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,
#3751
Berthold of Moosburg
1300 - 1361 (61 years)
Berthold of Moosburg was a German Dominican theologian and neo-Platonist of the 14th century, teaching in Regensburg in 1327. His Expositio super Elementationem theologicam Procli, written between 1340 and 1361, was a major statement of the importance for Platonism of Proclus. He opposed his Christian-Platonic synthesis to Aristotelian philosophy. His sources included Theodoric of Freiberg and Albertus Magnus.
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Theophilus Gale
1628 - 1678 (50 years)
Theophilus Gale was an English educationalist, nonconformist and theologian of dissent. Early life Gale was born at Kingsteignton, Devon, the son of Bridget Gale and Theophilus Gale D. D. , vicar of Kingsteignton and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral. Gale was educated by a private tutor, before attending grammar school, and being admitted to the University of Oxford, entered Magdalen Hall in 1647 as a commoner. Magdalen Hall was shortly to be the home of nonconforming students: William Conway, John Cudmore, Joseph Maisters and, according to Edmund Calamy, a 'Mr. Sprint'. In August 1648 Henry W...
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Daniel Tossanus
1541 - 1602 (61 years)
Daniel Tossanus was a French Reformed theologian. Life He was born at Montbéliard on 15 July 1541, the son of Pierre Toussain. He was educated at Basel and Tübingen. Returning to France he preached for six months in his native town, and went to Orléans, 1560, where, after being a teacher of Hebrew, he was ordained minister of the local Reformed church in 1561. In 1568 he was forced to flee with other Protestants, but was soon discovered and imprisoned for two weeks. He then left with his family to Montargis, where he was protected by the duchess of Ferrara until the king of France demanded t...
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John N. Kildahl
1857 - 1920 (63 years)
John Nathan Kildahl was an American Lutheran church minister, author and educator. Background Kildahl was born in Beitstaden parish , Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. Kildahl emigrated as a boy from Norway to rural Goodhue County, Minnesota. He was educated at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He graduated from Luther Seminary and was ordained by Bernt Julius Muus at St. John's Lutheran Church in Northfield, Minnesota.
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Samuel Bochart
1599 - 1667 (68 years)
Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet. His two-volume exerted a profound influence on seventeenth-century Biblical exegesis.
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António Garcia Ribeiro de Vasconcelos
1860 - 1941 (81 years)
António Garcia Ribeiro de Vasconcelos was a Portuguese historian and theologian. He taught at the University of Coimbra from 1887 to 1930, first in the Faculty of Theology and then in the Faculty of Letters, which appointed him Emeritus Professor. In 1936 he became the first president of the Portuguese Academy of History.
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Joseph Heinrich Gügler
1782 - 1827 (45 years)
Joseph Heinrich Aloysius Gügler was a Swiss priest, professor, and theologian. Biography Gügler was born on August 25, 1782, at the village of Udligerschwyl near Lucerne, Switzerland. He was the only son of simple country couple, and was recorded to be a delicate child.
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J. H. Oldham
1874 - 1969 (95 years)
Joseph Houldsworth Oldham CBE , known as J. H. or Joe, was a Scottish missionary in India, who became a significant figure in Christian ecumenism, though never ordained in the United Free Church as he had wished.
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William of Alnwick
1275 - 1333 (58 years)
William of Alnwick was a Franciscan friar and theologian, and bishop of Giovinazzo, who took his name from Alnwick in Northumberland. Little is known of his early life. By 1303 he was a licensed doctor of theology at Paris, being then listed among the few foreign masters who sided with Philip IV, king of France, in his dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. Alnwick also lectured at other European centres of learning, including Montpellier, Bologna and Naples. He must have returned to England sometime in the second decade of the 14th century, as he is recorded as the forty-second Franciscan regent m...
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Jón Helgason
1866 - 1942 (76 years)
Jón Helgason was an Icelandic theologian who served as Bishop of Iceland from 1917 till 1939. Biography Helgason was born in Álftanes, on June 21, 1866, the son of the Reverend Helgi Hálfdanarson, later the rector of the Prestaskólinn , and his wife Þórhildur Tómasdóttir. He came from a well-known family, including his grandfather Tómas Sæmundsson, a professor at Breiðabólstaður. Jón studied at the Reykjavik School between 1880 and 1886, then completed his degree and sailed the same summer in Copenhagen, where he completed various university degrees, including in Theology in 1892. He was taug...
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Henry Wace
1836 - 1924 (88 years)
Henry Wace was an English Anglican priest and ecclesiastical historian who served as Principal of King's College, London, from 1883 to 1897 and as Dean of Canterbury from 1903 to 1924. He is described in the Dictionary of National Biography as "an effective administrator, a Protestant churchman of deep scholarship, and a stout champion of the Reformation settlement".
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Johann Nikolaus Weislinger
1691 - 1755 (64 years)
Johann Nikolauss Weislinger was a polemical writer. Life He was born at Püttlingen in German Lorraine. After attending the Jesuit high-school at Strasbourg, he became a private tutor in 1711. From 1713 he studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, then took up theology and prepared for ordination as priest under the direction of the Jesuits at Strasburg. Soon after ordination he was appointed parish priest at Waldulm , and in 1730 at Kappelrodeck, but in 1750, on account of severe illness, he was obliged to resign his position. He died at Kappelrodeck in Baden.
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Abraham Berliner
1833 - 1915 (82 years)
Abraham Berliner was a German theologian and historian, born in Obersitzko, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, Prussia. He was initially educated by his father, who was the teacher in Obersitzko. He continued his education under various rabbis, later studying at the University of Leipzig where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy.
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Johann Gerhard Meuschen
1680 - 1743 (63 years)
Johann Gerhard Meuschen was a German Lutheran theologian born in Osnabrück. He was the father of conchologist Friedrich Christian Meuschen. He studied theology and Oriental languages at the University of Jena, and in 1703 became an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Kiel. Afterwards he served as a minister in Osnabrück , the Hague and Hanau . In 1723 he moved to Coburg, where he was appointed community Kirchenrath, and in the meantime taught classes in theology at the gymnasium. He worked in Coburg for the remainder of his life.
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August Klostermann
1837 - 1915 (78 years)
August Heinrich Klostermann was a German Lutheran theologian. He was the father of New Testament scholar Erich Klostermann . Biography He studied at Erlangen University and Berlin . He was assistant pastor in Bückeburg , and then tutor and lecturer at Göttingen . In 1868, he became professor of Old Testament exegesis at Kiel.
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John Theophilus Desaguliers
1683 - 1744 (61 years)
John Theophilus Desaguliers FRS was a British natural philosopher, clergyman, engineer and freemason who was elected to the Royal Society in 1714 as experimental assistant to Isaac Newton. He had studied at Oxford and later popularized Newtonian theories and their practical applications in public lectures. Desaguliers's most important patron was James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. As a Freemason, Desaguliers was instrumental in the success of the first Grand Lodge in London in the early 1720s and served as its third Grand Master.
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John of Wales
1300 - 1285 (-15 years)
John of Wales , also called John Waleys and Johannes Guallensis, was a Franciscan theologian who wrote several well-received Latin works, primarily preaching aids. Born between 1210 and 1230, almost certainly in Wales, John joined the Franciscan order, and incepted in theology at the University of Oxford sometime before 1258. After this, he taught there until 1270 when he moved to the University of Paris, where he remained until his death around 1285. He was a moral theologian and a great admirer of the ancient world, incorporating many classical authors into his works. He is often considered a forerunner of later Christian humanists.
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Denton E. Rebok
1897 - 1983 (86 years)
Denton Edward Rebok was a Seventh-day Adventist educator and administrator. Born in Pennsylvania, he served the denomination for 44 years. He spent 23 years as a missionary in China. While there he founded the China Training Institute, a junior college located in the town of Qiaotou in northern Jiangsu province, about 160 miles from Shanghai and 30 miles from Nanjing, in 1925. He taught at Washington Missionary College, La Sierra College, was president of Southern Missionary College also Dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. He served briefly as chair of the Ellen G. White Estate board of trustees in 1952, and gave two presentations about Ellen G.
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Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann
1799 - 1882 (83 years)
Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann was a German copper engraver and later founder and pastor of the first Baptist congregation in Berlin. Along with Johann Gerhard Oncken and Julius Köbner, together known as the Baptist "cloverleaf" , he is one of the founding fathers of German Baptists.
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Robert Livingston Rudolph
1865 - 1930 (65 years)
Robert Livingston Rudolph was an American bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. He was the first bishop to be raised with the church. Rudolph also served as Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Christian Ethics at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia for twenty-seven years before his death. Together Rudolph and his son, Robert Knight Rudolph, trained men for the gospel ministry at this institution for a total of seventy-four years. Rudolph was widely recognized as an outstanding preacher, teacher, scholar and bishop.
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Nils Hesslén
1728 - 1811 (83 years)
Nils Hesslén was a Swedish bishop, university professor, and a founder of the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund. He served as the bishop of the Diocese of Lund from 1805 to 1811. Biography Hesslén was born in Visseltofta, Scania, Sweden, to Måns Sunesson, a farmer and district judge and Sara Månsdotter. Hesslén's father hired a Norwegian student in the area to teach his son privately. His studies continued in Lund in 1745, where he received his magister degree in 1751. In 1755 he became docent in theology and in 1760 an adjunct professor. Hesslén was ordained in 1767. Awarded a doctorate in theology in 1769, he returned to Lund University in 1775 as the fourth professor of theology.
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Patritius Sporer
Patritius Sporer was a German Franciscan moral theologian. Sporer was born and died at Passau, in the Electorate of Bavaria. In 1637 he entered the Order of Friars Minor in the convent of his native town, which then belonged to the religious Province of Strasburg. He taught theology for many years, obtained the title of Lector jubilatus, and was also the theologian of the Bishop of Passau.
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Pierre Coste
1668 - 1747 (79 years)
Pierre Coste was a French theologian, translator and writer. Born in Uzès, France to Protestant parents, he moved to England, via Switzerland and Holland, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. There he translated John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and the second English edition of Newton's Opticks, and acted as tutor to the sons of several families. He moved back to Paris c.1735 to be married, but returned to England after the death of his wife.
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Alonzo Potter
1800 - 1865 (65 years)
Alonzo Potter was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Potter "identified himself with all the best interests of society."
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Václav Vilém Václavíček
1798 - 1862 (64 years)
Canon Václav Vilém Václavíček was a Czech Roman Catholic priest and theological writer, who a short time served as a Metropolitan Archbishop-elect of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv and Primate of Galicia and Lodomeria from 17 December 1847 until his resignation on 29 May 1848. Also he held a position of the Rector of Charles University in Prague .
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Andreas Acoluthus
1654 - 1704 (50 years)
Andreas Acoluthus was a German scholar of orientalism and professor of theology at Breslau . A native of Bernstadt , Lower Silesia, he was the son of Johannes Acoluthus, pastor of St. Elisabeth and superintendent of the churches and schools of Breslau.
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Paul David Devanandan
1901 - 1962 (61 years)
Paul David Devanandan , spelt also as P.D. Devanandan or Paul D. Devanandan, was an Indian Protestant theologian, ecumenist, and one of the notable pioneers in inter-religious dialogues in India. Biography He was born in Madras on 8 July 1901, and graduated from Nizam College, Hyderabad. He did his M.A from Presidency College, Madras. While studying at Madras, he was acquainted with K. T. Paul, a prominent Social activist, Christian and YMCA leader. He taught briefly at Jaffna College, Ceylon, Sri Lanka. With assistance from K.T. Paul, he flew United States in 1924 and did his theological studies at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California.
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Philip the Chancellor
1165 - 1236 (71 years)
Philip the Chancellor, also known as "Philippus Cancellarius Parisiensis" was a French theologian, Latin lyric poet, and possibly a composer as well. He was Chancellor of Notre-Dame de Paris starting in 1217 until his death, and was also Archdeacon of Noyon. Philip is portrayed as an enemy to the Mendicant orders becoming prevalent at the time, but this has been greatly exaggerated. He may have even joined the Franciscan order soon before his death.
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Bernard of Bologna
1701 - 1770 (69 years)
Bernard of Bologna , also known as Bernardine, was a Friar Minor Capuchin and Scotist theologian and author. Biography In 1717 he entered the Capuchin Order and some years later filled successively the office of professor of moral and dogmatic theology. Several times he held positions of responsibility.
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Patrick Murray
1811 - 1882 (71 years)
Patrick Aloysius Murray DD STP was an Irish Roman Catholic theologian. Life Murray was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland. He was educated at Maynooth College, he was elected a Dunboyne, or senior student, 1835. He received a curacy in Dublin, was appointed professor of English and French in Maynooth, 1838, and became professor of theology there, 1841. The remainder of his life he devoted mainly to theological science. In 1879, he was made prefect of the Dunboyne Establishment, a position he held until his death.
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Roger Marston
1201 - 1303 (102 years)
Roger Marston was an English Franciscan scholastic philosopher and theologian. He studied under John Pecham in Paris, in the years around 1270, and probably also at Oxford a few years later, during the time he was a pupil of John Pecham he was a fellow student with Matthew of Aquasparta. He generally followed Pecham's views on the Eucharist. He regarded time as absolute.
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Johann Friedrich Mayer
1650 - 1712 (62 years)
Johann Friedrich Mayer was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of theology at Wittenberg University. He was an important champion of Lutheran orthodoxy and General Superintendent of Swedish Pomerania.
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William of Auxerre
1145 - 1231 (86 years)
William of Auxerre was a French scholastic theologian and official in the Roman Catholic Church. The teacher by whom William was most influenced was Praepositinus, or Prevostin, of Cremona, Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1206 to 1209. The names of teacher and pupil are mentioned in the same sentence by Thomas Aquinas.
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Louis Legrand
1711 - 1780 (69 years)
Louis Legrand, S.S. was a French Sulpician priest and theologian, and a Doctor of the Sorbonne. Life After studying philosophy and theology at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Legrand taught philosophy at Clermont, 1733–1736, and then resumed his studies in Paris, where he entered the Society of Saint-Sulpice in 1739 and obtained the licentiate in 1740. He taught theology at Cambrai, 1740–1743, was superior of the seminary in Autun, 1743–1745, and, having been recalled to Paris, received the degree of Doctor of Theology from the Sorbonne in 1746. Henceforth he remained at the Seminary of...
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John Watts Ditchfield
1861 - 1923 (62 years)
John Edwin Watts-Ditchfield was an eminent 20th century Anglican priest and distinguished author. Educated at the Victoria University of Manchester and ordained in 1891, he began his career with a curacy at St Peter Highgate after which he was Vicar of St James-the-Less, Bethnal Green. Here, he made a name for himself, particularly with the development of the Church of England's Men's Society. He believed that the contemporary view of the Church of England was that it was for women and children, and he succeeded in attracting vast numbers of men to his church whose families followed. A gift...
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Hendrik Herp
1400 - 1478 (78 years)
Hendrik Herp , known in Latin as Henricus Harphius, was a Dutch or Flemish Franciscan of the Strict Observance, and a writer on mysticism. Life Herp was born around 1400 either at Erp near Veghel or Erps-Kwerps near Leuven. He is possibly the same person as Heinricus Erppe, clericus Cameracensis dioceses, who in 1426, as one of the first students, was registered at the University of Leuven. "Clericus Cameracensis dioceses" means that this student had held a clerical position in the diocese of Kamerijk, leading some to propose that he was not born in Erp, which is widely believed to be his birt...
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Celestyn Myślenta
1588 - 1653 (65 years)
Celestyn Myślenta was a Polish Lutheran theologian and rector of the University of Königsberg. Celestyn was the son of Mateusz Myślenta and Eufroza née Wiercinska. His father was once employed by Duke Radziwill and belonged to the Polish nobility. As a stipendiary of the duke of Prussia he studied at University Königsberg, then became Lutheran pastor in Kuty from 1581-1599.
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Paul Wilhelm Schmidt
1845 - 1917 (72 years)
Paul Wilhelm Schmidt was a German theologian who taught mostly in Basel. To this day he is considered one of the most important Swiss representatives of the liberal Protestant direction in theology and church at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
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David Gordon Lyon
1852 - 1935 (83 years)
David Gordon Lyon was an American theologian. Biography David Gordon Lyon was born in Benton, Alabama on May 24, 1852, the son of a doctor. In 1875 he received his AB from Howard College in Marion, Alabama. . He studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary under Crawford Howell Toy, and went to Germany, and received his PhD from the University of Leipzig in 1882, in the study of Syriac. While there, he met Tosca Woehler, whom he married in 1883.
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Jordan of Pisa
1260 - 1310 (50 years)
Jordan of Pisa , also called Jordan of Rivalto , was a Dominican theologian and the first preacher whose vernacular Italian sermons are preserved. His cultus was confirmed on 23 August 1833 by Pope Gregory XVI and he was beatified in 1838; his day is either March 6 or August 19. His relics are in the church of Santa Caterina in Pisa.
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John Macalpine
1450 - 1557 (107 years)
John Macalpine was a Scottish Protestant theologian. Life He was born in Scotland about the beginning of the 16th century, and graduated at a Scottish university. From 1532 to 1534 he was prior of the Dominican convent of Perth; but having in the latter year been summoned with Alexander Ales and others to answer for heresy before the Bishop of Ross, he left for England. There he was granted letters of denization on 7 April 1537, and married Agnes Macheson, a fellow exile for religion; her sister Elizabeth became the wife of Miles Coverdale.
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G. H. Pember
1837 - 1910 (73 years)
George Hawkins Pember , known as G. H. Pember, was an English theologian and author who was affiliated with the Plymouth Brethren. Early life, education and marriages Pember was born in Hereford, the son of George Hawkins Pember and Mary Pember . He was educated at Hereford Cathedral School and matriculated from there in 1856. He then enrolled at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He earned the B.A. in his studies in the Classics in 1860, and proceeded to postgraduate studies earning an M.A. in 1863. During his postgraduate studies Pember held a teaching post as assistant master at Rossall, Lancashire, from 1861 to 1863.
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Albert Hardenberg
1510 - 1574 (64 years)
Albert Hardenberg or Albertus Risaeus was a Reformed theologian and Protestant reformer, who was also active as a reformer in Cologne, Bremen and Emden. Life From the age of seven, he was put in the school of the "Fratres vitae communis" in Groninghe. He decided at the age of 17 to become a priest and became a monk in the abbey of Aduard. In 1540, he was sent by his community as a student at the University of Louvain to take theology courses so that he could one day be able to become abbot of a monastery. There he obtained his degree of license, but he was quickly drawn into the movement of a...
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August Adam
1888 - 1965 (77 years)
August Adam was a German Catholic theologian. He is known for The Primacy of Love , a theological study of love which argued for a rethinking of Catholic approaches to sexuality, chastity and morality.
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Jacob Keller
1568 - 1631 (63 years)
Jacob Keller was a German Jesuit theologian, author, and religious instructor. Life He was born in Säckingen, Baden, Germany. After entering the Society of Jesus in 1589 and completing his studies, he taught the classics at Freiburg and was professor of philosophy and of moral and dogmatic theology at Ingolstadt. He was appointed rector of the college of Ratisbon in 1605, and of the college of Munich in 1607, a post he held until 1623. In 1628 he was reappointed to the rectorship of Munich, and was still holding the office when an apoplexy ended his life.
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Nicolas Ysambert
1560 - 1642 (82 years)
Nicolas Ysambert was a French, Roman Catholic theologian, and lifelong teacher at the Sorbonne. Life Born at Orléans, Ysambert studied theology at the Sorbonne and was made a fellow of the college in 1598. Thenceforth he professed theology with such success as to attract public attention.
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Basil Manly Sr.
1798 - 1868 (70 years)
Basil Manly Sr. was an American planter, preacher and chaplain best known as the author of the Alabama Resolutions, which formed part of the argument for creation of the Southern Baptist Convention on proslavery grounds.
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Viatora Coccaleo
Viatora Coccaleo was an Italian Capuchin theologian. Works For a time he was lector in theology. Among his works are:"Tentamina theologico-scholastica" ;"Tentaminum theologicorum in moralibus Synopsis" ;"Instituta moralia" .His defence of papal supremacy, "Italus ad Justinum Febronium" , is one of the principal apologies against Febronius. Besides writing several works against Jansenism, he took part in the discussion concerning the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the sanctification of Holy Days, made famous by the Synod of Pistoia , and published:"Riflessioni sopra l'origine e il fine della divozione del S.
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Claudius Buchanan
1766 - 1815 (49 years)
Claudius Buchanan FRSE was a Scottish theologian, an ordained minister of the Church of England, and an evangelical missionary for the Church Missionary Society. He served as Vice Provost of the College of Calcutta in India.
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Josse van Clichtove
1472 - 1543 (71 years)
Josse van Clichtove or Judocus Clichtoveus Neoportuensis , was a Flemish theologian, priest and humanist. Life He received his education at Leuven and at Paris under Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. He became librarian of the Sorbonne and tutor to the nephews of Jacques d'Amboise, bishop of Clermont and abbot of Cluny. He is best known as a distinguished antagonist of Martin Luther, against whom he wrote extensively.
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