VOSSIUS (Voss), GERHARD JOHANN German classical scholar and theologian, was the son of Johannes Voss, a Dutch Calvinist pastor, and was born in a village near Heidelberg, where his father had found refuge. But Voss was unwelcome among the Lutherans, and returned with his son to Holland. Gerhard was educated at the university of Leyden, where he became the lifelong friend of Hugo Grotius, and studied clas sics, Hebrew, church history and theology. He was rector (1600-14) of the high school at Dort, and then director of the theological college at Leyden (1614-19). He came under sus picion of heresy, and escaped expulsion from his office only by resignation (1619). In 1618 he had published his history of Pela gian controversies, which his enemies considered favoured the views of the Arminians or Remonstrants. In 1622, however, he was appointed professor of rhetoric and chronology, and subse quently of Greek, in the university. He declined invitations from Cambridge, but accepted from Archbishop Laud a prebend in Canterbury cathedral without residence, and went to England to be installed in 1629, when he was made LL.D. at Oxford. In 1632
he left Leyden to become professor of history in the newly founded Athenaeum at Amsterdam. There he died on March 19, Vossius was amongst the first to treat theological dogmas and the heathen religions from the historical point of view. His principal works are Historia Pelagian sive Historiae de controversiis quas Pelagius eiusque reliquiae moverunt (1618) ; Aristarchus, sive de arte gram matica (1635 and 1695; new ed. in 2 vols., ; Etymologicum linguae Latinae (1662 ; new ed. in two vols., 1762-63) ; Commentari orum Rhetoricorum oratoriarum institutionum Libri VI. (1606 and often) ; De Historicis Graecis Libri III. (1624) ; De Historicis Latinis Libri III. (1627) ; De Theologia Gentili (1642) ; Dissertationes Tres de Tribus Symbolis, Apostolico, Athanasiano et Constantinopolitano (5642). Collected works published at Amsterdam (6 vols., 1695-1701).
See P. Niceron, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des hommes illustres, vol. xiii. (Paris, 173o) ; Herzog's Realencyklopiidie, art. "Vossius."