Notable Theologians “P...-Q...-R...-”
for classrooms, home schoolers, offices & theme decor.

William Paley
b. 1743; Peterborough, England
d. 5-25-1805

Christian apologist William Paley is best remembered for using the watchmaker analogy to prove the existence of God.

William Paley quotes ~
• “The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD.”
• “There's a certain amount of disorder that has to be reorganized.”
• “The hinges in the wings of an earwig, and the joints of its antennae, are as highly wrought, as if the Creator had nothing else to finish. We see no signs of dimunition of care by multiplicity of objects, or of distraction of thought by variety. We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten, or overlooked, or neglected.”
• “I seem, for my own part, to see the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very young children than in anything else in the world.”
• “I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance.”
• “Eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. It supposes in that to which it is applied a present existence, and is the negation of a beginning or of an end of that existence.”

• Natural Theology by William Paley

Portrait Presumed to be Paracelsus (1493-1541), Giclee Print

Paracelsus, née Phillip von Hohenheim
b. 11-11-1493; Switzerland
d. 9-24-1541; Austria - burned at the stake as a witch

Paracelsus, a medieval physician and polymath who offended everyone with his arrogance, was the name chosen by Phillip von Hohenheim later Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, as a title to mean ‘equal to or greater than Celsus’.

He received a theological and humanist education from his father, a physician, and the studied at the University of Basel, then Vienna, and finally the University of Ferrara.

Paracelsus was also an alchemist and astrologer, as well as a systemic botanist and is credited with naming a metal zincum (zinc).

Fellow Swiss Carl Gustav Jung wrote about Paracelsus in “The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature”.

Paracelsus quotes ~
• “Dreams are not without meaning wherever thay may come from-from fantasy, from the elements, or from other inspiration.”
• “Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.”
• “Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.”
• “We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself.”
• “Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow.”

FYI ~ according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of the word “bombastic” is not a play on Paracelsus's middle name, Bombastus - the dictionary cites “bombast" as an old term for cotton stuffing.

Saint Patrick
b. c. 387 AD, Britian
d. 3-17-461

Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.

Saint Paul of Tarsus Giclee Print

Saint Paul the Apostle
(Saul of Tarsus)
b. c. 5 AD; Tarsus, Asia Minor (Turkey)
d. 64-67 AD; Rome (Nero period)

According to Acts, Saul of Tarsus' conversion took place as he was traveling the road to Damascus. Saul became Paul as he experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus, receiving the Gospel, not from man, but by “the revelation of Jesus Christ”.

• St. Paul, the Traveler and Roman Citizen

East Africa and the Red Sea with Prester John and The Legendary Kings of Africa, Giclee Print

Prester John, a Medieval legendary Christian patriarch and king, was said to rule over a Christian nation amidst the Muslims and pagans whose location ranged from India, Central Asia, and Ethiopia.

• The Realm of Prester John

Norman Vincent Peale
b. 5-31-1898; Bowersville, OH
d. 12-24-1993; New York

Norman Vincent Peale was one of the most famous ministers in the United States and author of The Power of Positive Thinking.

Father Matteo Ricci Giclee Print

Matteo Ricci
b. 10-6-1552; Papal States
d. 5-11-1610; China

Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, mathematician and cartographer, went to China to spread Catholicism. There he became the first to translate Confucianism text into a western language.

• The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was also a Jesuit priest

Nicholas Ridley Martyred Bishop, Giclee Print

Nicholas Ridley
b. c. 1500; Northunberland
d. 10-16-1555; Oxford (burned at the stake)

Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, was burned at the stake for heresy along with Hugh Latimer at the orders of Mary I. They, along with John Cranmer, are called the Oxford Martyrs.

• Treatises and Letters of Dr. Nicholas Ridley