Catalan Raimund Llull is a philosopher, poet and theologian. Founder of Western European Orientalism. Catholicism is not familiar with the phenomenon of foolishness, but Llull was almost the only foolish person in the West. He left a deep mark on philosophy, theology, logic, pedagogy and literature.
Ramon Llull or Raimundus Lullus, a more familiar Latinized form of his name, was born in 1232 in Palma de Mallorca, which was conquered from the Arabs shortly before his birth (1229). His father was a knight from Catalonia. Ramon was noble, rich, enjoyed the patronage of the powerful, spent his youth in revelry at the court of James I the Conqueror, King of Aragon. In his more mature years, he was a seneschal at the court of the king and mentor of the Infante, the future King James II (Jaume II de Mallorca). According to one of the many legends, before his conversion, Llul, pursuing a beautiful stranger, rode into the church on horseback.
He got married in 1257. His wife Blanca bore him two children. In 1263, while composing a love poem dedicated to a married woman, 30-year-old Ramon, by his own admission, had a vision of the crucified Christ five times. He left his court life and family and settled on the deserted mountain of Miramar, where later several of his students founded a small monastery. Ramon himself never entered monasticism or priesthood.
He described his departure in the 12th chapter of his mystical "Book of the Lover and the Beloved" (Llibre d'amic e amat): "'Mad with love, why do you cease to be yourself, neglect money, refuse the temptations of this world and live surrounded by universal contempt? ' The Lover replied: 'In order to deserve the merits of my Beloved, who is rather undeservedly unloved by people than loved and appreciated on merit.' Researchers attribute this book, in which he overcame the discord between a philosopher and a poet, to the early period of Lleul's work. It may have been written in 1276. The “lover” in Llula's poem is the devout Christian, and the “Beloved” is the Lord.
Giving up his family, property and social life, Llule made a pilgrimage to Rocamadour and Santiago de Compostela and intended to go to Paris to receive a deep theological education. However, he followed the advice of the highly revered Raymund de Peñafort, who recommended that Llul take up missionary work in Mallorca, whose population at that time was mostly Muslim. On the island Ramon studied Arabic and Hebrew languages, Eastern (especially Sufi) wisdom. This knowledge was necessary for polemics with the infidels.
In the life of Llul, there was a collision with a Moor slave who taught him the Arabic language. When a disciple, during the learning process, began to violently vilify Islam, the slave threw himself at him with a knife, which almost cost Llul his life. A slave who was imprisoned committed suicide. This made a very strong impression on Ramon, which was reflected in his work. Lleul has repeatedly recalled this incident in his autobiographical writings.
With the support of his crowned patron Jaume II, Llul founded in Mallorca, in Miramar, the first foreign language school in Europe, in which monks studied Arabic, Hebrew and Chaldean (Old Church Syriac) languages. As the modern researcher V. Ye. Bagno writes: “The most important task of the West, he (Ljul) also considered the conversion of the Tatars to Christianity, who, shortly before his birth, had ruined Kievan Rus and posed a serious threat to Christian civilization. This task, from his point of view, was relatively easy to achieve, since at that time it was still about pagans, much less staunch in their faith than Muslims and Jews."
In The Book of the Pagan and the Three Wise Men, written in Arabic, Llul tells how a pagan, after listening to the arguments of a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian, chooses Catholicism. In reality, as we know, the top of the Khazar Kaganate professed Judaism, the Tatars preferred Islam, and the Russians followed the Byzantine model.
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Ramon Llule himself showed hesitation between the Catholic orders, between the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Negone developed a relationship with Dominican authorities who could support his missionary plans. The Dominicans could not help but approve of Lleul's accusations against the Albigensians and troubadours, his passionate polemic with the Averroes who prevailed at the Sorbonne. For Catholic orthodoxy, Llul's deep knowledge of Arab philosophy and logic, knowledge of Sufi mysticism and Kabbalistic wisdom turned out to be unacceptable. The Dominicans directly accused Llull of heresy.
“The Franciscans, on the other hand, argued that in their content Lleul's ideas are similar to those of other Christian thinkers,” notes V. Ye. Bagno in his article “The Troubadour of Christ”, dedicated to the life and work of Ramon Lleul. “Thus it becomes clear that it was the form that seemed strange and unacceptable to contemporaries.”
In the "Guide to the Inquisitors" (1358), N. Aymerich accused Lleul of heresy on the grounds that Ramon Lleul was not strong in the faith and therefore not so much converted the infidels as he himself was imbued with their pernicious influence, making his writings unacceptable for devout Catholics.
“There is an element of foolishness in the social behavior of Ramon the madman (Ramon lo foll), as he himself liked to call himself,” testifies V. Ye. Bagno. - This is all the more significant because Catholic Europe did not know foolishness as a social phenomenon. It is not excluded that for Ljul (as well as for the ancient Russian holy fools) the experience of Muslim dervishes, with whom fate undoubtedly brought him during his missionary wanderings, was of significance in this sense.
Ramon Llul himself contributed a lot to the emergence of legends about himself. Although it is precisely established that he was never a monk and priest, as well as an alchemist. This is the name of the unfinished poem by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, dedicated to Lull.
Modern researchers argue that we know practically nothing about the circumstances of the death of 84-year-old Ramon Llul, which is believed to have occurred in early 1316, on the way from Tunisia to Mallorca. According to legend, the Muslim Arabs, outraged by the missionary's attacks on Islam, threw stones at him. The Genoese who were in Tunisia, among whom was the ancestor of Columbus, brought Llul's body to Mallorca, where they were buried with honors in the monastery of St. Francis - Sant Francesc.
Raimund Llull is credited with creating over three hundred works (in Catalan, Latin and Arabic). “As a philosopher, he became the creator of Ars Magna - the" machine of truth ", the" logical machine "- a grandiose body of knowledge of medieval man, the essence of which was that, by combining in a certain order, clearly established fundamental concepts, come, using cleverly designed tables, figures and revolving circles, to the theological and philosophical truths obvious to all, "writes Bagno. Llule created an integral philosophical system, the traditions of which were continued by Agrippa Nettesheim, Nicholas of Cusansky, Giordano Bruno and Hegel.
Numerous attempts to canonize Ramon were opposed by theologians who rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, of which Llul was an ardent herald, therefore he was not even formally beatified. Llull is venerated as a saint at liturgies by the Franciscans.
Lull's name is mentioned in the outstanding works of world literature: Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais, Gulliver's Travels by J. Swift, Gaspard from the Dark by the French romantic A. Bertrand, in the works of J. L. Borges and Humberto Eco.
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