copy of her book shows northern features, leading to
the conjecture that she may have come from Yorkshire.
Sometime between 1413 and 1416 Margery Kempe
visited Julian and received counsel from her. As late
as 1416 Julian was living in Norwich in Norfolk as an
anchoress, enclosed in a cell attached to the Church of
St. Julian. She may have received the name Julian upon
her entrance into the anchorhold.
On 8 May (or possibly 13 May) 1373, at the age of
30 and a half, she fell seriously ill, most likely while still
at home. She then recalled having prayed in her youth
for a bodily sick ness, to prepare her for death, and for
the wounds of true contrition, natural compassion, and
resolute longing for God. Surrounded by her mother
and friends, and attended by a priest, she believed, with
them, that she was about to die. Suddenly, however,
while she was looking at a crucifi x, her health returned.
Then followed a series of fi fteen visions, mostly of the
crucifi ed Christ. These were interrupted by attacks from
the Devil, and then confi rmed in a sixteenth and fi nal
showing. This experience gives the content to the short
version of her book, in which she explains that the vi-
sions were threefold in character—visual, intellectual,
and spiritual or intuitive. The long version of the text
is enriched with 20 years of theological refl ection, pas-
toral counseling, and spiritual growth. Her teachings
are oriented to the instruction of other believers, her
“even-Christians.”
The shorter version of Julian’s book is extant in one
manuscript copy—the 15th-century Amherst Manu-
script (BL Add. 37790). The longer text is complete in
three manu scripts: the Paris Manuscript (BN Fonds angl.
40), copied around 1650; and two Sloane manuscripts
(Sloane 1—BL Sloane 2499, early 17th century; Sloane
2—BL Sloane 3705, an 18th-century modernization
of Sloane 1). Excerpts from the longer version exist in
Westminster Treasury 4 (W), writ ten in the early 16th
century; and in a 17th-century manu script from Uphol-
land Northern Institute (formerly St. Jo seph’s College).
The Upholland manuscript was written by English Bene-
dictine nuns, living at Cambrai, after the Dis solution of
the monasteries. The earliest printed edition (1670) is
by Serenus Cressy, an English Benedictine, chaplain for
the Paris house of the nuns.
T.S. Eliot, in the Four Quartets, familiarized the liter-
ary world with Julian’s key phrase, “All shall be well,”
and with some of her mystical symbolism. Thomas
Merton cited her as “one of the greatest English theolo-
gians” (1967). An observance at Norwich (1973) com-
memorated the sixth centenary of her showings. Since
then Julian has become the focus of extensive study
by literary scholars and theologians and has a growing
following as a spiritual guide.
Textual critics disagree on the choice of a preferred
copy text for a Julian edition. Colledge and Walsh (1978)
opted for Paris, favoring its more conventionally correct
rhetorical structures. Marion Glasscoe selected Sloane
1 for a student edition (2d ed. 1986). Glasscoe notes the
pitfalls of following, in dis puted readings, either Sloane
1 or Paris, or creating an eclectic text; nonetheless, she
fi nds special qualities to recommend re liance on Sloane
1, which, she says, often refl ects “a greater sense of theol-
ogy as a live issue at the heart of human creativity” (1989:
119) thereby coming closer to Julian’s central concern.
Theological approaches diverge widely. A plethora of
devotional books have been based on a surface reading
of the Revelations, stressing Julian’s optimism and over-
simplifying her doctrine of love. Her terms “substance”
and “sensuality” are often misunderstood. A misreading,
sometimes abetted by inaccurate translations, assumes
that by “substance” Julian means the human soul and
by “sensuality” the body or the fi ve senses. Substance
designates, rather, “the truth of our being, body and
soul: the way we are meant to be, as whole persons”
(Pelphrey, 1982: 90): “Where the blessed soul of Christ
is, there is the substance of all souls that will be saved
by Christ.... Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling
place, and the dwell ing place of the soul is God.... It
is a high understanding inwardly to see and to know
that God our creator dwells in our soul; and a higher
understanding it is inwardly to see and to know that
our soul which is created dwells in God’s sub stance,
of which substance, through God, we are what we are”
(Long Text, ch. 54).
Usually “sensuality” refers to that human existence
which becomes God’s in the Incarnation: it is the “place”
of the city of God, the glory of the Trinity abiding in
collective human ity. Human beings are called to be
helpers or partners in the unfolding of what humanity
is meant to become—a city fi t for God to reign and fi nd
rest in. These diffi cult concepts are carefully explored
by Pelphrey, who succinctly summarizes Julian’s teach-
ing about divine love: “The refl ection of divine love
into humanity is... seen to take place in three ways: in
the creation of humanity (our capacity for God); in the
maturing or ‘increasing’ of humanity (to which she also
refers as our ‘remaking’ in Christ); and in the perfecting
or fulfi lling of human beings through the indwelling
Christ” (1982: 90).
Julian presents this theology principally through the
parable of the Lord and the Servant: “This story conveys
Julian’s insights about the fi rst Adam, the cosmic Christ,
the Trinity, and the unity of all who are to be saved. The
one great reality in the parable is the person of Christ,
in whom are mysterious compenetrations of other reali-
ties—the Adam of Genesis; the total Adam (all human-
ity); Christ as the second Adam (and in one sense the fi rst
Adam, since to his eternal image all things were made);JULIAN OF NORWICH