They were careful not so much as to say that they _delivered_ him to the secular arm; for delivery suggests activity in a matter in which they must remain absolutely passive. They merely _abandoned_ him. Pilate-like, they washed their hands of him. If the secular justiciaries chose to bear him away and burn him at the stake in spite of their “earnest intercessions” to the contrary, that was the secular justiciaries’ affair. Thus was the letter of the law most scrupulously observed, and the inquisitor displayed in his intercession on the heretic’s behalf the benignity proper to his sacerdotal office. His conscience was entirely at peace. For the rest, he knew, of course, that there was a bull of Innocent IV, known as “ad extirpanda,” which compelled the secular justiciaries, under pain of greater excommunication, and of being themselves prosecuted as heretics and _fautores_, to put to death within a term of not more than five days any convicted heretic taken within their jurisdiction. Francesco Pegna recommends inquisitors to be careful not to omit the intercession on the prisoner’s behalf, lest they should render themselves guilty of an irregularity. At the same time he raises the interesting question whether an inquisitor can reconcile this intercession with his conscience--not, as you might suppose, upon the score of the dissimulation it entails; but purely on the ground that it is most strictly forbidden to intercede on behalf of heretics; to do so, indeed, is to incur suspicion of being a befriender of heretics--an offence as punishable as heresy itself. This question he has no difficulty in answering. Thus: “In truth it would not be permitted to employ for a heretic an intercession that would be of any advantage to him, or which tended to hinder the justice which is to be executed upon his crime, but only an intercession whose aim it is to relieve the inquisitor of the irregularity he might otherwise incur.” He goes on to say that when the heretic has been abandoned to the secular justiciaries, the latter must pronounce their own sentence and conduct him to the place of execution, permitting him to be accompanied by pious men, who will pray for him and not leave him until he shall have delivered up his soul. And he reminds the inquisitors--though it hardly seems necessary--that should the magistrates delay in putting to death a heretic who has been abandoned to them, they must be regarded as _fautores_ and themselves prosecuted. * * * * * Innocent IV, as we have seen, allowed the magistrates a term of five days in which to do their duty in this matter, and in Italy it was usual to take the heretics back to prison after sentence, and bring them forth again upon a week-day--always within the prescribed term--to be burnt. In Spain, however, the custom was that the magistrates having pronounced their own sentence--as soon as the heretic was abandoned to them--should immediately proceed to execute it.