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.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Theology,
#2951
Hermann Schultz
1836 - 1903 (67 years)
Hermann Schultz , German Protestant theologian, was born at Lüchow in Hanover . Education He studied at Göttingen and Erlangen, became professor at Basel in 1864, and eventually professor ordinarius at Göttingen. Here he also held the appointments of chief university preacher, councillor to the State Consistory of the Church of Hanover and abbot of Bursfelde .
Go to Profile#2952
Martin Delrio
1551 - 1608 (57 years)
Martin Anton Delrio SJ was a Dutch Jesuit theologian. He studied at numerous institutions, receiving a master's degree in law from Salamanca in 1574. After a period of political service in the Spanish Netherlands, he became a Jesuit in 1580.
Go to Profile#2953
Adam Franz Lennig
1803 - 1866 (63 years)
Adam Franz Lennig was an ultramontane German Catholic theologian. He was born and died in Mainz. Life Lennig studied at Bruchsal under the private tutorship of the ex-Jesuit Laurentius Doller, and afterwards at the bishop's gymnasium at Mainz, his birthplace. Being too young for ordination, he went to Paris to study Oriental languages under Sylvestre de Sacy, then to Rome for a higher course in theology. Here he was ordained priest, 22 September 1827, and then taught for a year at Mainz.
Go to Profile#2954
Herman Herbers
1540 - 1607 (67 years)
Herman Herbers was a Dutch pastor and theologian. Biography Herbers was born in Groenlo in 1540 or 1544 as the son of Roman Catholic parents. He was educated in a monastery. He joined the Mariengarden Monastery of the order of the Cistercians in Gross-Burlo, near Winterswijk.
Go to Profile#2955
Bernard of Chartres
1070 - 1130 (60 years)
Bernard of Chartres was a twelfth-century French Neo-Platonist philosopher, scholar, and administrator. Life The date and place of his birth are unknown. He was believed to have been the elder brother of Thierry of Chartres and to be of Breton origin, but research has shown that this is unlikely. He is recorded at the cathedral school of Chartres by 1115 and was chancellor until 1124. There is no proof that he was still alive after 1124.
Go to Profile#2956
Wilhelm Heitmüller
1869 - 1926 (57 years)
Wilhelm Heitmüller was a German Protestant theologian, born in Döteberg, presently a division in the town of Seelze. Following completion of theological studies, he attended the minister's seminary at Loccum. In 1902 he received his habilitation at Göttingen, and in 1908 became a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg. Later on, he was appointed professor at the universities of Bonn and Tübingen . He died, aged 56, in Tübingen.
Go to Profile#2957
Jacob Vernet
1698 - 1789 (91 years)
Jacob Vernet was a prominent theologian in Geneva, Republic of Geneva, who believed in a rationalist approach to religion. He was called "the most important and influential Genevan pastor of his day".
Go to Profile#2958
Frederick William Faber
1814 - 1863 (49 years)
Frederick William Faber was a noted English hymnwriter and theologian, who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood subsequently in 1847. His best-known work is the hymn "Faith of Our Fathers".
Go to Profile#2959
Saint Remigius
437 - 533 (96 years)
Remigius was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important event in the Christianization of the Franks. Because of Clovis's efforts, a large number of churches were established in the formerly pagan lands of the Frankish empire, establishing a distinct Catholic variety of Christianity for the first time in Germanic lands, most of whom had been converted to Arian Christianity.
Go to Profile#2960
Thomas Woolston
1668 - 1733 (65 years)
Thomas Woolston was an English theologian. Although he was often classed as a deist, his biographer William H. Trapnell regards him as an Anglican who held unorthodox theological views. Biography Thomas Woolston, born at Northampton in 1668, the son of a currier, the scholar entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1685; attained the Master of Arts in 1692; the Bachelor of Divinity conferred in 1699; took orders and was made a fellow of his college.
Go to Profile#2961
Adolf Wuttke
1819 - 1870 (51 years)
Karl Friedrich Adolf Wuttke was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born in Breslau . He studied theology at Breslau, Berlin and Halle, where he eventually became professor ordinarius. Works He is known as the author of a treatise on Christian ethics and works on heathen religion and superstition .
Go to Profile#2962
Matthieu Ory
1492 - 1557 (65 years)
Matthieu Ory was a French Dominican theologian and Inquisitor. Life Entering the Dominican Order at the age of eighteen, he studied in the convent of St-Jacques, Paris, and at the Sorbonne, obtaining the licentiate in theology, 6 February 1527. His reputation for learning and eloquence led to his appointment as grand inquisitor for France , an office which he held until his death.
Go to Profile#2963
Hermann Mandel
1882 - 1946 (64 years)
Hermann Mandel , born Johann Hermann Mandel, was a German theologian who served as Professor of Theology at the University of Kiel Biography Hermann Mandel was born in Holzwickede, Germany on 13 December 1882. His father, Heinrich Mandel, was a teacher and later the head of an orphanage. Mandel gained his abitur from in 1901, and subsequently studied theology at the universities of Halle, Königsberg, Bonn and Greifswald. At Greifswald his teacher was Carl Stange. Mandel received his Ph.D. and completed his habilitation at Greifswald, and in 1911 he was appointed a professor there.
Go to Profile#2964
Ambrosius Blarer
1492 - 1564 (72 years)
Ambrosius Blarer was an influential Protestant reformer in southern Germany and north-eastern Switzerland. Early life Ambrosius Blarer was born 1492 into a leading family of Konstanz. He studied theology in Tübingen where he met Philip Melanchthon with whom he kept a lifelong friendship. After getting his master‘s degree, he entered the Benedictine monastery Alpirsbach Abbey.
Go to Profile#2965
Bartolomé Carranza
1503 - 1576 (73 years)
Bartolomé Carranza was a Navarrese priest of the Dominican Order, theologian and Archbishop of Toledo. He is notable for having been persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. He spent much of his later life imprisoned on charges of heresy. He was first denounced in 1530, and imprisoned during 1558–1576. The final judgement found no proof of heresy but secluded him to the Dominican cloister of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where he died seven days later.
Go to Profile#2966
Tomás de Mercado
1525 - 1575 (50 years)
Tomás de Mercado was a Spanish Dominican friar and both an economist and a theologian, best known for his book Summa de Tratos y Contratos of 1571. Together with Martín de Azpilcueta he founded the economic tradition of "Iberian monetarism"; both form part of the general intellectual tradition often known as "Late Scholasticism", or the School of Salamanca.
Go to Profile#2967
Edward Michelis
1813 - 1855 (42 years)
Edward Michelis was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life After his ordination, in 1836, he was appointed private secretary to Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, Archbishop of Cologne, whose imprisonment he shared, first in the fortress of Minden , and later at Magdeburg and Erfurt. On his release in 1841 he returned to St. Mauritz, where, the following year, he established the Sisters of Divine Providence, whom he placed in charge of an orphanage he had also founded.
Go to Profile#2968
Baltazar Adam Krčelić
1715 - 1778 (63 years)
Baltazar Adam Krčelić was a Croatian historian, theologian and lawyer. After Vitezović, he was the most prominent figure in the Croatian cultural life of the time. Biography He was born in Šenkovec near Zagreb on 5 February 1715 and was schooled in Zagreb, Vienna and Bologna, where he gained a degree in theology and law. In 1747, he was the canon of Zagreb and rector of the Collegium Croaticum Viennense in Vienna. In 1755, at the prompting of the court in Vienna, he composed a draft for the administrative reform in Croatia. His first published work is the biography of medieval Bishop of Zagreb Augustin Kažotić, which was written in Kajkavian.
Go to Profile#2969
Jens Matthias Pram Kaurin
1804 - 1863 (59 years)
Jens Matthias Pram Kaurin was a Norwegian professor of theology, biblical translator, and Lutheran priest. He served as the Bishop of the Diocese of Bjørgvin from 1858 until 1861. Life and family Jens Kaurin was born in Laurdal in Telemark county, Norway. He studied theology at Christiania University and graduated with a Cand.theol. degree in 1826. On 22 December 1827, he married Petronelle Louise Hanna Thomasine Magelssen, and together, they had six children: Eiler Rosenvinge, Anne Marie, Christian, Wilhelm Andreas, Edvard, and Susanna Kristence Pram.
Go to Profile#2970
William Burt Pope
1822 - 1903 (81 years)
William Burt Pope was an English Wesleyan Methodist minister and theologian, who was president of the Methodist Conference. Biography Early life William Burt Pope was born at Horton, Nova Scotia, on 19 February 1822. He was the younger son of John Pope , Wesleyan missionary and Catherine, born Uglow, who was originally of Stratton, Cornwall. He was the younger brother of George Uglow Pope. After education at a village school at Hooe and at a secondary school at Saltash, near Plymouth, William spent a year in boyhood at Bedeque, Prince Edward Island, assisting an uncle, a shipbuilder and gen...
Go to Profile#2971
Eustathius of Thessalonica
1101 - 1198 (97 years)
Eustathius of Thessalonica was a Byzantine Greek scholar and Archbishop of Thessalonica and is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is most noted for his stand against the sack of Thessalonica by the Normans in 1185, contemporary account of the event, for his orations and for his commentaries on Homer, which incorporate many remarks by much earlier researchers.
Go to Profile#2972
Josef Beran
1888 - 1969 (81 years)
Josef Beran was a Czech Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of Prague from 1946 until his death and was elevated into the cardinalate in 1965. Adam Beran was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp during World War II after the Nazis had targeted him for "subversive and dangerous" behavior where he almost died in 1943 due to disease. He was freed in 1945 upon Allied liberation and Pope Pius XII nominated him to head the Prague archdiocese. But the introduction of the communist regime saw him imprisoned and placed under house arrest. His release in 1963 came with the condit...
Go to Profile#2973
Casiodoro de Reina
1520 - 1594 (74 years)
Casiodoro de Reina or de Reyna was a Spanish theologian who translated the Bible into Spanish. Early life Reina was born about 1520 in Montemolín in the Province of Badajoz. From his youth onward, he studied the Bible.
Go to Profile#2974
John Field
1545 - 1588 (43 years)
John Field , also called John Fielde, was a British Puritan clergyman and controversialist. Life When he was ordained by Edmund Grindal in 1566 at the age of 21, he was called a bachelor of arts of Christ Church, Oxford. Field's ordination was irregular, as the canonical age for ordination in the British church was 24 . In 1568, he became a lecturer, curate, and schoolmaster in London, which was his native city. There he quickly became a leader of the most extreme branch of the Puritan movement. He was so strident in his criticisms of the Church of England that he was debarred from preaching for eight years, from 1571 to 1579.
Go to Profile#2975
Jakob Andreae
1528 - 1590 (62 years)
Jakob Andreae was a significant German Lutheran theologian and Protestant Reformer involved in the drafting of major documents. Life He was born in Waiblingen, in the Duchy of Württemberg. He studied at the University of Tübingen from 1541. He attended the diets of Regensburg and Augsburg , became professor of theology in the University of Tübingen , and provost of the church of St. George. He was active in Protestant discussions and movements, particularly in the adoption of a common declaration of faith by the two parties.
Go to Profile#2976
Andreas Steinhuber
1825 - 1907 (82 years)
Andreas Steinhuber, S.J. was a German prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in education as a teacher and administrator, was made a cardinal in 1893, and then held senior positions in the Roman Curia. He was a forceful opponent of modernism in the Catholic Church and in wider society.
Go to Profile#2977
Albert Geyser
1918 - 1985 (67 years)
Albertus Stephanus Geyser was a South African cleric, scholar and anti-apartheid theologian. Geyser became an outcast in the white Afrikaner community because of his theological opposition to apartheid and to the Broederbond, the secret male Calvinist organisation that covertly steered South African politics during the apartheid era. He obtained master's and doctoral degrees cum laude, specializing in Greek and Latin. At the age of 27 he was appointed lecturer, and a year later, professor in the Theological Faculty of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk at the University of Pretoria. Geyser cont...
Go to Profile#2978
Emil Frommel
1828 - 1896 (68 years)
Emil Frommel was a German pastor and author, born at Karlsruhe. He studied at Halle upon Saale, Erlangen, and Heidelberg, held several pastorates, served as army chaplain in the Franco-German War of 1870–1871 and in 1872 was appointed court preacher at Berlin and pastor of the garrison in that city.
Go to Profile#2979
Friedrich Bernhard Ferdinand Michelis
1815 - 1886 (71 years)
Friedrich Bernhard Ferdinand Michelis was a German theologian and philosopher born in Münster. Biography He studied philosophy and theology at the Academy of Münster, receiving his ordination in 1838. From 1845 he was a chaplain and school teacher in Duisburg, and later an instructor at the Episcopal Theological Institute in Paderborn. From 1855 to 1864 he served as pastor in Münster-Albachten, and from 1864 to 1872 was a professor of philosophy at the Lyceum in Braunsberg. In 1860 he participated in the Erfurt conference that would lead to Julie von Massow's Ut Omnes Unum movement, which so...
Go to Profile#2980
Petrus Comestor
1100 - 1179 (79 years)
Petrus Comestor, also called Pierre le Mangeur , was a twelfth-century French theological writer and university teacher. Life Petrus Comestor was born in Troyes. Although the name Comestor was popularly attributed to his habit of devouring books and learning, it was probably, and more prosaically, a family name. It did, however, give Peter a nice pun for his epitaph : Petrus eram quem petra tegit,/ dictusque Comestor nunc comedor .
Go to Profile#2981
James Henley Thornwell
1812 - 1862 (50 years)
James Henley Thornwell was an American Presbyterian preacher, slaveowner, and religious writer from the U.S. state of South Carolina during the 19th century. During the American Civil War, Thornwell supported the Confederacy and preached a doctrine that claimed slavery to be morally right and justified by the tenets of Christianity. But contrary to many proponents of slavery, he preached that the African American population were people created in the image of God just like whites and that they should call slaves their brothers. He became prominent in the Old School Presbyterian denomination in the south, preaching and writing on theological and social issues.
Go to Profile#2982
Theodor Gangauf
1809 - 1875 (66 years)
Theodor Gangauf was a German Catholic theologian born in Bergen, Bavaria. He received his ordination in 1833, and in 1836 joined the Benedictine Order in Augsburg. From 1841 until his death in 1875 he was a professor of philosophy at the Lyceum at Augsburg. In the meantime , he also served as abbot at St. Stephen's Abbey.
Go to Profile#2983
William Wall
1647 - 1728 (81 years)
William Wall was a British priest in the Church of England who wrote extensively on the doctrine of infant baptism. He was generally an apologist for the English church and sought to maintain peace between it and the Anabaptists.
Go to Profile#2984
Bernhard Stade
1848 - 1906 (58 years)
Bernhard Stade was a German Protestant theologian and historian. Biography He studied at Leipzig and Berlin, and in course of time became professor ordinarius at Giessen. Once a member of Franz Delitzsch's class, he became a convinced adherent of the newest critical school. In 1881 he founded the Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, which he continued to edit; and his critical history of Israel made him very widely known.
Go to Profile#2985
Julius Schniewind
1883 - 1948 (65 years)
Julius Schniewind was a German evangelical theologian. He came to prominence in the 1930s as a leader of the Confessing Church , which can be seen as a movement within German Protestantism that arose during the Nazi years in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi Protestant Reich Church.
Go to Profile#2986
Joseph Ruggles Wilson
1822 - 1903 (81 years)
Joseph Ruggles Wilson Sr. was a prominent Presbyterian theologian and father of President Woodrow Wilson, Nashville Banner editor Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr., and Anne E. Wilson Howe. In 1861, as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, he organized the General Assembly of the newly formed Presbyterian Church in the United States, known as the Southern Presbyterian Church, and served as its clerk for thirty-seven years.
Go to Profile#2987
Robert de Sorbon
1201 - 1274 (73 years)
Robert de Sorbon was a French theologian, the chaplain of Louis IX of France, and founder of the Sorbonne college in Paris. Biography Born into a poor family in Sorbon, in what is now the Ardennes département, Robert de Sorbon entered the Church and was educated in Reims and Paris. He was noted for his piety and attracted the patronage of the Comte d'Artois and King Louis IX of France, later known as Saint Louis. He became the canon of Cambrai around 1251 before being appointed canon of Paris and the king's confessor in 1258.
Go to Profile#2988
Harold C. Case
1902 - 1972 (70 years)
Harold Claude Case was an American academic administrator and Methodist preacher. He served as president of Boston University from 1951 to 1967 and was later named acting president of Whittier College.
Go to Profile#2989
Michel Le Quien
1661 - 1733 (72 years)
Michel Le Quien was a French historian and theologian. He studied at Plessis College, Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made his profession in 1682. Excepting occasional short absences he never left Paris. At the time of his death he was librarian of the convent in Rue Saint-Honoré, a position which he had filled almost all his life, lending assistance to those who sought information on theology and ecclesiastical antiquity. Under the supervision of Père Marsollier he mastered the classical languages, Arabic and Hebrew, to the detriment, it...
Go to Profile#2990
Ludwig Hirzel
1801 - 1841 (40 years)
Ludwig Hirzel was a Swiss theologian born in Zürich. His son, also named Ludwig Hirzel , was a noted literary historian. Hirzel studied theology at the Carolinum in Zürich then continued his education in Germany, where he focused on Old Testament studies and Oriental languages. In 1823 he returned to Zürich, where he taught classes on Hebrew language and theology at the Carolinum. In 1833 he became an associate professor of theology at the newly established University of Zürich.
Go to Profile#2991
Aegidius Hunnius
1550 - 1603 (53 years)
Aegidius Hunnius the Elder was a Lutheran theologian of the Lutheran scholastic tradition and father of Nicolaus Hunnius. Life Hunnius went rapidly through the preparatory schools of Württemberg, and studied from 1565 to 1574 at Tübingen. In 1576 Jacob Heerbrand recommended him as professor to the University of Marburg, where Hunnius exerted himself to do away with all compromises and restore Lutheran orthodoxy. He gained many adherents, and the consequence was a split in the State Church of Hesse which finally led to the separation of Upper and Lower Hesse. The cardinal point of all controversies was the doctrine of ubiquity which Hunnius maintained in his writing De persona Christi.
Go to Profile#2992
Oscar von Gebhardt
1844 - 1906 (62 years)
Oscar Leopold von Gebhardt was a German Lutheran theologian, born in the Baltic German settlement of Wesenberg in the Russian Empire . He studied theology at Dorpat and at several other German universities, and afterwards worked in university libraries at Strasbourg, Leipzig, Halle and Göttingen. In 1891 he became director of the publication department at the Royal Library at Berlin, and in 1893 became chief librarian and professor of paleography at the University of Leipzig.
Go to Profile#2993
Peder Madsen
1843 - 1911 (68 years)
Peder Madsen was a Danish theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand from 1909 until his death in 1911. Prior to being ordained as a bishop, he had been a professor and the rector of the University of Copenhagen.
Go to Profile#2994
François de Pâris
1690 - 1727 (37 years)
François de Pâris was a French Catholic deacon and theologian, a supporter of Jansenism. He became deacon of the Oratory of St. Magloire and was noted for his critique of the papal bull Unigenitus, which condemned Pasquier Quesnel's annotated translation of the Bible. He gave his earnings to the poor, and in his retirement he lived in a state of extreme poverty. After his death, his place of burial gained a reputation for supernatural events and the basis of the Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard where he is buried. In 1731 there was a movement by the Jansenists to canonize François de Pâris as...
Go to Profile#2995
Pedro Abarca
1619 - 1697 (78 years)
Pedro Abarca was a Jesuit theologian. Life Born in Aragon, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1641, and passed almost all his religious life as professor of scholastic, moral, and controversial theology, chiefly in the University of Salamanca. He died at Palencia.
Go to Profile#2996
James Hadow
1667 - 1747 (80 years)
James Hadow was a Scottish minister who served as Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews from 1707 till 1747. Life He was born in Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland on 13 August 1667. He died on 4 May 1747 at St Andrews, Fife, Scotland.
Go to Profile#2997
Vasile Gheorghiu
1872 - 1959 (87 years)
Vasile Gheorghiu was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian theologian. Born in Câmpulung Moldovenesc, then part of Austrian-ruled Bukovina, he attended the Romanian Orthodox high school in Suceava from 1882 to 1890, followed by the theology faculty of Czernowitz University from 1890 to 1984, receiving a doctorate there in 1897. From 1897 to 1899, he attended specialized courses at the Roman Catholic and Protestant theology faculties in Vienna, Bonn, Breslau, and Leipzig. In 1901, he was hired as assistant professor at Czernowitz' Biblical studies and New Testament exegesis department within the theology faculty.
Go to Profile#2998
Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga
1874 - 1957 (83 years)
Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga was a Dutch theologian. From 1936 to 1944 he was professor in New Testament exegesis at the University of Amsterdam. He belonged to the Dutch school of Radical Criticism. Bergh van Eysinga was an advocate of the Christ myth theory.
Go to Profile#2999
Wilfrid
634 - 709 (75 years)
Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon. In 664 Wilfrid acted as spokesman for the Roman position at the Synod of Whitby, and became famous for his speech advocating that the Roman method for calculating the date of Easter should be adopted. His success prompted the king's son, Alhfrith, to appoint him Bishop of Northumbria. Wilfrid chose to be consecrated in G...
Go to Profile#3000
Andreas Hyperius
1511 - 1564 (53 years)
Andreas Gerhard Hyperius , real name Andreas Gheeraerdts, was a Protestant theologian and Protestant reformer. He was Flemish, born at Ypres, which is signified by the name 'Hyperius'. Life He had a humanist education, and studied at Tournai and Paris. He was resident in England from 1536 to 1540, and in 1542 was appointed professor of theology at Marburg.
Go to Profile