ARNALDO DE VILANOVA. 53 sternly reproved him; he was earning damnation; the rich had access to him every day, morning, noon, and night, the poor but seldom ; he made of God the hog of St. Anthony, which received only the refuse rejected by all. If he wished to earn salvation he must devote himself to the welfare of the poor, without which, in spite of the teachings of the Church, neither psalms, nor masses, nor fasting, nor even alms would suffice. To Jayme he was not only physician but counsellor, venerable and much beloved, and he was repeatedly employed on diplomatic missions by the kings of both Aragon and Sicily.* Multifarious as were these occupations, they consumed but a portion of his restless activity. In dedicating to Robert of Naples his treatise on surveying, he describes himself — " Yeu, Arnaut de Vilanova . . . Doctor en leys et eu decrets, Et en siensa de strolomia, Et en Tart de medicina, Et en la santa teulogia " — and, although a layman, married, and a father, his favorite field of labor was theology, which he had studied with the Dominicans of Montpellier. In 1292 he commenced with a work on the Tetra- grammaton, or ineffable name of Jehovah, in which he sought to explain by natural reasons the mystery of the Trinity. Embarked in such speculations he soon became a confirmed Joachite. To a man of his lofty spiritual tendencies and tender compassion for his fellows, the wickedness and cruelty of mankind were appalling, and especially the crimes of the clergy, among whom he reckoned the Mendicants as the worst. Their vices he lashed unsparingly, and he naturally fell in with the speculations of the pseudo-Joachitic writings, anticipating the speedy advent of Antichrist and the Day of Judgment. In numberless works composed in both Latin and the vernacular he commented upon and popularized the Joachitic books, even going so far as to declare that the revelation of Cyril was more precious than all Scripture. Such a man naturally sympathized with the persecuted Spirituals. He boldly undertook their defence in sundry tracts, and when, in 1309, Frederic of Tri-
- Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, I. 450-61, 475, 590-1, 726-7, 772.— M. Flac.
Illyr. Cat. Test. Veritatis, pp. 1732 sqq. (Ed. 1603).
