THE \\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOM 1200-EiOOmind away from the infinite and clutters it with finite objects.
Only by intense meditation can the soul free itself to con-
template the Divine; Abulafia saw in the letters of the Hebrew
alphabet - which were mere forms, meaningless in them-
selves, rather than 'objects'-a vehicle for mystical devotion.
The art of combining letters was seen as a special means to
launch the soul on its spiritual journey towards God. It is
important, therefore, to recall the difference between what
both Abulafia and Llull called the art of combining letters.
(It is quite possible they knew one another, for Llull cer-
tainly had some contact with rabbis in Aragon-Catalonia,
and Abulafia tells of his own discussions with a Christian
scholar who could well be Llull.) Abulafia's letters were
not the key to a framework for describing the material and
spiritual universe; if anything, they were a key to clearing the
mind of the distractions of the here and now. Contemplation
focused particularly on the letters that made up the Name
of God, a name so holy that it was not even pronounced by
Jews; Abraham Abulafia combined the letters of the Name
into elaborate versions which were the key to knowledge of
God. In the highest state of contemplation, the soul leaves
the body and witnesses the ineffable Glory of God.'H
Abraham Abulafia is remarkable for other reasons. A
great traveller, who had voyaged as far as the Holy Land
and maybe still further east in search of the Ten Lost Tribes
of Israel, in August 1280 he found himself in Italy, near
Rome, where he intended to meet Pope Nicholas III and
probably to reveal himself as the Messiah awaited by the Jews.
(Nahmanides had referred in the Barcelona disputation of
1263, which Abulafia could well have witnessed, to the tradi-
tion that the Messiah would present himself to the pope.)
Instead he found that the pope had suddenly died, and he
was held captive by the Franciscans for four weeks. He is last
heard of eleven years later, leading a contemplative life on
Camino, between Malta and Gozo, amid the chaos of the
War of the Vespers.
It is perhaps not completely nonsensical to talk of a com-
mon mystical culture in the late thirteenth century, with its
centre of gravity in Aragon-Catalonia; this common culture
was shared by such figures as Ramon Llull and Arnau de
- See for instance Abraham Abulafia, L"epitre des sept voies (Paris, 1985).