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,
#3151
Thomas of Edessa
Thomas of Edessa was a theologian of the Church of the East who wrote several works in Syriac, most of them lost. Thomas was educated in Edessa. There he taught Greek to the future patriarch, Aba. He later travelled with Aba around the Roman Empire, including to its capital, Constantinople. He studied under Aba at the school of Nisibis in the Persian Empire. He also taught at Nisibis. He may have died in Constantinople or on his return journey to Nisibis.
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Christopher Anderson
1782 - 1852 (70 years)
Christopher Anderson was a Scottish theological writer and preacher. Biography He was born at Edinburgh, 19 February 1782, the son of William Anderson, a merchant. He began life in an insurance office, but gave up his secular work and studied for the ministry, with the aim of becoming a missionary: his background was formed by followers of Robert and James Haldane. Weak health prevented his accepting a missionary appointment, and he then became minister of a small congregation in Edinburgh, known as "English Baptists", at the Charlotte Chapel. He held this post until shortly before his deat...
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Charles W. Lyons
1868 - 1939 (71 years)
Charles William Lyons was an American Catholic priest who became the only Jesuit and likely the only educator in the United States to have served as the president of four colleges. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he attended the local public schools before entering the wool industry. He abandoned his career in industry to enter the Society of Jesus. While a novice in Maryland, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to Georgetown University as prefect. He then resumed his studies at Woodstock College, teaching intermittently at Gonzaga College in Washington, D.C. and Loyola College in Baltimore.
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Antonius Hulsius
1615 - 1685 (70 years)
Antonius Hulsius was a German philologist and Calvinist theologian. Life Hulsius was born towards the end of 1615 at Hilden, a midsized manufacturing town in the hill-country east of Düsseldorf, at a time when Lutheran Protestantism had recently been supplanted by Calvinist Protestantism as the mainstream religion of the townsfolk, while the local lord was still adhering to the Catholicism of his forefathers. It was a period of intense religious conflict in the Rhineland, and the life of Antonius Hulsius would be deeply impacted by the Thirty Years' War . His father, also called Antonius Hulsius, was the local mayor.
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Ferdinand Weerth
1774 - 1836 (62 years)
Ferdinand Weerth was a German pastor and school-reformer in the Principality of Lippe. Between 1805 and 1836 he officiated as the general superintendent of the Reformed Church of Lippe. One of his sons was the writer Georg Weerth.
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Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh
1606 - 1677 (71 years)
Froinsias Ó Maolmhuaidh was a Franciscan friar, theologian and grammarian, author of the first published grammar of the Irish language written in Latin, c. 1606–1677. Biography Early life Ó Maolmhuaidh was born in the Diocese of Meath, most probably in the district of Fercall, lordship of The Ó Maolmhuaidh, in what was then called King's County. While his exact place within the Ó Maolmhuaidh family is unknown, he recorded stories heard in his youth "of a great Christmas banquet for 960 people, lasting twelve days, held by Calvagh O'Molloy, chief of his name, at the end of the sixteenth centu...
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Durand of Huesca
1160 - 1224 (64 years)
Durand of Huesca was a Spanish Waldensian, who converted in 1207 to Catholicism. Durand had been a disciple of Peter Waldo, who had been excommunicated in 1184. Around the early 1190s Durand wrote Liber Antihaeresis against the Cathars, which is considered perhaps the best primary source on early Waldensian thought.
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Johannes Müller
1864 - 1949 (85 years)
Johannes Müller was an unconventional German Protestant theologian. Life Provenance and early years Johannes Müller was born in Riesa, a small town located a short distance down-river from Dresden. He was born into a revivalist family. His parents had met in a pietist community.
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Edmund Bunny
1540 - 1619 (79 years)
Edmund Bunny was an Anglican churchman of Calvinist views. Life He was born in 1540 at the Vache, the seat of Edward Restwold, his mother's father, near Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was the eldest son of Richard Bunny of Newton or Bunny Hall in Wakefield parish, who was treasurer of Berwick, and otherwise employed in public services in the north, under Henry VIII and Edward VI; he suffered as a Protestant under Mary, and obtained some compensation from Elizabeth .
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William May
1505 - 1560 (55 years)
William May , also known as William Meye, was Dean of the Order of the British Empire. He was nominated Archbishop of York in 1560, but died before he could take office. William May was the brother of John May, bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queens' College. May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in 1536, and helped in the production of The Institution of a Christian Man. He had close connection with the diocese of Ely, being successively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 154...
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Alexander Bonini
1268 - 1314 (46 years)
Alexander Bonini was an Italian Franciscan philosopher, who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. He taught at the University of Paris. A prolific writer, he is now remembered most for his Tractatus de Usuris. It is especially notable for its subtle treatment of the pricing of contracts involving risks; for example it writes of life annuities, 'we see men and women twenty-five years old buying life annuities for a price such that within eight years they will receive their stake back; and although they may live less than those eight years, it is more probable that they will live twice that.
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François Delfau
1637 - 1676 (39 years)
François Delfau was a French Benedictine theologian, an authority on patristic theology. Life He joined the Order of St. Benedict when he was seventeen years of age, and made his solemn profession at the Abbey of St. Allire, 2 May 1656. He was a student of the Fathers of the Church and the history of the councils.
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Ernst Zimmermann
1786 - 1832 (46 years)
Ernst Christoph Philipp Zimmermann was a German classical philologist and theologian. He was the brother of theologian Karl Zimmermann . He studied at the Darmstadt gymnasium as a pupil of historian Helfrich Bernhard Wenck, and afterwards furthered his education at the University of Giessen . In 1805 he became a clergyman in the community of Auerbach , then in 1809 was named deacon in Gross-Gerau and pastor in nearby Büttelborn. In 1814 he was appointed court deacon at the Hofkirche in Darmstadt, where two years later he became a court preacher. In 1831 he attained the titles of prelate, eccl...
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William Norman Guthrie
1868 - 1944 (76 years)
William Norman Guthrie also known as Norman de Lagutry was an American clergyman and grandson of famous radical Frances Wright. His father, Eugène Picault de Lagutry, was the husband of Frances Sylva Piquepal d'Arusmont, the daughter of Frances Wright.
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Abner Jackson
1811 - 1874 (63 years)
Abner Jackson was an American minister and teacher and President of Hobart College in Geneva, New York from 1858 to 1867 and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut from 1867 until his death, where he had originally studied and taught. At Trinity in the 1840s and 1850s he was Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. Whilst president of Hobart he was responsible for changing the name from Hobart Free College to honor its original founder, Bishop John Henry Hobart, and was responsible for much fundraising. In 1863, he raised the funds to build the St. John's Chapel.
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Gaspar Hurtado
1575 - 1647 (72 years)
Gaspar Hurtado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He studied at the University of Alcalá de Henares, where in the examination for the doctorate he won the highest place from numerous competitors. He was at once appointed professor in the university, and was winning fame as a lecturer, when at the age of 32, he resigned his chair and entered the Society of Jesus .
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Konrad Hubert
1507 - 1577 (70 years)
Konrad Hubert, also Konrad Huber, Konrad Huober, or Konrad Humbert , was a German Reformed theologian, hymn writer and reformer. He was for 18 years the assistant of Martin Bucer at St. Thomas, Strasbourg.
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Chaim Heller
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Rabbi Chaim Heller was a prominent Talmudist and Targumic scholar who combined traditional rabbinic erudition with expertise in modern textual research. He was renowned for his genius and command of ancient languages. He was posthumously awarded the Rabbi Kook Prize for Rabbinical literature in 2007.
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John C. Young
1803 - 1857 (54 years)
John Clarke Young was an American educator and pastor who was the fourth president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he entered the ministry in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1828. He accepted the presidency of Centre College in 1830, holding the position until his death in 1857, making him the longest-serving president in the college's history. He is regarded as one of the college's best presidents, as he increased the endowment of the college more than five-fold during his term and increased the graduating class size from t...
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William de Montibus
1140 - 1213 (73 years)
William de Montibus was a theologian and teacher. He travelled to Paris in the 1160s, where he studied under Peter Comestor, eventually opening his own school on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. He was appointed by Hugh of Lincoln as master of the cathedral school in Lincoln, England in the 1180s, where his lectures drew students from around the country. He was also chancellor of the cathedral by 1194, and remained in both positions until his death in 1213. He was the instructor of Alexander Neckam in Paris, and in Lincoln taught Samuel Presbiter and Richard of Wetheringsett.
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John of Segovia
1395 - 1458 (63 years)
John of Segovia, or in Spanish Juan de Segovia , was a Castilian prelate and theologian. He played a prominent role in the Council of Basle and was in touch with the leading humanists of his day, such as Nicholas of Cusa. He spent the last years of his life in exile in Savoy, where he commissioned an accurate translation of the Koran into Spanish, which he then translated into Latin.
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Frederik Christian von Haven
1727 - 1763 (36 years)
Frederik Christian von Haven was a Danish philologist and theologian who took part in the Danish expedition to Yemen. Biography Background and early life Frederik von Haven was born on 26 June 1728 in the rectory of Vester Skerninge on the Danish island of Funen, where his father Lambert von Haven was a priest, and christened on 3 July in the Church of Our Lady in Odense. His mother was Maren, née Wielandt. He had three sisters; he was especially close to Pernille Elisabeth von Haven, who never married.
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Hezekiah Burton
1632 - 1681 (49 years)
Hezekiah Burton was an English theologian. Life He was educated in Sutton-on-Lound and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow. He was an associate of a number of intellectual figures of the day, in particular Richard Cumberland whose De legibus naturae he edited and to which he contributed an Address to the Reader. He is mentioned in Pepys's Diary. He was chaplain to Orlando Bridgeman, and used the contact to support Cumberland.
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Mitrofan Lodyzhensky
1852 - 1917 (65 years)
Mitrofan Vasilyevich Lodyzhensky was a Russian religious philosopher, playwright, and statesman, best known for his Mystical Trilogy comprising Super-consciousness and the Ways to Achieve It, Light Invisible, and Dark Force.
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William Leitch
1814 - 1864 (50 years)
William Leitch was a Scottish astronomer, naturalist and mathematician, and a minister of the Church of Scotland. Leitch studied mathematics and science at the University of Glasgow, and moved to Canada in 1860 to take the post of principal at Queen's University.
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Petrus Opmeer
1526 - 1595 (69 years)
Petrus Opmeer was a Dutch Catholic historian and controversialist. According to his biographer Valerius Andreas, Opmeer was a friend of "painters, sculptors and architects", including Maarten van Heemskerck, Pieter Aertsen, Willem Danielsz van Tetrode, Frans Floris, Antonis Mor and Philip Galle.
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Thomas Edward Brown
1830 - 1897 (67 years)
Thomas Edward Brown , commonly referred to as T. E. Brown, was a late-Victorian scholar, schoolmaster, poet, and theologian from the Isle of Man. Having achieved a double first at Christ Church, Oxford, and election as a fellow of Oriel in April 1854, Brown served first as headmaster of The Crypt School, Gloucester, then as a young master at the fledgling Clifton College, near Bristol
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Johann Gottlob Carpzov
1679 - 1767 (88 years)
Johann Gottlob Carpzov was a German Christian Old Testament scholar, a nephew of Johann Benedict Carpzov II and a son of Samuel Benedict Carpzov. He was the most famous and most important Biblical scholar of the Carpzov family.
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Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz
1777 - 1838 (61 years)
Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Prague from 1833 to 1838. Biography Ankwicz was born in Kraków, Poland in 1777. He was ordained a priest on 2 September 1810. In 1815, he was appointed and ordained archbishop of Lviv in Ukraine. He remained in this capacity for 18 years until 30 September 1833 when he was appointed the archbishop of Prague. He died at the age of 60 years on 26 March 1838 to be succeeded in his archbishopric by Alois Josef Schrenk.
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Gerhard Tersteegen
1697 - 1769 (72 years)
Gerhard Tersteegen , was a German Reformed religious writer and hymnist. Life Tersteegen was born in Moers, at that time the principal city of a county belonging to the House of Orange-Nassau that formed a Protestant enclave in the midst of a Catholic country.
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Owen Oglethorpe
1502 - 1559 (57 years)
Owen Oglethorpe was an English academic and Bishop of Carlisle, 1557–1559. Childhood and Education Oglethorpe was born in Tadcaster, Yorkshire, England , the third son of George Oglethorpe. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was elected a Fellow in 1524. He completed his BA in 1525, received his MA in 1529, and his BTh and DTh in 1536. He was reputed to have taken a keen interest in his studies.
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Peter of Aquila
1300 - 1361 (61 years)
Peter of Aquila was an Italian Friar Minor, theologian and bishop. Peter was born at L'Aquila in the Abruzzo, Italy, towards the end of the 13th century. In 1334 he figures as a Master of Theology and as Minister Provincial of his Order for Tuscany. In 1334 he was appointed confessor to Queen Joan I of Naples and shortly afterwards Inquisitor for Florence. His servants having been punished by public authority, the Inquisitor excommunicated the priors and placed the town under interdict.
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George Bullock
1520 - 1572 (52 years)
George Bullock was an English Roman Catholic theologian. Life He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1538, becoming a fellow. In the reign of Edward VI he spent time in France, at Nevers Abbey. He was Master of St John's College, from 12 May 1554 to 20 July 1559.
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Louis-Honoré Pâquet
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Louis-Honoré Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and university teacher, as well as celebrated orator of his time. Biography Pâquet was born in 1838 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, in what was then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Québec City. The son of farmers Étienne Pâquet and Ursule Lambert, he was descended from an old, pious family of the area, and was closely related to theologian Louis-Adolphe Pâquet as well as to provincial MLA Étienne-Théodore Pâquet . His studies, like those of his older brother Benjamin, were financed by t...
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John Johnson
1662 - 1725 (63 years)
John Johnson, of Cranbrook was an English clergyman, known as a theologian in the Laudian tradition. Life Born 30 December 1662, at Frindsbury in Kent, he was son of the vicar, Thomas Johnson, by Mary, daughter of Francis Drayton, rector of Little Chart, Kent. His father died about four years after his marriage, and Mrs. Johnson, with her two children, a son and a daughter, settled at Canterbury, where John was sent to the King's School. At the age of 15 he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1681. He was afterwards nominated to a scholarship at Corpus Christi College by the dean and chapter of Canterbury; proceeded M.A.
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Bernhard Stempfle
1882 - 1934 (52 years)
Bernhard Stempfle was a Roman Catholic priest and journalist. He helped Adolf Hitler in the writing of Mein Kampf. He was murdered in the Night of the Long Knives. Biography Stempfle entered the priesthood in 1904. He joined the Hieronymite order in Italy. In the years leading up to the First World War, he wrote for the Corriere della Sera and various other German and Italian papers. Following the outbreak of war, he returned to Munich, performed pastoral work at the university, and established close contacts with Reform Catholic elements in the city, especially the nationalistic Hofklerus at St.
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Agostino Bernal
1587 - 1642 (55 years)
Agostino Bernal was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus in 1603 when sixteen years old. A classical scholar, he taught humanities and rhetoric with success. The greater part of his life, however, he spent as professor of philosophy and theology at Saragossa.
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Johann Stössel
1524 - 1576 (52 years)
Johann Stössel was a Lutheran Theologian and Reformer. Life Stössel was born in Kitzingen. He came to Wittenberg at 15 and became a master after 10 years of study. Since he distanced himself from the Philippists, he was appointed by John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony as a court preacher in Weimar. Here he developed into a zealous Gnesio-Lutheran. As such, he took part in the Reformation in the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach. It was in keeping with his strident attitude that he wanted to include anathemas in the church order there against all dissenters.
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Niketas Stethatos
1000 - 1090 (90 years)
Niketas Stethatos was a Byzantine mystic and theologian who is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was a follower of Symeon the New Theologian and wrote the most complete biography of Symeon, Life of Symeon.
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Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg
1580 - 1645 (65 years)
Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg was a German Lutheran pastor. Life Matthias's father was Leonhard Höe von Höenegg, a Lutheran imperial councillor and doctor of law descended from old Austrian nobility. Matthias was born prematurely and so his health was weak during his early years, meaning he only started speaking when he was seven. His father initially had him taught by a private tutor until, once he was almost fully educated, he was allowed to visit Vienna's St Stephan's Stadtschule, where he developed remarkably and began talking to the city's scholars.
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Thomas Smart Hughes
1786 - 1847 (61 years)
Thomas Smart Hughes was an English cleric, theologian and historian. Life Born at Nuneaton, Warwickshire, on 25 August 1786, he was the eldest surviving son of Hugh Hughes, curate of Nuneaton, and rector of Hardwick, Northamptonshire. He received his early education from John Spencer Cobbold, first at Nuneaton grammar school, and later as a private pupil at Wilby, Suffolk. In 1801 he was sent to Shrewsbury School, then under the head-mastership of Dr. Samuel Butler, and in October 1803 entered as a pensioner of St John's College, Cambridge. His university career was distinguished. Besides col...
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Thomas Eyre
1748 - 1810 (62 years)
Thomas Eyre , was a Catholic theologian. A graduate of the English College, Douai, he became the first president of St. Cuthbert's College at Ushaw. Life Thomas Eyre, the fourth son of Nathaniel and Jane Broomhead Eyre, was born in 1748 at Glossop, Derbyshire. On 24 June 1758, he, with his brothers Edward and John, arrived at Esquerchin, near Douai, the preparatory school for the English college. He entered Douai college in 1762. After being ordained priest in 1775, he was retained at the college as general prefect and master of the classes known as rhetoric and poetry.
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Otto Zöckler
1833 - 1906 (73 years)
Otto Zöckler was a German theologian, professor at Greifswald. He edited a Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaft, and other works. Quote from him: “The wise man is also the just, pious, the upright, the man who walks in the way of truth.”
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Richard S. Rust
1815 - 1906 (91 years)
Richard Sutton Rust was an American Methodist preacher, abolitionist, educator, writer, lecturer, secretary of the Freedmen's Bureau, and founder of the Freedmen's Aid Society. He also helped found multiple educational institutions including his namesake Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the oldest historically black United Methodist-related college.
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Johann Sigismund Mörl
1710 - 1791 (81 years)
Johann Sigismund Mörl was a German theologian. Son of Gustav Philipp Mörl, he was born in Nuremberg on 3 March 1710 and was educated in his native place until ready for the university at Altdorf, where he studied theology after 1727. In 1735 he was appointed dean of a church at Nuremberg. He preached until 1759, when he was appointed minister and inspector of the "Egidianum." In 1765 he was elected in this gymnasium to the professorship of Greek. Towards the close of 1770 he was called to the position of minister of St. Lawrence's church. In 1773 he accepted the position of first minister at St.
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Jakob Beurlin
1520 - 1561 (41 years)
Jakob Beurlin was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Life Beurlin was born in Dornstetten. In November 1533, he entered the University of Tübingen. When the Protestant Reformation was introduced there in 1534, he remained faithful to Catholicism, diligently studying philosophy and the writings of the Church Fathers. His transition to the new doctrine took place quietly.
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Ralph Niger
1140 - Present (886 years)
Ralph Niger, Latin Radulphus Niger or Radulfus Niger, anglicized Ralph the Black , was an Anglo-French theologian and one of the English chroniclers. He was from Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and became Archdeacon of Gloucester.
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Alexander von Oettingen
1827 - 1906 (79 years)
Alexander Konstantin von Oettingen was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and statistician. Biography Oettingen was born at Wissust in the Kreis Dorpat of the Governorate of Livonia, the member of a Baltic German noble family that produced many scholars, including his brothers Georg von Oettingen, professor of medicine at the University of Dorpat , and Arthur von Oettingen, professor of physique in Dorpat and Leipzig. Alexander von Oettingen studied at Erlangen, Bonn, and Berlin.
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Jacob Stolterfoht
1600 - 1668 (68 years)
Jacob Stolterfoht was a German Lutheran theologian and leading pastor in Lübeck during and directly following the Thirty Years' War. Life Stolterfoht was one of the youngest of the ten children of the Lübeck pastor Johann Stolterfoht and his wife, born Margaretha Bacmeister , the only daughter of another north German theologian. In the first part of 1620 Jacob enrolled at the University of Rostock to study theology. He moved on to Wittemberg in 1621 and from there to Greifswald, where he studied between 1622 and 1623. He then returned to Rostock, where he concluded his universit...
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Willbur Fisk
1792 - 1839 (47 years)
Willbur Fisk was a prominent American Methodist minister, educator and theologian. He was the first President of Wesleyan University. Family background Fisk was born in Guilford, , Vermont on August 31, 1792. His father, the Hon. Isaiah Fisk , was from Massachusetts and descended from William Fisk who emigrated to America from England in about 1637. His mother, Hannah was also from Massachusetts and was descended from John Bacon who came to America in 1640. Isaiah and Hannah Fisk married on May 2, 1786, and moved to Guildford, where Isaiah's father, Amos Fisk, had purchased land at the outbreak of the American Revolution.
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