VI

Llull's speech would have been aimed at the leaders and scholars of the community, rather than at the general congregation. This is attested from what we know of his approach to the Muslims on his missionary trips to north Africa, where he tended to try and find the local wise men entering into debate with them, in the hope that convincing them of the truth of Christianity would lead the masses to convert as well. It is also clear that Llull wished to engage in debate with those who were themselves trying to fathom the essence of the Godhead. Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, as it is more commonly referred to, was based on secret teachings passed from teacher to disciple over a long period of time which surfaced in the thirteenth century as a theosophical approach to Judaism. It dealt with the essence of the Godhead and the nature of the relationship between En sof (`Infinity'), the transcendent, unknowable, unchanging divine essence and creation. One of the main doctrines of this theosophical system was the ten sefirot (`divine attributes'), which emanated at a certain moment from En Sof and through them emerged the creation. The sefirot were the vehicle by which God revealed himself in the world and hence posited a more immediate and immanent relationship between the Divine and creation. These sefirot were also a ladder of ascent and descent from the creation to the Divine and vice versa.[60] It was with the spiritual leaders of the community in Barcelona who upheld these doctrines, that Llull wanted to engage, firmly believing that he would be able to convince them of the necessity of a Trinity in the Godhead using his doctrine of the correlatives.[61]

The following is a reconstruction of what Llull might possibly have said to the Jews in the synagogue of Barcelona:

As is customary I will start with a prayer. God, who gives us grace, please open the hearts of my audience so that they remember, understand and will love this sermon, so that they will merit being in the light of your glory in paradise.[62]

Although I am standing here in front of you in the synagogue where you are accused of blaspheming the name of Jesus,[63] I have not come to coerce you into converting, but to have an open debate on the nature of our respective faiths, and to demonstrate to you how the differences between us stem from misunderstanding what we Christians believe about the Godhead. We are accused of believing in three gods, when in truth we believe, just like you, in one God with one essence.[64] I have not come here to try and prove to you that you do not understand the Holy Scriptures which prefigure the coming of Jesus, born of the blessed virgin Mary, as to argue from authority will achieve nothing. But, I want us to empty our minds of all preconceptions and have our memory, intellect and our will wanting to remember, understand and love the essence of the one God who must by necessity be three.[65]

Both you and I know and recognise that God must be the greatest of all beings. If we talk about something being perfect, then we have to consider the most perfect thing that we can conceive, not being able to conceive anything more perfect, that perfection is God. This is the same for all the other terms that we use to describe things. At the point beyond which we cannot conceive anything else, we will find God. Because God is beyond our comprehension, both you and I use terminology that can help us comprehend His being. I call them dignities, you refer to them as sefirot. These are the revealed faces of the Godhead and each is in and is equal to the other. There can be no inequality within the Godhead, hence each of these dignities must be equal to, and include all of the others.[66]

We agree that God is eternal, and being eternal means that he has no beginning, middle or end, nor can there be any contrariety in him, for he is the most perfect of all beings. We also agree that creation must signify its creator and that man is the created being which most closely resembles the creator being the pinnacle of that creation.

The world of creation signifies the creator in that a trinitarian structure is visible in everything. Let us take man as an example. Man has a body and a soul but without the conjunction of the two man would be unable to be in being. The anima - the intellectual soul - too is divided into three for without this division it would be unable to function in the manner best fitting the intellect. The memory remembers, so that the intellect understands and the will can then love or hate according to the nature of the thing being intellectualised. If this is so, then within the Godhead, there must also be a threefold division, because if three is the number which concords best in man and creation, how much more so in God, in whom everything concords and in whom there is no contrariety.[67]

Understand that in the one essence of the Godhead there must necessarily exist a trinity of relationship, because without this the world could not have come into existence. And if I ask you what God was doing before creation, how can you answer this question without recourse to a Trinity? It is impossible for God to have ever been idle (ociosa ) , because being idle goes against His goodness, greatness, eternity etc. and would mean that there was a beginning. If there was a beginning that implies change in the Godhead, and we all agree that there has never been any change in the Godhead. That must imply that there was eternal activity in the Godhead before the world was created. For there to be eternal activity there has to be something to be acted upon as well as the actor and the act itself. If it was impossible to distinguish between these three elements, then there could be no activity. If we take God's goodness (bonea) then within this dignity, in order that God's goodness will be that thing by reason of which good does good, there must be bonificant, bonificabile, and bonificar; the actor, the acted upon and the act itself. It is the same for all the other divine dignities. It is this that we Christians refer to as the Holy Trinity. The Trinity are the names by which we reflect this eternal activity that must take place in the divine so that there could be creation. The Father is the actor who is in eternal relationship with the Son who is acted upon and the Holy Spirit is the eternal act between the Father and Son. These are names which describe a relationship of eternal activity.[68]

Think, Jews, allow your intellects to forget pre-conceived notions and allow your souls to engage with this idea, receiving it, understanding it, and allow your souls to comprehend the deep and true being of the Godhead so that you can arrive at true love.

I will demonstrate this with an exemplum, for exempla open the heart of the stubborn and give pleasure to the imagination so that the intellectual soul can understand that which lies behind the story, to know serve and love God:

There was a hermit who lived for many years on a mountain top contemplating God. One night, while sitting outside looking up into the heavens he pondered as to what God had been doing before creation. He realised that God had no body and that God could not be a circular, quadrangular, or triangular being because he could not imagine God as one of those corporal shapes. However, not withstanding this, he decided that if God could not be one of those geometrical shapes then God could not have been doing anything before creation as everything in creation revolves around these shapes. The hermit, disheartened, felt that he had been deceived and that he had been wasting his life living on a mountain away from people, fasting and praying, for he now considered that if God had not been doing anything before creation there was obviously no afterlife either. As dawn broke, the hermit decided to leave the mountain and to go and enjoy the worldly pleasures that he had denied himself. As he descended from his mountain top, he entered a glade with a lovely tree and a fountain, and a bird sitting in the tree asked him where he was going. The hermit told the bird what had happened and explained the conclusions he had reached. He was about to continue on his way when the bird asked him whether he would sit down under the tree and listen to a story. The hermit agreed, and the bird told him the following story:

A Christian and Saracen (Muslim) were discussing and contemplating God. The Christian asked the Saracen where the voluntat (will) of God was before creation. The Muslim answered that it was in amant, amable, and amar. The Christian then asked the Muslim: Is there any distinction between these three things? The Muslim answered no. The Christian said, according to that logic, if there is no distinction then voluntat cannot be in them and if there was nowhere for voluntat to be, then it could not have been doing anything. To this the Muslim replied that voluntat was in itself. The Christian asked, was it in itself without amant, amable, and amar ? For if it was without the three it would have been idle! The Muslim replied, no, it was together with all the three. The Christian said that the three amant, amable, and amar could not be in voluntat without distinction between them because it would be impossible to talk about three, two, one or any number, only voluntat alone, and again voluntat would be without content. To this the Muslim could not respond. The Christian continued, the same thing can be said about God's bonea as well. What was God's bonea doing before the world was created? The Muslim was unwilling to say that it was in bonificant, bonificabile and bonificar because he could not admit to the generation of divine powers as this would suggest plurality, so he answered that bonea was in itself without bonificant, bonificabile and bonificar. Then the Christian said; if that was the case then bonea would be idle and empty of granea (greatness) of poder (power) and of fi (finality). Without power because in itself and in others it would have no power, neither would others have power in it or of it. Empty or without finality because nothing good could emerge from it. Thus was the Muslim defeated by reason of the necessary divine generation that the Christian had proved to him.

The hermit hearing this story realised how stupid he had been in trying to comprehend God in physical shapes, not understanding that God was a spiritual subject in the same way that voluntat which is in amant, amable, and amar and bonea in bonificant, bonificabile and bonificar are spiritual not corporal. Thus the hermit contemplated and understood that in God there had always been eternal activity and he returned rejuvenated and filled with greater love of God to his hermitage.[69]

So, Jews, you should understand that in God there must be a Trinity, so that the world could come into existence, and this Trinity of relationship is to be found throughout creation and in man himself. There is concordance between you Jews and us Christians in that God is spiritual existence not physical and that He is the cause of all that comes into being. There is no need for there to be contrariety between us at all, because you like I agree that the transcendent God, of whom we can have no comprehension, reveals himself to us through his dignities or sefirot, and while we all understand creation to emerge from these dignities, we must also agree that within these dignities or sefirot there must be eternal action allowing this creation to take place. This is the Trinity about which you have been so stubborn and about which there has been so much discord.

Listen and understand this next section which is for those of more sublime understanding, who have intellectualised and willed to comprehend what has gone before.[70] There is perfect equality between all the dignities of the Godhead and each of the dignities is composed of and includes all the others. There is a ladder of being (scala naturae) which descends from the Godhead through creation, each rung of which has within it the imprint of the divine dignities with their inherent trinitarian structure.[71] Let your memories remember, your intellects understand and your wills love this notion which is the same for what you refer to as the sefirot. The sefirot are the revealed faces of the divine while also being for you, a ladder of being, the descent from the Godhead to creation. You also say that each of the sefirot is equal and is composed of all the others and we have already demonstrated how there must be a Trinity in each dignity. So from necessary reason, it is proved how there is a trinitarian structure in all levels of being.

If you contemplate this and understand how this inner relationship in the dignities exists in every level of creation, then you will also understand the Incarnation and how this trinitarian relationship in all levels of being allows us Christians to affirm that there was no change in the Godhead and that God could be both God and man.[72]

So, Jews, you will be lead from the path of error that you have followed and which will lead you to eternal damnation, to love the true God one in three and three in one which path leads to eternal glory.

* I would like to express my gratitude to the Fundación Xavier de Salas for inviting me to participate in this conference, and to the very special group of Lullian scholars who listened, criticised and offered advice and encouragement.