The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Theology,
#2451
Georg Schomann
1539 - 1591 (52 years)
Georg Schomann was a Socinian theologian. In his youth, was distinguished by a deep Catholic religiosity. In the years 1552-1554 he studied at the Kraków Academy and then at Wittenberg, where he was Lutheran. He soon converted to Calvinism, and moved to Pińczów, where from 1558-1561 he taught at the local school and was a Protestant minister in churches in Pińczów and Książ. He was one of the authors of the Polish Brest Bible . In Pińczów he funded and founded a library, mainly the work of the Swiss reformers, for the sum of 40 ducats. Here, too, he married.
Go to Profile#2452
Leonardo Marini
1509 - 1573 (64 years)
Leonardo Marini was an Italian theologian and archbishop of the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church. Biography Marini was born on the island of Chios, in the Aegean Sea, to a noble Genoese family. He entered the Dominican Order and studied theology.
Go to Profile#2453
Ilsley Boone
1879 - 1968 (89 years)
Ilsley Silias Boone was a charismatic speaker, a powerful organizer, a magazine publisher and the founding father of the American Sunbathing Association later reorganized as the American Association for Nude Recreation . As a publisher he distributed the first nudist magazine in the United States. That publication eventually led to a challenge to the U.S. Postal Service's ban against sending obscene materials through the mail. Boone took his challenge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court which struck down the ban.
Go to Profile#2454
Anthony Brookby
Anthony Brookby was an English Franciscan theologian. He offended Henry VIII, and became a Catholic martyr. Brookby was a lecturer in theology at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was versed in Greek and Hebrew, and enjoyed a reputation as an eloquent preacher. In a sermon of Brookby's, he attacked the king's actions and mode of living.
Go to Profile#2455
Thomas Dale
1797 - 1870 (73 years)
Thomas Dale was a British priest in the Church of England who was the Dean of Rochester for a brief period in 1870. He was also a poet and theologian. Life Dale was born in Pentonville and educated at Christ's Hospital and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#2456
Friedrich Ludwig Weidig
1791 - 1837 (46 years)
Friedrich Ludwig Weidig was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, activist, teacher and journalist. Initially working as a teacher in Butzbach, he then spent a short time as a pastor in Ober-Gleen, a district of Giessen. In what is now Hesse and the Middle Rhine, he was one of the main figures of the Vormärz and a pioneer of the 1848 Revolution.
Go to Profile#2457
Peter of Capua the Elder
1150 - 1214 (64 years)
Peter of Capua was an Italian scholastic theologian and prelate. He served as cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata from 1193 until 1201 and cardinal-priest of San Marcello al Corso from 1201 until his death. He often worked as a papal legate. He wrote several theological works and was a patron of his hometown of Amalfi.
Go to Profile#2458
Marcus Fronius
1659 - 1713 (54 years)
Marcus Fronius was a Lutheran theologian, pedagogue, and author whose published works covered topics such as theology, metaphysics, and humoral physiology. Fronius, a Transylvanian Saxon, was born in Neustadt, Siebenbürgen, and studied under the tutelage of Johann Deutschmann and Abraham Calovius, obtaining an M.Th. from the University of Wittenberg in 1682.
Go to Profile#2459
Samuel Urlsperger
1685 - 1772 (87 years)
Samuel Urlsperger was a German Lutheran theologian with pietistic orientations. Life Urlsperger was born in the Swabian town of Kirchheim unter Teck in Württemberg. He came from a former prestigious and wealthy Hungarian family that, during the Thirty Years' War, was forced to emigrate like many other Protestants in Hungary and Styria due to religious persecution by the Habsburg authorities.
Go to Profile#2460
Heinrich Grüber
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Heinrich Grüber was a Reformed theologian, pacifist and opponent of Nazism. Life Until 1933 Heinrich Grüber was born on 24 June 1891 in Stolberg in the Prussian Rhine Province . His parents were the teacher Ernst Grüber and Alwine Grüber, née Cleven from Gulpen, living in the Protestant diaspora among an else prevailingly Catholic population.
Go to Profile#2461
Gregorij Rožman
1883 - 1959 (76 years)
Gregorij Rožman was a Slovenian Roman Catholic prelate. Between 1930 and 1959, he served as bishop of the Diocese of Ljubljana. He may be best-remembered for his controversial role during World War II. Rožman was an ardent anti-communist and opposed the Liberation Front of the Slovene People and the Partisan forces because they were led by the Communist party. He established relations with both the fascist and Nazi occupying powers, issued proclamations of support for the occupying authorities, and supported armed collaborationist forces organized by the fascist and Nazi occupiers. The Yugosl...
Go to Profile#2462
Johann Conrad Klemm
1655 - 1717 (62 years)
Johann Conrad Klemm was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Johann Conrad Klemm was born in Herrenberg, Württemberg, on 23 November 1655. He studied at Tübingen, became a deacon in Metzingen in 1683 and a clergyman in Stuttgart in 1688, in 1700 a professor at Tübingen and in 1711 a full professor of theology there. He died in Tübingen on 18 February 1717.
Go to Profile#2463
Giles de Coninck
1571 - 1633 (62 years)
Giles de Coninck was a Flemish Jesuit theologian. Alphonsus Liguori considered Coninck a moral theologian of distinction, though John de Lugo impugned his views on many questions. Life At the age of 21 he entered the Society of Jesus. During his course of studies at the Catholic University of Leuven he had Lessius among his professors. He became the successor of his teacher in the chair of scholastic theology, which he held for eighteen years.
Go to Profile#2464
Louis Ellies du Pin
1657 - 1719 (62 years)
Louis Ellies du Pin or Dupin was a French ecclesiastical historian, who was responsible for the . Childhood and education Dupin was born at Paris, coming from a noble family of Normandy. His mother, a Vitart, was the niece of Marie des Moulins, grandmother of the poet Jean Racine. When ten years old he entered the college of Harcourt, where he graduated M.A. in 1672. At the age of twenty, he accompanied Racine, who made a visit to Nicole for the purpose of becoming reconciled to the gentlemen of Port Royal. But, while not hostile to the Jansenists, Dupin's intellectual attraction was in another direction; he was the disciple of Jean Launoy, a learned critic and a Gallican.
Go to Profile#2465
John Payne
1532 - 1582 (50 years)
John Payne was an English Catholic priest and martyr, one of the Catholic Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Background John Payne was born at Peterborough in 1532. He was probably a mature man when he went to the English College at Douai in 1574, served there as bursar, and was ordained priest by the Archbishop of Cambrai on 7 April 1576.
Go to Profile#2466
Balthasar Cellarius
1614 - 1689 (75 years)
Balthasar Cellarius as a German Lutheran theologian and preacher. He wrote prolifically. In 1642 he moved to the University of Helmstedt where became a professor in New Testament studies. Life The son of a rural pastor, Balthasar Cellarius was born in Rottleben, a village in the hills west of Leipzig and north of Erfurt. He grew up in modest circumstances, obtaining his schooling atfrom the Gymnasium in Gera. In 1632 he moved on to Jena where he studied Theology, emerging in 1638 with a Magister degree. Between 1637 and 1641 he supported himself as a teacher and author. He spent a...
Go to Profile#2467
Matthias Döring
1390 - 1469 (79 years)
Matthias Döring was a German Franciscan historian and theologian. He was born and died at Kyritz, Brandenburg. Life He joined the Friars Minor in his native place, studied at the University of Oxford, was graduated at Erfurt as doctor of theology, and for some years taught theology and Biblical exegesis. In 1427 he was elected provincial of his order for Saxony.
Go to Profile#2468
Georg Cruciger
1575 - 1637 (62 years)
Georg Cruciger was a German Calvinist theologian and linguist. Life He was born in Merseburg, son of Caspar Cruciger the Younger. Cruciger taught theology at Marburg. He was one of the representatives of Hesse-Kassel at the Synod of Dort 1618-9
Go to Profile#2469
Lorenz Johann Jakob Lang
1731 - 1801 (70 years)
Lorenz Johann Jakob Lang was a German theologian, born in Selb, in the principality of Baireuth on 10 May 1731. He was the son of a stocking-maker, and being destined by his father to follow the same trade, he contended in his desire for study, which he early manifested, with many difficulties. By the assistance of his pastor, however, he acquired a thorough knowledge of the Latin and Greek, and entered in 1743 the lyceum at Culmbach. Indefatigable in his industry, he became thoroughly versed in philosophy and theology, as is evinced in the disputations De praestantia philosophiae Wolfianae, ...
Go to Profile#2470
Kasper Franck
1543 - 1584 (41 years)
Kasper Franck was a German theologian and controversialist. Life Kasper Franck was born in Ortrand, Saxony. His parents were Lutherans, and he was initially a Protestant minister and preacher. Ladislaus von Fraunberg, Count of Haag , who had recently introduced the reformed faith into his province, invited him to his court. The premature death, however, of Ladislaus prevented Franck from carrying out the proposed plans of reform.
Go to Profile#2471
Johann Leusden
1624 - 1699 (75 years)
Johannes Leusden was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and orientalist. Leusden was born in Utrecht. He studied in Utrecht and Amsterdam and became a Professor of Hebrew in Utrecht, where he died, aged 75.
Go to Profile#2472
Petrus Mosellanus
1493 - 1524 (31 years)
Petrus Mosellanus Protegensis was a German humanist scholar. He is best known for the popular work on rhetoric, Tabulae de schematibus et tropis, and his Paedologia. He became professor at the University of Leipzig. He gave the opening Latin oration at the 1519 Leipzig Disputation between Johann Eck and Martin Luther.
Go to Profile#2473
Luther Alexander Gotwald
1833 - 1900 (67 years)
Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D. was a professor of theology in the Wittenberg Theological Seminary in the United States. He was tried for heresy by the board of directors at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, on April 4 and 5, 1893, which put on trial many key issues that Lutherans still debate today.
Go to Profile#2474
Thomas de Vallgornera
1595 - 1665 (70 years)
Thomas de Vallgornera was a Spanish Dominican theologian and ascetical writer. Life He was a member of the convent of Barcelona, and for some time, while Catalonia was subject to the French, was its vicar-general, about 1642.
Go to Profile#2475
John White
1510 - 1560 (50 years)
John White was a Headmaster and Warden of Winchester College during the English Reformation who, remaining staunchly Roman Catholic in duty to his mentor Stephen Gardiner, became Bishop of Lincoln and finally Bishop of Winchester during the reign of Queen Mary. For several years he led the college successfully through very difficult circumstances. A capable if somewhat scholastic composer of Latin verse, he embraced the rule of Philip and Mary enthusiastically and vigorously opposed the Reformation theology.
Go to Profile#2476
John-Baptist Hackett
1606 - 1676 (70 years)
John-Baptist Hackett was an Irish Catholic theologian. Biography Hackett was born at Fethard, co. Tipperary, Ireland, and was educated in the Dominican convent at Cashel, where he became a member of that order.
Go to Profile#2477
John Ingram
1565 - 1594 (29 years)
John Ingram was an English Jesuit and martyr from Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, who was executed in Gateshead on 26 July 1594, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Life Ingram was probably the son of Anthony Ingram of Wolford, Warwickshire, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Hungerford. Fr Zielinski refers to the oft-recorded claim that he went to Oxford, where he converted to Catholicism, and left Oxford without completing his studies. Ingram is as a consequence sometimes referred to as one of the “Oxford Martyrs”. This is however an error. Zielinski quotes John Wainright, who noted that there was i...
Go to Profile#2478
Al-Muzani
791 - 878 (87 years)
Abū Ibrāīm Ismā'īl ibn Yahyā Ibn Ismā'īl Ibn 'Amr Ibn Muslim Al-Muzanī Al-Misrī was an Islamic jurist and theologian and one of leading member of Shafi'i school. A native of Cairo, he was a close disciple and companion of Imam Shafi'i. He has been called Al-Imam, al-'Allamah, Faqih al-Millah, and 'Alam az-Zahad. He was skilled in the legal verdicts and became one of the inheritors of Imam Shafi’i. Imam Shafi’i said about him: " al-Muzani is the standard-bearer of my school". He lived an ascetic life and died at the age of 89 on the 24th of Ramadan 264/30 May 878 and was buried near Imam al-Sh...
Go to Profile#2479
Caspar Wistar Hodge Jr.
1870 - 1937 (67 years)
Caspar Wistar Hodge Jr. was an American theologian. He was the son of Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr., and grandson of Charles Hodge, and like both of them, he taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, serving as Professor of Systematic Theology from 1915 to 1937.
Go to Profile#2480
Pedro de Lerma
1461 - 1541 (80 years)
Pedro de Lerma was a Spanish theologian. De Lerma was born in Burgos, in northern Spain, and studied at the University of Paris. Within the University, he first taught arts at the Collège de Navarre, then from 1500 was at the Collège de Sorbonne, and earned a doctorate in theology in 1504. In 1506 he was appointed canon in Burgos, then in 1508 became the first chancellor of the University of Alcalá. He was part of the pro-Erasmus faction at a conference in Valladolid in June through August 1527 called by the Inquisition to investigate Erasmus's writings. He resigned as chancellor of Alcalá in 1535, and returned to Burgos.
Go to Profile#2481
Pierre Richier
1506 - 1580 (74 years)
Pierre Richier, also Pierre Richer, dit de Lisle, was a French Calvinist theologian, who accompanied Philippe de Corguilleray on a French expedition to Brazil in 1556, to reinforce the colony of France Antarctique. He was a member of a contingent of 14 Calvinist people dispatched from Geneva. He later became the main actor in developing La Rochelle as a Huguenot capital.
Go to Profile#2482
Al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar
935 - 1025 (90 years)
Abu al-Hasan ʿAbd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad ibn Khalil ibn ʿAbdallah al-Hamadani al-Asadabadi was an Islamic jurist and hadith scholar who is remembered as the Qadi al-Qudat of the Buyid dynasty and the last great scholar of the Mu'tazilite school of Islamic theology, and a reported follower of the Shafi‘i school. Abd al-Jabbar means "Servant of al-Jabbar ."
Go to Profile#2483
Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti
1774 - 1849 (75 years)
Giuseppe Gasparo Mezzofanti was an Italian cardinal and famed hyperpolyglot. Life Born to humble parents in Bologna, he showed exceptional mnemonic skills as well as a flair for music and foreign language learning from a very young age. He studied with the Piarists where he had the chance to meet several missionaries from various countries. By speaking with them he began learning several new languages including Swedish, German, Spanish and South American native languages as well as studying Latin and ancient Greek in school. He completed his theological studies before he had reached the minimum age for ordination as a priest.
Go to Profile#2484
Charles S. Reifsnider
1875 - 1958 (83 years)
Charles Shriver Reifsnider was the Anglican bishop of North Tokyo in the Nippon Sei Ko Kai from 1935 to 1940. During his mission years in Japan from 1904 to 1941 he also served as the President of Rikkyo University from 1912 to 1940.
Go to Profile#2485
Christian Chemnitz
1615 - 1666 (51 years)
Christian Chemnitz was a German Lutheran theologian. Latin language sources identify him as Christianus Chemnitius. Life Family provenance Christian Chemnitz was born in Königsfeld, a small town in the hills to the south of Leipzig. The family was able to trace its origins back to Pritzwalk in Brandenburg where since 1287 they had provided no fewer than sixteen mayors and chief aldermen. The most notable family member in more recent generations was Christian's great uncle, the theologian and reformer Martin Chemnitz . Christian's father was another Martin Chemnitz , a teacher and theologian in Königsfeld where he had been appointed pastor in 1593.
Go to Profile#2486
Honoratus a Sancta Maria
1651 - 1729 (78 years)
Honoratus a Sancta Maria was a French Discalced Carmelite, known as a prolific controversialist. His secular name was Blaise Vauxelles , and he was known also by the French version of his name in religion, Honoré de Sainte-Marie.
Go to Profile#2487
Stanisław of Skarbimierz
1362 - 1431 (69 years)
Stanisław of Skarbimierz was the first rector of the University of Krakow following its restoration in 1399. He was the author of Sermones sapientiales , comprising 113 sermons. Stanisław was born in Skarbimierz, a town some 50 km north-east of Kraków. His sermons were the foundation of Polish political doctrine that culminated in the system of Nobles' Democracy in Poland and, from 1569, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many ideas central to this doctrine may be found in subsequent works by Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki that appear to have influenced the 17th-century English Commonweal...
Go to Profile#2488
Serafino Porrecta
1536 - 1614 (78 years)
Serafino Porrecta was an Italian Dominican theologian. His family name was Capponi; he was called a Porrecta from his place of birth. He is best known as a commentator on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; he also wrote commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments.
Go to Profile#2489
Benjamin Pâquet
1832 - 1900 (68 years)
Benjamin Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educator. He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period. Three times his name was cited for potential bishopry, but each time his opponents successfully lobbied against his nomination or the decision makers settled on a less controversial choice.
Go to Profile#2490
Collins Denny
1854 - 1943 (89 years)
Collins Denny was an American clergyman and educator. He was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Vanderbilt University from 1891 to 1910. He served as bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South from 1910 to 1943.
Go to Profile#2491
Lucas Trelcatius
1542 - 1602 (60 years)
Lucas Trelcatius , was a theologian and writer from the Northern Netherlands. Biography Trelcatius was born in Atrecht but raised as a clerical scholar in Douai thanks to his aunt who was mater in a nunnery there. When he came of age, he traveled to France where he studied theology in Paris and Orleans. In Orleans he became disillusioned with corruption in the Catholic church and turned to Protestantism. Losing his stipend from his Catholic aunt, he found aid from some merchants from Rijsel who offered to support his studies in return for preaching the Protestant faith in their town. His pos...
Go to Profile#2492
William Gurnall
1617 - 1679 (62 years)
William Gurnall was an English author and Anglican clergyman born at King's Lynn, Norfolk, where he was baptised on 17 November 1616. He was educated at the free grammar school of his native town, and in 1631 was nominated to the Lynn scholarship in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1635 and MA in 1639. He was made rector of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham in Suffolk in 1644; and before he received that appointment he seems to have officiated, perhaps as curate, at Sudbury.
Go to Profile#2493
Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi
1886 - 1941 (55 years)
Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi was a prominent Estonian prelate and politician who served as Minister for Education in the Estonian government between 1924 and 1925 and later as Bishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1934 till 1939.
Go to Profile#2494
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham
1829 - 1888 (59 years)
Henry Nutcombe Oxenham was an English ecclesiologist, theologian, author and translator. Originally ordained in the Church of England, he later converted to the Roman Catholic faith and was received into that Church.
Go to Profile#2495
Jean Cabassut
1604 - 1685 (81 years)
Jean Cabassut was a French Oratorian theologian. Life He was born at Aix and entered the Oratory at the age of twenty-one. Though devoted to his labour he was always ready to interrupt even his most favourite study to assist the needy. He had taught canon law at Avignon for some time, when Cardinal Grimaldi, Archbishop of Aix, took him as a companion to Rome, where Father Cabassut remained about eighteen months.
Go to Profile#2496
Guitmund
1100 - 1084 (-16 years)
The Norman Guitmund , Bishop of Aversa, was a Benedictine monk who was an opponent of the teachings of Berengar of Tours. In his youth Guitmund entered the monastery of La-Croix-Saint-Leufroy in the Diocese of Évreux. By 1060 he was studying theology at the Abbey of Bec, where he had Lanfranc as teacher and Anselm as a fellow-student, each of them later Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1070 William the Conqueror called him to take up a diocese in England, to which the monk responded with his Oratio ad Guillelmum, denouncing the Norman Conquest.
Go to Profile#2497
Derrick Sherwin Bailey
1910 - 1984 (74 years)
Derrick Sherwin Bailey was an English Christian theologian, born at Alcester in Warwickshire, whose 1955 work Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition paved the way for the production of the 1957 Wolfenden report and for the Parliament of the United Kingdom's decriminalization of homosexuality in England and Wales a decade later.
Go to Profile#2498
Christoph Wölfflin
1625 - 1688 (63 years)
Christoph Wölfflin was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Christoph Wölfflin was born in Würtemberg, either at Owen, or at Kirchheim unter Teck, on 23 December 1625. He moved to Tübingen and studied at the university there, was in 1651 deacon at Aurach, in 1657 at Tübingen, in 1659 professor of Greek, and in 1660 was made doctor and professor of theology.
Go to Profile#2499
Rudolf Handmann
1862 - 1940 (78 years)
J. J. Rudolf Handmann was a Swiss pastor, professor, theologian and biblical scholar. He was a student of Adolf von Harnack. He was pastor of , part of the Basel Münster congregation, from 1890 to his retirement on 5 May 1935.
Go to Profile#2500
Lewis Bevens Schenck
1898 - 1985 (87 years)
Lewis Bevens Schenck was an American theologian. He is best known for his 1940 work, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which he examined the doctrine of covenant succession. Robert S. Rayburn notes that Schenck "accounts for the modern eclipse of the Reformed doctrine of covenant succession by the dramatic impact of the Great Awakening and the resultant revivalismism." However, according to Thomas Trouwborst, Schenck's book has led to a revival of the "historic Presbyterian...
Go to Profile