The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#3101
Adolf Büchler
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
Adolf Büchler was an Austro-Hungarian rabbi, historian and theologian. Biography In 1887, he began his theological studies at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest, and at the same time studied in the Department of Philosophy of the university under Ignác Goldziher and Moritz Kármán. Büchler continued his studies at the Breslau Seminary and in 1890 graduated with a PhD from Leipzig University, his dissertation being Zur Entstehung der Hebräischen Accente, which was later published in the Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften of 1891.
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Lambert Daneau
1535 - 1595 (60 years)
Lambert Daneau was a French jurist and Calvinist theologian. Life He was born at Beaugency-sur-Loire, and educated at Orléans. He studied Greek under Adrianus Turnebus, and then law in Orléans from 1553. He moved to Bourges in 1559; he was particularly influenced by François Hotman, and by Anne du Bourg, who was executed in that year for heresy.
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John Kynton
1455 - 1536 (81 years)
John Kynton was an English 16th-century Franciscan friar, divinity professor, and a vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. In 1500 Kynton graduated as a Doctor of Divinity at Oxford, where he was a Minorite or Friar Minor. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University as part of a committee several times annually during 1503–1513.
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Antoine de Mouchy
1494 - 1574 (80 years)
Antoine de Mouchy was a French theologian and canonist, at Paris. A traditional explanation of the French term mouchard, meaning police spy or informer, is that it derived from his use of intelligence-gathering networks, when working as an inquisitor. This folk-etymology was adopted by Voltaire, following François-Eudes de Mézeray. It has been plausibly contested, on the grounds that the word is found used in the fifteenth century.
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Safi al-Din al-Hindi
1246 - 1315 (69 years)
Safi al-Din al-Hindi al-Urmawi was a prominent Indian Shafi'i-Ash'ari scholar and rationalist theologian. Al-Hindi was brought in to debate at Ibn Taymiyya during the second hearing in Damascus in 1306. Taj al-Din al-Subki, in his Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya al-Kubra, reports him to have said: "Oh Ibn Taymiyya, I see that you are only like a sparrow. Whenever I want to grab it, it escapes from one place to another."
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Cyriacus Spangenberg
1528 - 1604 (76 years)
Cyriacus Spangenberg was a German theologian, Protestant reformer and historian, son of the reformer . Cyriacus was born in Nordhausen. As a student, he was a fellow tenant of Martin Luther in Wittenberg, later became a minister in Eisleben, and in 1559 the General Dean of the Grafschaft Mansfeld.
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Jackson Lawlor
1860 - 1938 (78 years)
Hugh Jackson Lawlor was an Irish Anglican priest and author. He is best remembered for his term as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Hugh Jackson Lawlor was born in Ballymena, County Antrim. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School, Rathmines School, Dublin and Trinity College Dublin from where he graduated with BA in mathematics in 1882, getting his MA in 1885. For a while in the 1880s, he was an examiner in mathematics for the Intermediate Board of Education. He was a curate at Christ Church, Kingstown from 1885 to 1893 then an assistant to Archbishop King's Lecturer in Divinity at Trinity College Dublin.
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Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz
1717 - 1797 (80 years)
Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz , was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Bodenschatz was born at Hof, Germany. In his early education at the gymnasium of Gera he became interested in Oriental and Biblical subjects through his teacher, Schleusner; and later , at the University of Jena, he took up Oriental languages as a special study.
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William of Woodford
1330 - 1397 (67 years)
William of Woodford or Wydford, OFM was an English cleric and scholastic philosopher, known as an opponent of Wycliffe. Life Although William of Woodford was erroneously identified by the Irish historian Wadding with William of Waterford , there seems to be no doubt that Woodford was an Englishman. He became a Franciscan and was educated at Oxford, where he graduated D.D.
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John Wemyss
1579 - 1636 (57 years)
John Wemyss , also spelled Weemes or Weemse, was a Church of Scotland minister, Hebrew scholar and exegete. Life John Wemyss was born at Lathocker in eastern Fife, and educated at the University of St Andrews. In 1608, he was appointed minister of Hutton in Berwickshire, and in 1613 he was translated to Duns. For several years Wemyss acted as a representative of Presbyterian ministers in altercations with champions of episcopacy, for example at the Falkland Conference and the Perth Assembly of 1618 which issued the Five Articles. After appearing before the Court of High Commission in 1620 for...
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Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani
922 - 996 (74 years)
Ibn Abī Zayd , fully Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Zayd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nafzawī ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawanī, was a Maliki scholar from Kairouan in Tunisia and was also an active proponent of Ash'ari thought. His best known work is Al-Risala or the Epistle, an instructional book devoted to the education of young children. He was a member of the Nafzawah Berber tribe and lived in Kairouan. In addition, he served as the Imam of one of the mosques' that followed the Maliki School tradition. Based on what he wrote in his Risalah regarding creed, there was many alignments with the Ashari creed. ...
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Al-Bahrani
1238 - 1299 (61 years)
Kamal al-Din Maitham bin Ali bin Maitham al-Bahrani , commonly known as Sheikh Maitham al-Bahrani was a leading thirteenth-century Twelver Eastern Arabian theologian, author and philosopher. Al Bahrani wrote on Twelver doctrine, affirmed free will, the infallibility of prophets and imams, the appointed imamate of `Ali, and the occultation of the Twelfth Imam. Along with Kamal al-Din Ibn Sa’adah al Bahrani, Jamal al-Din ‘Ali ibn Sulayman al-Bahrani, Maytham Al Bahrani was part of a thirteenth-century Bahrain school of theology that emphasised rationalism.
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David Martin
1639 - 1721 (82 years)
David Martin , was a learned French Protestant theologian. He was educated at Montauban, and at the academy of the reformed at Nîmes. He afterwards studied divinity at Puy-Laurent, whither the academy of Montauban had been removed. Having been admitted to the ministry in 1663, he settled as pastor with the church of Esperance, in the diocese of Castres. In 1670 he accepted an invitation to the church of La Caune, in the same diocese, where he officiated till the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685. In 1686, the magistrates of Deventer invited him to become professor of divinity and past...
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William Pemble
1592 - 1623 (31 years)
William Pemble was an English theologian and author. Biography A student of Richard Capel at Magdalen College, Oxford, Pemble became reader and tutor at Magdalen. All of Pemble's works were published posthumously.
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Nicolaus Gallus
1516 - 1570 (54 years)
Nicolaus Gallus was leader of the Lutheran Reformation in Regensburg. Gallus was born in Köthen. At Wittenberg, where he became a student in 1530 and received the master's degree in 1537, he won the commendation of Melanchthon. In 1543 Luther sent Hieronymus Nopus as preacher to Regensburg at the request of the city council and with him went Gallus, who was ordained by Bugenhagen in April. In 1548 trouble arose in Regensburg over the acceptance of the Interim. Gallus wrote a treatise against it, and had to leave the city; services in the only Evangelical church there were discontinued. For...
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Basil Jones
1822 - 1897 (75 years)
William Basil Jones was a Welsh bishop and scholar who became the Bishop of St David's in 1874, holding the post until his death in 1897. Personal history Jones was born on 1 January 1822 in Cheltenham to William Tilsey Jones of Gwynfryn and his wife Jane. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, under the tutelage of Samuel Hall and Benjamin Hall Kennedy from 1834 to 1841, becoming head boy in his final year. In 1842 he matriculated to Trinity College, Oxford. He was placed in the second class in his final school of literae humaniores and in 1845 he graduated BA, receiving his MA in 1847. In 18...
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Richard S. Rust
1815 - 1906 (91 years)
Richard Sutton Rust was an American Methodist preacher, abolitionist, educator, writer, lecturer, secretary of the Freedmen's Bureau, and founder of the Freedmen's Aid Society. He also helped found multiple educational institutions including his namesake Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the oldest historically black United Methodist-related college.
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Simon-Michel Treuvé
1651 - 1730 (79 years)
Simon-Michel Treuvé was a French theologian.
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Jean Porthaise
1520 - 1602 (82 years)
Jean Porthaise was a French theologian. He was a member of the Franciscan League, and was known as an anti-Protestant polemicist, who preached and wrote tracts condemning protestantism.
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Martin of Alnwick
Martin Alnwick or of Alnwick was an English Franciscan friar and theologian. Biography Little is known of Alnwick's early years. He certainly originated from Northumberland, and a 'Martinus' is recorded in several disputations at Oxford University at the end of the 13th-century, possibly Alnwick. The first definite record of Alnwick was in 1300, where he was one of the Oxford friars who unsuccessfully requested the licence to hear confessions from the bishop of Lincoln, John Dalderby. At Oxford, Alnwick soon received a Doctor of Theology and, in 1304, became the 32nd regent master of the univ...
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Nathaniel Herrick Griffin
1814 - 1876 (62 years)
Nathaniel Herrick Griffin, D.D. was an American Presbyterian minister. Griffin was born at Southampton, L.I., December 28, 1814. He graduated from Williams College, Mass., in 1834; spent two years in Princeton Theological Seminary; was a tutor in his alma mater in 1836-37; became thereafter stated supply successively at Westhampton, N.Y., and at Franklin; was ordained by the Presbytery June 27, 1839; was pastor at Delhi; acted as assistant professor in Williams College , and: as a teacher in Brooklyn , professor of Latin and Greek in Williams College , of Greek , a teacher in Williamstown, Mass.
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Gerard of Abbeville
1225 - 1272 (47 years)
Gerard of Abbeville was a theologian from the University of Paris. He formally became a theologian in 1257 and from then was known as an opponent of the mendicant orders, particularly in the second stage of the conflict, taking part in a concerted attack that temporarily affected their privileges.
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Oliver of Paderborn
1170 - 1227 (57 years)
Oliver of Paderborn, also known as Oliver Scholasticus or Oliver of Cologne , was a German cleric, crusader and chronicler. He was the bishop of Paderborn from 1223 until 1225, when Pope Honorius III made him cardinal-bishop of Sabina. He was the first Paderborn bishop to become a cardinal. Oliver played a significant role in the Crusades as a preacher, participant and chronicler.
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Katharine Lambert Richards Rockwell
1891 - 1972 (81 years)
Katharine Lambert Richards Rockwell was an American theologian, writer, and professor. Rockwell served as national secretary for the YWCA and as a member of their Board of Trustees for two terms. She also chaired the YWCA's Department of Religious Education.
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Antoine de la Roche Chandieu
1534 - 1591 (57 years)
Antoine de la Roche Chandieu was a French Reformed theologian, poet, diplomat and nobleman. His trend toward the Reformed Protestantism was strengthened during his study of law at Toulouse; after a theological course at Geneva, he became the pastor of the Reformed congregation of Paris between 1556 and 1562.
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Hassan al-Jabarti
1698 - 1774 (76 years)
Hassan al-Jabarti was a Somali mathematician, theologian, astronomer and philosopher who lived in Cairo, Egypt during the 18th century. Biography Al-Jabarti was the father of the historian Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, and originated from the Somali city of Zeila. Hassan is considered one of the great scholars of the 18th century. He frequently conducted experiments in his own house, which was visited and observed by Western students.
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Ishodad of Merv
Mar Ishodad of Merv was a bishop of Hdatta during the Abbasid Caliphate and prominent theologian of the Church of the East, best known for his Commentaries on the Syriac Bible. Life Very little is known of Ishoʿdad's life, but a few details have survived in annotations to the list of patriarchs compiled by Mari ibn Suleiman and Amr ibn Matta. His epithet "of Merv" may denote a birthplace, meaning that he was born in the city of Merv in Khorasan, but this inference remains conjectural: his relationship to Merv is not known with certainty. A member of the Church of the East—historically, thoug...
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Peter Payne
1385 - 1456 (71 years)
Peter Payne was an English theologian, diplomat, Lollard and Taborite. The son of a Frenchman by an English wife, he was born at Hough-on-the-Hill near Grantham. He was educated in Oxford, where he adopted Lollard opinions, and had graduated as a master of arts before 6 October 1406, when he was concerned in the irregular proceedings through which a letter declaring the sympathy of the university was addressed to the Bohemian reformers. From 1410 to 1414 Payne was principal of St Edmund Hall, and during these years was engaged in controversy with Thomas Netter of Walden, the Carmelite defende...
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Innocent
1600 - 1683 (83 years)
Innokenty Gizel was a Prussian-born historian, writer, and political and ecclesiastic figure, who had adopted Orthodox Christianity and made a substantial contribution to Ukrainian culture. Innokentiy Gizel was a rector of the Kyivan Theological School. In 1656, he was appointed archmandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Innokentiy Gizel is known to have supported the unification of Ukraine and autonomy of the Kyiv clergy, simultaneously. Innokentiy Gizel is generally credited for writing the Synopsis in 1674, but some researchers deny his authorship.
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Uthred of Boldon
1320 - 1397 (77 years)
Uthred or Uhtred of Boldon was an English Benedictine monk, theologian and writer, born at Boldon, North Durham; he died at Finchale Abbey. Life Uhtred joined the Benedictine community of Durham Abbey about 1332 and was sent to London in 1337. Three years later he entered Durham College, Oxford, a house which the Durham Benedictines had established at Oxford for those of their members who pursued their studies at the University of Oxford. He was graduated there as licentiate in 1352 and as doctor in 1357. During the succeeding ten years, and even previously, he took part in numerous disputations at Oxford University, many of which were directed against members of the mendicant orders.
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Johannes Mathesius
1504 - 1565 (61 years)
Johannes Mathesius , also called Johann Mathesius or John Mathesius, was a German minister and a Lutheran reformer. He is best known for his compilation of Martin Luther's Table Talk, or notes taken of Luther's conversation and published afterwards. He rivaled Anton Lauterbach in his diligence in notetaking, and surpassed him in the discrimination with which he arranged it.
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William Taylor
William Taylor was a medieval English theologian and priest, executed as a Lollard. Nothing is known of Taylor's career before he named as Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford in a rent roll for 1405–1406. One sermon from 1406 survives, and was republished by the Early English Text Society in 1993.
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Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotis
1880 - 1961 (81 years)
Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotes was a bishop of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. He was the Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Korçë in Albania between 1937 and 1939, and a professor of philosophy and author on religious matters. He later became one of the leaders of the Northern Epirus movement, propagating that Greece should annex southern Albania.
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Nicolas d'Orbellis
1500 - 1472 (-28 years)
Nicolas d'Orbellis was a French Franciscan theologian and philosopher, of the Scotist school. Biography He was born about 1400. He seems to have entered the monastery of the Observantines, founded in 1407, one of the first in France.
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Thomas Nowell
1730 - 1801 (71 years)
Thomas Nowell was a Welsh-born clergyman, historian and religious controversialist. Life Nowell was the son of Cradock Nowell of Cardiff. He went up to Oriel College, Oxford, in 1746 and in 1747 he won the Duke of Beaufort's exhibition. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1750, was awarded an exhibitionship in 1752, and took his Master of Arts degree in 1753. Nowell was made a fellow of Oriel in 1753 and served as junior treasurer to college between 1755 and 1757, senior treasurer between 1757 and 1758, and Dean between 1758 and 1760 and again in 1763.
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Suzanne de Dietrich
1891 - 1981 (90 years)
Suzanne Anne de Dietrich was a French Protestant theologian known for her work in the ecumenical movement. Youth and education Alsatian origins Suzanne de Dietrich is the daughter of Charles de Dietrich and Anne von Türcke, and the granddaughter of Albert de Dietrich. The de Dietrich family is an emblematic family of Alsatian industrialists, several of whose members were ammestres or mayors of Strasbourg, notably Philippe-Frédéric, who commissioned the Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin, composed by Claude Rouget de Lisle on April 25, 1792, while Suzanne's maternal family belonged to the n...
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Augustine Schulte
1856 - 1937 (81 years)
Augustine Joseph Schulte was an American Catholic priest and professor at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Pennsylvania, who served as the interim rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1884 to 1885.
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Cyrus David Foss
1834 - 1910 (76 years)
Cyrus David Foss was a prominent Methodist bishop in the latter 19th century, primarily serving in New York City and New England. Biography Foss was born in Kingston, New York, on January 17, 1834. He attended Wesleyan University, graduating in 1854. He began his career teaching, and then entered the ministry. Foss was "pastor of the most prominent Methodist churches in this city [New York] and Brooklyn."
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Thumama ibn Ashras
Thumama ibn Ashras , also known as Abu Maʿn al-Numayri was a Mu'tazila theologian during the era of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate. Life Thumama ibn Ashras was of Arab descent. He served under an influential family during the Abbasid era, the Barmakids, and was arrested when they fell from favour in 802 CE. His reputation was sufficiently restored by around the year 807 CE that Harun al-Ras̲h̲d had him join his expedition to Khorasan.
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Francis Patrick McFarland
1819 - 1874 (55 years)
Francis Patrick McFarland was an American Catholic bishop who served as the third Bishop of Hartford. Biography His parents, John McFarland and Mary McKeever, emigrated from Armagh, and took up farming near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Francis was employed as teacher in the village school, but soon entered Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he graduated with high honours and was retained as teacher. The following year, 1845, he was ordained, 18 May, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York by Archbishop Hughes, who immediately detailed the young priest to a professor's chair at St.
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Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nasafi
Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bazdawi al-Nasafi was an early 10th-century Isma'ili missionary and theologian. In he succeeded in converting the Samanid emir, Nasr II, to Isma'ilism, and ushered in a period of Isma'ili dominance at the Samanid court that lasted until Nasr's death. In the subsequent persecution of the Isma'ilis, launched by Nuh I, al-Nasafi himself fell victim. As a theologian, he is generally credited with being among those who introduced Neoplatonic concepts into Isma'ili theology. His doctrines dominated indigenous Isma'ilism in the Iranian lands in the 9th–10th centu...
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Thomas Wilton
1270 - 1320 (50 years)
Thomas Wilton was an English theologian and scholastic philosopher, a pupil of Duns Scotus, a teacher at the University of Oxford and then the University of Paris, where he taught Walter Burley. He was a Fellow of Merton College from about 1288.
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John Douglas
1721 - 1807 (86 years)
John Douglas was a Scottish scholar and Anglican bishop. Douglas was born at Pittenweem, Fife, the son of a shopkeeper, and was educated at Dunbar, East Lothian, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained his M.A. degree in 1743.
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Joannes Aurifaber
1519 - 1575 (56 years)
Joannes Aurifaber , born Johann Goldschmidt in Weimar, Germany, was a Lutheran churchman, theologian, and a Protestant reformer. Owing to a similarly-named contemporary, he is sometimes distinguished by the cognomen Vimariensis or Vinariensis .
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Giovanni Mincio da Morrovalle
1250 - 1312 (62 years)
Giovanni Mincio may also refer to antipope Benedict XGiovanni Minio or Mincio, of Morrovalle or Murrovale was an Italian Franciscan who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, cardinal-bishop of Porto , Protector of the Order of Friars Minors and dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals .
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Pieter Datheen
1531 - 1588 (57 years)
Pieter Datheen, Latin Petrus Dathenus, English, Peter Datheen, was a Dutch Calvinist theologian, the 16th century reformer of The Netherlands, who accomplished many things for the advancement the Reformed Church liturgy and ecclesiastical polity.
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Richard Parsons
1882 - 1948 (66 years)
Richard Godfrey Parsons was an Anglican bishop who served in three dioceses during the first half of the 20th century, and a renowned liberal scholar. Parsonshe was born into a Lancashire family on 12 November 1882 and educated at Durham School and Magdalen College, Oxford. Ordained priest in 1907 he was a curate at Hampstead before four years as Chaplain at University College, Oxford. and Principal of Wells Theological College from 1911-16. He served for one year as a Temporary Chaplain to the Forces. Married with two children, he expressed a preference to remain 'at home' and he was posted to '2 General Hospital, London'.
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John Howe
1630 - 1705 (75 years)
John Howe was an English Puritan theologian. He served briefly as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Life Howe was born at Loughborough. At the age of five he went to Ireland with his father, who had been ejected from his living by William Laud, but returned to England in 1641 and settled with his father in Lancaster. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and at Magdalen College, Oxford , where for a time he was fellow and college chaplain. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, from whom he probably received the Platonic tinge that marks his writings. About 1654 he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Great Torrington, Devon.
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Henry Hayes Vowles
1843 - 1905 (62 years)
Henry Hayes Vowles was an English author, theologian and a Wesleyan Minister. He also published religious poetry. Parents He was the son of Henry Vowles of Bath and Mary Yeoman Harding of "The Chancellor" Wanstrow, Somerset. The parents of Henry Vowles were James Vowles of 2 Quiet Street Bath, and Martha Edney . James Vowles was the son of William Vowles of Walcot and Hannah Hancock. William Vowles was the son of James Vowles and Martha Jane married at Bath Abbey on 6 August 1728.
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Richard Middleton
1300 - 1300 (0 years)
Richard Middleton was an English ecclesiastic and Lord Chancellor of England. Middleton was appointed Lord Chancellor on 29 July 1269. He was out of office before his death, but his successor Walter de Merton is first mentioned in the office on 29 November 1272.
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