Postilla super Isaiam, and: Postillae super Ieremiam et Postillae super Ezechielem Fragmenta by Alberti Magni Ord. Fr. Praed. (review)

212FRANCISCAN STUDIES delivered until the day of the Annunciation." But these dissenters are even more rare during the Byzantine Period itself (from the Ninth to the Fifteenth Century). At the beginning of the Fourtheenth Century, the historian Nicephorus Callistas in commenting on a type of Mary presented by Cosmas the Hymnodist, repeats at his own risk the opinion of Severas and James of Sarugh. But immediately afterwards he is taken by remorse for having dared to discover a spot in the Immaculate One. He concludes his commentary in asking Her pardon. Another denial of the original holiness of Mary is found in Isidor, Archbishop of Thessalonica (in the Fifteenth Century). He denies exphcitly, in a homily on the Assumption that which he has clearly affirmed in three other discourses. We have yet to solve this enigma. These two exceptions (Nicephorus and Isidor) rather strengthens the unanimous consent of the great Byzantine orators, who celebrate the perpetual holiness of the Mother of God. We find on their Ups not only equivalent affirmations of the dogma, but also direct and explicit affirmations. Many names, of which George Scholarios is the most renown, teach the Marian privilege with Scholastic exactitude. That Mary was an ideal type of humanity was taught by the Byzantine Church up to the Sixteenth Century. This Church did not take part in the great controversy which went on between the universities of the West (after the Twelfth Century). The Byzantine Church has followed the ancient traditions on this point. The radical denial of the Marian privilege which seems to have crystalized after the pontifical definition in 1854 is a result of an unfounded polemic spirit. The author concludes his work with the following extract: "The thesis of contemporary dissident theologians maintains that the Mother of God would have been purified from original sin only on the day of the Annunciation, but this thesis can claim only four or five secondary names of the Patristic Period, and still these testimonies are shrouded in obscurity and lack precision; but it is in flagrant contradiction to the Angelic Salutation in the Gospel of St. Luke. This position cannot be held, . . . Let us hope for the disappearance of this polemic spirit and may the dissident Orient come back to the Catholic unity, under the protection of Her Whom they honor in their Liturgy, today as in the past, under the titles of the 'AU Holy and AU Immaculate One'." Edward M. Wilson Christ the King Seminary, St. Bonaventure, N. Y. Alberti Magni Ord. Fr. Praed. Postilla super Isaiam. Primum edidit F. Siepmann. Postillae super Ieremiam et Postillas super Ezechielem Fragmenta. Edidit H. Ostlender (S. D. E. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia XIX), Münster, Westfalen, 1952; XXX + 685 pp. Though known to moderns primarily as a philosopher and heavenly patron of those who cultivate the natural sciences, Saint Albert was truly the Doctor Universalis in the breadth of his interests and the extent of his writings. He Book Reviews213 cannot be neglected as the theologian and the student of Sacred Scripture. If the first volume of the Cologne edition presented the unedited ethical and moral treatise JDe bono (cf. Franc. Studies, 13, 1953, n. 2—3, 219—220), it is opportune that the second, which will be the nineteenth of the complete series, should contain hitherto unknown postiUae on the Sacred Text. The bulk of the volume (pp. 1—632) is occupied by the commentary on the whole of Isaías, previously unedited; while two fragments on Jeremías (part of chapter 14) and Ezechiel (six verses of the first chapter), now edited in definitive form, fiU the few remaining pages. Four excellent indices are added; there is no table of contents, since this is hardly needed. The full doctrinal evaluation of the text must be left to the professional theologian and scriptural scholar; the index rerum will here provide the former with an exceUent aid, while to the latter perhaps the Messianic portions of the prophet will prove the most important. At the same time, we need not hesitate to say that Saint Albert shows himself, in the words of Saint Bonaventure , potens in expositions Scripturarum (Brevil., Prol. § 6, 2), since relying largely...