ut her subject matter. The author of The Dream of the Rood is given authority by way of his masculinity. The obvious distinction being that, as he is a man, he is to be trusted upon his word. Neither had Old English society become so firmly entrenched in Christianity. The Dream of the Rood seems to have been a method to convert heathens to Christianity by immersing Christianity in the extant value system of the time. This does not seem to be the case with Showings. In all likelihood, Julian intended for the reader to come away with a sense of beauty and the knowledge of the extreme sacrifice of Christ. The conversion to Christianity is not the ultimate motive of Showings. The reader is supposed to engage in a greater understanding of the passion of Christ and his desire to suffer so that all mankind did not have to suffer for eternity. In both works Christ emerges as a powerful being that will stoically suffer for us all, and reward us, for the price of our piety. The seeds of Christianity that had been planted during the time of Old English literature prospered within the texts of Middle English literature. Even as Christianity managed to flourish in medieval times, the ideal of Christianity changed with the period in which it lived, meshed in the ideals of the society to which it implored conversion.Whereas honor is the prevailing theme of Christ's crucifixion in The Dream of the Rood, love becomes the dominant subject in Christ's sacrifice for humankind in Showings. "Thus was I learned, that love is our Lord's meaning. And I saw full surely in this and in all, that ere God made us he loved us, which love was never slaked ne never shall. And in this love he hath done all his works, and in the love he hath made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting." (Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Ed., p. 297) This change in the integral ideal of the subject matter is perhaps indicative of th...
