ALEXANDER OF HALES. - Franciscan theologian, known as the Irrefragable Doctor. He was born in Hales, in the County of Gloucester (England), around 1170, since by 1235 he was already old: "iam senex," as Roger Bacon states (Opus minus, ed. J. S. Brewer: Fr. Rog. Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, London 1859, p. 326); he died on 21 August 1245. His entire academic career took place in Paris. He was a professor in the Faculty of Arts before 1210 (Bacon, loc. cit.), and we first find him as "magister regens" of theology in the years 1229-31, during the great university crisis. He was already a figure of great importance: among the masters deputed on that occasion to report to the Roman curia, we find the "magister Alexander" to whom some papal bulls were entrusted (H. Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, 140 ff. and 144). We know, again from Bacon, that after these events A., "rich and great archdeacon" as well as a renowned master, entered the Order of Friars Minor. Historians commonly place this event in the year 1231, immediately after his return to the university. It is certain, however, that in 1235 A. was still a secular cleric and archdeacon of Coventry. He appears as such in an act of Henry III dated 25 August 1235: "magistrum Alexandrum de Hales archidiaconum Coventrensem" (Pat. 19 Henrici III, n. 4, Tower of London. See the Prolegomena to vol. IV of the Summa in the Quaracchi edition). The date of his entry into religion must therefore be moved to the end of 1235 or to 1236, and consequently the date of the founding of the first Franciscan school must also be adjusted. This does not, however, exclude the possibility that the Friars Minor attended the English archdeacon's school much earlier. As a friar, A. remained "magister regens," and from his school, henceforth called the "Schola fratrum minorum," there emerged between 1235 and 1245 a whole series of masters and bachelors. By 1238, John of Rochelle was already a master. The hypothesis that A. ceded his chair to his disciple in that year or at the latest in 1241 is not supported by any document. The documents rather suggest that A. continued teaching until his death. St. Bonaventure, who entered the Order in 1243, still had him as his teacher: "pater ac magister noster" (Opera omnia, II, Quaracchi 1885, 547). Paris codex 15652, which contains lectures "reported" after 1240, seems to include lectures by A.: "dixit Alexander" (f. 11 b). In 1241 or 1244 (six manuscripts give the date 1244) he took an active part, with Odo of Châteauroux, the chancellor, in the condemnation of Stephen of Venisy, O.P., and Pagus (St. Bonaventure, Opera omnia, II, ibid., p. 547; H. Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, Paris 1889, p. 171; Cod. Vat. lat. 692, f. 170r; cf. V. Doucet, La date des condamnations parisiennes dites de 1241, in Mélanges Aug. Pelzer, Louvain 1937, pp. 183 ff.). In 1244, we find him at the Council of Lyon, entrusted, together with three cardinals and three bishops (among them Robert Grosseteste), with examining the canonization process of St. Edmund: "Frater et magister Alexander de Hales, tunc Facultatis theologicae magnus doctor" (E. Martínez-U. Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, III, Paris 1717, col. 1847). He died shortly after the council. The poet John of Garland composed an elegy in his honor in the De mysteriis ecclesiae (cf. Histoire littéraire de la France, XXI, Paris 1847, p. 372).
Writings. – A good number of spurious works have already been eliminated by criticism (v. P. Glorieux, Répertoire, II, not. 301, and Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 27 (1934), pp. 534ff.). Others are doubtful or still require further examination. Among the many Postillae attributed to A. by manuscripts, some could easily be his, even if it is true, as Bacon says, that A. preferred to comment on the Sentences rather than Scripture. Currently, the following works are considered authentic:
a) *Evoticon*: a strange little work on difficult words, attributed to A. (even as a young professor of the arts) by ms. 136 of Caius College, Cambridge, and also cited as his by an anonymous writer of 1300: « Unde mag. Alexander de Halis in versibus suis dicit: Chere theoron quem gignos crucis andro phalando ». This verse begins the *Evoticon* of Cambridge; V. Wilmart, in Analecta Reginensia (Studi e Testi, 59), Vatican City 1933, p. 254;
b) *Sermones*: only three have so far been confirmed; V. F. Henquinet, Les écrits du fr. Guerric de St-Quentin, in Recherches de théol. anc. et méd., 6 (1934), pp. 185, 187;
c) *Super Sententias*. It is certain that A. commented on the Sentences; Bacon indeed says that he was the first (understood as a master) to lecture on the Sentences instead of Scripture. V. also the *Chronicon* of Lanercost, ed. J. Stevenson, Edinburgh 1839, p. 53. It is also certain that this commentary cannot be identified with the *Summa*, which, even if often called *Summa super Sententias*, is not in its present form absolutely a commentary on the Sentences. It should be noted moreover that Bacon attributes this commentary to A. himself: « primus qui legit », whereas of the *Summa* he says: « quam ipse non fecit sed alii »! These are therefore quite distinct works. In fact, A.’s Commentary has recently been discovered by the Quaracchi editors in the codices Assisi 1896 and Lambeth 347, and this commentary, together with A.’s *Quaestiones*, has been revealed as one of the principal sources of the *Summa*; V. V. Doucet, A new source of the « Summa fr. Alexandri ». The Commentary on the Sentences of Alexander of Hales, in Franciscan Studies, 6 (1946), pp. 403–17; F. Henquinet, Le Commentaire d’Alex. de Halès sur les Sentences enfin retrouvé, in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, II (Studi e Testi, 122), Vatican City 1946, pp. 359–82;
d) *Quaestiones* and *Quodlibeta*: these writings, until a few years ago almost unknown outside Quaracchi and which are gradually being discovered, constitute A.’s most important work. In addition to four *Quodlibeta*, several hundred *Quaestiones* are already known, many of which are genuine treatises. They are preserved in more than twenty-five codices and in various reportations. Those of the British Museum Royal 9, E. XIV, discovered by Fr. Pelster (v. Gregorianum, 14 [1933], pp. 414ff), bear the title: *Quaestiones Hales antequam esset frater*. The edition of the Commentary and the *Quaestiones* is in preparation at Quaracchi.
e) Two other works are to be regarded as collaborative efforts between A. and his disciples, namely the *Expositio Regulae* and the *Summa theologica*. The former is the work of A., John of Rochelle, Odo Rigaldi and Robert of Bascia, and is therefore called « of the Four Masters ». The other, which could also be called *Summa quattuor magistrorum*, is known and has always been called *Summa fratris Alexandri*. Begun after 1235, it was interrupted in 1245 by A.’s death, then continued by William of Milton, to whom in 1255, by order of the Pope, other collaborators were added; it was never completed. At A.’s death it substantially comprised: Book I, perhaps excluding the final question « De missione visibili »; Book II, at least in large part, excluding the treatises « De corpore humano et de coniuncto »; and Book III in its present mutilated state. Can this *Summa* of 1245 be said to be A.’s? All the documents known so far affirm it; Alexander IV’s Bull (1235) states without hesitation: « Idem scil. frater... morlitus est Summam ». In the Paris mss. 15652 and 15702, written between 1241 and 1250, several chapters of the *Summa* are also said to be by « Alex. », « de Summa Alex. » (F. Henquinet, Études de Rosny, p. 83ff.), and the same is implicitly stated by St. Bonaventure (Opera omnia, II, 2).
As for the *Summa* of the ’60s, that is, the one revised and completed by others, there are divergent testimonies. All the manuscript tradition continued to call this *Summa* globally *Summa fratris Alexandri*; one codex, however, notes that the treatises « De corpore humano et de coniuncto » are by William of Milton; another calls it « edita a fratribus minoribus ». All authors, from the 13th century to our own, have cited the *Summa* of the ’60s indiscriminately as entirely by A. Only Bacon protests against the appellation *Summa fratris Alexandri* and goes to the opposite extreme, saying that it is entirely by others: « ipse non fecit sed alii ». He was well aware, however, that in that *Summa* there was something of A.’s, and with difficulty, in veiled terms, he acknowledges it when he adds: « et si ipse eam texisset vel magnam partem », that is: « even if (granting that) in some way the *Summa* is his, at least in large part ».
It also emerges from internal criteria that several were its redactors; nor are all and each of the chapters substantially by A.: some are taken from Prepositinus, William of Auxerre, Chancellor Philip and others. *Summa fratris Alexandri* therefore means: 1° that A. was its originator and initiator, as the bull states: « sacrum aggrediendo propositum... molitus est Summam »; 2° that his writings (the *Quaestiones* and Commentary) provided a preponderant part of the material used therein: « studia sua publicis utilitatibus commodavit » (bull), as is indeed evident from his works now recovered. If to this is added a certain oversight of the redaction, entrusted for the most part, if not entirely, to the disciples—A., already elderly, certainly did not undertake this arduous task alone—no more was required, especially at that time, for the *Summa* to be called *Summa fratris Alexandri*, even admitting that the redactors inserted, and at times substituted for the master’s *Quaestiones*, their own questions and those of others.
Despite its editorial defects and its bulk, the *Summa* is among the few medieval works that have survived the centuries: always studied, cited, transcribed and printed almost on a par with the works of Bonaventure, Thomas and Scotus. When Bacon wrote (op. cit., 326) « Nemo fecit eam de cetero scribi: immo exemplar apud fratres putrescit », he certainly was not telling the truth. From the doctrinal point of view, the *Summa* of 1245 is a vast synthesis far more perfect than all previous ones of theological opinions and doctrinal currents of the first half of the thirteenth century, in which traditional Augustinianism, although predominant, is already seen to be threatened by the invasive Aristotelianism, while Avicenna is almost abandoned and Toledan Avicennism entirely neglected.
I return to the origin and authenticity of the Summa of Alexander of Hales, in *La Civiltà Cattolica*, (1931, I), pp. 37-49, 41-31; id., *Zum Problem der Summa des Alexander V. Hales*, in *Gregorianum*, 12 (1931), pp. 426-46; id., *Die quaestionen des Alexander V. Hales*, in *Gregorianum*, 14 (1933), pp. 401-22, 501-20; P. Glorieux, *Répertoire des maîtres en théologie de Paris au XIIIe siècle*, II, Paris 1934; V. Doucet, *Maîtres franciscains de Paris*, in *Archivum Franciscanum Historicum*, 27 (1934), pp. 534-38; F. Henquinet, *Les questions inédites d’Alexandre de Hales sur les fins dernières*, in *Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale*, 10 (1938), pp. 56-78, 153-72, 265-78; id., *De 107 Quaestionibus Halesianis Cod. Tudertini 1-21*, in *Antonianum*, 13 (1938), pp. 335-66, 480-514; E. Schlenker, *Die Lehre von den göttlichen Namen in der Summe Alexanders V. Hales*, Freiburg im Br. 1938 (on the problem of the Summa, pp. 6-13); F. Henquinet, *Ist der Traktat De legibus et praeceptis in der Summe Alexanders V. MAC HALE, JOHN. Rupella?*, in *Franziskanische Studien* 1939, pp. 1-22, 234-58; id., *Eudes de Rosny, Eudes Rigaud et la Somme d’Alexandre de Hales*, in *Archivum Franciscanum Historicum*, 33 (1940), pp. 3-54; J. Auer, *Textkritische Studien zur Gnadenlehre des Alexander V. Hales*, in *Scholastik*, 15 (1940), pp. 63-75; Alex. de Hales, *Summa theologica*, vol. IV: *Prolegomena*, Quaracchi 1948.