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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#2901

Richard McIlwaine

Richard McIlwaine

1834 - 1913 (79 years)

Richard McIlwaine was the eleventh President of Hampden–Sydney College from 1883 to 1904. He wrote an autobiographical account of his life experiences titled Memories of Three Score Years and Ten.

#2902

Thomas Hartwell Horne

1780 - 1862 (82 years)

Thomas Hartwell Horne was an English theologian and librarian. Life He was born in London and educated at Christ's Hospital until he was 15 when his father died and he had to work. He then became a clerk to a barrister, and used his spare time to write.

#2903

John of Montson

1340 - 1412 (72 years)

John of Montson was an Aragonese Dominican theologian and controversialist. His refusal to tolerate other beliefs regarding the Immaculate Conception resulted in his condemnation and clandestine exile to Spain.

#2904

Tilemann Heshusius

Tilemann Heshusius

1527 - 1588 (61 years)

Tilemann Heshusius was a Gnesio-Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Life Heshusius came from an influential family in Wesel. He was a student of Philipp Melanchthon at the University of Wittenberg and was consequently close to him. During the time of the Augsburg Interim, he lived in Oxford and Paris. In 1550 he took his master's degree and was received by the Senate of the philosophical faculty; he lectured on rhetoric and as well as theology. In 1553 he became Superintendent in Goslar and acquired his doctoral degree in Wittenberg on 19 May that year at the expense of the city. H...

#2905

Tobias Clausnitzer

Tobias Clausnitzer

1619 - 1684 (65 years)

Tobias Clausnitzer was a German Lutheran pastor and hymn writer. Leben und Wirken Born in Thum, Clausnitzer studied theology at the University of Leipzig from 1642. In 1644, he became military chaplain for a unit of the Swedish army. When the Thirty Years' War ended, he held a service celebrating the Peace of Westphalia in Weiden in der Oberpfalz in 1649. He settled, became pastor, and later also and inspector of Parkstein and Weiden. He died in 1684 as Superintendent in Weiden.

#2906

Albrecht Wolters

1822 - 1878 (56 years)

Albrecht Julius Constantin Wolters was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of classical archaeologist Paul Wolters . He studied theology at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin, where he was a pupil of August Neander. After passing his first theological examination, he spent three years as a tutor in Naples, then serving as an assistant pastor in the city of Krefeld . In 1850 became a teacher at a higher Töchterschule in Cologne, and from July 1851 to May 1857, worked as a pastor in Wesel.

#2907

Gerald of Wales

Gerald of Wales

1146 - 1220 (74 years)

Gerald of Wales was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taught in France and visited Rome several times, meeting the Pope. He was nominated for several bishoprics but turned them down in the hope of becoming Bishop of St Davids, but was unsuccessful despite considerable support. His final post was as Archdeacon of Brecon, from which he retired to academic study for the remainder of his life. Much of his writing survives.

#2908

Nils Wallerius

1706 - 1764 (58 years)

Nils Wallerius was a Swedish physicist, philosopher and theologian. He was one of the first scientists to study and document the characteristics of evaporation through modern scientific methods. He was also among the first and more notable followers of the philosophies of German philosopher Christian Wolff .

#2909

Hermann Strack

1848 - 1922 (74 years)

Hermann Leberecht Strack was a German Protestant theologian and orientalist; born in Berlin. Biography From 1877, Strack was assistant professor of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages at the University of Berlin. He was the foremost Christian authority in Germany on Talmudic and rabbinic literature, and studied rabbinics under Steinschneider. Since the reappearance of anti-Semitism in Germany, Strack had been the champion of the Jews against the attacks of such men as Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker, Professor August Rohling, and others. In 1885 Strack became the editor of Nathanael. Zeit...

#2910

Franz Boll

1805 - 1875 (70 years)

Franz Christian Boll was a Lutheran theologian and historian. He was the father of physiologist Franz Christian Boll , and the brother of naturalist Ernst Boll , with whom he collaborated throughout his career.

#2911

Stephen Nye

1648 - 1719 (71 years)

Stephen Nye was an English clergyman, known as a theological writer and for his Unitarian views. Life Son of John Nye, he graduated B.A. at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1665. He became rector of Little Hormead, Hertfordshire in 1679. Thomas Firmin was a close associate.

#2912

George Smeaton

1814 - 1889 (75 years)

George Smeaton was a 19th-century Scottish theologian and Greek scholar. Life He was born in Berwickshire on 8 April 1814. He studied Theology at Edinburgh University and Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. From around 1835 he operated as an urban missionary in North Leith, the harbour area of Edinburgh.

#2913

Isaac of Troki

1533 - 1594 (61 years)

Isaac ben Abraham of Troki, Karaite scholar and polemical writer Works Isaac's learning earned him the respect and deference of his fellow Karaites, and his knowledge of the Latin and Polish languages and of Christian dogmatics enabled him to engage in amicable conversations on religious subjects not only with Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox clergymen, but also with Socinian and other sectarian elders. The fruit of these personal contacts, and of Isaac Troki's concurrent extensive reading in the New Testament and the Christian theological and anti-Jewish literature, was his famous apology of Judaism entitled Hizzuk Emunah .

#2914

Hilarius of Sexten

1839 - 1899 (60 years)

Hilarius of Sexten was an Austrian Capuchin moral theologian. Life After a course of studies at Brixen, he entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order in 1858 and was ordained priest in 1862. Having labored in parochial duties for some years, he was appointed to teach moral theology at Meran in 1872. Both secular and regular clergy consulted him in difficult cases.

#2915

Tomas de Lemos

1555 - 1629 (74 years)

Tomás de Lemos was a Spanish Dominican theologian and controversialist. Life At an early age he entered the Order of St. Dominic in his native town; he obtained, in 1590 the lectorate in theology and was at the same time appointed regent of studies in the convent of St. Paul at Valladolid. In 1594 he was assigned to the chair of theology in the university of that city.

#2916

Alexander Viets Griswold Allen

1841 - 1908 (67 years)

Alexander Viets Griswold Allen was an American author, Episcopal clergyman and theologian. Biography Allen was born in Otis, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1841, to Ethan and Lydia Child Allen, née Burr.

#2917

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.

#2918

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.

#2919

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.

#2920

Francisco de Enzinas

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.

#2921

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.

#2922

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.

#2923

Pierre Chaillet

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...

#2924

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.

#2925

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.

#2926

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.

#2927

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.

#2928

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.

#2929

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.

#2930

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.

#2931

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.

#2932

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...

#2933

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.

#2934

David Pareus

1548 - 1622 (74 years)

David Pareus was a German Reformed Protestant theologian and reformer. Life He was born at Frankenstein in Schlesien on 30 December 1548. At some point, he hellenized his original surname, Wängler , as Parēus .

#2935

George William Alberti

1723 - 1758 (35 years)

George William Alberti was a German essayist and theologian, who spent many years in England. Biography He was born at Osterode am Harz in 1723, and studied philosophy and theology under Heumann and Oporin at Göttingen, where he graduated in 1745. He spent some years in England. He became minister of Tundern in Hanover, and died there on 3 September 1758.

#2936

Lars Anton Anjou

1803 - 1884 (81 years)

Lars Anton Anjou was a Swedish bishop, church historian and politician. Biography Anjou studied at Uppsala University, where he became a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1827, a Master of Philosophy in 1830, a Bachelor of Theology in 1834 and a Doctor of Theology in 1845. He was ordained a priest in 1827. In 1845, Anjou was appointed professor and pastor in the parish of Helga Trefaldighet, and in the parish of Denmark in 1851. In the academic year 1851–1852, he was rector of Uppsala University and was appointed minister of education and ecclesiastical affairs on 9 March 1855 as the successor of Henrik Reuterdahl.

#2937

Alessandro Politi

1679 - 1752 (73 years)

Alessandro Politi , was an Italian philologist. Biography Alessandro Politi was born July 10, 1679, at Florence. After studying under the Jesuits, he entered at the age of fifteen the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, and was conspicuous among its members by his rare erudition. He was called upon to teach rhetoric and peripatetic philosophy at Florence in 1700. Barring a period of about three years, during which he was a professor of theology at Genoa , he spent the greatest part of his life in his native city, availing himself of the manifold resources he could find there to improve his knowledge of Greek literature, his favorite study.

#2938

Johann Christian Friedrich Steudel

Johann Christian Friedrich Steudel

1779 - 1837 (58 years)

Johann Christian Friedrich Steudel was a German Lutheran theologian. He was a brother of botanist Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel . From 1797 he studied Protestant theology at the University of Tübingen. Beginning in 1803, he worked as a vicar in Oberesslingen, and two years later, became a tutor at Tübinger Stift. In 1808 he traveled to Paris, where he studied with Silvestre de Sacy and Carl Benedict Hase. Following his return to Germany, he served as a deacon in Cannstatt and Tübingen . In 1815 he became an associate professor of theology at the University of Tübingen, where in 1822 he gained a full professorship.

#2939

Richard Capel

1586 - 1656 (70 years)

Richard Capel was an English nonconforming clergyman of Calvinist views, a member of the Westminster Assembly, and for a period of his life a practicing physician. Life He was born at Gloucester, the son of Christopher Capel, an alderman of the city, and his wife Grace, daughter of Richard Hands. His father was a good friend to ministers who had suffered for nonconformity. Richard was educated in Gloucester, and became a commoner of St. Alban Hall, Oxford, in 1601. He was afterwards elected a demy of Magdalen College, and in 1609 was made perpetual fellow there, being then M.A.

#2940

Johan Robeck

1672 - 1735 (63 years)

Johan Robeck was a Swedish-German theologian and philosopher who justified and committed suicide. Life Robeck was born in Kalmar, Sweden, and raised in the reformed religion. He studied in Uppsala, before going to Hildesheim in Germany, where he converted to Catholicism in 1704. He joined the Jesuits and lived in Rinteln, Westphalia.

#2941

Paul Laurentius

1554 - 1624 (70 years)

Paul Laurentius , Lutheran divine, was at Oberwiera, where his father, of the same names, was pastor. From a school at Zwickau he entered the University of Leipzig, graduating in 1577. In 1578 he became rector of the Martin school at Halberstadt; in 1583 he was appointed towns preacher at Plauen, and in 1586 superintendent at Oelsnitz. On October 20, 1595, he took his doctorate in theology at Jena. His thesis on the Symboluin Atzanasii , gaining him similar honours at Wittenberg and Leipzig. He was promoted to be pastor and superintendent at Dresden, and transferred to the superintendence at Meissen, where he died on February 24, 1624.

#2942

Joseph Lebon

1879 - 1957 (78 years)

Joseph Lebon was a Belgian priest and professor of theology at the University of Louvain. He is best known for his immense work devoted to the reception of the Council of Chalcedon in the Syriac and Armenian domains. His 1909 thesis devoted to Monophysite resistance to the Chalcedonian definition or horos centred on the writings of Severus of Antioch and the influence of Cyril of Alexandria. Editions of the surviving Syriac translations of Severus in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium and ground-breaking articles in Le Muséon followed at regular intervals. The climax of Lebon's w...

#2943

Johannes Bilberg

Johannes Bilberg

1646 - 1717 (71 years)

Johannes Bilberg was a Swedish theologian, professor and bishop. As a professor he was involved in the controversy over Cartesianism. He was the son of school principal and vicar Jonas Amberni and his wife Ingrid Denckert. At the age of thirteen Bilberg started studying at Uppsala University. After he graduated with Bachelor of Arts, he took employment as a tutor for a young baron named Ulf Bonde on a trip around the continent of Europe when they visited royal courts and universities. When he returned home in 1677 he was named professor of mathematics at Uppsala University.

#2944

Edmund Campion

1540 - 1581 (41 years)

Edmund Campion, SJ was an English Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is celebrated on 1 December.

#2945

Andrea Spagni

1716 - 1788 (72 years)

Andrea Spagni was an Italian Jesuit theologian, educator, and author. Spagni was born at Florence. He entered the Society of Jesus on 22 October 1731, and was employed chiefly in teaching philosophy and theology, though for a time he lectured in mathematics at the Roman College, and assisted Father Asclepi in his astronomical observations. He died in Rome.

#2946

James Waddel Alexander

James Waddel Alexander

1804 - 1859 (55 years)

James Waddel Alexander was an American Presbyterian minister and theologian who followed in the footsteps of his father, Rev. Archibald Alexander. Early life Alexander was born in 1804 in Louisa County, Virginia, the eldest son of Rev. Archibald Alexander and his wife Janetta Waddel. He was born on the Hopewell estate near present-day Gordonsville at the residence of his maternal grandfather after whom he was named, the blind Presbyterian preacher James Waddel. His younger brothers included William Cowper Alexander , president of the New Jersey State Senate and first president of the Equitabl...

#2947

Johann Spörlein

1814 - 1873 (59 years)

Johann Spörlein was a German Catholic church historian who was a native of Burk, today a neighborhood in the city of Forchheim. He was a prominent supporter of philosopher Anton Günther . He studied philosophy and theology in Bamberg, receiving his ordination in 1837. From February 1849, he was a professor of church history and church law at the Lyceum in Bamberg. Among his written works are the following:Einige Grundsätze des Clemens von Alexandrien über griechische Philosophie und christliche Wissenschaft, aus seinen Schriften dargelegt , 1840Die Gegensätze in der Lehre des hl. Cyrillus und...

#2948

Claude D'Espence

Claude D'Espence

1511 - 1571 (60 years)

Claude D'Espence was a French theologian and diplomat, born in 1511 at Châlons-sur-Marne; died 5 Oct., 1571, at Paris. He entered the Collège de Navarre in 1536, and later became the rector of the Sorbonne before he got his doctorate. He was involved with the Council of Trent and argued against the Protestant apologist Theodore Beza about the value of tradition.

#2949

Petrus Cunaeus

1586 - 1638 (52 years)

Petrus Cunaeus was the pen name of the Dutch Christian scholar Peter van der Kun. His book The Hebrew Republic is considered "the most powerful statement of republican theory in the early years of the Dutch Republic."

#2950

Gabriel Skagestad

1879 - 1952 (73 years)

Gabriel Skagestad was a Norwegian theologian and priest. He served as a bishop of the Diocese of Stavanger from 1940 until 1949. Skagestad was a key figure in the resistance movement of the church during the German occupation of Norway.

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