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Saint Albert the Great

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2024

John Baptist Reeves O.P.
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Extract

The works attributed to Albert the Great make a very long and imposing list. Some of his authentic writings have never yet been; printed. His printed works fill twenty-one folio volumes in the 1651 Lyons edition; thirty-eight quarto volumes in the Paris edition of 1890. They include amongst the theological works, scriptural commentaries, sermons, a commentary on the Sentences and on the semi-mystical works of the Pseudo-Dionysius. But his scientific and philosophical writings represent his greatest achievement. When he began his career as a teacher, the works of Aristotle were still suspect in the ecclesiastical world, for they were as yet only known through the translations and commentaries of Arabs who had interpolated and coloured them with neoplatonism, Mahommedanism, and other oriental admixtures. Moreover, the parts best known (excepting the Organon with which, thanks to Boethius, the West had always been in some degree familiar) were the Physics, which were read in the first instance by laymen interested in Arabian medicine, alchemy, and astronomy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 13 , Issue 143 , February 1932, pp. 76 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 1932 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 H. Ch. Scheeben: Les Ecrits d'Albert d'après les Catalogues in Revue Thomiste, Mars-Avril 1931.

2 H. Quentin, in Studi e Testi, No. 37, Rome, 1924. (Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle, Vol. I), p. 86.

3 Le problème des trois Sommes. M. M. Gorce, O.P., Revue Thomiste, Mars-Avril, 1931 (Paris), p. 293 seq.

4 There is much evidence the other way. For instance, in his Summa Theologica Albert shows clearly that he has not read St. Thomas's Commentary on the Liber de Causis written in 12%. St. Thomas shows that this work is a digest, with some important changes, from a work by Proclus, and that the digest was originally written in Arabic, not Greek. Throughout his Summa Theologica Albert variously attributes the Liber de Causis to ‘the Philosopher,’‘to Aristotle,’ and to ‘Hermes Trismegistos.’ These variations support the contention of Pére Gorce and others that Albert in the composition of his Summa made a free and not very discriminating use of scissors and paste. Rut his excerpts can only have been from his own previous works. The last attribution of the Liber de Causis shows that he has recognized it to be Neoplatonist, not Aristotelian, in origin. He also seems to know of the translation of Proclus by William of Moerbeke. But there is no sign of his being indebted for any of this information to St. Thomas's public writings.

5 B. M. Reichert, O.P. Act. Cap. Gen., Vol. I, p. 81.

6 E. Gilson: La Philosophie au Moyen Age, pp. 165–6.

7 Summa Theol., II, II, 5, I, ad I m.

8 C. H. Haskins. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, P. 98.

9 According to Grabmann (in Angelicum, 1929, p. 350), there were nine such points condemned, not three as stated above on the authority of De Wulf. The point on which St. Thomas most conspicuously parted company from Albert—the unity of substantial form in man—was not amongst them.

10 Père Gorce suggests (Rev. Thomiste, loc. cit.) that in his Summa Theologica Albert, in deference to a condemnation by the University of Paris in 1270, retreated from a position which he had formerly held, and which, St. Thomas never having abandoned it, was again proscribed in 1277 : namely, that in the angels there cannot possibly be matter. But Albert does not in the least retreat from this position. It is true he distinguishes materia from materide, attributing the latter to the intellectus possibilis, and (by implication) to the potentia in angels. But this is perfectly consistent with his position in the Summa de Creaturis (Tract IV, Q. xxi, a. I, ad p); in both places he stoutly denies that there is matter in the angels. The language of the Summa Theologica of Albert can be paralleled in many passages where St. Thomas calls potentia in all its senses (except in God) ‘quasi materia.’ The comparison of the intellectus possibilis to materia prima as being pure potency in the spiritual order, is frequently used both by St. Thomas ad Albert, and is taken direct from the De Anima of Aristotle.

11 Summa Theol. I, iii, 8.

12 In all printed texts of the Summa this word is mis-spelt, and apparently misunderstood in some as an Arabian school of philosophy.

13 Pars II, Tract I, Q. iv, Memb. iii.

14 Dr. Grabmann entitles the article above quoted, Die wis-senshaftiche Mission Alberts des Grossen (in Angelicum, 1929, Fasc. 111, p. 325), and explains it as ‘the great providential mission of Albert in the creation of Christian Aristotelianism.’ With his usual profound and accurate scholarship, Dr. Grabmann paints a most impressive picture of Albert's colossal achievement in the splendid but perilous development of philosophy and theology that shook Christian society to its foundations in the thirteenth century. One of Dr. Grabmann's observations, for which he acknowledges himself partially indebted to H. Ch. Scheeben, deserved to be gratefully summarised here: When opposition to Neoplatonism threatened to discredit the early Church, St. Augustine incorporated its best elements in Christian civilization. When the Albigensian and Waldensian heresies were shaking Christendom, St. Dominic transplanted all that was good in them into the life of the Church. When Aristotelian, Arabian and Jewish philosophies were seducing many learned men from their faith, and hardening the orthodox into a contempt of all philosophy, Albert the Great united and organised these systems within the framework of Christian thought (pp. 343–4). A fine tribute, this, to a Friar preacher who in the beginning of his vocation wavered, fearing he should pot persevere!

15 This article was in print before the publication of the Decretal Letter in which Pope Pius XI. declared Albert the Great a Doctor of the Church, and so, equivalently, a Saint.