Opera Latina XXXVIII (142-153): In Montepessulano Anno MCCCIX Conscripta, Quibus Epistolae Tres Loco Et Tempore Incerto Adnectuntur

This volume contains nine treatises composed in Montpellier in the spring of 1309. At this time Lull was over 75 years of age. Several of the treatises are clearly meant to show how the principles and the method of proof presented in the recently completed Ars generalis ultima may be applied to contemporary theological problems. They are part of Lull’s effort to make his work known to the theologians in Paris where he was planning to travel later that year. Lull apparently wanted to address the principal problem he would face in Paris, that is, the demonstration of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. He argued that the Saracens pay no attention to Christian theology because Christian theologians maintain that faith is not demonstrable. This is because they only recognize the two Aristotelian modes of demonstratio quia and propter quid, ignoring both Lull’s demonstratio per aequiparantiam (explained in his op. 121 written in 1305) and his demonstratio per hypothesim (outlined in several works from 1308 and 1309). The treatises edited in this volume represent an attempt to propagate the knowledge of Lull’s Art, while at the same time providing an example of how the demonstratio per hypothesim may be applied in divinis. In op. 146, after fresh experience and in the light of the changed political situation, Lull once more revised his ideas about the conversion of non-Christians and the conquest of the Holy Land.