The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#2251
Francis Ellingwood Abbot
1836 - 1903 (67 years)
Francis Ellingwood Abbot was an American philosopher and theologian who sought to reconstruct theology in accord with scientific method. His lifelong romance with his wife Katharine Fearing Loring forms the subject of If Ever Two Were One, a collection of his correspondence and diary entries.
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Otto Bardenhewer
1851 - 1935 (84 years)
Bertram Otto Bardenhewer was a German Catholic patrologist. His Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur is a standard work, re-issued in 2008. For Bardenhewer, a patrologist was not a literary historian of the Church Fathers, but a historian of dogmatic definitions.
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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.
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Michael Baumgarten
1812 - 1889 (77 years)
Michael Baumgarten was a German Protestant theologian. Baumgarten was born at Haseldorf in Schleswig-Holstein. Life He studied at Kiel University , and became professor ordinarius of theology at Rostock . A liberal scholar, he became widely known in 1854 through a work, Die Nachtgesichte Sacharjas. Eine Prophetenstimme aus der Gegenwart, in which, starting from texts in the Old Testament and assuming the tone of a prophet, he discussed topics of every kind.
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Johann Friedrich Flatt
1759 - 1821 (62 years)
Johann Friedrich Flatt was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. Life Johann Friedrich Flatt was born in Tübingen. His brother, Karl Christian Flatt , was also a theologian. He studied philosophy and theology in Tübingen, afterwards continuing his education in Göttingen. In 1785 he became a professor of philosophy at the University of Tübingen, where in 1792 he was appointed an associate professor of theology. In 1798 he succeeded Gottlob Christian Storr as a full professor of theology at Tübingen.
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Karl Christian Ulmann
1793 - 1871 (78 years)
Karl Christian Ulmann was a Baltic German theologian. From 1810 to 1814, he studied theology at the University of Dorpat , then continued his education at the universities of Jena and Göttingen. From 1817 to 1834, he served as pastor at St. Peters Capelle-Kremon. From 1835 to 1842, he was a professor of theology at Dorpat, where in 1839-1841 he was university rector. In 1844 he returned to Riga as an officer of the Livland Oberlandschulbehörde.
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Johann Friedrich
1836 - 1917 (81 years)
Johann Friedrich was a German theologian. He was prominent as a leader of the Old Catholics. Biography He was born at Poxdorf in Upper Franconia, and was educated at Bamberg and at the University of Munich. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1859. In 1865, he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology. In 1867, he was appointed to the Academy of Sciences. He was a pupil of Ignaz von Döllinger.
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Georg Benedikt Winer
1789 - 1858 (69 years)
Georg Benedikt Winer , German Protestant theologian, known for his linguistic studies of the New Testament. Theologically, Winer was an "anti-trinitarian". Life He studied theology at Leipzig, where in 1819 he began work as a curator at the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig. In 1823 he became a full professor of theology at the University of Erlangen, then in 1832 returned to Leipzig, where he worked in a similar role as in Erlangen. On several separate occasions he served as dean to the theological faculty, and in 1842 was named university rector.
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Hugh James Rose
1795 - 1838 (43 years)
Hugh James Rose was an English Anglican priest and theologian who served as the second Principal of King's College, London. Life Rose was born at Little Horsted in Sussex on 9 June 1795 and educated at Uckfield School, where his father was Master, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1817, but missed a fellowship. He was then President of the Cambridge Union Society for the Michaelmas term of 1817. Having been ordained to the diaconate in 1818, he was appointed to a cure in Buxted, Sussex, in 1819. He married Anne Cuyler and was priested later that year.
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Jan Ridderbos
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Jan Ridderbos was a minister in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and since 1912 professor of Old Testament at the Theological College in Kampen. Jan Ridderbos is the father of Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos, later professor in Kampen, and Nicolaas Herman Ridderbos, later a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
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Vincent McNabb
1868 - 1943 (75 years)
Vincent McNabb, O.P. was an Irish Catholic scholar and Dominican priest based in London, active in evangelisation and apologetics. Early life McNabb was born in Portaferry, County Down, Ireland, the tenth of eleven children. He was educated during his schooldays at the diocesan seminary of St. Malachy's College, Belfast. On 10 November 1885 he joined the novitiate of the English Dominicans at Woodchester in Gloucestershire, England and was ordained in 1891. After studies at the University of Louvain, where he obtained in 1894 the degree of Licentiate of Sacred Theology, he was sent to England...
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Girolamo Aleandro
1480 - 1542 (62 years)
Girolamo Aleandro was an Italian humanist, linguist, and cardinal. Life Aleandro was born on 13 February 1480 in Motta di Livenza, in the province of Treviso, part of the Republic of Venice. The son of a doctor, he studied medicine, philology, and theology in Padua. In Venice he became acquainted with Erasmus and Aldus Manutius, and at an early age was reputed one of the most learned men of the time, with a knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Chaldaean. In 1508 he went to Paris on the invitation of Louis XII as professor of belles lettres, and from 1513 to 1516 held the position of Rector of the University of Paris at the Sorbonne.
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Johann Georg Veit Engelhardt
1791 - 1855 (64 years)
Johann Georg Veit Engelhardt , a German Protestant theologian. Life He was born at Neustadt-on-the-Aisch. He and was educated at Erlangen, where he afterwards taught in the gymnasium , and became professor of theology in the university . During the years 1845, 1847 and 1848 was the representative of his university in the diet at Munich.
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Henry Melvill Gwatkin
1844 - 1916 (72 years)
Henry Melvill Gwatkin was an English theologian and church historian. Gwatkin was born at Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, the youngest son of the Rev. Richard Gwatkin, and educated at Shrewsbury and St John's College, Cambridge. In 1868 he won the university's Scholefield Prize and Hebrew Prize and began his academic career as a Fellow of St John's. In 1891 was appointed as Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Cambridge, and also transferred as a Fellow to Emmanuel College, serving in those roles until 1912.
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Franz Xaver Dieringer
1811 - 1876 (65 years)
Franz Xaver Dieringer was a Catholic theologian . He was a professor of dogma and homiletics at the University of Bonn. Life Dieringer studied theology at Tübingen, was ordained at Freiburg, 19 September 1835, and appointed instructor at the archiepiscopal seminary there. While there, he wrote the first volume of his "System of the Divine Deeds of Christianity". Because of this, he was denied Baden citizenship.
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Frank Hugh Foster
1851 - 1935 (84 years)
Frank Hugh Foster, Ph. D., D.D. was an American clergyman of the Congregational church. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard in 1873. In his activities, he was assistant professor of mathematics in the United States Naval Academy, graduated at Andover Theological Seminary , served as pastor at North Reading, Massachusetts, studied at Göttingen and Leipzig , and from 1882 to 1884 was professor of philosophy in Middlebury College. In 1884 he was appointed professor of Church history in the Oberlin Theological Seminary; from 1892 to 1902, he served at Berkeley, ...
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Johann Karl Thilo
1794 - 1853 (59 years)
Johann Karl Thilo was a German theologian and biblical scholar. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig and a final semester at the University of Halle, where he was appointed to teach at the preparatory Paedagogium of the Francke institutions, and assisted his father-in-law, Georg Christian Knapp, director of the theological seminary. In 1820 he travelled to Paris, London and Oxford with his colleague Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius for the examination of rare Eastern manuscripts. At Halle he was privat-docent from 1819, appointed professor of theology and in 1853 a consistori...
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George Stanley Faber
1773 - 1854 (81 years)
George Stanley Faber was an Anglican theologian and prolific author. He was a typologist, who believed that all the world's myths were corrupted versions of the original stories in the Bible, and an advocate of Day-Age Theory. He was a contemporary of John Nelson Darby. Faber's writings had an influence on Historicism and Dispensationalism.
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John Charles McQuaid
1895 - 1973 (78 years)
John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. , was the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin between December 1940 and January 1972. He was known for the unusual amount of influence he had over successive governments.
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Christian Wilhelm Franz Walch
1726 - 1784 (58 years)
Christian Wilhelm Franz Walch was a protestant German theologian and professor of theology from Göttingen. He authored numerous books. Life Walch was born on 25 December 1726 in Meiningen. His father Johann Georg Walch was theologian, with theological position of moderate Lutheran orthodoxy. His older brother was Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch. In 1763 he married Eleonore Friderike Crome. Walch died on 10 March 1784 in Göttingen.
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Matthias Flacius
1520 - 1575 (55 years)
Matthias Flacius Illyricus or Francovich was a Lutheran reformer from Istria, present-day Croatia. He was notable as a theologian, sometimes dissenting strongly with his fellow Lutherans, and as a scholar for his editorial work on the Magdeburg Centuries.
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Aubrey Moore
1848 - 1890 (42 years)
Aubrey Lackington Moore was an English Anglo-Catholic priest and one of the first Christian Darwinians. He has been described as "the clergyman who more than any other man was responsible for breaking down the antagonisms towards Evolution then widely felt in the English Church".
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Johann Gustav Stickel
1805 - 1896 (91 years)
Johann Gustav Stickel was a German theologian, orientalist and numismatist at Jena University. Biography Stickel was born in Eisenach in 1805. He went to school in Buttelstedt and in Weimar. In his youth he demonstrated a gift for the Hebrew language. From 1822 Johann Gustav Stickel studied rationalist Protestant theology of enlightenment which included at that time Oriental languages like Syriac and Arabic at Jena University. His teachers were Andreas Gottlieb Hoffmann , who is known for his Hebrew and Syriac studies, and Johann Traugott Leberecht Danz . In 1826, Stickel's first publication ...
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Johann Baptist Alzog
1808 - 1878 (70 years)
Johann Baptist Alzog was a German theologian and Catholic church historian. He was born at Ohlau, in Silesia. He studied at the universities of Breslau and Bonn and was ordained a priest at Cologne in 1834.
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Ibn al-Rawandi
827 - 911 (84 years)
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi , commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi , was an early Persian scholar and theologian. In his early days, he was a Mu'tazilite scholar, but then rejected the Mu'tazilite doctrine. Afterwards, he became a Shia scholar; there is some debate about whether he stayed a Shia until his death or became a skeptic, though most sources confirm his eventual rejection of all religion and becoming an atheist. Although none of his works have survived, his opinions had been preserved through his critics and the surviving books that answered him. His book with the m...
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Daniel Lorenz Salthenius
1701 - 1750 (49 years)
Daniel Lorenz Salthenius was a professor of theology at the University of Königsberg from 1732 until his death. Salthenius was born in Markim between Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden, the son of a pastor. He studied at the university in his birthplace, as well as University of Halle, and became a noted Pietist. He was appointed to his post at Königsberg to help the Pietist cause there.
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James Orr
1844 - 1913 (69 years)
James Orr was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of church history and then theology. He was an influential defender of evangelical doctrine and a contributor to The Fundamentals. Biography Orr was born in Glasgow and spent his childhood in Manchester and Leeds. He was orphaned and became an apprentice bookbinder, but went on to enter Glasgow University in 1865. In 1870, he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy of Mind, and after graduating from the theological college of the United Presbyterian Church, he was ordained a minister in Hawick. In 1885 he received a D.D. from Glasgow Univers...
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W. W. Prescott
1855 - 1944 (89 years)
William Warren Prescott was an administrator, educator, and scholar in the early Seventh-day Adventist Church. Biography Prescott's parents were part of the Millerite movement. W. W. Prescott graduated from Dartmouth College in 1877 and served as principal of high schools in Vermont, and published and edited newspapers in Maine and Vermont prior to accepting the presidency of Battle Creek College . While still president of Battle Creek College he helped found Union College and became its first president in 1891. In 1892 he assumed the presidency of the newly founded Walla Walla College in Washington.
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Jerome Emser
1477 - 1527 (50 years)
Jerome Emser , German theologian and antagonist of Luther, was born of a good family at Ulm. He studied Greek at Tübingen and jurisprudence at Basel, and after acting for three years as chaplain and secretary to Raymond Peraudi, cardinal of Gurk, he began lecturing on classics in 1504 at Erfurt, where Luther may have been among his audience. In the same year he became secretary to Duke George of Albertine Saxony, who, unlike his cousin Frederick the Wise, the elector of Ernestine Saxony, remained the stanchest defender of Roman Catholicism among the princes of northern Germany.
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Benjamin G. Wilkinson
1872 - 1968 (96 years)
Benjamin George Wilkinson was a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, educator, and theologian. He served also as Dean of Theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Washington Missionary College which is located in Takoma Park, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Wilkinson is considered one of the originators of the King James Only beliefs.
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Konrad Pellikan
1478 - 1556 (78 years)
Konrad Pellikan was a German Protestant theologian, humanist, Protestant reformer and Christian Hebraist who worked chiefly in Switzerland. Life His German surname, "Kurscherer" was changed to "Pellicanus" by his mother's brother, Jodocus Gallus, an ecclesiastic connected with the University of Heidelberg, who supported his nephew for sixteen months at the university in 1491-1492. On returning to Rouffach 1493, he entered the Franciscan convent. There he taught gratis at the convents school in order he might borrow books from the library, and in his sixteenth year resolved to become a friar.
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Nicolas Cornet
1572 - 1663 (91 years)
Nicolas Cornet was a French Catholic theologian. Life He studied at the Jesuit college of Amiens, took the doctorate of theology at the University of Paris, 1626, and soon became president of the Collège de Navarre and syndic of the Sorbonne . In this latter capacity he reported to the assembly of the Sorbonne, 1649, seven propositions, two taken from Antoine Arnauld's Fréquente Communion and five from the Augustinus of Jansenius.
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Samuel Hopkins
1721 - 1803 (82 years)
Samuel Hopkins was an American Congregationalist theologian of the late colonial era of the United States. Hopkinsian theology was named for him. Hopkins was an early abolitionist, saying that it was in the interest and duty of the U.S. to set free all of their slaves.
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F. D. Maurice
1805 - 1872 (67 years)
John Frederick Denison Maurice was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War, interest in Maurice has expanded. Early life and education John Frederick Denison Maurice was born in Normanston, Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 29 August 1805, the only son of Michael Maurice and his wife, Priscilla. Michael Maurice was the evening preacher in a Unitarian chapel. Deaths in the family brought about changes in the family's "religious convictions" and "vehement disagreement" between family members. Maurice later wrote about th...
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Eelis Gulin
1893 - 1975 (82 years)
Eelis Gideon Gulin also known as Pinomaa or Gulin-Pinomaa was Professor of New Testament at the University of Helsinki from 1933 to 1945 and Bishop of Tampere from 1945 to 1966. Biography Gulin was born on 29 December 1893 in Mikkeli, Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, the son of Arthur Lorenz Pinomaa Gulin and Bertha Kristina Christina Sarlin. In 1915 he graduated with a bachelor's degree and commenced studies in Eastern languages, Greek, Latin and theoretical philosophy, after which he intended to begin researching the Old Testament. In 1918 he graduated in theology and earned a bachelor's degree one year later.
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Reinhold Seeberg
1859 - 1935 (76 years)
Reinhold Seeberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He was a professor of theology at Erlangen, where he had studied, and then in 1893 a professor of dogmatic theology at Friedrich Wilhelm University .
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Henry Orton Wiley
1877 - 1961 (84 years)
Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement. A member of the Church of the Nazarene, his "magnum opus" was the three volume systematic theology Christian Theology.
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Friedrich Bleek
1793 - 1859 (66 years)
Friedrich Bleek , was a German Biblical scholar. Life At 16 Bleek's father sent him to the gymnasium at Lübeck, where he became so interested in ancient languages that he abandoned his idea of a legal career and resolved to devote himself to the study of theology. After spending some time at the university of Kiel, he went to Berlin, where, from 1814 to 1817, he studied under De Wette, Neander and Schleiermacher. So highly were his merits appreciated by his professors — Schleiermacher was accustomed to say that he possessed a special charisma for the science of Introduction — that in 1818 afte...
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Anton Friedrich Büsching
1724 - 1793 (69 years)
Anton Friedrich Büsching was a German geographer, historian, educator and theologian. His Erdbeschreibung was the first geographical work of any scientific merit. He also did significant work on behalf of education.
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Friedrich Heinrich Ranke
1798 - 1876 (78 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Ranke was a German Protestant theologian. He was the brother of historian Leopold von Ranke and the father of pediatrician Heinrich von Ranke and anthropologist Johannes Ranke .
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Henry Phillpotts
1778 - 1869 (91 years)
Henry Phillpotts , often called "Henry of Exeter", was the Anglican Bishop of Exeter from 1830 to 1869. One of England's longest serving bishops since the 14th century, Phillpotts was a striking figure of the 19th-century Church.
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Sydney Smith
1771 - 1845 (74 years)
Sydney Smith was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric. Besides his energetic parochial work, he was known for his writing and philosophy, founding the Edinburgh Review, lecturing at the Royal Institution and remembered for his rhyming recipe for salad dressing.
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Donald Maclean
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Donald Maclean was principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. He was appointed Professor of Church History and Church Principles in 1920, and principal in 1942, but died the following year. He also co-founded The Evangelical Quarterly.
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Arethas of Caesarea
860 - 935 (75 years)
Arethas of Caesarea was Archbishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia early in the 10th century, and is considered one of the most scholarly theologians of the Greek Orthodox Church. The codices produced by him, containing his commentaries are credited with preserving many ancient texts, including those of Plato and Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations".
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Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim
1701 - 1790 (89 years)
Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim was a German historian and theologian. He is remembered as Febronius, the pseudonym under which he wrote his 1763 treatise On the State of the Church and the Legitimate Power of the Roman Pontiff and which gave rise to febronianism.
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Joseph Mede
1586 - 1638 (52 years)
Joseph Mede was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist. He was a Hebraist, and became Lecturer of Greek.
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Hugh Farmer
1714 - 1787 (73 years)
Hugh Farmer was an English Dissenter and theologian. He was educated at the Dissenting Academy in Northampton under Philip Doddridge, and became pastor of a congregation at Walthamstow, Essex. In 1701 he became preacher and one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall, London. He was a believer in miracles, but wrote against the existence of supernatural evil. He viewed the devil as allegorical.
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Johannes d'Outrein
1662 - 1722 (60 years)
Johannes d'Outrein was a Dutch preacher, writer and author of evangelical theological works. He studied in Franeker, where he earned his doctorate in 1682. He was a preacher in Oost-Zanen in 1685, Franeker in 1687, Arnhem in 1691, Dordrecht in 1703 and Amsterdam in 1708, where he died in 1722. He was a prominent exponent of the Cocceian movement, and Friedrich Adolph Lampe was one of his disciples. Outrein believed that God was "the alliance God of the Netherlands, of his chosen people, who are gathered there and live there".
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Jean Lasserre
1908 - 1983 (75 years)
Jean Lasserre was a pastor of the Reformed Church of France, a peace theologian, the travel secretary of the French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the editor of the Cahiers de la Réconciliation, a French-language magazine. His book, The War and the Gospel made him internationally known.
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William Weston Patton
1821 - 1889 (68 years)
William Weston Patton , was an abolitionist, academic administrator, and scholar. He served as the fifth president of Howard University, and one of the contributors to the words of "John Brown's Body". He was the son of Rev. William Patton and the grandson of Anglo-Irish Congregationalist immigrant and Revolutionary War soldier Major Robert Patton.
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