Jan Woltjer (4 February 1849, Groningen – 28 July 1917,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

) was a professor of Classical languages and literature at the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

. Woltjer, the son of a baker, started his career as an assistant teacher at a high school in his hometown of Groningen in 1867. He taught himself Latin and managed to enter the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...

in 1871. While teaching classical languages at a local gymnasium, he wrote his dissertation on

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...

and was promoted in 1877. On 28 September that year he married Marchien Janssonius. In 1881 he moved to Amsterdam to become professor at the Free University, which position he would keep until his death in 1917. In 1902 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was involved in many educational organizations and was a member of the Senate for the Anti Revolutionaire Partij from 1902 to 1917. His oldest son, Robert H. Woltjer, would follow him teaching classical studies at the Free University. His son Jan Woltjer Jr would become a well-known astronomer. Along his many other students, including

Herman Dooyeweerd Herman Dooyeweerd (7 October 1894, Amsterdam – 12 February 1977, Amsterdam) was a professor of law and jurisprudence at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam from 1926 to 1965. He was also a philosopher and principal founder of Reformational phil ...

, Woltjer had a formidable influence on future professor of philosophy, D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, who used his training in Greek and Latin to make first of all a minutely detailed study of the Fragments of the Presocratics. Woltjers subscribed to the idea that Greek learning was an integral part of what the New Testament refers to when it speaks of "the fulness of times." The Greek learned constituted a preparatory education (paideia, cf

Werner Jaeger Werner Wilhelm Jaeger (30 July 1888 – 19 October 1961) was a German-American classicist. Life Werner Wilhelm Jaeger was born in Lobberich, Rhenish Prussia in the German Empire. He attended school in Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum i ...

) for the coming of Christ. To some extent, Woltjer's student Vollenhoven seems to have resisted this latter conception, as V came to view the major problem of developing a Christian philosophy to be the heavy tendency of all subsequent Christian thought in Western culture to fall back on a synthesis with Greek-originated presuppositions.

References

*Hartman, J.J. ''Levensbericht van Jan Woltjer''. Amsterdam, 1918. *Nijhoff, Rob A
''De logosfilosofie van Jan Woltjer (1849-1917): logos en wijsbegeerte aan de vroege Vrije Universiteit''
Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 2014. Dutch with English summary *Osborne, Hansel E. “Van Til on Woltjer: The Biblical Structure of the Ideëel en Reëel”. Doctoral dissertation, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2009. *Slings, S.R. ''Jan Woltjer tegen de school van Cobet: een evaluatie van 'Overleving en kritiek' (1886)''. Volume 66, no. 3 of ''Mededelingen van de Afdeling Letterkunde, nieuwe reeks''. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2003. *van der Laan, H. ''Jan Woltjer (1849-1917): Filosoof, Classicus, Pedagoog''. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2000. {{DEFAULTSORT:Woltjer, Jan 1849 births 1917 deaths Anti-Revolutionary Party politicians Dutch classical scholars Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Senate (Netherlands) People from Groningen (city) University of Groningen alumni Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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