Introduction

          This project is a labor of love, because I have long been interested in Julian of Norwich and have wanted to study in greater detail the theology underlying her mystical visions.  So, when I signed up for World Biographies as my historical proseminar, I was determined that I would find a biography about her to read and review.  I chose Grace Jantzen’s book called, Julian of Norwich, it is an excellent study of Julian’s life and thought, and it provides a rich analysis of her theology, so rich in fact that I cannot do it justice in a paper of this type.  But the project required that I read and then write about a second biography as well, and I really had no idea what additional text to read.  I had a conference with Professor Felstiner in which she suggested that I read Carlo Ginzburg’s book Cheese and Worms, a biography on a man who was put on trial by the Office of the Inquisition at the end of the sixteenth century in the period just after the close of the Council of Trent.  Once I began reading Ginzburg’s book I quickly realized that it was a perfect compliment to Jantzen’s book on Julian of Norwich.  Both biographers had devised a similar frame to reconstruct the lives of their historical subjects, and the similarity in the frames is all the more intriguing when it becomes clear that Julian and Domenico Scandella, commonly called Menocchio, held very different theological views about God and Christ. The common theme of both biographers concerns the development of the thought of the individuals that they are studying, and the fact that both of them were in their own way, ahead of their time.  As part of this introduction I will give some background information about their lives, but it is important to note that both of these biographies are less about the lives of their subjects, and instead center on the development of their theological thought. 

          Julian, who lived in Norwich England, was a fourteenth century female mystic and lay theologian.  She was born in 1343 just prior to the outbreak of the Black Death.  Death and suffering where common during this period and prior to her thirtieth birthday she became an Anchoress.  An Anchoress is like a monastic or hermit, and so she lived a solitary life at the Anchorhold of the Church of St. Julian at Canisford in Norwich.  Beginning in May 1373, Julian experienced a terrible illness and nearly died, and while sick she had sixteen mystical visions or showings as she called them.  These showings were an expression of God's grace and love and her sickness and the resulting suffering intensified her mystical connection to Christ and His passion.  She spent the rest of her life meditating on what had been revealed to her and twenty years after she wrote down the revelations she had received, she wrote an enlarged and revised version of them.  It is this extended version (recension) that contains all of her great depth of theological insight.

          The book Cheese and Worms concerns the late sixteenth century heresy trial of Domenico Scandella, a miller from the town of Friuli in Italy.  Domenico, who as I mentioned earlier was called Menocchio, was brought to trial because he held views about the creation that did not agree with the official teaching of the Catholic Church.  In the period prior to his trials, the Council of Trent had come to a close and a new religious outlook had swept across Catholic Europe.  This new outlook was not able to tolerate any views that deviated from the Tridentine orthodoxy.  All this eventually led to his first and later his second trial.  Menocchio was a simple, yet literate, peasant who in his own way tried to explain the meaning of human existence, but it was in the way he explained it that Menocchio was unique.  Sadly, being unique in Italy during the years after the close of the Council of Trent, was not a good thing.  His first trial ended without a conviction, but his second trial ended with a guilty verdict, and Menocchio was executed for heresy.  By examining his ideas it becomes possible to see the tumultuous nature of peasant life during that period, and the fact that the peasant class was beginning to think about things that had hitherto only been the subject matter for the elite ruling class within the hierarchical structure of the Church. 

Sources

          Both of the individuals who were the central subjects of the books I read provided their authors with valuable primary source materials.  Grace Jantzen in her book on Julian of Norwich was blest with a text, in two forms, composed by the person she was writing about.  Julian of Norwich had her mystical experience on the thirteenth of May 1373 and immediately after the events she wrote a short treatise describing the revelations she received.  This original version of her book is normally called the shorter version of the Revelations of Divine Love.  About twenty years later, Julian, possessing a deeper understanding of what she witnessed, wrote an extended version of her experiences, normally called the longer recension, that is, a critical reworking of the text by Julian herself.  In this longer recension or version of her Revelations Julian expounds on the theological principles that are necessary in order to properly understand the meaning of the text and what it was that she saw.  In it she no longer simply relates what happened to her, but she interprets and gives meaning to the events recounted in the text, and thus explains the nature of prayer and the mystical ‘oneing’, that is, the unity with God that occurs through suffering and love.

          There are three extant manuscript copies of Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love, the most important one is called the Paris Manuscript and it is a sixteenth century copy of the longer recension of her book.  This is the version that contains the twenty years worth of theological insights by Julian herself into the meaning of her mystical experience.  The other two manuscripts are known as the Sloane Manuscripts 2499 and 3705, the former is a mid-seventeenth century copy of her treatise, while the latter is a copy from the end of the seventeenth century.  The Sloane Manuscripts represent the original or shorter version of the Revelations of Divine Love, but this does not mean that the are necessarily the best copies.  The best copy would be represented by the Paris Manuscript because it is a reworking of the original by Julian herself, and so in some sense it is the definitive version of her book.  All three of these manuscripts stand within the same textual tradition, but there is a fourth manuscript of lesser importance and which, like the Sloane Manuscripts, represents the original version of the book, but which gives slightly different readings than the Sloane copies.

          In addition to this central source, Grace Jantzen utilizes other spiritual and mystical texts from the general period in which Julian lived.  There are affinities in Julian’s writings to the anonymous text called The Cloud of Unknowing, and other texts, like those written somewhat later by St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila.  Jantzen occasionally refers to these types of texts in order to throw light on the spiritual meaning of Julian’s visions.  This is possible because prior to the Reformation there was a common spiritual and mystical tradition with its own terminology and systematic approach to the life of prayer. The only weakness in Jantzen’s primary source concerns the fact that it was written by the person that she is trying to investigate.  The fact that Julian’s writing was not really meant to explain anything about her life in itself, but was intended to relate a single mystical experience and the theological insights that she gained over the course of twenty years is also problematic.

          Carlo Ginzburg, like Grace Jantzen, has a strong primary source, but he does have a weakness present in his source that differs from the one affecting Jantzen’s primary source, and that concerns the fact that it was written by people who were investigating the beliefs of Ginzburg’s subject, Menocchio Scandella, in order to convict him of heresy, and if convicted to execute him.  Thus, this primary source is not really unbiased, but at the same time one can say, based on the nature of what the court documents recount it is highly likely that the ideas associated with Menocchio are in fact his ideas and not simply false accusations against him.  Ginzburg himself deals with this question in preface to the Italian edition of the book, where he rightly points out that simply because a source is not objective, it “does not mean that it is useless” [Ginzburg, preface xvii].  He goes on to say that, “A hostile chronicle can furnish precious testimony about a peasant community in revolt” [Ginzburg, preface xvii].  Although it is important to keep in mind the biases of the authors of an account, the account as a primary source is still of great value in understanding the time in which it was written.

          Ginzburg’s main source of information about the development of Menocchio’s thought, is the trial records of the Inquisition.  The account is found in Domenico Scandella detto Menocchio: I processi dell’ Inquisitione (1583-1599) [Ginzburg, preface x], and this work is a critical edition of the trials of Menocchio before the Holy Inquisition, with additional archival information and a historical introduction.  Professor Ginzburg is also able to utilize other texts written around the time that Menocchio lived, because several books were mentioned in the acts of his trials and these books are believed to have influenced his intellectual development.  They include some of the following texts: the Bible in the vernacular, a book called Il Fioretto della Bibbia, and the Il Lucidario della Madonna, along with a few others mentioned in his first trial.  Some additional books were mentioned in his second trial and they include the Decameron of Boccaccio, and Ginzburg notes that he may even have read parts of the Qu’ran from an Italian translation made in the sixteenth century. [Ginzburg, 29-30]  As I noted in the introduction to this paper, these biographies are really studies of the development of the thought of these two individuals, and although the events of their lives to the degree that it is possible are recounted, those events are not central to the purpose of the biographers.

Structure

          The structure of both books is similar, in that both Jantzen and Ginzburg are more concerned with showing the development of their subjects thought, that is, with the ideological system that each of them devised in order to explain the world around them and to help them to understand the nature of God.  In order to do this both biographers attempt to shed light on the educational background of peasants at the time in general, and of these two individuals in particular.  By the standards of the time both Julian and Menocchio were considered to be unlettered, but this did not mean that they could not read or write, it simply meant that they could not read or write in Latin or Greek.  But both individuals could read and write in the vernacular, and it is important to note, that Julian of Norwich is the first person to write a major spiritual treatise in the English language.  Neither of the biographers possesses any evidence to indicate the type or the extent of education received by either of their historical subjects they are investigating, but it is clear that both had some form of a limited education.

          Since there is not much information on the education received by either Julian or Menocchio, the biographers only touch upon this element, and move instead to an area where, at least in the case of Menocchio, a greater amount of evidence is available.  This area concerns the types of book that were or could have been read by the two of them.  Grace Jantzen has a more difficult task here, because Julian makes no direct references to any other texts in her writings, although there are elements in her text that elude to influence from other authors, both contemporary and ancient.  Julian’s theological insights appear to show a familiarity not only with the Bible but also with the writings of the Church Fathers, men like St. Augustine and St. Athanasius, to name just two.  Although Jantzen hypothesizes that Julian could have received a more formal education in theology at one of the surrounding convents, there is no real evidence to support this.  So, even if Julian had no formal theological training, it is clear that her theology is quite orthodox and has great depth of insight into the major dogmas of Catholicism.  Jantzen is torn between wanting to prove that Julian has received a formal education, while simultaneously asserting the originality of Julian’s thought, and in this area she is more successful in proving the latter.

          Carlo Ginzburg labors under the same difficulty as Jantzen, because he also lacks any substantial information about Menocchio’s educational background.  But unlike Grace Jantzen, Professor Ginzburg does know many of the books read by Menocchio, because these books are listed in the court records and where part of the theological examination of Menocchio’s views by the officials of the Inquisition.  I have given a partial list of the books above, and the full list can be found in Ginzburg’s book.  The fact that Menocchio, a peasant, had read some of these texts shows that the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century was still having major repercussion in the late sixteenth century.  Ginzburg also shows that Menocchio was not just reading these texts, he was interpreting them for himself, and sometimes even giving them meanings that were in some sense contrary to the intention of the original author.  In other words, Menocchio was radically reshaping the texts to suit his own needs.  But the records of the Inquisition allow Ginzburg to investigate what external influences may have affected Menocchio Scandella, but in spite of this, and because of Menocchio’s reinterpretation of the texts he read, Ginzburg concludes that Menocchio’s system of thought is ultimately his own creation.  To put it in Menocchio’s own words, his ideas were “. . . made up in my own head” [Ginzburg, 52].  Thus it is fair to say that both biographers tend to emphasize the originality of the ideas proposed by the persons they are studying.

Frame

          The frames of the two books are also very much alike, in that, both biographers highlight the originality of their historical subjects thought, and emphasize the fact that they are ahead of their time.  Jantzen frames her biography around the image of Julian of Norwich as a female Catholic mystic of the period prior to the Reformation.  She portrays Julian as a theologian who, by emphasizing the feminine principle in the divine nature, anticipated theological developments that would only come to full flower in the late twentieth century.

          Julian’s recognition of the imago dei (image of God) in the feminine was ahead of its time, in her book she wrote, “Jesus Christ, who doeth good against evil, is our very Mother.  We have our being of Him, there, where the ground of Motherhood beginneth; with all the sweet keeping of love that endlessly followeth.  As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother” [Walsh, 161].  The logic of her thought in having said this is fully Catholic, because Catholic tradition has always called the Church our Mother, while also calling the Church the body of Christ.  Now, since the Christ is the head, and the Church is His body, it follows that they form one mystical person, and because of this it is possible to apply all the attributes of the Church to Christ, including the attribute of Motherhood.  Additionally, in Catholic theology Christ is fully God, and because this is one can ascribe the title Mother to God Himself.  All of these ideas were centuries ahead of their time, and that is why Julian’s writings are experiencing a renaissance in Catholic theology, and one sign of her growing importance can be seen in the new universal Catechism issued in the early 1990s which actually takes a quotation from her book.

          As indicated above, Professor Ginzburg also frames his biography by emphasizing the modern nature of Menocchio’s thought.  By his dissent from standard Catholic doctrine, Menocchio was espousing the idea that a person’s spiritual journey is a private matter, and that each person should be free to explore and develop his own system of belief.  This in itself is a very modern view of religion, but Menocchio did not stop there, because along with his ideas about personal freedom, he also promoted the idea that society should tolerate religious differences, and as Ginzburg indicates, this idea corresponds to “. . . the sophisticated religious theories of contemporary, humanistically trained heretics” [Ginzburg, 51].  It should be noted that Ginzburg is not using the term heretic in a pejorative sense, but is using it to highlight the modern tolerance of differences among groups and individuals.

A Brief Comparison of the Theology of Julian and Menocchio                                     

          The main distinction to be made between the theological system of Julian of Norwich and that of Menocchio Scandella concerns the dogmatic nature of Julian’s beliefs and the essentially pragmatic ideas of Menocchio.  Although it is true that Julian advances beyond the Catholic theology of her day, it is also true that her views were still profoundly Catholic, and that the new insights she had gained through the revelations she had received did not question the basis of Catholic belief.  But in Menocchio’s case the same cannot be said, because his theological system was in most respects a repudiation of the Catholic tradition.  He was promoting a pragmatic individualism, a system of belief that would allow each person to determine his own system of belief independently of society.  In spite of the fact that Julian of Norwich lived in isolation as an Anchoress, it cannot be said that she rejected the communal nature of the Catholic faith, and in this way she disagrees with Menocchio.  So, these two people developed very different theological systems, systems that ultimately are not compatible.

          Central to Julian’s theology is the concept of God as the Creator of the universe, and as a consequence of this idea, that God alone is uncreated, while all other things, matter included, are created by God out of nothing.  As Julian wrote in reference to God, “[He] is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man’s soul is a creature of God, having the same properties, but made” [Walsh, 121].  Her reference God as unmade is an assertion of the eternal and uncreated nature of the deity.  Menocchio on the other hand,  held that God was in a sense created or that He emanated from the primordial chaos, and that this chaos was the only truly eternal thing.  Menocchio told the inquisitor at his second trial that, God “. . . is not produced by others but receives His movement within the shifting of the chaos, and proceeds from imperfect to perfect” [Ginzburg, 56].  What he means by this is that God is not produced by other beings; instead, He is produced by the impersonal chaos, but nevertheless God is not eternal as a personal being Himself, but instead comes into being at some moment in the distant past.

          Julian and Menocchio also disagreed about the nature of Christ and His crucifixion.  For Julian the divinity of Christ and His suffering on the cross were central to her understanding of the nature of suffering in general.  Julian saw the suffering of human beings in the world as a participation in the sufferings of Christ.  In a sense Christ continues to suffer in His body the Church.  Both of these ideas are rejected by Menocchio, and he is reported to have said, “I doubted that . . . He was God, instead He must have been some prophet, some great man sent by God to preach in this world,” and in reference to the suffering of Christ, he said, “. . . it is not true that Christ was crucified, but rather Simon of Cyrene” [Ginzburg, 43].  This idea that someone other than Christ died on the cross is of Muslim origin, and so Menocchio’s statement does give credence to the idea that he had some familiarity either with the Qu’ran or some other Muslim text.  Clearly, the theologies of Julian and Menocchio are irreconcilable, and each in some way was a product of their own time, while simultaneously being ahead of their time.

APPENDIX A:  Quotation from Primary Source (Julian of Norwich)

          These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May. Which creature [had] afore desired three gifts of God.  The First was mind of His Passion; the Second was bodily sickness in youth, at thirty years of age; the Third was to have of God's gift three wounds.  [1] As to the First, me thought I had some feeling in the Passion of Christ, but yet I desired more by the grace of God. Me thought I would have been that time with Mary Magdalene, and with other that were Christ's lovers, and therefore I desired a bodily sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pains of our Saviour and of the compassion of our Lady and of all His true lovers that saw, that time, His pains. For I would be one of them and suffer with Him. Other sight nor shewing of God desired I never none, till the soul were disparted from the body. The cause of this petition was that after the shewing I should have the more true mind in the Passion of Christ.  [2] The Second came to my mind with contrition; [I] freely desiring that sickness [to be] so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die, and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant for [that] I would be purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering in my death: for I desired to be soon with my God. These two desires of the Passion and the sickness I desired with a condition, saying thus: Lord, Thou knowest what I would, if it be Thy will that I have it; and if it be not Thy will, good Lord, be not displeased: for I will nought but as Thou wilt. [3] For the Third [petition], by the grace of God and teaching of Holy Church I conceived a mighty desire to receive three wounds in my life: that is to say, the wound of very contrition, the wound of kind compassion, and the wound of steadfast longing toward God. And all this last petition I asked without any condition. These two desires aforesaid passed from my mind, but the third dwelled with me continually. 

[An excerpt from The Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich, Chapter 2.  The original version was written in 1373, and revised by Julian herself in 1393].

APPENDIX A:  Analysis of Quotation from Primary Source (Julian of Norwich)

          In this section of her treatise on the Revelations, Julian describes herself as an ‘unlettered creature’, and it is important to note what this term does not mean, it does not mean that she was illiterate; instead, it simply means that she did not know how to read or write in Latin.  The opening pages of her book are used to set the tone for the entire work, and the first thing she expresses is her desire to see the suffering of Christ depicted in some visible form to her mind; she also desires to experience physical suffering in her own body; and finally, she desires to receive the gift of what she calls ‘three wounds.’  The wounds she asks for are: (1) contrition, (2) compassion, and (3) love of God, and concerning this last wound she explains that it was to remain with her continually.  Since God is described as love in scripture (see 1 John 4:8), this is a claim on her part to have achieved a unitive experience of the divine.  What does this desire to see the passion of Christ visibly along with her desire to experience a participation in His sufferings tell us about Julian and the times in which she lived.  Understanding the nature of suffering, its causes and its purpose, are central to Julian’s vision.  She is trying to reconcile how a good God, can permit innocent people to suffer, and to understand this better she desires to suffer herself.

          It is important to remember that Julian was born at the time when the Black Death was sweeping across Europe.  Approximately one third of all people living in Europe died in this horrible plague and this left a major impact on the society of the time, and of course Julian would have seen much of this terrible suffering herself.  As Grace Jantzen indicates, the Black Death had begun in Dorset in 1348, and at the time Julian was “a girl of six or seven” [Jantzen, 7].  The disease was extremely contagious and once contracted a person died within days.  All of this would have a profound impact on a young child.  In addition to the scourge of the Black Death there were “murrains of cattle in 1348, 1363, and 1369, and . . . a series of bad harvests: 1369 was the worst in fifty years” [Jantzen, 8].  All of this contributed to the loss of life and created a sense of despair among the people of the region. 

          In response to all the suffering she sees around her, Julian asks God for the gift of suffering.  She desires to suffer as Christ has suffered, and in this way she hopes to come to understand the nature of suffering.  This is a profoundly Christian viewpoint, and one that is promoted by scripture and by all the ancient Fathers of the Church.  There are several texts in the New Testament which illustrate this idea; one of the most important occurs in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  In that letter he explains that for a Christian to be glorified in the next life it is necessary that he suffer, as he puts it, “When we cry Abba!  Father!  It is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” [Romans 8:16-17].  Julian, consciously or not, is expressing a common Christian idea in her book.  She has desired to suffer with and in Christ in order to be glorified with Him.  Where her theological knowledge came from is a matter of dispute, but that she understood an important concept of Christian theology is clear in her writings, and that concept concerned the idea that suffering is a way to grow in holiness.

          When Julian identifies her own sufferings with the sufferings of Christ upon the cross, she is following in the tradition of St. Augustine, who identified the sufferings of the whole Church with those of Christ.  St. Augustine believed that Christ is the Head of His body the Church, and that these two things form one mystical person.  Now, although the suffering of Christ is  complete in the Head of the Church, that is, in Christ Himself, it is still being worked out in His Body the Church (see Mersch, 425).  Julian has struck upon an ancient element of Catholic mysticism, the idea that Christ and the Church are one living organism, and she is the first author to express this idea in the English language.  

          The depth of theological insight in Julian’s book is impressive, and if she had no formal education it becomes all the more impressive, because it could indicate that she developed these ideas on her own.  But even if her thought was influenced by the writings of other people, it does not lessen the powerful character of her revelations.  The fact that she forms a theological synthesis as deep as that of a man like St. Augustine, or even of a contemporary in the Eastern Church like St. Gregory Palamas, shows that Julian is one of the great mystical theologians of the Catholic tradition.

APPENDIX B:  Quotation from Primary Source (Menocchio Domenico Scandella)

INQUISITOR:     It appears that you contradicted yourself in the previous examinations speaking about God, because in one instance you said God was eternal with the chaos, and in another you said that He was made from the chaos: therefore clarify this circumstance and your belief.

MENOCCHIO:    My opinion is that god was eternal with chaos, but He did not know Himself nor was He alive, but later He became aware of Himself, and this is what I mean that He was made from chaos.

INQUISITOR:     You said previously that God had intelligence; how can it be then that originally He did not know Himself, and what was the cause that afterwards He knew Himself?  Relate also what occurred in God that made it possible for God who was not alive to become alive.

MENOCCHIO:    I believe that it was with God as with the things of this world that proceed from imperfect to perfect, as an infant who while he is in his mother’s womb neither understands nor lives, but outside the womb begins to live, and in growing begins to understand.  Thus, God was imperfect while He was with the chaos, He neither comprehended nor lived, but later expanding in this chaos He began to live and understand.

INQUISITOR:     Did this divine intellect know everything distinctly and in particular in the beginning?

MENOCCHIO:    He knew all the things that there were to be made, He knew about men, and also that from them others were to be born; but He did not know all those who were to be born, for example, those who tend herds, who know that from these, others will be born, but they do not know specifically all those that will be born.  Thus, God saw everything, but He did not see all the particular things that were to come.

INQUISITOR:     This divine intellect in the beginning had knowledge of all things: where did He acquire this information, was it from His own essence or by another way?

MENOCCHIO:    The intellect received knowledge from the chaos, in which all things were confused together: and then it [chaos] gave order and comprehension to the intellect, just as we know earth, water, are, and fire and then distinguish among them.

INQUISITOR:     Did this God not have will and power before He made all things?

MENOCCHIO:    Yes, just as knowledge increased in Him, so will and power also increased.

INQUISITOR:     Are will and power the same thing in God?

MENOCCHIO:    They are distinct just as they are in us: where there is will there must also be the power to do a thing.  For example, the carpenter wants to make a bench and needs tools to do it, and if he does not have the wood, his will is useless.  Thus we say about God, that in addition to will, power also is needed.

INQUISITOR:     What is the power of God?

MENOCCHIO:    To operate through skilled workers.

INQUISITOR:     These angels that you think are God’s ministers in the creation of the world, were they made directly by God, or by whom?

MENOCCHIO:    They were produced by nature from the most perfect substance of the world, just as worms are produced from a cheese, and when they emerged received will, intellect, and memory from God as He blessed them.

INQUISITOR:     Could God have done everything by Himself without the assistance of the angels?

MENOCCHIO:    Yes, just as someone who is building a house uses workers and helpers, but we say that He build it.  Similarly, in making the world God used the angels, but we say that God made it.  And just as that master carpenter in building the house could also do it by himself, but it would take longer, so God in making the world could have done it by Himself, but over a longer period of time.

INQUISITOR:     If there had not been that substance from which all those angels were produced, if that chaos had not been there, could God have created the entire apparatus of the world by Himself?

MENOCCHIO:    I believe that it is impossible to make anything without matter, and even God could not have made anything without matter.

INQUISITOR:     That spirit or supreme angel that you call the Holy Spirit, is He of the same nature and essence as God?

MENOCCHIO:    God and the angels are of the same essence as chaos, but there is a difference in perfection, because the substance of God is more perfect than that of the Holy Spirit, since God is the more perfect light: and I say the same about Christ, who is of a lesser substance than that of God and that of the Holy Spirit.

INQUISITOR:     This Holy Spirit is He as powerful as God?  And Christ also is He as powerful as God and the Holy Spirit?

MENOCCHIO:    The Holy Spirit is not as powerful as God, and Christ is not as powerful as God and the Holy Spirit.

INQUISITOR:     Is what you call God made and produced by someone else?

MENOCCHIO:    He is not produced by others but receives His movement within the shifting of chaos, and proceeds from imperfect to perfect.

INQUISITOR:     Who moves the chaos?

MENOCCHIO:    It moves by itself.

[An excerpt from the records of the second trial in 1599.  Ginzburg, Carlo.  Cheese and Worms:  The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller.  (Baltimore:  John Hopkins University Press, 1992).  Pages 54-56].

APPENDIX B:  Analysis of Quotation from Primary Source (Menocchio Domenico Scandella)

          This text from the actual interrogation of Menocchio by the investigator from the Office of the Inquisition is very instructive.  Not only does it help us to understand the nature of Menocchio’s belief system, but it also reveals a lot about the inquisitor.  It is clear from the nature of the inquisitors questions that he had actually been listening to what Menocchio was saying, and that he was really trying to grasp the nature of Menocchio’s beliefs.  The inquisitors questions were meant not simply to trick Menocchio, but were intended to get to the core of Menocchio’s beliefs in order to see if they really conflicted with the beliefs of the Church.  

          Menocchio clearly held to a form of philosophical materialism, in that he held that matter was eternal and that matter (chaos) was the only truly eternal thing, and was the thing from which everything else came, including God.  Menocchio was in a way proposing the concept of spontaneous generation of life.  The idea that inanimate matter could, without any intelligent force behind it, generate life.  To the inquisitor such a position was irrational, and that is why he tries to get Menocchio to clarify his position and to hopefully declare that God, in some form, is eternal and pre-exists matter. When reading the court records it is important to keep in mind that the inquisitor was able to reread the interrogations prior to talking to Menocchio again, while Menocchio was working only from his memory.

          In a later dialogue after the one above the inquisitor got Menocchio to admit that there were some glaring contradictions in his metaphysical system, especially as it concerned the nature of God.  Menocchio held that God was composed of “air, earth, fire and water” and in doing so reduced God to matter.  Later when he was pressed on his confusion in reference to God and God’s Spirit, the inquisitor asked “are the Spirit of God and God the same thing?” [Ginzburg, 70]  When confronted in this way Menocchio simply responded by saying “I don’t know.” [Ginzburg, 70]  The inquisitor would press him, but Menocchio really did not know how to answer.  It is interesting that in all of these exchanges the inquisitor really takes seriously what Menocchio says, although it is clear that the inquisitor does not agree with Menocchio, yet the inquisitor wants to get to the truth of the matter.  These exchanges are quite informative and deeply interesting.

APPENDIX  C:  How the Biographers used their Primary Sources

Part 1:  Julian of Norwich

          In her book, Julian of Norwich, Grace Jantzen uses the primary source materials available to her in order to show Julian’s intellectual development during the period between the two recensions of Julian’s book entitled Revelations of Divine Love.  By looking at the surrounding educational institutions Jantzen tries to show that Julian could have received some type of education in theology during the twenty year period from 1373 to 1393.  She hypothesizes this because of the great theological depth that is found in the longer recension of Julian’s book.  It is of course unlikely that Julian received any formal theological education, since this was something not generally offered to women during this time period.  So any theological study done by Julian would have been accomplished through her own initiative.  Thus, like a good biographer Grace Jantzen uses her primary source in order to gain a deeper understanding of Julian’s own thought, while she also attempts to shed light on the nature of life for a woman, especially a woman mystic, in 14th century Catholic Europe.  Finally, I feel compelled to make one critical notation, and that concerns Jantzen’s hypothesis that Julian must have studied theology during the twenty years between the two versions of her book of revelations, because although Jantzen shows that it was possible that Julian could have accessed some ancient theological texts, Jantzen somewhat overstates her case and at times assumes that she has proved that Julian did this, but there is no evidence to really support her contention.  Julian may have had access to Biblical and Patristical sources, but she also may have been an original thinker, who simply had a deep personal experience of God.

Part 2:  Menocchio Domenico Scandella

          Carlo Ginzberg incorporated a portion of the primary source into his book, and it was very intresting reading.  Sadly, he did not incorporate more of the court records into his book.  The court records gave a real glimpse into the mind not only of Menocchio but of the inquisitor as well, and that was very historically informative.  Ginzburg also incorportated other texts into his book, including portions of some of the books Menocchio was reported to have read, and this was helpful as well in getting a better grasp on the nature of Menocchio’s beliefs, and the fact that they were very original as Ginzburg indicated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Julian of Norwich:  

James Walsh, S.J. (Translator).  The Revelations of Divine Love.  (Trabuco Canyon, CA:  Source Books, 1991).

Menocchio Domenico Scandella:

Carlo Ginzburg.  Cheese and Worms:  The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller.  (Baltimore:  John Hopkins University Press, 1992).

Grace Jantzen.  Julian of Norwich.  (New York:  Paulist Press, 2000).

Emile Mersch.  The Whole Christ.  (Milwaukee:  The Bruce Publishing Company, 1938).

The Bible:  Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  American Bible Society, 1971).  

A Mystic and a Heretic:  Julian of Norwich and Menocchio Domenico Scandella

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

History 644:  Proseminar in World History

Dr. Mary Felstiner

14 May 2002

Copyright © 2002-2025 Steven Todd Kaster