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,
#2701
George Collison
1772 - 1847 (75 years)
George Collison was an English Congregationalist and educator associated with Hackney Academy or Hackney College, which became part of New College London—itself part of the University of London. Early life Collison was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, on 6 January 1772, and became articled to a solicitor in Bridlington. Taking a keen interest in the local Independent Chapel, he became an early Sunday school teacher, and in 1792 decided to give up law and train full-time as a minister at Hoxton College near London. In 1797 he settled close to London in the village of Walthamstow in Essex to carry ...
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Ambrose Traversari
1386 - 1439 (53 years)
Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli , was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
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Johann Gottlob Carpzov
1679 - 1767 (88 years)
Johann Gottlob Carpzov was a German Christian Old Testament scholar, a nephew of Johann Benedict Carpzov II and a son of Samuel Benedict Carpzov. He was the most famous and most important Biblical scholar of the Carpzov family.
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Jona Willem te Water
1740 - 1822 (82 years)
Jona Willem te Water was a professor at Leiden University. He was a man of influence in the Dutch Reformed Church, in many learned societies, in academic theology, and in Dutch historiography. Early life
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Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz
1777 - 1838 (61 years)
Andrzej Alojzy Ankwicz was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Prague from 1833 to 1838. Biography Ankwicz was born in Kraków, Poland in 1777. He was ordained a priest on 2 September 1810. In 1815, he was appointed and ordained archbishop of Lviv in Ukraine. He remained in this capacity for 18 years until 30 September 1833 when he was appointed the archbishop of Prague. He died at the age of 60 years on 26 March 1838 to be succeeded in his archbishopric by Alois Josef Schrenk.
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Louis-Honoré Pâquet
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Louis-Honoré Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and university teacher, as well as celebrated orator of his time. Biography Pâquet was born in 1838 in Saint-Nicolas, near Lévis, in what was then Lotbinière County, on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Québec City. The son of farmers Étienne Pâquet and Ursule Lambert, he was descended from an old, pious family of the area, and was closely related to theologian Louis-Adolphe Pâquet as well as to provincial MLA Étienne-Théodore Pâquet . His studies, like those of his older brother Benjamin, were financed by t...
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Bernhard Stempfle
1882 - 1934 (52 years)
Bernhard Stempfle was a Roman Catholic priest and journalist. He helped Adolf Hitler in the writing of Mein Kampf. He was murdered in the Night of the Long Knives. Biography Stempfle entered the priesthood in 1904. He joined the Hieronymite order in Italy. In the years leading up to the First World War, he wrote for the Corriere della Sera and various other German and Italian papers. Following the outbreak of war, he returned to Munich, performed pastoral work at the university, and established close contacts with Reform Catholic elements in the city, especially the nationalistic Hofklerus at St.
Go to Profile#2708
Agostino Bernal
1587 - 1642 (55 years)
Agostino Bernal was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus in 1603 when sixteen years old. A classical scholar, he taught humanities and rhetoric with success. The greater part of his life, however, he spent as professor of philosophy and theology at Saragossa.
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Johann Stössel
1524 - 1576 (52 years)
Johann Stössel was a Lutheran Theologian and Reformer. Life Stössel was born in Kitzingen. He came to Wittenberg at 15 and became a master after 10 years of study. Since he distanced himself from the Philippists, he was appointed by John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony as a court preacher in Weimar. Here he developed into a zealous Gnesio-Lutheran. As such, he took part in the Reformation in the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach. It was in keeping with his strident attitude that he wanted to include anathemas in the church order there against all dissenters.
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Thomas Sedgwick
Thomas Sedgwick was an English Roman Catholic theologian. An unfriendly hand in 1562 describes him as "learned but not very wise". Thomas Sedgwick was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1529/30 and became a Fellow of Peterhouse in 1531. He argued against Martin Bucer in 1550, alongside Andrew Perne and John Young; and against Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley in April 1554, when he was incorporated Doctor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. In 1546 he became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was vice-master 1554–55. He had ...
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John Fawcett
1739 - 1817 (78 years)
John Fawcett was a British-born Baptist theologian, pastor and hymn writer. Early years Fawcett was born on 6 January 1739 in Lidget Green, Bradford. In 1762, Fawcett joined the Methodists, but three years later, he united with the Baptist Church and became pastor of Wainsgate Baptist Church in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, England.
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Niketas Stethatos
1000 - 1090 (90 years)
Niketas Stethatos was a Byzantine mystic and theologian who is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was a follower of Symeon the New Theologian and wrote the most complete biography of Symeon, Life of Symeon.
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Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg
1580 - 1645 (65 years)
Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg was a German Lutheran pastor. Life Matthias's father was Leonhard Höe von Höenegg, a Lutheran imperial councillor and doctor of law descended from old Austrian nobility. Matthias was born prematurely and so his health was weak during his early years, meaning he only started speaking when he was seven. His father initially had him taught by a private tutor until, once he was almost fully educated, he was allowed to visit Vienna's St Stephan's Stadtschule, where he developed remarkably and began talking to the city's scholars.
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Peter of Aquila
1300 - 1361 (61 years)
Peter of Aquila was an Italian Friar Minor, theologian and bishop. Peter was born at L'Aquila in the Abruzzo, Italy, towards the end of the 13th century. In 1334 he figures as a Master of Theology and as Minister Provincial of his Order for Tuscany. In 1334 he was appointed confessor to Queen Joan I of Naples and shortly afterwards Inquisitor for Florence. His servants having been punished by public authority, the Inquisitor excommunicated the priors and placed the town under interdict.
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John of Segovia
1395 - 1458 (63 years)
John of Segovia, or in Spanish Juan de Segovia , was a Castilian prelate and theologian. He played a prominent role in the Council of Basle and was in touch with the leading humanists of his day, such as Nicholas of Cusa. He spent the last years of his life in exile in Savoy, where he commissioned an accurate translation of the Koran into Spanish, which he then translated into Latin.
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F. S. Marsh
1886 - 1953 (67 years)
Fred Shipley Marsh was an English clergyman and theologian, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1935 to 1951. The son of James William Marsh, by his marriage to Elizabeth Shipley, he was the eldest son in a family of eight children. Educated at Cambridge, in 1907 Marsh was elected a Tyrwhitt Scholar, and much of his subsequent work was in the field of Syriac studies.
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George William Knox
1853 - 1912 (59 years)
George William Knox, D.D., LL.D. was an American Presbyterian theologian and writer, born at Rome, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1874, and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1877, after which he went as a missionary to Japan, where he was professor of homiletics in Tokyo and professor of philosophy and ethics at the Imperial University of Tokyo.
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Otto Zöckler
1833 - 1906 (73 years)
Otto Zöckler was a German theologian, professor at Greifswald. He edited a Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaft, and other works. Quote from him: “The wise man is also the just, pious, the upright, the man who walks in the way of truth.”
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Luis del Alcázar
1554 - 1613 (59 years)
Luis del Alcázar was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He was the eldest son of Melchor del Alcázar, a jurist, and nephew of the poet Baltasar del Alcázar, and was born in Seville. He studied at Seville, Cordova and Salamanca, entered the Society of Jesus in 1568, and became a priest in 1578. Alcázar was a friend of the Jesuit Juan de Pineda , and the Dominican Agustin Salucio; he died in Rome.
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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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