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 Theology,
#1951
Andreas Musculus
1514 - 1581 (67 years)
Andreas Musculus was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Musculus was born in Schneeberg, "generally called only Musculus" and educated in Leipzig and Wittenberg. He became professor at the university of Frankfurt an der Oder. As a theologian he was Gnesio-Lutheran and wrote polemics against the Interim, Andreas Osiander the Elder, Franciscus Stancarus, Philipp Melanchthon and John Calvin.
Go to Profile#1952
Michael Kelly
1850 - 1940 (90 years)
Michael Kelly was an Irish-born Roman Catholic bishop who became the fourth Archbishop of Sydney. Early life Born at Waterford, Ireland, to James Kelly, a master mariner, and Mary née Grant, Kelly was educated at Christian Brothers’, Enniscorthy and the Classical Academy, New Ross.
Go to Profile#1953
Maurus von Schenkl
1749 - 1816 (67 years)
Maurus von Schenkl was a German Benedictine theologian and canonist. Life After studying the humanities at the Jesuit college in Amberg , he entered the Benedictine monastery of Prüfening near Regensburg. He took vows on 2 October 1768, and was ordained priest on 27 September 1772.
Go to Profile#1954
Graham Taylor
1851 - 1938 (87 years)
Graham Taylor was a Minister, Social Reformer, Chicago Theological Seminary faculty member, Educator and Founder of Chicago Commons Settlement House along with Jane Addams.
Go to Profile#1955
William Cowper
1810 - 1902 (92 years)
William Macquarie Cowper was an Australian Anglican archdeacon and Dean of Sydney. Cowper was born in Sydney, the son of the Revd William Cowper, assistant colonial chaplain, and his second wife, Ann . Educated by his father and at the University of Oxford, he graduated BA from Magdalen Hall in 1833 and MA in 1835. Following admission to deacon´s order, he was appointed curate of St Petrox, Dartmouth, and ordained priest at Exeter in 1834. He returned to Australia in 1836 and was made chaplain at Port Stephens, New South Wales where he remained for 20 years. He then became Acting Principal o...
Go to Profile#1956
John Hales
1584 - 1656 (72 years)
John Hales was an English cleric, theologian and writer. An eminent if modest and critic, his posthumous works earned him the title of the "Ever-memorable". Early life He was born in St. James' parish, Bath, on 19 April 1584. His father, John Hales, had an estate at Highchurch, near Bath, and was steward to the Horner family. After passing through the Bath grammar school, Hales went on 16 April 1597 as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and graduated B.A. on 9 July 1603. He came to the notice of Sir Henry Savile, and was elected as a fellow of Merton College in 1605. He took orders; shone as a preacher, though not for his voice; and graduated M.
Go to Profile#1957
John Baptist Hogan
1829 - 1901 (72 years)
John Baptist Hogan , also known as Abbé Hogan, was an Irish-French Catholic theologian and educator. He was born near Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, and died at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, France. Hogan, a member of the Sulpician order, was the first rector of Saint John's Seminary in Boston, founded in 1884. From 1889 to 1894, he taught at the new Catholic University in Washington, D.C., but returned to Saint John's Seminary for another term as rector after the death of his successor, Charles B. Rex.
Go to Profile#1958
August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack
1703 - 1786 (83 years)
August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack was one of the most eminent German Reformed preachers and a prominent liberal theologian of the reign of Frederick II of Prussia who helped shape the Enlightenment in Berlin and Prussia.
Go to Profile#1959
Paton James Gloag
1823 - 1906 (83 years)
Paton James Gloag was a Scottish minister and theological author. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1889. Life Born in Perth on 17 May 1823, he was the eldest son of William Gloag , a banker in Perth, by his wife Janet Burn , daughter of John Burn, WS of Edinburgh. William Gloag, Lord Kincairney was his younger brother, and his eldest sister was Jessie Burn Gloag, who founded a ragged school in Perth.
Go to Profile#1960
Francis Coster
1532 - 1619 (87 years)
Francis Coster was a Flemish Jesuit, theologian and author. Life Frans de Costere was received into the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius on 7 November 1552. While still a young man he was sent to Cologne and lectured there on Sacred Scripture and astronomy. His reputation as a professor was established within a very short time, and on 10 December 1564, the university of Cologne conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Theology.
Go to Profile#1961
John Sedberry Marshall
1898 - 1979 (81 years)
John Sedberry Marshall was an American scholar whose works focused on topics related to the United States Episcopal Church; he authored studies on the theology of William Porcher DuBose and Richard Hooker.
Go to Profile#1962
William Turner
1761 - 1859 (98 years)
William Turner was a Unitarian minister and educator who advanced the anti-slavery movement in Northern England, contributed to the development of intellectual institutions in Newcastle upon Tyne, and published sermons on a variety of topics.
Go to Profile#1963
Stanley Leathes
1830 - 1900 (70 years)
Stanley Leathes was an English theologian and Orientalist. Biography He was born at Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, the son of the Rev. Chaloner Stanley Leathes, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1852, M.A. 1853. In 1853 he was awarded a Tyrwhitt's Hebrew scholarship. He was ordained priest in 1857, and after serving several curacies was appointed professor of Hebrew at King's College London, in 1863. In 1868–1870 he was Boyle lecturer , in 1873 Hulsean lecturer , in 1874 Bampton Lecturer and from 1876 to 1880 Warburtonian lecturer.
Go to Profile#1964
Thomas Osmond Summers
1812 - 1882 (70 years)
Thomas Osmond Summers was an English-born American Methodist theologian, clergyman, hymnist, editor, liturgist and university professor. He is considered one of the most prominent Methodist theologians of the nineteenth century.
Go to Profile#1965
Teodors Grīnbergs
1870 - 1962 (92 years)
Teodors Grīnbergs was a Latvian prelate of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia and its first archbishop from 1932. He was forcibly taken into exile in Germany in 1944. He continued to serve as archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia in exile at which post he served until his death.
Go to Profile#1966
Jacob of Juterbogk
1380 - 1464 (84 years)
Jacob of Juterbogk was a German monk and theologian. Benedict Stolzenhagen, known in religion as Jacob, was born at Jüterbog in Brandenburg of poor peasant stock. He became a Cistercian at the monastery of Paradiz in Poland, and was sent by the abbot to the University of Kraków, where he became master in philosophy and doctor of theology. He returned to his monastery, of which he became abbot. In 1441, however, discontented with the absence of strict discipline of Salvatorberg near Erfurt, of which he became prior. He lectured on theology at the University of Erfurt, of which he was rector in 1456, and wrote around eighty treatises.
Go to Profile#1967
Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri
913 - 992 (79 years)
Abu al-Hassan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Amiri was a Muslim theologian and philosopher who attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion, and Sufism with conventional Islam. While al-'Amiri believed the revealed truths of Islam were superior to the logical conclusions of philosophy, he argued that the two did not contradict each other. Al-'Amiri consistently sought to find areas of agreement and synthesis between disparate Islamic sects. However, he believed Islam to be morally superior to other religions, specifically Zoroastrianism and Manicheism.
Go to Profile#1968
Thomas Vicars
1589 - 1638 (49 years)
Thomas Vicars was a 17th-century English theologian and rhetorician. He was born in Carlisle in Cumberland , the son of William and Eve Vicars. He entered Queen's College, Oxford in 1607 as a poor serving child. He then became a tabarder, chaplain and fellow within nine years. In 1622, he was admitted to the reading of the sentences. Recognised as a learned theologian, he entered the household of George Carleton, the Bishop of Chichester, whose step-daughter, Anne, the daughter of the sometime Ambassador to France, Henry Neville of Billingbear House in Berkshire, he married. Carleton made him...
Go to Profile#1969
David Cassel
1818 - 1893 (75 years)
David Cassel was a German historian and Jewish theologian. Life Cassel was born in Gross-Glogau, a city in Prussian Silesia with a large Jewish community. He graduated from its gymnasium. His brother was Selig Cassel.
Go to Profile#1970
Kaspar Megander
1495 - 1545 (50 years)
Kaspar Megander was a Swiss reformer in Zürich and Bern who supported Huldrych Zwingli and was influential in the early years of the Swiss Reformation. Life Megander was born in Zürich, Switzerland in 1484, and studied in Basel from 1515 to 1518, before moving back to Zürich to take up a hospital chaplaincy. He supported Zwingli in his reforms of marriage in the priesthood, marrying his housekeeper in 1524. He was also collaborated with Zwingli in the creation of the Prophezey and the Zürich Bible. In 1528, he was one of the representatives of Zürich at the Bern Disputation, where he gave the sermon "On Steadfastness" at the end of the disputation.
Go to Profile#1971
Heinrich Wangnereck
1595 - 1664 (69 years)
Heinrich Wangnereck was a Catholic theologian, preacher, author. He was born in Munich. The extant sketches of his life give no uniform information respecting the dates of events; it is, however, unanimously stated that when sixteen years old he entered the novitiate of the upper German province of the Society of Jesus, at Landsberg, took the usual course of instruction, and in addition was for a time teacher of the lowest class at the gymnasium.
Go to Profile#1972
John Mainwaring
1724 - 1807 (83 years)
John Mainwaring was an English theologian and the first biographer of the composer Georg Friedrich Händel in any language. He was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and parish priest, and later a professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
Go to Profile#1973
Theophil Großgebauer
1627 - 1661 (34 years)
Theophil Großgebauer was a German Lutheran theologian active at the University of Rostock, most notable for his work Wächterstimme aus dem verwüsteten Zion. Sources http://www.theologie.uni-rostock.de/index.php?id=3551
Go to Profile#1974
Antonino Diana
1585 - 1663 (78 years)
Antonino Diana was a Catholic moral theologian. Biography Diana was born of a noble family at Palermo, Sicily. A famous casuist, he was a consultor of the Holy Office of the Kingdom of Sicily and an examiner of bishops under Urban VIII, Innocent X, and Alexander VII.
Go to Profile#1975
Juan Bautista de Lezana
1586 - 1659 (73 years)
Juan Bautista de Lezana was a Spanish Carmelite theologian. Lezana was an authority on canon law, dogmatic theology, and philosophy; his historical works are not of the same standard. Life Lezana was born at Madrid. He took the habit at Alberca, in Old Castile, on 18 October 1600, and made his profession at the house of the Carmelites of the Old Observance, at Madrid, in 1602. He studied philosophy at Toledo, theology at Salamanca, partly at the college of the order, partly at the university under Juan Marquez, and finally at Alcalá under Luis de Montesion.
Go to Profile#1976
Benjamin Francis Hayes
1830 - 1906 (76 years)
Benjamin Francis Hayes was a Free Will Baptist pastor, author, principal of the Lapham Institute, and early professor at Bates College in Maine. Benjamin Hayes was born in New Gloucester, Maine in 1830 to Mary Hayes and Rev. Jesse Hayes, a Baptist minister. Benjamin Hayes graduated from Bowdoin College in 1855 and received an M.A. from Bowdoin in 1858. He then taught at the Free Will Baptist Theological Seminary at the New Hampton Institute before becoming a pastor in Olneyville, Rhode Island in 1859 and serving until 1863 when he became principal of the Lapham Institute in Scituate, Rhode Island serving until 1865, when he became a professor at Bates College.
Go to Profile#1977
Anthim the Iberian
1650 - 1716 (66 years)
Anthim the Iberian was a Georgian theologian, scholar, calligrapher, philosopher and one of the greatest ecclesiastic figures of Wallachia, led the printing press of the prince of Wallachia, and was Metropolitan of Bucharest in 1708–1715.
Go to Profile#1978
Georg Seyler
1800 - 1866 (66 years)
Georg August Wilhelm Seyler was a German theologian and priest, and the adoptive father of Felix Hoppe-Seyler, the principal founder of biochemistry and molecular biology. Biography Georg Seyler was a son of the court pharmacist Abel Seyler the Younger and Caroline Klügel, and was a grandson of the famous theatre principal Abel Seyler and of the mathematician and physicist Georg Simon Klügel. He belonged to the originally Swiss Seyler family from Liestal and Basel. He was a nephew of the prominent Hamburg banker Ludwig Erdwin Seyler and of the Sturm und Drang poet Johann Anton Leisewitz.
Go to Profile#1979
Achille Gagliardi
1537 - 1607 (70 years)
Achille Gagliardi was a Jesuit ascetic writer and spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition. Life Gagliardi was born at Padua, Italy. After a brilliant career at the University of Padua he entered the Society of Jesus in 1559 with two brothers younger than himself. He taught philosophy at the Roman College, theology at Padua and Milan, and successfully directed several houses of his order in Northern Italy. He displayed indefatigable zeal in preaching, giving retreats and directing congregations, and was held in great esteem as a theologian and spiritual guide by the Archbishop of Milan, ...
Go to Profile#1980
Melchior Teschner
1584 - 1635 (51 years)
Melchior Teschner was a German cantor, composer and theologian. Born in Wschowa in Poland, Teschner attended the Gymnasium in Zittau, Saxony, and studied under Johann Klee. In 1602 he began studies in music theory, philosophy and theology with Bartholomäus Gesius at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder
Go to Profile#1981
Dumitru Cornilescu
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Dumitru Cornilescu was a Romanian archdeacon who produced a popular translation of the Bible into Romanian, published in 1921. Although referred to as "Father Cornilescu", he was never ordained as a Romanian Orthodox priest. After his conversion, he served as a Protestant minister. Cornilescu's translation is the most popular version of the Bible among Romanian Protestants.
Go to Profile#1982
Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil
1571 - 1626 (55 years)
Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil, O.F.M. , was an Irish Franciscan theologian and Archbishop of Armagh. He was known by Irish speakers at Leuven by the honorary name Aodh Mac Aingil , and it was under this title that he published the Irish work Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAthridhe.
Go to Profile#1983
Peter of Poitiers
1130 - 1205 (75 years)
Peter of Poitiers was a French scholastic theologian, born in Poitiers around 1125-1130. He died in Paris on September 3, 1205. Life After his studies in Paris, he began teaching in the Faculty of Theology in 1167. Two years later he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of scholastic theology at the cathedral school of Notre Dame.
Go to Profile#1984
Isaac J. Lansing
1846 - 1920 (74 years)
Isaac J. Lansing was the president of Clark Atlanta University from 1874 to 1876, and the pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts from 1893 to 1897. Isaac Lansing was born in 1846 in Watervliet, New York. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1872 as valedictorian and was a graduate student there from 1872 to 1873. He received a master's degree from the university in 1875. He served as a Methodist Episcopal minister in the New York East, Georgia, and Savannah Conferences from 1873 to 1886. During this period, Lansing was appointed President of Clark Atlanta University in 1874 and served until 1876.
Go to Profile#1985
Albert Frick
1714 - 1776 (62 years)
Albert Frick was a German theologian. He was born at Ulm on 18 September 1714 and died on 30 May 1776. He studied at Leipsic, and was appointed assessor to the faculty of theology. In 1743 he became a minister at Jungingen, but, returning to Ulm in 1744, filled the post of librarian and professor of morals. In 1751 he went to Munster as a preacher; and in 1768 was named head librarian. Among his writings are Historia traditionum ex monumentis Ecclesiae Christianae : — De Natura et Constitutione Theologie Catecheticae . — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 18:871.
Go to Profile#1986
Joseph R. N. Maxwell
1899 - 1971 (72 years)
Joseph Raymond Nonnatus Maxwell, SJ was an American Catholic priest, academic, poet, and college administrator. A Jesuit since 1919, he served as President of the College of the Holy Cross from 1939 to 1945, and President of Boston College from 1951 to 1958.
Go to Profile#1987
Joseph Baylee
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Joseph Tyrrell Baylee, D.D. , was a theological writer. Baylee received his education at Trinity College Dublin . To the residents of Liverpool and Birkenhead his name became for a quarter of a century a household word, on account of his activity as the founder and first principal of St. Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, where he prepared many students for the work of the ministry. This institution, which may be said to have been founded in 1846, originated in a private theological class conducted by Dr. Baylee, under the sanction of the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Sumner, afterwards advance...
Go to Profile#1988
Luther Tracy Townsend
1838 - 1922 (84 years)
Reverend Luther Tracy Townsend was a professor at Boston University and an author of theological and historical works. Biography He was born on September 27, 1838, in Orono, Maine, to Luther K. Townsend and Mary True Call. His father died on November 16, 1839, and his mother took the family to New Hampshire. He started work at the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1850. He infrequently attended the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, now known as the Tilton School. He graduated from Dartmouth College with an A.B. in 1859. He then attended Andover Theological Seminary and graduated in 1862.
Go to Profile#1989
Alphons Bellesheim
1839 - 1912 (73 years)
Christian Peter "Alphons" Maria Joseph Bellesheim was a church historian. He also reviewed and collected books. Family Alphons was the son of Heinrich "Wilhelm" Ludwig Joseph Bellesheim and Maria Anna "Margaretha" Dumesnil . His parents were married on 27 June 1838 in Monschau, Germany. Alphons' paternal grandparents were Carl Anton Bellesheim and Maria Josepha Helena Hennekes. His maternal grandparents were Carl Dumesnil and Christina Windhagen.
Go to Profile#1990
Justus Gesenius
1601 - 1673 (72 years)
Justus Gesenius was a Lutheran theologian of the seventeenth century, known for his catechisms. His father was preacher at Esbeck. Having received his early education at the Adreanum in Hildesheim, he went in his eighteenth year to the University of Helmstedt, where he studied under Georg Calixtus and Conrad Horneius. In 1628 he took his degree of master of philosophy in Jena and was called as pastor to the church of St. Magnus in Brunswick. After seven years of beneficent activity there, he received a call to Hildesheim, the seat of George, duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, as court chaplain and preacher in the Collegiate of St.
Go to Profile#1991
Thomas Stapleton
1535 - 1598 (63 years)
Thomas Stapleton was an English Catholic priest and controversialist. Life He was the son of William Stapleton, one of the Stapletons of Carlton, Yorkshire. He was educated at the Free School, Canterbury, at Winchester College, and at New College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow, 18 January 1553. On Elizabeth I's accession he left England rather than conform to the new religion, going first to Leuven, and afterwards to Paris, to study theology.
Go to Profile#1992
Francesco Silvestri
1474 - 1528 (54 years)
Francesco Silvestri, O.P. was an Italian Dominican theologian. He wrote a notable commentary on Thomas of Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles, and served as Master General of his order from 1525 until his death.
Go to Profile#1993
Newcome Cappe
1733 - 1800 (67 years)
Newcome Cappe , was an English unitarian divine. He served as the pastor of the York Unitarian Chapel, located in York, England. Cappe published various sermons and after his death his second wife, Catharine Cappe published many more.
Go to Profile#1994
William Upton Richards
1811 - 1873 (62 years)
William Upton Richards was an English Anglican priest. He was a prominent Tractarian in the Church of England who served mostly notably as the vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, from 1859 to 1873.
Go to Profile#1995
Myles Cooper
1735 - 1785 (50 years)
Myles Cooper was a figure in colonial New York. An Anglican priest, he served as the President of King's College from 1763 to 1775, and was a public opponent of the American Revolution. Early life Cooper was educated at The Queen's College, Oxford, where he later served as chaplain. Ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1761, he attracted the influence of several high clergymen, including Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who recommended him for service in the American colonies. Cooper was thereby sent to New York in 1762 to assist Samuel Johnson, president of King's College, which was an Anglican establishment.
Go to Profile#1996
W. Gordon Brown
1904 - 1979 (75 years)
William Gordon Brown was notable as the founder of Central Baptist Seminary, the leading Canadian training school for evangelical Baptist ministers from 1949 to 1993 when it merged with London Baptist Seminary to form Heritage Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#1997
George Hodges
1856 - 1919 (63 years)
George Hodges was an American Episcopal theologian, born at Rome, New York, and educated at Hamilton College . He served at Calvary Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1881 to 1894. In 1893 he helped establish the Kingsley Association in Pittsburgh, an organization dedicated to helping immigrant workers. Afterward, he became the dean of the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The high esteem in which his religious messages are held by the reading public" resulted in a number of his books being reissued as a second edition in 1914.
Go to Profile#1998
Renn Hampden
1793 - 1868 (75 years)
Renn Dickson Hampden was an English Anglican clergyman. His liberal tendencies led to conflict with traditionalist clergy in general and the supporters of Tractarianism during the years he taught in Oxford which coincided with a period of rapid social change and heightened political tensions.
Go to Profile#1999
George Crolly
1813 - 1878 (65 years)
George Crolly was an Irish priest and theologian. George Crolly was born in Lough Faughan, Ballyrolly, Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland, on 11 February 1813. He entered Maynooth College in August 1829 to study for the priesthood. A fellow student at the time was his friend and fellow theologian Rev. Dr. Patrick Murray.
Go to Profile#2000
Nikolaus Selnecker
1530 - 1592 (62 years)
Nikolaus Selnecker was a German musician, theologian and Protestant reformer. He is now known mainly as a hymn writer. He is also known as one of the principal authors of the Formula of Concord along with Jakob Andreä and Martin Chemnitz.
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