Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on Contributors
- ‘Oure feyth is groundyd in goddes worde’ – Julian of Norwich and the Bible
- ‘We are United with God (and God with Us?)’: Adapting Ruusbroec in The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God and The Chastising of God's Children
- The Structure of the Soul and the ‘Godly Wylle’ in Julian of Norwich's Showings
- ‘Neb … sumdeal ilich wummon & neddre is behinden’: Reading the Monstrous in the Anchoritic Text
- Reflections on Aspects of the Spiritual Impact of St Birgitta, the Revelations and the Bridgettine Order in Late Medieval England
- Holy Women in Print: Continental Female Mystics and the English Mystical Tradition
- The Reception of ContinentalWomen Mystics in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century England: Some Artistic Evidence
- Discretio spirituum in Time: The Impact of Julian of Norwich's Counsel in the Book of Margery Kempe
- ‘Thiself a cros to thiself’: Christ as Signum Impressum in the Cloud-Texts against the Background of Expressionistic Christology in Late Medieval Devotional Theology
- ‘The prophetycal lyf of an heremyte’: Elijah as the Model of the Contemplative Life in The Book of the First Monks
- ‘Makedes of me / wrecche þi leofmon & spuse’: Mystical Desire and Visionary Consummation
- Lordship, Service and Worship in Julian of Norwich
- ‘Hid Diuinite’: The Spirituality of the English Syon Brethren
- Index
‘The prophetycal lyf of an heremyte’: Elijah as the Model of the Contemplative Life in The Book of the First Monks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on Contributors
- ‘Oure feyth is groundyd in goddes worde’ – Julian of Norwich and the Bible
- ‘We are United with God (and God with Us?)’: Adapting Ruusbroec in The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God and The Chastising of God's Children
- The Structure of the Soul and the ‘Godly Wylle’ in Julian of Norwich's Showings
- ‘Neb … sumdeal ilich wummon & neddre is behinden’: Reading the Monstrous in the Anchoritic Text
- Reflections on Aspects of the Spiritual Impact of St Birgitta, the Revelations and the Bridgettine Order in Late Medieval England
- Holy Women in Print: Continental Female Mystics and the English Mystical Tradition
- The Reception of ContinentalWomen Mystics in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century England: Some Artistic Evidence
- Discretio spirituum in Time: The Impact of Julian of Norwich's Counsel in the Book of Margery Kempe
- ‘Thiself a cros to thiself’: Christ as Signum Impressum in the Cloud-Texts against the Background of Expressionistic Christology in Late Medieval Devotional Theology
- ‘The prophetycal lyf of an heremyte’: Elijah as the Model of the Contemplative Life in The Book of the First Monks
- ‘Makedes of me / wrecche þi leofmon & spuse’: Mystical Desire and Visionary Consummation
- Lordship, Service and Worship in Julian of Norwich
- ‘Hid Diuinite’: The Spirituality of the English Syon Brethren
- Index
Summary
‘You are at our shoulder, …
… cautioning us
to prepare not for the breathless journeys
into confusion, but for the stepping
aside through the invisible
veil that is about us into a state
not place of innocence and delight.’
(R. S. Thomas)The ende of þe wyche lyf [þe relygyous lyf of an heremyte] is doble: on þe wych we getyn be the grace of God, helpynge be our labour and vertuows exercyse, and that is to offeryn to God an hooly herte and a clene fro actual fylthe of synne, wych ende we atteyne & neyhyn when we arn perfyth & in Caryth … Anothyr ende of thys lyf ys of þe clene ʒyfte of God ʒeven vnto vs, þat is for to seyne not alonly aftyr deth but now in thys dedly lyf sumwhat to tastyn in herte and prouyn in sowle þe vertu of þe presens of God and þe swetnesse of euerelastynge blysse.
(II ii, fol. 50v)IN THIS WAY The Book of the Institution of the First Monks describes the aims of the Carmelite life, proposing Elijah as the model of the spiritual life. The Carmelite life is presented as one of solitude, contemplative prayer, a life led to allow the best opportunity for experiencing fully the presence of God in this life.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Medieval Mystical Tradition in EnglandPapers Read at Charney Manor, July 2004 [Exeter Symposium VII], pp. 149 - 162Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004