RAYMOND LULL (LULL RAMÓN). — Scholar, poet, philosopher, theologian, mystic (Doctor illuminatus), born in Palma de Mallorca in 1232 or, more likely, in 1235, into a noble family, and martyred for the faith at Bugia (Barbary) toward the end of 1315.
PAGE to James I, at fourteen he first led a courtly life. In 1256, he became seneschal to the King of Mallorca, married Blanca Picany, by whom he had two daughters. Following a vision, he abandoned worldly life, became an hermit (c. 1265) and a Franciscan tertiary, traveling from shrine to shrine and devoting himself to the study of Latin and Arabic and to reading various philosophical and theological works. After nine years of retreat on Mount Randa, dedicated to contemplation, he received the “great illumination,” from which sprang the *Ars magna*, written in the monastery of Santa Maria de la Reyal. From this moment began his intense literary and scientific activity, which drew the attention of the King of Mallorca. With his support, Lull founded a college at Miramar in 1276, where thirteen Franciscans were trained in the study of Oriental languages for the conversion of unbelievers.
Great uncertainty surrounds the travels attributed to him between 1276 and 1286. It seems certain, however, that he was in Rome in 1278, and then in the Holy Land, visiting various countries of the Muslim world. In 1286 he was in Paris, in 1287 at Miramar, and then in Rome to persuade Honorius IV to found schools of Oriental languages. Having achieved nothing due to the Pope’s death, he returned to Paris, where he persisted in his request without result. In 1291 he was again in Italy; the following year he went to Tunis to dispute with the Saracens. Imprisoned, he managed to escape, landing at Naples (January 1293), where he taught publicly and presented his petition *Pro conversione infidelium* to Celestine V. In 1295 in Rome and in 1297 at Anagni, he renewed his petition to Pope Boniface, along with a request for a Crusade and for the union of the Greek Church. Discouraged, he departed for Genoa and Paris, where he clashed with his greatest adversary, Averroes, against whom he wrote the *Declaratio Raimundi* and other treatises (December 1297–July 1299). Among the Averroists he encountered in Paris was Peter of Venice, who in the *Consolatio Venetorum* inveighed against fortune and who, most likely, is Peter of Abano.
In October 1299 he was again in Spain, and in the summer of 1300 certainly in Mallorca. Hoping for the Crusade promised by Boniface VIII, in 1301 he left for Cyprus. In the East he disputed with Saracens, Nestorians, and Greeks. In 1302 he landed in Armenia, where he nearly died by poisoning. In 1303 he was in Genoa; in 1305 in Barcelona, then in Montpellier and Lyon, where he attended the coronation of Clement V; in 1306, back in Mallorca, he sailed for Bugia, where he preached in the streets against the Muhammadan faith and was imprisoned. Expelled and put aboard a Genoese ship, he was shipwrecked off the coast of Pisa, losing his books. He remained in Pisa until 1308 and resumed his literary activity and propaganda for the Crusade with renewed vigor. In October 1308 he was again in Montpellier, from where the following year he set out, begging, for Avignon. Returning to Paris between November 1309 and September 1310, he resumed his polemic against Averroism without abandoning the idea of the Crusade. In February 1310, forty masters and bachelors of Paris attested that his *Ars brevis* contained nothing contrary to the faith.
In 1311–12 he went to the Council of Vienne in the Dauphiné to request that the teaching of Averroism be prohibited, that a Crusade be proclaimed, that all knightly orders be united for this purpose, and that schools of Oriental languages be established. Afterward he returned to Montpellier. He then went to the court of Frederick II of Aragon in Messina. Back in Mallorca, on 14 August 1314 he sailed for Barbary, where, attacked by the fanatical populace of Bugia, he ended his wandering life, spent in the cause of the Christian faith, with martyrdom. In Mallorca and Catalonia he was venerated with the title of blessed from the fourteenth century onward.
His numerous and varied works were written during his stays and often between one stage and the next of his travels, with the same fervor and ardor that characterized his life. His literary activity was ordered toward missionary action, which was inextricably intertwined with speculative thought and mystical elevations. There are, indeed, also purely speculative systematic works, such as the *Libre de contemplació*, originally written in Arabic in Mallorca and then translated into Catalan, the *Ars magna*, the *Liber principiorum medicinae*, the *Pia philosophia*, and the *Liber principiorum theologiae*. After 1277, however, occasional and polemical writings prevail, whether he refutes Averroism, sets forth plans for reform, or expresses the bitterness of a disappointed spirit, as in the *Canto de Ramón* of 1299. In Rome, in the spring of 1296, “standing in desolation and tears,” Raymond nonetheless completed the *Arbor scientiae*, a summary of his encyclopedic knowledge.
In all, the writings known today number about 230, not counting those lost or of doubtful authenticity. Numerous apocryphal works circulated under his name at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance.
Lull’s philosophical and theological thought is essentially that of Franciscan Augustinianism of the second half of the thirteenth century. What is entirely his own, however, is the demonstrative method, the mystical ardor, and the romantic coloring of works such as *Blanquerna* and *Felix de les meravelles del mon*, which are two masterpieces of Catalan literature. His *Ars magna* is an elaborate method of symbolic theology based on the “divine dignities” and on equipollence. His critique of Averroism is weak because it does not strike the adversary on the ground of Aristotelian criticism.
Lull’s merit lies in having made clear that, to bring Islam to the Christian faith, it was indispensable to learn its language and science.