SOURCE: Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. “Jean Gerson: Nominalist and Mystic.” In The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism, pp. 331-40. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963.

In following excerpt, Oberman investigates the apparent influence of two contradictory theological schools on Gerson's thought.

1. Gerson's Attitude Toward Thomism and Nominalism

[Gabriel] Biel's authority par eminence for all problems concerning the contemplative life is Jean Gerson, the influential Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1395 throughout the turbulent beginnings of the conciliar high tide of the fifteenth century. For Biel, Gerson was a great systematic and mystical authority whom he honored and quoted, not only from his university lectern in Tübingen, but also from his pulpit at the Cathedral of Mainz. There was no doubt in his mind nor in that of the other nominalistic schoolmen that Gerson belonged to the via moderna.¹

A reference to the thought...