The “end of cults” is easier to pinpoint in sanctuaries, which disappeared after either voluntary destruction, abandonment or reoccupation. Traditional religions, and their societies, are built on spatiality : the sacred place is both the “locus” of the divinity and a cultural and identity landmark that goes beyond its ritual use. Because Christian discourses on the “end of cults” were engaged with spatialized religious conceptions (“paganism” and Judaism), they took over this spatial symbolism for writing the story of Christianization in the Levant – thus challenging the utopian model of Jonathan Z. Smith – and for drawing the exempla of holy men. On the basis of three cases from the fourth century (Aelia Capitolina, Aphaca/Heliopolis, and Gaza), this paper analyzes how these discourses used the argument of sanctuaries.