He betook himself to prayer, and devoted his existence to good works; God granted him all graces save that of death, but of what profit are the others in the absence of that which should complete and crown them all? One day the Tree of Knowledge was shewn to him, laden with its luminous fruits; he understood being and its harmonies; he divined the Kabalah; he established the foundations and sketched the plan of an universal science, from which time he was saluted as the illuminated doctor. So did he obtain glory, that fatal recompense of toil which God, in His mercy, seldom confers upon great men till after their death, because it intoxicates and poisons the living. But Raymund Lully, who could not by death give place to the glory after, might have occasion to fear that it would perish before himself, and meanwhile it could seem to him only a derision of his immortal misfortune.
He knew how to make gold, so that he might purchase the world and all its kingdoms, yet he could not assure to himself the humblest tomb. He was the pauper of immortality. Everywhere he went begging for death, and no one was able to give it him. The courtly nobleman had become an absorbed alchemist, the alchemist a monk; the monk became preacher, philosopher, ascetic, saint, and, last of all, missionary. He engaged hand to hand with the learned men of Arabia; he battled victoriously against Islamism, and had everything to fear from the fury of its professors. Everything to fear—this means that he had something to hope, and that which he hoped for was death.[239]
He engaged a young Arab of the most fanatical class as his attendant, and posed before him as the scourge of the religion of Mohammed. The Arab assassinated his master, which was what he expected; but Raymond Lully did not die; it was the assassin that he would fain have forgiven who killed himself in despair at his failure, so that conscience had an added burden instead of deliverance and peace.
He was scarcely cured of his wounds when he embarked for Tunis, in which place he preached Christianity openly; but the Bey in admiration of his learning and his courage protected him against the madness of the crowd and caused him to re-embark with all his books. Before long he returned to the same parts, preaching at Bone, Bougia and other African towns; the Moslems were stupefied and feared to lay hands upon him. In the end he revisited Tunis and collecting the people in the streets, he proclaimed that, though driven from the place, he had come back to confound the impious doctrines of Mohammed and to die for Jesus Christ. This time there was no protection possible, the enraged people hunted him, a veritable insurrection broke out; he fled, to encourage them further; already he was broken by many blows, pouring with blood, covered with wounds; and yet he continued to live. He sank finally, buried—literally speaking—under a mountain of stones.
On the same night, says the legend, two Genoese merchants, Steven Colon and Louis de Pastorga, sailing over the open sea, beheld a great light shining from the port of Tunis. They changed their course and, approaching the shore, discovered a mound of stones, which diffused far and near this miraculous splendour. They landed in great astonishment, and finally discovered the body of Raymund Lully, mangled but still breathing. He was taken on board the ship and carried to Majorca, where in sight of his native land the martyr was permitted to expire. God set him free by a miracle and his penance was so finished.
Such is the odyssey of the fabulous Raymund Lully; let us come now to the historical realities.
Raymund Lully, the philosopher and adept, being the one who deserved the title of illuminated doctor, was the son of that seneschal of Majorca who was made famous by his ill-starred passion for Ambrosia di Castello.[240] He did not discover the elixir of immortality, but he made gold in England for King Edward III, and this gold was called aurum Raymundi. There are extant certain very rare coins which are called Raymundins by experts. Louis Figuier identifies these with the rose-nobles which were struck during the reign in question,[241] and suggests, a little frivolously, that the alchemy of Raymund Lully was only a sophistication of gold which would be difficult to detect at a period when chemical processes were much less perfect than they are at the present day. This notwithstanding, he recognises the scientific importance of Lully and gives his judgment concerning him as follows:—
“Raymund Lully, whose genius embraced all branches of human knowledge, and who brought together in the Ars Magna a vast system of philosophy, summarising the encyclopædic principles of science as it then stood, could not fail to bequeathe a valuable heritage to chymists. He perfected and described carefully various compounds which are used widely in chemistry; we owe him the preparation of carbonate of potassium by means of tartar and by wood ashes, the rectification of spirits of wine, the preparation of essential oils, the cuppellation of silver, and the preparation of sweet mercury.”[242]
Other scientists, feeling sure that the rose-nobles were pure as gold, have speculated that, having regard to the very imperfect processes of practical chemistry during the middle ages, such transmutations as those of Raymund Lully, and indeed other adepts, were merely the separation of the gold found in silver mines, and purified by means of antimony, which is actually indicated, in a great number of Hermetic symbols, as the efficient and chief element in the Powder of Projection.[243] We agree with them that chemistry was non-existent at the period in question, and we may add that it was created by adepts or rather that the adepts, while keeping to themselves those synthetic secrets which were the treasure of the magical sanctuaries, instructed their contemporaries as to some of the analytical processes. These were afterwards perfected, but they have not as yet led men of science to reach that ancient synthesis which constitutes Hermetic philosophy, in the proper sense of the term.
In his philosophical Testament, Raymund Lully has set forth all the principles of this science, but in a veiled manner, following the practice and indeed the duty of adepts. He also composed a Key to the Testament mentioned, and finally a Key to the Key or, more definitely, a codicil, which is in our opinion the most important of his writings on alchemy. Its principles and modes of procedure have nothing in common either with the sophistication of pure metals or with the separation of alloys. As a theory, it is in conformity with the principles of Geber and as a practice with those of Arnaldus de Villanova; in respect of doctrine it is in conformity with the most exalted ideas of the Kabalah. Those earnest minds, who refuse to be discouraged by the discredit into which ignorance brings the great things, should study Kabalistically the codicil of Raymund Lully, if they seek to carry on that research of the absolute which was followed by the greatest men of genius in the elder world.[244]