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 Theology,
#2151
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.
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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.
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Johan Kõpp
1874 - 1970 (96 years)
Johan Kõpp was an Estonian bishop and head of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church 1939–1944. Biography Kõpp went to high school at the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu and then studied theology at the University of Tartu. He graduated from university in 1906. After his studies he initially worked as a high school teacher in Pärnu but from 1909 to 1922 was pastor in Laiuse. Already in 1916 he had however taken up a teaching position at the University of Tartu as one of the first ethnic Estonians to do so after the Estonian Declaration of Independence. From 1920 to 1927 he was deputy rector of the university, and from 1928 to 1937 rector.
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Alain de Lille
1117 - 1202 (85 years)
Alain de Lille was a French theologian and poet. He was born in Lille, some time before 1128. His exact date of death remains unclear as well, with most research pointing toward it being between 14 April 1202, and 5 April 1203. He is known for writing a number of works on that are based upon the teachings of the liberal arts, with one of his most renowned poems, De planctu Naturae , focusing on human nature in regard to sexual conduct. Although, Alain was widely known during his lifetime, there is not a great deal known about his personal life, with the majority of our knowledge of the theol...
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Pierre de Langle
1644 - 1724 (80 years)
Pierre de Langle was a French bishop and Jansenist theologian. Life At the request of his friend Bossuet, he was made tutor to Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse. He was abbot of Saint-Lôfrom 24 December 1694 ; in 1698, Louis XIV of France rewarded him for his teaching duties by making him bishop of Boulogne, nominating him on 29 March 1698, with the bulls to that effect coming out on 15 September the same year.
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Helmut Rex
1913 - 1967 (54 years)
Helmut Herbert Hermann Rex was a New Zealand Presbyterian theologian and lecturer. Early life Helmut Rehbein was born in Potsdam, Germany, in 1913. He spent his youth in Berlin after moving there in 1919.
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Jacob Joseph Oettinger
1780 - 1860 (80 years)
Rabbi Jacob Joseph Oettinger , a native of Glogau, acted as the final chief rabbi of Berlin between 1825 and 1860, and served for some time as the dean of Berlin's rabbinical college. Oettinger was also known as an opponent of Leopold Zunz.
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Johannes Knolleisen
1450 - 1513 (63 years)
Johannes Knolleisen was a German theological professor. Nothing is known about his parents and his youth, aside from his being born in Allenstein , Ermland , State of the Teutonic Order. He received his magister degree in theology from the University of Leipzig, becoming rector of the university in 1478. Knolleisen became canon at Merseburg Cathedral in Merseburg in 1489. By the time of his death in 1511, Knolleisen and Lucas David had created a stipend of 700 Rhenish gulden to help two worthy students from Allenstein study in Leipzig.
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Thomas Hardesty Campbell
1907 - 1989 (82 years)
Thomas Hardesty Campbell was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, a former president and dean of Memphis Theological Seminary, and a former director of the Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Campbell retired from the seminary in 1974 and served seven years as pastor of the Harrison, Arkansas, Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He was moderator of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1973, and was a member of White River Presbytery, in Arkansas, for many years.
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Hermann Herlitz
1834 - 1920 (86 years)
Hermann Herlitz was pastor of the Lutheran Trinity Church in East Melbourne, Australia, for 46 years from 22 March 1868 to 14 June 1914. He was president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Victoria and of the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod. Born to Jewish parents, he converted to Christianity in 1857.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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Richard Rogers
1550 - 1618 (68 years)
Richard Rogers was an English clergyman, a nonconformist under both Elizabeth I and James I. Life He was born in 1550 or 1551 to John Rogers and Agnes Carter . Family tradition in the 17th century claimed that he was the son or grandson of the steward to the earls of Warwick, but since there was no Earl of Warwick during that time, genealogists have disproved this claim. He matriculated as a sizar of Christ's College, Cambridge, in November 1565, and graduated B.A. 1571, M.A. 1574. He was appointed lecturer at Wethersfield, Essex, about 1577.
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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.
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John Scott Lidgett
1854 - 1953 (99 years)
John Scott Lidgett, CH was a British Wesleyan Methodist minister and educationist. He achieved prominence both as a theologian and reformer within British Methodism, stressing the importance of the church's engagement with the whole of society and human culture, and as an effective advocate for education within London. He served as the first President of the Methodist Conference in 1932–33.
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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.
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Eugene Allen Noble
1865 - 1948 (83 years)
Eugene Allen Noble was an American academic and Methodist minister. He served as president of three institutions: Centenary University from 1902 to 1908, Goucher College from 1908 to 1911, and Dickinson College from 1911 to 1914. He was also an administrator at the Juilliard School.
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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.
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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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William Richard Williams
1896 - 1962 (66 years)
William Richard Williams was the Principal of the United Theological College, Aberystwyth from 1949 to 1962, the first Secretary of the Council of Churches of Wales, and later its president. Biography Born at Pwllheli in Gwynedd to Richard and Catherine Williams, Williams moved to Aberystwyth with his mother on the death of his father in 1912 after winning a scholarship to University College, Aberystwyth, where he graduated in Greek and Philosophy. He served in the British Army during World War I, after which he studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a first class BA degree in Theology.
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Paris de Grassis
1470 - 1528 (58 years)
Paris de Grassis was the master of ceremonies to Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X. He joined the Office of Ceremonies in May 1504 as a participating ceremonialist, progressed to role of president of the Office when he became bishop of Pesaro in 1513, and continued as president until he died in 1528. De Grassis' diary covers his work at the papal court from 1504 to 1521.
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John Sinnich
1613 - 1668 (55 years)
John Sinnich OFM, was an Irish-born priest who was professor of theology at the University of Louvain. He wrote the index to the Augustinus, Cornelius Jansen's posthumously published work, and following the controversy, he tried to argue that Jansenism conformed with the church's teachings and cleared from censure. As a result, he was accused of being a Jansenist.
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Lawrence Beyerlinck
1578 - 1627 (49 years)
Lawrence Beyerlinck was a Belgian theologian and ecclesiastical writer and encyclopedist. Life The son of a pharmacist, he prepared at Leuven for the same profession but, deciding to enter the priesthood, he was ordained June, 1602. While a theological student he taught poetry and rhetoric at the college of Vaulx and as pastor of Herent was professor of philosophy at a nearby seminary of canons regular.
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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.
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Robert Bolton
1572 - 1631 (59 years)
Robert Bolton was an English clergyman and academic, noted as a preacher. Life He was born on Whit Sunday in Blackburn, Lancashire, the sixth son of Adam Bolton of Backhouse. He attended what is now Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, where his father was a founding governor, and was described as 'the best scholler in the schoole'. At age 18, he was admitted in 1592 to Lincoln College, Oxford, where John Randall was. He was a gifted student, but the next year his father's death caused him financial problems. Richard Brett supported him. He transferred to Brasenose College where there was a Lancashire fellowship available, and proceeded B.A.
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Henry Calderwood
1830 - 1897 (67 years)
Rev Henry Calderwood FRSE LLD was a Scottish minister and philosopher. Life He was born in Peebles on 10 May 1830, the son of William Calderwood, a corn merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Mitchell. He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution and then the High School in Edinburgh, and later attended University of Edinburgh. He studied for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and in 1856 was ordained pastor of the Greyfriars church, Glasgow. He also examined in mental philosophy for the University of Glasgow from 1861 to 1864, and from 1866 conducted the moral philosophy c...
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Joannes Roucourt
1636 - 1676 (40 years)
Joannes Roucourt was a Christian theologian and the parish priest of the Saint-Gudula Church at Brussels from 1667 until 1676. As a pastor, he was known as "father of the poor". Life Ethnicity and education Roucourt was baptized on 7 June 1636 in the Saint-Jacobs church as a son of cloth-merchant Theodorus van Roucourt and Joanne Verwijst. His cousins Dirk Roucourt and Hendrik Rocourt were brewer at Diest and horticulturist at Dordrecht, respectively. His forefathers originated from the Walloon region of Liège and the original family name was most likely "de Rocourt". At the age of 16, Joannes completed his candidate training at the Faculty of Arts of the Old University of Leuven.
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Thomas Halliwell
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
Thomas Halliwell was the Principal of Trinity College Carmarthen in the middle part of the 20th Century. Early life and education Thomas Halliwell was born in Wigan in 1900, the only child of John Halliwell, a noted Lancashire cricketer, and his wife Annie whose father was company secretary to Pearson and Knowles. Educated at Wigan Wesleyan Methodist School and Wigan Grammar School, Halliwell left school at age 15 to work in the Midland Bank.
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Thomas Jarrett
1805 - 1882 (77 years)
Thomas Jarrett, DD, was an English churchman and orientalist. Life He was educated at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1827 as thirty-fourth wrangler, and seventh in the first class of the classical tripos. In the following year he was elected a Fellow of his college, where he stayed as classical and Hebrew lecturer until 1832.
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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....
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William of Pagula
1290 - 1332 (42 years)
William of Pagula , also known as William Paull or William Poull, was a 14th-century English canon lawyer and theologian best known for his written works, particularly his manual for priests entitled the Oculus Sacerdotis. Pagula was made the perpetual vicar of the church at Winkfield on 5 March 1314, although he was absent from his parish for several years while pursuing a doctorate in Canon Law from the University of Oxford. After this was granted he returned to work with his parish, and his writings are written from the perspective of someone familiar with the job of a rural priest.
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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.
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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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Willem Christiaan van Manen
1842 - 1905 (63 years)
Willem Christiaan van Manen was a Dutch theologian. He was professor in early Christian literature and New Testament exegesis at Leiden University and belonged to the Dutch school of Radical Criticism.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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Al-Juwayni
1028 - 1085 (57 years)
Dhia' ul-Dīn 'Abd al-Malik ibn Yūsuf al-Juwaynī al-Shafi'ī was a Persian Sunni scholar famous for being the foremost leading jurisconsult, legal theoretician and Islamic theologian of his time. His name is commonly abbreviated as al-Juwayni; he is also commonly referred to as Imam al-Haramayn meaning "leading master of the two holy cities", that is, Mecca and Medina. He acquired the status of a mujtahid in the field of fiqh and usul al-fiqh. Highly celebrated as one of the most important and influential thinkers in the Shafi'i school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, he was considered as the virtual second founder of the Shafi'i school, after its first founder Imam al-Shafi'i.
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Anthony Champney
1569 - 1643 (74 years)
Anthony Champney was an English Roman Catholic priest and controversialist. Life He studied at Reims and Rome . As priest he was imprisoned at Wisbech Castle, and was active against the Jesuits, acting later for the Appellant Clergy in Rome .
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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 .
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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.
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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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Sisto Fabri
1540 - 1594 (54 years)
Sisto Fabri was a theologian and canon lawyer of the Dominican Order who was appointed Master of the Sacred Palace by Pope Gregory XIII serving from 1580 to 1583, and Master of the Order of Preachers from 1583 to 1589.
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Fazlullah Nouri
1843 - 1909 (66 years)
Sheikh Fazlollah bin Abbas Mazindarani , also known as Fazlollah Noori , was a major figure in Iranian Constitutional Revolution as a Twelver Shia Muslim scholar and politically connected mullah of the court of Iran's Shah. Originally a supporter of the constitution, he turned against it after the supporting constitution shah died and was replaced by one opposing the constitution. He was hanged as a traitor in 1909 by a court of the constitutionalist government for "sowing corruption and sedition on earth".
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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.
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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.
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Josef Jungmann
1830 - 1885 (55 years)
Josef Jungmann was a German-Austrian Catholic theologian. Life From 1850 he studied theology and philosophy at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, becoming ordained as a priest in 1855. In 1857 he became a member of the Society of Jesus, and during the following year, relocated as a lecturer to the University of Innsbruck. At Innsbruck, he became a professor of ecclesiastical eloquence and catechetics at the university as well as a professor of liturgy at the theological konvikt.
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