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,
#2551
Peter Binsfeld
1545 - 1598 (53 years)
Peter Binsfeld was a German auxiliary bishop and theologian. Peter, a son of a farmer and craftsman, was born in the village of Binsfeld in the rural Eifel region, located in the modern state of Rhineland-Palatinate; he died in Trier as a victim of the bubonic plague. Binsfeld grew up in the predominantly Catholic environment of the Eifel region.
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Johannes Piscator
1546 - 1625 (79 years)
Johannes Piscator was a German Reformed theologian, known as a Bible translator and textbook writer. He was a prolific writer, and initially moved around as he held a number of positions. Some scholarly confusion as to whether there was more than one person of the name was addressed in a paper by Walter Ong.
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Wolfgang Musculus
1497 - 1563 (66 years)
Wolfgang Musculus was a Reformed theologian of the Reformation. Life Born in the village of Duss , in a German-speaking area , Musculus was a lover of song and of knowledge, of languages, Humanism and religion. The oral tradition of his songs is still found in the churches of the Reformation.
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Johann Timotheus Hermes
1738 - 1821 (83 years)
Johann Timotheus Hermes was a German poet, novelist and Protestant theologian. Life Provenance Johann Timotheus Hermes was born in Petznick, a small village near Stargard in Western Pomerania. His father was a Protestant pastor. His mother, Lukrezia, was the daughter of another Protestant pastor, Heinrich Becker from Rostock.
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Johann Karl Wilhelm Vatke
1806 - 1882 (76 years)
Johann Karl Wilhelm Vatke, known as Wilhelm Vatke was a German Protestant theologian, born in Behnsdorf, near Magdeburg. After acting as Privatdozent in Berlin, he was appointed in 1837 professor extraordinarius.
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Andrew Melville
1545 - 1622 (77 years)
Andrew Melville was a Scottish scholar, theologian, poet and religious reformer. His fame encouraged scholars from the European continent to study at Glasgow and St. Andrews. He was born at Baldovie, on 1 August 1545, the youngest son of Richard Melville of Baldovie, and Geills, daughter of Thomas Abercrombie of Montrose. He was educated at the Grammar School, Montrose, and the University of St Andrews. He later went to France in 1564, and studied law at Poitiers. He became regent in the College of Marceon, and took part in the defence of Poitiers against the Huguenots. He then proceeded to Geneva, where he was appointed Professor of Humanity.
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Franz Jáchym
1910 - 1984 (74 years)
Franz Jáchym was an Austrian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Coadjutor Bishop of Vienna from 1950–83, and as Titular Archbishop of Maronea. He graduated from the University of Vienna. After ordination, his served in a parish and the diocesan chancery before being appointed coadjutor bishop in 1950. Consecrated in May 1950 by Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, he served in that office until his retirement in 1983.
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Eduard Karl August Riehm
1830 - 1888 (58 years)
Eduard Karl August Riehm was a German Protestant theologian. He was born at Diersburg in Baden. He studied theology and philology at Heidelberg and later at Halle under Hermann Hupfeld, who persuaded him to include Arabic, Syriac and Egyptian. Entering the ministry in 1853, he was made vicar at Durlach soon afterwards, and became a licentiate in the theological faculty at Heidelberg. In 1854 he was appointed garrison-preacher at Mannheim for the Evangelical Church in Baden; and in 1858 he was licensed to lecture at Heidelberg, where in 1861 he was made professor extraordinarius. In 1862 he obtained a similar post at Halle, and in 1866 was promoted to the rank of professor ordinarius.
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Ernst Haenchen
1894 - 1975 (81 years)
Ernst Haenchen was a German Protestant theologian, professor, and Biblical scholar. Life Ernst Haenchen grew up as the youngest son of a government official along with his two siblings in the West Prussian county town Czarnikau. In 1914 he began studying theology at the Humboldt University of Berlin, which he had to interrupt in the same year after the outbreak of the First World War. The loss of his right leg as a result of a 1918 suffered war injury influenced his further career. In 1926 he first completed his studies in theology at the University of Tübingen. He gave up his first pastorate...
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Georg Heinrici
1844 - 1915 (71 years)
Carl Friedrich Georg Heinrici was a German Lutheran theologian best known for his studies involving the relationship of early Christianity with its Greek environment. Biography From 1862 to 1867 he studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Halle-Wittenberg and Berlin. In 1873 he became an associate professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Marburg, where during the following year, he attained a full professorship. In 1892 he succeeded Theodor Zahn as professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Leipzig, where in 1911/12 he served as rector. From 1892 to...
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James L. Farmer Sr.
1886 - 1961 (75 years)
James Leonard Farmer Sr. , known as J. Leonard Farmer, was an American author, theologian, and educator. He was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and an academic in early religious history as well as theology.
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Franciscus Junius
1545 - 1602 (57 years)
Franciscus Junius the Elder was a Reformed scholar, Protestant reformer and theologian. Born in Bourges in central France, he initially studied law, but later decided to study theology in Geneva under John Calvin and Theodore Beza. He became a minister in Antwerp, but was forced to flee to Heidelberg in 1567. He wrote a translation of the Bible into Latin with Emmanuel Tremellius, and his Treatise on True Theology was an often used text in Reformed scholasticism.
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Georg Calixtus
1586 - 1656 (70 years)
Georg Calixtus, Kallisøn/Kallisön, or Callisen was a German Lutheran theologian who looked to reconcile all Christendom by removing all differences that he deemed "unimportant". Biography Calixtus was born in Medelby, Schleswig. After studying philology, philosophy and theology at Helmstedt, Jena, Giessen, Tübingen and Heidelberg, he travelled through Holland, France and England, where he became acquainted with the leading reformers. On his return in 1614, he was appointed professor of theology at Helmstedt by the duke of Brunswick, who had admired the ability he displayed when a young man i...
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Thomas Gallus
1190 - 1246 (56 years)
Thomas Gallus of Vercelli , sometimes in early twentieth century texts called Thomas of St Victor, Thomas of Vercelli or Thomas Vercellensis, was a French theologian, a member of the School of St Victor. He is known for his commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius and his ideas on affective theology. His elaborate mystical schemata influenced Bonaventure and The Cloud of Unknowing.
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Samuel Miller
1769 - 1850 (81 years)
Samuel Miller was a Presbyterian theologian who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography Samuel Miller was born in Dover, Delaware, on October 31, 1769. His father was the Rev. John Miller . Miller attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1789. He earned his license to preach in 1791, and the University of Pennsylvania awarded him a Doctorate of Divinity degree in 1804. From 1813 to 1849, he served as Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government at Princeton Theological Seminary, and was also integral in founding the institution.
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Edward Reynolds
1599 - 1676 (77 years)
Edward Reynolds was a bishop of Norwich in the Church of England and an author. He was born in Holyrood parish in Southampton, the son of Augustine Reynolds, one of the customers of the city, and his wife, Bridget.
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Sophrony
1896 - 1993 (97 years)
Sophrony , known also as Elder Sophrony or Father Sophrony was an archimandrite and one of the noted ascetic Christian monks of the twentieth century. He is best known as the disciple and biographer of Silouan the Athonite and compiler of Silouan's works, and as the founder of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Maldon, Essex, England.
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Edward Welchman
1665 - 1739 (74 years)
Edward Welchman was an English churchman, known as a theological writer. He was Archdeacon of Cardigan from 1727. Life The son of John Welchman, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, he was born in 1665. He matriculated as a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 7 July 1679. He was one of the choristers of Magdalen College in that university from 1679 till 1682. He proceeded B.A. on 24 April 1683, was admitted a probationer fellow of Merton College in 1684, and commenced M.A. on 19 June 1688.
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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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Johann Jakob Hottinger
1652 - 1735 (83 years)
Johann Jakob Hottinger was a Swiss theologian. Biography He was born in Zürich, the son of the Swiss philologist and theologian Johann Heinrich Hottinger. He studied theology at the Carolinum in Zürich, and also in Basel and Geneva. In 1676 he received his ordination, then in 1680 became a pastor in Stallikon. In 1686 he was named deacon at the Grossmünster in Zürich, where in 1698 he succeeded Johann Heinrich Heidegger as professor of theology. He died in Zürich, aged 83.
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Francis Xavier Bianchi
1743 - 1815 (72 years)
Francis Xavier Mary Bianchi , was an Italian Barnabite priest and noted scholar, who also gained a reputation for sanctity during his lifetime from both his commitment to his students and to the poor of Naples. He has been proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church and declared the Apostle of the city.
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Henry Alford
1810 - 1871 (61 years)
Henry Alford was an English churchman, theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer. Life Alford was born in London, of a Somerset family, which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. He was a precocious boy, and before he was ten had written several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines. After a peripatetic school education he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827 as a scholar. In 1832 he was 3...
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Cosmo Gordon Lang
1864 - 1945 (81 years)
William Cosmo Gordon Lang, 1st Baron Lang of Lambeth, was a Scottish Anglican prelate who served as Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury . His elevation to Archbishop of York, within 18 years of his ordination, was the most rapid in modern Church of England history. As Archbishop of Canterbury during the abdication crisis of 1936, he took a strong moral stance, his comments in a subsequent broadcast being widely condemned as uncharitable towards the departed king.
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Paul Luther
1533 - 1593 (60 years)
Paul Luther was a German physician, medical chemist, and alchemist. He was the third son of the German Protestant Reformer Martin Luther and was successively physician to John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony; Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg; Augustus, Elector of Saxony and his successor Christian I, Elector of Saxony. He taught alchemy to Anne of Denmark.
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Pierre Batiffol
1861 - 1929 (68 years)
Pierre Batiffol – was a French Catholic priest and prominent theologian, specialising in Church history. He had also a particular interest in the history of dogma. Batiffol studied from 1878 at the priest seminary Saint-Sulpice in Paris, was ordained in 1884 and continued his studies at the Institut catholique in Paris and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He was taught by church historian Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne.
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Johann Traugott Leberecht Danz
1769 - 1851 (82 years)
Johann Traugott Leberecht Danz was a German Lutheran theologian and church historian born in Weimar. In 1787 he began his studies at Jena, where he had as instructors, Johann Jakob Griesbach, Johann Christoph Döderlein and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. In 1791 he continued his studies at the University of Göttingen, and afterwards returned to Weimar as a secondary school teacher. In 1809 he received his habilitation at Jena, and during the following year became an associate professor. From 1812 to 1838 he was a full professor of theology at the University of Jena.
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Johannes Buxtorf
1564 - 1629 (65 years)
Johannes Buxtorf was a celebrated Hebraist, member of a family of Orientalistss; professor of Hebrew for thirty-nine years at Basel and was known by the title, "Master of the Rabbis". His massive tome, De Synagoga Judaica , scrupulously documents the customs and society of German Jewry in the early modern period.
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David Ancillon
1617 - 1692 (75 years)
David Ancillon was a French Huguenot pastor and author. At sixteen, he went to Geneva to study theology and, in 1641, was appointed minister of Meaux. In 1653, he accepted a post in his native Metz. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 compelled him to move to Frankfort. He then moved to Hanau and then Berlin, where he died on 3 September 1692. He was the father of Charles Ancillon.
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Wilhelm Wilmers
1817 - 1899 (82 years)
Wilhelm Wilmers was a German Jesuit professor of philosophy and theology. Life He entered the Society of Jesus in 1834 at Brieg in the canton of Valais, Switzerland, was expelled from the country with the other Jesuits in 1847, and ordained priest at Ay in Southern France in 1848. Shortly after, he taught philosophy at Issenheim in Alsace, then exegesis at the Catholic University of Leuven, theology at Cologne, philosophy at Bonn and Aachen, and theology at Maria-Laach.
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Heinrich August Hahn
1821 - 1861 (40 years)
Heinrich August Hahn was a German theologian and the eldest son of the theologian August Hahn. Life Hahn was born in Königsberg. After studying theology at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, he became successively a privatdozent at Breslau , a professor ad interim at Königsberg on the death of Heinrich Havernick, an associate professor of theology and a full professor at the University of Greifswald.
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August Dorner
1846 - 1920 (74 years)
August Johannes Dorner was a German Protestant theologian. He was the son of Isaak August Dorner. Biography After studying at Göttingen, Tübingen and Berlin, he served as vicar to the German congregation in Lyon and Marseilles. From 1870 to 1873 he was a lecturer at the University of Göttingen, then worked as a professor of theology and as co-director of the theological seminary at Wittenberg . In 1889 he was appointed professor of systematic theology at the University of Königsberg.
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Heinrich Andreas Christoph Havernick
1811 - 1845 (34 years)
Heinrich Andreas Christoph Havernick was a German Protestant theologian known for his conservative views on the biblical Old Testament. He studied theology at the universities of Leipzig and Halle, where he made the acquaintance of August Tholuck and was influenced by proponents of confessional orthodoxy. At Halle, he was involved in the turmoil of 1830 when advocates of orthodoxy demanded the dismissal of "rationalist" professors Wilhelm Gesenius and Julius Wegscheider . Afterwards, he studied theology in Berlin, where he was a disciple of Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg. He then taught classes i...
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Thomas Cartwright
1535 - 1603 (68 years)
Thomas Cartwright was an English Puritan preacher and theologian. Background and education Cartwright was probably born in Royston, Hertfordshire, and studied divinity at St John's College, Cambridge. On the accession of Queen Mary I of England in 1553, he was forced to leave the university, and found occupation as clerk to a counsellor-at-law. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth I, five years later, he resumed his theological studies, and was soon afterwards elected a fellow of St John's and later of Trinity College, Cambridge.
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Robert Lawrence Ottley
1856 - 1933 (77 years)
Robert Lawrence Ottley was an English theologian. Life He was the son of Lawrence Ottley, Canon of Ripon. He was born in Richmond, Yorkshire, and was educated by his sister Alice Ottley and at King's School, Canterbury. The rest of his academic career up to 1933 was spent at Oxford. His undergraduate studies took place at Pembroke College, of which he became an Honorary Fellow in 1905. He was tutor at Christ Church in 1881, and Principal of Cuddesdon Theological College from 1886. In 1890 he became Divinity Dean at Magdalen College. Then, in 1893 he became Principal of Pusey House. During 1...
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Juan de Medina
1490 - 1547 (57 years)
Juan de Medina was a Spanish theologian, and Spain's ambassador to Rome. Although he is repeatedly quoted and praised by several theologians of his time, little was written about his life. Life He was born at Medina de Pomar in the Province of Burgos .
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Joseph Ambrose Stapf
1785 - 1844 (59 years)
Joseph Ambrose Stapf was an Austrian Catholic theologian. He studied theology at Innsbruck, and in 1823 was named professor of moral theology and pedagogy at the seminary in Brixen. Works Theologia moralis in compendium redacta Epitome theologiæ moralis publicis prælectionibus accommodata Erziehungslehre im Geiste der katholischen Kirche Expositio casuum reservatorum in diocesi Brixinensi Der hl. Vincentius von Paul, dargestellt in seinem Leben und Wirken Die christliche Sittenlehre
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Johann Christian Friedrich Tuch
1806 - 1867 (61 years)
Johann Christian Friedrich Tuch was a German Orientalist and theologian born in Quedlinburg. He studied at the University of Halle, where in 1830 he received his habilitation. In 1838 he became an associate professor, later relocating to the University of Leipzig, where from 1844 to 1867, he was a full professor of theology and Oriental studies. In 1856–58 he served as university rector.
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Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal
1753 - 1819 (66 years)
Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal was a German Protestant theologian and philologist. His best-known publication is Peter the Goatherd; the folk tale became the model for Washington Irving's first short story Rip Van Winkle.
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Adam Storey Farrar
1826 - 1905 (79 years)
Adam Storey Farrar, DD was an English churchman and academic, Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical History at the University of Durham from 1864. Life Born in London on 20 April 1820, he was son of Abraham Eccles Farrar, president of the Wesleyan conference, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Adam Storey of Leeds. Educated at the Liverpool Institute, he matriculated in 1844 at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, obtaining a first class in the final classical school and a second in mathematics, and graduating B.A. in 1850. In 1851 he was the first winner of the prize founded in memory of Thomas...
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Samuel Rutherford
1600 - 1661 (61 years)
Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor and theologian and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Life Samuel Rutherford was born in the parish of Nisbet , Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, about 1600. Nothing certain is known as to his parentage, but he belonged to the same line as the Roxburghs of Hunthill and his father is believed to have been a farmer or miller. A brother was school-master of Kirkcudbright, and was a Bible Reader there, and another brother was an officer in the Dutch army.
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Joachim Westphal
1510 - 1574 (64 years)
Joachim Westphal was a German "Gnesio-Lutheran" theologian and Protestant reformer. From 1571 to 1574 he served as Superintendent of Hamburg , presiding as spiritual leader over the Lutheran state church of the city-state.
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William Perkins
1558 - 1602 (44 years)
William Perkins was an influential English cleric and Cambridge theologian, receiving a B.A. and M.A. from the university in 1581 and 1584 respectively, and also one of the foremost leaders of the Puritan movement in the Church of England during the Elizabethan era. Although not entirely accepting of the Church of England's ecclesiastical practices, Perkins conformed to many of the policies and procedures imposed by the Elizabethan Settlement. He did remain, however, sympathetic to the non-conformist puritans and even faced disciplinary action for his support.
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Paul Tschackert
1848 - 1911 (63 years)
Paul Tschackert was a German Protestant theologian and church historian born in Freystadt, Silesia. He is largely remembered for studies involving the history of the Protestant Reformation. Tschackert studied history, theology and philosophy at the University of Halle, and in 1873 continued his education at the University of Göttingen. In 1875, he earned his doctorate at the University of Breslau with his thesis on theologian Pierre d'Ailly . In 1877 he became an associate professor at Halle, afterwards serving as a professor at the universities of Königsberg and Göttingen .
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Henry Collin Minton
1855 - 1924 (69 years)
Henry Collin Minton was the chairman of Systematic Theology in the San Francisco Theological Seminary from December 2, 1891 to October 1, 1902. He then became the minister for the First Presbyterian Church in Trenton, New Jersey.
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Jacques Almain
1480 - 1515 (35 years)
Jacques Almain was a French professor of theology at the University of Paris who died at an early age. Born in the diocese of Sens, he studied Arts at the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris. He served as Rector of the University from December 1507 to March 1508.
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Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem
1709 - 1789 (80 years)
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem was a German Lutheran theologian during the Age of Enlightenment. He was also known as "Abt Jerusalem". He was court-preacher and a major advisor to Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to whom he suggested the foundation of the Collegium Carolinum in 1745 - this was the forerunner of the present-day TU Braunschweig. He also had a strong influence on the Duchy of Brunswick's educational policy as well as becoming one of the most important German theologians of his era.
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