Baro, Peter

BARO (BARON), PETER: Anti-Calvinist; b. at Étampes (35 m. s.s.w. of Paris) Dec., 1534; d. in London Apr. 17, 1599. He studied law at Bourges, and began in 1557 to plead in the court of the Parliament of Paris, but retired in 1560 to Geneva, where he studied theology and was ordained by Calvin. In 1572 he returned to France, but soon fled from persecution to England and in 1574 was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge. He fell out with the rigid Calvinists; and a sermon on the Lambeth articles, preached Jan. 12, 1596, gave so much offense that he was compelled to renounce his chair in the university and retire to London. Among his works are In Jonam prophetam prælectiones (London,1579); Summa trium de praedestinatione sententiarum (Hardwyck, 1613), translated in Nichols’s Works of James Arminius, (London, 1825), 92-100.

Bibliography: His autobiography is found abridged in R. Masters, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of T. Baker, pp. 127-130, Cambridge, 1784. Consult C. H. Cooper, Athenæ Cantabrigienses, ii, 274-278, London, 1861; DNB, iii, 265-267.