POLITICS AND RELIGION IN THE ERA OF RAMON ILULLhope of drawing attention to himself. He was again thrown
out of the city, though he came within an inch of securing the
martyrdom which at times he probably craved. When hopes
of persuasion failed, he occasionally laid plans for armed
crusades; but the essence of Llull's message to the crowned
heads of Europe was that the highest form of crusade would
involve a verbal, intellectual battle with the enemy.
In Llull's Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, which
perhaps slightly antedates the vision on Mount Randa in
1274, Llull addresses Jews and Muslims not separately (as
in most of his works) but together. It is an extraordinary
and puzzling book.:l^2 A pagan philosopher or 'Gentile' is
worried about the meaning of life; he has no knowledge of
God or of the afterlife. Saddened by his ignorance, he travels
far in search of truth. One day he sees coming towards him
three wise men, in friendly discussion. They explain to him
that God does indeed exist, revealing in typically Llullian
fashion His 'goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom,
love, perfection'. The Gentile, illuminated by divine radiance,
begs to be converted. But then to his astonishment he dis-
covers that each of the Wise Men is of a different religion:
one a Jew, one a Christian, one a Muslim. It becomes vital to
the Gentile that he should discover which religion is correct.
Each Wise Man thus speaks in order of seniority of his reli-
gion, attempting to demonstrate that his faith is best. The
accounts provided by Llull of Judaism and Islam are not
entirely fair (thus both Jews and Muslims are gently mocked,
in very different ways, for their ideas about the nature of the
afterlife); but the chapters of the book on Judaism and Islam
reveal extensive knowledge of the rival faiths. It is even left
to the Jew to demonstrate the Oneness of God, a point on
which all three Wise Men are in accord. The Christian makes
the fundamental Llullian point, of course:
If you remember, understand and love God better through
what I have said to you in proving my articles, rather than
through what the Jew has said or what the Saracen will say
(because by their arguments you cannot remember, understand
or love God as profoundly as you can by what I have told you),
therefore my religion is shown to be true.:n- Bonner, Select Works, vol. l, pp. 110-304.
- Ibid., pp. 256-7.