The evidence elicited in the trials showed the errors ordinarily attributed to Illuminism, including trances and revelations and sexual abominations unfit for transcription. After three years spent in this work, an auto was held, June 14, 1579, in which, among other offenders, there appeared fifteen Alumbrados--ten men and five women. Of the men, all but the unlucky shoemaker were priests, and among them we recognize Hernando Alvarez, against whom there appeared no less than a hundred and forty-six witnesses. Many were _curas_ of various towns and naturally the illicit relations were principally between confessors and their spiritual daughters. From a doctrinal standpoint, their offence seems not to have been regarded as serious, for none of them were degraded, and the abjurations were for light suspicion, but this leniency was accompanied by deprivation of functions, galley-service, reclusion and similar penalties, while the fines inflicted amounted to fifteen hundred ducats and eight thousand maravedís. The unfortunate Mari Sanz, who had caused the explosion, expiated her imprudence by appearing with a gag and a sentence to perpetual prison, two hundred lashes in Llerena and two hundred more at la Fuente del Maestre, her place of residence.[56] From the number of those inculpated it may be assumed that this auto did not empty the prisons, and that it was followed by others, but if so, we have no record of them. The impression produced by the affair was wide and profound. Páramo, writing towards the end of the century, speaks of it as one in which the vigilance of the Inquisition preserved Spain from serious peril.[57] [Sidenote: _HOSTILITY OF THE INQUISITION_] In fact, it marks a turning-point in the relations of the Inquisition to Spanish mysticism, of which the persecution became one of its regular and recognized duties. Even before the auto of 1579, the Suprema, in a carta acordada of January 4, 1578, ordered the tribunals to add to the Edict of Faith a section in which the errors developed in the trials were enumerated. These consisted in asserting that mental prayer is of divine precept and that it fulfils everything, while vocal prayer is of trivial importance; that the servants of God are not required to labor; that the orders of superiors are to be disregarded, when conflicting with the hours devoted to mental prayer and contemplation; decrying the sacrament of matrimony; asserting that the perfect have no need of performing virtuous actions; advising persons not to marry or to enter religious Orders; saying that the servants of God are to shine in secular life; obtaining promises of obedience and enforcing it in every detail; holding that, after reaching a certain degree of perfection, they cannot look upon holy images or listen to sermons, and teaching these errors under pledge of secrecy.[58]