III
The above examples argue for greater attention and respect to be paid
to S1 and it might be argued that the variant readings provided in Colledge
and Walsh enable the reader to do this and to make his/her own text.
However,
whilst in no way wishing to appear curmudgeonly about a text produced
with so much erudition, it has to be said that it is very difficult to use and
in the absence of access to copies of the original manuscripts it would not
be easy to be sure of readings in S1 from the footnotes provided by
Colledge and Walsh. The last group of examples to be analysed demonstrate
this difficulty.
a). In c.34 Julian is talking about the identification between Christ as
teacher and Christ as the wisdom which is taught, one way, and that a
traditional one,[12] of expressing
understanding of the full process of growth in Christian spiritual life to an
experience of union or 'onyng' with God. S1 (p.35) reads:
. . . he is the ground, he is the substance, he is the techyng, he is the
techer, he is the leryd, [taught] he is the mede wherſor
every
kynd soule travellith etc.
P (c.34, p.431, l.18) has
ende instead of
leryd.
S1
thus not only identifies teacher and teaching, means and end, but taught,
teacher and teaching. This is theologically consonant with Julian's
identification of Christ and Adam in the example in c.51 which is
formulated (p.59) 'Iesus is al that shal be savid and al that shal be savid is
Iesus'. Such a reading is in keeping with S1's dynamic sense of theological
understanding and an important variant. In their variant readings for l.18
(p.431) Colledge and Walsh suggest that S1 reads 'lend' altered by the
scribe from 'leng' without any suggestion that this is at all ambiguous and
despite the fact that, as they note, S2 has
leryd in the text
with
'lend' in the margin. In fact, a very careful comparative study of the letters
of this word, which is not clearly written in S1 shows that although an
r and an
n are similar in this scribe's hand, the
down stroke of the
n is longer than that on the
r. This fact, combined with a study of other instances of
y
d and
g individually and the combinations
ng
ry
yd elsewhere in the text, together with close scrutiny of the pen
strokes in the disputed reading lead me to conclude that
leryd
is a reading which I would prefer to see and which certainly ought at least
to be offered as a possibility.
b). In c.36 Julian talks about her perception of how finally the work
of redemption is to be accomplished. She sees that it is begun here and will
continue until the end of time, but that then another act will take place with
regard to the judgement of sin which it is not yet given to man to
understand. She says that when we are tempted to speculate about this God
responds:
- S1 (p.38): 'Lete be al thi love my dereworthy child.
Entend to me, I am enow to the etc.
- P (p.439, l.47): Lett me aloone etc.
- S2 follows S1 but has me added in the margin to
denote let me be all thy love etc.
P's reading is easier with the implication of 'leave it to me in this matter'.
S1's reading looks forward to the following 'I am enow to the' and implies
that all other concerns are secondary to this trust. Colledge and Walsh
register that for
me aloone S1 has
be al thi love
but
in the notes to that line (47) they comment: '
Lette me aloone,
suggests the superiority of P to SS's "me be
all thy love" which seems to derive from a misdivided and misread allone'.
But this is not the reading of S1 and the
me in the margin of
S2
may simply be the emendation of a puzzled scribe, it is not grounds for
emending S1 or for suggesting that this is its reading.
c). In c.43 Julian talks about the experience of prayer where God is
experienced as a living reality—what in conventional terms might be
described as the contemplative experience of illumination;
- S1 (p.46): and than we can do no more but behold hym, enioyeng,
with an hey migty desire to be al onyd into hym, centred to his
wonyng, and enioy in hys lovyng and deliten in his
godeness.
- P (p.480, l.42) has: . . . to be alle onyd in to hym, and
entende to his motion etc.
Colledge and Walsh register the variant reading in S1 as
entred to his
wowyng. It is easy to see in the manuscript how the third letter of
wonyng might possibly be read as a
w even
though
it is certainly not altogether like
w used medially elsewhere
in
this text. Interestingly the Westminster manuscript reads
and entende
to his wowyng but the second
w has been underlined
and
corrected above the line to
n to indicate the reading
wonyng.
[13] This
Westminster correction confirms the reading
wonyng in S1
and
certainly it ought at the very least to be registered as a strong possibility
especially as Julian does not use the imagery of wooing or sexual love in
her text. The Colledge and Walsh reading of
and entred for
centred depends on interpreting the more than usually open
c in
this scribe's hand as a very small and untypical ampersand which actually
joins up with
entred—the
P and W readings of
and entende would encourage this. In
fact
either
entred or centred to his wonyng is consonant with
Julian's
understanding of the relationship between man's soul and God; thus in c.54
(p.65) she says: "Our soule is made to be Gods wonyng place, and the
wonyng place of the soule is God, which is onmade". The full experience
of this is the height of contemplative prayer. Colledge and Walsh (p.480,
n.42) dismiss the attempt made by some commentators to interpret the
reading of S1
entred to his wowyng as a reference to Julian's
teaching on 'our dwelling in God' because they argue that it is tautological
after 'onyd in to hym' whereas
wowyng reflects the
promptings
of the holy spirit referred to a line or two later as 'privy tuchyngs'. But the
interpretation they dismiss is at the heart of the reading of S1 as
centred to his wonyng and is no more tautological than other
readings in the text common to both S1 and P:
- S1 (c.42, p.44): . . . and in this grownd he will that we taken
our stede and our wonynge [P dwellyng]
etc.
- S1 (c.44, p.47): . . . man werkyth everymore his will and his
wership lestyngly [P duryngly] withoute ony
styntyng.
d). In c.79 (p.96) Julian says that when we fall through weakness:
"our curtes lord touchith us, stireth us and clepith us
etc." P (c.79, p.705, l.32) has: ". . . steryth vs and kepyth
vs."
Colledge and Walsh list the variant clepyth for S2
only.
In c.80 (p.97) Julian talks of man's reason and the teaching of the
church
and the inward processes of the holy spirit as all from God and in S1 it is
formulated that they 'werkyn in us continualy
all to God'. P
(p.708, l.9) has '
alle te geder'. There is another occasion on
which P has
to geder for S1
to God in c.72 (S1
p.87, P p.659, l.4). The implications of this last variant will not be
examined here; it has been raised because on both occasions Colledge and
Walsh list the variant for S1 as
god yet on both occasions the
manuscript capitalises the G as it does when meaning 'God' as distinct to
'good'. In c.80 the reading
to God in S1 is in keeping with
the
sense of the constant activity of redemption at the heart of Julian's mystical
understanding of Jesus being 'al that shal be savid' (c.51, p.59). The
reading from P, although it is in itself unexceptionable, dilutes this sense
and Colledge and Walsh deny the unwary reader the opportunity to
understand what is actually written in S1.
In conclusion, it would thus seem to be the case that the present state
of scholarship encourages commentaries on Julian's long text which
scarcely begin to recognise, if at all, that there are interpretative differences
depending on which version is referred to. It is also the case that the critical
edition based on P does not provide clear information about alternative
readings.
The lateness of the manuscripts and also the evidence provided by
their collated readings together point to the unviability of any eclectic text
because such an exercise involves too great a degree of subjective editorial
interpretation. In accordance with the long-proven tradition of textual
scholarship the conservatism and lack of concern for appearances on the
part of the S1 scribe suggest that his copy may well be more reliable as a
copy-text than the carefully worked over and modernised P. The more
conventionally correct rhetorical structures in P may also even be
attributable to scribal editing.[14] S1
bears all the evidence of a scribe trying to make a quick and straightforward
copy of his source, the odd unsatisfactory reading being simply attributable
to human error.
Clearly there is a strong case to be made for greater recognition of
the variant readings in the Julian manuscripts and for more serious attention
being paid to the readings of S1 which so often convey a greater sense of
theology as a live issue at the heart of human creativity. After all, this is
a sense which should not be wholly unexpected in a writer seeking to
directly convey her mystical experience, though it might easily have become
blunted at the hands of scribes, early or late, with theologically oriented
editorial ideals.
