RAYMOND SEBOND (DE SIBIUDA). - Spanish physician, philosopher, and theologian, who taught in Toulouse, where he died on 29 April 1436.
In Toulouse, during the last two years of his life, he composed the *Liber creaturarum*, printed c. 1484 under the title *Theologia naturalis*. In this work, inspired by the doctrine of Raymond Lull (q.v.), the author seeks to teach man to read in the two books that God Himself has placed before him: the book of nature and Holy Scripture. Both of these books provide man with certain knowledge, easily attainable in a short time, concerning his origins and his destiny, rendering all other sciences unnecessary. Due to some bold assertions, the prologue of the work was censured by the Council of Trent and suppressed in later editions. The work’s emphasis on experience (q.v.) and its disparagement of Scholastic method drew the attention of M. Montaigne (q.v.), who devoted a lengthy exposition and an apology to it in the famous chapter 12 of Book II of his *Essays*.