Franciscus Gomarus

Franciscus Gomarus (also: François Gomaer; born January 30, 1563 Bruges, † January 11, 1641 in Groningen ) was a Flemish Reformed theologian.

Life

The son of Franz and his wife Johanna Gomarus Moerman experienced its first years of life in his hometown. His parents had adopted the Protestant faith and fled to Flanders in 1578 how many compatriots to Germany. Here they hoped for a life without persecution of their faith to lead in the Palatinate. Soon after, he went to Strasbourg, where he taught by Johannes Sturm and was familiar with the ideas of John Calvin, as its ardent followers, he established himself later. In 1580 he completed a further education on Casimirianum Neustadt, where such important Reformed theologians such as Zacharias Ursinus, Girolamo Zanchi and Daniel Tossanus ( 1541-1602 ) gave him far-reaching theological foundations.

After another stay in 1582 at the University of Oxford in 1583 Reinholdus and the University of Cambridge in Whiteker, where he earned the degree of Master of Philosophy, he continued his studies in 1585 at the University of Heidelberg by Johann Jakob Grynaeus, Tossanus, Georg son (1551-1589) and Franz Junius the Elder continued. After completed his studies, he was in 1587 pastor of the Dutch church in Frankfurt am Main. Because he had a woman outside the city taken, it was in 1593 forbidden to stay in Frankfurt. He was about to Hanau and received January 25, 1594 an appointment as professor of theology at the University of Leiden.

To this end, he went again to Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in theology on March 14 of the same year. He participated in the Leiden University in the organizational tasks of the university and was from 1597 to 1599 rector of the Alma Mater. 1611, he retired from his professorship in Leiden because he was dissatisfied with the attitude of Konrad von der Vorst and had to fend off constant hostility of Jacobus Arminius. Even at the disputation in The Hague of 1609, he appeared against Jacobus Arminius and his followers. From 1615 Gomarus taught at the Academy of Saumur, until he was appointed in 1618 to the first professor of theology at the University of Groningen.

He took 1618/19 also participated in the Synod of Dort and continued the confirmation of the strict Calvinist doctrine of predestination and the line in the exclusion of the Remonstrants from the Reformed Church by. The Contraremonstranten called opponents of Arminianism was named after him as Gomarists.