Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/599

 RAYMOND LULLY. 533 highly, as likewise did other men of note. On the other hand, ft was condemned by Gerson and its use forbidden in the University of Paris ; it was ill thought of by Cornelius Agrippa and Jerome Cardan; and Mariana tells us that in his time many considered it useless and even harmful, while others praised it as a gift from heaven to remedy ignorance, and in 1586 its use was prohibited in the University of Valencia.* In this and in many of his other works Lully's object was to prove by logical processes of thought the truths of Christianity and the positions of theology. We have already seen how the Church recognized the risk involved in this and forbade it, and Lully felt that he was treading on dangerous ground. He there- fore lost no opportunity of declaring that faith is superior to rea- son, and that they were mistaken who held that faith proved by reason lost its merit. Devoting his life to combating Averrhoism and converting the infidel, he had felt that Christianity could only be spread by argument — that to convert men he had to convince them. Without this the work must stop, and he urged that the heathen might logically complain of God if it were impossible to convince their reason of the truth.f It was the same effort as that made two centuries later by Savonarola in his Cruris Trium- phus, to combat the incredulity of the later Averrhoists and of the Renaissance. The result showed the danger which lurked in his single- minded efforts. As his reputation spread and his disciples multi- plied, Nicholas Eymerich, the Inquisitor of Aragon, to whom I have so often had occasion to refer, undertook to condemn his memory. Perhaps among the Lullists there were men whose zeal outran their discretion. Eymerich speaks of one, named Pedro Bosell, whose errors are a curious echo of the Joachites and Oli- vists, for he taught that, as the doctrine of the Old Testament was attributable to the Father and that of the New to the Son, so was that of Lully to the Holy Ghost, and that in the time of Antichrist 1. c. No. 82. — Gersoni Epist. ad. Bart. Carthus; Ejusd. De Exam. Doctr. P. 11. Consid. 1. — Corn. Agrippae de Vanitate Scient. c. 9. — Hieron. Cardan, de Subtil. Rer. Lib. xv. — Mariana, Lib. xv. c. 4. t Pelayo, I. 519-23.— R. Lullii Lamentat. Philosoph.
 * Hist. Gen. de Mall. III. 71, 78.— Pelayo, I. 530, 535, 537, 539.— Nic. Anton.