Julian's Audacious Reticence: Perichoresis and the Showings

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2006 by Pinti, Daniel

On the one hand, Julian continues to view the experience of revelation as a starting rather than an ending point, and theological reflection, speculation, and insight seem to he always provisional: "Also in thys merveylous example I have techyng with in me, as it were the begynnyng of an A B C, wher by I may have some understondyng of oure Lordys menyng."40 On the other hand, Julian does not refrain from probing for deeper understanding and insight, often with a startling confidence. We might consider her explanation of the ontological and substantial union of God and human beings, triggered by the lord/servant parable discussed above:

And I saw no dyfference betwen God and oure substance, but as it were all God. And yet my understandyng toke that oure substance is in God, that is to sty that God is God and oure substance is a creature in God. For the almyghty truth of the Trynyte is oure Fader, for he made us and kepyth us in hymn. And the depe wysdome of the Trynyte is our Moder, in whom we be closyd. And the hye goodnesse of the Trynyte is our Lord, and in hym we be closyd and he in us. We be closyd in the Fader, and we be closyd in the Son, and we are closyd in the Holy Gost. And the Fader is beclosyd in us, the Son is beclosyd in us, and the Holy Gost is beclosyd in us, all mighty, alle wysdom, and alle goodnesse, one God, one Lorde.41

Contrasting with Watson's view of the Trinity and the "indistinguishable" commonality of the divine persons cited earlier, this passage reveals how carefully Julian attempts to maintain the distinct but shared personhood of each. Moreover, the passage also sets up just why Julian's sense of the real but nonetheless provisionally expressible truth of revelation is so central for her. The very intimacy of the "beclosyd" relationship between God and us makes knowing cyclical and therefore less than absolute. Her ontology is at once the foundation and the qualifier of epistemology. Julian's sense of the reason for this problem is found shortly after the passage above:

And thus I saw full suerly that it is redyer to us and more esy to come to the knowyng of God then to know oure owne soule. For oure soule is so depe growndyd in God and so endlesly tresoryd that we may nott come to the knowyng ther of tylle we have furst knowyng of God, whych is the maker to whome it is onyd [united].42

Knowing God comes first; self-knowledge follows. But because the two are united, greater self-knowledge-hard as it is to come by in Julian's estimation-leads to deeper knowledge of God, which in turn enables even greater knowledge of one's self. This circulation of knowledge from God to self and back is a fundamental element in the Trinitarian hermeneutic of Julian's Showings.

This perichoretic exchange between knower and known has its analogue, as I have tried to show, in the exchange between reader (knower) and text (known), and I believe Julian wants such a parallel to be discerned and experienced. Julian's conception and encouragement of the (ideally) perichoretic experience of reading her book is perhaps most clearly brought out at its end, when Julian prepares her reader to finish a book that is, it turns out. perhaps never to be "finished." Julian begins her book's conclusion with a striking claim about its only having been just begun: "This boke is begonne by Goddys gyfte and his grace, but it is nott yet performyd as to my syght."43 "Performyd" here means something like "completed" or "accomplished," but the sentence alone begs the question of how such completion might be possible. What immediately follows only hints at an answer, but does so in a pointedly revelatory way: "For charyte we pray we alle to gedyr with Goddes wurkyng, thankyng, trustyng, enjoyeng, for this wylle oure good Lord be prayde by the understanding that I toke in alle his owne menyng and in the swete wordes where he seyth fulle merely, I am grownd of thy besechyng."44 Julian's expression here is difficult, to be sure, but well worth unpacking even as we avoid the temptation to tame or simplify it. We pray "for charyte" in the double sense of simultaneously praying "for" it and "on account of" it. We pray "with Goddes wurkyng" in us; the Trinity for Julian is, after all, love. The gerund "wurkyng" leads to a series of either more gerunds expanding on God's working (his enjoying, and so on) or, perhaps more likely, present participles describing the nature of our praying (thanking, trusting, and enjoying God). The slippage allows for a greater sense of divine involvement in the very movement of our own prayer. Julian underscores this involvement by hearkening all the way back to her forty-first chapter, reminding us of Christ's assurance that he himself is the very foundation of our prayer.45 And, we are all to pray "to gedyr."