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,
#3301
Donald Maclean
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Donald Maclean was principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. He was appointed Professor of Church History and Church Principles in 1920, and principal in 1942, but died the following year. He also co-founded The Evangelical Quarterly.
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Absalon
1128 - 1201 (73 years)
Absalon was a Danish statesman and prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the bishop of Roskilde from 1158 to 1192 and archbishop of Lund from 1178 until his death. He was the foremost politician and church father of Denmark in the second half of the 12th century, and was the closest advisor of King Valdemar I of Denmark. He was a key figure in the Danish policies of territorial expansion in the Baltic Sea, Europeanization in close relationship with the Holy See, and reform in the relation between the Church and the public. He combined the ideals of Gregorian Reform with loyal support o...
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John McMurtrie
1831 - 1912 (81 years)
John McMurtrie FRSE was a Scottish minister and naturalist. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1904. As a naturalist he had a special interest in conches. Life He was born on 16 December 1831 in Ayr the son of Agnes Tweedie Nichol and her husband, John McMurtrie a bank agent . He was educated at Ayr Academy. He then studied divinity at the University of Edinburgh graduating BA in 1854 with an MA in 1856.
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Andreas Steinhuber
1825 - 1907 (82 years)
Andreas Steinhuber, S.J. was a German prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in education as a teacher and administrator, was made a cardinal in 1893, and then held senior positions in the Roman Curia. He was a forceful opponent of modernism in the Catholic Church and in wider society.
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Isaac Barrow
1630 - 1677 (47 years)
Isaac Barrow was an English Christian theologian and mathematician who is generally given credit for his early role in the development of infinitesimal calculus; in particular, for proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus. His work centered on the properties of the tangent; Barrow was the first to calculate the tangents of the kappa curve. He is also notable for being the inaugural holder of the prestigious Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, a post later held by his student, Isaac Newton.
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Wilhelm Gass
1813 - 1889 (76 years)
Wilhelm Gass was a German theologian born in Breslau. He was the son of theologian Joachim Christian Gass . He received his education in Breslau, Halle and Berlin, and as a student was influenced by the teachings of August Neander . In 1846 he became an associate professor at the University of Breslau, and during the following year relocated to Greifswald, where in 1855 he achieved the title of professor ordinarius. In 1862 he was appointed professor of systematic theology at the University of Giessen, and in 1868 moved to Heidelberg as a successor to Richard Rothe . He died in 1889 in Heidel...
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Henry Eyster Jacobs
1844 - 1932 (88 years)
Henry Eyster Jacobs was an American religious educator, Biblical commentator and Lutheran theologian. Biography Jacobs was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the son of professor Michael and Juliana M Jacobs. His sister Julia Jacobs Harpster became a missionary in India; his brother Michael William Jacobs became a judge. He graduated from Pennsylvania College in 1862 and from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1865. Between 1870 and 1883, he was professor at Pennsylvania College. He was then appointed professor of systematic theology in The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mount Airy, where he also assumed the office of dean in 1894.
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Heinrich Abeken
1809 - 1872 (63 years)
Heinrich Abeken was a German theologian and Prussiann Privy Legation Councillor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. Early life Abeken was born and raised in the city of Osnabrück as a son of a merchant, he was incited to a higher education by the example of his uncle Bernhard Rudolf Abeken. After finishing the college in Osnabrück, he moved in 1827 to visit the University of Berlin to study theology. He combined philosophical and philological studies and was interested in art and modern literature.
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William Griffith Thomas
1861 - 1924 (63 years)
William Henry Griffith Thomas was an Anglican cleric and scholar from the English-Welsh border country. He has been quoted by theologian Alister McGrath in the science-versus-religion debate. Life and work Griffith Thomas was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, England, to a Welsh family. According to the General Register Office marriage record for his parents, his mother was the daughter of William Griffith, a surgeon of Oswestry. She married William Thomas on August 30, 1860. William Thomas was a draper and the son of Thomas Thomas, a farmer. By the 1861 census, Mrs. Thomas was widowed and living in Oswestry with her parents and infant son.
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Henry Orton Wiley
1877 - 1961 (84 years)
Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement. A member of the Church of the Nazarene, his "magnum opus" was the three volume systematic theology Christian Theology.
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Carl Stange
1870 - 1959 (89 years)
Carl Stange was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. In his work, he mainly dealt with issues of ethics and the philosophy of religion. He studied theology, history and philosophy at the universities of Halle, Göttingen, Leipzig and Jena, obtaining his habilitation for systematic theology in 1895 at Halle. In 1903 he became an associate professor at the University of Königsberg, and during the following year, was named a full professor of systematic theology at the University of Greifswald, where in 1911/12 he served as university rector. In 1912 he was appointed professor of syste...
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Johann Wilhelm Petersen
1649 - 1727 (78 years)
Johann Wilhelm Petersen was a German theologian, mystic, and Millennialist. Johann Wilhelm Petersen grew up in Lübeck and studied theology at the Katharineum in Lübeck, as well as in Giessen, Rostock, Leipzig, Wittenberg and Jena. He studied with Philipp Jakob Spener in Frankfurt, and they became friends in 1675. Through his affiliation with Spener, Petersen became interested in Pietism.
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John Baillie
1886 - 1960 (74 years)
John Baillie was a Scottish theologian, a Church of Scotland minister and brother of theologian Donald Macpherson Baillie. Life Son of Free Church minister John Baillie , and his wife, Annie MacPherson, he was born in the Free Church manse in Gairloch, Wester Ross, on 26 March 1886.
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Sibrandus Lubbertus
1556 - 1625 (69 years)
Sibrandus Lubbertus was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and was a professor of theology at the University of Franeker for forty years from the institute's foundation in 1585. He was a prominent participant in the Synod of Dort . His primary works were to counter Roman Catholic doctrine and to oppose Socinianism and Arminianism.
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Johann Georg Rosenmüller
1736 - 1815 (79 years)
Johann Georg Rosenmüller , a German Protestant theologian, was born at Ummerstadt in Hildburghausen, on 18 December 1736. He was appointed Professor of Theology at Erlangen in 1773, Primarius Professor of Theology at Erlangen in 1773, Primarius Professor of Divinity at Giessen in 1783, and was called in 1785 to Leipzig, where he remained until his death in 1815. His two sons were Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller, and Johann Christian Rosenmüller.
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James Robinson Graves
1820 - 1893 (73 years)
James Robinson Graves was an American Baptist preacher, publisher, evangelist, debater, author, and editor. He is most noted as the original founder of what is now the Southwestern family of companies. Graves was born in Chester, Vermont, the son of Z. C. Graves, and died in Memphis, Tennessee. His remains are interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.
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Johann Joachim Lange
1670 - 1744 (74 years)
Johann Joachim Lange was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. Lange was born in Gardelegen and educated in Leipzig, Erfurt and Halle. He was influenced by Christian Thomasius and the pietist August Hermann Francke. He became a professor of theology at Halle in 1709, and opposed the philosophy of Christian Wolff. He died in Halle on 7 May 1744.
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Caspar Schwenckfeld
1489 - 1561 (72 years)
Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig was a German theologian, writer, physician, naturalist, and preacher who became a Protestant Reformer and spiritualist. He was one of the earliest promoters of the Protestant Reformation in Silesia.
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Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann
1759 - 1844 (85 years)
Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann was a German Catholic theologian. Life Having finished his humanities in the college at Molsheim, he studied theology from 1776 to 1780 in the seminary at Strasbourg, after which, as he was too young for ordination, he was as subdeacon appointed teacher in the college at Molsheim. He became a deacon and a licentiate of theology in 1782, and was ordained priest on 14 June 1783.
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Philipp van Limborch
1633 - 1712 (79 years)
Philipp van Limborch was a Dutch Remonstrant theologian. Biography Limborch was born on 19 June 1633 in Amsterdam, where his father was a lawyer. He received his education at Utrecht, at Leiden, in his native city, and finally at Utrecht University, which he entered in 1652. In 1657 he became a Remonstrant pastor at Gouda, and in 1667 he was transferred to Amsterdam, where, in the following year, the office of professor of theology in the Remonstrant seminary was added to his pastoral charge. He was a friend of John Locke, whose A Letter Concerning Toleration was likely addressed to, and first published by, Philipp van Limborch.
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George Park Fisher
1827 - 1909 (82 years)
George Park Fisher was an American theologian and historian who was noted as a teacher and a prolific writer. Biography He was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University in 1847, and then studied theology at Yale Divinity School and the Andover Theological Seminary. He graduated from the latter institution in 1851. In 1853 he visited Germany, where he continued his theological studies.
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August Carl Eduard Baldamus
1812 - 1893 (81 years)
August Carl Eduard Baldamus was a German ornithologist. August Baldamus studied theology at the University of Berlin. In 1859 he became professor at the Gymnasium in Köthen where he met Carl Andreas Naumann and his brother Johann Friedrich Naumann both ornithologists. In 1849 he became Pastor in Diebzig, in 1859 moving to the same office in Osternienburg. He retired to Coburg in 1870. Baldamus was the founder of the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft and published the ornithological journal Naumannia between 1849 and 1858.
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Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch
1725 - 1778 (53 years)
Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch was a German theologian, linguist, and naturalist from Jena. Life The son of the theologian Johann Georg Walch, he studied Semitic languages at the University of Jena, and also natural science and mathematics. In 1749 he published Einleitung in die Harmonie der Evangelien, and in 1750 was appointed professor extraordinarius of theology. Five years later he became professor ordinarius of logic and metaphysics; in 1759 he exchanged this for a professorship of rhetoric and poetry.
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Henry Alford
1810 - 1871 (61 years)
Henry Alford was an English churchman, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer. Life Alford was born in London, of a Somerset family, which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. He was a precocious boy, and before he was ten had written several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines. After a peripatetic school education he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827 as a scholar. In 1832 he was 3...
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Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec
1501 - 1584 (83 years)
Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec, also known as Hieronymus Bolsec was a French Carmelite theologian and physician, who became a Protestant and controversialist, later returning to the Catholic Church. Life A sermon which he preached at Paris aroused misgivings in Catholic circles regarding the soundness of his ideas, and Bolsec left Paris. Having separated from the Catholic Church around 1545, he took refuge at the Court of Renée, duchess of Ferrara, who was favourably disposed towards persons holding Protestant views. Here he married, and began the study of medicine around 1550, settling as a physician ...
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Siger of Brabant
1235 - 1284 (49 years)
Siger of Brabant was a 13th-century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism. Life Early life Little is known about many of the details of his life. In 1266, he was attached to the Faculty of Arts in the University of Paris at the time when a riot erupted between the French and Picard "nations" of students—a series of loosely organized fraternities. The papal legate threatened Siger with execution as the ringleader of the Picard attack on the French, but no further action was taken.
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Cuthbert
635 - 687 (52 years)
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September .
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Saint Remigius
437 - 533 (96 years)
Remigius was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important event in the Christianization of the Franks. Because of Clovis's efforts, a large number of churches were established in the formerly pagan lands of the Frankish empire, establishing a distinct Catholic variety of Christianity for the first time in Germanic lands, most of whom had been converted to Arian Christianity.
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Franz Joseph Dölger
1879 - 1940 (61 years)
Franz Joseph Dölger was a German Catholic theologian and church historian. He studied theology at the University of Würzburg, being ordained into the priesthood in 1902. Afterwards he worked as a chaplain in Amorbach and Würzburg, and in June 1904, obtained his doctorate in theology.
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Orson Hyde
1805 - 1878 (73 years)
Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and a member of the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 to 1875 and was a missionary of the LDS Church in the United States, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire.
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Willibald Beyschlag
1823 - 1900 (77 years)
Johann Heinrich Christoph Willibald Beyschlag was a German theologian from Frankfurt am Main. Biography He studied theology at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin, afterwards serving as an assistant pastor in Koblenz , then as a pastor in Trier . During the following year, Beyschlag began working as a religious instructor in Mainz. In 1856 he became a court preacher in Karlsruhe, and four years later, he was appointed a professor of practical theology and New Testament exegesis at the University of Halle.
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F. C. Grant
1891 - 1974 (83 years)
Frederick Clifton Grant was an American New Testament scholar. Grant was born on February 2, 1891, in Beloit, Wisconsin. He received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from General Theological Seminary in 1912 and Master of Sacred Theology and Doctor of Theology degrees from Western Theological Seminary in 1916 and 1922 respectively. Grant was Edward Robertson Professor of Biblical Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1951, a Festschrift was published in his honor. The Joy of Study: Papers on New Testament and Related Subjects Presented to Honor Frederick Clifton Grant included contributions from Henry Cadbury, Philip Carrington, and Robert M.
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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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Jacobus de Boragine
1200 - 1178 (-22 years)
Jacobus de Boragine was one of the Glossators, and Four Doctors of Bologna. Also known as Jacobus, he was born in the early 12th century and was an Italian lawyer, one of four students of Irnerius called the Quattuor Doctores, although Savigny disputes the general tradition of his inclusion in this list. The other doctors were Bulgarus, Martinus and Hugo. The legal philosophy of Bulgarus adhered closely to the letter of the law while their fellow, Martinus, took a more natural law and Equity approach. His time at Bologna was therefore one of the formative times in legal theory.
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