# Leonhard Keyser, A. D. 1527.

1527 · Historical source

Source: Martyrs’ Mirror. Original heading: LEONHARD KEYSER, A. D. 1527.

Source heading; not independently verified

LEONHARD KEYSER ON THE WAY TO EXECUTION.

When the believers greatly increased under persecution
and the cross (Ex. 1:12), there was, in
Bavaria, a learned priest of the mass, named Leonhard
Keyser, who examined the writings of Zwingli
and Luther, and also went to Wittenberg, where he
conferred with the doctors and commemorated the
Supper with them.

Having returned to Bavaria, he examined the
fruits and doctrine of the Anabaptists, as well as
of Zwingli and Luther, and joined himself under
the cross to the separated cross-bearing church of
the Anabaptists, in the year 1525, and forthwith
continued in his ministry, with great power and
zeal, undaunted by all the tyranny which arose over
the believers, in the way of drowning, burning and
putting to death. Acts 9:20. In the second year
of his ministry, Leonard Keyser was apprehended
at Scharding, in Bavaria, and condemned by the
bishop of Passau and other priests and capitulars,
to be burned on Friday before St. Lawrence day,
in August of the same year. Having bound him
on a cart, they took him to the fire, the priests
going alongside, and speaking Latin to him, but
he, on account of the people, answered them in
German; even as they had refused to speak to him
in German before the court, which he had frequently
requested. When he came out into the field, and
was approaching the fire, he, bound, as he was,
leaned down at the side of the cart, and plucked a
flower with his hand, saying to the judge, who rode
on horseback along side of the cart: “Lord judge,
here I pluck a flower; if you can burn this flower
and me, you have justly condemned me; but, on
the other hand, if you cannot burn me and this
flower in my hand, consider what you have done
and repent.” Thereupon the judge and the three
executioners threw an extraordinary quantity of
wood into the fire, in order to burn him immediately
406to ashes by the great fire. But when the wood was
entirely burned up, his body was taken from the
fire uninjured. Then the three executioners and
their assistants built another great fire of wood, which
when it was consumed, his body still remained uninjured,
only his hair and his nails were somewhat
burnt brown, and, the ashes having been removed
from his body, the latter was found smooth
and clear, and the flower in his hand, not withered,
or burnt in the least, the executioners then cut his
body into pieces, which they threw into a new fire.
When the wood was burned up, the pieces lay unconsumed
in the fire. Finally they took the pieces
and threw them into the river Inn. This judge was
so terrified by this occurrence that he resigned his
office, and moved to another place. His chief servant,
who was with the judge, and saw and heard
all this, came to us in Moravia, became our brother
and lived and died piously. That it might not be
forgotten our teachers have recorded this as it came
from his own lips, and now cause it to be promulgated
and made known.

![Illustration from Martyrs’ Mirror](/sources/martyrs-mirror/images/i0826.jpg)



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Page: http://history.truechristian.church/stories/mm-leonhard-keyser-a-d-1527/

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