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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,

#5301

Eliphalet Nott

1773 - 1866 (93 years)

Eliphalet Nott , was a famed Presbyterian minister, inventor, educational pioneer, and long-term president of Union College, Schenectady, New York. Early life Nott was born at Ashford, Connecticut, on June 25, 1773. He was the second son, and youngest of nine children, born to Stephen Nott and Deborah Nott.

#5302

George Crolly

1813 - 1878 (65 years)

George Crolly was an Irish priest and theologian. George Crolly was born in Lough Faughan, Ballyrolly, Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland, on 11 February 1813. He entered Maynooth College in August 1829 to study for the priesthood. A fellow student at the time was his friend and fellow theologian Rev. Dr. Patrick Murray.

#5303

Nikolaus Selnecker

Nikolaus Selnecker

1530 - 1592 (62 years)

Nikolaus Selnecker was a German musician, theologian and Protestant reformer. He is now known mainly as a hymn writer. He is also known as one of the principal authors of the Formula of Concord along with Jakob Andreä and Martin Chemnitz.

#5304

William Robertson

William Robertson was a Scottish Hebraist. He was educated at Edinburgh University, taught Hebrew in London from 1653–1680, then in 1680 was appointed lecturer in Hebrew at Cambridge University. Life A graduate of Edinburgh, he is identified by Edgar Cardew Marchant in the Dictionary of National Biography as probably the William Robertson who was laureated by Duncan Forester in April 1645. From 1653 to 1680 he lived in the City of London and taught Hebrew. In 1680 he was appointed university teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge at a salary of £20 a year.

#5305

William Kay

1820 - 1886 (66 years)

William Kay was an English cleric and academic, known as a college head and biblical scholar. Life The youngest of nine children of Thomas and Ann Kay of Knaresborough, he was born on the 8th of April 1820, at Pickering, North Yorkshire. He passed two years at Giggleswick school, and, together with James Fraser, gained an open scholarship at Lincoln College, Oxford, March 15, 1836. He graduated in 1839 with a first class in classics and a second in mathematics. He was elected as a fellow of his college 22 October 1840, and in 1842 and was appointed one of the tutors, proceeded M.A., and was e...

#5306

John H. Vincent

John H. Vincent

1832 - 1920 (88 years)

John Heyl Vincent was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born at Tuscaloosa, Ala., and was educated at Lewisburg Academy and at Wesleyan Institute, Newark, N. J. He entered the New Jersey Conference in 1853, and was transferred to the Rock River Conference in 1857. He was pastor of churches in Chicago and established the Northwest Sunday-School Quarterly and the Sunday-School Teacher . He was the corresponding secretary of the Sunday-school Union of his denomination and editor of its publications . In 1888, he was elected Bishop and was appointed Resident Bish...

#5307

Derrick Sherwin Bailey

1910 - 1984 (74 years)

Derrick Sherwin Bailey was an English Christian theologian, born at Alcester in Warwickshire, whose 1955 work Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition paved the way for the production of the 1957 Wolfenden report and for the Parliament of the United Kingdom's decriminalization of homosexuality in England and Wales a decade later.

#5308

James MacCaffrey

1875 - 1935 (60 years)

Monsignor James MacCaffrey STL, PhD was an Irish priest, theologian and historian. Biography Monsignor MacCaffrey was born in 1875, at Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone, he was the son of Francis MacCaffrey of Alderwood, Clogher, Co. Tyrone. He was educated at St. Macartan's Seminary, Monaghan, before going to St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and was ordained there in 1899.

#5309

Angelo Carletti di Chivasso

1411 - 1495 (84 years)

Angelo Carletti di Chivasso was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars Minor; born at Chivasso in Piedmont, in 1411; and died at Coni, in Piedmont, in 1495. His name in Latin is usually given as Angelus de Clavasio . This form is preserved in bibliographic usage.

#5310

Astesanus of Asti

Astesanus of Asti was an important Franciscan canon lawyer and theologian, from Asti in Piedmont. His major work is Summa de casibus conscientiae , a confessional work, in manuscript from around 1317 and comprising eight volumes and three indices. Its writing is said to have been at the prompting of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.

#5311

Matthias Hiller

1646 - 1725 (79 years)

Matthias Hiller was a German Protestant theologian and Orientalist. Life Matthias Hiller was born at Stuttgart on 15 February 1646, the son of a Württemberg government secretary. He became professor of logic and metaphysics in 1692, and of Oriental languages and theology in 1698. In 1716 he exchanged these offices for the priory of Königsbronn, where he died on 11 February 1725.

#5312

Andrzej Wiszowaty

1608 - 1678 (70 years)

Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. was a Socinian theologian who worked with Joachim Stegmann on the Racovian Catechism of 1605, and taught at the Racovian Academy of the Polish Brethren. After the expulsion and exile from Rakow in 1639 Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. is notable as the main mover in the printing of the Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum which was to influence Voltaire and John Locke. He supervised the printing in Amsterdam by Frans Kuyper, first of the works of Johann Crell and then, backnumbered as "Volume 1" the works of his grandfather Fausto Sozzini 1668. He was working on a revised edition of th...

#5313

Jan Niemojewski

1531 - 1618 (87 years)

Janusz Jan Niemojewski was a Polish nobleman, and theologian of the Polish Brethren. Works 1583 – "Odpowiedź na potwarz Wilkowskiego"1583 – "Obrona przeciw niesprawiedliwemu obwinieniu".1584 – "Ukazanie iż kościół rzymski papieski nie jest apostolski..."1611 – Fausto Sozzini, "Scripta theologica seu tractatus breves de diversis materiis", Raków 1611, pp. 94–293.

#5314

Inácio de São Caetano

Inácio de São Caetano

1718 - 1788 (70 years)

Inácio de São Caetano, OCD , was a Portuguese scholar, theologian, and church leader. He was appointed the first bishop of Penafiel when the diocese was erected by Pope Clement XIV in 1770; when the diocese was suppressed eight years later, he was promoted to Titular Archbishop of Thessalonica.

#5315

Jean de Serres

1540 - 1598 (58 years)

Jean de Serres was a major French historian and an advisor to King Henry IV during the Wars of Religion that marred the French Reformation in the second half of the Sixteenth Century. As a refugee from religious persecution, he was educated in Switzerland and became a Calvinist pastor, humanist, poet, polemicist, and diplomat. His complete translation of Plato appeared in the famous 1578 edition published by Henri Estienne, which is the source of the standard 'Stephanus numbers' still used by scholars to refer to Plato's works. In 1596, de Serres was appointed 'Historian of France' by King Henry IV.

#5316

Robert of Melun

1100 - 1167 (67 years)

Robert of Melun was an English scholastic Christian theologian who taught in France, and later became Bishop of Hereford in England. He studied under Peter Abelard in Paris before teaching there and at Melun, which gave him his surname. His students included John of Salisbury, Roger of Worcester, William of Tyre, and possibly Thomas Becket. Robert was involved in the Council of Reims in 1148, which condemned the teachings of Gilbert de la Porrée. Three of his theological works survive, and show him to have been strictly orthodox.

#5317

John Hygdon

1472 - 1537 (65 years)

John Hygdon was an English academic and churchman. Career President of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1516 to 1525, Hygdon became the first dean of Cardinal College, Oxford and from 1532–3 of its successor, King Henry VIII's College . From 1502–4, he had served as vicar of Upper Beeding, Sussex. Brian Hygdon, the Dean of York, was his brother.

#5318

Afua Kuma

1908 - 1987 (79 years)

Afua Kuma was a Ghanaian oral theologian. Biography Afua Kuma was born in Obo Kwahu in the Eastern Region of Ghana. In her childhood, she helped her parents in farming and trading and did not go to school. Although she was brought up in the Presbyterian church, where her father was an elder, in her later life she attended a local Catholic Church before joining the Church of Pentecost.

#5319

Jona Willem te Water

1740 - 1822 (82 years)

Jona Willem te Water was a professor at Leiden University. He was a man of influence in the Dutch Reformed Church, in many learned societies, in academic theology, and in Dutch historiography. Early life

#5320

Thomas Cooper

1517 - 1594 (77 years)

Thomas Cooper was an English bishop, lexicographer, theologian, and writer. Life Cooper was born in Oxford, England, where he was educated at Magdalen College. He became Master of Magdalen College School and afterwards practised as a physician in Oxford.

#5321

Stefano Bonsignori

1738 - 1826 (88 years)

Stefano Bonsignori or Bonsignore O.SS.C.A. was an Italian cleric, bishop and theologian. Napoleon I appointed him patriarch of Venice, but this appointment was not confirmed by the Holy See. Life Academic A son of the cotton merchant Giovanni Battista Bonsignori and his wife Giovanna Galeazzi, he began his education under an uncle who was a priest, before moving to the Archepiscopal Seminary of Milan. In 1759 he entered the oblates of Saints Ambrose and Charles and was ordained priest at the end of 1760. He served as a grammar teacher at the seminaries in Celana and Gorla, then as a rhetoric and theology teacher at the main seminary in Milan and the Helvetic College.

#5322

Ruard Acronius

1546 - 1612 (66 years)

Ruard Acronius was a Reformed theologian of the late 16th century. Some sources refer to Ruard Acronius as the brother of Johannes Acronius while others mention that he has been a Catholic priest at first. In 1572 he appears as Reformed preacher in Franeker. In the following, he worked for several years in Alkmaar and Bolsward. In 1599, he became preacher in Schiedam where he died late in 1612.

#5323

H. B. Sharman

1865 - 1953 (88 years)

Henry Burton Sharman was a Canadian Christian theologian. Biography Henry Burton Sharman was born 12 August 1865, in Stratford, Ontario, the eldest of eleven children. After attending school in Stratford, Sharman entered the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph in 1882 where he received a Diploma in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science in 1884. He traveled to England while at Guelph to import Hereford cattle. In 1885 he worked as a book-keeper at his father's foundry. In the following year, the family moved to Manitoba where his father and uncles had purchased large tracts of farm land....

#5324

Józef Abelewicz

1821 - 1882 (61 years)

Józef Abelewicz was a Lithuanian Roman Catholic priest. He was a professor of theology in Vilnius. Vaclovas Biržiška includes the person in his book ": biographies, bibliographies and bio-bibliographies of old Lithuanian writers who wrote before 1865". As a writer, he wrote sermons and edited the writings of the Lithuanian bishop Motiejus Valančius.

#5325

Edmund O'Reilly

1811 - 1878 (67 years)

Edmund James O'Reilly was an Irish Jesuit Catholic theologian. Biography Edmund James O'Reilly was born in London, England, United Kingdom, on 30 April 1811. He was educated at Clongowes and Maynooth and studied theology for seven years in the Roman College in Rome. He then gained the decree of Doctor of Divinity by a "public act" de iniversa theologia.

#5326

James Stewart

1896 - 1990 (94 years)

James Stuart Stewart was a minister of the Church of Scotland. He taught New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the University of Edinburgh . Educated at the High School of Dundee and the University of St Andrews from 1913, he took a first in classics . His studies were interrupted by service in France with the Royal Engineers . After the war he pursued divinity at New College, Edinburgh, then a United Free Church of Scotland institution, with postgraduate work at the University of Bonn and an assistantship at Barclay Church, Edinburgh. He was minister of North Morningside Parish Church.

#5327

Isaac-Bénédict Prévost

1755 - 1819 (64 years)

Isaac-Bénédict Prévost was a Swiss Protestant theologian and naturalist who was one of the first to identify fungal infection of plants and to find treatments to avoid them. Prévost was born in Geneva to Jean-Jacques Prévost and Marie-Élisabeth Henri. A cousin was the ophthalmologist Pierre Prévost. Little is known of his early life but he chose science to a career in business after apprenticing in a grocery. He became interested in science after reading the work of the astronomer Duc-la-Chapelle. In 1777, he became a private tutor to the sons of Delmas in Montauban. He founded a society for science in Montauban.

#5328

Christian Chemnitz

Christian Chemnitz

1615 - 1666 (51 years)

Christian Chemnitz was a German Lutheran theologian. Latin language sources identify him as Christianus Chemnitius. Life Family provenance Christian Chemnitz was born in Königsfeld, a small town in the hills to the south of Leipzig. The family was able to trace its origins back to Pritzwalk in Brandenburg where since 1287 they had provided no fewer than sixteen mayors and chief aldermen. The most notable family member in more recent generations was Christian's great uncle, the theologian and reformer Martin Chemnitz . Christian's father was another Martin Chemnitz , a teacher and theologian in Königsfeld where he had been appointed pastor in 1593.

#5329

Thomas Cuming Hall

1858 - 1936 (78 years)

Thomas Cuming Hall was an American Presbyterian theologian, son of the Rev. John Hall . He was born at Armagh, Ireland and arrived in America in 1867 with his parents when his father took up the post of pastor at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; he was naturalized on May 8, 1882. He graduated from Princeton University in 1879 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1882, and studied at Berlin and Göttingen 1882–83. Ordained in 1883, he held pastorates at Omaha, Neb. , and Chicago , and in 1898 became professor of Christian ethics at Union Seminary. In 1884 he married German Jennie Elizabeth Louise Bartling in London, England.

#5330

Nils Johan Ekdahl

Nils Johan Ekdahl

1799 - 1870 (71 years)

Nils Johan Ekdahl was a Swedish theologian, political writer and cultural historian. Student in Lund in 1820, ordination as pastor in 1822, employed as a preacher in Stockholm in 1825. In his spare time, he devoted himself to historical and archaeological research, and traveled from 1827 to 1830 through the landscape of Norrland in the north of Sweden, about which he reports in his treatise Om vattuminskningen i norra poltrakterna . In his last years of life Ekdahl was also a staunch supporter of the Icelandic theologian Magnús Eiríksson , of whom he translated two books into Swedish.

#5331

Abraham de Sola

Abraham de Sola

1825 - 1882 (57 years)

Abraham de Sola was a Canadian rabbi, author, Orientalist, and academic. Originating from a large renowned family of rabbis and scholars, De Sola was recognized as one of the foremost leaders of Orthodox Judaism in North America during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

#5332

Andreas Fischer

1480 - 1540 (60 years)

Andreas Fischer was an Austrian/Moravian Anabaptist, and associate of Oswald Glaidt. He first appears as an Anabaptist leader in the public records in 1528 in Silesia, as a literary opponent of Caspar Schwenckfeldt's associate, Valentine Crautwald. His main written work is "Scepastes Decologi," in which he defended not only adult baptism but also the reinstitution of Saturday/Sabbath keeping as a Christian practice. This work is lost, but its main arguments are carefully reconstructed by Daniel Liechty based on Crautwald's tract against it Fischer spent the 1530s moving back and forth betw...

#5333

Louis de Dieu

1590 - 1642 (52 years)

Louis de Dieu was a Dutch Protestant minister and a leading orientalist. His grandfather had served at the court of Charles V, and his father, Daniel de Dieu, was also a protestant minister and linguist. Louis was educated at Leiden, where he was regent of the Walloon College . He declined the chair of theology and oriental languages at Utrecht.

#5334

John Harding

1501 - 1610 (109 years)

John Harding was an English churchman and academic. He was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford from 1591 to 1598, and President of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1607. He was also involved in the translation of the Authorized King James Version, becoming leader of the First Oxford Company of translators after the death of John Rainolds.

#5335

John Dickie

1875 - 1942 (67 years)

John Dickie was a Scottish-New Zealand presbyterian theologian and professor. Life He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on 20 May 1875. After growing up in the Buchan District of North East Scotland, Dickie attended University in Aberdeen in 1891, graduating with an MA in classics. He taught at public schools for two years after graduating, before beginning theological studies at the University of Edinburgh, a decision that was influenced by Professor Flint. He won many scholarships and prizes every year during his studying, and worked as an assistant to many parishes throughout England.

#5336

Franciscus Haraeus

Franciscus Haraeus

1555 - 1631 (76 years)

Franciscus Haraeus , , was a theologian, historian, and cartographer from the Low Countries. He is best known for his history of the origins of the Dutch Revolt, written from a Catholic perspective but without polemical bias. He was one of the first cartographers to make thematic maps and globes.

#5337

Guitmund

1100 - 1084 (-16 years)

The Norman Guitmund , Bishop of Aversa, was a Benedictine monk who was an opponent of the teachings of Berengar of Tours. In his youth Guitmund entered the monastery of La-Croix-Saint-Leufroy in the Diocese of Évreux. By 1060 he was studying theology at the Abbey of Bec, where he had Lanfranc as teacher and Anselm as a fellow-student, each of them later Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1070 William the Conqueror called him to take up a diocese in England, to which the monk responded with his Oratio ad Guillelmum, denouncing the Norman Conquest.

#5338

Lorenzo Pucci

1458 - 1531 (73 years)

Lorenzo Pucci was an Italian cardinal and bishop from the Florentine Pucci family. His brother Roberto Pucci and his nephew Antonio Pucci also became cardinals. Biography Pucci was born in Florence.

#5339

Pierre Boquin

1518 - 1582 (64 years)

Pierre Boquin was a French Reformed Theologian who played a critical role in the Reformation of the Electoral Palatinate. Origins and early career Pierre Boquin was probably born after 1518 in Guyenne in Western France. He earned a doctorate in theology in 1539 at the University of Bourges. He was briefly a member of the Carmelite Order even serving as prior of the Bourges community before leaving in 1541 due to his turn toward Protestantism. He fled through Basel and Leipzig to Wittenberg. He joined the faculty of the Strasbourg Academy in 1542 as the successor of John Calvin.

#5340

Felino Maria Sandeo

Felino Maria Sandeo

1444 - 1503 (59 years)

Felino Maria Sandeo , often quoted under the Latin name of Felinus, was an Italian canonist of the fifteenth century. Biography He was born at Felino, in the Diocese of Reggio, in 1444. He taught canon law from 1466 to 1474 at Ferrara, which was his family's native place, and at Pisa until 1484, when he became auditor of the Sacred Palace and lived at Rome. On 4 May 1495, he became Bishop of Penne and Atri and on 25 September of the same year Coadjutor Bishop of Lucca with right of succession. He became Bishop of Lucca in 1499.

#5341

George Lokert

1485 - 1547 (62 years)

George Lokert of Ayr was a Scottish philosopher and theologian who made significant contributions to the study of logic. A pupil of John Mair, he also studied and taught at the University of Paris, and eventually served as prior of the Sorbonne. Returning to Scotland in 1521, he served as Rector of the University of St Andrews .

#5342

Jean Le Clerc

1657 - 1736 (79 years)

Jean Le Clerc, also Johannes Clericus , was a Genevan theologian and biblical scholar. He was famous for promoting exegesis, or critical interpretation of the Bible, and was a radical of his age. He parted with Calvinism over his interpretations and left Geneva for that reason.

#5343

Francis Aveling

1875 - 1941 (66 years)

Francis Arthur Powell Aveling MC ComC was a Canadian psychologist and Catholic priest. He married Ethel Dancy of Steyning, Sussex in 1925. Life Francis Aveling was born at St. Catharines, Ontario 25 December 1875. He went to Bishop Ridley College in Ontario and McGill University before studying at Keble College at the University of Oxford, England. Aveling was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Father Luke Rivington in 1896 and entered the Pontificio Collegio Canadese in Rome. There he earned his doctor of divinity degree. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1899, and served as a curate in Tottenham, before becoming first rector of Westminster Cathedral Choir School.

#5344

Antoine-Joseph Mège

1625 - 1691 (66 years)

Antoine-Joseph Mège was a French Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Maur. He is known for his commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. Life On 17 March 1643, he became a Benedictine at the monastery of Vendôme. In 1659 he taught theology at the Abbey of St. Denis and afterwards devoted himself to preaching.

#5345

Nicolas des Gallars

1520 - 1580 (60 years)

Nicolas des Gallars [in Lat. Gallasius] , was a Calvinist pastor and theologian . Life Gallars was of noble birth, and "possessed legal training, rich exposure to the humanities, and polished Latin." He first appears as author of a Defensio of William Farel, published at Geneva in 1545, followed by translations into French of three tracts by John Calvin. Scott Manetsch notes that Gallars' appointment "signaled an important new stage in Calvin's recruitment efforts." In 1551 Gallars was admitted bourgeois of Geneva, and in 1553 made pastor of the church in Jussy.

#5346

Michael Vehe

1485 - 1539 (54 years)

Michael Vehe was a German monk and theologian. Life Vehe was born in Biberach . He joined the Dominicans in Wimpfen and was sent to Heidelberg in 1506, where he taught in 1512 and received a doctorate in theology in 1513. In 1515 he was appointed regent of the Dominican house of studies at Heidelberg; later Cardinal Albert of Mainz chose him as theologian and put him in charge of the church of Halle, Saxony. He was summoned to Augsburg in 1530 to refute the Lutheran Confession of Faith and took a prominent part in a debate against the Lutherans in 1534 in Leipzig. He was called to the bishopric of Halberstadt on February 21, 1539.

#5347

Juan de Dicastillo

1584 - 1653 (69 years)

Juan de Dicastillo was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. He was born in Naples. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1600, and was professor of theology for twenty-five years at Toledo, Murcia, and Vienna. He died in Ingolstadt.

#5348

Jodh Singh

1882 - 1981 (99 years)

Bhai Jodh Singh was a Sikh theologian, author, mentor and social activist. He played an important role in the Singh Sabha movement. He was a recipient of the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan. See also Sikhism

#5349

Richard FitzRalph

1295 - 1360 (65 years)

Richard FitzRalph was a scholastic philosopher, theologian, and Norman Irish Archbishop of Armagh during the 14th century. His thought exerted a significant influence on John Wycliffe's. Life FitzRalph was born into a well-off burgess family of Anglo-Norman/Hiberno-Norman descent in Dundalk, Ireland. He is noted as an ex-fellow and teacher of Balliol College, at the University of Oxford in 1325 . By 1331, he was a Regent master in Theology, and soon after was made Vice-Chancellor of the university; this was an almost unparalleled achievement for someone still in his early thirties, let alone ...

#5350

Conrad of Gelnhausen

1325 - 1390 (65 years)

Conrad of Gelnhausen was a German theologian and canon lawyer, and one of the founders of the conciliar movement of the late fourteenth century. Details of his life are sketchy. He was baccalaureus at the University of Paris in 1344. For the two decades after then he can be tracked by prebends he is known to have had, in various places in Germany. He turned towards the law later in his career.

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