| Albert the Great by Sr. M. Albert Hughes, O.P.
1 Foundations |
  Autumn 1987 Vol. 39 Supplement |
A life which combines religious perfection with the study of Wisdom has a marvelous power of arousing and lifting up the hearts of the faithful.
WHEN, on 16 December 1931, Pope Pius XI proclaimed as Saint and Doctor of the Church a German friar who lived in the thirteenth century, and was known even to his contemporaries as Albert the Great, (1) he declared that "the present moment would seem to be the time when the glorification of Albert the Great was most calculated to win souls to submission to the sweet yoke of Christ. Albert is exactly the Saint whose example should inspire this modern age, so ardently seeking peace, and so full of hope for its scientific discoveries..." Ten years later, in the second dismal year of World War II, Pope Pius XII strongly endorsed the action of his predecessor by declaring Albert Patron of all the Natural Sciences -- "ob tristissimam quoque nostrorum dierum condicionem -- on account of the especially sad situation of our times." What can there be in common between the thirteenth and the twentieth centuries? Rather more, perhaps, than one might have expected.
The thirteenth century was a period of transition, of unrest in every sphere. In the realm of politics, the growth of the central power at the expense of the vassal provinces, the "lesser states" as it were, marked the beginning of the rise of the national state which would supersede the feudal regime with its numerous petty lordlings. In the social and economic spheres, too, feudalism, the capitalism of the day, was being undermined.
The sudden expanse in trade and commerce had drawn to the rapidly growing towns serfs, who either bought their freedom, or else departed without any such formalities. They were usually the bolder and more enterprising of their class, and they soon were molded into the restless, volatile urban masses, so familiar to students of the Middle Ages. They were mentally alert but uneducated, fundamentally pious but uninstructed, and being conscious of their newly won independence and anxious to make the most of it, they offered an easy prey to agitators of any sort. As the Church was closely bound up with the feudal system, it was not able to meet the religious needs of this new class. The heretics of the day, the Albigensians, Cathars, and Waldensians, took advantage of this and made religion the cloak for a reaction against the established order, by which they became the anarchists and communists of the day.
The growth of commerce also produced a new wealthy middle class, who likewise combined against the Church and the feudal nobles from whom they extracted liberties and virtual independence, only to fall into feuds and rivalries between families and cities. All through society, individual was at loggerheads with individual, family with family, and state with state; and all the time, on the eastern frontier of Europe, the Turks and the Tartars, the ancestors of the modem Russians, were threatening the very existence of Christendom.
In addition to the military menace from the east, a more subtle danger to Christian thought was posed by the spread of Jewish and Arab philosophy, which had filtered into Europe through the Spanish Moors. This was a distorted version of the philosophy of Aristotle, and even in the form adopted by the Christian Averroists under Siger de Brabant, it led logically to agnosticism, atheism, and the denial of all moral responsibility, and threatened to undermine Christianity from within.
Education too was entering a new phase. The rapid rise of universities and grammar schools opened the road to learning to many "poor scholars," and there was a growing interest in secular subjects, even though education still remained, in the main, the monopoly of those destined for the ecclesiastical state. Hitherto, even the rank and file of the clergy themselves had been grossly uneducated, and the efforts of the popes to make them into fit teachers of their flocks were to succeed mainly thanks to the support they found in the new Order of Preachers.
The Church, as we have said, was bound up with the feudal system. Her higher clergy were feudal lords, preoccupied with worldly business, wealthy and not infrequently immoral. Her lower clergy, as a class, were ignorant and often no more edifying than their superiors. The days of St. Bernard were long past, and the legates, whose luxury and pomp were obstacles to the success of their preaching against the heretics, were Cistercian abbots. Preaching was considered the duty and privilege of the bishops, but few of them exercised it. The parish priest was supposed to give a formal sort of commentary on the Pater and Creed on Sundays, but regular weekly preaching was not made obligatory until the Council of Trent.
Such was the society from which Albert sprang, for which he labored, in and through which he attained to sanctity. And yet as Pope Pius XI pointed out, he worked and prayed and sanctified himself, not for himself alone, nor even for his own age alone, but "for all that seek the truth." The saints of God are glorified, not primarily for their own sakes, for the accidental glory of their cult is as nothing compared with their essential happiness of the Beatific Vision, but for ours. Through them we are led to praise God who is "wonderful in his saints." In them we see some reflection of his perfection which we are told to imitate, "other Christs," which we also wish to become, and so we are encouraged to strive to imitate the virtues which they possess and to ask for those graces which God wishes to bestow through their intercession.
The pope, therefore, offered Albert as an example to the modern age, "so ardently seeking for peace, and so full of hope for its scientific discoveries." There are, indeed, other things worthy of note. As an antidote to a narrow nationalism Albert provides an example of a German who lived and taught in France and Italy. In contrast to the modem tendency toward specialization he offers the spectacle of one who in his day "knew all that was knowable." He was a progressive, an experimenter, an innovator, yet he "gathered together with painstaking industry every grain of ancient wisdom." Albert was a scientist of the first rank, yet as great a theologian, and an even greater saint. But the quest for peace and the progress of science are indeed the great preoccupations of our time; the survival of our civilization may well depend on them.
St. Albert the Great, variously called Albert the German, Albert of Cologne, and Albert of Ratisbon (i.e., Regensburg), was born in Bavarian Suebia, at the castle of Lauingen near Ulm, sometime between 1193 and 1206, possibly near the latter date in view of the numerous testimonies to his entry into the order at an early age, but more probably near the earlier one since biographers say he was well over eighty at the time of his death. His family belonged to the military nobility, and both his father and his uncle appear to have been imperial officials. Information concerning his family is scarce, but we are certain of the existence of a younger brother Henry, who also entered the order and was Prior of the Convent of Visburg when Albert made a will of which he was named an executor. According to tradition he also had a sister who was a Dominican nun, and documents referring to members of the family in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries show that he must have had other brothers. The male line became extinct in 1607. The high social rank of the family is confirmed by their possession of the castle of Bollstadt, the home of Albert's childhood. He retained a vivid recollection of it in later years, describing it in his commentary on St. Luke as an example of the ideal fortress.
The wealth of his parents enabled Albert to receive an education suitable to his rank, and in those days the rudiments of knowledge were acquired in the cathedral or monastic schools. Arithmetic and grammar would be learned -- by heart because of the shortage of books -- and then the child was given the Psalter, receiving the first inspiration to sanctity from the liturgical prayer of the Church. Albert must often have taken an active part in the Divine Office, and even at this early age he added to this sense of Christian piety a great watchfulness over self and a complete obedience to the wishes of his parents. His early education also included instruction in all the arts, activities, and diversions proper to one of his rank, and in his outdoor occupations he gained that detailed knowledge of natural phenomena which was to be later manifested in his botanical writings. To these early influences must be added those emanating from the world in which he lived. it was the age of romance and of chivalry, yet one which realized fully the significance of Christianity, and in it the still youthful northern races were imbibing the ancient civilization of southern Europe. Such was the setting of Albert's childhood.
Then came the time for his first departure from his home -- a prelude to the later and more complete one when God had called him. At that period Germany possessed few centers of learning, France and Italy being the great schools of Europe. Therefore, when Albert's uncle was going into Italy in the service of the Emperor Frederick II, the youth accompanied him. Since Albert's interests were already directed towards the liberal arts, Padua, the center of that branch of learning, as Paris and Bologna were the hub of the theological and legal worlds, was the university of his choice.
The study of the liberal arts covered a seven years' course divided into the trivium and the quadrivium. (2) During the trivium the student devoted himself to grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics or logic: that is, to learning how to speak and write, how to convince others, and how to distinguish the true from the false. During the quadrivium his attention was centered on music, regarded as the theory of sound; astronomy, i.e., the knowledge of the stars, their revolutions, relations, and positions; geometry and arithmetic, which concerned respectively material forms in the abstract, and in the number of their infinite possibilities of representing concrete phenomena. When this course was complete, he passed on to the study of theology, law, or medicine, of which the first secures the intellectual and moral life, while the others direct social activities.
Albert did not take his degree at Padua, but he extended his knowledge of the arts and medicine and became acquainted for the first time with Aristotle's treatises on physics and ethics. His love of study, however, went hand in hand with a deep piety, which expressed itself in strong devotion to our crucified Savior and our blessed lady, and in a great purity of life. Consequently, when the problem of his future began to occupy his mind more and more, his leaning was towards the Church; and the Order of Preachers, then in all the freshness of its first spring, had already attracted his attention.
Albert entered the order in the spring of 1223. St. Dominic himself had gone to Padua in 1220, and the university had provided a crop of fine vocations -- Stephen Piacentino, Geoffrey of Bergamo, Reginald, and Richard Borgogno, to mention only a few. The spectacle of so many learned and saintly men embracing the life of a friar attracted the imagination of the pious young nobleman. Their evangelical poverty, their zeal for preaching, their constant study of the sacred sciences, their tender devotion to Mary, and their heroic dedication to the service of God for the salvation of their fellow men, together with the attractiveness of St. Dominic, whose memory was still fresh among those with whom he had lived so shortly before, were further incentives to Albert's generosity. The decisive factor in his vocation was, however, the invitation of the Mother of God herself, who appeared to him when he was praying before her image in the Dominican church, and said, "O Albert, leave the world and enter the Order of Friars Preacher which I have obtained from my Son for the salvation of the world in these last days, and of which I am the special patroness. In it apply yourself ardently to the practice of the Rule and to study, because God will fill you with such wisdom that the whole Church will be enlightened with the doctrine of your books." But the saints are truly human, differing from the rest of us only in the way they triumph over the sinfulness and frailty of fallen human nature, and so Albert did not escape the difficulties which beset the path of so many of the young souls whom God wants for himself. A vocation meets with family opposition, giving rise to doubts and uncertainty. Is God really calling, or is it just selfishness and escapism as people assert? And even when the decisive step has been taken, the novitiate is in a very real sense a period trial and testing by God and man, and early fervor and enthusiasm may give place to discouragement and renewed doubts as to the reality of the vocation.
Thus it was with Albert. The seed was already sown, but before it could bear fruit a period of sacrifice loomed ahead. The words of Our Lady constantly rang in his ear; but on the other hand his uncle, always dear to him, but doubly so now that his parents were dead, was violently opposed to the scheme. He hoped to see Albert occupy a position worthy of his rank, and he gave the boy no peace until he promised not to frequent the church and the company of the Preachers for a certain period. The conflict between grace and nature was violent, and gave rise to a thousand doubts and scruples, but Albert was helped by the prayers of the Master of the order, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, who had heard of his trials. Jordan also enlisted the support of Blessed Diana d'Andalo and her Sisters in Rome in his effort to win for Albert the grace to follow the call of God and his Mother. These prayers and Blessed Jordan's exhortations were the means Our Lady used to break down the wall of resistance.
We read in the Lives of the Brethren how Blessed Jordan described in a sermon the state of mind of one who felt the call of God, but whose mind the devil filled with a thousand anxieties and fears that the life would be too difficult and perseverance impossible. Albert recognised this as a divine illumination of the saintly Master as to his own state of mind, and, disregarding all further objections, he received the habit of the Friar Preacher. Jordan immediately wrote to Diana and her Sisters, thanking them for their prayers and describing how, when he had become almost discouraged and was preparing to go away, many students, influenced by his preaching, were touched by the grace of God and joined the order, among them "two sons of German noblemen; the one a high official; the second truly noble in mind and body, enjoying great revenues. We hope that many others similarly endowed will follow their example. Pray to God that his hope may speedily become a reality." It is not evident which of the two young Germans was Albert, but Jordan is probably referring to his vocation. The Master, himself a naturalist and philosopher, would have a special predilection for his compatriot of similar bent, and he would realize that such studies, united to so spiritual a nature as Albert's, would lead to God and not away from him, and would be of immense value in the work of a Friar Preacher.
The transformation which took place in Albert was manifest to all. The surrender of his patrimony, his family, and all that the world offered him -- and it offered many things -- was no small sacrifice. But once it was made generously, he realized that the poverty of Christ, the mortifications of Christ, and the Cross of Christ were his sole inheritance on earth. This doctrine of self-renunciation which he practiced so perfectly he was later to preach with equal ardor. Religious life, he writes in his commentary on St. Luke, is a carrying of the Cross behind Our Lord, though some religious, like Simon of Cyrene, carry it unwillingly. To carry the Cross means to stifle the voice of sin, to exchange earth for heaven, vice for virtue, the stirrings of concupiscence for the grace of God, being spurred on by the Spirit, comforted by the power of God, helped by grace. The law of religious mortification may be reduced to three heads: the first consists in the pain at being deprived of acceptable things for the love of Christ; the second in embracing austerities contrary to nature; the third in supporting sorrows for the love of Christ. The first is the taming of concupiscence; the second the crushing of the petulance of nature; the third a participation in the passion of Our Savior.
It was the will of God that Albert should suffer further trials in his vocation even after he had received the habit. The story recorded in the Lives of the Brethren has been challenged by some authorities, but it is reported by Peter of Prussia, his principal biographer, and there seems to be no good reason for questioning its genuineness. Albert was certainly not wanting in intelligence and he had a wonderful memory for fact. But his interest in positive science, the attraction which he had for flowers and the stars and the sky, seemed to be in absolute opposition to the abstract studies demanded by the Church and the order; theology, exegesis, law, and the like. The prospect of submerging all his interests and his individuality in the formal studies of the community seemed too terrible, and perseverance appeared impossible. He was contemplating escaping by means of a ladder, when four noble ladies appeared to him, and asked the reason for his flight. Trembling and confused, he confessed his mental incapacity in the matter of his studies. But the Blessed Virgin, for it was she, assured him of his perseverance in the life he had undertaken and she promised him that in the midst of the network of error in which the numerous and contradictory philosophical opinions were entangled, his faith should never waver. She gave as a sign of this heavenly gift the assertion that before his death he would be deprived of all his knowledge in a public lesson. So runs the story. And so tremendous was Albert's mission in the field of Christian speculation that it is not surprising that he should have been the special object of divine Providence even from his childhood.
When once his vocation was settled, Albert applied himself with incredible ardor to his studies, profane and religious, so that he would later be well able both to meet and defeat adversaries of the Faith on their own ground and be a shining light to the Church. He became outstanding among his brethren for his virtue and his wisdom -- the two great passions of his life -- and when the graces of his profession and the priesthood had crowned these years during which he was hidden with Christ in God, his light was ready to shine forth before all, but his heart remained, as it would ever remain, deeply humble and filled with gratitude for God's mercies toward him. The spirit which could inspire him in his old age to write the following prayer, which is taken from his commentary on the Gospel for Septuagesima Sunday, was already his:
O Lord Jesus Christ, supreme Husbandman, who called me in the early morning to labor in your vineyard, leading me even from my youth to toil in religion for the wages of eternal life, what will you give me when the time comes for deciding the payment to be made to the workmen? What will you give me, who has stood all the day idle, not only in the market-place of the world, but also in the vineyard of religion? O Lord, you who weigh our works not in the scale of the world, but in that of the sanctuary, grant that I may make amends at least now at the eleventh hour, and seeing that you are good, grant that my eye may not be found evil.
1. Cf. James Weisheipl, O.P., New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 256a. (Ed. note.)
2. This division originated with Cassiodorus (A.D. 480-575) whose book Institutions of Divine and Human Study created the education system of the Middle Ages. He is the father of the universities.
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