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, in
particular regard to her own difficulties, a sight of such truth as it
might "behove" her to know for the glory of God and the comfort of men.
According to Julian the "special Shewing" is a gift of comfort for all,
sent by God in a time to some soul that is chosen in order that it may
have, and so may minister, the comfort needed by itself and by others
(ix.). In her experience this Revelation, soon closed, is renewed by
influence and enlightenment in the more ordinary grace of its giver,
the Holy Ghost. But a still fuller sight of God shall be given, she
rejoices to think, in Heaven, to _all_ that shall reach that Fulfilment
of blessed life--the only mount of the soul set forth in this book.
Thither, by the high-road of Christ, all souls may go, making the steep
ascent through "longing and desire,"--longing that embodies itself in
desire towards God, that is, in Prayer.
Nothing is said by Julian as to successive stages of Prayer, though
she speaks of different _kinds_ of prayer as the natural action of the
soul under different experiences or in different states of feeling
or "dryness." Prayer is _asking_ ("beseeching"), with submission
and acquiescence; or _beholding_, with the _self_ forgotten, yet
offered-up; it is a thanking and a praising in the heart that sometimes
breaks forth into voice; or a silent joy in the sight of God as
all-sufficient. And in all these ways "Prayer oneth the soul to God."
To Julian's understanding the only Shewing of God that could ever be,
the highest and lowest, the first and the last, was the Vision of Him
as Love. "Hold thee therin and thou shalt witten and knowen more in the
same. But thou shalt never knowen ne witten other thing without end.
Thus was I lerid that Love was our Lord's menyng" (lxxxvi.). Alien to
the "simple creature" was that desert region where some of the lovers
of God have endeavoured to find Him,--desiring an extreme penetration
of thought (human thought, after all, since for men there is none
beyond it) or an utmost reach of worship (worship from fire and ice) in
proclaiming the Absolute One not only as All that _is_, but as All that
is _not_. Julian's desire was truly for God in Himself, through Christ
by the Holy Spirit of Love: for God in "His homeliest home," the soul,
for God in His City. Therefore she follows only the upward way of the
light attempered by grace, not turning back to the _Via Negativa_, that
downward road that starting from a conception of the Infinite "as the
antithesis of the finite,"[2] rather than as including and transcending
the finite, leads man to deny to his words of God all qualities known
or had by human, finite beings. Julian keeps on the way that is natural
to her spirit and to all her habits of thought as these may have been
directed by reading and conversation: it does not take her towards
that Divine Darkness of which some seers have brought report. Hers was
not one of those souls that would, and must, go silent and alone and
strenuous through strange places: "homely and courteous" she ever found
Almighty God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Julian's mystical sight was not a negation of human modes of thought:
neither was it a torture to human powers of speech nor a death-sentence
to human activities of feeling. "He hath no despite of that which He
hath made" (vi.). This seer of the littleness of all that is made saw
the Divine as containing, not as engulfing, all things that truly are,
so that in some way "all things that are made" because of His love last
ever. Certainly she passes sometimes beyond the language of earth,
seeing a love and a Goodness "more than tongue can tell," but she is
never inarticulate in any painful, struggling way--when words are
not to be found that can tell all the truth revealed, she leaves her
Lord's "meaning" to be taken directly from Him by the understanding of
each desirous soul. So is it with the Shewing of God as the Goodness
of everything that is good: "It is I--it is I" (xxvi.). Certainly
Julian looks both downward and upward, sees Love in the lowest depth,
far below sin, below even Mercy; sees Love as the highest that can
be, rising higher and higher far above sight, in skies that as yet
she is not called to enter: "abysses" there are, below and above,
like Angela di Foligno's "double abyss"; but here is no desert region
like that where Angela seems as "an eagle descending"[3] from heights
of unbreathable air, baffled and blinded in its assault on the Sun,
proclaiming the Light Unspeakable in anguished, hoarse, inarticulate
cries; here is a mountain-path between the abysses and the sound as of
a chorus from pilgrims singing:
"Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise";--
'ALL IS WELL: ALL IS WELL: ALL SHALL BE WELL.'
Moreover, Julian while guided by Reason is _led_ by the "Mind" of her
soul--pioneer of the path through the wood of darkness though Reason
is ready to disentangle the lower hindrances of the way; and where
her instructed soul "finds rest," those things that are hid from the
wisdom and prudence of Reason only are to its simplicity of obedience
revealed. Even as her Way is Christ-Jesus, and her walk by "longing
and desire" is of faith and effort, so the End and the Rest that she
seeks is the _fulness_ of God, in measure as the soul can enter upon
His fulness here and in that heavenly "oneing" with Him which shall
be by grace the "fulfilling" and "overpassing" of "Mankind." "The
Mid-Person willed to be Ground and Head of this fair End," "out of
Whom we ben al cum, in Whom we be all inclosid, into Whom we shall all
wyndyn, in Him fynding our full Hevyn in everlestand joye" (liii.).[4]
The soul that participates in God cannot be lost in God, the soul
that wends into oneness with God finds there at last its Self. Words
of the Spirit-nature fail to describe to man, as he is, this fulness
of personal life, and Julian falls back in one effort, daring in its
infantine concreteness of language, on acts of all the five senses to
symbolise the perfection of spiritual life that is in oneness with God
(xliii.).
It may be noted that in these "Revelations" there is absolutely no
regarding of Christ as the "Bridegroom" of the individual soul: once
or twice Julian in passing uses the symbol of "the Spouse," "the Fair
Maiden," "His loved Wife," but this she applies only to the Church. In
her usual speech Christ when unnamed is our "Good" or our "Courteous"
Lord, or sometimes simply "God," and when she seeks to express
pictorially His union with men and His work for men, then the soul is
the Child and Christ is the Mother. In this symbolic language the love
of the Christian soul is the love of the Child to its Mother and to
each of the other children.
Julian's Mystical views seem in parts to be cognate with those of
earlier and later systems based on Plato's philosophy, and especially
perhaps on his doctrine of Love as reaching through the beauties of
created things higher and higher to union with the Absolute Beauty
above, Which is God--schemes of thought developed before her and in
her time by Plotinus, Clement, Augustine, Dionysius "the Areopagite,"
John the Scot, Eckhart, the Victorines,[5] Ruysbroeck, and others.
One does not know what her reading may have been, or with what people
she may have conversed. Possibly the learned Austin Friars that were
settled close to St Julian's in Conisford may have lent her books by
some of these writers, or she may have been influenced through talks
with a Confessor, or with some of the Flemish weavers of Norwich,
with whom Mystical views were not uncommon. Yet the Mysticism of the
"Revelations" is peculiarly of the English type. Less exuberant in
language than Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, Julian resembles
him a little in her blending of practical sense with devotional
fervour; but the writer to whom she seems, at any rate in some of
her phrases, most akin is Walter Hilton, her contemporary.[6] Hilton,
however, is very rich in quotations from the Bible, while Julian's
only direct quotations from any book--beyond her reference to the
legend of St Dionysius--are one that belongs to Christ: "I thirst"
(xvii.), and two that belong to the soul: "Lord, save me: I perish!"
"Nothing shal depart me from the charite of Criste" (xv.). (And indeed
these three are a fit embodiment of the Christian Faith as seen in
her "Revelations.") But Julian, while perhaps more speculative than
either of these typical English Mystics, is thoroughly a woman. Lacking
their literary method of procedure, she has a high and tender beauty
of thought and a delicate bloom of expression that are her own rare
gifts--the beauty of the hills against skies in summer evenings, of an
orchard in mornings of April. Again and again she stirs in the reader
a kind of surprised gladness of the simple perfection wherewith she
utters, by few and adequate words, a thought that in its quietness
convinces of truth, or an emotion deep in life. Of a little child
it has been said: "He thought great thoughts simply," and Julian's
deepness of insight and simplicity of speech are like the Child's.[7]
"For ere that He made us He loved us, and when we were made we loved
Him" (liii.). "I love thee, and thou lovest me, and our love shall
not be disparted in two" (lxxxii.). "_Thou art my Heaven._" "I had
liefer have been in that pain till Doomsday than have come to Heaven
otherwise than by Him." "Human is the vehemence," says a writer on
Julian's "Revelations," of that reiterated exclusion of all other
paths to joy. 'Me liked,' she says, 'none other heaven.' Once again
she touches the same octave, condensing in a single phrase which has
seldom been transcended in its brief expression of the possession that
leaves the infinity of love's desire still unsatiated: '_I saw Him
and sought Him, I had Him, and I wanted Him._' Fletcher's tenderness,
Ford's passion lose colour placed side by side with the utterances
of this worn recluse whose hands are empty of every treasure."[8]
Sometimes with her subject her language assumes a majestic solemnity:
"The pillars of Heaven shall tremble and quake" (lxxv.); sometimes it
seems to march to its goal in an ascent of triumphal measure as with
beating of drums: "The body was in the grave till Easter-morrow and
from that time He lay nevermore. For then was rightfully ended" ...
(close of Chap. li.). Generally, perhaps, the style in its movement
recalls the rippling yet even flow of a brook, cheerfully, sweetly
monotonous: "If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept
from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was
shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in
one love" (lxxxii.). But now and again the listener seems to be caught
up to Heaven with song, as in that time when her "marvelling" joy in
beholding love "breaks out with voice":--"Behold and see! the precious
plenty of His dearworthy blood descended down into Hell, and braste her
bands, and delivered all that were there that belonged to the Court of
Heaven. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood overfloweth all
Earth and is ready to wash all creatures of sin which be of goodwill,
_have_ been and _shall_ be. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood
ascended up into Heaven to the blessed body of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and there is in Him, bleeding and praying for us to the Father, and is
and shall be as long as it needeth; and ever shall be as long as it
needeth; and evermore it floweth in all Heavens, enjoying the salvation
of all mankind that _are_ there, and _shall_ be--fulfilling the Number
that faileth" (xii.).
The Early English Mystics make good reading,--even as to the mere
manner of their writings we might say, if it were possible to separate
the style from the freshness of feeling and the pointedness of thought
that inform it; and though we do not, of course, have from Julian,--a
woman writing of the _Revelations of Love_,--the delightfully
trenchant, easy address of Hilton in his counsels as to how to scale
the _Ladder of Perfection_--counsels both wise and witty--yet Julian,
too, with all her sweetness, is full of this every day vigour and
common sense. And sometimes she puts things in a naïve, engaging way
of her own, grave and yet light--as if with a little understanding
smile to those to whom she is speaking:--"Then ween we, who _be_ not
all wise"; "That the outward part should draw the inward to assent _was
not shewed to me_, but that the inward draweth the outward by grace and
both shall be oned in bliss without end by the virtue of Christ, _this_
was shewed" (lxi., xix.).
Rolle, Hilton, and more especially the _Ancren Riwle_, give examples
of that custom of allegorical interpretation of Sacred Scriptures that
has fascinated many mystical authors, but one can scarcely suppose
that this method would ever have been a favourite one with Julian
even if she had been in the way of dealing with literary parallels
and references. For though she uses "examples," or illustrations
(sometimes calling them "shewings," or "bodily examples") and also
metaphorically figurative speech, she does not shew any interest in
elaborate, arbitrary symbolism. At any rate she is too directly simple,
it seems, and too much in the centre of realities, to be a writer that
(without constraint of following the lines of others) would take as
foundation for an argument or an exposition outward resemblances or
verbal connections, fit perhaps to illustrate or enforce the truth
in question, but lacking in relation to it that inward vital oneness
whereby certain things that to man seem below him may become symbolic
to him of others that he beholds as within or above him.
Exposition by analysis has been reckoned to be characteristic of the
Schoolmen rather than of the Mystics,[9] though surely a mystical sight
may be served by an analytical process, and to see God in a part before
or while He is seen in the whole is effected not without analysis of
the subtlest kind. So we find analysis in Julian's sight (Rev. iii.):
"_I saw God in a point_"; and in her conclusions from this: "_By
which sight I saw that He is in all things_"; and in her immediate
raising, from this conclusion, of the question: "_What is sin?_" and
throughout her treatment of the problem in the scheme of her book.
Even for the merely formal task of distinguishing by number, Julian,
we see, will set briskly forward (though we may not feel much inclined
to follow) and often she begins her careful dissections with: "In this
I see"--four, five, or six things, as the case may be. Her speech of
spiritual Revelations is, however, helped out less by numbers than by
living and homely things of sight: the mother and the children and the
nurse; lords and servants, kings and their subjects (with echoes of
the language of Court and chivalry); the deep sea-ground, waters for
our service; clothing, in its warmth, grace and colour; the light that
stands in the night, the hazel-nut, the scales of herrings.[10]
As one grows familiar with the "Revelations" one finds oneself in the
midst of a great scheme: a network of ideas that cross and re-cross
each other in a way not very clear at first, perhaps, but not really in
confusion. All through this treatise from its beginning, the Revelation
as a whole is in the mind of Julian; interpolation by another writer is
out of the question: the book is all of a piece, both as the expression
of one person, in mind and character, and as the setting forth of
a theological system. From the first we find Julian holding her
diverse threads of nature and mercy and grace for the fabric of love
she is weaving, and all through she guides them in and out, with no
hesitation, till at last the whole design lies fair before her, shewing
the _Goodness of God_.
With regard to this scheme it may be noted that apart from her merely
intellectual pleasure in arithmetical methods of statement, Julian
shews throughout a mystical sense of numerical correspondences. Life,
both as being and action, is, to her sight, in its perfection full of
_trinities_; while there are _doubles_,--incident to its imperfection,
as we may put it, perhaps, though the book itself does not mark this
distinction in so many words--there are doubles wherein two things are
partially opposed and require for their reconciling a third that will
complete them into trinity. First, as the Centre of all, there is the
BLESSED TRINITY: All-Might, All-Wisdom, All-Love: one Goodness: FATHER
and SON and HOLY GHOST: one Truth. To the First, Second, and Third
Persons correspond the verbs MAY, for all-powerful freedom to do; CAN,
for all-skilful ability to do; WILL, for all-loving will to do. So also
"the Father _willeth_, the Son _worketh_, the Holy Ghost _confirmeth_."
Another nomenclature of the Holy Trinity is, Might, Wisdom, Goodness:
one Love; but that of Might, Wisdom, Love (employed by Abelard,
Aquinas, and the Schoolmen generally) is the usual one, while _Truth,
Wisdom, Love,_ is employed in reference to that Image of God wherein
Man is made: for man has not _created might_: his might is all in the
uncreated might of God. Man in his essential Nature is "made-trinity,"
"like to the unmade Blessed Trinity"--a human trinity of truth, wisdom,
love; and these respectively _see, behold, and delight in_ the Divine
Trinity of Truth, Wisdom, Love.
Man possesses _Reason,_ which _knows, Mind,_ or a feeling wisdom, which
_wits,_ and _Love,_ which _loves_. The making of Man by the Son of
God as Eternal Christ, is the work of _Nature_; the falling of Man is
"suffered" (allowed), and afterwards healed, by _Mercy_; the raising
of Man to a higher than his first state is the work of _Grace_. "In
Nature we have our Being; in Mercy we have our Increasing; in Grace
we have our Fulfilling." The work of grace by means of our natural
Reason enlightened by the Holy Ghost to see our sins, is _Contrition_;
by means of our naturally-feeling Mind, touched by the Holy Ghost
to behold the pain of the world, is _Compassion_; by means of our
nature-and grace-inspired Love, which loves our Maker and Saviour
(still by the separation of sin partially, painfully, hid from our
sight) is greater _Longing toward God_. This longing must become an
active "desire": for the chief work that we can do as fellow-workers
with God in achieving full oneness with Him is _Prayer_; of which there
are three things to understand: its _Ground_ is God by whose Goodness
it springeth in us; its _use_ is "to turn our will to the will of our
Lord"; its _end_ is "that we should be made one with and like to our
Lord in all things." And lastly we have for this life, both by nature
and grace, the comprehensive virtue of _Faith_, "in which all our
virtues come to us" and which has in its own nature three elements:
_understanding, belief,_ and _trust_. With Faith, which belongs perhaps
chiefly to Reason,--Faith is "nought else but a right understanding,
with true belief and sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and
God in us, Whom we see not," "A light by nature coming from our endless
Day, that is our Father, God" (liv., lxxxiii.)--is also _Hope_, which
belongs to our feeling Mind (our Remembrance) and to the work of Mercy
in this our fallen state: "Hope that we shall come to our Substance
(our high and heavenly nature) again." Moreover, "Charity keepeth us
in Hope and Hope leadeth us in Charity; and in the end all shall be
_Charity_" (lxxxv.).
With these trinities and groups of threes are others, belonging to God
and man, mentioned successively in the closing chapters of the book:
three manners of God's Beholding (or Regard of Countenance): that of
the Passion, that of Compassion, and that of Bliss; three kinds of
longing God has: to teach us, to have us, to fulfil us; three things
that man needs in this life from God: Love, Longing, and Pity--"pity in
love," to keep him now, and "longing in the same love" to draw him to
heaven; three things by which man standeth in this life and by which
God is worshipped: "use of man's reason natural; common teaching of
Holy Church; inward gracious working of the Holy Ghost";--and last of
all, "three properties of God, in which the strength and effect of all
the Revelation standeth," "_Life, Love and Light_."
Again, Julian speaks of things that are _double_, and this double state
seems to be one of imperfection, though she does not explicitly say
so. Man's nature, she says, was created "double": "_Substance_" or
Spirit essential from out of the Spirit Divine, and "_Sensuality_" or
spirit related to human senses and making human faculties, intellectual
and physical. These two, the Substance and Sense-soul, in their
imperfection of union through the frailty of created love (which needs
the divine in its might to support it), became partially sundered
by the failing of love. "For failing of love on our part, therefore,
is all our travail"--from that comes the falling, the dying, and the
painful travail between death from sin and life from God--both in the
race and the individual. But Christ makes the double into trinity:
for Christ is "the Mean [the medium] that keepeth the Substance and
Sense-soul together" in his Eternal, Divine-Human Nature, because of
His perfect love; and Christ-Incarnate in His Mercy, by this same
perfect love brings these two parts anew and more closely together;
and Christ uprisen, indwelling in the soul thus united, will keep them
forever together, in oneness growing with oneness to Him. Moreover, Man
being double also as "soul and body," needs to be "saved from double
death," and this salvation, given, is Jesus-Christ, who joined Himself
to us in the Incarnation and "yielded us up from the Cross with His
Soul and Body into His Father's hands."
In a mere reading of the Book these repeated correspondences may be
felt as wearisome, formal, fantastic,--or rather they may seem so when,
as here, they are brought together and noted, for Julian herself simply
speaks of these different groups as they come in her theme. But when
one tries to follow the _thought_ of this book amongst the heights
and depths of the things that are seen and temporal and the things
unseen and eternal, these likenesses, found in all, seem to afford
one guidance and surety of footing, like steps cut out in a steep
and difficult path. And as one goes on, and the whole of the meaning
takes form, these significations of something all-prevailing give one a
partial understanding such as Julian perhaps may have had: the feeling,
the "Mind," of a certain half-caught measure in "all things that are,"
a proportion, a oneness. We are amongst free nature's mountains, but
they do not rise haphazard: they shew a strange, a balanced beauty
of line and light and shade, as convincing, if not as clear in its
intention as the sunrise-lines and colouring of the euphrasy flower
at our feet. We hear as we walk the wandering sound of "the vagrant,
casual wind," but there is something in its rise and fall, and rising
again, that has kinship with the flow and ebb and onrush of the
lingering, punctual waves on the shore. _Sursum Corda._
[1] The soon-forgotten petition of Julian's youth for a "bodily
sickness" does not seem to have had any connection in her mind with
special Revelation: it was desired neither as in any way a sign
of invisible things nor as a direct means of beholding them. And
probably, as a matter of fact, the sickness that was granted helped
her in the way that she had desired, helped her to the sight of the
Revelation, not directly, but by drawing her spirit to that utter
dependence on and trust in God that is death's first lesson for all,
that uttermost self-devotion to God that is life's last exercise.
This spiritual state, with all that through years had gone before
of feeling and thought and life's experience, made her ready to
be shewn with special largeness and clearness God's love: how it
filled the empty place of sin and pain and sorrow with its divine
fulness. As to the "bodily sight" introducing the Revelation, a
sight of "parts of the Passion," which may be compared with "The XV.
Oos"--'_Orationes_'--Passion-prayers each beginning with '_O_' (_v.
Hora_ of Sarum), it was recognised by Julian herself, even at the
time of her seeing it, as being a sight of things "not in substance
or nature." In this recognition it was proved to be neither _mental
delusion_ nor mere "raving" delirium. But it would, it seems, be
natural that in her weakness of body and her exaltation of spirit (so
tense that the strength of her self-surrender to death seemed to cast
her back upon bodily life in the painless world between the two) some
sort of _physical illusion_ should be brought about by her prolonged
gaze upon the Face of the Crucifix, and that in her desire to enter
into the sufferings of the Passion as fully as those friends of her
Lord's that beheld it, Julian thus gazing in the midst of night's
shadows and the dim light of dawn should seem to herself to behold
the sacred drops, depicted beneath the painted or sculptured Crown of
Thorns, flow down "right plenteously." Julian gave thanks for this
and all the "bodily sight" as a gift from God. By Him sickness and
illusion, as well as things evil, are "suffered" to come, and by Him
Revelation is given according to sundry times in diverse manners. Gain
of the spirit through failure of the body--and no less by illusions of
fever than by trance-state visions their seers speak of, when Death
passes the Spirit half through the gates--would indeed be accordant
with the truth of the Shewing that came to Julian, how man is raised
through shame and death into glory and life, since in the weakness of
failing men the strength of Christ is made perfect.
[2] See the Bampton Lectures on _Christian Mysticism_. W. R. Inge. (p.
111.)
[3] See the Introduction to _Le Livre des Visions et Instructions de la
Bienheureuse Angèle de Foligno_, traduit par Ernest Hello. Paris, 1895.
[4]
"When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home."
[5] _v._ pp. 27, 57, 126, 156, 168; _cf._ Dionysius: "_On Divine
Names._" Cap. iv. (tr. by Parker). S. Aug. _Conf._: b. i. ch. 2; iii.
7; iv. 10-16; vii. 12-18.
[6] See the extract from Hilton given as a note to chapter lvii.
[7] _Little Flowers of a Childhood_ (in Mem. J. D. W., Oct. 1894--March
1899). Some of the thoughts of children,--some of the rising thoughts
of a very little child who, like Julian, faced the darkness of time
(steadfast as Dürer's pilgrim Knight, gentle as Chaucer's,) and
beheld on his journey the shining of the Eternal City,--might be set
beside words of the Mystics as shewing, perhaps, through their very
simplicity, the oneness of truth that there is to see, and the oneness
of souls that see it. Here are convictions that the Cause of love,
felt within, "must be Jesus' Good Spirit"; comfort in discovering of
death's unreality (for if only the body, not the spirit, dies, "Oh,
then it is only _pretending-dying_!"); a flash of discernment, perhaps,
as to the passing away of lifeless evil since although, to the child,
indeed "it is a pity that some one did not come and kill the devil;
and then he would be dead," yet he has his own eschatology: "Well,
when _we_ are all dead, the devil will be dead too." More significant
is a sudden overawed realisation of the great universe (setting pause
to his own run round in play), one door to a quick perception in the
child's devout spirit of analogy binding truths unseen by sense: "Is
this world always going round, _now_?" ('Yes.') "It stays still!
still!--Jesus is looking down now: we don't see Him."--Here, too, are
habitual references to the things that are _meant to be_,--musings
over the goodness and knowledge, the braveness and courtesy "meant to
be" in a _man_; and here is a grateful, trusting sense of the real
'kindness' of 'wild' creatures and of hurting remedies. Many of those
simple utterances, careless yet arresting like a blackbird's song, and
personal with the ardent love and clear reason of a child faithfully
living and bravely dying, seem to attest a kinship with seers of
truth to whom longer trial has offered a sterner strength of complex
thinking, for wider service here, but who, although they may have
learnt thus '_more_' in the knowledge of love, "shall never know nor
learn _other_ thing without end."--"I understood none higher stature in
this life than childhood."
"It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be.
* * * * *
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of Light."
For all of the Company of saints have the sight of One Vision, and be
it in the steadfast fulfilment of labour, or from out of the merriment
of play,--through the strong, bright peace of endurance, or the silent
acquiescence of the will, led along valleys of darkness,--or again in
some swift rush of prayer into the morning light,--_all_ of the saints,
the babe and the ancient, beholding "the Blissful Countenance" say
"with one voice": "IT IS WELL." "_Amen. Amen._"
[8] "Catholic Mystics of the Middle Ages." _Edinburgh Review_, October
1896.
[9] In reference to introspection M. Maeterlinck speaks of Ruysbroeck
as "the one analytical mystic." _Ruysbroeck and the Mystics_, p. 19.
[10] In ch. vii. de Cressy's "the Seal of her Ring" gives a misreading.
PART III
THE THEME OF THE BOOK
"The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its
origin in ... that dim consciousness of the _beyond_ which is part of
our nature as human beings.... Mysticism arises when we try to bring
this higher consciousness into relation with the other contents of our
minds. Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise
the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, or, more
generally, as the attempt to realise in thought and feeling, the
immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the
temporal."--W. R. Inge, _Christian Mysticism_. The Bampton Lectures for
1900, p. 4.
"What is Paradise? All things that are; for all are goodly and
pleasant and therefore may fitly be called a Paradise. It is said
also that Paradise is an outer Court of Heaven. Even so this world
is an outer court of the eternal, or of Eternity, and especially
whatever in time, or any temporal creature manifesteth or remindeth
us of God or Eternity; for the creature is a guide and a path to God
and Eternity."[1] "God is althing that is gode, as to my sight," says
Julian, "and the godenes that althing hath, it is He" (viii.).
"_Truth seeth God_," and every man exercising the human gift of
Reason may in the sight and in the seeing of truths, attain to some
sight of God as Truth. But "_Wisdom beholdeth God_," and although
the enlightenment of the Spirit of Wisdom for the discernment of
vital truth is a grace that is granted in needful measure to him that
seeks to be guided by it, it is perhaps those receivers of grace that
are mystics by nature and habit that are the most ready in reaching
forward while still on earth to Wisdom's fullest and most immediate
beholding of God as All in all. For theirs in the largest (and it
may be the highest) efficiency, and in the fullest accordance with
man's first gift of "Reason Natural," is the further gift that Julian
calls "_Mind_": the gift of a certain spiritual sensitiveness whereby
they are quick to take impression of eternal things unseen (seeing
them either within or beyond the things of time that are seen) with
surrender of self to partake of their life. For in this Beholding of
Wisdom, response of the heart in purity and insight of the imagination
in faith enhance each other, while the vision of the soul through both
takes clearness.
The mystic, who sees the wide-ruling oneness of God with all that is
good--and thus, as the Mystics say, with all that _is_,--may begin at
any point the beholding of Goodness and therein the beholding of God.
"He is in the mydde poynt of all thyng, and all He doeth" (xi.). It is
in the way of those thus fully endowed for the reaching to truth in its
highest wisdom here, while they walk amongst the many manifestations of
earth, to take them as delicate partial signs instinct with a single
meaning. Here is mystical perception:--
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour";[2]
by a blackbird's sudden song overhear, "in woodlands within," a joy
out of the heart of the Life of life.[3] Speaking of the spiritual
sight Julian relates: "I saw God in a point.--by which sight I saw
that He is in all things." To the mystical soul, quiet to listen to
"the music of the spheres," all sweet accordant sounds are singing
_Holy, Holy, Holy_; to the mystical soul, "full of eyes within"--like
those _Creatures of Life_ seen on the plain by the prophet of the Law
of life as renewed for Hope, and seen in the heights by the herald
of the Evangel of life as fulfilled in Love--all symmetrical sights
are as doors that are opened in Heaven. But it is most of all in the
music and the symmetry made of adverse life and death by the power of
love, as this is seen from highest to lowest, from lowest to highest,
that the Revelation of God as Love that is All in all is received. And
looking thereon in the highest manifestation, the manifestation of
Christ, which is made for all men, the mystics meet other beholders,
who are not called "mystics," yet who have not merely in greater or
less degree, with them, the common gift of Reason, but, after their
different manner and in their own share, the gift of the feeling
"Mind." For both from the seeing of Truth and from the beholding of
Wisdom comes the "holy wondering delight in God" that is simply delight
of love in Love. So they of the East and they of the West sit down
together to partake of the Bread and the Wine of the Table of God in
His Kingdom.
There is no other than one Food of the Divine Life consecrated and
made ready and offered to man for his human spirit to feed on;
but the Christian mystic finds an offering of that Food, which is
the sanctified Life of the Christ of God, not only in its constant
presentment to the spirit alone, by the Spirit of God through Christ.
To him, as to other Christians, the sight and the offering of the
Life in God is given in that memorial, mediate, expectant Sacrament
consecrated for the spirit's nurture through those elected Symbols of
sense that are the most perfect and sacred symbols because in their
earlier, natural use they most immediately minister to the whole human
life on earth of the Giver and of the receivers. But along with this
chosen Sacrament, and as one with it, there is shewn to the mystic the
Life Divine in diverse manners of working: he sees God's Christ from
afar, _fore-sees_ the Eucharistic Sacrament of His most sacred Death
and Life, _now_ raised in the Bread and the Wine on high,--seeing its
promise low in the ground in the earliest, ageless life of the wheat
and the vine: seed cast away, bruised corn of wheat, and dying Body,
and broken Bread, and daily obedience; a hidden root, crushed fruit of
the vine, and Blood poured forth, and uplifted Wine, and joy of Love
over Death: one Life.
Sometimes there is for the mystics a partaking of these lesser
"wayside sacraments," sometimes a turning aside from their symbols;
sometimes the old song of life in the lower creation awakens singing,
sometimes it scarcely is heard. But always the _spirit_ of nature's
signs as interpreted in Man, above all in Christ, lays its claim on
the soul; always as sung by the chorus of human spirits that live on
the "Righteousness, Peace, and Joy" of the Will of God, the New Song
of Life through Death has in it a summons and receives from one and
another here, passing through much tribulation, its fuller concord of
human achievement, or at least the desirous _Amen_. So whether the
mystic dwell much or little with the sights and sounds of sense, those
things that are seen and heard by the _soul_ bear to him the command
of his home, and the merest doorway glimpses, the echoes most distant,
making their proffer of more and more within and beyond, say _Come_.
"I give you the end of a golden string:
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's Gate,
Built in Jerusalem wall."[4]
(Although this "following on to know," this winding of the truth
caught hold of into a "perfect round" of thought and will and life, is
probably not more easy for the mystics than for other people.
"Amore, amor, tu sei cerchio rotondo!"[5])
God is in all; but "our soul may never have rest in things that are
beneath itself" (lxvii.). "Well I wot," says Julian, "that heaven and
earth and all that is made is great and large, fair and good," yet "all
that is made" is seen as a little thing, the size of a hazel nut, held
in the palm of her hand, when along with it her spiritual sight beholds
the Maker. And though we may find the Maker in all things, we find
Him, both as Maker and Restorer, first and best, First and Last, in
the soul. There He is _Alpha_, there _Omega_. "It is readier to us to
come to the knowing of God than to know our own Soul" (in its fullest
powers). "For our soul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlessly
treasured, that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have
first knowing of God, which is the Maker, to whom it is oned." And yet,
"we may never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly
our own soul" (lvi.). The knowledge begins with God, but it begins
with Him in the lowest place of the soul rescued from sin by mercy and
entered by grace. "For Himself is nearest and meekest, highest and
lowest, and doeth all" (lxxx.). To the soul that looks on Christ a
remembrance rises of its own "fair nature" made in His image; yet "our
Lord of His mercy sheweth us our sin and our feebleness by the sweet
gracious light of Himself" (lxxviii.). Thus in the working of grace
the soul comes to the knowledge both of its higher and lower parts.
For in finding in itself both a natural response to the working of
grace by its love and its longing after God, and a contrariness to the
goodness of grace by its often failing and falling, it experiences both
the action of the "Godly Will" (which is within it as a part of, and
a gift from, its higher nature, "the Substance") and the action of a
"beastly will" (from the simple animal nature) which can will no moral
good and which, "failing of love," falls into sin: whereby comes pain,
with all the "travail" of good and evil in conflict during the course
of restoration. But it is only when the Sense-soul (wherein the higher
will must overcome the lower) is at last brought up to heaven, enriched
by all the profits of tribulation, and is united to the Substance
waiting there, "hid with Christ in God," that we come to the perfect
knowledge of God. For that knowledge, perfect in kind though always
growing, can only begin when, being in our "full powers" and "all fully
holy," we come to know clearly our own united perfected Soul. This
seems to be Julian's view (lvi., etc.).
Julian says elsewhere that we have in us here such a "medley" of good
and evil that sometimes we hardly know of others or of ourselves
wherein we stand, but that each "holy assent" that we make (by the
Godly Will) to the grace and will of God, is a witness that we are of
God. A witness to our sonship, it might be said; and perhaps, taking
Julian's view for the time, we might think that as the Lost Son "came
to himself," so the soul comes to the consciousness of the Godly Will;
that as he arose and came to his Father and found Him, or rather was
found by his Father, so the soul receives the healing of Christ in
Mercy and the leading of the Holy Ghost in Grace; and that as at last,
the son not only found his father but found his lost sonship--yet a
better sonship than ever he had known before--so the soul comes at last
to find, more and more fully, that new sonship which is of its nature,
yet is more than its nature. For it finds the nature oneness which by
creation it had with the Son of God, enhanced and for ever sustained by
grace.
Sometimes, truly, the Mystical doctrine leads by tracks that are not
easily followed, but it is perhaps only when her views are regarded in
single parts, that any harm could be found in Julian's statements--all
qualified as they are by her "as to my sight." At first indeed it may
startle one to read of her saints that are known in the Church and in
Heaven "by their sins," to hear that the wounds left by sin are made
"medicines" on earth and turned to "worships" in Heaven; but then
we remember the joy that shall be in Heaven over "one sinner that
repenteth," the love that loves much because much is forgiven. And yet
we remember the little children in _their_ high faith and love and
innocent days; and of such is the Kingdom of God. But the Child, with
many "fair virtues," albeit imperfect, was likewise Julian's type of
the Christian soul: "I understood no higher stature in this life than
Childhood."
"To know our own soul"--it behoveth us to know our own soul--our
high-nature soul, which is enclosed in God, and also our soul on the
earth which Christ-Jesus inhabits, which has in it the "medley": "we
have in us our Lord Jesus uprisen, we have in us the wretchedness and
the mischief of Adam's falling, dying" (lii.). But elsewhere Julian
gives this name "our own soul" to the Church, seeing the Church
likewise as the dwelling and working-place of Christ (lxii.). She has
been speaking of the Divine Wisdom being as it were the Mother of the
soul, and now she seems to lead us to the Church as to the Nursery
where He tends His children. "For one single person may oftentimes
be broken, but the whole Body of Holy Church was never broken, nor
ever shall be, without end. And therefore a sure thing it is, a good
and a gracious, to will meekly and mightily to be fastened to our
Mother, Holy Church, that is Christ Jesus. For the Food of Mercy that
is His dearworthy blood and precious water is plenteous to make us
fair and clean; the sweet gracious hands of our Mother be ready and
diligently about us. For He in all this working useth the office of a
kind nurse that hath not else to do but to entend about the salvation
of her child" (lxi.). Each soul is indeed the soul of a person and
most intimately knows itself in its personal experience, through which
indeed alone it can come to knowledge of others. Yet the single soul
knows itself _best_ in the souls of all the saints, in the fellowship
of the "Blessed Common," where every virtue is found, not in each, at
this time, but in _all_--not now in the perfect height nor the fairest
flowering, but at growth in that ground where each plant holds some
likeness to Christ.
With Julian the Christian Faith is not a thing added to the Mystical
sight: these are, as again and again she says, seen both as one. It
is the _inherent_ Christianity of her system that makes her teaching
always, in a large way, practical. For the system came at first to
be seen by prayerful searching made out of her practical need of an
answer to the problem of sin and sorrow; the Mystical Vision came with
"contrition, compassion, and longing after God," those wounds that
her contrite, pitiful, longing heart had desired should be made more
deep in her life. It is through the work of grace that Julian reaches
back to the gift of nature, its ground; and from the depths of this
root-ground she rises soon again to the "springing and spreading"
grace. So in the First of her Shewings the "higher" truth is seen:
"we are all in Him beclosed," but in the Last--the conclusion and
confirmation of all--the lower, yet nearer, truth, which _all_ may
know: "and He is beclosed in us." And speaking of this dwelling within
the soul she speaks of His working us all into Him: "in which working
He willeth that we be His helpers, giving to Him all our entending,
learning His lores, keeping His laws, desiring that all be done that He
doeth; truly trusting In Him" (lvii.).
Julian had prayed to feel Christ's dying pains, if it should be God's
will, in order that she might feel compassion, and the visionary sight
of His pain in the Face of the Crucifix filled her with pain as it grew
upon her. "How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is
all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy suffer?" Yet the Shewing of
Pain was but the introduction to, and for a time the accompaniment of,
the Revelation; the Revelation, itself, as a whole, was of Love--the
Goodness or Active Love of God. So the First Shewing, as the Ground of
all the rest, was a large view of this Goodness as the Ground of all
Being. Although through these earlier Shewings the Saviour's bodily
pain is felt by Julian so fully in "mind" that she feels it indeed
as if it were bodily anguish she bore, it is in this very experience
that the shewing of Joy is made to her spirit. So when in the opening
of the Revelation she tells of beholding the Passion of Christ, her
first unexpected word is of sudden joy from the inner sight of the
Love that God is: the sight of the Trinity:--"And in the same Shewing
suddenly the Trinity fulfilled my heart most of joy. (For where JESUS
appeareth, the blessed Trinity is understood, as to my sight.)" And
even as Julian finds afterwards that the Last Word of the Revelation is
the same as the First: "_Thou shalt not be overcome_," so the opening
Sight already shews her that which shall be revealed all through, for
learning of "more in the same," and uplifts her heart to the fulness
of joy that is shewn at the close. For she feels that this shock, as
it were, of Revelation--this sudden joy of seeing Love in the midst of
earth's evil, beyond and beneath and in the pain that is passing, is
the entrance into the joy of the Lord. "Suddenly the Trinity fulfilled
my heart with utmost joy.--And so I understood it shall be in heaven
without end to all that shall come there" (iv.). So at the close, when
the vision was not of the Love Divine in that bending Face beneath the
Crown of Thorns, but of the human love that shall spring up to meet
the Divine out of the lowness of earth,--the vision of how from this
body of death, as from an unsightly, shapeless, and stagnant mass of
quagmire, there "sprang a full fair creature, a little Child, fully
shapen and formed, agile and lively, whiter than lily; which swiftly
glided up into heaven"--the spiritual shewing to the soul is this:
"_Suddenly thou shalt be taken from all thy pain ... and thou shalt
come up above and thou shalt have me ... and thou shalt be fulfilled
of love and of bliss_" (lxiv.). And so in that early experience of
Julian's when in her love, abandoned to pity and worship, she would
not look up to Heaven from the Cross, it was also the inward sight by
the higher part of her soul of the higher part of Christ's life, that
Heavenly Love that could only rejoice, that overcame her frailty of
flesh unwilling to suffer, and made her choose "only Jesus in weal and
in woe." "Thou art my Heaven" (xix.-lv.). "All the Trinity wrought
in the Passion of Jesus Christ," though only the Son of the Virgin
suffered, and in seeing this, Julian saw "the Bliss of Christ's works,"
"the joy that is in the blissful Trinity [by reason] of the Passion of
Christ"; "the Father willing all, the Son working all, the Holy Ghost
confirming all."
This complexity of the Divine-Human life in the Son of God, this union
in Christ Jesus of serene untouched blessedness in the heavenly regions
of His spirit with His bearing, in the active joy of a "glad giver,"
all the sin and sorrow of the world, is revealed as the comfort and
confidence of man, whose own deepest experience is love that suffers,
whose highest worship therefore must be of Love that is strong to
suffer.
It was a double joy that was shewn in Christ besides the bliss of the
impassible Godhead, which is the bliss of Love without all time and
beyond all deeds. For there was joy in the Passion itself: "_If I
might suffer more, I would suffer more_," and joy in its fruits: "_If
thou art pleased, I am pleased_." Thus, too, we are told of three ways
in which our Lord would have us behold His Passion: first, "the hard
pains He suffered on earth"; second, "the love that made Him to suffer
passeth as far all His pains as Heaven is above earth"; third, "the joy
and the bliss that made Him to be well-satisfied in it."--"With a glad
countenance He looked unto His wounded Side, rejoicing" (xxii., xxiii.,
xxiv.).
From the sight of Love that is higher than pain comes the sight of
Love that is deeper than sin. Julian had had the mystical shewing that
God is all that is good,[6] and is only good, is the life of all that
is, and doeth all that is done, and she had reasoned, as others before
her had reasoned, that therefore "sin hath no substance" and "sin is
no deed." But perhaps it is those that are most concerned with God in
creature things, that suffer most shaking from the sight of evil. Those
that seek God's Kingdom in this present world, finding "the dark places
of the earth" full of the habitations of cruelty, have continually the
enemy as with a sword in their bones saying within them: "Where is now
thy God?" "I saw," says Julian, "that He is in all things. I beheld and
considered, with a soft dread, and thought: _What is sin?_" (xi.). So
also it is immediately after the coming of the mystical Shewing made
"yet more highly": "_It is I, it is I, it is I that am all_," that the
memory of her own experience is brought to her and she sees how in
her longings after God, who is all the time so close about us, around
us and within,--she had always been hindered from seeing and reaching
Him fully by the darkening, disturbing power of sin. "And so I looked
generally upon us all, and methought: _If sin had not been, we should
have all been clean, and like to our Lord as He made us_" (xxvii.).
Thus came again the stirring of that old question over which "afore
this time often I wondered," with "mourning and sorrow," "why the
beginning of sin was not letted--for then, methought, all should have
been well."
To this darkness, crying to God, the light came first as by a soft
general dawning of comfort for faith. "_Sin is behoveable_ (it behoved
that sin should be suffered to rise) _but all shall be well, and all
shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well._" Yet Julian,
unable to take comfort to her heart over that which was still so dark
to her intellect, stands "beholding things general, troublously and
mourning," saying thus in her thoughts: "_Ah good Lord, how might all
be_ well, for the great hurt that is come by sin to the creature?"
(xxix.).
The answer to this double question as to sin and pain is the central
theme of the Revelation, though much is still hidden and much is but
dimly revealed as yet to faith. In brief account, the sight, enough
for us now, is this: "Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail [of love]
in measure, and in as much as we fail, in so much we die: for it needs
must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of
God that is our life.... And grace worketh our dreadful failing into
plenteous, endless solace, and grace worketh our shameful falling
into high, worshipful rising; and grace worketh our sorrowful dying
into holy, blissful life" (xlviii.). "By the assay of this falling we
shall have an high marvellous knowing of love in God, without end. For
strong and marvellous is that love that may not and will not be broken
for trespass. And this is one understanding of our profit. Another
is the lowness and meekness that we shall get by the sight of our
falling" (lxi.). "And by this meek knowing after this manner, through
contrition and grace, we shall be broken from all that is not our Lord.
And then shall our blessed Saviour perfectly heal us and one us to Him"
(lxxviii.).
_Theodidacta, Profunda, Ecstatica_--so Julian has been designated;
perhaps she might in fuller truth be called _Theodidacta, Profunda,
Evangelica_. She is indeed a mystic, evangelical, practical. With all
her fellow-Christians and in the most deeply personal concern she
looks with a tender mind on the redeeming work of God by Christ in the
"glorious satisfaction" ("_Asseth_"), and in fervent response of love
and thankfulness trusts in the blessed Passion of Christ, and in His
sure keeping, and in all the restoring, fulfilling work by the Holy
Ghost. But after the Mystical manner she seeks "the beyond": that is,
while in no way leaving the works of mercy and grace she seeks to go
back to the ground or source of them, the Goodness of God,--yes, to God
Himself. "I could not have perceived of the part of Mercy but as it
were alone in Love." "The Passion was a noble worshipful deed done in a
time, but Love was without beginning, is, and shall be without ending."
The Mystical Vision is that which in outward nature sees the unseen
within the seen, but it is also that which in spiritual things sees
behind and beyond the temporal means, the eternal causes and ends
(vi.). And it is surely here in the spiritual things, in the heart
and centre of human existence, in the stress of sin and suffering,
rather than amongst the gentle growing things, and flaming lights,
and songs, and blameless creatures of Nature that the Beatific Vision
on earth is at its highest. For here are found united the _Evangel_
and the _Vision_ and the _Life_ of love. "There the soul is highest,
noblest, and worthiest, where it is lowest, meekest, and mildest":
it is not in nature's goodness alone that we have our life, "all our
life is in three," in nature, in mercy, in grace; "whereof we have
meekness, mildness, patience and pity" (lviii., lix.). Man's "spirit,"
the higher nature that Julian talks of, may indeed be there in the
Heavenly places, as an infant's angel lying in the Father's arms,
always beholding His Face in love's silence of waiting; but here in
earthly places is the Prodigal Son returning, here too is the Father's
embrace, and here is His earliest greeting of the son that was lost and
is found. And already here in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (where
_all_ grow pure in the sonship obedience of Jesus Christ), are those
that are kept from the first as little children, taken up in His arms
and suffered to sing their Hosannahs, which perfect His praise.
The Revelation of Love is all centred in the Passion, and looking on
the Passion in time the soul sees, in vision, the Lamb that was slain
from the foundation of the world, the mind conceives how before all
time the Divine Love took to itself in the Wisdom of God the mode of
Manhood, and in time created Man in the same, and how thus God could
be and do all that man could be and do, could exercise Love Divine in
human Faith and Courage: could "take our flesh" and live on the earth
as "the Man, Christ-Jesus," "in all points tempted like as we are,"
finding His daily Bread in the will of the Father, drinking with joy
of the Wine of life in the evening cup of Death. "Pain is passing,"
says Julian, but in passing it leads forth love in man to its deepest
living, its fairest height of pureness and strength and fulfilment.
Thus it behoved the Captain of man's salvation to have His perfection
here through suffering. It is the _Lamb_ in the midst of the Throne,
the Almighty Love that was slain, that is Shepherd to the Martyrs,
leading them unto living fountains of waters. He that bore the yoke
gives rest to the heavy-laden; blessed is He that mourned: for He
comforteth with His comfort.
So in the Mediæval story,[8] the highest Mystical Vision, the sight of
the Holy Grail, comes only to him that is pure from self, and looks on
the bleeding wound that sin has left in man, and is compassionate, and
gives himself to service and healing.--_Can ye_ drink _of the Cup I
drank of?_--Love's Cup that is Death and Life.--
Wine of Love's joy I see thy cup
Red to the trembling brim
With Life outpoured, once lifted up,
I drink, remembering Him.--
It is the mourners who are comforted: those that bear griefs of their
own, or bear griefs of others fully, do not despair, though the mere
onlooker may well despair. Thus the compassionate Julian's vision is of
_Comfort_--comfort not for herself "in special," but for "the general
Man"--for all her fellow-Christians. She who had long time mourned
for the hurt that is come by sin to the creature, came to the sight
of comfort not by turning her eyes away but by deeper compassion that
found through the very wounds the healing of Love on earth, the glory
of Love in Heaven. She was "filled with compassion for the Passion of
Christ," and thus she saw _His joy_; so afterwards, she tells, "I was
fulfilled in part with compassion of all mine even-Christians, for that
well, well-beloved people that shall be saved. For God's servants,
Holy Church, shall be shaken in sorrow and anguish and tribulation
in this world, as men shake a cloth in the wind. And as to this our
Lord answered in this manner: A great thing shall I make hereof in
Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys. Yea so far forth as
this I saw: that our Lord joyeth of the tribulations of His servants,
with ruth and compassion." "For He saith: _I shall wholly break you
of your vain affections and of your vicious pride: and after that I
shall together gather you, and make you mild and meek, clean and holy,
by oneing to me_" (xxviii.). Sin is indeed "the sharpest scourge,"
"viler and more painful than hell, without comparison," "an horrible
thing to see for the loved soul that would be all fair and shining in
the sight of God, as Nature and Grace teacheth." And darkness, which
overhangs the soul while here it is "meddling with any part of sin,"
"so that we see not clearly the Blissful Countenance of our Lord," is
a lasting, life-long "natural penance" from God, the feeling of which
indeed does not depart with actual sinning: "for ever the more clearly
that the soul seeth this Blissful Countenance by grace of loving, the
more it longeth to see it in fulness" (lxxii.). All this is in man's
experience, with many other pains--pains which in individual lives have
no proportionate relation to sin, though, in general, "sin is cause of
pain" and "pain purgeth."--("_For I tell thee, howsoever thou do thou
shalt have woe_"), (lxxvii., xxvii.). But the Comfort Revealed shews
how sin, which "hath no part of being" and "could not be known but by
the pain it is cause of," (sin which in this view may be compared to
the nails of the Passion--mere dead matter, though with power to wound
unto death for a time the blessed Life), sin, which is failure of human
love,--leaves, notwithstanding all its horror, an opening for a fuller
influx of Divine love and strength.[9] And as to _darkness_, "seeking
is as good as beholding, for the time that God will suffer the soul to
be in travail" (x.). And as to tribulation of every kind, "the Passion
of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and so is His blessed
will" (xxvii.).
The parts may seem to come by chance and to be "amiss," but the whole,
and in the whole each part, is ordered. "And when we be all brought
up above, then shall we see clearly in God the secret things which be
now hid to us. Then shall none of us be stirred to say: _Lord, if it
had been thus, then it had been full well_: but we shall all say with
_one_ voice: _Lord, blessed mayst Thou be, for it is thus: it is well;
and now we see verily that all things are done as it was then ordained
before that anything was made_" (xi., lxxxv.). "Moreover He that shall
be our bliss when we are there, is our Keeper while we are here"; and
the Last Word of the Revelation is the same as the First; "_Thou shalt
not be overcome._" "He said not: _Thou shalt not be tempested, thou
shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed_; but He said:
_Thou shalt not be overcome._"
This is God's comfort. And that here, meanwhile, we should take His
comfort is Julian's chief desire and instruction. For Julian, who
speaking so much of sin as a strange and troubling sight, yet gives as
examples of sin only a slothful mistrusting despondency,--speaks indeed
of faith and hope and charity, compassion and meekness, but scarcely
_exhorts_ except to the cheerful enduring of tribulation. So she gives
counsel as to "rejoicing more in His whole love than sorrowing in our
often fallings"; as to "living gladly and merrily for love's sake"
in our penance of darkness (lxxii.-lxxxi.). And in general, for all
experiences of life, "It is God's will that we take His promises and
His comfortings as largely and as mightily as we may take them, and
also He willeth that we take our abiding and our troubles as lightly as
we may take them, and set them at nought" (lxiv., lxv., xv.).
"We are all one in comfort," says Julian, "all the gracious comfort
was for all mine even-Christians." Sin separates, pain isolates, but
salvation and comfort unite.
And lastly, in this mystical vision of the oneness of man with God
in Christ, man is seen not only as united in himself in the diverse
parts of his nature, and as one with his fellow man, but as joined
to that which is below him. How often of one good and another, as of
that fair and sacred "service of the Mother"--"nearest, readiest, and
surest"--"in the creatures by whom it is done," do we hear Julian's
confident word of Sacramental declaration: "_It is Christ_." "For God
is all that is good, as to my sight, and God hath made all that is
made: and he that loveth generally all his even-Christians for God, he
loveth all that is. For in Mankind that shall be saved is comprehended
all: that is to say, all that is made and the Maker of all. For in Man
is God, and God is in all. And I hope," adds Julian, in words that
are fitting to take for her courteous, her tender, "_Good Speed_" ere
we pass to her book--altogether like her as they are, even to the
careful, conditional "if" (for _nothing,_ not even comfort, behoves
to be "overdone much"), "I hope by the grace of God he that beholdeth
it thus shall be truly taught and mightily comforted, if he needeth
comfort" (ix.).
_Deus ubique est, et totus ubique est._ All things are gathered up in
Man, and Man is gathered up in Christ; and Christ is gathered up in the
Bosom of the Father. So the world of the lower creation makes promise:
_All things are yours_; and the Church says over its offering, lifted
up: _Ye are Christ's_; and from the stillness the voice of peace is
heard: _And Christ is God's_. "All the promises of God in HIM are _Yea_
and in HIM _Amen_, unto the glory of God by us." All the promises of
God: the blossom that floated to the ground; "the lily of a day" that
"fell and died that night"; the "little Child, whiter than lily, that
swiftly glided up into Heaven"--all the utterances silenced here--in
Him are _Yea_ and in Him _Amen: Yea_ on earth and _Amen_ for ever. "_He
turneth the shadow of death into the morning._"
_May_ 1901.
[1] _Theologia Germanica_, Chap. 1.
[2] Blake's Poems.
[3] _Memorabilia of Jesus_, by W. Peyton, p. 33.
[4] Gilchrist's _Life and Works of William Blake_, vol. ii.
[5] _Amor de Caritade_, by Jacopone da Todi (formerly ascribed to S.
Francis of Assisi).
[6] "_Quid me interrogas de bono? Unus est bonus, Deus._"--S. Matt.
xix. 17.
[8] _A Key to Wagner's Parsifal_, by H. von Wolzogen, tr. by Ashton
Ellis.
[9] Goodness is Active Love--love that moves. Drawing back from the
finite creature, as a wave from the shore, it "suffers" sin's void
to appear. But this lack of itself is allowed for the time, that so
returning again in its force, to which evil is nothing, it may cover
the desolate nature with deepness and highness and fulness unknown
before. (See lvii.).
REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE
CHAPTER I
"A Revelation of Love--in Sixteen Shewings"
This is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made
in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular.
Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns;
and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the
Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair
shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the
Shewings that follow be grounded and oned.[1]
The Second is the changing of colour of His fair face in token of His
dearworthy[2] Passion.
The Third is that our Lord God, Allmighty Wisdom, All-Love, right as
verily as He hath made everything that is, all-so verily He doeth and
worketh all-thing that is done.
The Fourth is the scourging of His tender body, with plenteous shedding
of His blood.
The Fifth is that the Fiend is overcome by the precious Passion of
Christ.
The Sixth is the worshipful[3] thanking by our Lord God in which He
rewardeth His blessed servants in Heaven.
The Seventh is [our] often feeling of weal and woe; (the feeling
of weal is gracious touching and lightening, with true assuredness
of endless joy; the feeling of woe is temptation by heaviness and
irksomeness of our fleshly living;) with ghostly understanding that we
are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of
God.
The Eighth is of the last pains of Christ, and His cruel dying.
The Ninth is of the pleasing which is in the Blissful Trinity by the
hard Passion of Christ and His rueful dying: in which joy and pleasing
He willeth that we be solaced and mirthed[4] with Him, till when we
come to the fulness in Heaven.
The Tenth is, our Lord Jesus sheweth in love His blissful heart even
cloven in two, rejoicing.
The Eleventh is an high ghostly Shewing of His dearworthy Mother.
The Twelfth is that our Lord is most worthy Being.
The Thirteenth is that our Lord God willeth we have great regard to
all the deeds that He hath done: in the great nobleness of the making
of all things; and the excellency of man's making, which is above all
his works; and the precious Amends[5] that He hath made for man's sin,
turning all our blame into endless worship.[6] In which Shewing also
our Lord saith: _Behold and see! For by the same Might, Wisdom, and
Goodness that I have done all this, by the same Might, Wisdom, and
Goodness I shall make well all that is not well; and thou shalt see
it._ And in this He willeth that we keep us in the Faith and truth of
Holy Church, not desiring to see into His secret things now, save as it
belongeth to us in this life.
The Fourteenth is that our Lord is the Ground of our Prayer. Herein
were seen two properties: the one is rightful prayer, the other is
steadfast trust; which He willeth should both be alike large; and thus
our prayer pleaseth Him and He of His Goodness fulfilleth it.
The Fifteenth is that we shall suddenly be taken from all our pain and
from all our woe, and of His Goodness we shall come up above, where we
shall have our Lord Jesus for our meed and be fulfilled with joy and
bliss in Heaven.
The Sixteenth is that the Blissful Trinity, our Maker, in Christ Jesus
our Saviour endlessly dwelleth in our soul, worshipfully ruling and
protecting all things, us mightily and wisely saving and keeping, for
love; and we shall not be overcome of our Enemy.
[1] made one, united.
[2] precious, honoured.
[3] honour-bestowing.
[4] made glad.
[5] MS. "Asseth" = Satisfaction, making-enough.
[6] honour, glory.