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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 45
Clement VIII., and was subsequently translated to the Arch
bishopric of Spalatro by Paul V. He did not hold this diocese
long, for he was sued and condemned to pay a pension, charged
on the Diocese by the Pope with his consent before he was ap
pointed. He was so chagrined with the issue of the case that he
resolved to be revenged on the Apostolic See, and went to
England in 1616, and there published a pestilent work,
Republica Christina." In this book he has the temerity to assert
" De
that out of the Roman Cathohc Religion, Calvinism, Lutheranism,
and the Anabaptist doctrines, a sound and orthodox Religion
could be formed, and his mode of doing this of uniting truth
and error in this impossible union is even more foolish than the
thing itself. After residing six years in England, agitated by
remorse, he was desirous of changing his life, and returning once
more to the Catholic Church, but he was dreadfully agitated,
between the desire of repentance and the despair of pardon ;
feared he would be lost altogether. In this perplexity he con
sulted the Spanish ambassador, then resident in England, and he
offered his influence with the Holy See, and succeeded so well
that Mark Anthony went to Rome, threw himself at the Pope s
feet, and the Sovereign Pontiff was so satisfied that his repent
ance was sincere, that he once more received him into favour.
Soon after he published a document in which he solemnly and
clearly retracts all that he had ever written against the doctrine
of the Church, so that to all appearance he was a sincere peni
tent and a true Catholic. Still he continued to correspond
privately with the Protestants,
world by a sudden death. His writings and papers were then
examined, and his heresy was proved.
he
till God removed him from the
A process was instituted ;
it was proved that he meditated a new act of apostacy, and so
his body and painted effigy were publicly burned by the common
hangman in the most public place in Rome the Campo de Fiori,
to show the revenge that God will take on the enemies of the
Faith (2).
3. William Postellus, or Postell, was born in Barenton, in
Lower Normandy ; he was a learned philosopher, and Oriental
traveller, and was remarkable as a linguist, but fell into errors
(2) Van Ranst, sec. 17, ;>.
325
; Bernin. t, 4, sec. 17, c 1, 2, 3; Berti. loc. cit.