St. Albert the Great

Introduction

They had discussed with one another who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve: and he said to them, “If any among you would be first, he must be least of all and servant of all.”

—Mark 9:34-35

St. Albert can fittingly be called the miracle and wonder of our time.¹

—Ulric of Strasbourg

Though he wasn’t canonized until 1931, St. Albert of Cologne has been known as “the great” since his own day—the 13th century—due to his incredible breadth of knowledge. It was said that Albert quite simply knew everything there was to know! Throughout these pages, then, we’ll look at how he put his powerful mind to plumbing the mysteries of creation through virtually every science and intellectual discipline known to man—literally from “a” to “z,” with contributions to fields as diverse as anatomy, anthropology, astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, dentistry, geography, geology, medicine, physiology, physics, psychology, and zoology.

Albert was a master philosopher as well, intimately conversant with the systems of the most profound thinkers of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. In his mastery of scripture and theology, also, he knew few peers in his time. And Albert did not keep his knowledge to himself. He was a great professor, teaching philosophy and the sciences to grateful students throughout Europe. For these reasons, and good reasons they are, Albert was called “great” in his own time.

Perhaps you are wondering, though, “If Albert was so great, then why don’t we know more about him?” Good question! And the answer, I think, is found in those words of Jesus that began this introduction. It is one thing to be great in the eyes of the world, still another to be great in the eyes of Christ. Albert had both kinds of greatness, and it was because of that second, Christlike kind of greatness that he did not seek to draw attention to himself. He did such a good job making himself the least and servant of us all that the world has, in some measure, forgotten his true stature.

We’ll see in the pages ahead how St. Albert has been compared by saints and sages, by professors and by popes, to great men such as King Solomon, St. Luke, St. Paul, and St. Ambrose. But to demonstrate here his understated greatness, I draw your attention to those who have compared him to that voice crying in the wilderness, St. John the Baptist. St. John was a blessed man who devoted himself entirely to God’s works and displayed unmatched humility before Him who was to follow. Like the blessed Baptist who prepared the way for the Lord, so too St. Albert prepared the way for another: the man would become that great defender and lover of Jesus and most profound teacher of the doctrines of Christ’s Church, the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Indeed, today perhaps the one thing that most everybody knows about St. Albert is that he was St. Thomas’s teacher, the man who helped groom the most exquisite mind ever to serve the Church. As the famous story (which I’ll retell later) goes, St. Albert promised that the “bellowing of this ox [that is, the words of St. Thomas], would be heard around the world!” Today it appears that St. Albert’s prophecy has rung so true that the bellowing of that blessed ox has inadvertently drowned out the life and lessons of his own great teacher!

Thus, today there is a relative dearth of recent material on Thomas’s great teacher. In preparing to write this book, I searched the Web sites of the Catholic publishers and booksellers, the major secular bookstores, and even the Library of Congress. I certainly may have missed some, but the most recent biography I could find on St. Albert was written in 1955—and that’s a fictionalized tale geared toward adolescents.²

Other biographies I found, tracked down through obscure and out-of-the-way booksellers, were written in 1948, 1938, 1932, and 1876.³ Those 20th-century books came out shortly after Albert was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931 and declared the patron saint of the sciences in 1941, and they also highlight his lessons for those living in that era in modern history. I was pleased to see that some new books addressing various aspects of Albert’s thought have become available to English-language readers in recent years, and I’ll tell you about them in the relevant chapters ahead. But all in all I could see that it was past time for a new book about St. Albert the Great, one that explained his life and virtues for the general reader of today. Here’s the basic game plan for it.

The Life, the Legend, the Lessons

This book is biographical in part. I’ll share the many significant events of St. Albert’s life, and in an appendix I’ll even throw in (at no extra charge) a chronology of his life and his influence since his death. Still, in writing a biography of a man so great, and a man who lived so long ago, it becomes difficult at times to separate fact from fiction. As with other saints of centuries past, a great number of pious stories have accrued to Albert’s name over the centuries, and as with any saint, it is not always easy to ascertain their veracity. Specifically to St. Albert, many questionable scientific, technological, architectural, and indeed, even magical stories have accrued to his great name as well!

Historians have weighed in on the reasons in favor of believing or disbelieving some of these amazing stories, and I’ll try to let you know when we’ve moved from the pretty well-established facts of the “life” to the more questionable stuff of the “legend,” in case it is not obvious. And no, I’m not going to share any of these wonderful tales right now. You’ll simply have to read along (or skip ahead), but I do want to make a point about these legends.

Though I am unable to separate the wheat of fact from the chaff of fancy in some of these tales (I’d need the help of St. Albert himself for that), here is a question I’d like us to chew on. If people were someday to craft legends about you and your life, what might they be? What would you like them to be? In St. Albert’s case, whether some of these events happened as told or not, we can’t say for certain; that these stories have been told, of that we can be sure. Further, both the life and the legend carry for us important lessons, and those lessons are the main reason for this book. Since he was a teacher and preacher to the core, I feel sure that the great saint himself would want it that way.

The Roles of Virtues

We’ll see in chapters ahead (especially Chapter 12) that our hard-nosed scientist-saint had a soft spot in his heart for our Mother Mary. In his writings on the Blessed Virgin, he emphasized that in being “full of grace,”⁴ Mary possessed all the virtues and graces available to a human being and personified their perfection. Albert himself was no stranger to the virtues. He wrote complete philosophical and theological works on what virtues are and how to build them. As we examine his life, we will contemplate the multiple virtues that made up the character of this great saint, so that we too might try to grow in like virtues of our own.

Ancient philosophers like the ancient Greek Epictetus and Roman Seneca (St. Albert knew them well) urged us toward lives of virtue, noting that when we desire nothing more than virtue, we will attain great peace, becoming relatively undisturbed by the misfortunes and difficulties that we all encounter. Attaining this inner tranquility is one of the hallmarks of the Stoic sage or wise man. But these were enterprising Greeks and Romans, mind you, not navel-gazers; for the Stoics, once the virtuous soul attains control over his own passions, the question follows, “Now what shall I do?”

Epictetus in particular was wont to answer that we should play the roles the great “Playwright” has assigned to us—be it the role of a citizen, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, a father, a mother, a student, a teacher, a soldier, an official—whatever the case may be. In other words, our virtues will be displayed and shared when we perform our work and our duties to others as human beings. Indeed, virtues themselves grow and thrive through their exercise in the active roles we are called to play in the service of God and our fellow man.

As we will soon see, Albert was a man of nearly as many roles as virtues. The Great One was no mere bookworm (or “noodle” as my father-in-law was prone to call the intellectually inclined). The great scholar and teacher was also provincial of his religious order for the entire province of Germany, a bishop of a diocese, a Vatican advisor, and even a preacher of a Crusade—and his virtues shined forth in every role.

Great Ideas

We’ll examine virtues themselves, as St. Albert saw them, in some detail in Chapter 4. For now, let me simply note that virtues themselves are embodiments of excellence. They are perfections of human powers. They are also ideas, in the sense that we can’t directly see or touch or hear or taste or smell things like courage or humility or justice or kindness, but we can indeed come to know them, experience them, display them, and share them through the use of our intellects and our wills. That’s why each and every chapter of this book will end with a “Great Ideas” section, each focusing on a particular virtue embodied by Albert himself in the subject area of that chapter. I’ll provide definitions, highlight Albert’s examples, and offer practical suggestions for making these great ideas our own.

Thinker, Doer, Lover

The chapters of this book are organized into three parts, based on three parts of the famous motto of the Dominicans (St. Albert’s order): “To share with others the fruits of contemplation.” The Dominicans sought to study deeply the things of God and creation, and then to preach them, so as to save men’s souls.

Part I, “Thinker,” will highlight St. Albert’s role as an intellectual giant in science and philosophy, that which brought him fame and the title “the great” in his own time. Thinking also ties in most directly to the Dominican call to study and contemplation. Further, thinking calls for virtues of its own—like understanding, wisdom, and even science—intellectual virtues St. Albert knew and lived so well.

In Part II, “Doer,” I’ll highlight St. Albert as the man of action. St. Albert wasn’t the type to “just think about it,” no, he was also the type to “git ’er done!” Here we’ll see him move from the ivory tower out into the street, as the professor becomes spiritual shepherd to a diocese, as the author of learned treatises becomes the author of peace treaties between warring parties, as the preacher to the novices becomes the preacher of a great Crusade to the Holy Land in defense of Christian Europe. Doing has its virtues too, natural or moral virtues, and here we’ll see just how St. Albert’s contemplation bore a bumper crop of natural fruits.

When St. Paul proclaimed the highest class of virtues, the God-infused theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, he told us the highest was love.⁵ Jesus had told us after all that the greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord our God with all that we are, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves.⁶ St. Albert knew these commands quite well and obeyed them like few others. And as a spiritual son of St. Dominic, he knew as well that those fruits of contemplation were meant for sharing with others. In Part III, “Lover,” then, we will examine the true heights of Albert’s greatness, the ways that he showed his love of God, God’s Mother, his fellow religious, and his students.

And just about last, near the end of the day (or at least near the end of this book), we will see how before his death, and after a lifetime of service, he who was so great became again like the least, as the light of his memory and intellect dimmed. But we’ll also see how the fire of his passion for God burned bright until his last day as a traveler on this earth.

Finally, we’ll see how, 650 years after his death, the Catholic Church made official what those who knew him knew all along, that Albert was not only great but a saint, and a Doctor—the Universal Doctor—of the Church. His truly was one of the greatest human minds God has given to the universe. So it’s darn well time we get to know him better by sitting at his great feet.