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and is ostensibly quite orthodox. [221] In one passage he untruthfully tells how, when imprisoned in England, he burned with the desire to shed his blood for the Catholic Church. [222] In another, after declaring that some Christian doctors have argued very weakly against the Epicureans on immortality, he avows that he,
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Christianus nomine cognomine Catholicus, could hardly have held the doctrine if he had not learned it from the Church,
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[223] As usual, the attack leaves us in doubt as to the amount of real atheism current at the time. The preface asserts that
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Atheotêto autem secta pestilentissima quotidie, latius et latius vires acquirit eundo, and there are various hostile allusions to atheists in the text; [224] but the arguments cited from them are such as might be brought by deists against miracles and the Christian doctrine of sin; and there is an allusion of the customary kind to
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Nicolaus Machiavellus Atheorum facile princeps, [225] which puts all in doubt. The later published Dialogues, De Admirandis Naturæ Arcanis, [226] while showing a freer critical spirit, would seem to be in part earlier in composition, if we can trust the printer's preface, which represents them as collected from various quarters, and published only with the reluctant consent of the author. [227] This, of course, may be a mystification; in any case the Dialogues twice mention the Amphitheatrum; and the fourth book, in which this mention occurs, may be taken on this and other grounds to set forth his later ideas. Even the Dialogues, however, while discussing many questions of creed and science in a free fashion, no less profess orthodoxy; and, while one passage is pantheistic, [228] they also denounce atheism. [229] And whereas one passage does avow that the author in his Amphitheatrum had said many things he did not believe, the context clearly suggests that the reference was not to the main argument, but to some of its dubious facts. [230] In any case, though the title--chosen by the editors--speaks daringly enough of
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Nature, the queen and goddess of mortals, Vanini cannot be shown to be an atheist; [231] and the attacks upon him as an immoral writer are not any better supported. [232] The publication of the dialogues was in fact formally authorized by the Sorbonne, [233] and it does not even appear that when he was charged with atheism and blasphemy at Toulouse that work was founded on, save in respect of its title. [234] The charges rested on the testimony of a treacherous associate as to his private conversation; and, if true, it only amounted to proving his pantheism, expressed in his use of the word
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Nature. At his trial he expressly avowed and argued for theism. The judges, by one account, did not agree. Yet he was convicted, by the voices of the majority, and burned alive (February 9, 1619) on the day of his sentence. Drawn on a hurdle, in his shirt, with a placard on his shoulders inscribed
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Atheist and Blasphemer of the name of God, he went to his death with a high heart, rejoicing, as he cried in Italian, to die like a philosopher. [235] A Catholic historian, [236] who was present, says he hardily declared that
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Jesus facing death sweated with fear: I die undaunted.