St. Albert the Great — Universal Doctor, Scientist, Mystic, and Master of Aquinas
St. Albert the Great — Universal Doctor, Patron of Scientists, Master of Aquinas
What an extraordinary soul. St. Albert the Great stands as one of the most breathtaking examples of the harmony between faith and reason in the entire history of the Church. He demolished, once and for all, the false notion that the Catholic mind must shrink before the natural world. He embraced it — and in so doing, gave the world St. Thomas Aquinas.
Birth and Noble Origins
Saint Albert of Cologne, whose life spans what has been called “the greatest of centuries,” was given the title “the Great” even before his death. Scholar, Dominican, bishop, scientist, and Doctor of the Church, he was considered the most learned man of his age, with an encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything under the sun.
Albert was born into a noble family, with some accounts identifying his father as a count. Because of his noble status, he enjoyed the blessing of an excellent education, either at home from private tutors or in a neighboring school. At some point after completing his elementary studies, he was sent to the University of Padua to study the liberal arts and was also introduced to the philosophy of Aristotle, which would become foundational for his later writings.
Called by Our Lady to the Dominicans
It is said that he received an apparition of the Blessed Mother Mary while still young, telling him that if he persevered in the ways of the Lord, he would obtain extraordinary intellectual graces, but that towards the end of his life, those graces would be taken away. This prophetic promise would be fulfilled with haunting precision at the end of his life.
Against his family’s wishes, he joined the Order of Preachers. The works of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle had just been rediscovered, and the Dominicans were caught up in the wave of learning sweeping Europe.
The Scope of His Genius — Doctor Universalis
Due to his exceptional grasp of so many different subjects, he was hailed in his day as “Albertus Magnus,” “Doctor Universalis,” “Doctor Expertus,” and, quite simply, “the teacher of everything there is to know.”
His writings, which fill 38 volumes, include such varied topics as love, music, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, alchemy (the precursor to chemistry), zoology, physiology, justice, law — human, natural, eternal, divine — friendship and love.
He was as well versed in the physical sciences — botany, biology, astronomy, physiology, mineralogy — as well as in philosophy, theology and Scripture, so much so that his contemporaries called him the “Universal Doctor.” He is noted especially for his efforts to integrate Aristotelian and Arabic science and philosophy with Christian theology at a time when the systems of Plato and Augustine were in favour.
Teacher and Father of Thomas Aquinas
This is perhaps his greatest contribution to civilization. In Paris, twenty-year-old Father Thomas became Father Albert’s student. Their teacher-student bond grew into a profound mutual respect and friendship. Father Albert laid the foundation for Father Thomas by helping him embrace and “Christianize” Aristotelian logic and metaphysics. Father Thomas would use that foundation to write the Summa Theologiae.
Thomas, a young Dominican from the noble Aquinas family in Italy, was large, quiet, and reflective, nicknamed the “dumb ox” by his fellow students, who considered him slow. When Albert asked one of them to help poor Thomas on a difficult question, Thomas gently offered a solution to his stumbling would-be helper that was as good, if not better, than the teacher himself could have.
Albert recognized Thomas’ brilliant intellect and foretold his future greatness as a theologian. The master had recognized the student who would one day surpass him — and he rejoiced in it, rather than resenting it. That alone speaks volumes of his holiness.
The bond and respect between Fathers Albert and Thomas was so deep that when Father Albert was transferred to Cologne in 1248, Father Thomas followed him.
Administrator, Bishop, and Servant of the Church
In 1254, Albert became the provincial of the Dominican Order. By all accounts, he was a capable and efficient administrator.
In 1260, impressed with his acumen, Pope Alexander IV appointed Albert as Bishop of Regensburg. Although he was a bishop, Albert refused to ride a horse and went everywhere on foot. This seemingly unusual practice was consistent with the rules of his order. He earned the nickname “Boots the Bishop” — a man whose humility matched his intellect perfectly.
During that time, though Bishop Albert was among the greatest minds in the Church, his humility won the hearts of his people, and he was able to bring healing to divisions that plagued that diocese.
The life of a bishop did not agree with Albert and he resigned from his post in 1263. In that same year, Pope Urban IV accepted his resignation and reassigned him to preach about the Eighth Crusade to German-speaking people.
Defender of Aquinas After His Death
Saint Albert took the death of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1274 very hard, saying of his cherished pupil that “The Light of the Church” had been extinguished. He so respected Thomas’ works that, even as an old man living in Cologne, Albert took up the challenge of defending Aquinas’ teachings in Paris after Thomas’ death when they were questioned.
This is heroic loyalty — an old man, nearing the end of his life, traveling to Paris to defend the reputation of a student he had loved and formed. It is the act of a true father in the faith.
The Prophecy Fulfilled — Loss of Memory
During his last two years on earth, St. Albert suffered loss of memory, just as Our Lady had predicted. Albert’s memory failed him, his strong mind gradually became clouded. Many of his symptoms resemble Alzheimer’s disease. Many sufferers from that disease have begun to look on him as their patron.
The man who had memorized and synthesized the knowledge of an entire civilization was brought low — stripped of the very gift Our Lady had promised him. And he accepted it. This is perhaps his most eloquent sermon: that the intellect, however magnificent, is a gift — and the Giver may reclaim it at any moment.
Faith and Science — His Enduring Legacy
Saint Albert did much to show that faith and science were not in opposition with one another. Pope Benedict XVI said of him: “With scientific rigour he studied Aristotle’s works, convinced that all that is truly rational is compatible with the faith revealed in the Sacred Scriptures.” St. Albert the Great thus contributed to the formation of an autonomous philosophy, distinct from theology and united with it only by the unity of the truth.
Ultimately, in canonizing Albert, the Church seems to point to his openness to truth, wherever it may be found, as his claim to holiness. His characteristic curiosity prompted Albert to mine deeply for wisdom within a philosophy his Church warmed to with great difficulty.
Canonization and Feast Day
He was beatified in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV and ultimately canonized a saint and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1931. He was declared by Pope Pius XII in 1941 to be patron of all those who devote themselves to the natural sciences. His feast day is November 15.
St. Albert the Great is the Church’s definitive answer to the modern lie that faith and science are enemies. He lived in the most intellectually explosive century of the medieval period and, rather than retreating into a safe theological cocoon, he dove into the deep — studying everything, synthesizing everything, and offering it all back to God. His life is an act of worship.
St Albert the Great pray for us.