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ALEXANDER—ALEXANDER BALAS
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1856. He was left an orphan when very young, became an illustrator for Harper’s Magazine, studied in Europe, became a pupil of the Royal Academy at Munich, and also worked in Venice, in Holland and in Paris, where he attracted much attention by his exhibition at the Salon of two female portraits entitled “Gris” and “Noir.” He became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts (Paris), of the National Academy of Design (New York), of the International Society (London), and of the Vienna and Munich Societies of Painters. In 1901 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He executed decorative panels for the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C., and a large decoration for the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; and his works include numerous portraits and subject pictures.


ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON (1809–1860), American biblical scholar, the third son of Archibald Alexander, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of April 1809. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1826, having devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew and other oriental languages, and from 1830 to 1833 was adjunct professor of ancient languages and literature there. In 1834 he became an assistant to Dr Charles Hodge, professor of oriental and biblical literature in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1838 became associate professor of oriental and biblical literature there, succeeding Dr Hodge in that chair in 1840 and being transferred in 1851 to the chair of biblical and ecclesiastical history, and in 1859 to that of Hellenistic and New Testament literature, which he occupied until his death at Princeton on the 28th of January 1860. Alexander was a remarkable linguist and exegete. He had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1839, and was well known for his pulpit eloquence. He was the author of The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and an abbreviation of these two volumes, Isaiah Illustrated and Explained (2 vols., 1851), The Psalms Translated and Explained (3 vols., 1850), commentaries on Acts (2 vols., 1857), Mark (1858) and Matthew (1860), and two volumes of Sermons (1860).

See The Life of Joseph A. Alexander (2 vols., 2nd ed., New York, 1875) by his nephew, Henry C. Alexander.

His brother, James Waddel Alexander (1804–1859), born in Louisa county, Virginia, on the 13th of March 1804, was a famous Presbyterian preacher. He graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1820, studied theology in the Princeton Seminary, and was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Charlotte county, Virginia, from 1826 to 1828, and of the First Presbyterian church in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1829–1832. From 1833 to 1844 he was professor of belles-lettres and Latin language and literature in the College of New Jersey, from 1844 to 1849 was pastor of the Duane Street Presbyterian church in New York City, from 1849 to 1851 was professor of ecclesiastical history, church government and sacred rhetoric in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and from 1851 until his death, at Red Sweet Springs, Virginia, on the 31st of July 1859, was pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church in New York City. He wrote numerous magazine articles and published a number of books, including The American Mechanic and Workingman (2 vols., 1847, a collection of papers to mechanics first printed under the pseudonym of “Charles Quill”), Thoughts on Family Worship (1847), Sacramental Addresses (1854), The Revival and its Lessons (1859), Thoughts on Preaching (1861), Faith (1862), and many juvenile books for Sunday-school libraries.

See Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander (2 vols., New York, 1860), edited by Dr John Hall (1806–1894) of Trenton, N. J.


ALEXANDER, WILLIAM (1824—), Protestant archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, was born at Londonderry on the 13th of April 1824 and educated at Tonbridge Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. After holding several livings in the north of Ireland he was made bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1867, and was elevated to the primacy in 1896. He was Bampton lecturer in 1876. An eloquent preacher and the author of numerous theological works, he is best known to literature as a master of dignified and animated verse. His poems were collected in 1887 under the title of St Augustine’s Holiday, and other Poems. His wife, Cecil Francis Humphreys (1818–1895), wrote some tracts in connexion with the Oxford movement, but is famous as the author of “Jesus calls us o’er the tumult,” “There is a green hill far away” and other well-known hymns (nearly four hundred in all). A collection of her verse was published in 1896.


ALEXANDER, WILLIAM LINDSAY (1808–1884), Scottish divine, was born at Leith on the 24th of August 1808. He was educated at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he gained a lasting reputation for classical scholarship. He entered Glasgow Theological Academy under Ralph Wardlaw in September 1827, but in December of the same year he left to become classical tutor at the Blackburn Theological Academy (afterwards the Lancashire Independent College). At Blackburn he stayed till 1831, lecturing on biblical literature, metaphysics, Greek and Latin. After short visits to Germany and London he was invited in November 1834 to become minister of North College Street church (afterwards Argyle Square), Edinburgh, an independent church which had arisen out of the evangelical movement associated with the Haldanes. He deliberately put aside the ambition to become a pulpit orator in favour of the practice of biblical exposition, which he invested with a singular charm and impressiveness. In 1836 he became one of the editors of the Congregational Magazine, to which he contributed articles on biblical literature and theology and on the “voluntary” controversy. In 1840 he delivered the Congregational Lecture in London on the “Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.”

Alexander took an active part in the “voluntary” controversy which ended in the Disruption, but he also maintained broad and catholic views of the spiritual relations between different sections of the Christian church. In 1845 he visited Switzerland with the special object of inquiring into the religious life of the churches there. He published an account of his journey in a book, Switzerland and the Swiss Churches, which led to an interchange of correspondence between the Swiss and Scottish churches. In 1845 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of St Andrews. In 1861 he undertook the editorship of the third edition of Kitto’s Biblical Encyclopaedia with the understanding that the whole work should be thoroughly revised and brought up to date. In January 1870 he became one of the committee of Old Testament revisers, and by his thorough biblical scholarship rendered exceptional service to the board; he enjoyed the work and devoted much time to it for the next fourteen years. In 1877 he became principal of the Edinburgh Theological Hall, a position which he held, in spite of many tempting offers of preferment elsewhere, until his death on the 20th of December 1884.

See his Life and Work by James Ross (1887).  (D. Mn.) 


ALEXANDER AETOLUS, of Pleuron in Aetolia, Greek poet and man of letters, the only representative of Aetolian poetry, flourished about 280 B.C. When living in Alexandria he was commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus to arrange the tragedies and satyric dramas in the library; some ten years later he took up his residence at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia. His reputation as a tragic poet was so high that he was allotted a place in the Alexandrian tragic Pleiad; we only know the title of one play (Astragalistae). He also wrote short epics, epigrams and elegies, the considerable fragments of which show learning and eloquence.

Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1853); Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci; Couat, La Poésie alexandrine (1882).


ALEXANDER BALAS (i.e. “lord”), ruler of the Greek kingdom of Syria 150–146 B.C., was a native of Smyrna of humble origin, but gave himself out to be the son of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes and heir to the Syrian throne. His claims were recognized by the Roman senate, Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt and others. At first unsuccessful, he finally defeated the reigning