Mallorca's Saint
Ramon LuU : a Biography. By E, Allison. Peers, M.A. (S.P.C.K. 1 88.) IT is strange that, in spite of the interest now taken in the great personalities especially the religious personalities—of the Middle Ages, so little notice has so far been bestowed by English students on Ramon Lull. Books on the spiritual and intellectual life of the thirteenth century mostly ignore him. Yet to achieve eminence as a prolific writer, an encyclopaedic scholar, a poet, preacher, and missionary, to begin life as a notable sinner, rise to the 'heights of mystic Contemplation, and die in old age a martyr's death, at least makes up a career with iorrie claim to distinction. But Professor Peers, to whom we are already indebted for some excellent translations from L` un's' works, and who now makes a further demand upon our gratitude by this full and fascinating biography, has no English rivals in the field of Lullian studies. A glance at the 233 entries in his formidable bibliography shows how com- pletely this subject is still virgin soil for the Anglo-Saxon student, though it has received in recent times much expert attention from Spanish historians and critics.
Those who may yet vaguely connect " old Raymond Lully " with legendary tales of his prowess in alchemy and supposed discovery of the Great Elixir, will not find much that they recognize or expect in Professor Peers' work. They will find instead the vivid and arresting picture of a real man of amazing vitality ; a great convert, indefatigable worker, and heroic lover of God. The real Ramon Lull was born in Mallorca about 1232, and was thus the younger contemporary of St. Louis and St. Thomas Aquinas. He was of good family, and as a boy was sent to the Court of James of Aragon. Romantic, passionate, and uncontrolled, he seems to have led during early manhood a wild and immoral life. At the crucial age of thirty he was abruptly converted by a vision of the Crucified, who appeared to him, as he was writing a love- song to the momentary object of his devotion. Each time that Ramon tried to finish the poem the vision recurred, with overwhelming effect. Finally, after a period of intense conflict, he capitulated to the demands of heavenly love, devoting to its service all those powers of his ardent and vigorous nature which had so far been squandered on transi- tory objectives. The man who emerged from this profound transformation was, says Professor Peers, " the strangest blend of extreme idealism and sound common sense." He had the temperament of a poet, the training of a courtier, a will of iron and an amazing capacity for sustained effort. From the beginning of his new life he looked towards one desired end—martyrdom for the Christian cause : but between these two points of the New Birth and the Perfect Death there lay endless possibilities of service. It was natural that Lull, born in a country only lately delivered from the Moorish yoke, should first desire to go as a missionary among the Saracens ; but it is a remarkable testimony to his genius for reality that he immediately grasped the truth on which all modern missionary enterprise is built—namely, that en. thusiasm without education is not enough. The first step in the conversion of the infidel is to learn the language that he speaks, and become acquainted with the faith that he holds. So, after a pilgrimage which probably included the chief holy Places of Spain, Lull, like St. Ignatius two centuries later, deliberately put himself to school ; learning chiefly Latin, Arabic, and the principles of Christian theology. For ten years he lived in extreme simplicity at Palma ; studying, writing, and, at least in the latter part of this period, holding debates with Jews and Saracens on the. Christian faith. The first of his great literary works, the huge Book of Contem, plation, belongs to this time.
His next phase again reminds us of Ignatius. He retired to a lonely cave on Mount Rands, where he seems to have passed through profound mystical experiences. In his own words, " Memory and Will set forth together, and climbed into the mountain. of the Beloved, that Understanding might be exalted and love for the Beloved increased." Lull was now forty-two years of age ; and the most active and im- portant period of his life was yet to come. He emerged from his mental and spiritual probation an omnivorous student, an untiring traveller, a prolific writer : in any one of these departments alone his achievement would be staggering. For
forty years more he travelled, taught, and wrote on subjects that range from the details of education to the heights of
mystical theology. The chronicle of these ceaseless wan- derings and works, all devoted to one service and trained towards one goal, must be read in Professor Peers' Life, where it is told in considerable detail. At about fifty-one he eomposed his great romance, Blanquerna, the only one of his books which the modern reader is likely to enjoy as a whole : the two short and beautiful mystical tracts, The Art of Con. temptation and Book of the Lover and Beloved, which have an
established place among the classics of the spiritual life, form part of this work. He was sixty when his first missionary journey to Tunis at last took place. At seventy-five the intrepid olclInisaionary again went to Africa, and was seized and cast into prison. He returned via Pisa, where he was shipwrecked ; travelled through Fialiee and Italy, and
attended the Council of Vienne. In 1314, aged eighty-two, he went again to Tunis; where his last two works were written ; and late in the following year was stoned to death at Bugia by a hostile crowd of Moors. Thus the martyr's death he had long desired and foreseen was at last achieved ; and the beautiful epitaph he had written for the hero of The Tree of Love became his own :-- " Here lies a Lover, who has died for his Beloved, and for love . . . who has loved his Beloved with a love that is good, great and enduring . . . who has battled bravely for love's sake . . . a Lover ever humble, patient, loyal, ardent, liberal, prudent, holy and full of all good things, inspiring many lovers to honour and serve his
Beloved." . - — - •
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