The Scottish Reformation: Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive CharacteristicsMitchell, Alexander F. (Alexander Ferrier)
History
The Scottish Reformation: Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics
Mitchell, Alexander F. (Alexander Ferrier)
Reformation -- Scotland
In the Majoristic controversy, Alesius, like Melanchthon, so far sided
with Major as to maintain against the extreme Lutherans the necessity of
good works, not to justification, but to final salvation; and in 1560 he
seems to have discussed this question in one of his so-called
_disputationes_.
With respect to his private life, we are told by Thomasius that he had
by his English wife one son, whose name was Caspar, and who died while
still a youth, and had a monument erected by his father to his memory,
bearing the simple inscription, "Caspari. Filiolo. Alexander. Alesius.
Doctor. Lugens. Posuit." He had at least two daughters. One named
Christina, Thomasius tells us, was married to a German bearing the
classical name Marcus Scipio: she outlived her husband, and died in
1604, in the fifty-ninth year of her age. The name of the other daughter
does not seem to have been known to Thomasius, but as he states that she
was given in marriage in 1557, we can have no doubt that she is the same
Anna whose wedding is referred to in a letter of Alesius to
Melanchthon, recently unearthed, and inviting him and other friends in
Wittenberg to the wedding.[318]
[Sidenote: His Death.]
[Sidenote: Deserves a Memorial.]
Alesius himself died on the 17th March 1565, and was buried at Leipsic;
but no stone was raised, or, if raised, now remains, to tell where his
ashes repose. In all probability it was in his son's grave, in the
church of St Paul, in the city of Leipsic, that his ashes were laid to
rest. The only monuments to his memory reared at the time and still
existing are those furnished by our own John Johnston--second master of
St Mary's College, and colleague of Andrew Melville--in his Latin poems
on the Scottish martyrs and confessors, and entitled Περι Στεφανων and
by Beza in his 'Icones.' Johnston, joining together Macchabaeus and
Alesius, says:--
"Sors eadem exilii nobis, vitaeque laborumque,
Ex quo nos Christi conciliavit amor.
Una salus amborum, unum et commune periclum;
Pertulimus pariter praestite cuncta Deo.
Dania te coluit. Me Lipsia culta docentem.
Audiit, et sacros hausit ab ore sonus."[319]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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