Gabriel Biel

Abstract

Gabriel Biel (c. 1410–1495) was a theologian in Tübingen and a leader among the Brethren of Common Life. He was the most widely known representative of the late medieval via moderna, which was greatly influenced by fourteenth-century thought. He was the first professor of theology to teach the via moderna at the University of Tübingen, and he also had a remarkable impact on the Brethren of Common Life. Biel studied in Heidelberg, Erfurt, and Cologne. After graduation, he was a cathedral preacher in Mainz and joined the Brethren of Common Life before receiving a professorship of theology in Tübingen. Biel’s main works consist of a commentary on the mass, Canonis missae expositio, and a Sentences commentary, Collectorium in quattuor libros Sententiarum. Both in philosophy and in theology, he was a close but not unoriginal follower of William of Ockham. Biel’s Sentences commentary is formally an abridgement of Ockham’s commentaries, but several other authorities, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, Gregory of Rimini, Peter of Ailly, and John Gerson, are cited extensively. In metaphysical and epistemological views, Biel closely followed Ockham, adopting his criticism of intelligible and sensory species, but rejecting his notion of multiplicity of substantial forms. Biel’s ethics was mostly inspired by Ockham but also by Scotus and Gregory of Rimini.