Coccejus was born in Bremen as Johann Cock (from the German town of Coch or Goch). He studied languages, philosophy and theology in Bremen and after 1626 in Franeker. He became in 1630 professor at the Gymnasium Illustre in Bremen where he taught ‘sacred philology’ concentrating on Greek and Hebrew. In 1650 he moved to Leiden. As an orthodox Reformed or Calvinist theologian he also wanted to stay in touch with humanist trends in church and society. He showed often more interest in biblical studies than in strict Calvinist orthodoxy. He is best known for his divergent opinion in the observation of the Sabbath. According to him the rest of Sabbath was a strict command for the adherents of the Jewish religion, but in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ the observation of Sabbath was no longer so important. His interpretation of Scripture is sometimes characterised as ‘baroque, inconsistent’. Besides the puritan Voetius, the dominant professor in Utrecht University, he became the most outstanding theologian of Leiden University in the 17th century.
As a
student of 22 years in Bremen, Coccejus
held a lecture on the religion of the Turcs in Greek, partly as a linguistic
exercise. This text (in print 11 pages) is written as an admonition for the reformation
of church and state of his time. The origin and enormous progress of Islam in
his time was a great challenge for the Christian peoples. From secondary
sources a life of Muhammad and the content of the Qur’an is given. Coccejus considered
Islam as a mutatio religionis, a
radical transformation of the true religion. Muhammad knew the real truth of
God’s revelation but he has been seduced by the Satan (‘the clear enemy of the
whole human race as he is rightly called in the Qur’an’). So Muhammad and his
followers have become renegades (apostatae).
Muslims must be counted among the heretics. The divinity of Christ was the great
issue in the debate with the Jews, and later with the followers of Paul of
Samosata, the Arians, the Sabellians and later again the Muslims. He considers Islam as the great outer
enemy of Christianity, where the Roman Catholic church is the great inner
enemy. In his later theology Coccejus developed an interpretation of the
history of Christianity in seven periods. The last is that of the conversion of
the Turcs to Christianity (already predicted in the Scripture). The Roman
Catholic Church, an instrument of the Anti-Christ will be destroyed with the
help of the Turcs. As a sign of the soon return of Christ, Jews and
Muslims will together celebrate the feast of Soekot/Tabernacles in Jerusalem.
In this way Coccejus gave Islam a clear place in his eschatological vision. In
the earlier Oratio this is not so outspoken. Especially in later
exegetical treatises Coccejus applied texts of the Hebrew Bible to contemporary
Islam. Isaias 45:14 about ‘the tall Sabeans .. will bow down before you’ refers
to the great power of the Ottoman empire, but also predicts their coming
conversion. The four wings of the beast of Daniel 7:6 refer to the four realms
of the Roman Empire which were conquered by the Muslims: Syria, Africa, Asia
and Greece. The ‘kings from the East’ of Rev. 16:12 were by him seen as the
preparation for the end of time, when the ‘Turcs will come to the West again
and all efforts will be made to preach the Gospel to them, so that they may
convert.’ The peace of Westphalia (1648) was a beginning for this process and
so the end of the world was expected in 1667 with the final triumph of the
Reformed Church in a common service to God.
