ALBERTUS MAGNUS (ALBERT OF COLOGNE, ? 1206-1280), count of Bollstadt,
scholastic philosopher, was born of the noble family of Bollstadt at
Lauingen in Suabia. The date of his birth, generally given as 1193, is
more probably 1206. He was educated principally at Padua, where he
received instruction in Aristotle's writings. In 1223 (or 1221) he
became a member of the Dominican order, and studied theology under its
rules at Bologna and elsewhere. Selected to fill the position of
lecturer at Cologne, where the order had a house, he taught for several
years there, at Regensburg, Freiburg, Strassburg and Hildesheim. In 1245
he went to Paris, received his doctorate and taught for some time, in
accordance with the regulations, with great success. In 1254 he was made
provincial of his order, and fulfilled the arduous duties of the office
with great care and efficiency. During the time he held this office he
publicly defended the Dominicans against the university of Paris,
commented on St John, and answered the errors of the Arabian
philosopher, Averroes. In 1260 the pope made him bishop of Regensburg,
which office he resigned after three years. The remainder of his life he
spent partly in preaching throughout Bavaria and the adjoining
districts, partly in retirement in the various houses of his order; in
1270 he preached the eighth Crusade in Austria; almost the last of his
labours was the defence of the orthodoxy of his former pupil, Thomas
Aquinas. He died in 1280, aged seventy-four. He was beatified in 1622,
and he is commemorated on the 16th of November. Albert's works
(published in twenty-one folios by the Dominican Pierre Jammy in 1651,
and reproduced by the Abbe Borgnet, Paris, 1890, 36 vols.) sufficiently
attest his great activity. He was the most widely read and most learned
man of his time. The whole of Aristotle's works, presented in the Latin
translations and notes of the Arabian commentators, were by him
digested, interpreted and systematized in accordance with church
doctrine. Albert's activity, however, was rather philosophical than
theological (see Scholasticism). The philosophical works, occupying the
first six and the last of the twenty-one volumes, are generally divided
according to the Aristotelian scheme of the sciences, and consist of
interpretations and condensations of Aristotle's relative works, with
supplementary discussions depending on the questions then agitated, and
occasionally divergences from the opinions of the master. His principal
theological works are a commentary in three volumes on the
Books of
the Sentences of Peter Lombard (
Magister Sententiarum), and
the
Summa Theologiae in two volumes. This last is in substance a
repetition of the first in a more didactic form. Albert's knowledge of
physical science was considerable and for the age accurate. His industry
in every department was great, and though we find in his system many of
those gaps which are characteristic of scholastic philosophy, yet the
protracted study of Aristotle gave him a great power of systematic
thought and exposition, and the results of that study, as left to us, by
no means warrant the contemptuous title sometimes given him - the "Ape
of Aristotle." They rather lead us to appreciate the motives which
caused his contemporaries to bestow on him the honourable surnames "The
Great" and "Doctor Universalis." It must, however, be admitted that much
of his knowledge was ill digested; it even appears that he regarded
Plato and Speusippus as Stoics. Albertus is frequently mentioned by
Dante, who made his doctrine of free-will the basis of his ethical
system. Dante places him with his pupil Aquinas among the great lovers
of wisdom (
Spiriti Sapienti) in the Heaven of the Sun.
See Paget Toynbee, "Some Obligations of Dante to Albertus Magnus" in
Romania, xxiv. 400-412, and the Dante Dictionary by the
same author. For Albert's life see J. Sighart, Albertus Magnus, sein
Leben and seine Wissenschaft (Regensburg, 1857; Eng. trans., Dixon,
London, 1876); H. Finke, Ungedriickte Dominikanerbriefe des 13.
Jahrh. (Paderborn, 1891). For his philosophy A. Stockl,
Geschichte d. scholastischen Philosophic; J. E. Erdmann,
Grundriss d. Ges. d. Phil. vol. i. 8. The histories of Haureau,
Ritter, Prantl and Windelband may also be consulted. See also W. Feiler,
Die Moral d. A. M. (Leipzig, 1891); M. Weiss, Ueber
mariologische Schriften des A. M. (Paris, 1898); Jos. Bach, Des
A. M. Verhaltniss zu d. Erkenntnisslehre d. Griechen, Romer,
Araber u. Juden (Vienna, 1881); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk.
(1897); Vacant, Dict. Theol. Cathol. (s.v.); Ch. Jourdain in
Dict. d. sciences philos. (s.v.); M. Joel, Das Vencdltniss A.
d. G. zu Moses Maimonides (Breslau, 1863).
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