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,
#3401
Leopold Ackermann
1771 - 1831 (60 years)
Leopold Ackermann , known by his cloistral name as Petrus Fourerius, was a professor of exegesis. He entered on 10 October 1790 in the choral order of Klosterneuburg and studied from 1791-1795 in Vienna. In the following, he became priest and professor for oriental languages at the Stiftshof in Vienna, in 1800 also librarian. He earned his doctorate in theology in 1802, and in 1806 a professorship in exegesis, continuing for 25 years.
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Karl Bornhäuser
1868 - 1947 (79 years)
Karl Bornhäuser was a German New Testament theologian. He studied theology at the universities of Halle and Greifswald, where he was a student of Hermann Cremer. He worked as a clergyman in Sinsheim and Karlsruhe , and as a regional pastor in Rastatt . In 1902 he became an associate professor of systematic and practical theology at the University of Greifswald, and from 1907 to 1933, he taught classes as a full professor at the University of Marburg. From 1912 onward, he was a member of the consistory in Kassel.
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Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck
1794 - 1880 (86 years)
Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck was a German clergyman and pomologist. From 1812 to 1815 he studied theology at the University of Göttingen, and following graduation, served as a subconrector at Michaelisschule in Lüneburg. Several years later he became a pastor in Bardowick, and afterwards worked as an ecclesiastical superintendent in Sulingen and Nienburg/Weser . In 1853 he relocated to the community of Jeinsen as a superintendent.
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Samuel Preiswerk
1799 - 1871 (72 years)
Samuel Preiswerk was a Swiss Reformed Lutheran theologian, pastor and church hymn poet. He is the maternal grandfather of Carl Jung. Biography Preiswerk was born in 1799, in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Alexander Preiswerk and Anna Maria Preiswerk. He studied in Basel and Erlangen. In Biel-Benken in 1822 he found work as a vicar. Two years later he became pastor at an orphanage and in 1828 a teacher in a missionary house. During this period he wrote some hymns, which later lead to international recognition. In 1830 he became a pastor in Muttenz. He was removed as pastor when he refused to conduct pro-revolution prayers.
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William Buell Sprague
1795 - 1876 (81 years)
William Buell Sprague was an American Congregational and Presbyterian clergyman and compiler of Annals of the American Pulpit , a comprehensive biographical dictionary of the leading American Protestant Christian ministers who died before 1850.
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Johann Matthäus Meyfart
1590 - 1642 (52 years)
Johann Matthäus Meyfart, also Johann Matthaeus Meyfahrt, Mayfart was a German Lutheran theologist, educator, academic teacher, hymn writer and minister. He was an opponent fighter of witch trials. Career Meyfart was born in Jena, the son of a minister, and studied at the University of Jena from 1608, first the liberal arts graduating in 1603, then theology, continued at the University of Wittenberg from 1614. He taught from 1617 at the Gymnasium in Coburg, serving as its Rektor from 1623.
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John Craig
1663 - 1731 (68 years)
John Craig was a Scottish mathematician and theologian. Biography Born in Dumfries and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Craig moved to England and became a vicar in the Church of England. A friend of Isaac Newton, he wrote several minor works about the new calculus.
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Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack
1738 - 1817 (79 years)
Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was Prussian theologian, court preacher, and Church governor. Life Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was born in Magdeburg in the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg on 4 September 1738, the eldest son of August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack by his second wife. His mother was descended of a French refugee family, which explains a fondness which Sack had for the French language and literature.
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Johann Michael Feder
1753 - 1824 (71 years)
Johann Michael Feder was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life He studied in the episcopal seminary of Würzburg from 1772–1777; in the latter year he was ordained priest and promoted to the licentiate in theology. For several years Feder was chaplain of the Julius hospital; in 1785 he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology and Oriental languages at the University of Würzburg. He was created a Doctor of Divinity in 1786; director of the university library 1791, ordinary professor of theology and censor of theological publications, 1795.
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Nathanael Burwash
1839 - 1918 (79 years)
Nathanael Burwash was a Canadian Methodist minister and university administrator. Early life and education Rev. Nathanael Burwash was born in St. Andrews East, Lower Canada, on 25 July 1839, the eldest son of the devout Methodists Adam Burwash and Anne Taylor. He was raised on a farm in Baltimore, Canada , to which his family moved in 1844. In 1859 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Victoria College which was then located in Cobourg, Ontario, and was ordained by the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1864. He later studied at Yale College and the Garrett Biblical Institute.
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Girolamo Seripando
1493 - 1563 (70 years)
Girolamo Seripando was an Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal. Life He was of noble birth, and intended by his parents for the legal profession. After their death, however, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Augustinian Order, at Viterbo, where he studied Greek and Hebrew as well as philosophy and theology.
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Juan Luis Maneiro
1744 - 1802 (58 years)
Juan Luis Maneiro was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar, biographer, theologian, and poet. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish provinces , he went to Italy, where he wrote Latin biographies of illustrious Mexican Jesuits.
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Povilas Jakubėnas
1871 - 1953 (82 years)
Povilas Jakubėnas was a Lithuanian Calvinist clergyman, general superintendent of the Lithuanian branch of the Reformed Church during the interbellum, professor of theology, Lithuanian book smuggler during his student times.
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Juan Crespí
1721 - 1782 (61 years)
Joan Crespí or Juan Crespí was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias. Biography A native of Majorca, Crespí entered the Franciscan order at the age of seventeen. He came to New Spain in 1749, and accompanied explorers Francisco Palóu and Junípero Serra. In 1767 he went to the Baja California Peninsula and was placed in charge of the Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó.
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Francesco Giorgi
1466 - 1540 (74 years)
Francesco Giorgi Veneto was an Italian Franciscan friar, and author of the work De harmonia mundi totius from 1525. In it Giorgio proposed an idea of the Universe created according to the universal system of proportion, which may be studied as laws of mathematics used by architects. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy describes him as 'idiosyncratic'. He wrote also In Scripturam Sacram Problemata .
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Cornelius van Steenoven
1661 - 1725 (64 years)
Cornelis van Steenoven was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who later served as the seventh Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht from 1724 to 1725. Consecrated without the permission of the pope, Steenoven was at the center of the 18th-century controversy between national churches and what many considered to be the overreaching powers of the papacy.
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Edward Cardwell
1787 - 1861 (74 years)
Edward Cardwell was an English theologian also noted for his contributions to the study of English church history. In addition to his scholarly work, he filled various administrative positions in the University of Oxford.
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Otto Flügel
1842 - 1914 (72 years)
Otto Flügel was a German philosopher and theologian. Biography He studied at Schulpforta and Halle, and took up pastoral work. He was made editor of the Zeitschrift für exacte Philosophie im Sinne des Neueren Philosophischen Realismus , and in 1894 was one of the founders of Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Pädagogik. He was a supporter of Herbartian realism, as opposed to New-Kantian speculations, yet he believed in the necessity of a revelation.
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Louis of Granada
1504 - 1588 (84 years)
Louis of Granada, OP , was a Dominican friar who was noted as theologian, writer and preacher. The cause for his canonization has been long open with the Holy See, with his current status being Venerable.
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Gustavus Waffelaert
1847 - 1931 (84 years)
Gustave Joseph Waffelaert was the 22nd bishop of Bruges in Belgium. Life Waffelaert was born in Rollegem on 27 August 1847. After attending St Vincent's college, Ypres, and the Minor Seminary, Roeselare he entered the Major Seminary, Bruges. He was ordained to the priesthood in Bruges on 17 December 1870, and from 1871 to 1875 served as an assistant priest in the parish of Blankenberge.
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William of Auvergne
1180 - 1249 (69 years)
William of Auvergne was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy.
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Domenico Viva
1648 - 1726 (78 years)
Domenico Viva was an Italian Jesuit theologian. Life Viva was born at Lecce, and entered the Society of Jesus 12 May 1663. He taught the humanities and Greek, nine years' philosophy, eight years moral theology, eight years' Scholastic theology, was two years prefect of studies, was rector of the College of Naples in 1711, and provincial of Naples.
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William Laurence Sullivan
1872 - 1935 (63 years)
William Laurence Sullivan was an American Unitarian clergyman, prolific author and literary critic, whose Letters to His Holiness, Pope Pius X , was the last work by a U.S. author to have been placed on Vatican's list of prohibited books .
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Johann Bollig
1821 - 1895 (74 years)
Johann Bollig was a German advisor of Pope Pius IX in the lead up to the First Vatican Council. Bollig was born near Düren, Rhenish Prussia, and died in Rome, Italy. Prior to his time as a Pontifical Theologian he served as a theology professor in Syria.
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Luis Galiana y Cervera
1740 - 1771 (31 years)
Luis Galiana y Cervera was a Spanish Dominican theologian, philologist and writer. Early life Luis Galiana y Cervera was born on 8 June 1740 in Ontinyent, Spain, the son of a prominent physician. At the age of 16 he joined the Dominican Order and became part of the Convent of Saint John and of Saint Vincent of Ontinyent. His superiors sent him to study philosophy and theology at a school in Orihuela, where he was noted both for his intellect and for his moral virtues.
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Hermann Guthe
1849 - 1936 (87 years)
Hermann Guthe was a German Semitic scholar. He was educated at Göttingen and Erlangen, and afterwards worked for several years as a private tutor. In 1884 he became a professor of Old Testament exegesis at Leipzig University.
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Emil Friedrich Kautzsch
1841 - 1910 (69 years)
Emil Friedrich Kautzsch was a German Hebrew scholar and biblical critic, born at Plauen, Saxony. Biography He was educated at Leipzig, in whose theological faculty he was appointed privatdozent and professor . Subsequently he held chairs at Basel , where he received an honorary Swiss citizenship and made friends with Friedrich Nietzsche, after which he moved to Tübingen until receiving a professorship at Halle in 1888. Kautzsch traveled to Ottoman Palestine in 1876, and became one of the founding members of the "German Society for the Exploration of Palestine" the following year. He wa...
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Johan Lunde
1866 - 1938 (72 years)
Johan Peter Lunde was a Norwegian theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Oslo. Biography Lunde was born at Lillehammer, Norway. He was the son of Knud Truls Wiel Lunde and Mariane Sophie Brun . Lunde graduated artium in 1883. He studied theology at the University of Kristiania and became cand.theol. in 1890. He first worked as a teacher before he was ordained at Kristiansand in 1897. In 1900, Lunde became a parish priest in Bygland. In 1906, Lunde became the resident chapel and in 1910 parish priest at St. Johannes Church in Stavanger. In 1920 he moved to Kristiania and became a parish priest at Gamlebyen.
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Paul David Devanandan
1901 - 1962 (61 years)
Paul David Devanandan , spelt also as P.D. Devanandan or Paul D. Devanandan, was an Indian Protestant theologian, ecumenist, and one of the notable pioneers in inter-religious dialogues in India. Biography He was born in Madras on 8 July 1901, and graduated from Nizam College, Hyderabad. He did his M.A from Presidency College, Madras. While studying at Madras, he was acquainted with K. T. Paul, a prominent Social activist, Christian and YMCA leader. He taught briefly at Jaffna College, Ceylon, Sri Lanka. With assistance from K.T. Paul, he flew United States in 1924 and did his theological studies at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California.
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Reuben H. Sawyer
1866 - 1962 (96 years)
Reuben H. Sawyer or Reuben Herbert Sawyer was an American clergyman and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon. As an important advocate of Anglo Israelism , he associated religious beliefs with ultra-conservative and radical political activism.
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Nicholas of Clémanges
1363 - 1437 (74 years)
Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges was a French humanist and theologian. He studied in the Collège de Navarre, University of Paris, and in 1380 received the degree of Licentiate, and then later received a Master of Arts. He studied theology under Jean Gerson and Pierre d'Ailly, and received the degree of Bachelor of Theology in 1393.
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Humphry Ditton
1675 - 1715 (40 years)
Humphry Ditton was an English mathematician. He was the author of several influential works. Life Ditton was born on 29 May 1675 in Salisbury, the only son of Humphry Ditton, gentleman and ardent nonconformist, and Miss Luttrell of Dunster Castle, near Taunton. He studied theology privately, and was for some time also a dissenting minister, at Tonbridge, where he married a Miss Ball.
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John Dunmore Lang
1799 - 1878 (79 years)
John Dunmore Lang was a Scottish-born Australian Presbyterian minister, writer, historian, politician and activist. He was the first prominent advocate of an independent Australian nation and of Australian republicanism.
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Ralph Emerson
1787 - 1863 (76 years)
Ralph Emerson was Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Pastoral Theology in the Andover Theological Seminary. He was born on August 18, 1787, in Hollis, New Hampshire, where his father was a leading citizen, and where his grandfather, Rev. Daniel Emerson, was a pastor from 1743 to 1801. He graduated from Yale College in 1811. After studying theology at Andover, he held the office of Tutor in Yale College, from 1814 to 1816, and at the close of this service he was ordained and installed as pastor of the Congregational church in Norfolk, Connecticut. Here he remained till 1829, when he was a...
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Luigi Imperatori
1844 - 1900 (56 years)
Luigi Imperatori , one of the most famous pedagogists and theologians of Canton Ticino, born in Pollegio , teacher and doctor of theology, an important contributor to the Swiss catholic newspapers: "Catholic Believer" and "Freedom." First Director of the magistral school of Canton Ticino, from 1888 to 1900.
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Eelco Alta
1723 - 1798 (75 years)
Eelco Alta was a Frisian clergyman, theologian, and veterinarian. Education Eelco Alta was born in 1723 in the coastal village of Makkum, and studied theology at the University of Franeker from 1737 until 1745, when he started as a minister in the nearby villages of Beers and Jellum. After nine years he moved to the main protestant church of Boazum, where he was to spend almost all of the next fifty years. He was politically active in the last years of the Dutch Republic, siding with the forces of republican "Patriotism", partly for religious reasons. During the royalist backlash of the late...
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Henry Baker Tristram
1822 - 1906 (84 years)
Henry Baker Tristram FRS was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution and creation.
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Karl Gottfried Wilhelm Theile
1799 - 1854 (55 years)
Karl Gottfried Wilhelm Theile was a German theologian. From 1817 to 1823 he studied at the University of Leipzig, where he subsequently received his PhD and degree in theology . From 1826 to 1845 he was an associate professor of Evangelical theology at Leipzig, followed by a full professorship in the same discipline from 1845 up until his death in 1854. In 1851/52 he was dean to the theological faculty at Leipzig.
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Charles Telford Erickson
1867 - 1966 (99 years)
Charles Telford Erickson, b. 1867 Galesburg, Illinois, d. 1966 California, was an American pastor and theologian who also worked in Albania, where he founded the first vocational school for farmers. Life and career Ericksons parents were from Sweden. He made a B.A. in 1891 and an M.A. in 1893 at DePauw University and, in 1895, an S.T.B. at Boston University. He began to work as a pastor in Rangoon, Burma in 1897, but he had to return to America because of illness of his wife. He then served as pastor in Ohio, then went to complete his studies at Yale University where he received a Master's degree in 1902.
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Mandell Creighton
1843 - 1901 (58 years)
Mandell Creighton was a British historian and a bishop of the Church of England. A scholar of the Renaissance papacy, Creighton was the first occupant of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, a professorship established around the time that history was emerging as an independent academic discipline. He was also the first editor of the English Historical Review, the oldest English language academic journal in the field of history. Creighton had a second career as a cleric in the Church of England. He served as a parish priest in Embleton, Northumberland ...
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Simon Goulart
1543 - 1628 (85 years)
Simon Goulart was a French Reformed theologian, humanist and poet. Life He was born at Senlis in northern France. He first studied law, then adopted the Reformed faith and became one of the pastors at Geneva in the Republic of Geneva . He was called to Antwerp, to Orange, to Montpellier and to Nîmes as minister, and to Lausanne as professor; but remained at Geneva and became a citizen.
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James Foster
1697 - 1753 (56 years)
James Foster was an English Baptist minister. Early life Foster was born and baptized at Exeter, 6 September 1697. Most of our biographical knowledge of him comes from memoirs attached to a sermon preached at his funeral by his friend and colleague, Caleb Fleming. His grandfather had been a conformist minister at Kettering in Northamptonshire, and his father, James Foster, was a successful Devonshire dissenting businessman . James the younger went to Thorpe's free school in Exeter from 1702, where he learned his Latin grammar; he then attended the Presbyterian Joseph Hallett II's academy for dissenting ministerial students, also in Exeter.
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Thomas Kerchever Arnold
1800 - 1853 (53 years)
Thomas Kerchever Arnold was an English theologian and voluminous writer of educational works. Life Arnold was born in 1800. His father, Thomas Graham Arnold, was a doctor of Stamford. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, was seventh junior optime in the mathematical tripos of 1821, and was elected fellow of his college shortly afterwards. He took his degree of B.A. in the same year, and that of M.A. in 1824. In 1830 he was presented to the living of Lyndon, in Rutland, where his parishioners only numbered one hundred. He at first devoted his ample leisure to theology, and showed himself an obstinate opponent of the views advanced by the leaders of the Oxford movement.
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Nicolas Coeffeteau
1574 - 1623 (49 years)
Nicolas Coeffeteau was a French theologian, poet and historian born at Saint-Calais. He entered the Dominican order and lectured on philosophy at Paris, being also ordinary preacher to Henry IV, and afterwards ambassador at Rome.
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Conrad Bergendoff
1895 - 1997 (102 years)
Conrad Johan Immanuel Bergendoff was an American Lutheran theologian and historian. He served as the fifth president of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois from 1935 to 1962. Early life Conrad Bergendoff was born in Shickley, Nebraska, to Carl August and Emma Mathilda Fahlberg Bergendoff. He spent his youth in Middletown, Connecticut. He graduated from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois in 1915 and earned his M.A. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1916. He returned to Rock Island to complete the B. Div. degree at the Augustana Theological Seminary. Bergendoff was ordained into the ministry of the Augustana Lutheran Synod on June 12, 1921, in Chicago.
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Israel Gottlieb Canz
1690 - 1753 (63 years)
Israel Gottlieb Canz was a Protestant theologian and philosopher of Germany. Life Israel Gottlieb Canz was born on 26 February 1690, at Grünthal. He studied at Tübingen, and took, in 1709, the degree of doctor of philosophy. In 1720 he was deacon at Nürtingen, and was, in 1734, appointed professor of elocution at Tübingen. In 1739 he was made professor of logic and metaphysics, and in 1747 professor of theology. He died there, on 2 February 1753, at the age of 62.
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John Foster
1770 - 1843 (73 years)
John Foster was an English Baptist minister and essayist. The son of a weaver, born in Halifax, Yorkshire, and educated for the ministry at the Baptist college in Bristol, Foster served as a minister for a number of years. Becoming a full-time writer, he contributed nearly 200 articles to the Eclectic Review. His works include Essays, in a Series of Letters , and Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance , in which he urged the necessity of a national system of education.
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Richard Thomson
1501 - 1613 (112 years)
Richard Thomson, sometimes spelled Thompson, was a Dutch-born English theologian and translator. He was Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge and the translator of Martial's epigrams and among the "First Westminster Company" charged by James I of England with the translation of the first 12 books of the King James Version of the Bible. He was also known for his intemperance and his doctrinal belief in Arminianism.
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Richard of Middleton
1249 - 1302 (53 years)
Richard of Middleton was a member of the Franciscan Order, a theologian, and scholastic philosopher. Life Richard's origins are unclear: he was either Norman French or English . As a Bachelor of the Sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Paris in 1283, he played a part in the Franciscan commission examining Peter Olivi. He was regent master of the Franciscan studium in Paris from 1284 to 1287, and, on 20 September 1295 in Metz, he was elected Franciscan minister provincial of France. He was also subsequently tutor to Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles II of Anjou. He died sometime b...
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John Robinson
1575 - 1625 (50 years)
John Robinson was the pastor of the "Pilgrim Fathers" before they left on the Mayflower. He became one of the early leaders of the English Separatists called Brownists, and is regarded as one of the founders of the Congregational Church.
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