The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#3351
Henry Eyster Jacobs
1844 - 1932 (88 years)
Henry Eyster Jacobs was an American religious educator, Biblical commentator and Lutheran theologian. Biography Jacobs was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the son of professor Michael and Juliana M Jacobs. His sister Julia Jacobs Harpster became a missionary in India; his brother Michael William Jacobs became a judge. He graduated from Pennsylvania College in 1862 and from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1865. Between 1870 and 1883, he was professor at Pennsylvania College. He was then appointed professor of systematic theology in The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mount Airy, where he also assumed the office of dean in 1894.
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John Duncan
1796 - 1870 (74 years)
John Duncan , also known as 'Rabbi' Duncan, was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, a missionary to the Jews in Hungary, and Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at New College, Edinburgh. He is best remembered for his aphorisms.
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Christian Frederick Boerner
1683 - 1753 (70 years)
Christian Frederick Boerner , professor of theology at Leipzig. Boerner was born in Dresden, and lived most of his life in Leipzig. Boerner had two sons, Christian Frederic, and Frederic , who were both physicians.
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Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel
1851 - 1935 (84 years)
Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel was a German theologian and professor of New Testament exegesis born in Zaukeroda near Dresden. He studied theology in Jena, where he had as instructors Otto Pfleiderer and Richard Adelbert Lipsius . In 1879 he received his habilitation, and from 1893 to 1923 was a full professor at the University of Zurich.
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Francis Alison
1705 - 1779 (74 years)
Francis Alison was a leading minister in the Synod of Philadelphia during The Old Side-New Side Controversy Biography Early life and education Alison was born in Donegal, Ireland and studied at the University of Glasgow. It appears he arrived in the United States in 1734 or 1735 in order to help the fledgling Presbyterian Church as a minister. He was ordained a full-fledged minister in 1737 and served the New London congregation.
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Elisabeth Schmitz
1893 - 1977 (84 years)
Elisabeth Schmitz was a German Lutheran theologian, teacher, and author of "On the Situation of German Non-Aryans", a memorandum that attempted to persuade those in the Confessing Church to stand against the persecution of Jews in 1930s Germany. She also sheltered Jews and was granted the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" in 2011 by the Commission of Yad Vashem.
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Frederick William Robertson
1816 - 1853 (37 years)
Frederick William Robertson , known as Robertson of Brighton, was an English divine. Biography Born in London, the first five years of his life were passed at Leith Fort, where his father, a captain in the Royal Artillery, was then resident. The military spirit entered into his blood, and throughout life he was characterised by the qualities of the ideal soldier. In 1821 Captain Robertson retired to Beverley, where the boy was educated. At the age of fourteen he spent a year at Tours, from which he returned to Scotland, and continued his education at the Edinburgh Academy and university.
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Saint Eligius
588 - 660 (72 years)
Eligius , venerated as Saint Eligius, was a Frankish goldsmith, courtier and bishop who was chief counsellor to Dagobert I and later Bishop of Noyon–Tournai. His deeds were recorded in Vita Sancti Eligii, written by his friend Audoin of Rouen.
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Hermann Witsius
1636 - 1708 (72 years)
Hermann Witsius was a Dutch theologian. Life He was born at Enkhuizen. He studied at the University of Groningen, Leiden, and Utrecht. He was ordained in the ministry, becoming the pastor of Westwoud in 1656 and afterwards at Wormer, Goes, and Leeuwarden. He became professor of divinity successively at the University of Franeker in 1675 and at the University of Utrecht in 1680. Witsius became Chancellor of Utrecht University in 1686. In 1698 he was appointed to the University of Leiden as the successor of the younger Friedrich Spanheim. He died in Leiden.
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Johannes Maccovius
1588 - 1644 (56 years)
Johannes Maccovius , also known as Jan Makowski, was a Polish Reformed theologian. Early travels and personal life Makowski was born in Lobzenica, Poland. After visiting various universities and as the tutor of young Polish nobles, holding disputations with Jesuits and Socinians, Maccovius entered the University of Franeker in the Netherlands, in 1613. There he became privat-docent in 1614 and professor of theology in 1615. In later years, the fame of Maccovius attracted many students to Franeker, where he spent the rest of his life.
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Joseph Langen
1837 - 1901 (64 years)
Joseph Langen was a German theologian and priest, who was instrumental for the German Old Catholic movement. Langen was born at Cologne, studied at Bonn, and was ordained priest for the Roman Catholic Church in 1859. He was nominated professor extraordinary at the University of Bonn in 1864, and a professor in ordinary of the exegesis of the New Testament in 1867—an office which he held till his death. He was one of the band of professors who in 1870 supported Döllinger in his resistance to the Vatican decrees, and was excommunicated along with Döllinger, Johann Nepomuk Huber, Johann Friedrich, Franz Heinrich Reusch, Joseph Hubert Reinkens and others, for refusing to accept them.
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Pope Urban V
1310 - 1370 (60 years)
Pope Urban V , born Guillaume de Grimoard, was the head of the Catholic Church from 28 September 1362 until his death, in December 1370 and was also a member of the Order of Saint Benedict. He was the only Avignon pope to be beatified.
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Richard Sibbes
1577 - 1635 (58 years)
Richard Sibbes was an Anglican theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism because he always remained in the Church of England and worshiped according to the Book of Common Prayer.
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Abraham Scultetus
1566 - 1625 (59 years)
Abraham Scultetus was a German professor of theology, and the court preacher for the Elector of the Palatinate Frederick V. Biography Early life Abraham was born in Grünberg in Schlesien in Silesia and was brought up as a Lutheran. He began his studies in theology in 1588 in Wittenberg and then in 1590 in Heidelberg. When he became Reformed and gave up his Lutheranism is unknown. By 1595 he was working for the Elector of the Palatinate, who at that time was Frederick IV. He continued to serve the churches of the Palatinate and accompanied Frederick V on his honeymoon with his wife Elisabeth, daughter of King James I of England, in 1613.
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William George Ward
1812 - 1882 (70 years)
William George Ward was an English theologian and mathematician. A Roman Catholic convert, his career illustrates the development of religious opinion at a time of crisis in the history of English religious thought.
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Reginald of Piperno
1230 - 1290 (60 years)
Reginald of Piperno was an Italian Dominican, theologian and companion of Thomas Aquinas. Biography Reginald was born at Piperno about 1230. Since 1927 this town of the Lazio region in central Italy is Priverno. He entered the Dominican Order at Naples. Thomas Aquinas chose him as his socius and confessor at Rome about 1265. From that time Reginald was Aquinas's constant and intimate companion.
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Johann Melchior Goeze
1717 - 1786 (69 years)
Johann Melchior Goeze was a Lutheran pastor and theologian during the period of Late Orthodoxy. From 1760 to 1770 he served as senior of Hamburg presiding as spiritual leader over the Lutheran state church of the city-state.
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John Brown
1784 - 1858 (74 years)
John Brown was a Scottish minister and theologian, known for his exegesis as a preacher. Life The grandson of John Brown of Haddington, he was born at Whitburn, Linlithgowshire. He studied at Glasgow university, and afterwards at the divinity hall of the Burgher branch of the Secession church at Selkirk, under George Lawson. In 1806 he was ordained minister of the Burgher congregation at Biggar, Lanarkshire, where he laboured for sixteen years. While there he had a controversy with Robert Owen the socialist.
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Karl Theodor Keim
1825 - 1878 (53 years)
Karl Theodor Keim was a German Protestant theologian. He was born at Stuttgart. His father, Johann Christian Keim, was headmaster of a gymnasium. Here Karl Theodor received his early education, and then proceeded to the Stuttgart Obergymnasium. In 1843 he went to the university of Tübingen, where he studied philosophy under J. F. Reiff, a follower of Hegel, and Oriental languages under Heinrich Ewald and Heinrich Meier. F. C. Baur, the leader of the new Tübingen school, was lecturing on the New Testament and on the history of the church and of dogma, and by him in particular Keim was greatly ...
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Dominic Barberi
1792 - 1849 (57 years)
Dominic Barberi, CP was an Italian theologian and Passionist priest who was prominent in spreading Catholicism in England. He contributed to the conversion of John Henry Newman. In 1963, he was beatified by Pope Paul VI.
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Edmond Richer
1559 - 1631 (72 years)
Edmond Richer was a French theologian known for several works advocating the Gallican theory, that the pope's power was limited by authority of bishops, and by temporal governments. He was born in Chaource.
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Gottlob Christian Storr
1746 - 1805 (59 years)
Gottlob Christian Storr was a German Protestant theologian, born in Stuttgart. He was the son of theologian Johann Christian Storr and the older brother of naturalist Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr .
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Jean-Alphonse Turrettini
1671 - 1737 (66 years)
Jean-Alphonse Turrettini was a theologian from the Republic of Geneva. The son of François Turrettini, he was born in Geneva. He studied theology at Geneva under Louis Tronchin , and after travelling in Holland, England and France was received into the "Vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs" of Geneva in 1693. Here he became pastor of the Italian congregation, and in 1697 professor of church history, and later of theology.
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Andrew Willet
1562 - 1621 (59 years)
Andrew Willet was an English clergyman and controversialist. A prolific writer, he is known for his anti-papal works. His views were conforming and non-separatist, and he appeared as a witness against Edward Dering before the Star-chamber. Joseph Hall eulogised Willet in Noah's Dove, and Thomas Fuller modelled 'the Controversial Divine' of his Holy State on him.
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Erich Sauer
1898 - 1959 (61 years)
Erich Sauer was a German dispensationalist Christian theologian associated with the Plymouth Brethren. His various books have sold around one million copies. Early life Sauer was born in Berlin in 1898, his mother was already a Christian and he attended Open Brethren congregations.
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Zacharias Ursinus
1534 - 1583 (49 years)
Zacharias Ursinus was a sixteenth-century German Reformed theologian and Protestant reformer, born Zacharias Baer in Breslau . He became the leading theologian of the Reformed Protestant movement of the Palatinate, serving both at the University of Heidelberg and the College of Wisdom . He is best known as the principal author and interpreter of the Heidelberg Catechism.
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Campegius Vitringa
1659 - 1722 (63 years)
Campegius Vitringa Sr., or Kempe Vitringa was a Dutch Protestant theologian and Hebraist. His youngest of four children was Campeius Vitringa . Vitringa, a follower of Johannes Cocceius, was a supporter of prophetic theology. He was educated at the universities of Franeker and Leiden, and became professor of Oriental languages at the former in 1681. When locating prophetic outcomes, he would associate events to the near rather than the far-off future, placing a distinct focus on the period of the Maccabees . Like Joseph Mede , Vitringa believed wholeheartedly that the Millennium was yet to come, but did not expect any immediate changes.
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Edmund Bonner
1500 - 1569 (69 years)
Edmund Bonner was Bishop of London from 1539 to 1549 and again from 1553 to 1559. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonised by the Protestant reforms introduced by the Duke of Somerset and reconciled himself to Catholicism. He became notorious as "Bloody Bonner" for his role in the persecution of heretics under the Catholic government of Mary I of England, and ended his life as a prisoner under Queen Elizabeth I.
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Georg Fritze
1874 - 1939 (65 years)
Georg Fritze was a German theologian, Protestant pastor, religious socialist and anti-fascist. Career Fritze studied Evangelical Theology in Halle and Marburg. He sat his first theological exam in the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1896, and his second exam in the University of Marburg in 1898. He then did military service from 1889 to 1890. He became an assistant preacher, and later "second pastor" in the Belgian Mission Church in Charleroi , where he ordained on September 30, 1900 . After four years he returned to the Prussian Provincial Church in Saxony, where he made up the vicariate.
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John Smyth
1570 - 1612 (42 years)
John Smyth was an English Anglican, Baptist, then Mennonite minister and a defender of the principle of religious liberty. Early life Smyth is thought to have been the son of John Smyth, a yeoman of Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire. He was educated locally, most likely under Rev Quipp at Sturton though at the grammar school in Gainsborough has also been suggested. Then he attended in Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1594. Smyth was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1594 in England.
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Johann August Nösselt
1734 - 1807 (73 years)
Johann August Nösselt was a German Protestant theologian. Beginning in 1751, he studied theology at the University of Halle, where one of his instructors was Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten . In 1755-56 he took an extended study trip throughout Germany, Switzerland and France, eventually returning to Halle, where in 1760 he became an associate professor of theology. In 1764 he attained the title of "full professor" at Halle.
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Heinrich Klee
1800 - 1840 (40 years)
Heinrich Klee was a German theologian and Biblical exegete who argued against liberal and Rationalist currents in Catholic thought. Biography At the age of seventeen Klee entered the seminary at Mainz. In 1824, a year after his ordination, he was appointed to the professorship of exegesis and ecclesiastical history in the same seminary, and in the following year also to that of philosophy. In the meantime he obtained the Doctorate of Theology from the University of Würzburg after presenting the thesis Tentamen theologico-historicum de chiliasmo primorum saecolurum. In 1829 the government of B...
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David Watson
1933 - 1984 (51 years)
David Christopher Knight Watson was an English Anglican priest, evangelist and author. Early life and education David Watson was born on 7 March 1933 at Catterick Camp, Scotton, Yorkshire to Godfrey Charles Knight Watson, a captain in the Royal Artillery, and his wife Margaret Sara Winifred. He was educated at Bedford School and Wellington College . He was head boy of Wellington College.
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Asahel Nettleton
1783 - 1844 (61 years)
Asahel Nettleton was an American theologian and Evangelist from Connecticut who was highly influential during the Second Great Awakening. The number of people converted to Christianity as a result of his ministry was estimated by one biographer at 30,000. He participated in the New Lebanon Conference in 1827, during which he and Lyman Beecher opposed the teachings of Charles Grandison Finney.
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Erik Peterson
1890 - 1960 (70 years)
Erik Peterson Grandjean was a German Catholic theologian,patrologist and Church historian. Biography Erik Peterson was born in Hamburg. He studied theology from 1910 to 1914 in Strasbourg, Greifswald, Berlin, Basel and Göttingen, where he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1926. He was initially an evangelical Christian influenced by pietism and Søren Kierkegaard. Through the influence of phenomenology in Göttingen, Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Hans Lipps, Theodor Haecker, Max Scheler, Carl Schmitt, Jacques Maritain and the Liturgical Movement, he opened up to the Catholic world.
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Ethelbert Stauffer
1902 - 1979 (77 years)
Ethelbert Stauffer was a German Protestant theologian and numismatist. Life Stauffer was the son of a Mennonite preacher born and raised in Worms. After attending the local grammar school, he studied Protestant theology at the universities of Halle, Berlin and Tübingen from 1921 to 1925. He then entered the service of the Mennonite churches in Hamburg and Altona. He converted to the Evangelical Church in 1928, and became assistant pastor of the Provincial-Saxon church. The New Testament scholar Ernst von Dobschütz appointed him the faculty assistant in Halle, where he graduated in 1929. He be...
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Leo Allatius
1586 - 1669 (83 years)
Leo Allatius was a Greek scholar, theologian, and keeper of the Vatican library. Biography Leo Allatius was a Greek, born on the island of Chios in 1586. His father was Niccolas Allatzes and his mother was Sebaste Neurides, both of Greek extraction . He was taken by his maternal uncle Michael Nauridis to Italy to be educated at the age of nine, first in Calabria and then in Rome where he was admitted into the Greek college. A graduate of the Pontifical Greek College of Saint Athanasius in Rome, he spent his career in Rome as teacher of Greek at the Greek college, devoting himself to the study of classics and theology.
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Philip Nye
1595 - 1672 (77 years)
Philip Nye was a leading English Independent theologian and a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. He was the key adviser to Oliver Cromwell on matters of religion and regulation of the Church.
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Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann
1759 - 1844 (85 years)
Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann was a German Catholic theologian. Life Having finished his humanities in the college at Molsheim, he studied theology from 1776 to 1780 in the seminary at Strasbourg, after which, as he was too young for ordination, he was as subdeacon appointed teacher in the college at Molsheim. He became a deacon and a licentiate of theology in 1782, and was ordained priest on 14 June 1783.
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Louis Gerlach Pareau
1800 - 1866 (66 years)
Louis Gerlach Pareau, was a Dutch theologian born in Deventer. He was the son of Jean Henri Pareau , a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht. In 1826 he graduated from Utrecht with a dissertation titled Commentatio critica et exegetica in Paulinae Epistolae prioris ad Corinthos caput XIII. In 1831 he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Groningen, where he remained until his death in 1866. At Groningen he taught classes in exegesis and hermeneutics.
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Heinrich Döring
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Heinrich Doring, born Michael Johann Heinrich Döring was a German writer, theologian and mineralogist. He became known mainly as a biographer of the German classical writers, and especially the first biographer of Goethe.
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Samuel Merrill Woodbridge
1819 - 1905 (86 years)
The Reverend Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, D.D., LL.D. was an American clergyman, theologian, author, and college professor. A graduate of New York University and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Woodbridge preached for sixteen years as a clergyman in the Reformed Church in America.
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Eberhard Nestle
1851 - 1913 (62 years)
Eberhard Nestle was a German biblical scholar, textual critic, orientalist, editor of the Novum Testamentum Graece, and the father of Erwin Nestle. Life Nestle was a son of the upper tribunal procurator Christian Gottlieb Nestle and his wife Sophie Beate Kleinmann. His half-brother from his father's second marriage was classical philologist Wilhelm Nestle.
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Harry A. Ironside
1876 - 1951 (75 years)
Henry Allan "Harry" Ironside was a Canadian–American Bible teacher, preacher, theologian, pastor and author who pastored Moody Church in Chicago from 1929 to 1948. Biography Ironside was born in Toronto, Ontario, to John and Sophia Ironside, who were both active in the Plymouth Brethren. At birth, Harry was thought to be dead, so the attending nurses focused their attention on Sophia, who was dangerously ill. Only when a pulse was detected in Harry, 40 minutes later, was an attempt made to resuscitate the infant. When Harry was two years old, his father, John, died of typhoid at the age of 27.
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Rupert of Deutz
1075 - 1129 (54 years)
Rupert of Deutz was an influential Benedictine theologian, exegete and writer on liturgical and musical topics. Life Rupert was most likely born in or around Liège in the years 1075-1080, and there, as was the custom, was brought by his family as an oblate to the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Laurent in Liège, which already a generation earlier had become a notable centre of learning, including mathematics, hagiography, and poetry. There Rupert eventually made monastic profession and was educated under the capable Abbot, Berengar.
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John Clayton
1709 - 1773 (64 years)
John Clayton was an English clergyman, an early Methodist, and Jacobite supporter. Life He was the son of William Clayton, bookseller, of Manchester, and was born 9 October 1709. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and gained the school exhibition to Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1725. In 1729 the Hulmean scholarship was awarded to him, and a little later he became a college tutor. He proceeded B.A. on 16 April 1729, and M.A. on 8 June 1732.
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Georg Lasson
1862 - 1932 (70 years)
Georg Lasson was a German Protestant theologian, and a son of Adolf Lasson. He was a co-editor of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Sämtliche Werke in the Meiner edition . Although the result is not always praised today, his edition is useful to researches as he had access to manuscripts that have since been lost.
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Gustav Friedrich Dinter
1760 - 1831 (71 years)
Gustav Friedrich Dinter was a German pedagogue, theologian and author. Biography He was born at Borna. He studied theology and pedagogy at Leipzig; held several pastorates, was appointed director of the Teachers' Seminary at Dresden in 1797, and became professor of theology at the University of Königsberg in 1822.
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John of Salisbury
1110 - 1180 (70 years)
John of Salisbury , who described himself as Johannes Parvus , was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres. Early life and education Born at Salisbury, England, he was of Anglo-Saxon rather than of Norman extraction, and therefore apparently a clerk from a modest background, whose career depended upon his education. Beyond that, and that he applied to himself the cognomen of Parvus, meaning "short" or "small", few details are known regarding his early life. From his own statements it is gathered that he crossed to France about 1136, and began regular stu...
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Thomas Ellwood
1639 - 1713 (74 years)
Thomas Ellwood was an English religious writer. He is remembered for his relationship with poet John Milton, and some of his writing has proved durable as well. Life Ellwood was born in the village of Crowell, Oxfordshire, the son of a rural squire, Walter Ellwood, by his wife, Elizabeth Potman. From 1642 to 1646 the family lived in London. He was educated at Lord Williams's School in Thame.
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