James Jacob Harmzen(In Dutch Arminius, or Heemanszoon), a Dutch theologian, born at Oudewater, South Holland, in 1560, died at Ley-den, Oct. 19, 1609. In his infancy his father died, leaving him with his brother and sister to his mother's care. Theodore .Aemilius, an ex-priest, undertook to educate him, but died when Arminius in his loth year was studying at Utrecht. The boy found another patron in his countryman Rudolph Snellius, who took him to Marburg in Hesse; but he soon returned to the ruins of Oudewater, where the Spaniards had massacred his mother, brother, sister, and other relatives, with nearly all the inhabitants. Then he went back on foot to Marburg; but as the new university at Leyden was now opened, he returned to Holland the same year, and the Reformed pastor at Rotterdam, Peter Bertius, sent him with his own son to Leyden, where he remained six years. The magistrates of Amsterdam engaging (1582) to bear his expenses in studying for the ministry, he gave a written bond to devote himself after ordination to the ministry in their city, and to no other work or place without the burgomaster's sanction.

He went at once to Geneva, where Beza was lecturing; soon gave offence there by advocating the system of Ramus in opposition to the reigning philosophy of Aristotle; went then to Basel, where he lectured publicly, and the theological faculty offered him a doctorate, which he declined on account of his youth; returned to Geneva in 1583, and continued his study of divinity; went in 1586 to Padua, and heard Zabarella's lectures in philosophy; visited Rome and some other places in Italy; and stopped again at Geneva, where Beza gave him a commendatory letter. Summoned to Amsterdam, he found himself, in the autumn of 1587, in disfavor with his patrons for having visited Italy without their consent, and, as was reported, kissed the pope's foot, become intimate with Bellarmine and the Jesuits, and abjured the reformed religion; but he exculpated himself, was licensed to preach by the Amsterdam classis, received a unanimous call, and was ordained pastor in Amsterdam, Aug. 11, 1588. Here he passed 15 years in a very popular and successful ministry. He married in 1590, and had seven sons and two daughters, only two of whom - Lawrence, a merchant, and Daniel, a distinguished physician - reached full maturity.

Soon after his settlement in the ministry, Arminius was led toward the theological system which bears his name (see Arminians), through a controversy which arose at Delft in 1588 respecting Calvin's and Beza's views on predestination. He was urged and consented to undertake the defence of Beza, but suspended his purpose on account of difficulties respecting some of Beza's and Calvin's positions. He gave public expositions | of Rom. vii. and ix. (1591 - '3), presenting the | views afterward published in his treatises on those chapters, and producing in each case considerable excitement. In 1597 he conferred with Francis Junius, professor of divinity at Leyden, and had a long and friendly epistolary discussion with him respecting predestination, which is published in the works of Arminius. He opposed in 1600 the annual subscription of the Dutch creed and catechism by all the ministers. During the plague of 1602 he assiduously cared for the sick and bereaved. Junius died of this plague about the end of 1602, and the curators of the university soon chose Arminius to be professor in his place; but only after repeated applications of the curators, aided by leading men in the states, would the authorities of Amsterdam permit him to leave, April 15, 1603. The charge of his being a Pelagian led to a conference at the Hague, May 6, 1603, with Francis Go-mar, primary professor of theology at Leyden, who declared the charge unsupported.

He was the first to receive (July 11, 1603) the degree of D. D. from the university of Leyden, and delivered on the occasion his oration on the priesthood of Christ. He introduced his course the same year with three finished orations on the object of theology, on its author and end, and on its certainty. A fifth oration, on reconciling religious dissensions among Christians, he delivered Feb. 8, 1606, on resigning the annual office of rector of the university. A conflict had already begun between the two colleague professors, Arminius and Gomar. Arminius publicly maintained, Feb. 7, 1604, that "predestination, as it regards the thing itself, is the decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which he resolved within himself from all eternity to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of his own glorious grace, believers on whom he had decreed to bestow faith;" and defined " reprobation to be a decree of the wrath or severe will of God, by which he resolved from all eternity to condemn to eternal death unbelievers, who, by their own fault and the just judgment of God, would not believe, for the declaration of his wrath and power." At the end of October Gomar, who was a supra-lapsarian, publicly attacked these positions, and was sustained by the principal teachers in the universities.

Arminius replied. Not only the students and ministers, but the whole republic, now became involved in a religious war. Another trouble arose in respect to the word as applied to the Son of God, Arminius admitting its applicability in the sense of "one who is truly God," but not in the sense, which some maintained, of " one who is God of himself." Arminius was also charged with favoring the brief catechism published by the ministers of Gouda in 1607, which, it was alleged, would open the floodgates to all sorts of error. Arminius and his friend Jan Uytenbogaert, preacher at the Hague, called upon the states general in 1608 to convene a general synod, before which Arminius might defend himself. After a conference between Arminius and Gomar before the supreme court the same year, the states general, advised by this tribunal, enjoined the parties to drop their dispute, and teach nothing against the creed or catechism. But the disputes went on. Oct. 30, 1608, Arminius made before the states at the Hague his famous declaration (Declaratio) of sentiments on 10 different points, viz.: predestination, the providence of God, the free will of men, the grace of God, the perseverance of the saints, the assurance of salvation, the perfection of believers in this life, the divinity of the Son of God, the justification of man before God, and the revision of the Dutch confession and the Heidelberg catechism.

The states general as a body were now inclined to favor Arminius. Another conference in 1609 between Arminius and Gomar, aided by four other ministers on each side, was soon interrupted by the sickness of Arminius, who, exhausted in body and mind, and deeply wounded by evil reports, sank under a complication of fever and other diseases. He was an energetic and eloquent preacher, and personally attractive. Mosheim styles him "a man whom even his enemies commend for his ingenuity, acuteness, and piety." Many have been called Arminians whose views differed widely from his, and many have been called Calvinists whose views agreed mainly with his. His works have been published in Latin (Jacobi Arminii Opera Theologica, 4to, Leyden, 1629), and translated into English by Nichols and Bagnall (3 vols. 8vo, Auburn, 1853).