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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#4001

Cyrus David Foss

Cyrus David Foss

1834 - 1910 (76 years)

Cyrus David Foss was a prominent Methodist bishop in the latter 19th century, primarily serving in New York City and New England. Biography Foss was born in Kingston, New York, on January 17, 1834. He attended Wesleyan University, graduating in 1854. He began his career teaching, and then entered the ministry. Foss was "pastor of the most prominent Methodist churches in this city [New York] and Brooklyn."

#4002

Thumama ibn Ashras

Thumama ibn Ashras , also known as Abu Maʿn al-Numayri was a Mu'tazila theologian during the era of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate. Life Thumama ibn Ashras was of Arab descent. He served under an influential family during the Abbasid era, the Barmakids, and was arrested when they fell from favour in 802 CE. His reputation was sufficiently restored by around the year 807 CE that Harun al-Ras̲h̲d had him join his expedition to Khorasan.

#4003

Francis Patrick McFarland

1819 - 1874 (55 years)

Francis Patrick McFarland was an American Catholic bishop who served as the third Bishop of Hartford. Biography His parents, John McFarland and Mary McKeever, emigrated from Armagh, and took up farming near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Francis was employed as teacher in the village school, but soon entered Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he graduated with high honours and was retained as teacher. The following year, 1845, he was ordained, 18 May, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York by Archbishop Hughes, who immediately detailed the young priest to a professor's chair at St.

#4004

Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nasafi

Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bazdawi al-Nasafi was an early 10th-century Isma'ili missionary and theologian. In he succeeded in converting the Samanid emir, Nasr II, to Isma'ilism, and ushered in a period of Isma'ili dominance at the Samanid court that lasted until Nasr's death. In the subsequent persecution of the Isma'ilis, launched by Nuh I, al-Nasafi himself fell victim. As a theologian, he is generally credited with being among those who introduced Neoplatonic concepts into Isma'ili theology. His doctrines dominated indigenous Isma'ilism in the Iranian lands in the 9th–10th centu...

#4005

Thomas Wilton

1270 - 1320 (50 years)

Thomas Wilton was an English theologian and scholastic philosopher, a pupil of Duns Scotus, a teacher at the University of Oxford and then the University of Paris, where he taught Walter Burley. He was a Fellow of Merton College from about 1288.

#4006

John Douglas

1721 - 1807 (86 years)

John Douglas was a Scottish scholar and Anglican bishop. Douglas was born at Pittenweem, Fife, the son of a shopkeeper, and was educated at Dunbar, East Lothian, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained his M.A. degree in 1743.

#4007

Joannes Aurifaber

1519 - 1575 (56 years)

Joannes Aurifaber , born Johann Goldschmidt in Weimar, Germany, was a Lutheran churchman, theologian, and a Protestant reformer. Owing to a similarly-named contemporary, he is sometimes distinguished by the cognomen Vimariensis or Vinariensis .

#4008

Giovanni Mincio da Morrovalle

1250 - 1312 (62 years)

Giovanni Mincio may also refer to antipope Benedict XGiovanni Minio or Mincio, of Morrovalle or Murrovale was an Italian Franciscan who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, cardinal-bishop of Porto , Protector of the Order of Friars Minors and dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals .

#4009

Pieter Datheen

1531 - 1588 (57 years)

Pieter Datheen, Latin Petrus Dathenus, English, Peter Datheen, was a Dutch Calvinist theologian, the 16th century reformer of The Netherlands, who accomplished many things for the advancement the Reformed Church liturgy and ecclesiastical polity.

#4010

Richard Parsons

1882 - 1948 (66 years)

Richard Godfrey Parsons was an Anglican bishop who served in three dioceses during the first half of the 20th century, and a renowned liberal scholar. Parsonshe was born into a Lancashire family on 12 November 1882 and educated at Durham School and Magdalen College, Oxford. Ordained priest in 1907 he was a curate at Hampstead before four years as Chaplain at University College, Oxford. and Principal of Wells Theological College from 1911-16. He served for one year as a Temporary Chaplain to the Forces. Married with two children, he expressed a preference to remain 'at home' and he was posted to '2 General Hospital, London'.

#4011

John Howe

1630 - 1705 (75 years)

John Howe was an English Puritan theologian. He served briefly as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Life Howe was born at Loughborough. At the age of five he went to Ireland with his father, who had been ejected from his living by William Laud, but returned to England in 1641 and settled with his father in Lancaster. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and at Magdalen College, Oxford , where for a time he was fellow and college chaplain. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, from whom he probably received the Platonic tinge that marks his writings. About 1654 he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Great Torrington, Devon.

#4012

Henry Hayes Vowles

1843 - 1905 (62 years)

Henry Hayes Vowles was an English author, theologian and a Wesleyan Minister. He also published religious poetry. Parents He was the son of Henry Vowles of Bath and Mary Yeoman Harding of "The Chancellor" Wanstrow, Somerset. The parents of Henry Vowles were James Vowles of 2 Quiet Street Bath, and Martha Edney . James Vowles was the son of William Vowles of Walcot and Hannah Hancock. William Vowles was the son of James Vowles and Martha Jane married at Bath Abbey on 6 August 1728.

#4013

Richard Middleton

1300 - 1300 (0 years)

Richard Middleton was an English ecclesiastic and Lord Chancellor of England. Middleton was appointed Lord Chancellor on 29 July 1269. He was out of office before his death, but his successor Walter de Merton is first mentioned in the office on 29 November 1272.

#4014

Gerald Fitzgerald

1894 - 1969 (75 years)

Gerald Michael Cushing Fitzgerald, s.P. was an American Catholic priest known for founding the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, which operates centers for priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexual misconduct.

#4015

Thomas Knaggs

1660 - 1709 (49 years)

Thomas Knaggs was a preacher and publisher of sermons. He was born about 1661 somewhere in County Durham, England, and nothing is known of his early life. He was educated at Durham School, and admitted as a sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1 June 1676. He matriculated in 1677, earned his BA in 1679 and MA in 1683. He had been ordained as a deacon of York in 1681 and was Vicar of Merrington in County Durham from 1682 to 1720. He was afternoon lecturer at All Saints, Newcastle from 1687 to 1697.

#4016

Rupertus Meldenius

Rupertus Meldenius

1582 - 1651 (69 years)

Rupertus Meldenius, aka Peter Meiderlin and Peter Meuderlinus was a Lutheran theologian and educator. The son of a Swabian priest, studied in Adelberg and after school visited the lower Konvikts in Maulbronn at the Tübinger Stift, where he met Johann Valentin Andreae. Meiderlin was a student of Mathias Haffenreffer and 1601 obtained a master's degree. In 1605, he was at the Repentant convent in Tübingen, 1607, he assumed the Chair of the deceased philologist Martin Crusius. After a post as senior deacon in Kirchheim unter Teck, 1612, he was "Ephorus" of the Evangelical College of St. Anna in Augsburg.

#4017

Johannes Magirus the elder

1537 - 1614 (77 years)

Johannes Magirus was a German Lutheran Theologian. Name change His name at birth, like that of his father, was Johannes Koch. The English language equivalent would be "John Cook". At some point he renamed himself "Johannes Magirus", reflecting an enthusiasm for classical culture that was common among many intellectuals of his time and place. Magirus is the Greek word for "cook."

#4018

Abul Hasan Hankari

1018 - 1093 (75 years)

Abul Hasan Hankari Abu Al Hasan Ali Bin Mohammad Qureshi Hashmi Hankari Harithi , town of Mosul , died 1st Moharram 486 AH , in Baghdad, was a Muslim mystic also renowned as one of the most influential Muslim scholar, philosopher, theologian and jurist of his time and Sufi based in Hankar.

#4019

Claudianus Mamertus

420 - 470 (50 years)

Claudianus Ecdidius Mamertus was a Gallo-Roman theologian and the younger brother of Saint Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne. Biography Descended probably from one of the leading families of the country, Claudianus Mamertus relinquished his worldly goods and embraced the monastic life. He assisted his brother in the discharge of his functions, and Sidonius Apollinaris describes him as directing the psalm-singing of the chanters, who were formed into groups and chanted alternate verses, whilst the bishop was at the altar celebrating the sacred mysteries. This passage is of importance in the history of liturgical chant.

#4020

John Harding

1501 - 1610 (109 years)

John Harding was an English churchman and academic. He was Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford from 1591 to 1598, and President of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1607. He was also involved in the translation of the Authorized King James Version, becoming leader of the First Oxford Company of translators after the death of John Rainolds.

#4021

Simon Browne

1680 - 1732 (52 years)

Simon Browne was a dissenting minister and theologian. He was born in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England, in 1680. Early life Browne was preaching by the age of 20, and first became a minister at an independent church in Portsmouth before moving, in 1716, to preach at the Old Jewry meeting-house in London.

#4022

Sidi Boushaki

1394 - 1453 (59 years)

Sidi Boushaki or Ibrahim Ibn Faïd Ez-Zaouaoui was a maliki theologian born near the town of Thenia, east of Algiers. He was raised in a very spiritual environment with high Islamic values and ethics within the Algerian Islamic reference.

#4023

Gerhoh of Reichersberg

1092 - 1169 (77 years)

Gerhoh of Reichersberg was one of the most distinguished theologians of Germany in the twelfth century. He was provost of Reichersberg Abbey and a Canon Regular. He studied at Freising, Moosburg, and Hildesheim. In 1119, Bishop Hermann of Augsburg called him as "scholasticus" to the cathedral school of that city; shortly afterwards, though still a deacon, he made him a canon of the cathedral. Gradually Gerhoh adopted a stricter ecclesiastical attitude, and eventually withdrew from the simoniacal Bishop Hermann, and took refuge in the monastery of Raitenbuch in the Diocese of Freising. After ...

#4024

Charles Daubuz

1673 - 1717 (44 years)

Charles Daubuz or Charles Daubus , was a Church of England clergyman and theologian. Daubuz was a French Protestant divine, who became vicar of Brotherton. In his youth, he removed to England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes . He was the author of a few theological works, most notably of A Perpetual Commentary on the Revelation of St. John , which is much esteemed. He died on 14 June 1717.

#4025

Al-Muhasibi

781 - 857 (76 years)

Al-Muḥāsibī was a Muslim Arab, theologian, philosopher and ascetic. He is considered to be the founder of the Baghdad School of Islamic philosophy which combined Kalam and Sufism, and a teacher of the Sufi masters Junayd al-Baghdadi and Sirri Saqti.

#4026

Sylvester Kosiv

1607 - 1657 (50 years)

Sylvester Kossów, Kosiv or Kosov was the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Eastern Orthodox Church from 1647 to 1657. He reigned during the Khmelnytsky uprising.

#4027

Facundus of Hermiane

550 - 570 (20 years)

Facundus of Hermiana was a 6th-century Christian author, and bishop of Hermiana in North Africa. About his career little is known. His place in history is due entirely to the opposition which he offered to the condemnation of the "Three Chapters". At the instance of Theodore Ascidas, and with the ostensible purpose of reuniting to the Church the Acephali, a sect of Monophysites, Justinian was induced to censure the "Three Chapters". By this act certain writings of the fifth-century Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa were condemned.

#4028

Sidi M'hamed Bou Qobrine

1720 - 1793 (73 years)

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Gashtuli al-Jurjuri al-Azhari Abu Qabrayn , mostly known as Sidi M'hamed Bou Qobrine was a Berber ash'ari 'alim, founder of the Rahmaniyya Sufi order and is one of the seven Patron Saints of Algiers. The Sidi M'Hamed District in Algiers and the municipality of the same name, Sidi M'Hamed, are both named after him.

#4029

Hugh Ripelin of Strasburg

1210 - 1270 (60 years)

Hugh Ripelin of Strasburg was a Dominican theologian from Strasbourg, Alsace. He is now considered to be the author of the Compendium theologiae or Compendium theologicae veritatis. On account of its scope and style, as well as its practical arrangement, it was for 400 years used as a textbook. It may have been the most widely read theological work of the later Middle Ages, in western Europe. In 1232 a sale of land to Hugo von Ripelin, then the paddock prior of the Dominican Predigerkloster in Zürich, is mentioned.

#4030

Robert of Bridlington

1200 - 1200 (0 years)

Robert of Bridlington was an English clergyman and theologian who was the fourth prior of Bridlington Priory. He held the office during the period from 1147 to 1156, but it is not clear if he died in office or resigned before his death. Besides holding monastic office, he wrote a number of commentaries on biblical books as well as other treatises. Not all of his works have survived to the current day.

#4031

Étienne Dumont

1759 - 1829 (70 years)

Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont , sometimes anglicised as Stephen Dumont, was a Swiss French political writer. He is chiefly remembered as the French editor of the writings of the English philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham.

#4032

Hans Conzelmann

1915 - 1989 (74 years)

Hans Conzelmann was a Protestant, German theologian and New Testament scholar. Life Conzelmann studied at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg and, after World War II , he became the assistant to Helmut Thielicke at the University of Tübingen. He served at the same time as a pastor and, from 1948, as a religion teacher in a secondary school. In 1951 he submitted his dissertation and, in 1952, his Habilitation at Heidelberg University. He then took a position teaching New Testament at Heidelberg and was called, in 1954, to the University of Zurich, where he was made full professor in 1956.

#4033

Erich Haupt

1841 - 1910 (69 years)

Karl Friedrich Erich Haupt was a German Lutheran theologian. Biography He was born at Stralsund, and educated at Berlin. He later worked as a schoolteacher in Kolberg and Treptow an der Rega. He was a professor of New Testament exegesis, successively at Kiel , Greifswald , and Halle , where in 1902 he was named university rector.

#4034

W. O. E. Oesterley

1866 - 1950 (84 years)

Rev. William Oscar Emil Oesterley was a Church of England theologian, and professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at King's College, London, from 1926. His many books span a wide range of topics from Bible commentary and Christian doctrine, Judaism and ancient Israel to more general subjects such as Sacred Dance.

#4035

Elihu Grant

1873 - 1942 (69 years)

Elihu Grant was an American scholar and writer on Palestine. Grant was ordained Methodist minister in 1900, and between 1901 and 1904 he was superintendent of the American Friends Schoolss in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Returning to the US he was a professor of biblical literature at Smith College from 1907 to 1917, and thereafter at Haverford College until his retirement in 1938.

#4036

H. A. Hodges

1905 - 1976 (71 years)

Herbert Arthur Hodges was a British philosopher and theologian. He was Professor of Philosophy at Reading University from 1934 to 1969. He was a member of The Moot, the discussion and study group begun by J. H. Oldham. Its purpose was "to continue, in an informal, confidential but serious way, exploration of the relation between church and society and the realisation of Christian ethics in the public sphere." Other members included T. S. Eliot, with whom Hodges corresponded. Eliot suggested to Karl Mannheim that Hodges was closer to Mannheim than others in the Moot, in at least some areas of ...

#4037

Edward Joseph Young

1907 - 1968 (61 years)

Edward Joseph Young was a Reformed theologian and an Old Testament scholar at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1936 until his death. Biography Young received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1929, a Th.B. and a Th.M. from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1935, and a Ph.D. from Dropsie College in 1943. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church from 1935–36 and then in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church until his death.

#4038

Otto Eissfeldt

1887 - 1973 (86 years)

Otto Eißfeldt, spelled alternatively Otto Eissfeldt, was a German Protestant theologian, known for his work on the Old Testament and comparative near-east religious history. His magisterial 860-page The Old Testament: An Introduction , giving a detailed literary-critical assessment of the history of the formation of each part of the Old Testament on the basis of the documentary hypothesis, has been called the "best of its kind".

#4039

Arnold Ehrhardt

1903 - 1965 (62 years)

Arnold Anton Traugott Ehrhardt was a German jurist and British theologian. Life Arnold was the son of Oscar Ehrhardt, a professor of surgery, and Martha, née Rosenhain, a school teacher from a Jewish family. He went to school in Königsberg and then studied law at Erlangen, Bonn, Berlin and Königsberg. After the First World War he served in the eastern border force and took part in the conflict with the Spartacists. He took his doctoral degree in 1926 in Königsberg and the following year became an assistant to in Göttingen and took his habilitation in civil and Roman law in 1929 in Freiburg. He lectured at the Goethe University of Frankfurt.

#4040

Elmer George Homrighausen

1900 - 1982 (82 years)

Elmer George Homrighausen was an American theologian. Biography Homrighausen was born in Wheatland, Iowa, and earned an A.B. from Lakeland College , a B.Th. from Princeton Theological Seminary, an M.A. from Butler University, and a Th.M. from the University of Dubuque.

#4041

Norman Perrin

1920 - 1976 (56 years)

Norman Perrin was an English-born, American biblical scholar at the University of Chicago. Perrin specialized in the study of the New Testament, and was internationally known for his work on the teaching of Jesus, as well as on the Redaction Criticism of the New Testament.

#4042

Helmut Thielicke

Helmut Thielicke

1908 - 1986 (78 years)

Helmut Thielicke was a German Protestant theologian and rector of the University of Hamburg from 1960 to 1978. Biography Thielicke grew up in Wuppertal, where he went to a humanistic Gymnasium and took his Abitur in 1928. After this he began to study philosophy and theology in Erlangen, but soon had to undergo an operation on his thyroid. Despite the negative outcome of this operation , which were still causing complications 4 years later, he finished his studies and in 1932 he got his doctorate in philosophy with "Das Verhältnis zwischen dem Ethischen und dem Ästethischen" .

#4043

Johannes Quasten

1900 - 1987 (87 years)

Johannes Quasten was a Roman Catholic theologian and scholar of patristics. Life Johannes Quasten was a Roman Catholic theologian and scholar of patristics. He studied Roman Catholic theology at the Westfälische Wilhelms University in Münster. In 1926 he was ordained priest. In 1927 he earned his graduate Degree with F.J. Dölger in Münster with a thesis on "Music and singing in the cults of the ancient pagan and early Christian times". Further studies followed in the years 1927-1929 in Rome at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. At the same time, he served as chaplain at the Campo Santo Teutonico or Teutonic Cemetery.

#4044

Nels F. S. Ferré

1908 - 1971 (63 years)

Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré was a Christian theologian born in Luleå, Sweden on June 8, 1908. Life Nels F.S Ferré, born Nils Ferré, was born in Sweden in 1908 to Maria Wickman Ferré and Frans August Ferré and emigrated to The United States alone at age 13. Upon his arrival on Ellis Island, he was detained and later joined his brother in St. Paul Minnesota where he would work for a family farm. In 1931 he graduated with his undergrad from Boston University. In 1932, Ferré married Katharine Louise Pond. With his interest in philosophy and theology, Ferré would pursue a D.B. degree at Andover Newton, graduating with the class of 1934.

#4045

Charles E. Raven

Charles E. Raven

1885 - 1964 (79 years)

Charles Earle Raven was an English theologian and Anglican priest. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge . His works have been influential in the history of science publishing on the positive effects that theology has had upon modern science.

#4046

J. H. S. Burleigh

1894 - 1985 (91 years)

John Henderson Seaforth Burleigh was a Scottish minister and biblical scholar who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1960. He was Honorary President of the Scottish Church History Society. In authorship he is usually referred to as J. H. S. Burleigh.

#4047

George Eldon Ladd

1911 - 1982 (71 years)

George Eldon Ladd was a Baptist minister and professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, known in Christian eschatology for his promotion of inaugurated eschatology and "futuristic post-tribulationism."

#4048

Douglas Clyde Macintosh

1877 - 1948 (71 years)

Douglas Clyde Macintosh was a Canadian theologian. Biography Macintosh was born in Breadalbane, Ontario, on 18 February 1877 and received his undergraduate degree from McMaster University when it was in Toronto. In 1907 was ordained a Baptist minister and taught at Brandon College in Manitoba. In 1909 Macintosh received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago and joined Yale Divinity School, becoming an assistant professor of systematic theology.

#4049

Hubert Jedin

1900 - 1980 (80 years)

Hubert Jedin was a Catholic Church historian from Germany, whose publications specialized on the history of ecumenical councils in general and the Council of Trent in particular, on which he published a 2400-page history over the years 1951–1975.

#4050

John M. Gillette

1866 - 1949 (83 years)

John Morris Gillette was an American sociologist, specializing in rural sociology, and the 18th president of the American Sociological Association . Biography Before pursuing an academic career, in 1895 Gillette briefly served as a Presbyterian minister in Dodge City, Kansas. He received his MA from Princeton University in 1895 and his Ph.D. from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1899 and then in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1901.

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