VIII, Pope (originally Ottoboni), born at Venice 1610, made pope 1689, died 1691, having held the chair long enough to advance hie own family, and secure for himself an enduring reputation for avarice and du- plicity. He declared the decrees of 1682 which guar- aranteed the independence of the Gallican Church, to be null and void. This pope, though opposed to the Jansenists, nevertheless condemned the doctrine of " philosophical sin," as taught by the Jesuit professor, Bongot, of Dijon. The Vatican Library is indebted to him for the acquisition of the magnificent collection of books and manuscripts of the Queen Christina. — Hoefer, Biog. Generale, i, 905 ; Ranke, Hist, of Papacy, ii, 279.
Alexander, Saint, bishop of Cappadocia, and af- terward of Jerusalem : first, as colleague of the aged Narcissus, and afterward alone. Eusebius (lib. vi, ch. xi) gives an account of his call to the episcopacy of Jerusalem, and of his service there. He protected Origen, whose fellow-disciple he had been, and or- dained him priest. Under Alexander Severus he was imprisoned for seven years. He suffered a second per- secution under Decius, and died in prison at Cffisarea in 251. He is the first bishop who has been a coadju- tor. He was a friend of literature, and established a library at Jerusalem. He is commemorated by the Roman Church on March 18; by the Greek, on De- cember 22. — Dupin, Eccl. Writers, 3d cent.
Alexander patriarch of Alexandria from A.D. 312 to 326 ; he succeeded Achillas, and his appoint- ment excited the envy and hatred of Arius, who had himself aspired to the episcopal throne. His doc- trines were attacked by Arius, Avhom, after mildly ex- horting to return to the truth, he cited before an as- sembly of the clertry at Alexandria, and, on his re- fusing to recant his errors, excommunicated him and his followers. This sentence was afterward confirmed by above a hundred bishops in the Council of Alex- andria, A.D. 320. One of his epistles against Arius may be found in Socrates, Hist. Eccl. i, 6, and another in Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. i, 4.
Alexander, first bishop of Constantinople after its name was changed from Byzantium. Alexander resolutely opposed the Arian heresy; and when Euse- bius of Nicomedia insisted upon Arius being received into the Church of Constantinople, Alexander, in the deepest affliction, ordered public fasting and pra}rer to be made to God to avert it ; and himself passed whole nights before the altar, with his face upon the ground. Arius died on the day before that fixed for his restora- tion. Alexander died in 3-10. — Socrates, Hist. Eccl. i, 37, 38; ii, 6; Acta Sanctorum.
Alexander, bishop of Hierapolis, an adherent of Ne.storius. At the Council of Ephesus (431), where he had been sent as a delegate, he signed, with eight oth- er bishops, a letter addressed by Ncstorius to the Em- peror Theodosius, for the purpose of obtaining the con- vocation of another synod, to which Cyril of Alexan- dria and the Egyptian bishops should not be invited. Pope Sixtus III, to whom Alexander at a later date appealed, refused him a heai-ing, and at length the emperor banished him to Famothis in Egypt. Twen- ty-three letters, existing in a Latin translation (Epist. Lupi Ephe dance), arc ascribed to him as author ; and Suidas reports a discourse of his, Quid novi Christus in mundum intulerit. — Herzog, Real- En<yl-lop,i die, s. v.
Alexander, founder of the Accemetoe (q. v.), was born of an ancient family, in Asia Minor, in the time of the Emperor ( 'onstantius. He first filled an office at court, but afterward gave all that he had to the poor, and retired into Syria. He afterward founded
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a monastery on the banks of the Euphrates, and intro- duced a new rule of chanting the praises of God with- out ceasing, day and night, throughout the year. To secure this, he divided his monks into six classes, one of which followed another perpetually. When he had thus exercised his monks for twenty years in this first monaster}- of his order, he left them, and passed through Palmyra, Antioch, and Constantinople, in all which places he suffered for the faith. At last he died, about 440, at another monastery of his institu- tion, called Gomon, at the mouth of the Pontus Eux- inus. Bollandus give a life of him, which purports to be written by one of his disciples. — Baillet, Jan. 15 ; Landon, Eccles. Diet, i, 240.
Alexander Alesios, or de Hales (so called be- cause he was born at Hailes, in Gloucestershire, or was a monk in the monaster}' there), one of the most eminent of the scholastic divines. After studying in England he proceeded to Paris, and studied theology and the canon law, and gained such a high reputation that he was styled "the Irrefragable, Doctor." He be- came a Franciscan in 1222, and died at Paris 1245. His works are : 1. A Commentary on the Psalms [er- roneously attributed to Bonaventura, and by others, with greater probability, to Hugo de Sancto-Caro] (Venice, 149G, fol.) : — 2. Commentaries on the Apocalypse (Paris, 1647, fol.):— 3. A Summary of all Thiology— Summa Theologica (Norimb. 1482 ; Basle, 1502; Venice, 1576, 4 vols. ; Cologne, 1622, and many other places): — 4. Comment, on the Four Books of the Sentences (Lyons, 1581) ; there are doubts whether he was the author of this last work.