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[German Version] (Henri de Valois; Sep 10, 1603, Paris – May 7, 1676, Paris), philologist. After studying law in Bourges from 1622 to 1624, he worked as a parliamentary lawyer in Paris, but from 1630 on he devoted himself to classical philology. In 1634 he published a first edition of several Greek church fathers. In 1650 he was commissioned by the French episcopate to work on an edition of the Greek church historians (Eusebius of Caesarea, 1659; Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen, 1668; Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Evagrius Ponticus, 1673). Christoph Strohm Bibliography A. de Valois, De vita …

[German Version] Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, took the city in 1591. In the 17th century, it was already home to a Latin school and a Calvinist academy, founded in 1655, at which noted theologians like C. Wittig and J. Braun taught. In 1679 the chaos of war forced the academy to close. Attempts to reestablish it in the 18th century failed. Not until 1923, after almost 20 years of efforts on the part of the Sankt Radboud Foundation, was the Catholic University of Nijmegen founded as a count…

[German Version] Franeker, principal town in the district of Franekeradeel in the Dutch province of Friesland. In 1585, the governor of Friesland, Count William Louis of Nassau, founded the second university in the northern Netherlands (after Leiden, 1575) with faculties of theology, law, the arts, and (from 1589) medicine. As a result of the attendance of numerous students from western Germany, Hungary, and the Scandinavian countries, the university attained European stature during the 17th centu…

[German Version] (1619, La-Sauvetat-du-Dropt – Jan 13, 1687, The Hague). After studying at Montauban, Claude became a pastor in St. Affrique and, from 1654, in Nîmes. In 1661, he was forbidden to preach after plans to reunify the Protestants with the Catholic Church were rejected by a provincial synod over which he presided; in 1662, he became pastor and professor in Montauban, and in 1666 pastor in Charenton, near Paris. Following the revocation of the Edict of …

[German Version] (c. 1530, Beaugency-sur-Loire – 1595, Castres). After law school in Orléans and Bourges, Daneau turned to Protestantism under the influence of Calvin in 1560. In 1562, he became pastor in Gien-sur-Loire, and in 1572 pastor and professor of theology in Geneva. He moved to Leiden in 1581, and on to Ghent in 1582; from 1583 he worked in Orthez an…

[German Version] (Placeus; 1596, Saumur – 1655/ 1656, Saumur). After theological studies under J. Cameron in Saumur, Place became professor of philosophy and history in Saumur in 1621, pastor in Nantes in 1625, and professor of theology in Saumur in 1633. Along with his friends M. Amyraut and L. Cappellus, he moderated strict Calvinism by emphasizing ethical and general human aspects, for example, in modifying the doctrine of original sin. With reference to Calvin, and on account of his interest i…

[German Version] (1688, Paris – Feb 2, 1753, Ampleben, near Wolfenbüttel). Influenced by the writings of the quietist mystic A. Bourignon, Marsay, of a noble Huguenot family, left military service in 1711 to retire from the world and lead a contemplative life with the colony of exiles on the property of the countess of Wittgenstein at Schwarzenau, near Berleburg. After 1712 Marsay, in a spiritual marriage with Clara Elisabeth v. Callenberg, lived an unsettled life in various places as a spiritual …

[German Version] I. History of Religion Instances in which a certain share of a person’s gains were ceded to the gods are known from the religions of the ancient Near East and of Classical Antiquity; on the evidence of the Old Testament (e.g. Lev 27:32f.; 1 Sam 8:15), Judaism and Christianity were also familiar with tithing (see III, IV below). Even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), which only cultivates a loose relationship to biblical tradition, takes up this notion in the B…

[German Version] The three Le Maistre brothers were Jansenist theologians (Jansenism). The oldest, Antoine (May 2, 1608, Paris – Nov 4, 1658, Port Royal), was a successful lawyer in Paris and came under the influence of J. Duvergier de Hauranne, one of the first hermits in Port-Royal Abbey. Known for his piety, Antoine wrote apologies and, among other writings, also a biography of Bernard of Clairvaux. He began a Bible translation that was continued by the youngest brother, Isaac Louis (Mar 29, 1613, Paris – Jan 4, 1684, Pomponne; called Le Maistre de Sacy), who was the mo…

[German Version] (Feb 11, 1556, Utrecht – Sep 4, 1644, The Hague), leader of the Dutch Remonstrants (Remonstration). Together with J. Arminius, he studied with T. Beza in Geneva from 1580 to 1584. In 1584 he was appointed pastor in Utrecht and in 1591 in The Hague, where he served as theological adviser to J. van Oldenbarnevelt and (after 1601) as court and military chaplain of Maurice of Orange. Against the orthodox Calvinists he defended the teachings of Arminius; after the latter’s death, he joined with others to compose the five articles of the Remonstratie of Jan 14, 1610, which rej…

[German Version] A year after the annexation of Vaud in 1536, the Bernese council established an academy in Lausanne, whose primary purpose was the training of Reformed clergy for the Francophone territories under Bernese rule. Until the Academy of Geneva (II) was founded in 1559, Lausanne was the only school of Protestant theology in the Francophone region, in which theology was taught along with the propaedeutic philosophical and humanistic subjects. At the outset, P. Viret taught theology and K…

[German Version] (probably 1596, Bordeaux – Jan 30, 1676, near Paris). Having studied jurisprudence and absorbed the ideas of Calvinism and late French Humanism, La Peyrère was suspected of atheism within the Reformed Church as early as 1626. In 1656, he attempted to evade the acute threat from the Spanish-Flemish Inquisition by converting to Catholicism and joining the order of the Oratorians. His messianic theory divides the history of salvation into three periods: the election of the Jews as th…

[German Version] I. History The Reformed League (Reformierter Bund) was founded in August 1884 at a conference in Marburg commemorating the 400th anniversary of Zwingli’s birth; as a registered association, its purpose was defined as “preservation and cultivation of the goods and bounties of the Reformed Church.” It was conceived as a loose association of churches, congregations, and individual members, seeking to strengthen Reformed identity in light of the Lutheran preponderance in Germany, which…

[German Version] (1529/1530, Doornik [Tournai] – Jul 15, 1602, Amsterdam), Reformed theologian. After studying with Calvin and T. Beza in Geneva from 1558 to 1560, he served churches in Aachen, Metz, Antwerp, Heidelberg, and (at the end of his life) in Amsterdam. In 1571 he played a leading role at the Dutch synod in Emden; from 1574 to 1583 he served as court chaplain to William of Orange. With his emphasis on the inward experience of grace and his ¶ description of the Christian life as penance, Taffin was one of the pioneers of the Nadere Reformatie. Christoph Strohm Bibliography Works inclu…

[German Version] (Jul 14, 1634, Paris – Dec 2, 1719, Amsterdam). After studying theology, Quesnel joined the Oratorians in 1657. Ordained to the priesthood in 1659, he became director of the order’s school in Paris. His early Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament (1668; ET: The New Testament, with Moral Reflections upon Every Verse, 1719–1725), a major work that appeared in various editions and was also widely read in Germany, already showed his Jansenist leanings (Jansenism) and aroused much hostility. His defense of Gallican liberties (Gal…

[German Version] In the Middle Ages, this city in the Ardennes was in the borderland between the French kingdom and the German Empire; in the late 16th century, it became an important haven for persecuted Protestants. In 1601 the sovereign Henri de la Tour elevated a school founded in 1579 to the status of a Reformed academy, with faculties of philosophy, theology, and law. After sovereignty passed to Louis XIII in 1642, its work was increasingly hampered in the 1670s; a decree of Louis XIV shut i…

[German Version] (Molinaeus; Oct 16 or 18, 1568, Castle Buhy en Vexin – Mar 10, 1658, Sedan) studied at the Protestant academy in Sedan; became a tutor in England in 1588; was professor of Greek language and philosophy in Leiden, 1592–1598; and pastored the Reformed congregation in Charenton near Paris, 1599–1620. From 1621 until his death, he was preacher and …

[German Version] (Braunius; 1628, Kaiserslautern – 1708, Groningen) studied under J. Cocceius in Leiden. After preaching in Zeeland, Delft, and, from 1661, in Nijmegen, Braun became professor there in 1665 and professor of theology and Hebrew in Groningen in 1680. The further development of Cocceius's federal theology by incorporating Cartesian philosophy brought him into conflict with his colleague Johannes à Marck, who accused him, among other things, of Sabellianism (Sabellius/Sabellians). In the work La véritable religion des Hollandois (1675) Braun defended …

[German Version] (Schröder; c. 1560, Schönfließ, Brandenburg – 1626, Großen-Englis, Hesse), Reformed theologian. Pastor in Rietberg since 1585, he was expelled by Paderborn Jesuits in 1607 and later became pastor in Ropperhausen (Hesse). His 1606 Brennende Fackel attacking the Jesuits has not survived. His Kurzer, doch gründlicher Bericht, published in 1612, describes his shift from Lutheranism to Calvinism, although he is at pains to point out what they have in common. Christoph Strohm Bibliography F. Flaskamp, “Jakob Sartorius,” AKuG 45, 1963, 313–333.

[German Version] (1541, Paris – Nov 16, 1603, Paris). After studying law, Charron became an advocate in Paris in 1571; soon, however, he entered the clergy and became a successful preacher in southern France, in part as court preacher to Queen Marguerite of Angoulême, and was a canon at Bordeaux. His Des trois vérités (1594), which led the bishop of Cahors to appoint him vicar-general, is an apology for the existence of God against atheists, for the Christian religion against Muslims and Jews, and for the Roman Catholic Church…