BIEL, GABRIEL. — German theologian and philosopher, known as “the last of the Scholastics.” Born in Speyer between 1410 and 1425, died at Schönbuch in 1495. He studied at Heidelberg and Erfurt. Around 1460 he was in Mainz as cathedral preacher. There he fought vigorously against Archbishop Theodoric of Isenburg, who had been deposed and excommunicated by Pius II. On this occasion B. wrote a Defensorium obedientiae ad Pium papam II destinatum. In 1468 he joined the Brethren of the Common Life of the Windesheim congregation, of which he later became prior. Count Eberard of Württemberg, supporter of Archbishop Adolph of Nassau against Theodoric, requested B. as capitular provost of Urach. At the count’s request, in 1484 B. began his lectures in theology at the University of Tübingen, founded by Eberard in 1477. In 1492 he retired as provost to St. Peter of Einsiedel at Schönbuch.
B.’s principal work is the Epitome pariter et collectorium circa quatuor Sententiarum libros, published in 1499 but left incomplete, since it lacks the treatment of the sacraments of Orders and Matrimony. In it the author explicitly declares that he takes Ockham as his guide, and his doctrines never had a clearer expositor. The book became one of the most widely circulated manuals of theology in Germany. In it, besides the ideas proper to nominalism, advocated since the preceding century by renowned theologians, there are assertions that were later to become, in a certain sense, the inspirations of the Protestant Reformation, especially on the question of justification and the efficacy of the sacrament of Penance. The doctrine of predestination, reduced almost to pure divine foreknowledge, demonstrates how little this author, who emerged in a period of Scholasticism’s decline, reflects the sound teaching of the Church’s major theologians. Nevertheless, he was never condemned by the Catholic side, although Protestants have improperly made 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 confused work, but not without interest. His Sermoni, intended for an educated class, were also printed several times (Tübingen 1500, Hagenau 1510, Basel 1519).