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,
#3951
Jacques Almain
1480 - 1515 (35 years)
Jacques Almain was a French professor of theology at the University of Paris who died at an early age. Born in the diocese of Sens, he studied Arts at the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris. He served as Rector of the University from December 1507 to March 1508.
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Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem
1709 - 1789 (80 years)
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem was a German Lutheran theologian during the Age of Enlightenment. He was also known as "Abt Jerusalem". He was court-preacher and a major advisor to Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to whom he suggested the foundation of the Collegium Carolinum in 1745 - this was the forerunner of the present-day TU Braunschweig. He also had a strong influence on the Duchy of Brunswick's educational policy as well as becoming one of the most important German theologians of his era.
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Antonio Ballerini
1805 - 1881 (76 years)
Antonio Ballerini was an Italian Jesuit theologian. Biography Ballerini was born in Medicina, in what is now the Province of Bologna. He entered the Society of Jesus, on 13 October 1826. He was professor of philosophy at Ferentino, of ecclesiastical history at Rome and at Fermo, of moral theology at the Roman College.
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Georg Joachim Zollikofer
1730 - 1788 (58 years)
Georg Joachim Zollikofer was a Swiss-German theologian who popularized Enlightenment theology, and published several books of sermons and hymns. Life Georg Joachim Zollikofer was born on 5 August 1730 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. His father, David Anthony Zollikofer, was a prominent lawyer. His mother was Anna Elisabeth Högger. He was educated at the St. Gallen gymnasium, then studied at Bremen and afterwards at the Utrecht University with a view to becoming a minister. After leaving university he was given a position as a preacher at Murten, Vaud in 1754. Soon after he was appointed to a larger church at Monsheim, Rheinhessen, and then to a church in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt am Main.
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Charles de Condren
1588 - 1641 (53 years)
Charles de Condren, Cong. Orat., a Doctor of the Sorbonne , was a French mystic of the 17th century, and is considered a leading member of the French School of Spirituality. Early life Condren was born on 15 December 1588 in Vauxbuin, near Soissons. His father, governor of the royal castle of Piles near Meaux, had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism. He sought to instill in his son an attraction for military life, and had the boy outfitted with a military uniform when still very young. Charles was tutored by M. le Masson, a canon of Soissons, and displayed a remarkable memory even at a...
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Richard Adelbert Lipsius
1830 - 1892 (62 years)
Richard Adelbert Lipsius was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Richard Adelbert Lipsius was the son of K. H. A. Lipsius , who was rector of the school of St. Thomas at Leipzig, was born at Gera on 14 February 1830. He studied at Leipzig, and eventually settled at Jena as professor ordinaries. He helped to found the "Evangelical Protestant Missionary Union" and the "Evangelical Alliance", and from 1874 took an active part in their management. He died at Jena on 19 August 1892.
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Harrison S. Elliot
1882 - 1951 (69 years)
Harrison Sacket Elliott was an ordained Methodist minister and taught at Union Theological Seminary from 1922 to 1950. His interest in the interplay of psychology, group dynamics, democratic thinking, and liberal theology found expression in his leadership in the Y.M.C.A., ecumenical agencies, the Religious Education Association, and Union Theological Seminary. Elliot was born in St. Clairsville, Ohio.
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Mirza Rida Quli Shari'at-Sanglaji
1892 - 1944 (52 years)
Ayatollah Muhammad Hassan Mirza Rida Quli , known as Shari'at-Sanglaji , was an Iranian reformer, theologian, philosopher, and scholar. He was an opponent of Ruhollah Khomeini. He was considered a Qurʾan-oriented Scholar or Qurʾanist among Iranian Shias. He was the theologian who, unlike the majority of Shia Scholars, called for Ijtihad, and rejected Taqleed. Sangalli was a preacher in the Sepahsalar Mosque. He publicly declared that Shiaism required reformation. Besides, he preached that Islam is not against modernity.
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Albert Stöckl
1823 - 1895 (72 years)
Albert Stöckl was a German neo-scholastic philosopher and theologian. Biography He received his classical education at the gymnasium at Eichstädt, studied philosophy and theology at the episcopal lyceum in the same city , and was ordained priest 22 April 1848. His first position was that of curate at the pilgrimage church at Wemding.
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Edmund Pfleiderer
1842 - 1902 (60 years)
Edmund Pfleiderer was a German philosopher and theologian. He entered the ministry and during the Franco-Prussian War served as army chaplain, an experience described in his eines feldgeistlichen im kriege 1870/71 . He was afterwards appointed professor ordinarius of philosophy at Kiel , and in 1878 he was elected to the philosophical chair at Tübingen. He published works on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, empiricism and scepticism in David Hume's philosophy, modern pessimism, Kantian criticism, English philosophy, Heraclitus of Ephesus and many other subjects.
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Karl Eschweiler
1886 - 1936 (50 years)
Karl Eschweiler was an academic Catholic theologian in Germany, who, as a so-called brown priest, publicly promoted cooperation and reconciliation between the church and the Nazi regime from 1933 onwards. He believed that a dictatorship would benefit the church, as it would stem the tide of secularist modernism that he saw as eroding the church’s authority.
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Marco Antonio de Dominis
1560 - 1624 (64 years)
Marco Antonio de Dominis was a Dalmatian ecclesiastic, archbishop of Split and Primate of Dalmatia and all Croatia, adjudged heretic of the Catholic faith, polymath and man of science. Early life He was born on the island of Rab , off the coast of Dalmatia, in a noble family of Dalmatian origin. Educated at the Illyrian College at Loreto and at the University of Padua, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1579 and taught mathematics, logic, and rhetoric at Padua and Brescia, Italy.
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Henri-Charles Lambrecht
1848 - 1889 (41 years)
Henri-Charles-Camille Lambrecht was 23rd bishop of Ghent between 1888 and 1889. Born in a small town near Oudenaarde, Lambrecht was educated in the local school. After his studies in St. Joseph Minor Seminary and the Major Seminary of Ghent, he became Doctor of Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, where he also taught. He was appointed to a canonry of St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, and served as Vicar General in 1880–1886, when he became coadjutor bishop to Henricus Franciscus Bracq.
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Caelestius
380 - 500 (120 years)
Caelestius was the major follower of the Christian teacher Pelagius and the Christian doctrine of Pelagianism, which was opposed to Augustine of Hippo and his doctrine in original sin, and was later declared to be heresy.
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Johann Ruchrat von Wesel
1425 - 1481 (56 years)
Johann Ruchrat von Wesel was a German Scholastic theologian. He objected to the system of indulgences, and has been called a "reformer before the Reformation". He was born at Oberwesel early in the 15th century. He appears to have been one of the leaders of the humanist movement in Germany, and to have had some intercourse and sympathy with the leaders of the Hussites in Bohemia.
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John Pearson
1613 - 1686 (73 years)
John Pearson was an English theologian and scholar. Life He was born at Great Snoring, Norfolk. From Eton College he passed to Queens' College, Cambridge, and was elected a scholar of King's College, Cambridge in April 1632, and a fellow in 1634. On taking orders in 1639 he was collated to the Salisbury prebend of Nether-Avon. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-keeper Finch, by whom he was presented to the living of Thorington in Suffolk. In the Civil War he acted as chaplain to George Goring's forces in the west. In 1654 he was made weekly preacher at St Clement's, Eastcheap, in L...
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Tancred of Bologna
1185 - 1236 (51 years)
Tancred of Bologna or of Germany , commonly just Tancredus, was a Dominican preacher and canonist. He is easily conflated with a contemporary Dominican, Tancred Tancredi, and the two are sometimes indistinguishable in the sources and have been treated as one person, though this is known to be false.
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Gustav Friedrich Oehler
1812 - 1872 (60 years)
Gustav Friedrich Oehler was a German theologian. Biography He was born at Ebingen, Württemberg, and was educated privately and at the University of Tübingen where he was much influenced by J. C. F. Steudel, professor of Old Testament theology. In 1837, after a term of Oriental study at Berlin, he went to Tübingen as tutor , becoming in 1840 professor at the seminary and pastor in Schönthal.
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Robert Baillie
1602 - 1662 (60 years)
Robert Baillie was a Church of Scotland minister who became famous as an author and a propagandist for the Covenanters. In Baillie's engagement with the theological and liturgical controversies of the mid-Seventeenth Century, Baillie sought to reconcile his strong belief in maintaining Kirk unity with a firm adherence to a Christian doctrine dictated by the divine 'truth' revealed in Scripture.
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Henry Preserved Smith
1847 - 1927 (80 years)
Henry Preserved Smith was an American biblical scholar. Smith was born in Troy, Ohio. He graduated at Amherst College in 1869 and studied theology in Lane Theological Seminary in 1869–1872, in Berlin in 1872–1874 and in Leipzig in 1876–1877. He was instructor in church history in 1874–1875, and in Hebrew in 1875–1876, and was assistant-professor in 1877-1879 and professor in 1879-1893 of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis in Lane Theological Seminary.
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Juan Cardenas
1613 - 1684 (71 years)
Juan Cardenas was a Spanish Jesuit moral theologian and author. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of fourteen, and during many years held in it the office of rector, master of novices, and provincial.
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Louis Tronchin
1629 - 1705 (76 years)
Louis Tronchin was a Genevan Calvinist theologian and the son of Théodore Tronchin. Life He studied at the Protestant Academy of Saumur under Moses Amyraut, whose "hypothetical universalism" had been vehemently contested by Tronchin the elder; he became pastor of the congregation of Lyons in 1656; and professor of theology at the Genevan Academy in 1661, in which position he represented the liberal trend and advocated tolerance. In 1669 he demanded the abolition of the oath that was imposed on all candidates [in theology], not to attempt any innovations in the Calvinist doctrine.
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Christian Friedrich Illgen
1786 - 1844 (58 years)
Christian Friedrich Illgen was a German Protestant theologian, known for his work in the field of historical theology. Illgen was born in Chemnitz. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig, where in 1814 he obtained his habilitation. In 1818 he became an associate professor of philosophy, and several years later, an associate professor of theology. From 1825 onward, he served as a full professor of theology at the University of Leipzig. On four occasions he was dean to the faculty of theology .
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Optatus
400 - 397 (-3 years)
Saint Optatus, sometimes anglicized as St. Optate, was Bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, in the fourth century, remembered for his writings against Donatism. Biography and context St. Augustine suggests that Optatus was a convert: "Do we not see with how great a booty of gold and silver and garments Cyprian, doctor suavissimus, came forth out of Egypt, and likewise Lactantius, Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary?" .
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Henry Denifle
1844 - 1905 (61 years)
Henry Denifle, in German Heinrich Seuse Denifle , was an Austrian paleographer and historian.
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Ransom Dunn
1818 - 1900 (82 years)
Rev. Ransom Dunn, D.D. was an American minister and theologian, prominent in the early Free Will Baptist movement in New England. He was President of Rio Grande College in Ohio, and Hillsdale College in Michigan. A Discourse on the Freedom of the Will is one of his most notable works.
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Saint Christopher
300 - 251 (-49 years)
Saint Christopher is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius , or alternatively under the emperor Maximinus Daia . There appears to be confusion due to the similarity in names "Decius" and "Daia". Churches and monasteries were named after him by the 7th century.
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Johann Gottfried Hoche
1762 - 1836 (74 years)
Johann Gottfried Hoche was a German Protestant theologian and historian. He was the father of writer Louise Aston . He studied history and theology at the University of Halle, where his instructors included Johann Salomo Semler and Johann August Nösselt. In 1800 he was named second clergyman in the town of Gröningen, near Halberstadt. In 1805 he attained the positions of senior minister and superintendent, and soon afterwards, was appointed to the consistory in Halberstadt. Following the dissolution of Halberstadt consistory in 1816, he was offered a position in Magdeburg, but chose to remain...
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Emanuel Hirsch
1888 - 1972 (84 years)
Emanuel Hirsch was a German Protestant theologian and also a member of the Nazi Party and the Nazi supporting body. He escaped denazification at the end of the war by quitting his professorship, allegedly for health reasons, losing the pension from his University.
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Joseph Parker
1830 - 1902 (72 years)
Joseph Parker was an English Congregational minister. Life Born in Hexham, Northumberland, Parker was the son of Teasdale Parker, a stonemason, and Elizabeth . He managed to pick up a fair education, which afterwards he constantly supplemented. In the revolutionary years from 1845 to 1850 young Parker as a local preacher and temperance orator gained a reputation for vigorous utterance. He was influenced by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, and Edward Miall, the Liberationistist, and was much associated with Joseph Cowen, afterwards MP for Newcastle upon Tyne.
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Nicholas Eymerich
1320 - 1399 (79 years)
Nicholas Eymerich was a Roman Catholic theologian in Medieval Catalonia and Inquisitor General of the Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon in the later half of the 14th century. He is best known for authoring the Directorium Inquisitorum, that mostly summarized previous texts and mores.
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Louise Pettibone Smith
1887 - 1981 (94 years)
Louise Pettibone Smith was an American biblical scholar, professor, translator, author and social activist. She was the first woman published in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 1917. She later became chair of the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born and denounced the House Un-American Activities Committee for its "McCarthyism".
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Christian Friedrich Fritzsche
1776 - 1850 (74 years)
Christian Friedrich Fritzsche was a German Protestant theologian. He was the father of theologian Otto Fridolinus Fritzsche and of philologist Franz Volkmar Fritzsche. From 1792 he studied theology at the University of Halle, afterwards working as a pastor in Steinbach und Lauterbach . In 1809 he became a preacher and superintendent in the community of Dobrilugk. In 1827 he was named an honorary professor of theology at Halle, where in 1830 he gained a full professorship. He was interested in public school education, and he wrote monographs and articles on contemporary theological issues from...
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Abraham Heidanus
1597 - 1678 (81 years)
Abraham van Heyden or van Heiden was a Dutch Calvinist minister and controversialist, sympathetic to Cartesianism. Life He was born in Frankenthal in the Palatinate, son of Gaspar van der Heiden the Younger, a Reformed minister and Counter-Remonstrant who moved to Amsterdam in 1608. Abraham studied theology at the University of Leiden from 1617, travelled to Heidelberg, Geneva and Paris, and was influenced by Ramism and Jean Daillé. He returned to an appointment as minister in Naarden in 1623, moving to Leiden in 1627.
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Gustav Georg Zeltner
1672 - 1738 (66 years)
Gustav Georg Zeltner was a Lutheran theologian. Zeltner wrote numerous theological and historical writings. Life From 1689 to 1694 he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Jena. In 1695 he assumed the position of inspector of the alumni in Altdorf. In 1698 he moved to Nuremberg and worked as a vicar and as a professor of metaphysics at the Aegidianum. Two years later he was appointed deacon at St. Sebaldus Church, Nuremberg.
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Johann Gramann
1487 - 1541 (54 years)
Johann Gramann or Graumann , also known by his pen name Johannes Poliander, was a German pastor, theologian, teacher, humanist, reformer, and Lutheran leader. Life Gramann was born in Neustadt an der Aisch, Middle Franconia. He worked as rector of the Thomasschule in Leipzig. Poliander was Johann Eck's secretary at the 1519 Leipzig Debate, where he met Martin Luther and joined the Protestant Reformation. Poliander became pastor of Altstadt Church in 1525 in Königsberg , capital of the new Duchy of Prussia , succeeding the fiery Johannes Amandus. The humanist was well-regarded by his peers, including the Catholic Johannes Dantiscus.
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Tommaso Martinelli
1827 - 1888 (61 years)
Tommaso Maria Martinelli was a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Prefect of the Congregation of Rites. Tommaso Martinelli was born in the parish of Sant'Anna, Lucca as the son of Cosma Martinelli and Maddalena Pardini. He was the brother of Cardinal Sebastiano Martinelli.
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Gottfried von Hagenau
1270 - 1313 (43 years)
Gottfried von Hagenau was a medieval priest, physician, theologian and poet from Alsace. As his name suggests, he was probably born in Haguenau, before 1275. After having studied medicine and theology in Strasbourg and in Paris, he worked as a headmaster in Basel, Switzerland, before settling as a physician in Strasbourg, where he applied for the post of canon at the St Thomas' Church. He was at first rejected but successfully sued against that decision before the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, and was instated as canon of St Thomas' Church in 1300. He died on 26 September 1313 and is buried in the church, where his ornate Gothic ledger stone is preserved to this day.
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Bartholomaeus Arnoldi
1465 - 1532 (67 years)
Bartholomaeus Arnoldi was an Augustinian friar and doctor of divinity who taught Martin Luther and later turned into his earliest and one of his personally closest opponents. Life Usually called Usingen, after his birthplace, Arnoldi received his master's degree in 1491 and was promoted to the doctorate of divinity in 1514. For thirty years he filled the chairs of philosophy and theology at Erfurt University, and, with Jodocus Trutfetter, was its leading teacher. He enjoyed the favour of the younger humanists.
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John Vidmar
1900 - Present (126 years)
John C. Vidmar, O.P. is an associate professor of history at Providence College, Rhode Island where he also serves as provincial archivist and teaches history. Prior to his work at Providence, he served as associate professor, academic dean, acting president and prior teaching history for 15 years at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C.
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Willem Baudartius
1565 - 1640 (75 years)
Willem Baudaert or Wilhelmus Baudartius , born Willem Baudart, was a Dutch theologian. Baudartius College, a Christian secondary school in Zutphen, is named after him. He was the maternal grandfather of Dutch New Netherland colonist and mayor of New York City Wilhelmus Beekman.
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Ambrose of Alexandria
200 - 251 (51 years)
Ambrose of Alexandria was a friend of the Christian theologian Origen. Ambrose was attracted by Origen's fame as a teacher, and visited the Catechetical School of Alexandria in 212. At first a gnostic Valentinian and Marcionist, Ambrose, through Origen's teaching, eventually rejected this theology and became Origen's constant companion, and was ordained deacon. He plied Origen with questions, and urged him to write his Commentaries on the books of the Bible, and, as a wealthy nobleman and courtier, he provided his teacher with books for his studies and secretaries to lighten the labor of co...
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Daniel Waterland
1683 - 1740 (57 years)
Daniel Waterland was an English theologian. He became Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1714, Chancellor of the Diocese of York in 1722, and Archdeacon of Middlesex in 1730. Waterland opposed the latitudinarians of his time. He was an acute controversialist on behalf of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, on which he wrote several treatises. He was also the author of a History of the Athanasian Creed .
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Martin of Cochem
1634 - 1712 (78 years)
Martin of Cochem was a German Capuchin theologian, preacher, and ascetic writer. Life He came from a Catholic family, and while still young entered the novitiate of the Capuchins. After his ordination to the priesthood, he was assigned to a professorship of theology.
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Ernest Barnes
1874 - 1953 (79 years)
Ernest William Barnes was a British mathematician and scientist who later became a liberal theologian and bishop. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was Master of the Temple from 1915 to 1919. He was made Bishop of Birmingham in 1924, the only bishop appointed during Ramsay MacDonald's first term in office. His modernist views, in particular objection to Reservation, led to conflict with the Anglo-Catholics in his diocese. A biography by his son, Sir John Barnes, Ahead of His Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham, was published in 1979.
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Honoré Jozef Coppieters
1874 - 1947 (73 years)
Honoré Jozef Coppieters was a Belgian prelate who became, in 1927, the Bishop of Ghent. Life Honoré Jozef Coppieters was born at Overmere in East Flanders, the eldest son of Benedictus Coppieters and Maria Sidonia Verstraeten. His father was a farmer.
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Konrad Wimpina
1460 - 1531 (71 years)
Konrad Wimpina was a German Roman Catholic theologian and humanist of the early Reformation period. He was a quiet and stubborn conservative, considered quiet but somewhat narrow. In theology he was a pupil of Martin Polich of Mellerstadt and a Thomist.
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Hans Gerhard Stub
1849 - 1931 (82 years)
Hans Gerhard Stub was an American Lutheran theologian and church leader. He served as Bishop of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. Background Hans Gerhard Stub was born in Muskego, Wisconsin. His parents were Lutheran Pastor Hans Andreas Stub and Ingeborg Margrethe Arentz , both immigrants from Norway. Hans Stub was born in an immigrant cabin in Wisconsin. He was shaped from childhood by the life within the Norwegian Synod, which his father had help found in 1853. He studied for a time in Norway at the Bergen Cathedral School.
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Rowland Williams
1817 - 1870 (53 years)
Rowland Williams was a Welsh theologian and educationalist. He was vice-principal and Professor of Hebrew at St David's College, Lampeter, from 1849 to 1862 and one of the most influential theologians of the nineteenth century. He supported biblical criticism and pioneered comparative religious studies in Britain. He was also a priest in the Church of England, and the vicar of Broad Chalke in Wiltshire, where he is buried. Williams is also credited with introducing rugby football to Wales; Lampeter's team was the first to be established in the nation.
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Carl Clemen
1865 - 1940 (75 years)
Carl Christian Clemen , best known as Carl Clemen, was a German theologian and religious historian. He was a member of the history of religions school. Career Clemen was Professor of New Testament and religious history at the University of Bonn. He was a critic of the Christ myth theory and refuted the arguments of Arthur Drews, Peter Jensen and other mythicists. He was also critical of the ideas of Anthroposophy and Theosophy.
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