While the Spanish Inquisition was thus creditably rigid in exacting denunciations, it was equally strict in construing the limits of the technical offence as defined in the papal decrees. As stated above, morals had nothing to do with the matter; the business of the tribunals was not to prevent women from being ruined by their spiritual fathers, but only to see that the sacrament of penitence was not profaned in such wise as to justify suspicion of the orthodoxy of the confessor. In 1577, inquisitors were warned that it did not suffice for prosecution that confessors had illicit relations with their penitents, or that they solicited in the confessional when there really was no confession and, in 1580 it was expressly stated that they were not to be prosecuted if they said that they did not intend to have their penitents confess.[213] This covered assignations under pretext of confession, to deceive onlookers, which we are told was a frequent custom and, as there were no confessional stalls, and the churches were largely deserted, there was little danger of interruption. It was argued that there was no confession and no sacrament, so there could be no heresy, but the Roman Inquisition, in 1614, decided it to be solicitation, and the brief of Gregory XV, in 1622 settled the question, although it required another brief of Urban VIII, in 1629, to render it authoritative in Spain.[214] This involved the question as to the knowledge which either party might have of the other's intention, opening the door to the endless refinements of antecedent or consequent invincible ignorance, in which the casuists disported themselves.[215]