Die Gedanken des heiligen Albertus Magnus über die Gottesmutter by Albert Fries, C.Ss.R. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Die Gedanken des heiligen Albertus Magnus iiber die Gottesmutter. (Thomistische Studien. Schriftenreihe der " Freiburger Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie und Theologie" VII. Band.) By ALBERT FRIES, C.Ss.R. Freiburg Schweiz: Paulusverlag, 1959. Pp. 4~8, with indices. ~6 Swiss Francs. It is now several years since two scholars, working independently, showed that St. Albert the Great did not write the famous Mariale super missus est. Through more than half a century of critical studies, the Albertine authorship of the Mariale had never been seriously called into question, even when other writings were recognized as inauthentic, e. g., De laudibus (actually Richard of St. Lawrence), and the Biblia mariana. St. Albert was declared a Doctor of the Church in 198~; that he was also doctor marianus was usually demonstrated from the Mariale, with its stress on Mary's role in the redemptive work of Christ, not only through her consent at the Annunciation, but also by her compassion on Calvary. Up to the midfifties , many studies on the mediation and spiritual maternity of Mary invoked the authority of St. Albert, chiefly on the strength of the Mariale. In 1954 Albert Fries, C. Ss. R., a member of the St. Albert Institute for the new Cologne critical edition of St. Albert (in publication since 1951), reported on his researches. After examining the Mariale, Biblia mariana, Compendium super Ave Maria, and other shorter Marian titles attributed to Albert, he came to the verdict that all these expressly Marian works were not written by St. Albert. (Cf. Die unter dem Namen des Albertus Magnus iiberlieferten Mariologische Schriften, literarkristische Untersuchung , in the series Beitraege zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Band XXVII-Heft 4, Muenster Westf., Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1954.) In the same year, and on the same basis of internal evidence, Bruno Korosak, 0. F. M., published Mariologia S. Alberti Magni eiusque coaequalium , in the Bibliotheca Mariana Medii Aevi, fasc. VIII, Romae, Academia Mariana Internationalis, 1954. Korosak also excludes the Mariale and a number of other titles from the list of genuine Albertine writings, although he admits as probably authentic some of the smaller works refused by Fries. It is no wonder that the question began to be asked, " What then remains of the Marian theology of St. Albert the Great? " At the end of his 1954 volume, Fries published a list of authentic Marian writings of St. Albert with capsule indications of their content. Now, in his new book, 478 BOOK REVIEWS 479 Die Gedanken . . . Fries shows that a great body of Marian doctrine is to be found in St. Albert's exegetical and theological writings. Rather than being a " maverick," St. Albert was very much a theologian of his time: he did not essay a systematic treatise in Mariology: that was not to be effectively done until Suarez in the seventeenth century. Rather, he studied our Lady; her privileges, her place in the plan of salvation, in the context of the rest of theology and of sacred Scripture. Many of the positions on Marian doctrine taken by Albert became classic-to be adopted by St. Thomas as his own, and to provide the solid and sober groundwork for further scholastic development. Fries arranges his materials in chronological order-twenty-four titles, both printed and manuscript, which contains Marian passages. They cover ascetic theology, systematic theology (e.g., commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, but also De incarnatione, and even Quaestiones mariologicae), and exegesis (as the Postilla super Isaiam, but especially the gospel commentaries). The commentary on St. Luke receives the most attention-pp. ~09-8~5, a small book in itself. In addition to the Lucan commentary, the Super III Sententiarum and the Commentarium super Matthaeum rank as the most important sources of Albert's Marian theology. The central element in Albert's Mariology is its Christological orientation . Fries puts it well "Not the Mariology of a system, but Mariology in a situation, as a function of Christology." Nonetheless, Marian theology may be called a preoccupation of the saint, who uses every opportunity to speak of Mary in connection with other truths of the faith or in commenting on sacred Scripture. The Eucharist and our Lady are the two...