Raymond of Sabunde

Who was Raymond of Sabunde?

Raymond of Sabunde was a Catalan scholar, teacher of medicine and philosophy and finally regius professor of theology at Toulouse. He was born in Barcelona, towards the end of the 14th century and died in 1436.

His Liber naturae sive creaturarum, etc, written 1434–1436, marks an important stage in the history of natural theology. It was first written in Latin. His followers composed a more classical Latin version of the work. It was translated into French by Michel de Montaigne and edited in Latin at various times.

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 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."