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,
#4501
Theodosius Harnack
1817 - 1889 (72 years)
Theodosius Andreas Harnack was a Baltic German theologian. A professor of Divinity, he started his career as a Privatdozent for church history and homiletics at the University of Dorpat in 1843, he was further appointed university preacher in 1847. Since 1848 he held an ordinary chair as professor for practical and systematic theology. Between 1853 and 1866 Harnack was professor at Frederick Alexander University in Erlangen, Bavaria, German Confederation .
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Pasquier Quesnel
1634 - 1719 (85 years)
Pasquier Quesnel, CO was a French Jansenist theologian. Life Quesnel was born in Paris, and, after graduating from the Sorbonne with distinction in 1653, he joined the French Oratory in 1657. There he soon became prominent; he took a leading part in scholarly controversy, for example against Joseph Anthelmi.
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Kurt Scharf
1902 - 1990 (88 years)
Kurt Scharf was a German clergyman and bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. Life Kurt Scharf was born in Landsberg an der Warthe in the Prussian Province of Brandenburg . After completing his Abitur he studied Protestant theology in Berlin and was a member of the Studentenverbindung Verein Deutscher Studenten Berlin . In the 1930s he worked as a pastor for the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union in Sachsenhausen, a locality of Oranienburg and as such had occasional opportunities to tend to the inmates of the homonymous concentration camp there.
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Johann Peter Lange
1802 - 1884 (82 years)
Johann Peter Lange , was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin. Biography He was born at Sonnborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lücke, held several pastorates, and eventually settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the Coblence Consistory of the old-Prussian Rhenish Ecclesiastical Province.
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Clement of Ohrid
840 - 916 (76 years)
Saint Clement or Kliment of Ohrid was one of the first medieval Bulgarian saints, scholar, writer, and apostle to the Slavs. He was one of the most prominent disciples of Cyril and Methodius and is often associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, especially their popularisation among Christianised Slavs. He was the founder of the Ohrid Literary School and is regarded as a patron of education and language by some Slavic people. He is considered to be the first bishop of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, one of the Seven Apostles of Bulgarian Orthodox Church since the 10th century, and one of the premier saints of modern Bulgaria.
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Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
1490 - 1573 (83 years)
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda was a Spanish humanist, philosopher, and theologian of the Spanish Renaissance. He is mainly known for his participation in a famous debate with Bartolomé de las Casas in Valladolid, Spain, in 1550–1551. The debate centered on the legitimacy of the conquest and colonization of America by the Spanish Empire and on the treatment of the Native Americans. The main philosophical referents of Ginés de Sepúlveda were Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Roman law and Christian theology. These influences allowed him to argue for the cultural superiority and domination of the Spani...
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Peter Martyr Vermigli
1499 - 1562 (63 years)
Peter Martyr Vermigli was an Italian-born Reformed theologian. His early work as a reformer in Catholic Italy and his decision to flee for Protestant northern Europe influenced many other Italians to convert and flee as well. In England, he influenced the Edwardian Reformation, including the Eucharistic service of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. He was considered an authority on the Eucharist among the Reformed churches, and engaged in controversies on the subject by writing treatises. Vermigli's Loci Communes, a compilation of excerpts from his biblical commentaries organised by the topics o...
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Constantin von Tischendorf
1815 - 1874 (59 years)
Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a German biblical scholar. In 1844, he discovered the world's oldest and most complete Bible dated to around the mid-4th century and called Codex Sinaiticus after Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, where Tischendorf discovered it.
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Karl Friedrich Bahrdt
1741 - 1792 (51 years)
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt , also spelled Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, was an unorthodox German Protestant biblical scholar, theologian, and polemicist. Controversial during his day, he is sometimes considered an "enfant terrible" and one of the most immoral characters in German learning.
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John Murray
1741 - 1815 (74 years)
John Murray was one of the founders of the Universalist denomination in the United States, a pioneer minister and an inspirational figure. Early life He was born in Alton, Hampshire , in England on December 10, 1741. His father was an Anglican and his mother a Presbyterian, both strict Calvinists, and his home life was attended by religious severity. In 1751 the family settled near Cork, Ireland. In 1760 Murray returned to England and joined George Whitefield's congregation; but embracing, somewhat later, the Universalistic teachings of Welsh minister James Relly he was excommunicated. In 177...
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Gabriel Biel
1418 - 1495 (77 years)
Gabriel Biel was a German scholastic philosopher and member of the Canons Regular of the Congregation of Windesheim, who were the clerical counterpart to the Brethren of the Common Life. Biel was born in Speyer and died in Einsiedel near Tübingen. In 1432 he was ordained to the priesthood and entered Heidelberg University to obtain a baccalaureate. He succeeded academically and became an instructor in the faculty of the arts for three years, until he pursued a higher degree at the University of Erfurt. His first stay was brief, lasting only until he transferred to the University of Cologne. He did not complete his degree there either, and would return to Erfurt in 1451 to finish.
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Catherine of Alexandria
287 - 305 (18 years)
Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early fourth century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity and was martyred around the age of eighteen. More than 1,100 years after Catherine's martyrdom, Joan of Arc identified her as one of the saints who appeared to and counselled her.
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Karl Josef von Hefele
1809 - 1893 (84 years)
Karl Josef von Hefele was a Roman Catholic bishop and theologian of Germany. Biography Hefele was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg and was educated at Tübingen, where in 1839 he became professor-ordinary of Church history and patristics in the Roman Catholic faculty of theology, while collaborating along with William Robinson Clark to his major work.
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August Hlond
1881 - 1948 (67 years)
August Hlond, SDB was a Polish Salesian prelate who served as Archbishop of Poznań and Gniezno and as Primate of Poland. He was later appointed as Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw and was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1927.
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Abu Hasan al-Ash'ari
873 - 935 (62 years)
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī , often reverently referred to as Imām al-Ashʿarī by Sunnī Muslims, was a Muslim scholar of Shafi jurisprudence, scriptural exegete, reformer , and scholastic theologian , renowned for being the eponymous founder of the Ashʿarite school of Islamic theology.
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John A. Mackay
1889 - 1983 (94 years)
John A. Mackay was a Presbyterian theologian, missionary, and educator. He was a strong advocate of the Ecumenical Movement and World Christianity. Early life and education John A. Mackay was born on May 17, 1889, in Inverness, Scotland, the eldest of five children. The family attended the Free Presbyterian Church, a very small denomination. At the age of 14 at a communion service at Rogart, Scotland, Mackay had a profound religious experience that influenced the remainder of his life.
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Johann Georg Walch
1693 - 1775 (82 years)
Johann Georg Walch was a German Lutheran theologian. Life He was born in Meiningen, where his father, Georg Walch, was general superintendent. He studied at Leipzig and Jena, amongst his teachers being J. F. Buddeus, whose only daughter he married. He published in 1716 a work, Historia critica Latinae linguae, which soon came into wide use. Two years later he became professor extraordinarius of philosophy at Jena. In 1719, he was appointed professor ordinarius of rhetoric, in 1721 of poetry, and in 1724 professor extraordinarius of theology. In 1728 he became professor ordinarius of theology...
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Karl Hase
1800 - 1890 (90 years)
Karl August von Hase was a German Protestant theologian and church historian. Background He was born at Steinbach in Saxony. He studied at Leipzig and Erlangen, and in 1829 was called to Jena as professor of theology. He retired in 1883 and was made a baron. He was the great-grandfather of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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Frédéric Auguste Lichtenberger
1832 - 1899 (67 years)
Frédéric Auguste Lichtenberger was a French theologian. Biography He obtained his degree in theology, and was made professor at the University of Strasbourg . In 1877 he was appointed professor in the newly founded Protestant faculty at Paris, of which he also became dean. In 1896, he received a D.D. from the University of Glasgow.
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Charles de Foucauld
1858 - 1916 (58 years)
Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand, PFJ was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus, among other religious congregations. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2022.
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Leslie Weatherhead
1893 - 1976 (83 years)
Leslie Dixon Weatherhead was an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition. Weatherhead was noted for his preaching ministry at City Temple in London and for his books, including The Will of God, The Christian Agnostic, and Psychology, Religion, and Healing.
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Eusebius of Emesa
295 - 360 (65 years)
Eusebius of Emesa was a learned Christian cleric of the Greek church, and a pupil of Eusebius of Caesarea. He was born in Edessa and became the bishop of Emesa . The Latin form of his name is Eusebius Emesenus.
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Shah Waliullah Dehlawi
1703 - 1762 (59 years)
Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-ur-Rahim al-ʿUmari ad-Dehlawi , commonly known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi , was an Islamic Sunni scholar and Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who is seen by his followers as a renewer. He emphasized the importance of following Sharia and believed in the unification of Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of law, aiming to reduce legal differences.
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Louis-Nazaire Bégin
1840 - 1925 (85 years)
Louis-Nazaire Bégin was a Canadian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. Begin held a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was later appointed Archbishop of Quebec by Pope Leo XIII and created cardinal by Pope Pius X .
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Paul Petter Waldenström
1838 - 1917 (79 years)
Paul Petter Waldenström was a Swedish lecturer, priest in the Church of Sweden and theologian, member of the Riksdag, and writer, who became the most prominent leader of the free church movement in late 19th-century Sweden.
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Johann Tobias Beck
1804 - 1878 (74 years)
Johann Tobias Beck was a German theologian. Biography Graduating from the University of Tübingen in 1826, he was ordained a minister, but later accepted an appointment as professor of theology at the University of Basel. In 1843 he went to Tübingen, where he filled the same position.
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Walter Bauer
1877 - 1960 (83 years)
Walter Bauer was a German theologian, lexicographer of New Testament Greek, and scholar of the development of Early Christianity. Life Bauer was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, and raised in Marburg, where his father was a professor. He studied theology at the universities of Marburg, Strassburg, and Berlin. Bauer taught at Breslau and Göttingen, where he later died.
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Ebenezer Erskine
1680 - 1754 (74 years)
Ebenezer Erskine was a Scottish minister whose actions led to the establishment of the Secession Church . Early life Ebenezer's father, Henry Erskine, served as minister at Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, but was ejected in 1662 under the Act of Uniformity and imprisoned for several years. Ebenezer and his brother Ralph were both born during this difficult period in their father's life. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 Henry was appointed to the parish of Chirnside, Berwickshire.
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Johannes Cocceius
1603 - 1669 (66 years)
Johannes Cocceius was a Dutch theologian born in Bremen. Life After studying at Hamburg and the University of Franeker, where Sixtinus Amama was one of his teachers, he became in 1630 professor of biblical philology at the Gymnasium illustre in his native town. In 1636 he was transferred to Franeker, where he held the chair of Hebrew, and from 1643 the chair of theology also, until 1650, when he succeeded the elder Friedrich Spanheim as professor of theology at the University of Leiden.
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John Witherspoon
1723 - 1794 (71 years)
John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States. Witherspoon embraced the concepts of Scottish common sense realism, and while president of the College of New Jersey became an influential figure in the development of the United States' national character. Politically active, Witherspoon was a delegate from New Jersey to the Second Continental Congress and a signatory to the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. He was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration....
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Abraham Calovius
1612 - 1686 (74 years)
Abraham Calovius was a Lutheran theologian, and was one of the champions of Lutheran orthodoxy in the 17th century. Biography He was born in Mohrungen , Ducal Prussia, a fief of Crown of Poland. After studying at Königsberg, in 1650 he was appointed professor of theology at Wittenberg, where he afterwards became general superintendent and primarius.
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Johann Sebastian von Drey
1777 - 1853 (76 years)
Johann Sebastian von Drey was a German Catholic professor of theology at the University of Tübingen. With Johann Adam Möhler, Drey was a founder of the Catholic Tübingen school. Life He was born in Killingen, in the parish of Röhlingen, in the then ecclesiastical principality of Ellwangen.
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Bernhard Duhm
1847 - 1928 (81 years)
Bernhard Lauardus Duhm was a German Lutheran theologian, born in Bingum, today part of Leer, East Frisia. He was a member of the history of religions school. Early life and education Duhm studied theology at the University of Göttingen, where he had as instructors Albrecht Ritschl , Heinrich Ewald and Julius Wellhausen , with the latter becoming a good friend and colleague to Duhm. In 1873, he became a lecturer at the University of Göttingen and subsequently an associate professor of Old Testament studies . In 1888, he relocated to the University of Basel, where he was one of the more influe...
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Thomas Hooker
1586 - 1647 (61 years)
Thomas Hooker was a prominent English colonial leader and Congregational minister, who founded the Connecticut Colony after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts. He was known as an outstanding speaker and an advocate of universal Christian suffrage.
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Joseph Kleutgen
1811 - 1883 (72 years)
Joseph Wilhelm Karl Kleutgen was a German Jesuit theologian and philosopher. He was a member of the Society of Jesus, and contributed significantly to the establishment of Neo-scholasticism. Life Kleutgen was born in Dortmund, Westphalia. He began his studies with the intention of becoming a priest, but owing to the Protestant atmosphere of the school which he attended, his zeal for religion gradually cooled. From 28 April 1830, to 8 January 1831, he studied philology at the University of Munich. He was intensely interested in Plato's philosophy and the Greek tragic poets. As member of the ...
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Werner Elert
1885 - 1954 (69 years)
Werner August Friedrich Immanuel Elert was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of both church history and systematic theology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His writings in the fields of Christian dogmatics, ethics, and history have had great influence on modern Christianity in general and modern Lutheranism in particular.
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Carl Stange
1870 - 1959 (89 years)
Carl Stange was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. In his work, he mainly dealt with issues of ethics and the philosophy of religion. He studied theology, history and philosophy at the universities of Halle, Göttingen, Leipzig and Jena, obtaining his habilitation for systematic theology in 1895 at Halle. In 1903 he became an associate professor at the University of Königsberg, and during the following year, was named a full professor of systematic theology at the University of Greifswald, where in 1911/12 he served as university rector. In 1912 he was appointed professor of syste...
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Johann Georg Rosenmüller
1736 - 1815 (79 years)
Johann Georg Rosenmüller , a German Protestant theologian, was born at Ummerstadt in Hildburghausen, on 18 December 1736. He was appointed Professor of Theology at Erlangen in 1773, Primarius Professor of Theology at Erlangen in 1773, Primarius Professor of Divinity at Giessen in 1783, and was called in 1785 to Leipzig, where he remained until his death in 1815. His two sons were Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller, and Johann Christian Rosenmüller.
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Ezra Stiles
1727 - 1795 (68 years)
Ezra Stiles was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College and one of the founders of Brown University. According to religious historian Timothy L. Hall, Stiles' tenure at Yale distinguishes him as "one of the first great American college presidents."
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Mesrop Mashtots
361 - 440 (79 years)
Mesrop Mashtots was an early Medieval Armenian linguist, composer, theologian, statesman, and hymnologist in the Sasanian Empire. He is venerated as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. He is best known for inventing the Armenian alphabet AD, which was a fundamental step in strengthening Armenian national identity. He is also considered to be the creator of the Caucasian Albanian and Georgian alphabets by a number of scholars.
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Johann Joachim Lange
1670 - 1744 (74 years)
Johann Joachim Lange was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. Lange was born in Gardelegen and educated in Leipzig, Erfurt and Halle. He was influenced by Christian Thomasius and the pietist August Hermann Francke. He became a professor of theology at Halle in 1709, and opposed the philosophy of Christian Wolff. He died in Halle on 7 May 1744.
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Thomas Wolsey
1473 - 1530 (57 years)
Thomas Wolsey was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishop of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.
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Pierius
201 - Present (1825 years)
Pierius was a Christian priest and probably head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, conjointly with Achillas. He flourished while Theonas was bishop of Alexandria, and died at Rome after 309. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 4 November.
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Vincent Ferrer
1350 - 1419 (69 years)
Vincent Ferrer, OP was a Valencian Dominican friar and preacher, who gained acclaim as a missionary and a logician. He is honored as a saint of the Catholic Church and other churches of Catholic traditions.
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August Carl Eduard Baldamus
1812 - 1893 (81 years)
August Carl Eduard Baldamus was a German ornithologist. August Baldamus studied theology at the University of Berlin. In 1859 he became professor at the Gymnasium in Köthen where he met Carl Andreas Naumann and his brother Johann Friedrich Naumann both ornithologists. In 1849 he became Pastor in Diebzig, in 1859 moving to the same office in Osternienburg. He retired to Coburg in 1870. Baldamus was the founder of the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft and published the ornithological journal Naumannia between 1849 and 1858.
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Luigi Taparelli
1793 - 1862 (69 years)
Luigi Taparelli was an Italian Jesuit scholar of the Society of Jesus and counter-revolutionary who coined the term social justice and elaborated the principles of subsidiarity, as part of his natural law theory of just social order. He was the brother of the Italian statesman Massimo d'Azeglio.
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Étienne Tempier
1210 - 1279 (69 years)
Étienne Tempier was a French bishop of Paris during the 13th century. He was Chancellor of the Sorbonne from 1263 to 1268, and bishop of Paris from 1268 until his death. He is best remembered for promulgating a Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions that addressed concepts that were being disputed in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris.
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Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
1292 - 1350 (58 years)
Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb az-Zurʿī d-Dimashqī l-Ḥanbalī , commonly known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya or Ibn al-Qayyim for short, or reverentially as Imam Ibn al-Qayyim in Sunni tradition, was an important medieval Islamic jurisconsult, theologian, and spiritual writer. Belonging to the Hanbali school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, of which he is regarded as "one of the most important thinkers," Ibn al-Qayyim was also the foremost disciple and student of Ibn Taymiyyah, with whom he was imprisoned in 1326 for dissenting against established tradition during Ib...
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Wu Leichuan
1870 - 1944 (74 years)
Wu Leichuan was a leading Chinese theologian in the early 20th century and Chancellor of Yenching University. Biography From his childhood, Wu poured his energy into mastering the Confucian classics and working his way up through the imperial examinations, obtaining the level of Jìnshì in 1898 in Beijing after passing the metropolitan and imperial examinations. He converted to Christianity in 1915 and became Yenching University's first Chinese vice-president and chancellor between 1926 and 1934.
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Wilhelm Bousset
1865 - 1920 (55 years)
Wilhelm Bousset was a German theologian and New Testament scholar. He was of Huguenot ancestry and a native of Lübeck. His most influential work was Kyrios Christos, an attempt to explain the origins of devotion to Christ as the product of second century Hellenistic forces, and is still the most widely influential academic work on early Christology, even if its conclusions are not supported by modern scholarship.
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