I ANSWER IV. Yet why am I fighting? Let what the argument proposed be true, namely that unless we believe denunciations, there is no other way to discover and extirpate witches. I will concede this to my adversaries. Let it be so; it is completely true. But look how this works in my favor and confirms the opinion I conceived regarding the scarcity of witches. For I have often pondered the following points:
I. My adversaries all shout that everywhere is full of witches. Therefore I ask, how do they know this? How do they discover these witches? They say there is no other way to discover them unless we can believe denunciations. Yet I have shown a little earlier that all denunciations are completely deceptive. Therefore everywhere is full of witches because they have used a completely deceptive means of knowing. Then they deny they have any other means except this one. What should I say to this?
II. It is so certain, so indubitable, that everywhere is full of witches that whoever doubts it is hated, booed, and may not be heard. To put it briefly, it is completely certain. I ask, whence does this certainty arise? They say, from the testimony of witches, from the authority of the devil. Wonderful! Since this produces a completely certain notion, will it be an infallible credo? But completely certain knowledge is never deduced from fallible authority, as all theologians and dialecticians and the light of reason itself teaches us.
III. Why do my adversaries fight among themselves? Some shout that they have much compelling evidence that Titia, for example, is a witch. Now Binsfeld and others shout that they have nothing other than denunciations, and if they cannot be believed then they cannot conduct trials.
IV. I hear that some inquisitors recently said that they follow common practice and thus cannot err. Others say the same thing, if not in words then nevertheless in deeds, for they act as freely as if they were infallible. The common people also think that there is something about all the criminal courts which is sacred and holy—I do not know what it is—so that whatever they rule is infallibly just because of this. I ask where does all this come from? Because the judges rely on satanic testimony, and if they did not have it, they could not conduct trials, says Binsfeld.
V. But I think that this is great trickery and nothing can taint the German name more ignominiously than to say that our rulers have conducted trials very harshly until now, yet nevertheless they could not have conducted them unless in the end they relied on satanic testimony. Let the reader reflect upon this.
VI. It will be much more shameful if it is heard that this same satanic testimony has such strength among Germans that it is even accepted as evidence against ecclesiastical persons. This will cause the greatest contempt for the Catholic faith among heretics. Nevertheless such testimony has been accepted in this way under Church princes.
[NB in margin] VII. It occurs to me here to wonder whether a Catholic priest in a case in which he had been accused of magic on the basis of such testimonies but cleared himself through two, three, and even four rounds of torture should nevertheless have been consigned living to the flames and called with that good old phrase “obstinate and impenitent” because he rejected that great testimony? And what if, on the very day of his death, he was judged by his confessor to be truly penitent and with great reverence established his innocence before the sacrament of the venerable altar? What if he called out to his present and future Judge on the basis of his word or Gospel? What if he appealed to that witness, that he had endured those otherwise intolerable tortures until now so that the priestly name not be branded with shame? What if, about to hear his sentence, he repeated the same protestation to the bench of the law and vehemently urged the judges not to condemn a priest of GOD who had neither been convicted nor confessed to the crime and thereby bring great contempt upon religion? What if he repeated the same words to the people at his place of execution with the same sense of piety and moving speech, which stirred their souls so deeply that all groaned and broke out in tears, even the heretics who were present? Does such grand testimony still hold its course and strength through all these storms? And what if while denying the crime of magic, he nevertheless confessed to other crimes through the violence of his torments—can he be condemned for them, when he had not been accused of them in the first place and therefore had not been legally examined nor made a legal confession? Certainly such occasions could arise, so in any event it would be good to know what we should think in such a case. But more about this elsewhere perhaps.
What now remains is that it seems ridiculous to me to imagine that we have many witches in Germany when we conduct trials in this way, especially since many judges rush not only to arrest and torture on the evidence of multiple denunciations made by witches but also to condemn, following too closely the authors Delrio cites who hold that many denunciations of this kind constitute full proof. I hear that judges have even been found who want to arrest and torture on the testimony of the possessed.
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