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,
#2551
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.
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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.
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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.
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William Adams
1813 - 1897 (84 years)
William Adams was an American theologian and educator, co-founder of Nashotah House. William Adams was born on Monaghan, Ireland. He graduated from Trinity College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1838. He read law and medicine each for a year, and was for a time with his uncle at Ballyhaise as an accountant. He immigrated to New York City in 1839 and he entered the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal church, graduating in 1841. He was ordained a deacon on July 1841, and a priest October 9, 1843.
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Willbur Fisk
1792 - 1839 (47 years)
Willbur Fisk was a prominent American Methodist minister, educator and theologian. He was the first President of Wesleyan University. Family background Fisk was born in Guilford, , Vermont on August 31, 1792. His father, the Hon. Isaiah Fisk , was from Massachusetts and descended from William Fisk who emigrated to America from England in about 1637. His mother, Hannah was also from Massachusetts and was descended from John Bacon who came to America in 1640. Isaiah and Hannah Fisk married on May 2, 1786, and moved to Guildford, where Isaiah's father, Amos Fisk, had purchased land at the outbreak of the American Revolution.
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A. N. Sattampillai
1823 - 1918 (95 years)
Arumai Nayakam Sattampillai , known popularly as Arumainayagam Sattampillai, Arumainayagam, Sattampillai or Suttampillai , a Tamilian convert of Anglican church, was a catechist and the founder of first indigenous and independent Hindu Church of Lord Jesus, rejecting Western missionaries domination for the first time in the history of Indian subcontinent. This subversion paved the way for the development of a fusion model of Hindu-Christian religion, free from European missionary interference and also inspired the Indian national movement, largely centred on Bengal and Madras Presidency to fi...
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Cornelius Sneek
1455 - 1534 (79 years)
Cornelius Sneek was a 15th-16th century Dominican priest and a member of the Congregation of Holland. He was a student of Alanus de Rupe and wrote one of the early works on the rosary. Sneek taught the Summa Theologica at Rostock.
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John Chapman
1704 - 1784 (80 years)
John Chapman was an English cleric and scholar, archdeacon of Sudbury from 1741. Life The son of the Rev. Walter Chapman, curate of Wareham, Dorset, then rector of Strathfieldsay, Hampshire, he was probably born in 1704, probably at Strathfieldsay. He was educated at Eton College, and elected to King's College, Cambridge, where he became A.B. 1727, and A. M. 1731. While tutor of his college, Charles Pratt, Jacob Bryant, and, for a short time, Horace Walpole were amongst his pupils.
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James Hardy Ropes
1866 - 1933 (67 years)
James Hardy Ropes was an American theologian. He graduated from Harvard College in 1889 and was an instructor there from 1895 to 1898 and an assistant professor until 1903. Ropes was then appointed the Bussey Professor of New Testament criticism. He occupied the Hollis Chair at Harvard Divinity School starting in 1910. He was also the Chairman of Commission on Extension Courses and Dean of the University Extension.
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Gerhard Schneemann
1829 - 1885 (56 years)
Gerhard Schneemann was a German Jesuit. Life After studying law for three years, he entered the seminary at Münster where he was ordained subdeacon in 1850. He became a member of the Society of Jesus, 24 November 1851, and was ordained priest on 22 December 1856.
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Jacob Stolterfoht
1600 - 1668 (68 years)
Jacob Stolterfoht was a German Lutheran theologian and leading pastor in Lübeck during and directly following the Thirty Years' War. Life Stolterfoht was one of the youngest of the ten children of the Lübeck pastor Johann Stolterfoht and his wife, born Margaretha Bacmeister , the only daughter of another north German theologian. In the first part of 1620 Jacob enrolled at the University of Rostock to study theology. He moved on to Wittemberg in 1621 and from there to Greifswald, where he studied between 1622 and 1623. He then returned to Rostock, where he concluded his universit...
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George Mountain
1789 - 1863 (74 years)
George Jehoshaphat Mountain was a British-Canadian Anglican bishop , the first Principal of McGill College from 1824 to 1835, and one of the founders of Bishop's University and Bishop's College School.
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Wilhelm Bugge
1838 - 1896 (58 years)
Frederik Wilhelm Klumpp Bugge was a Norwegian theologian and politician for the Conservative Party. Personal life Bugge was born in Trondhjem as a son of rector Frederik Moltke Bugge and Anne Marie Magelssen . He was a nephew of professor Søren Bruun Bugge and grandson of bishop Peter Olivarius Bugge.
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Nathaniel Marshall
1680 - 1730 (50 years)
Nathaniel Marshall was an English churchman and theologian. His views were high church and cessationist, and he was a strong opponent of the nonjurors. Life He was son of John Marshall, rector of St George, Bloomsbury, and entered as a pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 8 July 1696. He was admitted to the degree of LL.B. in 1702, and afterwards took holy orders, as deacon in 1705 and priest in 1705.
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Roswell Dwight Hitchcock
1817 - 1887 (70 years)
Roswell Dwight Hitchcock was a United States Congregationalist clergyman. Biography He was born at East Machias, Maine. He graduated at Amherst College in 1836, and from the Andover Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, in 1838. He studied in Germany, at Halle and Berlin, in 1847. He was a tutor at Amherst in 1839–1842, and was minister of The Congregational Church in Exeter, Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1845–1852.
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Pier Paolo Vergerio
1498 - 1565 (67 years)
Pier Paolo Vergerio , the Younger, was an Italian papal nuncio and later Protestant reformer. Life He was born at Capodistria , Istria, then part of the Venetian Republic and studied jurisprudence in Padua, where he delivered lectures in 1522. He also practiced law in Verona, Padua, and Venice. In 1526, he married Diana Contarini, whose early death was at least a partial cause of his entering upon an ecclesiastical career.
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Vincent Baron
1604 - 1674 (70 years)
Vincent Baron was a French Dominican theologian and preacher. Biography He was born at Martres, in the département of the Haute-Garonne, France, 17 May 1604, and died in Paris on 21 January 1674. At the age of seventeen he passed from the college of the Jesuits in Toulouse to the Dominican convent of St. Thomas in the same city. He made his religious profession there on 16 May 1622, where he also completed his course in philosophy and theology, and taught these subjects.
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Peter Werenfels
1627 - 1703 (76 years)
Peter Werenfels was a Swiss theologian, professor at the University of Basel and antistes of the Basel church. He served as the doctoral advisor of prominent mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
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Théodore Tronchin
1582 - 1657 (75 years)
Théodore Tronchin was a Genevan Calvinist theologian, controversialist and Hebraist. Life He was born at Geneva on 17 April 1582, the son of Rémi Tronchin and Théodora Rocca, the adopted daughter of Théodore de Bèze. He studied theology at Geneva, Basel, Heidelberg, Franeker, and Leiden. He became professor of oriental languages at the academy of Geneva in 1606; he was preacher there in 1608, and professor of theology in 1618. He was rector in 1610.
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Sylvestre de Laval
1570 - 1616 (46 years)
Sylvestre de Laval was a French Catholic theologian. Life and Works He lived most of life in Paris, France. He was the author of two controversial books. He was a teacher of theology and philosophy. He did a lot of missionary work as well.
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Johannes Acronius
1565 - 1627 (62 years)
Johannes Acronius was a German Reformed theologian. He is less known by scientific works, than by his part in the quarrel between Arminians and Contra-Remonstrants . Life He was born in Grimersum, East Frisia, the son of a preacher, Bernardus Acronius, in a village north of Emden, now in the municipality of Krummhörn. He was taught by Zacharias Ursinus and Franciscus Junius in Neustadt an der Hardt, today Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. In 1584 he became a preacher in Eilsum, East Frisia, later in 1601 he was called to Groningen where he served for 10 years, during which time he was called seve...
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Johannes Müller
1864 - 1949 (85 years)
Johannes Müller was an unconventional German Protestant theologian. Life Provenance and early years Johannes Müller was born in Riesa, a small town located a short distance down-river from Dresden. He was born into a revivalist family. His parents had met in a pietist community.
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Matthias Vehe
1545 - 1590 (45 years)
Matthias Vehe known as Glirius was a German Protestant religious radical, who converted to a form of Judaism and anti-trinitarianism, rejecting the New Testament as revelation. The identity of Vehe and the writer Glirius, who published Mattanjah in Cologne, was established by G. E. Lessing. The history of the group including Vehe has been reconsidered by recent scholarship.
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Peter van Hove
Peter van Hove was a Flemish Friar Minor, lector in theology and exegete. Biography Peter was born at Retie, in the Campine region of Flanders . He was a pupil of Willem Smits, founder and first prefect of the "Musæum Philologico-Sacrum", a Franciscan Biblical institute at Antwerp, which had for its scope the training of Franciscan students in the languages appertaining to Biblical study, in Biblical history, geography, chronology and other subsidiary branches, such as are requisite for a critical and literal interpretation of the Sacred Text.
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Mattheus Pinna da Encarnaçao
1687 - 1764 (77 years)
Mattheus Pinna da Encarnaçao was a Brazilian Benedictine writer and theologian. Life He was born at Rio de Janeiro. On 3 March 1703, he became a Benedictine at the Abbey of Nossa Senhora do Montserrate at Rio de Janeiro, where he also studied the humanities and philosophy under . After studying theology at the monastery of Bahia, he was ordained priest 24 March 1708, and appointed professor of philosophy and theology.
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Joannes Maxentius
450 - 600 (150 years)
John Maxentius as the Byzantine leader of the so-called Scythian monks, a christological minority. Biography He appears in history at Constantinople in 519 and 520. The Scythian monks adapted the formula: "One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh" to exclude Nestorianism and Monophysitism, and they sought to have the works of Faustus of Riez condemned as being tainted with Pelagianism. On both these points they met with opposition. John Maxentius presented an appeal to the papal legates then at Constantinople.
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Nicolas Bonet
1280 - 1360 (80 years)
Nicolas Bonet was a Friar Minor, philosopher, theologian, missionary and bishop of Malta. Life Nicolas Bonet was born in the Touraine region of France, where he entered the Franciscan convent at Tours. Nothing is known about his early life. He was incepted as Master of Theology at Paris in the year 1333-4, where he received the title of "Doctor Pacificus" on account of his suave and tranquil mode of lecturing. Bonet took part in the heated dispute concerning John XXII's view on the beatific vision which was finally settled by the decree of his successor, Benedict XII, "Benedictus Deus".
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Asa Burton
1752 - 1836 (84 years)
Asa Burton was an American minister and theologian. Asa Burton was born on August 25, 1752, in Stonington, Connecticut, to Rachel and Jacob Burton, the sixth child in a family of thirteen. His family moved to Preston when he was very young. When he was about fourteen, his father moved again to Norwich, Vermont.
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Niccolò Riccardi
1585 - 1639 (54 years)
Niccolò Riccardi was an Italian Dominican theologian, writer and preacher, known today mostly for his role in the Galileo affair. Life Physically he was unprepossessing, but he was encouraged by his parents who sent him to study with Tomas de Lemos at University of Valladolid. He entered the Dominican Order and was invested with its habit in the Convent of St. Paul, where he studied philosophy and theology. After completing his studies he was made a professor of Thomistic theology at Pincia. While discharging his academic duties, he acquired a reputation as a preacher: Philip III of Spain named him "padre Mostro" , a sobriquet by which he was subsequently known in Spain and at Rome.
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Gustav Philipp Mörl
1673 - 1750 (77 years)
Gustav Philipp Mörl or Gustav Philipp Morl; Gustavus Philippus Moerl was a German theologian, was born in Nuremberg 26 December 1673 and was educated first in the schools of his native place and then at the university in Altdorf, where he studied philosophy and philology from 1690 to 1692, when he was removed to Jena to study theology and the ancient languages. He traveled through Holland, and visited its most important universities. After his return home he was appointed assistant of the philosophic faculty at Halle, and in 1698 became professor and ecclesiastical inspector at Altdorf. He resigned this position in 1703, and was appointed dean of St.
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Antoinette Butte
1898 - 1986 (88 years)
Antoinette Butte, was the French Protestant founder of French Girl Guiding from 1916, then Head of the Pomeyrol Community from 1938.
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Thomas-Étienne Hamel
1830 - 1913 (83 years)
Thomas-Étienne Hamel was a French-Canadian priest and academic. He was the son of Victor Hamel, a merchant and Therèse DeFoy. In 1852, as a student of the Séminaire de Québec, he traveled with Louis-Jacques Casault to London where they arranged for the royal charter of what would become Laval University. After his ordination in 1854, he was sent to Paris' École des Carmes and eventually graduated from the Sorbonne with a license in science, before returning to Quebec to teach at the Séminaire, also acquiring the office of general secretary of the new university. He became rector of the Sémina...
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John de Pineda
1558 - 1637 (79 years)
John de Pineda was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and exegete. He was a consultor to the Spanish Inquisition and nineteen printed works and six manuscripts of his writing are in existence. Life Pineda was born in Seville. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1572, taught philosophy and theology five years in Seville and Cordova, and specialized in Scripture, which he taught for eighteen years in Cordova, Seville, and Madrid. He held the posts of Provost of the professed house and rector of the college of Seville.
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John Johnson
1662 - 1725 (63 years)
John Johnson, of Cranbrook was an English clergyman, known as a theologian in the Laudian tradition. Life Born 30 December 1662, at Frindsbury in Kent, he was son of the vicar, Thomas Johnson, by Mary, daughter of Francis Drayton, rector of Little Chart, Kent. His father died about four years after his marriage, and Mrs. Johnson, with her two children, a son and a daughter, settled at Canterbury, where John was sent to the King's School. At the age of 15 he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1681. He was afterwards nominated to a scholarship at Corpus Christi College by the dean and chapter of Canterbury; proceeded M.A.
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Praepositinus
1150 - 1210 (60 years)
Praepositinus was an Italian scholastic philosopher and theologian. He was a liturgical commentator, and supporter a res-theory of belief. He discussed intentional contexts. Biography Praepositinus was probably born in northern Italy. Having studied under Petrus Comestor and taught at Paris, he was scholasticus of Mainz Cathedral in 1196. Returning, he was Chancellor of the University of Paris from c. 1206 to 1209. In 1209 he was replaced as chancellor by John of Chandelle; he retired to an abbey and died shortly after, in 1210.
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Francesco Amico
1578 - 1651 (73 years)
Francesco Amico was a prominent Catholic theologian, born in Cosenza, in Calabria, 2 April 1578. Biography Francesco Amico entered the Society of Jesus in 1596. For twenty-four years he was professor of theology at Naples, Aquila, and Gratz, and, for five years, chancellor in the academy of Gratz. He was scholastic in his method, adapting his treatises to a four-year course of teaching. He wrote De Deo Uno et Trino; De Natura Angelorum; De Ultimo Fine; De Fide, Spe, et Charitate; De Justitia et Jure, which was prohibited, 18 June 1651 donec corrigatur, on account of three propositions in it, which Pope Alexander VII and Innocent XI objected to.
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Laurence Grensted
1884 - 1964 (80 years)
Laurence William Grensted was a British Anglican priest and theologian. He was Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion, associated with Oriel College at the University of Oxford.
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Owen Oglethorpe
1502 - 1559 (57 years)
Owen Oglethorpe was an English academic and Bishop of Carlisle, 1557–1559. Childhood and Education Oglethorpe was born in Tadcaster, Yorkshire, England , the third son of George Oglethorpe. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was elected a Fellow in 1524. He completed his BA in 1525, received his MA in 1529, and his BTh and DTh in 1536. He was reputed to have taken a keen interest in his studies.
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Pierre Marchant
1585 - 1661 (76 years)
Pierre Marchant or Petrus Marchantius O.F.M.Rec. was a spiritual writer and religious reformer in 17th-century Flanders. Life Marchant was born at Couvin in what is now Belgium in 1585 and entered the recollect community in that town in 1601, aged 16.
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William Ince
1825 - 1910 (85 years)
William Ince was a British theologian. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, from 1878. Life Ince was educated at King's College School and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he took first-class honours in Literae Humaniores .
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Arthur De Schrevel
1850 - 1934 (84 years)
Arthur Carolus De Schrevel was a Belgian priest and historian, specialising in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in particular Catholic Church history during the Dutch Revolt. He was also a prolific contributor to the Biographie Nationale de Belgique.
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Ambrosius Moibanus
1494 - 1554 (60 years)
Ambrosius Moibanus was a German Lutheran theologian and reformer, and first Lutheran pastor at St Elisabeth's church in Breslau . He was active in Silesia. He was an opponent of the Anabaptists, and pressed for their persecution.
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Peter Medd
1829 - 1908 (79 years)
Peter Goldsmith Medd was an English Anglican priest and scholar. Life Medd was educated at King's College London and at University College, Oxford . He obtained his BA degree in 1852 and was appointed as a Fellow of University College in the same year, holding this position until 1877. He served the college as tutor, dean, librarian, and bursar. He was a long-serving member of the Council of Keble College, Oxford, having played an active part in the college's foundation. He was an ordained priest in the Church of England and was curate of St John the Baptist, Oxford , and later rector of Barnes, London , and of North Cerney, Gloucestershire .
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Antonius Hulsius
1615 - 1685 (70 years)
Antonius Hulsius was a German philologist and Calvinist theologian. Life Hulsius was born towards the end of 1615 at Hilden, a midsized manufacturing town in the hill-country east of Düsseldorf, at a time when Lutheran Protestantism had recently been supplanted by Calvinist Protestantism as the mainstream religion of the townsfolk, while the local lord was still adhering to the Catholicism of his forefathers. It was a period of intense religious conflict in the Rhineland, and the life of Antonius Hulsius would be deeply impacted by the Thirty Years' War . His father, also called Antonius Hulsius, was the local mayor.
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Charles W. Lyons
1868 - 1939 (71 years)
Charles William Lyons was an American Catholic priest who became the only Jesuit and likely the only educator in the United States to have served as the president of four colleges. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he attended the local public schools before entering the wool industry. He abandoned his career in industry to enter the Society of Jesus. While a novice in Maryland, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to Georgetown University as prefect. He then resumed his studies at Woodstock College, teaching intermittently at Gonzaga College in Washington, D.C. and Loyola College in Baltimore.
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Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs
1878 - 1962 (84 years)
Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs, was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Liège from 1927 - 1961. Life Following his schooling in Peer, Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs studied at the Seminary in Hasselt and in Rome. On 22 September 1900, Kerkhof was ordained a Catholic Priest in Liège. In 1901 he became a professor at the minor seminary in Sint-Truiden. He took over the teaching of Dogmatics at the Major Seminary in Liège in 1917 and in 1922 was appointed Dean.
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Juan Maldonado
1533 - 1583 (50 years)
Juan Maldonado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and exegete. Life At the age of fourteen or fifteen he went to the University of Salamanca, where he studied Latin with two blind professors, who, however, were men of great erudition. He also studied Greek with Hernán Núñez , philosophy with Francisco de Toledo , and theology with Padre Domingo Soto. He declared, as late as the year 1574, that he had forgotten nothing he had learned in grammar and philosophy. Having finished his course of three years in the latter of these two studies, Maldonado would have devoted himself to jurisprudence with ...
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Humphrey Hody
1659 - 1707 (48 years)
Humphrey Hody was an English scholar and theologian. Life He was born at Odcombe in Somerset in 1659. In 1676 he entered Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1685. In 1692 he became chaplain to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, and for his support of the ruling party in a controversy with Henry Dodwell regarding the non-juring bishops he was appointed chaplain to Archbishop John Tillotson, an office which he continued to hold under Thomas Tenison.
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Richard Arnald
1700 - 1756 (56 years)
Richard Arnald was a distinguished English clergyman and biblical scholar. Life He was a native of London, and received his education at Bishop Stortford School, whence he proceeded in 1714 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After graduating B.A., he removed to Emmanuel College, where he was elected to a fellowship on 24 June 1720, and took the degree of M.A. While resident at Emmanuel he printed two copies of Sapphics on the death of George I, and a sermon preached at Bishop Stortford school-feast on 3 August 1726. In 1733 he was presented to the living of Thurcaston in Leicestershire, an...
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Ruard Acronius
1546 - 1612 (66 years)
Ruard Acronius was a Reformed theologian of the late 16th century. Some sources refer to Ruard Acronius as the brother of Johannes Acronius while others mention that he has been a Catholic priest at first. In 1572 he appears as Reformed preacher in Franeker. In the following, he worked for several years in Alkmaar and Bolsward. In 1599, he became preacher in Schiedam where he died late in 1612.
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