Records of the Spanish Inquisition, Translated from the Original Manuscripts

by Andrew Dickson White

Joseph Sanchez Y Masquefa.

Before me—

Joseph Montes, Presbyter Notary
of the Holy Office.

[Here follow, in the original, the depositions of the other witnesses mentioned above as present on the occasion. These are omitted, as they do but repeat what has been already related.]

CALIFICACION.

In the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Valencia, on the seventeenth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and fiftysix, the Inquisitor, Dr Don Inigo Ortiz de la Peña being at his morning audience, in which he presided alone, there appeared the Calificadores, Padre Francisco Siges, of the Order of Mercy, Padre Antonio Mira, Jesuit, Ex-Rector of the college of San Pablo, Padre Juan Bautista Llopis, of the Order of Mercy, and Padre Augustin de Vinaros, Ex-Provincial of the Convent of Capuchins, who, having conferred together respecting the acts and assertions now to be specified, qualified them in the following manner, viz.

1st. The person in question, in the presence of many others, on the night of a certain day which is named, declared that he possessed the power when anything was stolen, to ascertain who was the thief; and in proof of this, the said person, on the same occasion declared that in a former instance, when a quantity of money had been stolen, and search was making for the thief, he offered, upon the condition that no harm should ensue to him or the culprit, to find him out; which being agreed to, he wrote the names of those whom he suspected of the theft upon papers and put them in a fire, when those containing the names of the innocent were consumed, and that of the guilty one remained. He then uttered certain words, which signified ‘Christ our Lord,’ by virtue of which the name of the delinquent was preserved from burning. And by virtue of these, words, ‘Ego sum; factus est Homo; consummatum est,’ the paper was drawn from the fire. The name of the thief was then read, and the money found upon him within his stockings.

Declared unanimously that this contains a profession of superstitious necromancy, and a practice of the same, with the effects following; also an abuse of the sacred scripture.

2d. The assertions in the above article having been listened to, it was replied to this person that the thing could not be done without some pact with the devil, to which he answered that it was so honest and just a deed that he would perform it immediately after confession and communion, and even before the Inquisitors, inasmuch as it was done by repeating the words of Christ, which were the Latin expressions given in the first article. It was repeated that the thing could not be done in this manner, and that it ought to be denounced to the Inquisition; whereupon this person persisted in his assertions. He also stated that he knew another way of performing the same kind of divination, which was by collecting the ashes made by burning the papers, and rubbing them upon the back of his hand, where they would leave impressed the name of the culprit. He furthermore asserted that he knew another method, which he did not explain.

Declared unanimously that this contains a confirmation of the preceding, with a heretical assertion, and a new profession of necromancy.