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.
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#1951
James MacCaffrey
1875 - 1935 (60 years)
Monsignor James MacCaffrey STL, PhD was an Irish priest, theologian and historian. Biography Monsignor MacCaffrey was born in 1875, at Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone, he was the son of Francis MacCaffrey of Alderwood, Clogher, Co. Tyrone. He was educated at St. Macartan's Seminary, Monaghan, before going to St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and was ordained there in 1899.
Go to Profile#1952
John Williams
1796 - 1839 (43 years)
John Williams was an English missionary, active in the South Pacific. Early life He was born in Tottenham, near London, to Welsh parents. In 1810 the family moved to north London and there he served as a clerk to an iron foundry. He also took some interest in smithing. There his employer's wife first took him to church and he was immediately drawn to this, and the pastor, Rev Nathan Wilks, enrolled him in a class to prepare for the ministry. However, his heart quickly became set on missionary work.
Go to Profile#1953
Bernhard Pauss
1839 - 1907 (68 years)
Bernhard Cathrinus Pauss was a Norwegian theologian, educator, author and humanitarian and missionary leader, who was a major figure in girls' education in Norway in his lifetime. He was headmaster and owner of Nissen's Girls' School and head of its affiliated women's teachers college, the first higher education institution open to women in Norway. He was also a lecturer at the Norwegian Military Academy. He was chairman of the Norwegian Santal Mission , in succession to Oscar Nissen, and founded and edited the journal Santalen. He also wrote and edited several schoolbooks in Norwegian and G...
Go to Profile#1954
Matthias Loy
1828 - 1915 (87 years)
Matthias Loy was an American Lutheran theologian in the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio. Loy was a prominent pastor, editor, author and hymnist who served as president of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio.
Go to Profile#1955
Levi Silliman Ives
1797 - 1867 (70 years)
Levi Silliman Ives was an American theologian and Episcopal bishop of North Carolina. In 1852, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York area. He was the founder and first president of the New York Catholic Protectory, an institution for the shelter and education of destitute and abandoned children. He was also a founder of Manhattan College.
Go to Profile#1956
George Collison
1772 - 1847 (75 years)
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London—itself part of the University of London. Early life Collison was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, on 6 January 1772, and became articled to a solicitor in Bridlington. Taking a keen interest in the local Independent Chapel, he became an early Sunday school teacher, and in 1792 decided to give up law and train full-time as a minister at Hoxton College near London. In 1797 he settled close to London in the village of Walthamstow in Essex to carry ...
Go to Profile#1957
Ambrose Traversari
1386 - 1439 (53 years)
Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli , was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
Go to Profile#1958
Johann Gottlob Carpzov
1679 - 1767 (88 years)
Johann Gottlob Carpzov was a German Christian Old Testament scholar, a nephew of Johann Benedict Carpzov II and a son of Samuel Benedict Carpzov. He was the most famous and most important Biblical scholar of the Carpzov family.
Go to Profile#1959
Jona Willem te Water
1740 - 1822 (82 years)
Jona Willem te Water was a professor at Leiden University. He was a man of influence in the Dutch Reformed Church, in many learned societies, in academic theology, and in Dutch historiography. Early life
Go to Profile#1960
Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz
1777 - 1838 (61 years)
Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Prague from 1833 to 1838. Biography Ankwicz was born in Kraków, Poland in 1777. He was ordained a priest on 2 September 1810. In 1815, he was appointed and ordained archbishop of Lviv in Ukraine. He remained in this capacity for 18 years until 30 September 1833 when he was appointed the archbishop of Prague. He died at the age of 60 years on 26 March 1838 to be succeeded in his archbishopric by Alois Josef Schrenk.
Go to Profile#1961
Louis-Honoré Pâquet
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Louis-Honoré Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and university teacher, as well as celebrated orator of his time. Biography Pâquet was born in 1838 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, in what was then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Québec City. The son of farmers Étienne Pâquet and Ursule Lambert, he was descended from an old, pious family of the area, and was closely related to theologian Louis-Adolphe Pâquet as well as to provincial MLA Étienne-Théodore Pâquet . His studies, like those of his older brother Benjamin, were financed by t...
Go to Profile#1962
Bernhard Stempfle
1882 - 1934 (52 years)
Bernhard Stempfle was a Roman Catholic priest and journalist. He helped Adolf Hitler in the writing of Mein Kampf. He was murdered in the Night of the Long Knives. Biography Stempfle entered the priesthood in 1904. He joined the Hieronymite order in Italy. In the years leading up to the First World War, he wrote for the Corriere della Sera and various other German and Italian papers. Following the outbreak of war, he returned to Munich, performed pastoral work at the university, and established close contacts with Reform Catholic elements in the city, especially the nationalistic Hofklerus at St.
Go to Profile#1963
Agostino Bernal
1587 - 1642 (55 years)
Agostino Bernal was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus in 1603 when sixteen years old. A classical scholar, he taught humanities and rhetoric with success. The greater part of his life, however, he spent as professor of philosophy and theology at Saragossa.
Go to Profile#1964
Johann Stössel
1524 - 1576 (52 years)
Johann Stössel was a Lutheran Theologian and Reformer. Life Stössel was born in Kitzingen. He came to Wittenberg at 15 and became a master after 10 years of study. Since he distanced himself from the Philippists, he was appointed by John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony as a court preacher in Weimar. Here he developed into a zealous Gnesio-Lutheran. As such, he took part in the Reformation in the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach. It was in keeping with his strident attitude that he wanted to include anathemas in the church order there against all dissenters.
Go to Profile#1965
Thomas Sedgwick
Thomas Sedgwick was an English Roman Catholic theologian. An unfriendly hand in 1562 describes him as "learned but not very wise". Thomas Sedgwick was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1529/30 and became a Fellow of Peterhouse in 1531. He argued against Martin Bucer in 1550, alongside Andrew Perne and John Young; and against Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley in April 1554, when he was incorporated Doctor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. In 1546 he became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was vice-master 1554–55. He had ...
Go to Profile#1966
John Fawcett
1739 - 1817 (78 years)
John Fawcett was a British-born Baptist theologian, pastor and hymn writer. Early years Fawcett was born on 6 January 1739 in Lidget Green, Bradford. In 1762, Fawcett joined the Methodists, but three years later, he united with the Baptist Church and became pastor of Wainsgate Baptist Church in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, England.
Go to Profile#1967
Niketas Stethatos
1000 - 1090 (90 years)
Niketas Stethatos was a Byzantine mystic and theologian who is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was a follower of Symeon the New Theologian and wrote the most complete biography of Symeon, Life of Symeon.
Go to Profile#1968
Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg
1580 - 1645 (65 years)
Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg was a German Lutheran pastor. Life Matthias's father was Leonhard Höe von Höenegg, a Lutheran imperial councillor and doctor of law descended from old Austrian nobility. Matthias was born prematurely and so his health was weak during his early years, meaning he only started speaking when he was seven. His father initially had him taught by a private tutor until, once he was almost fully educated, he was allowed to visit Vienna's St Stephan's Stadtschule, where he developed remarkably and began talking to the city's scholars.
Go to Profile#1969
Peter of Aquila
1300 - 1361 (61 years)
Peter of Aquila was an Italian Friar Minor, theologian and bishop. Peter was born at L'Aquila in the Abruzzo, Italy, towards the end of the 13th century. In 1334 he figures as a Master of Theology and as Minister Provincial of his Order for Tuscany. In 1334 he was appointed confessor to Queen Joan I of Naples and shortly afterwards Inquisitor for Florence. His servants having been punished by public authority, the Inquisitor excommunicated the priors and placed the town under interdict.
Go to Profile#1970
John of Segovia
1395 - 1458 (63 years)
John of Segovia, or in Spanish Juan de Segovia , was a Castilian prelate and theologian. He played a prominent role in the Council of Basle and was in touch with the leading humanists of his day, such as Nicholas of Cusa. He spent the last years of his life in exile in Savoy, where he commissioned an accurate translation of the Koran into Spanish, which he then translated into Latin.
Go to Profile#1971
F. S. Marsh
1886 - 1953 (67 years)
Fred Shipley Marsh was an English clergyman and theologian, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1935 to 1951. The son of James William Marsh, by his marriage to Elizabeth Shipley, he was the eldest son in a family of eight children. Educated at Cambridge, in 1907 Marsh was elected a Tyrwhitt Scholar, and much of his subsequent work was in the field of Syriac studies.
Go to Profile#1972
George William Knox
1853 - 1912 (59 years)
George William Knox, D.D., LL.D. was an American Presbyterian theologian and writer, born at Rome, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1874, and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1877, after which he went as a missionary to Japan, where he was professor of homiletics in Tokyo and professor of philosophy and ethics at the Imperial University of Tokyo.
Go to Profile#1973
Otto Zöckler
1833 - 1906 (73 years)
Otto Zöckler was a German theologian, professor at Greifswald. He edited a Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaft, and other works. Quote from him: “The wise man is also the just, pious, the upright, the man who walks in the way of truth.”
Go to Profile#1974
Luis del Alcázar
1554 - 1613 (59 years)
Luis del Alcázar was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He was the eldest son of Melchor del Alcázar, a jurist, and nephew of the poet Baltasar del Alcázar, and was born in Seville. He studied at Seville, Cordova and Salamanca, entered the Society of Jesus in 1568, and became a priest in 1578. Alcázar was a friend of the Jesuit Juan de Pineda , and the Dominican Agustin Salucio; he died in Rome.
Go to Profile#1975
Johann Sigismund Mörl
1710 - 1791 (81 years)
Johann Sigismund Mörl was a German theologian. Son of Gustav Philipp Mörl, he was born in Nuremberg on 3 March 1710 and was educated in his native place until ready for the university at Altdorf, where he studied theology after 1727. In 1735 he was appointed dean of a church at Nuremberg. He preached until 1759, when he was appointed minister and inspector of the "Egidianum." In 1765 he was elected in this gymnasium to the professorship of Greek. Towards the close of 1770 he was called to the position of minister of St. Lawrence's church. In 1773 he accepted the position of first minister at St.
Go to Profile#1976
Jakob Beurlin
1520 - 1561 (41 years)
Jakob Beurlin was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Life Beurlin was born in Dornstetten. In November 1533, he entered the University of Tübingen. When the Protestant Reformation was introduced there in 1534, he remained faithful to Catholicism, diligently studying philosophy and the writings of the Church Fathers. His transition to the new doctrine took place quietly.
Go to Profile#1977
César Malan
1787 - 1864 (77 years)
Henri Abraham César Malan was a Swiss Protestant minister and hymn-writer. Life Malan was born in Geneva, Republic of Geneva and was a believing Christian from childhood. After completing his education, he went to Marseilles, France, intending to learn business. But soon after, he entered the by then rationalistic Geneva Academy in preparation for the ministry. He was ordained in 1810.
Go to Profile#1978
Asad ibn al-Furat
759 - 828 (69 years)
Asad Ibn Al-Furat was a Muslim jurist and theologian in Ifriqiya, who played an important role in the Arab conquest of Sicily. Biography His family, originally from Harran in Upper Mesopotamia, emigrated with him to Ifriqiya. Asad studied in Medina with Malik ibn Anas, the founder of the Malikite school, and in Kufa with a disciple of Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafite tradition. He collected his views on religious law in the Asadiyya, which had great influence in Ifriqiya.
Go to Profile#1979
Julian of Halicarnassus
450 - 600 (150 years)
Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus , also known as Julian the Phantastiast, was an anti-Chalcedonian theologian who contested with Severus of Antioch over the phtharos of Christ. His followers were known as the Aphthartodocetae. He lived in exile for a time in the monastery of the Enaton in Egypt.
Go to Profile#1980
John Gregg
1873 - 1961 (88 years)
John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg CH was a Church of Ireland clergyman, from 1915 Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, in 1920 translated to become Archbishop of Dublin, and finally from 1939 until 1959 Archbishop of Armagh. He was also a theologian and historian.
Go to Profile#1981
August Friedrich Pfeiffer
1748 - 1817 (69 years)
August Friedrich Pfeiffer was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. He was born in Erlangen on 13 January 1748, where he also commenced his academical career in 1769. In 1776 he was professor of Oriental languages and in 1805 was head librarian of the university. He died on 15 July 1817.
Go to Profile#1982
Henry Ramsden Bramley
1833 - 1917 (84 years)
Henry Ramsden Bramley was an English clergyman and hymnologist perhaps best known for his collaborations with the composer Sir John Stainer. Along with earlier 19th-century composers such as William Sandys and John Mason Neale, Bramley and Stainer are credited with fuelling a Victorian revival of Christmas carols with their 1871 publication of Christmas Carols, New and Old, which popularised carols such as "The First Nowell", "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" and "The Holly and the Ivy".
Go to Profile#1983
Joseph White
1745 - 1814 (69 years)
Joseph White was an English orientalist and theologian, Laudian Professor of Arabic and then Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. Early life and career He was born in Gloucestershire, the son of Thomas White, a journeyman weaver. He received his earliest education in one of the Gloucester charity schools, and started life in his father's employment. Wealthy neighbours enabled him to pursue his studies at Ruscomb and Gloucester, and with support from John Moore he entered Wadham College, Oxford, as a commoner on 6 June 1765. In September of that year he became scholar of his...
Go to Profile#1984
Adalberon
947 - 1030 (83 years)
Adalberon, or Ascelin , was a French bishop and poet. He was a son of Reginar of Bastogne, and a nephew of Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims. He studied at Reims and was in the chapter of Metz Cathedral. He became bishop of Laon in 977.
Go to Profile#1985
Felix
781 - 818 (37 years)
Felix was a Christian bishop and theologian. He served as the bishop of Urgell and advocated the christology known as Spanish Adoptionism because it originated in the lands of the former Visigothic Kingdom in Spain. He was condemned for heresy and all his writings were suppressed. They are known today only through quotations contained in the writings of his opponents.
Go to Profile#1986
Thomas of York
1220 - 1260 (40 years)
Thomas of York was an English Franciscan theologian and scholastic philosopher of the thirteenth century. He was associated with the Oxford Franciscan school. He entered the Order of Friars Minor in 1242, and studied at the University of Oxford. He later was the leader of the Franciscan establishment at Cambridge. Along with Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, he was a major critic of the Parisian secular theologian William of Saint-Amour.
Go to Profile#1987
William of Lucca
William of Lucca was an Italian theologian and scholastic philosopher. He taught at Bologna, in the third quarter of the twelfth century. He wrote a commentary on The Divine Names of Pseudo-Dionysius, combining ideas from Gilbert de la Porrée with those of Eriugena. He is also the presumed author of Summa artis dialectice, a textbook of logic, influenced by Abelard.
Go to Profile#1988
Wacker von Wackenfels
1550 - 1619 (69 years)
Johannes Matthaeus Wacker von Wackenfels was an active diplomat, scholar and author, with an avid interest in history and philosophy. A follower of Neostoicism, he sought to resolve the doubts he still had about his conversion to Catholicism, according to STUDIA RUDOLPHINA - Bulletin of the Research Center for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II. He was born in Konstanz in 1550 in a Lutheran Protestant family and studied in Strasbourg, Geneva and Padua. He was supported and promoted by Johannes Crato von Krafftheim, who put his way into the circle of Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe in Breslau.
Go to Profile#1989
Ulrich of Strasbourg
1220 - 1277 (57 years)
Ulrich of Strasbourg was a German Dominican theologian and scholastic philosopher from Strasbourg, Alsace. A disciple of Albertus Magnus, he is known for his De summo bono, written 1265 to 1272. Works Ulricus de Argentina, De summo bono, I–IV, edited by A. Beccarisi et al., Corpus philosophorum teutonicorum medii aevi I, vols 1–4, Hamburgh, Meiner, 1987-2008.
Go to Profile#1990
Walter of Mortagne
1100 - 1174 (74 years)
Walter of Mortagne was a Scholastic philosopher, and theologian. Mortagne was educated in the schools of Tournai. Between 1136 and 1144 he taught at the School of St Genevieve in Paris. From Paris he went to Laon and was made bishop of that see. His principal works are a treatise on the Holy Trinity and six "Opuscula". Of the "Opuscula" five are published in Lucas d'Achéry's "Spicilegium" and the sixth in P.L. . A logical commentary which is contained in MS. 17813 of the Bibliothèque Nationale and which was published in part by Barthélemy Hauréau in 1892 is also ascribed to him. Finally, the...
Go to Profile#1991
Peter Coffey
1876 - 1943 (67 years)
Peter Coffey was an Irish Roman Catholic priest and neo-scholastic philosopher. Life Coffey was educated at the Meath Diocesan Seminary in Navan, and St Patrick's College, Maynooth . He studied for his doctorate at the University of Louvain, and attended the University of Strasbourg. He was ordained in 1900.
Go to Profile#1992
Homer Hulbert
1863 - 1949 (86 years)
Homer Bezaleel Hulbert was an American missionary, journalist, linguist, and Korean independence activist. Hulbert went by a variety of names in Korea, including Hŏ Halpo , Hŏ Hŭlpŏp , and Halpo .
Go to Profile#1993
James Ambrose Dominic Aylward
1813 - 1872 (59 years)
James Ambrose Dominic Aylward OP was an English Catholic theologian and poet. Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, on 4 April 1813, Aylward was educated at the Dominican priory of Hinckley, entered the Order of St Dominic, was ordained priest in 1836, became Provincial in 1850, first Prior of Woodchester in 1854, and provincial a second time in 1866.
Go to Profile#1994
Archibald Arthur
1744 - 1797 (53 years)
Archibald Arthur FRSE was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher. An alumnus of the University of Glasgow, he served as University chaplain from 1774 – 1794, and librarian from 1780 - 1794. Between 1780 and 1794 he worked as an assistant to Professor of Moral Philosophy Thomas Reid, taking on the latter's teaching duties, and succeeding him in 1796.
Go to Profile#1995
Alexandre Vachon
1885 - 1953 (68 years)
Alexandre Vachon was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest who served as the Archbishop of Ottawa and the chancellor of the University of Ottawa from 1940 to 1953.
Go to Profile#1996
Thomas Newlin
1688 - 1744 (56 years)
Thomas Newlin was an English cleric, known as a preacher. Life The son of William Newlin, rector of St. Swithin's, Winchester, he was baptised there 29 October 1688. From 1702 to 1706 he was a scholar of Winchester College, and was elected demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1706. He graduated B.A. 26 June 1710, M.A. 7 May 1713, and B.D. 8 July 1727. He was a fellow of Magdalen from 1717 to 1721.
Go to Profile#1997
John Bascombe Lock
1849 - 1921 (72 years)
John Bascombe Lock was an English priest and academic, who was bursar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and author of several mathematical textbooks. He was born 18 March 1849 in Dorchester, son of Joseph Lock , a butcher and farmer, and Elizabeth Marvin née Wills. He was baptised on 24 June 1849 at St Peter's Church, Dorchester. He was educated at William Barnes's School, Dorchester; Bristol Grammar School; and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he gained his BA in 1872. He was ordained deacon in 1872, and priest in 1873. He was assistant master at Eton College from 1872 to ...
Go to Profile#1998
Pierre Busée
1540 - 1587 (47 years)
Pierre Busée was a Dutch Jesuit theologian. He assisted in producing the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum and the catechism of Peter Canisius. Life When twenty-two years old he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Cologne where six years later he became master of novices. In addition to this office he was appointed to give religious instruction to the upper classes in the Jesuit college at Cologne.
Go to Profile#1999
Thomas Richey
1831 - 1905 (74 years)
Thomas Richey was a prominent Irish-American Anglo-Catholic priest, professor, and author in the Episcopal Church. He was born in Newry, County Down, in Ireland and had settled in Pittsburgh by 1847, following his graduation at 16 from Queen's College, Belfast. Richey was a tutor at St. James College, Hagerstown, Maryland under John Barrett Kerfoot from 1848-1851. He was graduated from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in 1854 and ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Horatio Potter in 1855.
Go to Profile#2000
Bernt Støylen
1858 - 1937 (79 years)
Bernt Andreas Støylen was a Norwegian theologian, psalmist, and Bishop in the Church of Norway. Personal life Støylen was born in Sande in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway on 17 February 1858. He was the son of farmer and fisherman Andreas Olsen Støylen and Margrete Helgesdatter Bringsvor. He was married in Bergen in 1890 to Kamilla Karoline Heiberg. His son was Kaare Støylen, a future bishop, and his brother-in-law was Georg Sverdrup, the Norwegian-American theologian. He died in Bærum, Norway in 1937.
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