Albert the Great’s Critique of Lothar of Segni (Innocent III) In the De Sacrificio Missae

ALBERT THE GREAT'S CRITIQUE OF LOTHAR OF SEGNI (INNOCENT III) IN THE DE SACRIFICIO MISSAE These and other [interpretations] of this kind we consider to be the absurdities of unlettered men who profess to be doctors by reasons of their ex;cesses and nonsense, and who make theology detestable by their doctrines. De sacrificio missae III.IO: 118b 1 WITH THESE WORDS Albert the Great hurls his strongest attack against those medieval authors who employed rememorative allegory in their explanations of the Mass. Expressions of Albert's frustrations with the method of these authors punctuate the sober commentary of his explanation of the Mass, the De sacrificio missae, but usually without such vehemence.2 Who were these ' homines illitterati ' that provoked Albert to write such harsh words in a work that is otherwise quite free of such emotion? It is the purpose of this article to show that one writer who provoked Albert's special ire was Lothar of Segni, the Cardinal Deacon who was later to become Pope Innocent III, that Lothar's explanation of the Mass, the De missarum mysteriis,3 is a primary target for Albert's attack. 1 The text used in this article is found in vol. 88 of edition of Auguste Borgnet, B. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, 88 quarto vols. (Paris: Vives, 1890-99). References to this work are made in the following manner: III.IO: 118b, i.e., tractatus III, caput 10, page 118, column b. • For example: I.2: 16ab; Il.2: 42b-48a; UI.2: sob; III.28: 168a. •The most available text of Lothar's work is found in Migne: PL 217: 774-916, where it appears under the incorrect title of De sacra altaris 'ffll!JSterio. However, I have used my own text of Lothar's expositio missae: David F. Wright, 0.P., "A Medieval Commentary on the Mass: Particulae 2-8 and 5-6 of the De missarum mysteriis (ca. 1195) of Cardinal Lothar of Segni (Pope Innocent III) " (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1977), pp. 91-276. References to 584 ALBERT'S CRITIQUE OF LOTHAR OF SEGNI 585 The expositio missae genre of medieval literature originates in the Carolingian reform of the late eighth and early ninth centuries. As part of a broader program to raise and maintain a certain level of competence and understanding in the priestly ministry, the expositiones missae provided the clergy with useful explanations of the Mass. These explanations sought to explain and comment upon the prayers and ceremonial of the Mass, thereby revealing the meaning which each contained. Not all would agree on the definition of this genre of literature,4 but for practical purposes the expositio missae may be considered that genre of medieval literature which explains and comments upon what is said and/or done at Mass. Several developments in Church life had served to create a setting in which the expositi-0 literature flourished: (1) by the eighth century the Latin language of the Mass had become a clerical preserve and, as Jungmann notes, had created a new disciplina arcani which served to conceal holy things, not from the pagans, but from the faithful; 6 (2) the Church's reaction to Arianism had fostered a view of Christ which accentuated his divinity at the expense of his humanity and which now required a special group of people who could mediate between him and his people, namely, the clergy; and (3) the concept of the Eucharist as the act of an entire Christian community had given way to the concept of the Eucharist as the bona gratia, the great gift of God coming down to mankind . Such developments coupled with the fact of an increasing separation of the role of the clergy from that of the faithful in the Mass provided a field ripe for allegorization. this text are made in the following manner: DMM ID.U.490, i.e., Particula ID, caput 12, line 490. For convenience I have placed the reference to the PL text in parentheses following the reference to my text. • In the article " Expositio missae " in DACL 5.1: 1014 Dom Andre Wilmart restricts the term to certain kinds of works of...