Alexander of Hales

Alexander of Hales d. 1245, English scholastic philosopher, called the Unanswerable Doctor by his fellow scholastics. He was a Franciscan and a lecturer at the Univ. of Paris. His Summa universae theologiae was the first systematic exposition of Christian doctrine to introduce Aristotle as a prime authority. His eclectic work also contains elements of Neoplatonism and Augustinian and Arabic ideas. Alexander held that all created things, spiritual as well as corporeal, are made up of matter and form. This teaching became the central feature of Franciscan scholasticism and an important influence on St. Thomas Aquinas.

Alexander of Hales (c.1186–1245), theologian. He studied arts and theology at Paris, becoming a doctor c.1220/1. He took the fateful step of using the Sentences of Peter Lombard, instead of the Bible, as the basic text for his lectures on theology. In 1236 he joined the Franciscan Order, but retained his chair. He is regarded as the founder of the Franciscan school of theology, but the Summa theologica which goes under his name is only partly his. He had some part in the composition of an Expositio in Regulam S. Francisci (1242), popularly known as ‘The Four Masters’.

Alexander of Hales (1170/80–1245), a native of Gloucestershire, studied at Paris where he taught theology. He held various ecclesiastical appointments in England; and returning to Paris he entered the Franciscan order and became the first member of this new order to hold the chair of theology there. He wrote glosses on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard. According to R. Bacon, the Summa Theologica which goes under his name was put together by other Franciscan theologians, partly drawing on his teachings. Alexander is important as evidencing a distinct Augustinian–Franciscan philosophical tradition in the first half of the 13th cent. In the later Middle Ages he was called the ‘Doctor Irrefragabilis’.