they are the stages of man. Individually, man goes through three stages in Catholicism: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. Therefore, I conjecture, the People of Old and New both traverse the three step way: The Jewish history is the three ages of the saint, and the Catholic history is likewise the same three ages. This leaves two stages in the beginning, the PREEMINENT stages. Therefore, three and three and two is eight, so then we have the eight ages.
Therefore, the preeminent ages of utter antiquity (the Flood and Abraham), plus the three ages of the Jews sum to five for the OT period.
So also does Revelation tie the darknesses of these days of Creation to the beast. For there are seven days of creation extended to eight by Tradition, and the beast of Revelation has seven heads that are extended to eight in the Apocalypse 17.
Therefore also, as the ages of Old are clearly five, so is it written in that same Apocalypse passage: “Five kings have fallen.”
Three kings remain for the new age, the sixth seventh and eighth. “One is. And the other has not yet come… and the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.”
And these are the ages, by common sense. For what is a Biblical day except a period that begins with darkness “evening came”] and ends with light “and morning followed”]?
So then, the ages are determined by the greater stages of darkness followed by light, which is to say, first a great stage of sin, followed by a great stage of Redemption. So then, let any basic Bible student spell them out, per common sense, even as two ECFs, including Augustine, explicitly state the OT period was five ages.
(Five have fallen):
I. The Fall and Pre-Flood Wickedness / the Flood
II. The Tower of Babel / Language Confounding and Cov with Abraham
III. Egypt Enslaves / The Exodus and Kingdom of Israel
IV. The Intermediate Jewish Apostasy / The Exile and Restoration to OT Cov
V. OT Antichrist Antiochus / First Coming of Christ
And the ages of the Church are these:
VI. (One is): Pagan Rome Persecutes Church / Catholic Christendom
VII. (The other has not yet come): The Minor Apostasy / Minor Chastisement and Restoration of Catholic Unity and Christendom
VIII. (The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth): The Great APostasy and NT Antichrist / Second Coming of Christ and New Creation
Note, the seventh light, the restoration of Christian unity in Catholicism and age of peace, is a sabbath in this old creation.
The eighth light is the ultimate Sabbath, Sunday, the eternal rest in the new creation that shall never end.