between them he might freely know the default, and of them make one his friend, [him] for whom by right he might give sentence; but of his friends he was sure to lose one, that was, him against whom he gave the sentence. He was desired to preach the word of God in many churches, and there he preached and converted many from errors. When he preached he had a custom sometime to depart him from his purpose, and then he said that God had ordained that for the profit of some person; as it appeared to a Manichean, which in a sermon of Augustin whereas he departed from his matter and preached against the same error, and thereby he was converted to the faith.
In that time that the Goths had taken Rome, and that the idolators and false christian men enjoyed them thereof, then made S. Augustin therefore the book of the city of God, in which he showed first that righteous men were destroyed in this life, and the evil men flourished. And the treatise of the two cities is Jerusalem and Babylon and of the kings of them. For the king of Jerusalem is Jesu Christ, and he of Babylon is the devil, the which two cities make two loves in them. For the city of the devil maketh a love to himself, growing the same unto despite of God. And the city of God made a love growing unto the despite of him [the devil].
In that time the Vandals about the year of our Lord four hundred and forty took all the province of Africa and wasted all and spared neither man nor woman nor for order nor for age, and after came to the city of Hippo and assieged it with
