"Synne is Behovabil"

Part 1, Julian's Most Controversial Word

You can make a good argument that Julian of Norwich is the most misunderstood theologian in the Christian tradition.

In the hands of some interpreters, Julian is a proto-feminist, anti-traditionalist, anti-Catholic, anti-dogma, liberal humanist.

To be sure, there is much within Julian's Revelations of the Divine Love to ruffle feathers. For example, in Chapter 59 Julian describes God as our Mother: "As veryly as God is our fader, as verily God is our moder." ("As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.")

The most famous lines of Julian come from Chapter 27: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." The words are famous for their bright and hopeful optimism against the dark and grim background of medieval theology and the turmoil of Julian's day, from the ravages of Black Death to wars to the fracturing of the Catholic church. Julian looked upon all that darkness and heard the Lord say, "All shall be well."

So, from divine feminine imagery to optimism to stunning images of God's tender and loving care, we can see why Julian has a devoted following. Count me a fan. And yet, as I said, Julian is often misunderstood.

How so?

Well, a lot of progressives love Julian, for the reasons stated above, but much of her showings concern the crucified body of Jesus and dwell upon his pain, blood, and torment. These showings aren't quite to the level of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, but they aren't far off. Julian's embrace of the blood and tortured body of Jesus doesn't jibe very well with progressive readings of the atonement.

Also, given her "all shall be well" optimism, Julian is often read as a universalist. But this reading of Julian has to reckon with her descriptions of souls in hell. Much like we do with Jesus in the gospels, we tend to pick and choose our way around Julian's showings to create an image of her that matches our own theological preferences. I, myself, have deployed Julian's "all shall be well" to describe an eschatological hope that likely exceeds her own.

But perhaps the most overlooked, and therefore controversial, passage in Revelations of the Divine Love concerns a single word. There is an oft-deleted sentence that comes right before Julian's "all shall be well." Here's the text from Chapter 27 in Julian's Middle English:

But Jesus, that in this vision enformid me of all that me nedyth, answerid by this word, and seyd: Synne is behovabil, but al shal be wel, and al shal be wel, and al manner of thyng shal be wele.

Translated into modern English, the full sentence of what Jesus says is:

Sin is behovable, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Due to some differences in the manuscripts, some texts have "sin is behovely" instead of "sin is behovable."

Okay, so what does "behovely" or "behovable" mean?

The word "behovely" has a range of meanings: Necessary, required, fitting, suitable, appropriate. You can see the controversy. The notion that sin might be "necessary" or even "fitting" is a difficult claim. Some try to get around the shock and translate the line as "sin is inevitable." Perhaps so, but in claiming that "sin is behovely" Julian is suggesting that sin is more than just inevitable. She's suggesting that there something "fitting" and "appropriate" about sin. Even "proper." But what could that possibly mean?

Given the puzzle here, it's not hard to see why the line "sin is behovely" gets lopped off the "all shall be well" quote. But in removing "sin is behovely" we're, once again, sanding down Julian's theology and reducing her to an inspiring meme.

And so, what could Julian have meant by "sin is behovely"?

We'll turn to that in the next post.