Blessed Gregory of Rimini

Blessed Gregory of Rimini, O.E.S.A. (Latin Beatus Gregorius de Arimino or Ariminiensis) (c. 1300 – November 1358), was one of the great scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages. He was the first scholastic writer to unite the Oxonian and Parisian traditions in 14th-century philosophy, and his work had a lasting influence in the Late Middle Ages and Reformation. His scholastic nicknames were Doctor Acutus, Doctor Authenticus, and Doctor Subtilissimus. Blessed Gregory was born in Rimini around 1300. He joined the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine before studying theology in the 1320s at the University of Paris, where he encountered the ideas of the late Franciscan Peter Auriol. In the 1330s he taught at Augustinian schools in Bologna, Padua and Perugia, where he became familiar with the recent work of Oxford thinkers such as Adam Wodeham, William Ockham, and Walter Chatton. He returned to Paris in 1342 to prepare his lectures on Peter Lombard's Sentences, which he delivered in 1342–1344. Because of his familiarity with English philosophy during this time, he effectively transmitted contemporary Oxford ideas—with an Augustinian tinge—to Paris. He became a Master of Theology in 1345 and subsequently taught at schools in Padua and Rimini. In 1357, he was elected Prior General of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, and was known for his punishments for those who went against the Rule, and the spirit of religious life, by acquiring comforts for themselves. For example, he is recorded as having punished a certain number of religious for having used fine sheets and mattresses, and for neglecting to observe St. Martin’s Lent: B. Gregorius Ariminensis dum esset Ordinis Prior Generalis (electus an. 1357) inflixit poenam humi sedendi in publico refectorio per quindecim dies Prioribus vigintiquatuor quia non observarant sic dictam quadragesimam S. Martini in Ordinis constitutionibus part. 2, cap. X, n.