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,
#3651
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.
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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...
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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.
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John Macleod Campbell Crum
1872 - 1958 (86 years)
The Rev. Canon John Macleod Campbell Crum was an Anglican priest, author and hymnwriter. Family and education Crum was born at Mere Old Hall near Knutsford, Cheshire, to William Graham Crum, a calico printer, and Jean Campbell, who were both of Scottish origin. The family later lived at Broxton Old Hall, also in Cheshire. His grandfathers were the chemist Walter Crum and the theologian John McLeod Campbell.
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Constantine von Schäzler
1827 - 1880 (53 years)
Constantine von Schäzler was a German Jesuit theologian. Life By birth and training a Protestant, he was a pupil at the Protestant gymnasium St. Anna of Ratisbon; took the philosophical course at the University of Erlangen in 1844–45; then studied law at Munich, 1845–47, and at Heidelberg, 1847–48. After this he decided to enter military life and became a Bavarian officer; in 1850, however, he left the army, received the degree of Doctor of Laws at Erlangen, and took up the practice of law.
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Festus Hommius
1576 - 1642 (66 years)
Festus Hommius was a Dutch Calvinist theologian. Life He was born in Jelsum, into a noted Frisian family. He studied from 1593 at the University of Franeker under Sibrandus Lubbertus, travelled in 1595 to the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle and completed his studies from 1596 at the University of Leiden. Around 1597 Hommius became preacher of Warmond, near Leiden.
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Ludolph of Saxony
1300 - 1377 (77 years)
Ludolph of Saxony , also known as Ludolphus de Saxonia and Ludolph the Carthusian, was a German Roman Catholic theologian of the fourteenth century. His principal work, first printed in the 1470s, was the Vita Christi . It had significant influence on the development of techniques for Christian meditation by introducing the concept of immersing and projecting oneself into a Biblical scene about the life of Jesus which became popular among the Devotio Moderna community, and later influenced Ignatius of Loyola.
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Nicolas Cop
1501 - 1540 (39 years)
Nicolas Cop , rector of the University of Paris in late 1533, from 10 October 1533, was a Swiss Protestant Reformer and friend of John Calvin. Nicolas Cop and his brother Michel Cop, sons of the king's physician, had become Calvin's friends during their shared time at the Collège de Montaigu. They were sons of Guillaume Cop, a native of Basel who became physician to the king of France, Francis I.
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Arsenie Boca
1910 - 1989 (79 years)
Arsenie Boca was a Romanian priest, theologian, mystic, and artist. He was persecuted by the Romanian Communist Party. Born in Vața de Sus, Hunedoara County, he died at Sinaia Monastery and was buried at in Silvașu de Sus village. In a poll of the Romanian public conducted by Romanian Television in 2006, Boca was voted 79th among 100 Greatest Romanians.
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Henry Goodwin Smith
1860 - 1940 (80 years)
Henry Goodwin Smith was a United States theologian, the son of Henry Boynton Smith. He was pastor of the Freehold Presbyterian Church in 1886-1896, and from 1897 to 1903 was professor of systematic theology in Lane Theological Seminary.
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Guillaume-André-Réné Baston
1741 - 1825 (84 years)
Guillaume-André-René Baston was a French theologian. Life He studied theology at St. Sulpice in Paris and finished his studies at Angers. He was then appointed professor of theology at Rouen. During the French Revolution he wrote against the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Having refused to take the oath, he was obliged to go into exile , first to London, then to Holland, and finally to Coesfeld in Westphalia. In 1803 he returned to Rouen, where he was appointed vicar-general and dean of the chapter by Archbishop Cambacérès. As a Gallican, he won the favor of Napoleon, who appointed him Bishop of Séez , and the chapter of the cathedral accepted him as capitular vicar.
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Jan Długosz
1415 - 1480 (65 years)
Jan Długosz , also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first historian.
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Edward Everett Nourse
1863 - 1929 (66 years)
Edward Everett Nourse, D.D. was an American Congregational theologian. Nourse was born at Bayfield, Wisconsin. He studied at the College and the Academy at Lake Forest, Illinois, at Macalester College in Minnesota, Hartford Theological Seminary , and in Europe at the University of Jena
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Johann Michael Reu
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Johann Michael Reu was a German - American Lutheran theologian, author and educator. Johann Michael Reu was born at Diebach, in Bavaria, Germany. He was the youngest of ten children. His father died when Reu was only two years old. Reu studied from 1887 to 1889 at the nearby Neuendettelsau Mission Institute which had been founded by Wilhelm Loehe in 1841.
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Johannes Alberti
1698 - 1762 (64 years)
Johannes Alberti was a Dutch theologian. Early life Alberti was the son of a flour miller. He did not regularly attend school due to the distance between his parents' house and the local school. However, the miller's apprentice, Jan Mulder, taught the boy to read. He made good progress, and soon the teacher took his student with him to the church. To his amazement, he noticed that the boy kept his attention on the pulpit. When Alberti returned home, his mother asked him if he remembered anything that had been said. He stood upon a wooden crate in the living room, recited the text of the sermon, and declaimed parts of it with such simplicity that his mother had tears in her eyes.
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Henry Owen
1716 - 1795 (79 years)
Henry Owen was a Welsh theologian and biblical scholar. In biblical scholarship he discussed the date of publication and the form and manner of the composition of the four canonical gospel accounts.
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Johannes Bogerman
1576 - 1637 (61 years)
Johannes Bogerman was a Frisian Protestant divine. He was born in Upleward , the son of a preacher. From 1591 onwards, he studied in Franeker, Heidelberg, Geneva, Zürich, Lausanne, Oxford and Cambridge. In 1599, he became pastor in Sneek, 1603 in Enkhuizen and 1604 in Leeuwarden. In 1636, he became professor for theology in Franeker.
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Johann Faber
1478 - 1541 (63 years)
Johann Faber was a Catholic theologian known for his writings opposing the Protestant Reformation and the growing Anabaptist movement. Biography Johann Faber, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Leutkirch, Swabia and studied theology and canon law at Tübingen and Freiburg in the Breisgau region and was made doctor of sacred theology in Freiburg. He eventually became minister of Lindau, Vicar-General of Constance in 1517, Chaplain and confessor to King Ferdinand I of Austria in 1524, and Bishop of Vienna in 1530.
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Marie Huber
1695 - 1753 (58 years)
Marie Huber was a Genevan writer on theology and related subjects, as well as a translator and editor, at a time when it was rare for a female writer to write about theology. Huber was a proponent of universalism, and was considered by some a deist. Her Letters Concerning the Religion Essential to Man are known to have been read, in translation, by Robert Burns.
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Albert Barnes
1798 - 1870 (72 years)
Albert Barnes was an American theologian, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance advocate, and author. Barnes is best known for his extensive Bible commentary and notes on the Old and New Testaments, published in a total of 14 volumes in the 1830s.
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August Weenaas
1835 - 1924 (89 years)
August Weenaas was a Norwegian American Lutheran minister and educator. August Weenaas was the founding President of Augsburg University. Biography August Weenaas was born in Norway and educated in the ministry at the University of Christiania. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of Norway. He served as a pastor there for several years at Loppen prior to immigrating to the United States in 1868. Weenaas resigned his pastorate in the beginning of February 1868. Weenaas became a professor in Paxton, Illinois at the Scandinavian Augustana Synod Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois. In 1869, August Weenaas was named president of Augsburg Seminary.
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William Park Armstrong
1874 - 1944 (70 years)
William Park Armstrong was a theologian and New Testament scholar who is best known for his work at Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography William Park Armstrong was born in Selma, Alabama, the son of William Park and Alice Armstrong and studied at Princeton University, earning his bachelor's degree at the age of 20. He would later earn his M.A. from Princeton and a B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary before studying in Europe. He studied at the German Universities of Marburg, Berlin, and Erlangen, before finally finishing his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1900 he was ordained into the Presbyterian Church .
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Joseph Estlin Carpenter
1844 - 1927 (83 years)
Joseph Estlin Carpenter was an English Unitarian minister, the principal of Manchester College, Oxford. He was an expert in Sanskrit and a pioneer in the study of comparative religion. Biography Carpenter was born in Ripley, Surrey. He was the second son of William Benjamin Carpenter. His grandfather was Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter.
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Thomas Treadwell Stone
1801 - 1895 (94 years)
Thomas Treadwell Stone was an American Unitarian pastor, abolitionist, and Transcendentalist. Life and work Thomas Treadwell Stone was born on February 9, 1801, in Waterford, Maine to Solomon Stone and Hepzibah Treadwell Stone. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Treadwell, served with the Minutemen and was at the battle of Bunker Hill with Colonel William Prescott's regiment. At that time Waterford was an area of new and sparsely populated farmland, and Solomon Stone made his living as a farmer. Thomas attended Bridgton Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820.
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John Trevisa
1342 - 1402 (60 years)
John Trevisa was a Cornish writer and professional translator. Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish of St Enoder in mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a native Cornish speaker. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and became Vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, chaplain to the 5th Lord Berkeley, and Canon of Westbury on Trym.
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John Bale
1495 - 1563 (68 years)
John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being dispersed. His unhappy disposition and habit of quarrelling earned him the nickname "bilious Bale".
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William Edwy Vine
1873 - 1949 (76 years)
William Edwy Vine , commonly known as W. E. Vine, was an English Biblical scholar, theologian, and writer, most famous for Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Life Vine was born in the second quarter of 1873, in Blandford Forum, Dorset. His father ran the Mount Radford School, which moved to Exeter in 1875, and it was in this location that Vine was raised. He became a Christian at an early age and was baptised in the Plymouth Brethren assembly in Fore Street, Exeter. At 17, Vine became a teacher at his father's school, before moving to Aberystwyth to study at the University College of Wales.
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Sixtinus Amama
1593 - 1629 (36 years)
Sixtinus Amama was a Dutch Reformed theologian and orientalist. Amama was among the first to advocate a thorough knowledge of the original languages of the Bible as indispensable to theologians. Life He was born in Franeker, in the Dutch province of Friesland. He studied oriental languages from 1610 at the University of Franeker and then at the University of Oxford, attracted there by John Prideaux. In 1614 he took up also the study of Arabic at the University of Leyden where he made the acquaintance of Thomas Erpenius.
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Friedrich Loofs
1858 - 1928 (70 years)
Friedrich Loofs was a German theologian and church historian best remembered for his studies involving the history of dogma. Biography Loofs studied theology at the universities of Leipzig, Tübingen, and Göttingen, and received his doctorate from Leipzig in 1881. As a student, Adolf von Harnack and Albrecht Ritschl were important influences to his career. From 1888 to 1926 he was a professor of church history at the University of Halle, where in 1907/08 he served as rector. Concurrent with his work at the university, from 1890 to 1925, he held title of Consistorialrat in the city of Magdebu...
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Joseph Schnitzer
1859 - 1939 (80 years)
Joseph Schnitzer was a theologian. He started teaching at Munich University in 1902. Literary works Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Savonarolas, 6 vols., 1902–1914Savonarola, 2 vols., 1924 External links MTA at nyitottegyetem.phil-inst.hu
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Gottlieb Nathaniel Bonwetsch
1848 - 1925 (77 years)
Gottlieb Nathanael Bonwetsch was a Russian-born German Protestant theologian. He was born in Norka, Saratov province in Russia, where his father was pastor. He studied theology in Dorpat, then later in Göttingen and Bonn. In 1878 he published a treatise on the writings of Tertullian, titled Die Schriften Tertullians, nach der Zeit ihrer Abfassung untersucht. In 1881 obtained his doctorate in theology and his first academic position was at Dorpat . He became a full professor of church history at the University of Göttingen in 1891.
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Joseph Rickaby
1845 - 1932 (87 years)
Joseph John Rickaby, SJ was an English Jesuit priest and philosopher. Life Rickaby was born in 1845 in Everingham, York. He received his education at Stonyhurst College, and was ordained in 1877, one of the so-called Stonyhurst Philosophers, along with Richard F. Clarke, Herbert Lucas, and his own brother, John Rickaby. a significant group for neo-scholasticism in England. At the time he was at St Beuno's, he was on friendly terms with Gerard Manley Hopkins; they were ordained on the same day.
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Gotthard Victor Lechler
1811 - 1888 (77 years)
Gotthard Victor Lechler , German Lutheran theologian, was born at Kloster Reichenbach in Württemberg. Biography He studied at the University of Tübingen under Ferdinand Christian Baur, and later on, served as a deacon in the towns of Waiblingen and Knittlingen. In 1858 he became a pastor at the church of St Thomas and professor ordinarius of historical theology at the University of Leipzig.
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Anthony Tuckney
1599 - 1670 (71 years)
Anthony Tuckney was an English Puritan theologian and scholar. Life Anthony Tuckney was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a fellow there from 1619 to 1630. He was town preacher at Boston, Lincolnshire from 1629 and in 1633, succeeded John Cotton as vicar of St Botolph's Church, Boston.
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Girolamo Seripando
1493 - 1563 (70 years)
Girolamo Seripando was an Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal. Life He was of noble birth, and intended by his parents for the legal profession. After their death, however, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Augustinian Order, at Viterbo, where he studied Greek and Hebrew as well as philosophy and theology.
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Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack
1738 - 1817 (79 years)
Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was Prussian theologian, court preacher, and Church governor. Life Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was born in Magdeburg in the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg on 4 September 1738, the eldest son of August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack by his second wife. His mother was descended of a French refugee family, which explains a fondness which Sack had for the French language and literature.
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Povilas Jakubėnas
1871 - 1953 (82 years)
Povilas Jakubėnas was a Lithuanian Calvinist clergyman, general superintendent of the Lithuanian branch of the Reformed Church during the interbellum, professor of theology, Lithuanian book smuggler during his student times.
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Elmore Harris
1855 - 1911 (56 years)
Elmore Harris was a Canadian Baptist pastor. He was the founder of the Walmer Road Baptist Church and one of the founders of Toronto Bible Training School in 1894 which soon changed its name to Toronto Bible College .
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Luis Galiana y Cervera
1740 - 1771 (31 years)
Luis Galiana y Cervera was a Spanish Dominican theologian, philologist and writer. Early life Luis Galiana y Cervera was born on 8 June 1740 in Ontinyent, Spain, the son of a prominent physician. At the age of 16 he joined the Dominican Order and became part of the Convent of Saint John and of Saint Vincent of Ontinyent. His superiors sent him to study philosophy and theology at a school in Orihuela, where he was noted both for his intellect and for his moral virtues.
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Sylvester Mazzolini
1456 - 1523 (67 years)
Sylvester Mazzolini, in Italian Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio, in Latin Sylvester Prierias , was a theologian born at Priero, Piedmont; he died at Rome. Prierias perished when the imperial troops forced their way into the city, leading to the Sack of Rome.
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Francis Atterbury
1663 - 1732 (69 years)
Francis Atterbury was an English man of letters, politician and bishop. A High Church Tory and Jacobite, he gained patronage under Queen Anne, but was mistrusted by the Hanoverian Whig ministries, and banished for communicating with the Old Pretender in the Atterbury Plot. He was a noted wit and a gifted preacher.
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William of Auvergne
1180 - 1249 (69 years)
William of Auvergne was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy.
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Johan Lunde
1866 - 1938 (72 years)
Johan Peter Lunde was a Norwegian theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Oslo. Biography Lunde was born at Lillehammer, Norway. He was the son of Knud Truls Wiel Lunde and Mariane Sophie Brun . Lunde graduated artium in 1883. He studied theology at the University of Kristiania and became cand.theol. in 1890. He first worked as a teacher before he was ordained at Kristiansand in 1897. In 1900, Lunde became a parish priest in Bygland. In 1906, Lunde became the resident chapel and in 1910 parish priest at St. Johannes Church in Stavanger. In 1920 he moved to Kristiania and became a parish priest at Gamlebyen.
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Gustav Adolf Wislicenus
1803 - 1875 (72 years)
Gustav Adolf Wislicenus was a German theologian, one of the leaders of the Free Congregations. Biography He studied theology at Halle, and as member of the Burschenschaft was sentenced in 1824 to twelve years' confinement in a fortress. He was pardoned in 1829 and continued his studies in Berlin. In 1841 he became pastor at Halle, and became associated with the Friends of Light, and in consequence of a lecture delivered at Köthen in 1844, was deprived of his pastorate in 1846. He then a became a preacher of the free congregation at Halle.
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Cuthbert
635 - 687 (52 years)
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September .
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Nicholas of Clémanges
1363 - 1437 (74 years)
Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges was a French humanist and theologian. He studied in the Collège de Navarre, University of Paris, and in 1380 received the degree of Licentiate, and then later received a Master of Arts. He studied theology under Jean Gerson and Pierre d'Ailly, and received the degree of Bachelor of Theology in 1393.
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Humphry Ditton
1675 - 1715 (40 years)
Humphry Ditton was an English mathematician. He was the author of several influential works. Life Ditton was born on 29 May 1675 in Salisbury, the only son of Humphry Ditton, gentleman and ardent nonconformist, and Miss Luttrell of Dunster Castle, near Taunton. He studied theology privately, and was for some time also a dissenting minister, at Tonbridge, where he married a Miss Ball.
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Heinz Brunotte
1896 - 1984 (88 years)
Arnold August Heinz Brunotte was a German Lutheran theologian. From 1949 to 1965 Brunotte was President of the Church Chancellery of the Evangelical Church in Germany . Career Heinz Brunotte attended the Leibniz Reform Gymnasium in Hanover. From 1919 to 1922 Brunotte studied Protestant Theology at the Universities of Marburg, Tübingen and Göttingen. This was followed by two years of study at the Loccum preacher seminar. This was followed by work as a pastor in Loccum. In autumn 1926 he was one of the founders of the Deins conference. From it emerged in 1929 the Hanoverian Young Evangelical Co...
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Guglielmo Audisio
1802 - 1882 (80 years)
Guglielmo Audisio was an Italian Catholic priest and writer. Life Guglielmo Audisio was born January 27, 1802, and graduated with degrees in philosophy and theology from the University of Turin. After teaching for four years in the seminary of Bra, in 1837 he was appointed by King Carlo Alberto, Dean of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Superga, where he taught sacred eloquence, moral theology, canon law and institutions of Roman law. He was expelled from this office because he was opposed to the Piedmontese Government. Audisio was a fervent upholder of papal and Catholic rights against the polit...
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Thomas Erskine
1788 - 1870 (82 years)
Thomas Erskine of Linlathen was a Scottish advocate and lay theologian in the early part of the 19th century. With his friend the Reverend John McLeod Campbell he attempted a revision of Calvinism.
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