Franz Junius the Elder

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Franz Junius the Elder

Franciscus Junius the Elder , also François du Jon (born May 1, 1545 in Bourges , † October 13, 1602 in Leiden ) was a Reformed theologian .

Life

François du Jon grew up as the son of a royal councilor. Prepared at home, he received twelve years, the University of his native city to jurisprudence to study. Soon he went to Lyon to supplement his humanistic education. A simple peasant "freed" him from humanistic atheism . Now after the death of his father he went to Geneva and studied theology with severe privation.

1565 he was appointed as minister in the then to the Netherlands belonging Antwerp appointed. With the help of political memoranda, he fought against the planned introduction of the Spanish Inquisition by Philip II , who, as the son of Charles V , had inherited rule over the Netherlands with the Spanish crown. Although he was only 21 years old, he quickly gained a national reputation, so that he was commissioned to revise the Confessio Belgica des Guy de Bray . He tried to prevent the iconoclasm in Flanders by all means.

In 1567 he had to flee and became a preacher for a French refugee community in Schönau . In 1573 he was commissioned to support the Heidelberg theologian Immanuel Tremellius with his translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin. When Elector Ludwig VI took office. as a Reformed theologian he had to leave the Palatinate .

He went to Johann Kasimir von der Pfalz in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse . During this time he wrote the work on the presbyterial-synodal system that made him known in the Reformed world. In 1584 he followed the Count Palatine, who after the death of Ludwig VI. the administration of the Electoral Palatinate had taken over to Heidelberg. There he received a theological professorship, which he held until 1592. In 1591 he was commissioned to accompany a delegation from the Palatinate to Henry IV in France in order to advise the French would-be king in his Reformed faith and the related bloody conflicts with the Catholic League. Heinrich IV expressed the desire to take Junius into his service, so that Junius packed up his belongings in Heidelberg and set off with his children in the direction of Paris . The family chose the route via the Netherlands to visit relatives there. Because of ongoing armed conflict in Paris, Junius interrupted his journey in the city of Leiden . The university there had tried several times in vain to appoint the Heidelberg theologian. Now Junius agreed to take on a theological professorship until he could continue his journey to Paris.

Since Henry IV converted to Catholicism in 1593, Junius decided to stay in Leiden . There he wrote his much-noticed "Eirenicum", a script that gave the theological direction of the Irenik its name. As a Reformed theologian, Junius worked in Leiden for ten years. Numerous dogmatic and exegetical writings from him have survived, which were also received beyond the ecclesiastical and theological area. Hugo Grotius described himself as a pupil of Junius, and Johannes Althusius also referred to Junius' thoughts.

In 1602 Junius received a call to teach at the newly founded Reformed Academy in Saumur (France). However, he could no longer obey this call because he died of the plague on October 13, 1602.

Franz Junius was married to Elisabeth Corputius (1552–1587) from Breda , a sister of the Dordrecht preacher Hendrik van den Corput (1536–1601) and sister-in-law of the Heidelberg medical professor Heinrich Smetius (1537–1614).

literature

Web links

Commons : Franciscus Junius the elder  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See letter from Franz Junius to Karl von Utenhove of November 30, 1582 from Frankenthal. In: Legionum Epistolarum Utenhovii hecatontas aut centuria prima (previously unprinted collection of handwritten letters, 1598; Bibliothèque nationale de France , Paris, MS fonds latin 18592), sheet 103: “Uxor mea genere Bredana Elizabetha Corputia nomine”.
personal data
SURNAME Junius, Franz the Elder
ALTERNATIVE NAMES François du Jon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION reformed theologian
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1545
PLACE OF BIRTH Bourges
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1602
Place of death Suffer