Sibrandus Lubbertus
Encyclopedia
Sibrandus Lubbertus was a Dutch
Calvinist
theologian and was a professor of theology at the University of Franeker
for forty years from the institute's foundation in 1585. He was a prominent participant in the Synod of Dort
(1618–1619). His primary works were to counter Roman Catholic doctrine (especially that championed by Robert Bellarmine
) and to oppose Socinianism
and Arminianism
.
in 1555. He studied Divinity
in Wittenberg
in 1574 and in Geneva
in 1576, where one of his professors was Theodore Beza
. He also studied in Marburg
in 1578 and at Neustadt an der Weinstraße
in 1580, where one of his teachers was Zacharias Ursinus
. He earned his doctorate in theology on June 22, 1587 in Heidelberg
under Daniel Tossanus
.
Around 1592 Hadrian à Saravia
, who had left the Netherlands for England, wrote in his De Gradibus complaining that the Netherlands' governmental pay of fixed stipends to ministers was far too small and "evidence that the church's officers were not shown the respect that was their due...he spoke of the 'misera conditio' of ministers in Holland. The government behaved towards them like an employer." Saravia found that his local officials held that giving ministers too much money would make them "grow in respect and authority in the eyes of the people" and make them rivals of the burgomasters and sheriffs. Theodore Beza
already under attack from Leiden professor, Carolus Gallus (who questioned his "views on election, creation, the relationship between church and state and church order") saw Saravia's work as a further attack on his Church. Beza wrote to Lubbertus in 1592 expecting support. Lubbertus did not come to the aid of Calvin's successor, feeling that as Saravia was in the Anglican Church that his views would not have the power of appeal in the Netherlands that Beza feared.
In 1601 Lubbertus wrote against Robert Bellarmine
in De conciliis libri quinque, Scholastice & Theologice collati cum disputationibus Roberti Bellarmini.
, who defended the right of the civil authority to place whomever they wished into university faculty. Lubbertus held that professor Conrad Vorstius
' views were so far outside the norm of Calvinism that they may be considered irreligion. Lubbertus was the lead voice calling for Vorstius' removal.
Lubbertus and Matthew Slade
(a rector of the academy at Amsterdam, a member of the eldership in the English church at Amsterdam, and the son-in-law of Amsterdam minister Petrus Plancius
) in order to gather international support for their position began a correspondance with English divines including George Abott, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This succeeded to the point that King James I of England
became obsessed with the controversy.
Ecclesiologically King James liked the Remonstrant Johannes Wtenbogaert
's Tractaet van't ampt ende authoriteyt which held that the state held complete authority over the Church (a position James held in his controversy over the Oath of Allegiance with the Jesuits). It was due to the Oath controversy that King James had produced A Premonition to alle Most Mighty Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom in 1609 as "a warning against papal pretensions to worldly power". James also began a pamphlet campaign against the papacy, whom Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez
defended. The Jesuit Martinus Becanus, native to the Netherlands, was also engaged in this pamphlet campaign.
Becanus's Refutatio Apologiae linked King James with Vorstius, while declaring James' argument as resting on the heresies of Arianism
or Macedonianism when James claimed that the Holy Spirit, and not Peter and his successors. is the vicar of Christ. In Becanus's Examen Plagae Regiae, he implied James' and Vorstius' opinions were the same and that they went beyond heresy into atheism. This infuriated James and made him desire to show his disdain to all things smacking of heterodoxy.
Joining Lubbertus's cause against Vorstius, King James produced his own volume on the matter in 1612 entitled His Maiesties Declaration concerning His Proceedings with the States general of the United Provinces of the Low Countreys, In the cause of D. Conradus Vorstius.
Lubbertus rose to the attention of the Dutch civil authorities who had sided with the Remonstrants with his publishing of a 900 page book Commentarii ad nonaginta errores Conradi Vorstii which opened with a dedicatory letter to George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the dedication he attacked the States of Holland and other authorities for appointing Vorstius to professor of Divinity at Leiden University and accused them of introducing Socianianism into the Dutch Church.
In response to Lubbertus' work against Vorstius, Hugo Grotius (a representative for Rotterdam and the acting Judge Advocate of Holland) wrote Ordinum Pietas in 1613. This caustic polemic not only attacked Lubbertus' views but called him out in print (such as listing a number of quotations of Church Fathers
and then saying "What are you going to reply to this mass of examples - Sibrandus?").
In Ordinum Pietas Grotius declared that Lubbertus' position against Vorstius was merely a smokescreen for him to discredit the States of Holland. Grotius attacked Lubbertus and the Counter-Remonstrants for resisting Vorstius' appointment as following anti-Melanchthonianism and abandoning hopes of unity. He declared that Lubbertus was upset with the States because of their toleration of the Remonstrants (and their Erastianistic opinions), thereby presenting all of Lubbertus' actions against Vorstius as motivated merely from frustration over the toleration shown to the Remonstrants by the States of Holland.
Noting how Grotius had pulled outside elements into the debate over Vorstius, Festus Hommius
wrote to Lubbertus on November 8, 1613 warning him that Grotius might have a hidden agenda behind linking these elements to the Vorstius case, "if Lubbertus reacts to everything, he will antagonize King James and the English bishops [who liked the Remonstrants view on State supremacy]."
One of the people who incited Lubbertus to write a response to Grotius's Ordinum Pietas was Johannes Althusius
(whom Grotius oddly claimed as influential in his own thought).
In February 1614, Lubbertus, calling Grotius' Ordinum pietas "arrogantia", attacked its reasoning in Responsio Ad Pietatem Hugonis Grotii. Lubbertus and many of his fellow counter-remonstrants saw Grotius' multiple quotations and "display of academic erudition" as sophistry, though Grotius saw them as necessary to meet "thereby the scholarly expectations of his time." Lubbertus disputed Grotius competence to consider religious matters since he was a legal expert rather than a trained theologian. Grotius often focused on issues of procedure in the early Church rather than theological content.
Grotius had pointed out that the Anabaptists
in Friesland
were tolerated and Lubbertus and his supporters were not against toleration as a concept. Historian Hans W. Blom summarizes Lubbertus' view on tolerance, stating that he held one must accept toleration "because a person cannot be forced to believe against his own convictions, and...because there are times and circumstances that make tolerance a matter of practical necessity. ...[but this] did not include the freedom to make thoughts public. The public sermon leaves no room for heterodoxy. One cannot be a heretic with heretics and at the same time recognized by the orthodox as orthodox." Lubbertus accused Vorstius of using deceit to attain a position with the appearance of orthodoxy in order to covertly slip heretical works and ideas into his lesson plans.
Lubbertus called Grotius's selection of quotes from Church Fathers
"unfortunate", joining Johannes Bogerman (another Ordinum pietas critic who wrote against it in his Annotationes) in feeling Grotius was disregarding the original context of the quotations to apply them to the current controversy. Lubbertus did not use as many sources as his opponent in his response to Grotius, basing his arguments "mainly on a collection of the acts of councils and a number of quotations of Augustine
, and using Stephanus' Thesaurus for broader ancient material". In response to Lubbertus' book, Grotius anonymously published Bona Fides Sibrandi Lubberti in late 1614.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
theologian and was a professor of theology at the University of Franeker
University of Franeker
The University of Franeker was a university in Franeker, Friesland, presently part of the Netherlands. It was the second oldest university of the Netherlands, founded shortly after Leiden University....
for forty years from the institute's foundation in 1585. He was a prominent participant in the Synod of Dort
Synod of Dort
The Synod of Dort was a National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism. The first meeting was on November 13, 1618, and the final meeting, the 154th, was on May 9, 1619...
(1618–1619). His primary works were to counter Roman Catholic doctrine (especially that championed by Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation...
) and to oppose Socinianism
Socinianism
Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini , which was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries and embraced also by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period...
and Arminianism
Arminianism
Arminianism is a school of soteriological thought within Protestant Christianity based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic followers, the Remonstrants...
.
Life
Lubbertus was born in LangwardenButjadingen
Butjadingen is a peninsula and municipality in the Wesermarsch districts, in Lower Saxony, Germany.-Geography:Butjadingen is situated on the German North Sea coast. It is bordered on the west and southwest by the Jade River and on the east by the Weser River. It forms the northern part of the...
in 1555. He studied Divinity
Divinity (academic discipline)
Divinity is the study of Christian and other theology and ministry at a school, divinity school, university, or seminary. The term is sometimes a synonym for theology as an academic, speculative pursuit, and sometimes is used for the study of applied theology and ministry to make a distinction...
in Wittenberg
Wittenberg
Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....
in 1574 and in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
in 1576, where one of his professors was Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...
. He also studied in Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
in 1578 and at Neustadt an der Weinstraße
Neustadt an der Weinstraße
Neustadt an der Weinstraße is a town located in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With 53,892 inhabitants as of 2002, it is the largest town called Neustadt.-Etymology:...
in 1580, where one of his teachers was Zacharias Ursinus
Zacharias Ursinus
Zacharias Ursinus was a sixteenth century German Reformed theologian, born Zacharias Baer in Breslau . He became the leading theologian of the Reformed Protestant movement of the Palatinate, serving both at the University of Heidelberg and the College of Wisdom...
. He earned his doctorate in theology on June 22, 1587 in Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
under Daniel Tossanus
Daniel Tossanus
-Life:He was born at Montbéliard on July 15, 1541, the son of Pierre Toussain. He was educated at Basel and Tübingen. Returning to France he preached for six months in his native town, and went to Orléans, 1560, where, after being a teacher of Hebrew, he was ordained minister of the local Reformed...
.
Around 1592 Hadrian à Saravia
Hadrian à Saravia
Hadrian à Saravia, sometimes called Hadrian Saravia, Adrian Saravia, or Adrianus Saravia was an English prebend and theologian and a member of the First Westminster Company, charged by James I of England to produce the King James Version of the Bible.-Early years:Saravia was born in Hesdin , then...
, who had left the Netherlands for England, wrote in his De Gradibus complaining that the Netherlands' governmental pay of fixed stipends to ministers was far too small and "evidence that the church's officers were not shown the respect that was their due...he spoke of the 'misera conditio' of ministers in Holland. The government behaved towards them like an employer." Saravia found that his local officials held that giving ministers too much money would make them "grow in respect and authority in the eyes of the people" and make them rivals of the burgomasters and sheriffs. Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...
already under attack from Leiden professor, Carolus Gallus (who questioned his "views on election, creation, the relationship between church and state and church order") saw Saravia's work as a further attack on his Church. Beza wrote to Lubbertus in 1592 expecting support. Lubbertus did not come to the aid of Calvin's successor, feeling that as Saravia was in the Anglican Church that his views would not have the power of appeal in the Netherlands that Beza feared.
In 1601 Lubbertus wrote against Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation...
in De conciliis libri quinque, Scholastice & Theologice collati cum disputationibus Roberti Bellarmini.
Responsio ad Pietatem Hugonis Grotii
Lubbertus is best known for his opposition to the position of Hugo GrotiusHugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
, who defended the right of the civil authority to place whomever they wished into university faculty. Lubbertus held that professor Conrad Vorstius
Conrad Vorstius
Conrad Vorstius was a German-Dutch Protestant Remonstrant theologian, and successor to Jacobus Arminius in the theology chair at Leiden.-Early life:...
' views were so far outside the norm of Calvinism that they may be considered irreligion. Lubbertus was the lead voice calling for Vorstius' removal.
Lubbertus and Matthew Slade
Matthew Slade
Matthew Slade was an English nonconformist minister and royal agent, in the Netherlands by 1600 and active there in the Contra-Remonstrant cause.-Early life:...
(a rector of the academy at Amsterdam, a member of the eldership in the English church at Amsterdam, and the son-in-law of Amsterdam minister Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England...
) in order to gather international support for their position began a correspondance with English divines including George Abott, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This succeeded to the point that King James I of England
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
became obsessed with the controversy.
Ecclesiologically King James liked the Remonstrant Johannes Wtenbogaert
Johannes Wtenbogaert
Johannes Wtenbogaert was a Dutch Protestant minister, a leader of the Remonstrants.-Life:Born at Utrecht, he was brought up a Roman Catholic, and attended the school of St. Jerome there. He intended a legal career, but gave it up from 1578 with Catholicism when required to cease hearing the...
's Tractaet van't ampt ende authoriteyt which held that the state held complete authority over the Church (a position James held in his controversy over the Oath of Allegiance with the Jesuits). It was due to the Oath controversy that King James had produced A Premonition to alle Most Mighty Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom in 1609 as "a warning against papal pretensions to worldly power". James also began a pamphlet campaign against the papacy, whom Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez
Francisco Suárez
Francisco Suárez was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded among the greatest scholastics after Thomas Aquinas....
defended. The Jesuit Martinus Becanus, native to the Netherlands, was also engaged in this pamphlet campaign.
Becanus's Refutatio Apologiae linked King James with Vorstius, while declaring James' argument as resting on the heresies of Arianism
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
or Macedonianism when James claimed that the Holy Spirit, and not Peter and his successors. is the vicar of Christ. In Becanus's Examen Plagae Regiae, he implied James' and Vorstius' opinions were the same and that they went beyond heresy into atheism. This infuriated James and made him desire to show his disdain to all things smacking of heterodoxy.
Joining Lubbertus's cause against Vorstius, King James produced his own volume on the matter in 1612 entitled His Maiesties Declaration concerning His Proceedings with the States general of the United Provinces of the Low Countreys, In the cause of D. Conradus Vorstius.
Lubbertus rose to the attention of the Dutch civil authorities who had sided with the Remonstrants with his publishing of a 900 page book Commentarii ad nonaginta errores Conradi Vorstii which opened with a dedicatory letter to George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the dedication he attacked the States of Holland and other authorities for appointing Vorstius to professor of Divinity at Leiden University and accused them of introducing Socianianism into the Dutch Church.
In response to Lubbertus' work against Vorstius, Hugo Grotius (a representative for Rotterdam and the acting Judge Advocate of Holland) wrote Ordinum Pietas in 1613. This caustic polemic not only attacked Lubbertus' views but called him out in print (such as listing a number of quotations of Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
and then saying "What are you going to reply to this mass of examples - Sibrandus?").
In Ordinum Pietas Grotius declared that Lubbertus' position against Vorstius was merely a smokescreen for him to discredit the States of Holland. Grotius attacked Lubbertus and the Counter-Remonstrants for resisting Vorstius' appointment as following anti-Melanchthonianism and abandoning hopes of unity. He declared that Lubbertus was upset with the States because of their toleration of the Remonstrants (and their Erastianistic opinions), thereby presenting all of Lubbertus' actions against Vorstius as motivated merely from frustration over the toleration shown to the Remonstrants by the States of Holland.
Noting how Grotius had pulled outside elements into the debate over Vorstius, Festus Hommius
Festus Hommius
-Life:He was born into a noted Frisian family. He studied from 1593 at the University of Franeker under Sibrandus Lubbertus, travelled in 1595 to the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle and completed his studies from 1596 at the University of Leiden. Around 1597 Hommius became preacher of Warmond,...
wrote to Lubbertus on November 8, 1613 warning him that Grotius might have a hidden agenda behind linking these elements to the Vorstius case, "if Lubbertus reacts to everything, he will antagonize King James and the English bishops [who liked the Remonstrants view on State supremacy]."
One of the people who incited Lubbertus to write a response to Grotius's Ordinum Pietas was Johannes Althusius
Johannes Althusius
Johannes Althusius was a German jurist and Calvinist political philosopher.He is best known for his 1603 work, "Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata"; revised editions were published in 1610 and 1614...
(whom Grotius oddly claimed as influential in his own thought).
In February 1614, Lubbertus, calling Grotius' Ordinum pietas "arrogantia", attacked its reasoning in Responsio Ad Pietatem Hugonis Grotii. Lubbertus and many of his fellow counter-remonstrants saw Grotius' multiple quotations and "display of academic erudition" as sophistry, though Grotius saw them as necessary to meet "thereby the scholarly expectations of his time." Lubbertus disputed Grotius competence to consider religious matters since he was a legal expert rather than a trained theologian. Grotius often focused on issues of procedure in the early Church rather than theological content.
Grotius had pointed out that the Anabaptists
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
in Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
were tolerated and Lubbertus and his supporters were not against toleration as a concept. Historian Hans W. Blom summarizes Lubbertus' view on tolerance, stating that he held one must accept toleration "because a person cannot be forced to believe against his own convictions, and...because there are times and circumstances that make tolerance a matter of practical necessity. ...[but this] did not include the freedom to make thoughts public. The public sermon leaves no room for heterodoxy. One cannot be a heretic with heretics and at the same time recognized by the orthodox as orthodox." Lubbertus accused Vorstius of using deceit to attain a position with the appearance of orthodoxy in order to covertly slip heretical works and ideas into his lesson plans.
Lubbertus called Grotius's selection of quotes from Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
"unfortunate", joining Johannes Bogerman (another Ordinum pietas critic who wrote against it in his Annotationes) in feeling Grotius was disregarding the original context of the quotations to apply them to the current controversy. Lubbertus did not use as many sources as his opponent in his response to Grotius, basing his arguments "mainly on a collection of the acts of councils and a number of quotations of Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
, and using Stephanus' Thesaurus for broader ancient material". In response to Lubbertus' book, Grotius anonymously published Bona Fides Sibrandi Lubberti in late 1614.