Begins the first book on the mystery of the Trinity and Unity according to Brother Albert, professed of the Order of Preachers, once bishop of Ratisbon.
“Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me: it is high, and I cannot reach to it” [1]. In this authority six things are noted, in which the science of sacred letters excels all other sciences. First is the wonderfulness of the subject. Second [is] its authority of acquisition, which is noted through “is become” (facta est). Third is its credibility of certitude, which is noted through “thy knowledge” (scientia tua). Fourth is its applicability to our understanding, which is noted through “to me” (ex me). Fifth is its most mighty truth of demonstration, which is noted through this that it is called “high” (confortata est). Sixth is its highest dignity, above us and above our understanding, which is noted through this that it says “and I cannot reach to it” (et non potero ad eam).
From this that “it is wonderful,” it has honorability. For when sciences differ in two things, namely in wonderfulness and honorability of subject and in certitude of demonstrations, as is said in the beginning of De Anima, it is known that that [science] is most honorable, which concerns the most wonderful and the highest [subject]. But this is theology, which is wholly about God, according as through all his works he “reacheth therefore from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly” [2]. For thus he becomes known in all things: both in the effects of nature through vestige and image, and in the works of reparation through likeness of grace, and in acts of beatification or glorification through consummation of glory. Therefore it is wonderful, and from this, [it is] the highest, noblest, and most honorable [science].
“It is become” also in us by something superior effecting it. For it is a certain impression and sealing of divine wisdom in us, so that the human mind is the seal (sigillum) of the wise God, having been impressed with forms and reasons (rationibus) of the first cause in his wisdom of creating and repairing and glorifying his effects (causata). This is said in Canticle VIII (6): “Put me as a seal (signaculum) upon thy heart.” Explaining which, Gregory says that “the seal (signaculum) is the signet (sigillum) having been pressed down (profundatum).” On account of which it is said in Ezekiel XXVIII (12) about an angel excelling others in wisdom: “Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.” Through such an impression made in us, therefore, it is clear that it becomes in us with us ascending to God and to it, as wax ascends to the signet, and not conversely. On account of which it is acquired more by prayer and devotion than study. Wisdom VII (7): “Wherefore I wished (optavi), and understanding was given me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me.” From this Augustine infers in De Trinitate VIII, that since the heart of man ascends to it [the impression of divine wisdom, namely theology], it is necessary that in it alone is the heart of man exalted. For other knowable things (scibilia) are either equal or inferior to the human heart; on account of which, insofar as they are in the human heart, they receive exaltation and more noble being than they have in themselves, as the incorruptible is more noble than the corruptible. But it [theology] alone is what elevates the heart, and purifies it having been elevated, and establishes it in eternal immortality. Wisdom XV (3): “For to know thee is perfect justice: and to know thy justice, and thy power, is the root of immortality.” It is from this, as Alfarabi says in the book De Intellectu et Intelligibili, that all philosophers placed the root of the immortality of the soul in the adept divine intellect. But although it has been made thus, as Dionysius says of Hierotheus, that “by suffering divine things he learned divine things,” nevertheless study cooperates for this as a disposition in the subject. On account of which, Jerome commends much study of sacred letters in the Helmeted Prologue, and he says that Paul commends this to his disciple Timothy. He also says in Titus I (9) that on account of this even “A bishop must be . . . [e]mbracing that faithful word which is according to doctrine, that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convince the gainsayers.”
This science is also of most certain credibility and faith. For other sciences, which are about created things, although they have immobile rationes [3], nevertheless the same rationes, through the being (esse) [they have] in created things, are received as mobile [4]; this [science] however, established in eternal rationibus, is thoroughly immobile both according to being (esse) and according to rationem. And since science is a habit received and effected as fixed (stans) and immobile from intellectual things and not from sensible or imaginable things, because those are not separated from the appendages of matter, it is plain that this [i.e., theology], either alone or especially, is science; for the divine intellect is nothing but intellectual, as it is the light and cause of all intelligible things; and from it is divine science in us. And this is what Psalm XXXV (10) says: “In thy light we shall see light.” And [Psalm 4:7] that: “The light of thy countenance O Lord, is signed upon us: thou hast given gladness in my heart.” And hence it is that Averroes says, that that knowable (scibile) which all men by nature desire to know, is the divine intellect, as it has the first influence on all intelligences (intelligentia) and intelligibles (intelligibilia), conferring power (virtutem) to intelligences, by which they are able to understand, and giving light to all intelligibles, by which they are able to move the intellect to the act of understanding. And this is what Dionysius says in the book On the Divine Names chapter IV, that: “the divine intellect spreads (expandit) itself through all intellectual countenances (vultus).” [And] II Corinthians IV (6): “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus.” From intelligibles alone, therefore, and from the first form of understanding, is everything which is understood, and which is desired to be known by all men. For if “that is always more [such], on account of which each thing [is such]” as Aristotle says in the Posterior Analytics I, but we know secondary [causes or principles] on account of primary [causes or principles], if by nature we desire to know the secondaries, much more by nature do we desire to know the primaries.
And thus [theology] is called “thy knowledge” (scientia tua) according [as divine knowledge is] the formal cause of every knowable and of every knower (scientis).
It is also called “thy knowledge” according to efficient cause, because God by his generosity effects it in us through the Holy Spirit. John XVI (13): “But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth.” Jeremiah XXXI (34): “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest.”
It is also “thy knowledge” as of its subject about which (subiecti de quo), since it is about him (i.e., God). And if it is objected that matter does not coincide in the same thing with the efficient [cause] and the form, as Aristotle says in Physics II, we say that this is understood about matter from which (ex qua), and not of matter about which (circa quam). For in another respect [than matter from which] there will be an instance in everything understood and willed, that the intellect and will is both matter and form and end.
It is also called “thy knowledge” because it is [ordered] towards God as to its end. For it is from this that it is said in Psalm [XLII (3)]: “Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.” From this it follows, that this science alone or maximally is wisdom; for the Philosopher says in First Philosophy [i.e., Metaphysics] that that science is maximally wisdom, whose end is within itself (cuius finis intus est) and [which is] the cause and benefit (gratia) of knowing. Now this science has all these things. For it is by (ab) the divine intellect as by an efficient [cause], and from (ex) the divine intellect as from the first formal [cause], and about (de) it, as it is the art full with the rationibus of all things which are, and for (ad) it and on account of (propter) it as to an end. The first is attributed to the Father, the second and third to the Son, according as he is the Power and Wisdom of the Father; the second indeed is attributed to him inasmuch as he is the Power of the Father, but the third inasmuch as is the Wisdom; while the fourth is attributed to the Holy Spirit.
This science is also maximally applicable to our intellect, and therefore the soul maximally rests in it. For if every intelligible is applicable to our intellect through its being intelligible, that is: for purifying the light of the intelligence, that which is maximally intelligible and in the purest light of intelligence, will be maximally applicable according to nature. Hence James 1 (21) [says]: “with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls“. On which the gloss says that “ingrafted” is by nature. [And] Deuteronomy [30] (14) and Romans 10 (8) [say]: “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart”. The reason of which is, that the spirit rests in nothing knowable, unless it leads to the first knowable, before which there is not something mediate. And then it rests and stands in it and assents to everything else on account of it.
Therefore since it is now clear, that this science is of the first knowable, just as the light of lights is in itself and shines out in all others, it is clear that in [this science] maximally the spirit of man rests.
And if it is objected that the Philosopher says that “the disposition of our intellect to the most manifest things of nature is as the disposition of the eyes of bats to the light of the sun,” but the eye of the bat sees nothing in the light of the sun, but flees it, therefore also our intellect will flee the first and most manifest things and not rest in them; we say, that this happens to the eyes of the bat, inasmuch as they are of the bat, not inasmuch as they are eyes. Eyes of birds of course are adapted to the light in the wheel of the sun and rest in it. And thus it happens to our intellect, inasmuch as it is ours, that is with time and space (continuo), that it is repelled from the first and most manifest things of nature. But inasmuch as it is intellect and a certain divine nature, as the Philosopher says in [Book] X of the Ethics, nothing agrees with it more than to rest in the first things. And therefore the philosophers teach that someone, through separation from time and space, that is from sensible and imaginable things, might attain (adipiscatur) their intellect and, with intellect possessed, by applying it to divine things, rest [5]. Augustine in [Book I] of the Confessions [says]: “You have made us, Lord, for yourself, and our heart is restless, until it comes to you.” In this respect theology, which is first by nature of all sciences, is effected last in the order of study and inquisition. On account of which Alfarabi says that philosophers end their life in the study of it [i.e., theology].
It is also of the strongest truth in demonstration, because through revelation of the first light it demonstrates all things which it proves, but others [do so] through the light of intelligence received in creatures, which light often falls by the evil of the subject in which it is, and by the fog of phantasms. [Theology] however demonstrates through a light pure and invincible and immutable. [Thus says] Wisdom VII (29-30): “being compared with the light, she is found before it. For after this cometh night, but no evil can overcome wisdom.” [And in] John I (4-5) it is said about the light which is life: “the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Chrysostom, on the same, adds to this original word, saying: “But rather the light comprehended the darkness and dissipated it by its clarity.”
The dignity of it is also the highest, that is set not only above us, but also above the angelic intellect, [and] which God alone has and possesses perfectly. Hence Augustine says in the book On Seeing God [6]: We are able to know God, but not at all (minime) to comprehend [Him]. For to know is to touch through the intellect [what is] above the strength of our mind. To comprehend, however, is the discourse and contact of the intellect to the limits (terminos). of something, which is not able to happen in the infinite and in the limitless (incircumscripto). On account of which Damascene says that God is called infinite, because he is measured neither by place nor by time nor by intellect. And Anselm in the Proslogion says that “God is something greater than is able to be thought or understood.” Augustine in the book On the Utility of Believing says: “The feeble sharpness of the human mind is not fixed in so excellent a light, unless it is cleansed through the justice of faith.” Romans XI (34): “For who hath known the mind of the Lord?” And therefore in this science anyone will be able to make progress, but never to be ultimately (ad ultimum) perfected, since this would be to comprehend, such that nothing would be beyond their understanding. Ephesians III (20-21): “Now to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us; to him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus unto all generations, world without end.“
Notes
This translation is of the Cologne Edition.
[1]. Psalm 138 (6). In this translation, for all Scriptural quotations I will use the Douay-Rheims translation, which can be accessed online here: https://www.drbo.org/index.htm.
[2]. Wisdom 8 (1). The actual subject of the verse itself is Wisdom, not God. One might think, then, that St. Albert would use it to refer to theology, not to God. But the following lines make me think he is referring it to God.
[3]. As many have noted, ratio in general is one of the most difficult terms of medieval philosophical Latin to translate. I leave it and its inflections untranslated here because of its ambiguity. The sense is something like “concept” or “intelligibility” or “account” where the latter is given as an English translation of the Greek logos.
[4]. Or perhaps: “the same rationes, through having been received in created things, are mobile.”
[5]. This is a reference to St. Albert’s doctrine, drawn from Arabic sources, of the “adept intellect” (intellectus adeptus).
[6]. St. Albert gives the title as De Videndo Deum Ad Probam. I believe St. Albert is only paraphrasing the quote.
Disputed Questions 
Leave a comment