noun
definition
One who studies theology.
definition
In Roman Catholic usage, a theological lecturer attached to a cathedral church.
synonyms
Examples of theologian in a Sentence
The publication of his best-known work, True Religion Delineated (1750), won for him a high reputation as a theologian, and the book was several times reprinted both in England and in America.
Julius Kaftan - Balfour's German editor, and a highly influential theologian, occupying a position of modified Ritschlianism - is also a very thoroughgoing empiricist.
No theologian save Augustine has had an equal influence on the theological thought and language of the Western Church, a fact which was strongly emphasized by Leo XIII.
Theologian, tutor, university reformer, a great master of a college, Jowett's best claim to the remembrance of succeeding generations was his greatness as a moral teacher.
Theodoret's chief importance is as a dogmatic theologian, it having fallen to his lot to take part in the Nestorian controversy and to be the most considerable opponent of the views of Cyril and Dioscurus of Alexandria.
Other writers are Aaron (the elder) ben Joseph, 13th century, who wrote the commentary Sepher ha-mibhhar; Aaron (the younger) of Nicomedia (14th century), author of `E Ilayyim, on philosophy, Gan `Eden, on law, and the commentary Kether Torah; in the 15th century Elijah Bashyazi, on law (Addereth Eliyahu), and Caleb Efendipoulo, poet and theologian; in the 16th century Moses Bashyazi, theologian.
Berengar's belief was not shaken by their arguments and exhortations, and hearing that Lanfranc, the most celebrated theologian of that age, strongly approved the doctrine of Paschasius and condemned that of " Scotus " (really Ratramnus), he wrote to him a letter expressing his surprise and urging him to reconsider the question.
It was as a theologian that Dr Emmons was best known, and for half a century probably no clergyman in New England exerted so wide an influence.
The eminent theologian, Jean Daille, being then removed to Paris, advised the church at Saumur to secure Amyraut as his successor, praising him "as above himself."
As a theologian Swedenborg never attempted to preach or to found a sect.
It is perhaps as much from the impulse which Ernesti gave to sacred and profane criticism in Germany, as from the intrinsic excellence of his own works in either department, that he must derive his reputation as a philologist or theologian.
He was more of a theologian than a philosopher; and in his chief work, of Summa universae theologiae, he simply employs his increased philosophical knowledge in the demonstration of theological doctrines.
As authors of special works on philosophy, we find Samuel Koteles, John Imre, Joseph Ruszek, Daniel Ercsei and Paul Sarvari; as a theologian and Hebraist John Somossy; as an historian and philologist Stephen Horvath, who endeavoured to trace the Magyar descent from the earliest historic times; as writers on jurisprudence Alexander Kovy and Paul Szlemenics.
Rather he was a theologian who arrived at his theory of the unity of the Supreme Being by criticism of the contemporary mythology.
Though still comparatively young, Gerhard had already come to be regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany; in the numerous "disputations" of the period he was always protagonist, while on all public and domestic questions touching on religion or morals his advice was widely sought.
Displaying great ability as reformer and theologian, he was chosen subprior of the celebrated monastery.
His contributions to theological literature included treatises on Christian ethics and dogmatics, on moral philosophy, on baptism, and a sketch of the life of Jakob Boehme, who exercised so marked an influence on the mind of the great English theologian of the 18th century, William Law.
In 1843 he was raised to the office of consistorial councillor, and was selected by the university to hold the office of rector, a distinction which has not since been conferred upon any theologian of the Reformed Church.
But though a liberal theologian, he was no dry rationalist.
As a theologian the position of Candlish was perhaps inferior to that which he held as a preacher and ecclesiastic, but it was not inconsiderable.
It was at this juncture that Tertullian, the most famous theologian of the West, left the Church whose cause he had so manfully upheld against pagans and heretics.
The publication of the Allgemeine and General-Reformation der ganzen weiten Welt (Cassel, 1614), and the Fama Fraternitatis (Cassel, 1615) by the theologian Johann Valentin Andrea (1586-1654), caused immense excitement throughout Europe, and they not only led to many re-issues, but were followed by numerous pamphlets, favourable and otherwise, whose authors generally knew little, if anything, of the real aims of the original author, and doubtless in not a few cases amused themselves at the expense of the public. It is probable that the first work was circulated in MS. about 1610, for it is said that a reply was written in 1612 (according to Herder), but if so, there was no mention of the cult before that decade.
From there he went to Constantinople, where he met with the great Eastern scholar and theologian Gregory of Nazianzus, and with his aid tried to perfect himself in Greek.
He is the great Christian scholar of his age, rather than the profound theologian or the wise guide of souls."
When it became known that the accounts of these invasions formed a part of the records preserved in the Assyrian libraries, historian and theologian alike waited with breathless interest for the exact revelations in store; and this time expectation was not disappointed.
A public disputation at Ferrara (1494) with Pico della Mirandola gave him a great reputation as a theologian, and in 1508 he became general of his order.
Though as a theologian Cajetan was a scholastic of the older Thomist type, his general position was that of the moderate reformers of the school to which Reginald Pole, archbishop of Canterbury, also belonged; i.e.
As a theologian his outlook was that of the 16th rather than the 9th century; and, reading his Bampton Lectures now, it is difficult to realize how they can ever have been hailed as a great contribution to Christian apologetics.
Clement, as a scholar and a theologian, proposed to unite the mysticism of NeoPlatonism with the practical spirit of Christianity.
There is a statue in the parks of Dr Isaac Watts, the theologian (1674-1748), a native of the town, in whose memory the Watts Memorial Hall was erected in 1875.
Thomas Aquinas was the first theologian to describe the Church as a divinely organized absolute monarchy, whose head concentrated in his person the entire authority of the Church, and was the source of all the ecclesiastical law (conditor juris), issuing the decrees of general councils in his own name, and claiming the right to revoke or modify the decrees of former councils - indeed, to make exceptions or to set aside altogether anything which did not rest upon the dictates of divine or natural law.
He had earlier opened a correspondence with Augustine, along with his friends Tyro and Hilarius, and although he did not meet him personally his enthusiasm for the great theologian led him to make an abridgment of his commentary on the Psalms, as well as a collection of sentences from his works - probably the first dogmatic compilation of that class in which Peter Lombard's Liber sententiarum is the best-known example.
According to this definition, " dogma " means the opinion of some individual theologian of distinction.
A moderately liberal theologian, he became best known as a New Testament critic and exegete, being the author of the Commentary on the Synoptics (1889; 3rd ed., 1901), the Johannine books (1890; 2nd ed., 1893), and the Acts of the Apostles (1901), in the series Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament.
The only two points on which he departed from the orthodox Lutheran faith of his day were the requirement of regeneration as the sine qua non of the true theologian, and the expectation of the conversion of the Jews and the fall of Papacy as the prelude of the triumph of the church.
The teachings of Symeon " the New Theologian " on these matters lived on in the cloisters; it was taken up by the Hesychasts of the 14th century, and developed into a peculiar theory as to the perception of the Divine Light.
He was the first learned theologian produced by Germany.
His father, the Rev. Aaron Burr (1715-1757), was the second president (1748-1757) of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University; his mother was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the well-known Calvinist theologian.
In 1848, when nearly every throne in Europe was shaken by the spread of revolutionary sentiments, he was elected delegate to the national German assembly at Frankfort, - a sufficient proof that at this time he was regarded as no mere narrow and technical theologian, but as a man of wide and independent views.
His sermons attracted wide attention in that community, and he gained a considerable reputation as a theologian and a controversialist by his publication in 1814 of a volume entitled Defence of Christianity, written in answer to a work, The Grounds of Christianity Examined (1813), by George Bethune English (1787-1828), an adventurer, who, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was in turn a student of law and of theology, an editor of a newspaper, and a soldier of fortune in Egypt.
In the ancient world there was only one Western theologian who came directly under the influence of Neoplatonism; but that one is Augustine, the most important of them all.
On all the cardinal doctrines - God, matter, the relation of God to the world, freedom and evil - Augustine retained the impress of Neoplatonism; at the same time he is the theologian of antiquity who most clearly perceived and most fully stated wherein Neoplatonism and Christianity differ.
Oecolampadius was not a great theologian, like Luther, Zwingli or Calvin, and yet he was a trusted theological leader.
It was elaborated, and connected with dogmatic Gallicanism, by the famous theologian, Edmond Richer (1559-1631), and finally incorporated by Bossuet in a solemn Declaration of the French Clergy, made in 1682.
President Chauncy's great-grandson, Charles Chauncy (1705-1787), a prominent American theologian, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 1st of January 1705, and graduated at Harvard in 1721.
He had already gained some reputation as an industrious theologian, and had published among other works an annotated edition of the Prayer Book (1867), a History of the English Reformation (1868), and a Book of Church Law (1872), as well as a useful Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology (1870).
As a thinker he was not original, and even as a theologian he has produced but few schemes of doctrine, except his doctrine of sin.
The influence of Edmond de Pressense, a pastor and large-minded theologian, and of Madame de Pressense, a woman of superior intellect and refined feeling, who devoted her life to educational works and charity, made a great impression on him.
He now occupied a great position for which he was supremely fitted, and at a juncture in the reform of university studies when a theologian of liberal views, but universally respected for his massive learning and his devout and single-minded character, would enjoy a unique opportunity for usefulness.
Partial views attract and exist in virtue of the fragment of truth - be it great or small - which they include; and it is the work of the theologian to seize this no less than to detect the first spring of error.