Julian of Norwich

Abstract

Augustine’s dominance in the history of Western spirituality was not relinquished until the Enlightenment and the rise of a new Pelagianism in whose wake we are still drawn.1 Yet in Western monasticism there is no clear segregation of Greek and Latin sources. Eastern Rules formed the basis of the Benedictine Regula, and Benedict of Aniane gives them prominence in his Codex Regularum. Basil, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Evagrius, Cassian and Origen were known in translations that nourished Western spirituality in several ways.2 In the ninth century, the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite were rendered into Latin by John Scotus Eriugena, though they did not exert much influence in the West until the twelfth, after which time they exerted a great deal. In the interim, Origen’s disciple Gregory of Nyssa was an important conduit from the East of ideas pertaining to mystical experience as immersion in a divine darkness, such as Dionysius describes.KeywordsThirteenth CenturyFourteenth CenturyMystical ExperienceChristian LifeSpiritual ClimateThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.