Commentarius in Ecclesiasten

THE COMMENTARY OF SAINT EUSEBIUS HIERONYMUS STRIDONENSIS, PRESBYTER, ON ECCLESIASTES, ADDRESSED TO PAULA AND EUSTOCHIUM.

PREFACE.

I remember that almost five years ago, when I was still at Rome, I was reading Ecclesiastes to the holy Blesilla, in order to stir her to contempt of this present age, and to make her count as nothing everything she saw in the world; and she asked me to discuss its obscure passages in the manner of a short commentary, so that without me she might understand what she was reading. And so, since she was taken from us by sudden death while our work was already underway, and we did not deserve, O Paula and Eustochium, to have such a companion of our life, and I was then struck by so great a wound that I fell silent: now, settled at Bethlehem, a rather small town, I pay my debt both to her memory and to you, briefly admonishing this much: that I have followed no one's authority, but translating from the Hebrew, I have rather conformed myself to the usage of the Seventy Interpreters—in those passages only which did not differ much from the Hebrew. Sometimes I also called to mind Aquila, and Symmachus, and Theodotion, so that I might neither deter the reader's zeal by excessive novelty, nor again, against my own conscience, having set aside the fountain of truth, gather together the little streams of opinions.

COMMENTARY.

(Chapter One.) "The words of Ecclesiastes, son of David, king of Jerusalem." The Scriptures most clearly teach that Solomon was called by three names: the peaceful one, that is, SALOMON; and IDIDIA, that is, beloved of the Lord; and what is now said, COELETH, that is, Ecclesiastes. For Ecclesiastes is the name in the Greek language for one who gathers a company, that is, the Church, whom we may call a preacher, in that he speaks to the people, and his discourse is directed not specifically to one person but generally to all. Furthermore, he was called the peaceful one and beloved of the Lord from the fact that there was peace in his kingdom and the Lord loved him. For indeed the forty-fourth and seventy-first psalms are prefaced with the title of the beloved and peaceful one. Although these psalms pertain to the prophecy of Christ and the Church, and exceed the felicity and strength of Solomon, yet according to the historical sense they were written concerning Solomon.

Thus he published three volumes according to the number of the words: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. In Proverbs he teaches the little one and, as it were, instructs him in his duties through maxims; hence his discourse is frequently repeated to the lily. In Ecclesiastes, however, he instructs the man of mature age, so that he may consider nothing in the things of the world to be perpetual, but that all things we see are fleeting and brief. Finally, in the Song of Songs he joins the fully perfected man, who has trodden the world underfoot and is prepared, to the embraces of the bridegroom. For unless we have first abandoned our vices and, renouncing the pomp of the world, have prepared ourselves free and unencumbered for the coming of Christ, we cannot say: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth (Song 1:1). Not far from this order of teachings do the followers of the philosophers instruct their own disciples: first they teach ethics, then they interpret physics; and the one whom they have seen to have advanced in these, they lead all the way to logic.

Also, this must be noted more carefully, that through the three books of the author the title is different. For in Proverbs it is written: The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. But in Ecclesiastes: The words of Ecclesiastes, son of David, king of Jerusalem; for "Israel" here is superfluous, which is wrongly found in Greek and Latin manuscripts. In the Song of Songs, however, neither "son of David" nor "king of Israel" or "of Jerusalem" is prefixed, but only: The Song of Songs of Solomon. For just as Proverbs and the rudimentary instruction pertain to the twelve tribes and to all Israel, and just as contempt of the world is fitting only for the metropolitans, that is, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so the Song of Songs properly applies to those who desire only heavenly things. To beginners and the advanced, both the paternal dignity and the authority of his own kingdom are rightly claimed as the author's. But to the perfect, where the disciple is instructed not by fear but by love, his own name suffices, and he is an equal teacher, and he does not know that he is a king. These things, for the time being, according to the letter.

But otherwise, according to the spiritual understanding: the peaceable one and beloved of God the Father, and our Ecclesiastes, is Christ, who, having destroyed the middle wall and abolishing hostilities in his flesh, made both one, saying: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you (John 14:27). Concerning whom the Father said to the disciples: This is (Matt. 3:17) my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him, who is the head of every Church: speaking not at all to the synagogue of the Jews, but to the multitude of the Gentiles, the king of Jerusalem built of living stones: not of that Jerusalem of which he himself says: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets (Matt. 23:37); and: Behold, your house is left to you desolate (ibid. 38): but of that one by which he forbids swearing; because it is the city of the great king. This is the son of David, to whom the blind men in the Gospel cried out: Have mercy on us, son of David (Matt. 9:27); and all the crowd resounded with harmonious voice: Hosanna to the son of David (Matt. 21:9). Finally, the word of God does not come to him as it did to Jeremiah and to the other prophets: but because he is rich, and king, and powerful (for he himself is the Word and Wisdom, and the other virtues), he speaks words to the men of the Church: words, he intimates to the apostles, of whom it is sung in the Psalm: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps. 18:5).

Therefore some wrongly suppose that we are provoked by this book to pleasure and luxury, when on the contrary all the things we see in the world are taught to be vain, and that we ought not eagerly to desire those things which perish while they are held.

“Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities, and all things are vanity.” If all things that God made are very good, how are all things vanity, and not only vanity, but even vanity of vanities? So that just as in the Song of Songs, among all songs, an excellent song is shown forth, so in the vanity of vanities the greatness of vanity is displayed. Something of this sort is also written in the Psalm: “Nevertheless, every man living is all vanity” (Ps. 38:6). If a living man is vanity, then a dead man is vanity of vanities. We read in Exodus that the face of Moses was glorified so much that the children of Israel could not look upon him. This glory the apostle Paul says, in comparison with the glory of the gospel, is not glory: “For that which was glorified,” he says, “was not glorified in this part, because of the exceeding glory” (2 Cor. 3:10). We can therefore also say in this manner that heaven, earth, the seas, and all things contained within this circle are indeed good in themselves, but compared with God, are as nothing.

And just as, if I saw a tiny spark from a lamp, I would be content with its light, and afterward, when the sun had risen, I would not discern what had been shining, and I would see the brightness of the stars hidden by the radiance of the sun: so, looking upon the elements and the manifold variety of things, I indeed marvel at the greatness of the works; but reflecting that all things pass away, and that the world grows old and reaches its end, and that God alone is always what he has been, I am compelled to say not once but twice: Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. In Hebrew, for "vanity of vanities," ABAL ABALIM is written, which, apart from the Seventy translators, all have translated alike, or what we can call the vapor of smoke and a thin breeze, which is quickly dissolved. Thus from this word is shown the fleeting and nothingness of the universe. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal. Or because the creature has been subjected to vanity, and groans, and labors in childbirth, and awaits the revelation of the sons of God, and now we know in part, and we prophesy in part. For so long all things are vain, until that which is perfect comes.

What is left for a man in all his labor, in which he toils under the sun?” After the general statement that all things are vain, he begins with human beings—that they wear themselves out to no purpose in the labor of this world, gathering wealth, educating children, pursuing honor, constructing buildings, and, snatched away by sudden death in the midst of their work, they hear: “Fool, this night your soul will be taken from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20)—especially since from all their labor they carry nothing with them, but return naked to the earth from which they were taken.

“A generation goes, and a generation comes; and the earth stands forever.” As some die, others are born; and those you had seen, you cease to see, and you begin to see those you had not seen. What is vainer than this vanity—that the earth should remain, which was made for the sake of human beings, and that man himself, the earth’s lord, should suddenly dissolve into dust? Alternatively: the first generation of the Jews departs, and the generation gathered from the Gentiles succeeds it; but the earth stands as long as, with the Synagogue withdrawing, the whole Church may enter in. For when the Gospel has been preached throughout the whole world, then will be the end. But when the consummation is at hand, heaven and earth will pass away. And he says pointedly, not “The earth stands in ages,” but “forever.” Moreover, we praise the Lord, not in one age, but in ages of ages.

The sun rises, and the sun sets, and draws to its place, and rises there again.” The sun itself, which has been given to mortals for light, daily indicates its own death by its rising and by its setting. After it has dipped its burning wheel in the Ocean, it returns by paths unknown to us to the place from which it had gone forth; and when the circle of night has been completed, it bursts forth again swiftly from its chamber. But in place of what we have set down following the Vulgate edition, “draws to its place,” the Hebrew has SOEPH, which Aquila translates as “breathes toward,” that is, aspires, while Symmachus and Theodotion render “runs back,” because, namely, the sun returns to its place and there, whence it had first gone out, breathes toward it. All this is said for this reason, that it may teach that, by the changes of the seasons and by the rising and setting of the stars, human life slips away and perishes, while it does not know it. In another sense, the Sun of justice, in whose wings is healing, rises for those who fear God, and sets at midday for the false prophets. But when it has risen, it draws us to its place. To what place? Clearly to the Father. For to this end it came, that it might lift us from the earth to heaven, and say: “When the Son of man has been lifted up, he will draw all things to himself” (John XII). Nor is it strange that the Son draws believers to himself, since the Father himself also draws them to the Son: for, he says, “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John VI, 44).

That sun, then, which we have said sets for some and rises for others, once set for the patriarch Jacob as he was leaving the land of the holy land, and again, when he entered the land of promise from Syria, it rose for him (Gen. 28). For Lot too, since he departed from Sodom and came to the city to which he had been commanded to hurry, he went up into the mountain, and the sun rose over Segor (Gen. 19).

“It goes toward the south, and turns toward the north: turning, turning goes the spirit, and to its circles the spirit returns.” From this we can judge that in the season of winter the sun runs toward the southern region, and through the summer is near the north, and does not have its beginning at the autumn equinox, but first when the west wind blows, when in the season of spring all things burst forth into offspring. But what he says, “Turning, turning goes the spirit, and to its circles it returns,” whether he named the sun itself “spirit,” because it animates and breathes and flourishes, and completes its yearly circuits by its course, as the poet says (Aeneid 2):

Meanwhile the great sun is carried round the year, and elsewhere (in the Georgics):

And the year rolls on through its own tracks within itself; whether it be that spirit nourishes within the shining orb of the moon and the stars of Titan:

Spirit within feeds them: and mind, poured through the limbs, drives the whole mass, and mingles itself with the great body;

he speaks not of the sun's yearly course, but of its daily paths. For by a slanting and broken line it proceeds through the south to the north, and so returns to the east. Otherwise: when the sun runs through the south, it is nearer the earth; when through the north, it is lifted on high. Perhaps, therefore, to those who are hemmed in by the cold of winter and of tribulations (for from the north, as it is written, evils blaze up over the earth), this sun of justice is nearer; but to those who dwell in the north, in that part, and are deprived of summer's heat, it goes far off, and through its own circles returns whence it set out. For when it has drawn all things to itself and illumined all with its rays, there comes the restoration of the beginning, and God is all in all. Symmachus interpreted this passage thus: "It goes to the south, and circles round to the north; passing on, the wind goes, and by the ways it had circled, the wind returns.

All the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not filled. To the place from which the torrents come out, there they return, so that they may go away. Some think that the fresh waters which flow into the sea are either consumed by the sun burning above, or are changed into the saltiness of the sea. But behold, our Ecclesiastes, himself the creator of those very waters, says that they return through hidden veins to the sources of the fountains, and always well up from the mother deep into their own beginnings. But the Hebrews think it is better that under the name of torrents and the sea, by metaphor, human beings are signified, because they return to the earth from which they were taken; and they are called torrents, not rivers, because they quickly perish, and yet the earth is not filled with the multitude of the dead. Further, if we ascend to higher things, rightly the troubled waters return into the sea from which they had settled. And, unless I am mistaken, without some addition a torrent is nowhere read in a good sense. For, "in the torrent of your pleasure you will give them to drink," it is said with the addition "of pleasure" (Psalm 35:9). And on the contrary, the Savior is handed over to the torrent Cedron (John 18:1). And Elijah in the time of persecution hides at the torrent Chorath, which itself also dries up (3 Kings 17:3). But the sea is not filled—the insatiable sea, just as also in Proverbs the daughters of the bloodsucker (Prov 30:15).

All grave words a man cannot utter. The eye will not be satisfied with seeing, and the ear will not be filled with hearing." It is difficult to know not only about physical matters but also about ethical ones. Speech cannot explain the causes and inner workings of things, nor can the eye gaze upon them as the dignity of the matter demands, nor can the ear, with a teacher instructing it, arrive at the highest knowledge. For if now we see through a mirror in an enigma, and we know in part and prophesy in part, then consequently neither can speech explain what it does not know, nor can the eye look upon that in which it is dim-sighted, nor can the ear be filled with that about which it doubts. At the same time this too must be noted, that all words are grave and are learned with great labor—against those who think that knowledge of the Scriptures comes to them while they are at leisure and making vows.

"What is it that has been? The very thing that will be. And what is it that has been made? The very thing that will be made. And there is nothing new under the sun." It seems to me that he is now speaking generally about the things he enumerated above—generation and generation, the mass of the lands, the rising and setting of the sun, the course of rivers, the magnitude of the Ocean—and about all things that we learn either by thought, or by sight, or by hearing: that there is nothing in the nature of things that has not already existed before. For from the beginning of the world both men have been born and have died, and the earth has stood poised above the waters, and the sun has risen and set.

And, not to go through more examples, it has been granted by God the artificer that birds fly, fish swim, land animals walk, and serpents glide. The Comic poet says something similar to this sentence:

There is nothing said that has not been said before.

(TERENCE, in the Prologue to the Eunuch.)

Hence my teacher Donatus, when he was expounding this little verse, said: "May those perish who said our words before us." But if nothing new can be said in speech, how much more in the administration of the world, which from the beginning was so perfect that God rested from his works on the seventh day! Someone in a certain book: If everything that has been made under the sun existed in past ages before it was made, and man was made after the sun was already created, then man existed before he was made under the sun. But this is excluded, because by this reasoning both beasts of burden and gnats and every tiny thing and great animals would be said to have existed before heaven. Unless perhaps he should answer that it is shown from what follows that the Preacher's discourse is not about the other animals but about man. For he says: "There is nothing fresh under the sun that can speak and say: Behold, this is new." But animals do not speak, only man; for if animals spoke, then something would be new, and the sentence that nothing is new under the sun would be dissolved.

Is there a word of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has already been in the ages that were before us." Symmachus translated this more plainly: "Do you think there is one who can say, 'See, this is new,' and it has already been made in the age that was before us?" This agrees with the preceding, that nothing new happens in the world, nor is there anyone who can arise and say, "Behold, this is new," since whatever has thought itself to show something new was already in earlier ages. Nor should we think that signs and wonders, and the many things that by God's will are made new in the world, have already been done in earlier ages, and that Epicurus finds a place, who asserts that through innumerable cycles the same things happen, in the same places, and through the same persons. Otherwise Judas would often have betrayed, and Christ would often have suffered for us, and the other things that have been done and are to be done would likewise be rolled back in the same cycles. But it must be said that by God's foreknowledge and predestination those things have already been done which are to come. For those who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world were already in earlier ages.

There is no memory of the first things, and indeed of the last things that are to come, there will be no memory of them among those who will exist at the very end." Just as oblivion hides past things from us, so those who are yet to be born will not be able to know either the things that are now happening or the things that are to come, and all things will pass by in silence and will be hidden as though they had never been; and that sentence will be fulfilled: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity." For the Seraphim too cover their face and their feet for this reason, because the first things and the last things are concealed. But according to the Septuagint translators, who said, "There is no memory of the first things, and indeed of the last things that are to come, there will be no memory of them with those who will exist at the very end" (Matthew 20:16): that meaning from the Gospel is that those who are first in this world are the last of all. And because God, as kind and merciful, remembers even the least and all people, to those who by their own fault have deserved to be last he will not give as great glory as to those who, humbling themselves, have wished to be last in the world. And so it is said also in what follows: "There is no memory of the wise man with the fool forever.

I, Ecclesiastes, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." Up to this point the preface has spoken generally of all things belonging to the disputant; now he returns to himself, and he teaches who he was and how he came to know all things by experience. The Hebrews say that this book is Solomon's, as he was doing penance, because, trusting in wisdom and riches, he offended God through women.

"And I gave my heart to inquire and to consider in wisdom concerning all things that are done under the sun. This evil occupation God has given to the sons of men, that they may be occupied in it." The word ANIAN Aquila, the Septuagint, and Theodotion translated similarly, which the Latin interpreter expressed as "distention," because the mind of man, stretched out into various cares, is torn apart. Symmachus, however, translated it as "occupation." Since, therefore, it is named rather often in this volume—whether we call it occupation, or distention, or anything else—let all these be referred to the earlier meaning. Ecclesiastes therefore first of all gave his mind to seeking wisdom, and extending himself beyond what is permitted, he wished to know the causes and reasons: why little children are seized by a demon, why shipwrecks swallow up both the just and the impious alike; whether these things and things like them happen by chance, or by the judgment of God. Even if by chance, where is providence? If by judgment, where is God's justice?

Desiring to know these things, he says, I understood that the excessive care and anxiety that torments through various things was given by God to men, so that they desire to know what it is not permitted to know. And beautifully, with the cause first stated, the distraction is said to be given by God. For how is it written in the Epistle to the Romans: "For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections" (Rom. 1:6)? And again: "For this cause God delivered them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting" (ibid. 28). And then: "For this cause God delivered them up to the desires of their own heart, unto uncleanness" (ibid. 24). And to the Thessalonians: "For this cause God shall send them the working of error" (2 Thess. 2:10). And first the causes are shown, why they are yielded up either to shameful passions, or to a reprobate mind, or to the desires of their own heart, or what they have done to receive the working of error. So also in the present matter, for this reason God gave a bad distraction to men, that they might be distracted in it, because previously by their own will and their own choice they did this or that.

I saw all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity, and presumption of spirit." We are compelled by necessity to discuss the Hebrew words more often than we wish. For we cannot know the meaning unless we learn it through the words. Aquila and Theodotion, Symmachus translated ROOTH. But the Seventy interpreters did not express the Hebrew speech, but the Syriac, saying: Whether therefore, or whether the word is from passion: but better it sounds as will than as presumption. It is said, moreover, that each one does what he wishes, and what seems right to himself, and that men are carried in different directions by free will, and that all things under the sun are vain, while we in turn displease one another in the boundaries of good and evil. A Hebrew told me, under whose instruction I read through the holy Scriptures, that the word ROOTH written above signifies in this place affliction and malice rather than pasturing and will: not from the evil that is contrary to good, but from that which is written in the Gospel: Sufficient for the day is its own malice (Matthew 6:34). Which the Greeks call more expressively 5, and the meaning is: I considered all things that are done in the world, and I discovered nothing other than vanity and miseries, that is, miseries of the spirit, by which the soul is afflicted with various thoughts.

The perverse man will not be able to be adorned, and the diminution will not be able to be numbered." He who is perverse, unless he is first corrected, will not be able to be adorned. Straight things receive ornament, crooked things receive correction. No one is called perverse except one who has been depraved from the straight. This is against the heretics, who introduce certain natures that do not receive healing. And because the diminution—that is, what is lacking—cannot be numbered, for this reason only the firstborn of Israel were numbered. But the women, and the servants, and the little ones, and the common people from Egypt, being not at all the fullness but the diminution of the army, were passed over without number. There can also be this meaning here: such great malice is engaged in the capacity of this world that the world can scarcely return to the whole state of good, nor can it easily receive its order and perfection, in which it was first established. Otherwise: when all things have been restored to wholeness through repentance, the devil alone will remain in his error. For all things that were made under the sun have been overturned by his judgment and spirit of malice, while at his instigation sins are heaped upon sins. Finally, so great is the number of seducers and of those who have been snatched by him from the flock of the Lord that it cannot be comprehended by reckoning.

I spoke with my heart, saying: Behold, I have been magnified, and I have added wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my heart has seen much wisdom and knowledge." Solomon was wiser—not than Abraham, or Moses, and the other saints, but than those who were before him in Jerusalem. We also read in the books of Kings that Solomon possessed great wisdom, and that he asked this gift from God above all others. The eye of a clean heart beholds much wisdom and knowledge; for he did not say, "I have spoken much wisdom and knowledge," but, "my heart has seen much wisdom and knowledge." For we cannot express all that we perceive.

"And I gave my heart, that I might know wisdom and knowledge, errors and folly: I have learned that this also is a feeding on wind, or a presumption of spirit." Contrary things are understood by their contraries. And the first wisdom is to be free of folly. But no one can be free of folly unless he has understood it. Whence also very many harmful things have been created in the world, so that while we avoid them, we may be instructed unto wisdom. Equal, therefore, was Solomon's zeal to know wisdom and knowledge, and, on the other side, errors and folly: so that in pursuing some things and shunning others, his true wisdom might be proven. But in this too, as in the rest, he says that he fed on winds, and was not able to comprehend perfect truth.

Concerning the presumption of the spirit, or the pasturing of the wind, which is mentioned rather often in this book, it should suffice to have discussed it above.

«Because in the multitude of wisdom there is a multitude of fury: and he who adds knowledge adds grief.» The more anyone has attained wisdom, the more he is indignant at being subject to vices and at being far from the virtues that he seeks (Wisdom 6:7). But because they will suffer torments mightily, and to whom more is entrusted, more is required of him, therefore he who adds knowledge adds grief, and is saddened with a sorrow according to God, and grieves over his own sins. Whence also the Apostle says: And who is it that gladdens me, except he who is saddened by me (2 Corinthians 2:2)? Unless perhaps this too is to be understood: that a wise man grieves that wisdom lies so hidden and deep, and does not present itself to minds as light does to sight, but comes forth through certain torments and intolerable labor, by continual meditation and study.

(Cap. II.) «I said in my heart: Come now, I will test you with gladness, and I will see in good: and behold, even this is vanity.» After I perceived that in the multitude of wisdom and the addition of knowledge there is toil and grief, and nothing else but a vain and endless struggle, I turned myself to gladness, so that I might flow in luxury, gather wealth, abound in riches, and seize perishable pleasures before I died. But even in this I myself perceived my vanity, since past pleasure does not help the present, and when exhausted does not satisfy. Moreover, it is a temptation not only of bodily gladness but also of spiritual gladness to one who possesses it, so that I am in need of the goad that corrects me, and of an angel of Satan to buffet me, lest I be lifted up (II Cor. XII, 7). Hence also Solomon says: Riches and poverty do not give me (Prov. XXX, 8); and immediately he added: Lest being filled I become a liar; and say, who sees me (Ibid. 9)? For indeed the devil too fell through an abundance of goods. Hence also it is written concerning the Apostle: Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the judgment of the devil (I Tim. III, 6), that is, into such a judgment as the devil also fell into. But we can also say this, that spiritual gladness, like the rest, is now pronounced vanity for this reason, that we see it through a mirror and in an enigma. But when it has been revealed face to face, then it is called not vanity at all, but truth.

«To laughter I said: madness, and to gladness: what are you doing?» Where we read “madness,” the Hebrew has MOLAL, which Aquila translated as “error,” and Symmachus as “tumult.” But the Seventy and Theodotion, as in many places, so also here agree, and translated the word which we, rendering it word for word, can call “a whirling about.” Therefore, just as those who are carried about by every wind of doctrine are unstable and fluctuate in different directions (Eph. 4:14), so those who laugh with that laughter which the Lord in the Gospel (Luke 6:25) says must be changed to weeping are swept away by the error and whirlwind of the world, not understanding the ruin of their sins, nor lamenting their past vices; but thinking that brief goods are perpetual, and exulting in those things which are more worthy of lamentation. This can also be understood of heretics, who, acquiescing in false doctrines, promise themselves pleasant and prosperous things.

«I considered in my heart to draw my flesh into wine, and my heart led me into wisdom, and to obtain folly, until I might see what was good for the children of men, which they should do under the sun for the number of the days of their life.» I wished to give my life over to pleasures and to free my flesh from all cares, and, as it were with wine, so to lull it to sleep with pleasure; but my thought and natural reason, which God the author implanted even in sinners, drew me back and led me to seek wisdom and to trample folly underfoot, so that I might see what that good was which men can do in the course of their life. And elegantly did he compare pleasure to drunkenness. For drunkenness overturns the vigor of the mind; whoever can exchange this for wisdom and (as is found in certain manuscripts) obtain spiritual gladness, he will be able to arrive at the knowledge of this matter: what in this life is to be desired and what to be avoided.

«I magnified my works: I built myself houses: I planted myself vineyards,» and so on up to the place where he says: «The eyes of the wise man are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness.» Before I discuss each point individually, it seems useful to me to summarize everything in a brief discourse and, as it were, to gather the meaning into one body, so that what is said may be more easily understood. All the things that are thought to be good in the world, I possessed as a king and a powerful man. I built for myself palaces on high, I planted mountains and hills with vines. And so that nothing should be lacking for luxury, I planted gardens and orchards for myself, setting out various trees, which waters collected into pools should irrigate from above, so that the greenery might be nourished longer by the constant moisture. There was also a countless multitude of servants, whether bought or home-born, and many herds of four-footed animals, namely of cattle and sheep, as many as no king before me had in Jerusalem. But also countless treasures of silver and gold were being stored up, which the gifts of various kings and the tributes of nations had brought to me. Hence it also came about that I was provoked by excessive wealth to greater pleasures, and choirs of musical arts—pipe, lyre, and voice—sang together for me, and both sexes ministered at banquets; but the more these things increased, the more wisdom was lacking. For into whatever pleasure desire had drawn me, I was carried almost without bridle and headlong, and I thought this was the fruit of my labors, if I myself were consumed in lust and luxury.

At last, returning to myself and waking as if from a heavy sleep, I looked at my hands, and I perceived that my works were full of vanity, full of filth, full of the spirit of error. For I could find nothing good that was considered good in the world. Reckoning therefore what are the goods of wisdom and what are the evils of folly, I accordingly burst forth into praise of that man who, restraining himself after vices, can be a follower of the virtues. For great is the distance between wisdom and folly, and as far as the day is from the night, so far are the virtues separated from the vices. It seems to me, then, that he who follows wisdom always raises his eyes to heaven and holds his face lifted on high, and contemplates those things that are above his head. But he who is given over to folly and vices turns about in darkness and wallows in ignorance of things. «I magnified my works,» and so on. He magnifies his works who, according to the image of the Creator, is lifted up to things above. And he builds houses, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit may come and dwell in them. And he plants vineyards, to which Jesus may tie his ass.

I made for myself gardens and orchards; I planted in them every fruit-bearing tree." In the house of a rich man there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay (2 Tim 2:20). Gardens, then, are made also for the sake of the weaker and more infirm. For the one who is weak eats vegetables (Rom 14:2). Trees are planted, not all fruit-bearing, as we have it in the Latin manuscripts, but all of fruits, that is, of various crops and orchard fruits, because the graces in the Church are various: one is an eye, another a hand, another a foot, and to those parts of ours that are less honorable we give greater honor (1 Cor 12). Among these fruit-bearing trees I judge that the tree of life holds the first place, which is wisdom. For unless it is planted in the middle, the other trees will dry up.

"I made for myself pools of waters to irrigate from them the wooded glade sprouting with trees." The trees of the glades, the trees of the forests, which are not fruit-bearing, which bear no fruits, are not nourished by the heavenly rain, not by the waters from above, but by those gathered from the streams into pools. For Egypt, low and lying flat, like a garden of vegetables, is irrigated by earthly waters coming from Ethiopia. But the land of promise, which is mountainous and elevated, awaits the early and the late rain from heaven.

I acquired male and female slaves, and I had home-born servants, and indeed I had a great possession of herds and flocks. If we wish, as we said above, to refer Ecclesiastes even now to the person of Christ, we can call his servants those who have the spirit of fear in servitude and desire spiritual things more than they possess them; but the female slaves we may call those souls that are still given over to the body and the earth. And the home-born servants are those who are indeed from the Church, both the male and female slaves of whom we have spoken, and they come first; yet they have not yet been granted freedom, nor nobility from the Lord. But there are also others in the household of Ecclesiastes, like oxen and sheep, on account of their works and simplicity: who, without reason and knowledge of the Scriptures, labor indeed in the Church, but have not yet reached the point of deserving to be men and of returning to the image of their Creator. Note more carefully that to the male slaves, female slaves, and home-born servants no multitude is added, but of the oxen and sheep it is said, I had a great possession of herds and flocks. For there are more herds in the Church than men; more sheep than male slaves, female slaves, and home-born servants. But that which is said at the end:

Above all who were before me in Jerusalem" does not pertain to Solomon's great glory—that he was richer than his father, the king, since under Saul there was not yet a reign in Jerusalem, and it was held by the Jebusites who occupied that city itself. Therefore it must be treated more deeply: what Jerusalem is, and how Ecclesiastes was richer than all the kings who preceded him in Jerusalem.

"I gathered for myself silver and gold, and the substance of kings and provinces. I made for myself male and female singers, and the delights of the sons of men, male and female cupbearers." Divine Scripture always places silver and gold above the word and the meaning. Hence also in the sixty-seventh psalm the dove—which is interpreted spiritually—has wings of silver that are more manifest and exposed to view, while it conceals a more hidden inner meaning in the pale gleam of gold. But the substance of kings and of provinces or regions, Ecclesiastes gathered in the Church of believers—of those kings of whom the Psalmist sings: The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together in one (Ps. 2:2); and of those regions toward which the Savior commanded the eyes to be lifted, because they are already white for harvest (John 4). The substance of kings can also be called the dogmas of the philosophers and secular sciences, which the ecclesiastical man, understanding diligently, seized the wise in their craftiness, and destroyed the wisdom of the wise, and rejected the prudence of the prudent (1 Cor. 1).

Also singers and songstresses: these are they, male or female, who sing psalms in the spirit and sing psalms with the mind as well. The male singer, as it were a man both strong and spiritual, sings of things more exalted. The songstress, however, is still rolled about around matter, which the Greeks call hyle, nor can she raise her voice on high. Wherever, then, in the Scriptures a woman and the frailer sex is read of, let us transfer it to the understanding of matter. Whence also Pharaoh does not wish the males to be kept alive, but only the females, who are close to matter (Exod. 1). And on the contrary, none of the saints, except very rarely, is narrated to have begotten females. And only Salphaath, who died in his sins, begot all daughters (Num. 25). Jacob among the twelve patriarchs is the father of one daughter, and on her account is in danger (Gen. 30). Also the delights of the children of men are to be understood as concerning wisdom, which after the likeness of paradise has various orchards and manifold pleasures. And concerning her it is commanded: Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart (Ps. 36:4). And in another place: From the torrent of your pleasure you will give them to drink (Ps. 38:2). For concerning the pourers of wine and the pourers-out of wine (for to mark the distinction I have now wished to decline it in the feminine gender, which the Latin tongue does not admit), Aquila translates something far other than what lies on the surface.

For he did not name men—that is, males—and women, but the kinds of vessels, calling them what in Hebrew is called SADDA and SADDOTH. Finally Symmachus, although he could not express the word from the word, is not far from this opinion, saying: The kinds of tables, and the settings. Whether therefore cups, or bowls, or mixing-bowls, which are arranged for ministries, distinguished with gold and gems, it must be believed that Solomon had: and that from one, that is from the mixing-bowl, it was drawn for the others, namely the smaller vessels: and through the hands of ministers the crowd of drinkers received wine. Since therefore we interpret Ecclesiastes in Christ: and wisdom mixed in the mixing-bowl in Proverbs calls those passing by to herself: we ought now to understand the body of the Lord as a great mixing-bowl, in which not the undiluted Divinity, as it was in the heavens, but for our sake was tempered by the mediating humanity, and through the Apostles, the smaller ones—little bowls and mixing-bowls—wisdom was poured out to believers throughout the whole world.

And I was magnified, and I added wisdom above all who were before me in Jerusalem: and indeed my wisdom stood by me. That Ecclesiastes was magnified seems hardly to fit the Lord, unless perhaps we apply to him that saying: He advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace (Luke 2:52). And: Therefore God exalted him (Philippians 2:9). But what he says, Who were before me in Jerusalem, he says of those who before his coming governed the congregation of the saints and the Church. If we understand the Scriptures spiritually, Christ is richer than all; if only carnally, the Synagogue is understood better than the Church. He therefore took away the veil that was placed over the face of Moses (Exodus 34), and made us see his face in full light (2 Corinthians 3). Further, that wisdom stood by him has this meaning, that wisdom remained with him even when he was placed in the flesh. He who has advancement in wisdom—wisdom does not stand by him; but he who receives no advancement, nor grows up moment by moment, but is always in fullness—that one can say: And wisdom stood by me.

And all that my eyes desired, I did not withhold from them; nor did I restrain my heart from any pleasure, because my heart rejoiced in all my labor. And this was my portion from all my labor." The eyes of the soul and the gaze of the mind desire spiritual contemplation, which the sinner, not knowing it, restrains his heart from true delight. To this, then, Ecclesiastes gave himself wholly, and the light affliction of the world he compensated with eternal glory. For this is our portion and our perpetual reward, if here we labor for the virtues.

"And I looked back upon all my works, which my hands had made, and upon the labor in which I had labored, doing." He who acts in all things with diligence and caution can say this.

"And behold, all is vanity, and the will of the spirit (??). And there is no abundance under the sun." How in the rest he reckoned all things vile that are under the sun, and diverse according to the variety of wills. "And there is no abundance under the sun (Ps. 18:6)." Christ has set his tabernacle in the sun. Therefore he who has not yet come to the brightness, order, and constancy of the sun—in this Christ can neither dwell nor abound.

And I looked back, to see wisdom, and errors, and folly: for who among men is there that can go after the king and his maker?" For in the earlier passages, up to that place where the Scripture says, "The eyes of a wise man are in his head," I had comprehended everything in one discourse, wishing briefly to indicate the meaning, and for that reason I had again, in a second place, touched on certain things; now, according to what I had begun, I must set them forth. For in this place the meaning is much different from the interpretation of the Seventy. He says, moreover, that after the pleasures and delights he had condemned, he returned to seeking wisdom, in which he found more of error and folly than of true and certain prudence. For man cannot know the wisdom of his creator and king as clearly and purely as he knows it who is the founder. And so even those things which we know, we rather opine than hold, and we rather estimate than know what is true.

And I saw that there is an abundance of wisdom over folly, as the abundance of light over darkness." Although, he says, I have perceived that human wisdom itself is mixed with error, and cannot flow into our minds as purely as it is in our king and maker, nevertheless I have recognized that even in what it is, there is a great difference between it and folly, as much as day can differ from night, light from darkness.

"The eyes of a wise man are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And I knew that one event will befall them all." He who has arrived at perfect manhood and has merited that Christ be his head will always keep his eyes fixed on Christ, and raising them on high, will never think on things below. Since these things are so, and there is such a great distance between the wise man and the fool, that the one is compared to the day, the other to darkness—the one lifts his eyes to heaven, the other casts them down to earth—this thought suddenly crept into my mind: why are the wise man and the fool ended by a common destruction, why do the same blows, the same event, the same death press both alike with equal straits?

And I said in my heart, as is the outcome of the fool, so will it happen to me also, and why have I become wise? And I spoke in my heart, because this also is vanity. For there will be no memory of the wise man with the fool forever, since behold, in the days that come, oblivion will cover all things; and how will the wise man die with the fool?" I said that the wise man and the fool, the just and the impious, die by an equal lot, and that all evils in this world they endure with a similar outcome; what then does it profit me that I have pursued wisdom and labored more than others? Thinking again and carefully examining it with myself in mind, I found that my opinion was vain. For the wise man and the unwise will not have memory alike in the future, when the consummation of the universe comes; and they will by no means be held in the same end, because the one will go to refreshment, the other to punishment. More clearly in this place the Seventy interpreters have rendered the Hebrew sense, although they have not followed the order of the words: "And why have I become wise? Then I spoke abundantly in my heart, because the unwise speaks from abundance; because this also is vanity, because there is no memory of the wise man with the fool forever," and the rest. Namely, in that he convicts his former opinion of being foolish, he has testified that he spoke foolishly and erred, because he had previously thought so.

And I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was evil upon me, for all is vanity and a feeding on wind. If the world is set in wickedness, and in this tabernacle the Apostle groans, saying, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" then rightly he hates everything that is made under the sun. For in comparison with paradise and the blessedness of that life in which we used to enjoy spiritual fruits and the delights of the virtues, we are now, as it were, in a prison and a jail and the valley of tears, eating our bread in the sweat of our face.

And I hated all my labor, which I labor under the sun, because I leave it to the man who will be after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? And he will rule over all my labor, in which I have labored and in which I became wise under the sun: but this also is vanity. He does seem to be reconsidering riches and wealth, that, according to the Gospel, when we are taken away by sudden death, we do not know what kind of heir we die leaving; whether it is a fool or a wise man who will enjoy our labor. This happened to Solomon as well, for he did not have a son like himself in Rehoboam. From this we understand that not even a son is worthy of his father's inheritance, if he is a fool.

But to me, contemplating more deeply, he seems to speak of spiritual labor, that the wise man labors day and night in the Scriptures and composes books, so that he may leave the memory of himself to posterity, and nonetheless they come into the hands of fools, who frequently, according to the perversity of their heart, take from them the seeds of heresies, and slander the labors of others. For if Ecclesiastes' discourse here concerns bodily riches, what need was there to say of labor and wealth: "And he shall rule over all my labor, in which I labored, and in which I became wise under the sun"? For what wisdom is it to gather earthly riches?

"And I turned myself, to renounce to my heart in all my labor, in which I labored under the sun, because there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and knowledge, and virtue, and to a man who has not labored, he shall give his portion. And indeed this is vanity and much wickedness. For what is done to a man in all his labor, and in the will of his heart, in which he himself labors under the sun? Because all his days are of sorrows and wrath and cares, and indeed in the night his heart does not sleep; but even this is vanity." Above he speaks of the uncertain heir, because it is unknown whether a fool or a wise man will be the master of another's labors.

Now he repeats the same things indeed, but in that the meaning is different, because even if he leaves substance and labors to a son, to a relative, to some acquaintance, nevertheless the matter recurs into the same circle, so that one enjoys another's labor, and the sweat of the dead man is the delight of the living. Let each one consider himself, and he will see with how much labor he composes books, how often he turns the stylus, about to write again things worthy to be read; and he gives his portion to a man who has not labored. For what, as I have already said before, do wisdom and knowledge and virtue pertain to the riches of the earth, in which he testified that he had labored, when it belongs to wisdom, knowledge, and virtue to trample earthly things?

«It is not good for a man except that he eat, and drink, and show his soul good in his labor. And indeed this I have seen, that it is from the hand of God. For who will eat, and who will spare without him? because to the good man before himself he gave wisdom, and knowledge, and joy, and to the sinner he gave solicitude, that he may increase and gather what is given to the good before the face of God. But this also is vanity, and presumption of spirit.» After I have treated all things, and have perceived that nothing is more unjust than that one enjoy another's labor, then it seemed to me that this is most just in things, and as it were a gift of God, that each one enjoy his own labor, drinking and eating, and in due time sparing from gathered riches.

For indeed it is a gift of God that such a mind be given to a just man, that he himself should consume what he has sought with cares and vigils. Just as, on the contrary, it is [a matter] of God's wrath against the sinner, that he gather wealth by day and by night, and, in no way using it, leave it to those who are just in the sight of God. But this, he says, inspecting diligently and seeing that all things end in death, I judged most vain. These things for the meantime according to the letter, lest we seem to pass over the simple sense entirely, and while we pursue spiritual riches, to despise the poverty of the history. For what good is there, or what kind of gift of God is it, either to gape after one's own riches, and as it were to snatch at pleasure as it flees, or to turn the labors of another to one's own delights: and to think this is a gift of God, if we enjoy the miseries and labors of others? It is good therefore to take true foods and true drink, which we find in the divine volumes from the flesh and blood of the Lamb. For who can either eat, or, when there is need, spare, without God? who has commanded that what is holy is not to be thrown to dogs (Matt. 7:6), and teaches how in time food is to be given to fellow servants (Matt. 24:45); and according to another sense, to eat only of what is found, as much as suffices (Prov. 25:16)? Beautifully, moreover, God gives to the good man wisdom, and knowledge, and gladness: for unless he has been [such], and has first corrected his ways by his own judgment, he does not deserve wisdom, and knowledge, and gladness.

according to that which is said elsewhere: Sow for yourselves in righteousness, reap in the fruit of life, enlighten for yourselves the light of knowledge (Hosea 10:12, according to the LXX). For righteousness must indeed be sown first, and the fruit of life is to be reaped, and afterwards the light of knowledge can appear. Therefore, just as God gave wisdom and the rest to a good man in his sight, so, leaving the sinner to his own will, he caused him to gather riches, and on this side and that to sew together cushions of perverse doctrines. When the holy man and one pleasing to God has seen these things, he understands that they are vain and put together by the presumption of the spirit. Nor is it to be wondered at that he said: To the sinner he gave solicitude, and the rest. For this must be referred to that meaning which I have often discussed: that solicitude or distraction was given to him because he was a sinner; the cause of distraction is not in God, but in him who of his own will sinned beforehand.

(Cap. III). "For all things there is a time, and a time for every matter under heaven." In the preceding passages he taught the uncertain and fluctuating state of the human condition; now he wishes to show that all things in the world are contrary to one another, and that nothing remains perpetual—at least of those things which are under heaven and within time, because the other spiritual substances are contained neither by heaven nor by time.

"A time to give birth, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what has been planted." No one doubts that both the burden and the destruction of men are known to God and foreordained, and that to give birth is the same as to plant: to die, and to pluck up what has been planted. But because we read in Isaiah: From your fear, Lord, we conceived, and we travailed, and we gave birth (Isa. 26:18); it must be said that for the perfect man, this offspring, which is born of fear, dies when he begins to love God. For perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). The Hebrews understand all this that is written concerning the contrariety of times, up to that place where he says: A time of war, and a time of peace, as concerning Israel. And because it is not necessary to set out verse by verse what they interpret and understand, I shall briefly touch on the broader discussion concerning this, leaving it to the reader's intelligence. There was a time of begetting and planting Israel, a time of dying, and of being led into captivity. A time of killing them in Egypt, and a time of delivering them from Egypt.

A time for destroying the temple under Nebuchadnezzar, and a time for building it under Darius. A time for lamenting the overthrow of the city, and a time for laughing and dancing under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. A time for scattering Israel, and a time for gathering them into one. A time for the people of the Jews to be girded about God like a belt and a sash, and a time for leading them away into captivity in Babylon, and for rotting there beyond the Euphrates. Read the (loincloth) of Jeremiah (Jer. XIII, and following). A time for seeking them and preserving them, and a time for losing, and a time for casting away. A time for tearing Israel apart, and a time for sewing them together again. A time for the prophets to be silent, now in the Roman captivity, and a time for them to speak, then when even in hostile captivity, by God's consolation and address, they were not without comfort. A time of love, with which he loved them under the fathers beforehand, and a time of hatred, because they laid hands on Christ. A time of battle, while they do not practice repentance, and a time of peace in the future, when, with the fullness of the Gentiles entering in, all Israel will be saved.

A time for killing, and a time for healing." There is both a time for killing and a time for healing, as he says: I will kill, and I will make alive (Deut. 32:39). He heals by provoking to repentance. He kills in that sense: In the morning I was killing all the sinners of the land (Ps. 101:8).

"A time for destroying, and a time for building." We cannot build good things unless we have first destroyed evil things. For this reason the word was given by God to Jeremiah, so that he would first uproot, and dig up, and destroy; and afterward build and plant (Jer. 1).

"A time for weeping, and a time for laughing." Now is the time for weeping, and in the future the time for laughing: for blessed are those who weep, because they themselves shall laugh (Luke 6:21).

"A time for lamenting, and a time for dancing." For this reason they are rebuked in the Gospel, to whom the Lord says: We lamented for you, and you did not lament: we sang, and you did not dance (Luke 7:32). We must lament in the present, so that afterward we may be able to dance with that dancing with which David danced before the ark of the Testament: and, displeasing to the daughter of Saul, he pleased God all the more (2 Kings 6).

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather stones." I wonder how an eloquent man could have said something ridiculous in this place: "You are troubled," he says, "about the destruction and building of houses—that men now destroy, now build; some gather stones to construct buildings, others destroy what has been built," according to that saying of Horace (Epistles, Book II, Epistle 1): "He tears down, he builds, he changes square things into round. He seethes, and is out of harmony with the whole order of life."

Whether he said this rightly or wrongly, I leave to the reader's judgment. Let us follow the order of the former explanation, saying that there is a time for scattering and a time for gathering stones, according to what is written in the Gospel: "God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt. 3:9). That was a time for the Gentile people to be scattered, and again a time for them to be gathered into the Church. I have read in a certain book (according to the Seventy Translators, however, who said, "A time to send stones, and a time to gather") that the severity of the old law was tempered by the grace of the Gospel. For the law, rigid, unkind, sparing nothing, puts the sinner to death; the grace of the Gospel has mercy and provokes to repentance. And this is the time for sending stones, or gathering them, because stones are sent in the law and gathered in the Gospel. Whether this was said truly or not, let it be imputed to its author.

A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing." According to the simple understanding, the meaning is clear, with the Apostle agreeing in the same words: "Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer" (1 Cor. 7:5), that is, to give attention to children, and again to continence. Or that there was a time of embracing, when that saying flourished: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen. 1:28). And a time to be far from embracing, when there succeeded: "The time is short. It remains that those who have wives be as though they had none" (1 Cor. 7:29). But if we wish to ascend to higher things, we shall see wisdom embracing her lovers: "Honor her," it says, "and she will embrace you" (Prov. 4:8), and within her arms and bosom she will hold them in a closer embrace. Furthermore, because the human mind cannot always be stretched upward and think on divine and higher things, nor be continually in the contemplation of heavenly matters, but sometimes must indulge the needs of the body; for this reason there is a time of embracing wisdom and holding her more closely, and a time of relaxing the mind from the gaze and embrace of wisdom, so that we may attend to the care of the body and to those things which our life needs without sin.

A time to acquire, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to throw away." Under different words, the meaning here is the same as both above and below, in what he says: "A time to destroy, and a time to build." And then: "A time to tear, and a time to sew." For just as the Synagogue is destroyed so that the Church may be built, and a tearing is made from the Law so that the Gospels may be sewn together—which the individual evangelists accomplished, sewing together from the Law and the Prophets the testimonies of the Lord's coming—so too there was a time of seeking and keeping Israel, and a time of losing and casting it away. Or indeed, a time of seeking a people from the Gentiles, and a time of losing the people of the Jews. A time of keeping those who believe from the nations, and a time of casting away the unbelievers from Israel.

"A time to be silent, and a time to speak." I think the Pythagoreans, whose discipline it is to be silent for five years and afterward, once instructed, to speak, drew the origin of their decree from this. So let us also learn first not to speak, so that afterward we may open the mouth of the teacher for speaking. Let us be silent for a fixed time, and hang upon the utterances. Let nothing seem right to us except what we have learned, so that after much silence we may be made teachers from disciples. But now, in the vice of the ages daily sliding into worse, we teach in the churches what we do not know.

And if by the arrangement of words, or by the instigation of the devil, who is the promoter of errors, we have stirred up the applause of the people, we think that we know against our own conscience that of which we were able to persuade others. We learn all arts without a teacher; this one alone is so cheap and easy that it does not need an instructor.

"A time to love, and a time to hate." A time to love after God: children, wife, neighbors; and a time to hate them in martyrdom, when for the confession of Christ an hostile piety assails the rigid. Or certainly a time to love the law, and the things that had been commanded by the law—circumcision, sacrifices, the Sabbath, the new moons; and a time to hate them, when the grace of the Gospel succeeds. And this too can be said, since now we see through a glass in an enigma (1 Cor 13:12), that it is a time to love things present, and in the future a time will come when, seeing face to face and progressing toward better things, we shall begin to hate and despise what we have loved.

A time of war and a time of peace." As long as we are in the present world, it is a time of war; but when we have departed from this world, the time of peace will come. For in peace is the place of God, and our city Jerusalem has received its name from peace (Ps. 75:3). Let no one, then, think that he is now secure: in the time of war we must gird ourselves and take up arms, so that, once victorious, we may rest in peace.

"What abundance is there for the one who labors, in those things in which he himself toils? I have seen the occupation which God has given to the sons of men, that they may be occupied in it. He has made all things good in his time, and indeed he has given the world in their hearts, so that man cannot find out the work which God has made from the beginning even to the end." It has not escaped me what has been said by most on this passage: that God for this reason has granted an occupation even to the teachers of perverse doctrines in the present world, lest the mind of man grow sluggish through idleness, and that this is the good which God has made in his time, and that nevertheless they cannot comprehend the nature of things and the knowledge of them. But to me it has been explained thus by the Hebrew who instructed me in the Scriptures: Since all things slip by in their own time, and there is a time to destroy and a time to build, to weep and to laugh, to be silent and to speak, and the rest which are said concerning time, why do we strive and strain in vain, and think that the labors of a brief life are perpetual? Nor are we content, according to the Gospel, with the malice of the day, and to think nothing for the morrow (Matt. 6:34).

For what more can we have in this world by laboring, in which this alone has been given to men by God, that one man, pursuing different things, might have those in which he could be instructed and exercise himself? For everything God made is good, but good in its time. It is good to watch and to sleep; yet it is not always good to watch or to sleep, because each one in turn, according to God's disposition, is good when it is needed. God also gave the world for men to inhabit, that they might enjoy the varieties of times, and not inquire about the causes of natural things—how all things were created: why this or that, from the beginning of the world until its consummation, He caused to grow, remain, and change.

"I have known that there is nothing good except to rejoice and to do good in one's life. And indeed every man who eats and drinks and shows good in all his labor, this is from the gift of God." Therefore man has been given as a tiller and a guest of the world, that he might enjoy the brief time of his life, and, with the hope of a longer age cut off, might look upon all that he possesses as one about to depart for other things, and do what good he can in his life; nor be tormented in vain by thoughts of gathering wealth. Nor let him think that he can gain more from his labor than food and drink, and if he has spent anything of his riches on good works, this alone is the gift of God.

From these things, we are not provoked, as some think, to luxury and pleasures and to despair, according to that saying of Isaiah: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die (Isa. 22:31), in the manner of animals; but according to the Apostle: Having food and clothing, let us be content with these (1 Tim. 6:8), so that whatever we are able to have beyond this, we may spend on feeding the poor and giving generously to the needy. Further, because the flesh of the Lord is true food and his blood is true drink, according to this alone we have good in the present age, if we feed on his flesh and drink his blood, not only in the mystery (the Eucharist), but also in the reading of the Scriptures. For the true food and drink, which is taken from the word of God, is the knowledge of the Scriptures. Nor let anyone think that what was prophesied by Balaam—There will be no labor in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel (Num. 23:23)—is contrary to this, which is said to be a gift of God: If anyone eats and drinks, and shows good in all his labor. For many are the tribulations of the just. And concerning these the Apostle is questioned, saying that he labored and toiled in pain (2 Cor. 11). But when the Lord has delivered us from these things in the future, there will be no labor in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel. And how do we read that: Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh (Luke

and our laughter will follow the words of Job's prophecy: The mouth of the truthful will be filled with joy (Job 8:21); so now we enjoy our labor in good works, through which we are constrained and pressed, so that afterward we may cease to labor.

"I know that all things which God has made, these will be forever; upon them nothing can be added, and from them nothing can be taken away; and God has made it, that they may fear before his face." There is nothing in the world that is new. The course of the sun, and the phases of the moon, and the dryness or greenness of the earth and trees were born and grew together with the world itself. And therefore God, having ordered all things by a sure plan, commanded the elements to serve human uses, so that men, seeing these things, may understand that there is providence, and may fear before the face of God, while from the uniformity, course, order, and constancy of things they understand the Creator. For the invisible things of God are understood and seen through the things which are made; his eternal power also and divinity (Rom. 1:20). But if we wish, the former sense having been concluded, to read as it were from the beginning: And God has made it, that they may fear before his face, this is the sense: God made all things, so that men may fear to turn aside from what God has once ordained into something else. And beautifully has he qualified it, saying: That they may fear before his face (Ps. 33:17). For the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil.

What is it that has been? The very thing that is, and the things that are to come, have already been; and God will seek out the one who suffers persecution. Whether past, or present, or future, all the things we see both have been, and are, and will be. The sun that rises now was in the world before we existed, and after we have died it will rise. We have named the sun so that from this we may understand that the rest also are the same things that have been. But if they seem to perish through the condition of death, they do not perish, because they grow up again, revived anew, and nothing perishes forever, but is reborn and, as it were, comes back to life with a kind of interest. For this is what he says: And God will seek out the one who suffers persecution; which is better expressed in Greek, that is, that which has passed by, that which has been driven out, that which has ceased to be. But if this is said of all things that are in the world, there is no doubt concerning man, that when he has died he is reborn. If, however, it pleases someone to read it as though from its own beginning, And God will seek out the one who suffers persecution, let him use this testimony in the persecution of the Gentiles, to console the one who perseveres in martyrdom. And because all, according to the Apostle (2 Timothy 3), who wish to live piously in this world suffer persecution, let them have consolation, because God seeks out the one who suffers persecution, just as he required the blood of the slain, and came to seek what had perished, and carried the wandering sheep back to the flock on his shoulders (Luke 19, 15).

And still I saw under the sun a place of judgment: there was impiety; and a place of justice: there was iniquity. I said in my heart: God will judge the just and the impious, because there is a time for every will above every deed there.” The meaning is clear, but it is wrapped in the cloud of interpretation. Under this sun, he says, I sought truth and judgment, and I saw that even among the very benches of the judges it is not truth that prevails, but gifts. Or otherwise: I thought that some justice was done in the present age, and that either the pious now received according to his merit, or the impious was punished for his crime; and I found the opposite of what I thought. For I saw both the just suffer many evils here, and the impious reign because of his crime. But afterwards, conversing with my heart and reflecting, I understood that God does not now judge in parts and individually, but reserves judgment for a future time, so that all may be judged together, and there receive according to their will and their works. For this is what he says: And a time for every will, and above every deed there, that is, in the judgment, when the Lord begins to judge, then truth will be present; now injustice reigns in the world. We read something of this kind also in the Wisdom which is inscribed the son of Sirach: “Do not say, What is this, or what is that? For all things will be sought out in their time.

I said in my heart concerning the speech of the children of men, that God separates them, and to show that they themselves are beasts to themselves, because the outcome of the children of men and the outcome of the cattle is one outcome for them. As the death of this one, so also the death of that one, and one spirit for all, and man has nothing more than the beast, because all things are vanity. All things go to one place, all things were made from the dust, and all things will return to the dust. And who knows whether the spirit of the children of men ascends upward, and the spirit of the cattle descends downward into the earth? It is not to be wondered at that in the present life there is no distance between the just and the impious, nor that virtues avail anything, but that all things are rolled about by uncertain outcome, since even between cattle and man, according to the vileness of the body, he seems to differ in nothing, and there is the same condition of being born, one lot of dying: let us proceed alike to the light, let us equally be dissolved into dust. But if this seems to be the difference, that the spirit of man ascends into heaven and the spirit of the cattle descends into the earth, by what certain author have we known this? What can know whether what is hoped for is true or false? But he says this, not that he thinks the soul perishes with the body, or that one place is prepared for beast and man, but that before the coming of Christ all were led down to the underworld alike. Whence also Jacob says that he will descend to the underworld (Gen. 37 and 44). And Job complains that the pious and the impious are held back in the underworld (Job.

(VII and XVII). And the Gospel testifies that a great chaos lies between in the underworld, and Abraham with Lazarus, and the rich man in torments (Luke XVI). And indeed, before Christ opened the heavenly gates with the thief, that flaming wheel, and the fiery sword, and the doors of paradise were closed, and the equal worthlessness of the spirit of beast and man confined them. And although one thing seemed to be dissolved and another reserved, nevertheless it mattered little to perish with the body or to be held in the darkness of hell.

Let us return to the individual points, and in a concise style of speaking, briefly discuss them in their order. "I said in my heart concerning the speech of the children of men, that God should choose them." This alone, he says, God willed to exist between men and beasts, because we speak, they are mute; we bring forth our will by speech, they are inert in silence. And although we differ from beasts by speech alone, yet it is shown to us that according to the frailty of the body we are cattle. As a beast dies, so man also dies, and there is one breath for all, and this air by which we are nourished. For this is what he says: And one spirit for all, and man has nothing more than a beast. Lest we should think this is said even of the soul, he added: All things were made from the earth, and they will return to the earth. But from the earth nothing else but the body was made. And significantly it is said of the body: Earth you are, and to earth you will return (Gen.

(III, 11). But what seems blasphemous: "Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men ascends upward, and the spirit of the beast descends downward into the earth?" — he does not contend that there is no difference between beasts and man according to the dignity of the soul, but by adding "who," he wished to demonstrate the difficulty of the matter. For the pronoun "who" in the Holy Scriptures is always taken not for the impossible, but for the difficult. As there: "His generation who shall declare?" (Isa. LIII, 8)? And in the fourteenth psalm: "Lord, who has dwelt in your tabernacle, and on your holy mountain" (Ps. XIV, 1)? and the rest that follow. And in Jeremiah, although in the Hebrew it is otherwise: "And man is, and who shall know him" (Jer. XVII, 9)? Between men, therefore, and beasts this alone is the difference, that the spirit of man ascends into heaven, and the spirit of the beast descends into the earth, and is dissolved with the flesh: if indeed some ecclesiastical man, learned in heavenly disciplines, and as it were a certain asserter of a doubtful matter, [treats] of this thing. These things for the meantime according to the letter.

But as far as the spiritual understanding is concerned: "Since men and beasts the Lord will save" (Ps. 35:7); and in another place: "As a beast I am, he says, before you, and I am always with you" (Ps. 72:23); and in all the prophets men and cattle are said to be saved in Jerusalem, and the land of promise is to be filled with cattle and herds; who knows whether he ascends into heaven as a saint, who is worthy of the name of man, and whether he descends into the earth as a sinner, who is called a beast? For it can happen, given the uncertainty and slippery state of this life, that both the just man falls and the sinner rises, and it sometimes comes about that the more rational man, and one learned in the Scriptures, that is, a man, does not live circumspectly and as his knowledge deserves, and is led down to the underworld, while anyone more simple and rustic, who is called a beast in comparison with a man, lives better, and is crowned with martyrdom, and is a dweller in paradise.

And I saw that there is nothing good except that a man rejoice in his own work, for this is his portion. For who will bring him to see what will be after him? For what we rendered as "that he may see what will be after him," Symmachus translated more clearly, saying: "that he may see the things that will be after these." There is therefore nothing good in this life except that a man rejoice in his own work, doing almsgiving and preparing for himself treasures to come in the kingdom of heaven. This alone we have as our portion, which neither thief nor robber can take away, nor tyrant, and which follows us after death. For we cannot, once this life has been dissolved, again enjoy our labors, or know what will be in the world afterward. Otherwise: disturbed by the former error—that I thought there was no difference between men and beasts—I was led by a perverse opinion into this view, so that I said there was no other good except to pluck the present pleasure. For once destruction has dissolved us, we cannot enjoy those things from which we depart ungrateful. Others have referred this saying, "For who will bring him to see the things that are after him," to that understanding, so as to say: it is better for a man to enjoy his own labors, because this alone he could take away from his substance. When death comes, he does not know with what kind of heir he will die—whether a worthy or an unworthy one will enjoy his wealth.

(Cap. IV). "And I turned myself, and I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of those who suffer oppression, and there is no one to console them, and in the hands of those who oppress them there is power: and they have no comforter." After this reflection I directed my mind and eyes there, so that I might see the oppressors and those who suffer oppression. And behold, these who are unjustly crushed by the more powerful, revealing by the tears which alone they are permitted to have in their calamities the envy of the accused, cannot find a comforter. And to make the misery greater and the grief inconsolable, the oppressors they see to be stronger in their iniquities. And this is the reason why they cannot be consoled. David in the seventy-second psalm, and Jeremiah in his volume, set forth this passage more fully.

"And I praised the dead, who are already dead, above the living, whoever they are that live until now. And better than these two is he who has not yet been born, who has not yet seen the evil work that is done under the sun." In comparison with the miseries that press upon mortals in this world, I judged the dead more fortunate than the living, according to that saying of Job disputing about the underworld: There have the weary in body rested, with those who had been bound, now secure, not hearing the voice of the exactor (Job 3 and 18). But better than these two—namely, the living and the dead—is he who has not yet been born. For the one still suffers evils, the other has escaped as it were naked from a shipwreck.

Furthermore, he who has not yet been born is happier in this, that he has not yet experienced the evils of the world. But he says this, not because he who has not yet been born existed before he was born and is happier in this, that he is not yet weighed down by the body, but because it is better altogether not to exist, nor to have any sense of substance, than to be or to live unhappily. In the same way the Lord also speaks concerning Judas, signifying his future torments: It were better for that man not to have been born (Matt. 26:24), because it would have been better for him altogether not to exist than to endure eternal torments. Others, however, understand this passage thus: they say that those who are dead are better than those who are alive, even if they were previously sinners. For the living are still in battle and are, as it were, held confined in the prison of the body; but those who have met death are now secure and have ceased to sin. Just as also John, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women (Matt. 11), is lesser than him who is least in the kingdom of heaven, and, freed from the burden of the body, does not know how to say with the Apostle: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death (Rom. 7:14)? But better than these two is he who has not yet been born and has not seen the evils by which men in the world are oppressed. For our souls, before they descend to these bodies, dwell above, and are blessed for as long as we are held in the heavenly Jerusalem and the angelic choir.

And I saw all the labor, and every virtue of work: that it is a man's rivalry with his companion; and indeed this is vanity and presumption of spirit." I turned myself again to other things, and I saw all the strength and glory of those who labor, and I perceived that one man's good is another's evil, while the envious man is tormented by another's happiness, and the glorious man lies open to plots. For what is more vain, what more unstable, and thus more worthless, than that men should weep not for their own miseries, nor lament their own sins, but envy those who are better?

"The fool has folded his hands together, and eats his own flesh." This is the one who is also described in Proverbs (chapter 24) as the sluggard, holding his hands against his breast. To him, like a swift runner, poverty comes, and who because of excessive hunger (though this is said hyperbolically) eats his own flesh. He thinks it better to have one handful of hay and to live idle and sluggish than, laboring, to fill both hands. But all that he discusses is this, to show that both the man who labors and has something lies open to envy in the world, and again that the man who wishes to live quietly is oppressed by poverty, and that both are miserable, while the one is endangered because of his work, the other is consumed by want because of poverty. Or certainly thus: He who envies another's happiness, and is as it were seized by a frenzy of spirit, and has taken envy into his bosom and nourished it in his breast: that man eats his own soul, and his own flesh.

For the more fortunate he sees the one he envies to be, the more he himself wastes away and perishes, and little by little melts away through zeal and envy. Otherwise: "hands" are frequently taken for "works," as there: "The word of the Lord which was made in the hand of Haggai" (Haggai 1:1), whether of that prophet or of this one, because he performed such works as to be worthy to exist, in whose work the word of the Lord might be made. To this agrees also that saying of David: "Who teaches my hands to battle" (Psalm 143:1). The fool, therefore, has folded his hands, that is, has drawn them in, and has refused to extend them, whence he has not eaten the labors of his hands, which he does not even have; but his own flesh, living according to the wisdom of the flesh, and feeding on the works of the flesh.

"Better is a full handful with rest, than the fullness of hands with labor and presumption of spirit." It is better to have a little with righteousness, than many riches of sinners. And in Proverbs: "Better is a small receiving with justice than many offspring with iniquity" (Proverbs 16:8). Elegantly, righteousness has rest, iniquity has labor. And because the singular number is always taken in the good, the dual in the evil: therefore one handful has rest, and two hands are full of labor.

And I turned myself and saw vanity under the sun. There is one, and there is no second, and indeed he has neither son nor brother: and there is no end to all his labor. And indeed his eye is not satisfied (variant: will be satisfied) with riches: and for whom do I labor, and defraud (variant: will defraud) my soul of good? But this also is vanity and a most grievous distraction. I turned to others, and I saw them laboring more than is necessary, gathering wealth by right and by wrong, and not using what they have gathered, possessing everything, brooding over riches, keeping them for another, and not enjoying their own labor: especially since they have neither son nor brother nor kinsman, so that their labor may be seen to be piously reserved for their necessary ones. I have therefore found nothing to be more vain than that man who gathers riches and does not know to whom he will leave them. This indeed we can understand, according to the former interpretation, also of those who write books and leave them to fastidious readers. Some interpret this passage, from what it says, There is one, and there is no second, as concerning the Savior, that he descended alone and without any companion to save the world. And although many are sons of God and are called his brothers by adoption, yet no one has proved worthy to be joined with him in this work.

Whose labor has no end, as he bears our vices and sins and grieves for us; and his eye will not be satisfied with riches, as he always desires our salvation, and the more he sees anyone sin, the more he urges him to repentance.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor; for if one falls, he will raise up his partner. And woe to the one who falls when there is no second to raise him up. And indeed, if two sleep, they will have warmth; and how will one be warmed? And if one prevails against him, two will stand against him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." After the anxieties and miseries in which that man was reproved, who torments himself in gathering riches without a certain heir, the discourse is now turned to fellowship. And it is said what good the companionship of friends has, and solace in common, because the ruin of one is relieved by the help of another, and he who has a faithful friend better discharges domestic cares, and even the rest of the night itself, than he who broods over riches alone that he has acquired. And even if some stronger enemy has risen against one, the weakness of one is sustained by the solace of another friend. And as much as two differ from one, if they are joined in love, so much more also does the companionship of three prevail. For true charity, violated by no envy, the more it is increased by number, the more it will also grow in strength. And let these things for the present be said simply.

But since in the preceding passage we have set forth the understanding of certain persons concerning Christ, the remaining points also must be discussed in the same order. It is better that two be together than one. For it is better to have Christ dwelling within oneself than to dwell alone and lie open to the snares of the adversary. Indeed, the reward of companionship is shown at once in the very benefit of association. For if one falls, Christ raises up his partner. For woe to him who, when he has fallen, does not have Christ within him to raise him up. But if one also sleeps, that is, if he has been dissolved by death, and has Christ with him, being warmed and given life, he revives more quickly. And if the devil, stronger in assaulting, stands against a man, the man will stand, and Christ will stand for his man, for his companion. Not that the power of Christ alone against the devil is weak, but that free will is left to man, and when we admit him, he himself becomes stronger in the battle.

But if even the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have come together, that fellowship is not quickly broken. Yet what is not quickly broken will nevertheless be broken at some time. For in Judas the apostle, too, there was this threefold cord; but because after the morsel Satan entered into him, that cord was burst asunder. Further, as for what he said above, "And indeed if two sleep, there will be heat for them; and how shall one be warmed?" let us take an example from Elisha, that he laid himself upon the boy and slept and warmed his little body, and so brought him back to life as he rose again (IV Kings IV). Unless, therefore, Christ has slept with us and rested in death, we cannot receive the heat of eternal life.

"A poor and wise child is better than an old and foolish king, who does not know how to provide for the future. For he comes forth from the house of prisoners to be king, because even in his kingdom he was born poor.

I saw all the living who walk under the sun with the second youth, who will arise in his place. There is no end to all the people, to all who were before them. And indeed the last will not rejoice in him: but even this is vanity and presumption of spirit. Symmachus translated this passage thus: "Better is a poor man with wisdom than an old and foolish king who does not know how to guard against change. For one goes out (or: has gone out) from prison to reign; but the other, though born a king, was oppressed by poverty. I saw all the living who walk under the sun with the second youth, who arose in his place. 6. The whole people is infinite, who was before either of them: and their descendants will not rejoice in him. But even this is a breeze and a feeding of the wind." My Hebrew, whom I often mention, when he was reading Ecclesiastes with me, testified that Baracibam, whom they admire as one man above all, handed down these things on the present passage. Better is the inner man, who arises in us after the fourteenth year of puberty, than the outer man, who was born from his mother's womb, who does not know how to withdraw from vice, and who went out from the house of prisoners, that is, from the maternal womb, for this purpose, that he might reign (or: may reign) in vices. He also, having been made poor in his own power, by perpetrating all evils.

I saw those who lived in the former man, and afterward had dealings with the second man, namely the one who was begotten in place of the former predecessor; and I understood that all sinned in the former man, before, with the second being born, they became two men. But because, turned toward better things and after the philosophers' Y, having left the left-hand path, they strove toward the right-hand summit, and followed the second, that is, the newest man, they will not rejoice in him, that is, in the former. The Apostle also testifies to these two men (II Thess. 2), and Leviticus does not keep silent: "A man, a man, if he should wish this or that" (Lev. 17). The holy man Gregory, bishop of Pontus, a hearer of Origen, in his Metaphrasis of Ecclesiastes understood this passage thus: "But I prefer the poor and wise youth to the old and foolish king, into whose mind it never came that it is possible for anyone of those whom he had bound to come out of prison to the kingdom, and for himself thereafter to fall from his unjust power. For it happens sometimes that those who have been under the wise youth are without sorrow: yet in such a way that they had previously lived under the old king. For those who were born afterward, because they did not know past evils, cannot praise the youth who rose up afterward, being led by a perverse opinion and by the impulse of the opposing spirit.

The Laodicean interpreter, striving to express great matters in brief speech, spoke here too in his usual manner: "The Preacher's discourse now concerns the change of good things into evil, seeking to describe the foolish man who, giving no thought to the future, delights in present and fleeting things as though they were great and everlasting. And after the various things which are wont to happen to men in their life and to be changed, he brings in, as it were, a general opinion concerning death—that an innumerable multitude perishes and is gradually consumed and passes away, each one leaving another in his place, and again another, as the dying succeed one another."

Origen and Victorinus did not differ much from each other in their understanding. For after that general opinion which is evident to all—that a poor and wise young man is better than an old and foolish king, and that it frequently happens that the former, by his wisdom, even going forth from prison, rules in place of a perverse master, and the foolish king loses the empire which he held—they interpreted this passage as concerning Christ and the devil, meaning the poor and wise boy to be Christ. A boy, according to that saying: "It is a great thing for you to be called my boy" (Isa. 49:6); poor, because he became poor when he was rich (2 Cor. 8:9); and wise, because he advanced in age and wisdom and grace with God and men (Luke 2:52). This one was born in the kingdom of the old man.

And therefore he says: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would surely fight for me, that I not be handed over to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). So in the kingdom of that foolish old man, who showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, the best child was born, and from the house of the bound—of whom Jeremiah speaks in Lamentations, saying: That he might humble under his feet all the bound of the earth (Lam. 3:34)—he went forth to the kingdom, and departed into a far country, and against those who were unwilling that he should reign over them, after some time the king returned. And so with prophetic spirit Ecclesiastes saw all the living who can be partakers of the youth who says: I am the life (John 14:6), and, having dismissed the old foolish king, follow Christ. And at the same time two peoples of Israel are signified. The former, which existed before the coming of the Lord, and the latter, which is to receive Antichrist in place of Christ: because the former is not utterly cast off (for the first Church was gathered from the Jews and the apostles), and in the end the Jews, who are to receive Antichrist in place of Christ, will not rejoice in Christ.

Guard your foot when you go into the house of God, and draw near to hear. For the sacrifice of fools is a gift, because they do not know what they do—evil." He gives precepts for life, and does not want us to offend as we go to the Church. For it is praiseworthy not merely to enter the house of God, but to enter without offense. And if it belonged to all who are in the Church of God to hear the word, he would never have added, "Draw near to hear" (Exodus 24 and following). Finally, Moses alone drew near to hear God; the others could not draw near. The foolish, not knowing that this is the remedy for sin, think they can satisfy God by the offering of gifts, and they are ignorant that it is also evil and sin to wish to amend by gifts and victims, rather than by obedience and good works, what they have done. To this agrees what is said elsewhere: "Obedience above sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:21). And: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6).

(Chapter 5). "Do not be hasty with your mouth, and do not let your heart be hasty to bring forth a word in the sight of God, because God is in heaven, and you are upon the earth. For this reason let your words be few, because a dream comes in the multitude of anxiety, and the voice of the fool in the multiplication of words." Many think that in this present passage the command is given that we should not easily promise anything before God, and that we should not vow without consideration of our strength things which we cannot fulfill. For they hold that God is present, and although he is in heaven and we seem to be on earth, nevertheless he hears what we say, and our foolishness is reproved by the multiplication of words. But others, understanding better, affirm that the command is this: that we should not, either in speaking or in thinking, suppose more about God than we are able; but that we should know our own weakness—that as far as heaven is from earth, so far is our opinion separated from his nature—and that for this reason our words ought to be moderate. For just as one who is occupied with many thoughts frequently dreams of the things he thinks about, so he who wishes to discourse of more things concerning the divine nature falls into foolishness. Or certainly thus: our words ought to be few for this reason, that even the things which we believe we know, we see through a mirror and in an enigma, and we comprehend as a dream what we think we hold. And when we have said many things (as it has seemed to us), the end of our disputation is foolishness. For from much speaking we do not escape sin.

When you have made a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, because there is no will in the foolish. Whatever you have vowed, pay. It is better not to vow than to vow and not pay." The simple understanding does not need interpretation. It is better not to promise than not to fulfill what has been promised, because such promises displease God, and those who do not fulfill their vows are counted among the foolish. But as for what it says, "There is no will in the foolish," it is implied, "of God," according to that saying of the Apostle (1 Cor 16:22): "And indeed it was not my will to come to you now." But if we wish to say something more carefully, the Christian is instructed to fulfill his faith by works, and not to be like the Jews who, while promising and saying, "All things whatsoever the Lord has commanded, we will do" (Exod 24:3), worshiped idols. And after the servants had been beaten and crushed with stones, in the end they also killed the son of the householder himself. It is better, therefore, to weigh a doubtful opinion for a long time than to be easy in words and difficult in action. For the servant who knows the will of his lord and does not do it will be beaten with many blows (Luke 12:47).

Do not give your mouth, that you may make your flesh sin. And do not say in the sight of the angel, 'It is ignorance,' lest God be angry over your voice and destroy the works of your hands." The Hebrew understood it thus: what you cannot do, do not promise. For the words do not pass into the wind, but by the angel present, who attends each one as a companion, they are carried at once to the Lord. And you who think that God is ignorant of what you have promised provoke him to anger, so that all your works are scattered. But in that which he says, "that you may make your flesh sin," not examining it carefully, he understood it as though he had said, "Do not give your mouth, that you may not sin." But to us another sense seems right: that those are rebuked who complain of the vice of the flesh and say that they do what they do not wish, compelled by the necessity of the body, according to that of the Apostle: "For not what I will, that I do, but what I do not will," and the rest. Do not, then, he says, seek vain excuses and give occasion to your flesh to sin, and say: "It is not I who sin, but the sin that dwells in my flesh." Finally, in that place where he says, "Do not say before the angel, 'It is ignorance,'" Aquila, translating the Hebrew word SEGAGA, rendered it as "not of one's own will" instead of "ignorance." For if, he says, you say this, you provoke God as though he were the author of evil and of sin, so that, angry, if he sees that you have any good, he may take it away from your empty things.

Or certainly, if one thinks such things, let him hand him over to a reprobate mind, so that you do the things that are not fitting.

"Because in the multitude of dreams there are also vanities, and many words. But fear God." The Hebrews expound this passage thus: Do not do the former things, of which it has already been said, lest you readily believe dreams. For when you have seen various things during the night's rest, and your soul has been disturbed by various terrors, or stirred by promises, despise those things that belong to a dream. And fear God alone. For whoever has believed dreams hands himself over to vanities and follies. Otherwise: Because I have said and commanded: "Do not give your mouth, that you may make your flesh sin," and you seek various excuses: I now add this, since in the sleep of this life, and in the image of the shadow of a cloud in which we live, we can find many things that seem to us plausible and excuse our sins. Therefore I warn you to guard against this one thing only: that you not think God is absent, but fear him, and know that he is present to all your works, and that you, created with free will, are not compelled, but will what you do.

If you see the calumny of the poor, and the plundering of judgment, and injustices in the land, do not marvel at the matter: because the Most High watches over the high one, and is higher than they, and more than the earth, in all things, is the king in the cultivated field. Christ's tunic, woven from above, could not be torn even by those who crucified him; and the man from whom the Savior had cast out demons, he commanded to go away clothed in the garments of the apostles. And so let us also strive not to tear the garments of our Ecclesiastes, nor to sew together patches of opinions from here and there according to our own will, but to preserve one fabric of discussion, and to follow the same meaning and order. Above he had said: Do not say in the sight of the angel that it is ignorance, lest God be angry at your voice, and the rest; and he had spoken against those who denied that human affairs are governed by providence. Since, therefore, a question was arising against this precept—why the just endure calumny, and why unjust judgments are made throughout the whole world, and God is not the avenger—now he introduces and resolves what could be objected, saying: If you see the calumny of the poor man, who is proclaimed blessed in the Gospel, and that matters are carried on by force, not by justice, do not marvel, and do not let it seem to you to be something new. For God, the Most High, looks upon these things above the high ones, he who has set his angels over the judges and kings of the earth, who can indeed prohibit injustice, and prevail more on earth than any human powers.

But because he reserves judgment for the end, and at the consummation of the world, when the harvest is ripe and the reapers have come, he will command that the wheat be separated and the tares handed over to the fire: therefore for now he waits and defers sentence, as long as the field of this world is cultivated. That the field is to be interpreted as the world, the Lord set forth in the parable of the tares and the wheat (Matthew 13).

«He who loves silver will not be filled with silver, and he who loves riches will not enjoy them. But this also is vanity. For in the multitude of goods there are many who eat them, and what strength has he who possesses them, except that he see with his eyes?» Wherever we place “silver,” according to the ambiguity of the Greek word, it can also be rendered “money”; for it signifies both. Furthermore, Tully reports that those were first called “pecuniosi” who had more “peculia,” that is, cattle. For so they called them in ancient times. But gradually, by misuse, the name was transferred to another meaning. Therefore the avaricious man is described as one who is never filled by wealth, and the more he has, the more he desires. The opinion of Flaccus also agrees on this point, who says (Horace, Book I of the Epistles, Epistle 2, to Lelius): “The avaricious man is always in need.” And the noble historian says that avarice is diminished neither by want nor by abundance. Therefore, says Ecclesiastes, riches profit the possessor nothing, except only this, that he see what he possesses.

For the larger the substance, the more servants it will have to devour the gathered wealth. But let him see only what he has, and he cannot take in more food than one man.

"Sweet is the sleep of the laborer, whether he has eaten little or much. And the rich man's satiety does not let him sleep." The discourse is still about the rich and avaricious man, and he is compared to the laborer, who sleeps without anxiety, whether he has eaten little or much, because by the labor of his work and his sweat he digests whatever food, and enjoys sweet sleep. But the rich man, distended with feasts and torn by thoughts in different directions, cannot sleep, with drunkenness overflowing and undigested food in the narrow confines of his stomach, burning. Further, because sleep is also called the common departure from this life, the rest of the one who labors in the present and, according to his strength, conducts himself in good works will be better than the riches of those about whom it is written: Woe to you who are rich, because you have received your consolation (Luke 6:24).

This is the worst affliction that I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his own harm. And those riches perished in the worst ruin. And he fathered a son, and there is nothing in his hands. As he came out of his mother's womb, naked he will return as he came, and he will take nothing of his labor with him, so as to go with anything in his hands. But this too is the worst affliction: that as he came, so he goes. What then will he have more, because he labored for the wind? And all his days he eats in darkness, and in great indignation, and in sickness, and in anger." Join what follows with the preceding: Ecclesiastes describes the rich man, who can neither himself enjoy his riches, and often comes into danger on account of them, nor leaves to an heir what he has gathered; but both he and his son, as they came naked, so return naked to the earth, and nothing of their labors accompanies them. For is it not the worst affliction to be tormented in thought over riches, and to acquire perishing wealth—which we cannot carry away with us when we die—in sorrow, in groaning, in indignation, in disputes, with fruitless toil? And this according to the simple sense. But that we may be lifted higher, it seems to me that he speaks of philosophers, or of heretics, who gather the riches of doctrines to their own harm, and can neither themselves attain any benefit from what they have found, nor leave a lasting fruit to their followers.

But both they and their disciples return to the earth and lose the riches from him who said: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject (1 Cor. 1:19). Truly, just as they came forth from their mother's womb—that is, from the perverse Church, and from her opposite, of which it is written: But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26)—so they shall go naked into the wind, laboring unto nothing. They have failed, searching with scrutiny (Ps. 62:7), and are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and they have no light, but in darkness they eat their own sacraments. They are always in weakness, always in anger, treasuring up for themselves wrath on the day of wrath, and having no God propitious to them.

Behold, this is what I have seen to be good, what is best: to eat and drink and to behold enjoyment in all one's labor, which he has labored under the sun, through the number of the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion. But also every man to whom God has given riches and substance, and has granted him to eat from them and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor—this is a gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God occupies his heart with joy. In comparison with him who feeds on his wealth in the darkness of cares, and with great weariness of life heaps up things that will perish, he says that the one who enjoys the present is better.

For here there is but a small pleasure in enjoyment; there, however, only the magnitude of anxieties. And he gives the reasons why it is a gift of God to be able to enjoy riches. Because, He will not much remember the days of his life. For God calls him away into the gladness of his heart: he will not be in sorrow, he will not be troubled by thought, drawn away by present gladness and pleasure. But it is better, according to the Apostle (1 Cor. 10:3), to understand the spiritual food and spiritual drink given by God, and to see the goodness in all his labor, because by great labor and zeal we are able to contemplate true goods. And this is our portion, that we rejoice in our zeal and labor. Although this is good, nevertheless, until Christ our life is made manifest, it is not yet fully good. And therefore God will not much remember the days of our life. It must also be noted that here "in the better part" is taken for the occupation of spiritual and true gladness.

(Chapter VI.) “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is frequent among men. A man to whom God has given riches, and substance, and glory, and whose soul lacks nothing of all that he desired, and God has not given him power to eat of it, but a stranger eats it. This is vanity, and a most grievous sickness. If a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, and the days of his years be many, and his soul is not filled with good things, and he has no burial, I said that an abortive child is better than he. For he comes in vanity, and his name shall be hidden in darkness. And indeed he has not seen the sun, nor known it; this one has more rest than that one. And if he lives a thousand years twice over, and has not seen good, do not all things hasten to one place?” He describes the covetous rich man, and asserts that this evil is frequent among men: that he lacks none of those things which are thought to be good in the world, and nevertheless torments himself with the most foolish frugality, preserving for others what they will devour. And moreover he adds this by way of hyperbole: that even if he has begotten a hundred children, and has lived not, like Adam, nearly a thousand years, but two thousand years, and his soul wastes away with desire and avarice, he is in a far worse condition than the abortive child, who perished as soon as he seemed to be born.

For that one has seen neither evils nor good things; but this one, though he possessed good things, was always tormented by sorrows and thought; and the abortive child has more rest than that long-lived miser; and yet both are carried off by an equal end, since both this one and that one are removed by a similar death. This can also be understood of Israel, because God gave to them the Law, and the Prophets, the Testament, and the promise, the Savior saying: Because the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation doing its fruits (Matthew 21:43). All these things were transferred to a foreign and alien people from the Gentiles, and let them see their good things, and not enjoy them. And we are of a much better condition, who were thought to be like abortive and newborn children by those who applauded themselves in antiquity, glorying in their fathers and saying: Our father is Abraham (John 8:39); and yet both we and they hasten to one place, that is, to the judgment of God. But what he says in the middle: And indeed there was no sepulcher for him; either this signifies that that rich man does not think about his death, and when he possesses all things, is even miserly in the building of a sepulcher; or that often, on account of these riches, killed by plots, he is cast out unburied; or, which I think is better, he performed no good deed from which he could procure a memory for himself among posterity, and not pass through life in silence, like cattle, when he had the material through which it could appear that he had lived.

All the labor of man is in his mouth, and yet the soul will not be filled. For what does the wise man have more than the fool, and what does the poor man have, except to know how to walk against life?" Everything that men labor at in this world is consumed by the mouth, and, worn down by the teeth, is handed over to the belly to be digested. And when it has pleased the palate a little, it seems to give pleasure only as long as it is held in the throat. But when it has passed into the stomach, the distinction between foods ceases. And after all these things, the soul of the one eating is not filled: whether because he desires again what he has eaten, and both the wise man and the fool cannot live without food, and the poor man seeks nothing else except how he may sustain the organ of his little body and not perish from hunger; or because the soul derives no benefit from the refreshment of the little body, and food is common to the wise man and the fool alike, and the poor man goes there where he has seen that riches are. But it is better that this be understood of the ecclesiastical man, who, instructed in the heavenly Scriptures, has all his labor in his mouth, and his soul is not filled, since he always desires to learn. And in this the wise man has more than the foolish man: because, when he feels that he is poor (but that poor man who is called blessed in the Gospel), he hastens to grasp those things which are of life, and walks the narrow and strait way which leads to life, and is poor in evil works, and knows where Christ, who is life, dwells.

The sight of the eyes is better than walking in the soul. But this also is vanity and presumption of spirit." Symmachus has interpreted this clearly, saying: "It is better to look ahead than to walk as one pleases;" that is, it is better to do all things according to the sense which is the eye of the soul, than to follow the will of the heart. For this is to walk in the soul, as Ezekiel says: "Who walk in the will of their own heart" (Ezek. 2:21). Or certainly he reproves the proud man who pleases himself, and says that better is the one who looks ahead in all things than the one to whom nothing is pleasing except what he himself has done: than which nothing is worse, and nothing more empty than any wind. Again, here too Aquila and Theodotion interpreted "presumption of spirit" as "pasture of wind," while Symmachus rendered it "affliction of spirit." Furthermore, it must be known that among the Hebrews both "spirit" and "wind" are called alike, that is, RUHA.

What is it that is to come? Its name has already been called, and it is known that he is man, and he will not be able to be judged with one stronger than himself." This is plainly spoken of the coming of the Savior: that he who is to come, before he was seen in the body, already had his name called in the Scriptures, and was known to the prophets and the saints of God; because he is man, and according to this, that he is man, he cannot compare himself with the Father, and says in the Gospel: "The Father who sent me is greater than I" (John 14:28). Hence also in what follows it is commanded that we should not seek beyond what has been written for us concerning him, lest a man wish to know more than Scripture has testified. For since we are ignorant of our own condition, and our life passes by like a shadow, and future things are uncertain, it is not expedient for us to inquire into greater things than we are able. Some think that what is signified in this place is that God already knows the name of all who are to be, and who are to be clothed with a human body; and that man cannot answer against his Maker why he was made thus or thus. For the more we have sought, the more our vanity and superfluous words are shown; and that free will is not taken away by God's foreknowledge, but that causes precede, on account of which each thing has been made so.

Because there are many words multiplying vanity. What is there more for man? For who knows what is good for man in his life, in the number of the days of his vain life? And he will make them like a shadow, because who will announce to man what is after him under the sun?" Since, he says, man is ignorant of his own condition, and whatever he seems to know and perceive, he sees not as the truth of the matter stands, but through a mirror, and a shadow, and an image, nor does he know future things, and in much speaking he does not escape sin; let him put silence to his mouth, and believe that he has come who was written of—not asking how, or how great, or of what kind he came.

(Chapter VII.) "A good name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of his birth." Consider, he says, O man, your brief days, and that you will quickly cease to be once the flesh is dissolved: make for yourself a longer-lasting fame, so that just as ointment delights the nostrils by its fragrance, so all posterity may be delighted at your name. Symmachus translated this plainly, saying: "A good name is better than sweet-smelling ointment." Indeed, it is the custom of the Hebrews to call good ointment "oil." But what he says—"and the day of death than the day of his birth"—shows either this: that it is better to depart from the world and be free of tribulations and the uncertain state of life, than as one entering the world to endure all these things; or certainly that in death it is known what sort we are, whereas at the beginning of being born, what we will be is unknown.

Or that birth binds the freedom of the soul to the body, and death releases it.

"It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, in which is the end of every man: and he who lives will give to his heart." It is more useful to go to a funeral procession than to the house of feasting, because there, from the corpse present before us, we are reminded of our condition and human frailty. But in the joy of a feast, even if we seemed to have some fear, we lose it. Symmachus interpreted the last verse more clearly, saying: "And he who lives will look to the mind." From these things it is approved that, in the fact that above he seemed to approve food and drink, he does not prefer pleasure to all things, as many wrongly judge, but in comparison with avarice and excessive stinginess, although it is brief, it is more, if one enjoys his own wealth even for a moment. For he would never have preferred the sadness of mourning to the festivity of a feast, if he had thought that drinking and eating were of any importance.

Better is anger than laughter, for in sorrow the countenance is corrected." Laughter dissolves the one who laughs; anger rebukes and corrects. Let us be angry, and if ever we sin, let us be angry even with ourselves, and angry with others too. For through sadness of countenance the mind becomes better, as Symmachus translated it. And therefore: Woe to those who now laugh, for they shall mourn (Luke 6:25)!

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of gladness." Blessed, says the Savior, are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:5). Samuel also mourned for King Saul all the days of his life (2 Samuel 16). And Paul says that he mourns over those who after various sins have been unwilling to do penance (2 Corinthians 12). Therefore let the heart of the wise go to the house of such a man, one who rebukes him when he does wrong, so as to bring him to tears, who stirs him to weep for his own sins, and let him not go to the house of gladness, where the teacher flatters and deceives, where he seeks not the conversion of his hearers but even applause and praise. Such a teacher is lamented, rich in speech, rich in words, who because he is satiated has therefore received his consolation. Finally, the following verses also agree with this exposition. For it says:

Better is it to hear the rebuke of a wise man than a man listening to the song of fools. For as the voice of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool. But this also is vanity." For it is better to be rebuked by a wise man than to be deceived by flattering adulation. To this is similar that saying: Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy (Prov. 27:6). For just as the voice of burning thorns under a pot gives forth a disagreeable crackling, so also the words of a flattering teacher will not profit, whether he is exhorting his hearers to the cares of the world—which are interpreted as thorns—or preparing them for future fire. Symmachus, for what we have set down as "For as the voice of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool," interpreting this meaning which we have discussed above, says: "For by the voice of the foolish, one is bound in chains." That is, at the voice of such teachers the hearer is all the more entangled, while each one is bound fast by the chains of his own sins.

Calumny disturbs the wise man, and destroys the heart of his strength." Now understand the wise man as one placed in progress, according to that saying: Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you (Prov. 9:8). For the perfect wise man needs no rebuke, and is disturbed by no calumny. Let us use this verse whenever we see a just and wise man enduring calumny, and being disturbed by the iniquity of judgment, and God not immediately coming to his aid. But for what the Seventy, and Aquila, and Theodotion translated as "he destroys the heart," that is, of his strength or vigor, Symmachus says, "and he destroys the heart MATHANA," that is, the gift: joining together both the Hebrew word and its interpretation, and producing that sense which is written elsewhere: Gifts blind even the eyes of the wise (Deut. 16:19).

"The end of a speech is better than its beginning." In speaking, epilogues are better than the exordium. For in these the speaker's anxiety is ended, in that it begins. Or certainly thus: he who begins to hear a speech, and goes to the teacher, is at the beginning; but he who hears the last things is consummated and perfect. But it can also be understood in this way: while we are in this world, whatever we know is all a beginning; but when that which is perfect comes, we shall be in the last things and consummated.

The Hebrew explained this passage together with the following verse: It is better for you to consider the end of a matter than the beginning, and to be patient than to be carried away by the fury of impatience. We also learn from this little sentence that there is no wisdom in men, since it is better to be silent than to speak; and because when the speech has ended, the hearer reflects within himself on what was said, whereas when we have begun to speak, he has not yet received any benefit.

"Better is the patient man than the high in spirit." Because above he had granted anger, saying, "Better is anger than laughter," lest we should think that anger, which consists in passion, is being praised, he now commands that anger be entirely removed. For there he set anger for the correction of sinners and the instruction of the lesser; here, however, he restrained impatience. But patience is necessary not only in hardships but also in happier circumstances, lest we be exalted more than is fitting. It seems to me that the one who is now called high in spirit is in the Gospel the opposite of the poor in spirit, who is also set among the beatitudes.

Do not be hasty in your spirit, so as to become angry, because anger rests in the bosom of fools. Not that he is conceding that one should be slow to become angry, and for that reason now says: Do not be hasty in your spirit to be angry; but because when anger is fresh and raging, if delayed it is more easily calmed and can be taken away. And because anger is always joined to pride, desiring vengeance, he said above that the patient man is better than the one who is exalted in spirit, and now he has given a sign of foolishness: because even if someone is considered powerful and wise, if he is irascible, he is proven foolish: For anger rests in the bosom of fools.

Do not say: Why has this happened? because the former days were better than these; for you have not asked wisely about this. Do not prefer the old age to the present, because God is the one founder of both. Virtues make good days for the one who lives; vices make bad ones. Do not say, therefore, that the days under Moses and under Christ were better than they are now. For even at that time there were many unbelievers, and their days were made worse, and now many believers are found, of whom the Savior says: More blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed (John 20:29). Otherwise: You ought so to live that the present days are always better for you than those past, lest when you begin gradually to decline, it be said to you: You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth (Galatians 5:7)? And again: Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh (Galatians 3:3)?

Otherwise: Do not say that the times of Moses were better than the times of Christ now, or that the times of the Law were better than those of Grace. For if you wish to seek this, you act foolishly, not seeing how far the Gospel differs from the Old Testament.

"Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and more so for those who see the sun, because as the shadow of wisdom, so is the shadow of silver; and what is more, the knowledge of wisdom will give life to the one who possesses it." It is a greater glory for a wise man to be with riches than to be merely wise. For some lack wisdom, others lack wealth, and one who is wise but not rich can indeed teach what is good, but sometimes cannot provide what is asked. And therefore he says: Because just as the shadow of wisdom, so is the shadow of money—that is, just as wisdom protects, so sometimes money also protects. And lest he seem to have disparaged wisdom by subjecting it to an accidental good (for it is not in our power to have riches, which the unjust often possess in greater measure), for this reason he shows that wisdom is greater, saying: "And more, the knowledge of wisdom will give life to the one who possesses it." In this, he says, wisdom is greater than riches, that without any wealth it gives life to the one who has possessed it.

Certain interpreters explain this passage as follows: By "inheritance," they say, he has set down a good manner of life, through which we are heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ. Ecclesiastes therefore wishes to teach how greatly those differ who are worthy to see the sun of justice and possess wisdom together with a good manner of life, from those who, without wisdom, have devoted themselves only to life and conduct. Daniel also shows this, saying: Those who understand my words shall shine as the luminaries of heaven (Dan. 12:3); or as Theodotion translated it: As the splendor of the firmament. But those who have done my words, as the stars of heaven. But the shadow of silver, or of money, we ought to understand as that about which the talents and minas are gathered in the parables of the Gospel (Matt. 25, Luke 19), so that when we have been under the shadow of wisdom and under the shadow of such silver: The sun shall not burn us by day, nor the moon by night (Ps. 120). But this also can be said, that our life upon earth is a shadow: And the spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, to whom we have said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations (Lam. 4:20). All our protection on this earth is like a shadow, whether of wisdom or of the aforementioned silver, until the day dawns and the shadows are removed. Symmachus, after his custom, has also translated this passage more clearly, saying: As wisdom protects, so money protects. But the following verse clearly exhorts to the study of knowledge.

See the works of God, for who can adorn what God has overturned?" And in this place Symmachus translated it thus: "Learn the works of God, because no one can correct what he has diminished," that is, let it suffice for you from the holy Scriptures, or from the very contemplation of the elements, to know and understand the things that have been made; yet not to investigate the causes and reasons why each thing was made as it is, or ought to have been made otherwise than it was made. For example, if someone wishes to ask why God speaks thus to Moses: "Who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind, did not I, the Lord God?" and says: Why were the blind and deaf and mute created thus, and other things similar to these? In this place one must take up the testimony from the seventeenth psalm, in which it is said to the Lord: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be perverse." And it must be said that the Lord is holy with him who is holy, and is perverted with him who was beforehand perverse by his own will. According to that also which is written in Leviticus: "If they have walked to me perversely, and I will walk to them in my fury perversely." Indeed this can also explain why the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

For just as one and the same operation of the sun melts wax and dries clay—the wax liquefies according to its own nature, and the clay is dried—so the most profound working of signs of God in Egypt softened the hearts of believers and hardened the unbelievers, who, according to their hardness and impenitent heart, were storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath from those very wonders which, though they saw them performed, they did not believe.

"In the day of goodness be in good, and in the day of evil see. And indeed God has made this fitting for this purpose, to speak, so that man may not find anything after him." I know that I heard in the Church from one who was thought to have knowledge of the Scriptures that these verses were expounded thus: "While you are in the present age and can do some good work, labor, so that afterward, secure in the evil day—that is, in the day of judgment—you may see others tormented. For just as God made the present age, in which we can prepare the fruit of good works for ourselves, so too the future one, in which no opportunity for good work is given." He indeed seemed to persuade when he said this to his hearers; but to me there seems to be another meaning, which Symmachus also translated, saying: "In the good day be in good; but the evil day has lain hidden. For God has made this similar to that, so that man may not find anything to complain against him." And, he says, "Bear both good and evil, according as they have come to you.

Nor should you think that only the nature of good things, or only that of evil things, exists in the world, since this world consists of diverse contraries: hot and cold, dry and wet, hard and soft, dark and light, evil and good. But God made this so that wisdom might have a place in choosing the good and avoiding the evil, and so that free will might be left to man, lest he claim that he was born insensible and foolish by God; but God made diverse things for this reason, that man might not be able to complain about his condition. And at the same time this testimony will be joined in sequence to the preceding ones, in which he says: “Who will be able to adorn what God has perverted?”

“I have seen all things in the days of my vanity. There is a just man perishing in his justice, and there is an impious man long-lived in his malice.” To this the Savior says something similar in the Gospel: He who finds his soul will lose it, and he who loses his soul for my sake will find it (Matt. 10:39). The Maccabees, for the law of God and for justice, seemed to perish in their own justice, and the martyrs, who shed their blood for Christ. On the contrary, those who both ate swine’s flesh in that time and, after the coming of the Lord, sacrificed to idols—these seemed to live in this age and, because of their malice, to persist long-lived.