| Albert the Great by Sr. M. Albert Hughes, O.P.
9 The Character of the Man |
  Autumn 1987 Vol. 39 Supplement |
THE accusation of negligence in collecting and preserving records of its illustrious sons, which was more than once leveled against the Order of Preachers, applies very forcibly in the case of St. Albert, as in that of St. Dominic himself. One would have expected and hoped for detailed accounts of the life, work, miracles, and sayings of one who for so long was a dominating figure in the order in Germany and in Europe as a whole. Instead, even the earliest biographers had for the most part to fall back upon legend.
This is perhaps accounted for by Albert's very greatness. Just because he was so venerated by the people in general he very quickly became a legendary figure, beside which the historic one faded into insignificance. To a large extent that it true even today. While the legendary Albert is a very real person to the people of Cologne in particular and Germany in general, Albert the scientist, the philosopher, and the theologian, is only just being rediscovered by his fellow countrymen, who are still inclined to mistrust one who occupied such a place in stories and legends.
Happily Albert himself provided a means of counteracting both the neglect and the excessive admiration of his life. Almost all our knowledge of his character and personality can be gathered from his own writings. The same applies to St. Augustine and St. Thomas, but for different reasons. Augustine provided a full account of his exterior and interior life in his own Confessions. Thomas effaced himself so completely from his works that the first person is hardly ever used. Yet the Summa is the mirror of his soul and it is regarded as the complete objective and theological (as opposed to subjective and psychological) exposition of his own interior life, which is at the same time the ideal Dominican spirituality.
Albert's writings occupy a place between these two extremes. As opposed to those of Augustine they are definitely objective and not subjective, yet the personal element is not studiously avoided as it would appear to be in St. Thomas. Personal experiences and reminiscences are quoted when they seem appropriate and, even when they are not directly appealed to, it is often quite evident that the saint is speaking not merely theoretically but of what he has proved in practice. Consequently the man and the saint are writ large on almost every page of his works, especially those of a more mystical character. Thus it is from Albert himself that we learn most about the inexhaustible richness of that great heart and soul. This chapter, which is an attempt to bring to life the man whose deeds and works, so far as we know them, have already been described in outline, will therefore be illustrated very largely by quotations from the saint's own writings.
A little has already been said of Albert's natural temperament. He came of noble stock, but he does not appear to have possessed the haughtiness such as in the beginning so beset an Aloysius Gonzaga for example. Humility was ever an outstanding virtue: he was always all things to all people, but with a special predilection for the poor. This supernatural virtue would appear to have been the flowering of a natural one. Humility is closely related to truth, and it may be that a love of truth was so instinctive to him that pride and arrogance never had any place in his character.
A love of outdoor life, of sport and nature in all her aspects, a keen observation and an interest in everything around him (amounting at times perhaps even to curiosity), are other traits which date back to childhood and persisted through life, for grace ever built on nature. A love of study, too, was an integral part of Albert's temperament: and since he chose a student's life in preference to a military one, we may conclude that the military profession, though followed by members of his family, had no attractions for him. He was ever a man of peace. Later in life when he was bishop, his lack of the more warlike virtues prominent in many members of the episcopate was one of the causes of his unpopularity in his diocese.
Yet if there was nothing of the soldier in Albert, there was a good deal of the knight (the very name signifies "knightly"). His devotion towards our Blessed Lady, "the Lady of his heart," has all the character of romance. This essentially chivalrous attitude is found in his relations with women -- kind to all but particularly to religious. He was father, champion, and protector of numerous convents of women both of his order and others. His relations with the nuns of Unterlinden were so dose and constant that these famous and saintly Dominicans may be justly regarded as his spiritual daughters, the products of his direction and teaching.
The incident already related of the young Iolanda, whose vocation Albert was deputed by the Master to decide, also exemplifies the saint's relations with women. The girl cast herself at his feet, so we are told, begging to be allowed to follow her vocation. But Albert refused. She wept and pleaded for a time, yet he remained adamant. At last he was overcome by her grief and convinced by her constancy, and her cause was won. It is also characteristic that Albert should have written a whole commentary on the single chapter of Ecclesiastes which describes the Valiant Woman, in whom he saw the type of our Blessed Lady, of the Church, and of the individual soul. There is something of the spirit of chivalry, too, in his relations with St. Thomas, in the way that the older man placed all the riches of his genius at the disposal of his young pupil, effacing himself almost like another John the Baptist, then emerging forth from the retirement of his old age to act as a tongue, as one chronicler puts it, for the Thomas who could no longer speak for himself. This is the spirit of knighthood at its best, where self was forgotten in the interest of the cause and personal aggrandizement and self-exaltation were unknown. We do not know whether Albert looked anything of the knight, since no detailed portrait of him has come down to us -- he was not so fortunate as St. Dominic who had a Blessed Cecilia among his daughters. However we do know that he was of medium height and very well built. Blessed Humbert speaks of his gigantic shoulders on which he had carried the order. This may have been meant metaphorically, but it tallies with what we know form other sources, such as the examination of the relics when the body was found incorrupt in 1482. Rudolph of Nymegen, who published his Legenda about 1490, probably had this event in mind -- he was almost certainly present at the ceremony -- when he declared that Albert had a pleasing appearance and was strongly built, and that his physique was such as would enable him to undertake great labors in the service of God.
He must have been very athletic and possessed of tremendous vitality, for all his journeys were on foot, even the final one to Paris when he was probably about eighty years of age. Only a person of abnormal stamina could have combined such widespread and intensive activity, both physical and mental, as Albert crowded into his life. Clothed in full pontifical regalia he made a most impressive figure, and his deep recollection gave him the appearance of an angel from heaven. His skill in dissecting tiny insects and plants suggests that he must have had slender, delicate fingers, while his fondness for singing implies that he probably had a good voice.
Another natural characteristic which it is pleasing to find in Albert is a sense of humor, though we have no such choice samples as with his fellow countryman, Blessed Jordan. But now and then it betrays itself even in quite serious works. When speaking of the commentators on Aristotle, Albert goes on to say: "They are all agreed that Aristotle spoke the truth; but they cannot agree as to what he actually said, and they all have different explanations of what they think he said." There is also tart humor in the remark quoted earlier, that if you believe that Aristotle was a god, then you can think that he was infallible, but that if you believe that he was a man, you must admit that he was liable to error like every other man. When speaking of the value of adversity, the saint remarks that one of God's purposes in allowing tribulations is to make people pray, for, he says, there are some people who don't even know how to pray when all goes well with them, but who become very eloquent when things begin to go wrong.
Although Albert had all the contemplative's love of silence and solitude, he was none the less a very sociable character, and Blessed Jordan's description of St. Dominic, Nemo communior, nemo jucundior, might well have been written of him. His love for the brethren is unmistakable. Rudolph says that when the material preoccupations of the episcopate became more than usually distracting, Albert would think "with sweet longing" of life with the brethren in earlier days. For their benefit he published many of his sermons, his Summa Theologiae, and his instructions on preaching, and it was at their request that he wrote his treatises on natural science:
For several years they have been begging us to compile such a book on the things of nature.... Though we do not consider ourselves equal to such a work, we could not resist the wishes of the brethren.We are told that St. Thomas never left the priory unless forced to do so and that his only recreation was to walk alone round the cloister, with rapid step and head erect. When occasionally the students would persuade him to join them in the garden for a little relaxation, he would soon find some excuse to return to choir or to his beloved cell. Albert, on the other hand, was obviously an outdoor person. When reading his works on natural science we can almost see him, surrounded by the brethren, perhaps his travelling companions, or just some of the students whom he had taken out for an afternoon ramble, pointing out items of interest, examining specimens, listening to the stories of the country people, who knew the sort of information which appealed to Master Albert, or even pursuing a single bee to see what flowers it visited, and whether it was collecting nectar or pollen. "I and my companions were witnesses" is a phrase which occurs frequently in his writings.
He had to see and do everything for himself -- he certainly did not stand on ceremony.
It is said of this bird [the ostrich] that it swallows and digests iron; but I have not found this myself, because several ostriches refused to eat the iron which I threw them. However they eagerly devoured large bones cut into small pieces, as well as gravel.Did the saint go about armed with food for the animals he might encounter? He says that he had taken the skin of a kingfisher and stretched it on a wall to see if the feathers changed every year, which they did not. Some of his descriptions of fishes conjure up a picture of the venerable friar, and even the bishop, paddling about on the seashore when he could spare a few hours from his visitations, or in the Danube, when he could escape from his episcopal labors:
I have observed diligently, and have made investigations in the case of the oldest fishes in the sea and in rivers.With all his travelling and his lively interest in everything he saw, the saint must have had a fine collection of anecdotes, which would make him a most entertaining companion when conversation was required. The Lives of the Brethren confirms this expectation. Albert is mentioned only twice, that is, in the edition which appeared during his lifetime, but each time it is as the reporter of the story which is being related. They are edifying stories and not particularly entertaining but Gerard de Frachet's phrase, "Brother Albert of Germany relates," suggests that Brother Albert had told this story more than once, and that the role of raconteur was quite a congenial one.I have seen how the eel eats frogs, worms, and bits of fish, and how with bait such as this it is caught with a rod.
I myself have observed on my property on the Danube, that after the autumnal equinox, the barbel (the bearded carp) collect there in such masses, in the holes which are to be found in rocks and walls, that one can catch them with the hand.
These few glimpses of Albert's natural temperament, though very precious to those who love him, fade into significance beside the full-length portrait of his soul which, all unconsciously, he himself draws for us in his writings. "Doctrine," it has been said, "is the very history of souls," and Albert's doctrine is the history of his own soul. It might have been only a detached and speculative account, quite impersonal, coming only from the mind and not from the heart, but in Albert's case it certainly was not this. St. Thomas declares, and most theologians agree with him, that theology is in itself a speculative science, but to Albert it was an affective one. To him the knowledge of God was, or should always be, not merely a thing of the mind, a word, verbum, but a thing of the heart too -- verbum spirans amorem, a word breathing forth love. For him it was the affective knowledge which some writers have called Mystical Theology, which is that knowledge born of charity and the gifts of wisdom, understanding and knowledge.
This point of view provides the keynote to much in Albert's spiritual make-up. It points to the dominating influence of the gift of wisdom, while it helps to explain how he was "a contemplative by genius as well as by heart." He is perhaps the most outstanding example of the Dominican ideal - Contemplare, contemplata aliis tradere, "to contemplate and to give to others the fruits of contemplation" -- for it is doubtful whether any other saint of the order has combined so diverse an apostolate with so intense an interior life. His interior life is the secret of his exterior activity. He realized full well that the "one thing necessary" is "to know God and to love him in time and in eternity. For him, "piety, virtue, study, and meditation were all directed to contemplation and were the price to be paid for the knowledge of God which is gained therein."
Mention has already been made of the amount of time which the saint contrived to devote to prayer even in the midst of his heaviest teaching duties. Like his divine Master, says one biographer, he devoted the days to active works and the nights to prayer; while another writer has noted that while he regarded prayer and study as the great means of obtaining knowledge, yet, if one had to be sacrificed, study had to give way before prayer. Speaking of this life of prayer Rudolph of Nymegen asks:
Should we be surprised that Albert was endowed with superhuman knowledge, and that his words inflamed hearts more than did those of other doctors? We know from what source these outpourings of love proceeded, which we see burst forth so often from his numerous writings.Contemplation was thus the beginning and the base of Albert's spiritual life, as it was also the end. But he was not just a contemplative, but a contemplative religious, "the most simple, the most humble, the most exact religious." The virtues of his state which he possessed in so high a degree were at once the preparation for, and the fruit of a life of prayer and contemplation.
The bedrock foundation of all sanctity is humility, of which the saint wrote: "This virtue requires that one should abase oneself to the point of considering oneself unworthy of every grace and that one should scarcely even dare to ask for any." Humility may manifest itself in different forms but in its essence it is truth -- a true realization of the Being of God and the nothingness of human creatures. In some saints the nothingness of self will be the most vivid aspect, and they will be led to annihilate themselves, to deny to themselves any worth or goodness. There is something of this attitude in Albert, when in several of his works he speaks of his own unworthiness, of the humble nature of his writings, and of the little use they are likely to be to anyone. Thus in the preface to his Sermones de Sanctis, which were intended for popular edification, he wrote:
I beseech those who are deeply versed in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and who draw from their hearts great and magnificent gifts to place in the treasury of the Church, not to expect them from a poor man who only places therein the widows mite. Let those who hunger for a purer bread have recourse to the works of the great masters, leaving to simple and ignorant men the inferior flour of this book.Albert's treatises on the Holy Eucharist are among the finest which have ever been written on the subject and from every point of view rank among his most sublime and profound works, yet the saint concludes the introduction to one of them with these words, "These are in short the thoughts which have come to my mind on the subject of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, leaving it to others more gifted than I to write more original and profound things." The conclusion to this work is couched in similar terms:
This is what I felt I ought to write on the most Holy Eucharist, to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ; but how much more beautiful things are to be found elsewhere! If the reader finds herein anything which sounds amiss let him ascribe it to my ignorance, but if what I have written has not the merit of profundity of thought the reader may at least find in it some useful teaching.Such phrases as these, which could be multiplied, indicate a true humility of mind and heart, and are not in the least mere pious conventional formulas of self-depreciation. They spring from a mighty intellect which has penetrated sufficiently into the truth to be aware of the inadequacy of all human knowledge, and which realizes its own ignorance all the more keenly as it becomes in men's eyes the more learned. Such intellectual humility is only too rare, but it was one of Albert's outstanding characteristics. It lies at the root of all his relations with St. Thomas, for it enabled him to see in others a greatness of intellect equal to if not exceeding his own, to place all his knowledge and experience at their disposal, and see them equal and even eclipse his own popularity and reputation -- indeed not only to see, but even to be the chief agent in bringing about his own eclipse -- and to do all this without the slightest trace of envy, jealousy, or rancor. Such humility and unselfishness is truly heroic and it is not surprising to find it reproduced in every sphere of Albert's life. As teacher, provincial, and bishop, he always remained "the most humble religious," not hiding his light under a bushel or refusing to use his great talents, but simply allowing his light to shine before men. He utilized his gifts as the occasion demanded, never seeking or accepting privileges and honors because of what he was and did, and always returning to the position of simple religious so soon as circumstances permitted. He regarded himself always as an instrument to be used as God chose. Therefore he did not deny the gifts he possessed or the good he achieved, but simply regarded them as God's work, and the inevitable limitations as due to his own weakness and imperfections.
Albert's humility seems to have been the fruit of the gift of fear, the workings of which are evident throughout his life, but perhaps most especially towards its close. We have quoted earlier one of the saint's prayers in which he spoke of having "stood all the day idle, not only in the market-place of the world, but also in the vineyard of religion," and wondered what payment could be given at the end of the day to so unprofitable a worker. A like sense of fear of the judgment of God is apparent in some of his sermons for our Blessed Lady, in one of which he says:
It is a good thing my brethren for us, who are sinners, to send to our Judge by means of this faithful Barque [our Blessed Lady] our tiny presents: our prayers, our tears, our fasts, our alms. When we arrive at our journey's end, this Sovereign Judge will show himself merciful, because the Virgin Mother of God will have managed our affairs very skillfully.However, the spirit of fear was combined with an even stronger spirit of filial love, the outcome of the gift of piety, which led the saint to abandon himself completely into the hands of his heavenly Father. During the last year of his life, when the breakdown of his mental powers obscured the action of the intellectual gifts which had been so conspicuous during, life, this filial fear and love gave to his spirituality a childlike simplicity which was most touching to behold. No doubt this had always been there, but it had been hidden from view, overshadowed by more obvious and more spectacular gifts. Now he lay like a child in his Father's arms, awaiting the end with a childlike confidence and abandonment which reminds one forcibly of a St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In one of his later works he had written:
Let us console ourselves with the words of the Apostle, "The Lord knows his own," and it is impossible that one of them should be lost in the midst of the assaults, tempests, errors, tribulations, schisms, persecutions, discords, heresies, and of the attack and temptations of the evil one! For the number of the elect as well as their merits are foreknown and predestined from all eternity, in such wise that both good and evil,... fortune and adversity, everything works for their salvation. Nay, even more, for suffering makes them more glorious. Let us therefore abandon ourselves with full and complete confidence to the merciful Providence of God.
Such passages could be multiplied. When it is remembered that during Albert's last months, after the public failure of his memory, he spoke, cried, laughed, and acted generally as a child, save that his facility for prayer and, we are told, his understanding of the Holy Scriptures remained as before, it becomes evident that only an intense spirituality could have turned what would normally have seemed a tremendous humiliation into the edifying and touching object lesson which the saint seems to have been to his friends. He was never greater and never appeared greater than when having become as a little child he peacefully awaited his admission into the Kingdom of his heavenly Father.
Humility is the basis of the religious life, but its distinguishing marks are the vows and virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Of Albert's poverty something has already been said. In St. Catherine's Dialogue, the eternal Father points out how the virtue of poverty was every bit as dear to St. Dominic as to St. Francis, who is popularly regarded as the Knight of Lady Poverty. Albert was a firm upholder of the holy patriarch's ideal at a period when it was already being disregarded in practice. Here as always he taught first by example then by word, and only asked from others what he exacted from himself in a more heroic degree.
As a religious he walked the roads of Europe carrying on his back his own pack containing the Bible, the Breviary, and the Book of Sentences; as bishop, having also the episcopal regalia to take with him, he allowed his luggage to be carried on an ass, while he himself walked. His boots, like those of a famous fellow Dominican of a generation ago, were notorious, being apparently the clogs worn by the common people or else a form of footwear peculiar to Cistercians and Dominicans. His episcopal regalia was of the simplest and his life even while bishop was like that of the poorest friar. So scrupulous was he on the subject of poverty that his books were written on odd scraps of parchment of varying sizes which he bound together, and these sheets were covered with tiny, close-written script. When he moved from one house to another, he never took away the manuscripts he had written there unless with explicit leave from his superiors. To this scruple many convents owed their possession of autograph copies of his works.
This virtue of poverty, which Albert esteemed so highly and practiced so assiduously, he sought to cultivate throughout the order by the regulations, quoted earlier, which he made when provincial and by the summary example which he made by exhuming and burying in unconsecrated ground the body of a lay brother who had died possessed of some goods. Such conduct may seem unnecessarily harsh, but it must be remembered that relaxations in the matter of poverty and common life were even then only too prevalent, and the saint must have foreseen that if left unchecked they would inevitably lead to a general relaxation of the whole order, as has always happened.
Obedience, the only explicit vow taken by Dominicans then as now, sums up and contains within itself the whole life of a religious. As a virtue, it is all-embracing, extending both to external deeds and internal desires. Therefore Albert speaks of it as "the door outside of which there is no merit," and elsewhere he remarks that "he who is truly obedient, does not dispose of a single one of his acts; he wishes nothing and refuses nothing."
Several times during his life the saint was removed from the jurisdiction of the order; or rather, having been so removed by his elevation to the episcopate, he might quite legitimately have continued to remain independent even after his resignation. Instead, so soon as the death of the pope freed him from the labors of Legate of the Cross, he wrote to the Master, placing himself under obedience and for the rest of his life he went wherever his superiors called him.
The vow and virtue dearest to his heart, however, would seem to have been that of chastity, in praise of which some of his loveliest lines were written. Like another St. John, for whom he had a special predilection, he was conspicuous for his purity -- a purity which was not that of ice but of a burning shining fire -- and which merited for him the reward of the clean heart which is to see God, and to be endowed with special light and wisdom regarding the things of God. He wrote, The virgin thinks of the things of God, so that she may be pure in soul and body. Thus she become the dwelling-place of eternal wisdom. Wisdom, it is written, does not dwell in a perverse soul."
In another place he wrote, "the sight is obscured by three things: mud, smoke, and darkness. By purity the soul is preserved from the mud of sin; the will from the smoke of concupiscence; and the reason from the darkness which created things produce." And again on the same theme: "A soul which has never yielded to carnal delights possesses for that very reason an intellect which is purer and better disposed to receive lights from on high."
It is also interesting to note, in view of the teaching of many modem spiritual writers on the fruitfulness of chastity, that this idea was familiar and dear to St. Albert to whom "the preaching of the Gospel is the word of chastity," and who regarded purity of soul and body as the basis of the active apostolate as well of the contemplation of divine Truth.
Two other virtues which are essential to the religious and Dominican life were also prominent in that of the saint: penance and silence. That his own life was one of severe penance is certain, even though few details have come down to us. Rudolph says that from the time he entered the Order of Preachers he strove to overcome the assaults of the evil one by a long martyrdom, walking the narrow path of justice through observance of the regular life and mortifying the flesh in an ever increasing degree. We know that after his days of study and labor, he spent much of the night in prayer; that he journeyed always on foot, begging his bread from door to door even when provincial, and that the austerity which he demanded from others was always considerably less than that which he practiced himself.
"A love of corporal penance is very useful," he wrote, "for by it the soul becomes strong for spiritual things." And elsewhere: "knowledge of divine things is one of the fruits of mortification." Yet on this point the virtue of discretion and the gift of counsel which were so characteristic of him are shown very forcibly. "Penance must, however, be pursued with discretion," he continues. One must at one and the same time curb sensuality, take account of the weakness of the flesh, and distinguish between the just demands of nature and her pretentious exactions. In the first case we must conquer, in the second be patient, and in the third keep a just balance so as to avoid killing the body while keeping it subject to the spirit. "To arrive at such a degree of discernment is the height of astuteness and penetration."
He arrived himself at such heights of discretion. One can imagine that at times he would have had to use it to temper the excessive zeal of his spiritual daughters and sisters of whose heroic virtues and mortifications we read in the Chronicles of Unterlinden.
Of silence he wrote: "Without silence and solitude there can be no true spirit of mortification." And again: "Silence recollects the heart, revives consciences, and disposes us for visits of divine grace. He who does not know how to deep silence is easily vanquished by the enemy."
Allied to this interior and exterior mortification are the virtue of patience and the gift of fortitude which enable the souls to conduct itself in a fitting manner in the midst of the tribulations and trials which God sends or allows. We are not told that Albert endured any very great personal trials and contradictions, although many of these must have come his way during his long life. But his tender and compassionate heart must have suffered much from the sufferings of others: the persecutions endured by St. Thomas, for example, and the terrible laxity and immorality which was rampant among many of the faithful, especially the clergy. Blessed Humbert also speaks as though it were Albert who bore the brunt of the attack and sustained the order during the struggle with the University of Paris. If this were the case, it must inevitably entailed much suffering for him.
We can be certain, therefore, that the saint had ample opportunity to practice the virtue of patience, which he calls "a lily in the midst of thorns," because the thorns, like trials, far from injuring its beauty, only bring forth the fragrance of its perfume. He was only expressing the conviction of his own soul, proved by personal experience, when he wrote, "By tribulation the just man is made to enter into himself; he recognizes without difficulty that the fullness of his strength lies in the divine Will...."
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