Gabriel Biel

1420-1495. German philosopher. Born at Speyer and educated at Heidelberg and Erfurt, he became a noted preacher first at Mainz and then at Urach. He was responsible with Count Eberhard of Württemberg for the founding of the University of Tübingen, where he held the chair of theology from 1484. In old age he joined the Brethren of the Common Life.* A follower of William of Ockham and one of the last great Scholastic thinkers, he held to a very high, if mechanical, sacramentalism, betrayed certain semi-Pelagian tendencies, and apologized for developing capitalist ethics of his age. His best known works are his Epitome of Ockham's writings (1495), his Lecture on and Exposition of the Canon of the Mass (1488, 1499), and his Sermons (1499).