Monday, August 17, 2009

Revalat* (for Revelation, etc.)

Julian of Norwich was a 14th century English mystic and the author of Revelations of Divine Love (or Showings), long considered a classic work of medieval spirituality. An AUTOCAT reader sent me a charming quote of Julian’s in response to my earlier blog post about Neil Armstrong and his impressions of Earth as seen from space. Taken from Revelations, this passage is often interpreted as a vision of the cosmos.

And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, "What may this be?"And it was answered generally thus, "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

The low-probability typo Revalat* is anything but divine. There are 8 instances of it in the OhioLINK catalog.

(Statue of Julian, Norwich Cathedral, by David Holdgate; photo by Leo Reynolds, posted on Flickr)

Deb Kulczak

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