Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius

Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius (Elleboog) (1603–1701) was a Dutch Reformed theologian.

Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius

C. H. Elleboogius was born in 1603 at Schiermonnikoog.[1][2] He studied at the University of Franecker between 1642 and 1644 under Johannes Maccovius. After the death of Maccovius, Elleboogius went to Utrecht where he studied under Gisbertus Voetius. His classmates included Simon Oomius and Petrus van Mastricht. Along with these fellow disciples of Voetius ("Voetianen"), Elleboogius is considered a lesser-known figure of the Nadere Reformatie, but his failure to gain a following ("Elleboogiaanen") was lamented by the eighteenth-century poet Otto Christiaan Frederik Hoffham.[3] Elleboogius and Voetius were said to be “joined at the hip” (onafscheidelijk). After failing to convince the desire of his heart, Anna Maria van Schurman, to abandon the pietism of Jean de Labadie, Elleboogius retreated to Scotland where he served as Professor extraordinarius in theology at the University of Aberdeen.[4]

In his writings, Elleboogius showed an expert knowledge of rabbinic Hebrew as he argued against the theories of Thomas Gataker and Louis Cappel, who denied the Hebrew vowel points were an original part of the Hebrew language. He also held to the doctrine of synchronic contingency associated with Scotism and Reformed Orthodoxy. He left behind various academic disputations and a commentary on the Song of Songs, Huwelijks-Verbond en Borgtocht (1678).[5]

Recent scholarship now disputes whether Elleboogius remained committed to synchronic contingency over the course of his entire life.[6] In a doctoral dissertation Scotus Enervatus: Non habenti aufertur quod videbatur habere (1693), his younger brother, Frederik Willem Pieter Elleboogius, included a dedication to C.H. Elleboogius, in which F.W.P. Elleboogius, "like his brother, points out that the idea in Scotus of contingency is not so different from that of Thomas [Aquinas]".[7]