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[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…

[German Version] 1. Friedrich, the Elder ( Jan 1, 1600, Amberg – May 14, 1649, Leiden), Reformed theologian. He was appointed professor of theology in Geneva in 1626 and professor of theology in 1631; from 1633 to 1637 he served as rector of the university. He was appointed professor of theology in Leiden in 1642 and in 1648 he became pastor of the Walloon congregation there. He was a champion of strict Reformed orthodoxy as defined by the Synod of Dort, rejecting such theological positions as M. Amyraut’s doctrine of grace. Christoph Strohm Bibliography C. Borgeaud, Histoire de l’univers…

[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] (Jan 29, 1718, Bédarieux, Département Hérault – Sep 25, 1794, Nîmes). At an early age, he joined with Jean Bétrine (1718–1756) and for four years shared with him the dangerous life of an itinerant preacher of the “church in the desert.” In 1738 he was formally admitted as a preacher in Nîmes; in 1740/1741 he studied with A. Court for six months at the theological seminary in Lausanne. During the following 40 years of his ministry as a pastor of the persecuted Reformed Church in Fr…

[German Version] (du Jon; May 1, 1545, Bourges – Oct 13, 1602, Leiden). After studying law in Bourges and theology in Geneva with T. Beza, Junius became the French preacher in Antwerp in 1565 and in the Electoral Palatinate in 1567. There, from 1573 onward, he collaborated with I. Tremellius on a Latin translation of the Old Testament. In 1576, he became professor of theology in Neustadt an der Haardt, in ¶ 1584 in Heidelberg and in 1592 in Leiden. With his Eirenicum de pace ecclesiae catholicae (first in Fr., 1593), written for Henry IV of France, which proposed a Gallican model…

[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] (c. 1555 Langwarden, Butjadingen, Lower Saxony – Jan 10, 1625, Franeker, The Netherlands). After studying at Wittenberg, Geneva, Marburg, and Neustadt an der Haardt and a brief ministry in Emden from 1582 to 1584, Lubbertus was appointed the first professor of theology at the newly founded university of Franeker. After receiving his Dr.theol. from Heidelberg in 1587, he wrote numerous works to secure the heritage of the Reformation against the Socinians ( De Jesu Christo servatore, 1611), the Remonstrants (Arminians), and especially Catholic theologians …

[German Version] (1633, Amersfoort – Nov 13, 1690, Amsterdam), Reformed theologian. After studying at Utrecht, Groningen, and Geneva, he became pastor of the Walloon congregation in Groningen in 1658 and Middelburg in 1662; in 1664 he was also appointed pastor and professor of church history in Utrecht and in 1670 in Amsterdam. He opposed Spinozism (B. Spinoza), but as a supporter of Cartesianism he was himself exposed to constant charges of deficient orthodoxy by the adherents of G. Voetius. Christoph Strohm Bibliography Works include: De scripturarum interprete contra exercit…

[German Version] 1. Lucas the Elder (1542, Erin, near Douai – Aug 28, 1602, Leiden), Reformed theologian. After studying at Paris and stays in London, Lille, Brussels, and Antwerp, in 1585 he was appointed pastor of the French congregation in Leiden; in 1587 he was also appointed professor of theology at the University of Leiden. Christoph Strohm Bibliography Works: see 2 below. On Trelcatius: A. Eekhof, De theologische faculteit te Leiden in de 17de eeuw, 1921 (Dutch) H.L. Clotz, Hochschule für Holland. Die Universität Leiden im Spannungsfeld zwischen Provinz, Stadt und K…

[German Version] (Aug 17, 1811, Vleuten, near Utrecht – Apr 10, 1885, Leiden), preacher in Meerkerk in 1840, professor in Franeker in 1840, associate professor of New Testament and dogmatics in Leiden in 1843, promoted to full professor in 1845; from 1877 professor of the philosophy of religion. Influenced by the Tübingen (I) school, Scholten wrote topical studies on the history of early Christian literature, putting historical-critical insights to use for apologetic purposes. More important for t…

[German Version] (1592, Geneva – May 2, 1657, Paris), became pastor of the Reformed congregation in Paris after studying at the Huguenot Academy of Saumur and was president of the national synod at Charenton in 1631. His ability to formulate knowledgeable as well as reasonable argumentation on issues of controversial theology, which he amply demonstrated in debates and in publications, made him one of the main pillars of French Protestantism in the first half of the 17th century (Controversial the…

[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] (Wits; Feb 12, 1636, Enkhuizen – Oct 22, 1708, Leiden), Reformed theologian. After studying at Utrecht and Groningen, he served as pastor in Westwoud, Wormer, Goes, and Leeuwarden from 1657 to 1675, then as professor of theology at Frankener (1675–1680), Utrecht (1680–1698), and Leiden (1698–1707). Influenced by G. Voetius, he developed a federal theology, more biblically oriented than that of J. Cocceius. Witsius opposed Cartesianism as well as the separatist followers of J. de L…

[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 …