PETRUS DATHENUS (1531–1588)

Born in Flanders, Petrus Dathenus entered a Carmelite monastery at a very young age, where the doctrines of the Reformation were used for his conversion. Consequently, he left the monastery and became a printer in London during the reign of Edward VI. During these years, he became a diligent student of Scripture and shortly thereafter felt called to enter the work of the ministry at Frankfort (1555).

Dathenus became court preacher to John Casimir in 1561 in the Palatinate where he led an active life. Among other things, he was moderator of several foreign congregations, engaged in debate with Lutheran clergy on the ubiquity of Christ’s body, and was involved in political missions.

In 1566, he felt led to return to the Netherlands where he engaged in field-preaching as a popular, zealous preacher of the experiential doctrines of grace. At times, his audience exceeded 15,000 persons! In May of that year he was chosen as president of the Synod at Antwerp.

In 1567, the Inquisition drove Dathenus back to the Palatinate. With John Casimir, Dathenus went to France as a field-preacher, laboring among the Dutch, French, and Walloons.

For the last two decades of his life, Dathenus played a prominent role in church affairs, often being chosen president or moderator at ecclesiastical gatherings or official debates (including the chairmanship of the 1578 Synod of Dort). Due to political involvement, Dathenus was imprisoned once for eight months and driven into exile on several occasions.

In the midst of his active and tried life, Dathenus found time to write. He wrote numerous letters to many of the more renowned Reformers, the bulk of which has never been recovered. Interestingly, Calvin was one of his favorite correspondents.

Today, however, we are primarily indebted to Dathenus for work on Reformed doctrinal standards and liturgy, including the following: (1) a Dutch translation of the Heidelberg Catechism, which, with only slight modifications, is still used by our congregations in the Netherlands today; (2) a Dutch versification of the Book of Psalms, according to the French of Theodore Beza and Clement Marot; (3) a revision of the Belgic Confession of Faith by Guido de Bres; and (4) the composition of a church liturgy—that is, the development of the church forms for Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Ordination, etc.— culled from a variety of sources from Calvin onward, but not without personal touches from Dathenus’s own pen.

Thus, in a very practical way we are still indebted in our church worship to the work Dathenus was enabled to perform by the grace of God. May God grant that we may continue to appreciate the simple Word- and Trinity-centeredness of our church liturgy as conveyed to us through the pen of this worthy Second Reformation divine.

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