POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE ERA OF RAMON LLULLinto eight, nine or more elements (the exact number vary-
ing during his writing career). Let us take nine 'absolutes':
Goodness, Greatness, Duration, Power, Wisdom, Will, Virtue,
Truth, Glory. To each of these may be attached a letter
from B to K. Then take nine 'relatives': Difference, Concord-
ance, Contrariety, Beginning, Middle, End, Majority, Equality,
Minority. Again, these can be given a letter between B and K.
Better still, we can construct a grid, setting the letters of the
alphabet, the absolutes and the relatives side by side. Then
we can work in other categories that can be divided nine
ways, from B to K: there are the 'subjects', for instance: God,
Angels, Heaven, Mankind, the Imaginative, the Sensitive, the
Vegetative, the Elementative, the Instrumentative. We can
thus set these categories out as follows:
Absolutes Relatives Subjects
B Goodness Difference God
c Greatness Concordance Angels
D Duration Contrariety Heaven
E Power Beginning Mankind
F Wisdom Middle Imaginative
G Will End Sensitive
H Virtue Majority Vegetative
I Truth Equality Elementative
K Glory Minority InstrumentativeThe quasi-triangular letter A was reserved for the Trinity. All
sorts of combinations are possible, and grand deductions
can be made from the elaborate grids or circle patterns that
then result: 'Saturn is of the complexion of Earth, which is
signified by C and is masculine, diurnal and bad'. All of this
was directed at the high aim of converting the infidel, for 'if
the Catholic faith is unprovable by the intellect then it is
impossible for it to be true'.
Llull elaborated his holy algebra not merely in complex
and lengthy books aimed at potential missionaries. A little
tract survives intended for Catalan and other merchants who
might find themselves in Alexandria or another Muslim city,
and who should then seize the chance to attempt the con-
version of those they met. His argument here was that it was
proper for God to be worshipped in that way that did Him
the greatest honour; he thus did not deny that Muslims and
Jews worshipped the same God and sought to honour Him,