BIEL, GABRIEL. - German theologian and philosopher, called "the last of the Scholastics". Born at Speyer between 1410 and 1425, died at Schönbuch in 1495. He studied at Heidelberg and at Erfurt. Around 1460 he was at Mainz as preacher of the cathedral. There he struggled greatly against Archbishop Theodoric of Isenburg, deposed and excommunicated by Pius II. On this occasion B. wrote a Defensorium obedientiae ad Pium papam II destinatum. In 1468 he entered among the Brethren of the Common Life of the congregation of Windesheim, of which he later became prior. Count Eberhard of Württemberg, a supporter of Archbishop Adolph of Nassau against Theodoric, asked B. to be capitular provost of Urach. At the count's request, in 1484 B. began his lectures in theology at the University of Tübingen, founded by Eberhard in 1477. In 1492 he retired as provost to St. Peter of Einsiedel at Schönbuch.
B.'s capital work is the Epitome pariter et collectorium circa quatuor Sententiarum libros, published in 1499, but left incomplete, since the treatment of the sacraments of Order and Matrimony is missing from it. In it the author expressly declares that he takes Ockham as his guide, and his doctrines never had a clearer expounder. The book became one of the most widespread manuals of theology in Germany. In it, besides the ideas proper to nominalism, championed since the preceding century by theologians of renown, one notices assertions that were later to become, in a certain sense, the inspirers of the Protestant Reformation, especially on the question of justification and of the efficacy of the sacrament of Penance. The doctrine on predestination, reduced almost to pure divine foreknowledge, shows how little this author, arisen in a period of decadence of Scholasticism, reflects the sound teaching of the major theologians of the Church. Nevertheless he was never condemned on the Catholic side, although the Protestants have unduly made of him almost a precursor of Luther.
B. also composed a Lectura super canone Missae, also known under the title Sacri canonis Missae expositio resolutissima, litteralis et mystica (Reutlingen 1488), a prolix and muddled work, but not devoid of interest. His Sermons too, intended for an educated class, were several times sent to press (Tübingen 1500, Hagenau 1510, Basel 1519)
Bibliography5 works
Angelo Penna