RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
IilltZ
Lydius
visited by Peter, who healed there the paralytic Eneas. After the fall of Jerusalem it was famous as a seat of rabbinic learning, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiba being reckoned among its scholars. In the second century its name was changed to Diospolis, though the older name persisted. In the third century it became the seat of a bishop, but the bishopric seems to have lapsed in the sixth century. Legend makes it the birthplace of St. George, whose head is said to have been buried there, and a church, built on the spot, was destroyed by the Mohammedans, rebuilt by the Crusaders, and again destroyed by Saladin in 1191.
Bibliography: G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. 160 sqq., London, 1897; Robinson, Researches, ii. 244-248; Schiirer, Geschichte, i. 184-185, ii. 181-186 et passim, Eng. transl., I., i. 190, 191, 245-246, II., i. 157-159 et passim.
LYDIUS, lid'i-us: The name of a Dutch family which produced several Reformed theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
1 . Martin Lydius : Professor of theology at Franeker; b. at Lubeck (to which his parents had fled from Deventer, seeking refuge from the Spaniards) in 1539 or 1540; d. at Franeker June 27, 1601. About 1560 he entered the University of Tubingen, but in 1565 migrated to Heidelberg, where he became a teacher in the Collegium Sapiential in 1566 or 1567. On the death of the Elector Frederick III. (1576), Lydius, after a brief residence in Frankfort, became a pastor in Antwerp, whence he was called in 1579 to Amsterdam. In 1585 he accepted a call to the newly founded University of Franeker and became its first rector in 1586. He sought to avoid religious controversy, yet his part in the struggle between the infralapsarians and the supralapsarians led him to contribute toward the rise of Arminianism, for when, in 1589, an infralapsarian treatise was submitted to him for his opinion, he referred it to the young Amsterdam preacher Jacobus Arminius (q.v.). The result for Arminius was a complete reversal of his views on predestination. When, however, Arminius was accused of Pelagianism in 1592, Lydius sought to mediate in the controversy. Besides letters to Beza, Ursinus, Arminius, Lipsius, Joseph Scaliger, J. G. Vossius, and others, also several orations and poems, he wrote Apologia pro Erasmo (edited by his son and included in the Leyden edition of Erasmus, x. 1759-80), but no theological works.
2. Balthasar Lydius: Elder son of Martin Lydius; b. at Umstadt (a suburb of Darmstadt) in 1576 or 1577; d. at Dort Jan. 20, 1629. Educated at Leyden, he was chosen assistant pastor at Dort in 1602, and became full pastor in 1604, retaining this position until his death. Though irenic in temperament like his father, he became a bitter opponent of the Remonstrants, especially at the Synod of Dort, which he both opened (Nov. 13, 1618) and closed (May 29, 1619), and of whose protocol he was one of the editors. He made a reputation by his Waldensia, id est conservatio vera ecclesice (2 vols., Rotterdam and Dort, 1616-17), which, however, though still of value, is both incomplete and incorrect, and is little more than a collection of documents on the Taborites and Bo-
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hemian Brethren. He also wrote, among other works, Dry historische Tractaetgens (Amsterdam, 1610), on the Church from the apostles to the Reformation, on the various names of the Waldenses, and on the faith of the Waldenses. As an archeologist he wrote Super loco Mosis de cruentato sponsarum linteo et aliis virginitatis signis and De Lyncuro lapide (nos. 5 and 16 of J. Beverwyck's Epistolicce quastiones cum doctorum responsis, Rotterdam, 1644), and assisted in the preparation of Mellinus' Groot-Martelaarsboek (Dort, 1619).
3. Johannes Lydius: Younger son of Martin Lydius; b. at Frankfort in 1577; d. at Oudewater (12 m. s.w. of Utrecht) in 1643, where he had been pastor since 1602, after a year's pastorate at Aarlanderveen. Like his brother, he was an opponent of Arminianism, but his literary activity was restricted to editing G. du Preau's Narratio conciliorum omnium ecclesice Christiana (Leyden, 1610) ; R. Barnes' and J. Bales' Vita Pontificum (1610); and the works of Nicholas de Clemanges (2 vols., 1613) and J. Wessel (1617).
4. Jacob Lydius: Third son of Balthasar Lydius; b. at Dort about 1610; d. there in 1679. Educated at Leyden, he was pastor at Bleskensgraaf from 1633 to 1637, after which he was pastor at Dort until his death, except in 1643-45, when he was chaplain of the English embassy of the States General. This period resulted in his Historic der beroerten van Engelandt, aangaende de veelderley secten, die aldaer in de Kercke Jesu Christi zijn ontstaen (Dort, 1647). His exegetical learning was evinced by his Florum sparsio ad historiam passionis Jesu Christi (Dort, 1672), and his patristic studies by his Agonistica sacra, sive syntagma vocum et phrasium agonisticarum qua in sancta Scriptura, imprimis vero in epistolis sancti Pauli apostoli, occurrunt (Rotterdam, 1657). High praise was given his Cana dominica litteratorum (Dort, 1669). S. van Til edited his posthumous Syntagma sacrum de re militari, nee non de iureiurando (1698). As a poet he wrote Vrolicke uren des doodts qfte der wijsen vermaek (Dort, 1640), while his Belgicum gloriosum (1668; Dutch transl. by himself, 1668) was an ostensible ground for the declaration of war against Holland by Charles II. in 1672. His greatest fame, however, was gained by his anonymous Den Roomschen Uylen-spiegel (Amsterdam, 1671), a savage but witty satire on the Roman Catholic Church. In the ensuing controversy between him and the Jesuit Cornelis Hazart of Antwerp, he wrote, besides other polemics, Antwerpschen uyl in doodsnoot (1671); Het overlijden van den Antwerpschen uyl (1671); Laetst olyssel van den Antwerpschen uyl in doodtsnoot; and the posthumous Laetsten duyvelsdreck, qfte ongehoorde grouwelen van paepsche leeraers onser eeuwe (Dort, 1687), all works of importance for a knowledge of the relations between the Reformed and the Roman Catholics in Holland in the seventeenth century. (S. D. Van Veen.)
Bibliography: E. L. Vriemoet, Athenarum Frisiacarum libri, pp. 20-28, Leeuwarden, 1758; G. D. J. Schotel, Kerkelijk Dordrecht, i. 257-284, 391-423, Utrecht, 1841; B. Glasius, Godgeleerd Nederland, ii. 414-421, 3 vols., 's Hertogenbosch, 1851-56; H. C. Rogge, in Kalender voorde Protestanten in Nederland, 1857, pp. 228 sqq.; C. Sepp, Het Godgeleerd onderwij 8 in Nederland, i. 125-135, Leyden, 1873.
Lynch Lyte