in the meantime, what we do know is that in the most renowned and eminent city of Carthage in Africa, Gaudentius and Iovius, counts of the emperor Honorius, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of April, overthrew the temples of the false gods and shattered their images. From that time up to the present, over nearly thirty years, who does not see how greatly the worship of Christ's name has increased — especially since many of those became Christians who used to be called back from the faith as though by that true divination, and who, once the same number of years was completed, saw it to be empty and laughable? We therefore, who are and are called Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him in whom Peter believed; built up by Peter's discourses about Christ, not poisoned by his incantations;
nor deceived by his sorceries, but aided by his good deeds. That Christ, the master of Peter in the doctrine which leads to life eternal, is Himself also our master. But let us now at length bring this book to a close, having discussed thus far and demonstrated as much as seemed sufficient, what is the mortal course of the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, intermingled from the beginning even to the end: of which the one, which is earthly, has made for itself whatever false gods it wished, from any source whatever or even out of men, that by sacrificing to them it might serve them; while the other, which is heavenly and sojourns as a pilgrim upon the earth, makes no false gods, but is herself made by the true God, whose true sacrifice she herself is.
Yet both alike make use of temporal goods, or are alike afflicted by temporal evils, but with a different faith, a different hope, a different love, until they be separated by the last judgment, and each receive her own end, of which there is no end; concerning the ends of both of which cities we must next discuss.