LULLY, RAYMOND

.

I. Life. Scientific (§ 3).

II. Works. Polemic (§ 4).

Poetical (§ 1).

Dogmatic (§ 5).

Methodical (§ 2).

Ascetic (§ 8).

III. Posthumous Fortunes.

Raymond Lully (Ram6n Lull, Ruymundua LttZ lus) was born on Majorca (Balearic Islands) c.1232; d. at sea near Cabrera, another of the Balearic Islands, June 30, 1316. As poet, philosopher, theologian, missionary, and martyr, he was one of the most remarkable personages of the Middle Ages for a combination of the mgt varied mental qualities, for adventurous and many-sided activity, and for the influence which he exercised not only on his own countrymen and contemporaries but on distant generations. His importance in the history of theology is due to the fact that, like his contemporary and fellow Franciscan Roger Bacon, he followed the path pointed out by St. Francis, that leading to the knowledge of God by study of the life of his creatures, in the direction of a scientifically organized natural theology; and also to the manner in which his fiery propagandist zeal anticipated the work done by his countryman Ignatius of Loyola 250 years later.

I. Life: Singularly little, however, is known with certainty about his life. Outside of the scanty biographical indications found in his works, the best source is the life by an anonymous disciple written in 1312. He came of a rich and noble family, and lived until he was thirty at the court of King James of Aragon, where he was grand seneschal. This period of his life was careless and worldly; he spent his time in the pursuit of pleasure and knightly exercises, including the practise of poetry in the manner of the courtly troubadours of the time. Suddenly convinced of the vanity of earthly pleasures, he turned to heavenly things and resolved to devote his life to the cause of Christ. He distributed most of his property among the poor, made pilgrimages to Compostela and other shrines, and returned to his native island with the intention of missionary labors among the mainly Mohammedan population of that and the neighboring lands. He learned Arabic from a Moorish slave, who made an attempt on his life. About the same time, certainly before 1275, he met the aged Dominican scholar Raymond of Pennaforte (q.v.), to whom he unfolded his plan of seeking knowledge at the University of Paris, but was dissuaded. He then withdrew to a hermitage he made for him-

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self on his property in Majorca, broke off intercourse with his family, and gave himself up to meditation and study. He seems to have entered the third order of St. Francis; at least he brought thirteen young Franciscans as the first students to the college opened at Miramar in Majorca (Nov., 1276) for the study of the Arabic and Chaldean tongues, the direction of which he undertook with the sanction of Pope John XXI. He was also occupied at this time with the composition of his ambitious Ars magna. About 1285 he thought the time had come to carry out his extensive missionary plans, and went to Rome to obtain the sanction of Honorius IV. for his project of erecting missionary institutes in all countries of Christendom. But Honorius was dead when he reached Rome, and Nicholas IV. seemed little inclined to favor his views. He went to Paris, where he is said to have lectured on his philosophic method (1287-89), then to Montpellier, where he continued his lectures and studies. After about two years there and one at Genoa, he set sail from the latter port in the autumn of 1291 to attempt a missionary campaign in Africa, landed at Bugia in Tunis, preached against Islam, and challenged the fanatical Mohammedan scholars to a public disputation. His words made some impression, and the king, feeling that the Mohammedan supremacy was threatened, condemned him to death, which was commuted to banishment by the intercession of a learned man. He remained in concealment on a ship in the harbor for some time, seeking an opportunity to penetrate once more into the country, but finally lost hope and returned to Italy. He spent about a year (1292-93) in Naples, completing his Tabula generalis and writing his DisPutatio quinque sapientum. His hopes revived with the election of Pope Celestine V., whose pontificate, however, was too short to accomplish anything, while his successor Boniface VIII. had other things to think about. After a sojourn of two years in Rome, during which he composed his poem DesconorE and his treatise Arbor acienti.ce, he went back to Genoa (1296), and then, after a short visit in Majorca, to Paris (1298-99). About 1300-01 is the most probable date for his visit to the Levant in pursuance of his plans for the conversion of the Mohammedans. The years 1302-05, full of literary activity, were spent between Genoa, Majorca, Montpellier, and Paris. In 1305 or 1306 he made a second attempt on North Africa, this time with the special design of opposing the Averroists. He ventured to appear once more in Bugia, passing through many perils and spending 81X m011t116 1T1 rigorous captivity, only to be banished once more. On the return journey he was shipwrecked near Pisa and lost all his possessions, including his books. He now went to Avignon to see the new pope, Clement V., but again met with discouragement, and lectured once more in Paris (1309-11). In the latter year he appeared at the Synod of Vienne and addressed the assembled bishops several times, urging the condemnation of Averroism, the union of the spiritual orders of knighthood into one, the conquest of the Holy Land, and especially the erection of missionary colleges and chairs for instruc-

tion in the oriental languages. The last proposal was the only one adopted; professorships of oriental languages were created at Avignon, Paris, Bologna, Oxford, and Salamanca. From Vienne he seems to have gone first to Majorca, then to have been in Paris and Montpellier again, and to have sailed in the winter of 1314 from Messina for his last African missionary journey. After a short stay in Tunis, he returned to Bugia, where he lay concealed for a time with Christian merchants. Presently, however, he emerged into public notice with fresh fiery attacks on Islam. The Mohammedan population rose against him, drove him out of the city with sticks and atones, and left him half dead on the shore, where he was picked up by two Christian ship captains, but died the next day on the way to Majorca.

The dominant thought of all his later life and literary remains is the idea of Christian missionary enterprise, of which, in the modern sense, he may almost be called the pioneer. To proclaim in the very home of Islam, in the speech of the oriental peoples, the Gospel of Christ; to provide a new and simple scientific method, adapted to all subjects and capacities, for meeting both non-Christian and heretical opponents of the truth; to set before Christian people in the vernacular and in popular form the ideal of the Christian life, the fervor of mystical love of God, and finally to seal this testimony by the sacrifice of his life-such was the purpose and the achievement of nearly fifty years of his life.

B. Works: Of several hundred works left by him only a comparatively small part is printed; many manuscripts are extant in Spanish, French, and German libraries. It may be sufficient here, without going into the minute classification some times attempted, to give some account of the more important divisions of his work.

Among his fellow countrymen he is still considdered primarily as a poet. His Obras ranadas (ed. Rosello, Palms, 1859) count among the most valuable products of the medieval na- r. Poetical. tional literature of Spain, belonging to the Catalan-Proveneal branch. The beat known is El Desconort, composed of sixty-nine twelve-line stanzas in the form of a dialogue between the author and a pious hermit who tries to console him for the discouragement described above.

Outside of Spain, he owes his fame principally to his scientific method (Ars magna or generalia or univeraalia), which has been as much overesti-

mated by a distinct Lullist gehool as

s. Meth- underestimated by others. Its es odical. sense consists in the arrangement of a number of partly formal, partly material concepts, which are designated by letters, in various circles or other mathematical figures, in such a way that by turning the circles or drawing connecting lines all possible combinations may readily be perceived. The concepts are not explained or made the basis of deductions, but are merely schematized. Mechanical as the whole process seems, it met a want of the age; and there were not only a number of enthusiastic Lullists in

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the thirteenth century who lauded him under the title of Doctor illuminatus, but later philosophers and theologians such as Agrippa of Nettesheim, Giordano Bruno, and Kircher were much interested in his system, which seemed to offer an easy road to the coordination of all sciences in one master science. However external and arbitrary the method may appear, it must not be forgotten that the whole scholastic method, built up on the traditional logic and metaphysic of Aristotle, was open to the same objection. Ritter points to the technical logical symbols attributed to Raymond's countryman Petrus Hispanus (d. 1297) as a possible model for the system; but it is more probable that he followed Jewish or Arabic predecessors; he himself uses Kabbala as an alternative title for his art, explaining it as "the reception of truth divinely revealed."

He attempted to employ this method for the solution of various problems in the individual sciences-not merely logic and meta-

3. Scientific.

physic, grammar and rhetoric, but also geometry and arithmetic, physics and chemistry, anthropology, medicine and surgery, law, politics, and even military tactics. As with Roger Bacon, a remarkable tendency is apparent to the use of observation of nature and the attainment of real encyclopedic knowledge, in contrast with scholastic formalism.

His apologetic and polemical works are directed against two classes of adversaries, the "ignorant" who reject learning as dangerous to

4. Polemreicai.

faith, and the "unbelieving" who ject the Christian doctrine as opposed to reason. He attacks specially the Averroistic view; then rather widely prevalent even in Christian circles, of the "double truth," according to which a man might believe as a catholic Christian what according to the laws of reason was impossible. A whole series of treatises is directed against Averroes. He considers faith and knowl edge as inseparably connected, and the attempt to separate them as the greatest hindrance to the spread of Christianity, so dangerous to souls that he invokes the aid of the secular power against it. Some of the treatises against Mohammedanism are written in Arabic, such as the Alchindi and Teliph written at Miramar between 1275 and 1285. Lully is particularly fond of the dialogue form, which he uses with some skill. Noteworthy among the dia logues intended to serve his missionary aims is the Liber de quinqux sapientibus, in which a Roman, a Greek, a Nestorian, and a Jacobite Christian dis pute among themselves and with a Saracen, and a special attempt is made by the first-named (Ld tinus, i.e., Raymond himself) to instruct the Sara cen in the errors of Islam. Another of somewhat similar form is the Liber de gentili et tribes sapien tibus, in which the interlocutors are a pagan philos opher, a Jew, a Christian, and a Saracen. The Dis putatio Raymundi Christians et Hamar Sarraceni (1307) is an extended defense of the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation against the Mo hammedan philosopher Hamar.

Under the head of specifically dogmatic writings the first place is taken by expositions of the existence and nature of God, especially of the Trinity. Others deal with the creation and fall of man and the doctrine of the atonement, g. Dog- which Raymond conceives, in a way matic. reminding the reader of Anselm, as an infinite satisfaction offered by the God-Man for an infinite debt. In matters of ecclesiastical discipline he had a keen insight into the conditions of his time, and hit some of their most salient defects, as in his expressions on the value of pilgrimages and the excessive veneration of crosses and pictures, or in his portraiture of the various classes and orders in Christendom, their duties, virtues, and vices.

Of special interest are the works written for practical edification, such as the Liber mills proverbiorum ad communem, vitam, the Liber de orationi-

bus, and the Liber de contemplationibus 6. Ascetic. in Deum; several treatises on devotion to the Virgin; and a number still unprinted, such as De centum aignis Dei, De septem sacramentis, and De septem donis Spiritus Sancti. A remarkable work is the religious romance Blanr querns (or Bracherna), written in glorification of Christianity and especially of monasticism; the hero is conducted through a great variety of situations, being successively a married man; a hermit, a monk, an abbot, a bishop, archbishop, cardinal, and pope, finally laying aside the tiara to end his days according to the ideal of Franciscan sanctity in mystical union with God and seraphic love.

III. Posthumous Fortunes: The Roman Catholic Church long wavered between honoring Raymond as a saint or condemning him as a heretic. The Dominican Nicolaus Eymericus, inquisitor of Aragon in the fourteenth century, brought charges against his works before Gregory XI., who forbade the reading of some of them, and subsequently (1376) condemned a hundred propositions extracted from them, apparently as leading to a rationalistic rebellion against church authority. The authenticity of this bull was early contested by the adherents of Raymond, while the Dominicans supported the attack on him. Paul IV. placed the writings condemned by Gregory XI. on the Index (1559), but they were removed in 1563 at the Council of Trent on petition of the Spanish bishops. The controversy still went on; some works by Raymond's disciples, especially pertaining to alchemy, were prohibited, and Benedict XIV. expressly affirmed the authenticity of the bull of Gregory XI. though without renewing the condemnation-and Salzinger's edition of the works of the "Doctor illuminates et martyr Raymundus Lullus" appeared without objection in his pontificate. Pies IX. authorized in 1847 an office of "the blessed Raymundus Lullus" for Majorca and conceded to the Franciscan order in 1857 the annual celebration of his feast-day on Nov. 27; but under the same pope in 1857 the officially authorized AnaLecta juris pontificii (II., 2480) upheld the authenticity of the bull of Gregory XI.

(O. Zöckler†.)

Bibliography: The only edition of the works of Lully ap proaching completeness is that by I. Salzinger, 10 vols., Mainz, 1721-48, of which vols. vii.-viii. did not appear. The earliest life, by an unnamed contemporary, which, however, only came down to the year 1312, is in Latin

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transl. in ASB, June, v. 88188, and in Histoire littéraire do la Franca, axis .. PD. 4-48. with further discussion, pp. 4788; it is also to be found in Sslainger's edition of the works, ut sup., vol, i. Later accounts ate: N. Antonio, Bibliothua Hiapauica roatua ii. 122-123, Madrid 1788; H. Low, De roils Raymuud% LuRi, Halle, 1830; Delecluze, in Revue des deux mondea, Nov. 15, 1840 (an excellent account of the life); A. Hellferieh Raymond Lull und die An JBnge der catalonische» Litderafur. Berlin 1858: W. Bram baeh, Des Raymond Lulls Lebea and Werke, Carlaruhe, 1893: M. Andre, Le Bieaheureum R. Luke, Paris, 1900; 8. M. Zwamer, Raymund Lull, First MieaLOnarp to the Moslems, New York, 1902; W. T. A. Barber, Raymond Lull, the Illuminated Doctor, London, 1903; G. F. Maelear, Apostles of Med%eeard Europe, pp. 289-288, ib., 1908; Ne ander, Christian Church, iv. 81-71 et passim; KL, s. 747- 753: Encyclopedia Britanniar, xv. 83-84.

For consideration of his works consult: A. R. Pasqual, Vsndicue Lulliarue, 4 vols., Avignon, 1778; X. Rouseelot' -0tudea our la philosophic done le moyen dpe, iii. 78141, Paris, 1842; K. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, iii. 145-177, Leipsic, 1887; J. R. de Luanco, Ramon .Lull coteaiderad comp alquimiato, Barcelona, 1870 F de P Canalejae, Los Door%naa dal Ramon Lull, Madrid, 1872; J. B. Haureau, Histoire de la acolaeEique, vol. ii.. Paris, 1880; F. H. Reusch, Der Index der roerboteuen B2lcher, i. 28-33, Bonn, 1883; O. Keieher, Raymundue Luilua und seine Stellung zur arabischen Philosophie, Münster, 1909.