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Alexander of Hales

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Alexander of Hales
OFM
Doctor Alexander of (H)ales by George Glover. Line engraving, mid 17th century.
Doctor Alexander of (H)ales by George Glover. Line engraving, mid 17th century.
Born c. 1185
Hales, Shropshire, England
Died 21 August 1245
Paris, France (aged 59-60)
Education
Alma mater University of Paris
Philosophical work
Era Medieval philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Scholasticism
Main interests Metaphysics, theology

Alexander of Hales (also Halensis, Alensis, Halesius, Alesius /əˈliːsiəs/; c. 1185 – 21 August 1245)—known also as Doctor Irrefragibilis, or "Irrefutable Teacher" (so-called by Pope Alexander IV in the bull De Fontibus Paradisi), and as Theologorum Monarcha (or "King of Theologians")—was a Franciscan friar, theologian, and philosopher instrumental to the development of scholasticism.

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.[1] 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.[2] 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,[3] 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).[4] 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.[4] 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."[1]

Works

Alexander is known for reflecting the works of several other Middle Age thinkers, especially those of Anselm of Canterbury and Augustine of Hippo. He was also known to quote thinkers such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Richard of Saint-Victor. He differs from those in his genre as he is known to reflect his own interests and those of his generation. When using the works of his authorities, Alexander does not only review their reasoning but also gives conclusions, expands on them, and offers his agreements and disagreement with them. He also differed in that he appealed to pre-Lombardian figures, and by referencing Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux, whose works were not cited as frequently by other 12th-century scholastics. Aristotle is also quite frequently quoted in Alexander's works. Alexander was fascinated by the Pseudo-Dionysian hierarchy of angels and in how their nature can be understood, given Aristotelian metaphysics.[5]

Among the doctrines which were specially developed and, so to speak, fixed by Alexander of Hales, are the thesaurus supererogationis perfectorum (treasury of supererogatory merits) and the character indelibilis (sacramental character) of baptism, confirmation, and ordination. That doctrine had been written about much earlier by Augustine 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 on the distinction between God's absolute power (potentia absoluta) and His ordained power (potentia ordinata).

Summa Universae Theologiae

Alexander wrote a summary and commentary of Peter Lombard's four books of the Sentences. It had exposed the trinitarian theology of the Greeks.[6] This had been the most important writing that Alexander had claimed, and it had been the earliest in the genre. 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. Authorship is more contentious for this work; although he started this work, he died before it could be finished, and it most likely was more a product of people other than Alexander.[7] There were a number of "commentaries" on the Sentences, but Alexander's appears to have been the first magisterial commentary. Although it was Alexander's most significant writing, it had not been completed, therefore leaving historians with many questions on the reliability and quality of the writing. This was taken into consideration when the Summa had been examined by Victorin Doucet for different editions of them. The sources has seem to be the resulting problem of the Summa, "counted there were 4814 explicit quotations and 1372 implicit quotations from Augustine, more than one quarter of texts were cited in the body of the Summa.[8]

Of Alexander's Summa, which was on one occasion proclaimed by an assembly of seventy doctors to be infallible, Roger Bacon declared that, though it was as heavy as the weight of a horse, it was full of errors and displayed ignorance of physics, of metaphysics, and even of logic.[9]

Other historical works

Alexander also influenced and sometimes is confused with Alexander Carpenter, Latinized as Fabricius (fl. 1429), who was the author of the Destructorium viciorum, a religious work popular in the 15th and 16th centuries.[10] Carpenter also authored other works, such as Homiliae eruditae ("Learned Sermons").[11][12]

Historiographical contribution

Alexander was said to have been among the earliest scholastics to engage with Aristotle's newly translated writings.[13] 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.[4] This steered the development of scholasticism in a more systematic direction,[4] 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.[14]

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.[13] He held this post until shortly before his death in Paris in 1245.[3] 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.[13] In fact, Alexander was one of the major influences for the advancement of Anselmian thought in the 13th century.[13] 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.[15] 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’.[16] He advanced a highly original response that the soul naturally desires the body.[17] 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.[17]

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.[18] He did not start off with this view, though. In the Glossa, he openly suggests the idea of the multiplicity of divine ideas.[18] 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.[19] Specifically, in one of his last works, De scientia divina, he concludes that the idea of plurality itself is strictly temporal, a human notion.[20]

One of his more famous works, the Summa, is important because of its system for determining if a war is just.[21] 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.[21] 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.[22] Alexander put ‘peace for all’ at the end of the list to amplify its importance.[22]

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.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Alexander of Hales, Franciscan, theologian, and philosopher, one of the greatest of the scholastics, b. at Hales, or Hailles, in Gloucestershire, towards the end of the twelfth century; d. at Paris, in 1245. He was educated at the monastic school in his native village, and probably also at Oxford. After having finished his studies in England, he went to the University of Paris, and there attained the Master's degree, first in the faculty of arts (philosophy), and afterwards in that of theology. From a remark made by Roger Bacon it is inferred that, in 1210, Alexander was Magister regens in the faculty of arts, and this is the first date of his biography that is certain. Roger is also our authority (though not the only one) that Alexander became archdeacon; but whether the title was conferred by the Bishop of Paris or by an English bishop, is uncertain. In 1220, Alexander joined the faculty of theology, in which he soon became one of the most celebrated teachers. In 1231, he entered the order of St. Francis, continuing, however, to perform, as a monk, the duties of a licensed teacher of theology, a fact which was of the utmost importance both for the University and for the course of studies in the Franciscan Order. Alexander died at the convent of his Order in Paris.

In the chronicles and theological treatises of the fourteenth century we find Alexander styled Doctor irrefragabilis, Fons Vitæ, Theologorum monarcha. His principal work is the "Summa Universæ Theologiæ", begun about the year 1231 and left unfinished. The third part is defective, especially the portion treating of the virtues and other questions in moral theology. To supply this defect, the "Summa Virtutum" was composed by the Franciscan William of Melitona, though the work was, and is still sometimes, ascribed to Alexander himself. It is now agreed that not Alexander of Hales, but Alexander of Bonini is the author of the "Commentaries" on Aristotle's "Metaphysics" and "De Anima". The "Summa Theologiæ" has been several times published (Venice, 1475, 1576; Nuremberg, 1481, 1502; Pavia, 1481; Cologne, 1622). A critical edition has recently been promised by the Quaracchi editors of the works of St. Bonaventure. Alexander's other works (Salimbene, a contemporary, speaks of his "many writings") are still unpublished.

Systematic theology and the Summa

Alexander's importance for the history of theology and philosophy lies in the fact, that he was the first to attempt a systematic exposition of Catholic doctrine, after the metaphysical and physical works of Aristotle had become known to the schoolmen. His is not the first "Summa". The collections of "Sentences" which were current in the schools since the days of Abelard, were summaries of theology and were often so titled in manuscripts. So that Alexander had many Summists as predecessors for instance: Hugh of St. Victor, Roland, Omnebene, Peter Lombard, Stephen Langton, Robert of Melun, Peter of Poitiers, William of Auxerre, and Robert Pulleyn. His, however, is the first "Summa" in which use was made of Aristotle's physical, metaphysical, and ethical, as well as logical treatises. Peter Lombard did not quote Aristotle once. Alexander quotes him in almost every Quæstio; he quotes also Arabian commentators, especially Avicenna, and thus prepares the way for Albert, St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus for whom Aristotle was the philosopher. The "Summa" is divided into four parts: the first treats of God, the Trinity, etc.; the second, of creatures, sin, etc.; the third of Christ, Redemption, supernatural law; the fourth, of the sacraments. Each part is divided into Questions, each Question into Members, each Member into Articles. The method is a development of that employed by Abelard in his "Yea and Nay", and is practically that with which readers of St. Thomas are familiar. The article opens with a recital of the objections, then follows the thesis, with proofs, scriptural, patristic, and rational, and at the end of the article, under the title "Resolutio" are given the answers to the objections.

Alexander's theology is, in its main outlines, identical with that of St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas. Thus he starts with the question of the knowableness of God, and decides that, while the human mind can know that He is, no created mind can comprehend what He is. In enumerating the proofs of the existence of God, he lays stress on St. Augustine's argument from the need of an absolute truth, on Saint Anselm's ontological argument, on Hugh of St. Victor's argument from consciousness, and on the Aristotelean argument from causality. He teaches that God is the exemplar, efficient and final cause of all things, that He is the creator and Preserver of all things, that He is pure Actuality (Actus Purus), all things else being composed of matter and form. This latter point, the coextensiveness of matter with created being, later on became a distinctive tenet of the Franciscan School. On the problem of Universals, Alexander takes up the position of a metaphysician and psychologist, and thus reaches a conclusion to which his predecessors of the twelfth century, who argued the question solely from the point of view of dialectics, could never have attained; he teaches that Universals exist ante rem, in the mind of God, and also in re, as forms or essences which the active intellect abstracts. This is the conclusion of Moderate Realism.

Philosophical method and psychology

In psychology, more than elsewhere, Alexander shows that he is not prepared to break with the traditional Augustinian teaching which prevailed in the schools before the introduction of Aristotle's "De Anima". Thus he adopts the threefold division of the faculties of the soul into ratio, which has for its object the external world, intellectus which has for its object created spiritual substances, and intelligentia, which has for its object first principles and the eternal prototype of things in the mind of God. Augustinian, also, is the doctrine that our knowledge of higher truths, especially of higher spiritual truths, is dependent on special divine illumination. Despite these Augustinian principles, however, he adopts Aristotle's doctrine of the Active and Passive Intellect, and by means of it accounts for our knowledge of the external world. Alexander's importance in the history of Christian Ethics is due to the use which he makes of Aristotle's ethical treatises. William of Auxerre, in his "Summa Aurea", made use of a Latin translation of Aristotle's "Ethics"; following his example, though working along independent lines, Alexander takes up the problems of the Highest Good, the nature of virtue, the moral aspect of actions and habits, and brings to bear on his discussions not merely the principles of the evangelical law, the ethical definitions of patristic writers, the legislation and practice of the Church, but also the definitions and principles laid down in the "Ethics". God, he teaches, is the highest Good; man's duty is through knowledge and love of God to attain possession of Him. He defines virtue, in the Aristotelean, not in the traditional Augustinian sense. Alexander, being the first of the great thirteenth century schoolmen in point of time, naturally exercised considerable influence on all those great leaders who made the thirteenth century the golden age of Scholasticism. Within his own order he was the model of other great Summists as to method and arrangement of matter. Gerson says that Alexander was a favourite teacher (doctor) of St. Thomas. This, however, need not mean, as it is sometimes taken to mean, that St. Thomas frequented his lecture hall. The influence was exerted chiefly, if not exclusively, through Alexander's "Summa Universæ Theologiæ," which St. Thomas followed very closely in the arrangement and method of his "Summa Theologica".

Endres, Des Alex. von Hales Leben, etc. in Philosophisches Jahrb. (Fulda, 1888), I; Felder, Studien im Franziskanerorden (Freiburg, 1904), 177 sqq.; De Martigne, La scolastique et les traditions franciscaines (Paris, 1888); Stockl, Gesch. der Phil. de Mittelalters, Bd. II (Mainz, 1865), 320 sqq.; Turner, Hist. of Philosophy (Boston, 1905), 326 sqq.

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Cullen 2006, p. 105.
  2. Back to citation Arnald of Sarrant, Chronicle of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Order of Friars Minor, trans. Noel Muscat, OFM (TAU Franciscan Communications, 2010).
  3. Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Principe 1967, p. 14.
  4. Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Back to citation occurrence 4.2 Back to citation occurrence 4.3 Brown & Flores 2007, p. 10.
  5. Back to citation Colish 2006.
  6. Back to citation Backus 1997, p. 301.
  7. Back to citation Beiting 1999, p. 5.
  8. Back to citation Backus 1997, p. 303.
  9. Back to citation Francis Seymour Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste: Bishop of Lincoln (1899) citing Roger Bacon's Opus Minus ed. Brewer pp. 325-327 & Opus Tertium p. 30
  10. Back to citation Gerald Robert Owst: The Destructorium viciorum of Alexander Carpenter, Church Historical Society, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1952, 40 pp.
  11. Back to citation Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Carpenter, Alexander". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 9. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 153.
  12. Back to citation George Watson (ed.): The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Volume 1, 600-1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974, p. 803.
  13. Back to citation occurrence 13.0 Back to citation occurrence 13.1 Back to citation occurrence 13.2 Back to citation occurrence 13.3 Cullen 2006, p. 104.
  14. Back to citation Principe 1967, p. 20.
  15. Back to citation Beiting 1999, p. 13.
  16. Back to citation Beiting 1999, p. 7.
  17. Back to citation occurrence 17.0 Back to citation occurrence 17.1 Beiting 1999, p. 8.
  18. Back to citation occurrence 18.0 Back to citation occurrence 18.1 Wood 1993, p. 8.
  19. Back to citation Wood 1993, p. 9.
  20. Back to citation Wood 1993, p. 13.
  21. Back to citation occurrence 21.0 Back to citation occurrence 21.1 Russell 2014, p. 602.
  22. Back to citation occurrence 22.0 Back to citation occurrence 22.1 Russell 2014, p. 603.

Further reading

  • Backus, Irena D. (1997). The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists. Brill. pp. 301–303. ISBN 978-90-04-09722-3.
  • Beiting, Christopher (1999). "The Idea of Limbo in Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure". Franciscan Studies. 57: 4–8. doi:10.1353/frc.1999.0010. JSTOR 41975253. S2CID 170682454.
  • Boehner, Philotheus. The History of the Franciscan School, I. Alexander of Hales; II. John of Rupella – Saint Bonaventure; III. Duns Scotus; Pt. IV. William Ockham, St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: St. Bonaventure University, 1943–1946.
  • Brady, Ignatius. C. “Sacred Scripture in the early franciscan school', in La Sacra Scrittura e i francescani. Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Rome, 1973, 65-82.
  • Brown, S. F; Flores, J. C. (2007). Historical Dictionary of Medieval Philosophy and Theology. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6453-5.
  • Coolman, Boyd Taylor. “Alexander of Hales,” in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, edited by Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 121–139.
  • Cullen, Christopher M. “Alexander of Hales,” in Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, edited by Jorge J.E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 104–109.
  • Colish, M.L. (2006). Studies in Scholasticism. Collected studies. Ashgate Variorum. pp. 132–133. ISBN 978-0-86078-982-6.
  • Fornaro, Italo. La teologia dell'immagine nella Glossa di Alessandro di Hales Vicenza, 1985.
  • Osborne, Kenan B. “Alexander of Hales,” in The History of Franciscan Theology edited by idem. St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1994.
  • Peter Lombard. Sententiarum libri quattuor. Edited by the Quaracchi Fathers. Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 4, 5. Grottaferrata: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1971–1981. English translation by Giulio Silano, The Sentences. 4 vols. Toronto: PIMS, 2007–2010.
  • Principe, Walter H. (1967). Alexander of Hales' Theology of the Hypostatic Union. The Theology of the Hypostatic Union in the Early Thirteenth Century. Vol. 2. Toronto: PIMS.
  • Russell, Frederick H. (2014). "Just war". In Pasnau, Robert; van Dyke, Christina (eds.). The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 602–603. doi:10.1017/cho9781107446953.052. ISBN 978-1-107-44695-3.
  • Wood, Rega (1993). "Distinct Ideas and Perfect Solicitude: Alexander of Hales, Richard Rufus, and Odo Rigaldus". Franciscan Studies. 53: 8–13. doi:10.1353/frc.1993.0000. JSTOR 41975164. S2CID 176669227.
  • Young, Abigail A. “Accessus ad Alexandrum: the Prefatio to the Postilla in Iohannis Euangelium of Alexander of Hales (1186?-1245).” Mediaeval Studies 52 (1990), 1-23.
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