The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#2601
John of Patmos
50 - 100 (50 years)
John of Patmos is the name traditionally given to the author of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 1:9 states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, according to most biblical historians, he was exiled as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian. Christian tradition has considered the Book of Revelation's writer to be John the Apostle, purported author of the Gospel of John. A minority of senior clerics and scholars, such as Eusebius , recognize at least one further John as a companion of Jesus, John the Presbyter. Some Christian scholars since medieval...
Go to Profile#2602
Abu Mansur al-Maturidi
893 - 944 (51 years)
Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-Ḥanafī al-Māturīdī al-Samarqandī , often referred to as Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī for short, or reverently referred to as Imām al-Māturīdī by Sunnī Muslims, was a Muslim scholar of Ḥanafī jurisprudence, scriptural exegete, reformer , and scholastic theologian , renowned for being the eponymous founder of the Māturīdī school of Islamic theology, which became the dominant Sunnī school of Islamic theology in Central Asia, and later enjoyed a preeminent status as the theological school of choice for both the Ottoman Empire and the Mughal Empire.
Go to Profile#2603
Robert Bellarmine
1542 - 1621 (79 years)
Robert Bellarmine, SJ was an Italian Jesuit and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was canonized a saint in 1930 and named Doctor of the Church, one of only 37. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation.
Go to Profile#2604
Philip Melanchthon
1497 - 1560 (63 years)
Philip Melanchthon was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and influential designer of educational systems.
Go to Profile#2605
Samson Raphael Hirsch
1808 - 1888 (80 years)
Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed neo-Orthodoxy, his philosophy, together with that of Azriel Hildesheimer, has had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
Go to Profile#2606
Clemens August Graf von Galen
1878 - 1946 (68 years)
Clemens Augustinus Emmanuel Joseph Pius Anthonius Hubertus Marie Graf von Galen , better known as Clemens August Graf von Galen, was a German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal of the Catholic Church. During World War II, Galen led Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia and denounced Gestapo lawlessness and the persecution of the Church in Nazi Germany. He was appointed a cardinal by Pope Pius XII in 1946, shortly before his death, and was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Go to Profile#2607
B. B. Warfield
1851 - 1921 (70 years)
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was an American professor of Reformed theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. He served as the last principal of the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1886 to 1902. After the death of Warfield in office, Francis Landey Patton took over the functions of the office as the first president of seminary. Some conservative Presbyterians consider him to be the last of the great Princeton theologians before the split in 1929 that formed Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Go to Profile#2608
Roger Bacon
1220 - 1292 (72 years)
Roger Bacon , also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. In the early modern era, he was regarded as a wizard and particularly famed for the story of his mechanical or necromantic brazen head. He is sometimes credited as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method, along with his teacher Robert Grosseteste. Bacon applied the empirical method of Ibn al-Haytham to observations in texts attributed to Aristotle. Bacon discove...
Go to Profile#2609
Johann Philipp Gabler
1753 - 1826 (73 years)
Johann Philipp Gabler was a German Protestant Christian theologian of the school of Johann Jakob Griesbach and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. Gabler was born at Frankfurt-am-Main. In 1772 he entered the University of Jena as a theological student. In 1776 he was on the point of abandoning theology when the arrival of Griesbach inspired within him a new enthusiasm for the subject. After having been successively Repetent in the University of Göttingen and teacher in the public schools of Dortmund and Altdorf , he was appointed second professor of theology at the University of Altdorf in 1785, the...
Go to Profile#2610
Cerinthus
100 - 200 (100 years)
Cerinthus was an early Gnostic, who was prominent as a heresiarch in the view of the early Church Fathers. Contrary to the Church Fathers, he used the Gospel of Cerinthus, and denied that the Supreme God made the physical world. In Cerinthus' interpretation, the Christ descended upon Jesus at baptism and guided him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but left him at the crucifixion. Similarly to the Ebionites, he maintained that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was a mere man, the biological son of Mary and Joseph.
Go to Profile#2611
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
1802 - 1869 (67 years)
Ernst Wilhelm Theodor Herrmann Hengstenberg , was a German Lutheran churchman and neo-Lutheran theologian from an old and important Dortmund family. He was born at Fröndenberg, a Westphalian town, and was educated by his father Johann Heinrich Karl Hengstenberg, who was a famous minister of the Reformed Church and head of the Fröndenberg convent of canonesses . His mother was Wilhelmine then Bergh. Entering the University of Bonn in 1819, Hengstenberg attended the lectures of Georg Wilhelm Freytag for Oriental languages and of Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler for church history, but his energies we...
Go to Profile#2612
Henry Edward Manning
1808 - 1892 (84 years)
Henry Edward Manning was an English prelate of the Catholic Church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but converted to Catholicism in the aftermath of the Gorham judgement.
Go to Profile#2613
Franz Delitzsch
1813 - 1890 (77 years)
Franz Delitzsch was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of Jewish poetry, and works of Christian apologetics. Today, Delitzsch is best known for his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew , and his series of commentaries on the Old Testament published with Carl Friedrich Keil.
Go to Profile#2614
Padre Pio
1887 - 1968 (81 years)
Pio of Pietrelcina , widely known as , was an Italian Capuchin friar, priest, stigmatist, and mystic. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, celebrated on 23 September. Pio joined the Capuchins at fifteen and spent most of his religious life in the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo. He was marked by stigmata in 1918, leading to several investigations by the Holy See. Despite temporary sanctions imposed by the Vatican, his reputation kept increasing during his life, attracting many followers to San Giovanni Rotondo. He was the founder of the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, a hospital ...
Go to Profile#2615
Isaac Watts
1674 - 1748 (74 years)
Isaac Watts was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", "Joy to the World", and "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past". He is recognised as the "Godfather of English Hymnody"; many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages.
Go to Profile#2616
Charles Grandison Finney
1792 - 1875 (83 years)
Charles Grandison Finney was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism." Finney rejected much of traditional Reformed theology.
Go to Profile#2617
Novatian
220 - 258 (38 years)
Novatian was a scholar, priest, and theologian. He is considered by the Catholic Church to have been an antipope between 251 and 258. Some Greek authors give his name as Novatus, who was an African presbyter.
Go to Profile#2618
William Tyndale
1494 - 1536 (42 years)
William Tyndale was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.
Go to Profile#2619
Pietro Gasparri
1852 - 1934 (82 years)
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic cardinal, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and the signatory of the Lateran Pacts. He served also as Cardinal Secretary of State under Popes Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
Go to Profile#2620
Han Fei
280 BC - 233 BC (47 years)
Han Fei , also known as Han Feizi or Han Fei Zi, was a Chinese philosopher or statesman of the "Legalist" school during the Warring States period, and a prince of the state of Han. Han Fei is often considered to be the greatest representative of "Chinese Legalism" for his eponymous work the Han Feizi, synthesizing the methods of his predecessors. Han Fei's ideas are sometimes compared with those of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince. Zhuge Liang is said to have attached great importance to the Han Feizi, as well as Shen Buhai.
Go to Profile#2621
Johann Jakob Griesbach
1745 - 1812 (67 years)
Johann Jakob Griesbach was a German biblical textual critic. Griesbach's fame rests upon his work in New Testament criticism, in which he inaugurated a new epoch. His solution to the synoptic problem bears his name, but the Griesbach hypothesis has become, in modern times, known as the Two-Gospel hypothesis.
Go to Profile#2622
Herman Bavinck
1854 - 1921 (67 years)
Herman Bavinck was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and churchman. He was a significant scholar in the Calvinist tradition, alongside Abraham Kuyper, B. B. Warfield, and Geerhardus Vos. Biography Background Bavinck was born on 13 December 1854 in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands to a German father, Jan Bavinck , who was the minister of theologically conservative, ecclesiastically separatist Christian Reformed Church . After his high school education, Bavinck first went to the Theological School in Kampen in 1873, but then moved on to Leiden for further training after one year in Kampen....
Go to Profile#2623
Julian of Norwich
1342 - 1500 (158 years)
Julian of Norwich , also known as Juliana of Norwich, the Lady Julian, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman, although it is possible that some anonymous works may have had female authors. They are also the only surviving English language works by an anchoress.
Go to Profile#2624
C. H. Dodd
1884 - 1973 (89 years)
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian. He is known for promoting "realized eschatology", the belief that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God meant a present reality rather than a future apocalypse. He was influenced by Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Otto.
Go to Profile#2625
Brooke Foss Westcott
1825 - 1901 (76 years)
Brooke Foss Westcott was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire.
Go to Profile#2626
Solomon Schechter
1847 - 1915 (68 years)
Solomon Schechter was a Moldavian-born British-American rabbi, academic scholar and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the United Synagogue of America, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and architect of American Conservative Judaism.
Go to Profile#2627
Richard Baxter
1615 - 1691 (76 years)
Richard Baxter was an English Nonconformist church leader and theologian from Rowton, Shropshire, who has been described as "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". He made his reputation in the late 1630s by his ministry at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, when he also began a long and prolific career as theological writer.
Go to Profile#2628
Eduard Zeller
1814 - 1908 (94 years)
Eduard Gottlob Zeller was a German philosopher and Protestant theologian of the Tübingen School of theology. He was well known for his writings on Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Pre-Socratic Philosophy, and most of all for his celebrated, multi-volume historical treatise The Philosophy of Greeks in their Historical Development . Zeller was also a central figure in the revival of neo-Kantianism.
Go to Profile#2629
Josse Ravesteyn
1506 - 1570 (64 years)
Josse Ravesteyn, also spelled Ravestein , was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Biography Born about 1506, at Tielt, a small town in Flanders, hence often called Tiletanus also known as Jean Leonardi Hasselius
Go to Profile#2630
Caspar Cruciger the Younger
1525 - 1597 (72 years)
Caspar Cruciger the Younger was a German theologian and Protestant reformer. Born in Wittenberg, he was the son of Caspar Cruciger the Elder and his wife, the hymnwriter and former nun Elisabeth von Meseritz. He was Melanchthon's successor at the University of Wittenberg. In the discussions after 1570 he was one of the leaders of the Philippists, and was engulfed in their catastrophe in 1574. He was imprisoned and was banished from Saxony in 1576.
Go to Profile#2631
Al-Sharif al-Jurjani
1340 - 1413 (73 years)
Ali ibn Mohammed al-Jurjani was a Persian encyclopedic writer, scientist, and traditionalist theologian. He is referred to as "al-Sayyid al-Sharif" in sources due to his alleged descent from Ali ibn Abi Taleb. He was born in the village of Ṭāḡu near Astarabad in Gorgan , and became a professor in Shiraz. When this city was plundered by Timur in 1387, he moved to Samarkand, but returned to Shiraz in 1405, and remained there until his death.
Go to Profile#2632
August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack
1703 - 1786 (83 years)
August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack was one of the most eminent German Reformed preachers and a prominent liberal theologian of the reign of Frederick II of Prussia who helped shape the Enlightenment in Berlin and Prussia.
Go to Profile#2633
Simon Sulzer
1508 - 1585 (77 years)
Simon Sulzer was a Reformed theologian, Reformer, and Antistes of the Basel church. Life Sulzer was born in Schattenhalb, the child of a priest. He was educated in Bern and Lucerne. The sudden death of his father, the provost of Interlaken, forced him to turn to manual labor to support himself. He worked as a barber in Strasbourg and attended lectures by Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito. He moved to Basel in 1531, where he associated with Simon Grynaeus. Here he worked as a proofreader at the print shop of Johann Heerwagen and was also employed as a teacher. From 1533 he worked in Bern in edu...
Go to Profile#2634
Frederick Nolan
1784 - 1864 (80 years)
Frederick Nolan was an Irish Anglican theologian. Life Born at Old Rathmines Castle, County Dublin, the seat of his grandfather, on 9 February 1784, third son of Edward Nolan of St. Peter's, Dublin, by his wife Florinda. In 1796 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate, and on 19 November 1803 matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, chiefly in order to study at the Bodleian and other libraries. He passed his examination for the degree of B.C.L. in 1805, but he did not take it until 1828, when he proceeded D.C.L. at the same time. He was ordained in Augu...
Go to Profile#2635
Christoph Pezel
1539 - 1604 (65 years)
Christoph Pezel was an influential Reformed Theologian who introduced the Reformed confession to Nassau-Dillenburg and Bremen. Education and service in Saxony Pezel was born in Plauen and educated at the universities of Jena and Wittenberg, his studies at the latter institution being interrupted by his teaching for several years. In 1557 he was appointed professor in the philosophical faculty and in 1569 was ordained preacher at the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. In the same year he entered the theological faculty, where he soon became involved in the disputes between the followers of Melanchth...
Go to Profile#2636
Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah al-Maghrawi al-Wahrani was an Algerian Maliki scholar of Islamic law, active in the Maghreb from the end of the fifteenth century until his death. He was identified as the author of the 1504 fatwa commonly named the Oran fatwa, instructing the Muslims in Spain about how to secretly practice Islam, and granting comprehensive dispensations for them to publicly conform to Christianity and performing acts normally forbidden in Islam when necessary to survive. Because of his authorship of the fatwa he is often referred to as "the Mufti of Oran", although he likel...
Go to Profile#2637
Ralph Bathurst
1620 - 1704 (84 years)
Ralph Bathurst, FRS was an English theologian and physician. Early life He was born in Hothorpe, Northamptonshire in 1620 and educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry. He graduated with a B.A. degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1638, where he had a family connection with the President, Ralph Kettell .
Go to Profile#2638
Martin Eisengrein
1535 - 1578 (43 years)
Martin Eisengrein was a German Catholic theologian, university professor and polemical writer. Biography He was born of Lutheran parents, Martin and Anna Kienzer Eisengrein, at Stuttgart. He studied the humanities at the Latin school of Stuttgart, and the liberal arts and philosophy at the University of Tübingen. To please his father, who was burgomaster of Stuttgart, Eisengrein matriculated as student of jurisprudence at the University of Ingolstadt, 25 May 1553, but before a year had passed he was at the University of Vienna, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in May, 1554.
Go to Profile#2639
Levi Silliman Ives
1797 - 1867 (70 years)
Levi Silliman Ives was an American theologian and Episcopal bishop of North Carolina. In 1852, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York area. He was the founder and first president of the New York Catholic Protectory, an institution for the shelter and education of destitute and abandoned children. He was also a founder of Manhattan College.
Go to Profile#2640
Johann Heinrich Winckler
1703 - 1770 (67 years)
Johann Heinrich Winckler was a German physicist and philosopher. Biography Early life Winckler was born in Wingendorf, a village in Silesia. He was educated at Leipzig University. One of his teachers was Andreas Rüdiger, an opponent of Christian Wolff. Winckler read Wolff's works and defended him against Rudiger during his lessons.
Go to Profile#2641
Donal Herlihy
1908 - 1983 (75 years)
Donal Herlihy was an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman who served as the bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns from 1964 to 1983. He was born in Knocknagree, Co. Cork in 1908 and studied at St. Brendan's College, Killarney. He studied for the priesthood in Rome was ordained priest there in 1931. Further studies in scripture led to him being appointed Professor of Sacred Scripture in All Hallows College Dublin.
Go to Profile#2642
Johann Andreas Danz
1654 - 1727 (73 years)
Johann Andreas Danz was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Life Johann Andreas Danz was born at Sundhausen, a village just outside Gotha in central Germany. His initial schooling was provided locally at the village school, but his exceptional scholastic potential was soon brought to the attention of the local duke, Friedrich of Gotha who took on responsibility for funding his higher education. When he was ten he was sent away to school in Friedrichroda, some twenty kilometers distant. Four years later, in 1668 he was enrolled at the prestigious "Gymnasium" in Gotha, at that time oper...
Go to Profile#2643
Polykarp Leyser the Elder
1552 - 1610 (58 years)
Polykarp Leyser the Elder or Polykarp Leyser I was a Lutheran theologian, superintendent of Braunschweig, superintendent-general of the Saxon church-circle, professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg and chief court-preacher and consistorial-councillor of Saxony.
Go to Profile#2644
Jakob Miller
1550 - 1597 (47 years)
Jakob Miller was a Catholic reformist theologian, provost and administrator of the diocese of Regensburg. Life Miller was born in Kißlegg, Allgäu. He studied at the Germanicum in Rome and in 1578 was made a cathedral-preacher in Konstanz, then on his deposition from that post in 1585 as visitor to the bishopric of Konstanz. From 1586 he was spiritual overseer of the diocese of Regensburg. In Regensburg Miller tried to set up a Jesuit college, wrote new diocesan constitutions and enforced the decisions of the Council of Trent in the diocese. In 1592 he was made the first mitred provost of Regensburg, since the bishop Philipp of Bavaria was still in his minority.
Go to Profile#2645
Charles Hastings Collette
1816 - 1901 (85 years)
Charles Hastings Collette was a British 19th-century solicitor and writer of Protestant popular controversialist apologetics. He was the father of actor Charles Henry Collette and the organizer of the Joseph Mendham library. As a volunteer in the First Middlesex Artillery, he compiled a handbook for drill instruction.
Go to Profile#2646
William Francis Barry
1849 - 1930 (81 years)
William Francis Barry was a British Catholic priest, theologian, educator and writer. He served as vice president and professor of philosophy at Birmingham Theological College from 1873 to 1877 and then professor of divinity at Oscott College from 1877 to 1880. A distinguished ecclesiastic, Barry gave lectures in both Great Britain and the United States during the 1890s. He was also a popular author and novelist at the start of the 20th century, whose books usually dealt with then controversial religious and social questions, and is credited as the creator of the modern English Catholic novel...
Go to Profile#2647
Joseph Jowett
1751 - 1813 (62 years)
Joseph Jowett was an English Anglican cleric and jurist. He was Fellow and Tutor of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge University from 1782 to 1813. He was the uncle of William Jowett.
Go to Profile#2648
John of Ragusa
1390 - 1443 (53 years)
John of Ragusa was a Croatian Dominican theologian. He died at Lausanne, Switzerland in 1443. He was president of the Council of Basle, and a legate to Constantinople. He was created cardinal by Antipope Felix V, so would be considered by many a "pseudocardinal".
Go to Profile#2649
Peter of Poitiers
1130 - 1205 (75 years)
Peter of Poitiers was a French scholastic theologian, born in Poitiers around 1125-1130. He died in Paris on September 3, 1205. Life After his studies in Paris, he began teaching in the Faculty of Theology in 1167. Two years later he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of scholastic theology at the cathedral school of Notre Dame.
Go to Profile#2650
Joseph Baylee
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Joseph Tyrrell Baylee, D.D. , was a theological writer. Baylee received his education at Trinity College Dublin . To the residents of Liverpool and Birkenhead his name became for a quarter of a century a household word, on account of his activity as the founder and first principal of St. Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, where he prepared many students for the work of the ministry. This institution, which may be said to have been founded in 1846, originated in a private theological class conducted by Dr. Baylee, under the sanction of the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Sumner, afterwards advance...
Go to Profile