[2728] HL 29, 276; Lea, Hist. of Inquisition of Middle Ages (1888) III, 452; but especially B. Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux et l’Inquisition Albigeoise, Paris, 1877.
[2729] Diepgen (1909), pp. 36-7. The further articles by Diepgen on Arnald, alluded to above on p. 842, note 3, appeared in Arch. f. Gesch. d. Med., V., 397-9; VI (1913) 380-91; and in Arch. f. Kulturgesch., IX (1912) 385-403, “Arnoldus de Villanova de improbatione maleficiorum.”
CHAPTER LXIX
RAYMOND LULL
Life and works—Orthodoxy questioned—His natural science not unusual—His Art Universal—Circular figures employed in theology—Figure of a tree used in medicine—Lull and alchemy—His attitude to astrology—To the condemnation of 1277 at Paris—His book on medicine and astrology—An uncomplimentary allusion to thirteenth century medicine—Necromancy and divine names.
Life and works.
Ramon Lull or Raimond Lulle or Raymund Lull or Raymond Lully, to mention some of the forms of his name which have prevailed in different languages and times, appears to have been one of the most energetic and versatile characters of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century.[2730] Born in 1235 or 1236 or possibly a year or two earlier at Palma in the island of Majorca, he seems to have spent his youth as a pleasure-loving courtier, if not libertine, and to have initiated by the composition of love verses the long series of poems and treatises in Catalan which make him a prominent figure in the history of medieval Spanish literature.[2731] At about the age of thirty he underwent a conversion not unlike that of Saint Francis and thenceforth devoted himself to learning and religion. This combination was characteristic of him and he has been charged with holding that all the mysteries of the Faith could be proved and comprehended by reason and with “removing all distinction between natural and supernatural truth.”[2732] His chief contribution to learning was the method of his Art, of which more presently. But he was a voluminous writer upon a great variety of themes, some of which border more closely on the field of our investigation. Some of these works at first sight may seem to have little connection with what appears to have been Lull’s main object in life, namely, the conversion of the Mohammedan world and the rescue of the holy sepulcher.[2733] But his crusading and missionary methods were somewhat peculiar, involving not only a long preparatory educational period, especially in the study of oriental languages, but also the refutation of Arabian philosophy, particularly that of Averroes, and toward that goal the conciliation of philosophy and theology in the Christian world. In 1276 he persuaded the king of Aragon to establish a school for the study of Arabic in Majorca, and in 1311 at the Council of Vienne he persuaded the pope to authorize chairs in Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic at Rome, Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. He failed, however, in his effort at this council to obtain a prohibition of Averroistic teaching in Christian universities. Lull himself, besides teaching in his own school in Majorca, lectured on his Art at Paris, Montpellier and elsewhere. But he also was an active field missionary, converting Saracens not only in the Balearic Isles but also in Cyprus and Armenia, while he went three times to North Africa. On the first occasion he was imprisoned and then banished, on the last he was stoned to death. This martyrdom, added to his fame as a poet and scholar, has made him the national saint of the Balearic Isles, but he actually has only been beatified and not canonized. He appears to have been a member of the third order of St. Francis. His will, drawn up in 1313 and brought again to light in 1896, shows that he had children.[2734] His death occurred on the 29th of June, 1315.
Orthodoxy questioned.
The chief reason why Lull has never been canonized is the doubt that has prevailed as to his complete orthodoxy, a matter more than once questioned. Eymeric (1320-1399) when Inquisitor-General of Aragon attacked the doctrines of Lull, listing five hundred passages in his works as heretical and claiming that Gregory XI had condemned two hundred in a bull of 1376,—which has not been found. It is thought that the bull meant is one against a converted Jew, Raymond of Tárrega who had turned renegade and written works on magic. At any rate in 1386 another inquisitor at Barcelona cleared the views of Lull from suspicion. The University of Majorca established by King Ferdinand the Catholic became a great center of Lullism. Then in the middle of the sixteenth century Lull’s works were placed on the Index Expurgatorius, but were removed before the close of the century. It may seem strange that the relations between Lullism and the Inquisition and Index were not more cordial, since they are often both represented as pursuing the same quarry, Averroism, of which we are told, “Lullism always provided its strongest foes.”[2735] But we rather suspect that “Averroism” was in the nature of an air-drawn phantom whose assailants were apt to injure one another.
His natural science not unusual.