#3901
N. F. S. Grundtvig
1783 - 1872 (89 years)
Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig , most often referred to as N. F. S. Grundtvig, was a Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician. He was one of the most influential people in Danish history, as his philosophy gave rise to a new form of nationalism in the last half of the 19th century. It was steeped in the national literature and supported by deep spirituality.
Go to Profile#3902
Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann
1810 - 1877 (67 years)
Johannes Christian Konrad von Hofmann was a Lutheran professor of systematic and historical theology. Biography He was born on 21 December 1810 at Nuremberg, and studied theology and history at the University of Erlangen. In 1829 he went to Berlin, where he heard lectures by Schleiermacher, Hegel, Hengstenberg, Neander, and Ranke. The latter almost persuaded Hofmann to focus entirely upon secular history rather than Christian theology. Other figures who had an influence on his faith and thinking included Christian Krafft, a Reformed pastor and associate professor of theology at Erlangen, and...
Go to Profile#3903
Peter Waldo
1140 - 1217 (77 years)
Peter Waldo was the leader of the Waldensians, a Christian spiritual movement of the Middle Ages. The tradition that his first name was "Peter" can only be traced back to the fourteenth century. This has caused some historians, such as Jana Schulman, to see it as likely a later invention. He is considered a Proto-Protestant.
Go to Profile#3904
Pope Damasus I
305 - 384 (79 years)
Pope Damasus I , known as Damasus of Rome, was the bishop of Rome from October 366 to his death. He presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of sacred scripture. He spoke out against major heresies , thus solidifying the faith of the Catholic Church, and encouraged production of the Vulgate Bible with his support for Jerome. He helped reconcile the relations between the Church of Rome and the Church of Antioch, and encouraged the veneration of martyrs.
Go to Profile#3905
John L. Dagg
1794 - 1884 (90 years)
John Leadley Dagg , born in Loudoun County, Virginia was an American Baptist theologian. Biography Dagg had a limited education, was near-blind, and physically disabled. He converted to Christianity at age 15 and served briefly in the War of 1812. Dagg was baptized in 1812 then studied medicine for three years. He was ordained as a minister in November 1817 and eventually served as the past of the Fifth Baptist Church in Philadelphia for nine years. He then moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and served as the president of the Alabama Female Athenaeum for eight years. Dagg left Tuscaloosa in January 1844 to become president of Mercer University.
Go to Profile#3906
Richard Rothe
1799 - 1867 (68 years)
Richard Rothe was a German Lutheran theologian. Biography Richard Rothe was born at Posen, then part of Prussia. He studied theology in the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin under Karl Daub, Schleiermacher and Neander, the philosophers and historians G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Creuzer and F. C. Schlosser exercising a considerable influence in shaping his thought. From 1820 to 1822 he was in the clerical seminary at Wittenberg. In the autumn of 1823 he was appointed chaplain to the Kingdom of Prussia embassy in Rome, of which Baron Bunsen was the head. This post he exchanged in 1828 for a ...
Go to Profile#3907
Robert Leiber
1887 - 1967 (80 years)
Robert Leiber, S.J. was a close advisor to Pope Pius XII, a Jesuit priest from Germany, and Professor for Church History at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1930 to 1960. Leiber was, according to Pius's biographer Susan Zuccotti, "throughout his entire papacy his private secretary and closest advisor".
Go to Profile#3908
Henri Bouillard
1908 - 1981 (73 years)
Henri Bouillard was a French Jesuit theologian. Life Bouillard was born in Charlieu, in the Loire. In 1941, he received his doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University under Charles Boyer, SJ. That same year, he joined the theology faculty at Fourvière, near Lyon, alongside Henri de Lubac. His doctorate was published in 1944 as Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d'Aquin. The book so emphasized the human role in conversion that it seemed to many neo-Thomists to call into question God's assistance in the process. In its placing of Thomas Aquinas' thought squarely within the history of...
Go to Profile#3909
Peter Canisius
1521 - 1597 (76 years)
Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit priest. He became known for his strong support for the Catholic faith during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and the British Isles. The restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany after the Protestant Reformation is largely attributed to the work there of the Society of Jesus, which he led. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church.
Go to Profile#3910
Christoph Ernst Luthardt
1823 - 1902 (79 years)
Christoph Ernst Luthardt , was a conservative German Lutheran theologian, Biblical commentator and Christian apologist. He was born in Maroldsweisach, Bavaria. Biography From 1841 to 1845 he studied theology at Erlangen and Berlin, and in 1854 became an associate professor of dogmatic theology and exegesis at the University of Marburg. In 1856 he became professor ordinarius of systematic theology and New Testament exegesis at Leipzig. On five separate occasions he was dean of the Leipzig theology faculty. In 1865 he was made a counsellor to the State Consistory of the Lutheran Church of Saxony, in 1871 canon of Meissen Cathedral, and in 1887 a privy councillor to the church.
Go to Profile#3911
Franz Rosenzweig
1886 - 1929 (43 years)
Franz Rosenzweig was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator. Early life and education Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His father owned a factory for dyestuff and was a city council member. Through his granduncle, Adam Rosenzweig, he came in contact with traditional Judaism and was inspired to request Hebrew lessons when he was around 11 years old. Yet he did not learn of Sabbat eve until after he was in college. He started to study medicine for five semesters in Göttingen, Munich, and Freiburg. In 1907 he changed subje...
Go to Profile#3912
Gisbertus Voetius
1589 - 1676 (87 years)
Gisbertus Voetius was a Dutch Calvinist theologian. Life He was born at Heusden, in the Dutch Republic, studied at Leiden, and in 1611 became Protestant pastor of Vlijmen, whence in 1617 he returned to Heusden. In 1619, he played an influential part in the Synod of Dort, at which he was the youngest delegate. In 1634, Voetius was made professor of theology and Oriental science at the University of Utrecht. Three years later he became pastor of the Utrecht congregation. He was an advocate of a strong form of Calvinism against the Arminians. The city of Utrecht perpetuated his memory by givin...
Go to Profile#3913
Alois Hudal
1885 - 1963 (78 years)
Alois Karl Hudal was an Austrian bishop of the Catholic Church, based in Rome. For thirty years, he was the head of the Austrian-German congregation of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome and, until 1937, an influential representative of the Catholic Church in Austria.
Go to Profile#3914
Alexander of Hales
1175 - 1245 (70 years)
Alexander of Hales , also called Doctor Irrefragibilis and Theologorum Monarcha, was a Franciscan friar, theologian and philosopher important in the development of scholasticism. Life Alexander was born at Hales, Shropshire , England, between 1180 and 1186. He came from a rather wealthy country family. He studied at the University of Paris and became a master of arts sometime before 1210. He began to read theology in 1212 or 1213, and became a regent master in 1220 or 1221. He introduced the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the basic textbook for the study of theology. During the University stri...
Go to Profile#3915
Karl Daub
1765 - 1836 (71 years)
Karl Daub was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born at Kassel. He studied philosophy, philology and theology at Marburg in 1786, and eventually became professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Heidelberg, where he remained until his death. He became rector of the university in 1816 and 1824. He was married in 1801 to Sophie Wilhelmine Charlotte Blum.
Go to Profile#3916
Clemens August Graf von Galen
1878 - 1946 (68 years)
Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen , better known as Clemens August Graf von Galen, was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church. During World War II, Galen led Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia and denounced Gestapo lawlessness and the persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. He was appointed a cardinal by Pope Pius XII in 1946, shortly before his death, and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Go to Profile#3917
August Friedrich Christian Vilmar
1800 - 1868 (68 years)
August Friedrich Christian Vilmar, German Neo-Lutheran theologian; born at Solz November 21, 1800; died at Marburg July 30, 1868. Early career In 1818-20 he studied theology at Marburg, only to learn doubt from rationalism, and from doubt to pass to unbelief. In December, 1823, he was appointed rector of the municipal school at Rotenburg, where he remained until 1827, when he went to Hersfeld as fourth teacher and collaborator at the gymnasium, being promoted third teacher in 1829. During these years he renounced rationalism, and for a year or two professed the opinion that the world is the feeling of God.
Go to Profile#3918
E. W. Bullinger
1837 - 1913 (76 years)
Ethelbert William Bullinger was an Anglican clergyman, biblical scholar, and ultradispensationalist theologian. Early life He was born in Canterbury, Kent, England, the youngest of five children of William and Mary Bullinger. His family traced their ancestry back to Heinrich Bullinger, the Swiss Reformer.
Go to Profile#3919
August Gottlieb Spangenberg
1704 - 1792 (88 years)
August Gottlieb Spangenberg was a German theologian and minister, and a bishop of the Moravian Church. As successor of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, he helped develop international missions and stabilized the theology and organization of the German Moravian Church.
Go to Profile#3920
Péter Pázmány
1570 - 1637 (67 years)
Péter Pázmány de Panasz, S.J. , was a Hungarian Jesuit who was a noted philosopher, theologian, cardinal, pulpit orator and statesman. He was an important figure in the Counter-Reformation in Royal Hungary.
Go to Profile#3921
C. F. W. Walther
1811 - 1887 (76 years)
Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was a German-American Lutheran minister. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and its most influential theologian. He is commemorated by that church on its Calendar of Saints on May 7. He has been described as a man who gave up his homeland for the freedom to speak freely, to believe freely, and to live freely, by emigrating from Germany to the United States.
Go to Profile#3922
Johann Augustus Eberhard
1739 - 1809 (70 years)
Johann Augustus Eberhard was a German theologian and "popular philosopher". Life and career Eberhard was born at Halberstadt in the Principality of Halberstadt, where his father was a school teacher and the singing master at the church of St. Martin's. He studied theology at the University of Halle, and became tutor to the eldest son of Baron von der Horst, to whose family he was attached for several years. In 1763 he was appointed co-rector of the school of St. Martin's, and second preacher in the hospital church of the Holy Ghost, but he soon resigned these offices and followed his patron to Berlin.
Go to Profile#3923
Mustafa Sabri
1869 - 1954 (85 years)
Mustafa Sabri Effendi was the second last Shaykh al-Islām of the Ottoman Empire. He is known for his opinions condemning the Turkish nationalist movement under Kemal Atatürk. Due to his resistance to Atatürk, he lived half of his life in exile in various countries, and died in Egypt.
Go to Profile#3924
Wasil ibn Ata
700 - 748 (48 years)
Wāṣil ibn ʿAtāʾ was an important Muslim theologian and jurist of his time, and by many accounts is considered to be the founder of the Muʿtazilite school of Kalam. Born around the year 700 in the Arabian Peninsula, he initially studied under Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, the grandson of Ali. Later he would travel to Basra in Iraq to study under Hasan of Basra . In Basra he began to develop the ideologies that would lead to the Muʿtazilite school. These stemmed from conflicts that many scholars had in resolving theology and politics. His main contribution to the Muʿtazilite sch...
Go to Profile#3925
Arnobius
255 - 327 (72 years)
Arnobius was an early Christian apologist of Berber origin during the reign of Diocletian . According to Jerome's Chronicle, Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Veneria , a major Christian center in Proconsular Africa, and owed his conversion to a premonitory dream. However, Arnobius writes dismissively of dreams in his surviving book.
Go to Profile#3926
Francis Landey Patton
1843 - 1932 (89 years)
Francis Landey Patton was a Bermudan-American educator, Presbyterian minister, academic administrator, and theologian, and served as the twelfth president of Princeton University. Background, 1843–1871 Patton was born in Warwick Parish, Bermuda, to a family of Scottish descent. He attended Warwick Academy. As a child, the family relocated to Canada. Patton received collegiate education at the University of Toronto, followed by a theological education at Knox College, Toronto. He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1865; was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in June 1865; was ...
Go to Profile#3927
Johannes Pinsk
1891 - 1957 (66 years)
Johannes Pinsk was a German Catholic theologian and professor. Pinsk studied theology in Breslau and was ordained priest 13th Juni 1915. In 1923 he got his doctorate in theology. In 1928 he moved to Berlin, where he was busy in the area of pastoral care and spiritual guidance of academics. From 1939 to 1954 he led the parish Mater Dolorosa in Berlin-Lankwitz. After that he became professor at the Free University of Berlin. He wrote hundreds of articles, and several dozen books.
Go to Profile#3928
Karl Immanuel Nitzsch
1787 - 1868 (81 years)
Karl Immanuel Nitzsch was a German Lutheran church leader. He was the father of theologian Friedrich August Nitzsch. Biography He was born in the small Saxon town of Borna near Leipzig. His father, Karl Ludwig Nitzsch, at that time pastor and superintendent in Borna, later became professor at Wittenberg and director of the seminary for preachers. He was sent to study at Schulpforta in 1803, going on to the University of Wittenberg in 1806. In 1809 he graduated, and in 1810 he became a privatdozent at the university. Having become a deacon at the Schlosskirche in 1811, he showed remarkable energy and zeal during the bombardment and siege of the city in 1813.
Go to Profile#3929
Friedrich von Bodelschwingh
1877 - 1946 (69 years)
Friedrich "Fritz" von Bodelschwingh , also known as Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Younger, was a German pastor, theologian and public health advocate. His father was Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Elder , founder of the v. Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten Bethel charitable foundations.
Go to Profile#3930
Emil Schürer
1844 - 1910 (66 years)
Emil Schürer was a German Protestant theologian known mainly for his study of the history of the Jews around the time of Jesus' ministry. Biography Schürer was born in Augsburg. After studying at the universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg from 1862 to 1866, he became in 1873 professor extraordinarius at Leipzig. Later on, he served as professor ordinarius at the universities of Giessen , Kiel and Göttingen . In 1876 he founded and edited the Literaturzeitung, which he edited with Adolf von Harnack from 1881 to 1910. He died after a long illness in 1910 in Göttingen.
Go to Profile#3931
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn
1752 - 1827 (75 years)
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn was a German Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment and an early orientalist. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History. Education and early career Born at Dörrenzimmern , in the Principality of Hohenlohe-Oehringen, Eichhorn was educated at the state school in Weikersheim, where his father was superintendent, at the gymnasium at Heilbronn and at the University of Göttingen , studying under Johann David Michaelis. In 1774 he received the rectorship of the gymnasium at Ohrdruf, in the duchy of Saxe-Gotha.
Go to Profile#3932
Jean-Joseph Gaume
1802 - 1879 (77 years)
Jean-Joseph Gaume was a French Roman Catholic theologian and author. Life Gaume was born at Fuans, Franche-Comté. While attached to the Diocese of Nevers, he was successively professor of theology, director of the petit séminaire, canon, and vicar-general of the diocese, and had already published several works, when he left for Rome in 1841.
Go to Profile#3933
Young Oon Kim
1914 - 1989 (75 years)
Young Oon Kim was a leading theologian of the Unification Church and its first missionary to the United States. Career Kim was a professor of religion at Ewha University in Seoul, South Korea. After she joined the Unification Church, church founder Sun Myung Moon sent her to the United States as a missionary in January 1959. In the 1960s, while a missionary in Oregon and California, she worked to promote Unification Church theology to mainstream Christian churches. She was also the first person to translate the Divine Principle, the basic textbook of Unification Church teaching, from Korean to English.
Go to Profile#3934
Austin Farrer
1904 - 1968 (64 years)
Austin Marsden Farrer was an English Anglican philosopher, theologian, and biblical scholar. His activity in philosophy, theology, and spirituality led many to consider him one of the greatest figures of 20th-century Anglicanism. He served as Warden of Keble College, Oxford, from 1960 to 1968.
Go to Profile#3935
Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer
1766 - 1848 (82 years)
Friedrich Philipp Immanuel Niethammer , later Ritter von Niethammer, was a German theologian, philosopher and Lutheran educational reformer. Biography He received instruction at the Maulbronn monastery, and in 1784 became a student at Tübinger Stift, where he met Friedrich Hölderlin , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling . In 1790 he moved to Jena, where he studied Kantian philosophy under Karl Leonhard Reinhold . Subsequently, he became an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Jena, where he remained until 1804. In 1806, he was Protestant Ober...
Go to Profile#3936
Friedrich Heiler
1892 - 1967 (75 years)
Friedrich Heiler was a German theologian and historian of religion. Heiler came from a Roman Catholic family. 1918 he became Privatdozent in University of Munich, from where he 1920 moved to theological faculty of the University of Marburg, where he became professor 1922.
Go to Profile#3937
Giovanni Perrone
1794 - 1876 (82 years)
Giovanni Perrone was an Italian Jesuit and renowned theologian. Life Perrone was born in Chieri, Piedmont. After studying theology and obtaining a doctorate at Turin, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome at age 21, on 14 December 1815. The Society had been re-established by Pope Pius VII only a year before, and Perrone was very soon appointed to teach theology at Orvieto. In 1824 he became professor of dogmatic theology at the Roman College, where he taught the future Pope Leo XIII.
Go to Profile#3938
Horace Bushnell
1802 - 1876 (74 years)
Horace Bushnell was an American Congregational minister and theologian. Life Bushnell was born in the village of Bantam, township of Litchfield, Connecticut. He attended Yale College where he roomed with future magazinist Nathaniel Parker Willis. Willis credited Bushnell with teaching him the proper technique for sharpening a razor. After graduating in 1827, he was literary editor of the New York Journal of Commerce from 1828–1829, and in 1829 became a tutor at Yale. Here he initially studied law, but in 1831 he entered the theology department of Yale College. In May, 1833 Bushnell was ordained pastor of the North Congregational church in Hartford, Connecticut.
Go to Profile#3939
Thomas Helwys
1550 - 1616 (66 years)
Thomas Helwys , an English minister, was one of the joint founders, with John Smyth, of the General Baptist denomination. In the early seventeenth century, Helwys was principal formulator of demand that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Helwys was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant Dissenters under King James I.
Go to Profile#3940
Eugène Ménégoz
1838 - 1921 (83 years)
Eugène Ménégoz was a French Lutheran theologian who was a native of Algolsheim, Haut-Rhin. He studied theology in Strasbourg, and in 1866 became pastor at the parish of Billettes in Paris. In 1877 he was appointed full professor to the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris. With Louis Auguste Sabatier , he was originator of the French "Symbolo-Fideism" movement, a theological concept that was a union of symbolism and fideism. In his lectures and writings Ménégoz stressed that salvation was achieved through the act of faith independent of creed. A few of his more important publications were...
Go to Profile#3941
George Salmon
1819 - 1904 (85 years)
George Salmon FBA FRS FRSE was a distinguished and influential Irish mathematician and Anglican theologian. After working in algebraic geometry for two decades, Salmon devoted the last forty years of his life to theology. His entire career was spent at Trinity College Dublin.
Go to Profile#3942
William Carey
1761 - 1834 (73 years)
William Carey was an English Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree-awarding university in India.
Go to Profile#3943
Simon Episcopius
1583 - 1643 (60 years)
Simon Episcopius was a Dutch theologian and Remonstrant who played a significant role at the Synod of Dort in 1618. His name is the Latinized form of his Dutch name Simon Bisschop. Life Born in Amsterdam, in 1600 he entered the University of Leiden, where he studied theology under Jacobus Arminius, whose teaching he followed, and Franciscus Gomarus. He graduated M.A. in 1606, but his appointment as a minister was questioned from the Calvinist side. He went to the University of Franeker, where he heard Johannes Drusius. In 1610, the year in which the Arminians presented the Remonstrance to the...
Go to Profile#3944
Joseph Franz von Allioli
1793 - 1873 (80 years)
Joseph Franz von Allioli , was a Roman Catholic theologian and orientalist. Allioli studied theology at Landshut and was ordained at Ratisbon in 1816. From 1818 to 1820, he studied Oriental languages at Vienna, Rome, and Paris.
Go to Profile#3945
Günther Bornkamm
1905 - 1990 (85 years)
Günther Bornkamm was a German New Testament scholar belonging to the school of Rudolf Bultmann and a Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg. Under Adolf Hitler, he opposed the nazification of the Protestant churches and their unification into the movement of the 'German Christians'. His post-war fame as a scholar rested on his effort to separate fiction from facts in his reconstruction of Jesus' life and in his subsequent treatment of the gospel of Matthew. His brother was the ecclesiastical historian and Luther scholar .
Go to Profile#3946
Johann Albrecht Bengel
1687 - 1752 (65 years)
Johann Albrecht Bengel , also known as Bengelius, was a Lutheran pietist clergyman and Greek-language scholar known for his edition of the Greek New Testament and his commentaries on it. Life and career Bengel was born at Winnenden in Württemberg. Due to the death of his father in 1693, he was educated by a family friend, David Wendel Spindler, who became a master in the gymnasium at Stuttgart. In 1703 Bengel left Stuttgart and entered the University of Tübingen as a student at the Tübinger Stift, where, in his spare time, he devoted himself especially to the works of Aristotle and Spinoza, and, in theology, to those of Philipp Spener, Johann Arndt and August Francke.
Go to Profile#3947
Maisie Ward
1889 - 1975 (86 years)
Mary Josephine "Maisie" Ward Sheed , who published under the name Maisie Ward, was a writer, speaker, and publisher. Maisie's brother Leo Ward was co-founder of the publishing house Sheed and Ward; Maisie took his place when Leo left to become a priest.
Go to Profile#3948
Louis de Montfort
1673 - 1716 (43 years)
Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, TOSD was a French Catholic priest known for his preaching and his influence on Mariology. He was made a missionary apostolic by Pope Clement XI. Montfort wrote a number of books which went on to become classic Catholic titles and influenced several popes. His most notable works regarding Marian devotions are contained in Secret of the Rosary and True Devotion to Mary.
Go to Profile#3949
Gottfried Thomasius
1802 - 1875 (73 years)
Gottfried Thomasius was a German Lutheran theologian. He was born in Egenhausen and he died in Erlangen. He studied philosophy and theology in Erlangen, Halle and Berlin, and as a student had renowned instructors that included Friedrich Schleiermacher, August Neander, G. W. F. Hegel, Philip Marheineke and Friedrich Tholuck. In 1829 he began serving as a pastor in Nuremberg, and in 1842 was appointed professor of dogmatics at the University of Erlangen. Thomasius was an important representative of the "Erlangen School" within the German Neo-Lutheranism movement and a major influence on, for instance, the church historian Albert Hauck.
Go to Profile#3950
John Owen
1616 - 1683 (67 years)
John Owen was an English Nonconformist church leader, theologian, and academic administrator at the University of Oxford. He was briefly a member of parliament for the University's constituency, sitting in the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654 to 1655.
Go to Profile