Latest / Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems / 09 - Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems by Samuel Zwemer

Transcript

09 - Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems by Samuel Zwemer · Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight of Raymond Lull, First Missionary to the Moslems
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: by Samuel Wemer. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight Raymond Lull as philosopher and author. He was
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: at once a philosophical systematizer and analytic chemist, a skillful mariner,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and a successful propagator of Christianity Humboldt's Cosmos two six
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: twenty nine. Of making many books, there is no end,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and much study is a weariness of the flesh Ecclesiastes.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It will be difficult in one short chapter to crowd
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: an account of Lul's philosophy, which, for two centuries after
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: his death perplexed the genius of Europe, and to enumerate
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: even a small number of the vast library of books
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: which have a Lull for their author. One does not
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: know which to admire most, the versatile character of the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: genius or the prodigious industry of the author. Raymond Lull was,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: from his use a master of Catalan, and wrote in
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it long before his conversion of his works in that language.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: There exists no complete catalog. One of Lowell's biographers states
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that the books written by Lull number four thousand in
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the first published edition of his works, two hundred and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: eighty two titles are given, yet only forty five of those,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: when printed, took up ten large folio volumes. To understand
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: something of the scope and ambition of this genius intellect,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: one must read the partial list of his books given
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in the bibliography at the close of this volume. Lowell
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: was a philosopher, a poet, a novelist, a writer of proverbs,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a keen magician, a deep theologian, and a fiery controversialist.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: There was not a science cultivated in his age to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: which he did not add. The critical historian Windsor states
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that in twelve ninety five Lull wrote a handbook on navigation,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: which was not superseded by a better until after. Columbus
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: doctor George Smith credits Lull with the independent invention of
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the mariner's compass, and not without reason, for we find
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: repeated references to the magnetic needle in his devotional books.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Footnote see Libert de miraculous clearly a MOUNDI, Part six
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: on a man Calumida. As the needle naturally turns to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the north when it is touched by the magnet, so
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it is fitting, etc. Libert contemplatonis in deo. In his
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: treatise Phoenix desles maravillas del Orbies, published in twelve eighty six,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: he again alludes to the use of the mariner's compass
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: see Humboldt Cosmos two six hundred thirty en footnote. He
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: wrote a treatise on the Weight of the Elements and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: their Shape, on the Sense of smell, on Astronomy, Astrology, arithmetic,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and geometry. One of his books is entitled on the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Squaring and Triangulation of the Circle. In Medieval Medicine, Jurisprudence,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and metaphysics, he was equally at home. His seven volumes
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: on medicine include one book on the use of the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: mind in curing the sick, and another on the effect
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of climate on diseases. He was a dogmatic theologian, and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: wrote sixty three volumes of theological discussion, some of which
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: are so abstruse as to produce doubt whether their author
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: earned the title of Doctor alumnatus given him by his contemporaries.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Other titles. Among his theological writings there are which are
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: awaken curiosity, such as on the Most Triune Trinity, on
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the form of God, on the language of the Angels,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Among the sixty two books of meditation and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: devotion which are preserved in the lists of Lull's writings,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: there are none on the saints, and only four treat
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of the Virgin Mary. This is one of the many
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: proofs in Lull's book that he was more of a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Catholic than a Romanist, and that he esteemed Christ more
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: than all the saints of the papal calendar. One of
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: his books of devotion is entitled on the one Hundred
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Names of God, and was evidently prepared for the use
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of Moslems who were seeking the light footnote. According to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Madlem teaching, Allah has one hundred beautiful names. The Moslem's
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: rosary has one hundred beads and account these names in
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a devotional exercise and footnote. Raymond Lull wrote or collected
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: three books of proverbs, one of which contains six thousand
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: popular sayings and maxims. Here are a few out of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: many beautiful gems to be found in this collection. Deum
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: dilije ut ipsum timas fox as partici patio sine la
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: bore deus exemplum detide de sua unitat in natura portitudo
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: es vigor cordis concha malicia viti sun copiositaates, voluntatis, redestinatio,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: eshire dei guishit homines deus Adeo magnum habit regulere quo
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: nihil oblivichiti. Among Lol's works there are twenty on logic
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and metaphysics. One of the latter has the title on
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the Greatness and the Littleness of Man. Among his sermons
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and books on preaching, there is only one commentary that,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: in accord with Lol's mission and character, is a commentary
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: on the prolog of John's Gospel. Of making many controversial books,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: there was no end in the days of Lol. His
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: writings in this department, however, are not as are those
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of his contemporaries against heretics, to condemn them with their
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: errors to ecclesiastical perdition. Even the titles of his controversial
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: writings show his irenic spirit and his desire to convert
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: rather than to convince. All through his books there runs
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a spirit of earnest devotion. Even his natural philosophy is
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: full of the world to come and its glories. At
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the end of one of his books, he bursts out
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: with the prayer, Oh Lord, my help. Till this work
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: is completed, Thy servant cannot go to the land of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the Saracens to glorify thy glorious name. For I am
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: so occupied with this book, which I undertake for Thine honor,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that I can think of nothing else. For this reason
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I beseech THEE for that grace that Thou wouldst stand
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: by me, that I may soon finish it and speedily
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: depart to die the death of a martyr out of
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: love to THEE, if shall please THEE to count me
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: worthy of it. In twelve ninety six, he concluded a
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: work on the logic of Christianity with the Seraphs Song
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to the Key of World Wide Missions. Let Christians consume
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: with burning love for the cause of faith, only consider that,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: since nothing has power to withstand true, they can, by
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: God's help and his might, bring infidels back to the faith,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: so that the precious name of Jesus, which in most
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: regions is still unknown to most men, may be proclaimed
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and adored. And again, as my book is finished, on
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the vigils of John the Baptist, who was the herald
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of the light and pointed to him who is the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: true Light, may it please our Lord to kindle a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: new light of the world, which may guide unbelievers to conversion,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that with us they may meet Christ, to whom the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: honor and praise world without end. This is not the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: language of pious rhetoric, but the passionate outcry of a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: soul hungry for the coming of the Kingdom. Loell was
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a popular author. He wrote not only in learned Latin,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: but in the vernacular of his native land, noble calls
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: from the moody of the thirteenth century, he tried to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: reach the masses. His influence on popular religious ideas in
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Spain was so great through his catalane hymns and proverbs
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and catechisms, that Helferic compares him to Luther and calls
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: him a reformer before the reference. He made the study
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of theology popular by putting its commonplaces into verse, so
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that the laity could learn by heart the summary of
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the Catholic faith and meet Moslems and Jews with ready
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: made arguments. The lasticism was for the clergy, the Lollian
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: method was intended for the laity as well. Raymond Lowell
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: had become discontented with the methods of scientific inquiry commonly
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: in use, and so set himself to construct his R's Major,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: or Greater Art, which, by a series of mechanical contrivances
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and a system of mnemonics, was adapted to answer any
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: question on any topic. This new philosophy is the keynote
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of most of Loll's treatises. All his philosophical works are
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: but different explanations and phases of the Ar's Major. In
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: his other books, he seldom fails to call attention to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this universal key of knowledge which the Great Art supplies.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: What is the method of Loll's philosophy. The most complete
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: account and the most luminous explanation of its abstruse perplexities,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: is given by Prantil in his History of Logic. This
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: is the summary of it. The reasonableness and monstrability of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Christianity is the real basis of his great method. Nothing
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Lull held interfered more with the spread of Christian truth
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: than the attempt of its advocates to represent its doctrines
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: as undemonstrable mysteries. The very difference between Christ and Antichrist
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: lies in the fact that the former can prove his
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: truth by miracles, etc. While the latter cannot. The glory
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: of Christianity, Loll argues, is that it does not maintain
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a demonstrable, but simply the supersensuous. It is not against reason,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: but above unsanctified reason. The demonstration, however, which Loll seeks,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is not that of ordinary logic. He says that we
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: require a method which will reason not only from effect
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to cause or from cause to effect, but para equiparantium,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that is, by showing that contrary attributes can exist together
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in one subject. This method must be real and not
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: altogether formal or subjective. It must deal with the things themselves,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and not merely with second intentions. Loll's Great Art goes
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: beyond logic and metaphysic, provides a universal art of discovery,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and contains the formulae to which every demonstration in every
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: science can be reduced, being in fact, a sort of
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: cyclopedia of categories and syllogisms. Lowell's RS major is a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: tabulation of the different points of view from which propositions
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: may be framed about objects. Is a mnemonic, or rather
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: a mechanical contrivance for ascertaining all possible categories that apply
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to any possible proposition, just as by knowing the typical
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: terminations or conjugations of Arabic grammar. For example, we can
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: inflect and conjugate any word so low reasons. By a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the different types of existence and their possible
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: relations and combinations, we should possess a knowledge of the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: whole of nature and of all truths as a system.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: The Great Art accordingly begins by laying down an alphabet
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: according to which the nine letters from B to K
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: stand for the different kinds of substances and attributes. Thus,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the series of substances, B stands for God, C, Angel, D, heaven, E,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and so on. In the series of absolute attributes, B
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: represents goodness, D, duration c greatness. Or again, in the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: nine questions of scholastic philosophy, B stands for utrum, Z forqueed,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: d for de quo, et cetera. By manipulating these letters
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: in such a way as will show the relationship of
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: different objects and predicates, you exercise the new art. This
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: manipulation is affected by the help of certain so called
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: figures or geometrical arrangements. Their construction differs in various books
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of Lull's philosophy, but their general character is the same.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Circles and other figures are divided into sections by lines
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: or colors, and then marked by Lull's symbolical letters, so
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: as to show all the possible commendations of which the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: letters are capable. For example, one arrangement represents the possible
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: combinations of the attributes of God, another, the possible conditions
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of the soul, and so on. These figures are further
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: fenced about by various definitions and rules, and their use
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: is further specified by various evacuations and multiplications, which show
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: us how to exhaust all the possible combinations and sets
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: of questions which the terms of our proposition admit when
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: so multiplied. The fourth figure is, in Lull's language, that
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: by which other sciences can be most readily and aptly acquired,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and it may accordingly be taken as no unfair specimen
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of Lull's method. This fourth figure is simply an arrangement
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of three concentric circles, each divided into nine sections B, C, D,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: et cetera, and so constructed a pasteboard that when the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: upper and smaller circle remains fixed, the two lower and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: outer revolve around it. Taking the letters in this sense
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of the series, we are then able by revolving the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: outer circles to find out the possible relationships between different
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: conceptions and elucidate the arrangement or disagreement that exists between them. Meanwhile,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the middle circle, in similar fashion, gives us the intermediate
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: terms by which they are to be connected or disconnected.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: This Lollian method of a wheel within a wheel seems
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: at first as perplexing as the visions of Ezekiel, and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: as puerial as the automatic book machine in Gooliver's travels.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But it would be unfair to say that loll supposed
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: thinking could be reduced to a mere rotation of pasteboard circles,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: or that his art enabled men to talk without judgment
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of that which we do not know. Lull sought to
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: give not a compendium of knowledge, but a method of investigation.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: He sought a more scientific method for philosophy than the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dialectic of his contemporaries. In his conception of a universal
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: method and his application of the vernacular languages to philosophy,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: he was the herald of Bacon himself. In his demand
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: for very reasonable religion, he was beyond his age, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in applying this system, weak though it was, to the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: conversion of infidels. He proved himself the first missionary philosopher.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: He perceived the possibilities, though not the limitations, of comparative
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: theology and the science of logic as weapons for the missionary.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing will so clearly illustrate the versatile and brilliant character
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: of Lull's genius as to turn from his R's major
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to his religious novel Blancuerna, the Great Allegory of the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Middle Ages and the prediss Serbunnyan's Pilgrim's Progress footnote Telferic,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: pages one hundred eleven through one twenty two. He holds
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: that the allegor was written first in Arabic and then
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: put into Catalan. Several manuscripts of it are extant in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the archive of Palma et Cetera. It was first printed
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in fifteen twenty one and footnote. In fact, Raymond Lowell
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: was the first European who wrote a religious story in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the vernacular. The romances of the days of Chivalry were
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: doubtless well known to him before his conversion, and what
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: was more natural than that the missionary knight should write
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the romance of his new crusade of Love against the Saracens.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Blanquerna is an allegory in four books. Its subtitle states
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that it is a mirror of morals in all classes
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of society and treats of matrimony. Religion prelates the papacy
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and the hermit's life. It is a story of the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: pilgrimage of anast the hero who marries Aloma, the daughter
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: of a wealthy widow. Their only child, Blanquerna, desires to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: be a monk, but falls in love with a beautiful
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and pious maiden, Donia Kana by name Bolls, however, decide
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to remain ascetics. Blonquerna enters a monastery, and his fair
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: sweetheart turns none. The allegory relates the experiences of these
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: characters in their different surroundings, the pilgrim, the monk, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the abbess. To borrow words in another book from Loul himself,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: we see the pilgrim traveling away in distant lands to
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: seek THEE. Though thou art so near that every man,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: if he would, might find THEE in his own house
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and chamber. The pilgrims are so deceived by false men
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: whom they meet in taverns and churches, that many of them,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: when they return home, show themselves to be far worse
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: than they were when they set out. Dounia ConA, the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: abbess disputes with her sister nuns the authority of the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: priest to bind the conscience, and even draws in question
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: some of the doctrines of the church. The various characters
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: bear allegorical names. When Blonquerna reaches Rome, the pope has
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a court jester called Raymond the Fool, who is none
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: other than Lol himself, and who tells the cardinals some
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: rare truths. The four cardinals bear the names we give
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: THEE things, Lord, God, Heavenly King, We glorify THEE and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Thou only art Holy. Blonquerna finally becomes pope and uses
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: his authority in sending out a vast army of monk
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: missionaries to convert Jews and Mohammedans. In various parts of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the books, songs of praise and devotion occur, while the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: missionary idea is never absent. This remarkable allegory, as well
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: as many other works of Lull, deserves to be rescued
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: from oblivion. The arrival of Blonquerina before the door of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the enchanted castle, over whose gateway the ten commandments are written,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and within the solemn conclave of graybeards who discourse on
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the vanity of the world, are two scenes that show
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a genius equal to that of John Bunyan. There are
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: other resemblances between these two pilgrims rescued from the city
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of Destruction and describing their own experiences in allegory. But
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to present them here would make this chapter two lengthy.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Who would know more of Lul the philosopher and the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: author is referred to the bibliography and to the writings themselves.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight read by Alathia Cheris