ARMIN EIS, JACOBUS, the founder of Arminianism, was b. at Oudewater (Old Water) in 1560. His real name in Dutch was James Harmensen; but in accordance with the prevailing custom amongst scholars in those days, he Latinized it. His father was a cutler, and died when A. was a child. After a preliminary education at Utrecht, he commenced (in 1575) a course of study at the newly-founded university of Leyden, where he remained for six years, and where he seems to have acquired a high reputation. for the Amsterdam merchants undertook to bear the expense of his further studies for the ministry, on condition that he would not preach out of their city unless permitted to do so. In 1582, he went to Geneva, and received the instructions of Theodore Beza, the most rigid of Calvinists. Here he made himself odious by the boldness with which he defended the logic of Peter Ramus, in opposition to that of the Aristotelians of Geneva, and in consequence had to retire to Basle, whither his fame must have preceded him, for he was offered by the faculty of divinity in that university the degree of doctor gratis, which, however, he did not venture to accept, on account of his youth. At Basle he studied under Gyrnamus. He subsequently (1586) traveled into Italy: On his return to Amsterdam (1588), he was appointed minister. Shortly after this, he was commis sioned to defend the doctrine of Beza, regarding predestination, against the changes which the ministers of Delft had proposed to make on it. A. carefully examined both sides of the question, but the result of his study was, that he himself began to doubt, and at last came to adopt the opinions he had been commissioned to confute. Some time after this change of view, he came, in the course of his expositions, upon the epistle to the Romans, the most explicitly doctrinal in the New Testament, and the 8th and 9th chapters of which have always been considered the strongholds of Calvinism. His treatment of this epistle excited much dissatisfaction, and involved him in sharp disputes with his orthodox brethren. Still his views were, as yet, either ambiguously or vaguely
expressed, or, at least, had not attained to that clear consistency they subsequently acquired, for in 1604 he was made professor of theology in the university of Leyden.
The greatest enemy of A. was Francis Gomar, his colleague in the university of Ley den. In the course of the year 1604, the latter attacked his doctrines, and from that hour to the end of his life, A. was engaged in a series of bitter disputes with his oppo nents. The odiuus theologicum was never exhibited in more un mingled purity. Arminius asserted, in substance, that God bestows forgiveness and eternal life on all who repent of their sins and believe in Christ; he wills that all men should attain salvation, and only because he has from eternity foreseen the belief or unbelief of individuals, has he from eternity determined the fate of each. On the other hand, Gomar and his party, appealing to the Belgic confession and the Heidelberg catechism, maintained, that God had, by an eternal decree, predestinated what persons shall, as being elected to salvation, be therefore awakened to repentance and faith and by grace made to persevere therein; and what persons shall, as being rejected (reprobak), be left to sin, to unbelief, and to perdition. See PREDESTINATION, PERSEVERANCE OF SAINTS.
While these fierce disputes were continuing, A., who was not destitute either of friends or influence, was created rector mug nifiens of the university, but resigned the honor on the 8th of Feb., 1606, having held the office only for one year. All the pulpits in Holland now fulminated against him. At length, in 1808, A. himself applied to the states of Holland to convoke a synod for the purpose of settling the controversy; but, worn out with care and disease, he died, on the 19th of Oct., 1609, before it was held, leaving seven sons and two daughters by his wife, Elizabeth Reach, daughter of Laurent Reael, a judge and senator of Amsterdam.