John Gibbons (1544 – 1589) was an English Jesuit theologian and controversialist.
Gibbons was born in 1544, at or near Wells, Somerset. The Jesuit Richard Gibbons was his younger brother.
He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1561, but left the university without a degree. After studying philosophy and theology for seven years in the German College, Rome, he obtained the doctorate in both, 1576.
Pope Gregory XIII gave him a canonry in the Cathedral Church in Bonn, in Germany, but he resigned this on entering the Society of Jesus at Trier, in 1578. In the college of this latter place he filled successively the offices of confessor, professor of theology, professor of Sacred Scripture, prefect of studies, and rector. He became known on account of his controversial talents, which he displayed in frequent contests with the Lutherans of Germany.
When William Allen suggested Father Gibbons as a fit candidate for the English mission, the latter wrote both to the general of the Society and Dr. Allen, that he hoped he should give no disedification by saying that he had not the spiritual strength necessary for such an enterprise, but that he would lend it all the assistance in his power.
He died on 16 August or 3 December 1589, during a visit to the monastery of Himmelbrode, near Trier.
Among his literary works is "Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Anglica, adversus Calvino-Papistas et Puritanos" (Trier, 1583). The work was republished on a larger scale in 1588 and 1594, by Dr. John Bridgewater, who numbered among his assistants Cardinal Allen and Dr. Humphrey Ely.
Dr. Bridgewater also edited (see, however, Dictionary of National Biography, s. v.) a posthumous work of Gibbons entitled "Confutatio virulentæ disputationis theologicæ in qua Georgius Sohn, Professor Academiæ Heidelburgensis, conatus est docere Pontificum Romanum esse Antichristum a prophgetis et apostolis prædictum" (Trier, 1589). The Calvinist attacks on the Pope are dealt with.