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Arminius, James
JAMES ARMINIUS (Lat. Jacobus Arminius; Dutch, Jacob Hermanson or Van Ierman) was born Oct. 10, 1560, at Oudewater, a small town of Holland. As Oudewater means in Dutch "Old Water," Veteres Aquse, Arminius is sometimes surnamed in his works Veteraquinas. He lost his father, a cutler, in his infancy; but he found a protector in Theodorus Emilius, who had once been a Roman Catholic priest. Emilius took Arminius with him to Utrecht, and sent him to the school of that place. In his 15th year Arminius lost his patron by death, but another protector, Rudolph Snellius, took him under his care, and removed him to Marburg (1575). Arminius had scarcely arrived at Marburg when he heard that his native town had been sacked by the Spaniards. Hurrying back to Oudewater, he found that his mother and his other relatives had been killed. He returned to Marburg on foot. He went thence to Rotterdam, and was received into the house of Peter Bertius, pastor of the Reformed Church. In the same year (1575) he was sent, with Peter Bertius the younger, to the University of Leyden, which had just been founded. After he had studied at Leyden for six years," the directors of the body of merchants" of Amsterdam undertook to bear the expenses of his education for the ministry, Arminius agreeing that after he had been ordained he would not serve in the church of any other city without the permission of the burgomasters of Amsterdam. In 1582 he was sent to Geneva, which was then the great school of theology for all the Reformed churches, and where the doctrines of Calvin were taught in their most rigorous shape by Theodore Beza. At Geneva Arminius formed a close friendship which united him through life with Uyttenbogaert of Utrecht. During his residence at Geneva he gave great offence to some of the Aristotelian teachers of the Geneva school by advocating in public and lecturing in private to his friends on the logic of Ramus as opposed to that of Aristotle. This course created so much commotion that he left Geneva and went to Basle, where the faculty of divinity offered to confer upon him the degree of doctor gratis; but he declined it, considering himself too young, and in 1583 returned to Geneva, Where he continued his theological studies for three years more. In 1586 the fame of Zabarella, professor of philosophy at Padua, induced him to take a journey into Italy. From Padua he proceeded to Rome. After this journey Arminius came back to Geneva, and soon received an order from the burgomasters of Amsterdam to return to that town. He had taken this journey without their knowledge, and rumors had spread abroad that he had kissed the pope's slipper, held intercourse with the Jesuits, and especially with Cardinal. Bellarmine that, in short, he had become a Roman Catholic. The testimony of a friend who had travelled with him cleared him from these charges. Arminius used afterward to say that he derived no little benefit from this journey, as "he saw at Rome a mystery of iniquity much more foul than he had ever imagined." He was ordained at Amsterdam on the 11th of August, 1588, and he soon became distinguished as a preacher. The mild opinions of Melancthon on predestination had spread into Holland even before those of Calvin. In 1589 Theodore Koornhert, of Amsterdam, published several works, in which he attacked the doctrine of predestination, which was taught by Beza and the Genevan school. To obviate Koornhert's objections, some ministers of Delft proposed a change in Beza's doctrine. They agreed with Beza that divine predestination was the antecedent, unconditional, and immutable decree of God concerning the salvation or damnation of each individual; but whereas Beza represented that man, not considered as fallen, or even as created, was the object of this unconditional decree, the ministers of Delft made this peremptory decree subordinate to the creation and fall of man; that is to say, they adopted sublapsarianism in place of the supralapsarianism of Calvin and Beza. They thought this hypothesis would do away with Koornhert's objection that the doctrine of absolute decrees represented God as the author of sin-as such decrees made sin necessary and inevitable no less than damnation. Their view was published under the title Responsio ad argumenta qucedam Bez, et Caklni, ex tractatu de Preadestinatione, in Cap. IX ad Romanos. The book was sent to Lydius, professor at Franeker, who requested Arminius to answer it. He consented; but in studying the subject he began to doubt which of the two views to adopt, and at length became inclined to embrace the doctrine which he had undertaken to refute. Meanwhile, on the 16th of September, 1590, he married Elizabeth Reael, daughter of Laurent Rea'el, a judge and senator of Amsterdam. In the course of his sermons at Amsterdam, Arminius commenced an exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in which some of the new views which he had adopted found expression. In 1593 he published Lectures in Rom. IX, in which he questions the view of that chapter given by Calvin and Beza. Disputes arose, but the consistory of Amsterdam gave an audience to the contending parties, and ordered them to cease all controversy until a general synod could be summoned to determine the subject of the dispute. In 1602 a pestilence raged at Amsterdam, during which Arminius showed the greatest courage and kindness in visiting the sick. The disease carried off two of the professors of the University of Leyden, Lucas Trelcatius, the elder, and Francis Junius, professor of divinity. The curators of the university turned their eyes upon Arminius as a fit successor to Junius; but it was only after repeated applications on the part of the university that the authorities of Amsterdam consented to give him permission to leave on the 15th of April, 1603. As he had been charged with holding Pelagian views, before he was finally appointed he held a conference with Francis Gomar, who was also professor of divinity at Leyden, and who became afterward his capital enemy, at the Hague, the 6th of May, 1603, and the result was that Gomar declared the charge that he was a Pelagian to be groundless. At the same time, not only the curators of the university, but Gomar himself, were thoroughly aware that on the subject of predestination Arminius differed from the Genevan school. He underwent another examination, a private one, conducted by Gomar, for the degree of D.D., which he received 11th July, 1603. Arminius was the first on whom the University of Leyden conferred the degree of Doctor. One of the first observations of Arminius, after entering on the duties of his chair, was that the students were much more Liven to scholastic subtleties and disputations than to the thorough study of Scripture. He determined to cure this evil. With this view he reckoned nothing more important than to foreclose, as far as he could, crabbed questions and the cumbrous mass of scholastic assertions, and to inculcate on his disciples that divine wisdom which was drawn from the superlatively pure fountains of the Sacred Word, and was provided for the express purpose of guiding us to a life of virtue and happiness. From his first introduction into the academy it was his endeavor to aim at this mark, and give a corresponding direction to his studies both public and private. But truly this laudable attempt was in no small degree thwarted, partly by the jealousy which some had conceived against him, and partly also by a certain inveterate prejudice as to his heterodoxy, with which many ministers of religion had long been imbued, and under the impulse of which they stirred up his colleagues against him. The first germs, indeed, of this budding jealousy betrayed themselves in the following year (1604); for when Arminius, who had undertaken the task of interpreting the Old Testament in particular, proceeded also now and then to give a public exposition of certain portions of the New Testament, Gomar took this amiss, and began to allege that the right of expounding the New Testament belonged solely to him, as Primarius Professor of Sacred Theology, for this title had been conceded to him by the Senatus Academicus a short time prior to the arrival of Arminius. Nay, more; happening to meet Arminius, he felt unable to contain himself, and, in a burst of passion, broke out in these words: 'You have invaded my professorship.' Arminius replied that he did not mean to detract any thing Whatever from the primacy of his colleague, and from the academic titles and privileges conferred upon him; and that he had not done him the slightest injury, having obtained license from the honorable curators to select themes of prelection at any time, not only from the Old-Testament, but also from the New, provided he did not encroach on the particular subject in which Gomar might be engaged" (Brandt, Life of Arminius, ch. vii). On the 7th of February, 1604, Arminius propounded certain theses on predestination, of which the sum was this: " Divine predestination is the decree of God in Christ by which he has decreed with himself from eternity to justify, adopt, and gift with eternal life, to the praise of his glorious grace, the faithful whom he has decreed to gift with faith. On the other hand, reprobation is the decree of the anger or severe will of God, by which he has determined from eternity, for the purpose of showing his anger and power, to condemn to eternal death, as placed out of union with Christ, the unbelieving who, by their own fault and the just judgment of God, are not to believe." On the last day of October Gomar openly attacked these positions, and from this day may be dated the tumults which ensued. In 1605 Arminius was created rector magnificus of the University, which office he quitted February 8th, 1606. Meanwhile the disputes continued. Festus Honimius, a minister of Leyden, Johannes Kuchlinus, rector of the Theological Faculty, and uncle of Arminius, were among his warmest adversaries. Deputies from the churches of all the provinces of Holland, and deputies from the Synod of Leyden, required from him a conference on the subject of his opinions. Preachers attacked him from the pulpit as a Pelagian, and worse than a Pelagian. A national synod was demanded to settle the disputes. On 22d May, 1607, an assembly was held at the Hague, at which Arminius was present, to settle the manner in which the synod was to be held. In 1608 Arminius and Uyttenbogaert applied to the States of Holland to convoke a synod, that these grave controversies might be settled. In the same year Arminius and Gomar held a conference before the Supreme Court of the Hague, which declared in its report that these two professors differed on points of little importance, and unessential to religion. Arminius gave in an account of his opinions to the States at the Hague on the 30th of October, 1608. (See the Declaratio, in his works.) Before the proposed synod could be held Arminius died. The disease which carried him off at last had long lain latent. It broke out on the 7th of February, 1609, but he recovered so far as to resume the usual duties of his professorship, though still weak. At last he sunk under his disorder, and expired 19th October, 1609. His death was most painful; and to bodily pain was added mental anguish at the misrepresentations of his religious opinions and of his personal character made by his embittered foes. The curators of the University of Leyden allowed his wife and children a pension. Arminius was one of the most learned men of a learned age. His natural faculties were singularly acute; his mind was at once inquisitive and profound; and his industry in study equalled his capacity. As a preacher he was exceedingly popular; in sweetness of voice, ardor of manner, and finish of style, he was distinguished above all his contemporaries. His personal manners were of the most attractive' kind; he grappled his friends by hooks of steel. The funeral oration delivered by Bertius ends with the phrase, "fuisse in Batavia virum quemm qui norant non potuerunt satis existimare; qui non aestimarunt, non satis cognoverunt." His writings, though inferior in point of Latinity to those of Calvin and Grotius, bear ample testimony to his learning, and to his skill in logic. He was so thoroughly versed in the ancient fathers, and so much of an adept in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, that his opinions carried along with them a weight among the learned which his antagonists could not well resist. Neander calls him the "model of a conscientious and zealously investigating theologian" (Hist. of Dogmas, ii, 276). His opponents accused him of Pelagianism and Arianism, but no theologian. of any pretence to learning will at present sustain these accusations. The same temper of mind which led him to renounce the peculiarities of Calvinism induced him also to adopt more enlarged and liberal views of church communion than those which had prevailed before his time. While he maintained that the mercy of God is not confined to a chosen few, he conceived it to be quite inconsistent with the genius of Christianity that men of that religion should keep at a distance from each other, and constitute separate churches, merely because they differed in their opinions as to some of its doctrinal articles. He thought that Christians of all denominations should form one great community, united and upheld by the bonds of charity and brotherly love; with the exception, however, of Roman Catholics, who, on account of their idolatrous worship and persecuting spirit, must be unfit members of such a society. His great disciple, the republican Barneveldt, was perhaps the first European statesman that made religious toleration one of his maxims. In fact, the Arminians of Holland were the real fathers of religious toleration; they were the first society of Protestants who, when in possession of power, granted the same liberty of conscience to others which they claimed for themselves.
Excerpted from McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature
Wesleyan Heritage Collection, Authors, pp. 1–7