Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/766

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T30 ARMINIUS ius in undisputed possession. Arminius finally excited discontent by the strictness of his rule, and perished by the treachery of one of his relations. His wife Thusnelda, their son Thu- melicus, born in captivity, and Segmund, broth- er of Thusnelda, appeared as prisoners in the triumphal cortege of Germanicus in Rome, A. D. 16. The lineage of the Cheruscan princes was extinct, with the exception of Italicus, son of Flavus, who in 47 was given up by the Ro- mans to the Oherusci at their request. Tacitus says that the name of Arminius was alive in the songs of the "barbarians of his time," and it still lives in Germany. It was the theme of many patriotic songs during the rising in 1813 against the domination of Napoleon. ARMINIUS, James (in Dutch, JACOB HARMZEN or HERMANSZOON), a Dutch theologian, born at Oude water, South Holland, in 1560, died at Ley- den, Oct. 19, 1609. In his infancy his father died, leaving him with his brother and sister to his mother's care. Theodore ^Emilius, an ex- priest, undertook to educate him, but died when Arminius in his 15th year was studying at Utrecht. The boy found another patron in his countryman Rudolph Snellius, who took him to Marburg in Hesse; but he soon re- turned to the ruins of Oudewater, where the Spaniards had massacred his mother, brother, sister, and other relatives, with nearly all the inhabitants. Then he went back on foot to Marburg ; but as the new university at Leyden was now opened, he returned to Holland the same year, and the Reformed pastor at Rotter- dam, Peter Bertius, sent him with his own son to Leyden, where he remained six years. The magistrates of Amsterdam engaging (1582) to bear his expenses in studying for the ministry, he gave a written bond to devote himself after ordination to the ministry in their city, and to no other work or place without the burgomas- ter's sanction. He went at once to Geneva, where Beza was lecturing ; soon gave offence there by advocating the system of Ramus in op- position to the reigning philosophy of Aristotle ; went then to Basel, where he lectured pub- licly, and the theological faculty offered him a doctorate, which he declined on account of his youth ; returned to Geneva in 1583, and con- tinued his study of divinity ; went in 1586 to Padua, and heard Zabarella's lectures in phi- losophy ; visited Rome and some other places in Italy ; and stopped again at Geneva, where Beza gave him a commendatory letter. Sum- moned to Amsterdam, he founfl himself, in the autumn of 1587, in disfavor wVth his patrons for having visited Italy without their consent, and, as was reported, kissed the pope's foot, become intimate with Bellarmine and the Jes- uits, and abjured the reformed religion ; but he exculpated himself, was licensed to preach by the Amsterdam classis, received a unani- mous call, and was ordained pastor in Amster- dam, Aug. 11, 1588. Here he passed 15 years in a very popular and successful ministry. He married in 1590, and had seven sons and two daughters, only two of whom Lawrence, a merchant, and Daniel, a distinguished physician reached full maturity. Soon after his settle- ment in the ministry, Arminius was led toward the theological system which bears his name (see ARMINIANS), through a controversy which arose at Delft in 1588 respecting Calvin's and Beza's views on predestination. He was urged and consented to undertake the defence of Beza, but suspended his purpose on account of difficulties respecting some of Beza's and Calvin's positions. He gave public expositions of Rom. vii. and ix. (1591-'3), presenting the views afterward published in his treatises on those chapters, and producing in each case considerable excitement. In 1597 he conferred with Francis Junius, professor of divinity at Leyden, and had a long and friendly epistolary discussion with him respecting predestination, which is published in the works of Armin- ius. He opposed in 1600 the annual subscrip- tion of the Dutch creed and catechism by all the ministers. During the plague of 1602 he assiduously cared for the sick and bereaved. Junius died of this plague about the end of 1602, and the curators of the university soon chose Arminius to be professor in his place; but only after repeated applications of the cu- rators, aided by leading men in the states, would the authorities of Amsterdam permit him to leave, April 15, 1603. The charge of his being a Pelagian led to a conference at the Hague, May 6, 1603, with Francis Go- mar, primary professor of theology at Leyden, who declared the charge unsupported. He was the first to receive (July 11, 1603) the de- gree of D. D. from the university of Leyden, and delivered on the occasion his oration on the priesthood of Christ. He introduced his course the same year with three finished ora- tions on the object of theology, on its author and end, and on its certainty. A fifth ora- tion, on reconciling religions dissensions among Christians, he delivered Feb. 8, 1606, on re- signing the annual office of rector of the uni- versity. A conflict had already begun between the two colleague professors, Arminius and Gomar. Arminius publicly maintained, Feb. 7, 1604, that "predestination, as it regards the thing itself, is the decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which he resolved within himself from all eternity to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of his own glorious grace, believers on whom he had decreed to bestow faith ;" and defined " reprobation to be a decree of the wrath or severe will of God, by which he resolved from all eternity to condemn to eternal death unbelievers, who, by their own fault and the just judgment of God, would not believe, for the declaration of his wrath and power." At the end of October Gomar, who was a supra- lapsarian, publicly attacked these positions, and was sustained by the principal teach- ers in the universities. Arminius replied. Not only the students and ministers, but the