„Gdy się zestarzejesz...” (J 21,18). Zarys gerontologii biblijnej

Abstract

Hopes and desires that dwell in everybody’s inner world, make them look spontaneously at thè future. One of its elements that people are more or less conscious of, is old age. In earlier times, the society consisted only of relatively few people of advanced age. Due to it old age was held by thè whole civilized world in high esteem and respect. Later, when longevity became a more common and more easily attainable phenomenon, it stopped to be an object of veneration or even envy; quite the reverse, it became a source of many unpredictable and worrying social, economie and demographic consequences. In our days aging and problems relating to old age have become one of the most demanding challenges and they force man to seek Solutions on a scale that has never been seen before. That is the reason why the tum of the 20th and 21st centuries is often called „the age of the gerontological revolution”. The branch of science that deals with issues of old age and human aging is called gerontology and it is a relatively recent invention. It consists of many particular disciplines, e.g. geriatrics, senescence, demographic gerontology, sociologica! gerontology, psychological gerontology, social gerontology, educational gerontology and pastorał gerontology. The aim of this paper is to examine human aging, old age and longevity from the biblical point of view in order to leam what hagiographers think of it and where they place it in God’s pian of salvation. Its other purpose is to enable the reader to understand better the true sense of old age as an admirable experience of human life and to accept it with gratitude. The paper covers following topics: Hebrew and Greek terminology on old age, stages of human life, the threshold of old age, advantages and disadvantages of advanced years, changes in biblical view on old age resulting from development of revelation, New Testament silence on the issue of advanced years, the elderly-oriented parenesis and some examples of aged individuate in the Bible. Finally, the paper answers a question of the Messiah who did not enter old age. Summing up all conclusions one may state that from the biblical point of view old age is: — a kind of a chartem which a person receives to enable him or her to be in the Service ofthe community; — an announcement and a foretaste of eternity; — a blessed stage of life dedicated to man’s final cleansing from all impurity and to preparation for eternai fellowship with the Creator; — a kind of duty that God puts on man.