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i. A List of Contents, called "A Particular of the Chapters". 1

ii.-iii. Autobiographical. 3

xliv.-lxiii. Regarding these Revelations and the Christian Life of Love's travail on earth against sin. 93

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

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

NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS

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 , or have been added to rather than altered . 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 , and once or twice in a passage of special obscurity .

NOTE AS TO THE LADY JULIAN, ANCHORESS AT ST JULIAN'S, AND THE LADY JULIAN LAMPET, ANCHORESS AT CARROW

Perhaps the almost invariable use of the surname of the Carrow Dame Julian 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.

INTRODUCTION

PART I

THE LADY JULIAN

Very little is known of the outer life of the woman that nearly five hundred years ago left us this book.

The little Church of St Julian 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 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, 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 , 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.

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 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" .

The title "Lady," "Dame" or "Madame" was commonly accorded to anchoresses, nuns, and others that had had education in a Convent.

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" .

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.

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 her vow might be: "I offering yield myself to the divine Goodness 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."

"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" . "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" ; and also she was filled with desire for God: "the longing that I had to Him afore" .

"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.

"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.

This must have been a Friday--sacred Day of the Passion of Christ--for Easter Sunday of 1373 was on the 17th of April . 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.

Canticles ii. 10. St John xiv. 31.

See the chapter "How an Anchoress shall behave herself to them that come to her," in "The Scale of Perfection," by Walter Hilton , 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 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.

PART II

THE MANNER OF THE BOOK

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.

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" . 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" . 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" 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.'

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.

"When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home."

See the extract from Hilton given as a note to chapter lvii.

"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."

In ch. vii. de Cressy's "the Seal of her Ring" gives a misreading.

THE THEME OF THE BOOK

"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." "God is althing that is gode, as to my sight," says Julian, "and the godenes that althing hath, it is He" .

"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";

"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."

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 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.

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.

Wine of Love's joy I see thy cup Red to the trembling brim With Life outpoured, once lifted up, I drink, remembering Him.--

"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.

Blake's Poems.

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