Revelations Of Divine Love

Introduction
Further Reading
Translator’s Note

Revelations Of Divine Love

Short Text
Long Text

Notes
Appendix I: List Of Showings
Appendix II: Original Texts Of The Revelations
Appendix III: Margery Kempe’s Meeting With Julian

Additional Info
Just because I am a woman, must I therefore believe that I must not tell you about the goodness of God?’

After fervently praying for a greater understanding of Christ’s passion, Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth-century anchorite and mystic, experienced a series of divine revelations. Through these ‘showings’, Christ’s sufferings were revealed to her with extraordinary intensity, but she also received assurance of God’s unwavering love for man and his infinite capacity for forgiveness. Written in a vigorous English vernacular, the Revelations are one of the most original works of medieval mysticism and have had a lasting influence on Christian thought.

This edition of the Revelations contains both the short text, which is mainly an account of the ‘showings’ themselves and Julian’s initial interpretation of their meaning, and the long text, completed some twenty years later, which moves from vision to a daringly speculative theology. Elizabeth Spearing’s translation preserves Julian’s directness of expression and the rich complexity of her thought. An introduction, notes and appendices help to place the works in context for modern readers.