The Dutch glasspainter and Anabaptist prophet David Joris (1501–1556) was the Netherland’s most infamous heretic who became a spiritualist who depreciated the scriptures, condemned confessional conflict, and argued that the devil did not exist external to a person’s mind. Unlike the Dutch founder of the Family of Love, Hendrik Niclaes, Joris had no following in England, yet English writers condemned him with increasing frequency over seventeenth century. This paper examines that response, showing that for most writers Joris was the exemplar of the dangers of visionary mysticism, while Catholics used him to condemn Protestantism in general. English writers remained largely unaware of Joris’s denial of demons until ca. 1647, when they began to attack the idea, unintentionally publicizing it. Such polemical dissemination had decades earlier helped to calm fears of demonic witchcraft in the Dutch Republic; in England it may have also influenced the demonologies of some English nonconformists.

荷兰玻璃画家和再洗礼派先知大卫约里斯（1501-1556 年）是荷兰最臭名昭著的异教徒，他成为了一位贬低圣经、谴责忏悔冲突并认为魔鬼并不存在于人的思想之外的唯灵论者。与爱之家的荷兰创始人亨德里克·尼克拉斯 (Hendrik Niclaes) 不同，约里斯在英国没有追随者，但英国作家在 17 世纪越来越频繁地谴责他。这篇论文检验了这种反应，表明对于大多数作家来说，约里斯是有远见的神秘主义危险的典范，而天主教徒则用他来谴责一般的新教。直到大约 20 年前，英国作家基本上都没有意识到约里斯否认恶魔。1647年，当他们开始攻击这个想法时，无意中宣传了它。几十年前，这种争论性的传播有助于平息荷兰共和国对恶魔巫术的恐惧。在英国，它可能也影响了一些英国不墨守成规者的恶魔学。