3. Decline of Power

a fruitless visit to the Diet of Cologne in 1580, he entered upon the more hope ful endeavor to induce Duke Francis of Alenpon-Anjou, the youngest son of Catharine de' Medici, to accept the throne of the revolted Dutch provinces. At the head of an embassy sent to France for this purpose, he reached Plessis (near Tours) on Sept. 9, 1580, and ten days later the treaty of Plessis-lez-Tours was signed, in which Marnix ably defended the civil and religious liber ties of the Dutch. He remained in France until Mar. 8, 1581, and on July 22 of the same year Philip was declared deposed in favor of Francis, Marnix himself preparing the act (Acts de descheance de Philippe 11. de sa seigneurie des Pays-Bas). In November he went to England, where Francis was paying court to Elizabeth, and on Feb. 19, 1582, he returned with the new ruler. Francis, how ever, madly attempted (Jan. 15-17, 1583) to seize Antwerp and the most important cities by treason or a coup d'etat. He was defeated and forced to leave the Netherlands, while Marnix and William, as his allies, were exposed to such suspicion that the former retired to his estates in West-Souburg, near Flushing. He was called from this seclusion to become first burgomaster in Antwerp, Nov. 30, 1584. A few days later the siege of the city by Alexander of Parma began, ending on Aug. 17, 1585, by its honorable surrender, though without recognition of Protestantism. A storm of indignation broke over Marnix, who defended his surrender of the city in his Bref recat de l'estat de is ville d'Anvers du temps de l'assogement. But his political activity was at an end, although he visited England in 1590, France in 1591, and Orange in 1597. He resided at West-Souburg until 1596, when he removed to Leyden.

Theologically Marnix was an enthusiastic partizan of Calvin and Beza, and in this spirit he secured the rejection of the Wittenberg

4. Theological Position and Bible Translation

Concord at the Synod of Antwerp (Aug. 20, 1566). He was also instru- mental in securing a Calvinistic PresBible byterian organization, culminating in Translation. a general synod, for the exiled congregations of his coreligionists. Here, too, belong his polemics against the fanatics and Anabaptists, exemplified in his Ondersoeckinge ende grondelijeke wederlegginge der geestdrijvische leers, written in 1595. This was followed by a series of other polemics, the most important being the Response apologetique h un libelle fameux (Leyden, 1598), a reply to an anonymous attack by Emmery de Lyere. He was a stern opponent, moreover, of all revelation of God alleged to exist outside the and creation, and was a genuine Calvinist in his assertion that the secular arm had authority to suppress religious error. He was active as a translator of the Bible and the Psalms. After ten or twelve years of labor, he issued a rimed version of the latter (Antwerp, 1580), but this, though the subject of many debates in the synods, never gained a place in the liturgy, despite its scholarly and literary merits. Like previous Ducch versions of the Psalms, the early Dutch translation of the Bible was essentially faulty, and in 1578 the Synod of Dort deputed Marnix and Dathen to seek suitable revisers. The commission was never executed, but Marnix had already begun to translate the Psalms and some of the Minor Prophets, when, in 1586, the Synod of The Hague made unsuccessful overtures to him for an entire new translation. It was not, however, until 1594, when he was formally requested by the States General to perform this task, that he consented, but he lived to complete only the Psalms and Genesis, though he left fragments of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Daniel, and other books (see Bible Versions, B, III.).

His most important contribution to theology was the Bienkarf already mentioned. It is a biting satire on the Roman Catholic Church, written by a supposed adherent of that commu- g. Other nion, and ridiculing all its arguments Works. against Protestantism. The book, which is clearly modelled on the Epistolae obscurorum virorum (q.v.), has won for Marnix a place among the great satirists of all time. The work ran through more than twenty editions (the

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last at Groningen, 1862) and was translated into most European languages (Eng. transl. by G. Gil pin, London, 1579). After his death appeared his Traict6 du sacrament de la saincte cene du Seigneur (Leyden, 1599), an intensely Calvinistic attack on the doctrine of the Mass. He also carried on a controversial correspondence on the same subject with the Louvain professor Michael Bajus, which he published under the title Opuacula quadam Domini Sand Aldegondii (Franeker, 1598); while in his Trouwe vermaninge aen de christlike Gemeynten van Brabant, Ylanderen, enz. (Leyden, 1589) he urged his coreligionists to be patient under their afflictions. There is no complete edition of the works of Marnix, but select works were edited by E. Quinet, (Euvres de P. de Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde (9 vols., Brussels, 1857-60), while his theological writings were collected by J. J. van Toorenen bergen, Philips van Marnix van St. Aldegonde godsdienstige en kerkelijke geschriften (3 parts, The Hague, 1871-91).

(S. D. van Veen.)

Bibliography: The life of Marnix has been written by: J. Prins, Leyden, 1782; W. Brow, 3 vols., Amsterdam, 1838-40; E. Quinet, Paris, 1854; T. Juste, The Hague, 1858; A. Lacroix and F. van Meenen, Brussels, 1858; J. van der Have, Haarlem, 1874; P. P. M. Alberdingk Thijm, Leuven, 1876; and G. Tjalma, Amsterdam, 1896. Consult also: P. Fredericq, Marnix en zijne Nederlandache geschriften, Ghent, 1881; Cambridge Modern History, iii. 201 sqq., New York, 1905; A. Elkan, Philipp Marnix van St. Aldeoonde, Parti., Die Jugend Johanna and Philipps von Marnix, Leipsic,1909.