The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#5801
Alexander Ales
1500 - 1565 (65 years)
Alexander Ales or Alexander Alesius was a Scottish theologian who emigrated to Germany and became a Lutheran supporter of the Augsburg Confession. Life Originally Alexander Alane, he was born at Edinburgh. He studied at St Andrews in the newly founded college of St Leonard's, where he graduated in 1515. Some time afterwards he was appointed a priest at the University's church, where he preached vigorously in favor of scholastic theology, Renaissance humanism, and anti-Protestantism. His views entirely changed, however, upon witnessing the 1528 execution by burning of Rev. Patrick Hamilton, a Lutheran Pastor and former abbot of Fern.
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N. Samuel of Tranquebar
1850 - 1927 (77 years)
Rev. N. Samuel of Tranquebar was a professor in divinity, pastor in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church , and a hymnodist. He was a famous poet and author of many books. He was also the first member of the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission Council.
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John Eugenikos
1380 - 1453 (73 years)
John Eugenikos was a late Byzantine cleric and writer. He was the brother of Mark Eugenikos, and like him an ardent opponent of the Union of the Churches. Originally a notary and nomophylax at the Patriarchate of Constantinople, his opposition to the Union saw him exiled to the Despotate of the Morea, where he died. John participated briefly in the Council of Florence that ratified the Union, and also travelled to Trebizond and Mesembria.
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Karl Zimmermann
1803 - 1877 (74 years)
Justus Joseph Georg Friedrich Karl Zimmermann was a German Protestant theologian. His older brother, Ernst Zimmermann , was also a theologian. Born in the Hessian city of Darmstadt, He studied philology and theology at the universities of Giessen and Heidelberg, and for several years worked as a teacher in various schools. In 1835 he was named second court chaplain in Darmstadt, then obtained the title of first court chaplain in 1842. From 1847 onward, he served as a member of the consistory, a prelate and ecclesiastical superintendent at the Schlosskirche in Darmstadt.
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Joseph Emerson
1821 - 1900 (79 years)
Joseph Emerson was an American minister and theologian. Emerson, son of Professor Ralph Emerson, D.D. and Eliza Emerson, was born on May 28, 1821, at Norfolk, Connecticut, where his father was at the time pastor of the Congregational church. In 1829 his father became Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Andover Theological Seminary, in Andover, Massachusetts, and he was prepared for college at Phillips Academy in that place. During his senior year at Yale College he was one of the editors of the Yale Literary Magazine. He graduated from Yale in 1841.
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Friedrich Myconius
1490 - 1546 (56 years)
Friedrich Myconius was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. He was a colleague of Martin Luther. Myconius was born in Lichtenfels, Bavaria, and he was educated there and at Annaberg, where he had an encounter with Johann Tetzel, a Dominican, in a disagreement over indulgences. His teacher, named Staffelstein, persuaded him in 1510 to enter the Franciscan order. That same night a dream turned his thoughts towards the religious standpoint which he subsequently reached as a Lutheran. From Annaberg he passed to Franciscan communities at Leipzig and Weimar, where he was ordained priest in 1516.
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Victorinus Strigel
1524 - 1569 (45 years)
Viktorin Strigel was a Philippist Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Life Victorinus Strigel was born 1524 in Kaufbeuren, the son of the physician Ivo Strigel. He attended the University of Freiburg in October 1542 and went to the University of Wittenberg to study philosophy and theology. There he became a follower of Philipp Melanchthon in 1544, earned a Master of Arts, and gave his own lectures. Due to the Schmalkaldic War, he fled with Melanchthon at first to Magdeburg and went to the University of Erfurt, where he also taught. From Erfurt, he was recommended to Jena, where he ...
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Agrippa Castor
Agrippa Castor has been identified as "the earliest recorded writer against heresy, and apparently the only one who composed a book solely devoted to the refutation of Basilides". Little is known of him besides second-hand passing in ancient historical references.
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Ludwig von Gerdtell
1872 - 1954 (82 years)
Friedrich Siegfried Heinrich Ludwig von Gerdtell was a German theologian associated with the Disciples of Christ movement. Ludwig von Gerdtell was born into an aristocratic Prussian family, his father and grandfather were officers in the Potsdam Guards Regiment. He did not follow this tradition and studied law, then theology with an emphasis on New Testament Studies. From 1902 to 1908 he worked as a traveling secretary for the German Student Christian Association. In 1908/09 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Erlangen with his work on Rudolf Eucken's position on early Christianity. He came to the conclusion that the statements of the New Testament church and the state disagreed.
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Francisco Foreiro
1523 - 1581 (58 years)
Francisco Foreiro was a Portuguese Dominican theologian and biblist. Biography Born in 1523 in Lisbon, he studied arts and theology and entered among the Dominicans in February 1539. King John III sent him to study theology in the university of Paris and, on his return to Lisbon, he appointed Foreiro his preacher. Prince Louis at the same time entrusted to him the education of his son, António.
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Nicholas Abram
1589 - 1655 (66 years)
Nicholas Abram was a Jesuit theologian and classicist. Biography Abram was born in Xaronval, in Lorraine, in the year 1589. He entered the Jesuit order in 1606, and took his final vows in 1623. Abram taught rhetoric at Pont-à-Mousson, then engaged in missionary work, and finally taught theology at Pont-à-Mousson from 1636 until 1653. He taught briefly at Dijon before returning once again to Pont-à-Mousson, where he died in 1655.
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Antoine Massoulié
1632 - 1706 (74 years)
Antoine Massoulié was a French Dominican theologian. He was uncompromising against Quietism, and Molinism. Life At an early age he entered the order of St. Dominic, in which he held many important offices; but above all these, he prized study, teaching, and writing. He refused a bishopric and asked to be relieved of distracting duties. It was said that he knew by heart the Summa of Thomas Aquinas.
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Leonardo Marini
1509 - 1573 (64 years)
Leonardo Marini was an Italian theologian and archbishop of the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church. Biography Marini was born on the island of Chios, in the Aegean Sea, to a noble Genoese family. He entered the Dominican Order and studied theology.
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Martin of Arles
1501 - 1521 (20 years)
Martinus de Arles y Andosilla was doctor of theology and canon in Pamplona and archdeacon of Aibar, author of a tractatus de superstitionibus, contra maleficia seu sortilegia quae hodie vigent in orbe terrarum , a work on demonology in the context of the Early Modern witch-hunts. Martin believed witches to be particularly numerous among the population of Navarra, and the Basques of the Pyrenees in general. He recommends stern measures of an inquisition against this. His depiction of witchcraft is, however, based on sources predating the Malleus maleficarum, arguing against its simplistic depiction of witchcraft .
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Tomaso Malvenda
1566 - 1628 (62 years)
Tomaso Malvenda was a Spanish Dominican exegete and historical critic. Life Malvenda was born in Xàtiva, Valencia. He entered the Dominicans in his youth; at the age of thirty-five he seems to have already taught philosophy and theology. His criticisms on the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, embodied in a letter to the letter to the author , showed ability, and Baronius used his influence to have Malvenda summoned to Rome. Here he was an adviser to the cardinal, while also employed in revising the Dominican Breviary, annotating Brasichelli's Index Expurgatorius, and writing some annals of the order .
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John Downame
1571 - 1652 (81 years)
John Downame was an English Puritan clergyman and theologian in London, who came to prominence in the 1640s, when he worked closely with the Westminster Assembly. He is now remembered for his writings.
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William Cowper
1810 - 1902 (92 years)
William Macquarie Cowper was an Australian Anglican archdeacon and Dean of Sydney. Cowper was born in Sydney, the son of the Revd William Cowper, assistant colonial chaplain, and his second wife, Ann . Educated by his father and at the University of Oxford, he graduated BA from Magdalen Hall in 1833 and MA in 1835. Following admission to deacon´s order, he was appointed curate of St Petrox, Dartmouth, and ordained priest at Exeter in 1834. He returned to Australia in 1836 and was made chaplain at Port Stephens, New South Wales where he remained for 20 years. He then became Acting Principal o...
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William Turner
1761 - 1859 (98 years)
William Turner was a Unitarian minister and educator who advanced the anti-slavery movement in Northern England, contributed to the development of intellectual institutions in Newcastle upon Tyne, and published sermons on a variety of topics.
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William Matthews
1770 - 1854 (84 years)
William Matthews , occasionally spelled Mathews, was an American who became the fifth Roman Catholic priest ordained in the United States and the first such person born in British America. Born in the colonial Province of Maryland, he was briefly a novice in the Society of Jesus. After being ordained, he became influential in establishing Catholic parochial and educational institutions in Washington, D.C. He was the second pastor of St. Patrick's Church, serving for most of his life. He served as the sixth president of Georgetown College, later known as Georgetown University. Matthews acted as...
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Samuel Petto
1624 - 1711 (87 years)
Samuel Petto was an English Calvinist, a Cambridge graduate, and an Independent Puritan clergyman who primarily ministered in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was a prolific theologian who made a notable contribution to the development of British covenant theology by describing the link between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and also demonstrating the relationship between justification and covenant theology. Additionally, he wrote two catechisms and a book advocating lay preaching. He also had close ties with a radical political movement.
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Thomas J. Campbell
1848 - 1925 (77 years)
Thomas J. Campbell was the twelfth and fourteenth president of St. John's College . Early life Campbell was born in New York City on April 29, 1848. He initially attended public schools in New York city, but later enrolled at St. Francis Xavier College. He received his Master of Arts in 1867, and entered the Jesuit novitiate in Sault-au-Recollet, Canada. In 1870 he was sent to St. John's College, where he taught classical literature for three years. Campbell continued his philosophical and scientific studies in Woodstock, Maryland. After completing his studies, he returned to St. Francis Xavier College to teach rhetoric in 1876.
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Thomas Jones of Denbigh
1756 - 1820 (64 years)
Thomas Jones , called "Thomas Jones of Denbigh" to differentiate him from namesakes, was a Welsh Methodist clergyman, writer, editor and poet, active in North Wales. Life history Thomas Jones was born in 1756 at Aberchwiler in Denbighshire, but was educated at Caerwys and Holywell in Flintshire.
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Alexandros Lykourgos
1827 - 1875 (48 years)
Alexandros Lykourgos was a Greek theologian, Greek Orthodox cleric and university professor. Born in Samos Island in 1827, after extended studies in Germany and a pilgrimage to Palestine he returned to Greece in 1858. He was appointed professor of theology at the University of Athens, and elected Greek Orthodox bishop of Syros and Tenos, islands of the Cyclades with significant Roman Catholic populations with whom according to French consular reports he was in conflictual relations circa 1864. He is particularly known for his visit to England to consecrate the Greek Orthodox church of St. Nicholas in Liverpool.
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Pietro Colonna Galatino
1460 - 1540 (80 years)
Pietro Colonna Galatino , also known as Petrus Galatinus, was an Italian Friar Minor, philosopher, theologian and Orientalist. Biography Galatino was born at Galatina, in Apulia. He received the habit as early as 1480, studied Oriental languages in Rome and was appointed lector at the convent of Ara Coeli; he also held the office of provincial in the province of Bari, and that of penitentiary under Leo X.
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Berend Kordes
1762 - 1823 (61 years)
Berend Kordes or Berenne Kordes was a German writer on exegetical theology. He was born at Lubeck on 27 October 1762, and studied at the universities of Kiel, Leipzig, and Jena. In 1793 he became librarian of the university at Kiel. and died there Feb. 5,1823. His exegetical works are, Observationumn in Jonce Oracula Specimina :-Ruth ex versione Septuaginta intepraetum .-Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 28:84.
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Franz Lorinser
1821 - 1893 (72 years)
Carl Maria Franz Lorinser was a German Catholic theologian, translator from Sanskrit and Spanish, and a writer on natural history. Lorinser was born in Berlin where his father was Karl Ignatius, a physician. The family had moved to Oppeln, Upper Silesia where Franz went to school. He then went to Breslau and Munich to study theology. In 1842 he went to Rome to study in the seminary there. He was ordained by Cardinal Patrizi on December 23, 1843. Returning to Germany in 1844 he spent time in Munich and then worked as chaplain, later pastor in Breslau. He died at Breslau.
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Christianus Carolus Henricus van der Aa
1718 - 1793 (75 years)
Christianus Carolus Henricus van der Aa was a Lutheran pastor in Haarlem and secretary of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. Life Christianus Carolus Henricus was born in Zwolle, where his father Balduinus also worked as a pastor.
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Josse Ravesteyn
1506 - 1570 (64 years)
Josse Ravesteyn, also spelled Ravestein , was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Biography Born about 1506, at Tielt, a small town in Flanders, hence often called Tiletanus also known as Jean Leonardi Hasselius
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Caspar Cruciger the Younger
1525 - 1597 (72 years)
Caspar Cruciger the Younger was a German theologian and Protestant reformer. Born in Wittenberg, he was the son of Caspar Cruciger the Elder and his wife, the hymnwriter and former nun Elisabeth von Meseritz. He was Melanchthon's successor at the University of Wittenberg. In the discussions after 1570 he was one of the leaders of the Philippists, and was engulfed in their catastrophe in 1574. He was imprisoned and was banished from Saxony in 1576.
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Al-Sharif al-Jurjani
1340 - 1413 (73 years)
Ali ibn Mohammed al-Jurjani was a Persian encyclopedic writer, scientist, and traditionalist theologian. He is referred to as "al-Sayyid al-Sharif" in sources due to his alleged descent from Ali ibn Abi Taleb. He was born in the village of Ṭāḡu near Astarabad in Gorgan , and became a professor in Shiraz. When this city was plundered by Timur in 1387, he moved to Samarkand, but returned to Shiraz in 1405, and remained there until his death.
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August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack
1703 - 1786 (83 years)
August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack was one of the most eminent German Reformed preachers and a prominent liberal theologian of the reign of Frederick II of Prussia who helped shape the Enlightenment in Berlin and Prussia.
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Simon Sulzer
1508 - 1585 (77 years)
Simon Sulzer was a Reformed theologian, Reformer, and Antistes of the Basel church. Life Sulzer was born in Schattenhalb, the child of a priest. He was educated in Bern and Lucerne. The sudden death of his father, the provost of Interlaken, forced him to turn to manual labor to support himself. He worked as a barber in Strasbourg and attended lectures by Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito. He moved to Basel in 1531, where he associated with Simon Grynaeus. Here he worked as a proofreader at the print shop of Johann Heerwagen and was also employed as a teacher. From 1533 he worked in Bern in edu...
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Frederick Nolan
1784 - 1864 (80 years)
Frederick Nolan was an Irish Anglican theologian. Life Born at Old Rathmines Castle, County Dublin, the seat of his grandfather, on 9 February 1784, third son of Edward Nolan of St. Peter's, Dublin, by his wife Florinda. In 1796 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate, and on 19 November 1803 matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, chiefly in order to study at the Bodleian and other libraries. He passed his examination for the degree of B.C.L. in 1805, but he did not take it until 1828, when he proceeded D.C.L. at the same time. He was ordained in Augu...
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Christoph Pezel
1539 - 1604 (65 years)
Christoph Pezel was an influential Reformed Theologian who introduced the Reformed confession to Nassau-Dillenburg and Bremen. Education and service in Saxony Pezel was born in Plauen and educated at the universities of Jena and Wittenberg, his studies at the latter institution being interrupted by his teaching for several years. In 1557 he was appointed professor in the philosophical faculty and in 1569 was ordained preacher at the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. In the same year he entered the theological faculty, where he soon became involved in the disputes between the followers of Melanchth...
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Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah al-Maghrawi al-Wahrani was an Algerian Maliki scholar of Islamic law, active in the Maghreb from the end of the fifteenth century until his death. He was identified as the author of the 1504 fatwa commonly named the Oran fatwa, instructing the Muslims in Spain about how to secretly practice Islam, and granting comprehensive dispensations for them to publicly conform to Christianity and performing acts normally forbidden in Islam when necessary to survive. Because of his authorship of the fatwa he is often referred to as "the Mufti of Oran", although he likel...
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Ralph Bathurst
1620 - 1704 (84 years)
Ralph Bathurst, FRS was an English theologian and physician. Early life He was born in Hothorpe, Northamptonshire in 1620 and educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry. He graduated with a B.A. degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1638, where he had a family connection with the President, Ralph Kettell .
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Martin Eisengrein
1535 - 1578 (43 years)
Martin Eisengrein was a German Catholic theologian, university professor and polemical writer. Biography He was born of Lutheran parents, Martin and Anna Kienzer Eisengrein, at Stuttgart. He studied the humanities at the Latin school of Stuttgart, and the liberal arts and philosophy at the University of Tübingen. To please his father, who was burgomaster of Stuttgart, Eisengrein matriculated as student of jurisprudence at the University of Ingolstadt, 25 May 1553, but before a year had passed he was at the University of Vienna, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in May, 1554.
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Levi Silliman Ives
1797 - 1867 (70 years)
Levi Silliman Ives was an American theologian and Episcopal bishop of North Carolina. In 1852, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York area. He was the founder and first president of the New York Catholic Protectory, an institution for the shelter and education of destitute and abandoned children. He was also a founder of Manhattan College.
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Johann Heinrich Winckler
1703 - 1770 (67 years)
Johann Heinrich Winckler was a German physicist and philosopher. Biography Early life Winckler was born in Wingendorf, a village in Silesia. He was educated at Leipzig University. One of his teachers was Andreas Rüdiger, an opponent of Christian Wolff. Winckler read Wolff's works and defended him against Rudiger during his lessons.
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Donal Herlihy
1908 - 1983 (75 years)
Donal Herlihy was an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman who served as the bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns from 1964 to 1983. He was born in Knocknagree, Co. Cork in 1908 and studied at St. Brendan's College, Killarney. He studied for the priesthood in Rome was ordained priest there in 1931. Further studies in scripture led to him being appointed Professor of Sacred Scripture in All Hallows College Dublin.
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Johann Andreas Danz
1654 - 1727 (73 years)
Johann Andreas Danz was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Life Johann Andreas Danz was born at Sundhausen, a village just outside Gotha in central Germany. His initial schooling was provided locally at the village school, but his exceptional scholastic potential was soon brought to the attention of the local duke, Friedrich of Gotha who took on responsibility for funding his higher education. When he was ten he was sent away to school in Friedrichroda, some twenty kilometers distant. Four years later, in 1668 he was enrolled at the prestigious "Gymnasium" in Gotha, at that time oper...
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Polykarp Leyser the Elder
1552 - 1610 (58 years)
Polykarp Leyser the Elder or Polykarp Leyser I was a Lutheran theologian, superintendent of Braunschweig, superintendent-general of the Saxon church-circle, professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg and chief court-preacher and consistorial-councillor of Saxony.
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Jakob Miller
1550 - 1597 (47 years)
Jakob Miller was a Catholic reformist theologian, provost and administrator of the diocese of Regensburg. Life Miller was born in Kißlegg, Allgäu. He studied at the Germanicum in Rome and in 1578 was made a cathedral-preacher in Konstanz, then on his deposition from that post in 1585 as visitor to the bishopric of Konstanz. From 1586 he was spiritual overseer of the diocese of Regensburg. In Regensburg Miller tried to set up a Jesuit college, wrote new diocesan constitutions and enforced the decisions of the Council of Trent in the diocese. In 1592 he was made the first mitred provost of Regensburg, since the bishop Philipp of Bavaria was still in his minority.
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Charles Hastings Collette
1816 - 1901 (85 years)
Charles Hastings Collette was a British 19th-century solicitor and writer of Protestant popular controversialist apologetics. He was the father of actor Charles Henry Collette and the organizer of the Joseph Mendham library. As a volunteer in the First Middlesex Artillery, he compiled a handbook for drill instruction.
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William Francis Barry
1849 - 1930 (81 years)
William Francis Barry was a British Catholic priest, theologian, educator and writer. He served as vice president and professor of philosophy at Birmingham Theological College from 1873 to 1877 and then professor of divinity at Oscott College from 1877 to 1880. A distinguished ecclesiastic, Barry gave lectures in both Great Britain and the United States during the 1890s. He was also a popular author and novelist at the start of the 20th century, whose books usually dealt with then controversial religious and social questions, and is credited as the creator of the modern English Catholic novel...
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Joseph Jowett
1751 - 1813 (62 years)
Joseph Jowett was an English Anglican cleric and jurist. He was Fellow and Tutor of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge University from 1782 to 1813. He was the uncle of William Jowett.
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John of Ragusa
1390 - 1443 (53 years)
John of Ragusa was a Croatian Dominican theologian. He died at Lausanne, Switzerland in 1443. He was president of the Council of Basle, and a legate to Constantinople. He was created cardinal by Antipope Felix V, so would be considered by many a "pseudocardinal".
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Peter of Poitiers
1130 - 1205 (75 years)
Peter of Poitiers was a French scholastic theologian, born in Poitiers around 1125-1130. He died in Paris on September 3, 1205. Life After his studies in Paris, he began teaching in the Faculty of Theology in 1167. Two years later he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of scholastic theology at the cathedral school of Notre Dame.
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Joseph Baylee
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Joseph Tyrrell Baylee, D.D. , was a theological writer. Baylee received his education at Trinity College Dublin . To the residents of Liverpool and Birkenhead his name became for a quarter of a century a household word, on account of his activity as the founder and first principal of St. Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, where he prepared many students for the work of the ministry. This institution, which may be said to have been founded in 1846, originated in a private theological class conducted by Dr. Baylee, under the sanction of the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Sumner, afterwards advance...
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Timotheus Kirchner
1533 - 1587 (54 years)
Timotheus Kirchner was a Lutheran theologian, pastor, Protestant reformer, professor of theology and superintendent in Weimar. Life Kirchner was the son of a teacher. He attended school in Gotha, studied in Jena and Erfurt, and was the village priest at a young age.
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