One of the best parts about the world of Narnia is that just when you think you've
uncovered every secret, every hidden meaning, every real world connection,
you discover something lying just beneath the surface, just waiting to be uncovered. That's
what happened to me as I was studying the seven ages of Narnia in the last episode.
And in today's episode, I'm going to show you how I discovered that for every age in Narnia history,
there's a real world event that corresponds to our world today.
It's going to be a fascinating journey and there's no time to waste.
So let's get started. It's time to leave the Shadowlands behind and step into a world.
That's more real than our own. It's time to follow me into the wardrobe. Now dedicated
fans of Narnia know that almost everything was written in Narnia for a specific reason,
whether it's the names of characters, locations, the personality traits of heroes,
the powers and abilities of villains or. The specific weapons possessed by certain characters.
CS Lewis often drew upon myths, symbols, or stories from our world to inspire his writing.
And sometimes when you're reading Narnia, you come across something and your radar just goes off.
You just know that this particular passage has a deeper foundation than what simply is printed
on the page. And that's how I felt when I began studying the seven ages of Narnia as history.
Now, first of all, the number seven should always send up a flag.
You see CS Lewis was a theologian and a medieval scholar, and he understood the
importance of the number seven and biblical and medieval numerology in the Bible. It represented
a number of perfection or completion in medieval times, it was considered the number of balance..
There were seven sins, the seven sacraments, the seven planets, the seven virtues,
and the list goes on and on now it's been said a Lewis had more of a medieval view of the
world than a modern one. And in the medieval world, numerology connected the mind of men
with the mind of God and creating order through numbers, drew men closer to the divine.
So it's no surprise that the number seven is important. Number in the Narniad. There
are seven books in the series. There are seven friends of Narnia. There are seven lost Lords.
The seven Isles. Jadis was even seven feet tall. I could go on, but suffice it to say, when CS
Lewis used the number seven, it usually indicated some deeper significance or some connection to.
Now, interestingly enough, there are exactly 2,555 years from the beginning
of Narnia to its final day. As one user pointed out the number of days in a year,
365 times, the number of perfection seven equals 2,555. Could it be a coincidence or was it a clue
that every day of every year, every age of Narnia, his history was perfectly numbered by CS Lewis.
So why exactly did Lewis choose to break up the Narnian history of the seven ages?
What was the significance of the meaning behind these plots?
Was there a meta narrative that connected to our world? To find out I started out doing
what any reasonable historical literary scholar would do... I Googled. It because
Lewis was so heavily influenced by the medieval mindset and his writings.
I started with a search on "medieval history". to see if there were any
mentions of the term seven ages in there. And almost immediately, I got a lead. I discover
that during the middle ages, one of the widely held beliefs about world history was known
as septum, a Titus Mundey or translated in English, the seven ages of the world.
An idea that was sketched out way back in the fifth century by St. Agustine.
According to this theory, the world was divided into seven ages,
according to important events in the Bible as follows the creation of man to the time of Noah,
Noah, to Abraham, Abraham, to David David, to the Babylonian captivity,
the Babylonian captivity to the coming of Christ and the coming of Christ to today.
The seventh age is an age that begins with the end. The last days of the world,
death judgment. Now just quickly looking at this, it was pretty obvious that Augustin's
timeline didn't exactly match up with Narnia his timeline, but it did give me an idea.
What if the Narnian timeline was actually based on some sort of outline of our world?
See Lewis was clear that he had written Narnia as a "supposal."
He asked himself supposing Christ of the new Testament had created another one.
What would it look like? Is it really too much to assume that the history of that world would unfold
in a way very similar to the events of our world. Now, with just a quick glance, it's easy to see.
There are some Narnian ages that seem to bear a strong resemblance to the ages in our world.
The most obvious connection is the first age, which contains the creation account
in the Bible and in. Both stories involve a perfect world, created out of nothing
and corrupted when evil enters the world.
There's a first man and a first woman who are given dominion over the land and told
them multiply there's even a garden and a forbidden fruit in both stories.
So the first age really does seem to be sort of a match. Now, just like the beginning of
the world seems to be an easy connection. The end of the world is just as hard.
They both literally happen at the end of the world, culminating and falling stars,
a return of the king war, death judgment, and a glimpse into a new eternal world that's
more real than the current one. Again, it's pretty easy to see a connection.
So at first blush, it seems like I'd found the edges of this puzzle pretty easily.
But how about fitting the pieces in the middle? The next obvious age to match was the golden age,
which parallels the early new Testament with the coming of Christ and the reign of the
early church. In both stories, the king of king comes to free
his people from the oppressive curse that's enslaved them. In both stories
the king offers himself as a substitutionary sacrifice and in both stories, he's ultimately
resurrected. And finally in both stories, the king entrusts the rule of his kingdom to his followers.
So another clear and obvious match. Now there's one more age here where the allusion may be
less obvious to some, but it's fairly well understood to many Narnia fans.
That's the age of the long winter. It's a time when Athens people were oppressed by a
great darkness under the tyrannical rule of the false queen. It was a
time when there was a great longing for the king as the common rescue.
And there was a deep hope that the golden age prophecies would be fulfilled and the
sons of Adam and daughters of Eve would come-- signaling an end to the Queen's, tyranical reign.
Now this age is strongly reminiscent of the time of advent in the Christian tradition.
Maybe connect this advent to a time known as the intertestamental period. Literally the 400 years
that took place between the old and new Testament is described as the 400 years of science.
When the people of God found themselves under forceful occupation by tyrannical rulers
and the faithful remnant held out hope that the prophecies of men like Isaiah would be fulfilled--
that the chosen one would come and rescue the people from the tyrannical rule.
Yes, I'd say the long winter is a picture of this age of advent, another match,
but then I hit a roadblock Augustin's ages, basically jumped from the early new Testament,
right to the end of the world. So, what would Narnia is fourth, fifth, and sixth ages represent?
Well, let's go back to Google. I checked out several possibilities. As suggested by one viewer,
I looked at something known as the theological concept of the seven dispensations of the church.
But if the golden age was a reference point, this timeline didn't really add up.
I also looked at the major ages of human civilization, but again,
there wasn't really much connection to be made. However it gave me an idea.
You see, up until this point, I've been looking through the lens of historians and theologians,
but C.S. Lewis was a combination of the two. What if the timeline was a specific timeline?
One that was created specifically for Lewis by Lewis himself.
And that's when the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
After some deep research-- meaning lots of Google searching-- I came across a copy of the first
lecture CS Lewis ever gave after receiving the chair of medieval and Renaissance literature at
Cambridge university in 1954, the lecture was entitled "De Descriptione Temporum",
which means "A Description of Ages". Now in this lecture,
Lewis actually examines the way in which we delineate the four major areas of Western history:
the antiquity, the dark ages, the middle ages and the Renaissance.
And that's when it hit me. Could it be that Lewis had modeled part of Narnia and history
on these areas? Of course, the age of antiquity would have fallen into
the new Testament era of the golden age. And after that, what comes next? But the dark age
coming and talk about on the nose, I definitely called that a match.
Now what comes next are the middle ages-- which, if our theory is correct,
should align with the Telmarine age. Now, there's a lot of history covered during this time,
but one event in particular stands out to our discussion. The Norman conquest of
England or the conquest happened in 10 66 when William the Conqueror, a Norman Invaders seized
control of England by defeating and killing the English King Harold. The second. When William the
conqueror took the throne, he brought an end to the Anglo-Saxon rule of England, which had
lasted for over 500 years. When the Normans took over England, the Anglo-Saxons fled the country,
taking refuge in the rugged lands of Scotland and Ireland-- where they were able to hide from
the strong and brutal rule of this new king. Of course, so much of this resonates perfectly
with the age of the Tullamarine. When morass the first invaded Narnia, overtaking the Royal lineage
ruling through strength and brutality and driving. Most of the true Narnians out of the country
and into hiding in the wilderness. Yes, it seemed we have yet another match.
Now what about this last age, the Renaissance? Of course, the era was known as the era of renewal,
that changed the world. A time when artists and philosophers, recovered the ideas and
knowledge of antiquity that had been nearly lost during the middle ages. And this rediscovery
led to new flourishing, even flowing into what would become known as the age of exploration--
which was a time when brave souls took to the seas, like never before
discovering new routes, great riches and worlds that have previously been unknown.
Now, come on. Are you kidding me? Could the connection be any more clear?
An entire book was written about Narnia's recovery of old knowledge, which had been nearly lost,
a rebirth of new ideas and exploration on the high seas, which resulted in countless
new worlds being discovered. It's called of course the voyage of the Dawn Treader.
So there's absolutely no doubt when it comes to the age of exploration, we have a definite
match. So after all that, I think it's clear.
We have cracked the code. We discovered that when it comes to the big story of Narnia each age,
each year, each day was intentionally planned by Narnia as creator, CS Lewis.
But, you know, we shouldn't really be surprised for CS Lewis. There was no such
thing as happenstance. Whether it was in the land of talking animals or in our own world,
Lewis believed that history was one big, important ultimate story. And no matter what side of the
wardrobe you found yourself on. You'll be sure to see that that big story had always been designed
to point to the one that was there in the very beginning,
the one that changed history in the middle and the one that closed up the sky in the end,
every age, every year, every day in the end, it's really his story.
Well, that's all the time we have for today, but I want to hear from you,
tell me what you enjoyed about this episode. Tell me if you learn anything.
Tell me if there's anything you'd like to hear in the next episode.
And as always, I look forward to seeing you next time as we take another journey into the wardrobe.