Franciscus Gomarus

Franciscus Gomarus (François Gomaer; 30 January 1563 – 11 January 1641) was a Dutch theologian, a strict Calvinist and an opponent of the teaching of Jacobus Arminius (and his followers), whose theological disputes were addressed at the Synod of Dort (or Dordrecht) (1618–19). Gomarus was born in Bruges. His parents, having embraced the principles of the Reformation, emigrated from Bruges to the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1578, in order to enjoy freedom to profess their new faith, and they sent their son to be educated at Strasbourg under Johann Sturm. He remained there three years, and then went in 1580 to Neustadt, from which the professors of Heidelberg had been driven by the elector-palatine because they were not Lutherans. Here his teachers in theology were Zacharius Ursinus (1534–83), Hieronymus Zanchius (1560–90), and Daniel Tossanus (1541–1602). Crossing to England towards the end of 1582, he attended the lectures of John Rainolds (1549–1607) at Oxford, and those of William Whitaker at Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge in 1584, and then went to Heidelberg, where the faculty had been re-established by this time. He was pastor of a Dutch Reformed Church in Frankfurt from 1587 until 1593, when the congregation was dispersed by persecution. In 1594 he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Leiden, and before going there received the degree of doctor from the University of Heidelberg. Gomarus taught quietly at Leiden until 1603, when Jacobus Arminius came to be one of his colleagues in the theological faculty, and began to teach what Gomarus viewed as essentially Pelagian doctrines and to create a new school of theology within the university. Gomarus immediately set himself earnestly to oppose these beliefs in his classes at college, and was supported by Johann B. Bogermann (1570–1637), who afterwards became professor of theology at Franeker. Arminius sought to make election dependent upon faith, whilst they sought to enforce absolute predestination as the rule of faith, according to which the whole Scriptures are to be interpreted.