interference which would destroy its usefulness; the fiscal should demand the papal brief and the Council should retain it.[380] The opinion of the junta doubtless prevented the re-arrest and renewed prosecution of Villanueva, which was evidently contemplated, but otherwise all reasons of justice and reasons of state were wasted on Philip, who was completely under the domination of Arce y Reynoso and ready to rush blindly into a contest with Rome. Equally fruitless was an appeal, made September 23rd, by Agustin Villanueva, who furnished a list of cases in which appeals to the pope had been admitted.[381] A warning came from Oñate, who wrote, December 17th and again February 12, 1648, that Navarro was busily utilizing the impediments thrown in the way of the brief to procure another, that the curia attributed all the trouble to Arce, that the delay was producing a bad impression and that there was serious talk in the Congregation of the Inquisition of disciplining him for it. This brought from Philip, March 17th, a rambling and inconsequential letter, scolding Oñate for his lack of success and urging him to fresh efforts; the brief was invalid as being obreptitious and surreptitious; Navarro was ordered home and Oñate must see that he left Rome forthwith. Letters, moreover, to the pope and the cardinals in the Spanish interest, drawn up by the Suprema and signed by Philip, manifest how every influence that Spain possessed was employed to deprive Villanueva of his last resource.[382] Innocent X, in fact, had grown indignant at the opposition to his brief and had transmitted through his nuncio another to Arce, forbidding all further resistance under pain of deprivation of the inquisitor-generalship, suspension of all functions and interdiction from entering a church, while other officials would be removed from office and excommunicated. To this Arce replied, March 12th, assuring the pope that the case had been suspended awaiting the papal decision, and representing, what he knew to be also false, that for a hundred and fifty years the popes had refused to entertain appeals or had revoked the briefs and remanded the cases to the inquisitor-general. The authority of the Inquisition, he argued, was now more necessary than ever, in consequence of the spread of Judaism and heresy. Villanueva had been treated with extreme kindness and benignity, as would be learned from a person about to be sent to inform the pope, wherefore he begged that the case be remitted to him and the Suprema.[383]