From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAn age is a period of human or cosmic history, though it may also mean a person's lifetime.
- In TraherneAges are among the treasures that enlarge the present person's life.
- In this edition“All ages” usually concerns historical reach, not the age of every individual.
- A place to beginThe soul visits biblical persons and events across ages by understanding.
Meaning
An age is a period of human or cosmic history, though it may also mean a person's lifetime. In the plural it often gathers all successive periods into one field of contemplation.
Use in the book
Ages are among the treasures that enlarge the present person's life. The understanding can visit scriptural events and share the joys of worshippers in remote generations without moving the body. This presence is not historical indifference: distinct events remain distinct and are known through their particular manifestations of divine love. In the Fifth Century, temporal succession is compared with a voyage past stationary shores. We move, while the region of ages is already before God. The analogy helps distinguish our limited progress through time from the understanding's capacity to anticipate or recollect it. To possess ages is thus to let one's present interests extend beyond the span of one's own biography.
Places to read
In this edition
“All ages” usually concerns historical reach, not the age of every individual. The spatial image of a region of ages is an explanatory analogy, not an ordinary geographical claim.
Source note
Primary text: I.55, I.85, V.8. The entry concerns the temporal noun; it does not count unrelated words containing the letters “age.”