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46 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
of Faith. Some even go so far as to say, that in his work, called
Virgo Veneta, he endeavours to prove that an old maid of
Venice, called Mother Johanna of Venice, was the Saviour of
the feminine sex. Florimund, however, defends him from this
charge, and says he wrote this curious work merely to praise this
lady, who was a great friend of his, and frequently afforded him
pecuniary assistance. He lived some time also in Rome, and
joined the Jesuits, but they soon dismissed him, on account of the
extraordinary opinions he professed. He was charged with
heresy, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, by
the In
quisition ; but he escaped to France, and his fame as a
linguist
procured him a favourable reception from King Charles IX., and
the learned of that country. He then wrote several works, filled
with the most extravagant errors, as "De Trinitate" "De Matrice
Mundi," "De Omnibus Sectis salvandis," " De futura nativitate
Mediatoris" and several others of the same stamp. He was re
primanded by the Faculty of Theology, and the magistracy of
Paris, for these writings, but as he refused to retract them, he was
confined in the Monastery of St. Martin des Champes, and there
he got the grace of repentance, for he retracted every thing he
had written, and subjected all to the judgment of the Church.
He then led a most religious life in the Monastery, and died on
the 7th of September, 1581, being nearly an hundred years
old. Some time
previously he published a very useful book,
"
entitled De Orbis Concordia," in which he defends the Catholic
Religion against Jews, Gentiles, Mahometans, and heretics of
every shade (3).
4. Benedict Spinosa was born in Amsterdam, in 1632. His
parents were Jewish Merchants, who were expelled from Portu
gal, and, with numbers of their co-religionists, took refuge in
Holland. He preferred the Jewish religion at first; he next
became a Christian, at least nominally, for it is said he never was
baptized ; and he ended by becoming
an Atheist. He studied
Latin and German under a physician, called Francis Van Den-
dedit, who was afterwards invited to France, and entering into
a
conspiracy against the
King, ended his life on the scaffold ; and
it is
thought that from this man he imbibed the first seeds of
(3) Gotti, loc. cit. ; Van Ranst, sec. 17, p. 346.