The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#3151
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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Peter of Limoges
1240 - 1306 (66 years)
Peter of Limoges was the author of A Moral Treatise on the Eye or On the Moral Eye , a popular guide for Catholic priests, composed at the University of Paris sometime in the 1270s or 1280s. The work depended heavily on Roger Bacon's earlier treatment of optics.
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John Pitts
1560 - 1616 (56 years)
John Pitts was an English Roman Catholic scholar and writer. Life Pitts was born in Alton, Hampshire in 1560 and attended Winchester College. From 1578 to 1580 he studied at New College, Oxford. In 1581 he was admitted to the English College, Rome.
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Niels Christian Gauslaa Danbolt
1900 - 1984 (84 years)
Niels Christian Gauslaa Danbolt was a Norwegian professor of medicine who was a specialist in skin diseases. Danbolt-Closs syndrome was named after him and Karl Philipp Closs. Danbolt was born in Bergen, Norway. He was the son of Ole Dominicus Danielsen and Gesine Gauslaa . He was the brother of the missionary priest Lars Johan Danbolt and theology professor Erling Danbolt. He was the uncle of professor Ole Danbolt Mjøs and professor Gunnar Danbolt . His sister Johanna Sophie Danbolt was married to Bishop Olav Hagesæther.
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Johann Pfeffinger
1493 - 1573 (80 years)
Johann Pfeffinger was a significant theologian and Protestant Reformer. His life and work Devoting himself to the religious life, Pfeffinger became an acolyte at Salzburg in 1515, and soon afterward was made subdeacon and deacon. Receiving a dispensation from the regulations concerning canonical age, he was ordained priest and stationed at Reichenhall, Saalfelden, and Passau, where his clerical activity soon found great approbation. Suspected of Lutheran heresy, he went to Wittenberg in 1523, where he was cordially welcomed by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen.
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Stephan Gerlach
1546 - 1612 (66 years)
Stephan Gerlach was a German Lutheran theologian. Gerlach was an extremely important figure in the second half of the 16th century. He was tasked with a special mission in Constantinople, namely to establish an alliance between Orthodoxy and Lutheranism against Catholicism. This mission failed, nevertheless, he signed the Brest Union.
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Sir Edwyn Hoskyns, 13th Baronet
1887 - 1937 (50 years)
Sir Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, 13th Baronet, was an English Anglican priest and theologian. Career Hoskyns was born on 9 August 1884 in Notting Hill, London, the eldest child and only son of Bishop Edwyn Hoskyns and his wife Mary Constance Maude Benson. He was educated at Haileybury College, Jesus College, Cambridge and Wells Theological College, graduating from the latter in 1907. Hoskyns was a fellow and Dean of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and a notable biblical scholar. On his father's death in 1925, he succeeded to the Hoskyns baronetcy. His influence on the next generation of clergym...
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Luther Tracy Townsend
1838 - 1922 (84 years)
Reverend Luther Tracy Townsend was a professor at Boston University and an author of theological and historical works. Biography He was born on September 27, 1838, in Orono, Maine, to Luther K. Townsend and Mary True Call. His father died on November 16, 1839, and his mother took the family to New Hampshire. He started work at the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1850. He infrequently attended the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, now known as the Tilton School. He graduated from Dartmouth College with an A.B. in 1859. He then attended Andover Theological Seminary and graduated in 1862.
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Adam Boreel
1603 - 1667 (64 years)
Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect. Others involved in the Collegiants were Daniel van Breen, Michiel Coomans, Jacob Otto van Halmael and the Mennonite Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan.
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Philip of the Blessed Trinity
1603 - 1671 (68 years)
Philip of the Blessed Trinity was a French Discalced Carmelite theologian and missionary. Life He took the habit at Lyon where he made his profession on 8 September 1621. Choosing the missionary life, he studied in Paris and two years at the seminary in Rome, proceeded in February 1629 to the Holy Land and Persia, and then to Goa where he became prior of the Order convent and teacher of philosophy and theology . After the martyrdom of his pupil Dionysius, a Nativitate, and Redemptus a Cruce on 29 November 1638, Philip collected evidence and set out for Rome in 1639 to introduce the cause of t...
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Juan Bautista de Lezana
1586 - 1659 (73 years)
Juan Bautista de Lezana was a Spanish Carmelite theologian. Lezana was an authority on canon law, dogmatic theology, and philosophy; his historical works are not of the same standard. Life Lezana was born at Madrid. He took the habit at Alberca, in Old Castile, on 18 October 1600, and made his profession at the house of the Carmelites of the Old Observance, at Madrid, in 1602. He studied philosophy at Toledo, theology at Salamanca, partly at the college of the order, partly at the university under Juan Marquez, and finally at Alcalá under Luis de Montesion.
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Bartholomew Mastrius
1602 - 1673 (71 years)
Bartholomew Mastrius was an Italian Conventual Franciscan philosopher and theologian. Life Born at Meldola, near Forlì, in 1602, he received his early education at Cesena and took degrees at the University of Bologna. He also frequented the 'studia' of his religious order in Padua and Rome before assuming the duties of a lecturer in Cesena, Perugia and Padua.
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Urbanus Rhegius
1489 - 1541 (52 years)
Urbanus Henricus Rhegius or Urban Rieger was a Protestant Reformer who was active both in Northern and Southern Germany in order to promote Lutheran unity in the Holy Roman Empire. He was also a popular poet. Martin Luther referred to him as the "Bishop of Lower Saxony".
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Luis de Montesinos
1552 - 1620 (68 years)
Luis de Montesinos was a Spanish theologian. Nothing is known of Montesinos' childhood. As an adult, he joined the Dominican Order and studied philosophy and theology in several Spanish universities. He was known there for both his scholarship and for his piety. After receiving his degree, he began teaching philosophy at university level, eventually becoming the foremost exponent of Thomistic theology at the University of Alcalá. Because of his great ability in persuading and explaining, he was given the surname Doctor clarus. He possessed a singular charm of manner which secured for him at once love and respect.
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Michael Creizenach
1789 - 1842 (53 years)
Michael Creizenach was a German Jewish educator, mathematician, theologian, and proponent of the Reform movement. Creizenach is typical of the era of transition, following the epoch of Moses Mendelssohn. Creizenach was educated in the traditional way, devoting his whole time to Talmudic studies; and he was sixteen years old when he began to acquire the elements of secular knowledge. This was during the French occupation. He studied mathematics with great zeal, and wrote text-books on it. Through his influence a Jewish school was founded in Mayence, whose principal he was, at the same time giving private instruction.
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William Hogarth
1786 - 1866 (80 years)
William Hogarth was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the first Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle. Early life and ministry Born at Dodding Green, Kendal, Westmorland on 25 March 1786, he began his early education at Crook Hall, near Consett on 29 August 1796. Hogarth received the tonsure and the four minor orders from Bishop William Gibson on 19 March 1807. The hall became inadequate for its purpose and the establishment was moved to Ushaw College in 1808. He was ordained a sub-deacon on 2 April 1808, a deacon on 14 December 1808, and a priest on 20 December 1809 at Ushaw.
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John Fawcett
1739 - 1817 (78 years)
John Fawcett was a British-born Baptist theologian, pastor and hymn writer. Early years Fawcett was born on 6 January 1739 in Lidget Green, Bradford. In 1762, Fawcett joined the Methodists, but three years later, he united with the Baptist Church and became pastor of Wainsgate Baptist Church in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, England.
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Paton James Gloag
1823 - 1906 (83 years)
Paton James Gloag was a Scottish minister and theological author. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1889. Life Born in Perth on 17 May 1823, he was the eldest son of William Gloag , a banker in Perth, by his wife Janet Burn , daughter of John Burn, WS of Edinburgh. William Gloag, Lord Kincairney was his younger brother, and his eldest sister was Jessie Burn Gloag, who founded a ragged school in Perth.
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Charles Woodruff Shields
1825 - 1904 (79 years)
Charles Woodruff Shields was an American theologian. Biography Charles Woodruff Shields was born in New Albany, Indiana on April 4, 1825. He graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1844 and at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1847.
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Tobias Lohner
1619 - 1697 (78 years)
Tobias Lohner was an Austrian Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus on 30 August 1637, at Landsberg am Lech, and spent his first years in the classroom, teaching the classics. Later at Dillingen, he was professor, first of philosophy for seven years, then of speculative theology for four years, and finally of moral theology. He was rector of the colleges of Lucerne and Dillingen and master of novices.
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Alexander MacWhorter III
1822 - 1880 (58 years)
Alexander MacWhorter was an American theologian and author. Early life MacWhorter, the third of his name, was born in Newark, New Jersey on January 1, 1822. He was the only surviving child of Alexander C. MacWhorter and Frances C. G. MacWhorter. His paternal grandfather was fellow clergyman Alexander MacWhorter. He graduated from Yale College in 1842. He studied for three years in the Theological Department of Yale College, and was licensed to preach in 1844.
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Jonathan Edwards
1629 - 1712 (83 years)
Jonathan Edwards was a theologian and Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, from 1686 to 1712. Born in Wrexham, Wales, Edwards studied at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1655 to 1659. He became a Fellow of Jesus College in 1662, Vice-Principal in 1668 and Principal on 2 November 1686. He was also Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1689 to 1691, the first principal of the college to be so. He was rector of Kiddington, Hinton Ampner and Llandysul and vicar of Clynnog Fawr. He was also appointed Treasurer of Llandaff Cathedral.
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François Lamy
1636 - 1711 (75 years)
François Lamy was a French Benedictine ascetical and apologetic writer, of the Congregation of St-Maur. Life Lamy was born at Montireau in the Department of Eure-et-Loir. While fighting a duel, he was saved from a fatal sword-thrust by a book of the Rule of St. Benedict which he carried in his pocket. Seeing the finger of God in this, he took the Benedictine habit at the monastery of St-Remi at Reims in 1658. Shortly after his elevation to the priesthood he was appointed subprior of St-Faron at Meaux, but a year later resigned this position.
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Peter van Hove
Peter van Hove was a Flemish Friar Minor, lector in theology and exegete. Biography Peter was born at Retie, in the Campine region of Flanders . He was a pupil of Willem Smits, founder and first prefect of the "Musæum Philologico-Sacrum", a Franciscan Biblical institute at Antwerp, which had for its scope the training of Franciscan students in the languages appertaining to Biblical study, in Biblical history, geography, chronology and other subsidiary branches, such as are requisite for a critical and literal interpretation of the Sacred Text.
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Hugh Binning
1627 - 1653 (26 years)
Hugh Binning was a Scottish philosopher and theologian. He was born in Scotland during the reign of Charles I and was ordained in the Church of Scotland. He died in 1653, during the time of Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England.
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George Burman Foster
1858 - 1919 (61 years)
George Burman Foster was part of the faculty in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago under the leadership of William Rainey Harper. His views were often thought by his contemporaries to support scientific naturalistic and humanistic views that contradict a Baptist view. A friendship with Clarence Darrow shows that despite Foster's progressive views he still valued and respected the views of a traditional Christian community.
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Claude Chantelou
1617 - 1664 (47 years)
Claude Chantelou was a Benedictine Patristic scholar and writer. Having spent some time in the Order of Fontevrault, he left it to become a Benedictine in the Congregation of Saint-Maur, in which he made his profession, February 7, 1640, at Toulouse. When the General Chapter of 1651 ordained that two religious be entrusted with the preparation of a history of the congregation, Chantelou was one of the appointees, and from that time until his death resided at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
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Johann Forster
1496 - 1556 (60 years)
Johann Forster Forsterus, Förster or Forstheim was a Lutheran theologian, Protestant reformer and professor of Hebrew. He took part in the Protestation at Speyer. Johann-Forster studied Hebrew at the University of Ingolstadt under Johannes Reuchlin and continued his studies at the University of Leipzig and the University of Wittenberg. Being 24 years old, he was appointed professor for Hebrew at Zwickau in Saxony in 1525. He married his wife Margarethe née Fischer in Leipzig in the same year. After Zwickau, his next waystations then included Wittenberg , Augsburg , Tübingen , Regensburg , Nur...
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Valerius Herberger
1562 - 1627 (65 years)
Valerius Herberger was a German Lutheran preacher and theologian. Life He was born at Fraustadt, Silesia . He studied for three years at Freystadt in Silesia , and then entered the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In 1582 he went to Leipzig University.
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Edward Burton
1794 - 1836 (42 years)
Edward Burton was an English theologian, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. Life The son of Major Edward Burton, he was born at Shrewsbury on 13 February 1794. He was educated at Westminster School, and matriculated as a commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, on 15 May 1812, gaining a studentship the next year, and in 1815, obtained a first class both in classics and mathematics. Having taken his B.A. degree on 29 October 1815, he was ordained to the curacy of Pettenhall, Staffordshire. On 28 May 1818, he proceeded M.A.
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Reinerius Saccho
1300 - 1263 (-37 years)
Reinerius Saccho was an Italian Dominican inquisitor. Biography Saccho was born at Piacenza about the beginning of the thirteenth century; died about 1263. It is generally said that he died in 1258 or 1259, but this is contradicted by the Brief of Urban IV which calls him to Rome on 21 July 1262.
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Casto Innocenzio Ansaldi
1710 - 1780 (70 years)
Casto Innocenzio Ansaldi was an Italian professor, theologian and archaeologist. Biography In 1726 Ansaldi entered the Dominican Order at Parma, where he pursued his preparatory studies. In 1733 he was a student of the College of St. Thomas in Rome, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum where he attached himself to Giuseppe Agostino Cardinal Orsi. In 1735 he taught philosophy at Santa Caterina in Naples, and the following year received the chair of metaphysics at the University of Naples. However, in 1737 he was forced to resign after receiving orders from his superiors to move to Bologna.
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Péter Bod
1712 - 1769 (57 years)
Péter Bod or Peter Bod was a Hungarian theologian and historian. Biography Bod was born on 22 February 1712 in Felső-Csernáton, in Transylvania. He studied at Nagy-Enyed, where he also was appointed librarian and professor of Hebrew. In 1740 he went to Leyden to complete his theological studies. After his return, in 1743, he was appointed chaplain to the countess Teleki, and in 1749 he was called to Magyar-Igen as pastor of the Reformed Church, and died there in 1768.
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Henry Robert Stephens
1665 - 1723 (58 years)
Henry Robert Stephens was a Belgian Jesuit theologian. Life Stephens was born at Liège and entered the Society of Jesus on 7 September 1683. For over twenty years he was attached to the episcopal seminary of Liège, first as professor of dogmatic theology and later as its superior. During this period the Jansenists were active in Belgium, both in attacking the Jesuits and in opposing the papal decrees condemnatory of Jansenism. All of Father Stephens's published works were occasioned by these attacks.
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Pender Hodge Cudlip
1835 - 1911 (76 years)
Pender Hodge Cudlip was an English Anglican High Church clergyman, theologian and writer. Born in Cornwall, he became well known as a preacher in Devon and spent most of his clerical life there. As the husband of writer Annie Hall Cudlip, née Thomas, he self-published a series of books on religion and theology between 1895 and 1905.
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David Martin
1639 - 1721 (82 years)
David Martin , was a learned French Protestant theologian. He was educated at Montauban, and at the academy of the reformed at Nîmes. He afterwards studied divinity at Puy-Laurent, whither the academy of Montauban had been removed. Having been admitted to the ministry in 1663, he settled as pastor with the church of Esperance, in the diocese of Castres. In 1670 he accepted an invitation to the church of La Caune, in the same diocese, where he officiated till the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685. In 1686, the magistrates of Deventer invited him to become professor of divinity and past...
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Hector Gottfried Masius
1653 - 1709 (56 years)
Hector Gottfried Masius was a German Lutheran theologian serving as vice-chancellor of the University of Copenhagen from 1691 to 1692 and, again, from 1700 to 1701. He acquired wealth through marriages and owned a number of estates. His children were ennobled in 1712 with the surname von der Maase.
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