John Hales (theologian)

Hales engraving by an unknown artist from 1716.

John Hales of Eton College (* 1584 in Bath ; † 1656 ) was an English theologian and scientist.

Hales was born and raised in Bath, England , and studied at Oxford University . He was one of the most respected scholars and experts in ancient Greece in his day and gave lectures on the Greek language and in Greek. From 1613 to 1649 he was a member of Eton College and long treasurer. In 1616 he accompanied the English ambassador Sir Carleton to The Hague as chaplain and attended the Synod of Dordrecht in Holland , where he was converted from Calvinism to Arminianism (Farindon: "he went to Dort to bid John Calvin good night", and Tulloch replied : "He did not say good Morning to Arminius").

In 1639 Archbishop Laud of Canterbury made him Canon of Windsor. His religious tolerance was expressed in 1642 in the treatise " Tract concerning Schisms and Schismatics " which he published anonymously (and without consent) and which angered him against the then Archbishop Laud. Hales defended himself well against Laud, who later made him a prebendary of Windsor. In 1649 he lost his professorship at Eton College due to his refusal to recognize the government of Cromwell , and continued to become impoverished and had to sell his valuable library.

He was ahead of his time in many ways, and was considered a modern humanistic free thinker and skeptical advisor, including to religious authorities. After his death, his writings (1659) were compiled in the work The Golden Remains of the Ever-Memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton College with a foreword by John Pearson . He spent most of his life a highly educated scholar at Eton College, and deplored the mass of contradicting literature of his day. He admired William Shakespeare's literary work and his knowledge of antiquity and made a significant contribution to the poet's reputation at an early age. He is described as a person with great ironic charm and a lack of vanity. He refused all offers of ecclesiastical promotion and opted for academic retreat in the form of a professorship at Eton College, the directors of which were Sir Henry Savile and Sir Henry Wotton after him .

The epithets of Eton College as well as the term the ever Memorable were given to him during his lifetime.

Fonts

• A tract Concerning Schism and Schismatics Works
• FWBateson (Ed.): John Hales The Method of Reading Profane History, Works I, The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature , Cambridge 1941

literature

• John Freehafer: Shakespeare, the Ancients, and Hales of Eton , Shakespeare Quarterly 1972
• John W. Velz: Mr. Hales of Eton and the Two Lords Falkland , Shakespeare Quarterly 1963
• John J. Murray: John Hales on History , in: The Huntington Library Quarterly 1956
• Elson James Hinsdale: John Hales of Eaton , New York, Kings Crown Press 1948
• Nancy E. Scott: The Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales , in: The Harvard Theological Review 1917
• SR Gardiner: Collections by Isaak Walton fort he life o John Hales of Eaton , English Historic Review 1887
• Pierre Desmaizeaux: An Historical and Critical Account of the Life of the Ever-Memorable John Hales , London 1719
• John W. Cousin: A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature , JM Dent & sons and EP Dutton, London and New York 1910

predecessor	Office	successor
John Perin	Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University 1615–1619	John Harrys