Born in Antwerp, where he had a truncated career as a Jesuit and an art dealer, he moved later to the Dutch Republic where he became part of a group of radical thinkers sometimes referred to as the Amsterdam Circle, who challenged prevailing views on politics and religion.

In this period he worked, together with Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy, on a project to establish a North American utopian settlement in New Netherland, in the area of the present Delaware.

In that same year, when the Second Anglo-Dutch War had just started, he wrote to Johan de Witt offering to sell him a secret weapon for the navy.

[citation needed] Shortly after the marriage of his oldest daughter Clara Maria with Theodor Kerckring (also written as 'Kerckrinck') in 1671, van den Enden moved to Paris, where he opened another Latin school.

Franciscus van den Enden was condemned to death and on 27 November 1674, after the decapitation of the noble conspirators; as a non-noble, he was hanged in front of the Bastille.

In his Vrije Politieke Stellingen (1665- 'some Free Political Theses'), Van den Enden advocates for freedom of speech and the general right to develop.

In a sense, Van den Enden can be considered one of the forerunners of the French Revolution where the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity became the yardstick of a new model for society.

Jonathan Israel contends that Van den Enden's "chief contribution to the formation of radical thought and the Amsterdam 'atheist' circle was undoubtedly hid impassioned and revolutionary summons to 'enlighten' the common people" via education"[12] A central question concerning Franciscus van den Enden is whether and to what extent he was an influence on the philosophy of his pupil Spinoza.

Apart from this question, which due to the fragmentary source material will probably never be answered with certainty, Van den Enden's later writings are of great interest.

His defence of religious toleration, a secular state, public education and less cruel forms of justice situate him within the Early Enlightenment.

Finally, Van den Enden's concern for social problems and his proposals for organized forms of solidarity, presumably influenced by Plockhoy, must be considered original for his time.