The Elucidarius and Julian of Norwich's Parable of the Lord and the Servant

Abstract

IN chapter 50 of A Revelation of Love (c. 1395–1416), the longer version of her ‘Showings’, Julian of Norwich tries to understand how the fact of human sin can be reconciled with the mercy of God. She has no doubt that ‘we sin grevously all day and be mekille blamewurthy’. But while she feels obliged to assent to this ‘comen teching of holy church’, she also trusts the revelation in which she ‘saw oure lorde God shewing to us no more blame then if we were as clene and as holy as angelis be in heven’.1 Deeply disturbed by the possibility that God's gift of insight to her might be contrary to the doctrine of the church, Julian finally appeals to God in anguish and frustration. I cryde inwardly with all my might, seking into God for helpe, mening thus: ‘A lorde Jhesu, king of blisse, how shall I be esede? Who shall tell me and tech me that me nedeth to wit, if I may not at this time se it in the’ (273)? I sawe two persons in bodely liknesse, that is to sey, a lorde and a servant, and therwith God gave me gostly understanding. The lorde sitteth solempnely in rest and in pees. The servant stondeth before his lorde reverently, redy to do his lordes wille. The lorde loketh upon his servant full lovely and swetly, and mekely he sendeth him into a certaine place to do his will. The servant not onely he goeth, but sodenly he sterteth and runneth in gret hast for love to do his lordes wille. And anon he falleth in a slade, and taketh ful gret sore. And than he groneth and moneth and walloweth and writheth. But he may not rise nor helpe himself by no manner of weye. … Than saide this curteyse lorde in his mening: ‘Lo, my beloved servant, what harme and disses he hath had and taken in my servis for my love—yea, and for his good wille! Is it not skille that I reward him his frey and his drede, his hurt and his maime, and alle his wo? And not only this, but falleth it not to me to geve him a gifte that be better to him and more wurshipful than his owne hele shuld have bene? And els me thinketh I did him no grace.’ And in this, an inwarde gostely shewing of the lordes mening descended into my soule, in which I saw that it behoveth nedes to be, standing his gret goodnes and his owne wurshippe, that his deerworthy servant, which he loved so moch, shulde be hyely and blissefully rewarded withoute end, above that he shulde have be if he had not fallen. Yea, and so ferforth that his falling and alle his wo that he hath taken thereby shalle be turned into hye, overpassing wurshippe and endlesse blesse (275, 277). In the servant is comprehended the seconde person of the trinite, and in the servant is comprehended Adam: that is to sey, all men. … When Adam felle, Godes sonne fel. For the rightful oning which was made in heven, Goddes sonne might not be seperath from Adam, for by Adam I understond alle man (283). Suppose someone assigns his bondslave a task, and tells him not to leap into a pit from which he cannot by any means climb out, and that bondslave, despising the command and advice of his master, leaps into the pit which has been pointed out to him, so that he is completely unable to carry out the task assigned to him. Do you think that his incapacity serves in the slightest as a valid excuse for him not to perform the task assigned to him?3