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,
#2651
Jan Długosz
1415 - 1480 (65 years)
Jan Długosz , also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first historian.
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Edward Everett Nourse
1863 - 1929 (66 years)
Edward Everett Nourse, D.D. was an American Congregational theologian. Nourse was born at Bayfield, Wisconsin. He studied at the College and the Academy at Lake Forest, Illinois, at Macalester College in Minnesota, Hartford Theological Seminary , and in Europe at the University of Jena
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Johann Michael Reu
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Johann Michael Reu was a German - American Lutheran theologian, author and educator. Johann Michael Reu was born at Diebach, in Bavaria, Germany. He was the youngest of ten children. His father died when Reu was only two years old. Reu studied from 1887 to 1889 at the nearby Neuendettelsau Mission Institute which had been founded by Wilhelm Loehe in 1841.
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Johannes Alberti
1698 - 1762 (64 years)
Johannes Alberti was a Dutch theologian. Early life Alberti was the son of a flour miller. He did not regularly attend school due to the distance between his parents' house and the local school. However, the miller's apprentice, Jan Mulder, taught the boy to read. He made good progress, and soon the teacher took his student with him to the church. To his amazement, he noticed that the boy kept his attention on the pulpit. When Alberti returned home, his mother asked him if he remembered anything that had been said. He stood upon a wooden crate in the living room, recited the text of the sermon, and declaimed parts of it with such simplicity that his mother had tears in her eyes.
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Henry Owen
1716 - 1795 (79 years)
Henry Owen was a Welsh theologian and biblical scholar. In biblical scholarship he discussed the date of publication and the form and manner of the composition of the four canonical gospel accounts.
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Johannes Bogerman
1576 - 1637 (61 years)
Johannes Bogerman was a Frisian Protestant divine. He was born in Upleward , the son of a preacher. From 1591 onwards, he studied in Franeker, Heidelberg, Geneva, Zürich, Lausanne, Oxford and Cambridge. In 1599, he became pastor in Sneek, 1603 in Enkhuizen and 1604 in Leeuwarden. In 1636, he became professor for theology in Franeker.
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Johann Faber
1478 - 1541 (63 years)
Johann Faber was a Catholic theologian known for his writings opposing the Protestant Reformation and the growing Anabaptist movement. Biography Johann Faber, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Leutkirch, Swabia and studied theology and canon law at Tübingen and Freiburg in the Breisgau region and was made doctor of sacred theology in Freiburg. He eventually became minister of Lindau, Vicar-General of Constance in 1517, Chaplain and confessor to King Ferdinand I of Austria in 1524, and Bishop of Vienna in 1530.
Go to Profile#2658
Marie Huber
1695 - 1753 (58 years)
Marie Huber was a Genevan writer on theology and related subjects, as well as a translator and editor, at a time when it was rare for a female writer to write about theology. Huber was a proponent of universalism, and was considered by some a deist. Her Letters Concerning the Religion Essential to Man are known to have been read, in translation, by Robert Burns.
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Albert Barnes
1798 - 1870 (72 years)
Albert Barnes was an American theologian, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance advocate, and author. Barnes is best known for his extensive Bible commentary and notes on the Old and New Testaments, published in a total of 14 volumes in the 1830s.
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August Weenaas
1835 - 1924 (89 years)
August Weenaas was a Norwegian American Lutheran minister and educator. August Weenaas was the founding President of Augsburg University. Biography August Weenaas was born in Norway and educated in the ministry at the University of Christiania. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of Norway. He served as a pastor there for several years at Loppen prior to immigrating to the United States in 1868. Weenaas resigned his pastorate in the beginning of February 1868. Weenaas became a professor in Paxton, Illinois at the Scandinavian Augustana Synod Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois. In 1869, August Weenaas was named president of Augsburg Seminary.
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William Park Armstrong
1874 - 1944 (70 years)
William Park Armstrong was a theologian and New Testament scholar who is best known for his work at Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography William Park Armstrong was born in Selma, Alabama, the son of William Park and Alice Armstrong and studied at Princeton University, earning his bachelor's degree at the age of 20. He would later earn his M.A. from Princeton and a B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary before studying in Europe. He studied at the German Universities of Marburg, Berlin, and Erlangen, before finally finishing his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1900 he was ordained into the Presbyterian Church .
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Joseph Estlin Carpenter
1844 - 1927 (83 years)
Joseph Estlin Carpenter was an English Unitarian minister, the principal of Manchester College, Oxford. He was an expert in Sanskrit and a pioneer in the study of comparative religion. Biography Carpenter was born in Ripley, Surrey. He was the second son of William Benjamin Carpenter. His grandfather was Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter.
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Thomas Treadwell Stone
1801 - 1895 (94 years)
Thomas Treadwell Stone was an American Unitarian pastor, abolitionist, and Transcendentalist. Life and work Thomas Treadwell Stone was born on February 9, 1801, in Waterford, Maine to Solomon Stone and Hepzibah Treadwell Stone. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Treadwell, served with the Minutemen and was at the battle of Bunker Hill with Colonel William Prescott's regiment. At that time Waterford was an area of new and sparsely populated farmland, and Solomon Stone made his living as a farmer. Thomas attended Bridgton Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820.
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John Trevisa
1342 - 1402 (60 years)
John Trevisa was a Cornish writer and professional translator. Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish of St Enoder in mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a native Cornish speaker. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and became Vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, chaplain to the 5th Lord Berkeley, and Canon of Westbury on Trym.
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John Bale
1495 - 1563 (68 years)
John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being dispersed. His unhappy disposition and habit of quarrelling earned him the nickname "bilious Bale".
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William Edwy Vine
1873 - 1949 (76 years)
William Edwy Vine , commonly known as W. E. Vine, was an English Biblical scholar, theologian, and writer, most famous for Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Life Vine was born in the second quarter of 1873, in Blandford Forum, Dorset. His father ran the Mount Radford School, which moved to Exeter in 1875, and it was in this location that Vine was raised. He became a Christian at an early age and was baptised in the Plymouth Brethren assembly in Fore Street, Exeter. At 17, Vine became a teacher at his father's school, before moving to Aberystwyth to study at the University College of Wales.
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Sixtinus Amama
1593 - 1629 (36 years)
Sixtinus Amama was a Dutch Reformed theologian and orientalist. Amama was among the first to advocate a thorough knowledge of the original languages of the Bible as indispensable to theologians. Life He was born in Franeker, in the Dutch province of Friesland. He studied oriental languages from 1610 at the University of Franeker and then at the University of Oxford, attracted there by John Prideaux. In 1614 he took up also the study of Arabic at the University of Leyden where he made the acquaintance of Thomas Erpenius.
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Friedrich Loofs
1858 - 1928 (70 years)
Friedrich Loofs was a German theologian and church historian best remembered for his studies involving the history of dogma. Biography Loofs studied theology at the universities of Leipzig, Tübingen, and Göttingen, and received his doctorate from Leipzig in 1881. As a student, Adolf von Harnack and Albrecht Ritschl were important influences to his career. From 1888 to 1926 he was a professor of church history at the University of Halle, where in 1907/08 he served as rector. Concurrent with his work at the university, from 1890 to 1925, he held title of Consistorialrat in the city of Magdebu...
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Joseph Schnitzer
1859 - 1939 (80 years)
Joseph Schnitzer was a theologian. He started teaching at Munich University in 1902. Literary works Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Savonarolas, 6 vols., 1902–1914Savonarola, 2 vols., 1924 External links MTA at nyitottegyetem.phil-inst.hu
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Gottlieb Nathaniel Bonwetsch
1848 - 1925 (77 years)
Gottlieb Nathanael Bonwetsch was a Russian-born German Protestant theologian. He was born in Norka, Saratov province in Russia, where his father was pastor. He studied theology in Dorpat, then later in Göttingen and Bonn. In 1878 he published a treatise on the writings of Tertullian, titled Die Schriften Tertullians, nach der Zeit ihrer Abfassung untersucht. In 1881 obtained his doctorate in theology and his first academic position was at Dorpat . He became a full professor of church history at the University of Göttingen in 1891.
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Joseph Rickaby
1845 - 1932 (87 years)
Joseph John Rickaby, SJ was an English Jesuit priest and philosopher. Life Rickaby was born in 1845 in Everingham, York. He received his education at Stonyhurst College, and was ordained in 1877, one of the so-called Stonyhurst Philosophers, along with Richard F. Clarke, Herbert Lucas, and his own brother, John Rickaby. a significant group for neo-scholasticism in England. At the time he was at St Beuno's, he was on friendly terms with Gerard Manley Hopkins; they were ordained on the same day.
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Gotthard Victor Lechler
1811 - 1888 (77 years)
Gotthard Victor Lechler , German Lutheran theologian, was born at Kloster Reichenbach in Württemberg. Biography He studied at the University of Tübingen under Ferdinand Christian Baur, and later on, served as a deacon in the towns of Waiblingen and Knittlingen. In 1858 he became a pastor at the church of St Thomas and professor ordinarius of historical theology at the University of Leipzig.
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Anthony Tuckney
1599 - 1670 (71 years)
Anthony Tuckney was an English Puritan theologian and scholar. Life Anthony Tuckney was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a fellow there from 1619 to 1630. He was town preacher at Boston, Lincolnshire from 1629 and in 1633, succeeded John Cotton as vicar of St Botolph's Church, Boston.
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Bernt Støylen
1858 - 1937 (79 years)
Bernt Andreas Støylen was a Norwegian theologian, psalmist, and Bishop in the Church of Norway. Personal life Støylen was born in Sande in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway on 17 February 1858. He was the son of farmer and fisherman Andreas Olsen Støylen and Margrete Helgesdatter Bringsvor. He was married in Bergen in 1890 to Kamilla Karoline Heiberg. His son was Kaare Støylen, a future bishop, and his brother-in-law was Georg Sverdrup, the Norwegian-American theologian. He died in Bærum, Norway in 1937.
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Robert Baron
1596 - 1639 (43 years)
Robert Baron was a Scottish theologian and one of the so-called Aberdeen doctors. He is commemorated in the Calendar of saints of the Scottish Episcopal Church on 28 March. Life Born in 1596 at Kinnaird, Gowrie, he was the younger son of John Baron of Kinnaird. After graduating from the University of St Andrews in 1613, he became a teacher of Philosophy there until, in 1619, he entered the ministry and took charge of parish of Keith. In the latter charge his predecessor had been the famous Patrick Forbes.
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Margaret Dunlop Gibson
1843 - 1920 (77 years)
#2677
Johannes Gezelius the elder
1615 - 1690 (75 years)
Johannes Gezelius the elder , known in Swedish as Johannes Gezelius den äldre and Johannes Gezelius vanhempi in Finnish, was the Bishop of Turku and the Vice-Chancellor of The Royal Academy of Turku .
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Robert Sandeman
1718 - 1771 (53 years)
Robert Sandeman was a Scottish nonconformist theologian. He was closely associated with the Glasite church which he helped to promote. His importance was such that Glasite churches outside Scotland were known as Sandemanian.
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Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza
1578 - 1651 (73 years)
Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza , also called Puente Hurtado de Mendoza, was a Basque scholastic philosopher and theologian. Philosophical work He was a teacher of theology and philosophy in Valladolid and he occupied a chair at the University of Salamanca.
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Jean-Baptiste Terrien
1832 - 1903 (71 years)
Jean-Baptiste Terrien was a French Jesuit dogmatic theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus at Angers, 7 December 1854; he then taught philosophy for two years and dogmatic theology for twenty-two at the seminaries of Laval , 1864–80, and Saint Helier , 1880–88. After being spiritual father at Laval, he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology and taught three years, 1891–94, at the Catholic Institute of Paris, remaining afterwards in this city as spiritual father and writer.
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Sebastian Hofmeister
1476 - 1533 (57 years)
Sebastian Hofmeister , known in writing as Oeconomus or Oikonomos, was a Swiss monk and religious Reformer who was prominent in early debates of the Reformation. Hofmeister joined the Franciscan order in Schaffhausen before studying for several years in Paris. There he studied Hebrew and the classical languages and received a doctorate in theology in 1519. By 1520, he was sent to Zürich as a lecturer and later in the same year to Constance. It was in Zurich where he first met the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli, who influenced him a great deal. Hofmeister would begin preaching the Reformation at Lucerne, resulting in his expulsion from that town.
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Johann Jakob Wick
1522 - 1588 (66 years)
Johann Jakob Wick was a Protestant clergyman from Zürich. Wick lived in the Zürich of Heinrich Bullinger, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli. He studied theology in Tübingen, and was pastor of Witikon, at the city hospital, and the Predigerkirche. Afterwards he was canon and second archdeacon at the Grossmünster. Wick is the collector of the Wickiana.
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Ernst Tillich
1910 - 1985 (75 years)
Ernst Tillich was a German theologian. He survived the twelve Nazi years, but nevertheless spent much of the period in state detention, including more than three years in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. Subsequently, between 1951 and 1958, Tillich led the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit , a US funded militant campaigning anti-communist organisation, based in West Berlin, which supported resistance to the one-party dictatorship that had established itself as the German Democratic Republic in October 1949.
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Francis Line
1595 - 1675 (80 years)
Francis Line, SJ , also known as Linus of Liège, was a Jesuit priest and scientist. He is known for inventing a magnetic clock. He is noted as a contemporary critic of the theories and work of Isaac Newton. He also challenged Robert Boyle and his law of gases.
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David Erdmann
1821 - 1905 (84 years)
David Erdmann was a German evangelical theologian and church historian. Life Christian Friedrich David Erdmann was born at Güstebiese , a village on the eastern bank of the Oder river a short distance inland and upstream from Stettin. He studied Theology in Berlin, and in 1845 became a member of the Berlin Wingolf . He received a "Privatdozent" in 1853, and in 1856 became a full professor for Theology and Church History at the University of Königsberg, also serving as a pastor.
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Francis Sylvius
1581 - 1649 (68 years)
Francis Sylvius was a Flemish Roman Catholic theologian. Life After completing his course of humanities at Mons, he studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and theology at University of Douai, in a seminary founded by the bishop of Cambrai in connection with the faculty of theology. While studying theology he taught philosophy at the royal college. On 9 November 1610, he was made doctor of theology with the highest honours.
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Richard of Middleton
1249 - 1302 (53 years)
Richard of Middleton was a member of the Franciscan Order, a theologian, and scholastic philosopher. Life Richard's origins are unclear: he was either Norman French or English . As a Bachelor of the Sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Paris in 1283, he played a part in the Franciscan commission examining Peter Olivi. He was regent master of the Franciscan studium in Paris from 1284 to 1287, and, on 20 September 1295 in Metz, he was elected Franciscan minister provincial of France. He was also subsequently tutor to Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles II of Anjou. He died sometime b...
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Karl August Traugott Vogt
1808 - 1869 (61 years)
Karl August Traugott Vogt, name sometimes given as Carl Vogt was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of philologist Friedrich Vogt . Vogt was born in Wittenberg. In 1830 he obtained his habilitation at the University of Berlin, where he later became an associate professor of church history and practical theology. During his time spent in Berlin, he gave sermons at the Trinity Church. In 1837 he relocated as a full professor to the University of Greifswald, where on three occasions he served as university rector . In Greifswald, he also served as an ecclesiastical superintendent and as a member of the Consistory.
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Georges Dandoy
1882 - 1962 (80 years)
Georges Dandoy was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary in India, theologian and Indologist. He is included in the so-called ‘Calcutta School of Indology’ . Education After a year of philosophical studies at Namur , he was sent to Stonyhurst, England to complete his philosophy , and to begin studying Sanskrit at Oxford University . Sent to Kolkata, he began teaching at St Xavier’s College before beginning his theological studies at St Mary’s, Kurseong, near Darjeeling . He was ordained priest in November 1914.
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Norbert of Xanten
1080 - 1134 (54 years)
Norbert of Xanten, O. Praem , also known as Norbert Gennep, was a bishop of the Catholic Church, founder of the Premonstratensian order of canons regular, and is venerated as a saint. Norbert was canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in the year 1582, and his statue appears above the Piazza colonnade of St. Peter's Square in Rome.
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John Caird
1820 - 1898 (78 years)
John Caird DD LLD was a Scottish theologian. He entered the Church of Scotland, of which he became one of the most eloquent preachers. He served as the Principal of the University of Glasgow from 1873 until 1898.
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Daniel Tilenus
1563 - 1633 (70 years)
Daniel Tilenus was a German-French Protestant theologian. Initially a Calvinist, he became a prominent and influential Arminian teaching at the Academy of Sedan. He was an open critic of the Synod of Dort of 1618-9.
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Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy
1613 - 1684 (71 years)
Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy , a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible, the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal.
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Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
1817 - 1876 (59 years)
Johann Nepomuk Paul Oischinger was a German Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who was a native of Witzmannsberg, Bavaria. Oischinger studied theology and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he had as instructors Franz Xaver von Baader , Joseph Görres , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Ignaz von Döllinger , Heinrich Klee , Johann Adam Möhler and Franz Xaver Reithmayr . In 1841 he received his ordination in Regensburg, and shortly afterwards returned to Munich, where he worked as a private scholar and journalist for the remainder of his career.
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Caspar Erich Schieler
1851 - 1934 (83 years)
Caspar Erasmus Schieler was a German theologian, church historian and priest in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to documents provided by Mainz Cathedral and the Diocesan Seminary, Schieler studied philosophy and theology at the Episcopal Seminary in Mainz , receiving the Doctor of Divinity degree. Schieler first served as a priest at the age of twenty-five at Mainz, Cathedral ordained under Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler in the year 1876. Due to the Kulturkampf, Schieler was interrogated by the German government and forced to pastor his parish in secret, to avoid further attention.
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Lauri Ingman
1868 - 1934 (66 years)
Lars Johannes Ingman was a Finnish theologian, bishop and politician. In 1906 he began to serve as the editor of Vartija, a Christian magazine. From 1916 to 1930 he was the professor of practical theology in the University of Helsinki. He was also a member of the conservative National Coalition Party, where he acted as the speaker of the parliament and a minister in several cabinets, and served as the Prime Minister of Finland twice, in 1918–1919 and 1924–1925. In 1930 he was elected Archbishop of Turku, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
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Liselotte Richter
1906 - 1968 (62 years)
Liselotte Richter was a German philosopher and theologian. She was the first female professor of philosophy in Germany. Early life Luise Charlotte Richter was born in 1906 and grew up with her twin brother Fritz in a middle-class family, first in Berlin-Tegel and then in Charlottenburg.
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Francisco Macedo
1596 - 1681 (85 years)
Francisco Macedo , known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian. Life He entered the Jesuit Order in 1610, which however he left in 1638 in order to join the Discalced Augustinians. These also he left in 1648, for the Franciscans. In Portugal he sided with the House of Braganza.
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Abraham Hinckelmann
1652 - 1695 (43 years)
Abraham Hinckelmann , a German Protestant theologian, was an Islamologist who was one of the first to print a complete Qur'an in Hamburg. Later, a cleric named Ludovico Marracci from the "Society of the Monks of the Divine Path" published a better version.
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E. J. P. Jorissen
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
Eduard Johan Pieter Jorissen was a Dutch lawyer and politician. He graduated in theology and served as State Attorney of the South African Republic from 1876 to 1877 under Thomas François Burgers.
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