ARMINIUS, JACOBUS

born Oct. 10, 1560, Oudewater, Neth. died Oct. 19, 1609, Leiden Dutch Jacob Harmensen or Hermansz theologian and minister of the Dutch Reformed Church who opposed the strict Calvinist teaching on predestination and who developed his own system of belief known later as Arminianism. His father died when Arminius was an infant, and one Theodore Aemilius adopted the child and provided for his schooling in Utrecht. On the death of Aemilius in 1575, Rudolf Snellius (Snel van Roijen, 15461613), a professor at Marburg and a native of Oudewater, became the patron for his further education at the universities of Leiden (157682), Basel, and Geneva (158286). After brief stays at the University of Padua, in Rome, and in Geneva, Arminius returned to Amsterdam. He was ordained there in 1588. In 1603 Arminius was called to a theological professorship at Leiden, which he held until his death. These last six years of his life were dominated by theological controversy, in particular by his disputes with Franciscus Gomarus, his colleague at Leiden. Considered a man of mild temperament, Arminius was forced into controversy against his own choice. He had earlier affirmed the Calvinist view of predestination, which held that those elected for salvation were chosen prior to Adam's fall, but he gradually came to have doubts. To him predestination seemed too harsh a position because it did not allow human decision a role in the achieving of salvation. Hence Arminius came to assert a conditional election, according to which God elects to life those who will respond in faith to the divine offer of salvation. In so doing, he meant to place greater emphasis on God's mercy. After his death some of his followers gave support to his views by signing the Remonstrance, a theological dictum written by Johannes Uyttenbogaert, a minister from Utrecht, in 1610. Remonstrant Arminianism was debated in 161819 at the Synod of Dort (Dordrecht), an assembly of the Dutch Reformed Church at which all the delegates were supporters of Gomarus. Arminianism was discredited and condemned by the synod, the Arminians present were expelled, and many others suffered persecution. In 1629, however, the works of Arminius (Opera theologica) were published for the first time in Leiden, and by 1630 the Remonstrant Brotherhood had achieved legal toleration. It was finally recognized officially in the Netherlands in 1795. In its emphasis on the grace of God, Arminianism influenced the development of Methodism in England and the United States.