Raymond of Sabunde
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raymond of Sabunde (also Sabiende, Sabond, Sabonde, Sebon, or Sebeyde), was a Spanish scholar, teacher of medicine and philosophy and finally regius professor of theology at Toulouse. He was born at Barcelona, Spain, towards the end of the 14th century and died in 1436.
His Liber naturae sive creaturarum, etc (or Theologia Naturalis), written 1434-1436, marks an important stage in the history of natural theology. It was first written in Spanish, translated into French by Michel de Montaigne (Paris, 1569) and into Latin at various times (e.g. Deventer, 1487; Strasburg, 1496; Paris, 1509; Venice, 1581, etc.).
The book was directed against the position then generally held, that reason and faith, philosophy and theology were antithetical and irreconcilable. Raymond declares that the book of Nature and the Bible are both Divine revelations, the one general and immediate, the other specific and mediate. Montaigne (Essays, bk. ii. ch. xii., "An Apologie of Raymond Sebond") tells how he translated the book into French and found " the conceits of the author to be excellent, the contexture of his work well followed, and his project full of pietie. . . . His drift is bold, and his scope adventurous, for he undertaketh by humane and naturall reasons, to establish and verifie all the articles of Christian religion against Atheists."
[edit] Editions
The editio princeps of the book, which found many imitators, is undated but probably belongs to 1484; there are many subsequent editions, one by J. F. von Seidel as late as 1852. In 1595 the Prologus was put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for its declaration that the Bible is the only source of revealed truth.
[edit] References
- D. Beulet, Un Inconnu celebre: recherches historiques et critiques sur Raymond de Sabunde (Paris, 1875)
- Jean Henri Probst, Le Lullisme de Raymond de Sebonde (Toulouse, 1912)
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
