GREGORY OF RIMINI. - Famous Augustinian theologian, b. at Rimini in the second half of the 13th century, d. at Vienna in 1358. From a letter of Clement VI to the chancellor of Paris (12 Jan. 1345), it is known that G. had begun his life as a university student in 1323: he must have been very young when, having donned the habit of the Hermits, he was sent to Paris. While teaching as a bachelor, he had polemics with a certain John Scotus (not the famous Franciscan), of whom the Libri logicales (Lyons 1513) survive, directed against G. da R.
In 1339, having obtained the baccalaureate, G. returned to Italy and taught as cathedraticus principalis, in the schools of the Order, at Bologna, Padua, Perugia. In 1341 he resumed his lectures at Paris, and in 1345, through the intervention of Clement VI with the aforementioned letter, he obtained the mastership. In 1347 the same Pontiff ordered him to leave the chair to Gerard de Scholaribus; having therefore returned to Italy, he took up again the post of cathedraticus principalis in the convent of Bologna.
G. da R. was among the first professors of the theological faculty of Paris to teach nominalism; this was perhaps the cause of the delay with which the mastership was conferred on him. The Augustinians took a position against this philosophical current, and in the General Chapters of 1345 and 1348 issued decrees to prevent its diffusion within the Order. But G. was not molested and continued his activity as master and writer, devoting himself however by preference, in the last years of his life, to the exegetical field. In 1357 he was elected prior general of the Order.
In philosophy G. da R. is a decided upholder of a nominalism that takes care to reconcile itself with the faith. He maintains a logical conceptualism which distinguishes, unlike the psychological conceptualism of many of his contemporaries, between subjective and objective being; he rejects, against Occam, the plurality of forms in man and admits the demonstrative value of the proofs of the existence of God and of the spirituality of the soul.
In theology he is an irreducible opponent of the Pelagian tendencies that creep through nominalism; he insists, with an abundance of documentation, on the necessity of Grace for performing works ordered to salvation, even for the initium fidei. On original sin, on justification, on predestination he marks the return to a rigid Augustinianism. The accusation of having anticipated Luther is unjustified: his extremist positions do not overstep the limits of disputable questions.
His personality exercised a considerable influence. At Wittenberg the nominalists followed his way rather than that of Occam; Capreolus often had recourse to him (doctor authenticus) and on the doctrine of Grace strove to reconcile him with St. Thomas. In the 16th century in the University of Salamanca there existed a cathedra Gregorii. His immediate disciples were Ugolino Malabranca of Orvieto (v.), Bonsembiante Baduriano of Padua and John of Basel. Within his Order the influence was predominantly theological: the nominalist infiltration was soon eliminated.