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 Theology,
#2351
Diego Alvarez
1550 - 1635 (85 years)
Diego Álvarez was a Spanish theologian who opposed Molinism. He was archbishop of Trani from 1607 to his death. Life Diego Álvarez was born at Medina de Rioseco, Old Castile, about 1555. He entered the Dominican Order in his native city, and taught theology for twenty years in the Spanish cities of Burgos, Trianos, Plasencia, and Valladolid, and for ten years at the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in Rome. From 1603 to 1606 he was elected Regent of the Collegium Divi Thomae of the Dominicans in Rome.
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Hans Lietzmann
1875 - 1942 (67 years)
Hans Lietzmann was a German Protestant theologian and church historian who was a native of Düsseldorf. He initially studied in Jena, then continued his education in Bonn, where he was a student of Hermann Usener. In 1905 he was appointed professor of church history at the University of Jena, and in 1923 was a successor to Adolf von Harnack at the University of Berlin. During his career he obtained an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens, and in 1927 became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He died in Locarno, Switzerland on 25 June 1942.
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Giusto Fontanini
1666 - 1736 (70 years)
Giusto Fontanini was a Roman Catholic archbishop and an Italian historian. Biography A prelate and attentive bibliophile, in 1697 became a stubborn and reactionary defender of the Papal Curia. In 1708, he was a protagonist of a contentious controversy over the possession of the territory of Comacchio between the Papacy and the Este Dukes of Modena along with their protector, the Austrian Hapsburg empire. In 1597, the then Duke of Ferrara Alfonso II d'Este died without heirs. While the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II recognized as heir to Alfonso, his cousin Cesare d'Este, his dubious legitimacy led the papal states to claim the Duchy of Ferrara, including Comacchio.
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Francisco de Enzinas
1518 - 1552 (34 years)
Francisco de Enzinas , also known by the humanist name Francis Dryander , was a classical scholar, translator, author, Protestant reformer and apologist of Spanish origin. Family and education Francisco de Enzinas was born in Burgos, Spain, probably on 1 November 1518. He was one of ten children of the successful wool merchant Juan de Enzinas. The mater of his correspondence was his stepmother, Beatriz de Santa Cruz, whose family included the wealthy Low Countries merchant Jerónimo de Salamanca Santa Cruz and the churchman Alonso de Santa Cruz, treasurer of Burgos Cathedral.
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Carl Peter Wilhelm Gramberg
1797 - 1830 (33 years)
Carl Peter Wilhelm Gramberg was a German theologian and biblical scholar. Biography Gramberg attended university at Halle, where he studied Hebrew Bible and Theology under Wilhelm Gesenius and Julius Wegscheider. His major work, in addition to commentaries on Chronicles and Genesis, was the Kritische Geschichte der Religionsideen des alten Testaments, of which he published two of a projected four volumes before his death in Oldenburg at the age of thirty-three.
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Domenico Palmieri
1829 - 1909 (80 years)
Domenico Palmieri was an Italian Jesuit scholastic theologian. Life He studied in his native city, where he was ordained priest in 1852. On 6 June 1852, he entered the Society of Jesus, where he completed his studies. He taught in several places, first rhetoric, then philosophy, theology, and the Sacred Scriptures. In these courses, especially during the sixteen years that he was professor in the Roman College, he acquired a reputation as a philosopher.
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Pierre Chaillet
1900 - 1972 (72 years)
Pierre Chaillet was a French Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus , who was recognised as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his work to protect Jews from the Nazi Holocaust. The Amitiés Chrétiennes organisation operated out of Lyon to secure hiding places for Jewish children. Among its members was the Jesuit Pierre Chaillet. The influential French theologian Henri de Lubac SJ was active in the resistance to Nazism and to antisemitism. He assisted in the publication of Témoinage chrétien with Pierre Chaillet, responding to Neo-paganism and antisemitism with clarity, describing t...
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Julius Guttmann
1880 - 1950 (70 years)
Julius Guttmann , born Yitzchak Guttmann , was a German-born rabbi, Jewish theologian, and philosopher of religion. Biography Julius was born to Jakob Guttmann while Jakob served as Chief Rabbi at Hildesheim during the years 1874 to 1892, when Hildesheim still had a large Jewish population. Jakob himself published papers on a number of philosophical topics. The family moved to Breslau in 1880.
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Reginald Heber
1783 - 1826 (43 years)
Reginald Heber was an English Anglican bishop, a man of letters, and hymn-writer. After 16 years as a country parson, he served as Bishop of Calcutta until his death at the age of 42. The son of a rich landowner and cleric, Heber gained fame at the University of Oxford as a poet. After graduation he made an extended tour of Scandinavia, Russia and Central Europe. Ordained in 1807, he took over his father's old parish, Hodnet, Shropshire. He also wrote hymns and general literature, including a study of the works of the 17th-century cleric Jeremy Taylor.
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Veit Erbermann
1597 - 1675 (78 years)
Veit Erbermann was a German theologian and controversialist. He was born at Rendweisdorff, in Bavaria, to Lutheran parents, but at an early age he became a Roman Catholic, and on 30 May 1620, entered the Society of Jesus. After completing his ecclesiastical studies he taught philosophy and Scholastic theology, first at Mainz and afterwards at Würzburg. Subsequently he was appointed rector of the pontifical seminary at Fulda, which position he held for seven years.
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Jakob Ebert
1549 - 1614 (65 years)
Jakob Ebert was a German theologian and poet. Life Born in Sprottau, Ebert was the son of . He was school director in Soldin, Schwiebus and Grünberg. From 1594 he was on the faculty of the university in Frankfurt , teaching theology.
Go to Profile#2362
Hermias
Hermias was an obscure Christian apologist, presumed to have lived in 3rd century. Nothing is known of him, except his name. He wrote a Derision of gentile philosophers , a short parody on Greek philosophical themes . From Paul's statement in the First Epistle to the Corinthians that "all worldly knowledge is foolishness to God" he affirms that all philosophical doctrines come from the apostasy of the angels and therefore wrong and laughable. Hermias relies rather on cynical and skeptical culture critique and on philosophical biographies and anedoctes than in their real writings.
Go to Profile#2363
Dominic Schram
1722 - 1797 (75 years)
Dominic Schram, sometimes spelled Schramm was a German Benedictine theologian and canonist. Biography He was born at Bamberg. He took vows at Banz near Bamberg in 1743, and after being ordained priest on 18 August 1748, taught at his monastery: at first mathematics , then canon law , philosophy and soon after theology. In 1782 he reluctantly accepted the position of prior in the monastery of Michelsberg at Bamberg, whence he returned to Banz in 1787, where he died ten years later.
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Gregorios Papamichael
1875 - 1956 (81 years)
Gregorios Papamichael was a theologian of the Orthodox Church of Greece and a renowned professor at the Theology School of the University of Athens . He examined diligently various cultural aspects of church life and is jointly credited, together with his close friend Archbishop Chrysostomos I of Athens , for establishing the two basic academic journals of Neohellenic theology: Theologia and Ekklesia. In addition, he was responsible for the modern rediscovery of two almost forgotten great personalities of Orthodoxy, namely Gregorios Palamas and Maximos the Greek.
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Domenico Viva
1648 - 1726 (78 years)
Domenico Viva was an Italian Jesuit theologian. Life Viva was born at Lecce, and entered the Society of Jesus 12 May 1663. He taught the humanities and Greek, nine years' philosophy, eight years moral theology, eight years' Scholastic theology, was two years prefect of studies, was rector of the College of Naples in 1711, and provincial of Naples.
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Hermann Theodor Wangemann
1818 - 1894 (76 years)
Hermann Theodor Wangemann was a German theologian and missionary. Wangemann's father, Johannes Theodosius, arrived with his family in Demmin in Pomerania around 1821, where he became a subrector and later received the title of music director. Hermann Theodor attended the town school here, followed by the Gymnasium in Berlin from 1832 to 1836. After studying theology at the University of Berlin, Wangemann first held a position as a house teacher in Bern from 1840 to 1844. During this time he was awarded a doctorate in Theology by the University of Halle. From 1845 he worked as a rector and ass...
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Pietro Maria Gazzaniga
1722 - 1799 (77 years)
Pietro Maria Gazzaniga was an Italian Dominican theologian. Life At a very early age he entered the Order of St. Dominic, and studied the various branches of ecclesiastical sciences, especially philosophy and theology. He was then, despite his youth, appointed to teach philosophy and church history, first in the various houses of his order and later at the University of Bologna.
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Bernt Støylen
1858 - 1937 (79 years)
Bernt Andreas Støylen was a Norwegian theologian, psalmist, and Bishop in the Church of Norway. Personal life Støylen was born in Sande in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway on 17 February 1858. He was the son of farmer and fisherman Andreas Olsen Støylen and Margrete Helgesdatter Bringsvor. He was married in Bergen in 1890 to Kamilla Karoline Heiberg. His son was Kaare Støylen, a future bishop, and his brother-in-law was Georg Sverdrup, the Norwegian-American theologian. He died in Bærum, Norway in 1937.
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Robert Baron
1596 - 1639 (43 years)
Robert Baron was a Scottish theologian and one of the so-called Aberdeen doctors. He is commemorated in the Calendar of saints of the Scottish Episcopal Church on 28 March. Life Born in 1596 at Kinnaird, Gowrie, he was the younger son of John Baron of Kinnaird. After graduating from the University of St Andrews in 1613, he became a teacher of Philosophy there until, in 1619, he entered the ministry and took charge of parish of Keith. In the latter charge his predecessor had been the famous Patrick Forbes.
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Margaret Dunlop Gibson
1843 - 1920 (77 years)
#2371
Johannes Gezelius the elder
1615 - 1690 (75 years)
Johannes Gezelius the elder , known in Swedish as Johannes Gezelius den äldre and Johannes Gezelius vanhempi in Finnish, was the Bishop of Turku and the Vice-Chancellor of The Royal Academy of Turku .
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Robert Sandeman
1718 - 1771 (53 years)
Robert Sandeman was a Scottish nonconformist theologian. He was closely associated with the Glasite church which he helped to promote. His importance was such that Glasite churches outside Scotland were known as Sandemanian.
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Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza
1578 - 1651 (73 years)
Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza , also called Puente Hurtado de Mendoza, was a Basque scholastic philosopher and theologian. Philosophical work He was a teacher of theology and philosophy in Valladolid and he occupied a chair at the University of Salamanca.
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Jean-Baptiste Terrien
1832 - 1903 (71 years)
Jean-Baptiste Terrien was a French Jesuit dogmatic theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus at Angers, 7 December 1854; he then taught philosophy for two years and dogmatic theology for twenty-two at the seminaries of Laval , 1864–80, and Saint Helier , 1880–88. After being spiritual father at Laval, he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology and taught three years, 1891–94, at the Catholic Institute of Paris, remaining afterwards in this city as spiritual father and writer.
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Sebastian Hofmeister
1476 - 1533 (57 years)
Sebastian Hofmeister , known in writing as Oeconomus or Oikonomos, was a Swiss monk and religious Reformer who was prominent in early debates of the Reformation. Hofmeister joined the Franciscan order in Schaffhausen before studying for several years in Paris. There he studied Hebrew and the classical languages and received a doctorate in theology in 1519. By 1520, he was sent to Zürich as a lecturer and later in the same year to Constance. It was in Zurich where he first met the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli, who influenced him a great deal. Hofmeister would begin preaching the Reformation at Lucerne, resulting in his expulsion from that town.
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Johann Jakob Wick
1522 - 1588 (66 years)
Johann Jakob Wick was a Protestant clergyman from Zürich. Wick lived in the Zürich of Heinrich Bullinger, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli. He studied theology in Tübingen, and was pastor of Witikon, at the city hospital, and the Predigerkirche. Afterwards he was canon and second archdeacon at the Grossmünster. Wick is the collector of the Wickiana.
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Ernst Tillich
1910 - 1985 (75 years)
Ernst Tillich was a German theologian. He survived the twelve Nazi years, but nevertheless spent much of the period in state detention, including more than three years in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. Subsequently, between 1951 and 1958, Tillich led the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit , a US funded militant campaigning anti-communist organisation, based in West Berlin, which supported resistance to the one-party dictatorship that had established itself as the German Democratic Republic in October 1949.
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Francis Line
1595 - 1675 (80 years)
Francis Line, SJ , also known as Linus of Liège, was a Jesuit priest and scientist. He is known for inventing a magnetic clock. He is noted as a contemporary critic of the theories and work of Isaac Newton. He also challenged Robert Boyle and his law of gases.
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David Erdmann
1821 - 1905 (84 years)
David Erdmann was a German evangelical theologian and church historian. Life Christian Friedrich David Erdmann was born at Güstebiese , a village on the eastern bank of the Oder river a short distance inland and upstream from Stettin. He studied Theology in Berlin, and in 1845 became a member of the Berlin Wingolf . He received a "Privatdozent" in 1853, and in 1856 became a full professor for Theology and Church History at the University of Königsberg, also serving as a pastor.
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Francis Sylvius
1581 - 1649 (68 years)
Francis Sylvius was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Life After completing his course of humanities at Mons, he studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and theology at University of Douai, in a seminary founded by the bishop of Cambrai in connection with the faculty of theology. While studying theology he taught philosophy at the royal college. On 9 November 1610, he was made doctor of theology with the highest honours.
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Richard of Middleton
1249 - 1302 (53 years)
Richard of Middleton was a member of the Franciscan Order, a theologian, and scholastic philosopher. Life Richard's origins are unclear: he was either Norman French or English . As a Bachelor of the Sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Paris in 1283, he played a part in the Franciscan commission examining Peter Olivi. He was regent master of the Franciscan studium in Paris from 1284 to 1287, and, on 20 September 1295 in Metz, he was elected Franciscan minister provincial of France. He was also subsequently tutor to Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles II of Anjou. He died sometime b...
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Karl August Traugott Vogt
1808 - 1869 (61 years)
Karl August Traugott Vogt, name sometimes given as Carl Vogt was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of philologist Friedrich Vogt . Vogt was born in Wittenberg. In 1830 he obtained his habilitation at the University of Berlin, where he later became an associate professor of church history and practical theology. During his time spent in Berlin, he gave sermons at the Trinity Church. In 1837 he relocated as a full professor to the University of Greifswald, where on three occasions he served as university rector . In Greifswald, he also served as an ecclesiastical superintendent and as a member of the Consistory.
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Georges Dandoy
1882 - 1962 (80 years)
Georges Dandoy was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary in India, theologian and Indologist. He is included in the so-called ‘Calcutta School of Indology’ . Education After a year of philosophical studies at Namur , he was sent to Stonyhurst, England to complete his philosophy , and to begin studying Sanskrit at Oxford University . Sent to Kolkata, he began teaching at St Xavier’s College before beginning his theological studies at St Mary’s, Kurseong, near Darjeeling . He was ordained priest in November 1914.
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Norbert of Xanten
1080 - 1134 (54 years)
Norbert of Xanten, O. Praem , also known as Norbert Gennep, was a bishop of the Catholic Church, founder of the Premonstratensian order of canons regular, and is venerated as a saint. Norbert was canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in the year 1582, and his statue appears above the Piazza colonnade of St. Peter's Square in Rome.
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John Caird
1820 - 1898 (78 years)
John Caird DD LLD was a Scottish theologian. He entered the Church of Scotland, of which he became one of the most eloquent preachers. He served as the Principal of the University of Glasgow from 1873 until 1898.
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Daniel Tilenus
1563 - 1633 (70 years)
Daniel Tilenus was a German-French Protestant theologian. Initially a Calvinist, he became a prominent and influential Arminian teaching at the Academy of Sedan. He was an open critic of the Synod of Dort of 1618-9.
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Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy
1613 - 1684 (71 years)
Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy , a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible, the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal.
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Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
1817 - 1876 (59 years)
Johann Nepomuk Paul Oischinger was a German Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who was a native of Witzmannsberg, Bavaria. Oischinger studied theology and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he had as instructors Franz Xaver von Baader , Joseph Görres , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Ignaz von Döllinger , Heinrich Klee , Johann Adam Möhler and Franz Xaver Reithmayr . In 1841 he received his ordination in Regensburg, and shortly afterwards returned to Munich, where he worked as a private scholar and journalist for the remainder of his career.
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Caspar Erich Schieler
1851 - 1934 (83 years)
Caspar Erasmus Schieler was a German theologian, church historian and priest in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to documents provided by Mainz Cathedral and the Diocesan Seminary, Schieler studied philosophy and theology at the Episcopal Seminary in Mainz , receiving the Doctor of Divinity degree. Schieler first served as a priest at the age of twenty-five at Mainz, Cathedral ordained under Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler in the year 1876. Due to the Kulturkampf, Schieler was interrogated by the German government and forced to pastor his parish in secret, to avoid further attention.
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Lauri Ingman
1868 - 1934 (66 years)
Lars Johannes Ingman was a Finnish theologian, bishop and politician. In 1906 he began to serve as the editor of Vartija, a Christian magazine. From 1916 to 1930 he was the professor of practical theology in the University of Helsinki. He was also a member of the conservative National Coalition Party, where he acted as the speaker of the parliament and a minister in several cabinets, and served as the Prime Minister of Finland twice, in 1918–1919 and 1924–1925. In 1930 he was elected Archbishop of Turku, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
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Liselotte Richter
1906 - 1968 (62 years)
Liselotte Richter was a German philosopher and theologian. She was the first female professor of philosophy in Germany. Early life Luise Charlotte Richter was born in 1906 and grew up with her twin brother Fritz in a middle-class family, first in Berlin-Tegel and then in Charlottenburg.
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Francisco Macedo
1596 - 1681 (85 years)
Francisco Macedo , known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian. Life He entered the Jesuit Order in 1610, which however he left in 1638 in order to join the Discalced Augustinians. These also he left in 1648, for the Franciscans. In Portugal he sided with the House of Braganza.
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Abraham Hinckelmann
1652 - 1695 (43 years)
Abraham Hinckelmann , a German Protestant theologian, was an Islamologist who was one of the first to print a complete Qur'an in Hamburg. Later, a cleric named Ludovico Marracci from the "Society of the Monks of the Divine Path" published a better version.
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E. J. P. Jorissen
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
Eduard Johan Pieter Jorissen was a Dutch lawyer and politician. He graduated in theology and served as State Attorney of the South African Republic from 1876 to 1877 under Thomas François Burgers.
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Willem Duynstee
1886 - 1968 (82 years)
Willem Duynstee was a Catholic priest, jurist, moralist, and professor born at Sittard, the Netherlands, in 1886. After gaining a doctorate in criminal law in 1908, Willem joined the Redemptorists and was ordained a priest in 1913. In 1935, he was the first to provide a Thomist understanding of psychological repression and therapy which was fundamentally different from that of the neurologist Sigmund Freud. Duynstee was proficient in the anthropology and philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, whereas Freud invented his own language and explanations for what became the onset of psychoanalysis.
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John Edgar McFadyen
1870 - 1933 (63 years)
John Edgar McFadyen B. A. , M. A., D. D. was a Scottish theologian, was professor of language, literature and Old Testament theology in the University of Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow and died in 1933.
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Stephan Praetorius
1536 - 1603 (67 years)
Stephan Praetorius was a German Lutheran theologian and pastor. His life and work Prætorius was born in Salzwedel, Margraviate of Brandenburg. He was educated at the University of Rostock, where he also taught in the local schools; was ordained by Agricola at Berlin in 1565; became preacher in the same year at the monastery of the Holy Ghost at Salzwedel, and soon after deacon of the Church of St. Mary's; and from 1569 until his death was pastor in Salzwedel.
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Hugh Black
1868 - 1953 (85 years)
Hugh Black was a Scottish-American theologian and author. Life Black was born on March 26, 1868, in Rothesay, Scotland. He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Glasgow in 1887, and studied divinity at Free Church College Glasgow from 1887 until 1891. Black was ordained in 1891 and became associate pastor at St George's Free Church in Edinburgh in 1896, where he worked with Alexander Whyte.
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Stanislovas Rapolionis
1485 - 1545 (60 years)
Stanislovas Svetkus Rapolionis was a Lutheran activist and Protestant reformer from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With patronage of Albert, Duke of Prussia, he obtained the doctorate of theology from the Protestant University of Wittenberg where he studied under Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. After graduation, he became the first professor of theology at the newly established University of Königsberg, also known as Albertina. As professor he began working on several Protestant publications and translations, including a Bible translation into Polish. It is believed that he also started the first translation of the Bible into Lithuanian.
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Johannes van den Driesche
1550 - 1616 (66 years)
Johannes van den Driesche [or Drusius] was a Flemish Protestant divine, distinguished specially as an Orientalist, Christian Hebraist and exegete. Life He was born at Oudenarde, in Flanders. Intended for the church, he studied Greek and Latin at Ghent, and philosophy at Leuven; but his father having been outlawed for his religion, and deprived of his estate, retired to England, where the son followed him in 1567. He found a teacher of Hebrew in Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier, with whom he resided for some time at Cambridge. In 1572 he became professor of Oriental languages at Oxford.
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