Albert the Great on Revelatory Dreaming and Prophecy: Making Magic Theological with Pseudo-Dionysius

Abstract

Abstract:The medieval philosopher Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) dealt with the topics of revelatory dreaming and prophecy in a number of his works. The aim of this paper is to show how Albert worked to develop a "grand unified theory" of prophecy, drawing together naturalized ideas of foreseeing possible to human cognition with the faculty of prophecy as he knew it from the Bible and the Church fathers. This article shows how Albert treats revelatory dreaming in tandem with prophecy; he relies on natural features of light and "species" to explain how prophets saw the future in the "mirror of eternity," structuring a unifying theory of prophecy depicted especially in his commentary on the Pseudo-Dionysius corpus and De somno et vigilia (On sleep and waking).