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.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#2451
Stanisław of Skarbimierz
1362 - 1431 (69 years)
Stanisław of Skarbimierz was the first rector of the University of Krakow following its restoration in 1399. He was the author of Sermones sapientiales , comprising 113 sermons. Stanisław was born in Skarbimierz, a town some 50 km north-east of Kraków. His sermons were the foundation of Polish political doctrine that culminated in the system of Nobles' Democracy in Poland and, from 1569, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many ideas central to this doctrine may be found in subsequent works by Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki that appear to have influenced the 17th-century English Commonweal...
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Serafino Porrecta
1536 - 1614 (78 years)
Serafino Porrecta was an Italian Dominican theologian. His family name was Capponi; he was called a Porrecta from his place of birth. He is best known as a commentator on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; he also wrote commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments.
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Benjamin Pâquet
1832 - 1900 (68 years)
Benjamin Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educator. He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period. Three times his name was cited for potential bishopry, but each time his opponents successfully lobbied against his nomination or the decision makers settled on a less controversial choice.
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Collins Denny
1854 - 1943 (89 years)
Collins Denny was an American clergyman and educator. He was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Vanderbilt University from 1891 to 1910. He served as bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South from 1910 to 1943.
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Lucas Trelcatius
1542 - 1602 (60 years)
Lucas Trelcatius , was a theologian and writer from the Northern Netherlands. Biography Trelcatius was born in Atrecht but raised as a clerical scholar in Douai thanks to his aunt who was mater in a nunnery there. When he came of age, he traveled to France where he studied theology in Paris and Orleans. In Orleans he became disillusioned with corruption in the Catholic church and turned to Protestantism. Losing his stipend from his Catholic aunt, he found aid from some merchants from Rijsel who offered to support his studies in return for preaching the Protestant faith in their town. His pos...
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William Gurnall
1617 - 1679 (62 years)
William Gurnall was an English author and Anglican clergyman born at King's Lynn, Norfolk, where he was baptised on 17 November 1616. He was educated at the free grammar school of his native town, and in 1631 was nominated to the Lynn scholarship in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1635 and MA in 1639. He was made rector of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham in Suffolk in 1644; and before he received that appointment he seems to have officiated, perhaps as curate, at Sudbury.
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Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi
1886 - 1941 (55 years)
Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi was a prominent Estonian prelate and politician who served as Minister for Education in the Estonian government between 1924 and 1925 and later as Bishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1934 till 1939.
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Henry Nutcombe Oxenham
1829 - 1888 (59 years)
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham was an English ecclesiologist, theologian, author and translator. Originally ordained in the Church of England, he later converted to the Roman Catholic faith and was received into that Church.
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Jean Cabassut
1604 - 1685 (81 years)
Jean Cabassut was a French Oratorian theologian. Life He was born at Aix and entered the Oratory at the age of twenty-one. Though devoted to his labour he was always ready to interrupt even his most favourite study to assist the needy. He had taught canon law at Avignon for some time, when Cardinal Grimaldi, Archbishop of Aix, took him as a companion to Rome, where Father Cabassut remained about eighteen months.
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Guitmund
1100 - 1084 (-16 years)
The Norman Guitmund , Bishop of Aversa, was a Benedictine monk who was an opponent of the teachings of Berengar of Tours. In his youth Guitmund entered the monastery of La-Croix-Saint-Leufroy in the Diocese of Évreux. By 1060 he was studying theology at the Abbey of Bec, where he had Lanfranc as teacher and Anselm as a fellow-student, each of them later Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1070 William the Conqueror called him to take up a diocese in England, to which the monk responded with his Oratio ad Guillelmum, denouncing the Norman Conquest.
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Derrick Sherwin Bailey
1910 - 1984 (74 years)
Derrick Sherwin Bailey was an English Christian theologian, born at Alcester in Warwickshire, whose 1955 work Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition paved the way for the production of the 1957 Wolfenden report and for the Parliament of the United Kingdom's decriminalization of homosexuality in England and Wales a decade later.
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Christoph Wölfflin
1625 - 1688 (63 years)
Christoph Wölfflin was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Christoph Wölfflin was born in Würtemberg, either at Owen, or at Kirchheim unter Teck, on 23 December 1625. He moved to Tübingen and studied at the university there, was in 1651 deacon at Aurach, in 1657 at Tübingen, in 1659 professor of Greek, and in 1660 was made doctor and professor of theology.
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Rudolf Handmann
1862 - 1940 (78 years)
J. J. Rudolf Handmann was a Swiss pastor, professor, theologian and biblical scholar. He was a student of Adolf von Harnack. He was pastor of , part of the Basel Münster congregation, from 1890 to his retirement on 5 May 1935.
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Lewis Bevens Schenck
1898 - 1985 (87 years)
Lewis Bevens Schenck was an American theologian. He is best known for his 1940 work, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which he examined the doctrine of covenant succession. Robert S. Rayburn notes that Schenck "accounts for the modern eclipse of the Reformed doctrine of covenant succession by the dramatic impact of the Great Awakening and the resultant revivalismism." However, according to Thomas Trouwborst, Schenck's book has led to a revival of the "historic Presbyterian...
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John Preston
1587 - 1628 (41 years)
John Preston was an Anglican minister and master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Upbringing John Preston, the son of Thomas Preston, a farmer, and his wife Alice, daughter of Lawrence Marsh of Northampton, was born at Upper Heyford in the parish of Bugbrook, Northamptonshire. He was baptised at Bugbrook church on 27 October 1587. His father died when he was 13 years old, and his mother's maternal uncle, Creswell, who was mayor of Northampton and rich and childless, adopted Preston, placing him at the Northampton Grammar School, and subsequently with a Bedfordshire clergyman named Guest for instruction in Greek.
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Jean Nicolaï
1594 - 1673 (79 years)
Jean Nicolaï was a French Dominican theologian and controversialist. About Entering the order at the age of twelve, he made his religious profession in 1612, studied philosophy and theology in the convent of St. James at Paris. and in 1632 obtained his doctorate in theology at the Sorbonne. Nicolaï taught in various houses of the Dominican order, and became the regent of the Paris Dominicans. Besides Latin and Greek he was conversant with Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew.
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Richard Thomson
1501 - 1613 (112 years)
Richard Thomson, sometimes spelled Thompson, was a Dutch-born English theologian and translator. He was Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge and the translator of Martial's epigrams and among the "First Westminster Company" charged by James I of England with the translation of the first 12 books of the King James Version of the Bible. He was also known for his intemperance and his doctrinal belief in Arminianism.
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Marcus Eremita
360 - 430 (70 years)
Marcus Eremita, Mark the Ascetic or Marcus the Ascetic was a Christian theologian, saint, and ascetic writer of the fifth century AD. Mark is rather an ascetic than a dogmatic writer. He is content to accept dogmas from the Church; his interest is in the spiritual life as it should be led by monks. He is practical rather than mystic, belongs to the Antiochene School and shows himself to be a disciple of John Chrysostom.
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Ernst Teichmann
1869 - 1919 (50 years)
Ernst Gustav Georg Teichmann was a German theologian and zoologist known for his investigations in the field of the tsetse fly and for his books on birth, fertilisation, heredity and death. Life and work He studied theology in Lausanne, Giessen, Berlin and Marburg, obtaining his license in theology at Bonn in 1896. From 1898 to 1900, he studied zoology at the University of Würzburg, afterwards continuing his education in zoology at Naples and Marburg. In 1909–10 he worked at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg, and from 1911 onward, served as a hydrozoologist and departmental head at the institute for hygiene in Frankfurt.
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Étienne Bauny
1564 - 1649 (85 years)
Étienne Bauny was a French Jesuit theologian. Life He was admitted into the Society of Jesus, 20 July 1593, and after teaching humanities and rhetoric he was promoted to the chair of moral theology which he occupied for sixteen years. He was for a time superior of the Jesuit residence at Pontoise. He had the confidence of the most distinguished prelates of his age, especially of Cardinal François de La Rochefoucauld, who chose him as his spiritual director, and of René de Rieux, Bishop of Léon, who entrusted to him the settlement of the most delicate affairs of his episcopate.
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Gregory Paul of Brzeziny
1525 - 1591 (66 years)
Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin , was a Socinian writer and theologian, one of the principal creators and propagators of radical wing of the Polish Brethren, and author of several of the first theological works in Polish, which helped to the development of literary Polish.
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Otto of Bamberg
1060 - 1139 (79 years)
Otto of Bamberg was a German missionary and papal legate who converted much of medieval Pomerania to Christianity. He was the bishop of Bamberg from 1102 until his death. He was canonized in 1189. Early life Three biographies of Otto were written in the decades after his death. Wolfger of Prüfening wrote his between 1140 and 1146 at Prüfening Abbey; Ebo of Michelsberg wrote between 1151 and 1159
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Thomas of Edessa
Thomas of Edessa was a theologian of the Church of the East who wrote several works in Syriac, most of them lost. Thomas was educated in Edessa. There he taught Greek to the future patriarch, Aba. He later travelled with Aba around the Roman Empire, including to its capital, Constantinople. He studied under Aba at the school of Nisibis in the Persian Empire. He also taught at Nisibis. He may have died in Constantinople or on his return journey to Nisibis.
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Johann Pistorius the Elder
1504 - 1583 (79 years)
Johann Pistorius was a German Protestant minister and Protestant reformer. From 1541 he was the Superintendent at the church in Nidda in Hesse. Along with Philipp Melanchthon and Martin Bucer, Pistorius was appointed by Charles V to represent the Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg in 1541. He also participated in the Colloquy of Worms in 1557.
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Jean-Edme Romilly
1739 - 1779 (40 years)
Jean-Edme Romilly was an 18th-century Genevan theologian and encyclopédiste. Biography The son of the watchmaker, journalist and encyclopedist Jean Romilly, whom he predeceased, his mother was Elizabeth Adrienne Joly and his younger sister was Elisabeth Jeanne Pierrette Romilly . Jean-Edme studied theology until 1763 and was called to the ministry in 1763. Three years later, he was called as pastor of the Walloon church in London but his delicate health not accommodating to the climate, he returned to Geneva and was ordered to serve the church of Chancy. He married Françoise Dorothée Argand , with whom he had a daughter, Marie Joséphine Romilly .
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Johannes Pedersen
1883 - 1977 (94 years)
Johannes Peder Ejler Pedersen was a Danish Old Testament scholar and Semitic philologist. Life Pedersen was born at Illebølle in Langeland Municipality, Denmark. For his higher education, Pedersen entered Sorø Academy, a school with a history going back to 1140. His study of theology under F. C. Krarups, a priest/professor at Sorø, led to Pedersen's study of the Old Testament. After he graduated from Sorø Academy in 1902, Pedersen began study of Semitic languages under Professor Frants Buhl at the University of Copenhagen. In 1906 he obtained the university's gold medal, and in 1908 he took a...
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Edward Bishop Elliott
1793 - 1875 (82 years)
Edward Bishop Elliott was an English clergyman, preacher and premillennarian writer. Elliott graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1816, and he was given the vicarage of Tuxford, Nottinghamshire in 1824 then later was made prebendary of Heytesbury, Wiltshire. In 1849 he became incumbent of St Mark's Church, Kemptown, Brighton. Elliott was evangelical, premillennial and an ardent supporter of missions. Thoroughly equipped as a scholar, he spent a lifetime in the study of biblical prophecy.
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Islay Burns
1817 - 1872 (55 years)
Islay Burns was a Scottish theologian and writer. Life Burns was born on 16 January 1817 at the manse of Dun in Forfarshire, where his father William Hamilton Burns was parish minister in the Church of Scotland, and his wife, Elizabeth Chalmers. The family moved to Kilsyth near Glasgow in his youth.
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Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh
1606 - 1677 (71 years)
Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh was a Franciscan friar, theologian and grammarian, author of the first published grammar of the Irish language written in Latin, c. 1606–1677. Biography Early life Ó Maolmhuaidh was born in the Diocese of Meath, most probably in the district of Fercall, lordship of The Ó Maolmhuaidh, in what was then called King's County. While his exact place within the Ó Maolmhuaidh family is unknown, he recorded stories heard in his youth "of a great Christmas banquet for 960 people, lasting twelve days, held by Calvagh O'Molloy, chief of his name, at the end of the sixteenth centu...
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Charles H. Stonestreet
1813 - 1885 (72 years)
Charles Henry Stonestreet was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who served in prominent religious and academic positions, including as provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland Province and president of Georgetown University. He was born in Maryland and attended Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Philodemic Society. After entering the Society of Jesus and becoming a professor at Georgetown, he led St. John's Literary Institution and St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Maryland. He was appointed president of Georgetown University in 1851, holding the office for two years, during which time he oversaw expansion of the university's library.
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Durand of Huesca
1160 - 1224 (64 years)
Durand of Huesca was a Spanish Waldensian, who converted in 1207 to Catholicism. Durand had been a disciple of Peter Waldo, who had been excommunicated in 1184. Around the early 1190s Durand wrote Liber Antihaeresis against the Cathars, which is considered perhaps the best primary source on early Waldensian thought.
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Lucius Ferraris
1687 - 1763 (76 years)
Lucius Ferraris was an Italian Franciscan canonist of the 18th century. He was born at Solero, near Alessandria in Northern Italy. He was also professor, provincial of his order, and consultor of the Holy Office. It would seem he died before 1763.
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Frederick Nolan
1784 - 1864 (80 years)
Frederick Nolan was an Irish Anglican theologian. Life Born at Old Rathmines Castle, County Dublin, the seat of his grandfather, on 9 February 1784, third son of Edward Nolan of St. Peter's, Dublin, by his wife Florinda. In 1796 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate, and on 19 November 1803 matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, chiefly in order to study at the Bodleian and other libraries. He passed his examination for the degree of B.C.L. in 1805, but he did not take it until 1828, when he proceeded D.C.L. at the same time. He was ordained in Augu...
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François Delfau
1637 - 1676 (39 years)
François Delfau was a French Benedictine theologian, an authority on patristic theology. Life He joined the Order of St. Benedict when he was seventeen years of age, and made his solemn profession at the Abbey of St. Allire, 2 May 1656. He was a student of the Fathers of the Church and the history of the councils.
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Robert of Melun
1100 - 1167 (67 years)
Robert of Melun was an English scholastic Christian theologian who taught in France, and later became Bishop of Hereford in England. He studied under Peter Abelard in Paris before teaching there and at Melun, which gave him his surname. His students included John of Salisbury, Roger of Worcester, William of Tyre, and possibly Thomas Becket. Robert was involved in the Council of Reims in 1148, which condemned the teachings of Gilbert de la Porrée. Three of his theological works survive, and show him to have been strictly orthodox.
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Ernst Zimmermann
1786 - 1832 (46 years)
Ernst Christoph Philipp Zimmermann was a German classical philologist and theologian. He was the brother of theologian Karl Zimmermann . He studied at the Darmstadt gymnasium as a pupil of historian Helfrich Bernhard Wenck, and afterwards furthered his education at the University of Giessen . In 1805 he became a clergyman in the community of Auerbach , then in 1809 was named deacon in Gross-Gerau and pastor in nearby Büttelborn. In 1814 he was appointed court deacon at the Hofkirche in Darmstadt, where two years later he became a court preacher. In 1831 he attained the titles of prelate, eccl...
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William Norman Guthrie
1868 - 1944 (76 years)
William Norman Guthrie also known as Norman de Lagutry was an American clergyman and grandson of famous radical Frances Wright. His father, Eugène Picault de Lagutry, was the husband of Frances Sylva Piquepal d'Arusmont, the daughter of Frances Wright.
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Gaspar Hurtado
1575 - 1647 (72 years)
Gaspar Hurtado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He studied at the University of Alcalá de Henares, where in the examination for the doctorate he won the highest place from numerous competitors. He was at once appointed professor in the university, and was winning fame as a lecturer, when at the age of 32, he resigned his chair and entered the Society of Jesus .
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Gilbert Gerard
1760 - 1815 (55 years)
Gilbert Gerard was a Scottish theological writer. He became the minister of the Scots Church, Amsterdam. He was professor of Greek at King's College, Aberdeen, 1791, and divinity, 1795. In 1803 he was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
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William Reynolds
1544 - 1594 (50 years)
William Reynolds was an English Catholic theologian and Biblical scholar. Life Educated at Winchester School, he became fellow of New College, Oxford . He was converted to Catholicism partly by the controversy between John Jewel and Thomas Harding, and partly by the personal influence of William Allen.
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James MacCaffrey
1875 - 1935 (60 years)
Monsignor James MacCaffrey STL, PhD was an Irish priest, theologian and historian. Biography Monsignor MacCaffrey was born in 1875, at Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone, he was the son of Francis MacCaffrey of Alderwood, Clogher, Co. Tyrone. He was educated at St. Macartan's Seminary, Monaghan, before going to St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and was ordained there in 1899.
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John Williams
1796 - 1839 (43 years)
John Williams was an English missionary, active in the South Pacific. Early life He was born in Tottenham, near London, to Welsh parents. In 1810 the family moved to north London and there he served as a clerk to an iron foundry. He also took some interest in smithing. There his employer's wife first took him to church and he was immediately drawn to this, and the pastor, Rev Nathan Wilks, enrolled him in a class to prepare for the ministry. However, his heart quickly became set on missionary work.
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Bernhard Pauss
1839 - 1907 (68 years)
Bernhard Cathrinus Pauss was a Norwegian theologian, educator, author and humanitarian and missionary leader, who was a major figure in girls' education in Norway in his lifetime. He was headmaster and owner of Nissen's Girls' School and head of its affiliated women's teachers college, the first higher education institution open to women in Norway. He was also a lecturer at the Norwegian Military Academy. He was chairman of the Norwegian Santal Mission , in succession to Oscar Nissen, and founded and edited the journal Santalen. He also wrote and edited several schoolbooks in Norwegian and G...
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Matthias Loy
1828 - 1915 (87 years)
Matthias Loy was an American Lutheran theologian in the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio. Loy was a prominent pastor, editor, author and hymnist who served as president of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio.
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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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George Collison
1772 - 1847 (75 years)
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London—itself part of the University of London. Early life Collison was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, on 6 January 1772, and became articled to a solicitor in Bridlington. Taking a keen interest in the local Independent Chapel, he became an early Sunday school teacher, and in 1792 decided to give up law and train full-time as a minister at Hoxton College near London. In 1797 he settled close to London in the village of Walthamstow in Essex to carry ...
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Ambrose Traversari
1386 - 1439 (53 years)
Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli , was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
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Johann Gottlob Carpzov
1679 - 1767 (88 years)
Johann Gottlob Carpzov was a German Christian Old Testament scholar, a nephew of Johann Benedict Carpzov II and a son of Samuel Benedict Carpzov. He was the most famous and most important Biblical scholar of the Carpzov family.
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Jona Willem te Water
1740 - 1822 (82 years)
Jona Willem te Water was a professor at Leiden University. He was a man of influence in the Dutch Reformed Church, in many learned societies, in academic theology, and in Dutch historiography. Early life
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Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz
1777 - 1838 (61 years)
Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Prague from 1833 to 1838. Biography Ankwicz was born in Kraków, Poland in 1777. He was ordained a priest on 2 September 1810. In 1815, he was appointed and ordained archbishop of Lviv in Ukraine. He remained in this capacity for 18 years until 30 September 1833 when he was appointed the archbishop of Prague. He died at the age of 60 years on 26 March 1838 to be succeeded in his archbishopric by Alois Josef Schrenk.
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