FRANCISCUS JUNIUS (1545–1602)

Born at Bourges in 1545, Franciscus Junius began to study law at the age of thirteen, “succumbed for a time to the temptations of atheism,” but was converted powerfully by the grace of God when seventeen years old. Like many young converts of his day, he relinquished his law studies and turned to Geneva for the furtherance of his education, focussing on theology, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Junius studied at Geneva (1562–65) during Calvin’s last years and was profoundly influenced by this great Reformer. In the last years of his life as professor at Leiden (cf. below), Junius was accustomed to telling his seminary students, “I devoted two entire years of my life to the study of Calvin’s Institutes!’

Junius received his first congregation, a Walloon flock at Antwerp, when only twenty-one years of age. Roman Catholic and Anabaptist opposition caused him to withdraw first to a church in Limburg, and finally to Germany where he was welcomed by Frederick II at Heidelberg. In 1567 he served the Walloon church at Schonau in the Palatinate, but returned in 1568 to the Low Countries to become a chaplain to Prince William of Orange. Subsequently he returned to his former Palatinate pastorate.

In 1573 Elector Frederick III called him to Heidelberg to assist Tremellius in a Latin translation of the Old Testament. After the death of the elector, Count Palatine John Casimir called him to the newly established Casimi-rianum at Neustadt-on-the-Haardt After teaching for only a few years, he accepted a pastoral call to the Walloon congregation in Otterberg. In 1582 he returned to his professorship at Neustadt and in 1584 accepted a professorial chair at the University of Heidelberg. From 1592 until his death in 1602 Junius served as professor of theology at Leiden.

Junius was no stranger to affliction. His first wife died after seven years of marriage; his second, after nine years of marriage; his third, after ten years of marriage and two days before his own death.

Junius became most renowned for his work on the Latin translation of the Old Testament which was published in five parts and went through twenty editions in twenty years! He was also influential in producing a work that had considerable impact on the development of synods and church order (Ecclesiastici sive de natura et administratione ecclesiae Dei libri tres, 1581). His Parallela sacra (1588), an exposition of New Testament quotations of the Old Testament, had a profound impact on biblical exegesis. In his Animadversiones (1602) against Bellarmine, he defended Protestantism against Roman Catholicism, and in Defensio catholicase doctrinae (1592) he attacked Antitrinitarianism. He also produced several significant translations, and wrote works of philological and historical interest.

Typical of his day, Junius’ writings were penned in Latin. His complete works (Opera theologica) were published at Geneva in 1613, and are prefaced with his 1595 autobiography — the major source for his life.

As might be expected, there is little material on Junius in English. The best source is John Platt, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Arguments for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology, 1575–1650 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), pages 122–150. Platt provides a fine summary of one portion of a work Junius published with two Leiden colleagues on theology, Compendium Theologiae Thesibus in Academia Lugduno-Bat. ordine a DD et Professoribus Fr. Junio, Lucu Trelcatio, et Francisco Gomaro publice proposito, ab ano 1598 usque ad annum 1605 concin-natum (Hanover 1611) — if translated into English, A Collection of Theological Theses publicly propounded in order in Leiden University by Professors Franciscus Junius, Lucas Trelcatius and Franciscus Gomarus, produced from the year 1598 to the year 1605.

Junius remained a moderate Calvinist with a strong emphasis on cov-enantal doctrine throughout his influential career. He was a very well-rounded and able theologian, for he excelled in languages, exegesis, dogmatics, polemics, and church order. He was also a very peaceable theologian, ecumenical in character and conviction, and highly respected among his God-fearing contemporaries.

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