PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH life: some hold that it is pleasure, some that it is virtue, some that it is tranquillity, others that it is in the enjoyment of the basic goods with which nature has endowed us Many sects regard the ultimate good as constituted by one or other combination of these But the City of God knows that eternal life is the supreme good, and eternal death the supreme evil, and that it is only by faith and grace that the supreme good can be achieved and the supreme evil avoided (DCD XIX 1–4) It is clear from Augustine’s description of the two cities that one cannot simply identify Babylon with the pagan empire and Jerusalem with the Christian empire The city of God was already a community long before the birth of Christ, and longer before the conversion of Constantine The Christian empire contains sinners as well as saints, as Augustine illustrates with the example of the emperor Theodosius, whom St Ambrose forced to penance for the brutality with which he suppressed a rebellion at Thessalonica in 391 (DCD V 26) Nor is the City of God to be identiWed with the Church on earth, even though in later ages Augustine’s book was sometimes taken to be a guide to relations between Church and State The nature of the two cities is not fully understood until we consider their Wnal state, which Augustine does in the last three books of The City of God Augustine combs the sayings of the prophets, the sermons of Jesus, the epistles of the Apostles, and the book of Revelation, for information about the future of the world Between the resurrection of Jesus and the end of history there is a period of a thousand years as described in the book of Revelation (DCD XX 1–6) During this period the saints are reigning with Christ Their thousand-year reign evolves in two stages: during their lives on earth the saints are the dominant members of a Church that includes sinners, and after their death they are still in some mysterious way in communion with the Church that is the kingdom of God (DCD XX 9) Augustine is contemptuous of any interpretation of Revelation that looks forward to a thousand-year orgy of wassail for the saints after the end of history Whether we interpret John’s millennium literally, or take the number 1,000 as a symbol of perfection, we are already in the middle of the saints’ reign (DCD XX 7) Augustine tells us that the Wnal drama, after the numbered years have passed, will play itself out in seven acts First the prophet Elijah will come and convert the Jewish people to Christ (XX 29) Secondly, Satan will be unloosed and for three and a half years Antichrist will persecute the 11