LULL, RAYMOND (LLULL RAMÓN). - Man of letters, poet, philosopher, theologian, mystic (Doctor illuminatus), b. at Palma de Mallorca in 1232 or, more probably, in 1235, of a noble family, killed for the faith at Bougie (Barbary) toward the end of 1315.
Page of James I at the age of 14, he at first led a courtly life. In 1256, seneschal of the king of Majorca, he married Lady Blanca Picany, by whom he had two daughters. Following a vision, he abandoned the worldly life and became a hermit (c. 1265) and a Franciscan tertiary, pilgrimaging from sanctuary to sanctuary and devoting himself to the study of Latin and Arabic and to the reading of various philosophical and theological works. Having withdrawn, after 9 years, to Mount Randa to devote himself to contemplation, he had the "great illumination," from which derived the Ars magna, written in the monastery of St. Mary de la Reyal. From this moment begins the intense literary and scientific activity that drew the attention of the King of Majorca. With his help L. founded at Miramar a college where 13 Friars Minor were prepared for the study of Oriental languages for the conversion of unbelievers (1276). Great uncertainty reigns as to the journeys attributed to him in the period 1276-86. 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 induce Honorius IV to found schools of Oriental languages. Having obtained nothing, owing to the Pope's death, he returned to Paris, where he insisted on his request, without any result. In 1291 he was again in Italy; the following year he went to Tunis to dispute with the Saracens. Imprisoned, he managed to save himself, landing at Naples (Jan. 1293), where he taught publicly and where he presented to Celestine V his petition Pro conversione infidelium. In 1295 in Rome and in 1297 at Anagni he renewed to Pope Boniface his petition, together with that for a Crusade and for the union of the Greek Church. Discouraged, he set out again for Genoa and Paris, where he clashed with his major adversary, Averroism, against which he wrote the Declaratio Raymundi and other treatises (Dec. 1297-July 1299). Among the Averroists known at Paris is that Peter of Venice who in the Consolatio Venetorum inveighs against fortune and who, in all likelihood, is Peter of Abano. In Oct. 1299 he was again in Spain, and in the summer of 1300 certainly at Majorca. Hoping in the Crusade promised by Boniface VIII, in 1301 he set out for Cyprus. In the East he disputed with the Saracens, the Nestorians and the Greeks. In 1302 he landed in Armenia, where he ran the risk of being poisoned. In 1303 he was at Genoa; in 1305 at Barcelona, then at Montpellier and at Lyon, where he attended the coronation of Clement V; in 1306, having returned to Majorca, he sailed for Bougie, where he set about preaching in the streets against the Mohammedan faith, and was imprisoned. Expelled and embarked on a Genoese ship, he was shipwrecked in Pisan waters, losing his books. At Pisa he remained until 1308 and resumed with new zeal his literary activity and his propaganda in favor of the Crusade. In Oct. 1308 he was again at Montpellier, whence the following year he set out, begging, for Avignon. Having returned to Paris, between Nov. 1309 and Sept. 1310 he resumed his polemic against Averroism, without desisting from the idea of the Crusade. In Feb. 1310 forty masters and bachelors of Paris attested that L.'s Ars brevis contains nothing against the faith. In 1311-12 he went to the Council of Vienne in the Dauphiné, to ask that the teaching of Averroism be prohibited, that the Crusade be proclaimed, that all the knightly Orders be merged for this purpose and that schools of Oriental languages be opened. After which he returned to Montpellier. He then went to the court of Frederick II of Aragon at Messina. Having returned to Majorca, on 14 Aug. 1314 he sailed for Barbary, where, assailed by the fanatical population of Bougie, he ended his wandering life, spent for the cause of the faith of Christ, with martyrdom. In Majorca and in Catalonia he was venerated with the title of blessed from the 14th century onward.
His numerous and varied works were written during his stops and often between one stage and another of his journeys, and with the same impetuosity and the same ardor as these. The literary activity is ordered to missionary action, which is interwoven in an inextricable way with speculative thought and mystical elevations. There are, indeed, also purely speculative systematic works, such as the Libre de contelpaio written originally in Arabic at Majorca and then translated into Catalan, the Ars magna, the Liber principiorum philosophiae and the Liber principiorum theologiae, but after 1277 occasional and polemical writings prevail, whether the author refutes Averroism, or expounds his plans of reform, or expresses the bitterness of a disappointed soul, as in the Canto de Ramón, of 1299. At Rome, in the spring of 1296, "in desolatione et fletibus stana Raymundus," he had nevertheless brought to completion the Arbor scientiae, a summary of his encyclopedic knowledge. In all, the writings known today number around 230, without counting those lost or of doubtful authenticity. Numerous apocrypha circulated under his name at the end of the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.
The philosophical and theological thought of L. is substantially that of the Franciscan Augustinianism of the second half of the 13th century. Entirely his own, however, is the demonstrative procedure, the mystical ardor and the romantic coloring of writings such as the Blanquerna and the Felix de les meravelles del mon, which are two masterpieces of Catalan literature. His Ars magna is a labored manner of arguing of symbolic theology founded on the "dignitates divinae" and on equipollence. His critique of Averroism is weak, because it does not strike the adversary on the ground of Aristotelian criticism.
L.'s merit is to have made it understood that, in order to win Islam to the Christian faith, it was indispensable to learn its language and its science.
Bibliography2 works
Bruno Nardi