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,
#4601
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
1627 - 1704 (77 years)
Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a master French stylist.
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Edward Bouverie Pusey
1800 - 1882 (82 years)
Edward Bouverie Pusey was an English Anglican cleric, for more than fifty years Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. He was one of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement, with interest in sacramental theology and typology.
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Martin Grabmann
1875 - 1949 (74 years)
Martin Grabmann was a German Roman Catholic priest, medievalist and historian of theology and philosophy. He was a pioneer of the history of medieval philosophy and has been called "the greatest Catholic scholar of his time."
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Luis de Molina
1535 - 1600 (65 years)
Luis de Molina was a Spanish Jesuit priest and scholastic, a staunch defender of free will in the controversy over human liberty and God's grace. His theology is known as Molinism. Life From 1551 to 1562, Molina studied law in Salamanca, philosophy in Alcalá de Henares, and theology in Coimbra. After 1563, he became a professor at the University of Coimbra, and afterward taught at the University of Évora, Portugal. From this post he was called, at the end of twenty years, to the chair of moral theology in Madrid, where he died.
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Hasan al-Basri
642 - 728 (86 years)
Abu Sa'id ibn Abi al-Hasan Yasar al-Basri, often referred to as Hasan of Basra for short, or as Hasan al-Basri, was an ancient Muslim preacher, ascetic, theologian, exegete, scholar, judge, and mystic. Born in Medina in 642, Hasan belonged to the second generation of Muslims, all of whom would subsequently be referred to as the tābiʿūn in Sunni Islamic piety. He became one of "the most celebrated" of the tābiʿūn, enjoying an "acclaimed scholarly career and an even more remarkable posthumous legacy in Islamic scholarship."
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Pierre Poiret
1646 - 1719 (73 years)
Pierre Poiret Naudé was a prominent French mystic and Christian philosopher. He was born in Metz and died in Rijnsburg. Life and accomplishments After the early death of his parents, he supported himself by the engraver's trade and the teaching of French, at the same time studying theology, in Basel, Hanau, and, after 1668, Heidelberg. At Basel he was captivated by Descartes' philosophy, which never quite lost its hold on him. He read also Thomas à Kempis and Tauler, but was especially influenced by the writings of the Dutch Mennonite mystic Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt , whose works were pu...
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William Howard Durham
1873 - 1912 (39 years)
William Howard Durham was an early Pentecostal preacher and theologian, best known for advocating the Finished Work doctrine. Early life and career Durham was born in 1873 in rural Kentucky and joined his family's Baptist church; however, he would only experience conversion later. He joined the Holiness movement and by 1901 founded the North Avenue Full Gospel Mission, a store-front church in Chicago.
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Samson Raphael Hirsch
1808 - 1888 (80 years)
Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed neo-Orthodoxy, his philosophy, together with that of Azriel Hildesheimer, has had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
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Johann Gerhard
1582 - 1637 (55 years)
Johannes Gerhard was a Lutheran church leader and Lutheran Scholastic theologian during the period of Orthodoxy. Biography He was born in the German city of Quedlinburg. During a dangerous illness, at the age of fourteen he came under the personal influence of Johann Arndt, author of Das wahre Christenthum, and resolved to study for the church. He entered the University of Wittenberg in 1599, and studied philosophy and theology. A relative then persuaded him to change his subject, and he studied medicine for two years. In 1603, he resumed his theological reading at Jena, and in the following year received a new impulse from J.W.
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Joachim Jeremias
1900 - 1979 (79 years)
Joachim Jeremias was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar of Near Eastern Studies and university professor for New Testament studies. He was abbot of Bursfelde, 1968–1971. He was born in Dresden and spent his formative years in Jerusalem, where between 1910 and 1918 his father, Friedrich Jeremias , worked as Provost of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. He studied Lutheran theology and Oriental languages at the universities of Tübingen and Leipzig. In Leipzig he obtained both a "Doctor philosophiae " and a "Doctor theologiae " degree , followed by his Habilitation . His mentor was the re...
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Hermann Gunkel
1862 - 1932 (70 years)
Hermann Gunkel , a German Old Testament scholar, founded form criticism. He also became a leading representative of the history of religions school. His major works cover Genesis and the Psalms, and his major interests centered on the oral tradition behind written sources and in folklore.
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Luke the Evangelist
Luke the Evangelist is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of the canonical gospels. The Early Church Fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Prominent figures in early Christianity such as Jerome and Eusebius later reaffirmed his authorship, although a lack of conclusive evidence as to the identity of the author of the works has led to discussion in scholarly circles, both secular and religious.
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Jean Gerson
1363 - 1429 (66 years)
Jean Charlier de Gerson was a French scholar, educator, reformer, and poet, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a guiding light of the conciliar movement and one of the most prominent theologians at the Council of Constance. He was one of the first thinkers to develop what would later come to be called natural rights theory, and was also one of the first individuals to defend Joan of Arc and proclaim her supernatural vocation as authentic.
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John Courtney Murray
1904 - 1967 (63 years)
John Courtney Murray was an American Jesuit priest and theologian who was especially known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism and particularly focused on the relationship between religious freedom and the institutions of a democratically-structured modern state.
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Menno Simons
1496 - 1561 (65 years)
Menno Simons was a Roman Catholic priest from the Friesland region of the Low Countries who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and became an influential Anabaptist religious leader. Simons was a contemporary of the Protestant Reformers and it is from his name that his followers became known as Mennonites.
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Athenagoras of Athens
133 - 190 (57 years)
Athenagoras was a Father of the Church, an Ante-Nicene Christian apologist who lived during the second half of the 2nd century of whom little is known for certain, besides that he was Athenian , a philosopher, and a convert to Christianity.
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J. Vernon McGee
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
John Vernon McGee was an American ordained Presbyterian minister, pastor, Bible teacher, theologian, and radio minister. Biography Childhood, education, and early ministry McGee was born in Hillsboro, Texas, to itinerant parents, John McGee and Carrie McGee . His father held many jobs, his last one being an engineer at a cotton mill in Oklahoma, where he died in 1918 when Vernon was 14 years old. After his father's death, Vernon's family relocated to Tennessee. Before entering the ministry, Vernon worked as a bank teller.
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Johann Adam Möhler
1796 - 1838 (42 years)
Johann Adam Möhler was a German Roman Catholic theologian and priest associated with the Catholic Tübingen school. He was born at Igersheim in the Bailiwick of Franconia of the Teutonic Order , and after studying philosophy and theology in the lyceum at Ellwangen, entered the University of Tübingen in 1817. Ordained to the priesthood in 1819, he was appointed to a curacy. He returned to Tübingen where he became privatdozent in 1825, an associate professor of theology in 1826 and a full professor in 1828.
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Albert Benjamin Simpson
1843 - 1919 (76 years)
Albert Benjamin Simpson , also known as A. B. Simpson, was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance , an evangelical denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism that has been characterized as being Keswickian in theology.
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Harold Ockenga
1905 - 1985 (80 years)
Harold John Ockenga was a leading figure of mid-20th-century American Evangelicalism, part of the reform movement known as "Neo-Evangelicalism". A Congregational minister, Ockenga served for many years as pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a prolific author on biblical, theological, and devotional topics. Ockenga helped to found the Fuller Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, as well as the National Association of Evangelicals .
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Daniel Schenkel
1813 - 1885 (72 years)
Daniel Schenkel was a Swiss Protestant theologian. Biography Schenkel was born at Dägerlen in the canton of Zürich. After studying at Basel and Göttingen, he was successively pastor at Schaffhausen , professor of theology at Basel ; and at Heidelberg professor of theology , director of the seminary and university preacher. At first inclined to conservatism, he afterwards became an exponent of the mediating theology , and ultimately a liberal theologian and advanced critic.
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James Freeman Clarke
1810 - 1888 (78 years)
James Freeman Clarke was an American minister, theologian and author. Biography Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on April 4, 1810, James Freeman Clarke was the son of Samuel Clarke and Rebecca Parker Hull, though he was raised by his grandfather James Freeman, minister at King's Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended the Boston Latin School, and later graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833.
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Sergius of Radonezh
1314 - 1392 (78 years)
Sergius of Radonezh was a spiritual leader and monastic reformer of medieval Russia. Together with Seraphim of Sarov, he is one of Eastern Orthodoxy's most highly venerated saints in Russia. Early life The date of his birth is unclear: it could be 1314, 1319, or 1322. His medieval biography states that he was born to Kiril and Maria, a boyar family, near Rostov , on the spot where now stands.
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Gottfried Arnold
1666 - 1714 (48 years)
Gottfried Arnold was a German Lutheran theologian and historian. Biography Arnold was born at Annaberg in Saxony, Germany, where his father was schoolmaster. In 1682, he went to the Gymnasium at Gera and three years later to the University of Wittenberg. He made a special study of theology and history, and afterwards, through the influence of Philip Jacob Spener, the father of pietism, became tutor in Quedlinburg.
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Edwin Lewis
1881 - 1959 (78 years)
Edwin Lewis was an American Methodist theologian primarily associated with Drew University in New Jersey. Born in Newbury, Berkshire, England, Lewis became a Methodist local preacher at the age of seventeen. In 1900 he traveled to Newfoundland, Canada as a missionary before continuing his education in the United States. He eventually became a professor of theology at Drew.
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Increase Mather
1639 - 1723 (84 years)
Increase Mather was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years . He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials.
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John Fisher
1469 - 1535 (66 years)
John Fisher was an English Catholic bishop, cardinal, and theologian. Fisher was also an academic and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is honoured as a martyr and saint by the Catholic Church.
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Otto Faller
1889 - 1971 (82 years)
Rev.Otto Faller SJ was Provincial Superior of the Jesuit order in Germany, educator, teacher and Dean at Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria and Kolleg St. Blasien in Germany, professor of patristic studies at the Gregorian University. He was lifelong editor of the works of St. Ambrose. At the request of Pope Pius XII, he contributed to the preparation of the dogma of the assumption of Mary and organized new Papal charity and Papal refugee offices during World War II.
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Friedrich Adolf Philippi
1809 - 1882 (73 years)
Friedrich Adolf Philippi was a Lutheran theologian of Jewish origin. He was the son of a wealthy Jewish banker, a friend of the Mendelssohn family. Converted to Christianity in 1829, he studied philosophy and theology at Berlin and Leipzig , and became successively a teacher at a private school in Dresden and at the Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium at Berlin .
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Lancelot Andrewes
1555 - 1626 (71 years)
Lancelot Andrewes was an English bishop and scholar, who held high positions in the Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. During the latter's reign, Andrewes served successively as Bishop of Chichester, of Ely, and of Winchester and oversaw the translation of the King James Version of the Bible . In the Church of England he is commemorated on 25 September with a lesser festival.
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Gerhard Kittel
1888 - 1948 (60 years)
Gerhard Kittel was a German Lutheran theologian and lexicographer of biblical languages. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis and an open antisemite. He is known in the field of biblical studies for his .
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Conrad Vorstius
1569 - 1622 (53 years)
Conrad Vorstius was a German-Dutch heterodox Remonstrant theologian, and successor to Jacobus Arminius in the theology chair at Leiden University. His appointment, and the controversy surrounding it, became an international matter in the political and religious affairs of the United Provinces during the Twelve Years' Truce, supplying a pretext for the irregular intervention of King James I of England in those affairs. Vorstius published theological views which were taken to show sympathy with the Socinians, and was declared a heretic at the Synod of Dort in 1619.
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Adam Clarke
1762 - 1832 (70 years)
Adam Clarke was a British Methodist theologian who served three times as President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference . A biblical scholar, he published an influential Bible commentary among other works. He was a Wesleyan.
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Barlaam of Seminara
1290 - 1348 (58 years)
Barlaam of Seminara , c. 1290–1348, or Barlaam of Calabria was a Basilian monk, theologian and humanistic scholar born in southern Italy. He was a scholar and clergyman of the 14th century, as well as a humanist, philologist and theologian.
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August Tholuck
1799 - 1877 (78 years)
Friedrich August Gotttreu Tholuck , known as August Tholuck, was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, and historian, and church leader. Biography Tholuck was born at Breslau, and educated at the gymnasium and university there. He distinguished himself by his ability to learn languages. A love of Oriental languages and literature led him to exchange the University of Breslau for that of Berlin, in order to study to greater advantage, and there he was received into the house of the Orientalist Heinrich Friedrich von Diez . He was introduced to pietistic circles in Berlin, and came under the...
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Caesarius of Arles
470 - 542 (72 years)
Caesarius of Arles , sometimes called "of Chalon" from his birthplace Chalon-sur-Saône, was the foremost ecclesiastic of his generation in Merovingian Gaul. Caesarius is considered to be of the last generation of church leaders of Gaul who worked to promote large-scale ascetic elements into the Western Christian tradition. William E. Klingshirn's study of Caesarius depicts Caesarius as having the reputation of a "popular preacher of great fervour and enduring influence". Among those who exercised the greatest influence on Caesarius were Augustine of Hippo, Julianus Pomerius, and John Cassian...
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Jan Standonck
1453 - 1504 (51 years)
Jan Standonck was a Flemish priest, Scholastic, and reformer. He was part of the great movement for reform in the 15th-century French church. His approach was to reform the recruitment and education of the clergy, along very ascetic lines, heavily influenced by the hermit saint Francis of Paola. To this end he founded many colleges, all of them strictly controlled and dedicated to poor students with real vocations. Chief amongst them was the Collège de Montaigu, latterly part of the University of Paris. He lived at a time when this model of reform was under increasing pressure from more thoro...
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Oswald von Nell-Breuning
1890 - 1991 (101 years)
Oswald von Nell-Breuning was a Roman Catholic theologian and sociologist. Born in Trier, Germany into an aristocratic family, Nell-Breuning was ordained in 1921 and appointed Professor of Ethics at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in 1928. He was instrumental in the drafting of Pope Pius XI's social encyclical Quadragesimo anno , which – like the earlier Rerum novarum , after which it was named – dealt with the "Social Question" and developed the principle of subsidiarity. Nell-Breuning was not allowed to publish from 1936 to the end of Nazi Germany in 1945. After...
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Leonidas Proaño
1910 - 1988 (78 years)
Leonidas Eduardo Proaño Villalba was an Ecuadorian prelate and theologian. He served as the bishop of Riobamba from 1954 to 1985. He was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize and is considered one of the most important figures in Ecuadorian liberation theology.
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Alexandre Vinet
1797 - 1847 (50 years)
Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet was a Swiss literary critic and theologian. Literary critic He was born near Lausanne, Switzerland. Educated for the Protestant ministry, he was ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and throughout his life he was as much a critic as a theologian. His literary criticism brought him into contact with Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, for whom he obtained an invitation to lecture at Lausanne, which led to his famous work on Port-Royal.
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Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard
1818 - 1888 (70 years)
Johannes Heinrich August Ebrard was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Born at Erlangen, he was educated in his native town and at Berlin, and after teaching in a private family became Privatdozent at Erlangen and then professor of theology at Zürich . In 1847 he was appointed professor of theology at Erlangen, a chair which he resigned in 1861; in 1875 he became pastor of the French reformed church in the same city.
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Herman Hoeksema
1886 - 1965 (79 years)
Herman Hoeksema was a Dutch Reformed theologian. Hoeksema served as a long time pastor of the First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. In 1924 he refused to accept the three points of common grace as formulated which had then been declared official church dogma of the Christian Reformed Church, as an addition to its adopted creeds and confessions. The result of this controversy was that Hoeksema, and ministers George Ophoff, and Henry Danhof, were deposed by their respective classes before leaving the CRC with their congregations. These men then established the Protestant Reformed Churches.
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Anthony A. Hoekema
1913 - 1988 (75 years)
Anthony Andrew Hoekema was a Dutch-American Calvinist minister and theologian who served as professor of Systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, for twenty-one years. Biography Hoekema was born in the Netherlands but immigrated to the United States in 1923. He attended Calvin College , the University of Michigan , Calvin Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary . After pastoring several Christian Reformed churches he became Associate Professor of Bible at Calvin College . From 1958 to 1979, when he retired, he was Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand Guericke
1803 - 1878 (75 years)
Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand Guericke , was a German theologian. He was born at Wettin in Saxony and studied theology at the University of Halle, where he was appointed associate professor in 1829. He disapproved of the union between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches, which had been accomplished by the Prussian government in 1817, and in 1833 he joined the Old Lutherans. In 1835 he lost his professorship, but he regained it in 1840.
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William Booth
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
William Booth was an English Methodist preacher who, along with his wife, Catherine, founded the Salvation Army and became its first General . The Christian movement with a quasi-military structure and government founded in 1865 has spread from London to many parts of the world. It is known for being one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid.
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William of Champeaux
1070 - 1121 (51 years)
Guillaume de Champeaux , known in English as William of Champeaux and Latinised to Gulielmus de Campellis, was a French philosopher and theologian. Biography William was born at Champeaux near Melun. After studying under Anselm of Laon and Roscellinus, he taught in the school of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, of which he was made canon in 1103. Among his pupils was Peter Abelard, whom he had a disagreement with because Abelard challenged some of his ideas, and because William thought Abelard was too arrogant. Abelard calls him the "supreme master" of dialectic after he replaced his master as the new teacher.
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Abraham Kuenen
1828 - 1891 (63 years)
Abraham Kuenen was a Dutch Protestant theologian. Kuenen was born in Haarlem, the son of an apothecary. On his father's death it became necessary for him to leave school and take a humble place in the business. By the generosity of friends he was educated at the gymnasium at Haarlem and afterwards at the University of Leiden. He studied theology, and won his doctor's degree by an edition of thirty-four chapters of Genesis from the Arabic version of the Samaritan Pentateuch. In 1853 he became professor extraordinarius of theology at Leiden, and in 1855 full professor. He married a daughter of ...
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Karl Friedrich August Kahnis
1814 - 1888 (74 years)
Karl Friedrich August Kahnis was a German Neo-Lutheran theologian. Early life From a poor background, Kahnis was educated at the gymnasium of his native town Greiz, and after acting as private tutor for several years began the study of theology at Halle. He was at first an ardent Hegelian, but he passed to orthodox Lutheranism. The transition may be dated from the publication of his Dr. Ruge und Hegel: Ein Beitrag zur Würdigung Hegelscher Tendenzen .
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Johann Conrad Dannhauer
1603 - 1666 (63 years)
Johann Conrad Dannhauer was an Orthodox Lutheran theologian and teacher of Spener. Dannhauer began his education in the gymnasium at Strasburg and was the master of a thorough philosophical training before he commenced his theological work in 1624. He continued his studies at Marburg, Altorf, and Jena, lecturing at the same time on philosophy and linguistics and winning recognition at Jena by his exegesis of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Returning to Strasburg in 1628, he entered upon an active career as administrator, teacher, and theologian. Made seminary inspector in 1628, he became in the...
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Pope Nicholas I
820 - 867 (47 years)
Pope Nicholas I , called Nicholas the Great, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority, exerting decisive influence on the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe. Nicholas I asserted that the pope should have suzerainty over all Christians, even royalty, in matters of faith and morals.
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