# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 05 24_S173
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The second day after, the journey went to Rome, accompanied by the dean and two servants. Thus I was taken by carriage from my college to Venice, from Venice by ship to Ancona, and from Ancona again by land to Rome, where the dean chose the famous Collegium S. Mariae de Pace as our lodging. There we stayed two days. On the second day, toward evening, the prelate and I were invited by the dean of this Collegium to go for a drive. We came to a great palace. I followed the prelate and my dean, who climbed two flights of stairs. Here four Dominican monks appeared, who greeted the two prelates reverently and led them into the room. When I too wished to follow, one of the Dominicans ordered me to wait before the door. He himself remained with me. Scarcely had the others entered the room when four armed lictors came up and took their places before the stairs. Astonished at the sight of them, I spoke three times to the monk standing beside me, but he did not deign to answer me. Half an hour later I was called into the room. Here the Inquisitor addressed me in very haughty words: "You are to know that this place is the office of the Holy Inquisition; why you have been brought here you may well imagine for yourself; for precisely these reasons you are now to be imprisoned, until the further process which must be conducted with you by the Inquisition; go with this father to the place assigned to you." The father was the keeper of the prisons, the very one who had remained with me before the door. To the thousand excuses and lamentations that I brought forward, the Inquisitor answered me: "Here there is nothing to excuse and to lament; here one has only to obey." As I continued nevertheless to demand the reasons for my imprisonment, and made several reproaches against my dean, the Inquisitor broke in: "Have you not seen those lictors? If you will not willingly follow the keeper of the prisons, they will show you the way." The hope of obtaining pardon and mercy had vanished. I followed the keeper of the prison. We went through a dark passage, then down two flights of stairs, and I was shut up in an underground, very narrow and damp prison, built of hewn stones eight feet below the earth.

This wretched place I inhabited for a year and a half before I was called for the first time before the tribunal of the Inquisition. During this time I saw no daylight; no one had access to me except the spiritual fathers who are called the visitors of prisoners. These came to me every Monday and admonished me to faithful obedience to the Roman Church and to the rejection of heresies. Every fourteen days, on Friday, I was beaten in penance until blood flowed. Throughout the whole time of my imprisonment I led the most painful life, with open wounds and boils. The prison was very damp, so that I began to swell over my whole body; indeed my distress grew so great that I could no longer bring my hands to my mouth, and yet I was not spared the cruel penances. Since I now had no hope that I could remain alive, I begged the keeper of the prisons and the spiritual fathers to entreat the Inquisitor, in my name, to put an end to this torment by some sentence of death, for I wished to be dissolved and to be with Christ. When the Inquisitor learned of this declaration of mine, two notaries came and told me it had been reported to the Inquisitor that I had confessed myself guilty unto death, and asked whether I was ready to say this to the Inquisitor himself. I replied that I had demanded death only conditionally, on account of these torments. Thereupon they explained to me, with various godless arguments, that I could not see the Inquisitor unless I wished to bring forward something particular. At last I promised that I would make a confession.

So after the lapse of a year and a half I was allowed to appear for the first time before the tribunal of the Inquisition. Cardinal Colloredo, as president of the Inquisition and as the Pope's chief penitentiary, held the first seat. To his right sat the Inquisitor, and to his left the Abbot Melchior, the Vicar of the Inquisition. There were also present four assessors and two notaries, who set down every word on paper. The Inquisitor addressed me, a half-dead man, and said: "What are you doing here?" I stared at the questioner, uncertain what I should answer; but he repeated the words: "What are you doing here?" At last I began: if they did not know what I was doing here, why did they throw me into prison and torment me so? But he brought forth the question a third time: "I ask you, what are you doing here?" Since at this I could bring forth no words, for the tears bursting from my eyes and the anguish of my heart, the keeper of the prisons was ordered to carry out the command given him concerning me. I was then led into a wide courtyard, surrounded by very high walls and situated on the Tiber, and was told that this was the place of justice where obstinate heretics were delivered to death, either by fire or by the sword. In the middle of the courtyard was a heap of ashes. At the sight of it I was told that seven weeks before, a Franciscan monk, a man of seventy years, who, seduced by the reading of similar books, had wanted to flee his monastery and go over to the heretics, but had been seized on the way and dragged to Rome, and since he would in no way depart from his shameful opinions, had here been delivered alive to the fire. The same would be done to me if I would not desist from my opinions. There also appeared to one side an unusually tall man with four lictors, of whom I was told that he was the executioner and enforcer of justice. After this proceeding I was locked again into my former prison. While here I lamented my sad condition with a thousand sighs, something approached the door of my prison. It was the Abbot Melchior, who addressed me as follows: "Dearest son, I have compassion for your wretched condition. Moved by fatherly love, I visit you. Perhaps the procedure of the Inquisition is unknown to you. You must know that the office of the Inquisition is holy, and can therefore accuse, judge, and condemn no one. Only such sinners are brought before the Inquisition whose sins are public and known to the world; therefore it is the custom that everyone accuse himself, and when he is asked what he is doing here, that he freely confess and declare that he is guilty of this or that crime, just as his own conscience tells him. If you do this, you may expect a milder judgment. Heed my admonition, and farewell." He did not wait for an answer, and left. I weighed this tyrannical procedure, since I had to be my own accuser and executioner, and became very downcast.

But because of the manifest danger to life in which I hovered, a further proceeding could not be delayed. I was therefore called again the following day before the Inquisition, where the Inquisitor brought forth the same words: "What are you doing here?" Humbly I answered him: I knew of no other cause than the possession of a forbidden book and too eager disputation over controversial matters. But as I brought forward something in my defense, the Inquisitor continued: "You have been called here on account of the accusation, and you are to know that these are fully sufficient grounds, according to the regular laws of the Inquisition, to deliver you to death." And after a longer, very harsh speech, in which he depicted the magnitude of the crime committed, he pronounced the sentence of death upon me. He then spoke something secretly with the Cardinal. Finally he showed the letter that had come from the bishop. In it my death was not demanded, but rather that I, improved and chastened by the Inquisition, should spend the rest of my life in Rome, so that I would have no opportunity to read similar books, stir up disputations, or associate with heretics. The Inquisitor promised to satisfy the wishes of my bishop and my college, if I would first attest by a public oath that I would no longer believe, defend, or make known the doubts I had hitherto raised. Against this I now declared: by what right was such an oath imposed on me, which by their own words proved improper, since the Inquisitor had called my disputes merely doubts? An oath is never required in uncertain matters; how could I be convicted of having believed this or that, since God alone is the knower of hearts? Enraged, the Inquisitor burst out: "So you are afraid to take the oath; I see that you are still altogether infected with the heretical plague." At this I had to withdraw and wait before the door. When I was called again, the Inquisitor said to me: