WALENBURCH, ADRIAN and PETER van. — Theologians and controversialists of the seventeenth century.
ADRIAN was born in Rotterdam (Holland) around 1608. Because of the religious struggles disturbing his homeland, he went to Düsseldorf in the Rhineland, where he obtained degrees in both laws and entered the ecclesiastical state. In 1646 he was made a canon of the cathedral of Cologne, and in 1661 auxiliary bishop. He played a major role in the diocesan Synod of 1662, where he was appointed examiner, judge, and member of the commission for the Seminary. For health reasons he wished to go to Bad Schwalbach, but death overtook him in Mainz, at the home of his brother Peter, on 14 September 1669.
PETER, two years younger than Adrian, likewise obtained degrees in both laws at Düsseldorf and became a priest. In 1656 he was appointed canon of St Victor in Mainz and dean of St Peter in that city, and then, in 1658, auxiliary bishop of Mainz. Upon his brother’s death he was called to succeed him as auxiliary bishop of Cologne, where he died on 21 December 1675.
The name of the W. brothers is associated above all with controversies with Protestants, in which they achieved considerable success in conversions. They disputed with the leading Protestants of the period: Cocceius, Hund, Crocius, Schreiler, Hülshoven, Danhower, Hülfemann. During his final years Peter was in contact with Leibnitz concerning the reunion of the Churches (on their correspondence, V. De la tolérance des religions. Lettres de M. de Leibniz et réponses de M. Pélisson, Paris 1692). The numerous apologetic treatises composed between 1642 and 1667 were printed in two volumes: Tractatus generales de controversi fidei per Adrianum et Petrum de Walemburch (Cologne 1670). It is not easy to distinguish each man’s contribution, but they seem to be chiefly Peter’s work. The work of the W. brothers is distinguished by clarity, logic, and moderation: ob iniuriis abstinemus was their principle.