Alexander of Hales · Lablypedia

Life

Alexander was born at Hales, Shropshire (today Halesowen, West Midlands), England, between 1180 and 1186. He came from a rather wealthy country family, studied at the University of Paris, and became a master of arts sometime before 1210. He began to read theology in 1212 or 1213, and became a regent master in 1220 or 1221. He introduced the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the basic textbook for the study of theology. During the University strike of 1229, Alexander participated in an embassy to Rome to discuss the place of Aristotle in the curriculum. Having held a prebend at Holborn (prior to 1229) and a canonry of St. Paul's in London (1226–1229), he visited England in 1230 and received a canonry and an archdeaconry in Coventry and Lichfield, his native diocese. He taught at Paris in the academic year 1232–33, but was appointed to a delegation by Henry III of England in 1235, along with Simon Langton and Fulk Basset, to negotiate the renewal of the peace between England and France.

In 1236 or 1237, aged about 50, Alexander entered the Franciscan Order after considering both the Cistercians and the Dominicans. He thus became the first Franciscan friar to hold a university chair. His doctrinal positions became the starting point of the Franciscan school of theology. He continued to teach and to represent the university, and participated in the First Council of Lyon in the winter of 1245.

After returning to Paris, Alexander fell ill, possibly due to an epidemic then sweeping the city. He passed his chair on to John of La Rochelle, setting the precedent for that chair to be held by a Franciscan, and soon after died in Paris on 21 August 1245.

As the first Franciscan to hold a chair at the University of Paris, Alexander had many significant disciples. He was called Doctor Irrefragibilis (Irrefutable Teacher) and Doctor Doctorum (Teacher of Teachers). The latter title is especially suggestive of his role in educating several Franciscans who later became influential thinkers in the faculty, among them Bonaventure, John of La Rochelle, Odo Rigaldus, William of Middleton, and Richard Rufus of Cornwall. Bonaventure, who may not have studied under Alexander directly, nevertheless referred to him as his "father and master" and wished to "follow in his footsteps."

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Historiographical contribution

Alexander was said to have been among the earliest scholastics to engage with Aristotle's newly translated writings. Between 1220 and 1227, he wrote Glossa in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (A Gloss on the Four Books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard) (composed in the mid-12th century), which was particularly important because it was the first time that a book other than the Bible was used as a basic text for theological study. This steered the development of scholasticism in a more systematic direction, inaugurating an important tradition of writing commentaries on the Sentences as a fundamental step in the training of master theologians.

A medieval scholastic

In doing so, he elevated Lombard's work from a mere theological resource to the basic framework of questions and problems from which masters could teach. The commentary (or more correctly titled a Gloss) survived in student reports from Alexander's teaching in the classroom and so it provides a major insight into the way theologians taught their discipline in the 1220s. As is the case with Glossa and Quaestiones Disputatae, much of his work is probably written in the form of notes on his oral teachings by students, though the content is definitely his.

For his contemporaries, however, Alexander's fame was his inexhaustible interest in disputation. His disputations prior to his becoming a Franciscan cover over 1,600 pages in their modern edition. His disputed questions after 1236 remain unpublished. Alexander was also one of the first scholastics to participate in the Quodlibeta, a university event in which a master had to respond to any question posed by any student or master over a period of three days. Alexander's Quodlibetal Questions also remain unedited.

Theologian

At the beginning of 1236, he entered the Franciscan order (he was at least 50) and was the first Franciscan to hold a chair at the University of Paris. He held this post until shortly before his death in Paris in 1245. When he became a Franciscan and thus created a formal Franciscan school of theology at Paris, it was soon clear that his students lacked some of the basic tools for the discipline. Alexander responded by beginning a Summa theologiae that is now known as the Summa fratris Alexandri. Alexander drew mainly from his own disputations, but also selected ideas, arguments and sources from his contemporaries. It treats in its first part the doctrines of God and his attributes; in its second, those of creation and sin; in its third, those of redemption and atonement; and, in its fourth and last, those of the sacraments. This massive text, which Roger Bacon would later sarcastically describe as weighing as much as a horse, was unfinished at his death; his students, William of Middleton and John of Rupella, were charged with its completion. It was certainly read by the Franciscans at Paris, including Bonaventure.

Alexander was an innovative theologian. He was part of the generation that first grappled with the writings of Aristotle. While there was a ban on using Aristotle's works as teaching texts, theologians like Alexander continued to exploit his ideas in their theology. Two other uncommon sources were promoted by Alexander: Anselm of Canterbury, whose writings had been ignored for almost a century, gained an important advocate in Alexander and he used Anselm's works extensively in his teaching on Christology and soteriology; and, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, whom Alexander used in his examination of the theology of Orders and ecclesiastical structures.

Though he also continued the tradition of Aristotle- and Augustine-focused thought in the Franciscan school, he did so through an Anselm-directed lens. In fact, Alexander was one of the major influences for the advancement of Anselmian thought in the 13th century. One such example is the idea of original sin as a lack of justice. Alexander believed that original sin is both a punishment as well as a cause for punishment. That is to say, the body is corrupt, but the soul is clean. Alexander advances the idea that it would not be God's fault to create a being that would bind the ‘corrupt’ with the ‘clean’. He advanced a highly original response that the soul naturally desires the body. Consequently, God is both merciful in giving the soul what it wants, as well as just in punishing the soul for binding with the corrupt flesh. Either the soul knew that the body was corrupt, or it did not (in which case it would be “laboring under ignorance”); both of these considerations are cause for divine punishment.

Alexander is also known for rejecting the idea that there are many things in God's mind, instead claiming that it is more perfect to know just one thing. He did not start off with this view, though. In the Glossa, he openly suggests the idea of the multiplicity of divine ideas. In his later work, Quaestio disputata antequam erat Frater 46, he finally rejects the plurality of divine ideas, and this theme continues through the rest of his works. Specifically, in one of his last works, De scientia divina, he concludes that the idea of plurality itself is strictly temporal, a human notion.

One of his more famous works, the Summa, is important because of its system for determining if a war is just. There are six requirements for determining this: authority and attitude (in reference to who declares the war), intention and condition (in reference to the soldiers), merit (of the enemy) and just cause. Just cause becomes the overarching moral principle for declaring war in three ways: the relief of good people, coercion of the wicked, and peace for all. Alexander put ‘peace for all’ at the end of the list to amplify its importance.

Writings

Alexander of Hales. Glossa in quatuor libros sententiarum Petri Lombardi. Edited by the Quaracchi Fathers. Bibliotheca Franciscana scholastica medii aevi, t. 12–15. Rome: Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1951–1957.
Alexander of Hales. Quaestiones disputatae antequam esset frater. Edited by the Quaracchi Fathers. Bibliotheca Franciscana scholastica medii aevi, t. 19–21. Quaracchi: Collegii S. Bonaventurae,1960.
Alexander of Hales (attributed). Summa universis theologiae, (Summa fratris Alexandri), edited by Bernardini Klumper and the Quaracchi Fathers, 4 vols. Rome: Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1924–1948.