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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#2801

Joseph McCormick

1733 - Present (293 years)

Joseph McCormick FRSE FSA was a Scottish clergyman who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1782 and was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783.

#2802

William Robertson

William Robertson was a Scottish Hebraist. He was educated at Edinburgh University, taught Hebrew in London from 1653–1680, then in 1680 was appointed lecturer in Hebrew at Cambridge University. Life A graduate of Edinburgh, he is identified by Edgar Cardew Marchant in the Dictionary of National Biography as probably the William Robertson who was laureated by Duncan Forester in April 1645. From 1653 to 1680 he lived in the City of London and taught Hebrew. In 1680 he was appointed university teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge at a salary of £20 a year.

#2803

Adam Boreel

1603 - 1667 (64 years)

Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect. Others involved in the Collegiants were Daniel van Breen, Michiel Coomans, Jacob Otto van Halmael and the Mennonite Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan.

#2804

Christen Worm

1672 - 1737 (65 years)

Christen Willumsen Worm was a Danish theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand from 1711 until his death. Worm began his career as a scholar and a priest. Over the course of his tenure as bishop, his authority as primus inter pares was repeatedly challenged.

#2805

James Dixon

1758 - 1840 (82 years)

James Dixon was an Irish Catholic priest who was transported to Australia and in 1803 became the first Catholic priest permitted to minister there. Early life and education James Dixon was born in 1758 in Castlebridge, County Wexford. As was common for Irish priests, he trained for the priesthood overseas, at the universities of Salamanca and Louvain, then became curate at Crossabeg near Wexford. During the Irish Rebellion of 1798 he was arrested and tried for involvement and convicted, although there was considerable evidence that he was innocent. He was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to transportation for life to New South Wales.

#2806

Rajmund Zamanja

Rajmund Zamanja

1587 - 1647 (60 years)

Rajmund Zamanja or Raymundo Giamagnik was a Croatian theologian, philosopher and linguist from Dubrovnik. Biography He was born in Dubrovnik in 1587. He joined the Dominicans in 1601 from which he learned philosophy and theology. Four years later, in 1605, he went to the end of the study in Bologna. In 1612 he returned to Dubrovnik as a lecturer. Three times he was a general vicar of the Dominicans. Fourteen years later, in 1626, he established the first public gymnasium on the ground floor of the Dominican monastery . There he was a teacher and he emphasized the importance of learning Croat...

#2807

John Saltmarsh

1609 - 1647 (38 years)

John Saltmarsh was an English religious radical, "One of the most gentle tongued of controversialists", writer and preacher. He supported the Covenant and was chaplain in Thomas Fairfax's army. The Dictionary of National Biography describes his theology as "Calvinistic in its base, but improved by practical knowledge of men". William Haller called him "that strange genius, part poet and part whirling dervish". He preached Free Grace theology, and published on the topics of Peace, Love and Unity.

#2808

Hutchens Chew Bishop

1859 - 1937 (78 years)

The Reverend Dr. Hutchens Chew Bishop was an Episcopal priest who spent most of his career in New York City. He was rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Harlem for 47 years. The church is the oldest black Episcopal parish in New York. The church was founded by abolitionists who laid the first stone in 1819.

#2809

James Haldenston

James Haldenston

James Haldenston or James Haldenstoun was an Augustinian churchman from 15th-century Scotland. Probably from somewhere in eastern Fife, Haldenston became an Augustinian at St Andrews, earned several degrees on the continent, and became prior of May before becoming prior of St Andrews, head of the wealthiest and most important religious house in Scotland.

#2810

Robert Boyd

1578 - 1627 (49 years)

Robert Boyd of Trochrig was a Scottish theological writer, teacher and poet. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and after attending lectures by Robert Rollock, prosecuted his studies in France, and became a minister in the French Church. All accounts represent him as a most accomplished scholar. A friend said of him, with perhaps some exaggeration, that he was more eloquent in French than in his native tongue; and Livingstone tells us that he spoke Latin with perfect fluency, but that he had heard him say, if he had his choice, he would rather express himself in Greek than in any other language.

#2811

Eduard Poppius

1576 - 1624 (48 years)

Eduard Poppius was a Dutch pastor and theologian. He was one of the founders of the Remonstrant Brotherhood and a participant to the Synod of Dordrecht. Biography Poppius was a son of the pastor Pieter Eduardsz Poppius. He studied theology at Leiden University. After his studies, he became a minister in Amstelveen in 1599. From 1609 to 1619 he was a minister of the Reformed Church of Gouda. He was appointed in Gouda because of his choice for the Arminian ideas of Jacobus Arminius, who rejected the doctrine of double predestination.

#2812

Paul Eber

1511 - 1569 (58 years)

Paul Eber was a German Lutheran theologian, reformer and hymnwriter, known for the hymn for the dying, "Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott". Life He was born at Kitzingen in Franconia, and was educated at Nuremberg then Wittenberg, where he became the close friend of Philipp Melanchthon. In 1541 he was appointed professor of Latin grammar at Wittenberg, and in 1557 professor of the Old Testament at Wittenberg University. His range of learning was wide, and he published a handbook of Jewish history, a historical calendar intended to supersede the Roman Saints' Calendar, and a revision of t...

#2813

Joannes Bunderius

1482 - 1557 (75 years)

Joannes Bunderius was a Flemish Catholic theologian and critic of Protestantism. He was born and died in Ghent. He entered the Dominican Order in his native city about 1500, and after having made his religious profession was sent to Leuven to pursue his studies in philosophy and theology. He obtained the degree of Lector in Sacred Theology, and in 1517 returned to Ghent, where, until near the close of his life, he taught philosophy and theology. While occupied in teaching he filled the office of Prior of the convent of Ghent three times , and discharged the duties of General Inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tournai.

#2814

Pedro Cornejo de Pedrosa

1536 - 1618 (82 years)

Pedro Cornejo de Pedrosa was a Spanish Carmelite, theologian, and professor of the University of Salamanca . Life Cornejo was born in Salamanca, Spain, and entered the Carmelite order at a young age. He received his doctorate from the University of Salamanca, and then taught philosophy and theology at the same institution.

#2815

Henry of Harclay

1270 - 1317 (47 years)

Henry Harclay was an English medieval philosopher and university chancellor. Biography Harclay was born in the Diocese of Carlisle near the English and Scottish borders. Harclay's family descended from "an old but minor knightly family" of modest origins that gave them their surname Harclay from Hartley; the family name had "considerable variation in the spelling… including: Herkeley, Harkeley, Archilay, Harcla, [etc.]" . Harclay had one sister and six brothers; one of which also brings celebrity to the family name. Andrew Harclay, 1st Earl of Carlisle was a controversial figure in his time ...

#2816

Phillip Norreys

1301 - 1401 (100 years)

Phillip Norreys, Irish theologian, fl. 1427-1465. A native of the diocese of Dublin, Ireland, Norreys made a successful career for himself in the church and Oxford University. He was vicar of Dundalk from 1427, and Doctor of Theology at Oxford by 1435. He was later successively canon, prebendary and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, occupying the latter post by 1457. He also held the post of rector of Trim.

#2817

Franz Oberthür

1745 - 1831 (86 years)

Franz Oberthür was a German Roman Catholic scholar who edited an 18th-century edition of Josephus once owned by Thomas Jefferson. In 1773 he was appointed professor of dogmatics and polemics at the University of Würzburg. He is best known for his efforts involving reform within the church and the education system. In 1806 he founded the Gesellschaft zur Vervollkommung der mechanischen Künste .

#2818

Melchior Hittorp

1525 - 1584 (59 years)

Melchior Hittorp was a German Roman Catholic theologian and liturgical writer. His interests included the liturgical forms of early Christianity. Life On the completion of his studies he obtained the degree of Licentiate of Theology, and was appointed Canon at S. Maria ad Gradus. In 1593 he was elected dean of the collegiate church of St. Cunibert.

#2819

Henri-Michel Guedier de Saint-Aubin

1695 - 1741 (46 years)

Henri-Michel Guedier de Saint-Aubin was a French theologian. He was born in Gournay-en-Bray on 17 June 1695. He studied at Paris, and received the doctor's degree from the Sorbonne Oct. 29,1723. He became professor in that institution in 1730, and its librarian in 1736. Some time after he obtained the abbey of St. Vulmer. He was acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, English, and Italian, besides history, theology, and kindred sciences. For fourteen years he decided all cases of conscience presented to the Sorbonne. He died in Paris on 27 September 1742.

#2820

Alexander Carson

1776 - 1844 (68 years)

Alexander Carson was an Irish Baptist minister. He was known as an author, pastor-teacher and theologian. Life Carson studied in Glasgow and was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in Tobermore, County Londonderry in 1798. After several years he left the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and published Reasons for Separating from the General Synod of Ulster as justification of his action, where he stated:

#2821

Samuel Eaton

1596 - 1665 (69 years)

Samuel Eaton was an English independent divine. Life Eaton was the third son of Richard Eaton, vicar of Great Budworth, Cheshire, and was born in the hamlet of Crowley in Great Budworth. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1624 and M.A. 1628.

#2822

Sixtus of Siena

Sixtus of Siena

1520 - 1569 (49 years)

Sixtus of Siena was a Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism, and became a Roman Catholic theologian. Biography He began his career as a Franciscan preacher, speaking throughout Italy. Though he was convicted to die in Rome for the crime of heresy or recidivism, he was saved by a Dominican inquisitor, the future Pope Pius V, who repealed the condemnation when Sixtus recanted and pledged to transfer to the Dominican Order instead. He is considered one of the two most outstanding Dominican scholars of his generation. He had as a master Lancelotto Politi, some of whose writings he later publicly criticised.

#2823

Daniel Gerdes

1698 - 1765 (67 years)

Daniel Gerdes was a German Calvinist theologian and historian. He became professor at the University of Duisburg in 1726, and at the University of Groningen in 1736. While broadly supporting Protestant freedom of conscience, Gerdes drew a line in his attacks on the Mennonite minister Johannes Stinstra. In that case Gerdes used the views of Samuel Werenfels, tolerant and well thought of by Benjamin Hoadley, to condemn Stinstra.

#2824

Juan Bautista

1555 - 1700 (145 years)

Juan Bautista was a Mexican Franciscan theologian and writer. Life He joined the Franciscans in his native city, and taught theology and metaphysics at the convent of St. Francis of Mexico. He was also a definitor of the province, and became Guardian of Tezcuco twice , of Tlatelolco , and of Tacuba in 1605.

#2825

Peter of Bergamo

1400 - 1482 (82 years)

Peter of Bergamo also called Peter of Almadura was an Italian Dominican theologian. Life Born in Bergamo in the early 15th century, he entered the Dominican Order in his native town, and completed his studies at the University of Bologna, where he received his degree. In the Dominican House of Studies he filled the offices of Master of Students and Bachelor of the Studium.

#2826

Peter Nead

1796 - 1877 (81 years)

Peter Nead was an American preacher in the German Baptist Brethren church that descended from the Schwarzenau Brethren. He wrote several theological works, which were influential in the Old German Baptist Brethren and related churches, perhaps the most prominent being "A Vindication of Primitive Christianity."

#2827

Simon Oomius

1628 - 1706 (78 years)

Simon Oomius or Ooms was a Dutch reformed minister and theologian. He played an important role in the Nadere Reformatie. He was born on 1 March 1630 in the village of Heenvliet, on the island of Voorne-Putten. He was the youngest of the twenty-one children of Cornelis Oomius, a preacher in Heenvliet and a native of Turnhout.

#2828

Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah

Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah al-Maghrawi al-Wahrani was an Algerian Maliki scholar of Islamic law, active in the Maghreb from the end of the fifteenth century until his death. He was identified as the author of the 1504 fatwa commonly named the Oran fatwa, instructing the Muslims in Spain about how to secretly practice Islam, and granting comprehensive dispensations for them to publicly conform to Christianity and performing acts normally forbidden in Islam when necessary to survive. Because of his authorship of the fatwa he is often referred to as "the Mufti of Oran", although he likel...

#2829

Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr.

1830 - 1891 (61 years)

Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr. was an American theologian. Like his father Charles Hodge, he taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, serving as Professor of New Testament. Hodge studied at the College of New Jersey and Princeton Seminary. He taught at the seminary from 1861 until his death.

#2830

Vitus Miletus

1549 - 1615 (66 years)

Vitus Miletus was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life He studied at the German College, Rome, from 1567 to 1575; on 28 October 1573, as dean of the students he gave a short address before Pope Gregory XIII, when he visited the newly organized academy. He was ordained in St. John Lateran on Easter Saturday, 1575, and returned to Germany in the summer of that year; on his way home he was made doctor of theology at Bologna .

#2831

Robert Crosse

1606 - 1683 (77 years)

Robert Crosse was an English puritan theologian. Life He was son of William Crosse of Dunster, Somerset. He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1621, obtained a fellowship in 1627, graduated in arts, and in 1637 proceeded B.D. Siding with the presbyterians on the outbreak of the First English Civil War, he was nominated in 1643 one of the Westminster Assembly, and took the Solemn League and Covenant.

#2832

Edward Evanson

1731 - 1805 (74 years)

Edward Evanson was a controversial English clergyman. Life He was born at Warrington, Lancashire. After graduating at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and taking holy orders, he spent several years as curate at Mitcham in Surrey. In 1768 he became vicar of South Mimms near Barnet; and in November 1769 he was presented to the rectory of Tewkesbury, with which he held also the vicarage of Longdon in Worcestershire. In the course of his studies he discovered what he thought important variance between the teaching of the Church of England and that of the Bible, and he did not conceal his convictions. ...

#2833

Gabriel Piguet

1887 - 1952 (65 years)

Gabriel Piguet was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, France. Involved in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he was imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp in 1944. He has been honoured as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial.

#2834

Conrad Koellin

1476 - 1536 (60 years)

Conrad Koellin was a Dominican, professor of theology, and commentator on St. Thomas Aquinas. Life Conrad was born in Ulm in 1476. He entered the Dominican Order in 1492, and professed the following year. During his formative years he reports that he studied Capreolus. He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1500, and in 1507 became a master of theology, and commenced lectures on Thomas Aquinas. It was here that he wrote his line-by-line commentary on the Prima Secundae of Thomas's Summa Theologica. On July 1, 1511, he took the position of master of theology at Cologne. In 1512, at the req...

#2835

Abdul Razzaq Gilani

1134 - 1207 (73 years)

ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī , also known as Abū Bakr al-Jīlī or ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī for short, or reverentially as Shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī by Sunni Muslims, was a Persian Sunni Muslim Hanbali theologian, jurist, traditionalist and Sufi mystic based in Baghdad. He received his initial training in the traditional Islamic sciences from his father, Abdul-Qadir Gilani , the founder of the Qadiriyya order of Sunni mysticism, prior to setting out "on his own to attend the lectures of other prominent Hanbali scholars" in his region. He is sometimes given the Arabic honora...

#2836

Johann Hasler

1548 - 1593 (45 years)

Johann Hasler , also known as Haslerus, was a 16th-century Swiss theologian and physician. He is known for his association with a group of antitrinitarians including Johann Sylvan and Adam Neuser and for developing Galen's concept of heat and cold into the idea of a scale of temperature.

#2837

Nicolaus van Esch

1507 - 1578 (71 years)

Nicolaus van Esch was a Dutch Roman Catholic theologian and mystical writer. Life After finishing his classical studies in the school of the Hieronymites, he studied philosophy, theology, and canon law at the Catholic University of Leuven, but refused to take his doctor's degree. In 1530 he was ordained priest, and then settled in Cologne in order to devote himself to higher studies and the practice of Christian perfection.

#2838

Jan Koopmans

1905 - 1945 (40 years)

Jan Koopmans was a Dutch theologian, best known for his works De Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis and Wat wij wel en wat wij niet geloven .

#2839

Johann Faber of Heilbronn

Johann Faber of Heilbronn

1504 - 1558 (54 years)

Johann Faber of Heilbronn, also known as Johannes Fabri , was a controversial 16th century Catholic preacher. He was born in Heilbronn. At the age of sixteen he entered the Dominican Order and made his ecclesiastical studies in the convent at Wimpfen. Little is known about his early preaching, but in 1534 he was invited to preach in the cathedral of Augsburg, but owing to the Lutheran tendencies of the time, and the strong anti-Catholic feeling which arose from it, the Catholic clergy were forbidden to preach, and his usefulness in Augsburg was of short duration.

#2840

Samuel A. Eliot

1862 - 1950 (88 years)

Samuel Atkins Eliot II was an American Unitarian minister. In 1898 the American Unitarian Association elected him secretary but in 1900 the position was redesignated as president and Eliot served in that office from inception to 1927, significantly expanding the association's activities and consolidating denominational power in its administration.

#2841

Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves

1800 - 1876 (76 years)

Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves FRSE was a Scottish advocate, judge, theologian and writer. He served as Solicitor General , as a judge of the Court of Session, the supreme court of Scotland , and as Rector of the University of St Andrews .

#2842

Benedictus Figulus

1567 - 1619 (52 years)

Benedictus Figulus of Utenhofen was a German alchemist, publisher, and Rosicrucian. He was an editor of Paracelsian texts and an important representative of Paracelsianism in the early 17th century.

#2843

José de Sigüenza

José de Sigüenza

1544 - 1606 (62 years)

José de Sigüenza was a monk of the Order of Saint Jerome , historian , poet and theologian. He was the prior of the monastery of El Escorial, where he served as both librarian and historian. He is best known for his works on ecclesiastical history, in particular his History of the Order of St. Jerome , which discusses in detail the construction of El Escorial. He also wrote a work on the life of Saint Jerome, published in 1595. He left unfinished a book on the life of Jesus that goes only as far as the adoration of the shepherds and was not printed until 1916 in three books.

#2844

Marco Vigerio della Rovere

1446 - 1516 (70 years)

Marco Vigerio della Rovere was an Italian bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church. Biography Emmanuele Vigerio della Rovere was born in Savona in 1446, the son of Urbano Vigerio and Nicoletta Grosso della Rovere, a niece of Pope Sixtus IV.

#2845

Peter Sterry

1613 - 1672 (59 years)

Peter Sterry was an English independent theologian, associated with the Cambridge Platonists prominent during the English Civil War era. He was chaplain to Parliamentarian general Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke and then Oliver Cromwell, a member of the Westminster Assembly, and a leading radical Puritan preacher attached to the English Council of State. He was made fun of in Hudibras.

#2846

Ralph Niger

1140 - Present (886 years)

Ralph Niger, Latin Radulphus Niger or Radulfus Niger, anglicized Ralph the Black , was an Anglo-French theologian and one of the English chroniclers. He was from Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and became Archdeacon of Gloucester.

#2847

Jacques Merlin

Jacques Merlin was a French theologian and book editor, best remembered for his pioneering two volume collection of church councils, the Quatuor concilia generalia printed in 1524. Jacques was born in Saint-Victurnien. He became a doctor of theology at the College of Navarre in 1499. He then taught divinity at Limoges Cathedral.

#2848

Joseph A. Johnson Jr.

1914 - 1979 (65 years)

Joseph Andrew Johnson Jr. was an African-American theologian. He was a professor of New Testament at the Interdenominational Theological Center and Fisk University, and a bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Mississippi and Louisiana.

#2849

John Millott Ellis

1831 - 1894 (63 years)

John Millott Ellis was a 19th-century abolitionist minister and intellectual who served as acting President of Oberlin College in 1871. He was a professor of philosophy at Oberlin from 1866 to 1896.

#2850

Candidus of Fulda

770 - 845 (75 years)

Candidus of Fulda was a Benedictine scholar of the ninth-century Carolingian Renaissance, a student of Einhard, and author of the vita of his abbot at Fulda, Eigil. Biography He received his first instruction from the learned Eigil, Abbot of Fulda, 818-822. Abbot Ratgar sent the gifted scholar to Einhard at the court of Charlemagne, where he most probably learned the art he employed later in decorating with pictures the western apse of St. Salvator, the so-called Ratgerbasilica, to which, in 819, the remains of Saint Boniface were transferred. When Rabanus Maurus was made abbot , Candidus may have succeeded him as head of the monastic school of Fulda.

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