THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE
_Raymund Lull_
(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315)
I
A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass,
went through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the
eleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came
near a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the Hermit."
All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell
how the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of
how Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown
into prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to
buy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for
the pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red
Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the
first Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary
force" of six million people was heading toward Palestine.
The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of
Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance
into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and
five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is
no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe)
is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father,
nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in
Paradise women have no place save to serve men.
The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099),
and Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused
to put a crown upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown
of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of
thorns."
The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly
two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades
ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291.
The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had
probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being
overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had
begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in
method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind.
We are going to hear his story now.
II
_The Young Knight's Vision_
In the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a knight of Majorca,
in the Mediterranean Sea, stood on the shore of his island home gazing
over the water. Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where he
had played as a boy, now looked out southward, where boats with their
tall, rakish, brown sails ran in from the Great Sea.
The knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away to the south of his
island. He had heard many strange stories from the sailors about the
life in the harbours of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had
never once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its ports.
It was the year when Prince Edward of England, out on the mad, futile
adventure of the last Crusade, was felled by the poisoned dagger of an
assassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison
from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight
so skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest
with any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father
carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the
last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he
was himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone
before.
He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the
Crescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never
seen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the
desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to
sail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who
thronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go
out to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any
time, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the
swift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail?
It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new
Crusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would "Be Prepared"
for every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and
sharp as his scimitar.
What powers do we think a man should have in order to convince
fanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the
truth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience,
knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves.
III
_The Preparation of Temper_
So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under
the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the
narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of
his father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born.
He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own
room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young
master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with
mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read.
Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was
studying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be
able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew
that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was
to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must
be swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the
Crusade on which he was to set out.
"I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy Land beyond the seas
and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end
all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have.
Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not
to be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles
achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears
and blood."
Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor
blurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of
Jesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and
caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury
the Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping
at Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends
rushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell,
where he slew himself.
Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and
remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he
had learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own
new way of Crusading--to be master of himself.
IV
_The Preparation of Courage_
So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to
his task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris
he rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and
pass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came
in sight.
He went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across
the Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his passage and sent his goods
with all his precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing came.
His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling.
As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery,
persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew
they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the
Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because
their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw
ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years
in a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply
dared not go.
The books were brought ashore again. The ship sailed without Lull.
"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a
torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with
bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this
Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a
craven knight of Christ.
His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his
bed.
Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa.
In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they
should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing
drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die
on the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all
his pleading--they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and
his agony of mind made his fever worse.
Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull
was carried on board and refused to return.
The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the
harbour out into the open sea.
"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me
almost before we were out of sight of land."
V
_The First Battle_
Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last
she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf
of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of
Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient
canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western
Mohammedan world.
He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the
grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another
about the law of Mohammed.
They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and
said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life,
and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is
indeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him."
The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and
together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the
watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of
the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across
the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God."
"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He
does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He
does not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He
gave His Son Jesus Christ."
To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay
and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last
actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the
Faith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A
Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis.
"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors
of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death."
The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out,
seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a
dark dungeon to wait the death sentence.
But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching
craved audience with the Sultan.
"See," he said, "this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would
be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his
Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis."
So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be
taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the
dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust
into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to
Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail
from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have
taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said
to himself the motto he had written:
+--------------------------------------+
| "HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO |
| LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE." |
+--------------------------------------+
He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves
and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about
Christ.
VI
_The Last Fight_
At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took
ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a
score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into
the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In
the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques
climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the
dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white
turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow.
Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew
so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in
this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid
him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the
time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself.
One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out
that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward
the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in
the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in
Jesus Christ His Son.
The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried
to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed
on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the
streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There
they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled
these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank
senseless to the ground.[9]
It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the
wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the
stoning.[10]
Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He
had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper,
smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and
the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied
death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in
face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer
the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles
achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears
and blood."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.]
[Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.]