Afterword: Reflections on Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Divine Love

The Afterword briefly reflects on Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love in light of the tropes and theologies examined in preceding chapters and suggests possibilities for further research on Middle English Literature. Julian’s famous description of Jesus as mother in Revelation seems remote from the king and conquering hero discovered in the other chapters, but she shares significant common ground with the other texts. For example, Julian teaches readers about Jesus’s two natures; indeed, she brilliantly represents hypostatic union through the metaphor of Jesus as mother. She also repeats the military metaphor of Jesus defeating the devil and presents him as king and conqueror. Unlike most of the writers studied in this book, she does not picture Jews torturing Jesus in the Passion. She creates a version of the Passion centered on Jesus’s rather than Jews’ agency. Finally, Julian is a more innovative theologian than the other writers studied in this book, and she may serve to expand our conception of vernacular Christology. For instance, Julian revises a parable in Anselm’s Why God Became Man (Cur Deus homo) about a lord and servant; she thus exemplifies the tendency of theologians to rewrite existing theories of redemption. She concludes this book by providing a generative counterpoint to the traditions traced in earlier chapters, allowing us both to recognize common motifs and tropes and to realize the vitality of vernacular Christology, as writers constantly renew, change, and adapt Jesus to new contexts.