Alexander of Hales

ALEXANDER OF HALES. - Theologian of the Friars Minor, called the Irrefragable Doctor. Born in Hales, in the County of Gloucester (England), around 1170, since in 1235 he was already old: "iam senex," says Roger Bacon (Opus minus, ed. J. S. Brewer: Fr. Rog. Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, London 1859, p. 326); died on 21 August 1245. His university career unfolded entirely in Paris. A professor in the Faculty of Arts already before 1210 (Bacon, loc. cit.), we find him for the first time as "magister regens" of theology in the years 1229-31, during the great university crisis. He was already a person of great importance: among the masters deputed on that occasion to report to the court of Rome, there is in fact the "magister Alexander" to whom certain papal Bulls were consigned (H. Denifle, Chartularium Univ. Paris, I, 140 ff. and 144). We know, again from Bacon, that after these events A., a "rich and great archdeacon" as well as a most renowned master, entered the Order of the Friars Minor. Historians commonly fix the fact in the year 1231, that is, immediately after the return to the University. It is certain, however, that in 1235 A. was still a secular and archdeacon of Coventry. He appears in fact as such in an act of Henry III of 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). One must therefore without doubt move A.'s entry into religion to the end of 1235 or to 1236, and consequently also the date of the founding of the first Franciscan school. This, however, does not exclude that the Friars Minor had frequented the school of the English archdeacon much earlier. A. also remained as a friar "magister regens," and from his school, called from then on "Schola fratrum minorum," there came forth from 1235 to 1245 a whole series of masters and bachelors. In 1238 John of La Rochelle was already a master. That in that year or at the latest in 1241 A. ceded his chair to his disciple is a hypothesis not proven by any document. The documents suggest rather that A. taught until his death. St. Bonaventure, who entered the Order in 1243, still had him as master: "pater ac magister noster" (Op. omnia, II, Quaracchi 1885, 547). Codex 15652 of Paris in which are preserved lectures "reported" after 1240, contains, it seems, also lectures of A.: "dixit Alexander" (f. 11 b). In 1241 or rather 1244 (six manuscripts give the date 1244) he takes an active part, with Odo of Châteauroux, chancellor, in the condemnation of Stephen of Venisy O. P. and of Pagus f. Bonaventura, Op. omnia, II, ibid. p. 547; H. Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris., I, Paris 1889, p. 171; Cod. Vat. lat. 692, f. 179; see V. Doucet, La date des condamnations parisiennes dites de 1241, in Mélanges Aug. Pelzer, Louvain 1937, p. 183 ff.). In 1244, we find him at the Council of Lyon, charged, together with three cardinals and three bishops (among whom was Robert Grosseteste), with examining the process of canonization of St. Edmund: "Frater et magister Alexander de Hales, tunc Facultatis theologicae magnus doctor" (E. Martène-U. Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, III, Paris 1717, col. 1847). He died shortly after the council. The poet John of Garland wove his praise in the De mysteriis ecclesiae (see Histoire litt. de la France, XXI, Paris 1847, p. 372).

Writings. - A good number of spurious works have already been eliminated by criticism (see P. Glorieux, Répertoire, II, not. 301, and Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 27 (1934), p. 534 ff.). Others are doubtful or still to be examined more closely. Among the many Postillae attributed by the manuscripts to A., some could easily be his, even if it will be true, as Bacon says, that A. preferred to comment on the Sentences rather than on Scripture. At present the following works are considered authentic: - a) Evoticon: a strange little work on difficult words, attributed to A. (still a young professor in the arts) by ms. 156 of Caius College, Cambridge, and cited also as his by an anonymous writer of 1300: "Unde mag. Alexander de Hales in venibus suis dicit: Chere theoron quem gingnos crucis andro phalando." With this verse begins the Evoticon of Cambridge; see A. Wilmart, in Analecta Regimensia (Studi e Testi, 59), Vatican City 1933, p. 254; - b) Sermones: only three have so far been ascertained; see 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 says in fact that he was the first (understand: as a master) to lecture on the Sentences instead of on Scripture. See also the Chronicon of Lanercost, ed. J. Stevenson, Edinburgh 1839, p. 33. It is also certain that this commentary cannot be identified with the Summa, which, even if often called Summa super Sententias, is absolutely not in its present form a commentary on the Sentences. Note further 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 different writings. In fact A.'s Commentary has been recently discovered by the Quaracchi editors in codices Assisi 189 and Lambeth 347, and this commentary has revealed itself, together with A.'s Questions, as one of the principal sources of the Summa; see V. Doucet, A new source of the "Summa fr. Alexandri." The Commentary on the sentences of Alexander of Hales, in Franc. Studies, 6 (1946), pp. 403-17; F. Henquinet, Le Commentaire d'Alex. de Hales 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 little by little are being discovered, constitute A.'s most important work. Already known, besides four Quodlibeta, are several hundred Questions, many of which are true treatises. They are preserved in more than 25 codices and in various reportations. Those of the British Museum Royal 9, E. XIV, discovered by Fr. Pelster (see Gregorianum, 14 [1933], p. 414 ff.), bear the title: Quaestiones Hales antequam esset frater. The edition of the Commentary and of the Questions is in preparation at Quaracchi. - e) Two other works are to be considered works of collaboration between A. and his disciples, namely the Expositio Regulae and the Summa theologica. The first is the work of A., John of La Rochelle, Odo Rigaud and Robert of La Bassée, called therefore "of the four Masters." The other, which could also be called Summa quattuor of the masters, it is and has always been called Summa fratris Alexandri. Begun after 1235, interrupted in 1245 by the death of A., continued by William of Milton, to whom in 1255, by order of the Pope, other collaborators were added, it was never brought to completion. At the death of A. it substantially comprised: Book I, except perhaps the last question "De missione visibili"; Book II, at least for the most part, except 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 by A.? All the documents known thus far affirm it; the Bull of Alexander IV (1255) says without reticence: "Idem scil. frater... molitus est Summam". In mss. 15652 and 15702 of Paris, written between 1241 and 1250, several chapters of the Summa are likewise said to be by "Alex.", "de Summa Alex." (F. Henquinet, Eudes de Rosny, p. 83 ff.) and St. Bonaventure says the same implicitly (Opera omnia, II, 2). For the Summa of '60, however, that is, for the one revised and completed by others, there exist divergent testimonies. The entire manuscript tradition continued to call that Summa globally Summa fr. 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 '60 indiscriminately as entirely by A. Only one, Bacon, rises up against the appellation Summa fr. Alexandri and goes to the opposite extreme, saying that it is entirely by others: "ipse non fecit sed alii". He knew very well, however, that in that Summa there was also something by A., and he barely, with half-words, acknowledges it when he adds: "et si ipse eam tecisse vel magnam partem", that is: "even granting (if you insist) that in some manner the Summa is his, at least in large part".

It also emerges from internal criteria that several were its editors, and that not even all the individual chapters are substantially by A.: some are taken from the Prepositinus, from William of Auxerre, from Chancellor Philip and from others. Summa fr. Alexandri therefore means: 1st that A. was its deviser and initiator, as the bull says: « sacrum aggrediendo propositum... molitus est Summam »; 2nd that his writings (Questions and Commentary) furnished a preponderant part of the material used therein: « studia sua publicis utilitatibus commodavit » (bull), as indeed emerges from his works rediscovered today. If to this is added a certain supervision over the redaction, entrusted for the most part, if not entirely, to the disciples — A., already old, certainly did not set about this laborious task alone — nothing else was required, especially in that time, for the Summa to be called Summa fr. Alexandri, even admitting that the editors inserted into it, and sometimes substituted for the master's Questions, their own questions and those of others.

Despite its editorial defects and its bulk, the Summa is among the few medieval works that survived the centuries: always studied, cited, copied 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 was certainly not telling the truth. From the doctrinal point of view, the Summa of 1245 is a vast synthesis far more perfect than all the pre-existing ones of the theological opinions and doctrinal currents of the first half of the thirteenth century, in which traditional Augustinianism, even though preponderant, already sees itself threatened by the invading Aristotelianism, while Avicenna is almost abandoned in it and Toledan Avicennism entirely neglected.

Vittorio Doucet
ALESSANDRO di LIONE,
santo, martire: v.
LIONE, santi, martiri.