Therefore, if you desire to reach the blessed City, shun the fellowship of demons. Beings who are appeased by shameful rites are unworthily worshipped by the honourable. Let these demons, then, be put away from your piety by Christian purification, in the same manner as those men were removed from your dignity by the censor's mark. But as for the carnal goods which the wicked alone wish to enjoy, and the carnal evils which they alone refuse to endure — that these demons have not even in these things the power they are thought to have (although, if they did have it, we ought rather to despise even these goods than to worship the demons for their sake, and, by worshipping them, to fail to attain those very things which the demons grudge us) —
nevertheless, that not even in these matters do they have the power which those men suppose, who contend that the demons ought to be worshipped for the sake of such things — this we shall next go on to consider, so that here may be the end of this book.