In Christian history, the Collegiants (Latin : Collegiani; Dutch : Collegianten), also called Collegians, were an association, founded in 1619 among the Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland. They were so called because of their colleges (meetings) held the first Sunday of each month, at which everyone had the same liberty of expounding the scripture and praying.
Collegiants were an association, founded in 1619 among the Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland. [1] The practice originated in 1619 when, after the Synod of Dort forced the States of Holland to dismiss clerics for encouraging refuge to individuals being persecuted for religious beliefs, three brothers of Warmond by the name of van der Kodde (or Codde)—Gijsbert, Jan Jacobsz, and Adriaen—decided to hold religious services of their own. [2] The sect began as a refuge from the bitterness of the Calvinist and Arminian controversies of the day. Their name is derived from the custom they had of calling their communities "Colleges", as did Spener and the Pietists of Germany. [3]
The Collegiants' first place of meeting was at the village of Warmond, at the residence of one of the brothers, but they shortly established their headquarters at Rijnsburg, a village 2.5 mi (4.0 km) northwest from Leiden, and were hence called the Rijnsburgers (Dutch: Rijnsburger Collegianten). [3] In Rijnsburg, the Collegiants had a guest-quarter in the present-day alleyway of Kwakelsteeg called the Grote Huis (Large House). [4]
There were also large communities of Collegiants in other places, for instance in Amsterdam and Hoorn. The Amsterdam college was founded in 1646 by Adam Boreel as a spiritualist cell, like those of Sebastian Franck and Kaspar Schwenkfeld, but Daniel De Breen, a Leiden-educated Remonstrant theologian, brought the college in line with Rijinsburger principles. A disaffected Mennonite, Galenus Abrahamsz (or Abrahamson), brought many other Mennonites to the Amsterdam college. [5] In Amsterdam, the Collegiants ran an orphanage, 'De Oranjeappel', where the Dutch writer Aagje Deken was raised.
Their principle from the beginning had been to admit all individuals to their society who were willing to acknowledge their belief in the Bible as inspired scripture, and to take it as a guide for Christian life; but no confession of faith was used, and the widest diversity of opinion was permitted. Their form of worship consisted of prayer meetings held on Sundays and Wednesdays, at which any men of the community might pray and expound the scripture, but there was no regular organization of a ministry among them. They recognized the necessity of baptism, which they administered by immersion, and twice a year they had a sacramental meeting extending over several days, similar to those of the Scottish Presbyterians. [3]
Benedict Spinoza joined the study groups of the Collegiants while living near Leiden from 1660 to 1663. [6] It was during this period that he began working on his major book, The Ethics. At the end of the 17th century, the opinions of Spinoza had obtained a strong hold upon the Collegiants, and caused a temporary division of their members into two parties, with separate places of meeting. The leader of the Spinozist party was John Bredenburg, a merchant of Rotterdam, and he was opposed by a bookseller from Amsterdam, named Francis Couper, who attained some eminence by a work which he wrote against Bredenburg under the title Arcana Atheismi detecta ("The Secrets of Atheism Revealed"); he was also the publisher of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum seu Unitariorum. The two parties were reunited on the death of these two controversialists, and attracted many to their society from other sects during the 18th century.
The last (open) meetings of the Collegiants were held in Rijnsburg om 27 May 1787, in Rotterdam on 9 September 1788, and in Amsterdam in 1791. The last baptism in Rijnsburg was in 1801. The center in Rijnsburg was sold in 1828, after the last Collegiant had died. The orphanage of the Collegiants called 'De Oranjeappel' survives to this day as a foundation promoting youth work ("Stichting Weeshuis der Doopsgezinde Collegianten "De Oranjeappel"). [7]
Anabaptism is a Protestant Christian movement which traces its origins to the Radical Reformation.
Baruch (de) Spinoza was a philosopher of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin, born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period." Inspired by Stoicism, Jewish Rationalism, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, and a variety of heterodox religious thinkers of his day, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages. In Hebrew, his full name is written ברוך שפינוזה. In most of the documents and records contemporary with Spinoza's years within the Jewish community, his name is given as Bento, Portuguese for "Blessed". In his works in Latin, he used the name "Benedictus de Spinoza".
Menno Simons was a Roman Catholic priest from the Friesland region of the Low Countries who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and became an influential Anabaptist religious leader. Simons was a contemporary of the Protestant Reformers and it is from his name that his followers became known as Mennonites.
The Mennonite Church in the Netherlands, or Algemene Doopsgezinde Sociëteit, is a body of Mennonite Christians in the Netherlands. The Mennonites are named for Menno Simons (1496–1561), a Dutch Roman Catholic priest from the Province of Friesland who converted to Anabaptism around 1536. He was re-baptized as an adult in 1537 and became part of the Dutch Anabaptist movement.
The Münster rebellion was an attempt by radical Anabaptists to establish a communal sectarian government in the German city of Münster – then under the large Prince-Bishopric of Münster in the Holy Roman Empire.
Johannes Acronius was a German Reformed theologian. He is less known by scientific works, than by his part in the quarrel between Arminians (Remonstrants) and Contra-Remonstrants.
The Remonstrants is a Protestant movement that had split from the Dutch Reformed Church in the early 17th century. The early Remonstrants supported Jacobus Arminius, and after his death, continued to maintain his original views called Arminianism against the proponents of Calvinism. Condemned by the synod of Dort (1618–19), the Remonstrants remained in a small minority in the Netherlands. In the middle of the 19th century, the Remonstrant Brotherhood was influenced by the liberal Dutch theological movement.
Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect. Others involved in the Collegiants were Daniel van Breen, Michiel Coomans, Jacob Otto van Halmael and the Mennonite Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan.
Petrus Serrarius was a millenarian theologian, writer, and also a wealthy merchant, who established himself in Amsterdam in 1630, and was active there until his death. He was born "into a well-to-do Walloon merchant family by name of Serrurier in London." He has been called "the dean of the dissident Millenarian theologians in Amsterdam".
Wybo Fijnje was a Dutch Mennonite minister, publisher in Delft, Patriot, exile, coup perpetrator, politician and - during the Batavian Republic and Kingdom of Holland - manager of the predecessor of the Staatscourant.
Frans Kuyper was a Dutch Socinian writer and printer.
Nicolaas Bidloo was a Dutch physician who served as the personal physician of Tsar Peter I of Russia. Bidloo was the director of the first hospital in Russia as well as the first medical school in Russia, and is considered one of the founders of Russian medicine.
Marten Schagen was a Dutch Mennonite bookseller, translator, journal editor and historian.
The Doopsgezinde kerk is a historical hidden Mennonite church dating from the 17th century between the Grote Houtstraat, Peuzelaarsteeg and the Frankestraat in Haarlem, Netherlands.
Abraham de Vries was a Dutch Mennonite minister, author on literature and member of several societies.
Klaas Sybrandi, also spelled as Sijbrandi, was a Dutch Mennonite minister, author, translator and involved with several societies and foundations.
Adriaan Loosjes, was a 19th-century botanist, poet, novelist and publisher born in Den Hoorn, North Holland, Netherlands.
Klaas van der Horst was a Dutch Mennonite teacher and minister.
Adriaen Verwer was a Dutch Mennonite merchant, scholar, philosopher and linguist. He wrote books on language, religion and maritime law. He is best known for his grammar Linguae Belgicae, published anonymously in 1707. He is often regarded as the linguistic mentor of his younger friend Lambert ten Kate.
Lambert Bidloo, of Amsterdam, was by religion, a Zonist Mennonite, by profession, an apothecary and botanist and by passion, a man of letters and translator. After a solid education in classical letters and a period of apprenticeship, Lambert joined the apothecaries' and surgeon's guild overseeing standards and education at the Collegium Medicum. In 1688, he became the director of this institution, and, along with associates and collaborators, botanist Jan Commelin and anatomist Frederik Ruysch he had a hand in its herbalist Hortus Medicus flowering into the global Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam) of today. His various learned works in Latin and Dutch deal with plants, with Mennonite religious issues and with different historical themes, contemporary, biblical and literary. Among these Bidloo is best known for the curious Panpoeticon Batavum,, a figurative and visual poet's gallery of Golden Age Dutch literature. This he produced as a joint undertaking with the noted artist and art historian Arnold Houbraken who was then also launching The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters,.