Alexander of Hales
French theologian and philosopher
born c. 1170/85, Hales, Gloucestershire, Eng.
died 1245, Paris
Main
theologian and philosopher whose doctrines influenced the
teachings of such thinkers as St. Bonaventure and John of La
Rochelle. The Summa theologica, for centuries ascribed to
him, is largely the work of followers.
Alexander studied and taught in Paris, receiving the
degrees of master of arts (before 1210) and theology (1220).
He was archdeacon of Coventry in 1235 and became a
Franciscan (c. 1236). In Paris he founded the Schola Fratrum
Minorum, where he was the first holder, possibly until his
death, of the Franciscan chair.
Only the most general features of Alexander’s theology
and philosophy have been made clear: basically an
Augustinian, he had to some extent taken into account the
psychological, physical, and metaphysical doctrines of
Aristotle, while discarding popular Avicennian tenets of
emanations from a Godhead. The “Franciscan” theories of
matter and form in spiritual creatures, of the multiplicity
of forms, and of illumination combined with experience are
probably Alexander’s adaptations of similar theories of the
Augustinian and other traditions. His original works, apart
from sections of the Summa and of an Expositio regulae
(“Exposition of the Rule”), include a commentary on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard—the first to treat the Sentences,
rather than the Bible, as the basic text in theology;
Quaestiones disputatae antequam esset frater (“Questions
Before Becoming a Brother . . .”); Quodlibeta; sermons; and
a treatise on difficult words entitled Exoticon. Alexander
was known to the Scholastics by the title Doctor
Irrefragabilis (Impossible to Refute).
