Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina, by the grace of God the Dowager Empress of the Romans, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, and Lodomeria, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, Great Princess of Transylvania, etc.
I was born a subject of Your Imperial Majesty’s, in Glinno, at a remove of four miles from Lwów. I was raised in Glinno, and I was also a rabbi in that city. It happened that in 1759, one Jacob Frank, a neophyte, currently living in Brünn, passed through there. His father, a Jewish teacher suspected of belonging to a Sabbatian sect and expelled from the kahal, had settled in Czernowitz in Wallachia. Thus Jacob Frank, though born in Korolówka, roamed around the world a fair amount, married, and had a daughter, at which point he took on the Muhammadan faith and was hailed among the Sabbatians as a hakham.
I am ashamed to admit that I, too, belonged to that sect, and that I counted among his worshippers. In my stupidity, I considered him not only a great sage but also the incarnation of the spirit of Sabbatai and a worker of miracles.
In the early part of 1757, the aforementioned Frank came to Poland and called upon the faithful to move to Ivanie, a property held by the Bishop of Kamieniec. There he proclaimed that the great lord and king Sabbatai Tzvi had to cross over to the faith of the Ismaelites, that the god Baruchiah had to pass through it as well, just as he did through the Orthodox one, but that he, Jacob, would have to cross over to the Nazarene faith, since Jesus of Nazarene was the peel of the fruit, and his coming only occurred to make way for the true Messiah. We were all required to convert to this faith and to observe it more closely in the eyes of the Christians than the Christians themselves. We had therefore to live piously, yet not take any Christian women as our wives, for although Se?or Santo, that is, Baruchiah, had stated, “Blessed is he who permits the forbidden,” he had also said that the daughter of a foreign god was forbidden. Thus under no circumstances were we to mix with other nations, deep down remaining true to the three nodes of our kings: Sabbatai Tzvi, Baruchiah, and Jacob Frank.
After being much persecuted by the Jews, and under the protection of the Bishops of Kamieniec and Lwów, in the autumn of 1759, we agreed to be baptized.
To Frank, who, having come from Turkey, was poor, a large amount of money was given right away; I, too, contributed, offering him 280 ducats to start out.
Then the aforementioned Frank went to Warsaw and there preached to all and sundry that he was the lord of life and death and that those who believed in him with all their hearts would never die.
When, however, in spite of this, some of his closest and greatest supporters did die, and he was asked for clarification, he said that evidently they did not sincerely believe in him.
Some of his company, wanting to put him to the test, informed the Church authorities of everything . . .
“Is that how it was?” Goliński asks the man dictating to him, whose words he is writing down in his beautiful penmanship, stumbling only slightly on the lengthier German turns of phrase. But the other man does not respond to this, and so Goliński simply carries on:
. . . The case was submitted to the royal chancellor, the cathedral chapter, and bishops, who together comprised the court. The company of Frankists openly admitted, for the most part, the error of their ways and solemnly swore that they would refrain from such things going forward and live a Christian life. Frank himself was sentenced to life imprisonment in the monastery in Cz?stochowa. Unfortunately, that man, possessed as he is by Satan, knew how to draw people to him, even jailed. His followers went to him and lavished him with gifts, and many of them stayed there with him, for he knew, too, how to convince them that his arrest was necessary. And I must confess—again, with great shame—that I, too, was there, and I, too, remained with him in his incarceration, up until the death of his wife and her funeral.
Her death produced a strong effect on many, as did the teachings of Jacob Frank, according to which he praised acts that went against nature and human custom. It was then that I left him and became his enemy. Parting from Cz?stochowa, I returned to Warsaw, where I lived with my wife and child. Yet my wife has now been in Brünn for four years, most recently in the clutches of some companion . . .
Goliński’s hand hovers over that word, “Gef?hrten.”
“You know that, too?” he asks. “Already?”
The man doesn’t answer, so after a moment’s stillness, Goliński writes on:
. . . she was with Frank and his daughter in Vienna and has now returned to Brünn, where she agreed to see me, and feeling toward me an understandable tenderness, she disclosed to me that the Holy Lord, as Frank is known to his disciples, had ordered me and the others who attempted to resist him slain in Cz?stochowa.
“But that’s not true. There was nothing like that,” says Goliński in surprise, but he keeps going:
She learned of it since she has everyone’s full trust there, being the daughter of one of the most faithful of the Frankists. She therefore warned me so that I might save myself and hasten to remove myself. I filed a complaint with the royal authorities on account of it, and an investigation was launched, as I had previously entered my testimony into the official report that may now be accessed in Warsaw.
When Poland descended into turmoil, Frank found an opportunity, with the help of the Russian army, to free himself from jail. Then he went to Brünn, where he has been propagating his diabolical faith altogether unchecked.
His coachmen, stablemen, servants, postillions, Hussars, Uhlans—in a word, his entourage—consists exclusively of converted Jews. Every fourteen days, husbands, wives, sons, and daughters come to him from Poland, as well as from Moravia, and even from Hamburg, bringing copious gifts and horses; they are all of them converts from the selfsame sect, which has evidently already spread around the world. They kiss his feet, they stay a few days, and they leave, and then others come to take their places, and thus this novel vermin multiplies with every passing day.
I know that my words are no real evidence, but I am ready to face any punishment if Her Imperial Majesty’s investigation does not confirm these seemingly incredible things that have never been heard of since the dawn of the world, yet my denunciation . . .
Goliński considers that word for a moment, finally writes:
. . . will be proved in all particulars.
I thus extreme humbly request of Your Royal-Imperial Apostolic Majesty, on my knees and with the utmost respect, that out of consideration for the importance of this matter, it might be arranged for me to have a confrontation here in Vienna with Jacob Frank, that I could expose all of his crimes and recoup the thousands of ducats he took from me. And with this, for the mistakes I have made up to now, which I wish to erase with this open confession, I implore forgiveness.
Your Royal-Imperial Apostolic
Majesty’s humblest servant,
Jacob Goliński