Evidently the object of the Edict had been to warn rather than to punish; but few examples were deemed necessary, and in these the mildness of the penalties indicates a recognition of the fact that these so-called heresies had not previously been regarded as culpable. It sufficed to set an impressive stamp of reprobation on mysticism without unnecessary severity. Seville, however, was not yet cleansed of the infection. At an auto held some two years later, on February 28, 1627, there were two conspicuous mystics, Maestre Juan de Villalpando, a priest in charge of one of the city parishes, and Madre Catalina de Jesus, a Carmelite beata. Notwithstanding the Edict of 1623, Villalpando had maintained a congregation of both sexes, who obeyed him implicitly in all things, temporal and spiritual. No less than two hundred and seventy-five erroneous propositions were charged against him, and he was required to retract twenty-two articles. He was deprived of his priestly functions, recluded for four years in a convent and confined subsequently to the city of Seville, with a fine of two hundred ducats. Madre Catalina, for thirty-eight years, had been sick with the love of God, and her continued existence was regarded as a miracle by her numerous disciples, who treasured as relics whatever had touched her person. She was accused of improper relations with a priest--probably Villalpando--who reverenced her as his guide and teacher, and she was a dogmatizer, for her writings, both MS. and printed, were required to be surrendered. On the testimony of a hundred and forty-eight witnesses, she was sentenced to reclusion for six years in a hospital, where she was to earn her support by labor.[70] This shows increasing severity, and a still more deterrent example was furnished, in 1630, by an auto in which eight Alumbrados, as we are told, were burned alive and six in effigy. There were also sixty reconciliations, of which some were doubtless for the same heresy.[71] We have no further details of this auto, save that Bernino characterizes the victims as obstinate; possibly they may have been relapsed but, as we have seen, the abjurations had been for light suspicion, which did not entail relaxation for relapse. Be this as it may, the affair would indicate that Illuminism was now regarded as formal heresy, not as merely inferring suspicion, and that pertinacity incurred the stake. [Sidenote: _TREATMENT_]