Arminius and His Declaration of Sentiments: An Annotated Translation with Introduction and Theological Commentary

2. Student Years,1576–1587

21 Student Years, 1576–1587 2 Arminius’ student years stretch over more than a decade, and they include several universities in different European cities: Leiden, Geneva and Basel, and Padua (Italy). As we shall see, he was in Geneva on two separate occasions, with a university matriculation between in Basel.1 Leiden was Holland’s first university, and its founding was richly wrapped in sentiment and symbolism—a national event imbued by the new sense of nationhood—even if the rather hasty nature of the founding did lead to a less than perfectly orchestrated set of plans. Although the theological faculty was declared primus inter pares, when the Leiden Reformed minister, Caspar Janszoon Coolhaes (Koolhaes)2 gave the dedicatory address on February 6, 1575 (two days prior to the formal founding ceremony), no theological faculty members were in attendance.3 It was a rapid-fire set of events that had led to this 1 Rijker dan Midas, 24, provides a time line for Arminius’ student years after Leiden, although the exact dates are impossible to reconstruct for each location: (1) Geneva—seven months (January–July 1582); (2) Basel—as few as fifteen or as many as twenty-three months, most likely twenty-one months (between August 1582 and April 1584); (3) Geneva—two to two-and-a-half years (May 1584 to August 1586); (4) During a six-month trip to Italy, approximately four months at Padua (fall 1586 and/or spring 1587); (5) A final few months in Geneva (summer 1587). 2 Coolhaes (January 24, 1536–January 15 [?], 1615) joined the Protestants in 1560. Cf. “Coolhaes (Caspar Jansz.),” in NNBW, 1:cols. 631–36. For complete information , see H. C. Rogge, Caspar Janszoon Coolhaes, de Voorlooper van Arminius en de Remonstranten , 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Y. Rogge, 1865). Regarding the latter part of the book’s title, E. Dekker, Rijker dan Midas, 264n54, refers to an earlier detailed research on Coolhaes that there is little to indicate a connection between the “later Remonstrants and Coolhaes, so that the latter half of the title might just as well be scrapped.” I would counter that it can also be said that there is little similarity between Arminius himself and the “later Remonstrants.” 3 For a more complete description of the opening days, see Bangs, 46–48, and J. J. Woltjer, “Introduction,” in Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century: An Exchange of 22 Arminius and His Declaration of Sentiments inauspicious beginning. On October 4, 1574, Leiden was liberated after a lengthy siege. William of Orange (William the Silent/Willem de Zwijger) entered the city, and rather quickly the idea was born to found a Dutch university. On December 28, William addressed a letter to the States of Holland and West Friesland that called for the founding of “a university where the youth can be educated both in the right knowledge of God and in other good and honorable sciences.”4 The letter was read to the States of Holland in Delft on January 2, 1575, and the agreement was struck the next day to form the university. University curators (three in number) were appointed on January 6, and the university charter was signed. Coolhaes preached the dedicatory address on February 6, and the dedication occurred on February 8, 1575. It is not actually the case that the theological faculty failed to attend, for the faculty had not yet even been appointed. Such was the haste with which the university was founded. The four faculty divisions were theology ,5 law, medicine, and arts—although these bore little resemblance to modern definitions of university faculties by the same name.6 The Pieterskerk where Coolhaes and others regularly preached is perhaps only 250 meters from the Academiegebouw of the university (a late medieval former cloister on the Rapenburg that is still the university center), but the church and academy were far removed in governing assumptions. Coolhaes had only very recently arrived in Leiden as Protestant pastor, and he was immediately caught in a controversy almost exactly parallel in its driving assumptions to that which would later embroil Arminius. The issues were rooted in Erastianism—the form of governing that places ecclesial as well as civil issues under the oversight of public magistrates and officials. When we read in Arminius’ Sentiments about the intrigue surrounding these issues, it is important to remember that these conflicts had a much longer history than Arminius’ story. The crucial role these conflicts played in Dutch Learning, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer...