“Alle in generalle and nothing in specialle”: General and Special in Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love

In his meditation on the divine works in the second book of Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas argues that “distinctio . . . rerum secundum speciem” (the distinction of things according to species) is an essential element of creation and not merely a result of chance.¹ To support his claim, he points to the first chapter of Genesis, where God creates the world precisely by making a series of distinctions: he divides the light from the darkness and the waters above the firmament from those below before proceeding to create the plants and the living creatures of the earth, sky, and sea, each classified into “speciem suam” (its own kind or species).² While by this Biblical passage “non solum rerum creatio, sed etiam rerum distinctio a Deo esse ostendatur, non a casu” (not only the creation of things, but also the distinction of things is shown to be from God, and not from chance), Aquinas takes pains to show that the distinction of things into kinds is supported by reason as well as revelation. The distinction of things constitutes the “bonum et optimum” (good and best) of the universe for several reasons, but two are particularly relevant to Julian of Norwich. First, the plurality and inequality of created things allows them to imitate God not only in being good but also in acting for the good of other things; multiplicity, and therefore distinction, is the precondition for charity. The distinction among things also allows God’s universe to partake of the “ultima et noblissima perfectio in rebus” (the highest and noblest perfection in things), the “bonum ordinis” (the good of order), which can only exist where discrete parts are fittingly arranged in relation to each other.³ This explains why God, who looked upon his handiwork after each day of creation and saw that it was good, only declared it to be very good (valde bona) when the work was complete and he took a sweeping view of all (cuncta) that he had made (Gen. 1:31). In Aquinas’s view, the existence and the visibility of individuated things is essential to the good of the universe, but the full goodness of that universe can only be seen by drawing back from the particulars and observing the orderly pattern of the whole.

In her own meditation on God’s creation, Julian of Norwich endeavors to take on the divine perspective of the sixth day, and her famous pronouncements that “alle is welle” and “Alle shalle be wele” echo God’s final judgment on the goodness of all his works.⁴ In order to attain this vision of the behoveliness of the cosmos and of salvation history, Julian repeatedly instructs herself and her reader to take “alle in generalle and nothing in specialle,” to consider themselves as members of the “generalle man” rather than as individuals (37.5–6, 75.4).⁵ If Julian’s imperative to take all in general simply indicates that the particular or special should be subordinated to the general, it is perfectly consonant with Aquinas’s observation that a prospect view of creation is necessary to detect its highest perfection, the apt arrangement of its parts. Yet Julian’s direction to take nothing in special could also entail a complete effacement of particularity. If so, she would be claiming, contra Aquinas, that the supreme goodness of God and his works only becomes visible by overlooking distinctions, whether among individual human beings or among species of creatures. Julian’s position often tends toward the latter view since her account of salvation relies upon the interchangeability of Christ, Adam, and all who will be saved. Yet, at the same time, she acknowledges that God does see distinctions among his creatures, since he marks particular individuals, like Mary, as his special servants and loves each individual human soul as if it were his peculiar beloved. Julian attempts to reconcile these two visions of divine love by consistently prioritizing general knowledge because she believes that human knowledge and love of particulars are skewed by sensuality and therefore...