St. Albert the Great: Mary, Mother of Beautiful Love

 Introduction

St. Albert the Great (1200-1280) needs little introduction: a German Dominican, teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor of the Church, he was one of the major philosophers of his age, as well as an important theologian.  His little treatise On Adhering to God (or On Union with God) is a beloved spiritual text.  Yet he also wrote much on Mary, though it is little known.  In particular, he wrote a twelve-book compilation entitled On the Praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary (De laudibus beatæ Mariæ Virginis), which cover various Marian topics.  For instance, Book I is about Gabriel's greeting to Mary, Book IV is on her virtues, and Book V is on her beauty (spiritual and bodily).  (II.7 also has an interesting title: "On the Feast of the Eternity of Blessed Mary.")  Books VI-XI discuss Mary's "titles," though generally this means "images in Scripture that are applied to Mary."  These get very specific, such as "Mary, conch-shell" (IX.12), "Mary, dawn" (VII.7) versus "Mary, daybreak" (VII.8), and various slight variations on the title "treasury" (X.16-20).  

What is translated below is most of VI.1, "Mary, Mother."  St. Albert takes Sir 24:24 as his source text, and he continuously delves into new interpretations of the phrases included therein, with copious Scriptural references.  The last page or so is not translated here.

Mary, Mother

(On the Praises of Mary VI.1)

St. Albert the Great

1. Mother, friend, sister, beloved, daughter, bride, wife, or widow, good woman, virgin, manful woman, princess, queen, first lady, handmaid, servant, Mother. For Sirach 24 says, I am a mother of beautiful love and knowledge and fear and holy hope (Sir 24:24). (Some copies read “greatness,” that is, “strength.”) Love is beautiful when it is natural, singular, and integral. Natural, when it is shown to one to whom it is owed, that is, God. Singular, when the faithful soul admits no lover but him, as Blessed Agnes said. Integral, when, according to Augustine, one loves with one’s whole heart, that is, with one’s whole intellect, without error, with one’s whole soul and with one’s whole will, without contradiction, with one’s whole mind, that is, with one’s whole memory, without forgetfulness. Yet, although this cannot be fulfilled along the way, still we know to what we aim. (Or “integral,” according to Blessed Bernard, means one loves sweetly, so she is not drawn away by any flattery; strongly, so she is not broken by any enemies; wisely, so she is not seduced by any error; with memory, lest love be forgotten.)

And the first love is beautiful, the second, more beautiful, the third, most beautiful. And it is called “beautiful love” to distinguish it from the three filthy loves: worldly love, which is filthy, carnal love, which is more filthy, malicious love, which is filthiest. The first is made of vainglory and earthly substance, the second, gluttony and lust, the third, iniquity and wickedness, that is, hatred and wrath. Of the first, Jeremiah 2 speaks: They walked after vanity, and they became vain. This is vainglory. Again, Lamentations 4: They who were raised in saffron have embraced dung, that is, temporal things (Lam 4:5). This is earthly substance. Of the second, Sirach 13 says, He who touches pitch, that is, ensnaring gluttony and contaminating lust, shall be defiled by it (Sir 13:1). Of the third, an authority says, He who loves does not desire malice; this is said about the Psalm, I love malice above goodness, etc. Therefore, such love is most filthy and worst. And fear: what is beautiful about fear? Indeed, that fear of God, which neglects nothing (Eccl 7:18), is a beautiful fear. He who does nothing that should be omitted, who omits nothing that should be done, has this fear. Again, he who speaks nothing about which he should keep silent, keeps silent about nothing of which he should speak. Again, who thinks nothing of what should not be thought, or the reverse. But fear that is worldly and human is filthy fear. Yet servile fear is beautiful: he who, if he does not cast out the sin he finds, at least forbids sin to approach. A more beautiful fear than the first is that of which it is said: He who loves God neglects nothing (Eccl 7:18). The most beautiful fear is that of a child, of which it is said: Fear of the Lord is holy, remaining unto the age of the age.

And, it adds, beautiful knowledge. That knowledge is beautiful which comes from faith and knowledge of the Sacred Scripture; more beautiful is that which comes through revelation and prophetic understanding; most beautiful, that which, from faith in the revelation itself, has the presence and experience of the very thing believed. And this will occur in the homeland, of which the Lord says, Many kings and prophets wanted (Lk 10:24), etc.

And holy hope. Holy and beautiful is the hope which comes from faith and merits. Holier and more beautiful is that which comes from revelation and the testimony of conscience, of which the Apostle says, This glory of ours is the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1:12). Holiest and most beautiful is that which comes through unremovable security, of which the Apostle says, I know that neither death, nor life, etc., could separate me from the charity of God (Rom 8:38-39), etc.

These are the precious generations with which the glorious Virgin promises to fill those who come to her. Wherefore it says, Come to me, all who desire me, and be filled with my generations. And all of these are explained in many other ways. And note that love is for the acquiring of prizes; fear, for the preserving of what is acquired; for, as it is said, Fear of the Lord is the religiousness of knowledge (Sir 1:17). Religiousness will keep and justify the heart (Sir 1:18), etc. Fear of the Lord is His very treasury (Is 33:6). Knowledge is for the inflammation of desire, so that we would better yearn for what we know. Hope, which does not confound (Rom 5:5), is for confirmation. And these generations are those emissions of which we read (Sgs 4:13), which incessantly and abundantly proceed from her like rivers from a spring; look in the beginning of the closed garden (Sgs 4:12).

2. Another interpretation: in this, that the blessed Virgin invites us to her generations, she warns us that the motive for contemplation is in accord with its four-fold matter, that is, what it desires, what it flees, what it believes, what it hopes for. God is to be desired, sin is to be fled, Gehenna is to be feared, the heavenly homeland is to be hoped for. Love moves us to ask, love to flee, knowledge to believe, hope to hope. She calls herself the mother of these four, that is, of the beautiful love which she receives from God’s gift and emits in light. Beautiful love is that which loves nothing beneath God, as if those things which are in away tinged with dung would stain [her]. Therefore, she deemed everything dung, so that she would gain Christ (Phil 3:8). Indeed, Abraham, Isaac, and the other holy men, Sarah, Rebecca, and the other holy women of the Old Testament, had love which was holy, but not beautiful in every manner of beauty: for their love was divided, and, thus, not in every way beautiful, since he who touches pitch, that is, temporal things, through love, is defiled by the other thing’s defilement (Sir 13:1). But Mary’s love was pure, since it was undivided, since she fully despised temporal things, and was in no way defiled by them. Likewise, she first vowed virginity, and, therefore, she is called “mother of beautiful love,” which she found and emitted in light, like a mother who conceives a boy. For, like the son she afterwards conceived by the Holy Spirit, so also she first conceived the proposition of virginity and poverty by the Holy Spirit. Again, she does not touch pitch, that is, flesh, lest she be defiled by it, but she lived in the flesh beyond flesh, and in the world above the world. For she takes up the wings of the eagle (Is 40:31), that is, virginity and voluntary poverty, and she flew upon the wings of the winds (Ps 104:3), that is, the Patriarchs and the Prophets. For she is the woman to whom was given two wings (Rev 12:14), namely, virginity and poverty, so that she might flee the face of the serpent, who subjected the first woman to the curse, in sorrow you shall give birth (Gen 3:16). Therefore, it is said to her, Blessed are you among women (Lk 1:42).

She is also the mother of fear, teaching one to flee what is to be fled, and she is the mother, since she emits this in light, since she is the first who turned away from, not only sin, but even the actions of sinners. Which is made clear through this, that, having been magnified by the conception of the Son of God, she humbled herself in yielding to Elizabeth, filling the verse, The greater you are, humble yourself in all things (Sir 3:18). Therefore she is called “the closed gate” (Ez 44:1-3), namely, closed to meeting sinners. Therefore it is said, She will not let Belial pass through her again, but he is wholly cut off (Nah 1:15), since she bruised the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15), that is, even the beginning of temptation, signified by Jael who smashed the head of Sisera with the hammer of fear (Jgs 5:26), and by Judith, who cut off Holofernes’ head (Jud 13).

And [the mother] of knowledge, that is, revealed faith, since, namely, the revelation of faith is made from her and in her, since she gives an example to the believer of what is to be believed, as it is said in Luke 1, Blessed she who believed (Lk 1:45). For she is the moon, illuminating the world of darkness with the example of faith. Thus beautiful like the moon (Sgs 6:10). And she is the star, leading the Magi to Christ with the example of faith. She is also the dawn ending the night of infidelity, and the day, that is, leading the light of faith. She is also the mother of the sun of justice (Mal 4:2), and the lamp of grace and faith placed upon the lampstand (Mt 5:15). And, therefore, the mother of knowledge.And [the mother] of holy hope. Look: by the example of her hope, she teaches what is to hoped for. For she knew that one thing is necessary (Lk 10:42). And what is first to be sought is the kingdom of God (Mt 6:33). And, because of this, she asks one thing from the Lord. For she is the lamp with which the festal day begins (Sir 43:7). The festal day is the day of eternity. For in her was the beginning of the festal day, since she, yearning for things above, despised all earthly things. Because of this, through the example of her hope, she was our column of cloud in the day, that is, in prosperity, and of fire in the night of adversity. She was also an example, not only of hope, but also of holy, that is, immobile, hope. For among the stars falling from heaven, that is, the disciples from faith, and saying, But we hoped (Lk 24:21), etc., she alone remained fixed in the firmament, that is, Christ, Who is the firmament dividing waters from waters (Gen 1:7). For her lamp, that is, faith, was not extinguished in the night of the Lord’s passion. Or, she is called the mother of holy, that is, firm, hope, since she gives the grace of persevering in the good. Or, mother of holy hope, since, in contrast to Eve, who hoped evilly that she would be like God, and, therefore, died; but this is the mother even of holy hope, since, gaining life, she revoked the sentence of death, signified by Esther, who revoked the sentence of death. Again, because of this, she also says in the same chapter,¹ In me is all hope of life and virtue (Sir 24:25). All hope, because the hope of every good. A double good, that which is the end, that is, life, and that which is for the end, that is, virtue. And she is the hope of life, since, through her, we hope to have life, and of virtue, that is, constancy. As if she said: “In me is all hope of having and continuing life.” For in her is our hope, namely, the hope of life and of virtue, through confidence in obtaining it, since she is the bow in the clouds, as a sign of justification (Gen 9:12-17), since the justified ascend through her.

Another interpretation: In me is all hope. For in her is all hope, the ancients’ and ours. Or, all hope: since one should not but hope in any other except Christ and Mary. For cursed is the man who confides in man (Jer 17:5) in order to have eternal life and the way of virtue with which to fight against vice. Or, all hope of life. For death reigned in the world before the birth of the blessed Mary, death which was introduced by the first parents, who invited it with hands and word (Wis 1:16). But, through Mary, who begot Christ, death was suffocated. Wherefore Christ says I will be your death, O death (Hos 13:14).

Another interpretation: Mary can truly say these words after she conceives the Savior. As if she said, “He is in me through assumption of the flesh, from which is all hope of triple life, life of nature, life of grace, life of glory, and of virtue.” Since He is the one Who gives virtue² to the weary (Is 40:29) and, to those who are not, He multiplies strength and might. Or, “In me is all hope of virtue,” since she has in herself every theological and cardinal virtue. She also supplies those hoping in her with those virtues, by her prayers and examples. Therefore, we ought to hope in the blessed Virgin, for, as it says in Proverbs 29, he who hopes in the Lady, that is, Mary, which in Syriac is interpreted as “Lady,”³ shall be raised high (Prv 29:25), that is, raised up, and this both in the present and in the future. He shall be raised up, that is, above the flesh, the world, and the devil, through grace in the present; he shall be raised up through glory in the future.

3. Another interpretation: I am the mother of beautiful love, etc. Note that it says four things which can and ought to refer to the Son, Who is most beautiful and most to be loved, alone to be feared, to be known with all effort, and in Whom alone one is to hope. Therefore it says, I am the mother of beautiful love, that is, of Christ Who is beautiful, wherefore it says in Hebrews 1, Who, when He is the splendor of glory (Heb 1:3), etc., and this is proper to Him, because of His divinity. And in the Psalms, Handsome in form, not only beyond the sons of men, but even beyond the thousands of Angels (Ps 45:2). For someone says that His appearance was such with regard to His humanity, as appeared appeared in the Transfiguration, but He appeared despicable to men, which we do not say to assert it, but to report it. Again, Wisdom 7: He is the whiteness of eternal light and the mirror without spot, with regard to divinity (Wis 7:26). 1 Pet 1: On Whom the Angels desired to gaze (1 Pet 1:12). And at Whose beauty sun and moon marvel, and this is with regard to divinity. Again, He is handsome in form beyond the sons of men, and white and ruddy (Sgs 5:10): this is with regard to humanity.

4. [Mother] of love. Christ is emphatically called “love,” as if tying to things together, with regard to the two natures, that is, God and man, and the man taken up by God in the unity of person when the Word became flesh (Jn 1:15). For, through the love that He had for the human race, He connected a human nature to Himself, for the love is like a kind of most powerful union in goods between lover and thing loved, and, naturally, that which is loved turns the lover into its own nature. Also, through the love which He has for us, He connects us to Himself, since he who adheres to God is one spirit with Him (1 Cor 6:17), namely, in the unity of love and grace. Wherefore the Psalmist says: For me, to adhere to God is good (Ps 73:28), and the rest. Also, through the love with which He loves man, He connects man himself to Himself, and, as it were, glues them together, that he not flow away through vices and sins. For the heart of the foolish sinner is like a shattered jar (Sir 21:14). Or, again, [she is the mother] of beautiful love, that is, Christ, as was said above, He Who alone loves beautifully, and from Whom one has beautiful love: for He is charity (1 Jn 4:8). Therefore, [He is] beautiful love, since charity is a form gilded by the beauty of the virtues, Or, Mary is said to be the mother of beautiful love because she makes her lovers and friends similar to Christ her Son, Who is most beautiful, reforming in them, through grace, the likeness of the Son, which, sinning, they lost. What appears in Theophilus: since, after he was reconciled to the Son, through the mediation of the mother, having received most holy Communion, his face shone like the sun.

5. And [she is the mother] of fear, that is, Christ, Who alone is to be feared. Wherefore He Himself says, Do not fear those who slay the body (Mt 10:28). Much less, then, should they be feared who take away fame, or temporal substance, or something in this way. But fear Him Who can send body and soul into Gehenna (Mt 10;28). Indeed, He is most to be feared, lest Christ be lost through sinning: for “God” is to be understood as “fear.” As the poet said: First in the world, fear made the Gods.⁴ About this fear, that is, about God, Jacob says to Laban, Unless the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, that is, the God of Isaac, were with me (Gen 31:42), etc. The stranger and proud man will not be frightened by fear (Sir 32:18), that is, God, says the Gloss, Who is the fear and love of the faithful. Or, he will not be frightened of fear, that is, God, the One committing him to eternal torture.

6. And [she is the mother] of knowledge. For Christ is emphatically called “knowledge,” because He alone knows all things, and because He alone gives the grace of true knowledge; for “God” is interpreted as “the One seeing.” And, before His eyes, all things are bare and open (Heb 4:13). For His eyes are much more shining than the sun, looking upon all the ways of men (Sir 23:19). You have this authority best expounded in the title, Blessed is the fruit of your womb. But Christ is called “knowledge” from His active knowing, because, when Christ was sacrificed on the Cross, He knew His Father through obedience, His mother through custody, His household through mercy. He knew His Father through obedience, saying, Father, not My will, but Yours be done (Lk 22:42). [He knew] His mother through custody, assigning her to John, when He said, Mother, behold your son (Jn 19:26). [He knew] His household through mercy, for its sins, that is, the penalty of sins, He mercifully bore in His body upon the tree (1 Pet 2:24). And, therefore, He is called “lamb” from “knowing,” or, from agnos, that is, “pious.”⁵ For as the lamb knows its mother by bleat alone, and at once runs to her, so Christ, seeing His mother next to the Cross, ran to her with the affection of pious compassion, and commended her to the disciple. Also, [there is] passive knowledge, since the mother knew her crucified Son when all the Apostles fled, and she remained with Him.

7. And [she is the mother] of holy hope: for Christ is our hope. Wherefore the Psalm says, The Lord is my hope from my youth (Ps 71:5). And He is sacred hope, that is, immobile and firm, because one is to hope in Him firmly and immovably. Wherefore the Psalm says, Hope in Him, all the congregation of the people (Ps 62:8). Again, In you, Lord, I have hoped, let me not be confounded unto eternity (Ps 31:1). He will be the expectation of the nations (Gen 49:10). If He makes delay, await Him with the long-suffering of faith, for, coming, He will come (Hab 2:3). Coming in the first advent to confer virtue, which is for the end, He will come in the second to confer eternal life, which is the end. Therefore, He says: In Me is all the hope of life and virtue (Sir 24:25). Or, all hope, that is, all the hope of present good through the gathering of grace, and of future [good] through the remuneration of glory, for the Lord will give grace and glory (Ps 84:11). Or, all hope, of the ancients and of the moderns. And well does He say, In Me, since cursed is the man who confides in man, that is, in another (Jer 17:5). [The hope] of eternal life and of the way of virtue by which to fight against vices. Therefore, Christ is compared to a flower, without which one would not have hope for fruit, nor, without His grace, is any good to be hoped for.

One should hope in Christ. For He is most lavish, giving richly to all and not reproaching (Jas 1:5). Wherefore Ahasuerus gave gifts according to princely magnificence (Est 2:18). For He gives temporal things to sustain the elect, and eternal things as recompense, but, to the reprobate, He gives temporal things here as recompense. Wherefore He says of them, Amen I say to you, they have received their reward (Mt 6:2). Therefore, it is said of Him, Length of days is in His right hand, and, in His left hand, riches and glory (Prv 3:16), so that it would exhort us to ask of Him. Thus Seek and you shall find (Mt 7:7); until now, you have not asked anything (Jn 16:24), etc. He gives more than He is asked for. Where He says to the thief, asking for His memory when He comes in His Kingdom, Amen I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise (Lk 23:43).

Another interpretation: I am the mother of beautiful love, etc. These could be the words of the Virgin after she conceived the Savior, enumerating the benefits of her motherhood, enumerating her virtues by which she was prepared to beget the Savior. Therefore she says, I am the mother of beautiful love. Beautiful love is the Virgin’s charity, by which she loved God, which no contagion of sin stained. And of fear, since He prepared in her a place for the Creator and the Holy Spirit, generating humility in her when she was frightened by the excellence of the angelic greeting. Wherefore the Angel said to her, Do not fear, Mary, etc. And at that time this verse was fulfilled in her: Upon whom will I look, except the pauper, and the contrite in spirit, and the one trembling at My words (Is 66:2)? And of knowledge, in which “faith” is noted. For through the faith which was noted there—Be it done to me, etc—she conceived the Son of God and she who first believed knew by experience. Where it is said to her, Blessed are you who believed that they would be accomplished in you (Lk 1:45), etc. And of holy hope, which she is shown to have where she responds, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word. For unless she believed and hoped that what was said to her could be and would be, she would not have thus responded.

8. Again, the blessed Virgin is called “mother of grace.” A mother has the beginning of conception from another, since the Lord created in her the fullness of every spiritual good, which she, as mother, sent forth into light. Therefore she says, The Lord has done great things for me, for He is powerful (Lk 1:49). Therefore, she also says, In me is all grace, namely, operating, cooperating, and consummating [grace]. And note that the letters are so ordered: In me is all grace of life, or way, and truth; and this, diasyrmically,⁶ means “all,” so that one could say “all grace,” or “all grace of life, or way.” Or, “all grace,” that is, everything graceful that is done. Or, “all grace,” since, when Christ descended into the Virgin, all the fullness of charisms descended into her. And from that fullness we have all received grace for grace (Jn 1:16). For when the spirit of the Lord rested upon Christ, the spirit of wisdom and intellect (Is 11:2),

1 That is, the same chapter as the main verse he is analyzing here, Sir 24:24.

2 The Latin virtus can mean both “virtue” and “strength” or “might”;

3 In Syriac, the word mar means “lord” or “sir”; it is used refer to God (‘the Lord,” “our Lord”), and it is also used as a title for bishops (“Mar Ignatios”). (Recall maran atha, “our Lord, come,” in 1 Cor 16:22.) The actual female form in Syriac s marth,

4 Statius, Thebaid III.661. Statius, a 1^st-century Latin epic poet, was well-loved in the Middle Ages, and he is one of Dante’s guides in Purgatory. He was often considered a closet Christian, mainly due a single phrase: reticenda deorum crimina (Thebaid I.230-231), “silence-meet crimes of the gods,” or, “crimes of the gods that one should keep silent about.” The phrase can be interpreted either as meaning crimes committed against the gods (in which case it is in line with Roman piety), or as referring to crimes committed by the gods (in which case it can be seen as a crypto-Christian’s indictment of the pagan gods).

5 There is multilingual wordplay here. In Latin, the term St. Albert is using for “knowing” is agnoscendo, related to the term agnitio (“knowledge”), found in his source text, Sir 24:24; the Latin word for “lamb” is agnus; agnos (ἁγνός) is a Greek term meaning “pure,” “chaste,” “holy.”

6 St. Albert seems to be mixing this up with another rhetorical figure: diasyrmos means “ridicule,” particularly ridicule that rips away a pretended righteousness, revealing the evil or self-serving nature hidden beneath.

Source: Beati Alberti Magni...Operum Tomus Vigesimus, ed. R.A.P.F. Petrus Iammy (Lyons: Claudii Prost, Petri et Claudi Rigaud, Hieronymi Delagarde, Ioan. Ant. Huguetan, 1651), 183-186.  It should be noted that this volume paginates each section separately; the page numbers given are for the section including On the Praises of Mary.

Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.