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,
#3351
William Law
1809 - 1892 (83 years)
William Law was an important figure in the early history of the Latter Day Saint movement, holding a position in the church's First Presidency under Joseph Smith Jr. Law was later excommunicated for apostasy from the church and was founder of the short-lived True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In this capacity, he published a single edition of the Nauvoo Expositor, the destruction of which set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to Smith's death.
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Gerhard Schneemann
1829 - 1885 (56 years)
Gerhard Schneemann was a German Jesuit. Life After studying law for three years, he entered the seminary at Münster where he was ordained subdeacon in 1850. He became a member of the Society of Jesus, 24 November 1851, and was ordained priest on 22 December 1856.
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Thomas Woolston
1668 - 1733 (65 years)
Thomas Woolston was an English theologian. Although he was often classed as a deist, his biographer William H. Trapnell regards him as an Anglican who held unorthodox theological views. Biography Thomas Woolston, born at Northampton in 1668, the son of a currier, the scholar entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1685; attained the Master of Arts in 1692; the Bachelor of Divinity conferred in 1699; took orders and was made a fellow of his college.
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Johann Georg Veit Engelhardt
1791 - 1855 (64 years)
Johann Georg Veit Engelhardt , a German Protestant theologian. Life He was born at Neustadt-on-the-Aisch. He and was educated at Erlangen, where he afterwards taught in the gymnasium , and became professor of theology in the university . During the years 1845, 1847 and 1848 was the representative of his university in the diet at Munich.
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Christian Friedrich Fritzsche
1776 - 1850 (74 years)
Christian Friedrich Fritzsche was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of theologian Otto Fridolinus Fritzsche and of philologist Franz Volkmar Fritzsche. From 1792 he studied theology at the University of Halle, afterwards working as a pastor in Steinbach und Lauterbach . In 1809 he became a preacher and superintendent in the community of Dobrilugk. In 1827 he was named an honorary professor of theology at Halle, where in 1830 he gained a full professorship. He was interested in public school education, and he wrote monographs and articles on contemporary theological issues from...
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Jean Beleth
1101 - 1185 (84 years)
Jean Beleth was a twelfth-century French liturgist and theologian. He is thought to have been rector in a Paris theological college. That he was possibly of English origin was a hypothesis discussed by John Pits, and supported by Thomas Tanner; but is no longer taken seriously.
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Stanisław of Skarbimierz
1362 - 1431 (69 years)
Stanisław of Skarbimierz was the first rector of the University of Krakow following its restoration in 1399. He was the author of Sermones sapientiales , comprising 113 sermons. Stanisław was born in Skarbimierz, a town some 50 km north-east of Kraków. His sermons were the foundation of Polish political doctrine that culminated in the system of Nobles' Democracy in Poland and, from 1569, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many ideas central to this doctrine may be found in subsequent works by Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki that appear to have influenced the 17th-century English Commonweal...
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Nikephoros Theotokis
1731 - 1800 (69 years)
Nikephoros Theotokis or Nikiforos Theotokis was a Greek scholar and theologian, who became an archbishop in the southern provinces of the Russian Empire. A polymath, he is respected by the Greek Orthodox church as one of the "teachers of the nation".
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Aubrey Moore
1848 - 1890 (42 years)
Aubrey Lackington Moore was an English Anglo-Catholic priest and one of the first Christian Darwinians. He has been described as "the clergyman who more than any other man was responsible for breaking down the antagonisms towards Evolution then widely felt in the English Church".
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Hans Gerhard Stub
1849 - 1931 (82 years)
Hans Gerhard Stub was an American Lutheran theologian and church leader. He served as Bishop of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. Background Hans Gerhard Stub was born in Muskego, Wisconsin. His parents were Lutheran Pastor Hans Andreas Stub and Ingeborg Margrethe Arentz , both immigrants from Norway. Hans Stub was born in an immigrant cabin in Wisconsin. He was shaped from childhood by the life within the Norwegian Synod, which his father had help found in 1853. He studied for a time in Norway at the Bergen Cathedral School.
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Daniel Lorenz Salthenius
1701 - 1750 (49 years)
Daniel Lorenz Salthenius was a professor of theology at the University of Königsberg from 1732 until his death. Salthenius was born in Markim between Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden, the son of a pastor. He studied at the university in his birthplace, as well as University of Halle, and became a noted Pietist. He was appointed to his post at Königsberg to help the Pietist cause there.
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James Roosevelt Bayley
1814 - 1877 (63 years)
James Roosevelt Bayley was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the first Bishop of Newark and the eighth Archbishop of Baltimore . Early life and education Bayley's paternal grandfather, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a professor at Columbia College who created New York's quarantine system. Dr. Bayley had three children by his first wife, among whom was Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was canonized in 1975 as the first American-born Roman Catholic saint. After his first wife's death, Dr. Bayley married Charlotte Amelia Barclay, a member of the Roosevelt family, and the couple had seven children, the sixth of whom was Archbishop Bayley's father, Guy Carleton Bayley, born in 1786.
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Robert of Ketton
1110 - 1160 (50 years)
Robert of Ketton, known in Latin as Rodbertus Ketenensis , was an English astronomer, translator, priest and diplomat active in Spain. He translated several works of Arabic into Latin, including the first translation of the Quran into any Western language. Between 1144 and 1157 he held an archdeaconry in the diocese of Pamplona. In the past he has been confounded with Robert of Chester , another English translator active in Spain in the mid-twelfth century; and at least one modern scholar believes they are the same person.
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Daniel Ernst Jablonski
1660 - 1741 (81 years)
Daniel Ernst Jablonski was a German theologian and reformer of Czech origin, known for his efforts to bring about a union between Lutheran and Calvinist Protestants. Life Jablonski was born in the village of Nassenhuben, near Danzig . His father, Peter Figulus, was a minister of Unity of the Brethren ; the son preferred the Bohemian surname Jablonski which was based on his father's birthplace – Jablonné nad Orlicí. He was the younger brother of Johann Theodor Jablonski. His maternal grandfather, Johann Amos Comenius , was the last bishop of the Unity. Having studied at Frankfurt and at Oxfo...
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Walter Scott
1796 - 1861 (65 years)
Walter Scott was one of the four key early leaders in the Restoration Movement, along with Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell and Thomas' son Alexander Campbell. He was a successful evangelist and helped to stabilize the Campbell movement as it was separating from the Baptists.
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Nicholas Zernov
1898 - 1980 (82 years)
Nicolas Michaelovich Zernov was a Christian Russian émigré who settled in Britain, and taught theology at Oxford University. He wrote many books about the Orthodox Church, and about Christianity in Russia, of which the best known is The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century . He worked continuously for the unity of Christians, and from 1935 to 1947 was secretary of the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius, which he helped to found in 1928.
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Josef Beran
1888 - 1969 (81 years)
Josef Beran was a Czech Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of Prague from 1946 until his death and was elevated into the cardinalate in 1965. Adam Beran was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp during World War II after the Nazis had targeted him for "subversive and dangerous" behavior where he almost died in 1943 due to disease. He was freed in 1945 upon Allied liberation and Pope Pius XII nominated him to head the Prague archdiocese. But the introduction of the communist regime saw him imprisoned and placed under house arrest. His release in 1963 came with the condit...
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Rowland Williams
1817 - 1870 (53 years)
Rowland Williams was a Welsh theologian and educationalist. He was vice-principal and Professor of Hebrew at St David's College, Lampeter, from 1849 to 1862 and one of the most influential theologians of the nineteenth century. He supported biblical criticism and pioneered comparative religious studies in Britain. He was also a priest in the Church of England, and the vicar of Broad Chalke in Wiltshire, where he is buried. Williams is also credited with introducing rugby football to Wales; Lampeter's team was the first to be established in the nation.
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Hermann Strack
1848 - 1922 (74 years)
Hermann Leberecht Strack was a German Protestant theologian and orientalist; born in Berlin. Biography From 1877, Strack was assistant professor of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages at the University of Berlin. He was the foremost Christian authority in Germany on Talmudic and rabbinic literature, and studied rabbinics under Steinschneider. Since the reappearance of anti-Semitism in Germany, Strack had been the champion of the Jews against the attacks of such men as Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker, Professor August Rohling, and others. In 1885 Strack became the editor of Nathanael. Zeit...
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Eelis Gulin
1893 - 1975 (82 years)
Eelis Gideon Gulin also known as Pinomaa or Gulin-Pinomaa was Professor of New Testament at the University of Helsinki from 1933 to 1945 and Bishop of Tampere from 1945 to 1966. Biography Gulin was born on 29 December 1893 in Mikkeli, Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, the son of Arthur Lorenz Pinomaa Gulin and Bertha Kristina Christina Sarlin. In 1915 he graduated with a bachelor's degree and commenced studies in Eastern languages, Greek, Latin and theoretical philosophy, after which he intended to begin researching the Old Testament. In 1918 he graduated in theology and earned a bachelor's degree one year later.
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Hesychius of Sinai
601 - 800 (199 years)
Hesychius of Sinai was a hieromonk of Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, and an ascetic author of the Byzantine period in literature. Nothing definite is known concerning his career or the exact time at which he lived. Only fragments of the literary remains of this author have been preserved, and they have still to be collected and separately criticized. In manuscripts, as a rule, he is given the honorary title of "Our Holy Father" and, in cases where the authenticity of this title on a manuscript is certain, it is sufficient to distinguish him from others of the same name, and espec...
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Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari
867 - 940 (73 years)
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī was a Muslim theologian and populist religious leader from Iraq. He was a scholar and jurist who is famous for his role in suppressing S̲h̲īʿa missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during his lifetime. His books include creedal and methodological refutations against certain sects including the Shias, Qadaris, and the Mu'tazilites.
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Johan Henrik Thomander
1798 - 1865 (67 years)
Johan Henrik Thomander was a Swedish professor, bishop, translator and author. He received his doctorate in theology in 1836 and was elected to the eighteenth chair of the Swedish Academy in 1856. After his father's death, Thomander's daughters bequeathed a house on Sandgatan in Lund to Lund University to be used as a student residence. The dormitory still exists today and is called .
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Friedrich Heinrich Ranke
1798 - 1876 (78 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Ranke was a German Protestant theologian. He was the brother of historian Leopold von Ranke and the father of pediatrician Heinrich von Ranke and anthropologist Johannes Ranke .
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Arthur Peake
1865 - 1929 (64 years)
Arthur Samuel Peake was an English biblical scholar, born at Leek, Staffordshire, and educated at St John's College, Oxford. He was the first holder of the Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis in the University of Manchester, from its establishment as an independent institution in 1904. He was thus the first non-Anglican to become a professor of divinity in an English university.
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Emil Albert Friedberg
1837 - 1910 (73 years)
Emil Albert Friedberg was a German canonist. Friedberg was born at Konitz, Province of Prussia. His Jewish parents had joined the Evangelical Church in Prussia before his birth, letting him baptised Protestant. Friedberg was educated at Berlin and Heidelberg. After having been a member of the faculty at Berlin, Halle, and Freiberg, he was appointed professor at Leipzig in 1869.
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Alexander Black
1789 - 1864 (75 years)
Alexander Black DD professor of Exegetical Theology in New College, Edinburgh. Black was a native of Aberdeen, where he received his education, first at the Grammar School, and afterwards at Marischal College. After passing through the Divinity Hall, he was appointed assistant to Dr Ross, East Church, Aberdeen, and he was subsequently presented to the Parish Church of Tarves, as successor to Duncan Mearns. Upon the death of David Brown, Black in 1831 became his successor in the Professorship of Divinity in Marischal College. His knowledge of Hebrew and the cognate tongues procured him, in 1839, a place in a deputation sent by the General Assembly to Palestine.
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Johann Jakob Schudt
1664 - 1722 (58 years)
Johann Jakob Schudt was a German polyhistor and Orientalist. Life Schudt was born and died in Frankfurt am Main. He studied theology at Wittenberg, and went to Hamburg in 1684 to study Orientalia under Ezra Edzardi. He then settled in his native city as teacher in the gymnasium in which he had been educated, and of which he became rector in 1717.
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Carl Friedrich Kotschy
1789 - 1856 (67 years)
Carl Friedrich Kotschy was an Austrian Protestant theologian and botanist born in Cieszyn, Poland1813-1866 From 1807 to 1810 he studied theology and botany at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards travelled through France and Switzerland. In Switzerland he met with renowned educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi .
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Willem Kremer
1896 - 1985 (89 years)
Willem Kremer was a Dutch pastor of the Christian Reformed Churches and a professor of practical theology at the Theological University of Apeldoorn. Life and work Willem Kremer was born in Zwolle. His father, Gerrit Kremer, worked as a gardener and inspired him to pursue gardening. After the completion of his studies, he worked in greenhouses in Wassenaar, where he contracted the Spanish flu. During his illness, he discovered a passion for religion. In 1926, he completed his studies of theology in Apeldoorn and became a Christian Reformed minister in Kornhorn. In Kornhorn he was confirmed by his mentor professor Jacob Jan van der Schuit.
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Johann Nepomuk Ehrlich
1810 - 1864 (54 years)
Johann Nepomuk Ehrlich was an Austrian theologian and philosopher born in Vienna. Biography Ehrlich was born in Vienna. He initially studied philosophy in Krems , and from 1829 to 1834 studied philosophy and theology at the University of Vienna. In 1834 he received his ordination, and from 1836 taught classes in philosophy, history and literature at the gymnasium in Krems.
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Giovanni Battista Riccioli
1598 - 1671 (73 years)
Giovanni Battista Riccioli, SJ was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion of 126 arguments concerning the motion of the Earth, and for introducing the current scheme of lunar nomenclature. He is also widely known for discovering the first double star. He argued that the rotation of the Earth should reveal itself because on a rotating Earth, the ground moves at different speeds at different times.
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Samuel Belkin
1911 - 1976 (65 years)
Samuel Belkin was the second President of Yeshiva University. An American Rabbi and distinguished Torah scholar, he is credited with leading Yeshiva University through a period of substantial expansion.
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Abu Raita al-Takriti
775 - 835 (60 years)
Abu Raita al-Takriti , was a 9th-century Syriac Orthodox theologian and apologist. Biography Little is known about Abu Raita's life, and although some sources portray him as a bishop of Tikrit there is no contemporary evidence to support this. Abu Raita referred to himself as a "teacher" . It appears that his reputation as a theologian made him so well known that he was recalled to defend his fellow non-Chalcedonian co-religionists in Armenia.
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Hugh Broughton
1549 - 1612 (63 years)
Hugh Broughton was an English scholar and theologian. Early life He was born at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. He called himself a Cambrian, implying Welsh blood in his veins. He was educated by Bernard Gilpin at Houghton-le-Spring and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1570. The foundation of his Hebrew learning was laid, in his first year at Cambridge, by his attendance on the lectures of the French scholar Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier.
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Julius Micrander
1640 - 1702 (62 years)
Julius Erici Micrander Uplandiensis was a Swedish professor, member of the Swedish Parliament, and vicar with the Church of Sweden. Biography Micrander was born in the rectory of Bro Church in Uppland, Sweden. His father was Ericus Georgi Micranderan, vicar in Tierp parish and his mother was Benedicta Eriksdotter. By age 10, Micrander was a student at Uppsala University. At age 28, he was studying for a master's degree with the De educatione liberorum.
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Johann Jakob Stähelin
1797 - 1875 (78 years)
Johann Jakob Stähelin was a Swiss theologian, who specialized in Old Testament studies. From 1817 to 1821 he studied theology at the University of Tübingen. In 1823 he received his PhD and subsequently worked as a lecturer at the University of Basel. In 1829 he became an associate professor at Basel, where in 1835 he was named a full professor of Old Testament studies. In 1842 he obtained his doctorate of divinity, and in 1846 was appointed university rector.
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Gustav Leopold Plitt
1836 - 1880 (44 years)
Gustav Leopold Plitt was a German Protestant theologian. From 1854 to 1858, he studied theology at the Universities of Erlangen and Berlin. At Erlangen he was influenced by the work of Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann. In January 1862, he became a privat-docent of theology at Erlangen, where he later became an associate professor and a full professor of theology .
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Frederick Oakeley
1802 - 1880 (78 years)
Frederick Oakeley was an English Roman Catholic convert, priest, and author. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1828 and in 1845 converted to the Church of Rome, becoming Canon of the Westminster Diocese in 1852. He is best known for his translation of the Christmas carol Adeste Fideles from Latin into English.
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George Benson
1699 - 1762 (63 years)
George Benson was an English Presbyterian pastor and theologian who was noted for his publications on the Christian epistles. Benson often conversed with dignitaries such as Lord Chancellor Peter King and Edmund Law, the bishop of Carlisle. According to Alexander Balloch Grosart, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, Benson's views were "Socinian" though at this period the term is often confused with Arian.
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Christoph Birkmann
1703 - 1771 (68 years)
Christoph Birkmann was a German theologian and minister. A pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach, he has been identified as the author of the texts of several Bach cantatas. Career Born in Nuremberg, Birkmann received some musical training. He spent a year at the University of Altdorf before studying theology and mathematics at the University of Leipzig from 1724 to 1727.
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Anne Zernike
1887 - 1972 (85 years)
Anne Zernike was a Dutch, liberal theologian, who was the first ordained woman minister of the Netherlands. Though she began her career with the Mennonites, which was the only congregation that allowed female ministers at the time, the majority of her career was spent in the Dutch Protestant Association .
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John Pearson
1613 - 1686 (73 years)
John Pearson was an English theologian and scholar. Life He was born at Great Snoring, Norfolk. From Eton College he passed to Queens' College, Cambridge, and was elected a scholar of King's College, Cambridge in April 1632, and a fellow in 1634. On taking orders in 1639 he was collated to the Salisbury prebend of Nether-Avon. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-keeper Finch, by whom he was presented to the living of Thorington in Suffolk. In the Civil War he acted as chaplain to George Goring's forces in the west. In 1654 he was made weekly preacher at St Clement's, Eastcheap, in L...
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Claude Pajon
1626 - 1685 (59 years)
Claude Pajon was a 17th-century French theologian. He followed the teachings of John Cameron which was at odds with the dominant Calvinist views which led to the "Pajonist controversy" in 1668. After studying at Blois under Paul Testard, he was declared for the ministry on 25 August 1650. He was soon appointed to be pastor at Marchenoir.
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David Hollatz
1648 - 1713 (65 years)
David Hollatz was a German Lutheran theologian. He studied at Erfurt and Wittenberg, and became preacher at Pützerlin near Stargard in 1670, at Stargard in 1681 , rector in Colberg in 1684, and pastor in Jakobshagen in 1692.
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Anton Berlage
1805 - 1881 (76 years)
Anton Berlage was a German Catholic dogmatic theologian. Life He studied philosophy and theology in the same city, after completing his course at the Gymnasium, and proceeded to the University of Bonn in 1826. Esser, at Münster, and especially Georg Hermes, at Bonn, led him to speculations in theology. Later at Tübingen, during 1829 and 1830, under Drey, J. B. Hirscher, and Johann Adam Möhler, who influenced him by their historic method.
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Giovanni Miegge
1900 - 1961 (61 years)
Giovanni Miegge was an Italian Protestant theologian and author on religious issues. He was professor of theology at the Waldensian school of theology in Rome, Italy. Miegge supported neo-orthodoxy, and promoted the ideas of Karl Barth in Italy, and translated Barth's work on the Epistle to the Romans. Miegge wrote many books, including a biography of Martin Luther published in 1946.
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Tomás de Mercado
1525 - 1575 (50 years)
Tomás de Mercado was a Spanish Dominican friar and both an economist and a theologian, best known for his book Summa de Tratos y Contratos of 1571. Together with Martín de Azpilcueta he founded the economic tradition of "Iberian monetarism"; both form part of the general intellectual tradition often known as "Late Scholasticism", or the School of Salamanca.
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Charles Augustus Aiken
1827 - 1892 (65 years)
Charles Augustus Aiken was an American clergyman and academic. Biography He was born in Manchester, Vermont, on October 30, 1827, to John Aiken and Harriet Adams Aiken. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1846, at the age of nineteen, and went on to Andover Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1853. He married Sarah Noyes on October 17, 1854, and was ordained a pastor of the Congregational church in Yarmouth, Maine, that same year.
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Gottfried von Hagenau
1270 - 1313 (43 years)
Gottfried von Hagenau was a medieval priest, physician, theologian and poet from Alsace. As his name suggests, he was probably born in Haguenau, before 1275. After having studied medicine and theology in Strasbourg and in Paris, he worked as a headmaster in Basel, Switzerland, before settling as a physician in Strasbourg, where he applied for the post of canon at the St Thomas' Church. He was at first rejected but successfully sued against that decision before the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, and was instated as canon of St Thomas' Church in 1300. He died on 26 September 1313 and is buried in the church, where his ornate Gothic ledger stone is preserved to this day.
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