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.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#4001
Christoph Ernst Luthardt
1823 - 1902 (79 years)
Christoph Ernst Luthardt , was a conservative German Lutheran theologian, Biblical commentator and Christian apologist. He was born in Maroldsweisach, Bavaria. Biography From 1841 to 1845 he studied theology at Erlangen and Berlin, and in 1854 became an associate professor of dogmatic theology and exegesis at the University of Marburg. In 1856 he became professor ordinarius of systematic theology and New Testament exegesis at Leipzig. On five separate occasions he was dean of the Leipzig theology faculty. In 1865 he was made a counsellor to the State Consistory of the Lutheran Church of Saxony, in 1871 canon of Meissen Cathedral, and in 1887 a privy councillor to the church.
Go to Profile#4002
Jonathan Paul
1853 - 1931 (78 years)
Jonathan Anton Alexander Paul was a German Pentecostal minister, writer, theologian, and Bible scholar and translator. Paul graduated from the Studium der Theologie in the University of Greifswald and pastored in Pomerania. He was member of the Gnadauer Verband, an evangelical movement within the Evangelical Church in Germany and supported youth activities, social ministry among workers, and pietistic conversion.
Go to Profile#4003
August Friedrich Christian Vilmar
1800 - 1868 (68 years)
August Friedrich Christian Vilmar, German Neo-Lutheran theologian; born at Solz November 21, 1800; died at Marburg July 30, 1868. Early career In 1818-20 he studied theology at Marburg, only to learn doubt from rationalism, and from doubt to pass to unbelief. In December, 1823, he was appointed rector of the municipal school at Rotenburg, where he remained until 1827, when he went to Hersfeld as fourth teacher and collaborator at the gymnasium, being promoted third teacher in 1829. During these years he renounced rationalism, and for a year or two professed the opinion that the world is the feeling of God.
Go to Profile#4004
Bar Hebraeus
1226 - 1286 (60 years)
Gregory Bar Hebraeus , known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Barebraya or Barebroyo, in Arabic sources by his kunya Abu'l-Faraj, and his Latinized name Abulpharagius in the Latin West, was a Maphrian of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1264 to 1286. He was a prominent writer, who created various works in the fields of Christian theology, philosophy, history, linguistics, and poetry. For his contributions to the development of Syriac literature, has been praised as one of the most learned and versatile writers among Syriac Orthodox Christians.
Go to Profile#4005
Thomas Helwys
1550 - 1616 (66 years)
Thomas Helwys , an English minister, was one of the joint founders, with John Smyth, of the General Baptist denomination. In the early seventeenth century, Helwys was principal formulator of demand that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Helwys was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant Dissenters under King James I.
Go to Profile#4006
Otto Faller
1889 - 1971 (82 years)
Rev.Otto Faller SJ was Provincial Superior of the Jesuit order in Germany, educator, teacher and Dean at Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria and Kolleg St. Blasien in Germany, professor of patristic studies at the Gregorian University. He was lifelong editor of the works of St. Ambrose. At the request of Pope Pius XII, he contributed to the preparation of the dogma of the assumption of Mary and organized new Papal charity and Papal refugee offices during World War II.
Go to Profile#4007
Johannes Oecolampadius
1482 - 1531 (49 years)
Johannes Oecolampadius was a German Protestant reformer in the Calvinist tradition from the Electoral Palatinate. He was the leader of the Protestant faction in the Baden Disputation of 1526, and he was one of the founders of Protestant theology, engaging in disputes with Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther and Martin Bucer. Calvin adopted his view on the Eucharist dispute .
Go to Profile#4008
John Williamson Nevin
1803 - 1886 (83 years)
John Williamson Nevin , was an American theologian and educationalist. He was born in the Cumberland Valley, near Shippensburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He was the father of noted sculptor and poet Blanche Nevin.
Go to Profile#4009
John Vidmar
1900 - Present (126 years)
John C. Vidmar, O.P. is an associate professor of history at Providence College, Rhode Island where he also serves as provincial archivist and teaches history. Prior to his work at Providence, he served as associate professor, academic dean, acting president and prior teaching history for 15 years at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C.
Go to Profile#4010
Georgia Harkness
1891 - 1974 (83 years)
Georgia Elma Harkness was an American Methodist theologian and philosopher. Harkness has been described as one of the first significant American female theologians and was important in the movement to legalize the ordination of women in American Methodism.
Go to Profile#4011
Karl Josef von Hefele
1809 - 1893 (84 years)
Karl Josef von Hefele was a Roman Catholic bishop and theologian of Germany. Biography Hefele was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg and was educated at Tübingen, where in 1839 he became professor-ordinary of Church history and patristics in the Roman Catholic faculty of theology, while collaborating along with William Robinson Clark to his major work.
Go to Profile#4012
Paul Althaus
1888 - 1966 (78 years)
Paul Althaus was a German Lutheran theologian. He was born in Obershagen in the Province of Hanover, and he died in Erlangen. He held various pastorates from 1914 to 1925, when he was appointed associate professor of practical and systematic theology at the University of Göttingen, becoming full professor two years later. Althaus was moderately critical of Lutheran Orthodoxy and evangelical-leaning Neo-Lutheranism. He termed it a “mistake” to “defend the authenticity and infallibility of the Bible.”
Go to Profile#4013
Leslie Weatherhead
1893 - 1976 (83 years)
Leslie Dixon Weatherhead was an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition. Weatherhead was noted for his preaching ministry at City Temple in London and for his books, including The Will of God, The Christian Agnostic, and Psychology, Religion, and Healing.
Go to Profile#4014
William Hendriksen
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
William Hendriksen was a New Testament scholar and writer of Bible commentaries. He was born in Tiel, Gelderland, but his family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1911. Hendriksen studied at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary before obtaining an S.T.D. degree from Pikes Peak Bible Seminary, as was typical for on-the-job pastors seeking doctorates in the 1930s and 1940s. It is there that he wrote the thesis More than Conquerors. This book has never gone off the market since it was privately printed and Herman Baker issued it as the first publication of the new Baker Book House in 1940.
Go to Profile#4015
John Witherspoon
1723 - 1794 (71 years)
John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States. Witherspoon embraced the concepts of Scottish common sense realism, and while president of the College of New Jersey became an influential figure in the development of the United States' national character. Politically active, Witherspoon was a delegate from New Jersey to the Second Continental Congress and a signatory to the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. He was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration....
Go to Profile#4016
Matthias Joseph Scheeben
1835 - 1888 (53 years)
Matthias Joseph Scheeben was a German Catholic theological writer and mystic. "The generations that followed Scheeben regarded him as one of the greatest minds of modern Catholic theology." Life Scheeben studied at the Gregorian University at Rome under Carlo Passaglia, Luigi Taparelli and Giovanni Perrone from 1852 to 1859 and lived in Collegium Germanicum. He was ordained to the priesthood on 18 December 1858. He taught dogmatic theology at the diocesan seminary of Cologne from 1860 to 1875. Scheeben was an impassioned advocate of religious freedom during the Kulturkampf.
Go to Profile#4017
Alexander of Hales
1175 - 1245 (70 years)
Alexander of Hales , also called Doctor Irrefragibilis and Theologorum Monarcha, was a Franciscan friar, theologian and philosopher important in the development of scholasticism. Life Alexander was born at Hales, Shropshire , England, between 1180 and 1186. He came from a rather wealthy country family. He studied at the University of Paris and became a master of arts sometime before 1210. He began to read theology in 1212 or 1213, and became a regent master in 1220 or 1221. He introduced the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the basic textbook for the study of theology. During the University stri...
Go to Profile#4018
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt
1741 - 1792 (51 years)
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt , also spelled Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, was an unorthodox German Protestant biblical scholar, theologian, and polemicist. Controversial during his day, he is sometimes considered an "enfant terrible" and one of the most immoral characters in German learning.
Go to Profile#4019
Richard Rothe
1799 - 1867 (68 years)
Richard Rothe was a German Lutheran theologian. Biography Richard Rothe was born at Posen, then part of Prussia. He studied theology in the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin under Karl Daub, Schleiermacher and Neander, the philosophers and historians G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Creuzer and F. C. Schlosser exercising a considerable influence in shaping his thought. From 1820 to 1822 he was in the clerical seminary at Wittenberg. In the autumn of 1823 he was appointed chaplain to the Kingdom of Prussia embassy in Rome, of which Baron Bunsen was the head. This post he exchanged in 1828 for a ...
Go to Profile#4020
Theophylact of Ohrid
1055 - 1107 (52 years)
Theophylact was a Byzantine archbishop of Ohrid and commentator on the Bible. Life Theophylact was born in the mid-11th century at Euripus in Euboea, at the time part of the Byzantine Empire . He became a deacon at Constantinople, attained a high reputation as a scholar, and became the tutor of Constantine Doukas , son of the Emperor Michael VII, for whom he wrote The Education of Princes. In about 1078 he moved to the Province of Bulgaria where he became the archbishop of Achrida .
Go to Profile#4021
Alexandre Vinet
1797 - 1847 (50 years)
Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet was a Swiss literary critic and theologian. Literary critic He was born near Lausanne, Switzerland. Educated for the Protestant ministry, he was ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and throughout his life he was as much a critic as a theologian. His literary criticism brought him into contact with Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, for whom he obtained an invitation to lecture at Lausanne, which led to his famous work on Port-Royal.
Go to Profile#4022
Symmachus
200 - Present (1826 years)
Symmachus was a writer who translated the Old Testament into Greek. His translation was included by Origen in his Hexapla and Tetrapla, which compared various versions of the Old Testament side by side with the Septuagint. Some fragments of Symmachus's version that survive, in what remains of the Hexapla, inspire scholars to remark on the purity and idiomatic elegance of Symmachus' Greek. He was admired by Jerome, who used his work in composing the Vulgate.
Go to Profile#4023
Giovanni Benelli
1921 - 1982 (61 years)
Giovanni Benelli was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Florence from 1977 until his death. He was made a cardinal in 1977. Biography Early life and ordination Giovanni Benelli was born 12 May 1921 in Poggiole di Vernio, Tuscany, to Luigi and Maria Benelli. Baptised the day after his birth, on 13 May, he was the youngest of his parents' five surviving children, and his uncle Guido was a revered Franciscan friar. Benelli entered the Seminary of Pistoia in 1931, and then attended the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome.
Go to Profile#4024
Charles de Foucauld
1858 - 1916 (58 years)
Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand, PFJ was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus, among other religious congregations. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2022.
Go to Profile#4025
Táhirih
1817 - 1852 (35 years)
Táhirih As a young girl she was educated privately by her father and showed herself a talented writer. Whilst in her teens she married the son of her uncle, with whom she had a difficult marriage. In the early 1840s she became a follower of Shaykh Ahmad and began a secret correspondence with his successor Kazim Rashti. Táhirih travelled to the Shiʻi holy city of Karbala to meet Kazim Rashti, but he died a number of days before her arrival. In 1844 aged about 27, in search of the Qa'im through the Islamic teachings she figured his whereabouts. Independent to any individual she became acquainted with the teachings of the Báb and accepted his religious claims as Qa'im.
Go to Profile#4026
Wasil ibn Ata
700 - 748 (48 years)
Wāṣil ibn ʿAtāʾ was an important Muslim theologian and jurist of his time, and by many accounts is considered to be the founder of the Muʿtazilite school of Kalam. Born around the year 700 in the Arabian Peninsula, he initially studied under Abd-Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, the grandson of Ali. Later he would travel to Basra in Iraq to study under Hasan of Basra . In Basra he began to develop the ideologies that would lead to the Muʿtazilite school. These stemmed from conflicts that many scholars had in resolving theology and politics. His main contribution to the Muʿtazilite sch...
Go to Profile#4027
Justus Jonas
1493 - 1555 (62 years)
Justus Jonas, the Elder , or simply Justus Jonas, was a German Lutheran theologian and reformer. He was a Jurist, Professor and Hymn writer. He is best known for his translations of the writings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. He accompanied Martin Luther in his final moments.
Go to Profile#4028
James Strong
1822 - 1894 (72 years)
James Strong was an American academic, biblical scholar, lexicographer, Methodist theologian and professor, best known for being the creator of Strong's Concordance. Biography Strong was born in New York City and graduated, in 1844, as valedictorian from Wesleyan University. Subsequently, he was mayor of his hometown on Long Island. Later, having settled in Flushing, New York, he pursued biblical studies, held various local offices, and organized, built, and was the president of the Flushing railroad. In 1856 the Wesleyan University granted him the degree of Doctor of Divinity . From 1858 until 1861, Strong was both Acting President and Professor of Biblical Literature at Troy University.
Go to Profile#4029
Emil G. Hirsch
1851 - 1923 (72 years)
Emil Gustav Hirsch was a Luxembourgish-born Jewish American biblical scholar, Reform rabbi, contributing editor to numerous articles of The Jewish Encyclopedia , and founding member of the NAACP. Biography Emil Gustav Hirsch was born in Luxembourg, a son of the rabbi and philosopher Samuel Hirsch on May 22, 1851. He later married the daughter of Rabbi David Einhorn. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1872 went to Berlin for post-graduate work. He was rabbi at Har Sinai Congregation in Baltimore , and in Louisville, Kentucky . But he did his greatest work in Chicago.
Go to Profile#4030
Paul Evdokimov
1901 - 1970 (69 years)
Paul Nikolaevich Evdokimov was an Orthodox Christian theologian, professor at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, and émigré. Paul Evdokimov's theological thought is marked by the attempt to synthesise two important currents in 20th century Orthodox thought, namely the "neo-patristic" renewal and the insights of the Russian religious philosophers.
Go to Profile#4031
Muhsin al-Hakim
1889 - 1970 (81 years)
Muhsin al-Tabatabaei al-Hakim was an Iraqi Shia religious authority. He became the leading marja' of Najaf in 1946 after the death of Abu al-Hasan al-Isfahani, and of the majority of the Shia world in 1961, after the death of Hossein Borujerdi.
Go to Profile#4032
Rose of Lima
1586 - 1617 (31 years)
Rose of Lima, TOSD was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe penance and her care of the poverty stricken of the city through her own private efforts. Rose of Lima was born to a noble family and is the patron saint of embroidery, gardening and cultivation of blooming flowers. A lay member of the Dominican Order, she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, being the first person born in the Americas to be canonized as such.
Go to Profile#4033
Philip Doddridge
1702 - 1751 (49 years)
Philip Doddridge D.D. was an English Nonconformist minister, educator, and hymnwriter. Early life Philip Doddridge was born in London the last of the twenty children of Daniel Doddridge , a dealer in oils and pickles. His father was a son of John Doddridge , rector of Shepperton, Middlesex, who was ejected from his living following the Act of Uniformity of 1662 and became a Nonconformist minister, and a great-nephew of the judge and MP Sir John Doddridge . Philip's mother, Elizabeth, considered to have been the greater influence on him, was the orphan daughter of the Rev John Bauman , a Luth...
Go to Profile#4034
Roger Williams
1603 - 1683 (80 years)
Roger Williams was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.
Go to Profile#4035
Clement of Ohrid
840 - 916 (76 years)
Saint Clement or Kliment of Ohrid was one of the first medieval Bulgarian saints, scholar, writer, and apostle to the Slavs. He was one of the most prominent disciples of Cyril and Methodius and is often associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, especially their popularisation among Christianised Slavs. He was the founder of the Ohrid Literary School and is regarded as a patron of education and language by some Slavic people. He is considered to be the first bishop of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, one of the Seven Apostles of Bulgarian Orthodox Church since the 10th century, and one of the premier saints of modern Bulgaria.
Go to Profile#4036
Gerhard Kittel
1888 - 1948 (60 years)
Gerhard Kittel was a German Lutheran theologian and lexicographer of biblical languages. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis and an open antisemite. He is known in the field of biblical studies for his .
Go to Profile#4037
Julius Kaftan
1848 - 1926 (78 years)
Julius Wilhelm Martin Kaftan was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Kaftan studied theology at the Universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Kiel. In 1874 he became an associate professor at the University of Basel, where in 1881 he was named a full professor of dogmatics and ethics. In 1883 he returned to Berlin as a successor to Isaak August Dorner. In 1906/07 he served as university rector.
Go to Profile#4038
Gustaf Dalman
1855 - 1941 (86 years)
Gustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine before the First World War, collecting inscriptions, poetry, and proverbs. He also collected physical articles illustrative of the life of the indigenous farmers and herders of the country, including rock and plant samples, house and farm tools, small archaeological finds, and ceramics. He pioneered the study of biblical and early post-biblical Aramaic, publishing an authoritative grammar and dictionary , as well as other works. His collection of 15,000 historic photographs and 5,...
Go to Profile#4039
Daniel Sidney Warner
1842 - 1895 (53 years)
Daniel Sidney Warner was an American church reformer and one of the founders of the Church of God and other similar church groups in the holiness movement. He called for evangelism, the preaching of entire sanctification, and the unity of Christians.
Go to Profile#4040
Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry
1805 - 1872 (67 years)
Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry was a French Catholic priest, author and theologian. Biography Gratry was born at Lille and educated at the École Polytechnique of Paris. In 1828, he went on to study theology at seminary in Strasbourg under the tutelage of the abbé Bautain. After a period of mental struggle which he has described in Souvenirs de ma jeunesse, he was ordained a priest in Strasbourg in 1832. After a stay there as professor of the Petit Séminaire, he was appointed director of the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1842 and, in 1847, chaplain of the École Normale Supérieure. He was award...
Go to Profile#4041
August Gottlieb Spangenberg
1704 - 1792 (88 years)
August Gottlieb Spangenberg was a German theologian and minister, and a bishop of the Moravian Church. As successor of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, he helped develop international missions and stabilized the theology and organization of the German Moravian Church.
Go to Profile#4042
Johann Sebastian von Drey
1777 - 1853 (76 years)
Johann Sebastian von Drey was a German Catholic professor of theology at the University of Tübingen. With Johann Adam Möhler, Drey was a founder of the Catholic Tübingen school. Life He was born in Killingen, in the parish of Röhlingen, in the then ecclesiastical principality of Ellwangen.
Go to Profile#4043
Gottfried Thomasius
1802 - 1875 (73 years)
Gottfried Thomasius was a German Lutheran theologian. He was born in Egenhausen and he died in Erlangen. He studied philosophy and theology in Erlangen, Halle and Berlin, and as a student had renowned instructors that included Friedrich Schleiermacher, August Neander, G. W. F. Hegel, Philip Marheineke and Friedrich Tholuck. In 1829 he began serving as a pastor in Nuremberg, and in 1842 was appointed professor of dogmatics at the University of Erlangen. Thomasius was an important representative of the "Erlangen School" within the German Neo-Lutheranism movement and a major influence on, for instance, the church historian Albert Hauck.
Go to Profile#4044
Stanislaus of Szczepanów
1030 - 1079 (49 years)
Stanislaus of Szczepanów was Bishop of Kraków known chiefly for having been martyred by the Polish King Bolesław II the Generous. Stanislaus is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Stanislaus the Martyr .
Go to Profile#4045
George Bell
1883 - 1958 (75 years)
George Kennedy Allen Bell was an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the ecumenical movement. Early career Bell was born in Hayling Island, Hampshire, as the eldest child of Sarah Georgina Megaw and her husband James Allen Bell . His sister Margorie married Cecil Wood, Bishop of Melanesia .
Go to Profile#4046
Simon Episcopius
1583 - 1643 (60 years)
Simon Episcopius was a Dutch theologian and Remonstrant who played a significant role at the Synod of Dort in 1618. His name is the Latinized form of his Dutch name Simon Bisschop. Life Born in Amsterdam, in 1600 he entered the University of Leiden, where he studied theology under Jacobus Arminius, whose teaching he followed, and Franciscus Gomarus. He graduated M.A. in 1606, but his appointment as a minister was questioned from the Calvinist side. He went to the University of Franeker, where he heard Johannes Drusius. In 1610, the year in which the Arminians presented the Remonstrance to the...
Go to Profile#4047
Georg Christian Knapp
1753 - 1825 (72 years)
Georg Christian Knapp was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born in Glaucha, now a part of Halle, and received his early education in the orphan school at Halle , of which his father was director. He later studied theology at the Universities of Halle and Göttingen. In 1777 he was an associate professor at Halle, where in 1782 he became a full professor of theology. In 1785 he was appointed Kondirektor of the Franckesche Stiftungen , where beginning in 1799, along with August Hermann Niemeyer, he served as co-director. He died in Halle.
Go to Profile#4048
Pasquier Quesnel
1634 - 1719 (85 years)
Pasquier Quesnel, CO was a French Jansenist theologian. Life Quesnel was born in Paris, and, after graduating from the Sorbonne with distinction in 1653, he joined the French Oratory in 1657. There he soon became prominent; he took a leading part in scholarly controversy, for example against Joseph Anthelmi.
Go to Profile#4049
Bernhard Duhm
1847 - 1928 (81 years)
Bernhard Lauardus Duhm was a German Lutheran theologian, born in Bingum, today part of Leer, East Frisia. He was a member of the history of religions school. Early life and education Duhm studied theology at the University of Göttingen, where he had as instructors Albrecht Ritschl , Heinrich Ewald and Julius Wellhausen , with the latter becoming a good friend and colleague to Duhm. In 1873, he became a lecturer at the University of Göttingen and subsequently an associate professor of Old Testament studies . In 1888, he relocated to the University of Basel, where he was one of the more influe...
Go to Profile#4050
Gisbertus Voetius
1589 - 1676 (87 years)
Gisbertus Voetius was a Dutch Calvinist theologian. Life He was born at Heusden, in the Dutch Republic, studied at Leiden, and in 1611 became Protestant pastor of Vlijmen, whence in 1617 he returned to Heusden. In 1619, he played an influential part in the Synod of Dort, at which he was the youngest delegate. In 1634, Voetius was made professor of theology and Oriental science at the University of Utrecht. Three years later he became pastor of the Utrecht congregation. He was an advocate of a strong form of Calvinism against the Arminians. The city of Utrecht perpetuated his memory by givin...
Go to Profile