of Johannes Cocceius After studying at
Hamburg and the
University of Franeker, where
Sixtinus Amama was one of his teachers, he became in 1630 professor of biblical
philology at the Gymnasium illustre in his native town. In 1636 he was transferred to
Franeker, where he held the chair of
Hebrew, and from 1643 the chair of theology also, until 1650, when he succeeded the elder
Friedrich Spanheim as professor of theology at the
University of Leiden. His chief services as an oriental scholar were in the department of
Hebrew philology and
exegesis. As one of the leading exponents of the
covenant or federal theology, he spiritualized the
Hebrew scriptures to such an extent that it was said that Cocceius found Christ everywhere in the
Old Testament and
Hugo Grotius found him nowhere. He taught that before as much as after the
fall of man, the relation between God and man was a
covenant. The first covenant was a Covenant of Works. For this was substituted, after the Fall, the Covenant of Grace, necessitating the coming of
Jesus for its fulfillment. He held
millenarian views, and was the founder of a school of theologians who were called Cocceians. His most distinguished pupil was
Campeius Vitringa. ==Works==