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ARMINIUS, JACOBUS (1560-1609)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 577 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ARMINIUS, JACOBUS (1560-1609) , Dutch theologian, author of the modified reformed See also:theology that receives its name of Arminian from him, was See also:born at Oudewater, See also:South See also:Holland, on the loth of See also:October s56o. Arminius is a Latinized See also:form of his patronymic Hermanns or Hermansen. His See also:father, See also:Hermann Jakobs, a See also:cutler, died while he was an See also:infant, leaving a widow and three See also:children. See also:Theodorus See also:Aemilius, a See also:priest, who had turned See also:Protestant, adopting See also:Jakob, sent him to school at See also:Utrecht, but died when his See also:charge was in his fifteenth See also:year. See also:Rudolf Snellius (Snel See also:van Roijen, 1546–1613), the mathematician, a native of Oudewater, then a See also:professor at See also:Marburg, happening at the See also:time to visit his See also:early See also:home, met the boy, saw promise in him and undertook his See also:maintenance and See also:education. But hardly was he settled at Marburg when the See also:news came that the Spaniards hadbesieged and taken Oudewater, and murdered its inhabitants almost without exception. Arminius hurried home, but only to find all his relatives slain. In See also:February the same year (1575), the university of See also:Leiden had been founded, and thither, by the kindness of See also:friends, Arminius was sent to study theology. The six years he remained at Leiden (1576–1582) were years of active and innovating thought in Holland. The See also:War of See also:Independence had started conflicting tendencies in men's minds. To some it seemed to illustrate the See also:necessity of the See also:state tolerating only one See also:religion, but to others the necessity of the state tolerating all. Dirck See also:Coornhert argued, in private conferences and public disputations, that it was wrong to punish heretics, and his See also:great opponents were, as a See also:rule, the ministers, who maintained that there was no See also:room for more than one religion in a state.

Caspar. Koolhaes, the heroic See also:

minister of Leiden—its first lecturer, too, in divinity—pleaded against a too rigid uniformity, for such an agreement on " fundamentals " as had allowed Reformed, See also:Lutherans and See also:Anabaptists to unite. Leiden had been happy, too, in its first professors. There taught in theology See also:Guillaume Feuguieres or Feuguereius (d. 1613), a mild divine, who had written a See also:treatise on persuasion in religion, urging that as to it " men could be led, not driven "; See also:Lambert Danaeus, who deserves remembrance as the first to discuss See also:Christian See also:ethics scientifically, apart from dogmatics; Johannes See also:Drusius, the Orientalist, one of the most enlightened and advanced scholars of his See also:day, settled later at See also:Franeker; Johann Kolmann the younger, best known by his saying that high Calvinism made See also:God "both a See also:tyrant and an executioner." Snellius, Arminius's old See also:patron, now removed to Leiden, expounded the Ramist See also:philosophy, and did his best to start his students on the See also:search after truth, unimpeded by the authority of See also:Aristotle. Under these men and influences, Arminius studied with See also:signal success; and the promise he gave induced the merchants' gild of See also:Amsterdam to See also:bear the further expenses of his education. In 1582 he went to See also:Geneva, studied there awhile under See also:Theodore See also:Beza, but had soon, owing to his active advocacy of the Ramist philosophy, to remove to See also:Basel. After a See also:short but brilliant career there he turned to Geneva, studied for three years, travelled, in 1586, in See also:Italy, heard Giacomo Zarabella (1533–1589) lecture on philosophy in See also:Padua, visited See also:Rome, and, open-minded enough to see its See also:good as well as its evil, was suspected by the stern Dutch Calvinists of popish " leanings. Next year he was called to Amsterdam, and there, in 1588, was ordained. He soon acquired the reputation of being a good preacher and faithful pastor.. He was commissioned to organize the educational See also:system of the See also:city, and is said to have done it well. He greatly distinguished himself by fidelity to See also:duty during a See also:plague that devastated Amsterdam in 1602.

In 1603 he was called, in See also:

succession to See also:Franz See also:Junius, to a theological professorship at Leiden, which he held till his See also:death on the loth of October 1609. Arminius is best known as the founder of the See also:anti-Calvinistic school in Reformed theology, which created the Remonstrant See also:Church in Holland (see See also:REMONSTRANTS), and contributed to form, the Arminian tendency or party in See also:England. He was a See also:man of mild and liberal spirit, broadened by varied culture, constitutionally averse from narrow views and enforced uniformity. He lived in a See also:period of severe systematizing. The Reformed strengthened itself against the See also:Roman See also:Catholic theology by working itself, on the one See also:hand, into vigorous logical consistency, and supporting itself, on the other, on the supreme authority of the Scriptures. See also:Calvin's first principle, the See also:absolute See also:sovereignty of God, had been so applied as to make the divine See also:decree determine alike the acts and the destinies of men; and his formal principle had been so construed as to invest his system with the authority of the source whence it professed to have been See also:drawn. Calvinism had become, towards the See also:close of the 16th See also:century, supreme in Holland, but the very rigour of the uniformity it exacted provoked a reaction. Coornhert could not plead for the See also:toleration of heretics without assailing the dominant Calvinism, and so he opposed a conditional to its unconditional See also:predestination. The two ministers of See also:Delft, who had debated the point with him, had, the better to turn his arguments, descended from the supralapsarian to the infralapsarian position, i.e. made the divine decree, instead of precede and determine, succeed the Fall. This seemed to the high Calvinists of Holland a See also:grave See also:heresy. Arminius, fresh from Geneva, See also:familiar with the dialectics of Beza, appeared to many the man able to speak the needed word, and so, in 1589, he was simultaneously invited by the ecclesiastical See also:court of Amsterdam to refute Coornhert, and by See also:Martin Lydius, professor at Franeker, to combat the two infralapsarian ministers of Delft. Thus led to confront the questions of necessity and See also:free will, his own views became unsettled, and the further he pursued his inquiries the more he was inclined to assert the freedom of man and limit the range of the unconditional decrees of God.

This See also:

change became gradually more apparent in his See also:preaching and in his conferences with his clerical associates, and occasioned much controversy in the ecclesiastical courts where, however, he successfully defended his position. The controversy was embittered and the See also:differences sharpened by his See also:appointment to the professorship at Leiden. He had as colleague Franz See also:Gomarus, a strong supralapsarian, perfervid, irrepressible; and their collisions, See also:personal, See also:official, See also:political, tended to develop and define their respective positions. Arminius died, worn out by uncongenial controversy and ecclesiastical persecution, before his system had been elaborated into the logical consistency it attained in the hands of his celebrated successor, See also:Simon See also:Episcopius; but though inchoate in detail, it was in its principles clear and coherent enough. These may be thus stated: 1. The decree of God is, when it concerns His own actions, absolute, but when it concerns man's, conditional, i.e. the decree relative to the Saviour to be appointed and the salvation to be provided is absolute, but the decree relative to the persons saved or condemned is made to depend on the acts—belief and repentance in the one See also:case, unbelief and impenitence in the other—of the persons themselves. 2. The See also:providence or See also:government of God, while See also:sovereign, is exercised in See also:harmony with the nature of the creatures governed, i.e. the sovereignty of God is so exercised as to be compatible with the freedom of man. 3. Man is by See also:original nature, through the assistance of divine See also:grace, free, able to will and perform the right; but is in his fallen state, of and by himself, unable to do so; he needs to be regenerated in all his See also:powers before he can do what is good and pleasing to God. 4. Divine grace originates, maintains and perfects all the good in man, so much so that he cannot, though regenerate, conceive, will or do any good thing without it.

5. The See also:

saints possess, by the grace of the See also:Holy Spirit, sufficient strength to persevere to the end in spite of See also:sin and the flesh, but may so decline from See also:sound See also:doctrine as to cause divine grace to be ineffectual. 6. Every believer may be assured of his own salvation. 7. It is possible for a regenerate man to live without sin. Arminius's See also:works are mostly occasional See also:treatises drawn from him by controversial emergencies, but'they everywhere exhibit a See also:calm, well-furnished, undogmatic and progressive mind. He was essentially an amiable man, who hated the zeal for an impossible orthodoxy that constrained " the church to See also:institute a search after crimes which'have not betrayed an existence, yea, and to See also:drag into open contentions those who are meditating no evil." His friend See also:Peter Bertius, who pronounced his funeral oration, closed it with these words: There lived a man whom it was not possible for those who knew him sufficiently to esteem; those who entertained no esteem for him are such as never knew him well enough to appreciate his merits." The works of Arminius (in Latin) were published in a single See also:quarto See also:volume at Leiden in 1629, at See also:Frankfort in 1631 and 1635. Two volumes of an See also:English See also:translation, with copious notes, by See also:James See also:Nichols, were published at See also:London, 1825–1828; three volumes (See also:complete) at See also:Buffalo, 1833. A See also:life was written by Caspar Brandt, on of See also:Gerard Brandt, the historian of the Dutch See also:reformation, and published in 1724; republished and annotated b J. L. See also:Mosheim in 1725; and translated into English by the Rev.

See also:

John See also:Guthrie, 1854. James Nichols also wrote a life (London, 1843). II.

End of Article: ARMINIUS, JACOBUS (1560-1609)

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