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,
#2801
Herbert Edward Ryle
1856 - 1925 (69 years)
Herbert Edward Ryle was an English Old Testament scholar and Anglican bishop, successively serving as the Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Westminster. Early life Ryle was born in Onslow Square, South Kensington, London, on 25 May 1856, the second son of John Charles Ryle , the first Bishop of Liverpool, and his second wife, Jessie Elizabeth Walker. Herbert Ryle was three years old when his mother died, and in 1861 his father married Henrietta Clowes, who was a loving mother to her stepchildren. Ryle and his brothers and sisters were brought up in their father's cou...
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Ortwin
1475 - 1542 (67 years)
Hardwin von Grätz , better known in English as Ortwin , was a German humanist scholar and theologian. Ortwin was born in Holtwick and died in Cologne, Germany. He was raised by his uncle, Johannes von Grätz, in Deventer. In 1501 he left to pursue philosophical studies at the University of Cologne. After joining Kyuk Burse, Ortwin became licensed in 1505, attained Masters level in 1506, and became an Art Professor in 1507. He supplemented his salary by proofing documents for the Quentell printing house and wrote introductions and poetic dedications in the volumes of classical authors of the Mi...
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Marcus Dods
1834 - 1909 (75 years)
Marcus Dods was a Scottish divine and controversial biblical scholar. He was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He served as Principal of New College, Edinburgh. Life He was born at Belford, Northumberland, the youngest son of Rev Marcus Dods, a minister of the Church of Scotland and his wife, Sarah Pallister.
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Oscar Joliet
1878 - 1969 (91 years)
Oscar Joliet was a scholar-priest who served between 1948 and 1969 as the Auxiliary bishop of Ghent. Life Oscar Jozef Joliet was born in Ghent, third recorded son of the baker, Augustus Joliet and his wife Lucia Joliet-Ysebaert from Zelzate. He attended school at the Sint-Barbaracollege, a Jesuit establishment in the city. Between 1896 and 1905 he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. It was here that he received his doctorate of philosophy on 1 June 1901, and was ordained into the priesthood on 20 September 1902. Still at the Gregorian University, on 30 June 1905 he re...
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James of Lausanne
James of Lausanne was the superior of the Dominican order in France from 1318 until his death in 1321. Nothing is known of James's life before his entrance into the Dominican priory at Lausanne in Switzerland and his assignment to theological studies in Paris in 1303. James earned his master's degree in theology in 1317 and was elected superior of the Dominican Province of France in 1318, a position he held until his death in 1321. In the course of his short academic career, James authored commentaries on multiple books of the Old and New Testaments and produced some 1,500 sermons. His oeuvr...
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John Wood Oman
1860 - 1939 (79 years)
John Wood Oman, FBA was a Scottish theologian and Presbyterian minister. Biography The son of farmer, Oman was born on 23 July 1860 and grew up on Orkney. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh , and then studied at the United Presbyterian Church's theological college in Edinburgh. In 1904 Oman gained a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He was minister of Clayport Street Church in Alnwick . From 1907 to 1922, he was Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster College, Cambridge. He then served as the college's principal from 1922 until his retirement in 1...
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John Simson
1668 - 1740 (72 years)
John Simson was a Scottish "New Licht" theologian, involved in a long investigation of alleged heresy. He was suspended from teaching as Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow for his later life.
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Pierre Coste
1668 - 1747 (79 years)
Pierre Coste was a French theologian, translator and writer. Born in Uzès, France to Protestant parents, he moved to England, via Switzerland and Holland, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. There he translated John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and the second English edition of Newton's Opticks, and acted as tutor to the sons of several families. He moved back to Paris c.1735 to be married, but returned to England after the death of his wife.
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Alonzo Potter
1800 - 1865 (65 years)
Alonzo Potter was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Potter "identified himself with all the best interests of society."
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Václav Vilém Václavíček
1798 - 1862 (64 years)
Canon Václav Vilém Václavíček was a Czech Roman Catholic priest and theological writer, who a short time served as a Metropolitan Archbishop-elect of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv and Primate of Galicia and Lodomeria from 17 December 1847 until his resignation on 29 May 1848. Also he held a position of the Rector of Charles University in Prague .
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Andreas Acoluthus
1654 - 1704 (50 years)
Andreas Acoluthus was a German scholar of orientalism and professor of theology at Breslau . A native of Bernstadt , Lower Silesia, he was the son of Johannes Acoluthus, pastor of St. Elisabeth and superintendent of the churches and schools of Breslau.
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Paul David Devanandan
1901 - 1962 (61 years)
Paul David Devanandan , spelt also as P.D. Devanandan or Paul D. Devanandan, was an Indian Protestant theologian, ecumenist, and one of the notable pioneers in inter-religious dialogues in India. Biography He was born in Madras on 8 July 1901, and graduated from Nizam College, Hyderabad. He did his M.A from Presidency College, Madras. While studying at Madras, he was acquainted with K. T. Paul, a prominent Social activist, Christian and YMCA leader. He taught briefly at Jaffna College, Ceylon, Sri Lanka. With assistance from K.T. Paul, he flew United States in 1924 and did his theological studies at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California.
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Philip the Chancellor
1165 - 1236 (71 years)
Philip the Chancellor, also known as "Philippus Cancellarius Parisiensis" was a French theologian, Latin lyric poet, and possibly a composer as well. He was Chancellor of Notre-Dame de Paris starting in 1217 until his death, and was also Archdeacon of Noyon. Philip is portrayed as an enemy to the Mendicant orders becoming prevalent at the time, but this has been greatly exaggerated. He may have even joined the Franciscan order soon before his death.
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Bernard of Bologna
1701 - 1770 (69 years)
Bernard of Bologna , also known as Bernardine, was a Friar Minor Capuchin and Scotist theologian and author. Biography In 1717 he entered the Capuchin Order and some years later filled successively the office of professor of moral and dogmatic theology. Several times he held positions of responsibility.
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Patrick Murray
1811 - 1882 (71 years)
Patrick Aloysius Murray DD STP was an Irish Roman Catholic theologian. Life Murray was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland. He was educated at Maynooth College, he was elected a Dunboyne, or senior student, 1835. He received a curacy in Dublin, was appointed professor of English and French in Maynooth, 1838, and became professor of theology there, 1841. The remainder of his life he devoted mainly to theological science. In 1879, he was made prefect of the Dunboyne Establishment, a position he held until his death.
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Roger Marston
1201 - 1303 (102 years)
Roger Marston was an English Franciscan scholastic philosopher and theologian. He studied under John Pecham in Paris, in the years around 1270, and probably also at Oxford a few years later, during the time he was a pupil of John Pecham he was a fellow student with Matthew of Aquasparta. He generally followed Pecham's views on the Eucharist. He regarded time as absolute.
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Johann Friedrich Mayer
1650 - 1712 (62 years)
Johann Friedrich Mayer was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of theology at Wittenberg University. He was an important champion of Lutheran orthodoxy and General Superintendent of Swedish Pomerania.
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William of Auxerre
1145 - 1231 (86 years)
William of Auxerre was a French scholastic theologian and official in the Roman Catholic Church. The teacher by whom William was most influenced was Praepositinus, or Prevostin, of Cremona, Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1206 to 1209. The names of teacher and pupil are mentioned in the same sentence by Thomas Aquinas.
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Louis Legrand
1711 - 1780 (69 years)
Louis Legrand, S.S. was a French Sulpician priest and theologian, and a Doctor of the Sorbonne. Life After studying philosophy and theology at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Legrand taught philosophy at Clermont, 1733–1736, and then resumed his studies in Paris, where he entered the Society of Saint-Sulpice in 1739 and obtained the licentiate in 1740. He taught theology at Cambrai, 1740–1743, was superior of the seminary in Autun, 1743–1745, and, having been recalled to Paris, received the degree of Doctor of Theology from the Sorbonne in 1746. Henceforth he remained at the Seminary of...
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John Watts Ditchfield
1861 - 1923 (62 years)
John Edwin Watts-Ditchfield was an eminent 20th century Anglican priest and distinguished author. Educated at the Victoria University of Manchester and ordained in 1891, he began his career with a curacy at St Peter Highgate after which he was Vicar of St James-the-Less, Bethnal Green. Here, he made a name for himself, particularly with the development of the Church of England's Men's Society. He believed that the contemporary view of the Church of England was that it was for women and children, and he succeeded in attracting vast numbers of men to his church whose families followed. A gift...
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Hendrik Herp
1400 - 1478 (78 years)
Hendrik Herp , known in Latin as Henricus Harphius, was a Dutch or Flemish Franciscan of the Strict Observance, and a writer on mysticism. Life Herp was born around 1400 either at Erp near Veghel or Erps-Kwerps near Leuven. He is possibly the same person as Heinricus Erppe, clericus Cameracensis dioceses, who in 1426, as one of the first students, was registered at the University of Leuven. "Clericus Cameracensis dioceses" means that this student had held a clerical position in the diocese of Kamerijk, leading some to propose that he was not born in Erp, which is widely believed to be his birt...
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Celestyn Myślenta
1588 - 1653 (65 years)
Celestyn Myślenta was a Polish Lutheran theologian and rector of the University of Königsberg. Celestyn was the son of Mateusz Myślenta and Eufroza née Wiercinska. His father was once employed by Duke Radziwill and belonged to the Polish nobility. As a stipendiary of the duke of Prussia he studied at University Königsberg, then became Lutheran pastor in Kuty from 1581-1599.
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Paul Wilhelm Schmidt
1845 - 1917 (72 years)
Paul Wilhelm Schmidt was a German theologian who taught mostly in Basel. To this day he is considered one of the most important Swiss representatives of the liberal Protestant direction in theology and church at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
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David Gordon Lyon
1852 - 1935 (83 years)
David Gordon Lyon was an American theologian. Biography David Gordon Lyon was born in Benton, Alabama on May 24, 1852, the son of a doctor. In 1875 he received his AB from Howard College in Marion, Alabama. . He studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary under Crawford Howell Toy, and went to Germany, and received his PhD from the University of Leipzig in 1882, in the study of Syriac. While there, he met Tosca Woehler, whom he married in 1883.
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Jordan of Pisa
1260 - 1310 (50 years)
Jordan of Pisa , also called Jordan of Rivalto , was a Dominican theologian and the first preacher whose vernacular Italian sermons are preserved. His cultus was confirmed on 23 August 1833 by Pope Gregory XVI and he was beatified in 1838; his day is either March 6 or August 19. His relics are in the church of Santa Caterina in Pisa.
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John Macalpine
1450 - 1557 (107 years)
John Macalpine was a Scottish Protestant theologian. Life He was born in Scotland about the beginning of the 16th century, and graduated at a Scottish university. From 1532 to 1534 he was prior of the Dominican convent of Perth; but having in the latter year been summoned with Alexander Ales and others to answer for heresy before the Bishop of Ross, he left for England. There he was granted letters of denization on 7 April 1537, and married Agnes Macheson, a fellow exile for religion; her sister Elizabeth became the wife of Miles Coverdale.
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G. H. Pember
1837 - 1910 (73 years)
George Hawkins Pember , known as G. H. Pember, was an English theologian and author who was affiliated with the Plymouth Brethren. Early life, education and marriages Pember was born in Hereford, the son of George Hawkins Pember and Mary Pember . He was educated at Hereford Cathedral School and matriculated from there in 1856. He then enrolled at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He earned the B.A. in his studies in the Classics in 1860, and proceeded to postgraduate studies earning an M.A. in 1863. During his postgraduate studies Pember held a teaching post as assistant master at Rossall, Lancashire, from 1861 to 1863.
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Albert Hardenberg
1510 - 1574 (64 years)
Albert Hardenberg or Albertus Risaeus was a Reformed theologian and Protestant reformer, who was also active as a reformer in Cologne, Bremen and Emden. Life From the age of seven, he was put in the school of the "Fratres vitae communis" in Groninghe. He decided at the age of 17 to become a priest and became a monk in the abbey of Aduard. In 1540, he was sent by his community as a student at the University of Louvain to take theology courses so that he could one day be able to become abbot of a monastery. There he obtained his degree of license, but he was quickly drawn into the movement of a...
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August Adam
1888 - 1965 (77 years)
August Adam was a German Catholic theologian. He is known for The Primacy of Love , a theological study of love which argued for a rethinking of Catholic approaches to sexuality, chastity and morality.
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Jacob Keller
1568 - 1631 (63 years)
Jacob Keller was a German Jesuit theologian, author, and religious instructor. Life He was born in Säckingen, Baden, Germany. After entering the Society of Jesus in 1589 and completing his studies, he taught the classics at Freiburg and was professor of philosophy and of moral and dogmatic theology at Ingolstadt. He was appointed rector of the college of Ratisbon in 1605, and of the college of Munich in 1607, a post he held until 1623. In 1628 he was reappointed to the rectorship of Munich, and was still holding the office when an apoplexy ended his life.
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Nicolas Ysambert
1560 - 1642 (82 years)
Nicolas Ysambert was a French, Roman Catholic theologian, and lifelong teacher at the Sorbonne. Life Born at Orléans, Ysambert studied theology at the Sorbonne and was made a fellow of the college in 1598. Thenceforth he professed theology with such success as to attract public attention.
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Basil Manly Sr.
1798 - 1868 (70 years)
Basil Manly Sr. was an American planter, preacher and chaplain best known as the author of the Alabama Resolutions, which formed part of the argument for creation of the Southern Baptist Convention on proslavery grounds.
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Viatora Coccaleo
Viatora Coccaleo was an Italian Capuchin theologian. Works For a time he was lector in theology. Among his works are:"Tentamina theologico-scholastica" ;"Tentaminum theologicorum in moralibus Synopsis" ;"Instituta moralia" .His defence of papal supremacy, "Italus ad Justinum Febronium" , is one of the principal apologies against Febronius. Besides writing several works against Jansenism, he took part in the discussion concerning the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the sanctification of Holy Days, made famous by the Synod of Pistoia , and published:"Riflessioni sopra l'origine e il fine della divozione del S.
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Claudius Buchanan
1766 - 1815 (49 years)
Claudius Buchanan FRSE was a Scottish theologian, an ordained minister of the Church of England, and an evangelical missionary for the Church Missionary Society. He served as Vice Provost of the College of Calcutta in India.
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Josse van Clichtove
1472 - 1543 (71 years)
Josse van Clichtove or Judocus Clichtoveus Neoportuensis , was a Flemish theologian, priest and humanist. Life He received his education at Leuven and at Paris under Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. He became librarian of the Sorbonne and tutor to the nephews of Jacques d'Amboise, bishop of Clermont and abbot of Cluny. He is best known as a distinguished antagonist of Martin Luther, against whom he wrote extensively.
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Johannes Pfefferkorn
1469 - 1523 (54 years)
Johannes Pfefferkorn was a German Catholic theologian and writer who converted from Judaism. Pfefferkorn actively preached against the Jews and attempted to destroy copies of the Talmud, and engaged in a long running pamphleteering battle with humanist Johann Reuchlin.
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Johann Friedrich Ahlfeld
1810 - 1884 (74 years)
Johann Friedrich Ahlfeld was a German Lutheran theologian and preacher. Life The son of a carpenter, he attended secondary school in Aschersleben and Dessau and studied theology in Halle with Carl Ullmann and the historian Heinrich Leo.
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George Gobat
1600 - 1679 (79 years)
George Gobat was a French Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus, 1 June 1618. After teaching the humanities he was professor of sacred sciences at Fribourg, Switzerland , and of moral theology at the Jesuit college in Halle, Belgium . He then was at Munich , rector at Halle , and professor of moral theology at Ratisbon . He was rector at Fribourg , and professor of moral theology at Constance , where he was also penitentiary of the cathedral, a post he retained until his death.
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Clemens Alois Baader
1762 - 1838 (76 years)
Clemens Alois Baader, also spelled Klement Alois Baader or Klemens Alois Baader was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Biography He was the son of personal physician Joseph Franz von Paula Baader . He attended a high school in Munich before he studied theology at the University of Ingolstadt, where he earned a doctor's degree in philosophy . Then he was active in the consistories of Augsburg and Salzburg. He became a canon of Freising on 25 August 1787. He was appointed a member of the Academy of sciences of his native city on 30 May 1797, then of the Erfurt Academy of Sciences of Public Utility on 10 July 1797.
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John Hutchinson
1674 - 1737 (63 years)
John Hutchinson was an English theologian and natural philosopher. He was born at Spennithorne, Yorkshire, and served as steward in several families of position, latterly in that of the Duke of Somerset, who ultimately obtained for him the post of riding purveyor to the master of the horse, a sinecure worth about £200 a year. In 1700 he became acquainted with Dr. John Woodward , physician to the duke and author of a work entitled The Natural History of the Earth, to whom he entrusted a large number of fossils of his own collecting, along with a mass of manuscript notes, for arrangement and pu...
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Joachim
1853 - 1921 (68 years)
Archbishop Joachim of Nizhny Novgorod Life Levitsky was born in Kiev Province, and trained at the Kiev Spiritual School , the Kiev Seminary and the Kiev Spiritual Academy, completing a doctorate in theology before being ordained a priest on 30 March 1879, his twenty-sixth birthday. In 1880 he was sent to teach at the Riga Seminary. After the death of several of his children in the 1880s, and his wife's death in 1886, he entered monastic orders, taking the monastic name Ioakim, and was elevated to the rank of archimandrite in 1893. At that same time, he was named rector of the Riga Seminary.
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Dominic Lynch
1622 - 1697 (75 years)
Dominic Lynch D.D. was an Irish Dominican friar. He made a career in Spain, and published a Latin treatise on Aristotelian and Thomist thought. Life Born in County Galway, he was son of Peter Lynch of Shruell, by his wife, Mary Skerret. He joined the Order of St. Dominic, and made his profession in the Dominican convent of San Pablo, Seville, where he lived for many years.
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J. W. B. Barns
1912 - 1974 (62 years)
John Wintour Baldwin Barns was a British Egyptologist, papyrologist, Anglican priest, and academic. From 1965 to 1974, he was Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Barns was born on 12 May 1912 in Bristol, England. Having won a scholarship, he was educated at Fairfield School, then a private school on Bristol. Though he had an interest in Egyptology from an early age, since the discover of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, his father encouraged him to study classics. He taught himself Ancient Greek because it was not a subject available at his school.
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Laurence Tomson
1539 - 1608 (69 years)
Laurence Tomson was an English politician, author, and translator. He acted as the personal secretary of Sir Francis Walsingham, the secretary of state to Elizabeth I of England. Tomson revised both the text and the annotations of the New Testament of the Geneva Bible. His revised edition appeared in 1576. Tomson was a Calvinist, and his annotations reflect that system of theology.
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Thomas of Chobham
1160 - 1230 (70 years)
Thomas of Chobham , was an English theologian and subdean of Salisbury, who was born c. 1160, presumably in Chobham, Surrey, England, and died between 1233 and 1236 in Salisbury, England. Thomas Chobham studied in Paris in the 1180s, likely under Peter the Chanter. He is best known for his influential work on penance which combines Canon law, theology, and practical advice for confessors. It is known by many titles, and there has been much confusion over both author and incipit, which is often related as Cum miseratione domini. More fully and correctly, this should be "Cum miserationes domini sint super omnia".
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Veit Amerbach
1503 - 1557 (54 years)
Veit Amerbach was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar and humanist, who converted to Catholicism. Life Amerbach was born at Wembdinden in 1503. Up to age of 14 he attended in his hometown Wemding at Weth the Latin School and then went to study at the University of Ingolstadt. On July 7, 1521, he enrolled at the University of Freiburg. In the following year, he moved to the University of Wittenberg, where he met with the reformer Martin Luther and the humanist Philipp Melanchthon that shaped his future. Through the mediation of Luther in 1528 he became a teacher at the Latin school in Eisleben, where he worked with Johannes Agricola of Eisleben.
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Théophile Raynaud
1583 - 1663 (80 years)
Théophile Raynaud was a French Jesuit theologian and writer. Biography Théophile Raynaud was born November 15, 1583, at Sospel, near Nice. He studied at Avignon, and became quite accomplished as a student of philosophy. In 1602 he entered the Society of Jesus, and was made one of their teachers at Lyon. At first he taught elementary branches, but soon found advancement, and was finally given a professorship of philosophy and theology. In 1631 he was chosen confessor to prince Maurice of Savoy, and repaired to Paris. Here he was made uncomfortable by unpleasant relations to Richelieu, who, hav...
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James Tyrie
1543 - 1597 (54 years)
James Tyrie was a Scottish Jesuit theologian. Life Educated first at St. Andrews, he joined Edmund Hay at the time of de Gouda's mission in 1562. In his company he then went to Rome, was there admitted into the Society of Jesus, and was eventually sent to Clermont College, Paris, in June, 1567, where Hay had become rector; and remained there in various posts, e.g. professor, head of the Scottish Jesuit Mission , till 1590.
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Friedrich Seyler
1642 - 1708 (66 years)
Friedrich Seyler , also spelled Friedrich Seiler, was a Swiss Reformed pastor and theologian from Basel, noted for his work Anabaptista Larvatus on Anabaptism. Anabaptista Larvatus He is noted for his work Anabaptista Larvatus, a major polemical work on the history of Anabaptism and a refutation of Anabaptist "errors." The first part is a history of Anabaptism in 12 chapters, influenced notably by Heinrich Bullinger and Johann Heinrich Ottius. The second "Dogmatic Part" is a defense of the dogmatic doctrines disputed by the Anabaptists from the perspective of Reformed theology. The work addr...
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N. Samuel of Tranquebar
1850 - 1927 (77 years)
Rev. N. Samuel of Tranquebar was a professor in divinity, pastor in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church , and a hymnodist. He was a famous poet and author of many books. He was also the first member of the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission Council.
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