Friedrich Spanheim the elder (1600 - 1649) was a Calvinistic professor at the University of Leiden. He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1614 where he studied philology and philosophy, and in 1619 moved to Geneva to study theology. In 1621 he became tutor in the house of Jean de Bonne, Baron de Vitrolle, governor of Embrun in Dauphiné, and after three years he visited Geneva, and Paris, and England, returning to Geneva in 1626 and be coming professor of philosophy. In 1631 he went over to the theological faculty, and was rector of the academy from 1633 to 1637.
In 1642 he moved to Leiden as professor of theology. In Holland Spanheim became one of the most decided defenders of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination against Moise Amyraut. He published anonymously, Le Soldat suedois (1634), a history of the Thirty Years' War until 1631 and Le Mercure suisse (1634); Commentaire historique de la vie et de la mort de . . Christofle Vicomte de Dohna (1639). His principal theological works are: Dubia evangelica (3 vols., Geneva, 1631-1639; English translation, Englands Warning by Germanies Woe, London, 1646); and Disputatio de gratia universali (3 vols., Leiden, 1644-1648); Epistola ad Buchananum super controversiis...in ecclesiis Anglicanis (Leiden, 1645). Against the Anabaptists he wrote Variae disputationes anti-Anabaptisticae (1643) and Diatribe historica de origine, progressu, sectis et nominibus anabaptistarum (1645).
