Schyn, Hermann

Schyn, Hermann,

author of the Historia Mennonitarum, SEE MENNO; SEE MENNONITES, was born at Amsterdam in 1662, and studied at Leyden and Utrecht, being made M.D. in 1682. After settling at Rotterdam as a physician, he began the study of theology, and in 1686 was chosen preacher by the congregation of Mennonites in that city. In 1690 he removed to Amsterdam, and entered on a career in which he administered the duties of the sacred office during thirty-seven years with fidelity and success. He died in 1727. As a preacher he had a leaning towards the Cocceian tendency (q.v.), and followed the farfetched analytical-exegetical method of the time, but was none the less practical and fervent — somewhat given to the use of mystical phrases, as may be seen in the collection of his sermons, Heilige Keurstoffen (1733).

Schyn became known as a writer on practical themes through his Mensch in Christus (1721-25) and Beletselen d. Geestelyken Levens (1727), and also as an advocate of Union among his coreligionists through the Ontwerp toe Vereeniging der Doopsgezinden (1723). His principal fame was obtained, however, in the publication of the Historia Mennonitarum (Amst. 1723, 1729, 2 vols. [first in Dutch, Korte Hist.]). See Blaupot ten Cate, Gesehied. der Doopsgezinden, etc., 2, 136, and the literature there given; Krohn, Gesch. der Wiedertaufer, p. 136 sq.