Page:Revelations of divine love (Warrack 1907).djvu/19

Rh 3rd ed. 1784), mentions in his preface that he had seen "in the Library of the late Poiret" an old Manuscript of these Revelations. Pierre Poiret, author of several works on mystical theology, died in 1719 near Leyden, but the Manuscript has not found its way to the University there.

Poiret himself refers thus to Julian and her book in his Catalogus Auctorum Mysticorum, giving to her name the asterisk denoting greatness: "Julianae Matris Anachoretae, Revelationes de Amore Dei. Anglice. Theodidactae, profundae, ecstaticae." (Theologiae Pacificae itemque Mysticae p. 336. Amsterdam, 1702.)

The earliest printed edition of Julian's book was prepared by the Benedictine Serenus de Cressy, and published in 1670 by permission of his ecclesiastical Superior, the Abbot of Lambspring, under the title of Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love. It agrees with the Manuscript now in Paris, but the readings that differ from the Sloane Manuscript are very few and are quite unimportant. This version of de Cressy's is in Seventeenth Century English with some archaic words, which are explained on the side margins; it was re-printed in 1843. A modernised version taken from the Sloane MS. was published, with a preface, by Henry Collins in 1877 (T. Richardson & Sons).

These three, the only printed editions, are now all of great rarity.

For the following version, the editor having transcribed the Sloane MS., divided its continuous lines into paragraphs, supplied to many words capital letters, and while following as far as possible the significance of the commas and occasional full stops of the original, endeavoured to make the meaning clearer by a more varied punctuation. As the book is designed for general use, modern spelling has been adopted, and most words entirely obsolete in speech have been rendered in modern English, though a few that seemed of special significance or