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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#2501

John Pye-Smith

1774 - 1851 (77 years)

John Pye-Smith was a Congregational minister, theologian and tutor, associated with reconciling geological sciences with the Bible, repealing the Corn Laws and abolishing slavery. He was the author of many learned works.

#2502

Frederik Torm

1870 - 1953 (83 years)

Frederik Emanuel Torm was a Danish theologian. He was born in Tschifu, China as a son of ship-owner Ditlev Torm and Elise H. M. Zoëga . His father was a shipmaster in East Aia until the early 1870s. In July 1904 in Copenhagen he married teacher Elisif Thaulow .

#2503

Hierax

300 - 400 (100 years)

Hierax , or Hieracas, was a learned ascetic who flourished about the end of the 3rd century AD at Leontopolis in Egypt, where he lived to the age of ninety, supporting himself by calligraphy and devoting his leisure to scientific and literary pursuits, especially to the study of the Bible.

#2504

Fath al-Din Ibn Sayyid al-Nas

1272 - 1334 (62 years)

Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Ya'mari, better known as Fatḥ al-Dīn Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, was a Medieval Egyptian theologian who specialized in the field of Hadith, or the recorded prophecies and traditions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. He was well known for his biography of Muhammad.

#2505

Thomas Grynaeus

1512 - 1564 (52 years)

Thomas Grynaeus was a theologian, reformer and pastor. Life Thomas Grynaeus grew up the son of a peasant in the Veringendorf, Württemberg. Grynaeus's uncle Simon Grynaeus was a school friend Philipp Melanchthon. Thomas studied Greek and Latin in Heidelberg and Basel and followed Simon Sulzer to the Bern Academy, where he served as professor of Classical languages. He was released from his post for introducing Lutheran views of the Lord's Supper. He moved to Basel served as teacher and later prefect of the Basel Pädagogium. After the Reformation of the Baden-Durlach by Margrave Charles II in 1556, Grynaeus became pastor in 1558 at St.

#2506

John Barningham

John Barningham was an English theologian. Life Barningham was educated at Oxford and Paris, in both of which places he is said to have taken his degree as master in theology. In later years he was appointed prior of Ipswich Whitefriars , where he died an old man on 22 January 1448. His older biographers praise his skill in disputation.

#2507

Matthieu Petit-Didier

1659 - 1728 (69 years)

Matthieu Petit-Didier was a French Benedictine theologian and ecclesiastical historian. Life After studying at the Jesuit college at Nancy he joined the Benedictine Congregation of St-Vannes, in 1675, at the monastery of St-Mihiel. In 1682 he was appointed professor of philosophy and theology.

#2508

Johannes Mensing

1477 - 1547 (70 years)

Johannes Mensing was a German Dominican theologian and controversialist, an opponent of Martin Luther. He was considered formidable for his theological knowledge and command of the German language.

#2509

Giacomo Nacchiante

1502 - 1569 (67 years)

Giacomo Nacchiante, O.P. was an Italian Dominican theologian who was Bishop of Chioggia . Early Biography Giacomo Nacchiante was born in Florence, Italy. He was placed by his father under the protection of the superintendent of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence's foundling hospital, in 1509.

#2510

Johann Jahn

1750 - 1816 (66 years)

Johann Jahn was a German orientalist. Biography He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of University of Olomouc, and in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time held a cure at Misslitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics.

#2511

'Ala' al-Din al-Bukhari

1377 - 1437 (60 years)

Ala' al-Din al-Bukhari , was a Hanafi jurist , Maturidi theologian, commentator of the Qur'an , and a mystic . He is perhaps best known for issuing a fatwa whereby anyone that gives Ibn Taymiyya the title "Shaykh al-Islam" is a disbeliever, and authored a book against him entitled "Muljimat al-Mujassima" .

#2512

George Bullock

1520 - 1572 (52 years)

George Bullock was an English Roman Catholic theologian. Life He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1538, becoming a fellow. In the reign of Edward VI he spent time in France, at Nevers Abbey. He was Master of St John's College, from 12 May 1554 to 20 July 1559.

#2513

Conrad of Gelnhausen

1325 - 1390 (65 years)

Conrad of Gelnhausen was a German theologian and canon lawyer, and one of the founders of the conciliar movement of the late fourteenth century. Details of his life are sketchy. He was baccalaureus at the University of Paris in 1344. For the two decades after then he can be tracked by prebends he is known to have had, in various places in Germany. He turned towards the law later in his career.

#2514

Samuel Presbiter

1200 - 1300 (100 years)

Samuel Presbiter was a theologian, a student of William de Montibus at the cathedral school in Lincoln, England. He is the creator of several works he designates 'Collecta', preserved in two manuscripts from Bury St Edmunds Abbey, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 860 and Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 115. The common origin of these manuscripts suggests that he was also a monk at the abbey. His works typically consist of poems summarizing his learning, created for mnemonic purposes, together with prose extracts. Four of his works have been published in full or in part: his versificati...

#2515

Valère Regnault

1543 - 1623 (80 years)

Valère Regnault or Regnauld was a French Jesuit theologian. Life He was born in the diocese of Besançon. He studied under Juan Maldonado at the Collège de Clermont, where he was one of the first pupils. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1573. He taught philosophy at the Collège de Bordeaux, then moral theology in several colleges.

#2516

Petrus Johannes Meindaerts

1684 - 1767 (83 years)

Petrus Johannes Meindaerts served as the tenth Archbishop of Utrecht from 1739 to 1767. After the death of his consecrator, Bishop Dominique Marie Varlet, Meindaerts consecrated other bishops, such that all later Old Catholic bishops derive their apostolic succession from him.

#2517

Anthony of Sienna

Anthony of Sienna was a Portuguese Dominican theologian, so called because of his great veneration for Saint Catherine of Siena. He was born near Braga in Portugal. He studied at Lisbon, Coimbra, and Louvain, eventually coming to teach philosophy at Louvain. There he was made Doctor of Theology in 1571, and in 1574 was put in charge of the Dominican college there.

#2518

Charles Backus Storrs

1794 - 1833 (39 years)

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

#2519

Zachary Brooke

1716 - 1788 (72 years)

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

#2520

Nicholas Fitzherbert

1550 - 1612 (62 years)

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

#2521

Abdallah ibn Yasin

Abdallah ibn Yasin was a theologian and spiritual leader of the Almoravid movement. Early life, education and career Abdallah ibn Yasin was from the tribe of the Jazulah , a Sanhaja sub-tribe from the Sous. His mother is Tin Izamarren of the Jazula tribe that lived in the village of Tamanart. A Maliki theologian, he was a disciple of Waggag ibn Zallu al-Lamti, a relative of his, and studied in his Ribat, "Dar al-Murabitin" which was located in the village of Aglu, near present-day Tiznit. In 1046 the Gudala chief Yahya Ibn Ibrahim, came to the Ribat asking for someone to promulgate Islamic re...

#2522

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

1813 - 1891 (78 years)

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible. He was prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of Hendon.

#2523

Valpy French

1825 - 1891 (66 years)

Thomas Valpy French was an English Christian Missionary in India and Persia, who became the first Bishop of Lahore, in 1877, and also founded the St. John's College, Agra, in 1853. After Henry Martyn, French is considered the second most important Christian missionary to the Middle East.

#2524

Gerson ben Solomon Catalan

1288 - 1344 (56 years)

Gerson ben Solomon Catalan, also known as Gerson ben Solomon of Arles, was a French Jewish author of the thirteenth century. He compiled an encyclopedia entitled Sha'ar ha-Shamayim in Hebrew, which was widely read later in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. He lived in southern France , possibly at Arles. He died, possibly at Perpignan, toward the end of the thirteenth century.

#2525

Saint Gall

550 - 645 (95 years)

Gall according to hagiographic tradition was a disciple and one of the traditional twelve companions of Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to the continent. However, he may have originally come from the border region between Lorraine and Alemannia and only met Columbanus at the monastery of Luxeuil in the Vosges. Gall is known as a representative of the Irish monastic tradition. The Abbey of Saint Gall in the city of Saint Gallen, Switzerland was built upon his original hermitage. Deicolus was the elder brother of Gall.

#2526

Henry Aldrich

1647 - 1710 (63 years)

Henry Aldrich was an English theologian, philosopher, architect, and composer. Life Aldrich was educated at Westminster School under Dr Richard Busby. In 1662, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1689 was made Dean in succession to the Roman Catholic John Massey, who had fled to the Continent. In 1692, he became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford until 1695. In 1702, he was appointed Rector of Wem in Shropshire, but continued to reside at Oxford, where he died on 14 December 1710. He was buried in Christ Church Cathedral without any memorial, at his own request. However, a medal...

#2527

Bernardine a Piconio

1633 - 1709 (76 years)

Bernardine a Piconio was a French Capuchin theologian and exegete. Biography Bernardine a Piconio was born and educated at Picquigny, Picardy, and joined the Capuchins in 1649. As professor of theology he shed great lustre upon his order; his best-known work is his Triplex expositio epistolarum sancti Pauli , popular among Scriptural scholars. Piconio also wrote Triplex expositio in sacrosancta D. N. Jesu Christi Evangelia , and a book of moral instructions. A complete edition of his works, Opera omnia Bernardini a Piconio, was published at Paris . He died in Paris.

#2528

Giovanni Lorenzo Berti

1696 - 1766 (70 years)

Giovanni Lorenzo Berti , also known by his Latinized name Johannes Laurentius Berti, was an Italian Augustinian theologian. The General of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, Schiaffinati, instructed him to write a book, to be used by all the students of the Order, expounding the whole of Augustine of Hippo's thought and particularly his doctrine of grace and free will. His huge Opus de Theologicis Disciplinis expounded not the private views of a theologian, but those of the Augustinian Order and therefore had a semi-official status in the Roman Catholic Church.

#2529

Mikołaj Łęczycki

Mikołaj Łęczycki

1574 - 1653 (79 years)

Mikołaj Łęczycki , in Latin Nicolaus Lancicius was a Polish Jesuit, Catholic theologian, writer and mystic. Life Łęczycki was born near Nesvizh, the son of a printer Daniel of Łęczyca and Katarzyna Gotart. At the age of 18, Łęczycki converted from Calvinism to Catholicism, and persuaded his father to do it as well. On February 17, 1592, he entered the Society of Jesus. He spent several years in Rome, where he was studying and working with Niccolò Orlandini in the congregation's central archive to compile the history of Jesuits. During the stay, he received the holy orders on April 14, 1601. Ł...

#2530

Henry Burton

1578 - 1648 (70 years)

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

#2531

Marcus Jacob Monrad

Marcus Jacob Monrad

1816 - 1897 (81 years)

Marcus Jacob Monrad was a Norwegian philosopher, a university professor for more than 40 years. Biography Monrad was born in Nøtterøy to parish priest Peder Monrad and Severine Elisabeth Ambroe, and grew up in Mo in Telemark. He graduated as cand.theol. in 1840, and was appointed professor at the Royal Frederick University in 1851. Around 1850 he published three textbooks for the examen philosophicum, which were used for these courses during the rest of the 19th century. Monrad took part in contemporary debates and had significant influence, but was also controversial. He is portrayed in Arne...

#2532

William Augustus Larned

1806 - 1862 (56 years)

William Augustus Larned was an American minister and professor at Yale College. He was son of George Larned and grandson of Gen. Daniel Larned, of Thompson, Connecticut, and was born in that town on June 23, 1806. He graduated from Yale College in 1826. Two years after graduating he spent in teaching at Salisbury, North Carolina. Then from 1828 to 1831 he was a tutor in Yale College. At the close of this period a change in his religious convictions led him to abandon the course of law studies on which he had entered, and devote himself to theology under the guidance of Rev. Dr. Taylor, in the...

#2533

Anthony of the Mother of God

1583 - 1637 (54 years)

Anthony of the Mother of God , O.C.D. , was a Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar, who was notable as a professor of philosophy and theology, who initiated the compilation. Career and works Born Antonio Oliva y Ordás, as a young man, he entered the Order of Discalced Carmelites around 1600. After completing his studies at their seminary, then part of the University of Salamanca, in 1609 he was ordained a Catholic priest. Anthony then taught Aristotle's dialectics and natural philosophy at another seminary of his Order, part of the Universidad Complutense, at that time located in Alcalá de Henare...

#2534

Juan Martínez de Ripalda

1594 - 1648 (54 years)

Juan Martínez de Ripalda was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus at Pamplona in 1609. In the triennial reports of 1642 he says of himself that he was not physically strong, that he had studied religion, arts, and theology, that he had taught grammar one year, arts four, theology nineteen, and had been professed. According to Southwell, he taught philosophy at Monforte, theology at Salamanca, and was called from there to the Imperial College of Madrid, where, by royal decree, he taught moral theology.

#2535

Ludwig Weber

1846 - 1922 (76 years)

Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Ludwig Weber was a German Protestant pastor and social reformer. He was a pastor in Mönchengladbach. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Social Congress and was chairman of the Association of Protestant workers' associations in Germany.

#2536

Raymond Martini

1215 - 1285 (70 years)

Raymond Martini, also called Ramon Martí in Catalan, was a 13th-century Dominican friar and theologian. He is remembered for his polemic work Pugio Fidei . In 1250 he was one of eight friars appointed to make a study of oriental languages with the purpose of carrying on a mission to Jews and Moors. He worked in Spain as a missionary, and also for a short time in Tunis. A document bearing his signature and dated July 1284 shows that he was at that time still living.

#2537

Joseph Biner

1697 - 1766 (69 years)

Joseph Biner was a Roman Catholic canonist, historian, and theologian. His fame rests principally on his erudition abilities. Biography Biner entered the Society of Jesus in 1715 and received the usual training of its members. He was later professor of canon law in the universities of Ingolstadt, Dillingen and Innsbruck. He entered zealously into all the controversies with the sectaries of his time, especially with the Swiss Protestants. As a consequence, all his works have a polemical tinge.

#2538

Georg Mancelius

1593 - 1654 (61 years)

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

#2539

John Burton

1696 - 1771 (75 years)

John Burton, D.D. was an English clergyman and academic, a theological and classical scholar. Life Burton was born at Wembworthy, Devon, where his father Samuel Burton was rector. He was educated partly at Okehampton and Blundell's School, Tiverton in his native county, and partly at Ely, where he was placed on his father's death by the Rev. Samuel Bentham, the first cousin of his mother. In 1713 he was elected as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and took his degree of B. A. on 27 June 1717, shortly after which he became the college tutor. He proceeded M.A. 24 March 1720-1, was el...

#2540

Joseph Anthony Murphy

Joseph Anthony Murphy

1857 - 1939 (82 years)

Joseph Anthony Murphy was born in Ireland but raised in Chicago. He became a Jesuit priest and served, inter alia, as dean of the liberal arts college at Marquette University for eleven years and as Vicar Apostolic for the Catholic mission in British Honduras , Central America, being ordained bishop on March 19, 1924.

#2541

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.

#2542

Martin Janus

1620 - 1682 (62 years)

Martin Janus was a German Protestant minister, church musician, hymnwriter, teacher and editor. He wrote the lyrics of the hymn "Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne", which became popular in the arrangement of a Bach chorale as Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

#2543

John Hoppus

1789 - 1875 (86 years)

John Hoppus FRS , was an English Congregational minister, author, Fellow of the Royal Society, abolitionist and educational reformer. He was appointed the first Chair of Logic and Philosophy of Mind at the newly formed London University , a position he secured and held against his formidable opponents from 1829 to 1866.

#2544

Arthur Whipple Jenks

1863 - 1922 (59 years)

Arthur Whipple Jenks was an American Episcopal theologian. He was born at Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1884 and from the General Theological Seminary in 1896. He received the degree of D.D. from Dartmouth in 1911. He published Notes for Meditation on the Beatitudes of the Psalter . Arthur Whipple Jenks was a clergyman, ecclesiastical writer and historian. Mr. Jenks was born to George Edwin Jenks, member of the N.H. State House of Representatives in 1873 and 1874. Mr. Jenks was a descendant of one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rhode Island .

#2545

Jacques Bernard

Jacques Bernard

1658 - 1718 (60 years)

Jacques Bernard , French theologian and publicist, who lived his entire academic career in the Dutch Republic. Life He was born at Nyons in Dauphiné. Having studied at Geneva, he returned to France in 1679, and was chosen minister of Venterol in Dauphiné. He moved to the church of Vinsobres. As he continued to preach the reformed doctrines he was obliged to leave the country and retired to Holland, where he was appointed one of the pensionary ministers of Gouda. In July 1686 he began publishing the Histoire abregée de l'Europe which he continued, monthly, till December 1688.

#2546

Robert Falconer

Robert Falconer

1867 - 1943 (76 years)

Sir Robert Alexander Falconer was a Canadian academic and bible scholar. Life He was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the eldest child of a Presbyterian minister and his wife. He attended high school in Port of Spain, Trinidad while his father was posted there and won a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He graduated MA in 1889 and then spent three years at the divinity school of the Free Church of Scotland.

#2547

John James Blunt

1794 - 1855 (61 years)

John James Blunt was an English Anglican priest. His writings included studies of the early Church. Life Blunt was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree as fifteenth wrangler in 1816 and obtained a fellowship. He was appointed a Worts travelling bachelor 1818, and spent some time in Italy and Sicily, afterwards publishing an account of his journey. He proceeded MA in 1819, BD 1826, and was Hulsean Lecturer in 1831-1832 while holding a curacy in Shropshire.

#2548

Inácio de São Caetano

Inácio de São Caetano

1718 - 1788 (70 years)

Inácio de São Caetano, OCD , was a Portuguese scholar, theologian, and church leader. He was appointed the first bishop of Penafiel when the diocese was erected by Pope Clement XIV in 1770; when the diocese was suppressed eight years later, he was promoted to Titular Archbishop of Thessalonica.

#2549

Louis-Joseph Delebecque

Louis-Joseph Delebecque

1798 - 1864 (66 years)

Louis-Joseph Delebecque was the 21st bishop of Ghent, in Belgium, from November 1838 until his death. Life Delebecque was born in Ypres on 7 December 1796. In 1831 he was appointed professor of dogmatics at the Major Seminary of Ghent, leaving in 1833 to take up a position as secretary to Mgr Franciscus Renatus Boussen, administrator apostolic of West Flanders . In September 1833 he was appointed president of the Major Seminary, Bruges. Appointed as bishop of Ghent on 13 September 1838, he was consecrated on 4 November. On 21 December 1838, he prohibited the clergy of his diocese from any involvement with periodicals disseminating the democratic ideas of Lamennais.

#2550

Helenius de Cock

1824 - 1894 (70 years)

Helenius de Cock was an instructor at the Theological School in Kampen, Overijssel, the Netherlands. He was the son of Hendrik de Cock and Frouwe Venema.

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