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The Seven Ages of the World

By St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Introduction

St. Augustine himself needs no introduction: he is the most important theologian of the Western Church (even Luther was an Augustinian monk, and viewed himself as simply teaching Augustine's true views), as well as the author of what many consider the first autobiography (the Confessions). The passage translated here is Book I, Ch. XXIII of Augustine's Two Books on Genesis Against the Manicheans, one of his many works that explain the first book of the Bible. (The best-known is his Twelve Books on Genesis According to the Letter, more often called the Literal Commentary on Genesis.) In this passage, Augustine discusses the seven days of Creation as an allegory for the seven ages of the world, which are viewed in the framework of the six ages of man. The terms Augustine uses here for the six ages of man are infantia ("infancy"), pueritia ("boyhood"), adolescentia ("adolescence"), juventus ("youth," though more exactly referring to late adulthood or early middle age, from about 20 to 40), senioris aetas ("elder age"), and senectus ("old age").

Two Books on Genesis Against the Manicheans I.XXIII

  1. 1st AGE. But why this rest is bestowed on the seventh day, I think should be more diligently considered. For I see, through all the text of the divine Scriptures, that there are some six ages for work, distinct as if within their own certain limits, as rest is hoped for on the seventh; and that these six ages have the likeness of those six days, in which those things were made which Scripture commemorates that God made. For the beginnings of the human race, in which that light began to be enjoyed, is well compared to the first day on which God made light. This age is to be considered as the infancy of this whole world, which we ought to think of like a single man in the proportion of his greatness; since each man, when he is first born, and departs to the light, acts out the first infant age. This stretches from Adam unto Noah, ten generations. Like the evening of this day is the flood; since our infancy, too, is erased as if by oblivion’s flood.
  2. 2nd AGE. And the second age, like boyhood, begins in the morning at the time of Noah, and this age stretches to Abraham, another ten generations. And it is well compared to the second day in which the firmament was made between water and water; since also the ark, in which was Noah with his own, was the firmament between the inferior waters in which it swam, and the superior ones, by which it was rained upon. This age is not erased by flood, since our boyhood, too, is not wiped out of memory by oblivion. For we remember that we were boys, but we do not remember that we were infants. Its evening is the confusion of tongues among those who built the tower, and morning begins from Abraham. But this second age did not beget the people of God, since boyhood is not apt for begetting.
  3. 3rd AGE. Thus morning begins from Abraham, and the third ages succeeds, similar to adolescence. And it is well compared to the third day, on which the earth was separated from the waters. For from all the nations—whose error is by blown about by the instable and vain doctrines of idols as if by all the winds, is well signified by the name of “sea”—from this vanity of the nations, thus, and the currents of this world, the people of God was separated through Abraham, like the earth when it appeared, arid, that is, thirsting for the celestial rain of the divine commandments: which people, worshipping the one God, like irrigated earth, so that it might bear useful fruit, accepted the holy Scriptures and Prophecies. For this age can now generate the people of God, since the third age, too, that is, adolescence, can now have children. And, therefore, it is said to Abraham: I have set you as the father of many nations, and I shall spread you exceedingly much, and I shall place you among the nations, and kings will come of you. And I shall set My testament between Me and you, and between your seed after you, in their generation, as an eternal testament; so that I be God to you, and to your seed after you; and I will give you and your seed after you the land in which you dwell, all the land of Canaan, as an eternal possession, and I will be God to them (Gen 17:5-8). This age spreads from Abraham unto David, fourteen generations. Its evening is in the people’s sins, by which they passed by the divine commands, unto the malice of the wicked king Saul.
  4. 4th AGE. And hence the morning is the reign of David. This age is similar to youth.[1] And, truly, among all the ages, youth reigns, and it is the firm ornament of all ages: and, therefore, it is well compared to the fourth day, in which the stars were made in the firmament of heaven. For signifies the splendor of a kingdom more evidently than the sun’s excellence? And the splendor of the moon displays the people obedient to the kingdom, like that synagogue, and the stars, his princes, and all founded in the kingdom’s stability as in the firmament. Whose evening is like in the sins of the kings, through which that nation merited to be made captive and to serve.
  5. 5th AGE. And the morning is the transmigration into Babylon, when, in that captivity, the people was lightly gathered into pilgrimaging idleness. And this age extends unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the fifth age, namely, the declining from youth to old age, not yet old, but not still youth: which is the elder age, which the Greeks call πρεσβύτην (presbutēn). For the old man is called, among them, not πρεσβύτης (presbutēs), but γέρων (gerōn). And, truly, this age, in the people of the Jews, is thus inclined and broken from the kingdom’s strength, just as a man, from youth, becomes an elder. And it is well compared to that fifth day, in which the animals were made in the sea, and the flying things of heaven; afterwards, those men began to live among nations, as in the sea, and to have an uncertain and unstable seat, as the flying birds. But, plainly, there were also great whales there, that is, those great men who could better dominate in the world’s currents than to serve in that captivity. For they were not depraved, by any terror, unto the cult of the idols. Whence it is reasonably mentioned that God blessed those animals, saying, Grow and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea, and let the flying things be multiplied over earth (Gen 1:22)[2] since, truly, the nation of the Jews, from being dispersed among the nations, was greatly multiplied. The evening of this day, that is, of this age, is like the multiplication of sinners in the people of the Jews, since they were so blinded, that they could not even recognize the Lord Jesus Christ.
  6. 6th AGE. But the morning is from the preaching of the Gospel by our Lord Jesus Christ, and fifth day ends: the sixth begins, in which the old age of the old man appears. For, in this age, that carnal kingdom is vehemently worn away, when both the temple is abandoned, and those sacrifices ceased; and now that people stretches so much towards its kingdom’s powers, as if it drew the final life. Yet, in this age, as in the old age of the old man, the new man is born, who already lives spiritually. For on the sixth day it was said: Let the earth produce a living soul (Gen 1:24). For on the fifth day it was said: Let the waters produce, not a living soul, but the creeping things among the living animals (Gen 1:20); since bodies are creeping things, and as yet, by corporal circumcision and sacrifice, as in the sea of the Nations, that people served the Law.[3] Truly, he calls that a living soul, by which they already begin to desire eternal life. Therefore, the serpents and cattle which the earth produced, signify the nations that are now to stably believe in the Gospel. Of whom it is spoken of in that dish which was shown to Peter in the Acts of the Apostles: Rise, and eat (Acts 10:13). And when he calls them unclean, He responded to him: What God has cleansed, you shall not call unclean (Acts 10:15). Then He makes man in the image and likeness of God, as, in this sixth age, our Lord is born in the flesh, of Whom it is said through the prophet: And he is man, and who will know him?[4] And as, on that day, there is masculine and feminine, so also, in this age, there is Christ and the Church. And man is set forth, on that day, before cattle and serpents and flying things of heaven, as, in this age, Christ rules souls obedient to Him, who come to His Church, partly from the Nations, partly from the people of the Jews; so that, they would be ruled by Him, and that men would become meek, either those given to carnal concupiscence, like cattle, or darkened by shadowy curiosity, like serpents, or elated by pride, like birds. And as, on that day, man and the animals, who are with him, are pastured with seed-bearing herbs and fruit-bearing trees and green herbs; so, in this age, every spiritual man is a good minister of Christ, and imitates Him as well as he can, when that people is spiritually pastured by the foods of the Holy Scriptures and by the divine law: partly to conceive the fecundity of reasons and sermons, like the seed-bearing herbs; partly for the usefulness of manners of human life, like fruit-bearing trees; partly for vigor of faith, hope, and charity unto eternal life, like green, that is, vigorous, herbs, which can be withered by no heat of tribulations. But the spiritual man is so pastured with these foods, that he might understand much; yet the carnal, that is, the little one in Christ, like the cattle of God, so that he might believe much which he cannot as yet understand: yet all have the same foods.
  7. 7th AGE. But as if the evening of this age, which certainly does not find us, if it is not yet begun, is that of which the Lord says: Do you think when the Son of Man comes, He will find faith upon earth (Lk 18:8)? After this evening, there will be morning, when the Lord Himself will come in clarity: then they will rest with Christ from all their works, those to whom it is said: Be perfect, like your Father Who is in the heavens (Mt 5:48). For such do very good works. For, after these words, rest is to be hoped for, on the seventh day, which has no evening. Therefore, in no way can it be said by words how God did it, and created heaven and earth and every creature which He created: but this exposition, through the order of days, thus indicates the history of things made, in a way, so that one might best observe the preaching of future things.

    8. Footnotes: [1]In this case, the literal word “youth” (juventus) refers to the age of prime maturity; one dictionary describes it as covering the years between 22 and 42.

    [2]The Vulgate reads aves (“birds”) here, but Augustine, quoting a pre-Vulgate Latin version (generally called the Vetus Latina, though there was really a plethora of translations, not just one), has volatilia (“flying things”); a similar word, volatile, is found in Gen 1:20-21 in the Vulgate

    [3]St. Augustine deleted this line in his Retractions I.X.2 (PL 32:599-600): “Again, what I said of the people of Israel can be removed, as yet, by corporal circumcision and sacrifice, as in the sea of the Nations, that people served the Law; whereas, among the nations, they could not sacrifice, as we also see them, even now, remaining without sacrifices; except, perhaps, that, for Pascha, they immolate a sheep which is allotted for sacrifice."

    [4] This is an Old Latin version of Jer 17:9; the Vulgate reads “Depraved is the heart of all, and inscrutable: who will know it?” The Septuagint is closer to the Old Latin: “Heavy is the heart before all, and he is man: and who will know him?

    Source: Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, Tomus XXXIV (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1865), 190-193. [PL 34:190-193]


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