If the heretic abjured he knelt before the Inquisitor as a penitent before his confessor. He had no reason to fear his judge. For, properly speaking, he did not inflict punishment.
"The mission of the Inquisition," writes Lea, "was to save men's souls; to recall them to the way of salvation, and to assign salutary penance to those who sought it, like a father-confessor with his penitent. Its sentences, therefore, were not like those of an earthly judge, the retaliation of society on the wrongdoer, or deterrent examples to prevent the spread of crime; they were simply imposed for the benefit of the erring soul, to wash away its sin. The Inquisitors themselves habitually speak of their ministrations in this sense."[1]
[1] Lea, op. cit., p. 459.
But "the sin of heresy was too grave to be expiated simply by contrition and amendment."[1] The Inquisitor, therefore, pointed out other means of expiation: "The penances customarily imposed by the Inquisition were comparatively few in number. They consisted, firstly, of pious observances—recitation of prayers, frequenting of churches, the discipline, fasting, pilgrimages, and fines nominally for pious uses,—such as a confessor might impose on his ordinary penitents." These were for offences of trifling import. "Next in grade are the poenae confusibiles,—the humiliating and degrading penances, of which the most important was the wearing of yellow crosses sewed upon the garments; and, finally, the severest punishment among those strictly within the competence of the Holy Office, the murus or prison."[2]
[1] Lea, ibid., p. 463.
[2] Lea, ibid., p. 462.
If the heretic refused to abjure, his obduracy put an end to the judge's leniency, and withdrew him at once from his jurisdiction.
"The Inquisitor never condemned to death, but merely withdrew the protection of the Church from the hardened and impenitent sinner who afforded no hope of conversion, or from him who showed by relapse that there was no trust to be placed in his pretended repentance."[1]
[1] Lea, ibid., p. 460.
It was at this juncture that the State intervened. The ecclesiastical judge handed over the heretic to the secular arm, which simply enforced the legal penalty of the stake. However, the law allowed the heretic to abjure even at the foot of the stake; in that case his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.