Page 159 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1460 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

St. Augustine on the
Millennium

Now the thousand years may be understood in
two ways, so far as occurs to me: either because The division of human time into “ancient” or “classi-
these things happen in the sixth thousand of cal,” “medieval,” and “Renaissance,” which are used here,
years or sixth millennium (the latter part of might be said to be the invention of the Italian human-
which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, ists who invented the “Renaissance” in an increasingly
which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has secular, rather than theistic, view of history. Historians
no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, had long been preoccupied with the rise and fall of
speaking of a part under the name of the whole, empires, none more significant than the Roman Empire,
he calls the last part of the millennium—the part, which many Christian thinkers after its decline viewed as
that is, which had yet to expire before the end of nonetheless continuous, translated first to Byzantium in
the world—a thousand years; or he used the thou- the east, and later translated to the Frankish and Ger-
sand years as an equivalent for the whole dura- manic Holy Roman Empire in the north. Fifteenth- and
tion of this world, employing the number of per- sixteenth-century Italian humanists, however, rejected
fection to mark the fullness of time. this continuity, positing instead that they themselves
were presiding over the rebirth of a phenomenon that
had died with the ancient world, interrupted by an inter-
and the seventh seal in the book of Revelation: the first mediary age of intellectual and artistic darkness. Thus
stage from Adam to the great flood; the second, from the they gave birth to another tripartite division of history:
flood to Abraham; the third, from Abraham to David; the Ancient Ages, the Dark Ages (a middle age or medi
the fourth, from David to the Babylonian captivity; the aevum), and the Rebirth (or Renaissance) of the Ancient
fifth, from the captivity to the birth of Christ; the sixth, Ages.
the present age until the Second Coming of Christ; and
the last, the age to come, when the saints will rest in the The Modern World
millennial kingdom of God.This scheme was also anal- Historiography from the eighteenth-century Enlighten-
ogously based on the classical concept of ages of man ment until our own time has tended to be scrupulously
from infancy to old age.These stages were later adopted secular, rejecting theistic claims to a providential succes-
by St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) in Etymologies and sion of stages leading toward a divinely ordained end.Yet
St. Bede (672 or 673–35) in The Reckoning of Time, modern schemes of human time have still preserved
works that, like Augustine’s, were widely circulated some of the qualities that Collingwood claimed for
throughout the Middle Ages. Christian historiography. They tend to be universalist,
Perhaps because Christian theology is trinitarian (be- claiming to offer a master narrative of the direction of all
lieving in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— human history. Although not theistically providentialist,
in one God), tripartite historical schemes also appeared they tend to replace God with other external forces con-
in the Middle Ages, particularly in the twelfth century. trolling human destiny.They are often apocalyptic or mil-
Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075–1129) postulated an age be- lennialist, positing an end to and an end of history.
fore the Mosaic law, an age under the law, and an age of Finally, they are just as prone to periodization.
grace; Hugh of St.Victor (1096–1141), the Age of Nat- Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) proposed a cyclic view
ural Law, the Age of Written Law, and the Age of Grace; of civilization in three stages: the Age of Gods (primitive,
and Joachim of Fiore (c. 1130 or 1135–1201 or 1202), superstitious prehistory), the Age of Heroes (with the
the Age of the Father (the Old Testament period), the Age emergence of writing and established political struc-
of the Son (the period of the New Testament and the estab- tures), and the Age of Men (with the establishment of
lishment of the church in the centuries following), and commonwealths based on reason and law). His ideas
the Age of the Spirit (which he believed to be emerging were revived later in the nineteenth century by the French
in his own time). historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874).