Peter Damian 1007 – 1072

Peter Damian was an Italian Benedictine reformer, cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and one of the most vigorous voices of the eleventh-century reform of the Latin Church. After early studies that gave him a deep command of classical and patristic learning, he withdrew to the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, where he reorganized eremitical life along strict lines. His treatise On Divine Omnipotence raised the famous question whether God can change the past and gave a celebrated answer that has shaped debate in philosophy of religion ever since. His blunt polemics against simony and clerical incontinence made him one of the great moral voices of his age.