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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,

#3001

Mattheus Pinna da Encarnaçao

1687 - 1764 (77 years)

Mattheus Pinna da Encarnaçao was a Brazilian Benedictine writer and theologian. Life He was born at Rio de Janeiro. On 3 March 1703, he became a Benedictine at the Abbey of Nossa Senhora do Montserrate at Rio de Janeiro, where he also studied the humanities and philosophy under . After studying theology at the monastery of Bahia, he was ordained priest 24 March 1708, and appointed professor of philosophy and theology.

#3002

John Evans

1767 - 1827 (60 years)

John Evans was a Welsh Baptist minister. Life He was born at Usk in Monmouthshire, 2 October 1767. After schooling in Bristol he became a student in November 1783 in the Baptist academy there, where his relative Dr. Caleb Evans was theological tutor. During part of the time Robert Hall was his classical tutor. In 1787 he matriculated at King's College, Aberdeen, and went in 1790 to the University of Edinburgh. Having taken the degree of M.A. he returned in June 1791 to England.

#3003

Nicolas Bonet

1280 - 1360 (80 years)

Nicolas Bonet was a Friar Minor, philosopher, theologian, missionary and bishop of Malta. Life Nicolas Bonet was born in the Touraine region of France, where he entered the Franciscan convent at Tours. Nothing is known about his early life. He was incepted as Master of Theology at Paris in the year 1333-4, where he received the title of "Doctor Pacificus" on account of his suave and tranquil mode of lecturing. Bonet took part in the heated dispute concerning John XXII's view on the beatific vision which was finally settled by the decree of his successor, Benedict XII, "Benedictus Deus".

#3004

Jakob Middendorp

1537 - 1611 (74 years)

Jakob Middendorp was a Dutch Catholic theologian and churchman, academic and historian. Life Middendorp was born about 1537 in Oldenzaal, or perhaps Ootmarsum, as he called himself Otmersensis on the title page of his work . He studied the humanities at the Fragerherren gymnasium of Zwolle, philosophy and jurisprudence at Cologne University, where he became doctor of philosophy and both branches of law, and also licentiate of theology; he also taught peripatetic philosophy at the Montanum gymnasium there.

#3005

Georg Mancelius

1593 - 1654 (61 years)

Georg Mancelius was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian in what is now Latvia. He wrote the first dictionary of the Latvian language. From 1635 to 1636 he was Vice Rector of the University of Tartu and from 1636 Rector.

#3006

Niccolò Riccardi

1585 - 1639 (54 years)

Niccolò Riccardi was an Italian Dominican theologian, writer and preacher, known today mostly for his role in the Galileo affair. Life Physically he was unprepossessing, but he was encouraged by his parents who sent him to study with Tomas de Lemos at University of Valladolid. He entered the Dominican Order and was invested with its habit in the Convent of St. Paul, where he studied philosophy and theology. After completing his studies he was made a professor of Thomistic theology at Pincia. While discharging his academic duties, he acquired a reputation as a preacher: Philip III of Spain named him "padre Mostro" , a sobriquet by which he was subsequently known in Spain and at Rome.

#3007

John Yates

1755 - 1826 (71 years)

John Yates was an English Unitarian minister, for over 30 years at the Paradise Street Chapel in Liverpool. He was an abolitionist, a supporter of radical causes, and a member of the Roscoe circle of progressives.

#3008

Gustav Philipp Mörl

Gustav Philipp Mörl

1673 - 1750 (77 years)

Gustav Philipp Mörl or Gustav Philipp Morl; Gustavus Philippus Moerl was a German theologian, was born in Nuremberg 26 December 1673 and was educated first in the schools of his native place and then at the university in Altdorf, where he studied philosophy and philology from 1690 to 1692, when he was removed to Jena to study theology and the ancient languages. He traveled through Holland, and visited its most important universities. After his return home he was appointed assistant of the philosophic faculty at Halle, and in 1698 became professor and ecclesiastical inspector at Altdorf. He resigned this position in 1703, and was appointed dean of St.

#3009

Johann Ernst Gerhard the elder

1621 - 1668 (47 years)

Johann Ernst Gerhard was a German Lutheran theologian. There are suggestions, however, that his greater scholarly passion lay in Oriental studies. Latin language sources identify him as Joannes Ernestus Gerhardus .

#3010

Thomas-Étienne Hamel

Thomas-Étienne Hamel

1830 - 1913 (83 years)

Thomas-Étienne Hamel was a French-Canadian priest and academic. He was the son of Victor Hamel, a merchant and Therèse DeFoy. In 1852, as a student of the Séminaire de Québec, he traveled with Louis-Jacques Casault to London where they arranged for the royal charter of what would become Laval University. After his ordination in 1854, he was sent to Paris' École des Carmes and eventually graduated from the Sorbonne with a license in science, before returning to Quebec to teach at the Séminaire, also acquiring the office of general secretary of the new university. He became rector of the Sémina...

#3011

Nicholas Fitzherbert

1550 - 1612 (62 years)

Nicholas Fitzherbert was an English recusant gentleman who served as secretary to Cardinal William Allen and was found guilty of treason due to his Catholicism. He was the second son of John Fitzherbert of Padley, Derbyshire. Fitzherbert was the grandson of the judge Sir Anthony Fitzherbert , and first cousin to the Jesuit Thomas Fitzherbert. Whilst he was abroad, two priests were arrested at his father's house; they are now saints after becoming martyrs to their faith. Fitzherbert's lands were forfeit, and he was obliged to spend his life abroad. He was buried in Florence.

#3012

Praepositinus

1150 - 1210 (60 years)

Praepositinus was an Italian scholastic philosopher and theologian. He was a liturgical commentator, and supporter a res-theory of belief. He discussed intentional contexts. Biography Praepositinus was probably born in northern Italy. Having studied under Petrus Comestor and taught at Paris, he was scholasticus of Mainz Cathedral in 1196. Returning, he was Chancellor of the University of Paris from c. 1206 to 1209. In 1209 he was replaced as chancellor by John of Chandelle; he retired to an abbey and died shortly after, in 1210.

#3013

Robert Parker

1564 - 1614 (50 years)

Robert Parker was an English Puritan clergyman and scholar. He became minister of a separatist congregation in Holland where he died while in exile for his heterodoxy. The Revd. Cotton Mather wrote of Parker as "one of the greatest scholars in the English Nation, and in some sort the father of all Nonconformists of our day."

#3014

Francesco Amico

1578 - 1651 (73 years)

Francesco Amico was a prominent Catholic theologian, born in Cosenza, in Calabria, 2 April 1578. Biography Francesco Amico entered the Society of Jesus in 1596. For twenty-four years he was professor of theology at Naples, Aquila, and Gratz, and, for five years, chancellor in the academy of Gratz. He was scholastic in his method, adapting his treatises to a four-year course of teaching. He wrote De Deo Uno et Trino; De Natura Angelorum; De Ultimo Fine; De Fide, Spe, et Charitate; De Justitia et Jure, which was prohibited, 18 June 1651 donec corrigatur, on account of three propositions in it, which Pope Alexander VII and Innocent XI objected to.

#3015

George Wishart

1703 - 1785 (82 years)

George Wishart was a Scottish minister who was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1748. He was also Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King of England and Dean of the Chapel Royal.

#3016

Deceneus

100 BC - 100 BC (0 years)

Deceneus or Decaeneus was a priest of Dacia during the reign of Burebista . He is mentioned in the near-contemporary Greek Geographica of Strabo and in the 6th-century Latin Getica of Jordanes, where he is called Dicineus.

#3017

Francis Patrick McFarland

1819 - 1874 (55 years)

Francis Patrick McFarland was an American Catholic bishop who served as the third Bishop of Hartford. Biography His parents, John McFarland and Mary McKeever, emigrated from Armagh, and took up farming near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Francis was employed as teacher in the village school, but soon entered Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he graduated with high honours and was retained as teacher. The following year, 1845, he was ordained, 18 May, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York by Archbishop Hughes, who immediately detailed the young priest to a professor's chair at St.

#3018

William Adams Brown

1865 - 1943 (78 years)

William Adams Brown was an American minister, professor and philanthropist. Early life Brown was born in New York City on December 29, 1865, and named after his maternal grandfather, the Rev. William Adams. He was the eldest son of John Crosby Brown and Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown. His siblings were Eliza Coe Adams, Mary Magoun Brown, James Crosby Brown, Thatcher Magoun Brown, and Amy Brighthurst Brown .

#3019

Alexander Roberts

1826 - 1901 (75 years)

Alexander Roberts was a 19th-century Scottish biblical scholar. Life Born at Marykirk, Kincardineshire, on 12 May 1826, he was the son of Alexander Roberts, a flax-spinner, and his wife, Helen Stuart. He was educated at the grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated MA in March 1847, being the Simpson Greek prizeman. From 1849 to 1851 he trained as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland at New College, Edinburgh.

#3020

Charles Backus Storrs

1794 - 1833 (39 years)

Rev. Charles Backus Storrs was an American minister, abolitionist, and the first President of Western Reserve College and Preparatory School, now Case Western Reserve University and Western Reserve Academy.

#3021

Zachary Brooke

1716 - 1788 (72 years)

Zachary Brooke was an English clergyman and academic, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Life The son of Zachary Brooke, a graduate of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge , and at one time vicar of Hawkston-cum-Newton, near Cambridge, was born in 1716 at Hamerton, Huntingdonshire. He was educated at Stamford school, and was admitted a sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, 28 June 1734. He was subsequently elected a fellow there, proceeded B.A. in 1737, M.A. in 1741, B.D. in 1748, and D.D. in 1753.

#3022

Pierre Marchant

Pierre Marchant

1585 - 1661 (76 years)

Pierre Marchant or Petrus Marchantius O.F.M.Rec. was a spiritual writer and religious reformer in 17th-century Flanders. Life Marchant was born at Couvin in what is now Belgium in 1585 and entered the recollect community in that town in 1601, aged 16.

#3023

Arthur De Schrevel

1850 - 1934 (84 years)

Arthur Carolus De Schrevel was a Belgian priest and historian, specialising in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in particular Catholic Church history during the Dutch Revolt. He was also a prolific contributor to the Biographie Nationale de Belgique.

#3024

Ambrosius Moibanus

Ambrosius Moibanus

1494 - 1554 (60 years)

Ambrosius Moibanus was a German Lutheran theologian and reformer, and first Lutheran pastor at St Elisabeth's church in Breslau . He was active in Silesia. He was an opponent of the Anabaptists, and pressed for their persecution.

#3025

Andrew Sledd

1870 - 1939 (69 years)

Andrew Warren Sledd was an American theologian, university professor and university president. A native of Virginia, he was the son of a prominent Methodist minister, and was himself ordained as a minister after earning his bachelor's and master's degrees. He later earned a second master's degree and his doctorate.

#3026

John Paul Nazarius

1556 - 1641 (85 years)

John Paul Nazarius or Giovanni Paolo Nazari was an Italian Dominican theologian. Biography He was born at Cremona. He entered the order at an early age in his native town and from the beginning was noted for his spirituality and love of study. It is most probable that he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Bologna. He taught with great success in various schools of his order in Italy.

#3027

Andrew White

1579 - 1656 (77 years)

Andrew White, SJ was an English Jesuit missionary who was involved in the founding of the Maryland colony. He was a chronicler of the early colony, and his writings are a primary source on the land, the Native Americans of the area, and the Jesuit mission in North America. For his efforts in converting and educating the native population, he is frequently referred to as the "Apostle of Maryland." He is considered a forefather of Georgetown University, and is memorialized in the name of its White-Gravenor building, a central location of offices and classrooms on the university's campus.

#3028

Harry Sawyerr

1909 - 1986 (77 years)

Harry Alphonso Ebun Sawyerr MBE was a Sierra Leonean Anglican theologian and writer on African religion. He became principal of Fourah Bay College and Vice Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone.

#3029

Juan Maldonado

1533 - 1583 (50 years)

Juan Maldonado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and exegete. Life At the age of fourteen or fifteen he went to the University of Salamanca, where he studied Latin with two blind professors, who, however, were men of great erudition. He also studied Greek with Hernán Núñez , philosophy with Francisco de Toledo , and theology with Padre Domingo Soto. He declared, as late as the year 1574, that he had forgotten nothing he had learned in grammar and philosophy. Having finished his course of three years in the latter of these two studies, Maldonado would have devoted himself to jurisprudence with ...

#3030

Gerard of Bologna

Gerard of Bologna was an Italian Carmelite theologian and scholastic philosopher. A convinced Thomist, he took a doctorate in theology in 1295 at the University of Paris. Subsequently he was elected general of the Carmelite Order, in 1297.

#3031

George Milligan

1860 - 1934 (74 years)

George Milligan DCL DD was a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1923. He was professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow.

#3032

Richard Arnald

1700 - 1756 (56 years)

Richard Arnald was a distinguished English clergyman and biblical scholar. Life He was a native of London, and received his education at Bishop Stortford School, whence he proceeded in 1714 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After graduating B.A., he removed to Emmanuel College, where he was elected to a fellowship on 24 June 1720, and took the degree of M.A. While resident at Emmanuel he printed two copies of Sapphics on the death of George I, and a sermon preached at Bishop Stortford school-feast on 3 August 1726. In 1733 he was presented to the living of Thurcaston in Leicestershire, an...

#3033

Thomas Dorman

1534 - 1577 (43 years)

Thomas Dorman was an English Catholic theologian and controversialist. Exiled from England under the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, Dorman became a thought leader among the recusants, and was an early member of the English College at Douai.

#3034

Humphrey Ely

1501 - 1604 (103 years)

Humphrey Ely, LL.D., was an English Catholic divine. Life Ely was the brother of William Ely, president of St John's College, Oxford, and was a native of Herefordshire. After studying at Brasenose College, Oxford, he was elected a scholar of St John's College in 1566. On account of his attachment to the Catholic faith he left the university without a degree. He went to the English college at Douay, where he was made a licentiate in the canon and civil laws. He appears to have been subsequently created LL.D.

#3035

Ernst Ludwig Theodor Henke

1804 - 1872 (68 years)

Ernst Ludwig Theodor Henke , was a German theologian and historian, and the son of the theologian Heinrich Henke . He was the father of anatomist Wilhelm von Henke . From 1820, he studied at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig, then continued his education at the Universities of Göttingen and Jena, where he was influenced by Jakob Friedrich Fries and Ludwig Baumgarten-Crusius . In 1826 he received his doctorate of philosophy, later returning to Braunschweig, where he taught classes at the Collegium Carolinum. In 1833 he was appointed an associate professor of church history and exegesis a...

#3036

Roger Goad

1538 - 1610 (72 years)

Roger Goad was an English academic theologian, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and three times Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Life He was born at Horton, Buckinghamshire, and was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted a scholar 1 September 1555, and a fellow 2 September 1558. He graduated B.A. in 1559, and commenced M.A. in 1563. On 19 January 1566 he was enjoined to study theology, and he proceeded B.D. in 1569. At this period he was master of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, where one of his pupils was George Abbot.

#3037

Johannes Zwick

1496 - 1542 (46 years)

Johannes Zwick was a German Reformer and hymnwriter. He was born in Konstanz. He briefly hosted the Anabaptist Johannes Bünderlin in 1529. He died of the plague in Bischofszell.

#3038

Étienne Agard de Champs

1613 - 1711 (98 years)

Étienne Agard de Champs was a French Jesuit theologian and author. Life He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1630 and later became professor of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology in Paris. He was rector at Rennes, three times rector at Paris, head of the professed house, twice provincial of France, and once provincial of Lyon.

#3039

Maximilian Mörlin

1516 - 1584 (68 years)

Maximilian Mörlin was a Lutheran theologian, court preacher, Superintendent in Coburg, and Reformer. Life Maximilian grew up with his older brother, Joachim Mörlin, as the sons of Jodok Mörlin , the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wittenberg. After a harsh upbringing, when he learned the trade of a tailor, he switched to the profession of a scholar. Like his brother, he studied at Wittenberg in 1533 and came under the influence of Martin Luther and especially Philipp Melanchthon. From 1539, he was the pastor in Pegau and Zeitz and, after 1543, in Schalkau. On the recommendati...

#3040

Giovanni Vincenzo Bolgeni

1733 - 1811 (78 years)

Giovanni Vincenzo Bolgeni was a Jesuit theologian and controversialist. Life He entered the Society of Jesus on 31 October 1747, taught theology and philosophy in Macerata, and was a member of the Society when it was suppressed by Clement XIV. Henceforth he devoted himself to theological argument, and in recognition of his signal services against Jansenism and Josephinism, Pius IV appointed him Theologian-Penitentiary, an office of which he was deprived by Pius VII on account of the Jacobin principles he tolerated and advocated during the occupation of Rome by Napoleon I.

#3041

Jason Lee

1803 - 1845 (42 years)

Jason Lee was a Canadian Methodist Episcopalian missionary and pioneer in the Pacific Northwest. He was born on a farm near Stanstead, Quebec. After a group of Nez Perce and Bitterroot Salish men journeyed to St. Louis requesting the Book of Heaven in 1831 , Lee and his nephew Daniel Lee volunteered to serve as missionaries for them. Both were appointed as missionaries by the church, given orders to open and maintain a mission among the Salish. At the time, the Pacific Northwest was "jointly occupied" by the United Kingdom and the United States as agreed to in the Treaty of 1818. The missiona...

#3042

Cyril Richardson

1909 - 1976 (67 years)

Cyril C. Richardson was an English-born American Christian theologian, humorist and professor at the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He attended the University of Saskatchewan, Emmanuel College in Saskatoon and the Union Theological Seminary. He joined the Union Theological Seminary faculty in 1934 and stayed there for 40 years. Richardson was selected to be president of the American Society of Church History in 1948, but resigned from the position due to a tubercular condition. He died in 1976.

#3043

William Emery Barnes

1859 - 1939 (80 years)

William Emery Barnes was an English academic, most notably Hulsean Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1901 until 1934. Early life and education Barnes was born on 26 May 1859 in Islington. He was educated at Islington Proprietary School and Peterhouse, Cambridge.

#3044

Hermann Hamelmann

Hermann Hamelmann

1526 - 1595 (69 years)

Hermann Hamelmann was a German Lutheran theologian and the reformer of Westphalia. Born in Osnabrück, he became the priest at Kamen in 1552. While a priest, he converted to the Evangelical Lutheran faith and announced it publicly on Trinity Sunday, 1553, and as a result he was forced to leave the town. During a stay at Wittenberg, he discussed the Lord's Supper with Philipp Melanchthon. In August 1553, he became the pastor at Bielefeld, and in 1556 he became the pastor at St. Mary's Church in Lemgo. He became General Superintendent at Bad Gandersheim in 1560, where he introduced the Reformation into Braunschweig.

#3045

James Arthur

1587 - 1670 (83 years)

James Arthur was a Dominican friar and theologian. He was born in Limerick, Ireland, early in the 17th century and died most likely in 1670. Arthur became a member of the Dominican Order in the convent of St. Stephen at Salamanca, Spain, and taught theology in different convents of his order, especially at Salamanca, with great credit to himself and profit to his numerous students.

#3046

Henry Burton

1578 - 1648 (70 years)

Henry Burton , was an English puritan. Along with John Bastwick and William Prynne, Burton's ears were cut off in 1637 for writing pamphlets attacking the views of Archbishop Laud. Early life He was born at Birdsall, a small parish in the former East Riding of Yorkshire, in the latter part of 1578 as may be inferred from his writings. His father, William Burton, was married to Maryanne Homle [Humble] on 24 June 1577. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1602. His favourite preachers were Laurence Chaderton and William Perkins. On leaving the university h...

#3047

Peter Thyraeus

1546 - 1601 (55 years)

Peter Thyraeus was a German Jesuit theologian. Thyraeus was born in Neuss, the brother of Herman Thyraeus, also a Jesuit theologian. He joined the Jesuits in 1561, and taught at Jesuit colleges in Trier and Mainz from 1574.

#3048

Claude de Sainctes

1525 - 1591 (66 years)

Claude de Sainctes was a French Catholic controversialist. Biography At the age of fifteen he joined the Canons Regular of Saint-Cheron, and was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris, where he received the degree of Doctor of Theology . On account of the erudition of his early works and the aptitude which he showed for controversy, he was called to the Conference of Poissy, held in 1561 between the Catholics and the Huguenots, at which Theodore of Beza and Diego Lainez, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, were present.

#3049

Motokichiro Osaka

Motokichiro Osaka

1880 - 1945 (65 years)

was a Japanese pastor, theologian, and newspaper columnist. He is notable for his public criticism of efforts by the Japanese government to regulate religious bodies and strengthen a national form of Shinto, which culminated in a government-backed attack that left Osaka close to death. During his recovery, a personal awakening transformed his conceptualization of Christianity from an earthly, altruistic social practice to an ascetic practice rooted in Catholic orthodoxy.

#3050

Richard Simpson

1550 - 1588 (38 years)

Richard Simpson was an English priest, martyred in the reign of Elizabeth I. He was born in Well, in Yorkshire. Little is known of his early life, but according to Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, he became an Anglican priest, but later converted to Catholicism. He was imprisoned in York as a Catholic recusant; on being released, he went to Douai College, where he was admitted on 19 May 1577. The date of his ordination is unknown; the college, at this time, was preparing for its move to Rheims, and record keeping was affected. But it is known that the ordination took place in Bruss...

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