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,
#3751
John Chrysostom
349 - 407 (58 years)
John Chrysostom was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, his Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet means "golden-mouthed" in Greek and denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church.
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Rudolf Bultmann
1884 - 1976 (92 years)
Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic of liberal theology, Bultmann instead argued for an existentialist interpretation of the New Testament. His hermeneutical approach to the New Testament led him to be a proponent of dialectical theology.
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Friedrich Schleiermacher
1768 - 1834 (66 years)
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, ...
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Hippolytus of Rome
150 - 235 (85 years)
Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most important second-third century Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communities include Rome, Palestine, Egypt, Anatolia and other regions of the Middle East. The best historians of literature in the ancient church, including Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome, openly confess they cannot name where Hippolytus the biblical commentator and theologian served in leadership. They had read his works but did not possess evidence of his community. Photios I of Constantinople describes him ...
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Cornelius Van Til
1895 - 1987 (92 years)
Cornelius Van Til was a Dutch-American reformed philosopher and theologian, who is credited as being the originator of modern presuppositional apologetics. A graduate of Calvin College, Van Til later received his PhD from Princeton University. After teaching at Princeton, he went on to help found Westminster Theological Seminary where he taught until his retirement.
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Francis of Assisi
1182 - 1226 (44 years)
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone , known as Francis of Assisi , was an Italian mystic and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. He was inspired to lead a life of poverty as an itinerant preacher. One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228. He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots that symbolize the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
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Ignatius of Loyola
1491 - 1556 (65 years)
Ignatius of Loyola , venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus , and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541.
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John Henry Newman
1801 - 1890 (89 years)
John Henry Newman was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
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Karl Rahner
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Karl Rahner was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered to be one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He was the brother of Hugo Rahner, also a Jesuit scholar.
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Meister Eckhart
1260 - 1328 (68 years)
Eckhart von Hochheim , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, Master Eckhart or Eckehart, claimed original name Johannes Eckhart, was a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire.
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Henri de Lubac
1896 - 1991 (95 years)
Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac , better known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest and cardinal who is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in shaping the Second Vatican Council.
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Anselm of Canterbury
1033 - 1109 (76 years)
Anselm of Canterbury OSB , also called after his birthplace and after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized as a saint; his feast day is 21 April. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by a bull of Pope Clement XI in 1720.
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Emanuel Swedenborg
1688 - 1772 (84 years)
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell . Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April 1744. His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the...
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John of Damascus
675 - 749 (74 years)
John of Damascus or John Damascene was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. Born and raised in Damascus or 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem on 4 December 749.
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Alan Watts
1915 - 1973 (58 years)
Alan Wilson Watts was an English writer, speaker, and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906 - 1945 (39 years)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for one-and-a-half years.
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Gregory of Nazianzus
329 - 389 (60 years)
Gregory of Nazianzus , also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople and theologian. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained orator and philosopher, he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
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D. T. Suzuki
1870 - 1966 (96 years)
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Ōtani University, a Japanese Buddhist school.
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Faxian
340 - 422 (82 years)
Faxian , also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, he visited sacred Buddhist sites in Central, South, and Southeast Asia between 399 and 412 CE, of which 10 years were spent in India.
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George Whitefield
1714 - 1770 (56 years)
George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford in 1732. There he joined the "Holy Club" and was introduced to the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, with whom he would work closely in his later ministry. Whitefield was ordained after receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree. He immediately began preaching, but he did not settle as the minister of any parish. Rather he became an itinerant preacher and evangelist.
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Ambrose
339 - 397 (58 years)
Ambrose of Milan , venerated as Saint Ambrose, was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promoting Roman Christianity against Arianism and paganism. He left a substantial collection of writings, of which the best known include the ethical commentary De officiis ministrorum , and the exegetical . His preachings, his actions and his literary works, in addition to his innovative musical hymnography, made him one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century.
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Rudolf Otto
1869 - 1937 (68 years)
Rudolf Otto was an eminent German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions. While his work started in the domain of liberal Christian theology, its main thrust was always apologetical, seeking to defend religion against naturalist critiques. Otto eventually came to conceive of his work as part of a science of religion, which was divided into ...
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Cyprian
200 - 258 (58 years)
Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christian writer of Berber descent, many of whose Latin works are extant. He is recognized as a saint in the Western and Eastern churches. He was born around the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage, where he received a classical education. Soon after converting to Christianity, he became a bishop in 249. A controversial figure during his lifetime, his strong pastoral skills, firm conduct during the Novatianist heresy and outbreak of the Plague of Cyprian , and eventual martyrdom at Carthage established his reputation ...
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Arius
250 - 336 (86 years)
Arius was a Cyrenaic presbyter, ascetic, and priest. Traditionally, it was claimed that Arius was the founder of the doctrine of Arianism but, more recently, Rowan Williams stated that "Arius’ role in ‘Arianism’ was not that of the founder of a sect. It was not his individual teaching that dominated the mid-century eastern Church."
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Brigham Young
1801 - 1877 (76 years)
Brigham Young was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as church president, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, west from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Salt Lake Valley. He founded Salt Lake City and served as the first governor of the Utah Territory. Young also worked to establish the learning institutions that would later become the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. A polygamist, Young had at least 56 wives and 57 children. He formal...
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Basil of Caesarea
329 - 379 (50 years)
Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great , was a bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential theologian who supported the Nicene Creed and opposed the heresies of the early Christian church, fighting against both Arianism and the followers of Apollinaris of Laodicea. His ability to balance his theological convictions with his political connections made Basil a powerful advocate for the Nicene position.
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Said Nursî
1877 - 1960 (83 years)
Said Nursi , also spelled Said-i Nursî or Said-i Kurdî, and commonly known with the honorifics Bediüzzaman and Üstad among his followers, was a Kurdish Sunni Muslim theologian who wrote the Risale-i Nur Collection, a body of Qur'anic commentary exceeding six thousand pages. Believing that modern science and logic was the way of the future, he advocated teaching religious sciences in secular schools and modern sciences in religious schools.
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Louis Auguste Sabatier
1839 - 1901 (62 years)
Louis Auguste Sabatier , French Protestant theologian, was born at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardèche and died in Strasbourg. He was educated at the Protestant theological faculty of Montauban as well as at the universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg.
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Eusèbe Renaudot
1646 - 1720 (74 years)
Eusèbe Renaudot was a French theologian and Orientalist. Biography Renaudot was born in Paris, and brought up and educated for a career in the church. After being educated by the Jesuits, and joining the Oratorians in 1666, he was in poor health, left his order, and never took more than minor orders. Despite his interest in theology and his title of abbé, much of his life was spent at the French court, where he attracted the notice of Colbert and was often employed in confidential affairs.
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Abraham Berliner
1833 - 1915 (82 years)
Abraham Berliner was a German theologian and historian, born in Obersitzko, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, Prussia. He was initially educated by his father, who was the teacher in Obersitzko. He continued his education under various rabbis, later studying at the University of Leipzig where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy.
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Peter Dens
1690 - 1775 (85 years)
Peter Dens was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Biography Dens was born at Boom near Antwerp. Most of his life was spent in the archiepiscopal college of Mechelen, where he was for twelve years reader in theology and for forty president. His great work was the Theologia moralis et dogmatica, a compendium in catechetical form of Roman Catholic doctrine and ethics which has been much used as a students textbook.
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Calvin Ellis Stowe
1802 - 1886 (84 years)
Calvin Ellis Stowe was an American Biblical scholar who helped spread public education in the United States. Over his career, he was a professor of languages and Biblical and sacred literature at Andover Theological Seminary, Dartmouth College, Lane Theological Seminary, and Bowdoin College. He was the husband and literary agent of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the best-seller Uncle Tom's Cabin.
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William George Ward
1812 - 1882 (70 years)
William George Ward was an English theologian and mathematician. A Roman Catholic convert, his career illustrates the development of religious opinion at a time of crisis in the history of English religious thought.
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Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten
1706 - 1757 (51 years)
Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten was a German Protestant theologian. He was a brother to philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten . Biography Baumgarten studied theology at the University of Halle, and in 1728 the 22-year-old Baumgarten, a Hallensian Pietist and bibliophile, was appointed as minister of the "Marktkirche Unser Lieben Frauen" . In 1730 he became an associate professor at Halle, where in 1734 he was appointed a full professor of theology. In 1748 he was named as university rector. At the end of his life he translated encyclopedic articles and biographies from English into German.
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Grigol Peradze
1899 - 1942 (43 years)
Saint Grigol Peradze was a prominent Georgian ecclesiastic figure, philologist, theologian, historian, and professor of patristics in the interwar period. Life and works Grigol Peradze was born in the village of Bakurtsikhe, in what is now the Kakheti region, in Eastern Georgia. The second of three sons of Romanoz Peradze, the local Orthodox priest, and the former Mariam Samadalashvili. Young Grigol was named in honor of the 11th-century Georgiann Saint Gregory of Khandzta – Grigol being the cognate of Gregory. His father died when he was six, and the family moved to Tiflis , then the provincial capital, and later that of independent Georgia.
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Isaac La Peyrère
1596 - 1676 (80 years)
Isaac La Peyrère , also known as Isaac de La Peyrère or Pererius, was a French-born theologian, writer, and lawyer. La Peyrère is best known as a 17th-century predecessor of the scientific racialist theory of polygenism in the form of his Pre-Adamite hypothesis, which offered a challenge to traditional Abrahamic understandings of the descent of the human races as derived from the Book of Genesis. In addition to this, La Peyrère anticipated Zionism, advocating a Jewish return to Palestine, within the context of premillennialist Messianic theology. He moved in prominent circles and was known for his connections to the Prince of Condé and the abdicated Queen Christina of Sweden.
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Fazlullah Nouri
1843 - 1909 (66 years)
Sheikh Fazlollah bin Abbas Mazindarani , also known as Fazlollah Noori , was a major figure in Iranian Constitutional Revolution as a Twelver Shia Muslim scholar and politically connected mullah of the court of Iran's Shah. Originally a supporter of the constitution, he turned against it after the supporting constitution shah died and was replaced by one opposing the constitution. He was hanged as a traitor in 1909 by a court of the constitutionalist government for "sowing corruption and sedition on earth".
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Johann Georg Herbst
1787 - 1836 (49 years)
Johann Georg Herbst was a German Orientalist. Biography Herbst was born in Rottweil in the Duchy of Württemberg. His college course, begun in the Gymnasium of his native city, was pursued in the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter in the Black Forest and in 1806 Herbst registered at the University of Freiburg. After some time spent in completing his mathematical and philosophical studies, he devoted his talents to mastering Oriental languages and Biblical science under the tutorship of Johann Leonard Hug. From the university Herbst went, in 1811, to the seminary of Meersburg, to prepare himself for Holy orders, and was ordained to the priesthood in March, 1812.
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Philipp Vielhauer
1914 - 1977 (63 years)
Philipp Adam Christoph Vielhauer was a German Lutheran pastor, and scholar of early Christianity and the New Testament Apocrypha. He is notable for having been the first German scholar to recognise quotes of Pauline epistles in the Book of Acts.
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Joseph Widmer
1779 - 1844 (65 years)
Joseph Widmer was a Swiss Catholic theologian. A native of Hohenrain, he died in Beromünster. He studied philosophy at Lucerne, and theology at Landshut under Sailer and Zimmer, the former exercising a great and abiding influence over him. After ordination Widmer was appointed professor of philosophy in 1804, and of moral and pastoral theology in 1819 at the lyceum of Lucerne. In 1833 he was removed from his position by the Government and received a canonry in the collegiate chapter at Beromunster; in 1841 he became the provost of this chapter. In connection with Joseph Heinrich Aloysius Gü...
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John Smyth
1570 - 1612 (42 years)
John Smyth was an English Anglican, Baptist, then Mennonite minister and a defender of the principle of religious liberty. Early life Smyth is thought to have been the son of John Smyth, a yeoman of Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire. He was educated locally, most likely under Rev Quipp at Sturton though at the grammar school in Gainsborough has also been suggested. Then he attended in Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1594. Smyth was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1594 in England.
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Friedrich Spanheim
1600 - 1649 (49 years)
Friedrich Spanheim the Elder was a Calvinistic theology professor at the University of Leiden. Life He entered in 1614 the University of Heidelberg where he studied philology and philosophy, and in 1619 removed to Geneva to study theology. In 1621 he became tutor in the house of Jean de Bonne, Baron de Vitrolle, governor of Embrun in Dauphiné, and after three years he visited Geneva, and Paris, and England, returning to Geneva in 1626 and becoming professor of philosophy. In 1631 he went over to the theological faculty, and was rector of the academy from 1633 to 1637.
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Reginald of Piperno
1230 - 1290 (60 years)
Reginald of Piperno was an Italian Dominican, theologian and companion of Thomas Aquinas. Biography Reginald was born at Piperno about 1230. Since 1927 this town of the Lazio region in central Italy is Priverno. He entered the Dominican Order at Naples. Thomas Aquinas chose him as his socius and confessor at Rome about 1265. From that time Reginald was Aquinas's constant and intimate companion.
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Albert Ehrhard
1862 - 1940 (78 years)
Albert Joseph Maria Ehrhard was a German Catholic theologian, church historian and Byzantinist. He was the author of numerous works on Early Christianity. Biography Born in Herbitzheim , Ehrhard studied theology at Würzburg and Münster, being ordained as a priest in 1885, then received his doctorate of theology in 1888. From 1889 he served as a professor of dogmatics at the Roman Catholic seminary in Strasbourg. From 1892 to 1898 he was a professor of church history at the University of Würzburg, and afterwards held professorships in Vienna , Freiburg and Strasbourg , where in 1911/12 he served as university rector.
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Bernhard Josef Hilgers
1803 - 1874 (71 years)
Bernhard Josef Hilgers was a German Catholic church historian born in Dreiborn in der Eifel. Biography Hilgers studied at the University of Bonn, and in 1827 was ordained as a priest in Cologne. He spent a year as an associate pastor in Münstereifel, followed by five years service as a chaplain at the mental asylum in Siegburg. In 1834 he received his doctorate of theology at Münster, and during the following year, obtained his habilitation at the Catholic theological faculty in Bonn. From 1838 he served as pastor at the Church of St Remigius, Bonn, then in 1846 became a full professor of chu...
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Ambrose of Alexandria
200 - 251 (51 years)
Ambrose of Alexandria was a friend of the Christian theologian Origen. Ambrose was attracted by Origen's fame as a teacher, and visited the Catechetical School of Alexandria in 212. At first a gnostic Valentinian and Marcionist, Ambrose, through Origen's teaching, eventually rejected this theology and became Origen's constant companion, and was ordained deacon. He plied Origen with questions, and urged him to write his Commentaries on the books of the Bible, and, as a wealthy nobleman and courtier, he provided his teacher with books for his studies and secretaries to lighten the labor of co...
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Thomas Bradwardine
1300 - 1349 (49 years)
Thomas Bradwardine was an English cleric, scholar, mathematician, physicist, courtier and, very briefly, Archbishop of Canterbury. As a celebrated scholastic philosopher and doctor of theology, he is often called Doctor Profundus .
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Franz Michael Permaneder
1794 - 1862 (68 years)
Franz Michael Permaneder was a German canon lawyer. He studied theology and jurisprudence at Landshut and in 1818 was ordained to the priesthood at Regensburg. He was appointed in 1834 professor of church history and canon law at the "Lyceum" of Freising, and in 1847 joined the theological faculty of the University of Munich.
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Wilhelm Pauck
1901 - 1981 (80 years)
Wilhelm Pauck was a German-American church historian and historical theologian in the field of Reformation studies whose fifty-year teaching career reached from the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary, to Vanderbilt and Stanford universities. His impact was extended through frequent lectures and visiting appointments in the U.S. and Europe. Pauck served as a bridge between the historical-critical study of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin and U.S. universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. Combining high critical acumen with a keen sense of the drama of human history, in his prime Pauck was considered the Dean of historical theology in the United States.
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Henry Goodwin Smith
1860 - 1940 (80 years)
Henry Goodwin Smith was a United States theologian, the son of Henry Boynton Smith. He was pastor of the Freehold Presbyterian Church in 1886-1896, and from 1897 to 1903 was professor of systematic theology in Lane Theological Seminary.
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