The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#4701
Leopold Ackermann
1771 - 1831 (60 years)
Leopold Ackermann , known by his cloistral name as Petrus Fourerius, was a professor of exegesis. He entered on 10 October 1790 in the choral order of Klosterneuburg and studied from 1791-1795 in Vienna. In the following, he became priest and professor for oriental languages at the Stiftshof in Vienna, in 1800 also librarian. He earned his doctorate in theology in 1802, and in 1806 a professorship in exegesis, continuing for 25 years.
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Karl Bornhäuser
1868 - 1947 (79 years)
Karl Bornhäuser was a German New Testament theologian. He studied theology at the universities of Halle and Greifswald, where he was a student of Hermann Cremer. He worked as a clergyman in Sinsheim and Karlsruhe , and as a regional pastor in Rastatt . In 1902 he became an associate professor of systematic and practical theology at the University of Greifswald, and from 1907 to 1933, he taught classes as a full professor at the University of Marburg. From 1912 onward, he was a member of the consistory in Kassel.
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John Brande Morris
1812 - 1880 (68 years)
John Brande Morris, known to friends as Jack Morris was an English Anglican theologian, later a Roman Catholic priest. He was a noted academic eccentric, but an important scholar of Syriac. Life He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1834 and 1837 . He was then elected Petrean Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, lecturing on Hebrew and Syriac.
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V. A. Demant
1893 - 1983 (90 years)
Vigo Auguste Demant , known as V. A. Demant, was an English Anglican priest, theologian, and social commentator. He was one of the 14 committee members who served on the Wolfenden Report on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution.
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Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck
1794 - 1880 (86 years)
Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck was a German clergyman and pomologist. From 1812 to 1815 he studied theology at the University of Göttingen, and following graduation, served as a subconrector at Michaelisschule in Lüneburg. Several years later he became a pastor in Bardowick, and afterwards worked as an ecclesiastical superintendent in Sulingen and Nienburg/Weser . In 1853 he relocated to the community of Jeinsen as a superintendent.
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John Mason Neale
1818 - 1866 (48 years)
John Mason Neale was an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter. He worked and wrote on a wide range of holy Christian texts, including obscure medieval hymns, both Western and Eastern. Among his most famous hymns is the 1853 Good King Wenceslas, set on Boxing Day. An Anglo-Catholic, Neale's works have found positive reception in high-church Anglicanism and Western Rite Orthodoxy.
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John Dick
1764 - 1833 (69 years)
John Dick was a Scottish minister and theological writer. Life He was born on 10 October 1764 at Aberdeen, where his father was minister of the associate congregation of seceders. His mother was Helen Tolmie, daughter of Captain Tolmie of Aberdeen. Educated at the grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen, he studied for the ministry of the Secession church, under John Brown of Haddington.
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Valentin Alberti
1635 - 1697 (62 years)
Valentin Alberti was a Lutheran, orthodox philosopher and theologian from Silesia and was the son of a preacher. He is known for defending Lutheran orthodoxy against the natural law views of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius, and being an active polemicist against Roman Catholicism.
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Juan Luis Maneiro
1744 - 1802 (58 years)
Juan Luis Maneiro was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar, biographer, theologian, and poet. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish provinces , he went to Italy, where he wrote Latin biographies of illustrious Mexican Jesuits.
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Willem Kremer
1896 - 1985 (89 years)
Willem Kremer was a Dutch pastor of the Christian Reformed Churches and a professor of practical theology at the Theological University of Apeldoorn. Life and work Willem Kremer was born in Zwolle. His father, Gerrit Kremer, worked as a gardener and inspired him to pursue gardening. After the completion of his studies, he worked in greenhouses in Wassenaar, where he contracted the Spanish flu. During his illness, he discovered a passion for religion. In 1926, he completed his studies of theology in Apeldoorn and became a Christian Reformed minister in Kornhorn. In Kornhorn he was confirmed by his mentor professor Jacob Jan van der Schuit.
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Johann Matthäus Meyfart
1590 - 1642 (52 years)
Johann Matthäus Meyfart, also Johann Matthaeus Meyfahrt, Mayfart was a German Lutheran theologist, educator, academic teacher, hymn writer and minister. He was an opponent fighter of witch trials. Career Meyfart was born in Jena, the son of a minister, and studied at the University of Jena from 1608, first the liberal arts graduating in 1603, then theology, continued at the University of Wittenberg from 1614. He taught from 1617 at the Gymnasium in Coburg, serving as its Rektor from 1623.
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Edward Cardwell
1787 - 1861 (74 years)
Edward Cardwell was an English theologian also noted for his contributions to the study of English church history. In addition to his scholarly work, he filled various administrative positions in the University of Oxford.
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Francis Lambert
1486 - 1530 (44 years)
Francis Lambert was a Protestant reformer, the son of a papal official at Avignon, where he was born between 1485 and 1487. At the age of 15 he entered the Franciscan monastery at Avignon, and after 1517 he was an itinerant preacher, travelling through France, Italy and Switzerland. Lambert's study of the Scriptures shook his faith in Roman Catholic theology, and by 1522 he had abandoned his order, and became known to the leaders of the Reformation in Switzerland and Germany. He did not, however, identify himself either with Zwinglianism or Lutheranism; he debated with Huldrych Zwingli at Zür...
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Jacobus Latomus
1475 - 1544 (69 years)
Jacobus Latomus was a Catholic Flemish theologian, a distinguished member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leuven. Latomus was a theological adviser to the Inquisition, and his exchange with William Tyndale is particularly noted. The general focus of his academic work centered on opposing Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, supporting the papacy and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Etymology: Latinized Latomus = Masson from Greek lā-tómos 'stone-cutter, quarryman', thus 'mason'.
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Hans von Campenhausen
1903 - 1989 (86 years)
Hans Erich Freiherr von Campenhausen was a German Baltic Protestant theologian. He is one of the most important Protestant ecclesiastical historians of the 20th century. Life and work Hans von Campenhausen came from the landowning nobility. Born in Rosenbeck, Livonia, Campenhausen's family escaped to Germany during the Russian Revolution. He graduated from high school in Heidelberg in 1922, and went on to study theology and history at the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg where he was particularly influenced by the theologians Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Freiherr von Soden and Martin Dibelius....
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Niels Hemmingsen
1513 - 1600 (87 years)
Niels Hemmingsen was a Danish Lutheran theologian. He was pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost, Copenhagen and professor at the University of Copenhagen. The street Niels Hemmingsens Gade in Copenhagen is named in his honor.
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Feliks Suk
1845 - 1915 (70 years)
Feliks Suk was Croatian university professor and rector of the University of Zagreb. It was Zagreb archbishop and cardinal Juraj Haulik who enabled young Suk a study of theology in Innsbruck. He was ordained for a priest in 1868. He received his Ph.D. in 1870. He conducted various jobs in the Zagreb Archdiocese, before he became a professor of moral theology at the newly established Royal University of Franz Joseph I. He served as a dean of the Faculty of Theology in two mandates. In the academic year 1882/1883 he served as a rector of the University of Zagreb, and the following academic year...
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Hugh Broughton
1549 - 1612 (63 years)
Hugh Broughton was an English scholar and theologian. Early life He was born at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. He called himself a Cambrian, implying Welsh blood in his veins. He was educated by Bernard Gilpin at Houghton-le-Spring and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1570. The foundation of his Hebrew learning was laid, in his first year at Cambridge, by his attendance on the lectures of the French scholar Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier.
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Otto Flügel
1842 - 1914 (72 years)
Otto Flügel was a German philosopher and theologian. Biography He studied at Schulpforta and Halle, and took up pastoral work. He was made editor of the Zeitschrift für exacte Philosophie im Sinne des Neueren Philosophischen Realismus , and in 1894 was one of the founders of Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Pädagogik. He was a supporter of Herbartian realism, as opposed to New-Kantian speculations, yet he believed in the necessity of a revelation.
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Gustavus Waffelaert
1847 - 1931 (84 years)
Gustave Joseph Waffelaert was the 22nd bishop of Bruges in Belgium. Life Waffelaert was born in Rollegem on 27 August 1847. After attending St Vincent's college, Ypres, and the Minor Seminary, Roeselare he entered the Major Seminary, Bruges. He was ordained to the priesthood in Bruges on 17 December 1870, and from 1871 to 1875 served as an assistant priest in the parish of Blankenberge.
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Johann Bollig
1821 - 1895 (74 years)
Johann Bollig was a German advisor of Pope Pius IX in the lead up to the First Vatican Council. Bollig was born near Düren, Rhenish Prussia, and died in Rome, Italy. Prior to his time as a Pontifical Theologian he served as a theology professor in Syria.
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Georg Kükenthal
1864 - 1955 (91 years)
Georg Kükenthal was a German pastor and botanist who specialized in the field of caricology. He was the brother of zoologist Willy Kükenthal . From 1882 to 1885 he studied theology at the universities of Tübingen and Halle. He worked as a pastor in Grub am Forst, and later in Coburg. In 1913 he received an honorary degree from the University of Breslau.
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Thierry of Chartres
1100 - 1155 (55 years)
Thierry of Chartres or Theodoric the Breton was a twelfth-century philosopher working at Chartres and Paris, France. The cathedral school at Chartres promoted scholarship before the first university was founded in France. Thierry was a major figure in twelfth-century philosophy and learning, and, like many twelfth-century scholars, is notable for his embrace of Plato's Timaeus and his application of philosophy to theological issues. Some modern scholars believed Thierry to have been a brother of Bernard of Chartres who had founded the school of Chartres, but later research has shown that th...
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William Allen
1532 - 1594 (62 years)
William Allen , also known as Guilielmus Alanus or Gulielmus Alanus, was an English Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was an ordained priest, but was never a bishop. His main role was setting up colleges to train English missionary priests with the mission of returning secretly to England to keep Roman Catholicism alive there. Allen assisted in the planning of the Spanish Armada's attempted invasion of England in 1588. It failed badly, but if it had succeeded he would probably have been made Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. The Douai-Rheims Bible, a complete translation into English from Latin, was printed under Allen's orders.
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Nathanael Emmons
1745 - 1840 (95 years)
Nathanael Emmons, sometimes spelled Nathaniel Emmons, was an American Congregational minister and influential theologian of the New Divinity school. He was born at East Haddam, Connecticut. Emmons graduated at Yale in 1767, studied theology under the Rev. John Smalley at Berlin, Connecticut, and was licensed to preach in 1769. After preaching four years in New York and New Hampshire, he became, in April 1773, pastor of the Second church at Franklin , of which he remained in charge until May 1827, when failing health compelled his relinquishment of active ministerial cares. He lived, however,...
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Anne Zernike
1887 - 1972 (85 years)
Anne Zernike was a Dutch, liberal theologian, who was the first ordained woman minister of the Netherlands. Though she began her career with the Mennonites, which was the only congregation that allowed female ministers at the time, the majority of her career was spent in the Dutch Protestant Association .
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William Milligan
1821 - 1893 (72 years)
William Milligan was a renowned Scottish theologian. He studied at the University of Halle in Germany, and eventually became a professor at the University of Aberdeen. He is best known for his commentary on the Revelation of St. John. He also wrote two other well-known books that are classics: The Resurrection of our Lord and The Ascension of our Lord.
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Walter Jekyll
1849 - 1929 (80 years)
Walter Jekyll , was an English clergyman who renounced his religion and became a planter in Jamaica, where he collected and published songs and stories from the local African-Caribbean community. Early life Jekyll lived in his youth with his family at 2 Grafton Street, Mayfair, London, the seventh of the seven children of Captain Edward Joseph Hill Jekyll, an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and his wife Julia Hammersley. His sister was the gardener Gertrude Jekyll. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Jekyll was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who borrowed the family ...
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Filippo Bernardini
1884 - 1954 (70 years)
Filippo Bernardini was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He spent almost his entire career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and was given the rank of archbishop in 1933. He was Apostolic Delegate to Australia for two years before taking up the position of Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland where he served from 1935 to 1953. During World War II, he was active in the Catholic resistance to Nazism and provided assistance to Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. He served briefly as Secretary of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith just before his death. Before entering the dipl...
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Joachim Beckmann
1901 - 1987 (86 years)
Joachim Beckmann was a German evangelical theologian. He served between 1958 and 1971 as "Präses" of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. Life Joachim Wilhelm Beckmann was born into a conservative traditionalist family in Eickel, a small town in the heart of the rapidly industrialising Ruhr conurbation, within which Eickel is positioned between Essen and Dortmund. His father, Julius August Wilhelm Beckmann, was a protestant pastor. Sources are largely silent about his childhood, but in 1920, when he passed his Abitur he was a pupil at the Gymnasium at nearby Wattenscheid. Earl...
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Walter of Châtillon
1135 - 1201 (66 years)
Walter of Châtillon was a 12th-century French writer and theologian who wrote in the Latin language. He studied under Stephen of Beauvais and at the University of Paris. It was probably during his student years that he wrote a number of Latin poems in the Goliardic manner that found their way into the Carmina Burana collection. During his lifetime, however, he was more esteemed for a long Latin epic on the life of Alexander the Great, the Alexandreis, sive Gesta Alexandri Magni, a hexameter epic, full of anachronisms; he depicts the Crucifixion of Jesus as having already taken place during the days of Alexander the Great.
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Bruno Doehring
1879 - 1961 (82 years)
Bruno Doehring was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. A preacher at the Berlin Cathedral from 1914 to 1960, Doehring was a popular figure in the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union in Berlin. He was a strict conservative and was active in the Weimar Republic as a politician.
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John of Jandun
1285 - 1328 (43 years)
John of Jandun or John of Jaudun was a French philosopher, theologian, and political writer. Jandun is best known for his outspoken defense of Aristotelianism and his influence in the early Latin Averroist movement.
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Joseph Seiss
1823 - 1904 (81 years)
Joseph Augustus Seiss was an American theologian and Lutheran minister. He was known for his religious writings on pyramidology and dispensationalism. Life Seiss was born in Graceham, Frederick County, Maryland, to an agricultural family; his interest in religious studies reportedly began in childhood. Seiss was confirmed at age 15 as a member of the Moravian Church, and determined to pursue the ministry. Beginning in 1839, Seiss enrolled at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for a year or two of studies, but completed his theological courses by private study. He was licensed to preach in 1842 by the synod of Virginia, and ordained to a Lutheran ministry in 1844.
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Jovan Rajić
1726 - 1801 (75 years)
Jovan Rajić was a Serbian writer, historian, theologian, and pedagogue, considered one of the greatest Serbian academics of the 18th century. He was one of the most notable representatives of Serbian Baroque literature along with Zaharije Orfelin, Pavle Julinac, Vasilije III Petrović-Njegoš, Simeon Končarević, Simeon Piščević, and others .
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Antonio Escobar y Mendoza
1589 - 1669 (80 years)
Antonio Escobar y Mendoza was the leading ethicist of his time. Biography Born at Valladolid in Castile, he was educated by Jesuits before entering this order, aged fifteen. He soon became a famous preacher, and his facility was so great that for fifty years he preached daily, and sometimes twice a day. Above all he was a prodigious writer: his collected works comprise eighty-three volumes. Escobar's first literary efforts were Latin verses in praise of Ignatius Loyola and Mary , but his principal works focus on exegesis and moral theology. Of the latter the best-known are Summula casuum conscientiae , Liber theologiae moralis and Universae theologiae moralis problemata .
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Paul Fagius
1504 - 1549 (45 years)
Paul Fagius was a Renaissance scholar of Biblical Hebrew and Protestant reformer. Life Fagius was born at Rheinzabern in 1504. His father was a teacher and council clerk. In 1515 he went to study at the University of Heidelberg and in 1518 was present at the Heidelberg Disputation. In 1522 he moved to the University of Strasbourg, where he learned Hebrew and met Matthäus Zell, Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito.
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Rodrigo de Arriaga
1592 - 1667 (75 years)
Rodrigo de Arriaga was a Spanish philosopher, theologian and Jesuit. He is known as one of the foremost Spanish Jesuits of his day and as a leading representative of post-Suárezian baroque Jesuit nominalism. Accordig to Richard Popkin, Arriaga was “the last of the great Spanish Scholastics”.
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Denis Bérardier
1735 - 1794 (59 years)
Denis Bérardier was a French priest and theologian. He was born at Quimper, in Brittany 26 March 1735 and died at Paris 1 May 1794. He was one of the deputies from the Paris clergy to the Estates-General of 1789.
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Thomas Sanchez
1550 - 1610 (60 years)
Tomás Sánchez was a 16th-century Spanish Jesuit and famous casuist. Life In 1567 he entered the Society of Jesus. He was at first refused admittance on account of an impediment in his speech; however, after imploring delivery from this impediment before a picture of Mary at Córdoba, Spain, his application was granted. For a time he was the Master of Novices at Granada. The remainder of his life was devoted to the composition of his works. He died of pneumonia.
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Jakob Christoph Rudolf Eckermann
1754 - 1837 (83 years)
Jakob Christoph Rudolf Eckermann was a German academic theologian and author who served for 55 years at Kiel University. Background Eckermann was born on 6 September 1754 at Wedendorf, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. In 1782 he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Kiel, and Danish Church councillor. He died on 6 May 1836. He is the author of Erklarung aller dunklen Stellen des N.T. : Joel metrisch ubersetzt mit einer neuen Erklarung : Compend. theol. theor. bibl. histor. ; a German edition of the same work, Handb. fur das systemat. Studium der Glaubenslehre, in which he declares ...
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Gustav Frank
1832 - 1904 (72 years)
Gustav Wilhelm Frank was a German-Austrian Protestant theologian, known as the author of a multi-volume work on the history of Protestant theology. He studied theology at the University of Jena, where his influences included Karl von Hase. In 1859 he obtained his habilitation, and in 1864 became an associate professor at Jena. In 1867 he was appointed a full professor of systematic theology at the University of Vienna. In 1867 he also became a member of the Austrian Protestant Church Council.
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Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen
1599 - 1658 (59 years)
Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen was an Austrian nobleman and Socinian theologian. Wolzogen was born in Nové Zámky , known then as Neuhäusel in German and Érsekújvár in Hungarian. He inherited the titles of Baron of Tarenfeldt and Freiherr of Neuhäusel.
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Simon Grynaeus
1493 - 1541 (48 years)
Simon Grynaeus was a German scholar and theologian of the Protestant Reformation. Biography Grynaeus was the son of Jacob Gryner, a Swabian peasant, and was born at Veringendorf, in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. He adopted the name "Grynaeus" from the epithet of Apollo in Virgil. He was a schoolmate of Melanchthon at Pforzheim, whence he went to the University of Vienna, distinguishing himself there as a Latinist and Hellenist.
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Bernard Jungmann
1833 - 1895 (62 years)
Bernard Jungmann was a German Catholic dogmatic theologian and ecclesiastical historian. Biography He was born at Münster in Westphalia on 1 March 1833; died at Leuven , 12 January 1895. He belonged to an intensely Catholic family of Westphalia; like him, two of his brothers entered the Catholic clergy, one joining the Society of Jesus and the other becoming a missionary in the United States. After finishing his studies with brilliant success at the public schools of his native town, he entered the German College at Rome through the mediation of the bishop's secretary, afterwards Cardinal Melchers, and made his philosophical and theological studies in the Gregorian College.
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Honorius Augustodunensis
1080 - 1154 (74 years)
Honorius Augustodunensis , commonly known as Honorius of Autun, was a very popular 12th-century Christian theologian who wrote prolifically on many subjects. He wrote in a non-scholastic manner, with a lively style, and his works were approachable for the lay community in general. He was, therefore, something of a popularizer of clerical learning.
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Theodor Kolde
1850 - 1913 (63 years)
Theodor Kolde was a German Protestant theologian, born at Friedland in Silesia. Biography He studied at the universities in Breslau and Leipzig. In 1876 he commenced lecturing on theology at the University of Marburg, where he became professor extraordinarius in 1879. In 1881 he was appointed professor of church history at the University of Erlangen.
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Joseph Schwane
1824 - 1892 (68 years)
Joseph Schwane was a German Catholic theologian. Life After receiving his early education at Dorsten and Recklinghause, he studied philosophy and theology at Münster , and upon his ordination to the priesthood, 29 May 1847, continued his studies for two years at the University of Bonn and University of Tübingen. He then became director of Count von Galen's institute at Münster, was privat-docent in church history, moral theology, and history of dogmatics at the University of Münster , and assistant professor-in-ordinary of moral theology, history of dogmatics, and symbolism. At the same time ...
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Johannes Terserus
1605 - 1678 (73 years)
Johannes Elai Terserus was a Swedish prelate and theologian who served as the Bishop of Turku from 1658 to 1664 and then Bishop of Linköping between 1671 and 1678. Early life Johannes Elai Terserus was born in Leksand where his father, , was a vicar. His mother was Anna Danielsdotter Svinhufvud. At the age of four, Terserus lost his mother, and his father married Margareta Bure, the so-called Stormor i Dalom. When he was twelve years old, he also lost his father, but was cared for by his stepmother and her later husband, Uno Troilius.
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Beatus of Liébana
730 - 798 (68 years)
Beatus of Liébana was a monk, theologian, and author of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, an influential compendium of previous authorities' views on the Apocalypse. He also led the opposition against a Spanish variant of Adoptionism, the heretical belief that Christ was the son of God by adoption, an idea first propounded in Spain by Elipandus, the bishop of Toledo.
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