It's interesting
to read about how the ancients and medievals saw the human life cycle.
Irenaeus, for ex., saw five stages in a man's life, while SS.
Augustine, Isidore of Seville, and Gregory the Great saw six.
Hippocrates, St. Ambrose, Ptolemy, and Shakespeare ("As You Like It"
Act II, scene 7) described seven ages of man.1 The medieval
love for
tetrads, though, predominates in the post-classical Western world:
there are four Gospels, four cardinal
virtues, four cardinal directions, etc., and, so, there are four stages of a
man's
life.
Creation being the ordered work of a single Designer, everything was
seen as connected to everything else in the medieval world, and
the ages of man were no different.They were treated as related to,
among other things, the
four classical elements and their qualities, the bodily humours, the four winds, the
phases
of the Moon, and the years' seasons.
| Age |
Element |
Qualities |
Humour |
Wind |
Moon |
| Childhood/adolescence |
Air |
hot moist |
blood |
Southern
Auster/Notus |
New Moon |
| Maturity |
Fire |
hot
dry |
yellow bile |
Eastern
Eurus/Subsolanus |
First Quarter
|
| Old age |
Earth |
cold dry |
black bile |
Northern
Boreas/Septentrio |
Full Moon |
| Senescence |
Water |
cold moist |
phlegm |
Western
Zephyr/Favonius |
Last Quarter |
In his "Golden
Legend," Jacopo de Voragine (A.D.
1230-1298), Archbishop of Genoa, explains why we fast during Embertides, which come four times a year: in
Spring, a week after Ash Wednesday; in
Summer, after the Pentecost; in
Autumn, after Roodmas;
and in Winter, after the Feast of St.
Lucy:
...March is
reported to infancy, Summer to youth, September to steadfast age and
virtuous, and Winter to ancienty or old age. We fast then in March that
we may be in the infancy of innocency. In Summer for to be young by
virtue and constancy. In Harvest that we may be ripe by attemperance.
In Winter that we may be ancient and old by prudence and honest life,
or at least that we may be satisfied to God of that which in these four
seasons we have offended him.
Note in the
above that each stage of man's life was related to specific virtues: in
the order of nature, each age
of man has its own special way of being, and each was regarded as
equally important.2
Now, as Dante wrote in his unfinished Convivio,
"these ages can be longer or shorter according to our temperament and
constitution," but
our nature when
good and upright develops in us according to what is reasonable, just
as we perceive that the nature of plants develops in them; and
therefore some manners and some kinds of behavior are more reasonable
at one age than at another, during which the soul that is ennobled
develops in an orderly manner along a simple path, employing its
activities in the periods and ages of life proper to them accordingly
as they are directed to attaining its ultimate fruit.
The virtues he ascribes to each of the ages of life as lived by the
noble soul are obedience, pleasantness and a sense of shame natural to
youth (from birth to 25, according to Dante); strength, self-restraint,
love, courtesy, honesty, loyalty, courage, and temperance natural
to maturity (26 to 45); and prudence, justice, liberality, and
affability
natural to old age (46 to 70). The noble soul that reaches senescence
(older than 70):
does
two things: firstly, that it returns to God as if to the harbour from
which it departed when it entered the ocean of life; secondly, that it
blesses the journey it has made, because it has proved direct,
favourable, and free of bitter storms.
Here it should be noted that, as Cicero says in his book On
Old Age, a natural death is as it were a harbour and place of
rest
after our long journey. This is surely true, for just as a capable
sailor lowers his sails on approaching port and progressing smoothly
enters it quietly, so we must lower our sails of worldly preoccupation
and return to God in our whole mind and heart, so that we reach our
harbour in perfect gentleness and peace. Here our own nature provides a
major lesson in gentleness, for in a death such as this there is no
suffering or harshness; as a ripened apple drops gently from the bough,
with no violence, so without suffering the soul parts from the body in
which it dwelt. Thus Aristotle, in his book On Youth and Old Age, says
that: ‘death in old age takes place without sadness.’ And just as one
who returns from a long journey is met at his city gate by the
citizens, so the noble soul is met, as it ought to be, by the citizens
of the eternal life. This is achieved by contemplating their virtuous
works and thoughts: for having already surrendered itself to God and
disengaged from worldly matters and preoccupations, it seems the soul
sees those whom it believes to be with God. Listen to what Cicero says,
in the person of Cato the Elder: ‘I seem already to see, and inspire
myself with the greatest longing to see your ancestors whom I loved,
and not only them, but also those of whom I have heard.’ The noble
soul, then, surrenders itself to God at this stage of life, and awaits
the end of life with great longing, seems in departing an inn to be
returning to its true dwelling, in arriving from a journey to be
returning to its city, in leaving the open sea to be returning to its
harbour.
Of those who
don't work on becoming virtuous -- well, it's said that
there's "no fool like an old fool," and there's a reason for that: the
young can be forgiven much silliness; they haven't had time to learn
life's lessons. But by the time one has grown old, one has had the time, and one should
have
put in the effort to become wise and focus one's eyes on eternal
things. The medieval world even saw the aging body itself as a sermon
on the matter: the waning of physical powers -- the loss of memory,
hearing, sight, taste, hair, teeth, strength and vigor -- and the loss
of family and friends to death -- these things were seen as
glimpses of Hell and as warnings not to cling too closely to the things
of this world, to, instead, focus on the afterworld and the state of
one's soul in the present one. As always, the Catholic message is "be
prepared."
Preparing for Winter
In the medieval world, the elderly qua the elderly weren't regarded as
a special part of the population that were either ignored or
singled-out for pity.
In the
monastery, age was often accompanied by growing authority. The good
works expected of the religious individual were the virtues most often
attributed to old age—abstemiousness, calmness, chastity, humility,
nonviolence and passivity (hatred of one’s will). In rural communities,
the liege lord would rarely retire but would continue to acquire wealth
and the accumulated surplus from his estates. Within peasant society,
it seems unlikely that the precept to honor one’s elders was seriously
challenged by younger generations. Even in the late Middle Ages, in the
countryside if not in the towns, there is evidence that the wealthier
households were characterized by the greater age of the people living
in them (Herlihy, 1967, p. 92). In the towns, too, the rise of a
merchant bourgeoisie favored a pattern of lifelong accumulation.
“Unlike the warrior who reached his culmination at the prime of life,
it was in old age that the merchant’s career attained its apogee. For
him, whose success was proportional to his wealth, his value depended
fairly and squarely on the number of his years” (Minois, 1989, p. 205).
In short, the
economy of the late Middle
Ages did not place older people at an economic disadvantage. Quite the
contrary; within the upper strata of late medieval society, at least,
old age was very much associated with the existing economic social and
cultural order. 3
With the Renaissance, though, feudalism and a reliance on agriculture
gave way to mercantilism, and the way old age was perceived changed,
with the aged becoming a special category of social concern, like
widows, the sick, and the poor.
With late modernity came even more changes: the post-WWII
baby boom brought with it an inordinate focus on youth. The population
of the United States in 1964 was 191.1 million -- and 77.3 million of
them, over 40% of them -- were between the ages of newborn and
eighteen.
Hollywood, businesses, and advertisers rushed to tend to their wants
and oblige their tastes, and our culture changed from a more sober
and mature one marked by
cocktail parties and crooners, to a raucous, chaotic one in which
rock-and-roll and "beat" or "mod" sensibilities prevailed. At the same
time, the
parish-based
neighborhoods of yore were being broken up, extended families shrank
into smaller, nuclear ones, and the demands of business put pressure on
people to move away from their hometowns in order to find work.
Throughout all this change and movement, old people were left behind,
and aging has come to be treated as a sort of moral failure. We put our old
people in "homes," shunting them off to
the side, out of the way. We look past them on the street, or if we do
acknowledge them, some of us condescend, calling them "dear" and "cute"
as if they're infants. With Botox®, Rogaine®,
Viagra®, cosmetic surgery,
hormone replacement therapies, hair dyes, and various other elixirs and
potions we fight
against aging as if we're battling Satan himself. The modern West
gives us two options, it seems: the first, the "Logan's
Run" option," is to commit suicide when one shows signs of aging so one
won't become a "burden," and the second is to "age successfully" --
that is, to have been born genetically blessed, to be rich enough to
afford the aforementioned potions, and to grow older without getting
wrinkled, going gray, becoming frail, etc., to whit, to not show ones
age at all, to pretend one is
eternally 35. Neither is a humane, sensible approach.
Like death, time
will have its way, and the realities of growing old must be
faced in a way that would please God.
But, because
of
our hyper-focus on youth, and the very nature of the immature, the
young tend to be very blinded to some of the harsher realities in
life. They live for the day, taking great risks and leaping into things
with little thought for tomorrow. So, the harsher
realities of age
sneak up on them when they come -- a phenomenon partially rooted in the
fact, too, that the experience of time goes much more quickly up as one
grows
older. So far
is the reality of aging from the minds of the young that many modern
women are truly, deeply shocked
when
they reach their mid-30s and find that men are no longer attracted to
them as they once were. Having put off their much more important
personal lives to focus
on careers, and now no longer young, fertile, and
as beautiful in that youthful, man-attracting way, they "suddenly" find
themselves alone in the world, and realize they're likely destined to
remain unmarried and childless for the rest of their lives. Aging
doesn't affect men as
radically or as quickly as it does women in terms of the ability to
find a mate and
have children, but men who ignore the realities of growing older can
find themselves, too, in a bad situation, alone as they become old men.
It's obvious that not all are called to marriage and family life (or to
religious or priestly vocations, for that matter), but the point
remains no matter your station in life: you need to think about growing
older, what it means, what you want your "golden years" to be like, and
how to best go about making them what you want. You need to do it while
still young. And you need to do it most especially if you believe you're
called to be a mother or father -- with time being much more relevant
if you are called to be a mother. If marriage and family are your
heart's desire, get on with the
task of finding your spouse now, before it's too late.
Take care of your physical well-being, keeping in mind a quote
attributed to St. Augustine: "Take care of your body as if you were
going to live forever; and take care of your soul as if you were going
to die tomorrow." 4 Eat well, and don't eat, drink,
or
smoke too much. Exercise, and take care of
your body so that the odds of your spending your aged years in ill
health are lowered. Put some money aside, if possible, and make your
own funeral arrangments so your family won't be bothered when you die.
Write and have notarized a will, buy any necessary life insurance, and
arrange for the well-being of those you love after you've gone (see Preparing for Death: Pragmatic Concerns
-- and don't wait to do this until you're ill or old)
Take care of your mind as well. Keep learning new things and meeting
new people. Join a club or two. Retain -- or regain -- your childhood
ability to
wonder by opening the Book of Nature
and being grateful for what you see.
Above all, though, take care of your soul by receiving the Sacraments
as needed and focusing on developing
the
cardinal virtues. If you haven't been called to serve God by
serving others in family life or the religious life, serve God by
serving others in other ways -- e.g., volunteering, becoming a docent,
tutoring the young, offering struggling young parents babysitting
services, etc.
Work, and serve others so that, when old, you'll
become one of those "noble souls" Dante
wrote about
-- a soul that lives life such that, when old (pray God), it "returns to God
as if to the harbour from
which it departed."
Finally, gather the stories your old people tell you --
now, before it's too late. Write out your family tree and family
history -- your memories of your grandparents and parents and the
stories they told you -- and give it to your children, nieces, and
nephews so their words and the lessons they've learned can be handed
down through the generations.
Deuteronomy
32:7
Remember the days of old, think upon every generation: ask
thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell
thee.
If you are already old, keep doing the
above. Write out your own stories, and use your skills to serve others
as best as you can. As Cicero wrote of the aged in his work "On Old
Age":
You
can at least help others by your counsel; and what is more pleasant
than old age surrounded by young disciples? Must we not, indeed, admit
that old age has sufficient strength to teach young men, to educate
them, to train them for the discharge of every duty? And what can be
more worthy of renown than work like this?
There's an old tale -- attributed to Aesop and to other Greeks,
described as an Asian folktale, said to be found in the Talmud and
other sources -- of the old man who plants trees under whose shade he
can never sit or whose fruit he can never enjoy. As one version of
Aesop's stories tells it:
As an old man
was planting a tree, three young men came along and began to make sport
of him, saying: "It shows your foolishness to be planting a tree at
your age. The tree cannot bear fruit for many years, while you must
very soon die. What is the use of your wasting your time in providing
pleasure to others to share long after you are dead?"
The old man stopped in his labor and replied: Others before
me provided for my happiness, and it is my duty to provide for those
who shall come after me.
"Plant trees" -- whether literal trees or by handing down what you've
learned. And know that the most important thing to hand down is the
Faith:
Psalm 70:18
And unto old age and grey hairs: O God, forsake me not, until
I shew forth Thy arm to all the generation that is to come
If you're one of the aged who've become sickly and frail, you can still
pray for others, and you can still offer up
your sufferings for the good of the Church. Be grateful you've been
given so many years. Cicero again:
Each one should
be content with such time as it is allotted to him to live. In order to
give pleasure to the audience, the actor need not finish the play; he
may win approval in whatever act he takes part in; nor need the wise
man remain on the stage till the closing plaudit. A brief time is long
enough to live well and honorably; but if you live on, you have no more
reason to mourn over your advancing years, than the farmers have, when
the sweet days of spring are past, to lament the coming of summer and
of autumn. Spring typifies youth, and shows the fruit that will be; the
rest of life is fitted for reaping and gathering the fruit. Moreover,
the fruit of old age is, as I have often said, the memory and abundance
of goods previously obtained. But all things that occur according to
nature are to be reckoned as goods; and what is so fully according to
nature as for old men to die? while the same thing happens to the young
with the opposition and repugnancy of nature. Thus young men seem to me
to die as when a fierce flame is extinguished by a stream of water;
while old men die as when a spent fire goes out of its own accord,
without force employed to quench it. Or, as apples, if unripe, are
violently wrenched from the tree, while, mature and ripened, they fall,
so force takes life from the young, maturity from the old; and this
ripeness of old age is to me so pleasant, that, in proportion as I draw
near to death, I seem to see land, and after a long voyage to be on the
point of entering the harbor.
Rest in the peace of knowing that if Christ deigns to save you, your
Winter will give way to Spring in
due time. A poem to inspire you to seek the spiritual life -- always,
but especially in old age:
Sailing to Byzantium
by William
Butler Yeats
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Footnotes:
1 There was also a common
depiction of "the 72 years" of a man's life as 12 groups of 6 years,
each
of the 12 groups being represented by a month of the year. A man's life
began
in January, peaked in June, began its decline starting in July, and
ended in December. See graphic of
early 16th c. French woodcuts of this scheme. Note the zodiac signs marking the months. This Danish
hymn dated to ca. 1623 summarizes the thought behind the 12X6 model:
January shows no
roses, neither is she fruitful or nourishing. Thus when less than six
years of age you have nought to boast of, you tumble often and behave
childishly.
In February God’s fatherly mercy gives you the warmth of the
sun and pleasure. Thus, from six to twelve years of age you learn to
read and to write, becoming clever.
March demands diligence in field and garden if fine fruit is
to be obtained. Likewise, you should plant your garden with discipline
in order to be able to feed yourself when you are grey haired.
April’s banner shows leaves and flowers with no assistance
from man, thanks to God. From 18 to 24 years of age is your time to
flourish, with gaiety, beauty and less discipline, like the young
calves and harts leaping among the grass and bushes, though often
stumbling woefully. So I advise you to watch your step between bushes
in order to be fearless when you wish to enjoy yourself. Consider the
beginning and the end, man and woman! Ill advice has surprised many a
man lamentably.
May wishes to join merry April with the finest songbirds. The
skylark flies and sings early in the day, telling us: Be pious and
think of your death. The goldfinch lifts its sweet voice at noon,
reminding you of God’s omnipotence. Towards evening, the nightingale’s
loud voice enjoins: Thank God for his divine creation. Likewise, you
flower at this age, hastening to many a twittering maid. You make use
of wine and salves, but learn that this is vain. Make garlands and
wreathes, but let your wreath of honour be unspotted, and let Christ be
your friend.
Like as the shining sun takes his highest seat in June, so
your best age will be the years from 30 to 36 - you will never reach
the same again.
For the hand of July thrusts youth away from you, and you
will ask our Lord to guide your thoughts on your death. Lamenting over
time past is useless. Put your trust in Jesus, your bridegroom and
saviour.
August is for harvesting the crops and filling the barns,
while not forgetting your death.
September is for plucking the fruit, while you are tamed and
creep into a corner. Even if you hear the drum inviting you to
sword play, you must stay at home and behave with moderation.
Therefore, remember the daily penitence for your sins, if you wish to
enter the hall of Christ.
In October all is reaped, and the good farmer sows the new
seed. Likewise, sow the spiritual seed in your heart in order to bear
fruit when God grants you the ultimate reward.
The days are short, the warmth is gone, the trees are bare,
November chills. Your years of flowering are brief and soon they
vanish, and at 66 you walk and behave miserably. The teeth decay,
blossom falls from the almond tree: God calls you from the sea of life.
The roses on your cheeks have faded, your golden locks are gone, you
have had your fill of this world and sing “Ade, du schnöde Welt”. You
forget the merry folksongs you used to sing in your
youth. Let them be, think of death. The young people despise you: “Get
away, I dislike your manners.” So now you creep to poke the ashes.
At this stage December puts an end to your sad song. No
defence, no foothold helps against almighty Death. Poor creature, ask
God for mercy, he is your protector and your commander. Let me end my
poor song. God show us mercy, so we may forget our sadness and win the
crown of honour.
2 In
the order of grace, though, the virtues are available to all at any
age. Pope St. Gregory the Great, for example, in his Dialogues,
describes St. Benedict as "a man of venerable life, blessed by grace
and blessed by name, who had even from the time of his boyhood the
heart of an old man. In his behaviour he went far beyond his age, never
giving himself up to foolish pleasure." And when St. Benedict grew up
and wrote the rule for his Order,
he elucidated in its 63rd chapter how age in terms of number of years
lived isn't what matters when it comes to running a monastery.
And
in no place whatever let age determine the order or be a disadvantage;
because Samuel and Daniel when mere boys judged the priests (cf 1 Sam
3; Dan 13:44-62). Excepting those, therefore, whom, as we have said,
the Abbot from higher motives hath advanced, or, for certain reasons,
hath lowered, let all the rest take their place as they are converted:
thus, for instance, let him who came into the monastery at the second
hour of the day, know that he is younger than he who came at the first
hour, whatever his age or dignity may be.
Sacred Scripture makes the point even more succinctly in the fourth
chapter of Wisdom:
For
venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number
of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs. And a spotless
life is old age.
3
Gilleard, Chris. (2002). Aging and Old
Age in Medieval Society and the Transition of Modernity. Journal of Aging and Identity
4 This is a very popular saying,
and is always attributed to St. Augustine. I, however, haven't been
able to locate its exact source.
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