chapters, of "fifteen years after and more," and of twenty years after, "save three months"; thus her book cannot have been finished before 1393. Of the circumstances in which the Revelations came, and of all matters connected with them, Julian gives a careful account, suggestive of great calmness and power of observation and reflection at the time, as well as of discriminating judgment and certitude afterwards. She describes the preliminary seven days' sickness, the cessation of all its pain during the earlier visions, in which she had spiritual sight of the Passion of Christ, and indeed during all the five hours' "special Shewing"; the return of her physical pain and mental distress and "dryness" of feeling when the vision closed; her falling into doubt as to whether she had not simply been delirious, her terrifying dream on the Friday night,--noting carefully that "this horrible Shewing" came in her sleep, "and so did none other"--none of the Sixteen Revelations of Love came thus. Then she tells how she was helped to overcome the dream-temptation to despair, and how on the following night another Revelation, conclusion and confirmation of all, was granted to strengthen her faith. Again her faith was assayed by a similar dream-appearance of fiends that seemed as it were to be mocking at all religion, and again she was delivered, overcoming by setting her eyes on the Cross and fastening her heart on God, and comforting her soul with speech of Christ's Passion (as she would have comforted another in like distress) and rehearsing the Faith of all the Church. It may be noted here that Julian when telling how she was given grace to awaken from the former of these troubled dreams, says, "anon all vanished away and I was brought to great rest and peace, without sickness of body or dread of conscience," and that nothing in the book gives any ground for supposing that she had less than ordinary health during the long and peaceful life wherein God "lengthened her patience." Rather it would seem that one so wholesome in mind, so happy in spirit, so wisely moderate, no doubt, in self-guidance, must have kept that general health that _she_ could not despise who speaks of God having "no disdain" to serve the body, for love of the soul, of how we are "soul and body clad in the Goodness of God," of how "God hath made waters plenteous in earth to our service and to our bodily ease,"[2] and of how Christ waiteth to minister to us His gifts of grace "unto the time that we be waxen and grown, our soul with our body and our body with our soul, either of them taking help of other, till we be brought unto stature, as nature worketh."[3] Julian mentions neither her name not her state in life; she is "the soul," the "poor" or "simple" soul that the Revelation was shewed to--"a simple creature," in herself, a mere "wretch," frail and of no account. Of her parentage and early home we know nothing: but perhaps her own exquisite picture of Motherhood--of its natural (its "kind") love and wisdom and knowledge--is taken partly from memory, with that of the kindly nurse, and the child, which by nature loveth the Mother and each of the other children, and of the training by Mother and Teacher until the child is brought up to "the Father's bliss" (lxi.-lxiii.). The title "Lady," "Dame" or "Madame" was commonly accorded to anchoresses, nuns, and others that had had education in a Convent.[4] Julian, no doubt, was of gentle birth, and she would probably be sent to the Convent of Carrow for her education. There she would receive from the Benedictine nuns the usual instruction in reading, writing, Latin, French, and fine needlework, and especially in that Common Christian Belief to which she was always in her faithful heart and steadfast will so loyal,--"the Common Teaching of Holy Church in which I was afore informed and grounded, and with all my will having in use and understanding" (xlvi.). It is most likely that Julian received at Carrow the consecration of a Benedictine nun; for it was usual, though not necessary, for anchoresses to belong to one or other of the Religious Orders. The more or less solitary life of the anchorite or hermit, the anchoress or recluse, had at this time, as earlier, many followers in the country parts and large towns of England. Few of the "reclusoria" or women's anchorholds were in the open country or forest-lands like those that we come upon in Medieval romances, but many churches of the villages and towns had attached to them a timber or stone "cell"--a little house of two or three rooms inhabited by a recluse who never left it, and one servant, or two, for errands and protection. Occasionally a little group of recluses lived together like those three young sisters of the Thirteenth Century for whom the _Ancren Riwle_, a Rule or Counsel for "Ancres," was at their own request composed. The recluse's chamber seems to have generally had three windows: one looking into the adjoining Church, so that she could take part in the Services there; another communicating with one of those rooms under the keeping of her "maidens," in which occasionally a guest might be entertained; and a third--the "parlour" window--opening to the outside, to which all might come that desired to speak with her. According to the _Ancren Riwle_ the covering-screen for this audience-window was a curtain of double cloth, black with a cross of white through which the sunshine would penetrate--sign of the Dayspring from on high. This screen could of course be drawn back when the recluse 'held a parliament' with any that came to her.[5] Before Julian passed from the sunny lawns and meadows of Carrow, along the road by the river and up the lane to the left by the gardens and orchards of the Coniston of that day, to the little Churchyard house that would hide so much from her eyes of outward beauty, and yet leave so much in its changeful perpetual quietude around her (great skies overhead like the ample heavenly garments of her vision "blue as azure most deep and fair"; little Speedwell's blue by the crannied wall of the Churchyard--_Veronika_, true Image, like the Saint's "Holy Vernacle at Rome") her vow[6] might be: "I offering yield myself to the divine Goodness[7] for service, in the order of anchorites: and I promise to continue in the service of God after the rule of that order, by divine grace and the counsel of the Church: and to shew canonical obedience to my ghostly fathers." The only reference that Julian makes to the life dedicated more especially to Contemplation is where she is speaking, as if from experience, of the temptation to despair because of falling oftentimes into the same sins, "especially into sloth and losing of time. For that is the beginning of sin, as to my sight,--and especially to the creatures that have given themselves to serve our Lord with inward beholding of His blessed Goodness."[8] "_One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple_"--His Sanctuary of the Church or of the soul. _That_ was her calling. She had heard the Voice that comes to the soul in Spring-time and calls to the Garden of lilies, and calls to the Garden of Olive-trees (where all the spices offered are in one Cup of Heavenly Wine): _"Surge, propera amica mea: jam enim Hyems transiit, imber ambiit et recessit. Surge, propera amica mea, speciosa mea, et veni." "Arise: let us go hence."[9] "For this is the natural yearnings of the soul by the touching of the Holy Ghost: God of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself, for Thou art enough to me; ... and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth; but only in Thee I have all"_ (v.). "A soul that only fasteneth itself on to God with very trust, either by seeking or in beholding, it is the most worship that it may do to Him, as to my sight" (x.). "To enquire" and "to behold"--no doubt it was for these that Julian sought time and quiet. For she had urgent questionings and "stirrings" in her mind over "the great hurt that is come by sin to the creature"--"afore this time often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted" ("mourning and sorrow I made over it without reason and discretion"); and also she was filled with desire for God: "the longing that I had to Him afore" (xxvii.). Moreover, this life to which Julian gave herself was to be a life of "meek continuant prayers" "for enabling" of herself in her weakness, and for help to others in all their needs. For thought and worship could only be held together by active prayer: the pitiful beholding of evil and pain and the joyful beholding of Goodness and Love would be at war, as it were, with each other, unless they were set at peace for the time by the prayer of intercession. And _that_ is the call of the loving soul, strong in its infant feebleness to wake the answering Revelation of Love to faith that "all shall be well," and that "all is well" and that when all are come up above and the whole is known, all shall be seen to be well, and to have been well through the time of tribulation and travail. "At some time in the day or night," says the _Ancren Riwle_, which Julian perhaps may have read, though as to such prayers her compassionate heart was its own director--"At some time in the day or night think upon and call to mind all who are sick and sorrowful, who suffer affliction and poverty, the pain which prisoners endure who lie heavily fettered with iron; think especially of the Christians who are amongst the heathen, some in prison, some in so great thralldom as is an ox or an ass; compassionate those who are under strong temptations; take thought of all men's sorrows, and sigh to our Lord that He may take care of them and have compassion and look upon them with a gracious eye; and if you have leisure, repeat this Psalm, _I have lifted up mine eyes. Paternoster. Return, O Lord, how long, and be intreated in favour of Thy servants: Let us pray._ 'Stretch forth, O Lord, to thy servants and to thy handmaids the right hand of thy heavenly aid, that they may seek thee with all their heart, and obtain what they worthily ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.'" Julian tells how in her thinking of sin and its hurt there passed before her sight all that Christ bore for us, "and His dying; and all the pains and passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; _and the beholding of this_--with all pains that ever were or ever shall be" (xxvii). From sin, except as a general conception, Julian's natural instinct was to turn her eyes; but with this Christly compassion in her heart in looking on the sorrows of the world she could not but take account of its sin. As she came to be convinced that "though we be highly lifted up into contemplation, it is needful for us to see our own sin,"--albeit we should not accuse ourselves "overdone much" or "be heavy or sorrowful indiscreetly"--so when sins of others were brought before her she would seek with compassion to take the sinner's part of contrition and prayer. "The beholding of other man's sins, it maketh as it were a thick mist afore the eyes of the soul, and we cannot, for the time, see the fairness of God, but if we can behold them with contrition with him, with compassion on him, and with holy desire to God for him" (lxxvi.). And notwithstanding all the stir and eager revival of the Fourteenth Century in religion, politics, literature and general life, there was much both of sin and of sorrow then to exercise the pitiful soul--troubles enough in Norwich itself, of oppression and riot and desolating pestilence--troubles enough in Europe, West and East,--wars and enslaving and many cruelties in distant lands, and harried Armenian Christians coming to the Court of Edward to plead for succour in their long-enduring patience. There was trouble wherever one looked; but to prayer, and to that compassion which is in itself a prayer, the answer came. Indeed the compassion was its own first immediate answer: for "then I saw that each kind compassion that man hath on his _even-Cristen_ (his fellow-Christians) with charity, _it is Christ in him_." This is the comfort that both comforts in waiting and calls to deeds of help. And such "charity" of social service was not beyond the scope of the life "enclosed,"--whether it might be by deed or, as more often, by speech.[10] It is in her seeking for truth and her beholding of Love that we best know Julian. Of the opening of the Revelation she says: "In all this I was greatly stirred in charity to mine even-Christians, that they might see and know the same that I saw: for I would it were comfort to them," and again and again throughout the book she declares that the "special Shewing" is given not for her in special, but for all--for all are meant to be one in comfort as all are one in need. "Because of the Shewing I am not good, but if I love God the better: and in as much as ye love God the better it is more to you than to me.... For we are all one in comfort. For truly it was not shewed me that God loved me better than the least soul that is in grace; for I am certain that there be many that never had any Shewing nor sight but of the common teaching of Holy Church that love God better than I. For if I look singularly to myself I am right nought; but in general [manner of regarding] I am, I hope, in oneness of charity with all mine even-Christians. For in this oneness standeth the life of all mankind that shall be saved, and that which I say of me, I say in the person of all mine even-Christians: for I am taught in the Spiritual Shewing of our Lord God that He meaneth it so. And therefore I pray you for God's sake, and counsel you for your own profit that ye leave the beholding of a worthless creature [a "wretch"] it was shewed to and mightily, wisely and meekly behold God that of His special goodness would shew it generally, in comfort of us all" (ix.). Thus Julian turns our eyes from looking _on_ her to looking _with_ her on the Revelation of Divine Love. Yet surely in her we have also "a shewing"--a shewing of the same. She tells us little of her own story, and little is told us of her by any one else, but all through her recording of the Revelation the simple creature to whom it was made unconsciously shews herself, so that soon we come to know her with a pleasure that surely she would not think too "special" in its regard. (For she herself in speaking of Love makes note that the general does not exclude the special). Perhaps we are helped in this friendly acquaintanceship by those endearingly characteristic little formulas of speech disavowing any claim to dogmatic authority in the statements of her views of truth: those modest parentheses "as to my sight," "as to mine understanding." "Wisdom and truth and love," the dower that she saw in the Gracious soul, were surely in the soul of this meek woman; but enclosing these gifts of nature and grace are qualities special to Julian: depth of passion, with quietness, order, and moderation; loyalty in faith, with clearest candour--"I believe ... but this was not shewed me"--(xxxiii., lxxvii., lxxx.) pitifulness and sympathy, with hope and a blithe serenity; sound good sense with a little sparkle upon it--as of delicate humour (that crowning virtue of saints); and beneath all, above all, an exquisite tenderness that turns her speech to music. "_I will lay thy Stones with fair Colours._" "Thou hast the dews of thy youth." Hundreds of years have gone since that early morning in May when Julian thought she was dying and was "partly troubled" for she felt she was yet in youth and would gladly have served God more on earth with the gift of her days--hundreds of years since the time that her heart would fain have been told by special Shewing that "a certain creature I loved should continue in good living"--but still we have "mind" of her as "a gentle neighbour and of our knowing." For those that love in simplicity are always young; and those that have had with the larger Vision of Love the gift of love's passionate speech, to God or man, in word or form or deed, as treasure held--live yet on the earth, untouched by time, though their light is shining elsewhere for other sight. "From that time that the Revelation was shewed I desired oftentimes to learn what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years afterwards and more, I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus: _Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn other thing without end._" And if we, with no special shewing, might ask and, in trust of "spiritual understanding," might answer more--asking _to whom_, and _for whom_ was the Revelation shewed, we might answer: _To one that loved_; for all that would learn in love. "_Ecco chi crescerà li nostri amori_"[11] "Here is one who shall increase our love." Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. [1] This must have been a Friday--sacred Day of the Passion of Christ--for Easter Sunday of 1373 was on the 17th of April (O.S.). So when the Revelation finally closed and Julian was left to "keep it in the Faith"--the Common Christian Faith--it was Sunday morning, and the words and voices she would hear through her window opening into the Church would be from the early worship of "the Blessed Common" assembled there. [2] See the _Ancren Riwle_, Part viii. _Of Domestic Matters_, for counsels to anchoresses as to judicious care of the body: diet, washing, needful rest, avoidance of idleness and gloom, reading, sewing for Church and Poor, making and mending and washing of clothes by the anchoress or her servant. "Ye may be well content with your clothes, be they white, be they black; only see that they be plain, and warm, and well made--skins well tanned; and have as many as you need.... Let your shoes be thick and warm." [3] _cf._ Robert Browning, _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, xii. [4] S. de Cressy was probably the originator of the designation "Mother Juliana." The old name was _Julian_. The Virgin-Martyr of the Legend entitled "The Life of St Juliana" (Early English Text Society) is called in the Manuscripts, Iulane, Juliene, and Juliane and Julian. So also _Lady Julian Berners_ is a name in the history of Fifteenth Century books. [5] "So he kneeled at her window and anon the recluse opened it, and asked Sir Percival what he would. 'Madam,' said he, 'I am a knight of King Arthur's Court and my name is Sir Percival de Galis.' So when the recluse heard his name, she had passing great joy of him, for greatly she loved him before all other knights of the world; and so of right she ought to do, for she was his aunt."--Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, xiv. i. [6] _Manuale ad usum insignis ecclesie Sarisburiensis_ (ed. of 1555), fo. lxix. _Servitium includendorum._ [7] "_pietatis_." [8] The sins that Julian mentions, "despair or doubtful dread," "sloth and losing of time," "unskilful [unpractical, unreasoning] heaviness and vain sorrow," seem to be all akin to that dreaded sin, besetting particularly the Contemplative life, _Accidia_. See _Ancren Riwle_ p. 287. "_Accidies salue is gestlich gledshipe._ The remedy for indolence is spiritual joy, and the consolation of joyful hope from reading and from holy meditation, or when spoken by the mouth of man. Often, dear sisters, ye ought to pray less, that ye may read more. Reading is good prayer. Reading teacheth how, and for what ye ought to pray. In reading, when the heart feels delight, devotion ariseth, and that is worth many prayers. Everything, however, may be overdone. Moderation is always best."--(Pub. by the Camden Society). [9] Canticles ii. 10. St John xiv. 31. [10] See the chapter "How an Anchoress shall behave herself to them that come to her," in "The Scale of Perfection," by Walter Hilton (died 1396), edition of 1659, p. 106. "Since it is so that thou oughtest not to goe out of thy house to seek occasion how thou mightest profit thy Neighbour by deeds of Charity, because thou art enclosed; ... therefore who so will speake with thee ... be thou soon ready with a good will to aske what his will is ... for thou knowest not what he is, nor why he cometh, nor what need he hath of thee, or thou of him, till thou hast tryed. And though thou be at prayer, or at thy devotions, that thou thinkest loth to break off, for that thou thinkest that thou oughtest not leave God for to speake with any one, I think not so in this case, for if thou be wise, thou shalt not leave God, but thou shalt find him, and have him, and see him in thy Neighbour as well as in prayer, onely in another manner. If thou canst love thy Neighbour well, to speake with thy Neighbour with discretion shall be no hindrance to thee.... If he come to tell thee his disease [distress] or trouble, and to be comforted by thy speech, heare him gladly, and suffer him to say what he will for ease of his own heart; And when he hath done, comfort him if thou canst, gladly, gently, and charitably, and soon break off. And then, after that, if he will fall into idle tales, or vanities of the World, or of other men's actions, answer him but little, and feed not his speech, and he will soon be weary, and quickly take his leave," etc. [11] Dante, _Paradiso_, v. 105. PART II THE MANNER OF THE BOOK As an hert desirith to the wellis of watris: so thou God, my soule desirith to thee.... The Lord sent his merci in the day: and his song in the nyght. Ps. '_Quemadmodum_'; from the _Prymer_. Without any special study of the literature of Mysticism for purposes of comparison, in reading Julian's book one is struck by a few characteristics wherein it differs from many other Mystical writings as well as by qualities that belong to most or all of that general designation. The silence of this book both as to preliminary ascetic exercises and as to ultimate visions of the Absolute, might be attributed to Julian's being wholly concerned with giving, for comfort to all, that special sight of truth that came to her as the answer to her own need. She sets out not to teach methods of any kind for the gradual drawing near of man to God, but to record and shew forth a Revelation, granted once, of God's actual nearness to the soul, and for this Revelation she herself had been prepared by the "stirring" of her conscience, her love and her understanding, in a word of her _faith_, even as she was in short time to be left "neither sign nor token," but only the Revelation to hold "in faith." Moreover, the means that in general she looks to for realising God's nearness, in whatever measure or manner the revelation of it may come to any soul, is the immediate one of faith as a gift of nature and a grace from the Holy Ghost: faith leading by prayer, and effort of obedience, and teachableness of spirit, into actual experience of oneness with God. The natural and common heritage of love and faith is a theme that is dear to Julian: in her view, longing toward God is grounded in the love to Him that is native to the human heart, and this longing (painful through sin) as it is stirred by the Holy Spirit, who comes with Christ, is, in each naturally developed Christian, spontaneous and increasing;--"for the nearer we be to our bliss, the more we long after it" (xlvi., lxxii., lxxxi.). "This is the kinde [the natural] yernings of the soule by the touching of the Holy Ghost: _God of Thy goodness give me Thyself: for Thou art enow to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worshippe to Thee_." God is the first as well as the last: the soul begins as well as ends with God: begins by Nature, begins again by Mercy, and ends--yet "without end"--by Grace. Certainly on the way--the way of these three, by falling, by succour, by upraising--to the more perfect knowing of God that is the soul's Fulfilment in Heaven, there is a less immediate knowledge to be gained through experience: "_And if I aske anything that is lesse, ever me wantith_," for "It needyth us to have knoweing of the littlehede of creatures and to nowtyn all thing that is made, for to love and have God that is onmade." But this knowing of the littleness of creatures comes to Julian first of all in a sight of _the Goodness of God_; "For [to] a soule that seith the Maker of all, all that is made semith full litil." By the further beholding, indeed, of God as Maker and Preserver, that which has been rightly "noughted" as of no account, is seen to be also truly of much account. For that which was seen by the soul as so little that it seemed to be about to fall to nothing for littleness, is seen by the understanding to have "three properties":--God made it, God loveth it, God keepeth it. Thus it is known as "great and large, fair and good"; "it lasteth, and ever shall, for God loveth it."--Yet again the soul breaks away to its own, with the natural flight of a bird from its Autumn nest at the call of an unseen Spring to the far-off land that is nearer still than its nest, because it is in its heart. "But what is to _me_ sothly [in verity] the Maker, the Keper and the Lover,--I cannot tell, for till I am Substantially oned [deeply united] to Him, I may never have full rest ne very blisse; that is to sey, that I be so festined to Him, that there is right nowte that is made betwix my God and me" (v., viii.). This "fastening" is all that in Julian's book represents that needful process wherein the truth of asceticism has a part. It is not essentially a process of detaching the thought from created things of time--still less one of detaching the heart from created beings of eternity--but a process of more and more allowing and presenting the man to be fastened closely to God by means of the original longing of the soul, the influence of the Holy Ghost, and the discipline of life with its natural tribulations, which by their purifying serve to strengthen the affections that remaining pass through them. "_But only in Thee I have all._" On the way this discovery of the soul at peace must needs be sometimes a word for exclusion, in parting and pressing onward from things that are made: in the end it is the welcome, all-inclusive. And Julian, notwithstanding her enclosure as a recluse, is one of those that, happy in nature and not too much hindered by conditions of life, possess for large use _by the way_ the mystical peace of fulfilled possession through virtue of freedom from bondage to self. For it is by means of the tyranny of the "self," regarding chiefly itself in its claims and enjoyments, that creature things can be intruded between the soul and God; and always, in some way, the meek inherit the earth. "All things are yours; and ye are Christ's." The life of a recluse demanded, no doubt, as other lives do, a daily self-denial as well as an initiatory self-devotion, and from Julian's silence as to "bodily exercises" it cannot of course be assumed that she did not give them, even beyond the incumbent rule of the Church, though not in excess of her usual moderation, some part in her Christian striving for mastery over self. Nor could this silence in itself be taken as a proof that ascetic practices had not in her view a preparatory function such as has by many of the Mystics been assigned to them during a process of self-training in the earlier stages of the soul's ascent to aptitude for mystical vision. It is, however, to be noted that neither in regard to herself nor others do we hear from Julian anything about an undertaking of this kind. To her the "special Shewing" came as a gift, unearned, and unexpected: it came in an abundant answer to a prayer for other things needed by every soul.[1] Julian's desires for herself were for three "wounds" to be made more deep in her life: contrition (in sight of sin), compassion (in sight of sorrow) and longing after God: she prayed and sought diligently for these graces, comprehensive as she felt they were of the Christian life and meant for all; and with them she sought to have for herself,
{'title': 'Revelations of Divine Love by of Norwich Julian', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}