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,
#3951
Hector Gottfried Masius
1653 - 1709 (56 years)
Hector Gottfried Masius was a German Lutheran theologian serving as vice-chancellor of the University of Copenhagen from 1691 to 1692 and, again, from 1700 to 1701. He acquired wealth through marriages and owned a number of estates. His children were ennobled in 1712 with the surname von der Maase.
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Johannes Matthiae Gothus
1592 - 1670 (78 years)
Johannes Matthiae Gothus was a Swedish Lutheran Bishop of Strängnäs and a professor of Uppsala University, the rector of the Collegium illustrious, Collegium Illustre in Stockholm and the most eminent teacher in Sweden during the seventeenth century. He was Bishop of Strängnäs from 1643 to 1664.
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Theodore Abu Qurrah
750 - 820 (70 years)
Theodore Abū Qurrah was a 9th-century Melkite bishop and theologian who lived in the early Islamic period. Biography Theodore was born around 750 in the city of Edessa , in northern Mesopotamia , and was the Chalcedonian Bishop of the nearby city of Harran until some point during the archbishopric of Theodoret of Antioch . Michael the Syrian, who disapproved of Theodore, later claimed that the archbishop had deposed Theodore for heresy, although this is unlikely. Between 813 and 817 he debated with the Monophysites of Armenia at the court of Ashot Msakeri.
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Richard Watson
1737 - 1816 (79 years)
Richard Watson was an Anglican bishop and academic, who served as the Bishop of Llandaff from 1782 to 1816. He wrote some notable political pamphlets. In theology, he belonged to an influential group of followers of Edmund Law that included also John Hey and William Paley.
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Johannes Aesticampianus
1457 - 1520 (63 years)
Johannes Rhagius Aesticampianus was a German theologian and humanist. Life Johannes Rak was born in 1457 in Sommerfeld . His father, Matthias Rak, died young, and Johannes' grandfather Martin Rak, a mayor of Sommerfeld, saw to his education. Johannes matriculated at the University of Kraków on 19 May 1491, when he studied natural history and astronomy. In Kraków, he came under the influence of Conrad Celtes.
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Johann Heinrich Alting
1583 - 1644 (61 years)
Johann Heinrich Alting , German divine, was born at Emden, where his father, Menso Alting , was minister. Heinrich studied with great success at the University of Groningen and the Herborn Academy. In 1608 he was appointed tutor of Frederick, afterwards elector-palatine, at Heidelberg, and in 1612 accompanied him to England. Returning in 1613 to Heidelberg, after the marriage of the elector with Princess Elizabeth of England, he was appointed professor of dogmatics, and in 1616 director of the theological department in the Collegium Sapientiae.
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François Annat
1590 - 1670 (80 years)
François Annat was a French Jesuit, theologian, writer, and one of the foremost opponents of Jansenism. He was born in Rodes, and entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus on 16 February 1607. He was professor of philosophy for six years, and theology for seven, in the college of his order in Toulouse, of which he was subsequently appointed rector. Later he filled the same office at Montpellier. He was assistant to the General in Rome, and Provincial of Paris. In 1654 he was sent to the court as confessor of Louis XIV, and, after the faithful discharge of the duties of his office, he fel...
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Niels Aagaard
1612 - 1657 (45 years)
Niels Lauritsen Aagaard , was probably the brother of the poet Christen Aagaard, was professor at Sorø Academy, in Denmark, where he also occupied the office of librarian. He died in 1657, at the age of forty-five, and left behind him several philosophical and critical works, written in Latin, among which are, A Treatise on Subterraneous Fires; Dissertations on Tacitus; Observations on Ammianus Marcellinus; and a Vindication of the Style of the New Testament.
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Martin Becanus
1563 - 1624 (61 years)
Martinus Becanus was a Dutch-born Jesuit priest, known as a theologian and controversialist. Life He was born Maarten Schellekens in Hilvarenbeek in North Brabant; Schellekens is a patronymic and he adopted a Latinized form of the surname Van Beek. He entered the Society of Jesus on 22 March 1583, and taught Theology for twenty-two years at Würzburg, Mainz, and Vienna.
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Rudolf Ehlers
1834 - 1908 (74 years)
Rudolf Ehlers was a German theologian and clergyman born in Hamburg. He received his education at the Universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen. At Heidelberg, he was a student of Richard Rothe . After completion of studies he served as a pastor in Stolberg, and in 1864 relocated to the Protestant Reformed Church at Frankfurt am Main. In 1868 he was appointed Konsistorialrat.
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Marcus Olaus Bockman
1849 - 1942 (93 years)
Marcus Olaus Bockman was a Norwegian-American Lutheran theologian. Background Marcus Olaus Bockman was born Marcus Olaus Bøckmann at Langesund in Bamble municipality, Telemark county, Norway. He was educated at Egersund High School, Aars and Voss Latin School, and the University of Christiania . After graduating as a Candidatus theologiæ, he was ordained as a priest of the Church of Norway.
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Sahdona
Sahdona of Halmon also known as Sahdona of Mahoze and Sahdona the Syrian, Hellenised as Martyrius, was a 7th-century East Syriac monk, theologian and Bishop who later defected to the West Syriac Church.
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Jacques de Vitry
1170 - 1240 (70 years)
Jacques de Vitry was a French canon regular who was a noted theologian and chronicler of his era. He was elected bishop of Acre in 1214 and made cardinal in 1229. His Historia Orientalis is an important source for the historiography of the Crusades.
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Caspar Cruciger the Younger
1525 - 1597 (72 years)
Caspar Cruciger the Younger was a German theologian and Protestant reformer. Born in Wittenberg, he was the son of Caspar Cruciger the Elder and his wife, the hymnwriter and former nun Elisabeth von Meseritz. He was Melanchthon's successor at the University of Wittenberg. In the discussions after 1570 he was one of the leaders of the Philippists, and was engulfed in their catastrophe in 1574. He was imprisoned and was banished from Saxony in 1576.
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Justus Baronius Calvinus
1570 - 1606 (36 years)
Justus Baronius Calvinus was a German theologian, a Catholic convert and apologist. Life He was born of Calvinist parents and educated at Heidelberg, where he took a course in theology. His study of the Church Fathers inclined him towards Catholicism and finally led him to Rome. There he was kindly received by Cardinal Bellarmine, Cardinal Baronius, and Pope Clement VIII. His gratitude to Baronius caused him to add that cardinal's name to his own.
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Antonius Andreas
1280 - 1320 (40 years)
Antonius Andreas was a Spanish Franciscan theologian, a pupil of Duns Scotus. He was teaching at the University of Lleida in 1315. He was nicknamed Doctor Dulcifluus, or Doctor Scotellus . His Quaestiones super XII libros Metaphysicae Aristotelis was printed in 1481.
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Lazar Baranovych
1616 - 1693 (77 years)
Lazar Baranovych or Baranovich was a Ruthenian Eastern Orthodox archbishop of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and then of the Tsardom of Russia. Early life Ecclesiastical, political, and literary figure, professor and rector of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
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Polykarp Leyser II
1586 - 1633 (47 years)
Polykarp Leyser II was a German Lutheran theologian and superintendent in Leipzig. He was professor of theology since 1613. Life Provenance His father Polykarp Leyser the Elder, was a theologian. His mother was Elisabeth, daughter of the painter Lucas Cranach the Younger.
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Jan Seklucjan
1498 - 1578 (80 years)
Jan Seklucjan was a Polish Lutheran theologian, an activist in the Protestant Reformation in Poland and Ducal Prussia , translator, writer, publisher and printer. Biography Little is known about his early life. According to his name he perhaps was born or came from the village of Siekluki in the Duchy of Masovia, near Radom. Originally Seklucjan was a Dominican. After studying at Leipzig he moved in around 1543 to Poznań, where he served as a Lutheran preacher. Threatened by the local bishop with a charge of heresy, in 1544 he found refuge at Königsberg in Ducal Prussia, at the time a fief of the Kingdom of Poland.
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Charles Augustus Aiken
1827 - 1892 (65 years)
Charles Augustus Aiken was an American clergyman and academic. Biography He was born in Manchester, Vermont, on October 30, 1827, to John Aiken and Harriet Adams Aiken. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1846, at the age of nineteen, and went on to Andover Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1853. He married Sarah Noyes on October 17, 1854, and was ordained a pastor of the Congregational church in Yarmouth, Maine, that same year.
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Martin Eisengrein
1535 - 1578 (43 years)
Martin Eisengrein was a German Catholic theologian, university professor and polemical writer. Biography He was born of Lutheran parents, Martin and Anna Kienzer Eisengrein, at Stuttgart. He studied the humanities at the Latin school of Stuttgart, and the liberal arts and philosophy at the University of Tübingen. To please his father, who was burgomaster of Stuttgart, Eisengrein matriculated as student of jurisprudence at the University of Ingolstadt, 25 May 1553, but before a year had passed he was at the University of Vienna, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in May, 1554.
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Alonso Tostado
1400 - 1455 (55 years)
Alonso Tostado was a Spanish theologian, councillor of John II of Castile and briefly bishop of Ávila. His epitaph stated "Wonder of earth, all men can know he scanned." A leading scholar of his generation, he is particularly known as an early theorist on witchcraft; in his De maleficis mulieribus, quae vulgariter dicuntur bruxas he defended the possibility of flying witches based on biblical exegesis.
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Philip Aranda
1642 - 1695 (53 years)
Philip Aranda was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Biography Aranda was born at Moneva in Aragon. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1658, and taught theology and philosophy at Zaragoza. He was connected with the Inquisition of Aragon and was synodal examiner of the Archdiocese of Zaragoza.
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Johann Hermann Janssens
1783 - 1853 (70 years)
Johann Hermann Janssens was a Belgian Roman Catholic theologian. Life After completing his theological studies in Rome he was appointed professor in the College of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1809. From 1816 he was professor of Scripture and dogmatic theology in the ecclesiastical seminary of Liège.
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Johann Heß
1490 - 1547 (57 years)
Johann Heß was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant Reformer of Breslau . Heß was born in Nuremberg. He attended the universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, where he was taught in jurisprudence and liberal arts. In Wittenberg he became a follower of Martin Luther, and stayed in touch with the Protestant Reformation when he relocated to Neisse in 1513 as the secretary of Johannes V. Thurzo, bishop of Breslau. In 1518 Heß moved to Bologna to study theology, completing his studies there in 1519. On the way back to Silesia he stopped in Wittenberg and became a friend of Philipp Melanchthon.
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Johann Jakob Kneucker
1840 - 1909 (69 years)
Johann Jakob Kneucker was a German theologian born in the village of Wenkheim, today part of Werbach, Baden-Württemberg. In 1873 he received his habilitation at the University of Heidelberg, where in 1877 he became an associate professor to the theological faculty. He specialized in the fields of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages.
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Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri
913 - 992 (79 years)
Abu al-Hassan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Amiri was a Muslim theologian and philosopher who attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion, and Sufism with conventional Islam. While al-'Amiri believed the revealed truths of Islam were superior to the logical conclusions of philosophy, he argued that the two did not contradict each other. Al-'Amiri consistently sought to find areas of agreement and synthesis between disparate Islamic sects. However, he believed Islam to be morally superior to other religions, specifically Zoroastrianism and Manicheism.
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Thomas Vicars
1589 - 1638 (49 years)
Thomas Vicars was a 17th-century English theologian and rhetorician. He was born in Carlisle in Cumberland , the son of William and Eve Vicars. He entered Queen's College, Oxford in 1607 as a poor serving child. He then became a tabarder, chaplain and fellow within nine years. In 1622, he was admitted to the reading of the sentences. Recognised as a learned theologian, he entered the household of George Carleton, the Bishop of Chichester, whose step-daughter, Anne, the daughter of the sometime Ambassador to France, Henry Neville of Billingbear House in Berkshire, he married. Carleton made him...
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David Cassel
1818 - 1893 (75 years)
David Cassel was a German historian and Jewish theologian. Life Cassel was born in Gross-Glogau, a city in Prussian Silesia with a large Jewish community. He graduated from its gymnasium. His brother was Selig Cassel.
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Kaspar Megander
1495 - 1545 (50 years)
Kaspar Megander was a Swiss reformer in Zürich and Bern who supported Huldrych Zwingli and was influential in the early years of the Swiss Reformation. Life Megander was born in Zürich, Switzerland in 1484, and studied in Basel from 1515 to 1518, before moving back to Zürich to take up a hospital chaplaincy. He supported Zwingli in his reforms of marriage in the priesthood, marrying his housekeeper in 1524. He was also collaborated with Zwingli in the creation of the Prophezey and the Zürich Bible. In 1528, he was one of the representatives of Zürich at the Bern Disputation, where he gave the sermon "On Steadfastness" at the end of the disputation.
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Heinrich Wangnereck
1595 - 1664 (69 years)
Heinrich Wangnereck was a Catholic theologian, preacher, author. He was born in Munich. The extant sketches of his life give no uniform information respecting the dates of events; it is, however, unanimously stated that when sixteen years old he entered the novitiate of the upper German province of the Society of Jesus, at Landsberg, took the usual course of instruction, and in addition was for a time teacher of the lowest class at the gymnasium.
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John Mainwaring
1724 - 1807 (83 years)
John Mainwaring was an English theologian and the first biographer of the composer Georg Friedrich Händel in any language. He was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and parish priest, and later a professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
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Theophil Großgebauer
1627 - 1661 (34 years)
Theophil Großgebauer was a German Lutheran theologian active at the University of Rostock, most notable for his work Wächterstimme aus dem verwüsteten Zion. Sources http://www.theologie.uni-rostock.de/index.php?id=3551
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Antonino Diana
1585 - 1663 (78 years)
Antonino Diana was a Catholic moral theologian. Biography Diana was born of a noble family at Palermo, Sicily. A famous casuist, he was a consultor of the Holy Office of the Kingdom of Sicily and an examiner of bishops under Urban VIII, Innocent X, and Alexander VII.
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Juan Bautista de Lezana
1586 - 1659 (73 years)
Juan Bautista de Lezana was a Spanish Carmelite theologian. Lezana was an authority on canon law, dogmatic theology, and philosophy; his historical works are not of the same standard. Life Lezana was born at Madrid. He took the habit at Alberca, in Old Castile, on 18 October 1600, and made his profession at the house of the Carmelites of the Old Observance, at Madrid, in 1602. He studied philosophy at Toledo, theology at Salamanca, partly at the college of the order, partly at the university under Juan Marquez, and finally at Alcalá under Luis de Montesion.
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Benjamin Francis Hayes
1830 - 1906 (76 years)
Benjamin Francis Hayes was a Free Will Baptist pastor, author, principal of the Lapham Institute, and early professor at Bates College in Maine. Benjamin Hayes was born in New Gloucester, Maine in 1830 to Mary Hayes and Rev. Jesse Hayes, a Baptist minister. Benjamin Hayes graduated from Bowdoin College in 1855 and received an M.A. from Bowdoin in 1858. He then taught at the Free Will Baptist Theological Seminary at the New Hampton Institute before becoming a pastor in Olneyville, Rhode Island in 1859 and serving until 1863 when he became principal of the Lapham Institute in Scituate, Rhode Island serving until 1865, when he became a professor at Bates College.
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Anthim the Iberian
1650 - 1716 (66 years)
Anthim the Iberian was a Georgian theologian, scholar, calligrapher, philosopher and one of the greatest ecclesiastic figures of Wallachia, led the printing press of the prince of Wallachia, and was Metropolitan of Bucharest in 1708–1715.
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Georg Seyler
1800 - 1866 (66 years)
Georg August Wilhelm Seyler was a German theologian and priest, and the adoptive father of Felix Hoppe-Seyler, the principal founder of biochemistry and molecular biology. Biography Georg Seyler was a son of the court pharmacist Abel Seyler the Younger and Caroline Klügel, and was a grandson of the famous theatre principal Abel Seyler and of the mathematician and physicist Georg Simon Klügel. He belonged to the originally Swiss Seyler family from Liestal and Basel. He was a nephew of the prominent Hamburg banker Ludwig Erdwin Seyler and of the Sturm und Drang poet Johann Anton Leisewitz.
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Achille Gagliardi
1537 - 1607 (70 years)
Achille Gagliardi was a Jesuit ascetic writer and spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition. Life Gagliardi was born at Padua, Italy. After a brilliant career at the University of Padua he entered the Society of Jesus in 1559 with two brothers younger than himself. He taught philosophy at the Roman College, theology at Padua and Milan, and successfully directed several houses of his order in Northern Italy. He displayed indefatigable zeal in preaching, giving retreats and directing congregations, and was held in great esteem as a theologian and spiritual guide by the Archbishop of Milan, ...
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Melchior Teschner
1584 - 1635 (51 years)
Melchior Teschner was a German cantor, composer and theologian. Born in Wschowa in Poland, Teschner attended the Gymnasium in Zittau, Saxony, and studied under Johann Klee. In 1602 he began studies in music theory, philosophy and theology with Bartholomäus Gesius at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder
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Dumitru Cornilescu
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Dumitru Cornilescu was a Romanian archdeacon who produced a popular translation of the Bible into Romanian, published in 1921. Although referred to as "Father Cornilescu", he was never ordained as a Romanian Orthodox priest. After his conversion, he served as a Protestant minister. Cornilescu's translation is the most popular version of the Bible among Romanian Protestants.
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Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil
1571 - 1626 (55 years)
Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil, O.F.M. , was an Irish Franciscan theologian and Archbishop of Armagh. He was known by Irish speakers at Leuven by the honorary name Aodh Mac Aingil , and it was under this title that he published the Irish work Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAthridhe.
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Peter of Poitiers
1130 - 1205 (75 years)
Peter of Poitiers was a French scholastic theologian, born in Poitiers around 1125-1130. He died in Paris on September 3, 1205. Life After his studies in Paris, he began teaching in the Faculty of Theology in 1167. Two years later he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of scholastic theology at the cathedral school of Notre Dame.
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Isaac J. Lansing
1846 - 1920 (74 years)
Isaac J. Lansing was the president of Clark Atlanta University from 1874 to 1876, and the pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts from 1893 to 1897. Isaac Lansing was born in 1846 in Watervliet, New York. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1872 as valedictorian and was a graduate student there from 1872 to 1873. He received a master's degree from the university in 1875. He served as a Methodist Episcopal minister in the New York East, Georgia, and Savannah Conferences from 1873 to 1886. During this period, Lansing was appointed President of Clark Atlanta University in 1874 and served until 1876.
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Albert Frick
1714 - 1776 (62 years)
Albert Frick was a German theologian. He was born at Ulm on 18 September 1714 and died on 30 May 1776. He studied at Leipsic, and was appointed assessor to the faculty of theology. In 1743 he became a minister at Jungingen, but, returning to Ulm in 1744, filled the post of librarian and professor of morals. In 1751 he went to Munster as a preacher; and in 1768 was named head librarian. Among his writings are Historia traditionum ex monumentis Ecclesiae Christianae : — De Natura et Constitutione Theologie Catecheticae . — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 18:871.
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Joseph R. N. Maxwell
1899 - 1971 (72 years)
Joseph Raymond Nonnatus Maxwell, SJ was an American Catholic priest, academic, poet, and college administrator. A Jesuit since 1919, he served as President of the College of the Holy Cross from 1939 to 1945, and President of Boston College from 1951 to 1958.
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Joseph Baylee
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Joseph Tyrrell Baylee, D.D. , was a theological writer. Baylee received his education at Trinity College Dublin . To the residents of Liverpool and Birkenhead his name became for a quarter of a century a household word, on account of his activity as the founder and first principal of St. Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, where he prepared many students for the work of the ministry. This institution, which may be said to have been founded in 1846, originated in a private theological class conducted by Dr. Baylee, under the sanction of the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Sumner, afterwards advance...
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Luther Tracy Townsend
1838 - 1922 (84 years)
Reverend Luther Tracy Townsend was a professor at Boston University and an author of theological and historical works. Biography He was born on September 27, 1838, in Orono, Maine, to Luther K. Townsend and Mary True Call. His father died on November 16, 1839, and his mother took the family to New Hampshire. He started work at the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1850. He infrequently attended the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, now known as the Tilton School. He graduated from Dartmouth College with an A.B. in 1859. He then attended Andover Theological Seminary and graduated in 1862.
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Alphons Bellesheim
1839 - 1912 (73 years)
Christian Peter "Alphons" Maria Joseph Bellesheim was a church historian. He also reviewed and collected books. Family Alphons was the son of Heinrich "Wilhelm" Ludwig Joseph Bellesheim and Maria Anna "Margaretha" Dumesnil . His parents were married on 27 June 1838 in Monschau, Germany. Alphons' paternal grandparents were Carl Anton Bellesheim and Maria Josepha Helena Hennekes. His maternal grandparents were Carl Dumesnil and Christina Windhagen.
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Justus Gesenius
1601 - 1673 (72 years)
Justus Gesenius was a Lutheran theologian of the seventeenth century, known for his catechisms. His father was preacher at Esbeck. Having received his early education at the Adreanum in Hildesheim, he went in his eighteenth year to the University of Helmstedt, where he studied under Georg Calixtus and Conrad Horneius. In 1628 he took his degree of master of philosophy in Jena and was called as pastor to the church of St. Magnus in Brunswick. After seven years of beneficent activity there, he received a call to Hildesheim, the seat of George, duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, as court chaplain and preacher in the Collegiate of St.
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