Alexander Hales(also
Halensis,
Alensis,
Halesius,
Alesius; called
Doctor Irrefragabilis and
Theologorum Monarcha) was a
scholastic theologian.
He was
born at Hales
, Gloucestershire
, England
ca. 1183,
and died in Paris
on August
21, 1245. He was educated in the monastery at Hales, studied
and lectured at Paris, and by 1210 was a master of the sacred page
in the faculty of theology. He entered the
Franciscan order sometime around 1236 thus
creating the first formal connection between the Order and the
University of Paris.
His work
A medieval scholastic
While it is common for scholars to state that Alexander was the
first to write a commentary on the
Sentences of
Peter
Lombard, it is not quite accurate. There were a number of
"commentaries" on the
Sentences, but Alexander appears to
have been the first magisterial commentary. In doing so, he
elevated Lombard's work from a major theological resource to an
authoritative text 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.
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 His disputed questions after 1236 remain unpublished.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
Quodlibetal, 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
Quodlibet also remains
unedited. It is because of this questioning that he became known as
the 'Doctor irrefragabilis'.
Theologian
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
(
Roger Bacon sarcastically referred to
it weighing as much as a horse!) was unfinished at his death and
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. Bonaventure once referred to
Alexander as "our father and master" (
noster pater et
magister), but it is unlikely that the Seraphic Doctor ever
studied under Alexander.
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.
His doctrines
Among the doctrines which were specially developed and, so to
speak, fixed by Alexander of Hales, are those of the
thesaurus
supererogationis perfectorum, and of the
character indelibilis of
baptism,
confirmation, and
ordination. That doctrine had been written about
much earlier by
Augustine of
Hippo and was eventually defined a
dogma
by the
Council of Trent. He also
posed an important question about the cause of the
Incarnation: would Christ have been incarnated
if humanity had never sinned? The question eventually became the
focal point for a philosophical issue (the theory of possible
worlds) and a theological topic (the distinction between God's
absolute power (
potentia absoluta) and His ordained power
(
potentia ordinata).
John Gerson tells us “The doctrine of Alexander is of a wealth
surpassing all expression. It is said that someone asked St. Thomas
what was the best manner of studying theology; he replied that it
was by attaching oneself to a Master. And to which Doctor? he was
asked again. To Alexander of Hales, the
Angelic Doctor replied."
Compare
Hailes
Abbey
, Gloucestershire, founded in 1245/6.
References