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.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#2801
Moses Pinheiro
1601 - Present (425 years)
Moses Pinheiro was an Italian Jew who lived in Livorno in the seventeenth century. He was one of the most influential pupils and followers of Sabbatai Zevi. He was held in high esteem on account of his religious and kabbalistic knowledge; and, as the brother-in-law of Joseph Ergas, the well-known anti-Sabbatean, he had great influence over the Jews of Leghorn, urging them to believe in Sabbatai. Even later, in 1667, when Shabbethai's apostasy was rumored, Pinheiro, in common with numerous other adherents of Zevi, still believed him to be the messiah.
Go to Profile#2802
Pierre Benoit
1906 - 1987 (81 years)
Maurice Benoit, also Pierre-Maurice and Maurice-Marie Benoit , better known as Father Pierre Benoit, was a French Catholic priest, exegete, and theologian who became an expert on the archaeology of Jerusalem. Pierre Benoit impressed with his combination of both unswerving Christian faith, and skeptical and open-minded approach to biblical history typical for a scientist, the one side never impeding on the other.
Go to Profile#2803
John Shaw
1863 - 1934 (71 years)
John William Shaw was an American clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of San Antonio and Archbishop of New Orleans . Biography One of six children, Shaw was born in Mobile, Alabama to Patrick and Elizabeth Shaw. He was a pupil at the parochial school of St Vincent de Paul Church and the academy of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in his native city. He later was sent, with one of his brothers, to St Finian's Seminary at Navan, County Meath, Ireland. He studied at the Urban College of Propaganda and Pontifical North American College in Rome in 1882–1888.
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Martin Becanus
1563 - 1624 (61 years)
Martinus Becanus was a Dutch-born Jesuit priest, known as a theologian and controversialist. Life He was born Maarten Schellekens in Hilvarenbeek in North Brabant; Schellekens is a patronymic and he adopted a Latinized form of the surname Van Beek. He entered the Society of Jesus on 22 March 1583, and taught Theology for twenty-two years at Würzburg, Mainz, and Vienna.
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Johannes Aesticampianus
1457 - 1520 (63 years)
Johannes Rhagius Aesticampianus was a German theologian and humanist. Life Johannes Rak was born in 1457 in Sommerfeld . His father, Matthias Rak, died young, and Johannes' grandfather Martin Rak, a mayor of Sommerfeld, saw to his education. Johannes matriculated at the University of Kraków on 19 May 1491, when he studied natural history and astronomy. In Kraków, he came under the influence of Conrad Celtes.
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Johann Heinrich Alting
1583 - 1644 (61 years)
Johann Heinrich Alting , German divine, was born at Emden, where his father, Menso Alting , was minister. Heinrich studied with great success at the University of Groningen and the Herborn Academy. In 1608 he was appointed tutor of Frederick, afterwards elector-palatine, at Heidelberg, and in 1612 accompanied him to England. Returning in 1613 to Heidelberg, after the marriage of the elector with Princess Elizabeth of England, he was appointed professor of dogmatics, and in 1616 director of the theological department in the Collegium Sapientiae.
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Edmund Otis Hovey
1801 - 1877 (76 years)
Edmund Otis Hovey , D.D. was an American Presbyterian minister and Wabash College founder. He was born in East Hanover, N.H., July 15, 1801. At twenty-one years of age he began his preparation for preaching the gospel, at Thetford Academy; in 1828 graduated from Dartmouth College, and in 1831 from Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Newburyport the same year, and sent as a missionary to Wabash, Indiana. His great work was in founding and building up Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, of which, in 1834, he was appointed financial agent and professor of rhetoric.
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François Annat
1590 - 1670 (80 years)
François Annat was a French Jesuit, theologian, writer, and one of the foremost opponents of Jansenism. He was born in Rodes, and entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus on 16 February 1607. He was professor of philosophy for six years, and theology for seven, in the college of his order in Toulouse, of which he was subsequently appointed rector. Later he filled the same office at Montpellier. He was assistant to the General in Rome, and Provincial of Paris. In 1654 he was sent to the court as confessor of Louis XIV, and, after the faithful discharge of the duties of his office, he fel...
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Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri
868 - 909 (41 years)
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Dawud al-Zahiri, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣbahānī, also known as Avendeath, was a medieval theologian and scholar of the Arabic language and Islamic law. He was one of the early propagators of his father Dawud al-Zahiri's method in jurisprudence, Zahirism.
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Niels Aagaard
1612 - 1657 (45 years)
Niels Lauritsen Aagaard , was probably the brother of the poet Christen Aagaard, was professor at Sorø Academy, in Denmark, where he also occupied the office of librarian. He died in 1657, at the age of forty-five, and left behind him several philosophical and critical works, written in Latin, among which are, A Treatise on Subterraneous Fires; Dissertations on Tacitus; Observations on Ammianus Marcellinus; and a Vindication of the Style of the New Testament.
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Luther Alexander Gotwald
1833 - 1900 (67 years)
Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D. was a professor of theology in the Wittenberg Theological Seminary in the United States. He was tried for heresy by the board of directors at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, on April 4 and 5, 1893, which put on trial many key issues that Lutherans still debate today.
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Johann Michael Vansleb
1635 - 1679 (44 years)
Johann Michael Vansleb was a German theologian, linguist and Egypt traveller. He converted to Catholicism and was a member of the Dominican Order from 1666. Biography Vansleb was born in Erfurt. In 1663, after a long stay in London, Vansleb planned a journey to Ethiopia in search of religious manuscripts for his patron Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha. He never got beyond Egypt, however. It was while staying in Rome, during his return voyage, that he converted to Catholicism.
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Roderick A. Finlayson
1895 - 1989 (94 years)
Roderick Alick Finlayson was a Scottish minister of the Free Church of Scotland who served as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1945. In authorship he is usually R. A. Finlayson. Life He was born in Lochcarron, Wester Ross in 1895. The son of Roderick Finlayson and his wife, Christina MacLennan . His father died in the year of his birth.
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Henry Calderwood
1830 - 1897 (67 years)
Rev Henry Calderwood FRSE LLD was a Scottish minister and philosopher. Life He was born in Peebles on 10 May 1830, the son of William Calderwood, a corn merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Mitchell. He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution and then the High School in Edinburgh, and later attended University of Edinburgh. He studied for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and in 1856 was ordained pastor of the Greyfriars church, Glasgow. He also examined in mental philosophy for the University of Glasgow from 1861 to 1864, and from 1866 conducted the moral philosophy c...
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Alfred Jeremias
1864 - 1935 (71 years)
Alfred Karl Gabriel Jeremias was a German pastor, Assyriologist and an expert on the religions of the ancient Near East. Life In 1891 he published the first German translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. From 1890 until his death he was pastor of the Lutheran congregation in Leipzig, and from 1922 he was also professor at Leipzig University. He received honorary degrees in 1905 from Leipzig and in 1914 from the University of Groningen.
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George William Knox
1853 - 1912 (59 years)
George William Knox, D.D., LL.D. was an American Presbyterian theologian and writer, born at Rome, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1874, and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1877, after which he went as a missionary to Japan, where he was professor of homiletics in Tokyo and professor of philosophy and ethics at the Imperial University of Tokyo.
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Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
1855 - 1902 (47 years)
'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi was a Syrian author and Pan-Arab solidarity supporter. He was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time; however, his thoughts and writings continue to be relevant to the issues of Islamic identity and Pan-Arabism. His criticisms of the Ottoman Empire eventually led to Arabs calling for the sovereignty of the Arab Nations, setting the basis for Pan-Arab nationalism. Al-Kawakibi articulated his ideas in two influential books, Tabai al-Istibdad wa-Masari al-Isti’bad and Umm Al-Qura . He died in 1902 of “mysterious” causes. His family alleged that he was po...
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Rudolf Ehlers
1834 - 1908 (74 years)
Rudolf Ehlers was a German theologian and clergyman born in Hamburg. He received his education at the Universities of Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen. At Heidelberg, he was a student of Richard Rothe . After completion of studies he served as a pastor in Stolberg, and in 1864 relocated to the Protestant Reformed Church at Frankfurt am Main. In 1868 he was appointed Konsistorialrat.
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Victor de Buck
1817 - 1876 (59 years)
Victor de Buck , was a Belgian Jesuit priest and theologian. He is credited with relaunching the work of the Bollandists in the 19th century, after the restoration of the Society of Jesus. Life His family was one of the most distinguished in the city of Oudenaarde . After a course in the humanities, begun at the College of Soignies and the petit seminaire of Roeselare and completed in 1835 at the college of the Society of Jesus at Aalst, he entered the Society of Jesus on 11 October 1835. After two years in the novitiate, then at Nivelles, and a year at Tronchiennes reviewing and finishing his literary studies, he went to Namur in September 1838 to study philosophy and the natural sciences.
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William Upton Richards
1811 - 1873 (62 years)
William Upton Richards was an English Anglican priest. He was a prominent Tractarian in the Church of England who served mostly notably as the vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, from 1859 to 1873.
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Johannes Pedersen
1883 - 1977 (94 years)
Johannes Peder Ejler Pedersen was a Danish Old Testament scholar and Semitic philologist. Life Pedersen was born at Illebølle in Langeland Municipality, Denmark. For his higher education, Pedersen entered Sorø Academy, a school with a history going back to 1140. His study of theology under F. C. Krarups, a priest/professor at Sorø, led to Pedersen's study of the Old Testament. After he graduated from Sorø Academy in 1902, Pedersen began study of Semitic languages under Professor Frants Buhl at the University of Copenhagen. In 1906 he obtained the university's gold medal, and in 1908 he took a...
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Vicente Ferre
1605 - 1683 (78 years)
Vicente Ferre was a Spanish Dominican theologian, a leading Thomist of his time. Life He entered the Dominican Order at Salamanca, where he pursued his studies in the Dominican College of St. Stephen. After teaching in several houses of study of his order in Spain, he was called from Burgos to Rome, where for eighteen years he was regens primarius of the Dominican College of St. Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
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Justus Baronius Calvinus
1570 - 1606 (36 years)
Justus Baronius Calvinus was a German theologian, a Catholic convert and apologist. Life He was born of Calvinist parents and educated at Heidelberg, where he took a course in theology. His study of the Church Fathers inclined him towards Catholicism and finally led him to Rome. There he was kindly received by Cardinal Bellarmine, Cardinal Baronius, and Pope Clement VIII. His gratitude to Baronius caused him to add that cardinal's name to his own.
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Stanley Leathes
1830 - 1900 (70 years)
Stanley Leathes was an English theologian and Orientalist. Biography He was born at Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, the son of the Rev. Chaloner Stanley Leathes, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1852, M.A. 1853. In 1853 he was awarded a Tyrwhitt's Hebrew scholarship. He was ordained priest in 1857, and after serving several curacies was appointed professor of Hebrew at King's College London, in 1863. In 1868–1870 he was Boyle lecturer , in 1873 Hulsean lecturer , in 1874 Bampton Lecturer and from 1876 to 1880 Warburtonian lecturer.
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Robert William Mackay
1803 - 1882 (79 years)
Robert William Mackay was a British philosophical and religious author. He is best known for The Progress of the Intellect . Charles Hardwick in his Christ and other Masters grouped Mackay's religious views, with those of William Johnson Fox and Theodore Parker, as falling under a heading "absolute religion".
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Alphonsus J. Donlon
1867 - 1923 (56 years)
Alphonsus J. Donlon was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who spent his career in priestly ministry and academia, including as president of Georgetown University from 1912 to 1918. Born in Albany, New York, he garnered a reputation as a good student and an exceptional collegiate athlete. As a professor, he went on to lead Georgetown University's sports program, which enjoyed great success. As a result, he became known as the "father of Georgetown athletics."
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Polykarp Leyser II
1586 - 1633 (47 years)
Polykarp Leyser II was a German Lutheran theologian and superintendent in Leipzig. He was professor of theology since 1613. Life Provenance His father Polykarp Leyser the Elder, was a theologian. His mother was Elisabeth, daughter of the painter Lucas Cranach the Younger.
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David Low Dodge
1774 - 1852 (78 years)
David Low Dodge was an American activist and theologian who helped to establish the New York Peace Society and was a founder of the New York Bible Society and the New York Tract Society. According to historian Dale R. Steiner, he wrote "some of the earliest and most effective antiwar literature in the United States."
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Philip Faber
1564 - 1630 (66 years)
Philip Faber was an Italian Franciscan theologian, philosopher and noted commentator on Duns Scotus. Life In 1582 he entered the Order of St. Francis , at Cremona. After completing his studies, he taught in various monastic schools till he was appointed professor of philosophy in 1603, and in 1606 professor of theology, at the University of Padua, where he was highly successful as a lecturer.
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Jan Seklucjan
1498 - 1578 (80 years)
Jan Seklucjan was a Polish Lutheran theologian, an activist in the Protestant Reformation in Poland and Ducal Prussia , translator, writer, publisher and printer. Biography Little is known about his early life. According to his name he perhaps was born or came from the village of Siekluki in the Duchy of Masovia, near Radom. Originally Seklucjan was a Dominican. After studying at Leipzig he moved in around 1543 to Poznań, where he served as a Lutheran preacher. Threatened by the local bishop with a charge of heresy, in 1544 he found refuge at Königsberg in Ducal Prussia, at the time a fief of the Kingdom of Poland.
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Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam
1181 - 1262 (81 years)
Abū Muḥammad ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin ʿAbd al-Salām bin Abī al-Qāsim bin Ḥasan al-Sulamī al-Shāfiʿī , also known by his titles, Sultan al-'Ulama/ Sulthanul Ulama, Abu Muhammad al-Sulami, was a famous mujtahid, Ash'ari theologian, jurist and the leading Shafi'i authority of his generation. He was described by Al-Dhahabi as someone who attained the rank of ijtihad, with asceticism and piety and the command of virtue and forbidding of what is evil and solidity in religion. He was described by Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali as the sheikh of Islam, the imam of the scholar, the lone of his era, the aut...
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Thomas Rutherford Bacon
1850 - 1913 (63 years)
Thomas Rutherford Bacon was an American Congregational clergyman and leading Mugwump. In the wake of the presidential election of 1884, he relocated to the West Coast, where he became a professor of history at the University of California.
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Philip Aranda
1642 - 1695 (53 years)
Philip Aranda was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Biography Aranda was born at Moneva in Aragon. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1658, and taught theology and philosophy at Zaragoza. He was connected with the Inquisition of Aragon and was synodal examiner of the Archdiocese of Zaragoza.
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Johann Hermann Janssens
1783 - 1853 (70 years)
Johann Hermann Janssens was a Belgian Roman Catholic theologian. Life After completing his theological studies in Rome he was appointed professor in the College of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1809. From 1816 he was professor of Scripture and dogmatic theology in the ecclesiastical seminary of Liège.
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Johann Heß
1490 - 1547 (57 years)
Johann Heß was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant Reformer of Breslau . Heß was born in Nuremberg. He attended the universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, where he was taught in jurisprudence and liberal arts. In Wittenberg he became a follower of Martin Luther, and stayed in touch with the Protestant Reformation when he relocated to Neisse in 1513 as the secretary of Johannes V. Thurzo, bishop of Breslau. In 1518 Heß moved to Bologna to study theology, completing his studies there in 1519. On the way back to Silesia he stopped in Wittenberg and became a friend of Philipp Melanchthon.
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Patrick Leahy
1806 - 1875 (69 years)
Patrick Leahy was the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. Life Leahy, named for father Patrick Leahy, civil engineer and county surveyor of Cork, was born near Thurles, County Tipperary, on 31 May 1806, and was educated at Maynooth.
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William Reynolds
1544 - 1594 (50 years)
William Reynolds was an English Catholic theologian and Biblical scholar. Life Educated at Winchester School, he became fellow of New College, Oxford . He was converted to Catholicism partly by the controversy between John Jewel and Thomas Harding, and partly by the personal influence of William Allen.
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Ambrose Traversari
1386 - 1439 (53 years)
Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli , was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
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Johannes Vorst
1623 - 1676 (53 years)
Johannes Vorst was a Protestant theologian of Germany. Vorst was born in Wieselburg in 1623. He studied, at Wittenberg, and was appointed in 1653 rector at Flensburg. In 1655 the Rostock University made him a licentiate of theology, and shortly afterwards he was called to Berlin as rector of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium. In 1660 he resigned his position, and became librarian to the elector of Brandenburg. He died on 4 August 1676.
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Peter Werenfels
1627 - 1703 (76 years)
Peter Werenfels was a Swiss theologian, professor at the University of Basel and antistes of the Basel church. He served as the doctoral advisor of prominent mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
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Alain de Lille
1117 - 1202 (85 years)
Alain de Lille was a French theologian and poet. He was born in Lille, some time before 1128. His exact date of death remains unclear as well, with most research pointing toward it being between 14 April 1202, and 5 April 1203. He is known for writing a number of works on that are based upon the teachings of the liberal arts, with one of his most renowned poems, De planctu Naturae , focusing on human nature in regard to sexual conduct. Although, Alain was widely known during his lifetime, there is not a great deal known about his personal life, with the majority of our knowledge of the theol...
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Helmut Rex
1913 - 1967 (54 years)
Helmut Herbert Hermann Rex was a New Zealand Presbyterian theologian and lecturer. Early life Helmut Rehbein was born in Potsdam, Germany, in 1913. He spent his youth in Berlin after moving there in 1919.
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Willem van Blijenbergh
1632 - 1696 (64 years)
Willem van Blijenbergh was a Dutch grain broker and amateur Calvinist theologian. He was born and lived in Dordrecht. He engaged in philosophical correspondence with Baruch Spinoza regarding the problem of evil. Their correspondence consisted of four letters each, written between December 1664 to June 1665. Blijenbergh visited Spinoza at his home in June, after which their correspondence ended.
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Ernst Friedrich von Ockel
1742 - 1816 (74 years)
Ernst Friedrich Ockel was Lutheran theologian, writer and politician from the duchy of Courland , born 16 November 1742, in Mengeringhausen . Son of a Lutheran minister and school rector in Mengeringhausen, studied in the Halle University.
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George Kitchin
1827 - 1912 (85 years)
George William Kitchin was the first Chancellor of the University of Durham, from the institution of the role in 1908 until his death in 1912. He was also the last Dean of Durham to govern the university.
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Luca Pinelli
1542 - 1607 (65 years)
Luca Pinelli was an Italian jesuit and theologian. Life Born at Melfi, Basilicata, to a family from the Republic of Genoa, in 1562 he entered the Society of Jesus, where he taught theology and philosophy. Subsequently, he was sent to Germany and France to combat Protestantism, teaching theology at the universities of Ingolstadt and Pont-a-Mousson . Under his influence, the two universities adopted Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas as a textbook.
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Ivan Ančić
1624 - 1685 (61 years)
Ivan Ančić was a Croatian theologian and writer. He was born in Lipa near Tomislavgrad in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and likely finished his basic education at the Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena monastery in Rama, where he was ordained as a priest in 1643. He attended gymnasium in Velika and finished his philosophy-theology studies in Cremona , Brixen and Naples .
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Georgius Hornius
1620 - 1670 (50 years)
Georgius Hornius was a German historian and geographer, and professor of history at Leiden University from 1653 until his death. Life He was born in Kemnath, Upper Palatinate as the son of the superintendent of the Reformed church there. His family was forced to move away in the wake of the Catholic victory at White Mountain when Horn was still an infant. In 1635, he visited the gymnasium in Nuremberg, and in 1637 he was enrolled in University of Altdorf as a student of theology and medicine. He later worked as a private tutor, in Gröningen and later in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic. In Leiden, he was also enrolled as a student of Friedrich Spanheim.
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Daniel Chamier
1565 - 1621 (56 years)
Daniel Chamier was a Huguenot minister in France, founder of the Academy of Montpellier and author. Life and work Chamier was born at the castle of Le Mont, near Mocas and west of Grenoble. His father was from Avignon and a Protestant convert, a pastor at Montélimar. Daniel studied at the now defunct University of Orange and at Geneva under Theodore Beza and Antoine de la Faye , in the period 1583 to 1589. He was ordained minister at Montpellier, and about 1595 succeeded his father at Montélimar.
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Andrew Van Vranken Raymond
1854 - 1918 (64 years)
Andrew Van Vranken Raymond was an American minister, educator and author; raised in the Dutch Reformed Faith in upstate New York. He was a graduate of Union College , and was a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church before becoming a Presbyterian minister. He later accepted the position as President of Union College . He accepted a call to the First Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, NY where he served as pastor until his death.
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