RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Remonstrants Renan
ment at the castle of Loevestein. The conspiracy of the sons of Oldenbarneveldt against Prince Maurice (1623) gave new impulse to the persecution. It was only after the latter's death (1625) that a better time dawned for the Remonstrants. Prince Frederick Henry was of a milder spirit, so that Episcopius and Uytenbogaert could return from exile. All captives, seven in number, fled in 1631 from the castle of Loevestein, without any serious attempt being made to rearrest them. Churches were built, and the congregations received their own preachers. Thus the Brotherhood was established as the Remonstrant Reformed Church Community.
III. From 1632 till 1795: The Remonstrants were tolerated, but not officially recognized until 1795. They were not allowed to build their churches on the street and had to support their preachers by voluntary gifts. In the beginning there were forty congregations, mostly in South Holland. In North Holland there were only four and as many in Utrecht; others were in Gelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland. The delegates of these congregations met every year alternately at Rotterdam and Amsterdam. At one of the first meetings there was established a church order. Uytenbogaert wrote an Onderwysinge in de christelycke religie in strict accordance with the confession. A theological seminary was founded at Amsterdam, with Episcopius at its head, who in 1634 delivered his first lectures; this institution educated many distinguished preachers. Gerard Brandt and his sons Caspar, Johannes, and Gerard the Younger belonged to the best preachers of the country in the seventeenth century. As the Remonstrants were not bound by any confession, schism frequently showed itself among them, while tendencies toward Socinianism and Rationalism were not wanting.
IV. The Period of Independent Existence: When Church and State were separated, after the revolution of 1795, the Brotherhood of the Remonstrants was recognized as an independent church community, and they then made an attempt to unite all Protestants. In Sept., 1796, the convention of the Brotherhood sent a letter to the clergymen of all Protestant churches in which the plan was fully discussed; but the Reformed Church refused cooperation. The chief tenet of the Remonstrants was to confess and preach the Gospel of Christ in freedom and tolerance. Their communities suffered considerably during the French rule, but after the restitution of the earlier conditions their cause began to nourish. Many country congregations died out in the last century; but new congregations originated in cities like Arnheim, Groningen, and Dort, where the adherents of the modern tendency in the Netherland Reformed Church joined the Brotherhood under the pressure of confessionalism. It numbers at present twenty-seven congregations with about 12,500 members, all of the congregations being in a flourishing condition.
(H. C. RoGGEf.)
Bibliography: Besides the works by Simon Episcopius, Philippus van Limborch, and Jan Uytenbogaert, and the literature under the articles on them, consult: The life of Coolhaes by H. C. Rogge, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1856- 1858; of Coornhert by F. D. J. Moorrees, Nijmegen, 1887,
and by C. Lorentzen, Jena, 1886; G. Brandt, Historie der Reformatie, 4 parts, Amsterdam, 1671-1704, Eng. transl., Hist, of the Reformation . . in . , . the Low Countries, 4 vols., London, 1720-23; A. a Cattenburgh, Bibliotheca scriptorum Remonstrantium, Amsterdam, 1728; J. E. I. Walch, Religionsstreitigkeiten ausser der lutherischen Kirche, iii. 540 sqq., 10 vols., Jena, 1733-39; J. Regenborg, Historie der Remonstranten, 2 parts, Amsterdam, 1774—76; F. Calder, Memoirs of Simon Episcopius, London, 1838; A. des Amorie van der Hoeven, Het tweede Eeuwfest van het Seminarium der Remonstranten, Leeuwarden, 1840; J. Tideman, De Remonstr. Broederschap, Haarlem, 1847; idem, De Remonstratie en het Remonstratisme, ib. 1851; idem, De catechetische Literatuur der Remonstranten, Rotterdam, 1852; idem, De Stichting der Remonstr. Broederschap, 1619-34, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1871-72; A. Schweitzer, Die protestantischen Centraldogmen, ii. 66 sqq., Zurich, 1856; G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, i. 403 sqq., Leipsic, 1862; W. Cunningham, Historical Theology, ii. 371—513, Edinburgh, 1864; Gedenkschrift van het 250 jarig Bestaen der Remonstr. Broederschap, Rotterdam, 1869; P. H. Ditchfield, The Church in the Netherlands, London, 1893; H. Y. Groenewegen, De Remonstrantie op haren driehonderdsten gedenkag, 1610-14, Januari 1910, Leyden, 1910; Schaff, Creeds, i. 516 sqq., iii. 550 sqq.; the literature under Dort, Synod of; and Holland.
REMPHAN, rem'fan: The name of a deity mentioned only in Acts vii. 43. The readings of the name in the manuscripts are numerous, including the forms Rompha, Romphan, Rempha, Rephan, Raiphan, and Raphan. The passage is a free quotation from Amos v. 26, in which the New-Testament (A. V.) "Remphan" (R. V., "Rephan"; Westcott and Hort, Rompha) displaces the Old-Testament " Chiun " (Babylonian Kaawanu, " Saturn "), here following the Septuagint manuscripts BAQ, which read Raiphan or Rephan. No deity named Remphan or Rephan is known, nor is the form known to occur as a title or name for Saturn. On the ground that the change from the form Chiun to Remphan, etc., occurs in the Septuagint, which was made in Egypt, explanations have been attempted, but have proved unsatisfactory, which take into account supposed Egyptian names or combinations, e.g., a Coptic form meaning " king of heaven " (it seems far to go to seek a Coptic form, and the Egyptian equivalent of this Coptic would bear no resemblance to " Remphan "), or an alleged title of Seb ( = Saturn) meaning "youngest of the gods " (which is far-fetched, unusual, and unlikely). The best and generally accepted explanation is that the Septuagint form, which Acts borrows, is a mistake in the reading of the Hebrew for " Chiun," a mistake easily explicable when the form of the letters is taken into account. Geo. W Gilmohe.
Bibliography: The commentaries on Amos and Acts; Schrader, KAT, p. 409, note 1, 410 note 6; idem, in TSK, 1874, pp. 324 sqq.
RENAN, re-nan', JOSEPH ERNEST: French orientalist; b. at Treguier (60 m. n.e. of Brest and 5 m. from English Channel), Brittany, Feb. 27, 1823; d. at Paris Oct. 2, 1892. Having lost his father at the age of five, his early training was received from his mother and his sister Henriette, eleven years older than himself, in the pious atmosphere of his Breton home. In 1838 he went to Paris and studied four years in the petit seminaire of St. Nicholas de Chardonnet, after which he studied philosophy at the grand seminaire of Issy (1842-44) and theology at St. Sulpice (1844-45). Even at Issy the skepticism had been aroused which was later to lead him
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