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,
#3601
Ronald Knox
1888 - 1957 (69 years)
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work.
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Kornelis Heiko Miskotte
1894 - 1976 (82 years)
Kornelis Heiko Miskotte was a Dutch Protestant theologian and a representative of dialectical theology. Life Miskotte was born to a conservative Reformed Protestant family in the Netherlands. After attending Christian high school, he studied theology in his home city of Utrecht from 1914 to 1920. Theologically, he came under influence of the ethical theology of Johannes Hermanus Gunning, who taught an artful synthesis of modern culture and biblical revelation. Philosophically, Miskotte was also influenced by the Neo-Kantian B.J.H. Ovink.
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Franz Hildebrandt
1909 - 1985 (76 years)
Franz Hildebrandt was a German-born Lutheran, and later Methodist, pastor and theologian, forced into exile during World War II, and subsequently active in the United Kingdom and the USA. Life Hildebrandt was the son of the art professor Edmund Hildebrandt and his wife Ottilie, née Schlesinger . He studied theology in Berlin, Marburg, and Tübingen . During his time in Berlin, he became a close friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In 1930, he was awarded a licentiate by the University of Berlin; his first book was based on his doctoral dissertation.
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Francisco Ribera
1537 - 1591 (54 years)
Francisco Ribera was a Spanish Jesuit theologian, identified with the Futurist Christian eschatological view. Life Ribera was born at Villacastín. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1570, and taught at the University of Salamanca. He acted as confessor to Teresa of Avila. He died in 1591 at the age of fifty-four, one year after the publication of his work In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij.
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Theophanes the Confessor
759 - 817 (58 years)
Theophanes the Confessor was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking up the religious life. Theophanes attended the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 and resisted the iconoclasm of Leo V the Armenian, for which he was imprisoned. He died shortly after his release.
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Andreas Osiander
1498 - 1552 (54 years)
Andreas Osiander was a German Lutheran theologian and Protestant reformer. Career Born at Gunzenhausen, Ansbach, in the region of Franconia, Osiander studied at the University of Ingolstadt before being ordained as a priest in 1520 in Nuremberg. In the same year he began work at an Augustinian convent in Nuremberg as a Hebrew tutor. In 1522, he was appointed to the church of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg, and at the same time publicly declared himself to be a Lutheran. During the First Diet of Nuremberg , he met Albert of Prussia, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and played an important role in converting him to Lutheranism.
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Hermann Hupfeld
1796 - 1866 (70 years)
Hermann Hupfeld was a Protestant German Orientalist and Biblical commentator. He is known for his historical-critical studies of the Old Testament. He was born at Marburg, where he studied philosophy and theology from 1813 to 1817. In 1819 he became a teacher in the gymnasium at Hanau, but in 1822 resigned that appointment. After studying for some time at Halle, he in 1824 settled as Privatdozent in philosophy at that university, and in the following year was appointed extraordinary professor of theology at Marburg. There he received professorships of theology and Oriental languages in 1825 and 1827 respectively.
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Leonhard Hutter
1563 - 1616 (53 years)
Leonhard Hutter was a German Lutheran theologian. Life He was born at Nellingen near Ulm. From 1581 he studied at the universities of Strasbourg, Leipzig, Heidelberg and Jena. In 1594 he began to give theological lectures at Jena, and in 1596 accepted a call as professor of theology at Wittenberg, where he died twenty years later.
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Julius Müller
1801 - 1878 (77 years)
Julius Müller was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born at Brieg and studied at Breslau, Göttingen and Berlin – first law, which he later abandoned for theology. From 1825 to 1831, he was in charge of several small parishes. In 1831, he was second university preacher at Göttingen University, and lectured on practical theology and pedagogics. In 1834, he became professor extraordinarius of theology there. From 1835 to 1839 he was professor in Marburg. In 1839 he became professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Halle, where he remained for the rest of his life. He d...
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Adalbert of Prague
956 - 997 (41 years)
Adalbert of Prague , known in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch , was a Czech missionary and Christian saint. He was the Bishop of Prague and a missionary to the Hungarians, Poles, and Prussians, who was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians to Christianity. He is said to be the composer of the oldest Czech hymn Hospodine, pomiluj ny and Bogurodzica, the oldest known Polish hymn, but his authorship of them has not been confirmed.
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Al-Tahawi
853 - 935 (82 years)
Abu Ja'far Ahmad al-Tahawi , or simply aṭ-Ṭaḥāwī , was an Egyptian Arab Hanafi jurist and Traditionalist theologian. He studied with his uncle al-Muzani and was a Shafi'i jurist, before then changing to the Hanafi school. He is known for his work al-'Aqidah al-Tahawiyyah, a summary of Sunni Islamic creed which influenced Hanafis in Egypt.
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Pietro Gasparri
1852 - 1934 (82 years)
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic cardinal, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and the signatory of the Lateran Pacts. He served also as Cardinal Secretary of State under Popes Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
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Shoki Coe
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
Shoki Coe was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, erstwhile principal of Tainan Theological Seminary and director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. Through the Theological Education Fund, he is widely known for his coinage of the notion of "contextualizing theology," later better known as "contextual theology," which argues for theology's need to respond to the sociopolitical concerns of a local context. He was named by Kosuke Koyama as the latter's spiritual father.
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Franz Peter Knoodt
1811 - 1889 (78 years)
Franz Peter Knoodt was a German Catholic theologian who was a native of Boppard. He studied theology in Bonn und Tübingen, and later worked as a chaplain and teacher in Trier. In 1841-43 he furthered his studies in Vienna, where he was a student of Anton Günther . In 1844 he earned his doctorate of theology at Breslau, and in 1845 became a professor of philosophy at the Catholic faculty of theology at the University of Bonn. From May 1848 to February 1849 he was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly.
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John Newton
1725 - 1807 (82 years)
John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and slavery abolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy and was himself enslaved for a time in West Africa. He is noted for being author of the hymns Amazing Grace and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.
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Johann Joachim Spalding
1714 - 1804 (90 years)
Johann Joachim Spalding was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher of Scottish ancestry who was a native of Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania. He was the father of Georg Ludwig Spalding , a professor at Grauen Kloster in Berlin.
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Franz Volkmar Reinhard
1753 - 1812 (59 years)
Franz Volkmar Reinhard was a German Protestant theologian born in Vohenstrauß. Biography In 1780 he became an associate professor of theology and philosophy at the University of Wittenberg, where he served as rector in 1790–91. In 1792 he was appointed Oberhofprediger to the Saxon court in Dresden.
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Heinrich Vogel
1902 - 1989 (87 years)
Heinrich Vogel was an evangelical theologian, poet of sacred texts and songs and composer of numerous motets and chamber music. He studied theology at the University of Berlin and the University of Jena. In 1927 he became a minister for the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union in Oderberg.
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Francesco Antonio Zaccaria
1714 - 1795 (81 years)
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was an Italian theologian, historian, and prolific writer. Biography Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was born in Venice. His father, Tancredi, was a noted jurist. He joined the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus on 18 October 1731. Zaccaria taught grammar, the humanities, and rhetoric in the College of Gorizia, and was ordained priest at Rome in 1740. He spent some time in pastoral work in Ancona, Fermo, and Pistoia, gaining renown as a preacher and controversial lecturer. In 1751 he succeeded Muratori as ducal archivist and librarian of Modena, but was removed in...
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Charles Porterfield Krauth
1823 - 1883 (60 years)
Charles Porterfield Krauth was a pastor, theologian and educator in the Lutheran branch of Christianity. He is a leading figure in the revival of the Lutheran Confessions connected to Neo-Lutheranism in the United States.
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Edward John Carnell
1919 - 1967 (48 years)
Edward John Carnell was a prominent Christian theologian and apologist, was an ordained Baptist pastor, and served as President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He was the author of nine major books, several of which attempted to develop a fresh outlook in Christian apologetics. He also wrote essays that were published in several other books, and was a contributor of articles to periodicals such as The Christian Century and Christianity Today.
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Eberhard Arnold
1883 - 1935 (52 years)
Eberhard Arnold was a German theologian and Christian writer. He was the founder of the Bruderhof in 1920. Early life Arnold was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany, the third child of Carl Franklin and Elizabeth Arnold. His father was a doctor of theology and philosophy, and his paternal grandfather was a pastor and missionary of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces. Eberhard Arnold's life as a youth was unconventional. In 1899 at age 16, Arnold experienced an inner change, which he acknowledged as God's acceptance and the forgiveness of sins, and felt a calling t...
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Jan Hendrik Scholten
1811 - 1885 (74 years)
Jan Hendrik Scholten , Dutch Protestant theologian, was born at Vleuten near Utrecht. Biography After studying at Utrecht University, he was appointed professor of theology in 1840 at Franeker. From Franeker in 1843 he went to Leiden as professor extraordinarius, and in 1845 was promoted to the rank of ordinarius. Through Scholten, Abraham Kuenen became interested in theology; Scholten was not then the radical theologian he became later. The two scholars in course of time created a movement resembling that of the Tübingen School in Germany. From his theology there "began to rise a different ty...
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Henry Oldenburg
1619 - 1677 (58 years)
Henry Oldenburg was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the foremost intelligencerss of 17th-century Europe, with a network of correspondents to rival those of Fabri de Peiresc, Marin Mersenne, and Ismaël Boulliau. At the foundation of the Royal Society in London, he took on the task of foreign correspondence, as the first Secretary.
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Jacob Peter Mynster
1775 - 1854 (79 years)
Jacob Peter Mynster was a Danish theologian and clergy member of the Church of Denmark. He served as Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand from 1834 until his death. Mynster was notably used as an exemplar of conservative religion by Søren Kierkegaard in his book Attack Upon Christendom.
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Archibald Alexander Hodge
1823 - 1886 (63 years)
Archibald Alexander Hodge , an American Presbyterian minister, was the principal of Princeton Seminary between 1878 and 1886. Biography He was born on July 18, 1823, to Sarah and Charles Hodge in Princeton, New Jersey. He was named after Charles' mentor, the first principal of Princeton Seminary, Archibald Alexander.
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Alban Stolz
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Alban Isidor Stolz was a German Roman Catholic theologian and popular author. Life Stolz was born at Bühl, Baden. He first studied at the gymnasium at Rastatt , and then proceeded to the University of Freiburg. After attending lectures in jurisprudence for a brief period, he devoted himself to the study of theology . He fell into scepticism; but after studying philology at the University of Heidelberg from 1830 to 1832 he regained his former Catholic faith.
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Sebastiaan Tromp
1889 - 1975 (86 years)
Sebastiaan Peter Cornelis Tromp was a Dutch Jesuit priest, theologian, and Latinist, who is best known for assisting Pope Pius XII in his theological encyclicals, and Pope John XXIII in the preparation for Vatican II. He was an assistant to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani during the Council and professor of Catholic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University from 1929 until 1967.
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J. Oliver Buswell
1895 - 1977 (82 years)
James Oliver Buswell, Jr. was a Presbyterian theologian, educator and institution builder. Education Buswell was born in Burlington, Wisconsin. He received an A.B. from the University of Minnesota , a B.D. from McCormick Theological Seminary , an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. from New York University .
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Roger Williams
1603 - 1683 (80 years)
Roger Williams was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.
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Edgar S. Brightman
1884 - 1953 (69 years)
Edgar Sheffield Brightman was an American philosopher and Christian theologian in the Methodist tradition, associated with Boston University and liberal theology, and promulgated the philosophy known as Boston personalism.
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Brooke Foss Westcott
1825 - 1901 (76 years)
Brooke Foss Westcott was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire.
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Stanislaus of Szczepanów
1030 - 1079 (49 years)
Stanislaus of Szczepanów was Bishop of Kraków known chiefly for having been martyred by the Polish King Bolesław II the Generous. Stanislaus is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Stanislaus the Martyr .
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John Miley
1813 - 1895 (82 years)
John Miley was an American Methodist Episcopal minister and theologian, who was one of the major Methodist theological voices of the 19th century. Biography Early life Miley was born the 25 December 1813 on a farm near Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. Miley graduated from Augusta College where he received A.B. in 1834 and an A.M. in 1837. During his college life he was influenced by three professors Joseph Tomlinson, Joseph Trimble, and Henry Bascom.
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Prosper of Aquitaine
390 - 463 (73 years)
Prosper of Aquitaine , a Christian writer and disciple of Augustine of Hippo, was the first continuator of Jerome's Universal Chronicle. Life Prosper was a native of Aquitaine, and may have been educated at Bordeaux. By 417 he arrived in Marseilles as a refugee from Aquitaine in the aftermath of the Gothic invasions of Gaul. In 429 he was corresponding with Augustine. In 431 he appeared in Rome to appeal to Pope Celestine I regarding the teachings of Augustine; there is no further trace of him until 440, the first year of the pontificate of Pope Leo I, who had been in Gaul, where he may have met Prosper.
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Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank
1827 - 1894 (67 years)
Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank was a German theologian born in Altenburg. He was an important figure in the "Erlangen School" of the German Neo-Lutheranism movement, and a specialist in theological dogmatics.
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Thomas Erastus
1524 - 1583 (59 years)
Thomas Erastus was a Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian. He wrote 100 theses in which he argued that the sins committed by Christians should be punished by the State, and that the Church should not withhold sacraments as a form of punishment. They were published in 1589, after his death, with the title . His name was later applied to Erastianism.
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Thomas Kelly Cheyne
1841 - 1915 (74 years)
Thomas Kelly Cheyne, was an English divine and biblical critic. Biography He was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and Oxford University. Subsequently, he studied German theological methods at Göttingen. He was ordained in 1864 and held a fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1868 to 1882. During the earlier part of this period he stood alone in the university as a teacher of the main conclusions of Old Testament criticism at that time. In 1881 he was presented to the rectory of Tendring, in Essex, and in 1884 he was made a member of the Old Testament revision company.
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Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach
1792 - 1862 (70 years)
Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach was a Dano-German neo-Lutheran theologian. Biography He was born at Copenhagen; died at Slagelse, Zealand. He was educated the Metropolitanskolen and attended the University of Copenhagen, where he received the academic title privatdozent. During this period in collaboration with N. F. S. Grundtvig, he edited the Theologisk Maanedskrift In 1829 he was called to the pastorate of Glauchau, Saxony, where he aided religious awakening and revolt against the rationalism of the period, though at the same time he opposed any formal separation from the Lutheran Church.
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Johannes Agricola
1494 - 1566 (72 years)
Johann or Johannes Agricola was a German Protestant Reformer during the Protestant Reformation. He was a follower and friend of Martin Luther, who became his antagonist in the matter of the binding obligation of the law on Christians.
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Johannes Stricker
1816 - 1886 (70 years)
Johannes Paulus Stricker was a Dutch theologian and biblical scholar. He attended the University of Leiden where he worked with J. F. van Oordt, a key figure in the new Groningen theology. He sat his ordination examination in May 1841, and was appointed to a ministerial post in October of that year. In December of that year, he married Willemina Carbentus, an older sister of Vincent van Gogh's mother. As an uncle he tutored the young Vincent in theology and biblical criticism in 1877–78.
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Robert Barclay
1648 - 1690 (42 years)
Robert Barclay was a Scottish Quaker, one of the most eminent writers belonging to the Religious Society of Friends and a member of the Clan Barclay. He was a son of Col. David Barclay, Laird of Urie, and his wife, Lady Katherine Barclay. Although he himself never lived there, Barclay was titular governor of the East Jersey colony in North America through most of the 1680s.
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Johann Blumhardt
1805 - 1880 (75 years)
Johann Christoph Blumhardt was a German Lutheran theologian, best known for his contribution in thought towards a kingdom-now or kingdom-come theology and his motto and centralization of Christianity around the idea that "Jesus is Victor." Blumhardt was born in Stuttgart, in the Electorate of Württemberg. He was the father of Christoph Blumhardt.
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Gaspar García Laviana
1941 - 1978 (37 years)
Gaspar García Laviana was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest who took up arms to fight as a soldier in Nicaragua with the Sandinista National Liberation Front in 1977. Early life García Laviana was born in 1941 in Les Roces, San Martin del Rey Aurelio, Principality of Asturias , moving during his childhood to Tuilla, Langreo. He was ordained a priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1966. Thereafter, he took charge of a church in Logroño for three years, working at the same time as a carpenter.
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Johannes Andreas Quenstedt
1617 - 1688 (71 years)
Johannes Andreas Quenstedt was a German Lutheran dogmatician in the Lutheran scholastic tradition. Quenstedt was born at Quedlinburg, a nephew of Johann Gerhard. He was educated at the University of Helmstedt, 1637–43, and at the University of Wittenberg, 1644, where afterwards he lectured on geography; was adjunct professor in the philosophical faculty, 1646–49; ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics and associate professor of theology, 1649–60; and ordinary professor of theology, 1660–88 until his death.
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Adolf Schlatter
1852 - 1938 (86 years)
Adolf Schlatter was a well-known Swiss-born German Protestant theologian and professor specialising in the New Testament and systematics at Greifswald, Berlin and Tübingen. Schlatter has published more than 400 scholarly and popular pieces during his academic career. In his work "The Nature of New Testament Theology. The Contribution of William Wrede and Adolf Schlatter", Robert Morgan writes: "Schlatter ... was considered a conservative, and is perhaps the only 'conservative' New Testament scholar since Bengel who can be rated in the same class as Baur, Wrede, Bousset and Bultmann". There ha...
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Valentin Ernst Löscher
1673 - 1749 (76 years)
Valentin Ernst Löscher was a German orthodox Lutheran theologian. At the University of Wittenberg, where his father was professor of theology, he gave his attention mainly to philology and history, but out of respect to his father's wish he selected a theological subject for his master's dissertation, in which he opposed the Pietistic position. Subsequent study at Jena aroused his interest in church history. During travels undertaken at this time he formed the acquaintance of a number of influential anti-Pietistic theologians. In 1696 he began to lecture at Wittenberg on the origin of Deism and Pietism.
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Moses Amyraut
1596 - 1664 (68 years)
Moïse Amyraut, Latin Moyses Amyraldus , in English texts often Moses Amyraut, was a French Huguenot, Reformed theologian and metaphysician. He was the architect of Amyraldism, a Calvinist doctrine that made modifications to Calvinist theology regarding the nature of Christ's atonement and covenant theology.
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Carl Paul Caspari
1814 - 1892 (78 years)
Carl Paul Caspari was a Norwegian neo-Lutheran theologian and academic. He was a Professor of Old Testament Theology at the University of Oslo. He wrote several books and is best known for his interpretations and translation of the Old Testament.
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Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongovius
1764 - 1855 (91 years)
Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongovius was a Protestant pastor, writer, philosopher, distinguished linguist, and translator. Mrongovius was a noted defender of the Polish language in Warmia and Mazury. Biography Mrongovius, son of Bartholomeus, was born in Hohenstein, Kingdom of Prussia . Mrongovius attended a school in Saalfeld , and then studied at the cathedral school in Königsberg. He matriculated on 21 March 1782 at Königsberg University. During his second semester, he attended Immanuel Kant's metaphysics lectures, followed by theology, logic, anthropology and moral philosophy, and physics.
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