page_title: History of theology
section_title: Late Scholasticism and its contemporaries
hierarchical_section_title: History of theology / Medieval Christian theology / Western theology / Late Scholasticism and its contemporaries
context_page_description: Greek theologia was used with the meaning "discourse on god" around 380 BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii, Ch. 18. Aristotle divided theoretical philosophy into mathematike, physike and theologike, with the last corresponding roughly to metaphysics, which, for Aristotle, included discourse on the nature of the divine.
  Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of such discourse: mythical, rational and civil.
  Some Latin Christian authors, such as Tertullian and Augustine, followed Varro's threefold usage, though Augustine also used the term more simply to mean 'reasoning or discussion concerning the deity'
  In patristic Greek Christian sources, theologia could refer narrowly to devout and inspired knowledge of, and teaching about, the essential nature of God.
  The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of academic study, dealing with the motionless, incorporeal reality. Boethius' definition influenced medieval Latin usage.
context_section_description: Scholastic theology continued to develop as the 13th century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments.  The 14th century saw in particular the rise to dominance of the nominalist or voluntarist theologies of men like William of Ockham.  The 14th century was also a time in which movements of widely varying character worked for the reform of the institutional church, such as conciliarism, Lollardy and the Hussites.  Spiritual movements such as the Devotio Moderna also flourished.
  Notable authors include:
  Meister Eckhart (1260–1328)
  Duns Scotus (1266–1308)
  Marsilius of Padua (1270–1342)
  Gottfried von Hagenau (c. 1270–1313)
  William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349)
  Gregory of Rimini (c.1300-1358)
  John Wycliffe (c. 1320–1384)
  Julian of Norwich (1342–1413)
  Geert Groote (1340–1384)
  Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
  Jean Gerson (1363–1429)
  Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415)
  Thomas a Kempis (1380–1471)
caption: Catherine of Siena
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