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,
#2001
Ludwig Lavater
1527 - 1586 (59 years)
Ludwig Lavater was a Swiss Reformed theologian working in the circle of his father-in-law, Heinrich Bullinger. He served as Archdeacon at the Grossmünster in Zurich and briefly Antistes of the Zurich church as the successor of Rudolf Gwalther.
Go to Profile#2002
Leon J. Wood
1918 - 1977 (59 years)
Leon James Wood was an American theologian. He is the author of one of the few books on the Holy Spirit as portrayed in the Old Testament as opposed to the New Testament. Wood wrote, "The evidence that spiritual renewal, or regeneration, was true of such Old Testament people lies mainly in two directions. One is that these people lived in a way possible only for those who had experienced regeneration, and the other is the avenue of logical deduction that argues back from New Testament truth."
Go to Profile#2003
Josep Climent i Avinent
1706 - 1781 (75 years)
Josep Climent i Avinent was a Spanish bishop of Barcelona. Life Born at Castellón de la Plana, Valencia, he studied and afterwards professed theology at the University of Valencia, worked for several years as parish priest, and was consecrated Bishop of Barcelona in 1766; he resigned his see in 1775.
Go to Profile#2004
Jean Hessels
1522 - 1566 (44 years)
Jan Hessels, Jean Leonardi Hasselius or Jean Hessels was a Flemish theologian and controversialist at the University of Louvain. He was a defender of Baianism. Life Hessels was born at Mechlin in 1522, and obtained his doctorate in theology from Louvain. He had been teaching for eight years in Park Abbey, the Premonstratensian house near Louvain, when in 1560, he was appointed professor of theology at the university. Like Michael Baius, who was his senior colleague, Hessels preferred drawing his theology from the Church Fathers, especially from Augustine of Hippo, rather than from the Schoolmen.
Go to Profile#2005
Walter Matthews
1881 - 1973 (92 years)
Walter Robert Matthews was an Anglican priest, theologian, and philosopher. Early life and education Born on 22 September 1881 in Camberwell, London, to parents Philip Walter Matthews, a banker, and Sophia Alice Self, he was educated at Wilson's School and trained for the priesthood at King's College London.
Go to Profile#2006
Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur
1879 - 1973 (94 years)
Muhammad al-Ṭāhir ibn ʿĀshūr was a graduate of University of Ez-Zitouna and a well known Islamic scholar. He studied classical Islamic scholarship with reform-minded scholars. He became a judge then Shaykh al-Islām in 1932. He was a writer and author on the subject of reforming Islamic education and jurisprudence. He is best remembered for his Qur'anic exegesis, al-Tahrir wa'l-tanwir .
Go to Profile#2007
Antoine-Noé de Polier de Bottens
1713 - 1783 (70 years)
Antoine-Noé Polier de Bottens was an 18th-century Swiss Protestant theologian. Biography Antoine-Noé Polier de Bottens descended from a noble family from the French Rouergue that they left for Switzerland in the 16th century to escape persecution as Huguenots and not have to abjure their Protestant faith. The first known member of this family was Jean Polier, who died in 1602 after being Secretary of the Embassy of France in Geneva, a family which included scholars, professors and officers who served with distinction in the armies of most major powers.
Go to Profile#2008
Herbert Edward Ryle
1856 - 1925 (69 years)
Herbert Edward Ryle was an English Old Testament scholar and Anglican bishop, successively serving as the Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Westminster. Early life Ryle was born in Onslow Square, South Kensington, London, on 25 May 1856, the second son of John Charles Ryle , the first Bishop of Liverpool, and his second wife, Jessie Elizabeth Walker. Herbert Ryle was three years old when his mother died, and in 1861 his father married Henrietta Clowes, who was a loving mother to her stepchildren. Ryle and his brothers and sisters were brought up in their father's cou...
Go to Profile#2009
Ortwin
1475 - 1542 (67 years)
Hardwin von Grätz , better known in English as Ortwin , was a German humanist scholar and theologian. Ortwin was born in Holtwick and died in Cologne, Germany. He was raised by his uncle, Johannes von Grätz, in Deventer. In 1501 he left to pursue philosophical studies at the University of Cologne. After joining Kyuk Burse, Ortwin became licensed in 1505, attained Masters level in 1506, and became an Art Professor in 1507. He supplemented his salary by proofing documents for the Quentell printing house and wrote introductions and poetic dedications in the volumes of classical authors of the Mi...
Go to Profile#2010
Marcus Dods
1834 - 1909 (75 years)
Marcus Dods was a Scottish divine and controversial biblical scholar. He was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He served as Principal of New College, Edinburgh. Life He was born at Belford, Northumberland, the youngest son of Rev Marcus Dods, a minister of the Church of Scotland and his wife, Sarah Pallister.
Go to Profile#2011
Urban T. Holmes III
1930 - 1981 (51 years)
Urban Tigner Holmes III was an Episcopal priest, theologian, and academic during the twentieth century. He was the son of Urban T. Holmes Jr. and Margaret Allan Gemmell Holmes. Following studies at the University of North Carolina, he studied for the priesthood at the former Philadelphia Divinity School. He served as dean of the School of Theology of the University of the South from 1973 until his death. His biggest accomplishment while in Sewanee was the establishment of the Education for Ministry program.
Go to Profile#2012
Hedwig Jahnow
1879 - 1944 (65 years)
Hedwig Jahnow was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge, specifically Kinah. In 1919 After winning an election in the first year that women were allowed to vote she became the first woman in the Marburg city council. She later became deputy headmistress of the Marburg Elisabeth School. Hedwig explored women's role in the Old Testament and contributed a number of works on this topic establishing herself as one of Germany's first female biblical scholars. Jahow's work has been cited by modern theologians as foundational to the modern study on the book of La...
Go to Profile#2013
Johannes Malderus
1563 - 1633 (70 years)
Johannes Malderus was the fifth bishop of Antwerp and the founder of Malderus College at the University of Leuven. Life Malderus was born in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw on 14 August 1563, the son of Roger van Malderen and Elizabeth Walravens. His education was overseen by his uncle, Johannes van Malderen, a confidant of Cardinal Granvelle. Malderus studied philosophy at Douai University and theology in Leuven. By 1586 he was teaching philosophy at Pig College, Leuven and on 31 August 1594 he graduated doctor of theology. In 1596 he was appointed regius professor of Scholastic Theology by Philip II of ...
Go to Profile#2014
Robert Burton
1577 - 1640 (63 years)
Robert Burton was an English author and fellow of Oxford University, who wrote the encyclopedic tome The Anatomy of Melancholy. Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the landed gentry, Burton attended two grammar schools and matriculated into Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1593, age 15. Burton's education at Oxford was unusually lengthy, possibly drawn out by an affliction of melancholy, and saw an early transfer to Christ Church. Burton received an MA and BD, and by 1607 was qualified as a tutor. As early as 1603, Burton indulged his early literary creations at Oxford, including so...
Go to Profile#2015
António Sebastião Valente
1846 - 1908 (62 years)
Dom Sebastião António Valente was a Catholic archbishop and Portuguese colonial administrator, the first Patriarch of the East Indies. Biography Born in El Puerto de Santa María, province of Cadiz , he was the son of Maria João Valente and Bridget Medeiros, a native of Mértola, Portugal. He attended primary school in Beja, graduated in Coimbra and taught in the Seminaries of Viseu and Santarém. He was ordained a deacon on 23 September 1871, and on 25 May 1872 ordained a priest.
Go to Profile#2016
Eilhard Lubinus
1565 - 1621 (56 years)
Eilhard Lubinus was a German Lutheran theologian and philosopher, also known as a social critic, classical scholar, linguist, mathematician and cartographer. He was an influence on Comenius and Leibniz.
Go to Profile#2017
Titus Brandsma
1881 - 1942 (61 years)
Titus Brandsma, OCarm was a Dutch Carmelite friar, Catholic priest and professor of philosophy. Brandsma was vehemently opposed to Nazi ideology and spoke out against it many times before the Second World War. He was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp, where he was murdered. He was beatified by the Catholic Church in November 1985 as a martyr of the faith and canonized as a saint on 15 May 2022 by Pope Francis.
Go to Profile#2018
Johannes Andreas August Grabau
1804 - 1879 (75 years)
Johannes Andreas August Grabau was an influential German-American Old Lutheran pastor and theologian. He is usually mentioned as J. A. A. Grabau. Grabau was born in Olvenstedt, Prussia . He was the son of Johann Andreas Grabau and Anna Dorothea Jericho. Grabau was educated at the grammar school in Olvenstedt , the Magdeburg Gymnasium and at the University of Halle .
Go to Profile#2019
Alexander Hill
1785 - 1867 (82 years)
Alexander Hill was a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1845. He was professor of divinity at the University of Glasgow.
Go to Profile#2020
Arcturus Z. Conrad
1855 - 1937 (82 years)
Arcturus Zodiac Conrad was an American Christian author, theologian, and pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts from 1905 to 1937. He was born in 1855 on a farm in Shiloh, Indiana to a father who was a Presbyterian minister on the frontier. Conrad was primarily of German and English ancestry. In 1882 Conrad graduated from Carleton College, a Congregationalist school in Minnesota. In 1885 he received a B.D. from Union Theological Seminary; during his years at Union his roommate was Arthur Cushman McGiffert, later a noted church historian. Conrad went on to study at New York University, receiving a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#2021
Patrick Hamilton
1504 - 1528 (24 years)
Patrick Hamilton was a Scottish churchman and an early Protestant Reformer in Scotland. He travelled to Europe, where he met several of the leading reformed thinkers, before returning to Scotland to preach. He was tried as a heretic by Archbishop James Beaton, found guilty and handed over to secular authorities to be burnt at the stake in St Andrews as Scotland's first martyr of the Reformation.
Go to Profile#2022
Adam Gottlieb Weigen
1677 - 1727 (50 years)
Adam Gottlieb Weigen was a German pietist, theologian and early animal rights writer. Weigan was the son of a surgeon and was born at Waiblingen in 1677. He studied theology at Württemberg but also took interest in anatomy and natural science. Weigen became a pastor and advocate of pietism in Leonberg. He took up this post in 1705. Weigan was influenced by the writings of Philipp Spener.
Go to Profile#2023
William de la Mare
1300 - 1290 (-10 years)
William de La Mare was an English Franciscan theologian. Biography William de la Mare's origins are unknown. He obtained a master's degree in Paris in 1274/5. In Paris, he came under the influence of Bonaventura and Roger Bacon. He returned to England, and is known to have preached in Lincoln.
Go to Profile#2024
Cornelis Tiele
1830 - 1902 (72 years)
Cornelis Petrus Tiele was a Dutch theologian and scholar of religions. Life Tiele was born at Leiden. He was educated at Amsterdam, first studying at the Athenaeum Illustre, as the communal high school of the capital was then named, and afterwards at the seminary of the Remonstrant Brotherhood.
Go to Profile#2025
Edward Hawarden
1662 - 1735 (73 years)
Edward Hawarden was an English Roman Catholic theologian and controversialist. Life Hawarden was born in Lancashire, England. His family were recusants who maintained domestic chapels in their residences in Appleton in Widnes. Edward, after a course at the English College, Douai, remained there as a classical tutor, and after his ordination , as professor of philosophy.
Go to Profile#2026
Theodor Undereyck
1635 - 1693 (58 years)
Theodor Undereyck was a Protestant pastor, spiritual writer and pioneer of pietism in the German Reformed Church. Theodor Undereyck was born in 1635, the son of businessman Gerhard Undereyck and his wife Sara, née Salanger. After the death of his parents in 1636 by the plague, he grew up as an orphan in the house of his uncle Johann Undereyck in Alstaden.
Go to Profile#2027
Robert Sanderson
1587 - 1663 (76 years)
Robert Sanderson was an English theologian and casuist. Family and education He was born in Sheffield in Yorkshire and grew up at Gilthwaite Hall, near Rotherham. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. Entering the Church, he rose to be Bishop of Lincoln.
Go to Profile#2028
Alexander Geddes
1737 - 1802 (65 years)
Alexander Geddes was a Scottish theologian and scholar. He translated a major part of the Old Testament of the Catholic Bible into English. Translations and commentaries Geddes was born at Rathven, Banffshire, of Roman Catholic parentage, and educated for the priesthood at the local seminary of Scalan, and at Paris; he became a priest in his native county.
Go to Profile#2029
Thomas Burnet
1635 - 1715 (80 years)
Thomas Burnet was an English theologian and writer on cosmogony. Life He was born at Croft near Darlington in 1635. After studying at Northallerton Grammar School under Thomas Smelt, he went to Clare College, Cambridge in 1651. There he was a pupil of John Tillotson. Ralph Cudworth, the Master of Clare, moved to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1654, and Burnet followed him. He became fellow of Christ's in 1657, M.A. in 1658, and was proctor in 1667.
Go to Profile#2030
Thomas Stackhouse
1677 - 1752 (75 years)
Thomas Stackhouse was an English theologian and controversialist. Life The son of John Stackhouse , who became rector of Boldon in County Durham, and uncle of John Stackhouse, he was born at Witton-le-Wear where his father was then curate. On 3 April 1694 he entered at St. John's College, Cambridge and was B.A. when ordained in 1704.
Go to Profile#2031
Martinus Smiglecius
1563 - 1618 (55 years)
Martinus Smiglecius was a Polish Jesuit philosopher and logician, known for his erudite scholastic Logica. Life He was born on 11 November 1564 in Lwów in the Kingdom of Poland . He used the surname Lwowczyk, or Leopolitanus, and later adopted the name Smiglecius . He attended the Jesuit school in Pułtusk and until 1586 studied in Rome, where he joined the Jesuit order in 1581. His education was financed by the prominent Polish statesman Jan Zamojski. He obtained a master's degree in philosophy and a doctor's degree in theology at the Academy of Vilnius, and taught philosophy and theology th...
Go to Profile#2032
Julius Hare
1795 - 1855 (60 years)
Julius Charles Hare was an English theological writer. Early life He was born at Valdagno, near Vicenza, in Italy. His parents were Francis Hare-Naylor and the painter Georgiana Shipley, a daughter of Bishop Shipley. Augustus William Hare was his brother, and his great-grandfather, Francis Hare, was bishop of St Asaph.
Go to Profile#2033
Luis de Lossada
1681 - 1748 (67 years)
Luis de Lossada was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and philosophical writer. Lossada was born at Quiroga, Galicia, Spain. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1698, and, after completing his studies, taught theology, Scripture, and philosophy at Salamanca, where he died.
Go to Profile#2034
John Llewelyn Davies
1826 - 1916 (90 years)
John Llewelyn Davies was an English preacher and theologian, an outspoken foe of poverty and inequality, and was active in Christian socialist groups. He was an original member of the Alpine Club and the first ascendant of the Dom. His daughter was suffragist Margaret Llewelyn Davies. His son Arthur Llewelyn Davies was the father of the boys who were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. His sister Emily Davies was one of the founders of Girton College.
Go to Profile#2035
Angelo Rocca
1545 - 1620 (75 years)
Angelo Rocca was an Italian humanist, librarian and bishop, founder of the Angelica Library at Rome, afterwards accessible from 1604 as a public library. Biography Angelo Rocca is also known as Cameras Camerinus from the Augustinian monastery at Camerino. He studied at Perugia, Rome and Venice. In 1577 he graduated as a doctor in theology from Padua. After serving as superior-general of the Augustinian Monastery there from 1579, he became the head of the Vatican printing-office in 1585. In 1595 he was appointed sacristan in the papal chapel. In 1605 he was granted the office of titular Bishop...
Go to Profile#2036
Karl Christian Tittmann
1744 - 1820 (76 years)
Karl Christian Tittmann was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian. Biography Karl Christian Tittmann was the son of pastor Karl Christian Tittmann. In 1756 he attended the Princely School Grimma and graduated from the University of Leipzig in 1762. With the support of Johann August Ernesti, in 1766 he acquired master's degree. In the following year, he took a position as a catechist at the Peterskirche in Leipzig and in 1770 a position as deacon in Langensalza.
Go to Profile#2037
Venance Grumel
1890 - 1967 (77 years)
Venance Grumel was a French theologian and Byzantinist. Biography He was born on 23 May 1890 under the name of François Grumel in La Serraz, in the commune of Le Bourget-du-Lac, in Savoy, France. Orphaned, he began his schooling at the Bocage orphanage, near Chambéry . He joined the Assumptionist, or Augustinians of the Assumption, school of Notre-Dame des Châteaux, in the Tarentaise Valley . Later, he transferred to Mongreno in Italy . Grumel completed his studies in Spain - at Calahorra and Elorrio . On 11 September 1907, he entered the Assumptionist novitiate of Louvain, Belgium, where took the name of Brother Venance.
Go to Profile#2038
Johannes Nider
1380 - 1438 (58 years)
Johannes Nider was a German theologian. Life Nider was born in Swabia. He entered the Order of Preachers at Colmar and after profession was sent to Vienna for his philosophical studies, which he finished at Cologne, where he was ordained. He gained a wide reputation in Germany as a preacher and was active at the Council of Constance. After making a study of the convents of his order of strict observance in Italy he returned to the University of Vienna, where in 1425 he began teaching as Master of Theology.
Go to Profile#2039
Antonio Possevino
1533 - 1611 (78 years)
Antonio Possevino was a Jesuit protagonist of Counter Reformation as a papal diplomat and a Jesuit controversialist, encyclopedist and bibliographer. He was the first Jesuit to visit Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, Livonia, Hungary, Pomerania, and Saxony in amply documented papal missions between 1578 and 1586 where he championed the enterprising policies of Pope Gregory XIII.
Go to Profile#2040
Johann Smidt
1773 - 1857 (84 years)
Johann Smidt was an important Bremen politician, theologian, and founder of Bremerhaven. Biography Smidt was a son of the Reformed preacher Johann Smidt sen., pastor at St. Stephen Church in Bremen. Smidt jun. studied theology in Jena, and was one of the founders of the Gesellschaft der freien Männer . He was ordained Reformed preacher in Zürich in 1797. He then became Professor of History at the Gymnasium illustre in his hometown. He then became 'Syndikus' for the Älterleute and in 1800 'Ratsherr' , a position in which he exerted considerable influence on the governmental and commercial d...
Go to Profile#2041
Albert Knoll
1796 - 1863 (67 years)
Albert Knoll was an Austrian Capuchin dogmatic theologian. Life He was ordained to the priesthood in November, 1818, and five years later was appointed to teach dogmatic theology in the Capuchin convent at Merano. He held this position for 25 years. Having been elected to the office of definitor general in 1847, he went to Rome, but returned to Bolzano, in 1853, when his term of office had expired.
Go to Profile#2042
John Brown
1830 - 1922 (92 years)
John Brown was a British theologian, historian, and pastor. Brown obtained a Bachelor of Arts and a Doctor of Divinity and served as pastor of Bunyan Meeting in the town of Bedford, Bedfordshire in the Eastern part of England. He was the author of several oft referenced works on church history and theology, including an important biography of John Bunyan, subtitled His Life, Times and Work.
Go to Profile#2043
Abu Hashim al-Jubba'i
888 - 933 (45 years)
Abū Hāshīm al-Jubbā'ī was a mu'tazili theologian. He was born in 888 in Basra, and died in 933 in Baghdad. He was the son of Abū 'Alī Muḥammad al-Jubbā'ī. Biography His main teacher in theology was his own father. After the latter's death in 915, he became the leader of the Mutazilite school of Basra. Around 926, he had to leave for Baghdad because of his poverty.
Go to Profile#2044
William of Ware
1260 - 1305 (45 years)
William of Ware was a Franciscan friar and theologian, born at Ware in Hertfordshire. He almost certainly studied at Oxford University and lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard there, but he is not listed among the Oxford masters. There is some evidence, but no certainty, that he also taught at the University of Paris, perhaps lecturing there too on the Sentences. He was known as the Doctor Fundatus and less commonly the Doctor Praeclarus .
Go to Profile#2045
August Kayser
1821 - 1885 (64 years)
August Kayser was a Protestant theologian. For some years, Kayser was an assistant librarian at the University of Strasbourg. He was a private tutor from 1843 to 1855, and accepted a call to be a preacher to Stossweiler in 1858. In 1868 Kayser went to Neuhof, Alsace. He was appointed professor of theology in Strasbourg in 1873.
Go to Profile#2046
Henry Dodwell
1641 - 1711 (70 years)
Henry Dodwell was an Anglo-Irish scholar, theologian and controversial writer. Life Dodwell was born in Dublin in 1641. His father, William Dodwell, who lost his property in Connacht during the Irish rebellion, was married to Elizabeth Slingsby, daughter of Sir Francis Slingsby and settled at York in 1648. Henry received his preliminary education at St Peter's School, York.
Go to Profile#2047
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
1512 - 1609 (97 years)
Judah Loew ben Bezalel , also known as Rabbi Loew , the Maharal of Prague , or simply the Maharal , was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia.
Go to Profile#2048
James Relly
1722 - 1778 (56 years)
James Relly was a Welshman, Methodist minister and mentor of John Murray who spread Universalism in the United States. Biography Relly was born at Jeffreyston, Pembrokeshire, Wales. He attended the Pembroke Grammar School, came under the influence of George Whitefield, probably in the latter's first tour of Wales in 1741, and became one of his preachers. His first station was at Rhyddlangwraig near Narberth; and in 1747 he made a report of a missionary tour to Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, and Birmingham. He broke, however, with Whitefield on doctrinal grounds - his views on the certainty o...
Go to Profile#2049
Thomas Morton Harper
1821 - 1893 (72 years)
Thomas Morton Harper was an English Jesuit priest, philosopher, theologian and preacher. Born in London of Anglican parents, his father being a merchant of good means in the city, he was educated first at St Paul's School ; then at Queen's College, Oxford. Having taken his B.A. degree, he subsequently received orders in the Anglican Church, in which he worked for five years as a curate. His first mission was in Barnstaple in Devon. Here he manifested High Church proclivities and took a vigorous part in ecclesiastical controversies in the local press. Getting into collision with his bishop on ...
Go to Profile#2050
Gottlieb Mohnike
1781 - 1841 (60 years)
Gottlieb Christian Friedrich Mohnike was a German pastor and philologist who was a native of Grimmen. He was the father of physician Otto Gottlieb Mohnike . He studied theology at the Universities of Greifswald and Jena, afterwards spending several years as a private instructor on the island of Rügen. In 1813 he became pastor at St. Jakobi Church in Stralsund, and in 1824 was awarded an honorary doctorate of theology from the University of Greifswald.
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