ALEXANDER OF HALES, Iffilz (Lat. Ileavvuler Ilalensis) (1-1245). A Eng lish theologian, known as "the Irrefragable Doe tor.v lie was born in Hales, Gloucestershire, bit had attended the schools of Paris, had taken the degree of doctor, and had become a noted profess or of philosophy and theology there, when (1222) he suddenly entered the Order of the Franeiseams and became a lecturer among them. He resigned in 1238, and died as a simple monk in Paris, 1245. His chief and only authentic work is the Summa Unircrsw Thcologitc (best edition, Venice. 1570, 4 volumes), written at the command of Pope Innocent IV., and enjoined by his successor, Alexander IV., to he used by all professors and students of theology in Christen dom. Alexander gave the doctrines of the Church a more rigorously syllogistic form than they had previously had, and may thus be considered as the author of the scholastic theology. Instead of appealing to tradition and authority, he deduces with great subtlety, from assumed premises, the most startling doctrines of Catholicism, especial ly in favor of the prerogatives of the papacy. lie
refuses any toleration to heretics, and would have them deprived of all property; he absolves sub jects from all obligation to obey a prince who is not obedient to the Church. The spiritual power, which blesses and consecrates kings, is, by that very fact, above all temporal powers, to say noth ing of the essential dignity of its nature. It has the right to appoint and to judge these powers, while the Pope has no judge but God. In ecclesi astical affairs, also, he maintains the Pope's au thority to be full, absolute, and superior to all laws and customs. The points on which Alexan der exercises his dialectics are sometimes simply ludicrous; as when he discusses the question whether a mouse that should nibble a consecrated wafer would thereby eat the body of Christ.