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Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–1416 or Later)

Julian of Norwich was a spiritual theologian. In May 1373 Julian received 16 revelations of Christ. She was subsequently described as an anchoress; Margery Kempe of Kings Lynn was among those whom she counselled. Her epithet may well be taken from the church in Norwich to which she was attached. Julian referred to herself as unlettered, but she could probably read Latin, and presumably she controlled the form in which the revelations were set down. Excellent theological advisers would have been available either through the Benedictine Cathedral Priory or through the four learned mendicant orders resident in Norwich.

Julian rarely quoted scripture verbatim, but she was imbued with lectio divina and the Liturgy. There are two versions of the revelations. The Short Text (‘S’) was presumably written fairly soon after the event. The Long Text (‘L’) was not finished before 1393, and Julian may have worked on it into her old age. ‘S’ begins with the incarnation but is centred on the passion of Christ, passing on to his resurrection and the indwelling of Christ in the soul. Mary has an important subordinate place in association with Christ’s incarnation, cross and glorification. Julian also wrestles with the problem of sin in the context of God’s omnipotent love; and she considers prayer as our sharing, through grace, in God’s good deeds.

‘L’ includes practically all that is in ‘S’, with expansions in the sections dealing with the problem of evil and with prayer. More especially, the traditional (Augustinian) appropriation of power, wisdom (sapientia) and love or goodness to the Persons of the Trinity is adapted. Julian introduces a variant appropriation of truth, wisdom and love (chs. 44, 54), while again it is to Christ as wisdom that motherhood (with mercy) is appropriated (chs. 48, 54, 58, etc.), and lordship (with grace) is appropriated to the Holy Spirit (chs. 48, 58).

The application of female imagery to God has roots in scripture and some of the Fathers, but Julian is distinctive in appropriating motherhood specifically to Christ as the second Person within a carefully articulated Trinitarian theology. Doubtless there is an element of personal perception here, and there are occasional adumbrations in ‘S’. But the appropriation of wisdom to the second Person is most probably the point of departure. scripture speaks of wisdom, in female terms, as God’s agent in creating and conserving the world. Julian seems to echo something of this.

Julian saw the orders of nature and redemption as cohering in Christ, our mother in nature (‘kind’) by our creation and our mother in grace through assuming our humanity. She feels her way in portraying the work of the three Persons in willing, working and confirming; in nature, mercy and grace (ch. 59).

Already in ‘S’ Julian has asked how, in the face of the real effects of sin, she is to understand the Lord’s assurance that ‘all shall be well’. Echoing the language of the Easter Exultet, ‘O happy fault, O truly necessary sin of Adam …’, she has gone on to see herself as representative of all falling and rising Christians in whom the ‘goodly will’ is maintained by God, and she has found this a ground of hope. She eschewed any dogmatic universalism, but in ‘L’ (ch. 36) she looked forward to the ‘great deed’, incomprehensible to men, which will vindicate God’s almighty love.

In ‘L’ she speaks of two judgements: God’s judgement, regarding our ‘substance’, which is inseparably united to him, and human judgement, regarding the ‘sensuality’ which is changeable and a source of pain, often hindering us from perceiving the love of God which is always active in us (ch. 45). In Christ the ‘substance’ and ‘sensuality’ are united. This concept is summed up in the vision of the lord and the servant, introduced into ‘L’ (ch. 51). The lord (God the Father) sends his servant (who is both Adam [or everyman] and Christ), to do his will. In his eagerness the servant falls and is badly hurt, unable to raise himself. But the lord, looking on his good will, regards him with pity rather than with blame, and raises him to higher dignity than he had before the fall. The ‘fall’ represents both Adam’s fall and Christ’s descent into Mary’s womb; in God’s sight, in contrast to our perception, Adam’s fall (and ours) is subsumed within Christ’s saving work.

Julian’s biblical overtones include echoes of John and especially of Paul. No doubt her links with affective devotion in, say, the *Franciscan tradition, might be explored. But it is repeatedly *Augustine (354–430) who provides a point of departure—often interpreted or applied in a way that stands within the parameters of orthodoxy but offers something new. In ‘L’ she brings out even more explicitly the common operation of the Trinity in the passion of Christ, and the mutual indwelling (circumincession) of the three Persons. Her teaching on prayer as a participation in God’s activity is deeply rooted in the Augustinian theology of grace. And the exposition of the vision of the lord and the servant is a reworking of elements found in Augustine, especially in De Trinitate 2.5.9 on the temporal disclosure of the Word who was with God in the beginning—a passage familiar to medieval theologians especially through the Sentences of *Peter Lombard (c. 1100–60), a standard work in the schools. We should love to know more about the Norwich theologians of Julian’s day.

Julian’s teaching will have appeared difficult and problematic to some in her own time. The Revelations were preserved by exiled English religious following the dissolution and printed in France in 1670. It is in the present century that she has come into her own, as a theologian who is faithful to the received tradition and at the same time finds sometimes surprising resources for exploration and development in it. Much has been written about her, especially from feminist viewpoints; the doctrine of the divine motherhood in Christ has to be evaluated in the context of Julian’s profoundly orthodox approach to the mystery of the Trinity and of grace.

John P.H. Clark

FURTHER READING: Texts: A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich (ed. E. Colledge and J. Walsh; 2 vols.; Toronto, 1978); Julian of Norwich: A Revelation of Love (ed. Marion Glasscoe; Exeter, rev. edn, 1993 [Long Text]); H. Kempster, ‘Julian of Norwich: The Westminster Text of A Revelation of Love’, Mystics Q 23 (1997), pp. 177–246. Modernized version: Elizabeth Spearing, Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love (Harmondsworth, 1998). Studies: P. Molinari, Julian of Norwich: The Teaching of a Fourteenth-Century English Mystic (London, 1958); B. Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning: The Theology and Mysticism of Julian of Norwich (Salzburg, 1982); R. Maisonneuve, L’Univers Visionnaire de Julian of Norwich (Paris, 1987); Joan M. Nuth, Wisdom’s Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich (New York, 1991); Ritamary Bradley, Julian’s Way: A Practical Commentary on Julian of Norwich (London, 1992); Margaret Ann Palliser, Christ, our Mother of Mercy: Divine Mercy and Compassion in the Theology of the ‘Showings’ of Julian of Norwich (Berlin, 1992); Denise N. Baker, Julian of Norwich’s ‘Showings’: From Vision to Book (Princeton, 1994); J.P.H. Clark, ‘Time and Eternity in Julian of Norwich’, Down R 109 (1991), pp. 259–76; ‘Julian of Norwich and the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in Mary is for Everyone: Essays on Mary and Ecumenism (ed. W. McLoughlin and Jill Pinnock; Leominster, 1997), pp. 236–50.

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Clark, J. P. H. (2000). Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–1416 or Later). In The dictionary of historical theology (pp. 289–290). Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster Press.