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Ales (Originally Alane), Alexander

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Ales (originally Alane), Alexander

was born at Edinburgh, April 23, 1500, and educated at St. Andrew's, where he afterward became canon. Employed to influence Patrick Hamilton (q.v.) to recant, he was so impressed by Hamilton's arguments, and by his constancy at the stake, that he embraced the reformed doctrines himself. In 1532 he went to Germany, and visited Luther and Melancthon, with whom he became intimate. In 1534 he came to England on the invitation of Cranmer, and was appointed professor of theology at Cambridge. Cranmer employed him in translating the English liturgy into Latin. In 1540 he returned to Germany, and was professor first at Frankfort-on-the-Oder and afterward at Leipsic, where he died March 17, 1565. In the Synergestic controversy (q.v.) he maintained the necessity of good works. His principal works are,

1. De necessitate et merito bonorum operum (1560): —

2. Commentarii in Evangelium Joan c, et in utramque Epistolam ad Timotheum: —

3. Espositio in Psalmos Davidis: —

4. De Justficatione, contra Osiandrum: —

5. De Sancta Trinitate, cum confutatione erroris Valentini: —

6. Responsio ad triginta et duos articulos theologorum Loveniensum.

Also a Latin work on the right of the laity to read the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, and a defense of that work against Cochlaus. — Hook, Eccl. Biog. 1, 130; Burnet, Hist. of Reformation, 1, 345; 2:247; Proctor on Common Prayer, 65, 66.