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The work traces attempts to define the Middle Ages made since the 14th century, and then subjects them to general criticism (deconstruction), reducing previous attempts to the level of literary fiction. Concepts in the sphere of reflection on art, and above all - art itself in coincidence with theological thought and historiography, also became a point of support for the new definition of the Middle Ages. It turns out that the concepts of periodization of human history, emerging in the first millennium and modeled in the following centuries, are not only strongly influenced by the biblical understanding of time and the meaning of existence, but are also a reflection of concepts from the sphere of theology (e.g. the tripartite division of history as a reflection of the idea of the Holy Trinity). This foundation for constructing the Middle Ages is more reliable than the existing ones because it flows from the spirit of the times to which it concerns. Therefore, it is not a projection of later eras on earlier ones, but an interpretation of the evidence that such self-diagnosis occurred at the very broadly understood turn of the first and second millennium AD. Importantly, this concept is not geographically determined. As such, it allows us to free ourselves from discussions on how to periodize the Middle Ages in Byzantium or in the colonies of European powers.