Ramón Llull

Ramon Llull (; ; – 1316), sometimes anglicized as ''Raymond Lully'', was a philosopher, theologian, poet, missionary, Christian apologist and former knight from the Kingdom of Majorca.

He invented a philosophical system known as the ''Art'', conceived as a type of universal logic to prove the truth of Christian doctrine to interlocutors of all faiths and nationalities. The ''Art'' consists of a set of general principles and combinatorial operations. It is illustrated with diagrams.

A prolific writer, he is also known for his literary works written in Catalan, which he composed to make his ''Art'' accessible to a wider audience. In addition to Catalan and Latin, he also probably wrote in Arabic (although no texts in Arabic survive). His books were translated into Occitan, French, and Castilian during his lifetime.

Although his work did not enjoy huge success during his lifetime, he has had a rich and continuing reception. In the early modern period his name became associated with alchemical works. More recently he has been recognized as a precursor of the modern field of social choice theory, 450 years before Borda and Condorcet's investigations reopened the field. His ideas also prefigured the development of computation theory.''The History of Philosophy, Vol. IV: Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Leibniz'' by Frederick C. Copleston (1958).

Life

Early life and family

Llull was born in Palma into a wealthy family of Barcelona patricians who had come to the Kingdom of Majorca in 1229 with the conquering armies of James I of Aragon. James I had conquered the formerly Almohad-ruled Majorca as part of a larger move to integrate the territories of the Balearic Islands (now part of Spain) into the Crown of Aragon. Llull was born there a few years later, in 1232 or 1233. Muslims still constituted a large part of the population of Majorca and Jews were present in cultural and economic affairs.

In 1257 Llull married , with whom he had two children, Domènec and Magdalena. Although he formed a family, he lived what he would later call the licentious and worldly life of a troubadour.

Religious calling

In 1263 Llull experienced a series of visions. He narrates the event in his autobiography ''Vita coaetanea'' ("A Contemporary Life"):

The vision came to Llull five times in all and inspired in him three intentions: to give up his soul for the sake of God's love and honor, to convert the Saracens (i.e., Arabs and/or Muslims) to Christianity, and write the best book in the world against the errors of the unbelievers.

Following his visions he sold his possessions on the model of Saint Francis of Assisi and set out on pilgrimages to the shrines of Saint Mary of Rocamadour, Saint James, and other places, never to come back to his family and profession. When he returned to Majorca he purchased a Muslim slave in order to learn Arabic from him. For the next nine years, until 1274, he engaged in study and contemplation in relative solitude. He read extensively in both Latin and Arabic, learning both Christian and Muslim theological and philosophical thought.

In 1270 Llull founded the hermitage of the Holy Trinity in Mallorca, known as Miramar.

Between 1271 and 1274 Llull wrote his first works, a compendium of the Muslim thinker Al-Ghazali's logic and the ''Llibre de contemplació en Déu'' (''Book on the Contemplation of God''), a lengthy guide to finding truth through contemplation.

In 1274, while staying at a hermitage on Puig de Randa, the form of the great book Llull was to write was finally given to him through divine revelation: a complex system that he named his ''Art'', which would become the motivation behind most of his life's efforts.

Missionary work and education

Llull urged the study of Arabic and other languages in Europe, in order to convert Muslims and schismatic Christians. He travelled through Europe to meet popes, kings, and princes, trying to establish special colleges to prepare future missionaries. In 1276 a language school for Franciscan missionaries was founded at Miramar, funded by the King of Majorca.

About 1291 he went to Tunis, preached to the Saracens, disputed with them in philosophy, and after another brief sojourn in Paris, returned to the East as a missionary.Turner, William. "Raymond Lully." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 31 January 2019 Llull travelled to Tunis a second time in about 1304, and wrote numerous letters to the king of Tunis, but little else is known about this part of his life.

He returned in 1308, reporting that the conversion of Muslims should be achieved through prayer, not through military force. He finally achieved his goal of linguistic education at major universities in 1311 when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean (Aramaic) at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca as well as at the Papal Court.

Llull called for the expulsion of Jews who were unwilling to convert to Christianity, and influenced later European monarchs to expel Jews in practice.

Death

In 1314, at the age of 82, Llull traveled again to Tunis, possibly prompted by the correspondence between King James II of Aragon and al-Lihyani, the Hafsid caliph, indicating that the caliph wished to convert to Christianity. Whereas Llull had been met with difficulties during his previous visits to North Africa, he was allowed to operate this time without interference from the authorities due to the improved relations between Tunis and Aragon.

His last work is dated December 1315 in Tunis. The circumstances of his death remain unknown. He probably died sometime between then and March 1316, either in Tunis, on the ship on the return voyage, or in Majorca upon his return. Llull's tomb, created in 1448, is in the Franciscan church in Palma, Majorca.

He was beatified on 11 September 1847 by Pope Pius IX.

Works

Llull's ''Art''

Llull's ''Art'' (in Latin ''Ars'') is at the center of his thought and undergirds his entire corpus. It is a system of universal logic based on a set of general principles activated in a combinatorial process. It can be used to prove statements about God and Creation (e.g., God is a Trinity). Often the ''Art'' formulates these statements as questions and answers (e.g., Q: Is there a Trinity in God? A: Yes.). It works cumulatively through an iterative process; statements about God's nature must be proved for each of His essential attributes in order to prove the statement true for God (i.e., Goodness is threefold, Greatness is threefold, Eternity is threefold, Power is threefold, etc.).

What sets Llull's system apart is its unusual use of letters and diagrams, giving it an algebraic or algorithmic character. He developed the ''Art'' over the course of many decades, writing new books to explain each new version. The ''Art''s trajectory can be divided into two main phases, although each phase contains numerous variations. The first is sometimes called the Quaternary Phase (1274 - 1290) and the second the Ternary Phase (1290 - 1308). This terminology was coined by Anthony Bonner.

Quaternary Phase

The two main works of the Quaternary Phase are the ''Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem'' (ca. 1274) and the ''Ars demonstrativa'' (ca. 1283). The ''Ars demonstrativa'' has twelve main figures. A set of sixteen principles, or 'dignities' (divine attributes) comprise the general foundation for the system's operation. These are contained in the first figure (Figure A) and assigned letters (B through R). The rest of the figures enable the user to take these principles and elaborate to demonstrate the truth of statements. Figure T is important because it contains "relational principles" (i.e.: minority, majority, equality, etc.), also assigned letters. The ''Art'' then lists combinations of letters as a sort of visual aid for the process of working through every possible combination of principles. Figure S displays the Augustinian powers of the soul (will, intellect, and memory) and their acts (willing, understanding, and remembering). Figure S was eliminated from the ''Art'' after 1290, though even in its subsequent versions Llull maintained that—for a proper operation of the ''Art''—the powers of the soul needed to be in alignment. This differentiates Llull's system from Aristotelian logic; because classical logic did not take the powers of the soul into account, it was—thereby, in Llull's view—ill-equipped to handle theological issues.

Ternary Phase

Llull inaugurated the Ternary Phase with two works written in 1290: the ''Ars inventiva veritatis'' and the ''Art amativa'' (or ''Ars amativa boni''). The culmination of this phase came in 1308 with a finalized version of the ''Art'' called the ''Ars generalis ultima''. In the same year Llull wrote an abbreviated version called the ''Ars brevis''. In these works Llull revised the ''Art'' to have only four main figures. He reduced the number of divine principles in the first figure to nine (goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth, glory). Figure T also now has nine relational principles (difference, concordance, contrariety, beginning, middle, end, majority, equality, minority), reduced from fifteen. Llull kept the combinatorial aspect of the process.

Correlatives

Llull introduced an aspect of the system called the "correlatives" just before the final transition to the Ternary Phase. The correlatives first appear in a work called the ''Lectura super figuras Artis demonstrativae'' (c. 1285-7) and came to undergird his formulation of the nature of being. The doctrine of correlatives stipulates that everything, at the level of being, has a threefold structure: agent, patient, act. For example, the divine principle "goodness" consists of "that which does good" (agent), "that which receives good" (patient), and "to do good" (act). Llull developed a system of Latin suffixes to express the correlatives, i.e. ''bonitas'' (goodness); ''bonificans'', ''bonificatus'', ''bonificare''. This became the basis for proving that the divine principles are distinct yet equivalent in God (each principle has the same underlying threefold structure, yet retains its own unique correlatives). This supports the combinatorial operation of the ''Art'' (i.e., this means that in God goodness ''is'' greatness and greatness ''is'' goodness, goodness ''is'' eternity and eternity ''is'' goodness, etc.), the Lullian proof of the Trinity (each divine principle has the three correlatives, and together the principles comprise the Godhead; therefore, the Godhead is threefold) and the Incarnation (the active and passive correlatives are equivalent to matter and form, and the trinitarian unfolding of being occurs on all levels of reality).

Within this framework, ''Liber Chaos''—a section of the ''Lectura''—explores the concept of primordial chaos as the initial state of creation, whereat divine principles had yet to impose order upon formless potential. Llull's treatment of chaos aligns with his system of correlatives, suggesting that chaos itself contains within it the active force of divine causation, the passive potential of undifferentiated being, and the act of transformation by which it becomes structured reality. This concept—though philosophical, in Llull’s system—bears a striking resemblance to alchemical notions of '' prima materia'', the raw substance from which all transmutations arise.

Other works

Influence of Islam and early works

It has been pointed out that the ''Art''s combinatorial mechanics bear a resemblance to zairja, a device used by medieval Arab astrologers.Link, David (2010). "Scrambling T-R-U-T-H: Rotating Letters as a Material Form of Thought", in: ''Variantology 4. On Deep Time Relations of Arts, Sciences and Technologies in the Arabic–Islamic World'', eds. Siegfried Zielinski and Eckhard Fürlus (Cologne: König, 2010): 215–266 The Art's reliance on divine attributes also has a certain similarity to the contemplation of the ninety-nine Names of God in the Muslim tradition. Llull's familiarity with the Islamic intellectual tradition is evidenced by the fact that his first work (1271-2) was a compendium of Al-Ghazali's logic.

Dialogues

From early in his career Llull composed dialogues to enact the procedure of the ''Art''. This is linked to the missionary aspect of the ''Art''; Llull conceived of it as an instrument to convert all peoples of the world to Christianity, and experimented with more popular genres to make it easier to understand. His earliest and most well-known dialogue is the '' Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men'', written in Catalan in the 1270s and later translated into Latin. It is framed as a meeting of three wise men (a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian) and a Gentile in the woods. They learn about the Lullian method when they encounter a set of trees with leaves inscribed with Lullian principles. Lady Intelligence appears and informs them of the properties of the trees and the rules for implementing the leaves. The wise men use the trees to prove their respective Articles of Faith to the Gentile (although some of the Islamic tenets cannot be proved with the Lullian procedure), and in the end the Gentile is converted to Christianity.

Llull subsequently composed many other dialogues. Later in his career, when he became concerned with heretical activity in the Arts Faculty of the University of Paris, he wrote "disputations" with philosophers as interlocutors. He also created a character for himself, and he stars in many of these dialogues as the Christian wise man (for instance: ''Liber de quaestione valde alta et profunda'', composed in 1311).

Tree diagrams

Llull structured many of his works around trees. In some, like the ''Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men'', the "leaves" of the trees stand for the combinatorial elements (principles) of the ''Art''. In other works a series of trees shows how the ''Art'' generates all ("encyclopedic") knowledge. The '' Tree of Science'' (1295-6) comprises sixteen trees ranging from earthly and moral to divine and pedagogical. Each tree is divided into seven parts (roots, trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruits). The roots always consist of the Lullian divine principles and from there the tree grows into the differentiated aspects of its respective category of reality.

Proverbs

Llull wrote several books of proverbs in Catalan, to make it easier for local people to read. '' The Book of One Thousand Proverbs'', written in 1302, compiled maxims that encompassed various fields: theology, philosophy, morality, social life, and practical life. The main virtues noted of Llull's proverbs are concision, didactic simplicity, and musicality.

Novels

Llull also wrote narrative prose drawing on the literary traditions of his time (epic, romance) to express the ''Art''. These works were intended to communicate the potentially complex operations of the ''Art'' to a lay audience. '' Blanquerna'' (c.1276-83) is the of his novels; ''Felix'' (1287-9) is also notable, though it was not widely circulated during his lifetime and was only available in Catalan. It is a ''Bildungsroman'', of sorts, in which the titular protagonist sets out on a journey at the instigation of his father, who has written a "Book of Wonders". The book is divided into ten chapters—echoing the encyclopedic range of the ''Tree of Science''—as Felix gains knowledge of God, angels, heavens, elements, plants, minerals, animals, man, Paradise, and Hell. Felix's journey ends at a monastery, where he relates the "Book of Wonders"—now embellished and fused with the account of his own adventures.

Reception

Medieval

Academic theology

According to Llull's autobiographical ''Vita'', his ''Art'' was not received well at the University of Paris when he first presented it there in the 1280s. This experience supposedly is what led him to revise the ''Art'' (creating the tertiary version). Llull's ''Art'' was never adopted by mainstream academia of the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, but it did accrue quite a bit of interest. A significant number of Lullian manuscripts were collected by the Carthusian monks of Paris at Vauvert and by several theologians who donated their manuscripts to the Sorbonne Library. One disciple, Thomas Le Myésier, went so far as to create elaborate compilations of Llull's works, including a manuscript dedicated to the queen of France.

Opposition

In the 1360s the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich condemned Lullism in Aragon. He obtained a papal bull in 1376 to prohibit Lullian teaching, although it proved ineffective. In Paris Jean Gerson also issued a series of polemical writings against Lullism. There was an official document issued to prohibit the Lullian ''Art'' from being taught in the Faculty of Theology.

Early modern

Academic theology

Llull's most significant early modern proponent was Nicholas of Cusa. He collected many works by Llull and adapted many aspects of Lullian thought for his own mystical theology. There was also growing interest in Lullism in Catalonia, Italy, and France. Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published eight of Llull's books in 1499, 1505, and 1516. Lefèvre was therefore responsible for the first significant circulation of Llull's work in print outside of Catalonia. It is thought that the influence of Lullian works in Renaissance Italy (coinciding with the rise of neoplatonism) contributed to a development in metaphysics, from a static Artistotelian notion of being to reality as a dynamic process. In Northern and Central Europe Lullism was adopted by Lutherans and Calvinists interested in promoting programs of theological humanism. Gottfried Leibniz was exposed to these currents during his years in Mainz, and Llull's ''Art'' clearly informed his '' De Arte Combinatoria''.

Pseudo-Llull and alchemy

There is a significant body of alchemical treatises falsely attributed to Llull. The two fundamental works of the corpus are the ''Testamentum'' and the ''Liber de secretis naturae seu de quinta essentia'' which both date to the fourteenth century. Occultists such as Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno were inspired by these works. Despite Llull's growing identification with alchemy and Neoplatonic mysticism, others (such as Giulio Pace and Johann Heinrich Alsted) were still interested in the Lullian ''Art'' as a universal logic, even in the seventeenth century when Descartes and Ramus proposed competing systems.

Numerous alchemical works have been attributed to Llull, but all of them are apocryphal. Since the 19th century, historical criticism has been well established as to the pseudepigraphic nature of the entire corpus, which in total exceeds one hundred works. Until the 1980s, historians of science thought that the oldest and most important texts were forgeries from the late 14th and early 15th centuries, with later additions. At the end of the 20th century, Professor Michela Pereira revealed an earlier textual matrix, dated around 1332, which has no pseudepigraphic intent in its genesis. It is an original production by an unknown personage, whom Pereira calls ''magister Testamenti'' in reference to his most emblematic treatise. His original works would tentatively be the ''Testamentum'', ''Vademecum'' (Codicillus); ''Liber lapidarii'' (=Lapidarius abbreviatus); ''Liber de intentione alchimistarum''; ''Scientia de sensibilibus'' (=Ars intelectiva; Ars mágica); ''Tratatu de aquis medicinalius'' (=De secretis naturae early versions); ''De lapide maiori'' (=Apertorium); ''Questionario''; ''Liber experimentorum'' and an early version of the ''Compendium animae transmutationis metallorum'' (=Compendium super lapidum; Lapidarium). To this primordial nucleus other writings would have been added in the course of time.

His contribution completely changed the way of analysing this germinal group of treatises, since for the first time it was revealed to us with concrete data that we were not dealing with conscious forgeries, but with original works, which transmit the ideas, the personality and the biographical data of a real alchemist. After compiling information about this personage based on what he explains, both in his ''Testamentum'' and in the other writings he cites as his own, he has been identified with a man called ''Raymundus de Terminis'' (cat. Ramon de Tèrmens). He would have been a Mallorcan who exercised the office of ''eques'' or ''miles'', trained as a ''magister in artibus'' or ''in legibus''. These types of people usually occupied administrative, mercantile jurisdiction, diplomatic or public order posts. He also had a knowledge of medicine, especially related to surgery, having trained in Montpellier. His activity is documented on the island of Corfu and in Albanian towns. He was a ''capitaneo'' or ''comitis'' in Berat and Vlorë, and he did representative work for Robert I of Naples and Philip I of Taranto in commercial operation throughout the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.

Among his best known works is the ''Liber de secretis natura sive de quinta essentia''. Ramon de Térmens himself was the author of several early versions or strata of this work from 1330-1332. However, the best known format, since it was the only one printed until now, is a pseudepigraphic recension dated around 1360-1380 and produced in a Catalan milieu, where some forgers endorsed the work to Ramon Llull.

Terence McKenna mentioned Llull in his book ''Food of the Gods'', noting that the discovery of distilled Alcohol (chemistry) has been alternatively attributed to Llull. It is claimed that Llull distilled a brandy which he called ''aqua vini'' and was so awed by the discovery that he thought this discovery was a sign of the impending end of the world. It is said he described alcohol as "The taste of it exceedeth all other tastes and the smell of all other smells". McKenna prefaces his discussion of Llull by noting that little is known of him with certainty.

Iberian Revival and beatification

Meanwhile, in Spain, the Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, had taken up Lullism for his project of reform. Cisneros mobilized various intellectuals and editors, founding chairs at universities and publishing Llull's works. Founded in 1633, the Pontifical College of La Sapiencia on Majorca became the epicenter for teaching Lullism. The Franciscans from La Sapiencia were the ones to seek Llull's canonization at Rome in the seventeenth century. These efforts were renewed in the eighteenth century, but never succeeded. Llull was beatified in 1847 by Pope Pius IX. His feast day was assigned to 30 June and is celebrated by the Third Order of St. Francis.Habig, Marion. (Ed.). (1959). ''The Franciscan Book of Saints''. Franciscan Herald Press.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Scholarship

Llull is now recognized by scholars as significant in both the history of Catalan literature as well as intellectual history. From 1906 to 1950 the Comissió Editora Lul·liana led a project to edit Llull's works written in Catalan. This series was called the Obres de Ramon Llull (ORL). In 1957 the Raimundus-Lullus-Institut was founded in Freiburg, Germany to begin the work of editing Llull's Latin works. This series is called the Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina (ROL) and is still ongoing. In 1990 the work on the Catalan texts was restarted with the Nova Edició de les Obres de Ramon Llull (NEORL). In the world of English-language scholarship on memory systems, the work of Frances Yates () brought new interest to Ramon Llull as a figure in the history of cognitive systems.

Art and fiction

Llull has appeared in the art and literature of the last century, especially in the genres of surrealism, philosophical fantasy, and metafiction. Salvador Dalí's alchemical thought was influenced by Ramon Llull and Dalí incorporated the diagrams from the Lullian ''Art'' into his work called ''Alchimie des Philosophes''. In 1937 Jorge Luis Borges wrote a snippet called "Ramon Llull's Thinking Machine" proposing the Lullian ''Art'' as a device to produce poetry. Other notable references to Ramon Llull are: Aldous Huxley's short story ''The Death of Lully'', a fictionalized account aftermath of Llull's stoning in Tunis, set aboard the Genoese ship that returned him to Mallorca. Paul Auster refers to Llull (as Raymond Lull) in his memoir '' The Invention of Solitude'' in the second part, ''The Book of Memory''. Llull is also a major character in '' The Box of Delights'', a children's novel by poet John Masefield.

Other recognition

Llull's ''Art'' is sometimes recognized as a precursor to computer science and computation theory. With the discovery in 2001 of his lost manuscripts, ''Ars notandi'', ''Ars eleccionis'', and ''Alia ars eleccionis'', together known as ''Ars Magna'' (what today would be called a logical system to discover some sort of truth), Llull is also given credit for creating an electoral system now known as the Borda count and Condorcet criterion, which Jean-Charles de Borda and Nicolas de Condorcet independently proposed centuries later.

Translations

* ''Ramon Llull's New Rhetoric'', text and translation of Llull's 'Rethorica Nova', edited and translated by Mark D. Johnston, Davis, California: Hermagoras Press, 1994
* ''Selected Works of Ramon Llull (1232‑1316)'', edited and translated by Anthony Bonner, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1985, two volumes XXXI + 1330 pp. (Contents: vol. 1: ''The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men'', pp. 93–305; ''Ars Demonstrativa'', pp. 317–567; ''Ars Brevis'', pp. 579–646; vol. 2: ''Felix: or the Book of Wonders'', pp. 659–1107; ''Principles of Medicine'' pp. 1119–1215; ''Flowers of Love and Flowers of Intelligence'', pp. 1223–1256)
* ''Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader'', edited and translated by Anthony Bonner, with a new translation of ''The Book of the Lover and the Beloved'' by Eve Bonner, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1994. Includes ''The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men'', ''The Book of the Lover and the Beloved'', ''The Book of the Beasts'', and ''Ars brevis''; as well as Bonner's "Historical Background and Life" at 1–44, "Llull's Thought" at 45–56, "Llull's Influence: The History of Lullism" at 57–71.

See also

*Apologetics
* Catalan literature
*List of pioneers in computer science
* Lullism
* Volvelle
* Book of the Dispute of Raymond the Christian and Omar the Saracen

References

Notes

Citations

Works cited

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Further reading

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External links

* Works by Llull () at the Open Library
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Who was Ramon Llull?
Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona
* Samuel M. Zwemer
Raymund Lull: First Missionary to the Muslims
'



Ramon Llull at the AELC
(Association of Writers in Catalan Language). Webpage in Catalan, English and Spanish.
*

Ramon Llull Database, University of Barcelona




Blessed Raymond Lull

Esteve Jaulent: The Theory of Knowledge and the Unity of Man according to Ramon Llull

Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
High resolution portrait of Ramon Llull in .jpg and .tiff format.
*

Selected images from ''Practica compendiosa''
– The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library

{{DEFAULTSORT:Llull, Ramon
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