Intellectual Property In The Era Of Reformed Orthodoxy: Questions Of Authorship In The Synopsis Of A Purer Theology

By Riemer A. Faber

Abstract

The involvement of several agents in the production of academic disputations in the early modern period raises the issue of intellectual property: given the various roles of presider, objectors, respondent, and recorder, modern scholars differ on the extent to which the contents of a disputation may be ascribed to the thinking of the one presiding professor. For the disputations published in the Leiden Synopsis the question of authorship challenges the assumption that theological positions that are expressed reflect the views of the individual faculty member. This article demonstrates that extensive internal evidence of a stylistic nature warrants the conclusion that the presiding professor composed the published version of the disputation. A detailed analysis of the disputations over which Antony Thysius presided exposes several features of unique writing style which point to single authorship. Thus one may delineate with greater confidence the theological positions, and development, of each author of the Synopsis.

I. Introduction

In the early modern period public disputations held at universities served an important function: under the supervision of a professor who had drafted a number of theses on a chosen topic, a student displayed his expertise in the subject by responding to questions and criticisms from opposing faculty and fellow students. This practice was common for many faculties in European countries from about 1250 until well into the seventeenth century. The presiding professor, or praeses, regularly organized a public disputation, assigning a topic or quaestio to be treated during the discussion.[1] He drew up a number of theses, articuli, which were to be exposed to criticisms, objectiones, from other students and faculty, who were called the opponentes. A previously appointed student was tasked with the responsibility of answering the criticisms; he was the respondens.[2] After the public event the professor would gather up the notes, recording the objections and responses, and produce a definitive decision (determinatio or solutio). Also this written, published record was referred to as a disputatio.[3]

The Synopsis of a Purer Theology (1625) is a collection of fifty-two disputations on Reformed theology published by four professors at the University of Leiden: Antony Thysius (1565–1640), Johannes Polyander (1568–1646), Antony Walaeus (1572–1639), and Andreas Rivetus (1573–1651).[4] Each of them assumed responsibility for one of the theological loci, alternating the task of supervising the disputations. As a composite, comprehensive treatise representative of Dutch Reformed doctrines in the years following the consequential Synod of Dort (1618), the Leiden Synopsis represents a seminal starting-point for many Reformed theologians, from Gisbertus Voetius to Herman Bavinck, who reprinted the Synopsis in 1881 and employed it extensively in his Reformed Dogmatics.[5] In recent decades our knowledge of Reformed Scholasticism in the seventeenth century has blossomed, having benefited from both general and specialized studies.[6] A current project to publish a new Latin edition of the Synopsis together with an English translation serves further to propel investigations into Dutch Reformed theology in the era of Orthodoxy.[7] Consequently, the attribution of a particular theological position to Thysius, Polyander, Walaeus, and Rivetus has become a genuine problem; investigations into the development of Reformed theology would benefit from a more confident ascription of a position to an individual thinker. The oral disputations that were published in the Leiden Synopsis involved several stages of construction and revision, thus raising the question of the degree to which modern students of Reformed Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century may assume that the theologian whose name appears as presiding officer of the published disputation in the collection is the sole author, and hence owner of its intellectual property. In short, how can one be certain that the doctrinal position presented in a disputation belongs to the professor who supervised it?

II. The Intellectual Ownership Of A Disputation

The differing views of modern scholars regarding authorship of a disputation may be summarized under four headings: (1) the student is author; (2) both student and professor are the author; (3) the professor is author; and (4) the authorship cannot be determined. The notion that the student as defendant or respondent is the author has been advanced by Margreet Ahsmann especially for the Faculty of Law at Leiden University in the seventeenth century.[8] The fact that Peter Cunaeus, the resident scholar of jurisprudence, cites the names of the students—not the professors—who are associated with the disputations suggests that the students penned the disputations in which they participated. Moreover, often it was the students who wrote the dedications that were appended to the published disputations; several dedications imply that the students viewed the disputations as their own.[9] In a similar vein Willem Otterspeer concludes from his survey of disputations held in Leiden for the century following 1575 that generally the theses were not authored by the presiding professor but by the student who defended them.[10]

A second view holds that the very nature of the disputatio testifies against single authorship. Kenneth Appold, in his study of the disputations in the Faculty of Theology at Wittenberg between 1570 and 1710, concludes that it is anachronistic to search for a single author of a disputation. The whole point of the exercise was to develop consensus among students and faculty.[11] Similarly, Sibbe Visser in his dissertation on the Remonstrant theologians Samuel and Johannes Naeranus cautions that while the professor was responsible for supervising the disputations, the content of them should not necessarily be ascribed to the thinking of the presider.[12]

A third view holds that the presiding professor is the author. In their examination of the disputations held at the Franeker Academy between 1585 and 1843 Ferenc Postma and Jakob van Sluis express the opinion that the documents published in the professor’s name offer direct access to his thought.[13] The public event gave the professor an opportunity to test his ideas before issuing a more formal, written treatise.[14] Moreover, the professor was accountable to his peers, especially when he presided over a disputation on a controversial topic. In the case of disputations chaired by Jacobus Arminius between 1603 and 1609, Keith Stanglin points to several pieces of evidence for the professor’s authorship of the published results. Arminius’s own reactions to criticism of the disputations which he moderated suggest he regarded them as his own, and the pamphlet wars which arose over his teaching reveal similar evidence of his authorship. Later translations and reprintings of disputations also ascribe them to Arminius. Consequently Stanglin concludes that “a professor’s responsibility for thetical content was not limited to a kind of general oversight of the shape of the disputation, but his responsibility extended to the minutest details.”[15]

A refinement of this account is offered by Donald Sinnema and Henk van den Belt, who distinguish between individual disputations and those intended for publication in a collected volume. Regarding Polyander’s Syntagma (1621), for example, they conclude that for the purposes of publishing them together Polyander edited the disputations, and he assumed responsibility for the contents. However, in the case of loose disputations that were published separately it is possible that one of his students was the author.[16]

The fourth view is that single authorship of a disputation cannot be determined. In his dissertation on Jacob Arminius and the disputations over which he presided between 1603 and 1609, William den Boer argues that circumstances of composition, genre, performance, and publication preclude a definitive answer to the question of the ownership of intellectual property.[17] Thus the disputations cannot as such be used as primary source material for an analysis of the professor’s own thinking.

III. The Special Language Of The “Synopsis Of A Purer Theology”

There are several other factors which make it more difficult to determine the ownership of intellectual property in the Synopsis. The fact that some disputations published in the Leiden volume differ from other extant disputations on the same theological locus and presided over by the same professor on another occasion may suggest a different author. It should be noted also that before the Leiden Synopsis appeared in print, as many as five series, or cycles, of disputations on identical topics were held; many of these disputations were published and circulated as individual documents. Thus the disputations published in the Synopsis represent a stage in a tradition of series of such theological exercises that had begun as early as 1596. Another five series were held after 1625.[18] The variance may be demonstrated by noting the difference between a disputation of twenty-nine theses chaired by Thysius on the person of the Holy Spirit in 1621 and published in the Synopsis in 1625 and a disputation on the same topic ascribed to him consisting of eighteen theses published in 1630. The difference in the length and scope of these disputations may be interpreted as a development of the professor’s own thinking; another explanation may be that on each occasion Thysius permitted considerable autonomy and involvement to the student respondent.[19]

A second complication lies in the unique character of the Synopsis as a homogeneous treatise. Following the theological struggles that culminated in the Synod of Dort in 1618 there was need for greater harmony and collaboration among the professors of theology. In the preface to the Synopsis the authors state that one of the goals in publishing the collection is theological unity: “so that it may be clear to anyone and everyone that there is a complete single-mindedness in what we believe and think, and that in all headings of theology we share a consensus” (Praefatio).[20] The conscious and concerted effort by the four presiding professors to present a unified and harmonious theological front after the recent turbulence involving the Remonstrants may have led them to compose the disputations in consultation with each other. The overt co-operation gives rise to the somewhat romantic notion of unanimity among the faculty following the Synod of Dort and of suppressed individual intellectual property in a spirit of collegial collaboration.[21]

A third factor complicating the question of authorship is the shared technical terminology of Scholasticism.[22] As an educational and intellectual method, Scholasticism in the seventeenth century stood in a very long, established medieval tradition.[23] An entire lexicon of Scholastic terms formed the academic discourse for public debates and the written record of them. Indeed, specialized jargon characterizes each section of the disputations published in the Synopsis, including: (1) terms of definition and the distinction of subject, (2) the distribution of related topics, (3) the various causes, (4) the end or goal of a theological topic, and (5) the final assessment, and rejection of contrary positions.[24] This structure, marked by clearly codified language, lends an apparent uniformity to the disputations, and suggests that markers of individual authorship are unlikely to be found. Students, too, were expected to display a command of Scholastic argumentation, and they would have employed such structural devices and language consciously in order to demonstrate their budding expertise.

While the overall initial effect of codified Scholastic discourse upon the reader new to the Synopsis may be that of a monolithic academic edifice, individual characteristics can be discerned clearly and attest to each professor’s direct and extensive role in writing the published version of the Disputations. Despite the specialized vocabulary and defined figures of thought and speech that mark the theological discourse, individual authorship may be revealed at the level of literary style. A good starting point for a comparative analysis is to look at the smaller components of vocabulary and diction which reveal personal predilections for certain adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and verbs. To demonstrate individual idiosyncrasies, the larger syntactical units of phrase, clause, and sentence may also be considered. Then follows an examination of the construction of the entire syntax, the larger semantic unit in which individual authorship often reveals itself, including choice of subject matter and literary style. Sentence structure, in turn, contributes to the development of an entire paragraph, and thus to the thesis which forms the basic component of each disputation.

IV. Peculiarities Of Thysius’s Writing Style

On many occasions the disputations over which Thysius presided employ a particular part of speech that occurs also in the others but here with such greater frequency and regularity that the word forms a distinguishing feature of style. A few examples of comparatively disproportionate use of adverbs demonstrate that these expressions of quality and mode point to a single author, in all likelihood the presider, Antony Thysius. To begin, the word similiter, “in like fashion; similarly,” which denotes the action of one thing in comparison with another, is a word form that was not common in seventeenth-century Latin; it is not used by Rivetus, and only once each by Polyander and Walaeus.[25] However, in Disputations 3, 6, 9, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, and 49—all presided over by Thysius—the word similiter occurs thirty-four times.[26] The disputations presided over by Thysius show a much more frequent use also of the adverbs utpote (namely; as being; inasmuch as) and sane (soundly; reasonably; doubtless, of course), adverbs which reveal the writer’s disposition towards what he states next. Thysius employs utpote twenty-five times (Walaeus once, Polyander twice, and Rivetus three times), and sane twenty-one times (Rivetus zero, Polyander twice, and Walaeus four times). A disproportionate frequency may be observed also for the explanatory adverb scilicet (that is to say; namely) which occurs in disputations supervised by Thysius 127 times to identify something more precisely, whereas in Polyander it occurs only twenty-eight times; in Walaeus thirteen, and in Rivetus six.[27] The word quin (but that), when functioning as a conjunction, is used by three authors in the Synopsis, though not by Polyander. Rivetus employs it on seven occasions, and Walaeus on fourteen;[28] both authors use it as a conjunction following a verb of doubting, denying, or admitting, to introduce a negative clause (in a construction common also in classical literature).[29] In the disputations over which Thysius presided, however, the word quin occurs in one of two grammatical constructions different from the ones employed by Rivetus and Walaeus: fifteen times as an intensifying adverb, “but even,” and forty-nine times as the first word of a sentence and co-ordinating conjunction: “indeed.”[30] As an example of the former usage, it states that the commandment on the Sabbath rest prohibits work to all Jews, their domestic animals, “and moreover [quin et] the strangers and foreigners in their towns” (21.26). This type of construction appears in only eight disputations, all presided over by Thysius.[31]

A similarly predominant use of an adverb in Thysius’s disputations is the case of adeoque, a compound of the adverb adeo and the enclitic -que meaning “so much so; so very.” Polyander employs it only once, Walaeus twice, and Rivetus four times.[32] By contrast, the word appears in each of the thirteen disputations held under the auspices of Thysius, in total thirty-nine times.[33] As in the case of quin, so too for adeoque it would be a highly unlikely coincidence that for each of the eleven disputations it was the student respondent who chose to employ the adverb in forming a sentence in this way. From the statistics on the use of these adverbs emerges the strong impression that the disputations over which Thysius presided were composed by one author.[34]

Yet another indicator of individual literary style is the parenthetical, personal interjections used as rhetorical devices in the syntax. These are brief interruptions into the syntax whereby a speaker or writer enlivens the discourse by expressing authorial involvement. One interjection unique to disputations associated with Thysius is the adverbial use of the word pută (drawn from the imperative of puto, “I think, suppose”) which literally means “think of,” but when used idiomatically as an adverb means “namely; that is to say.” The purpose in using this rhetorical device is amplification: augmenting the importance of a thought by providing additional information. Of the thirty-one times pută appears in the Synopsis thirty occurrences are in disputations supervised by Thysius.[35] One such expression of address to the reader is: “Nor is God’s gracious imputation something absolute, but it is the imputation of righteousness, namely (pută) the righteousness of Christ” (33.30). Yet another telling interruption into the syntax is the word videlicet (slightly less forceful than pută) which is often used as “a mere complementary or explanatory particle, to wit, namely.”[36] It occurs thirty-one times in disputations under Thysius’s auspices, but only five times in all the other disputations.[37] This device, characteristic of Thysius’s peculiar writing style, is illustrated by the following example: “Firstly, there is the comparison drawn from the realm of nature, namely (videlicet), of a head and the rest of the body” (41.3). These interjections, which in classical usage underscore the emotional involvement of the author, retain less of their literal force in neo-Latin, yet contribute to the notion that Thysius was personally involved in writing these theses.[38]

In the genre of the disputation as summary of a theological determination achieved by several agents of discourse, the evidence of individual parts of speech and rhetorical devices is telling, as they inform the flow of thought within a sentence. Even more revealing, however, is the testimony of the manner whereby an author constructs an entire paragraph through the use of connective words and phrases. After all, the construction of each thesis in the disputation reflects carefully formed progressions of thought from one concept to the next. A distinguishing stylistic feature of the disputations under Thysius’s presidency, and one which shows direct personal involvement in the development of thought, is a unique use of connective coordinating conjunctions, especially at the commencement of a sentence. While straining conventional Latin grammar or revealing an idiosyncratic use of language, several connective phrases are employed in such a manner that it is unlikely that an author other than Thysius wrote them. One connective which occurs only in the disputations ascribed to Thysius is the adversative conjunction attamen, “but nevertheless; and yet.” Thysius employs the word no less than twenty-seven times.[39] On twelve occasions the adverb is used to connect two sentences, for example, “[Christ’s righteousness] is placed opposite to a righteousness from the Law, and to our own, inherent righteousness (Philippians 3:9). And yet [attamen] the Law, or the righteousness of the Law and of works, is not placed over against the righteousness of God in Christ, or over against Christ’s righteousness simply as its opposite” (33.19–20). This “correction” of thought to modify the force of a preceding sentence is characteristic of Thysius’s style. A similar function is performed by the conjunction veruntamen, rendered as “but yet; nevertheless.” This compound word also occurs only in Thysius, twelve times, and always as the first in a new sentence.[40] So too for the compounded expression adeoque,[41] meaning “so much so, indeed,” and ita ut (eleven times), meaning “in such a way that.”[42] Also the form quinimo, used to reinforce a previous statement or to bring a new element to it (“... but rather”), occurs with one exception only in Thysius.[43] All of these commence the sentence only in Thysius.[44] The words attest to a careful advancement of theological argument by means of grammatical constructions in the syntax. The strikingly predominant use of these connective phrases in the disputations points to literary composition by a lone author, and as the presiding professor is the only common denominator in the creation of these eleven disputations, the evidence points conclusively to his direct role in writing them.

Besides idiosyncrasies in grammar and syntax, there are also rhetorical features which distinguish Thysius’s writing from that of his colleagues. One is a penchant for accumulating noun-subjects into longer phrases by means of asyndeton (the omission of copulative conjunctions from a series of related words or phrases) for the purpose of describing the qualities or accidents of a particular person or thing. Examples from two different disputations will suffice to illustrate the point: “[Christ] humbled himself, and took upon himself in the unity of his person, true, whole, complete and sacred flesh” (25.4).[45] In another disputation an unbroken list of titles is ascribed to Christ: “monarch, king, ruler, overlord, governor, deputy” (41.10).[46] The small but unique and telling device of rhetorical asyndeton suggests that Thysius personally composed the disputation according to his own tastes.

This leads us to a consideration of content of special importance to the author that is revealed at the level of the text. In the case of Thysius one peculiar interest is the Hebrew language of the OT and the translation of it in the Septuagint and the Greek NT. As OT professor at the University of Leiden, Thysius was appointed by the Synod of Dort (which he attended) as revisor of the Dutch translation of the Hebrew OT in the well-known Statenvertaling, eventually published in 1637.[47] In an era when rendering the Hebrew scriptures in vulgar languages was still under development an important theological question concerned the Tetragrammaton, and the Synod dedicated part of the twelfth session to the proper Dutch version of the Hebrew writing for God, jehovah.[48] The significance the Synod attached to this special designation is illustrated by the fact that the Tetragrammaton literally is placed in the highest position of the first, 1637, edition of the Statenvertaling (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Title page of Biblia, dat is: de gantsche H. Scrifture (Leiden: Paulus Aertsz van Ravesteyn, 1637). © Library Netherlands Bible Society. Photo: Sandra Haverman.

Disputation 6 (On the Nature of God) in the Synopsis of a Purer Theology was chaired by Thysius. One thesis states that “God has set himself apart from everything particularly by his special name, that is, the Tetragrammaton—as the ancients called it—the word made up of four consonants YHVH, and in the shortened form Yah, because as it is the proper name of God, it is incommunicable (Isaiah 42:8). And God gave this name to himself and introduced it to the people of God (Exodus 3:15); it is well-known and it is to be used with reverence according to God’s command” (6.15). The case is strong for identifying the Hebrew scholar whom the Synod of Dort appointed revisor of the Hebrew OT for the Statenvertaling as the author of this disputation.

In fact, several disputations presided over by Thysius reveal a relatively greater interest in and expert use of Hebrew.[49] Besides a lengthy discussion of the Hebrew names for God in Disputation 6.10, Thysius offers etymological treatments elsewhere, too; for example, he provides not only the Hebrew characters for “Sabbath” (21.2–3), but he also refers to the etymological interpretations of the medieval Jewish Rabbi David Kimchi (1160–1235).[50] In Disputation 29 Thysius cites in Hebrew the key words of Isa 53:4–6 (“He took up our infirmities and carried ... our griefs”), as well as the Septuagint translation of them.[51] Indeed, Thysius is the only one of the four authors of the Synopsis who employs the Septuagint, and he does so on eleven occasions.[52] This sort of evidence, which leads us beyond the stylistic features to consider the sources, citations, and other elements of content, corroborates on a different level the argument for the intellectual property of the stated president. One might extend an investigation of this sort to include the classical, patristic, medieval and contemporary philosophical and theological materials which informed Thysius’s manner of thought and expression.[53]

V. Conclusion

This article has put forward the argument that the application of philological, grammatical, and literary methods in a close reading of the disputations in the Synopsis of a Purer Theology provides clear evidence for assigning intellectual property to Antony Thysius for the disputations over which he presided. The presentation of particular details of locution, grammar, syntax, and peculiar content in a statistical and analytical fashion shows that while the disputations all are marked by well-entrenched modes of Scholastic discourse, recurring features of individual expression and style reveal the close involvement of the presiding professor in the literary composition of the disputation. Whereas the process from an oral discussion in an academic setting to published disputation involved several agents, the final product—at least in the case of Thysius—is that of a single author. There is abundant internal evidence to warrant the conclusion that Thysius took an active, direct role in the production of the disputations over which he presided. Furthermore, an examination of this sort may be duplicated for Polyander, Walaeus, and Rivetus.[54]

A more important conclusion, perhaps, is that experts in Reformed Scholasticism may build on this study in order to identify individual theological emphases within, and variations between, the disputations, and thus to determine more precisely the theological positions of each of the four Leiden professors. The anticipated appearance of the third volume of the new bilingual and annotated edition of the Synopsis of a Purer Theology may be welcomed by historical theologians as another valuable resource for the doctrines which marked the Reformed churches of the Lowlands during the seventeenth century, which continued to inform Reformed thought until the twenty-first century, and which also now will continue to attract new students.

Notes

1. It was not unusual for the professor’s contract to stipulate a number of disputations over which he was to preside annually. Johannes Kuchlinus, for example, supervised more than 140 disputations on the Heidelberg Catechism in Leiden between 1592 and 1606. See John Platt, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Argument for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology, 1575–1650 (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 79–80. On Kuchlinus generally, see Keith Stanglin, “Johannes Kuchlinus, the ‘Faithful Teacher’: His Role in the Arminian Controversy and His Impact as a Theological Interpreter and Educator,” Church History and Religious Culture 87 (2007): 305–26.
2. Some disputations were held merely as pedagogical exercises, exercitii gratia; others as a requirement for the degree, pro gradu.
3. For a fuller depiction of Scholastic disputations, see Olga Weijers, “The Medieval Disputatio,” in Hora est! On Dissertations, ed. Douwe B. Breimer, Kleine Publicaties van de Leidse Universiteitsbibliotheek 71 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 23–29; Joseph S. Freedman, “Disputations in Europe in the Early Modern Period,” in Hora est!, 30–50; and, more generally, P. L. Rouwendal, “De Leerwijze van de Scholen: Middeleeuwse Scholastiek,” in Inleiding in de Gereformeerde Scholastiek, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and P. L. Rouwendal (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1998), 54–66. For a general introduction to early Reformed Orthodoxy, see the essays in Willem J. van Asselt, ed., Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Grand Rapids: Reformed Heritage, 2011); and in Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark, eds., Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999).
4. For an earlier introduction to the Synopsis, see G. P. van Itterzon, Het Gereformeerd Leerboek der 17e Eeuw: ‘Synopsis Purioris Theologiae’ (S’Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931). On Dutch theological training of the period, see Christiaan Sepp, Het Godgeleerd Onderwijs in Nederland Gedurende de 16de en 17de Eeuw, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1873–1874).
5. For Voetius, see Andreas J. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676): Sein Theologieverständnis und seine Gotteslehre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 54; for Bavinck, see John Bolt, introduction to Reformed Dogmatics, by Herman Bavinck, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 1:11. See, more generally, R. T. te Velde, “The Relevance of Reformed Scholasticism for Contemporary Systematic Theology,” Perichoresis 14 (2016): 97–115.
6. On Protestant Scholasticism, see the essays in Herman Selderhuis, ed., A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy (Leiden: Brill, 2013). See also Richard A. Muller, “The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism: A Review and Definition,” in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 45–64; and Richard A. Muller, “Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition,” Inaugural Address, September 7, 1995, Calvin Theological Seminary. A survey of Reformed Orthodoxy in the Netherlands appears in Antonie Vos, “Reformed Orthodoxy in the Netherlands,” in Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, 119–76. For Scotland, see the essays in Aaron Clay Denlinger, ed., Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology, 1560–1775 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014); and for England, see Carl R. Trueman, “Reformed Orthodoxy in Britain,” in Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, 261–91.
7. Synopsis Purioris Theologiae / Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation, vol. 1 (Disputations 1–23), ed. R. T. te Velde, trans. Riemer A. Faber, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2014); vol. 2 (Disputations 24–42), ed. H. van den Belt, trans. Riemer A. Faber (Leiden: Brill, 2016); vol. 3 (Disputations 24–52) (in press).
8. Margreet Ahsmann, Collegia en Colleges: Juridisch onderwijs aan de Leidse Universiteit, 1575–1630 in het bijzonder het disputeren (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff/Egbert Forsten, 1990).
9. In the dedications of some disputations the students refer to the documents as “reminders of my academic training” (mearum exercitationum monumenta), “my own first steps” (meas primitias), and as “my own attempt” (conatum meum); thus Ahsmann, Collegia en Colleges, 316.
10. Willem Otterspeer, Groepsportret met Dame, vol. 1, Het Bolwerk van de vrijheid: De Leidse Universiteit, 1575–1672 (Amsterdam: Bakker, 2000), 236.
11. Kenneth G. Appold, Orthodoxie als Konsensbildung: Das theologische Disputationswesen an der Universität Wittenberg, zwischen 1570 und 1710 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).
12. Sibbe Jan Visser, Samuel Naeranus (1582–1641) en Johannes Naeranus (1608–1679): Twee remonstrantse theologen op de bres voor godsdienstige verdraagzaamheid (Hilversum: Verloren, 2011), 241.
13. Ferenc Postma and Jacob van Sluis, Auditorium Academiae Franekerensis: Bibliographie der Reden, Disputationen und Gelegenheitsdruckwerke der Universität und des Athenäeums in Franeker, 1585–1843 (Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy, 1995), ix.
14. Ibid.
15. Keith D. Stanglin, Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603–1609 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 53. Similarly: “The quality and quantity of the evidence that supports Arminius’s authorship justify our method of presupposing professorial authorship” (p. 97).
16. Donald Sinnema and Henk van den Belt, “The Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625) as a Disputation Cycle,” Church History and Religious Culture 92 (2012): 505–37, here 514.
17. William den Boer, God’s Twofold Love: The Theology of Jacob Arminius (1559–1609), trans. Albert Gootjes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 34.
18. One repetition of disputations in the Leiden Synopsis was held between 1625–1628; there was a second (1629–1631), third (1632–1635), and fourth repetition (1636–1639). A new series was held under the guidance of Polyander and Jacob Trigland (Disputationum theologicarum ordinariarum). Several of these individual disputations are still extant. For example, the ones by Johannes Polyander are complete except for one (14, On the Fall of Adam); by Antony Walaeus only one is missing (On the State of Christ’s Exaltation); by Antony Thysius two are lacking (37, On Alms and Fasting; 49, On the Church Councils or Assemblies); and by Andreas Rivetus the collection is complete.
19. This is seen also in the disputation Thysius chaired On Purgatory and Indulgences (Disputation 39 in the Leiden Synopsis), and in the second repetition of 1631. The latter disputation consists of only 12 theses, much shorter than the disputation in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae which numbers 53 theses. In the third repetition (1634) the disputation on the subject has 26 theses.
20. Quotations of the English text of Disputations 1–42 of the Synopsis are taken from the first two volumes of Synopsis Purioris Theologiae / A Synopsis of a Purer Theology that have been published to date; translations of the Latin text of Disputations 43–52 are my own.
21. Antony Walaeus states that he and his Leiden colleagues agreed that they would not separately advise the churches in theological matters without first sharing their opinions with each other (Antony Walaeus, Letter to Udeman, 1633). In a biographical sketch of his father, Johannes Walaeus (1604–1649) states that the four Leiden professors had agreed, for the sake of ecclesiastical peace, not to publish any writing prior to vetting. See Johannes Walaeus, “Vita Antonii Walaei,” in Antonius Walaeus, Opera omnia, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Adrianus Wyngaerden, 1647), 1:[5]–[53], [27].
22. On the terminology particular to Reformed Scholasticism, see Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985); Willem J. van Asselt, Michael D. Bell, Gert van den Brink, and Rein Ferwerda, eds., Scholastic Discourse. Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) on Theological and Philosophical Distinctions and Rules (Apeldoorn: Instituut voor Reformatieonderzoek, 2009).
23. See R. T. te Velde, “Reformed Theology and Scholasticism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, ed. Paul T. Nimmo and David A. S. Fergusson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 215–29 and bibliography.
24. In introducing the quaestio of a disputation all four presiders employ nearly identical modes of expressions. In placing the theological topic of a disputation in context, Polyander states “the order we have established requires us to treat” (postulat ordo a nobis institutus ut … agamus, 50.1), while Walaeus says “the order we have proposed requires that we treat” (ordo a nobis propositus postulat ut … agamus, 8.1). Walaeus’s wording “it remains for us to treat” (reliquum iam est ut … agamus, 16.1; similarly 24.44; 28.1; 52.1; see also 12.1; 32.1; 36.1) is very like Rivetus’s “it still remains for us to treat” (superest ut agamus, 27.2; similarly 35.32). Cf. Thysius: verum ut distincte agamus, “but for us to treat it clearly” (17.20; see also 9.1; 13.1; 25.1; 29.1; 33.1). Forms of the verb (con)sequor, “it follows that,” appear frequently at the start of disputations. Thus Thysius writes sequitur ut … exsequamur 29.1 (cf. sequitur ut … dispiciamus in 41.1), consequens est ut ... agamus (9.1; 13.1; similarly 25.1; 33.1); Walaeus, sequitur iam ut … agamus (2.1; 12.1; 29.1; 36.1; consequitur (32.1); Rivetus, sequitur ut ... instituamus (35.1, identical to Thysius 21.1; and sequitur ut conferantur, 23.1). In the division of the theological subject into its component parts, to create distinctions on the basis of different qualities or degrees, and to define the chosen topic more precisely, all four professors exercise the verb definio, “to establish a logical boundary” (or the noun definitio), especially in the introductory theses. See Polyander (1.9; 7.8, 9, 10; 10.5, 6; 34.3; 46.2), Walaeus (2.3; 8.7; 16.3–7; 20.6; 28.1, 3; 40.3; 48.10; 52.10), Thysius (3.4; 9.5; 17.2; 25.5), and Rivetus (11.4; 19.9; 31.5; 43.2). Similarly, in the division of the topic into component parts, they all use the adverb si(n)gillatim, “according to each individual element”: Thysius (3.23; 9.1; 21.10; 25.1), Walaeus (8.1; 9.15; 12.37; 24.11), Rivetus (15.2), Polyander (10.10; 26.2). The term that identifies the species to which something or someone belongs, technically appellatio, is used by all four professors: Thysius (3.3; 9.3; 21.3; 25.2; 33.5; 45.2, etc.), Rivetus (23.8; 27.3; 31.3; 35.10; 37.4; 47.3, 4; 51.2), Polyander (1.6; 14.4; 18.2; 30.6; 46.1; 50.5), Walaeus (12.7; 16.9; 32.2; 44.2; 48.2). In the distribution of the topics the verb subjicio, “to place in an appropriate subordinate position,” occurs repeatedly: Thysius (3.1, 25, 28, 29; 17.4; 21.11, 48; 29.25; 45.41), Walaeus (20.52; 32.27), Rivetus (11.9; 35.33).
25. Walaeus 8.32; Polyander 22.19.
26. Thysius 3.31, 33; 6.14; 9.1, 18, 20; 21.1, 2, 9, 16, 48, 59; 25.33; 29.9, 11, Antithesis 3; 33.14, 25, Antithesis 21; 37.30; 41.22, 23, 33, 37; 45.21, 45.28 (bis), 40, 47, 54, 78, 80; 49.36, 55.
27. Thysius 3.3, 18, 23, 24, 28 (bis), 30, 34, 37, 41; 6.17, 23, 26, 32, 39; 9.9, 14, 15; 13.14, 32, 46, 51; 17.9, 24, 26, 31, 36, 42; 21.3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 27, 37, 38, 42, 50, 56, 57, 58; 25.2, 7, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 39, 40; 29.2, 6, 13, 16, 19, 22, 27, 30, 33, 34, 36; 33.2, 18, 24, 34, 36, Antithesis 10; 37.2, 16, 29, 33, 42, 46, 47 (bis), 50, 54, 58, 59 (bis); 41.3 (bis), 5, 7, 8, 11, 23 (bis), 28, 37; 45.2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 25, 33, 33, 37, 44 (bis), 45, 50, 52 (bis), 56, 58, 81, 82, 83 (bis); 49.1, 2, 36, 39, 63, 65, 67. Polyander 1.5, 26, 28; 4.15, 16, 19, 20, 25; 7.38; 26.27, 45; 30.18; 34.16, 46; 38.29; 42.12, 48, 66; 46.6, 10, 12, 28, 41, 42, 59; 50.3, 19, 49. Walaeus 5.9; 8.13, 19; 24.52; 28.30; 32.28, 48; 36.7; 40.33, 44, 25; 48.48; 52.17. Rivetus 11.20; 27.5, 15; 39.8; 43.26; 51.22.
28. Rivetus 11.1, 11.4; 15.25; (one case of quin etiam in quotation, 47.11); 51.23. Rivetus also: quin potius 11.1, 6; 35.14. Walaeus 5.10, 35; 12.18; 28.17; 32.6, 23, 46; 40.17, 28; 42.9; 52.32 (bis), 50. (cf. quin contra, 42.51, at start of sentence).
29. On the use of quin following expressions of doubting to introduce a subjunctive clause that is negatived, see J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1903; repr., Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), § 557–559, esp. 558a.
30. As an intensifying adverbial phrase, Thysius 9.2; 13.34, 45; 17.16, 26; 21.26, 27, 39; 25.34; 29.13; 37.2, 46, 48, 57; 41.7. At the start of a sentence, Thysius 3.3, 8; 6.5; 9.5, 15, 16, 17, 21, 23, 24; 13.8, 28; 17.6, 35; 21.2, 40; 25.12, 31; 29.21, 28, 33, Antithesis 1; 33.12, 22, 36, ant. 22; 37.40, 53, 56; 41.8, 24, 34, 39; 45.12, 26, 36, 39, 49, 57, 64, 67, 68, 77, 85; 49.12, 30, 49, 57, 65. Walaeus employs it at the start of a sentence once (44.9).
31. Disputations 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 37, and 41.
32. Walaeus 28.5; 52.38; Polyander 4.24; Rivetus 15.22; 27.23; 31.24; 49.42. 
33. 3.3, 18, 20; 6.20, 25, 29; 9.2, 4; 13.23, 26; 17.5, 19, 23, 24, 45; 21.20, 23; 33, 46; 25.6, 16, 19, 24, 27, 28, 41; 29.6, 20, Antithesis 1; 33.9, 27, 30, Antithesis 1, Antithesis 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 20; 37.8, 9, 10, 22, 41; 41.15, 34; 45.1, 7, 9, 42, 55, 56, 83; 49.10, 54, 57, 63, 71, 72.
34. Other diction also appears only in disputations supervised by Thysius. Examples include the adverb tropice (6.42; 17.4; 45.3, 59) and forms of the noun complures (3.38; 9.14; 21.14; 45.11, 49; 49.2, 18).
35. 3.9, 28, 34, 41; 6.15, 26, 36; 17.39; 21.3, 10, 47; 25.12; 33.26, 30, Antithesis 17 (bis); 37.17, 48 [in quotation], 56; 41.11 (bis), 29; 45.9, 21, 47, 63, 73, 85; 49.51, 58, 74. It is used by only one other author, Walaeus (40.20).
36. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (New York: Harper & Bros., 1879).
37. Thysius: 13.3, 48; 17.24; 21.15, 16, 42, 44, 46; 29.5, 15; 33.22, 36; 37.24; 41.3, 8, 10, 28, 39; 45.19, 42, 43, 52, 55, 73, 79; 49.5, 33, 36, 57, 68. Elsewhere only in Rivetus (15.3; 35.33, 35; 39.17) and once in Polyander (50.38).
38. Another interjection which is employed in disputations supervised by Thysius is inquam, “I declare; I say,” and it is found seven times (3.40; 17.15, 26; 25.10; 33.25; 45.89; 49.52). One example of this device of amplification will suffice to illustrate the usage: “That Son of God..., I declare, though he is of the same substance as the Father, equal and co-eternal with him, in time was made flesh” (25.10). The device does occur elsewhere, in two disputations of Rivetus (43.8, 10; 47.13, 25) and one of Walaeus (52.32).
39. In the following list, numbers in bold indicate that attamen occurs as the first word in the sentence: 6.21; 9.19; 13.10; 17.1, 13, 18, 19, 23, 36; 21.8, 10, 15, 49, 61; 29.29; 33.20, 29, 29; 35, Antithesis 7; 37.5, 9, 19; 45.21, 24, 27, 57 (it occurs in citation in Disp. 40.43).
40. Disputation 3.6; 17.16, 26, 41; 25.18; 29.7, 15; 33 Antithesis 4; 37.6; 45.70; 49.24, 29. E.g., “But (veruntamen) the word ‘flesh’ does not mean ‘flesh that has been corrupted,’ in the sense that one normally understands it to be the opposite of the Spirit” (25.18).
41. Adeoque to start a sentence in Thysius: 3.20; 15.19; 17.5; [Adeo 17.8]; 19, 23; 21.20, Antithesis 6; 33.30, Antithesis 7, Antithesis 17; 41.15; [Adeo 41.16]. The uncompounded form adeo is used by all four authors. In Thysius: 6.35; 21 Antithesis 8; 33.32; Polyander: 4.13; 7.39; 15.25; 26.29; 30.6, 28; Rivetus: 19.10; 23.17; 27.1, 6; 35.2, 45; 39.17, 20; Walaeus: 28.31; 34.16. The expression adeo ut occurs in Thysius 6.15, 28, 36; 9.21; 21.45; 29.17; 41.11, 14; Walaeus 5.10, 21, 22; 24.34; 32.7; Rivetus 11.4, 23; 19.13.
42. Thysius: 3.20; 13:22; 17.15; 21.16, 48; 25.24, 30; 29.20, 34; 33.17; 49.13. Thysius’s style is distinguished also by the frequent and unparalleled use of the phrase ita ut in mid-sentence to introduce a result clause: 6.16 (bis), 21, 25, 37; 17.7, 12, 35; 21.18, 20, 27, 31, 42, 48; 25.4, 6, 7, 27 (bis), 28, 29, 33; 29.6, 21; 33.9, 22, Antithesis 14; 37.42, 47; 45.12, 25, 45, 47, 52, 56, 59, 69 (bis), 85. The exceptions are Rivetus 19.23; 23.30; 31.3; 35.39; 43.13; 47.29, 38, Corollaria 2; Walaeus 32.26. (In Disputation 46.24 the word occurs in quotation.)
43. In Disputation 6.14, 28; 9.6; 13.7; 21.7, 33; 33.34; 41.18, 22; 45.20, 27, 73; 49.22. The lone exception is Walaeus 5.16.
44. Other proofs of such sentence constructions are: proinde (“so then; hence; accordingly”) used by Thysius six times as the first word in the sentence (3.18; 17.31, 34; 21.44; 25.9; 37.49), and elsewhere only thrice by Polyander (30.17; 34.8; 42.10). So also porro (“furthermore; moreover”) as postpositive occurs only in Thysius (25.6, 24, 29, 36; 29.3, 14, 24; 41.3).
45. Similarly, in the same disputation on the incarnation of the Son of God: “[Christ experienced] hunger, thirst, eating, drinking, tiredness, sleep, bodily pain, tears, sweating, blood, etc.” (25.13).
46. The servants of Christ are called “apostles and builders, prefects, presidents, leaders, overseers, presbyters, shepherds, etc.” (41.16).
47. The biography of Walaeus notes that Thysius was “especially learned in the languages, particularly Hebrew”; see “Vita Antonii Walaei,” in Walaeus, Opera omnia, 1:[27].
48. See Robert J. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name for God from the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 355. In the Statenvertaling (1637) the first occurrence of the name jehovah in Scripture (Gen 2:4), rendered in Dutch as heere (“lord”) is accompanied by the marginal comment that “from this passage onward wherever the word lord in upper-case letters occurs, the Hebrew word is jehovah or the abbreviated jah” (Bijbel, dat is de gansche Heilige Schrift… [1637] [Kampen: Kok, 1913], 24).
49. To be sure, the other authors of the Synopsis also cite Hebrew, but then only briefly in stating the biblical origin of a single word. For example, Walaeus notes that the Hebrew word for sin is ḥattah(16.2) and for conversion teshuva (32.31). Polyander for the Law uses the Hebrew Torah (18.2) and‘Aseret Hadevarim (18.31); elsewhere he uses the word neder for “vow” (38.2), and the Hebrew words qahal and ‘edah for ecclesia (40.1). Rivetus notes that “worship” in Hebrew is ‘evada (19.1), the origin for Hebrew word for covenant, berit (23.2) and karat berit (23.4); he uses the Hebrew form of Sheol (23.25; 27.25).
50. On the Hebrew names for God: “In Hebrew He is called ’Eloah (rare in Sacred Scripture), and from that ’Elohim in the plural (often with the force of the singular). And that word is not derived from ’Ala, that is, he has sworn, but from the unusual root ’Alah (with mappiq he)” (6.10).
51. Similarly, Thysius notes that Isa 53:8 uses the Hebrew word min, “by”—a peculiarity of the Hebrew language—in the sense of “because of” our sins, and “because of” our transgressions, and then goes on to explain how the Septuagint renders it into Greek (29.10). Other examples of Thysius’s frequent use of Hebrew include: Esrim vearba (3.24), Torah, Bereshit, Tere’asar (3.27); Nevi’im (“the prophets,” 3.28); ruach (9.2); the breath of life given to humanity, ne’shama (13.14); tzadaq (hitzdiq), not only as a “forensic act of judgement by a judge” on earth, but also of God so that the entire act of justification is depicted as a forensic process (33.2); and neshekh (37.34).
52. Disputations 3.11, 36; 6.15, 16; 19.8, 28; 21.6; 29.10, 26; 45.5, 50.
53. For a list of the patristic, medieval, Reformation-era, and contemporary sources cited in the Synopsis, see van Itterzon, Het Gereformeerd Leerboek, 64–66. For the use of classical texts, see Riemer A. Faber, “Scholastic Continuities in the Reproduction of Classical Sources in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae,” Church History and Religious Culture 92 (2012): 561–79.
54. For example, similar evidence may be presented for Polyander’s involvement in the composition of disputations over which he presided. Regarding the length of disputations, Polyander prefers brevity. While he does permit the occasional long disputation (26, 42, 46, 50), most are considerably shorter than those of his colleagues: Disputation 14 (41 theses), 30 (48 theses), 34 (50 theses), 38 (53 theses). Also the length of each thesis is relatively short; Polyander is the only one who permits himself the occasional one-sentence thesis. On Polyander’s style, see A. J. Lamping, Johannes Polyander: Een dienaar van Kerk en Universiteit (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 96–115; van Itterzon, Het Gereformeerd Leerboek, 55.