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 Religious Studies,
#5501
Carl Hildebrand von Canstein
1667 - 1719 (52 years)
Carl or Karl Hildebrand von Canstein , Baron or Count of Canstein, was a German aristocrat who founded the Canstein Bible Institute in Halle, Brandenburg-Prussia, the first modern Bible society. Life He was born at Lindenberg on 4 August 1667. He studied law at Alma Mater Viadrina in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder and, upon finishing his courses, he toured the Netherlands, England, France, Italy, and southern Germany from 1686 to 1688. On the death of the Great Elector Frederick William, he returned to Berlin.
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Henry Pereira Mendes
1852 - 1937 (85 years)
Henry Pereira Mendes , was an American rabbi who was born in Birmingham, England and died in New York City. He was also known as Haim Pereira Mendes. Family history and education Henry Pereira Mendes was born into an old Spanish & Portuguese rabbinic family. His father Abraham Pereira Mendes was Rabbi in Birmingham, England, as well as in Jamaica and the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. His grandfather David Aaron de Sola was the Rabbi at Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, and his great-grandfather Raphael Meldola was the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of London. In addition, his brother Frederi...
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Pierre Batiffol
1861 - 1929 (68 years)
Pierre Batiffol – was a French Catholic priest and prominent theologian, specialising in Church history. He had also a particular interest in the history of dogma. Batiffol studied from 1878 at the priest seminary Saint-Sulpice in Paris, was ordained in 1884 and continued his studies at the Institut catholique in Paris and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He was taught by church historian Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne.
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David Blondel
1590 - 1655 (65 years)
David Blondel was a French Protestant clergyman, historian and classical scholar. Life He was born at Châlons-en-Champagne. Ordained in 1614, he had positions as parish priest at Houdan and Roucy. After 1644, he was relieved of duties, and supported free to study full-time.
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Johann August Nösselt
1734 - 1807 (73 years)
Johann August Nösselt was a German Protestant theologian. Beginning in 1751, he studied theology at the University of Halle, where one of his instructors was Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten . In 1755-56 he took an extended study trip throughout Germany, Switzerland and France, eventually returning to Halle, where in 1760 he became an associate professor of theology. In 1764 he attained the title of "full professor" at Halle.
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Bartolomé Carranza
1503 - 1576 (73 years)
Bartolomé Carranza was a Navarrese priest of the Dominican Order, theologian and Archbishop of Toledo. He is notable for having been persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. He spent much of his later life imprisoned on charges of heresy. He was first denounced in 1530, and imprisoned during 1558–1576. The final judgement found no proof of heresy but secluded him to the Dominican cloister of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where he died seven days later.
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Reinhold Seeberg
1859 - 1935 (76 years)
Reinhold Seeberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He was a professor of theology at Erlangen, where he had studied, and then in 1893 a professor of dogmatic theology at Friedrich Wilhelm University .
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Karl Holl
1866 - 1926 (60 years)
Karl Holl was a professor of theology and church history at Tübingen and Berlin and is considered one of the most influential church historians of his era. Life Karl Holl studied philosophy and theology at the Tübinger Stift. He became a member of the Studentenverbindung Normannia. While serving as a minister in Württemberg, he completed his doctorate and became the lead tutor at the Tübinger Stift in 1891. From 1894 he was active as a research assistant at the Prussian Academy of Sciences at the instigation of Adolf von Harnack. He completed his Habilitation in 1896 at the theological faculty of Berlin.
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Georg Heinrici
1844 - 1915 (71 years)
Carl Friedrich Georg Heinrici was a German Lutheran theologian best known for his studies involving the relationship of early Christianity with its Greek environment. Biography From 1862 to 1867 he studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Halle-Wittenberg and Berlin. In 1873 he became an associate professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Marburg, where during the following year, he attained a full professorship. In 1892 he succeeded Theodor Zahn as professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Leipzig, where in 1911/12 he served as rector. From 1892 to...
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Wolfgang Musculus
1497 - 1563 (66 years)
Wolfgang Musculus was a Reformed theologian of the Reformation. Life Born in the village of Duss , in a German-speaking area , Musculus was a lover of song and of knowledge, of languages, Humanism and religion. The oral tradition of his songs is still found in the churches of the Reformation.
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Jan Ridderbos
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Jan Ridderbos was a minister in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and since 1912 professor of Old Testament at the Theological College in Kampen. Jan Ridderbos is the father of Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos, later professor in Kampen, and Nicolaas Herman Ridderbos, later a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
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Heinrich Klee
1800 - 1840 (40 years)
Heinrich Klee was a German theologian and Biblical exegete who argued against liberal and Rationalist currents in Catholic thought. Biography At the age of seventeen Klee entered the seminary at Mainz. In 1824, a year after his ordination, he was appointed to the professorship of exegesis and ecclesiastical history in the same seminary, and in the following year also to that of philosophy. In the meantime he obtained the Doctorate of Theology from the University of Würzburg after presenting the thesis Tentamen theologico-historicum de chiliasmo primorum saecolurum. In 1829 the government of B...
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Edward Reynolds
1599 - 1676 (77 years)
Edward Reynolds was a bishop of Norwich in the Church of England and an author. He was born in Holyrood parish in Southampton, the son of Augustine Reynolds, one of the customers of the city, and his wife, Bridget.
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Theodore Emanuel Schmauk
1860 - 1920 (60 years)
Theodore Emanuel Schmauk, D.D., LL.D. was an American Lutheran minister, educator, author and Church theologian. Theodore Emanuel Schmauk was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the son of a Lutheran minister, Rev. Benjamin W. and Wilhelmina C. Schmauk. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, being ordained by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in that year. In 1897, he received the degree of D.D. from Muhlenberg College and in 1910, the degree of LL.D. from Augustana College.
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Franz Ferdinand Benary
1805 - 1880 (75 years)
Franz Ferdinand Benary was a German orientalist and exegete. He was the older brother of classical philologist Agathon Benary. From 1824 he studied theology and oriental languages at the universities of Bonn, Halle and Berlin. At Halle he was especially influenced by the teachings of Wilhelm Gesenius. In 1829 he qualified as a lecturer of oriental languages at the University of Berlin, where in 1831, he was appointed an associate professor of Old Testament exegesis.
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Benedict Stattler
1728 - 1797 (69 years)
Benedict Stattler was a German Jesuit theologian, and an opponent of Immanuel Kant. He was a member of the German Catholic Enlightenment. Life Benedict Stattler was born at Kötzting, Bavaria. He was educated by the Benedictines of Niederaltaich Abbey. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at Landsberg in 1745 and, after the usual studies, taught philosophy and theology in Solothurn , Innsbruck, and Ingolstadt. He was ordained in 1759. In Ingolstadt, he continued to occupy the chair of theology even after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. In 1774, he also assumed the duties of parish priest of the Church of St.
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Joseph Schnitzer
1859 - 1939 (80 years)
Joseph Schnitzer was a theologian. He started teaching at Munich University in 1902. Literary works Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Savonarolas, 6 vols., 1902–1914Savonarola, 2 vols., 1924 External links MTA at nyitottegyetem.phil-inst.hu
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Louis Gerlach Pareau
1800 - 1866 (66 years)
Louis Gerlach Pareau, was a Dutch theologian born in Deventer. He was the son of Jean Henri Pareau , a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht. In 1826 he graduated from Utrecht with a dissertation titled Commentatio critica et exegetica in Paulinae Epistolae prioris ad Corinthos caput XIII. In 1831 he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Groningen, where he remained until his death in 1866. At Groningen he taught classes in exegesis and hermeneutics.
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Thomas Bayes
1702 - 1761 (59 years)
Thomas Bayes was an English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister who is known for formulating a specific case of the theorem that bears his name: Bayes' theorem. Bayes never published what would become his most famous accomplishment; his notes were edited and published posthumously by Richard Price.
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Konrad Pellikan
1478 - 1556 (78 years)
Konrad Pellikan was a German Protestant theologian, humanist, Protestant reformer and Christian Hebraist who worked chiefly in Switzerland. Life His German surname, "Kurscherer" was changed to "Pellicanus" by his mother's brother, Jodocus Gallus, an ecclesiastic connected with the University of Heidelberg, who supported his nephew for sixteen months at the university in 1491-1492. On returning to Rouffach 1493, he entered the Franciscan convent. There he taught gratis at the convents school in order he might borrow books from the library, and in his sixteenth year resolved to become a friar.
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Heinrich Döring
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Heinrich Doring, born Michael Johann Heinrich Döring was a German writer, theologian and mineralogist. He became known mainly as a biographer of the German classical writers, and especially the first biographer of Goethe.
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Edward Everett Nourse
1863 - 1929 (66 years)
Edward Everett Nourse, D.D. was an American Congregational theologian. Nourse was born at Bayfield, Wisconsin. He studied at the College and the Academy at Lake Forest, Illinois, at Macalester College in Minnesota, Hartford Theological Seminary , and in Europe at the University of Jena
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Matthew Barker
1619 - 1698 (79 years)
Matthew Barker was an English Independent minister and parliamentarian, known for his work on natural theology and for his participation in English 17th-century politics. Life Matthew Barker was born in Great Cransley, Northamptonshire, to parents unknown. He worked as a schoolmaster in Banbury, Oxfordshire, until the outbreak of the English Civil War, at which point he became preacher to a London parish. Barker was an avid parliamentarian and was invited to preach a sermon before the House of Commons on 25 October 1648. The new republic welcomed him, and his moderation earned him the favo...
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Georg Lasson
1862 - 1932 (70 years)
Georg Lasson was a German Protestant theologian, and a son of Adolf Lasson. He was a co-editor of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Sämtliche Werke in the Meiner edition . Although the result is not always praised today, his edition is useful to researches as he had access to manuscripts that have since been lost.
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Reginald Heber
1783 - 1826 (43 years)
Reginald Heber was an English Anglican bishop, a man of letters, and hymn-writer. After 16 years as a country parson, he served as Bishop of Calcutta until his death at the age of 42. The son of a rich landowner and cleric, Heber gained fame at the University of Oxford as a poet. After graduation he made an extended tour of Scandinavia, Russia and Central Europe. Ordained in 1807, he took over his father's old parish, Hodnet, Shropshire. He also wrote hymns and general literature, including a study of the works of the 17th-century cleric Jeremy Taylor.
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Gustav Friedrich Dinter
1760 - 1831 (71 years)
Gustav Friedrich Dinter was a German pedagogue, theologian and author. Biography He was born at Borna. He studied theology and pedagogy at Leipzig; held several pastorates, was appointed director of the Teachers' Seminary at Dresden in 1797, and became professor of theology at the University of Königsberg in 1822.
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Mark Hopkins
1802 - 1887 (85 years)
Mark Hopkins was an American educator and Congregationalist theologian, president of Williams College from 1836 to 1872. An epigram — widely attributed to President James A. Garfield, a student of Hopkins — defined an ideal college as "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other."
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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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Joseph Parker
1830 - 1902 (72 years)
Joseph Parker was an English Congregational minister. Life Born in Hexham, Northumberland, Parker was the son of Teasdale Parker, a stonemason, and Elizabeth . He managed to pick up a fair education, which afterwards he constantly supplemented. In the revolutionary years from 1845 to 1850 young Parker as a local preacher and temperance orator gained a reputation for vigorous utterance. He was influenced by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, and Edward Miall, the Liberationistist, and was much associated with Joseph Cowen, afterwards MP for Newcastle upon Tyne.
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Dimitrije Najdanović
1897 - 1986 (89 years)
Dimitrije Najdanović was a Serbian theologian, writer, and Serbian Orthodox priest. Biography Dimitrije Najdanović was born in Kragujevac in Serbia, on 7 June 1897, into comfortable middle-class circumstances. He was the son of a devoutly Serbian Orthodox mother and a strict but personable schoolteacher-father.
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Hildebert
1056 - 1133 (77 years)
Hildebert of Lavardin was a French ecclesiastic, hagiographer and theologian. From 1096–97 he was bishop of Le Mans, then from 1125 until his death archbishop of Tours. Life Hildebert was born of poor parents at Lavardin, near Vendôme, and was intended for the church. He was probably a pupil of Berengar of Tours, and became master of the school at Le Mans; in 1091 he was made archdeacon and in 1096 or 1097 bishop of Le Mans. He had to face the hostility of a section of his clergy and also of the English king, William II, who captured Le Mans and carried the bishop with him to England for abo...
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William of St-Thierry
1075 - 1148 (73 years)
William of Saint-Thierry, O. Cist was a twelfth-century Benedictine, theologian and mystic from Liège who became abbot of Saint-Thierry in France, and later joined the Cistercian Order. Biography William was born at Liège of a noble family between 1075 and 1080 , and died at Signy-l'Abbaye in 1148. He probably studied at the cathedral school in Reims, though some have argued it was at Laon, prior to his profession as a Benedictine monk. He became a monk with his brother Simon at the monastery of St. Nicaise, also in Reims, sometime after 1111. From here both eventually became abbots of other...
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Friedrich Spitta
1852 - 1924 (72 years)
Friedrich Spitta was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Spitta was born at Wittingen, Lower Saxony, the son of German hymn writer Karl Johann Philipp Spitta and brother of Philipp . Friedrich studied at the universities of Göttingen and Erlangen, where he was a pupil of Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann. In the course of time he became professor ordinarius and university preacher at St. Thomas, Strasbourg. In 1901 he was appointed university rector. In 1919 he was named a professor at the University of Göttingen.
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F. D. Maurice
1805 - 1872 (67 years)
John Frederick Denison Maurice was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War, interest in Maurice has expanded. Early life and education John Frederick Denison Maurice was born in Normanston, Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 29 August 1805, the only son of Michael Maurice and his wife, Priscilla. Michael Maurice was the evening preacher in a Unitarian chapel. Deaths in the family brought about changes in the family's "religious convictions" and "vehement disagreement" between family members. Maurice later wrote about th...
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Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro
1677 - 1764 (87 years)
Friar Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro was a Spanish monk and scholar who led the Age of Enlightenment in Spain. He was an energetic popularizer noted for encouraging scientific and empirical thought in an effort to debunk myths and superstitions.
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Charles S. Reifsnider
1875 - 1958 (83 years)
Charles Shriver Reifsnider was the Anglican bishop of North Tokyo in the Nippon Sei Ko Kai from 1935 to 1940. During his mission years in Japan from 1904 to 1941 he also served as the President of Rikkyo University from 1912 to 1940.
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Abu Hafs Umar al-Nasafi
1067 - 1142 (75 years)
Najm ad-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ 'Umar ibn Muḥammad an-Nasafī was a Muslim jurist, theologian, mufassir, muhaddith and historian. A Persian scholar born in present-day Uzbekistan, he wrote mostly in Arabic.
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Samuel Hopkins
1721 - 1803 (82 years)
Samuel Hopkins was an American Congregationalist theologian of the late colonial era of the United States. Hopkinsian theology was named for him. Hopkins was an early abolitionist, saying that it was in the interest and duty of the U.S. to set free all of their slaves.
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Guglielmo Audisio
1802 - 1882 (80 years)
Guglielmo Audisio was an Italian Catholic priest and writer. Life Guglielmo Audisio was born January 27, 1802, and graduated with degrees in philosophy and theology from the University of Turin. After teaching for four years in the seminary of Bra, in 1837 he was appointed by King Carlo Alberto, Dean of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Superga, where he taught sacred eloquence, moral theology, canon law and institutions of Roman law. He was expelled from this office because he was opposed to the Piedmontese Government. Audisio was a fervent upholder of papal and Catholic rights against the polit...
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Georg Benedikt Winer
1789 - 1858 (69 years)
Georg Benedikt Winer , German Protestant theologian, known for his linguistic studies of the New Testament. Theologically, Winer was an "anti-trinitarian". Life He studied theology at Leipzig, where in 1819 he began work as a curator at the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig. In 1823 he became a full professor of theology at the University of Erlangen, then in 1832 returned to Leipzig, where he worked in a similar role as in Erlangen. On several separate occasions he served as dean to the theological faculty, and in 1842 was named university rector.
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George Adam Smith
1856 - 1942 (86 years)
Note in particular that this George Smith is to be distinguished from George Smith who researched in some overlapping areas. Sir George Adam Smith was a Scottish theologian. He was the Principal of the University of Aberdeen between 1909 and 1935.
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Jean Pierre de Caussade
1675 - 1751 (76 years)
Jean Pierre de Caussade was a French Jesuit priest and writer. He is especially known for the work ascribed to him known as Abandonment to Divine Providence, and also his work with the Nuns of the Visitation in Nancy, France.
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Amandus Polanus
1561 - 1610 (49 years)
Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf was a German theologian of early Reformed orthodoxy. After his education in Opava, Wrocław, Tübingen, Basel, and Geneva , he served as a tutor to the family of Zierotin in Heidelberg and Basel , and later taught at the Bohemian Brethren school in Ivančice. Between 1591 and 1595 he again tutored for the Zierotins, traveling from Moravia to Strasbourg and Basel. Polanus spent the last part of his life in Basel, where he became professor of Old Testament in April 1596, and later that year married the daughter of the professor of ancient languages, Johann Jakob Grynaeus .
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Georg Calixtus
1586 - 1656 (70 years)
Georg Calixtus, Kallisøn/Kallisön, or Callisen was a German Lutheran theologian who looked to reconcile all Christendom by removing all differences that he deemed "unimportant". Biography Calixtus was born in Medelby, Schleswig. After studying philology, philosophy and theology at Helmstedt, Jena, Giessen, Tübingen and Heidelberg, he travelled through Holland, France and England, where he became acquainted with the leading reformers. On his return in 1614, he was appointed professor of theology at Helmstedt by the duke of Brunswick, who had admired the ability he displayed when a young man i...
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Joseph Henry Allen
1820 - 1898 (78 years)
Joseph Henry Allen was a Unitarian clergyman, editor and scholar. Biography He was born in Northborough, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph Allen and Lucy Clark. He prepared for college at a school run by his father in Northborough. He graduated at Harvard College, and then at the Divinity School in 1843. He was pastor at the First Congregational Society in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts , the Unitarian church in Washington, D.C. , and a church in Bangor, Maine . In 1857 he departed from full-time ministry and took up teaching and editing Unitarian periodicals . He lectured at Harvard for four y...
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Benjamin G. Wilkinson
1872 - 1968 (96 years)
Benjamin George Wilkinson was a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, educator, and theologian. He served also as Dean of Theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Washington Missionary College which is located in Takoma Park, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Wilkinson is considered one of the originators of the King James Only beliefs.
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Thomas Gallus
1190 - 1246 (56 years)
Thomas Gallus of Vercelli , sometimes in early twentieth century texts called Thomas of St Victor, Thomas of Vercelli or Thomas Vercellensis, was a French theologian, a member of the School of St Victor. He is known for his commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius and his ideas on affective theology. His elaborate mystical schemata influenced Bonaventure and The Cloud of Unknowing.
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August Eduard Cunitz
1812 - 1886 (74 years)
August Eduard Cunitz was a French Protestant theologian. He studied at the University of Strasbourg, becoming a lecturer at the Protestant seminary in 1837. In 1857 he became an associate professor, followed by a full professorship in 1864. From 1872 onward, he held a similar position in the re-organized faculty of theology at the university.
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August Weenaas
1835 - 1924 (89 years)
August Weenaas was a Norwegian American Lutheran minister and educator. August Weenaas was the founding President of Augsburg University. Biography August Weenaas was born in Norway and educated in the ministry at the University of Christiania. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of Norway. He served as a pastor there for several years at Loppen prior to immigrating to the United States in 1868. Weenaas resigned his pastorate in the beginning of February 1868. Weenaas became a professor in Paxton, Illinois at the Scandinavian Augustana Synod Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois. In 1869, August Weenaas was named president of Augsburg Seminary.
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Honoré Tournély
1658 - 1729 (71 years)
Honoré Tournély was a French Catholic theologian. He was a Gallican opponent of Jansenism. Life He was born in Antibes, Provence, to poor and obscure parents. An uncle, a priest at Paris, invited him there and gave him a good education. On completing his philosophical and theological studies, he became a doctor of the Sorbonne in 1686, and two years later was sent by the king to the University of Douai to teach theology. Here, he distinguished himself by his lectures and by his opposition of the Jansenists. He was even accused of forgeries in order to compromise them, but the proofs of this ...
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