GREGORIO DA RIMINI. — Celebrated Augustinian theologian, born at Rimini in the second half of the 13th century, died at Vienna in 1358. From a letter of Clement VI to the chancellor of Paris (12 January 1345), it is known that G. had begun his university student life 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 engaged in controversies with a Giovanni Scoto (not the famous Franciscan), whose Libri logicales (Lyons 1513) remain, directed against G. da R.
In 1339, having obtained his bachelor’s degree, G. returned to Italy and taught as cathedraticus principalis in the schools of the Order at Bologna, Padua, and Perugia. In 1341 he resumed his lectures in Paris, and in 1345, through Clement VI’s intervention in the above-mentioned letter, obtained the master’s degree. In 1347 the same Pontiff ordered him to leave the chair to Gerardo de Scholaribus; having therefore returned to Italy, he resumed the position 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 reason for the delay with which he was granted the master’s degree. The Augustinians took a position against this philosophical movement, and in the General Chapters of 1345 and 1348 issued decrees to prevent its spread within the Or-
der. But G. was not harassed and continued his activity as teacher and writer, devoting himself, however, preferably in the final 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 determined advocate of a nominalism concerned to reconcile itself with faith. He maintains a logical conceptualism that, unlike the psychological conceptualism of many of his contemporaries, distinguishes between subjective and objective being; against Occam, he rejects the plurality of forms in man and admits the demonstrative value of the proofs for the existence of God and the spirituality of the soul.
In theology he is an irreconcilable opponent of the Pelagian tendencies that spread through nominalism; with abundant documentation, he insists on the necessity of Grace for performing works ordered to salvation, even for the initium fidei. On original sin, justification, and predestination, he marks a return to a rigorous Augustinianism. The accusation that he anticipated Luther is unjustified: his extremist positions do not go beyond the limits of disputable questions.
His personality exerted a significant influence. At Wittenberg the nominalists followed his path rather than that of Occam; Capreolus frequently appealed to him (doctor authenticus) and, on the doctrine of Grace, sought to reconcile him with s. Thomas. In the 16th century there was a cathedra Gregorii at the University of Salamanca. His immediate Orvieto (v.), Bonsembiante Baduriano of Padua, and Giovanni of Basel. Within his Order the influence was predominantly theological: the nominalist infiltration was soon eliminated.