Everywhere and always evangelisation filled his thoughts. No difficulty or objection, as the records of these years show, could curb his zeal; the thought of imprisonment or torture made no difference to his plans, while to die a martyr’s death when his work should be done was his great ambition. ‘Foolish Lover,’ says an imaginary opponent to him in his little classic, ‘why dost thou weary the body, throw away thy wealth and leave the joys of this world, and go about as an outcast of the people?’ And his reply is the simplest imaginable. ‘To honour my Beloved’s Name, for He is hated and dishonoured by more men than honour and love Him.’

In 1306 Lull determined to make an attempt to preach once more in Africa. At the outset he was successful, founding a school at Bona, where he first went. But on proceeding to Bugia, and beginning to preach in the market-place, he was promptly arrested, all but stoned by the crowds, summarily tried, and imprisoned in a loathsome dungeon with a view to later execution. Something in Lull’s personality, however (or, as some say, the pleas of certain Catalan and Genoese inhabitants), saved him once more; he was even allowed the privilege of a disputation with a Mohammedan champion, and eventually was exiled again in the same year of his leaving Italy.

The ship in which he was returning suffered shipwreck off Pisa, where he landed and remained for two years. In Pisa he wrote a book incorporating his memorable dispute with the Saracen apologist and other experiences in Africa. But it would seem that these experiences had been modifying his belief in intellectual conversion, for he approached Pope Clement V again with proposals for a new crusade. Enthusiasm for crusades, however, was a thing of the past, and neither the Pope nor Italy as a whole gave the scheme any support.

So this dauntless fighter went once more to Paris, which at that time was in the grip of Averroism, and hence provided a new field for missionary effort. Seventy-three years old as he was, Lull lectured, wrote, and taught unceasingly against the infidel philosophy, and won for himself fresh glory, accomplishing in Europe what only physical force withheld from him in Africa. King Philip, his royal admirer, gave him the name of docteur illuminé, by which, in one or another of its translations, he is still known to-day.

The Council of Vienne (1311-2) gave Lull another of those opportunities which he was never slow to take. The picture of the venerable missionary at the feet of the Head of the Church, pouring forth his impassioned pleas for those enterprises which authority so hesitated to allow, is indeed a moving one. He painted the glory of recovering the Holy Places, the plight of the Christians in Armenia, and the peril which the Greeks were in from the Turks—themes not exhausted even after seven hundred years. These, however, were but a few of Lull’s representations. The number of his requests which were granted was relatively small, but among them was a wider scheme than any yet sanctioned for a system of colleges for the teaching of missionary languages. This earnest of the continuance of his work must have encouraged beyond measure one who, in the natural course of life, was nearing the end of his activities.

Perhaps it was this, indeed, which inspired him to cross once more to Africa, to brave its terrors and to suffer martyrdom for the Faith at last—as from his conversion he had wished—if it might be the will of God. And the will of God it proved to be. On August 14, 1314, he set out from Palma for Bugia. On his arrival he began his work less openly than before, and for some months contrived to preach secretly, make conversions and confirm the faithful of earlier days. He passed to Tunis, where he had further success, but for some unknown reason was compelled to return to Bugia. Success made him bold. Feeling perhaps that the hour of supreme effort—even if it meant the supreme sacrifice—had come, he threw prudence to the winds, assembled a vast concourse, and, proclaiming himself that same Ramón who had formerly been condemned in Bugia, he preached once more the faith of the Saviour. This time the crowd broke loose, and not only clamoured for Lull’s death, but took him out of the city and stoned him (June 30, 1315), even as a Jewish mob had stoned the first of Christian martyrs.

Various accounts are given of his burial. It seems that two Genoese merchants begged his body and carried it to Majorca, but some versions have it that a great pyramid of light aided them in their search for it, that life remained in the body until it reached Palma, and that adverse winds forced the vessel, which was making for Genoa, to land at Lull’s birthplace. Here the body was received with the greatest sorrow and mourning, and buried with due solemnity in the sacristy of the convent of St. Francis of Assisi.

Ramón Lull was beatified by Pius IX. The title-page of his great romance, Blanquerna, calls him ‘Doctor illuminate, Martyr unconquered of Jesus Christ, Master universal in all arts and sciences.’ But in his own country Lull receives the simpler homage of a saint.

II

The foregoing sketch, for all its brevity, will have emphasised more forcibly than much argument the practical and the scholarly sides of Lull’s temperament. We shall say nothing here of the four hundred and eighty-six treatises[4] which he is known to have written, nor of the thousands of other works, no longer extant if indeed they ever existed, with which he is credited. Nor is there need to describe his system and doctrine, at once scholastic and popular in character. The Libre de Amich e Amat, which is here translated, is purely a mystical work, and this essay is concerned with the mystical side of Lull’s mind, so wonderfully illumined by the flame which burnt through his long life of self-sacrifice.