Jacobus Arminius (Jacob Harmanszoon, 1560–1609), who gave his name to a variant of Reformed belief, was born in Oudewater, Holland. After his father's early death, the boy was protected in turn by a minister, who converted him to Protestantism; by Rudolphus Snel van Rooijen the mathematician; and by Pieter Bertius of Rotterdam. With Pieter Bertius Jr., later important in the great Arminian disputes, Arminius studied at Leiden under the French Protestant Lambertus Danaeus. Later Arminius studied under Theodorus Beza in Geneva, where he met Johannes Uytenbogaert (Wtenbogaert), the chief proponent of Arminian doctrines after the death of Arminius.

Soon after his ordination (1588), Arminius was called upon by the ecclesiastical court of Amsterdam to refute the arguments of the Dutch "libertine" theologian Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, an exercise that undermined Arminius' orthodox Calvinism. He came to doubt the deterministic doctrine of damnation, and believed that election, dependent...