15 - De sex etatibus huius seculi (‘Concerning the Six Ages of the World’)

Summary

In De sex etatibus huius seculi (‘Concerning the Six Ages of the World’), Ælfric surveys the ages of the world from the Fall to Eternity to complete the story of mankind he began in De creatore et creatura (‘Concerning the Creator and Creation’ [AH II.14]). Picking up where he left off in De creatore, De sex etatibus outlines the six ages of the material world that encompass human history from the Fall to Judgment Day before turning to two spiritual ages, one spanning the whole of human history, the other beginning when it ends. The Eighth Age of Eternity represents the culmination of world and salvation history and the dawning of the ece life (‘everlasting life’), the reward of a Christian life faithfully lived toward which all of Ælfric's preaching points.

The sweep of world history in De sex etatibus opens with a First Age stretching from Adam to Noah [lines 1–76] and featuring descriptions of Adam's arduous post-lapsarian life, death, and damnation, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. This last story prompts a summary analysis of the sorry spiritual state of post-diluvian humanity, but in the Second Age the idolatry of Noah's day gives way to Abraham's piety [lines 77–84]. Ælfric's description of the Third Age from Abraham to David [lines 85–169] holds pride of place in terms of length. This is due primarily to the treatment of the Ten Commandments [lines 124–65] that occurs between descriptions of the time of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the Wilderness Years, and the description of the Israelites’ arrival in the Promised Land. From this land to middan þissere worulde (‘at the center of the world’ [line 168]), Ælfric says, the prophets predicted that Christ would come, and with that he transitions to the Fourth Age [lines 170–86], the time of the prophets continuing from David to Daniel and encompassing the Babylonian Exile and return [lines 176–84]. Of the Fifth Age, Ælfric remarks only that it runs from Daniel to Christ [line 187] before moving on to the Sixth Age in which he and his audience live, the time between Christ's Incarnation and his Second Coming at the end of the world [lines 188–91].