Note 240 — Chapter III · LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY

What is certain historically is as follows: (a) That the story of Ambrosia di Castello, so far as regards its root-matter, concerns the original and only Raymund Lully, who was the author of the Ars Magna; (b) That it is in all probability fictitious; (c) That it has been decorated and dramatised by Éliphas Lévi, who has done his work admirably; (d) That concerning the father of the illuminated doctor we know only that he was a great soldier; (e) That the author of the alchemical treatises was not the author of the Ars Magna; (f) That the alchemical writer is said to have been (1) another Raymund Lully, which, I think, means only that he assumed the name in order to father his works upon a celebrated person, and (2) a proselyte of the gate, being a person who becomes a Jew, but this is manifestly contradicted by the evidence of the alchemical texts; (g) That when the works of Raymund Lully were collected, at the end of the eighteenth century, into eight enormous folio volumes, we find, as I have said elsewhere, a third Raymund Lully, who was a mystic; but as to his real identity we know nothing.