Primary Contributors:
Leo van Santen
Ludwig Crocius (1586–1655)
Ludwig Crocius (1586–1655), known also as Ludovicus Crocius, was a Reformed irenical theologian who spent most of his life in Bremen. Born in Laasphe in the German county of Wittgenstein, he was the eldest son of Paul Crocius (1551–1607), an ecclesiastical superintendent and author of the martyrology Groß Martyrbuch und Kirchen-Historien (1606). Like his brother Johannes (1590–1659), later a renowned theologian in Kassel, Ludwig Crocius studied in Herborn and in Marburg. In 1609 he obtained his doctorate in (convenant) theology from Basel University under the supervision of Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561–1610).
On completion of his studies, Crocius moved in 1610 to Bremen where he assumed the positions of Pastor Primarius of the St Martini Church and of Professor of Theology and Practical Philosophy at the academic Gymnasium Illustre, which was led by the Ramist educator Matthias Martinius (1572–1630). Bremen’s support for the Augsburg Confession led (in an attempt to mediate between the Reformed and the Lutheran Churches) to a request from the municipal authorities for Crocius—as a rising ecclesiastical figurehead—to develop an irenical theology that returned to the moderate doctrine of the reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560). In his irenicism, however, as one of the Bremen delegates at the Dutch Synod of Dort (1618–19) Crocius clashed with the dominant orthodox Calvinism insisted upon by the contra-remonstrants, who considered him an Arminianist. Seeking to maintain commercial and religious relations with the Dutch Republic, the Bremen representatives subscribed to the strict Canons of Dort but without the obligation of implementing them in their city.
From 1628, as Pastor Primarius of the Church of Our Lady and—following Martinius’s death in 1630—as head of the Gymnasium Illustre, Crocius had to deal with supporters of the strict doctrine within Bremen, in particular following the publication in 1635 of his major dogmatic work Syntagma sacrae theologiae. His former student Heinrich Flocken (1602–1680), pastor at the St Remberti Church, accused him of heterodoxy in letters to Dutch theological faculties and, three years later in 1638, successfully persuaded the Bremen City Council, as part of its attempt to compromise between Augsburg and Dordrecht, to replace Crocius as headmaster with the Marburg Professor of Theology Johann Combach (1585–1651).
The Bremen ecclesiastical conflict came to an end in 1643, when following consultation with the synods, the Dutch faculties reversed their decision and reinstated Crocius as head of the Gymnasium Illustre, a position he retained until his death in 1655. From 1648, with official recognition of the existence of the Reformed religion at the Peace of Westphalia, the need for the Crocius’s irenicism in Bremen receded.
Partners and Additional Contributors
Thanks are extended to the Cultures of Knowledge director Howard Hotson for his addition of a number of biographical details for Crocius’s correspondents and to EMLO Digital Fellows Charlotte Marique and Ran Flanagan for their work to enter the letter metadata into EMLO.
Key Bibliographic Source(s)
Contents
Crocius left a correspondence of over 300 letters in Latin exchanged between 1605 and 1652 with representatives of the Reformed world in the German territories, the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and France. Among the first to whom he wrote—mainly about his early years in Bremen—were his former teachers Johannes Piscator (1546–1625) from Herborn and Johann Jakob Grynaeus (1540–1617) from Basel, as well as his former fellow student from Herborn and Marburg Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), who had become Herborn Professor of Philosophy and Theology.
Following the Synod of Dort, Crocius began to exchange letters with delegates he had met there, including his former fellow student from Marburg Marc Rütimeyer (1580–1647), Professor of Philosophy in Bern, and his roommate Sibrandus Lubbertus (c. 1555–1625), Professor of Theology in Franeker. The year 1628 marked the beginning of Crocius’s most extensive correspondence (about sixty letters) with the Leiden and later Amsterdam like-minded Professor of History Gerardus Vossius (1577–1649), with whom he had also become acquainted in Dort. Their letters discussed, beside political, academic and family matters, irenicism and universalism.
After Crocius had been appointed head of the Gymnasium Illustre and, in 1631, Senior of the Bremen church, he expanded his correspondence network to include important scholars in the Dutch Republic such as the Leiden professors of theology André Rivet (1572–1651), Johannes Polyander (1568–1646) and Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), from whom he increasingly tried to solicit sympathy for his position in the ecclesiastical conflict. It was in the letters he received from the Scottish irenicist John Dury (1596–1680) and the English bishop Joseph Hall (1574–1656), however, that he was finally offered support.
Another considerable category of letters are those Crocius exchanged with his former students who had become famous in the Dutch Republic, for example the classical scholar Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1611–1671) and the Franeker professor Johannes Coccejus (1603–1669), whose convenant theology he had influenced. These letters all testify to Crocius’s importance in Europe’s early modern Reformed world.
Provenance
Large numbers of letters from Crocius’s correspondence are in: the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Rawlinson Letters: seventeen from Crocius to Vossius, sixteen from Vossius to Crocius, seventeen from Crocius to Polyander); the Leiden University Library (including one from Crocius to Vossius, eighteen from Crocius to Rivet); the Bremen State and University Library (including one from Crocius to Rivet, sixteen from Crocius to Coccejus, one from Heinsius to Crocius); the Basel University Library (including one from Crocius to Grynaeus, fifteen from Crocius to Buxtorf II); the Amsterdam University Library (including eight from Crocius to Vossius, three from Vossius to Crocius); and the British Library in London (six from Crocius to Vossius, one from Vossius to Crocius, three from Crocius to Lubbertus).