The religious troubles caused chiefly by three heresies, Manicheism, Donatism, and Priscillianism, gave them ample opportunity of expressing their opinions. . . . . . . . . The Manicheans, driven from Rome and Milan, took refuge in Africa. It must be admitted that many of them by their depravity merited the full severity of the law. The initiated, or the elect, as they were called, gave themselves up to unspeakable crimes. A number of them on being arrested at Carthage confessed immoral practices that would not bear repetition, and this debauchery was not peculiar to a few wicked followers, but was merely the carrying out of the Manichean ritual, which other heretics likewise admitted.[1] [1] Augustine, _De hæresibus_, Hæres, 46. The Church in Africa was not at all severe in its general treatment of the sect. St. Augustine, especially, never called upon the civil power to suppress it. For he could not forget that he himself had for nine years (373-382), belonged to this sect, whose doctrines and practices he now denounced. He writes the Manicheans: "Let those who have never known the troubles of a mind in search of the truth proceed against you with vigor. It is impossible for me to do so, because for years I was cruelly tossed about by your false doctrines, which I advocated and defended to the best of my ability. I ought to bear with you now, as men bore with me when I blindly accepted your doctrines."[1] All he did was to hold public conferences with their leaders, whose arguments he had no difficulty in refuting.[2] [1] _Contra epistolam Manichæi quam vocant Fundamenti_, n. 2, 3. [2] Cf. Dom Leclerc, _L'Afrique Chrétienne_, Paris, 1904, vol. ii, pp. 113-122. The conversions obtained in this way were rather numerous, even if all were not equally sincere. All converts from the sect were required, like their successors, the Cathari of the Middle Ages, to denounce their brethren by name, under the threat of being refused the pardon which their formal retraction merited. This denunciation was what we would call to-day "a service for the public good." We, however, know of no case in which the Church made use of this information to punish the one who had been denounced. . . . . . . . .