Saint Albert the Great: the marriage of faith and reason

Summary:

Albrecht von Bollstädt was born in Swabia (south-west Germany) in the late 12th or early 13th century. His family was not wealthy, but the child received a good education, both intellectually and religiously. From adolescence, Albrecht (or Albert) planned to devote his life to God by becoming a religious. At that time, Christian Europe was witnessing the emergence of new orders - Dominicans, Franciscans and Carmelites - which attracted him in turn.

He finally chose the Order of Friars Preachers, recently founded by Saint Dominic, whose spirituality fascinated him. There weren't many Dominican convents in Germany, so the future saint opted for the one in Padua (Italy), which he had just discovered. But he hesitated. Humble, feeling weak in the face of temptation, he didn't know whether the austerity of the convent would suit him. One night, he had a strange dream that disturbed him when he woke up: dressed in the Dominican habit, he was taking part in the life of a convent, only to be expelled shortly afterwards.

Could this be a premonitory dream, he wondered? In that case, it was clear: Dominican life was not for him. A few hours later, he entered a church close to his lodgings. That day, Jordan of Saxony, future Blessed, Master of the Dominicans, was celebrating Mass there. From the pulpit, he spoke of the hesitations of a young Christian faced with a spiritual commitment, explaining that these procrastinations were merely a diabolical temptation... Albert, whose name was not mentioned by the preacher, was very surprised: this "young Christian" reminded him of himself. After mass, he rushed to Jordan and asked him: "Master, what made you read my heart like this?" He then opened up about his doubts and plans. Jordan replied: "I promise you, my son, that if you enter our order, you will never leave it." At these words, Albert felt a breath of strength invade him. He converted definitively and decided to join the convent in Padua. The year was 1223.

The rest is the story of his spiritual ascent. After obtaining his degrees in theology and medicine, Albert became a teacher in several convents of his order. He soon moved to the convent on rue Saint-Jacques in Paris, where he exerted a major intellectual and religious influence, to the point of being appointed Master Regent in 1241. He remained there for seven years. His encounter with the Parisian university was of great importance. Albert was the first German-speaking professor to teach at the Sorbonne, and it was in Paris that he discovered Aristotle, whose work he compared to the Judeo-Christian revelation. Saint Thomas Aquinas, his brilliant student at the convent in Cologne (Germany), continued this immense work, founding scholastic philosophy with his master.

Neither Greco-Roman culture nor Jewish and Arab-Muslim philosophy quenched Albert's thirst for knowledge. Already a medical student graduate, he set out to explore a wide range of scientific fields, writing vast treatises on them, some of which served as absolute references until the Renaissance. Botany and zoology were two sciences in which he was a master. In 1250, he isolated the element arsenic. Saint Albert never separated his research activities from his religious faith. He undertook the study of nature to show its beauty and diversity, which only God could have brought out of nothing. He never saw himself as a "discoverer" but simply as a modest instrument in the service of the Lord. He knew that science divorced from the Gospel is the swelling of the ego.

While teaching in several European convents, he was soon called upon by the papacy for various tasks. Pope Alexander IV appointed him Bishop of Regensburg (Germany, Bavaria). "It's too much for me", he thought, but, out of obedience, he accepted. After two years of remarkable ministry (he restored the finances of his diocese, developed the communities, trained his clergy, etc.), he preferred to leave Regensburg to return to his beloved studies, where, he thought, he would be more useful to the faithful. Rome had not said its last word. Already a Dominican provincial in Germany, he was made preacher to the Roman curia in 1263 and 1264. Albert's intelligence and exceptional work ethic were admired at the time. He knew that Jesus alone gave him the strength to continue his work: evangelising the minds and understanding biblical revelation according to its demanding criteria.

The years passed and the saint continued his work in many of the Dominican convents on the European continent. Old age did not guarantee retirement: he took part in the Second Council of Lyon in 1274. Important works in the natural sciences and meteorology saw the light of day under his lively pen.

Moreover, curious about the currents of thought of his time, he soon tackled alchemy, a field studied by most scholars in the 13th century. He wrote around thirty works on the subject. He was so prolific that his critics accused him of being a magician, a sorcerer, since he supposedly wrote about the subtleties of alchemy and necromancy. Such a disposition would account for his inexplicable working power and his success among the Dominicans, they thought. The rumour grew and gave rise to the legend that the saint was the author of the Small and Great Albert, grimoires printed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries based on the works of Saint Albert the Great. Of course, Albert was in no way responsible for these writings, and none of the accusers during his lifetime had objectively read any of his treatises on alchemy. He paid little attention to these attacks and prayed for his enemies.

Albert courageously continued to teach theology and philosophy. But as he grew older, his memory sometimes played tricks on him. A devotee of the Virgin Mary, he "constantly" prayed to her to come to his aid, to keep his heart in line with the faith, so that even when "entangled in philosophy " he would not waver in his faith in Jesus. One day, in the middle of a lesson, he suddenly stopped, as if frozen in place. A metre away from him, Mary had just appeared. She said to him: "Be faithful to your studies and persevere in virtue. God wants your knowledge to enlighten the Church. But so that you do not waver in your faith, before you die all your philosophy will be taken away from you. It is in the innocence and sincerity of your childhood, and in the truth of your faith, that God will take you from this world. And this is the sign that will warn you that your time has come: your memory will desert you."

When he died on 15 November 1280 in Cologne, after several months of silence and solitude, warned of his impending death by the disappearance of his memory, he was already the "Universal Doctor" whom the Catholic Church would glorify for posterity. Pope Gregory XV proclaimed him blessed, and Pius XI proclaimed him a saint in 1931, then elevated him to the rank of Doctor of the Church. Ten years later, his successor, Pius XII, named him patron saint of Christian scholars. During his lifetime, one of his pupils, Ulrich of Strasbourg, had already seen in him an "astonishing miracle".

Beyond reasons to believe:

Knowing that reason is a gift from God, Saint Albert put his exceptional intelligence at the service of Jesus and the Gospel by studying the sciences, which express in their own way the extraordinary complexity of the world.

Going further:

St. Albert the Great: Champion of Faith and Reason by Kevin Vost, TAN Books; First Edition (March 1, 2011)

More information:

• St. Albert the Great: The First Universal Doctor by REV Thomas M Schwertner, Mediatrix Press (November 27, 2018)

• The Paradise of the Soul: Forty-Two Virtues to Reach Heaven by St. Albert the Great, TAN Books (August 29, 2023)

• On Union with God by Saint Albert the Great, ‎ Aeterna Press (January 21, 2015)

• Kenneth F. Kitchell and Irven Michael Resnick, Albertus Magnus, On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, The John's Hopking University Press, 1999.


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