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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: His natural science not unusual.]
Probst regards Lull as in advance of his age in his use of observation
and experimental science and his knowledge that the world was round
and acquaintance with the mariner’s compass.[2736] This knowledge,
however, he really shared with his times and we can scarcely regard him
as a precursor of Columbus nor even quite as an equal of Roger Bacon
in these respects, exaggerated as we believe the estimates to be which
have often been made of Roger’s importance. But Probst shows a similar
tendency to exaggerate the scientific importance of Lull at the expense
of his period.
[Sidenote: His Art Universal.]
Lull’s chief original contribution to medieval learning bore scant
relation indeed to the methods of observation and experiment. His
famous Art came to him as a sudden inspiration in the midst of long
study and reflection and was, he and his followers believed, received
by direct divine illumination. Hence his title, “the illuminated
Doctor.” In reality the method of his Art leads us to infer that it
occurred to him by some process of sub-conscious association with the
employment of the planisphere in astronomy or the use of a revolving
wheel and tables of combinations of letters of the alphabet such as
we have noted in the geomancies and modes of divination ascribed to
Socrates, Pythagoras, and other philosophers. Lull’s idea seems to
have been the invention of a logical machine which would constitute
the same sort of labor-saving device in a scholastic disputation or
medieval university as an adding machine in a modern bank or business
office. By properly arranging categories and concepts, subjects and
predicates in the first place, one could get the correct answer to such
propositions as might be put. Another advantage of this method would
be that a sceptical Arab, who might refuse to listen to or view with
suspicion the verbal arguments of a missionary, would be irresistibly
convinced of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity by this
machine, or at least mechanical method, which would impress him as
impartial and reliable Lull’s diagrams and mechanical devices included
a tree, intersecting triangles, and concentric circles divided into
compartments, of which one rotated something like the planet; in the
signs while the other remained stationary like the sphere of the fixed
stars.
[Sidenote: Circular figures employed in theology.]
In questions of theology a circle was employed whose center stood
for God while its circumference divided into sixteen “chambers”
representing kindness, grandeur, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue,
truth, glory, perfection, justice, beneficence, pity, humility,
dominion, and patience. One hundred and twenty more “chambers” were
formed by combining pairs of the foregoing. Another circle shows
the rational soul in the center represented by four squares and has
its circumference divided into sixteen compartments representing
appropriate qualities. A third circle, devoted to principles and
meanings, enclosed five triangles in a circumference of fifteen
compartments; while a fourth circle divided fourteen compartments
of its circumference between the seven virtues and seven vices
respectively rendered in blue and red. Other “figures” dealt with
predestination, fate, and free-will, truth, and falsity. The following
is a specific instance of the way in which these were combined.
When the rational soul is troubled and uncertain in the circle of
predestination, because the chambers of ignorance and merit, science
and fault, mingle together, it forms a third figure representing doubt.
[Sidenote: Figure of a tree used in medicine.]
In medicine the figure of a tree was employed. At its roots a wheel
divided into quarters signifying bile, blood, phlegm, and atrabile.
The tree had two trunks, on one of which bloomed the principles of
ancient medicine. Its first branch, the natural, bore seven flowers:
the elements, complexions, humors, members, faculties, operations, and
spirits; and four figures dependent on these, namely, ages, colors,
shapes, and sexes. The second non-natural branch produced six flowers:
air, exercise, food and drink, sleep and activity, emptiness and
surfeit, and the accidents of the mind. The third bough, or contrary
to nature, had three flowers: disease and its causes and results. The
other main trunk had two boughs. One divided into hot and cold, moist
and dry, and the four degrees of each. The other bore three triangles
and a square. The red triangle represented the source, the middle,
and the end; the green triangle stood for difference, agreement, and
contrariety; the yellow triangle comprised majority, minority, and
equality.[2737] The square divides into four colors: red for being;
black for privation; blue for perfection; green for imperfection.[2738]
Such are some of the diagrams of the Lullian art, intended presumably
to be worked by cranks or levers. There is really nothing magical about
them; they are purely mechanical and representative and illustrative.
But in their make-up they are certainly suggestive of a Gnostic or
Ophite diagram or of a geomantic wheel, and possibly may sometimes have
been suspected of being magical by outsiders.
[Sidenote: Lull and alchemy.]
The use of the word “Art” for this logical machinery and graphic
method of Raymond Lull perhaps also led to the notion that he was an
alchemist and exponent of the Hermetic art. Various works of alchemy
were ascribed to him but are regarded as spurious; perhaps some of
them are by the Jew, Raymond of Tárrega, already mentioned. No work of
alchemy is mentioned in the lists of his writings drawn up in 1311 and
1314,[2739] and the sixth part, devoted to metals, of his _Libre de
les Maravels_ is unfavorable to alchemy.[2740] In his Latin _Questions
Soluble by the Demonstrative or Inventive Art_ he again adduced
reasons against transmutation.[2741] De Luanco has collected other
passages from Raymond’s undisputed works unfavorable to alchemy and the
alchemists.[2742] We have seen, however, that a writer may criticize
most or all other alchemists sharply and question various doctrines
and methods of alchemy and yet have his own way of getting around the
difficulties whether theoretical, such as the permanence of species,
or practical. There is therefore something to be said for the position
of Barber who, while recognizing that the treatises current under
Raymond’s name are spurious, adds, “We can well believe that he wrote
as well as thought on alchemy.”[2743] And it was Berthelot’s opinion
that while the works ascribed to Raymond are spurious, “nevertheless
it is incontestable that those writings were composed by persons who
believed themselves his disciples.”[2744] These spurious works were in
existence at an early date and Raymond is cited as an alchemist from
the fourteenth century on.
[Sidenote: His attitude to astrology.]
If Lull was an opponent of the art of transmuting metals rather than
an adept in alchemy, he was at least a believer in astrology as
several of his works show. It is true, and this is the more important
to note as suggesting how Lull’s utterances on the subject of alchemy
may also have been misunderstood, that the _Histoire Littéraire de
la France_, in describing Raymond’s _Tractatus novus de astronomia_,
written in 1297, gives the impression that it is directed against
astrology, stating that Lull says that he has written it “to dissuade
princes and magnates from trusting in the divinations of astrologers,”
and adding, “Less worthy of praise is the second part of the work
where the author assumes to apply to astronomy the principles of
his art universal.”[2745] An examination of the treatise itself in
manuscript[2746] shows that it is only of certain astrologers and
diviners who deceive princes by false judgments from the stars that
Raymond would have royalty beware. He writes his book not because
“astronomy” (i.e. astrology) is false but because it is so difficult
that often judgments made by the art turn out false, and because he
wishes to investigate and discover new methods by which men can have
greater knowledge of “astronomy” and its judgments. When he comes to
speak of the properties of each planet, he remarks that “astronomers”
attribute many properties to Saturn but do not prove them. He intends
to employ his Art in investigating Saturn’s properties, and comes
to the conclusion that men born under that planet are, among other
traits, ponderously grave, suspicious by nature, disposed to toil and
to build great edifices, and ambitious to hold office.[2747] Later on
we find him spending many pages in listing different combinations of
the planets in the signs as fortunate or unfortunate.[2748] All this,
of course, is judicial astrology rather than astronomy. He “proves”
also that the sky is animated by a moving and circular soul or spirit,
and he states that “astronomers” recognize in their judgments that
this soul of the sky is the cause of things caused in our inferior
world.[2749] After a while, however, he does reprove “the philosophers
who invented the science of astronomy” for “certain points in this
science in which they have erred,” namely, in making it necessary and
inevitable. Lull holds that God can alter nature as the smith alters
the direction of his falling hammer, and that the human mind has free
will to resist the influence of the stars.[2750] But this criticism
of astrology is neither novel nor entirely justified. Lull never
disputes but always accepts the theory that the heavenly bodies shed
their influence and virtue upon inferiors. He does, however, speak
slightingly of the art of geomancy and its practitioners.[2751]
[Sidenote: To the condemnation of 1277 at Paris.]
In the same year 1297 in which Raymond wrote the treatise just
summarized he also published an imaginary dialogue dealing with the
219 opinions which had been condemned at Paris in 1277.[2752] In this
dialogue “Socrates” undertakes the defense of philosophy while Raymond
supports theology and the articles of condemnation. We have seen that
a number of the opinions condemned were astrological in character.
Raymond does not join in active condemnation of all of these, passing
over a number in silence and perhaps intentionally evading them. On
article 30, “that superior intelligences create rational souls without
the motion of the sky; but that inferior intelligences create the
vegetative and sensitive souls by means of the motion of the sky,”
Raymond’s comment is that creation is the proper function of God. To
Socrates’ repetition of the sixty-first article, “that God can do
contrary things, that is, by means of a celestial body which is diverse
in its whereabouts,” Raymond replies that God can act directly and
produce contraries without the intervention of any heavenly body, if He
wishes to, as He did in creating the four elements with their contrary
qualities of hot and cold, dry and moist. Raymond adds, however, that
God would not produce sins, since He is perfect in goodness. In reply
to articles 92 and 102, that the heavenly bodies are moved by a soul
and by appetitive virtue just like an animal, and that the soul of the
sky is intelligence, Raymond answers that in his opinion it is correct
to say that the sky has a motive soul but not a vegetative or sensitive
or imaginative or rational soul. “If, however, I am not speaking the
truth in this, I am prepared to receive correction; but I believe that
I am speaking truly.” Raymond also upholds human free will as in the
preceding treatise. The close of the present dialogue is, at least
on the surface, an edifying instance of submission to ecclesiastical
authority. Socrates asks Raymond if the theologians believe as he has
been saying. Raymond replies that he believes so, since he has proved
his own statements and believes them to be true, and he knows that
the venerable lords and doctors of theology who are pillars of the
Christian Faith believe only what is true. If, however, he has erred,
it is unwittingly and unintentionally, and he humbly supplicates those
most powerful masters to correct the words of their weak servant.
Socrates chimes in that he has merely been repeating for his part what
the ancient philosophers said, but that if any of it is contrary to
Christianity, he does not want to believe it. He therefore proposes
that they go to Paris and submit the book to the theologians there for
their approval or correction, as his desire is to see “great concord
between my lords the masters in theology and in philosophy.” It seems
evident that behind his humble tone Lull is trying to soften down
the condemnation of 1277 and substitute a somewhat more conciliatory
attitude.
[Sidenote: The book of Raymond on medicine and astronomy.]
Lull’s attitude to astrology is further illustrated by a treatise in
which he applies the method of his Art universal to the subject of
astrological medicine.[2753] “Since the science of medicine is very
difficult on account of its principles being so secret,” Raymond
proposes to investigate them by means of his Art. His treatise has
three divisions: the first, concerning the inferior world of the
elements and the body of the human patient; the second, concerning
the regions of the celestial bodies; and the third, consisting of
questions. Raymond denotes the four elements by the letters from a to
d, and the combinations of heat or cold with humidity and drought by
the letters from e to h. He then introduces a figure with two circles
representing the eighth sphere and the zodiac, since the motion of
the planets controls that of the human body. These two circles are
each divided into eight “houses,” which correspond to sixteen pairs of
letters consisting of each of the four elements joined with each of the
four letters denoting pairs of qualities, namely, ae, af, ag, ah, be,
bf, bg, bh, ce, cf, cg, ch, de, df, dg, and dh. Raymond then discusses
such topics as fevers, the pulse, evacuation, diet, bleeding, bathing,
the color of the urine, digestion and indigestion, pains, appetite,
and the method of grading medicines. The relation of his letters and
“houses” to these matters may be seen from his statement that the house
of _ae_ causes one kind of appetite, that of _be_ another, and so
on. Coming to the second section of his treatise, Lull treats of the
planets and signs and relates the conjunctions of the various planets
with one another to his eight letters and their combinations. In the
third part he puts illustrative problems and solves them by reference
to his preceding text.
[Sidenote: An uncomplimentary allusion to thirteenth century medicine.]
We might think Lull an opponent of medicine, if we attended only to
a passage in his _Contemplation of God_.[2754] Here he complains
that doctors of the body are more sought after, better paid, more
scrupulously obeyed than are physicians of the soul. They go well clad
on good steeds, and amass wealth by working all sorts of impositions
upon their patients, boasting of their knowledge of diseases of which
they are really ignorant, prolonging the period of illness in order
to increase their pay, and prescribing syrups and the like in large
quantities because they share in the profits of the apothecaries.
They try out potions on their patients which they would never take
themselves, and there is no other art in the world so risky and over
which there is so much disagreement. These remarks of Raymond are,
however, the sort of satirical observations on medical practice that
might be made at almost any period, so that it is difficult to tell if
they are especially applicable to the thirteenth century.
[Sidenote: Necromancy and divine names.]
In closing we may note two brief indications of Lull’s belief in two
other occult subjects, namely, necromancy and the power of divine
names. Of necromancy he of course did not approve but in the treatise
just cited he adduces the art of necromancy as evidence for the
existence of God, since it requires the services of demons and they
are no other beings than fallen angels who owe their existence to
God.[2755] This somewhat tortuous theistic argument we have already
heard advanced by Justin Martyr. In his treatise in Catalan on _The
Hundred Names of God_ Raymond asks, “Since God has put virtues in
words, plants, and stones, how will He not have put far greater virtue
into His names?”[2756]
FOOTNOTES:
[2730] A number of works on Lull have appeared recently: M. André, _Le
bienheureux Raymond Lulle_, 3rd edition, Paris, 1900; S. M. Zwemer,
_Raymund Lull, First Missionary to the Moslems_, New York, 1902; W. T.
A. Barber, _Raymond Lull, the illuminated doctor: a study in medieval
missions_, London, 1903; J. H. Probst, _Caractère et origines des idées
du bienheureux Raymond Lulle_, Toulouse, 1912. By Barber also the
article “Lullists” in ERE. The fullest discussion of Raymond’s writings
seems to remain, however, that in HL 29: 1-386, which includes works
still in MSS. The most accessible edition of the works in print is
perhaps that of Salzinger, Mainz, 1721-1742, in ten folio volumes. The
_Revista Lulliana_ was started at Barcelona in 1901.
[2731] A. Helfferich, _Raymond Lull und die Anfänge der catalonischen
Literatur_, Berlin, 1858.
[2732] William Turner, in CE.
[2733] A. Gottron, _Ramon Lulls Kreuzzugsideen_, Berlin, 1912.
[2734] Don Francisco de Bofarull y Sans, _El Testamento de Ramón Lull
y la Escuela Luliana en Barcelona_, Madrid, 1896, 96 pp. Extract from
vol. 5 of _Memorias de la Real Acad. de Buenas Letras de Barcelona_.
L. Delisle, _Testaments d’Arnaud de Villeneuve et de Raimond Lulle, 20
juillet 1305 et 26 avril 1313_; _Extrait du Journal des Savants_, June,
1896.
[2735] Barber in ERE.
[2736] Probst (1912) chapter 8, “Lulle Savant,” especially pp. 156-7,
164-5, 171. The chapter appears to be written almost entirely from
secondary sources and shows an insufficient knowledge of the middle
ages in general.
[2737] I have seen in Digby 85, fols. 152r-86v, _Speculum medicine_ (of
Lull) which is mainly devoted to a discussion of these three triangles.
[2738] For this and the preceding paragraph on the circles employed in
theology I have followed the descriptions in HL 29: 75 ff. and 87 ff.
[2739] HL 29: 271.
[2740] HL 29: 354. The work is in Catalan; the other nine parts treat
of God, angels, elements, sky, plants, beasts, men, Paradise, hell.
[2741] HL 29: 139. _Quaestiones per artem demonstrativam seu inventivam
solubiles._
[2742] J. R. de Luanco, _Ramon Lull considerado como alquimista_,
Barcelona, 1870.
[2743] “Lullists” in ERE.
[2744] Berthelot, _La chimie au moyen âge_, vol. I.
[2745] HL 29: 309.
[2746] I have used CLM 10544, fols. 287r-368r, to which the following
citations apply, and CLM 10597, which includes only the portion
concerning the twelve signs and seven planets.
[2747] Fol. 291v-292r.
[2748] Fol. 342v _et seq._
[2749] Fol. 336r.
[2750] Fols. 357-9.
[2751] Fol. 360r.
[2752] P. O. Reicher, _Raymundus Lullus und seine Stellung zur
Arabischen Philosophie, mit einem Anhang enthaltend die zum ersten
Male veröffentlichte “Declaratio Raymundi per modum dialogi edita”_
(_contra aliquorum philosophorum et eorum sequacium opiniones erroneas
et damnatas a venerabili Patre Domino Episcopo Parisiensi_) pp. 95-221,
in _Beiträge_, VII, 4 and 5 (1909).
[2753] Digby 85, early 15th century, fols. 131-49r, “Liber Raymundi
de medicina et astronomia” (In Antonius, _Bibl. Hisp. Vet._ II,
129, “Liber de regionibus infirmitatis et sanitatis”). According to
Macray the opening words are “Quoniam scientia medicine est multum
difficilis,” but the first word appears as “Quum” in my notes on the
MS. “Explicit Medicina Raymundi in Monte Pessulano anno Christi 1403,”
on which Macray comments, “(_sic_; _rectius_ 1303)” but perhaps 1403 is
the date of this copy. This MS contains other works by Lull on his Art
and on medicine.
[2754] HL 29: 230. _Liber contemplationis in Deum._
[2755] HL 29: 233.
[2756] HL 29: 265-6; _Els cent Noms de Deu_.