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[German Version] (Oct 20, 1543, Senlis, Picardy – Feb 3, 1628, Geneva). After studying law and converting to Protestantism, Goulart moved to Geneva in 1566 and became pastor in the nearby municipalities of Chancy and Cartigny. In 1571, he assumed the pastorate in Genève-St. Gervais. Apart from brief pastoral activities in French congregations, he officiated there until the end of his life. After the death of T. Beza in 1605, he chaired the Vénérable Compagnie des pasteurs for seven years. Goulart was less an inventive thinker than an editor, translator and collector. Hi…

[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] (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] 1. Menso (Nov 9, 1541, Eelde an der Drenthe near Groningen – Oct 7, 1612, Emden) studied in Cologne and, after converting to the Reformed Church in 1565, theology in Heidelberg. Active primarily as a preacher in the Netherlands and, from 1567 on, in the Rhineland, his chief activity from 1575 onward lay in Emden as preacher and Praeses of the Coetus of …

[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] (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] (1653, Dolberg/Mark – Jul 12, 1718, Amsterdam), Reformed theologian. Following study in Utrecht under F. Burman (1), in Groningen under J. Alting, and in Zürich under J.H. Heidegger, Roëll became court preacher in Herford in 1679, and pastor in Leeuwarden in 1680, and in Deventer in 1682. From 1686 he taught philosophy and theology at Franeker University, and from 1704 theology in Utrecht. He was a moderate Cocceian Cartesian (J. Cocceius, R. Descartes), whose theology was based on the concept of conscientia as an innate idea that makes possible God-given know…

[German Version] (Aug 4/5, 1540 Agen, Département Lot-et-Garonne – Jan 21, 1609, Leiden). After initial instruction at home by his father, Scaliger studied in Paris, where he joined the Huguenots in 1562. From 1572 to 1574 he taught at the academy in Geneva (II), afterwards working as an independent scholar. In 1593 he was appointed to the chair of ancient languages at Leiden, succeeding J. Lipsius. Editor of many ancient works, he proved to be an outstanding textual critic. As the father of the m…

[German Version] (Aug 9, 1599, Oisemont, Picardy – May 18, 1673, Groningen). After studying in Paris, Saumur, and Geneva, Maresius became a pastor in Laon in 1620 and in Falaise in 1624. Appointed professor at Sedan in 1625, he went to Maastricht as a Walloon pastor in 1631; in 1636 to went on to 's-Hertogenbosch and finally was appointed professor in Groningen in 1643, where he also became a pastor in 1652. His works are mostly in the area of controversial theology. Until 1636 his primary target …

[German Version] (Feb 4, 1563, Goldberg, Silesia [Złotoryja, Poland] – Aug 1, 1633, Paris), Reformed theologian. After studying in Germany, Tilenus was appointed professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan. In his dispute with P. Du Moulin over the interpretation of the unio hypostatica, he accused Du Moulin of advocating ubiquity. During preparations for the Synod of Dort, Tilenus defended the position of the Remonstrants against J. Cameron, a stance that lost him his chair in 1618. Against the Presbyterians, he emphasized the value of…

[German Version] (Gentilis; c. 1520 Cosenza, Calabria – Sep 10, 1566, Bern), a humanist, joined the Italian refugee community in Geneva after his flight from Italy in 1557. Under the influence of M. Gribaldi, he ¶ criticized the church's doctrine of the Trinity and, thus, came into conflict with the Genevan authorities. His rejection of the scholastic concept of substance and his intensive involvement with the church fathers led him to a subordinationist understanding of the Trinity. The Father alone is the source of deity and the…

[German Version] I. History and Theology 1. Terminology. For programmatic theological reasons, the Reformed churches rejected the exonym Calvinist churches. They referred to themselves as Reformed churches because they did not think of themselves as new churchdoms alongside the one holy church but as a part of that church, albeit as part of it renewed according to God’s Word in Holy Scripture. In speaking of themselves, therefore, they eschewed references to a theological founder or a particular place of origin. The 17th-century formula ecclesia reformata semper reformanda means …

[German Version] (1541 – Oct 15, 1608, Geneva), son of a Paris conseiller du Parlement, Perrot probably studied law at Bourges; in 1564 he studied theology at Geneva. He served as pastor in Moens (Ain) and Genthod until 1567, when he moved to Geneva. From 1570 to 1572 and from 1588 to 1592, he was rector of the Geneva Academy and frequently substituted for T. Beza as teacher of theology; in 1598 he was appointed professor of theology. Irenically inclined, his demand for toleration and especially for abolishing the mandatory signing of the Formula confessionis fidei by the students drew cr…

[German Version] (c. 1520, Seville [?] – Mar 15, 1594, Frankfurt am Main). On account of his Protestant views, in 1557 he fled from Spain to the Netherlands, England, and finally Frankfurt am Main. From 1559 to 1563 he served as pastor to the Spanish Protestant community in London and from 1578 to 1585 as pastor to the Lutheran community in Antwerp. Later he spent most of his time in Frankfurt. His most important work, a Spanish translation of the Bible, was published in Basel in 1569. Christoph Strohm Bibliography A.G. Kinder, Cassiodoro de Reina: Spanish Reformer of the 16th Century, 1975

[German Version] (1565, in the Dauphiné – Oct 17, 1621, Montauban) studied theology in Geneva (1583–1589) and, after serving as pastor in various congregations, he became his father's successor in Montélimar (c. 1595). In the negotiations about the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes (France, Huguenots), Chamier took a hard line and soon played a prominent role ¶ at several synods in France. In 1603, he became chair of the national synod in Gap, which added an article to the creed that described the pope as the Antichrist prophesied in th…

[German Version] In the southern French principality of Orange, which by inheritance had come to belong to the house of Nassau-Orange, the Reformation had taken an early hold. Orange, however, lost its sovereignty in the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1703 Louis XIV issued a decree banning the Reformed church there. Those exiled for their faith, called Orangeois, mostly settled in Brandenburg-Prussia (Burg, Halberstadt, Magdeburg and Halle), after a temporary stay in Geneva or elsewhere in …

[German Version] The Rijksuniversiteit Groningen was established by the provinces on Nov 26, 1612 as the third university in the northern Netherlands following Leiden (1575) and Franeker (1585) and was opened on Aug 23, 1614 in a former monastery. It included chairs for theology, law, medicine, philosophy, history and mathematics. The first rector was the Calvinist East-Frisian historian, Ubo Emmius (1547– 1625). Through many foreign students and outstanding scholars, the university gained a lofty…

[German Version] Wishing that the formation of pastors and jurists should not be left to the Catholic University of Leuven, William of Orange founded the first university of the northern Netherlands in Leiden in 1575. In addition to the theological and juridical fields of study, departments of philosophy and literature as well as medicine were also planned. From the very beginning, the university was characterized by a strong orientation to Humanism (III) and Calvinism. The Humanist philologists J…

[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…

[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…