But that none of those men reached the thousandth year is not empty of mystery and instruction. For first it is signified that, however long a time those Fathers lived, yet their very longest life does not obtain even the likeness of one day in comparison with the divine eternity — David saying in Psalm 89, 'A thousand years before your eyes are as yesterday, which has passed.' Irenaeus, near the end of book 5 against the heretics, mentions that some said that for this reason it was said to Adam, 'In whatever day you eat, you shall die by death' — because so it really happened: for, after eating the forbidden apple, Adam did not complete one whole day by living, because he did not reach the thousandth year. The life of man, therefore, however long it be, is like one day: whose morning is the time from birth to youth; midday, the youthful and manly age; evening, old age until death. To which fits that saying of David: 'In the morning let it pass like grass, in the morning let it flourish and pass, in the evening let it fall, harden, and wither.' Cicero, in the first Tusculan Question, estimating the longest life of man as one day, says thus: 'At the river Hypanis, which from the European side flows into the Pontus, Aristotle says that certain little creatures are born which live one day. Of these, therefore, one that has died at the eighth hour has died at an advanced age; but one [that dies] at sunset [is] already decrepit — the more so, if it was also the solstitial day.' Compare our longest age...²

...with eternity, and we shall be found in almost the same age as that little creature. Thus Cicero.³