Abraham van Heyden or van Heiden ( or '; 1597–1678) was a Dutch

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

minister and controversialist, sympathetic to

Cartesianism Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes i ...

Life

He was born in

Frankenthal Frankenthal (Pfalz) (; ) is a town in southwestern Germany, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. History Frankenthal was first mentioned in 772. In 1119 an Augustinians, Augustinian monastery was built here, the ruins of which — known, aft ...

in the Palatinate, son of Gaspar van der Heiden the Younger, a Reformed minister and Counter-Remonstrant who moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

in 1608. Abraham studied theology at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a Protestant institution, it holds the distinction of being the oldest university in the Neth ...

from 1617, travelled to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

and Paris, and was influenced by Ramism and Jean Daillé. He returned to an appointment as minister in Naarden in 1623, moving to Leiden in 1627. In 1648 Heidanus was appointed professor of theology at the

. In 1650 he invited Johannes Cocceius to join him on the faculty there. Battle lines were being drawn up for an extended series of controversies, in which

Gisbertus Voetius Gisbertus Voetius ( Latinized version of the Dutch name Gijsbert Voet ; 3 March 1589 – 1 November 1676) was a Dutch Calvinist theologian, pastor, and professor. Life He was born at Heusden, in the Dutch Republic, studied at Leiden, and in 16 ...

of Utrecht took the other side. In 1655 Johannes Hoornbeeck contributed to the debate between Voetians and Cocceians a sabbatarian pamphlet. Heidanus wrote ''De Sabbate'' (1658 in Latin, later in Dutch) in reply;

Andreas Essenius Andreas Essenius (February 1618–18 May 1677) was a Dutch Reformed theologian, controversialist and academic. He became professor of theology at the University of Utrecht. Life He was born Andreas van Essen in Zaltbommel where he studied Latin a ...

attacked Heidanus, and Cocceius became drawn in, to what became a long controversy.Israel, pp. 662–3. The position Heidanus held for decades as leader of Leiden

eventually led to his dismissal by the university in 1676. This happened after he with Burchard de Volder and Christophorus Wittichius published a rebuttal of the university's condemnation of Cartesian and Cocceian views.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Jonathan I. Israel (1995) ''The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806''.

External links

Old Dictionary article
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Heidanus, Abraham 1597 births 1678 deaths 17th-century Dutch Calvinist and Reformed ministers Leiden University alumni Academic staff of Leiden University People from Frankenthal