(Du Pin, Bildioalpte Eccles. tom. 2; Cave, Lit. Hirt.; Bayle, Diet.; Dr. A. Clark, Succession of Sacred Literature ; Neander, Church History.) El'ISCO'PIUS, SIMON (whose real Dutch name was Dissehop), was one of the most learned men of the 17th century, and the chief supporter of the anti-calvinistic doctrines advocated by his contempo rary Arminins. lie was born in the year 1583, at Amsterdam, where he received his echoed education. In 1600 he went to the then newly founded university of Leyden, of which he became a distinguished member, and entered with zeal and great Ability into the predestinarian controversy between the Annininns and Goznaritee, which at that time excited a deep and general interest. He was ordained in 1610, as the minister of the village of Bleyawyck, near Rottenlem, and in the following year he was deputed to the office of Arminian advocate at the conference held at the Hague between the Remouetrante and their opponents, the Calvinists. He was chosen to fill the chair of professor of divinity in the university of Leyden, as the successor of Professor Gomsr. The predestinarian controversy was carried on shortly after with such virulence and popular excitement that Epiacopius was not only exposed in the streets and in the pulpit to the greatest abuse and insult, but, on ono occasion, barely escaped from being atoned to death. The predominant party of Calvinists treated him with great injustice and tyranny at the synod of Dort, td which he went net a deputy from the states of Holland. He was refused a hearing in behalf of tho less numerous party of Arminiane. He was told that the synod had met not to discuss hut to judge, and it having been decreed that he and the other professors who formed the body of the Arminian delegates should neither explain nor maintain any point without being asked to speak, Episeopius and his colleagues refused to submit. They were, in consequence, expelled
from the synod, and were subsequently deposed from the functions of the ministry and banished from the territory. Episcopius retired to France, and continued to write in defence of Arminianism, and to console and encourage his unfortunate brethren. In 1626, when sectarian animosity had somewhat subsided, he returned to Holland, and became the minister of the church of Remoustrants at Rotter dam. Finally, he was made rector of the college founded by the Remonstrant party at Amsterdam, where he died in 1613, nt the ago of sixty. Ills works were published collectively in 2 vols. foL, entitled Opera °meta Theologica,' &o., Curcellsei edits. Amsterdam, 1650, 1665, and 1671 ; and in London in 1678. They consist chiefly of the Ibllowiug treatises: Collegium Disputatiouum Theologicarum in Academia Leydensi; Dortdrecti, 1683; Fur Prsedeatinatus; Dort, 1642; 'Antidotum adversus Synodi Dortdracenso Cenones ; 'Con fession of Faith ; "Popish Labyrinth, or a Treatise on Infallibility,' &c., English translation, London, 1763. The latter works were written on the occasion of the author's being solicited by Peter Watlingus, a learned Jesuit, to become a Papist.
(Life of L'piscopius, by Limboreh, and by Curcellmus ; Life and Death of I rminius and Episcopius, London, 1672,12mo ; Moreri, &c.)