Gerhoh of Reichersberg

GERHOH di REICHERSBERG. – German theologian, born at Polling (Bavaria) in 1093, died at Reichersberg on 27 June 1169. He studied at Freising, Moosburg, and Hildesheim. In 1119 he was master of the cathedral school at Augsburg. In 1121, having abandoned the simoniacal bishop, he became a regular canon at Rottenbuch (diocese of Regensburg). After the bishop of Augsburg was reconciled with Pope Callistus II, G. returned to Augsburg in 1123, and that same year accompanied the bishop to the Lateran Council. Ordained a priest in 1126, he was parish priest for some time at Cham (Bavaria).

In 1132 Bishop Conrad I of Salzburg appointed him provost of the regular collegiate church of Reichersberg. In 1143, together with Arnaldo da Brescia, he accompanied the papal legate to Bohemia and Moravia; the following year he disputed in Rome concerning the Donatio Constantini. A supporter of Pope Alexander III, he was placed under the ban by Barbarossa. Of primary importance was his political-religious activity in defense of the rights of the Holy See against emperors and antipopes. He worked tirelessly alongside s. Bernardo for the reform of the simoniacal and Nicolaitan clergy. This was the purpose, to a great extent, of his numerous works. In his moral works he sought to restore the spirit of the Gospel to public and private life, appealing to the tradition, which he knew profoundly, with a strongly conservative concern. Also noteworthy is his tendency to allegorize, for moral purposes, the historical portion of the Bible. In his dogmatic works, adhering to the most rigorous orthodoxy, he condemns the bold theories of Abelardo, Gilberto Porretano, and Everardo di Bamberga; indeed, Pietro Lombardo does not seem orthodox to him either, since he regards him as the heir to Abelardo’s Christological nihilism, and adheres to the theory of the assumptus homo.