The Church at the End of Times. Prophecy and Eschatology in Albert the Great’s Sermons and Biblical Commentaries

Eschatology is not usually regarded as a strength of thirteenth-century Dominican theology, especially when considering instead its key role in the theological reflection of the Ordo Minorum. At best, Dominican theologians are credited with focusing their preaching on the salvation of the individual soul, but they do not seem to be interested in a general reflection on tempora novissima. This argument seems to apply even more to a theologian like Albert the Great, usually presented as engaged in making Aristotle intelligible to the Latins or in using philosophical categories to read sacra doctrina. Yet in his biblical commentaries Albert does not shy away from the task of making a precise exegesis of the various prophecies about the end of times. Moreover, he makes eschatological discourse one of the main themes of his homiletic writings. In explaining the eschatological teaching of Luke’s gospel (21,5-36) Albert does not hesitate to read the signs of the end of times as a prophecy about the future and the end of the Catholic Church. Signs in the sun foreshadow the decline of both papal and bishop’s authorities due to yielding to vice and concupiscence (Super Lucam, ed. Borgnet, p. 644). The prediction The power of the heavens will be shaken announces the dissolution of the religious orders that will lose their missionary impetus (Super Lucam, p. 645). Then, the well-know image of the destruction of the temple is seen as an anticipation of the future diaspora of the faithful (living stones). (Super Lucam, p. 631). A new Church model for the future seems to be emerging: sapientia in verbis and patientia in verberibus will be wings (alae) with which an impoverished and deconstructed Church will fly in the desert ut defendatur a dracone diabolo, qui eam persequitur (Super Lucam, p. 639). These and other predictions about the tempora novissima and particularly the destiny of the Church underlie Albert’s homiletic writings. The fourteenth Leipzig Sermon, for example, is essentially focused on the exhortation vigilate, as virtuous attitude to escape ruin of both the world, since qua hora non putatis, Filius hominis veniet ... sicut fur in nocte. Then, the entire Augsburger Predigtzyklus (seven sermons), devoted to the Gospel verse Non potest civitas abscondi supra montem posita, is aimed at relating eschatological discourse to an in-depth analysis on the thirteenth-century Church. In some passages Albert does not seem merely to make a prediction about the future, like in the biblical commentaries, but rather to indicate an model pursuable in the present.