The _negativo_--the man who denied his heresy in the face of what was deemed competent testimony of guilt--was classed as an impenitent heretic and doomed to relaxation. This was the inevitable logic of the Inquisition, although it led to the most tragic of all situations--that of being tortured to death in honor of the faith which the sufferer held. It was impossible, under the inquisitorial system, to allow a possible heretic to escape merely because he unflinchingly affirmed his orthodoxy, and yet when a man asserted it up to the brasero, knowing that it would not avail him, it was impossible not to recognize in him a true believer who would not save his body at the expense of falsely confessing apostasy. Three such there were in the Granada auto of May 27, 1593, burnt as negativos and consequently burnt alive.[581] Such men were true martyrs, especially as rigid constructionists denied them the consolations of religion in their last moments. At the Toledo auto of October 28, 1723, Diego de Quiros was in this position, and a Jesuit who heard him in sacramental confession was severely censured for doing so while he persisted in maintaining his innocence. Again the question came up in the Toledo auto of July 1, 1725. Fernando de Castro was relaxed as an impenitent negativo and was sentenced to burning alive. On account of the heat the execution was postponed until the afternoon, and the convict was meanwhile placed in the public prison. With cries he earnestly begged for sacramental confession, but the frailes in attendance declined unless he should admit his heresy, which he steadfastly refused to do, asserting the witnesses to be perjured, and the judgement unjust. At this juncture there came a Jesuit father who yielded to the despairing appeals of the poor wretch and heard him in confession, whereupon the judge took the responsibility of modifying the sentence to preliminary strangulation. The frailes loudly rebuked the Jesuit, and were joined by the public, disappointed of the promised spectacle of the burning alive of a fellow-creature. Considerable debate followed and a priest named Candido Múñoz wrote an argument justifying the Jesuit, but his labor was superfluous for, while his tract was in the press, the Suprema issued a carta acordada, October 11th, ordering that in such cases the priest should hear the confession and confer absolution or not, according to the disposition manifested, but in future no one but the appointed theologians were to attend the convict to the last.[582]