et us begin with the Empress Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. The official account of her life speaks of her as an Eastern princess, but in Celtic Britain the legends persist that she was a Christian British slave. She became Constantius' concubine and, A.D. 274, Constantine's mother. She was repudiated by the Emperor Constantius in 292, next treated with honour by Constantine when he was proclaimed Emperor, at York, in 302. Christianity was adopted by the Empire in 312. It could well be that his mother, like African Augustine's, had much to do with Constantine's conversion to Christianity. Constantine would establish the seat of Empire not in Rome but in Byzantium, Constantinople, on the shores of the Black Sea. Orthodox art before and after its iconoclastic phase, shows the Madonna and Child dressed in imperial garb, in Roman togas. This iconography doubly refers to Mary and Jesus, Helena and Constantine, palimpsested the one on the other. Both times, when iconoclasm is overturned, it is in turn carried out similarly by Empresses, Irene in 787 and Theodora in 843, as we witness in the British Museum's icon, the 1400 'The Triumph of Orthodoxy', showing the Regent Empress Theodora with her four-year-old son the Emperor Michael presiding at the restoration of the use of icons.

Helena, now Empress, visited the Holy Places, such as Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Sinai, determined where their churches would be built, and she and her son officially established for Christendom the cult of the Cross. However it is likely that the present Mount Sinai is not the true Sinai of Exodus but a mountain Helena decreed by fiat as Mount Sinai and that declaration is taken on faith by pilgrims to this day. Eusebius of Caesaria (260-339), their contemporary, wrote the account of Constantine and Helena's pilgrimages and building programmes in the Holy Places. Eusebius emphasizes Constantine as undertaking the excavations on Golgotha and building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335. Later legend will have this archeology and architecture be Helena's. Eusebius affirms Helena's actions in this area in connection with the Bethlehem cave and basilica and with that on the Mount of Olives. He touchingly describes how she wished, quoting Psalm 132.7, to 'worship at the place whereon his feet have stood.' He also describes how

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especially abundant were the gifts she bestowed on the naked and unprotected poor. To some she gave money, to others an ample supply of clothing: she liberated some from imprisonment, or from the bitter servitude of the mines; others she delivered from unjust oppression, and others, again, she restored from exile.

While, however, her character derived luster from such deeds as I have described, she was far from neglecting personal piety toward God. She might be seen continually frequenting his Church, while at the same time she adorned the houses of prayer with splendid offerings, not overlooking the churches of the smallest cities. In short, this admirable woman was to be seen, in simple and modest attire, mingling with the crowd of worshipers, and testifying her devotion to God by a uniform course of pious conduct.

ugustine, Aurelius Augustinus, was born in Africa in A.D. 354 at a time when the Roman Empire was crumbling. He grappled with the conflicting beliefs of that uncertain era, coming to reject Neoplatonism and Manicheanism for Christianity, being converted in a garden outside Milan through reading Paul's Epistle. And his mother's tears. He had been a Professor of Rhetoric, of Literature, he now professed Christ, the Word. Edith Stein has written a beautiful dialogue between Ambrose and Augustine in her Three Dialogues. Augustine was baptised by Ambrose in 387. Returning to Africa he became Bishop of Hippo, dying as the Vandals were besieging his beloved cathedral city. In his Confessions he writes his spiritual biography, much as Julian does in her Showing of Love. In it he explains that sin is the tending to non-being, to diverging from God's Creation. In its Book XI Augustine presents a heady discourse upon Time and Eternity, based upon Ambrose's evening hymn.

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Take the line 'Deus Creator omnium', which consists of eight syllables . . [Augustine sings the line.] What has become of each syllable? Their sound is finished and has been wafted away into the past. They no longer exist. . . . It is in my own mind, then, that I measure time . . . . Suppose that I am going to recite a psalm that I know. Before I begin, my faculty of expectation is engaged by the whole of it. But once I have begun, as much of the psalm as I have removed from the province of expectation and relegated to the past now engages my memory, and the scope of the action which I am performing is divided between the two faculties of memory and expectation . . . But my faculty of attention is present all the while, and through it passes what was the future in the process of becoming the past.  [Then Augustine compares that action to God.] If there were a mind endowed with such great power of knowing and foreknowing that all the past and all the future were known to it as clearly as I know a familiar psalm, that mind would be wonderful beyond belief. We should hold back from it in awe at the thought that nothing in all the history of the past and nothing in all the ages yet to come was hidden from it. It would know all this as surely as, when I sing the psalm, I know what I have already sung and what I have still to sing, how far I am from the beginning and how far from the end. But it is unthinkable that you, Creator of the universe, Creator of souls and bodies, should know all the past and all the future merely in this way. Your knowledge is far more wonderful, far more mysterious than this.

My mother and I were alone, leaning from a window which overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house were we were staying at Ostia. . . .Our conversation led us to the conclusion that no bodily pleasure, however great it might be and whatever earthly light might shed lustre upon it, was worthy of comparison, or even of mention, beside the happiness of the life of the saints. As the flame of love burned stronger in us and raised us higher towards the eternal God, our thoughts ranged over the whole compass of material things in their various degrees, up to the heavens themselves, from which the sun and the moon and the stars shine down upon the earth. Higher still we climbed, thinking and speaking all the while in wonder at all that you have made. At length we came to our own souls and passed beyond them to that place of everlasting plenty, where you feed Israel for ever with the food of truth. There life is that Wisdom by which all these things that we know are made, all things that ever have been and all that are yet to be. But this Wisdom is not made: it is as it has always been and as it will be for ever . . . And when we spoke of the eternal Wisdom, longing for it and straining for it with all the strength of our hearts, for one fleeting instant we reached out and touched it. Then with a sigh . . . we returned to the sound of our own speech, in which each word has a beginning and an ending - far, far different from your Word, our Lord, who abides in himself for ever, yet never grows old and gives new life to all things.

And so our discussion went on. Suppose, we said, that the tumult of man's flesh were to cease and all that his thoughts can conceive, of earth, of water, and of air, should no longer speak to him; suppose that the heavens and even his own soul were silent, no longer thinking of itself but passing beyond; suppose that his dreams and the visions of his imagination spoke no more and that every tongue and every sign and all that is transient grew silent - for all these things have the same message to tell, if only we can hear it, and their message is this: We did not make ourselves, but he who abides for ever made us.

or was Helena the only European woman to visit the Holy Places in Africa and Asia during this period and to write letters describing her experiences. Let us also look at the Roman matron and widow Paula and her virgin daughter Eustochium. Paula and Eustochium wrote an important, joint, and most joy-filled letter to their friend in Rome, Marcella, published as Jerome's Epistola XLVI/46, in which they described their pilgrimage in A.D. 385 to the Holy Places, to Africa, to Israel, before settling down for the rest of their lives with Jerome in Bethlehem, financially supporting him and assisting his labours with translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, the Vulgate text to which Egeria did not have access. We often see paintings of scarlet-clad Cardinal Jerome in his study at his labours, but his womenfolk are forgotten and omitted from those canvesses, except in two, one now in the National Gallery in London, but which was at San Girolamo in Fiesole, which shows the widowed Paula, at her side her most beautiful virgin daughter, Eustochium, and another by Francisco Zurburan and Workshop now in the National Gallery in Washington, and originally painted for the Hieronymite Order founded by Alfonso of Jaén's brother, and to which belonged the famous Sor Juana de la Cruz in Mexico City.

Paula movingly contrasts the wealth of Rome and the poverty of Bethlehem:

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Where are spacious porticoes? Where are gilded ceilings? Where are houses decorated by the sufferings and labours of condemned wretches? Where are halls built by the wealth of private men on the scale of palaces, that the vile carcase of man may move among more costly surroundings, and view his own roof rather than the heavens, as if anything could be more beauteous than creation? . . . . In the village of Christ . . . all is rusticity, and except for psalms, silence. Whithersoever you turn yourself, the ploughman, holding the plough handle, sings Alleluia; the perspiring reaper diverts himself with psalms, and the vine-dresser sings some of the ballads of this country, these are the love-songs, as they are commonly called; these are whistled by the shepherds, and are the implements of the husbandman. Indeed, we do not think of what we are doing or how we look, but see only that for which we are longing.

Paula's pilgrimage, like Egeria's, is a mapping out in time and space, using the Bible to understand the lands of the Bible. But Paula adds to Egeria's knowledge of the Bible in its Old Latin translation and her curiosity about Greek and comparative liturgy, her own knowledge not only of classical Latin but also of Greek and the Hebrew she is avidly studying. Helena, Egeria and Paula all use time and space, the book of the Bible and geography of the Holy Land as their Internet upon which to weave a web of links to sanctity, retrieving what is hallowed and hallowing.

Twenty years later, Jerome was to write another letter, his Epistola CVIII/108, praising Paula, and in it recapitulating the description of the pilgrimage that she had made. We learn much about Paula in Jerome's voluminous writings. He tells of her luxurious Roman life, her wealth, and her very great status. She, who had once always dressed in silks, and who had been used to being carried about Rome by her eunuch slaves so that her feet might never touch the ground, who was descended from Agamemnon, and whose husband was descended from Aeneas, had joined Marcella's group of high-born, wealthy Roman ladies, who together attempted to follow a life of monastic severity. Jerome became their teacher, expounding the Scriptures to them. But he quarrelled with Church officials in Rome most bitterly and found it expedient to return to Bethlehem. Paula and her daughter, Eustochium, joined him there, Paula leaving behind the rest of her children weeping on the quay. In the Holy Land Paula studied Hebrew so that she might sing the psalms, the chief early Christian devotional practice, in their original language and assist him in his translation work. She lived for twenty years in Bethlehem, dying there in A.D. 404. Paula and Eustochium's letter to Marcella pleads with their old friend that she leave Rome, called in the letter a 'Babylon,' and come to Jerusalem and its Holy Places. A noted Jerome scholar remarks that this letter is 'written in the name of Paula and her daughter but manifestly by Jerome himself, to Marcella,' then goes on to say, 'It is an idyllic piece, relating spiritual serenity and contentment . . . and stands in striking contrast to the querulous, vituperative note' of Jerome's typical writings. We find other male scholars making the same statements of Heloise's letters, that they are Abelard's, yet that they are in a totally different style than his.

The letter in question is Epistola XLVI. It describes Paula's pilgrimages to all these Holy Places in such a way as to have Marcella participate in their sacred journeying, mentally, and vicariously, in her imagination. Paula and Eustochium begin their letter by stating that, although the Crucifixion may have made Jerusalem an accursed place, there is ample scriptural justification for Christians to return to that holy city. Paula relies not only on the Scriptures and upon her growing knowledge of Hebrew but also upon Cicero for her arguments, describing both St. Paul speaking of his need to return to Jerusalem and Cicero speaking of his need to learn one's Greek not only in Sicily but in Athens, one's Latin not in Lilybaeum but in Rome. She adds, in a capstone to her argument, that Jerusalem is 'our Athens.' She then quotes Virgil's First Eclogue on the great distance of the British Isles from Rome in noting that Christian Gauls and Britons all make haste to come, not to Rome, but to far Jerusalem. Jerome is also fond of this phrase, but states it the opposite way: ' Et de Hierosolymis et de Britannia aequaliter patet aula coelestis: regnum enim dei intra nos est,' Epistola LVIII. Chaucer may have had it in mind with his Wife of Bath, who so often speaks of Jerome. Jerome writes the letter in 404 after Paula's death, giving Paula's vita to her virgin daughter, Eustochium. In contrast to Paula's letter to Marcella, Jerome's account of the pilgrimage Paula made is almost barren of references to classical authors. He does, however, mention the ' fables of the poets', de fabulis Poetarum , in giving the tale of Andromeda chained to a rock, as happening at Joppa, which he notes was also the harbor of the fugitive Jonah. He had earlier cited some lines of the Aeneid concerning the Greek Isles. But, unlike Paula, he does not show off his classical learning. He is here being more Christian than Ciceronian. (We recall his dream in which he is chided, or chides himself, by being told, 'Thou art not a Christian. Thou art a Ciceronian.'  But it is full of descriptions of her great piety and of her deep emotional participation in the past drama of the present places which she visits. He feminizes her. He is writing in her praise as had Valerius in that of Egeria. The letter waxes most sentimental about her parting from her family members, describing her as torn between the love of her children and her love for God.

Jerome in Epistola CVIII/108 notes Paula's deep, affective piety at the Cross and the Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and at the cave and church in Bethlehem, which she had not particularly stressed herself. He amplifies her previous words to Marcella and speaks of her as prostrating herself before the Cross, almost seeing upon it the hanging body of the Lord, as she prays, and as kissing the stones, the one which the angel had rolled away and the one in the Holy Sepulchre on which the Lord had lain. Then he describes her entering into the cave of the Nativity, weeping and as if seeing the Virgin wrapping the Child in swaddling clothes and placing him in the manger between the ox and the ass written of in the Prophets, the Magi adoring him, the star shining above, the Mother nursing the Child, the shepherds coming by night and seeing the Word which was made flesh as John wrote in the beginning of his Gospel:

n principio erat verbum et verbum caro factum est.'

One should note that Jerome, Paula and Eustochium lived in the adjacent cave, which one can still see today, reached by a passage from that of the Nativity, beneath the sanctuary in the Empress Helena's Bethlehem basilica.

Jerome's account in Epistola CVIII/108 ends by saying, and unconsciously echoing Valerius concerning Egeria:

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Her zeal was wonderful - her courage scarcely credible for a woman. Forgetful of her sex and the weakness of her frame, she desired to dwell with her maidens among so many thousands of monks' in the Egyptian Thebaid, but returned to Jerusalem.

rsenius, born in 354 into Roman Senatorial rank, was selected as imperial tutor to Theodosius' sons, Arcadius and Honorius, arriving in Constantinople in 383, teaching there for eleven years. Agonizing amidst the splendour of the court one day he heard a voice saying, 'Arsenius, flee the company of men, and thou shalt live'. So he left, going to Alexandria and into the desert of Nitria.There he counselled the staying in one's cell for prayer, work and sustenance. It is said of him that at sunset on the Sabbath he would raise his hands in prayer, until the dawn light of Sunday shone upon his face. One brother looked through the window to see Arsenius standing in his cell in prayer, his whole body afire. It is said that because at court he had worn the finest, softest clothes, as a hermit he wore the meanest garb, and that he hid behind a pillar in church so that his white hair and beard not be seen. Similarly he let the water in which he soaked the rushes for basket become rank to compensate for the perfumes to which he had been accustomed. Arsenius would say, 'The monk is a stranger in a foreign land: let him not occupy himself with anything there and he will find rest'. He also said, 'If we seek God he will be revealed to us; if we laid hold on him he will remain with us'. On an occasion a brother said to Abba Arsenius, 'How is it that you who have much learning, both Greek and Latin, ask questions about the thoughts of humble Egyptian villagers'. Arsenius replied, 'With Greek and Latin learning I am acquainted, but I have not yet learned the alphabet of these villagers'. The Sayings of the Holy Fathers gives, 'It is right for a monk to live even as Abba Arsenius lived. Take care each day to stand before God without sin, and draw nigh unto him with tears as did the sinful woman, and pray to God as if he were before you, for he is near and looks carefully upon you'. Once a lawyer came to tell Arsenius he had been left a large sum of money in a will. Arsenius replied, 'I died before he did'. Abba Anthony told his disciples of Abba Arsenius and Abba Moses, that when a monk went to Abba Arsenius concerning the silent life of contemplation, he neither set a table for him nor gave him refreshment. Then he went to the blessed Abba Moses and he both welcomed him and gave him refreshment. Next in a vision he saw Abba Arsenius in a ship with the Spirit of God who was travelling with him. He also saw Abba Moses in a ship filled with angels. Thus it was understood that the life of silent contemplation was exalted above alms and ministrations as was the conduct of Matthew the Evangelist above that of Zacchaus the tax-gatherer. Often cited by our writers in this volume, in the Amherst manuscript, and in the writings of Dame Gertrude More, is his saying, 'That I have spoken I have many times repented, that I held my peace, I have never repented'.

His book was treasured up for centuries, only falling out of favour at the Age of Reason. King Alfred translated it into Old English, Jean de Meun translated it into French, Chaucer translated it into Middle English. Queen Elizabeth I translated it into Elizabethan English. Dante, Chaucer and Julian of Norwich all used its concepts and were all deeply influenced by it. Boethius' Consolation is a key to understanding medieval poetry and Christian theology. It is also a 'golden book' as Edward Gibbon called it, that can be of use to disordered souls in our own moment in time.

The work is written in sections, divided between Prose and Poetry. Medieval manuscripts of the text are richly illuminated, presenting Boethius in prison, mourning on his bed, and visited by the Lady Philosophia, and from her Dante derived his consoling figure of Beatrice.

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Book II, Prose 7 Boethius: You know that ambition for material things has not mastered me; but I have desired the opportunity for public service so that my virtue should not grow old and weak through lack of use. Philosophia: But think how trivial and empty such glory is. You know from astrological computation that the whole circumference of the earth is no more than a pinpoint when contrasted to the space of the heavens; in fact, if the two are compared, the earth may be considered to have no size at all. . . But, if the soul, in full awareness of its virtue, is freed from this earthly prison and goes to heaven, does it not disregard all earthly concerns and, in the enjoyment of heaven, find its satisfaction in being separated from earthly things?

Book II, Poem 8 Philosophia: Love rules the earth and the seas, and commands the heavens.

Book III, Prose 1 Philosophia: I am about to lead you to true happiness, to the goal your mind has dreamed of. But your vision has been so clouded by false images you have not been able to reach it.

Poem 1 Philosophia: Just so, by first recognizing false goods, you begin to escape the burden of their influence; then afterwards true goods may gain possession of your spirit.

Poem 3 Philosophia: The only stable order in things is that which connects the beginning to the end and keeps itself on a steady course.

Poem 9 Philosophia: You [God] who are most beautiful produce the beautiful world from your divine mind and, forming it in your image, You order the perfect parts into a perfect whole.

Prose 12 Philosophia: Then it is the supreme good which rules all things firmly and disposes all sweetly (Wisdom 8.1). Boethius: I am delighted not only by your powerful argument and its conclusion, but even more by the words you have used. And I am at last ashamed of the folly that so profoundly depressed me. Philosophia: Then can God do evil? Boethius: No, of course not.  Philosophia: Then evil is nothing, since God, who can do all things, cannot do evil. Boethius: You are playing with me by weaving a labyrinthine argument from which I cannot escape. You seem to begin where you ended and to end where you began. Are you perhaps making a marvelous circle of the divine simplicity? Philosophia: As Parmenides puts it, the divine essence, is 'in body like a sphere, perfectly rounded on all sides'.

Book IV, Prose 6 Philosophia: Consider the example of a number of spheres in orbit around the same central point: the innermost moves toward the simplicity of the center and becomes a kind of hinge about which the outer spheres circle; whereas the outermost, whirling in a wider orbit, tends to increase its orbit in space the farther it moves from the indivisible midpoint of the center. If, however it is connected to the center, it is confined by the simplicity of the center and no longer tends to stray into space. In like manner whatever strays farthest from the divine mind is most entangled in the nets of Fate; conversely, the freer a thing is from Fate, the nearer it approaches the center of all things. Therefore, the changing course of Fate is to the simple stability of Providence as time is to eternity, as a circle to its center.

Book V, Prose 6 Philosophia: Eternity is the whole, perfect, and simultaneous possession of endless life. The meaning of this can be made clearer by comparison with temporal things, For whatever lives in time lives in the present, proceeding from past to future, and nothing is so constituted in time that it can embrace the whole span of its life at once. It has not arrived at tomorrow, and it has already lost yesterday; even the life of this day is lived only in each moving, passing moment. But God sees as present those future things which result from free will. If you will face it, the necessity of virtuous action imposed upon you is very great, since all your actions are done in the sight of a Judge who sees all things.

Pseudo-Dionysius (†VI century)

hristianity, for centuries, believed that a late fifth-century, early sixth-century theologian was, as he pretended to be, that Dionysius the Areopagite whom Paul converted, along with the woman Damaris, at Athens (Acts 17.22-34). The Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius wrote magnificent treatises, Julian of Norwich quoting from him three times in her Showing of Love. His manuscripts had been given by the Emperor Michael the Stammerer in A.D. 827 to King Louis the Pious. John Scotus translated them in 862, Anastasius, the papal librarian, commenting on the text in 875. Abbot Suger of St Denis (Saint Dionysius) commenced Gothic architecture through using Dionysius' theology in stone, lead and glass.

Gothic Architecture, Norwich Cathedral

But Abelard, while a monk at St Denis, denounced Dionysius's identity as fraudulent. Meanwhile, the Victorines also discovered and used the Dionysian corpus of writings. Cardinal Adam Easton, the brilliant Benedictine of Julian's Norwich, owned the complete works of Pseudo-Dionysius, in a fine thirteenth-century manuscript giving some of the Greek text as well as all the Latin translation, the invocation to the Trinity being most beautifully illuminated with a gold-leafed, intertwined 'T' at folio 108v. That manuscript is today, Cambridge Ii.III.32. Meanwhile, the Cloud of Unknowing Author (but whom I suspect to have been Adam Easton writing to Julian), translated the Mystic Theology into Middle English as Deonise Hid Diuinite for a woman contemplative. To do so he converted the Trinity into an invocation to divine and feminine Wisdom.

Thou vnbigonne & euerlastyng Wysdome, the whiche in thiself arte the souereyn-substancyal Firstheed, the souereyn Goddesse, & the souereyn Good, the inliche beholder of the godliche maad wisdome of Cristen men: I beseche the for to drawe us up in an acordyng abilnes to the souereyn-vnknowen and the souereyn-schinyng height of the derke inspirid spekynges, where alle the pryue thinges of deuinytee ben kouerid and hid vnder the souereyn-schinyng derknes of wisest silence, makyng the souereyn-clerest souereynly for to schine priuely in the derkyst; and the whiche is in a maner that is alweys inuisible & vngropable souereynli fulfillyng with ful fayre cleertees alle thoo soules that ben not hauyng eyghen of mynde.

Benedict (†547), Scholastica (†before 547) and Gregory (†604)

regory the Great (c. 540-604) wrote an account of the Life and Miracles of St Benedict (c.480-547), casting these in the form of Dialogues between himself and Peter, a fellow monk. In these Dialogues there is a most moving account of Benedict and of his twin sister Scholastica and how she is able to force her brother to break his Rule and stay over night at her convent at Subiaco so that they may converse all night upon God. She prays to God for a storm which he grants. Three days later she dies.

That account is followed by one of Benedict's vision of God as greater than all his Creation. He is standing in prayer at a window of a great tower, apart from his sleeping disciples, when suddenly there is a great light, greater than that of the sun. As he marvels he suddenly sees as it were the whole world collected into one ray of light before his eyes.

Gregory and Peter discuss that vision, Gregory explaining that to the soul who sees the Creator all Creation becomes small, 'animae uidenti creatorem angusta est omnis creatorem'. He goes on to explain that it is not that the world contracts, but that the soul, seeing God, expands above the world, becoming greater than itself. 'Quod autem collectus mundus ante eius oculos dicitur, non caelum et terra contracta est, sed uidentis animus dilatatus, qui, in deo raptus, uidere sine difficultate potuit omne quod infra deum est'. And he further discourses upon the interior light and that of the eyes in this vision. The male abbot has experienced Mary's Magnificat in his prayers. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord'. Smallness become largeness; darkness, light; humility, power.

Gregory's Dialogues was, of course, a staple in Benedictine circles. The lovely dialogue, within the Dialogues, following upon this one of Benedict's vision of God, was of the twin brother and sister, and which is sung antiphonally on the feast day of Benedict and Scholastica by Benedictines, celebrating the breaking of their sacred Rule. And that served to make Benedict's following vision concerning prayer the more memorable.

Christina of Markyate refers to Benedict's vision, where she sees in a flash of light the whole world.

And Julian of Norwich refers to it - and especially in connection with the Virgin at the Annunciation and Nativity,

and with the hazelnut passage,

and then again and again fugally throughout her text.

For Julian, whose anchorhold at St Julian's Church is under the Benedictines of Carrow Priory, who are in turn under the Benedictines of Norwich Cathedral Priory, is seeped in Benedictinism. It is possible that her Benedictinism is taught her by the brilliant Norwich Benedictine Adam Easton. It is even possible that Adam Easton might be her brother, might even be her twin.

Lioba (†781)

Her life tells, among others, this story: 'She had a dream in which one night she saw a purple thread issuing from her mouth. It seemed to her that when she took hold of it with her hand and tried to draw it out there was no end to it. . . When her hand was full of thread and it still issued from her mouth she rolled it round and round and made a ball of it .' An old and prophetic nun was asked about the meaning of the dream and explained that it referred to Lioba's wise counsels spoken from her heart. 'Furthermore, the ball which she made by rolling it round and round signifies the mystery of the divine teaching, which is set in motion by the words and deeds of those who give instruction and which turns earthwards through active works and heavenwards through contemplation, at one time swinging downwards through compassion for one's neighbour, again swinging upwards through the love of God.'

The image of the ball of purple thread in Lioba's hand is similar to Julian's hazel nut in the palm of her hand.
 

Hildegard of Bingen (†1179)

From the Lucca Manuscript

      Hildegard, Ordo Virtutum

In real life there was such a prodigal daughter, Richardis von Stade, the much loved fellow nun who had colluded with and nursed Hildegard in her illness of not only the customary migraines but even bouts of blindness and paralysis at the time when she sought to leave Disibodenberg in order to found Rupertsberg. Richardis had encouraged Hildegard in her writing of Scivias, begun in 1141. Perhaps she recognized that this was psychotherapy for her abbess. The partly completed text of Scivias, Bernard's interest in it, and Richardis' family influence enabled Pope Eugenius III to grant papal recognition to Hildegard at the Synod of Trier and also made possible the move to Rupertsberg. At this time the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had a secret interview concerning prophecy with Hildegard, the Sibyl of the Rhine, at his royal palace at Ingelheim. It is very likely that these clustered actions took place through the influence of Richardis von Stade and her powerful family in their attempt to save Hildegard's life.

Then Adelheid was elected abbess of Gandesheim in 1152, Richardis having been elected abbes of Bassum in 1151. Hildegard had bitterly opposed Richardis' election which would take her way from her, and she ungratefully took the case to her family and to the pope. Adelheid's election was not so disturbing to her. The Archbishop of Bremen, Richardis' brother, have been forced to write to Hildegard to break the news to her of Richardis' sudden death on 29 October 1151. He told her that his sister when dying had stated her intention of returning to Hildegard and Rupertsberg. Hildegard, answering his letter, described Richardis in words that echo and mirror those of the Ordo Virtutum and its surrounding text in the Scivias; there are also echoes of another letter written to a woman who had abandoned being a nun and to whom Hildegard had referred as a prodigal son. In all these writings Hildegard stressing her outrage at women's disobedience, used the Benedictine emphasis upon Ordo, even to the extent of paraphrasing Benedict's Rule, while describing the serpent, the devil, in Virgilian terms borrowed from the Aeneid, Book II, to give vent to her personal emotions.

Perhaps within that rage is Hildegard's envy of Richardis' freedom. Her headaches and invalidism could indicate suppressed fury. She herself tended to recover from serious illness through being disobedient. She had been presented to Disibodenberg as a child of eight, and took her vows of perpetul virginity and obedience very early in life. Obedience, Ordo, is central to her life and art. Yet her writings are full of sexual curiosity and lore, this material granting her writings some of their most powerful images. Yet she disobeyed Disibodenberg in founding St Rupertsberg. Yet she herself would defy St Paul against women preaching, and she would herself preach at Trier - like Mary Magdalen's legendary preaching in Provence. Mary Magdalen being perceived in monasticism as having been the first contemplative, the model for monastic life - though Hildegard oddly compared her love for Richardis to that of Paul for Timothy. Yet she would even, in 1178, when she was eighty, defy the Church concerning the burial of a young nobleman and would face six months of excommunication. Yet her music disobeys, to its glory, the acceptable and expected intervals of Gregorian chant. Not for nothing did Goethe, who knew her work, echo her love of viriditas with his Faustian 'Grey, dear Friend, is all theory,/ And green is life's golden tree'.

In the play, but only in play, not in reality, the Anima/ Richardis returns to Queen Humility/ Abbess Hildegard, the ugly shouted words of the Devil giving way to the chanted symphony of the Virtues and the returned Soul - an alternative and comedic ending to the tragic story. The scenes of the Soul and of the chained Devil are splendidly illuminated in the now lost Scivias codex. It could well be that had it not been for Richardis' disobedience, first to the concept of women's helplessness, then to the concept of her dependency upon another, and finally Richardis' choice of death as freedom from Hildegard's tyranny, the writings, the music and the illuminations we so treasure today could not have come into being. They are like the pearl of great price: they inscribe, chant and illumine the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us now conclude with Hedwig's vision of Hildegard walking in the cloister which she had built, singing her own sequence O virga ac diadema.

Mechtild of Hackeborn (†1298)

ngela of Foligno, a Franciscan tertiary, who did not really choose to live in a physical cloister or a physical cell, spoke of the fruits of contemplation as being where one's soul becomes a room, a cell, in which one finds the All Good, finds the entire Creation. This account, written down at her dictation by Fra Arnaldo, her confessor and spiritual director, often clandestinely, gives: 'anima mea est una camera . . . est ibi . . . omne bonum'.

/Et quamvis ego possim recipere tristitias et laetitias exterius aliqualiter et parum, tamen intus in anima mea est una camera in qua non ingreditur aliqua laetitia nec tristitia nec delectatio alicuius omnino virtutis nec delectatio alicuius rei quae nominari possit, sed est ibi illud omne bonum quod non est aliud bonum, vel illud ita omne bonum quod non est aliud bonum. Et in illo manifestare Dei, quamvis ego blasphemem dicendo et male dicendo illud quia non possum illud loqui, dico tamen quod in illo manifestare Dei est tota veritas; et in illo manifestare Dei intelligo habeo totam veritatem quae est in caelo et in inferno et in toto mundo et in omni loco et in omni re, et totum delectamentum quod est in caelo et in omni creatura, cum tanta veritate et certitudine, quod nullo modo possem credere aliud toti mundo. Sed si totus mundus diceret aliud, ego facerem inde truffas. Et video illum qui est esse et quomodo est esse omnium creatorum. Et video quomodo me fecit capacem ad intelligendum praedicta modo melius quam fueram hactenus, quando videbam eum in illa tenebra quae me tantum consuevit delectare. Et video me solam cum Deo, totam mundam, totam sanctificatam, totam veram, totam recta, totam certificatam et totam caelestem in eo. Et quando sum in isto, non recordor alterius rei.

Et aliquando dum eram in praedictis dixit mihi Deus: Filia divinae sapientiae, templum Dilecti, delectum Dilecti. Et: Filia pacis, in te pausat tota Trinitas, tota veritas, ita quod tu tenes me et ego teneo te. Et una operationum animae est, quod intelligo cum magna capacitate et cum magno delectamento quomodo Deus venit in Sacramento altaris cum illa societate (IX: p. 215)/.

/Et in praedicto die habui tam nobilem elevationem et tam claram intelligentiam quomodo Christus venit in Sacramento altaris, quod nunquam nec prius nec postea fuit mihi tam clare demonstratum. Et fuit mihi demonstratum quomodo Christus veniebat cum illa societate. Et poteram delectari in Christo et in illa societate, quod non est mihi consuetum quod possim delectari nisi in Christo, unde mirata fui quomodo poteram delectari in eo et in societate. Et aliter intelligebam eum, et aliter intelligebam societatem illam, et delectabar in eo et in societate. Et fuit mihi dictum quod illa societas erat throni. Et ego non intelligebam quid esset dicere "throni". Et erat illa societas una sclera vel una acies tantae multitudinis, quod, nisi esset quod ego intelligo quod Deus facit omnia cum mensura, crederem quod illa societas esset numerus sine mensura, id est innumerabilis. Et fuit ibi locutio divina dicens: Animae sunt in quas venio, et transeo. Et dixit quod non erat anima in magno numero civitatum, in qua pausem sicut pauso in anima tua. Et dixit numerum civitatum, sed non recordor eius.

Et ego frater scriptor quaesivi ab ea si illa acies, postquam acies erat, si habebat aliquid mensurae in longitudine aliqua vel in latitudine aliquo modo. Et ipsa respondit quod non habebat aliquam mensuram in longitudine vel latitudine, sed erat ineffabiliter. (IX: p. 211)./

/Sed postquam anima perfecte unitur Deo et ponitur in sede veritatis, quae veritas est sedes animae, non clamat nec conqueritur de Deo nec tenerescit nec infirmatur, immo cognoscit se indignam omni bono et omni dono Dei et dignam maiori inferno quam sit ille qui factus est. Et ponitur in ea una sapientia et una maturitas, et fit stabilis et ordinata et adeo fortificata quod iret ad mortem; et habet Deum in plenitudine quantum capere potest, et Deus etiam ipsam crescere facit ut fiat capax eius quod vult ponere in ea; et videt illum qui est, et videt quod omnia nihil sunt nisi in quantum habent esse ab illo qui est; et habet omnia quae praecesserunt pro nihilo comparative et etiam omnia creata; nec curat de morte nec infirmitate, honore vel vituperio. Et ita pacificatur et quietatur quod nihil appetit et perdit desideria, nec potest operari quia est victa; et ita videt in illo lumine Deum omnia ita debite et ordinate facere, quod etiam de eius absentia non infirmatur; et ita fit conformis voluntati eius quod eum absentem non requirit, sed de omnibus quae facit contentatur et totum ei committit. (Instructions II: p. 223)./

/Non miremini, filii mei carissimi, si non rescripsi vobis ad plures litteras quas mihi misistis, quia taliter sum ligata quod nec vobis nec aliis litteras mittere possum nec dicere verba spiritualia nisi haec communia. Et in toto mundo non delectat me aliquid dicere nisi solum haec duo, scilicet cognoscere Deum et seipsum, hoc est iacere continue in carcere suo et nunquam de suo carcere exire. Et si de suo carcere exit, cum dolore et cum vera contritione conetur redire ad carcerem suum. Credo quod qui nescit iacere et stare in carcere suo, non vadat et non habet bonum quaerere alienum et non rimetur desuper se. (Instruction XIV: p. 267)/

/De cognitione dei et sui ipsius

(Oportet quod homo cognoscat)

Iterum cum quaereretur ab ea quare oportet haberi paupertatem, dolorem et despectum, respondit: Oportet quod homo cognoscat Deum et seipsum.

Cognitio Dei praesupponit cognitionem sui hoc modo, ut videlicet homo consideret et videat quem offendit; postea consideret et videat quis est ipse qui offendit. Ex qua secunda consideratione et visione datur gratia super gratiam, visio super visionem, lumen super lumen.

Ex his incipit devenire ad cognitionem Dei. Et quanto amplius cognoscit, tanto amplius diligit; et quanto amplius diligit, tanto plus desiderat; et quanto plus desiderat, tanto fortius operatur. Et ista operatio est signum et mensura amoris; quia in hoc cognoscitur si amor est purus et verus et rectus, si homo diligit et operatur quod dilexit et operatus est ille quem diligit.

Sed Christus, quem diligit, habuit, dilexit et operatus est illa tria donec vixit; ergo qui eum diligit, debet eadam semper diligere, operari et habere sicut Christus ea habuit, ut habetur supra./

/Recordemini, carissimi, quod Christi primo passibilem vitam apostoli praedicantes, eam post mortem resuscitatam a femina didicerunt. . . . Quia et beatus Hieronymus dicit de Olda prophetissa ad quam concurrebat populus, quia in opprobrium virorum et doctorum legis, qui erant transgressores mandati, est ad femineum sexum prophetia translata. Deo gratias semper. Amen./

Perhaps Franciscan Angela of Foligno helped shaped Dominican Catherine of Siena's and Benedictine Julian of Norwich's concept of a 'Cell of Self-Knowledge'. Certainly the English Benedictine nuns in exile at Cambrai and Paris were copying out her text as well as Julian's. A small manuscript by them, Bibliothèque Mazarine 1202, titled 'Colections', finished 23 July 1724, on pages 21-22, gives:

Blessed Angela of Foligno

n a certain time while I pray'd in my Cell, these words were sayd
unto me interiorly by God.

Marguerite Porete (†1310)

It is not likely that Julian was influenced by Dante except, perhaps, through Cardinal Adam Easton, who quotes from him in his own writings. What is important is that they share the same principles derived from these preceding mystic theologians, participating in a past 'Internet' of God's Wisdom. Common also to many of these mystics, these Friends of God, is the sense of drawing apart, as to Mount Tabor with Christ, only to descend the Mountain again to be with all people in God's image, to be both chosen and universal, to treasure these things in their heart as had Mary, their task to seek Wisdom, amongst women and amongst men, and with her to be part of God's sweet ordering of the cosmos.

All these writers, Augustine, Boethius, Dionysius, Dante and Julian, are influenced by the Hebraic and feminine figure of God's Wisdom, God's Daughter.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work. The first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth  . . . When he established the heavens I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep. When he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, When he assigned to the sea its limits, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, Rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world. Proverbs 8.22-31

 She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other and she orders all things well. Wisdom of Solomon 8.1

Einsiedeln, Cod. 710 (322), fol. 89, Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel sheltering under cloak of Sapientia

The Horologium Sapientiae ('Clock of Wisdom', the 'Computer of Wisdom'), was written in 1339. Henry Suso died at Ulm, 1366. Immensely popular throughout Europe this work was translated into other languages.

Henry Suso's Horologium Sapientiae, in British Library, Add. 37,790, fols. 135v-136v, presents part of Chapter Four's dialogue between Wisdom and the Disciple. British Library, Add. 37,790, the Amherst Manuscript, also contains Julian of Norwich's Showing of Love, Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, Jan van Ruusbroec's Sparkling Stone, and works by Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Birgitta of Sweden. It may have been copied out by Richard Misyn himself for the recluse Margaret Heslyngton, and these earlier layers of the manuscript could have even been written as early as circa 1413, and represent Julian's own contemplative library. One may be reading what she once read.

Both Henry Suso and Richard Rolle stress Jesus ' name, Suso inscribing it upon his own flesh over his heart with his writing stylus, Rolle wearing it as an embroidered badge upon his hermit's garb, Charles de Foucauld as a hermit using a similar practice in our own century. Women were more likely to centre such a concept upon the heart of Jesus, as did Mecthild of Hackeborn, whose Book of Ghostly Grace in British Library, Egerton 2006, is copied out by the same scribe as that of this Amherst Manuscript, and as did Julian of Norwich herself.

There is a Carol sung each Christmas in Germany, said in its legend to have been sung by the Angels when they danced with Henry Suso.

The concluding reference in this text to the Desert Father Arsenius is also to be found in the booklet 'Colections', seized at the French Revolution. Manuscripts of this text by Henry Suso are sometimes illuminated with Henry Suso, who was Swiss, and his translator together gazing upon the medieval form of a computer, an elaborate Swiss clock, presented to us by the figure of God as female Wisdom. The rubrication here follows that in the Amherst Manuscript.

A Brief Formula for the Spiritual Life:

N the fellowship of saints which as the morning stars
shone in the dark night of this world and as the sun and moon
shed forth the beams of their clear knowledge you shall find some who
surpassingly were perfectly grounded not only in active life and virtue but
also in contemplation, of whose teaching and example you may take
the most perfect doctrine and love of true spiritual life. And nevertheless I
willingly and condescendingly to your youth and inexperience shall give you
some principles of spiritual living for a memory to have always
at hand to set you in the right working if you desire
to have the perfection of spiritual life that is to be desired by all men
and if you will and desire to take it up manfully you shall first
withdraw from ill fellowship and harmful company of all men who would
hinder you from your good purpose, seeking always opportunity when and what
time you may retire and there take privy silence for contemplation
and flee from the perils and turbulance of this harmful world. Always it
belongs to you first to study to have cleanness of heart, that is to say
that you keep your sensory perceptions turned into yourself and there you have as much as is
possible the doors of your heart busily closed from the

[Fol. 136]

forms of outward things and images of earthly things. Truly
among all other spiritual exercises cleanness of heart has the sovereignty,
as a final intent and reward of all the travails that a chosen knight of Christ is to receive.
Also you must lessen your affections from all your business about all the things that might
hinder your freedom from such a thing that in any manner has might and power to bind and
draw down your affection to it. As it is written in Moses' Law, 'Remain living in your own
dwelling and do not go out your door on the day of the Sabbath. Every man shall live by himself and
no man go out through the door of his house upon the Sabbath day'. This is as much as to say
that for a man to dwell with himself is to gather all the various
thoughts and affections of his heart and have them knit together into
one true and sovereign good, that is God. And to keep the Sabbath is
to have your heart free and unburdened from all fleshly affections that might
defoul the soul and from all worldly cares and business that might distress
it and so rest sweetly in peace of heart as in the haven of silence and
the love and feeling of his Creator God. Above all other things, let
this be your principal intent and business, that you always have your soul
and your mind lifted up to contemplation of heavenly things, so that
frail earthly things be left, to be continually drawn up to
the things that are above and what thing so ever it be that is different
from this, though it seem great in itself as chastising of the body, fasting,
vigils, and such like exercises of virtue, they shall be taken
and considered as secondary and less worthy and only so much expedient
and profitable as they profit and help to cleanness of heart. And there
fore it is that so few go on to perfection for they waste their time and their
strength in mean things that are not greatly profitable and the due
remedies they leave and discard. But if you desire to know the
right way to fulfil your intent you shall sovereignly desire
to continual cleanness of heart and rest of spirit and tranquillity and
to have your heart lastingly lifted up to God.
Disciple: Who is he who in this mortal body may always be knit to
that spiritual contemplation?

Wisdom: There may be no deadly manner always fasten and
set into this contemplation but from this cause, as said earlier,
that you may know. Where you shall fasten and solemnly set the
intention of the spirit and to what mark you shall always draw
the beholding of your soul when at that time the mind may
get them he will be glad and when he is distracted and drawn
away then he is sorry and sighs often as he feels himself
separated from that beholding. But if by chance you will ever turn against
me and say that you may not long abide and dwell in one's man's state
you shall know and understand that the power of God may do
and work more than any man may think. Therefore it falls
often that that thing that a man binds him to at the beginning
with a manner of violence and difficulty, afterwards he shall

[Fol. 136v]

P. Odo Lang O.S.B., Librarian, Einsiedeln Abbey, which owns major Suso manuscript, Cod. 710 (322), also major Mechtild von Magdebourg manuscript

      here may no man entere the sayde exercyse be cunnynge
        ffor contemplatyfe lyfe may nought be taught oone be anothere
        bot where as god whiche es verrey trowthe manyfestys hym
        selfe in spirit. ther all necessaries moste plentevously are lerned
        and that is that the spirit says in the Apochalips vincenti
        says he schalle gyffe hym a litil white stone and in it a newe
        name the whiche no man knowes but who that takys it. This
        litel stone promysed to a victorious man it is called. Calcalus.
        for the litelnes ther of. ffor yyf alle a man trede it with his fete
        yit he is not hurte th er with. This stone it is red with a schyny
        nge witness to the lykenesse of a flawme of fyre. litylle and
        rownde and be the serkle ther of it is playne and smothe. Be this
        litel stone we vndyrstande oure lorde ihesu cryste. whyche by
        his dyuynyte is the whitnesse of euer lastande lyght and the
        schynere of the ioye of god. Also the myrroure withoute spotte
        in the whiche alle thynge hase lyfe. Whosumeuere therefore

    [A118]

owrecommys and ascendys aboue hym selfe and alle othere thyn
gys that maye be consayved be bodely exercyse to hym his gyffyn
this litelle white stone, and in it he takis clereness and lyfe
This litel whyte stone is symulate to a flawme of fyre for
burnynge loue of the euer lastynge worde hase sacyate alle the
worlde with charite and with alle lovynge spiritys in loue
burne to nought And also this Calcalus is so lytle astone
that whate tyme it is trodunn apon vnnethes it is feled. And
therfore it is called Calcalus. As who say trodunn apon
with the heyle. the whiche the Apostele exspoundys where
he says that the sonne of god sette hym selfe atte nought A=
nd also he was obedyente to the deth vnto the whiche
Acordes the wordes of oure lorde sayde by his prophet. Isays
oure lorde am aworme and no man. reproued of men and ab=
iecte of peple. Wherefore the same tyme that the iewes tre=
tyd hym downe. he made hym selfe so lytell. that is to saye. so
meke. that vnnethes they myght fele hym. ffor yif they hadde
knawynge hym for the sonne of god they durste of no wyse
hafe crucyfyed hym. Neuerthelesse yit he is botte litle in ther hertes
that loues hym nought and therfore thay sette hym atte nought
Also this litel stone the whiche I spake of. it is rounde and be
the circumference playne. The rowndenesse thereof teches the de=
uyne trowthe nowthere to hafe begynnynge ne endynge And
the playnesse ther of informes vs that is to delyuer vs and to re
warde euere man aftyr he hase atheled whiche rewarde be it
goode or euylle abydes be the havere ther of with owtyn ende
The laste proprite that this Calculus hase is that it is smothe
And so the euer lastynge worde of the ffadere hase no burdene
And yit by the vertewe ther of it beres bothe hevynn and erthe
And also it is nere euer ethynge. And yit nithynge may cumme
tille it. ffor it excedes abofe and gase before alle creatures. And
therfore to none botte to whome he wille and where he wille

He shewys hym selfe. So than that in his smothenesse the
humanyte ascendys aboue alle hevenesse there abidynge cro=
wned on the ffadere ryght hande, Considere nowe wele thann
that this is the litle white stone whiche is gyffen to a contem =
platyue mann in the whiche is gyffenn written anewe name
that noman knawes bot who that takys it And therfore it is
to knowe that euer e spyrrit is named in his reuertynge vnto
god. And that specyally be the nobilite of his seruys, And also
be the hete of his loue. the whyche name is the fyrst name
of innocentry gyffyn vs at oure baptyme whiche newe
haue loste thorowe oure synne and wrechidnesse. And yit be
the merites of oure loue and infynyte grace of god. we
are merked and putte in knawelynge ther with agayne And therfore
yif we wille obey to alle myghtty god in thre principalle
thynges, whiche he wille wirke in vs. yit we schalle be
baptysed agayne thorowe the holigoste. And we schalle
resayfe a newe name whiche schalle abyde with vs euer

Bishop Hemming and St Birgitta, Diptych, Finland

Latin

This is what she wrote in a vision about and to King Magnus. In it she sees a lectern and a book. 'For the appearance of the lectern was as if it had been a sunbeam [of red, gold, white]. . . . And when I looked upwards, I might not comprehend the length and breadth of the lectern; and looking downward, I might not see nor comprehend the greatness nor the deepness of it . . . After this I see a Book on the same lectern, shining like most bright gold. Which Book, and its Scripture, was not written with ink, but each word in the book was alive and spoke itself, as if a man should say, do this or that, and soon it was done with speaking of the Word. No man read the Scripture of that Book, but whatever that Scripture contained, all was seen on the lectern. Before this lectern I see a king . . . The said king sat crowned as if it had been a vessel of glass closed about . . .'

She continues to describe how the king's glass globe is protected by an angel but threatened by a demon . . . 'This living king appears to you as if in as it were a vessel of glass, for his life is but as it were frail glass and suddenly to be ended'. She continues by speaking of how this king knowingly sins but that if he repents he can be saved by the angel from the fiend. Beside him is a dead king above whom is writing describing his lust, his pride, his avarice. . . but the writing is blankly gone from the part that should have proclaimed his love of God.

'Then the Word speaks from the lectern, saying "[What you see is the Godhead's self. That you cannot understand the length, breadth, depth and height of the lectern means that in God is not found either beginning or end. For God is and was without beginning, and shall be without end "]. Also the Word spoke to me and said "[The Book that you see on the lectern means that in the Godhead is endless justice and wisdom, to which nothing may be added or lessened. And this is the Book of Life, that is not written as the world's writing, that is and was not, but the scripture of this Book is forever. For in the Godhead is endless being and understanding of all things, present, past and to come, without any variation or changing. And nothing is invisible to it, for it sees all things "]. That the Word spoke itself means that God is the endless Word, from whom are all words, and in whom things have life and being. And this same Word spoke then visibly when the Word was made man and was conversant among men'. She adds to the King that she is giving him the Word's words, adding that 'few receive and believe the heavenly words given from God, which is not God's fault, but man's'.

Later, she writes 'I saw an altar and a chalice with wine and water and bread and I saw how in a church of the world a priest began the mass, arrayed in a priest's vestments. And when he had done all that belonged to the Mass, I saw as if the sun and moon and the stars with all the other planets, and all the heavens with their courses and moving spheres, sounded with the sweetest note and with sundry voices.'

St John writing the Apocalypse, Hans Memling, St John's Hospital, Bruges

In another vision, at the end of her life, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, she sees the judgement of her wicked son Charles where her prayers and her tears for Charles cause the devil to have amnesia concerning her son's sins. First the book in which the fiend has written them down suddenly has blank pages instead of writing, then the sack in which he has placed them is empty when turned inside out, then the devil himself forgets them totally from his memory and goes wailing off to Hell, cursing Birgitta.

Much of Birgitta's visionary imagery comes from law courts, for her father was the King of Sweden's law man and her husband was likewise a law man. She both prophesied and wrote following the Black Death of 1348 when Doomsday, Judgment Day, seemed particularly near. She told King Magnus that the Black Death would happen, then left for Italy, Sweden being too dangerous for her. Birgitta set up her household in Rome, living in prayer and constantly receiving visions, having male secretaries assist her, one of them a Spanish Bishop, Alfonso of Jaén. In the last year of her life she journeyed to the Holy Land, preaching on her journey in Naples and Cyprus, prophesying the 1452 Fall of Constantinople. Her massive book of the Revelationes, which is really Julian's title of 'Showings', was copied out in illuminated manuscripts, then in print, and treasured throughout Europe.

At her death in 1373 Alfonso of Jaén, Queen Joanna of Naples, Queen Margaret of Sweden, the Emperor Charles of Bohemia, and Cardinal Adam Easton of England, a Benedictine from Julian's Norwich, all sought Birgitta's canonization as a saint.

ope Gregory XI sent Alfonso of Jaén to Catherine of Siena at Birgitta of Sweden's death. At that point Catherine, who had previously been illiterate, proceeded to write important letters to Popes and Emperors, Kings and Queens and even to the condottiere Sir John Hawkwood, on the need for peace. We do not think of her as part of the Dominican-inspired Friends of God movement across Europe but this act clearly places her in that context. Pope Urban VI wanted her to have Birgitta's daughter, Catherine of Sweden, accompany her to carry out diplomacy on his behalf with Queen Joanna of Naples.

Catherine had been the twenty-fourth child of a Sienese dyer. Everyone had wanted her to marry but she refused, having made a vow of chastity, and instead sought to enter the Dominican Third Order, which only admitted women who were widows. She won. As a Dominican Tertiary she cared for the sick and dying, including criminals condemned to death in Siena. She was surrounded by disciples, one of them an English hermit, William Flete, whose work, The Remedies Against Temptations, Julian quotes and uses in the Showing of Love, another a lawyer Cristofano Di Ganno, who later translated Birgitta's Revelations into exquisite Italian, another a painter, Andrea Vanni, whose delicate portrait of her survives, indeed in the very place of her major visions in San Domenico, Siena.

Andrea Vanni, St Catherine of Siena, San Domenico, Siena

abideth in her inward beholdinge to know herself, to that entent only that sche myght better knowe in herself the goodnes of God.

/¶ Here begynneth the boke of dyuyne doctryne. That is to/ saye of goddes techyng. Gyuen by the person of god the fa/der to the intelleccyoun of the gloryous vyrgyne seynt Kathe-/ryn of Seene/ of the ordre of seynt Domynycke. Which was/ wryte n as she endyted in her moder tongue. Whan she was in co n/templacyon & rapt of spyryte she herynge actualy. And i n the same/ tyme she tolde before many what our lorde god spake in her.



And here foloweth the fyrst/ chapytre of this boke. Which/ is how the soule of this mayde/ was oned to god & how then she/ made .iiii. petycyons to oure/ lorde in that tyme of contem/placyon and of the answere/ of god and of moche other do/ctryne: as it is specyfyed in the/ kalender before. Capt.1.

A soule that is reysed up/ with heuenly and/ ghostly desyers & af-/feccyo ns to the worshyp/ of god & to the helthe/ of mannes soules with a greate . . .

________

The Orcherd of Syon (Westminster: Wynken de Worde, 1519), Catherine of Siena's Dialogo in Middle English, its colophon: 'a ryghte worshypfull and deuoute gentylman mayster Rycharde Sutton esquyer stewarde of the holy monastery of Syon fyndynge this ghostely tresure these dyologes and reuelacions . . . of seynt Katheryne of Sene in a corner by itselfe wyllynge of his greate charyte it sholde come to lyghte that many relygyous and deuoute soules myght be releued and haue comforte therby he hathe caused at his greate coste this booke to be prynted'./

Her confessor and biographer was Raymond of Capua who became head of the Dominican Order. Pope Urban VI leaned heavily upon her for his own survival. Severely anorexic, she died at the age of thirty-three, collapsing under the weight, she said, of the Church.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

The Ruthwell Cross, Scotland
 

The Anglo-Saxon Ruthwell Cross, reflecting Constantine and Oswald's crosses, allows those who see and read it to contemplate in turn each place concerning the life of Christ, Nazareth, the Egyptian Wilderness, the Jordan Wilderness, Galilee, and Jerusalem, culminating with the Crucifixion. It is a map of the Holy Places that pilgrims may read. The runes of the 'Dream of the Rood' inscribed about their edges, their margins, describe the writer, likely Cædmon, dreaming of the Cross speaking to him, narrating of the wood and blood and of the sacred burden it had once borne; then, in Cynewulf's longer version, of its being turned into the sacred reliquary bedecked by the Emperor Constantine with gold and rubies at Constantinople. Jerome, whose works were read at Whitby, had practiced contemplating upon the Crucifix, becoming himself as naked as the naked Christ, in his 'imitatio Christi'. So here does Cædmon, if he is its author, in his contemplation meet with the blood-stained wood of the Roman gallows (Anglo-Saxon 'galgu') erected once to hang Jesus, the Christ, the King of the Jews. So does Cædmon's poem, and its Cynewulfian revision, today have us converse as pilgrim visionaries with the ignoble gallows and imperial reliquary of God.

The poem is shaped in two forms, both used in Anglo-Saxon Riddles. It begins with the dreamer saying 'I saw', then has the inanimate object speak, telling its observers, its poet and its readers, 'I am'. There are such Anglo-Saxon Riddles spoken by 'Book', by 'Cross', etc. In a sense it, too, is the mocking titulus placed above the Cross, 'Jesus, King of the Jews'.

The longer version is given from the manuscript left by an Anglo-Saxon pilgrim in Vercelli, Italy, the rubricated lines being those given in the runes on the Ruthwell Cross.

Anglo-Saxon

ear, while I tell of the best of dreams . which came to me at midnight
when humankind kept their beds.
It seemed that I saw the Tree itself . borne on the air, light wound round it,
brightest of beams, all that beacon was . covered with gold, gems stood
fair at its foot, and five rubies . set in a crux flashed
from the crosstree. Around angels of God . all gazed upon it,
since first fashioning fair . It was not a felon's gallows,
for holy ones beheld it there . and men, and the whole Making shone for it
Trophy of Victory . I, stained and marred,
stricken with shame, saw the glory-tree . shine out gaily, sheathed in
decorous gold; and gemstones made . for their Maker's Tree a right mail-coat
Yet through the masking gold I might perceive .
what terrible sufferings were there
It bled from the right side . Ruth in the heart
Afraid I saw that unstill brightness . change raiment and colour,
again clad in gold or again slicked with sweat . spangled with spilling blood.
I, lying there a long while . beheld, sorrowing, the Healer's Tree
till it seemed that I heard how it broke silence, best of wood, and spoke:
'It was long ago-I still remember . back to the holt where I was hewn down;
From my own stock I was struck away . dragged off by strong enemies
wrought into a roadside scaffold . They made me a hoist from wrongdoers.
The soldiers on their shoulders bore me . until on a hill-top they raised me
many enemies made me fast there . Then I saw, marching toward me,
Mankind's brave King . He came to climb upon me. I dared not break nor bend aside . against God's will, though the ground itself
shook at my feet. Then the young warrior, Almighty God, mounted the Cross, in the sight of many. He would set free mankind.
I shook when his arms embraced me, but I durst not bow to ground,
stoop to Earth's surface . Stand fast I must.
I was reared up, a rood . I held the King, Heaven's lord, I dared not bow . They drove me through with dark nails: on me are the wounds
Wide-mouthed hate dents. I durst not harm any of them.
They mocked us together . I was all wet with blood sprung from the Man's side . after he sent forth his soul. Many wry wierds I underwent . up on that hilltop; saw the Lord of Hosts stretched out stark . Darkness shrouded the King's corpse.
A shade went out wan under cloud pall . All creation wept,
keened the King's death . Christ was on the Cross.
But there quickly came from afar . many to the Prince .
All that I beheld had grown weak with grief . yet with glad will bent then
meek to those men's hands . yielded Almighty God.
They lifted Him down from the leaden pain . left me, the commanders
Standing in blood sweat . I was sorely smitten with sorrow
wounded with shafts . Limb-weary they laid him down.
They stood at his head . They looked on him there .
They set to contrive Him a tomb . within sight of his bane
carved it of bright stone . laid in it the Bringer of Victory
spent from the great struggle . They began to speak the grief song,
sad in the sinking light . then thought to set out homeward;
their most high Prince . they left to rest with scant retinue.
Yet we three, weeping, a good while . stood in that place after the song
had gone up from the captains' throats . Cold grew the corpse, fair soul house.
They felled us all . We crashed to ground, cruel Wierd,
and they delved for us a grave . The Lord's men learnt of it, His friends found me.
It was they who girt me with silver and gold. . .

She tells Roger of her vision of Christ giving her his Cross to hold and Roger speaks amidst the Latin in Old English:

letare mecum, myn sunendaege dohter

That decision is preceded by a vision, one that looks back to Gregory's Dialogues on Benedict and forward to Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena. In the Dialogue following that concerning Scholastica and Benedict in loving discourse upon heavenly matters all night, Benedict is seen one night in prayer, and at the same instant the whole world to shrink as into one beam of light. Here Christina sees the Queen of Heaven and all the angels.

Latin

And falling downwards to the ground, she saw in one flash the whole wide world.

'I wish to have that place to dwell in'.

/Centuries later the actual first Abbess of Syon, founded from St Birgitta's Abbey of Vadstena, would be one Joan North, reclusionem moniales de Markyate, replacing the titular one, Matilda Newton, monialis de Barking, while the titular Confessor General, William Alnwick, Benedictine of St Albans and Recluse of Westminster, is replaced by Thomas Fishbourn, likewise a St Albans' Benedictine, and indeed also one of its Recluses, its Hermits: Margaret Deanesly, The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole, p. 114. The Brigittine manuscripts, including those of Julian of Norwich, were either destroyed or taken into exile, next coming into the hands of the exiled English Benedictines, like the St Albans Psalter at Lambspring. England's Brigittine Syon Abbey from its foundation in the early fifteenth century knew the story of twelfth-century Christina of Markyate, its Abbess's original Mother Foundress. Likewise did the English Congregation of Benedictines in exile on the Continent. At Benedictine Cambrai, which became Stanbrook Abbey, Father Augustine Baker encouraged the Benedictine nuns in their reading and copying such medieval contemplative texts acquired from his former employee, Sir Robert Cotton. Baker's successor, Father Serenus Cressy, Chaplain to the Benedictine daughter house in Paris, now St Mary's Abbey, Colwich, arranged that the Abbot of Lambspring pay for the printing of the editio princeps of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love./

ichard Rolle became a hermit, abandoning his university studies, after first asking his sister to procure for him his father's raincoat and an old dress of hers, for making his habit. She proclaimed he had gone mad. His prolific writings were to be copied out over and over again, his Latin works translated by the Carmelite Misyn, in turn doing this for Margaret Heslyngton. He has a strong presence in the Amherst manuscript. Often William Flete's Remedies against Temptations is falsely attributed to Richard Rolle.

'Thy body, sweet Jesus, is like a book all written with red ink; so is thy body all written with red wounds . . . grant me to read upon thy book, and somewhat to understand the sweetness of that writing and to have liking in studious abiding of that reading'

'More yit, swet Jhesu, thy body is lyke a boke written al with rede ynke; so is thy body al written with rede woundes. Now, swete Jhesu, graunt me to rede upon thy boke, and somwhate to undrestond the swetnes of that writynge, and to have likynge in studious abydynge of that redynge. And yeve me grace to conceyve somwhate of the perles love of Jhesu Crist, and to lerne by that ensample to love God agaynwarde as I shold. And, swete Jhesu, graunt me this study in euche tyde of the day, and let me upon this boke study at my matyns and hours and evynsonge and complyne, and evyre to be my meditacion, my speche, and my dalyaunce.'

here are strong similarities between the contemplations of an Oxford-educated Benedictine, likely named John Whiterig, who had become a hermit on to the Island of Farne, 1363, dying there in 1371, and Julian of Norwich's Showing of Love. When a student at Durham College (for he mentions being saved from drowning in Oxford's Cherwell River), he would have overlapped with Adam Easton, a student at Gloucester College, both colleges established for educating young Benedictines at Oxford. The Durham Benedictines first settled at Wearmouth and Jarrow in memory of St Benet Biscop and St Bede, then were invited in 1083 to Durham where they served at the shrine of St Cuthbert, who had died on Farne in 687. St Godric visited St Cuthbert's cell on Farne before becoming himself a hermit at Finchale (1065-1170). Lindisfarne, at some distance from the island of Farne, also continued as a monastic site until the Reformation, though like Whitby with gaps following Viking arrivals. Durham typically kept two monks on Farne, where they supported themselves by fishing and lived intense lives of prayer.

The Ruins of Lindisfarne

In the following, the Latin text derives from 'The Meditations of the Monk of Farne', ed. David Hugh Farmer, OSB, Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957), 141-245; the English translation from Christ Crucified and Other Meditations, ed. David Hugh Farmer, Trans. Dame Frideswide Sandemen, OSB (Leominster: Gracewing, 1994). The complete paperback book is available: UK, ISBN 0 85244 266 1; USA, ISBN 0 87061 202 6. Dame Frideswide Sandeman well represents the continuing tradition of Julian's association amongst contemplatives, for she is a Benedictine at Stanbrook Abbey, which was founded from Cambrai, where exiled English nuns, including several descendants of St Thomas More , under the guidance of Dom Augustine Baker , OSB, had studied, copied and contemplated upon such texts, including Julian of Norwich's Showing of Love, eventually preparing it for publication in 1670, with Dom Serenus Cressy, OSB, as ostensible editor. Benedictinism is about Eternity, more than time, a contemplative choral dialogue of men and women across centuries. P. Franklin Chambers drew attention to the similarities between the two contemplative writers, John Whiterig and Julian of Norwich, in his Juliana of Norwich: An Introductory Appreciation and an Interpretative Anthology (London: Gollancz, 1955). The manuscript transcribed is Durham B.iv.34, fols. 5v-75, and which is the only extant manuscript with this text.

David Hugh Farmer mentions the self-identification of the Hermit of Farne with St John the Evangelist on the Isle of Patmos, to whom he addresses a 'Meditacio Eiusdem ad Beatum Iohannem Ewangelistam'.

Hans Memling, 'St John Writing Revelation,' St John's Museum, Bruges
Reproduced with permission, Memlingmuseum, Stedelijke Musea, Brugge, Belgium

John Whiterig, while Hermit on Farne, also began to write a poem in praise of St Cuthbert, perhaps dying before it could be finished.

Parallel passages in Julian of Norwich's Showing of Love will be added more completely at a later date, noted here with 'Julian '. My profound thanks to Catherina Lindgren, Sweden, and to Iain Bruce, Oxford, for making these texts available. The passages that follow can be read by both contemplatives and scholars, and perhaps contemplatives and scholars could even change places with each other to the profit of both modes of thought and of being.

AD CRUCIFIXSUM

MEDITACIONES CUIUSDAM MONACHI APUD FARNELAND QUONDAM SOLITARII

tudy then, mortal, to know Christ: to learn your Saviour. His body hanging on the cross, is a book, opened before your eyes. The words of this book are Christ's actions. as well as his suffering and passion, for everything that he did serves for our instruction. His wounds are the letters or characters, the five chief wounds being the five vowels and the others the consonants of your book . . .

However much else you may know, if you do not know this, I count all your learning for naught, because without knowledge of this book, both general and particular, it is impossible for you to be saved. So eat this book which in your mouth and understanding shall be sweet, but which will make your belly bitter, that is to say your memory, because he that increases knowledge increases sorrow too.

May this book never depart from my hands, O Lord, but let the law of the Lord be ever in my mouth, that I may know what is acceptable in thy sight.

isce ergo homo Christum, cognosce Saluatorem tuum, corpus etenim eius pendens in cruce uolumen expansum est coram oculis tuis; uerba uolumina huius sunt actus Christi, dolores et passiones eius. Omnis enim Christi accio nostra est instruccio, litere seu carateres uoluminis huius vulnera eius sunt, quorum quinque plage quinque sunt uocales, cetere uero consonantes libri tui . . .

Quidquid scis, si hoc nescis, nichil reputo quod scis; quia sine sciencia huius libri uniuersali uel particulari inpossibile est te saluari. Comede ergo uolumen hoc, quod dulce erit in ore tuo et intelectu, sed amaricabit uentrem tuum, id est memoriam, quia qui addit scienciam addit et dolorem . . .

Non recedat, Domine, liber uoluminis huius de manibus meis, sed ut lex Domini iugiter sit in ore meo, ut sciam quid acceptum sit in oculis tuis.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 53, fols. 29v-30

__________

'Thy body, sweet Jesus, is like a book all written with red ink; so is thy body all written with red wounds . . . grant me to read upon thy book, and somewhat to understand the sweetness of that writing and to have liking in studious abiding of that reading'

'More yit, swet Jhesu, thy body is lyke a boke written al with rede ynke; so is thy body al written with rede woundes. Now, swete Jhesu, graunt me to rede upon thy boke, and somwhate to undrestond the swetnes of that writynge, and to have likynge in studious abydynge of that redynge. And yeve me grace to conceyve somwhate of the perles love of Jhesu Crist, and to lerne by that ensample to love God agaynwarde as I shold. And, swete Jhesu, graunt me this study in euche tyde of the day, and let me upon this boke study at my matyns and hours and evynsonge and complyne, and evyre to be my meditacion, my speche, and my dalyaunce.'

Richard Rolle, Meditations on the Passion

Vowels are the soul, consonants the bones and flesh of words.

Spinoza on Hebrew

On Jesus shadowed in Isaac:

Thou art Isaac, who didst make laughter for us by offering thyself to God in sacrifice upon a mount called Calvary. Thou art the ram, caught by the horns amidst the briers, and sacrificed in place of the son; for that which thou hadst assumed succumbed to death, but thou who didst assume it couldst not succumb. And yet thou art not two but one; according to thy human nature thou didst die and wast buried, according to thy divinity thou didst remain unhurt. And thus, O good Jesus, thou didst make laughter for us amidst tears and music for us in thine own lament.

Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Manuscript, Bible in Icelandic, Abraham sacrificing Abraham, stopped by angel grabbing his sword, ram caught by horns in thicket. Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik, Iceland.

u es Isaac, qui risum nobis fecisti, quando te ipsum tradidisti sacrificium Deo super unum moncium qui Calvarie dicitur. Tu es ille aries inter uepres herens cornibus, qui pro filio immolatur: quia quod assumpsisti morti succubuit, sed qui assumpsisti morti succumbere non potuisti; et non duo tamen sed unus, qui secundum humanum naturam mortuus es et sepultus, et secundum Diuinam mansisti illesus. Risum igitur, bone Ihesu, nobis in lacrimis suscitasti, et musicam in luctu tuo.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 2, fol. 7

Julian on Christ and laughter

On Jesus shadowed in Jacob

Thou hast beguiled the devil, through whose envy death entered into the world; and this thou didst do so wisely and fittingly, that life rose up from thence whence death had sprung, and he, who by a tree had gained his victory, was likewise by a tree overcome.

. . . delusisti diabolo, cuius inuidia more introiuit in orbem terrarum: et tam prudenter hoc fecisti et conuenienter, ut unde mors oriebatur inde uita resurgeret, et qui in ligno uicerat per lignum quoque uinceretur.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 3, fol. 7

On Jesus shadowed in Joseph

Thou shalt no longer be called Jacob, Lord, but Joseph shall be thy name, which is interpreted 'increase' or 'joining'. Either meaning is more fitting, because thou hast increased thy people exceedingly, and thou wast thyself joined to us, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that that man could in very truth say unto thee: 'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh'.

on vocaberis ultra Domine Iacob, sed Ioseph erit nomen tuum, quod augmentum siue apposicio interpretatur; qui utraque nominis interpretacio optime tibi conuenit, siue quia auxisti populum tuum uehementer, siue quia appositus es nobis quando Verbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis, ita ut dicere ueraciter poterit homo tibi: Hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis, et caro de carne mea.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 3, fol. 7v

Remember us then, O Lord, when it shall be well with thee, for thou art our brother and our flesh; suggest to the Father that he should fill the sacks of thy brethren - fill them, I mean, with that wheat which, once it had fallen into the ground and died, brought forth much fruit, and filled every living creature with blessing. Thou who knowest no ill-will towards thy brethren, grant us our measure of wheat. For we have no other advocate who has been made unto us justice and sanctification, and whom the Father always hears for his reverence, but thee, good Lord, who art the propitiation for our sins. Remember then, O Lord, when thou standest in the sight of God, to speak well on our behalf. Ask thy Father to give me that wheat which with desire I have desired to eat before I die.

emento nostri ergo, Domine, dum bene tibi fuerit, quia caro et frater noster es, ut suggeras Patri two quatinus impleantur sacci fratrum tuorum illo dico frumento, quod dum semel cadens in terra mortuum fuit, multum fructum attulit et omne animal benediccione repleuit. Qui igitur nescis inuidere fratribus illius, tritici mensuram impertire nobis. Non enim alium habemus Aduocatum, qui nobis factus est iusticia et sanctificacio, quem semper audit Pater propter suam reuerenciam, quam te, bone Domine; et tu propiciacio es pro peccatis nostris. Recordare ergo, Domine, dum steteris in conspectu Dei, ut loquaris pro nobis bonum. Postula Patrem tuum ut michi donet triticum, quod desiderio desideraui manducare antequam morior.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 4, fol. 8

Julian on Christ as our brother

I wish for no other wheat but thee: give me thyself, and the rest take for thyself. For what have I in heaven, and what have I desired more than thee on earth? Whatever there is besides thee does not satisfy me without thee, nor hast thou any gift to bestow which I desire so much as thee. If therefore thou hast a mind to satisfy my desire with good things, give me nought but thyself. For my desire would not be pleasing in thy sight, if I longed for something other than thee more than thee.

liud nolo triticum nisi temetipsum: da michi ergo teipsum, et cetere tolle tibi. Quid enim michi est in celo, et quid plus quam te optaui super terram? Certe quicquid est preter te non michi sufficit preter te, nec est munus apud te quod tantum desidero sicut te. Si ergo uelis replere in bonis desiderium meum, nichil aliud michi des nisi temetipsum. Non enim coram te cupiditas mea placeret si aliquid aliud, quod tu non es, plus quam te optaret.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 5, fol. 8

od for your goodness give to me yourself. For you are enough to me. And I may ask nothing that is less, that may be full worthy of you. And if I ask anything that is less, ever I shall want, but only in you I have all. And these words 'God of your goodness' are very lovely to the soul and very close to touching our Lord's will. For his goodness comprehends all . . .

Julian of Norwich, Prayer, Showing of Love, Westminster Manuscript

On Jesus Shadowed in Moses

Thou art the brazen serpent hung upon the gibbet, a remedy to all believers against the bites of the devil. Thou art the lonely sparrow upon a house-top, and thou hast found a nest for thyself which is the Virgin's womb. Thou art the scapegoat, and hast carried our sins into the wilderness of eternal oblivion, so that as far as the east is from the west, so far should our iniquities be from us. Thou art the lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world . . .

u es ille serpens eneus suspensus in patibulo, in quem credentes  curantur omnes a morsu diabolico. Tu es enim ille passer in tecto solitarius, et nidum tibi inuenisti, qui Virginis est uterus. Tu es hircus emissarius, qui peccata nostra tulisti in desertum obliuionis perpetue, ut quantum distat ortus ab Occidente longe fierent a nobis iniquitates nostre. Tu es agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi . . .

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 6, fol. 8v

. . . all things work together for good; not only good works, but even sins. For example, one of the elect who is somwhat elated on account of an outstanding virtue is tempted by the devil to impurity and allowed to fall, so that the memory of so shameful a sin may for the future preserve him from pride, and give him rather, what is safer, a fellow-feeling for the lowly.

. . . omnia cooperantur in bonum, hiis qui secundum propositum uocati sunt sancti, non tantum bona opera sed eciam peccata. Verbi gracia: aliquis electus a diabolo temptatur per luxuriam, qui ex aliqua uirtute qua forte pollet aliqualem habet elacionem, permittitur cadere, ut quam uile se meminerit flagicium perpetrasse: de cetero numquam habeat materiam superbie, immo, quod est tucius, humilibus consentire.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 9, fol. 10

Julian, 'All Shall Be Well'

On Jesus Shadowed in Jonathan

Let us by no means bring to naught in our city the likeness of those whom we have made to our own image and likeness, but rather let thy wisdom prevail over the malice into which they have falled through their proud self-love, desiring to become like gods, knowing good and evil. Let it reach from thee, the end, for thou are both beginning and end, unto the end of all creation, that is to say man, who was created last of all, and let it dispose all things sweetly.

uos ad ymaginem et similitudinem nostram fecimus, eorum ymaginem in ciuitate nostra nullo modo ad nichilum redigamus; sed pocius uincat sapiencia tua maliciam eorum, in quam proprie superbiendo impegerunt, cupientes fore sicut dii, scientes bonum et malum. Attingat ergo a te fine, qui principium es et finis, usque ad finem tocius creature, hominem uidelicet qui ultimo creatus est, et disponat omnia suauiter.
 

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 11, fol. 11

Julian, on God in the City of the Soul, on Wisdom

Thou art Christ, Son of the living God, who in obedience to the Father hast saved the world.

u es Cristus Filius Dei uiui, qui precepto Patris mundum saluasti.
 
 

I see thee, O good Jesus, nailed to the cross, crowned with thorns, given gall to drink, pierced with the lance, and for my sake . . . upon the gibbet of the cross.

uideo te, Ihesu bone, cruci conclauatum, spinis coronatum, felle potatum, lancea perforatum, et omnibus membris super crucis patibulum propter me diuaricatum.

. . . being thyself most beautiful, for me thou hast desired to be accounted as a leper and the last of men;

. . . cum speciosus sis, ut leprosus et uirorum nouissimus pr me reputari uoluisti;

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 13, fols. 11v-12v

In thy head I perceive wondrous multiplicity of suffering, for in all thy five senses thou didst feel indescribable Pain. Thou didst see thyself crucified and hanging between thieves, thy friends deserting thee, thine enemies gathering round, thy mother weeping, and the corpses of condemned criminals strewn round about; whatever met thy gaze was a source of pain and sorrow, of horror and dismay.

n capite tuo admirabilem penarum intueor multitudinem, quia per omnia organa quinque sensuum inena rrabilem sensisti dolorem. Te ipsum enim uidisti crucifixsum atque pendentem in medio latronum, amicos uidisti fugere, inimicos appropinquare, matrem uidisti flere, atque cadauera dampnatorum in circuitu iacere, et quicquid uisu traxisti pena fuit et dolor, tremor et horror.

Thou didst hear threats, murmuring, sarcasm and taunts from the bystanders; threats, when they cried out: 'Away with him, away with him; crucify him'; murmuring, when they said: 'He saved others, himself he cannot save', and some had said before that: 'He is good', while others said: 'No, he seduceth the multitude'. Sarcasm, when the soldiers, being their knees, greeted thee with: 'Hail, king of the Jews'; for sarcasm is a covert sort of mockery, when one is ironically called something by the scoffer, other than what he believes to be true. They believed him indeed to be a criminal rather than the king of the Jews, and yet they spoke the truth although with false intent. Thou didst hear taunts, when they said: 'Vah! Thou who dost destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it!'

udisti timorem et susurrium, subsannacionem et derisum ab hiis qui in circuitu stabant. Timorem, inquam, audisti quando dixerunt: Tolle, tolle, crucifige eum. Sussurium audisti quando dixerunt: Alios saluos fecit, seipsum non potest saluum facere, et ante quidam dixerunt quia bonus est, alii autem non, sed seducit turbas. Subsannacionem tunc audisti quando geniculantes dicebant Aue rex Iudeorum, quia subsannacio oculta est derisio, cum aliud uidelicet aliquis uocatur ironice quam a deridente fore creditur. Credebant enim eum pocius maleficum quam regem Iudaeorum, et tamen uerum dicebant quamuia menciendo. Audisti, Domine, derisum quando dicebant: Vah qui destruit templum et in tribus diebus reedificat.

Thou didst taste bitterness, O Lord, when they gave thee gall for thy food, and in thy thirst gave thee vinegar to drink. Thy nostrils, O Lord, breathed in the stench of the corrupting corpses of executed criminals lying round about. Thy sense of touch felt fierce pain in thy head, for the crown of thorns pierced it so grievously that thy blood flowed down in torrents through thy hair even to the ground. And so, good Lord, whatever thou didst look upon was terrible, whatever thou didst hear was horrible, whatever thou didst taste was bitter, whatever thou didst smell was putrid, and whatever thou didst touch was painful.

ustasti Domine amarum, quando in escam tuam dederunt fel et in siti tua potauerunt te aceto. Per nares, domine, traxisti fetorem ex cadaueribus putridis morte punitorum, que in circuitu iacebant. Per tactum uero in capite sensisti asperitatem, quia corona spinarum in tantum pungebat capud tuum ut cruorem habunde per crines in terram currere faceret. Bone ergo Domine, quicquid uidisti fuit terribile, quicquid audisti fuit horribile, quicquid gustasti fuit amarum, quicquid odorasti fuerat fetidum, et quicquid tetigisti fuit ualde asperum.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 14, fols. 12-12v

One thing, O good Jesus, I would know of thee; namely what reward will be bestowed on thee for all that thou hast suffered for us, since we have nothing that we have not received from thee. All gold is but as a grain of sand in thy sight, and silver would be accounted much in compensation for thy passion.

num a te, Ihesu bone, scire uellem, qua uidelicet mercede donaberis pro hiis que passus es pro nobis, cum nos nichil habeamus nisi quod a te accepimus. Omne enim aurum in conspectu tuo arena est exigua, et tamquam lutum estimabitur argentum in recompensacione tue passionis.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 15, fol. 12v

Julian on Passion

Speak, Lord, for thy servants listen, ready to receive the engrafted word which is able to save their souls. If thou desirest to know this plainly, call thy husband, that thou mayest understand aright. Let him who hath ears to hear, hear what Christ saith now to the churches.

oquere, Domine, quia audiunt serui tui, parati suscipere institum uerbum quod potest saluare animas eorum. Si hoc aperte scire desideras, uoca uirum tuum ut recte inteligas. Qui ergo habet aures audiendi, audiat quid modo ecclesiis Christus dicat.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 16, fols. 13-13v

I know well, O Lord, that thou desirest my whole self when thou askest for my heart, and I seek thy whole self when I beg for thee.

cio Domine, scio, totum me cupis cum cor meum petis, et totum te desidero cum te ipsum postulo.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 18, fols. 13v-14

Julian's Prayer

. . . even if he at times out of his goodness enters under our roof to abide with us. This he does especially according to that operation whereby he enables us to taste the first-fruits of the Spirit, by breaking for us a little of the bread which is himself, and saying: 'Taste and see that the Lord is sweet'.

 . . . et si aliquando propter suam bonitatem intret sub tectum nostrum ut maneat nobiscum, secundum illam maxime operacionem qua nos facit probare de primiciis Spiritus frangens nobis modicum de pane seipso et dicens: Gustate et uidete quoniam suauis est Dominus.

Julian

Thou canst, O good Jesus, most clearly be recognized in the breaking of this bread, which no one else breaks as thou dost. For thou dost visit the soul with such joy, and fill it with such ineffable delight and indescribable love, that for one who loves such favours the enjoyment of so gracious a visit from such a guest, were it only for the space of a day, would surpass all physical love and a whole world full of riches. This is not surprising, since it is a sort of beginning of eternal joys, a sign of divine predestination and pledge of eternal salvation; it is a grace rendering us pleasing to God, and bestows on us a new name, which no one knows save he who receives it, and apart from the sons and daughters of God none can have a share in it.

iquidissime, Ihesu bone, cognosci poteris in fraccione panis, quem nemo alius sic frangit sicut tu. Quam enim sic uisitas animam iubilo, et ineffabili uoluptate ac inenarrabili reples amore, ut delicias amanti delectabilius foret tanti hospitis tam iocunda frui uisitacione, saltem per diei medium, super omnem amorem mulierum et totum orbem terrarum diuiciis repletum. Nec mirum cum sit de eternis gaudiis inicium aliquod, argumentum Diuine predestinacionis, et arra salutis perpetue, gratia gratum faciens et nomen nouum, quod non nouit quis nisi qui accipit, cui non communicat alienus a filiis Dei et filiabus.

John Whiterig, Meditacio ad Crucifixum, Chapter 20, fol. 14v

Catherine of Siena, The Orcherd of Syon (Dialogo), London: Wynken de Worde, 1519

Here seweth a souereyn and a notable sentence to comforte a persone that is in temptacion.

Capitulum primum

ure merciful lord god chastyseth hese childirn and suffereth hem to ben tempted for many profytable skeles to here soule profi3te: and

Santa Francesca Romana's cell in the corridor painted with the visions she had of evil spirits, from which her guardian angel, given her by her dead son, Evangelista, saved her

Capitulum secundum

ut often the temptynge of

at it were parted fro god for only wersum fantasies or douteful.

Capitulum tercium

nd if it so be

e feend withouten assent of his owne wil, and with suche a wil that is ful avysed and quemeful, with very assent of herte, for a wersum or douteful trauelous wil putteth not awey a man fro god.

Capitulum quartum

nd

e profyte Ysaie: A lytel while I haue for seken the, and in a moment I haue hyd my face fro the, but I schal gadere the a3en in many mercyes, and I schal haue mercy on the, and that mercy schal euere last.

Capitulum quintum

nd 

e tother worlde.

Capitulum sextum

nd for as myche as many men kunne not in tyme of temptacion ne woln not see it, but ben sory and dredeful of complexion,

e kyngdom of heuene.

Capitulum septimum

lso oure olde enemy the fend and serpent is often tymes aboute to begyle mannes soule in many sondre maneris. He cometh somtme vndir

How the Blessed Francesca met the Evil One disguised as her Patron, Saint Onofrio

anne in taryenge of his lyf and of his soule.

Capitulum octauum

lso

e lengere that he suffereth suyche taryengis, the more is he worthy in the syghte of god.

Capitulum nonum

nd

at hi3te John Homeleis.

Narracio

his squier

e crowne of lyfe, the which god hath behi3t to them that louen hym.

Capitulum decimum

 3e childern of holy cherche,

Giovanni di Paolo, St Catherine Receiving Stigmata, Santa Cristina, Pisa, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In translating Julian of Norwich's Showing of Love in 1991 from the Syon Abbey manuscript owned by Westminster Cathedral and now on loan to Westminster Abbey, her own English words were kept, rather than translating them into our Latinate forms, her 'oneing' instead of our 'uniting', her 'noughting' instead of our 'negating', her 'endlessness' instead of our 'eternity'. Somehow the Latin hides their meaning into its foreignness. The English words' truth, though now so unusual that they seem foreign, are actually closer to what we mean. Also, Julian's theological concepts can have a very modern ring. Computers, like brains and noughts and crosses games, generally simply 'one' and 'nought' their way through problems. Julian's 'oneing' is one's shaping oneself to that of God, 'noughting' the opposite of 'oneing', as evil, which therefore does not exist. Her 'endlessness' is of God, who is all time, but smaller and smaller bits of time, like death, are of 'noughting'.

There are three versions of Julian's Showing of Love. The first, the Westminster Manuscript, of which excerpts are given here, was written perhaps in 1368 when she was twenty-five. The Long Text, given in the Paris Manuscript and in three Sloane and Stowe Manuscripts in the British Library, presents a text originally written when she was fifty, in 1393, discussing a vision of the Crucifix she had had when she lay, she thought, dying, in 1373. A final version, the Short Text, is given in the British Library Amherst Manuscript, and states it was written when she was still alive in 1413, at seventy, when the Lollards, ancestors to the Quakers, were being burned at the stake. That manuscript also contains Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, Henry Suso's Horologium Sapientiae and Jan van Ruusbroec's Sparkling Stone (the latter two now transcribed in booklets in the Julian Library Portfolio) amongst other contemplative texts. All of these early Julian manuscripts are connected to Brigittine Syon Abbey. This manuscript was owned by the courageous  Lowe family. The last monk to be buried at Syon Abbey at the Reformation was a Lowe. The Lowes in exile continued to be associated with Syon Abbey in exile in the Low Countries and Rouen, women, as well as men, being imprisoned for their recusancy, and a Lowe priest was drawn, hung and quartered at Tyburn for converting five hundred souls to Catholicism. In the nineteenth century Rose Lowe entered Syon Abbey in Lisbon, saving it from extinction under Wellington's deprivations in Portugal and became its Prioress. Bishop James Bramston studied for ordination at the English College, Lisbon. The manuscript then passed from Lowe ownership into his hands, being rebound at this date, and finally to Westminster Cathedral.

Julian thus spent her whole life writing this book. From the age of fifty on she lived as a Solitary, an Anchoress, in an anchorhold at St Julian's Church, Norwich, probably dressed in the black of a Benedictine nun, for she may have earlier been at Carrow Priory, and she gave counsel to troubled people, like Margery Kempe from Lynn. Julian of Norwich, and Augustine before her in his Confessions, obeyed Christ’s words that they should pray to God. These texts Julian uses, the Shema (Leviticus 19.18, Mark 12.28-31), the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6.5-23, Luke 11.1-4), the Confessions of St Augustine, the Rule of St Benedict, the Dialogues of St Gregory, in her Showing of Love, become all one prayer, a plea, that we love God and our even-Christian, our neighbour, as ourselves. In all these versions, except the last, Julian gives passages from the Bible in her Middle English, from Isaiah, from Jonah, from the Epistles and much else, but she dare not do so in the 1413 version when to own or use John Wyclif's translation of the Bible into English would have caused one to have been burnt at the stake as a Lollard heretic. Strangely she uses neither Jerome's Latin Vulgate nor Wyclif's Middle English, the evidence being that she has access to the Hebrew of the Scriptures, likely gained through Cardinal Adam Easton who had taught the Hebrew Scriptures at Oxford and who had translated them into Latin, correcting Jerome's errors. But she is not an elitist scholar. Her last word in her last version is the Lollard term, one's 'even Christian', one's neighbour as one's equal in the eyes of one's Creat or

Julian begins the Westminster Manuscript by imagining the Virgin Mary worshipping her Child. The initial 'O' in the manuscript is illuminated in blue with red penwork ornamentation, the text written in brownish ink. It echoes the lovely Advent Antiphon, 'O Sapientiae', where the pregnant Virgin worships and addresses her not yet born child as Wisdom.

{Ure gracious & goode/ lorde god shewed me in/ party the wisdom & the trewthe/ of the soule of oure blessed lady/ saynt mary. where in I vnder/stood the reuerent beholdynge/ that she behelde her god th at is/ her maker. maruelynge with/ grete reuerence that he wolde be borne of her that was a/ simple creature of his makyng.

Later, Julian speaks of the tender hands of God as our Mother. 

The manuscript has drawings of hands in the margin pointing to important parts of the text. The sections given here in red are so rubricated in the Paris Manuscript, but not in the Westminster Manuscript. In other manuscripts these phrases are in engrossed letters, which in one instance, occurs in the Westminster Manuscript and which may have been Julian's own practice, perhaps borrowed from Rabbinical texts, as in the manuscript of Rabbi David Kimhi, owned by Cardinal Adam Easton, Benedictine from Norwich, who effected Birgitta of Sweden's canonization in 1391.
 

 
{ ur gracious and good lord God showed me in part the wisdom and the truth of the soul of our blessed Lady, Saint Mary that he would be born of her that was a simple person of his making. For this was her marvelling, 'That he who was her maker would be born of her that is made.'  And this wisdom and truth, knowing the greatness of her Maker and the littleness of her self who is made, caused her to say full meekly to Gabriel, 'Lo, me here, God's handmaiden'. This wisdom and truth made her see her God so great, so high, so mighty and so good that the greatness and the nobility and beholding of God fulfilled her with reverent dread. And with this she saw herself so little and so low, so simple and so poor in reward of her God, that this reverent dread fulfilled her with meekness. And thus, by this ground, she was fulfilled of grace and of all manner of virtue, and overpassed all people. In this sight, I understood truly that she is more than all that God made beneath her in worthiness and fullness. For above her there is no thing that is made: but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight. And this our good Lord showed to my understanding, in teaching us.
       · · ·

Westminster Cathedral Manuscript, Julian of Norwich, Showing of Love

and in this he shewed me a lytil/ thyng the quantite of a hasyl/ nott. lyeng in the pawme of/ my hand as it had semed. and/ it was as rownde as eny ball



Italian blessed olive leaves , Australian hazel nut



Earth First Seen From Space


And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut , lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus,'It is all that is made.' I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

       In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that he loves it. And the third, that God keeps it. But what is this to me? Truly, the Creator, the Keeper, the Lover. For until I am substantially oned to him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss. That is to say, until I be so fastened to him that there is nothing that is made between my God and me.

      This little thing that is made, I thought it might have fallen to nought for littleness. Of this we need to have knowledge that it is like to nought, all things that are made. For to love and have God that is unmade.

      For this is the cause why we are not at ease in heart and soul, for we seek rest here, in this thing that is so little where there is no rest, and knowing not our God who is all mighty, all wise and all good. For he is true rest. God will be known, and he likes us to rest in him. For all that is beneath him cannot suffice us. And this is the cause why no soul is rested, until it is noughted of all that is made. And when he wills to be noughted for love, to have him who is all, then he is able to receive spiritual rest.

      Also our Lord showed that it is the fullest pleasure to him, that an innocent soul come to him nakedly, plainly and humbly. For this is the natural yearning of the soul by the touching of the Holy Spirit. And by the understanding that I have in this showing,



Westminster Cathedral Manuscript, Julian of Norwich, Showing of Love

God for thi goodnes geue vnto/ me thy selfe: for thou art I nough/ to me. & I may no thyng aske/ that is lesse. that may be fulle wur=/shypp e to thee. And yf I aske eny//thyng that is lesse. euer me wa ntith./ but only in the I haue all. And thes/ wordis. god of thy goodnes it ar/ full louesum to the soule. and ful/ nygh touchyng the wyll e of our/ lord. ffor his goodnes comprehen=/
'God, for your goodness, give me yourself. For you are enough for me and I may not ask anything that is less, that may be fully worthy of you. And if I ask any thing that is less, I am always wanting. But only in you I have all.' And these words, 'God of your goodness' , are most lovely to the soul, and full nigh touching the will of our Lord. For his goodness comprehends all his creation and all his blessed works and overpasses them without end. For he is the endlessness, and he has made us only for himself, and restored us by his precious Passion, and ever keeps us in his blessed love, and all this is of his goodness. This Showing was given, as to my understanding, to teach our souls wisely to cleave to the goodness of God.
       · · ·
      It is God's will that we have three things in our seeking of his gift. The first is, that we seek willingly and busily without sloth, as it may be with his grace gladly and merrily, without unskilfull heaviness and vain sorrow. The second, that we abide with him steadfastly for his love, without complaining and striving against him to our lives' end, for it shall last only a while. The third is that we trust in him mightily with a fully sure faith, for it is his will that we shall know that he will appear suddenly and blessedfully to all his lovers, for his working is secret, and it will be perceived, and his appearing shall be swift and sudden, and he will be believed, for he is very able, humble and courteous, blessed must he be.

      After this, I saw God in a point. That is to say in my understanding. But which sight I saw that he is all things. I beheld with advisement, seeing and knowing in that sight, that he does all that is done, be it never so little. And I saw that nothing is done by chance, nor by hazard, but all by the foreseeing of God's wisdom. And if it be chance or fortune in the sight of man, our blindness and our lack of foresight is the cause. Therefore, well I know that in sight of our lord God, there is not chance or happenstance. And therefore it needs behoove me to grant that all things that are done, are well done, because our lord God does all. For in this time the working of Creation was not showed but of our lord God, in Creation, for he is in the midpoint of all things, and he does all.

      And I was sure that he does no sin. And here I saw truly that sin is no deed. Also among other showings our good Lord means thus, 'See, I am God. See, I am in all things. See, I do all things. See, I never left off the works of my hand, nor ever shall, without end. See, I lead all things to the end, to which I ordained them, from without beginning, by the same power, wisdom and love, that I made them with. How should then anything be amiss?'

      I saw full surely that he never changes his purpose in any manner of thing, nor ever shall without end. For there was nothing unknown to him in his rightful ordering from without beginning. And therefore all things were set in order before anything was made, as it should be without end.
       · · ·
      And this was shown in these words,'Are you well paid' . By those other words that Christ said, 'If you are paid, I am paid'. As if he had said,'It is joy and liking enough to me, and I ask nothing else of you for my travail, but that I might pay you' . And it is this he brought to my mind. The property of a glad giver: a glad giver takes but little heed of the thing that he gives, but his desire is in all his intent, to please him and solace him to whom he gives it. And if the receiver takes the gift gladly and thankfully, then the courteous giver sets at nought all his cost and all his travail for joy and delight that he has, for he has so pleased and solaced him whom he loves. Plenteously and fully was this shown.
       · · ·
Also our Lord showed for prayer, in which showing I saw two conditions in our Lord's meaning. One is right full prayer. And the other is sure trust. But yet often our trust is not full, for we are not sure that God hears us, we think, because of our unworthiness, and because of that we feel nothing. For we are as barren and as dry often after our prayer, as we were before. And thus in our feeling, our folly is the cause of our weakness. For thus I have felt in myself.

      And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind and showed these words and said ,'I am ground of your seeking. First it is my will that you have it, and I make you to will it. How should it then be that you should not have your seeking of it, since I make you to seek it, and you seek it' . And thus is in the first reason of the three that follow, our lord God shows a great comfort as may be, saying in the same words in the first reason. Where he says , 'And you seek it' , there he shows full great pleasure, and endless reward that he will give us for our seeking.

      And in the sixth reason there he says, 'How should then this be?'This was said for an impossibility. For it is the most impossible thing that may be that we should seek mercy and grace, and not have it. For of all things that our Lord makes us to seek, himself has ordained it to us from without beginning.

      Here may we [see] then that our seeking is not cause of the goodness and grace that he does to us, but his own proper goodness, and that he shows truly in all these sweet words, where he says, 'I am ground of your prayer and of your seeking' . And our Lord wills that this be known of all his lovers on earth. And the more that we know it, the more should we seek it, if it is wisely taken. And so is our Lord's meaning.

      Wise seeking is a true, gracious, lasting will of the soul, oned and fastened into the will of our lord God himself. He is the first receiver of our prayer, it seems to me, and he takes it right thankfully and highly enjoys it. He sends it up above and sets it in the treasury, where it shall never perish. It is there before God with all his holy company continually received, ever fulfulling our needs. And when we shall achieve our bliss, it shall be given to us for a degree of joy with endless worshipful thanking of him. Full glad and merry is our lord God of our prayer. He looks there after and he would have it. For with his grace it makes us like himself in condition, as we be in nature.

      Also he says, 'Pray though you think it not help you' .

       Also to prayer belong thankings. Thanking is a true inward knowing with great reverence and lovely dread, turning ourself with all our might into the working that our lord God stirred us to, enjoying and thanking him inwardly. And sometimes with plenteousness, it breaks out into voice, and says, 'Good lord, grant mercy, blessed must you be'.
       · · ·
      Truth sees God, and wisdom beholds God, and of these two comes the third, and that is a marvelous holy delight in God, which is love. Where truth and wisdom is, truly there is love and truly coming of them both, and all of God's making. For God is endless sovereign truth, endless sovereign wisdom, endless sovereign love unmade.
       · · ·
      And furthermore he wills that we know that this dear worthy soul was preciously knit to him in the making. Which knot is so subtle and so mighty, that it is oned to God, in which oneing it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore, he wills that we know and understand, that all the souls that shall be saved in heaven without end are knitted in this kot, and oned in this oneing, and made holy in this holiness. And for great endless love that God has to all mankind, he makes no departing in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the least soul that shall be saved, for it it is very easy to live and to believe, that the dwelling of the blessed soul of Christ is full high in the glorious godhead. And truly as I understand in our Lord's meaning, where the blessed soul of Christ is, there is the substance of all the souls that shall be saved by Christ.

      Highly ought we to enjoy that our God dwells in our soul, and much more highly we ought to enjoy that our soul dwells in God. And the dwelling place of our soul is in God, which is unmade. A high understanding it is inwardly to see and to know that God which is our maker, dwells in our soul. And a higher understanding it is and more inwardly to see and to know our soul that is made dwells in God in substance, of which substance by God we be that we be.

      Also the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father. For he made us and keeps us in him. And the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we be all enclosed, and the high goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are closed, and he is in us. All mighty, all wisdom and all goodness; one God, one Lord and one goodness.
       · · ·
      God is nearer to us than our own soul, for he is ground in whom our soul stands, and he is the means that keeps the substance and the sensuality together so that it shall never depart. For our soul sits in God, in true rest, and our soul stands in God in sure strength, and our soul is naturally rooted in God, in endless love. And therefore if we will have knowing of our soul, and communing and daliance therewith, it is right to seek into our lord God in whom it is enclosed.
       · · ·
      Also, as truly as God is our Father, so as truly God is our Mother. And that he shows in all and namely in these sweet words, where he says, 'I it am'. That is to say,'I it am, the might and goodness of Fatherhead; I it am, the wisdom and the kindness of Motherhood; I it am, the light and the grace, that is all blessed love; I it am, the Trinity; I it am, the Unity; I it am, the high sovereign goodness of all manner of things; I it am, that makes you to love; I it am, that makes you to long, the endless fullness of all true desires'.
        · · ·
      I understand three manners of beholding of Motherhead in God. The first is ground of our natural making. The second is taking of our nature, and there begins the Motherhead of grace. The third is Motherhead of working and therein is a spreading forth by the same grace of length and of breadth, of height and of deepness without end. And all is one love.
       · · ·
      The mother's service is nearest, readiest and surest. It is nearest, for it is natural, readiest, for it is most of love, and surest for it is of truth. This office might nor could anyone ever do to the full, but Christ Jesus, God and Man alone. We know well that all our mothers bear us with pain and for dying. But our true Mother Jesus, he alone bears us to joy and to bliss, and endless living, blessed must he be.

      Thus he sustains us within him in love. And travailed into the full time that he would suffer the sharpest throes and the most grievous pains that ever were or ever shall be, and died at the last and when he had done and so borne us to bliss, yet might not all this be enough to his marvellous love. And that showed he in these high overpassing words of love, 'If I might suffer more I would suffer more' .

      He might no more die, but he would not cease working. Therefore then he needs must feed us, for the dear worthy love of Motherhead has made him debtor to us. The mother may give her child to suck her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus, he may feed us with himself, and does full courteously and full tenderly with the blessed sacrament of his body and blood that is precious food of very life. And with all the sweet sacraments he sustains us well mercifully and graciously.
      .· · ·
      The sweet gracious hands of our Mother are ready and diligent about us. For he in all this working uses the true office of a kind nurse, that has nothing else to do, but to attend about the salvation of her child. It is the office of our lord Jesus Christ to save us. It is his worship to do it, and it is his will, we know it. For he wills that we love him sweetly and trust in him meekly and strongly. And this he showed in these gracious words, I keep you most surely'. Furthermore a natural child despairs not of the mother's love, and naturally the child presumes not of itself, naturally the child loves the mother, each of them loves the other.

     Also I had great desire and longing for God's gift to be delivered of this world and of this life. For often I beheld the woe that is here in this life, and the weal and the blessed being that is in heaven, and I thought sometimes, though there had been no pain in this life but the absence of our lord God, it was more than I might bear, and this made me to mourn and anxiously yearn. And also my own wretchedness, sloth and irksomeness helped thereto, so that I wanted not to live and to travail as it fell out to me to do. And to all our courteous lord God answered for comfort and patience, and said these words, 'Suddenly you shall be taken from all your pain, and from all your sickness, from all your illness and from all your woe, and you shall come up above, and you shall have me to your pay and reward, and you shall be filled with joy and with bliss, and you shall never more have any manner of pain, neither any manner of sickness, nor manner of misliking, nor no wanting of will, but be ever in joy and bliss without end. What should it then grieve you to suffer a while, since it is my will and my worship' .

       It is God's will that we set the point of our thought in this blessed beholding, as often as we may, and as long.