That the function of the magistrate was not judicial is manifested in the refusal to communicate the trial to him. When those of Brescia, in 1486, refused to execute the sentences of the inquisitor without seeing the trials, Innocent VIII ordered the inquisitor to excommunicate them if they delayed more than six days, no matter what the local laws might be, for heresy was a purely ecclesiastical crime.[537] In accordance with this is the assertion of the _Repertorium de Pravitate Hæreticorum_, printed at Valencia in 1494, that the magistrate has no right to have the process shown to him that he may judge as to the justice of the sentence; inquisitors are not to concede any such right, for his sole duty is to execute it without delay, and if he hesitates he is subject to deprivation of office and condemnation as a heretic.[538] This principle was fully admitted by secular jurists themselves. Torreblanca, who was attached to the royal Chancellery of Granada, states that the duty of the civil magistrate is purely executive and he has no right to examine into the merits of a case or to act in a judicial capacity.[539] [Sidenote: _RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH_] In fact, the secular power could be dispensed with altogether. The Venetian Signory was not always as prompt as it should be in suppressing heresy so, to avoid delays and embarrassing questions, the papal nuncio there, with his fiscal, auditor and other officials, had faculties to condemn to mutilation and death all heretics without incurring irregularity or other ecclesiastical penalties, notwithstanding all canons and decretals to the contrary. Such provisions were issued in 1547 by Paul III and in 1550 by Julius III and were doubtless customary.[540] Peña reduces this to a general principle for, without referring to special papal faculties, he asserts that the intervention of the secular judge is unessential and that, if he is not accessible, the tribunal can condemn the heretic to death; if accessible he must execute the sentence if he wishes to escape the heavy penalties of fautorship and impeding the Inquisition.[541] There was little danger of such reluctance on the part of secular officials in Spain, where the oath exacted of them by the Inquisition obliged them to execute whatever sentences the tribunal might require.[542] In fact, the only indication I have met with, of possible hesitation involving punishment, occurs in a mandate, September 5, 1725, to the Toledo tribunal, directing that, in autos de fe, the first sentences read should be those of relaxation--thus reversing the usual order--so that the convicts might be delivered at once to the royal judge, without permitting delay in the execution of the sentences, under any pretext, since the tribunal had complete jurisdiction to compel him, by censures and other penalties, to its exact performance.[543]