Commentary on Ecclesiastes

Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes: Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. If all things which 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 magnitude of vanity is displayed. Something of this sort is written also in the Psalm: Surely every man living is altogether vanity. If man living is vanity, then man dead is vanity of vanities. We read in Exodus, that the face of Moses was glorified to such a degree that the children of Israel could not look upon him. Which glory the Apostle Paul, in comparison with the glory of the Gospel, says is not glory: For that which was glorified in this part was not glorified, he says, because of the excelling glory.

We too, then, may say in this manner, that heaven, earth, seas, and all things contained within this circuit, are indeed good in themselves, but compared to God, are as nothing. And just as, if seeing the small flame of a lamp, I were content with its light, and afterward, the sun having risen, I would not perceive what had been shining, seeing also the lights of the stars hidden by the brightness of the sun: so, beholding the elements and the manifold variety of things, I do indeed marvel at the greatness of the works; but reflecting again that all things pass away, and that the world grows old toward its own 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 the Hebrew, instead of "vanity of vanities," is written Abal abalim (הבל הבלים), which, except for the Seventy interpreters, all others have similarly translated as "vapor of vapors," or "of breaths": which we can call the vapor of smoke and the thin breath which quickly dissolves. Thus by this word the transitory nothingness of the universe is shown. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. Or else, because the creature is subject to vanity, and groans, and travails, and awaits the revelation of the sons of God, and now we know in part, and prophesy in part. So long are all things vain, until that which is perfect shall come.

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? After the general statement, that all things are vain, he begins with men: that they toil in vain in the labor of this world; gathering riches, educating children, striving after honor, constructing buildings, and in the midst of their work, snatched away by sudden death, hear: Fool, this night your soul shall be taken from you: and the things which you have prepared, whose shall they be? Especially since out of all their labor they carry nothing away with them, but return naked to the earth, whence they were taken.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. As some die, others are born; and those whom you had seen, you no longer seeing, you begin to see those whom you had not seen. What is more vain than this vanity, that the earth, which was made for man's sake, should abide; and man himself, the lord of the earth, should suddenly dissolve into dust? Otherwise: the first generation of the Jews withdraws, and there succeeds a generation gathered from the Gentiles: but the earth stands so long, until, the Synagogue withdrawing, the whole Church shall enter in. For when the Gospel shall have been preached in the whole world, then shall be the end. But as the consummation draws near, heaven and earth shall pass away. And significantly he does not say: The earth abides in ages, but "for an age." Now we praise the Lord, not for one age, but for ages of ages.

The sun riseth, and the sun goeth down, and leads to his place, and rises there himself. The sun itself, which was given as light to mortals, by its own rising and setting daily signals death. Which, after it has dipped its burning wheel in the Ocean, returns by ways unknown to us to the place from which it had gone forth: and, the circuit of the night having been completed, again bursts forth swiftly from its chamber. But instead of what we have put, following the Vulgate edition, "leads to his place," the Hebrew has SOEPH (שאף): which Aquila interprets εἰσπνεῖ, that is, "he breathes in." But Symmachus and Theodotion have "he returns," because, namely, the sun returns to his own place, and there, whence he had before gone forth, breathes. But all this is meant to teach that, by the changes of the seasons and the rising and setting of the stars, human age slips away and perishes, while it does not perceive it.

Otherwise: the Sun of righteousness, in whose wings is healing, rises for those who fear God, and sets at midday for false prophets. But when he has risen, he draws us to his own place. Whither? Namely, to the Father. For to this end he came, that he might raise us from the earth to heaven, and say: When the Son of man shall have been lifted up, he will draw all things to himself. Nor is it strange that the Son draws believers to himself, since the Father himself also draws to the Son: For no man, he says, comes to me, unless the Father, who sent me, draw him. This, then, is the sun, which we have said sets for some, and rises for others: and for Jacob the patriarch, once departing from the Holy Land, it set, and again, when he entered the land of promise from Syria, it rose for him.

Lot too, since he went forth from Sodom and came to the city to which he had been commanded to hasten, went up into the mountain, and the sun went forth upon Segor.

It goes to the south, and turns about to the north: turning and turning about the spirit goes, and returns into its own circuits. From this we may reckon that in the season of winter the sun runs toward the southern region, and through the summer draws near to the north, and does not have its beginning at the autumn equinox: but rather at the point when the west wind first begins to blow, when at the time of spring all things burst forth into growth.

But as for what he says: Turning and turning about the spirit goes, and returns into its own circuits—either he has named the sun itself "spirit," because it gives life, and breathes, and is vigorous, and completes its yearly circuits by its own course, as the poet says: Meanwhile the great sun rolls round the mighty year: and elsewhere: And the year rolls back upon its own footsteps; or, because also of the shining globe of the moon and the Titanian stars: A spirit within nourishes them: and mind, infused through the whole mass, Stirs the whole body, and mingles with the vast frame—he speaks not of the yearly course of the sun, but of its daily paths. For by an oblique and broken line it passes through the south toward the north, and thus returns to the east. Otherwise: when the sun runs through the south, it is nearer to the earth; when through the north, it is raised on high.

Perhaps, then, to those who are constrained by the cold of winter and of tribulations (for from the north, evils blaze forth upon the earth), this sun of righteousness is nearer: but to those who dwell in the region of the north, and are deprived of summer's warmth, he goes at a distance, and returns by his own circuits to the place from which he set out. For when he shall have drawn all things to himself, and shall have illumined all with his rays, there comes about the restoration of the first estate, and God is all in all. Symmachus has thus interpreted this passage: It goes to the south, and goes about to the north; the wind goes wandering about, and through the places it had gone about, the wind returns.

All the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not filled. Unto the place from which the torrents go forth, thither they return again, that they may flow away. Some think that the sweet waters which flow into the sea are either consumed by the burning sun above, or become food for the saltiness of the sea. But behold, our Ecclesiastes, who is also the maker of these very waters, says that they return by hidden veins to the heads of the fountains, and from the matrix of the deep always well up again into their own beginnings. But the Hebrews think it is better, under the name of torrents and sea, that men are signified by metaphor, in that they return into the earth from which they were taken: and that they are called torrents, not rivers, because they quickly fail, yet still the earth is not filled with the multitude of the dead. Moreover, if we ascend to higher things, rightly do the turbid waters return to the sea whence they had stood still.

And, unless I am mistaken, nowhere is "torrent" read in a good sense without an addition. For, "Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure," it is said with the addition "of pleasure". And on the contrary, the Saviour is delivered up at the torrent Cedron.

And Elijah, in the time of persecution, hides himself at the torrent Cherith, which itself also dries up. But the sea, insatiable, is not filled up, just as also in Proverbs, the daughters of the horseleech.

All weighty words man will not be able to speak. 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. Neither is speech able to explain the causes and natures of things, nor is the eye able, as the dignity of the matter demands, to gaze upon them, nor the ear, though a teacher instruct it, able to arrive at the sum of knowledge. For if now we see through a glass in a dark manner, and know in part and prophesy in part, consequently neither can speech explain what it does not know; nor can the eye, in which it is blind, behold; nor can the ear, of which it is in doubt, be filled. At the same time this too must be noted, that all words are weighty, and are learned with great labor, against those who think that knowledge of the Scriptures comes to those who are idle and merely make wishes.

What is it that hath been? The same thing that shall be. And what is it that hath been done? The same that shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun. It seems to me that concerning those things which he enumerated above—generation and generation, the mass of the lands, the rising and setting of the sun, the course of the rivers, the greatness of the Ocean, and all things which we learn either by thought, or by sight, or by hearing—he now speaks generally, that there is nothing in the nature of things which has not already been before. For from the beginning of the world men have been born and have died, and the earth, poised above the waters, has stood fast, and the sun, having risen, has set. And, not to run through more examples, it has been granted by God the artificer to birds to fly, to fish to swim, to land creatures to walk, and to serpents to glide. To this a similar sentiment even the Comic poet expresses:

Nothing is said that has not been said before.

Whence my teacher Donatus, when he was expounding this little verse, said: "Perish those who said our things before us." But if in speech nothing new can be said, how much more in the administration of the world, which was so perfected from the beginning that God rested from his works on the seventh day! I read in a certain book: "If everything that has been made under the sun was in past ages before it came to be, and man was made after the sun was already established: then man existed before he came to be under the sun." But this is refuted by the fact that, by this reasoning, both beasts of burden and gnats and every small and great animal would be said to have existed before heaven. Unless perhaps one might answer that it is shown from what follows that the discourse of Ecclesiastes is not about the other animals, but about man.

For he says: There is nothing new under the sun, that could speak and say, "Behold, this is new." But animals do not speak, only man does: for if animals should speak, it would be something new, and the statement that nothing is new under the sun would be undone.

Is there a word of which one might say, "See, this is new"? It has already been in the ages that were before us. Symmachus translated this more plainly: "Do you suppose there is one who can say: See, this is new, when it has already come to pass in an age that was before us?" This agrees with what precedes, that nothing new comes to be in the world; nor is there anyone who can exist and say, "Behold, this is new"; since whatever thinks to show itself as new has already been in former ages. Nor should we suppose that signs and wonders, and the many things which by God's decision become new in the world, have already been done in former ages, and that a place is found for Epicurus, who asserts that through innumerable cycles the same things happen in the same places and through the same agents.

Otherwise Judas too has repeatedly betrayed, and Christ has suffered often for us, and the rest of the things that have happened, and are to happen, would likewise be revolved through the same cycles. But it must be said that from the foreknowledge and predestination of God, those things which are to come have already come to pass. For those who are elect in Christ before the foundation of the world already existed in former ages.

There is no remembrance of former things: and of the things that are to come afterward, there shall be no remembrance of them among those that shall come at the last. Just as forgetfulness hides past things from us, so those things which either are now happening, or which are to happen, those who are yet to be born will not be able to know, and they will pass over everything in silence, and things will be hidden as though they had never been: and that saying will be fulfilled: Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. For the Seraphim also, for this reason, veil their face and their feet, because first and last things are covered. But according to the Seventy Interpreters, who said: "There is no remembrance of former things, and indeed of those to come there shall be no remembrance with those who shall come at the last": that is the sense from the Gospel, that those who are first in this world are last of all.

And because God, being kind and merciful, remembers even the least, and all—to those who through their own fault have deserved to be last, he will not give as great glory as to those who, humbling themselves, wished to be last in the world. And so it is said also in what follows: There is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool forever.

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

And I gave my heart to seek and search out in wisdom concerning all things that are done under the sun. This bad occupation God has given to the sons of men, to be occupied therein. The word ANIAN (רעות) Aquila, the Septuagint, and Theodotion have alike translated as περισπασμόν, which the Latin translator rendered as "distention," because the mind of man, torn apart by various anxieties, is rent asunder. But Symmachus translated it as ἀσχολία, that is, "occupation." Since therefore it is named quite often in this volume, whether we say "occupation," or "distention," or something else, let all be referred to the sense given above. Ecclesiastes therefore first of all gave his mind to seeking wisdom, and, extending himself beyond what is permitted, wished to know causes and reasons: why little children are seized by a demon, why shipwrecks swallow up the just and the wicked alike. Whether these things and things like them happen by chance, or by the judgment of God. And if by chance, where is providence? If by judgment, where is the justice of God?

Desiring, he says, to know these things, I understood that a superfluous care and anxiety, tormenting through various things, was given to men by God, that they might desire to know what it is not permitted to know. Beautifully, moreover, the cause is set forth beforehand, that the distention is given by God. For just as it is written in the Epistle to the Romans: "For which cause God delivered them up to shameful passions". And again: "For which cause God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not fitting". And then: "For which cause God delivered them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness". And to the Thessalonians: "For this reason God will send them the working of error". And first the causes are shown, why they are given over either to passions of shame, or to a reprobate sense, or to the desires of their heart, or what they did, that they should receive the working of error.

So also at present God gave a bad distention to men, that they might be distended in it, because beforehand, of their own accord and by their own will, they did this or that.

I have seen 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 would wish. For we cannot know the sense unless we learn it through the words. ROOTH (רעות) Aquila and Theodotion translated as νομήν, Symmachus as βόσκησιν. But the Seventy Interpreters expressed not the Hebrew word, but the Syriac, saying προαίρεσις. Whether then it be νομή or βόσκησις, the word comes from pasturing; but προαίρεσις signifies "will" better than "presumption." It is said, then, that each man 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 are vain under the sun, while we mutually displease one another in the bounds of good and evil.

A Hebrew, under whose instruction I read through the sacred Scriptures, told me that the word ROOTH written above, in this place signifies rather affliction and misery than pasturing and will: not from "evil" which is contrary to "good," but from that which is written in the Gospel: "Sufficient unto the day is its own malice". Which the Greeks call more significantly κακουχία, and the sense is: I considered all things that are done in the world, and I found nothing else than vanity, and misery, that is, the miseries of spirit, by which the soul is afflicted with various thoughts.

The perverse cannot be adorned, and the lack cannot be numbered. He who is perverse, unless he first be corrected, cannot be adorned. Straight things receive adornment, crooked things correction. A thing is not called perverse unless it is depraved from what is straight. This is against the heretics, who introduce certain natures which do not receive health. And because the lack, that is, that which is missing, cannot be numbered: therefore only the firstborn of Israel were numbered. But the women, and the servants, and the little ones, and the common people out of Egypt, were by no means a full number, but a deficiency of the army, passed over without number. There can also be this sense here: So great is the malice at work within the capacity of this world, that the world can scarcely return to the full state of good, nor can it easily recover the order and perfection of its own, in which it was first established.

Otherwise: When all things have been restored to wholeness through repentance, only the devil will remain in his own error. For all things that have been done under the sun have been overturned by his will and by the spirit of malice, while at his instigation sins are heaped upon sins. Finally, so great is the number of those seduced, and of those who have been snatched from the Lord's flock by him, that it cannot be comprehended by counting.

I spoke in my heart, saying: Behold, I am become great, and have gone beyond all in wisdom that were before me in Jerusalem, and my heart hath seen much wisdom and knowledge. Solomon was wiser, not than Abraham and Moses and the other Saints, but than those who were before him in Jerusalem. We read too in the books of Kings that Solomon was of great wisdom, and that he had asked this as a gift from God above all else. The eye of a clean heart, then, beholds much wisdom and knowledge; for he does not say, "Much wisdom and knowledge have I spoken," but, "My heart hath seen much wisdom and knowledge." For we cannot utter everything that we perceive.

And I gave my heart to know wisdom and knowledge, errors and folly: I have known that this also is the pasturing of wind, or presumption of spirit. Contraries are understood by contraries. And the first wisdom is to have been free of folly. But one cannot be free of folly unless he has understood it. Hence very many harmful things also were created, so that, while we avoid them, we might be trained toward wisdom. It was, then, of equal zeal for Solomon to know wisdom and knowledge, and on the other side, errors and folly: so that, in seeking some things and avoiding others, his true wisdom might be proved. But in this too, as in other things, he says that he pastured winds, and was not able to grasp perfect truth. Concerning the presumption of spirit, or the pasturing of wind, which is spoken of quite often in this book, let it suffice to have discussed it above.

Because in much wisdom is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth sorrow. The more one has attained wisdom, the more he is indignant to be subject to vices, and to be far from the virtues which he requires. But because the mighty shall be mightily tormented, and of whomever more is entrusted, more is required of him, therefore he that adds knowledge adds sorrow, and is grieved with sorrow according to God, and grieves over his own sins. Whence also the Apostle says: And who is he that maketh me glad, but the same who is made sorrowful by me? Unless perhaps this too should be understood, that the wise man grieves that wisdom lies hidden so deeply and profoundly, and does not so present itself to minds as light to sight; but comes forth through certain torments and unbearable labor, by continual meditation and study.

I said in my heart: Come now, I will try thee in mirth, and enjoy good things: and behold, this also is vanity.

After I had perceived that in much wisdom and the addition of knowledge there is labor and sorrow, and nothing else but vain and endless striving, I turned myself to mirth, that I might flow with luxury, gather riches, abound in wealth, and seize perishable pleasures before I should die. But even in this I myself perceived my own vanity, since past pleasure does not help the present, and once spent does not satisfy. Moreover, not only is bodily mirth, but even spiritual mirth, a temptation to its possessor, so that I need a goad to correct me, and an angel of Satan, to buffet me, lest I be exalted. Whence also Solomon says: Give me neither riches nor poverty: and immediately he added: Lest being full I become false, and say, who seeth me?? For indeed the devil too fell through abundance of good things. Whence it is written in the Apostle: Lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil, that is, into that same judgment into which the devil also fell.

But we may also say this, that spiritual mirth also, like the rest, is now pronounced vanity, because we see it through a glass and in a riddle. But when it shall have been revealed face to face, then it shall by no means be called vanity, but truth. Laughter I counted error, and to mirth I said, Why doest thou this?

Where we read "error" (amentiam), the Hebrew has MOLAL (מהולל), which Aquila rendered πλάνησιν, that is, "wandering": Symmachus rendered θόρυβον, that is, "tumult." But the Seventy, and Theodotion, as in many places, so also here agree, and translated περιφοράν, which we, expressing word for word, may call "a carrying about." Just as, therefore, those who are carried about by every wind of doctrine are unstable, and waver in different directions: so those who laugh with that laughter which the Lord in the Gospel says must be changed into weeping, are swept along by the error and whirlwind of the age, not understanding the ruin of their sins, nor bewailing their past vices; but thinking that brief goods are perpetual, and exulting in things which are rather worthy of lamentation. This can also be understood of heretics, who, acquiescing in false doctrines, promise themselves joyful and prosperous things.

I thought in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, and my heart led me to wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the sun, all the days of their life. I wished to give my life to delights, and to free my flesh from all cares, and truly the sense which the published books overturn, reading consequently: "that I might lay hold on folly," instead of "and to lay hold in folly." For in Hebrew it is ולאחז בסכלות, veleehhoz besichluth, that is, "to seize upon folly," or "to obtain dominion in folly." as if with wine, so to lull to sleep with pleasure; but my thought, and natural reason, which God the author has implanted even in sinners, drew me back, and led me to seek wisdom and to trample down folly, that I might see what that good thing might be, which men could do in the course of their life. Elegantly, however, he compared pleasure to drunkenness.

For indeed drunkenness overthrows the vigor of the mind, which whoever shall be able to exchange for wisdom, and (as is found in certain codices) to obtain spiritual gladness, he will be able to arrive at the knowledge of this matter, what in this life ought to be sought, what avoided.

I magnified my works: I built me houses: I planted me vineyards, and so forth, up to that place where he says: The eyes of the wise man are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness. Before I discuss the particulars, it seems useful to me to comprehend the whole in a brief discourse, and to gather the sense as it were into one body, that what is said may be more easily understood. All things which are thought 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 lest anything should be lacking for luxury, I planted gardens and orchards for myself, setting out various trees, which gathered waters, collected in pools, would irrigate from above, that the greenness might be nourished longer by continual moisture. Of servants also, whether bought or homeborn, I had an innumerable multitude, and many herds of cattle, that is, oxen and sheep, more than any king before me had in Jerusalem.

But treasures also of silver and gold innumerable were laid up, which the gifts of various kings and the tributes of nations had brought to me. Whence it also happened that excessive wealth provoked to greater delights, and choruses of musical arts, the pipe, the lyre, the 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 drew me, I was carried unbridled and headlong, and I thought this to be the fruit of my labors, if I myself were consumed in lust and luxury. At length, returning to myself, and as if awaking from a heavy sleep, I looked upon my hands and my works, and beheld them full of vanity, full of filth, full of the spirit of error. For nothing which was thought good in the world could I find good.

Considering, therefore, what were the goods of wisdom, and what the evils of folly, I broke out consequently into the praise of that man who, restraining himself after vices, could be a follower of virtues. Great indeed is the distance between wisdom and folly, and as far as day is distant from night, so far are virtues separated from vices. It seems to me, therefore, that he who follows wisdom always lifts his eyes to heaven, and holds his face raised on high, and contemplates the things which are above his own head. But he who is given over to folly and vices dwells in darkness, and wallows in ignorance of things. I magnified my works. He magnifies his works, who, according to the image of his Maker, is lifted up into the 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 me gardens and orchards: I planted in them trees of all fruit. In the house of a rich man there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Gardens therefore are made also for the sake of the weaker and infirm. For he that is weak eateth herbs. Trees are planted, not all fruit-bearing, as we have in the Latin codices: but all fruit, that is, of various crops and fruits, because there are diverse graces in the Church: and one is the eye, another the hand, another the foot, and those which are our less honorable parts, upon these we bestow more abundant honor. Among these fruit-bearing trees I judge that the tree of life, which is wisdom, holds the primacy. For unless it is planted in the midst, the other trees will wither.

I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. The trees of forests, the trees of woods, which are not fruit-bearing, which bring forth no fruit, are not nourished by heavenly rain, not by waters from above, but by these which are gathered into pools from streams. For Egypt, low-lying and flat, like a garden of herbs, is irrigated by earthly waters coming from Ethiopia. But the land of promise, which is mountainous and raised up, awaits the early and the late rain from heaven.

I got me menservants and maidservants, and had a great family; also I had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all that were before me in Jerusalem. If we wish, as we have said above, to refer Ecclesiastes even now to the person of Christ, we may call his servants those who have the spirit of fear in servitude, and who desire spiritual things more than they possess them. But the maidservants we may call those souls which are still given over to body and earth. The homeborn servants also are those who indeed are of the Church, and precede the servants and maidservants of whom we spoke: yet have not yet been endowed with freedom, nor with the Lord's nobility.

There are also others in the household of the Church, in the likeness of oxen and sheep, on account of their works and simplicity: who without reason and knowledge of the Scriptures indeed labor in the Church, but have not yet attained to be worthy of the name of men, and to return to the image of the Maker. Note more carefully that in the case of servants, maidservants, and homeborn ones, no multitude is added, but in the case of oxen and sheep it is said, I had great possessions of herds and flocks. For indeed there are more herds in the Church than men; more sheep than servants, maidservants, and homeborn ones. But that which is said at the end: "above all that were before me in Jerusalem"—this does not pertain to great glory for Solomon, that he was richer than his own father the king by one measure, because under Saul there was not yet a kingdom in Jerusalem, and it was held by the Jebusites, who had settled in that very city.

Therefore we must treat more deeply what Jerusalem is, and how Ecclesiastes was richer than all the kings who had preceded him in Jerusalem.

I gathered for myself silver, and gold, and the substances of kings and provinces. I made for myself singers and singing women, and the delights of the sons of men, cupbearers and cupbearer-women. Divine Scripture always places silver and gold above discourse and meaning. Whence also in the sixty-seventh psalm, the dove, which is interpreted as the spirit, has wings silvered over, more manifest and exposed to sight, but conceals the more hidden inner meaning under the paleness of gold. Now the substances of kings, and of provinces or regions, he has gathered into the Church of believers; the substances of those kings of whom the psalmist sings: The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together in one; and of those regions to which the Savior bade the eyes be lifted: for already they are white for the harvest.

The substances of kings can also be said to mean the doctrines of philosophers, and secular sciences, which the man of the Church, understanding diligently, apprehends, taking the wise in their craftiness, and destroying the wisdom of the wise, and rejecting the prudence of the prudent. Singers and singing women too are those, whether men or women, who make melody in spirit, and make melody in mind. The singer, as a man both robust and spiritual, sings of higher things. But the singing woman still turns about matter, which the Greeks call ὕλην; nor can she lift her voice on high. Wherever, therefore, in the Scriptures a woman and the weaker 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 akin to matter. And conversely, none of the saints, except very rarely, is narrated to have begotten daughters. And only Salphaath, who died in his sins, begot only daughters.

Jacob, among the twelve Patriarchs, is father of one daughter, and on her account is put in peril. The delights of the sons of men also are to be understood concerning wisdom, which, after the manner 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. And in another place: You shall give them drink from the torrent of your pleasure. For concerning the wine-pourers, male and female (for I have chosen now, for the sake of distinction, to decline into the feminine gender what the masculine properly signifies, which the Latin tongue does not admit), Aquila interprets something quite different from what is at hand. For he named not men, that is, males and females, but kinds of vessels, calling them κυλίκιον and κυλίκια, which in Hebrew is called SADDA (שדה) and SADDOTH (שדות). Finally Symmachus, though he could not render word for word, is not far from this opinion, saying: Kinds of tables, and settings.

Whether therefore pitchers, or cups, or mixing-bowls, which are arranged for service, it must be believed that Solomon had them adorned with gold and gems: and that from one κυλίκιον, that is, a mixing-bowl, other κυλίκια, that is, smaller vessels, were filled, and that through the hands of the ministers pouring, the crowd received the wine to drink. Since therefore we interpret Ecclesiastes as referring to Christ, and Wisdom in Proverbs calls those passing by to herself in the mixed cup: we ought now to take the Body of the Lord as the great mixing-bowl, in which the Divinity is not undiluted, as it was in the heavenly places, but has been tempered for our sake by an intervening humanity, and through the Apostles, as smaller κυλίκια, small cups and bowls, wisdom has been 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 the Preacher was “magnified” does not seem in the least fitting for the Lord, unless perhaps we apply to him that saying: He advanced in wisdom and age and grace. And: Wherefore God exalted him. Now as to his saying: Who were before me in Jerusalem, he speaks 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 has therefore taken away the veil that was placed over the face of Moses, and has made us see his face with full light. Further, that wisdom “stood by him” has this meaning, that even when placed in the flesh, wisdom remained with him.

He who has progress in wisdom does not have wisdom standing still for him; but he who receives no advance, nor increases moment by moment, but is always in fullness, such a one can say: And wisdom stood by me.

And whatsoever my eyes desired, I did not withhold from them: nor did I keep back my heart from any joy: for my heart rejoiced in all my labor. And this was my portion out of all my labor. The eyes of the soul, and the gaze of the mind, desire spiritual contemplation, which the sinner, being ignorant of it, keeps his heart from true joy. To this, then, the Preacher gave himself wholly, and compensated the light tribulation in this world with eternal glory. For this is our portion, and our perpetual reward, if here we labor for the virtues.

And I looked upon all the works that my hands had made, and upon the labor in which I had labored, doing it. He who does all things with diligence and caution can say this. And behold, all was vanity, and vexation of spirit. And there is no abundance under the sun. Just as in the other things he reckoned all things beneath the sun to be vile, and diverse according to the variety of desires. Christ has placed his tabernacle in the sun. Therefore whoever has not yet come to the brightness, order, and constancy of the sun, in that man Christ will not be able either to dwell or to abound.

And I turned to see wisdom, and errors and folly: for who among men is he that can go after his king and maker? Since above, up to that place where Scripture says: The eyes of the wise man are in his head, I had gathered everything into one discourse, wishing to indicate the sense briefly, and for that reason I had again touched upon certain things according to anagogy, now, according to what I had begun, I ought to expound. For the sense in this place differs much from the Septuagint interpretation. He says that, after condemning delights and pleasures, he returned to the pursuit of wisdom, in which he found more error and folly than 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. Therefore even the things we know, we rather opine than hold firmly, and estimate rather 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 seen human wisdom itself mixed with error, and that it cannot flow into our minds as purely as it is in our king and founder; nevertheless I have recognized that even in that which it is, there is a great difference between it and folly, as great as the distance between day and night, light and darkness.

The eyes of the wise man are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness. And I have learned that one event will befall them all. He who has arrived at being a perfect man, and has deserved that Christ be his head, will always have his eyes toward Christ, and lifting them on high, will never think of the things below. Since these things are so, and there is so great a distance between the wise man and the fool, that the one is compared to day, the other to darkness, the one lifts his eyes to heaven, the other bows them to earth: suddenly this thought crept over me, why the wise man and the fool should be ended by a common death, why the same blow, the same event, the same death, and equal straits should press upon both alike.

And I said in my heart: As the fate of the fool, so also shall it befall me; and why then have I become wise? And I spoke in my heart, that this too is vanity. For there shall be no memory of the wise man with the fool forever, since behold, in the days that shall come, all things shall be covered with oblivion; and how shall the wise man die with the fool? I said, the wise man and the fool, the just and the impious, shall die by an equal lot, and shall endure all the evils of this world by a like outcome; what profit then is it to me, that I have followed wisdom, and labored more than the rest? Thinking again, and diligently turning it over in my mind, I found my judgment to be vain.

For the wise and the unwise will not have equal memory in the future, when the consummation of all things shall come; and they will by no means be held to the same outcome, since the one will go to refreshment, the other to punishment. In this place the Septuagint interpreters translated the Hebrew sense more plainly, though they did not follow the order of the words: And why have I become wise? Then I spoke abundantly in my heart, because the fool speaks out of abundance: for this too is vanity, that there is no memory of the wise man with the fool forever, and so forth. Which is to say, convicting his former opinion of being foolish, he testified that he had spoken foolishly, and had erred, because he had before thought thus. And I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun is evil to me, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

If the world lies in the evil one, and in this tabernacle the Apostle groans, saying: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Rightly does he hold in hatred everything that is done under the sun. For in comparison with paradise and the blessedness of that life, in which we enjoyed spiritual fruits and the delights of the virtues, we are now as it were in a workhouse and prison, and in a valley of tears, eating our bread in the sweat of our brow. And I hated all my labor, which I labor at under the sun, because I leave it to the man who shall come after me. And who knows whether he shall be wise or foolish? And he will have dominion over all my labor, in which I have labored, and in which I became wise under the sun: but this too is vanity.

He seems indeed to be discussing riches and possessions, that we, snatched away by sudden death according to the Gospel, do not know with what heir we die: whether he who is to enjoy our labor shall be wise or foolish. This also happened to Solomon: for he did not have a son like himself in Rehoboam. From which we understand that not even a son is worthy of his father's inheritance, if he be foolish. But to me, contemplating more deeply, he seems to be speaking of spiritual labor, that the wise man labors day and night in the Scriptures, and composes books, that he may leave the memory of himself to posterity, and nevertheless they come into the hands of fools, who frequently, according to the perversity of their heart, take from them the seeds of heresies, and calumniate the labors of others.

For if the discourse of the Preacher here is about corporeal riches, what need was there to say of labor and possessions: And he will have dominion over all my labor, in which I have labored, and in which I became wise under the sun? For what wisdom is it to gather earthly riches?

And I turned about, that I might report to my heart concerning all the labor in which I had 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 will give his portion. And this too is vanity and much wickedness. For what happens to a man in all his labor, and in the desire of his heart, at which he labors under the sun? For all his days are of sorrows and wrath and cares, and indeed in the night his heart does not sleep; but this too is vanity. Above he spoke of an uncertain heir, since it is unknown whether a fool or a wise man shall be lord of another's labors.

Now he repeats the same thing indeed, but the sense is different in this, that even if he leaves his substance and labors to a son, to a relative, to some acquaintance, nevertheless the matter comes round again into the same circle, so that one enjoys the labor of another, and the sweat of the dead becomes the delight of the living. Let each one consider himself, and he will see with how much labor he composes books, and how he gives his portion to the man who has not labored. For what, as I have already said, have wisdom and knowledge and virtue, in which he testifies that he labored, to do with the riches of the earth, since it belongs to wisdom, knowledge, and virtue to trample underfoot earthly things. There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and show his soul good in his labor. And this too I saw, that it is from the hand of God. For who shall eat, and who shall spare, without him?

For to a man who is good in his sight he has given wisdom, and knowledge, and joy, but to the sinner he has given anxiety, that he may increase and gather what is given to the good man before the face of God. But this too is vanity, and presumption of spirit.

I have gone over things in every direction, and I have seen that nothing is more unjust than for one man to enjoy the labor of another; then it seemed to me that this was most just in the affairs of the world, and as it were a gift of God, that a man should enjoy his own labor, drinking and eating, and sparing according to the time from the wealth he had gathered. For it is a gift of God that such a mind be given to the just man, that he himself consume the things which he sought with cares and vigils. As, on the contrary, it is the wrath of God against the sinner, that he gather riches day and night, and, never using them, leave them to those who are just in the sight of God. But this too, he says, carefully considering and seeing that all things end in death, I judged most vain.

These things meanwhile according to the letter, lest we seem entirely to pass over the simple sense, and, while pursuing spiritual riches, to despise the poverty of the history. For what good is it, or what sort of gift of God is it, to gape after one's own wealth, and to snatch, as it were, a fleeting pleasure, or to turn another's labor into one's own delights: and to think this to be a gift of God, if we enjoy the miseries and labors of others? It is good, then, to take the true food and the true drink, which we find in the divine Volumes from the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb. For who can either eat, or spare when there is need, without God? Who commanded that what is holy should not be given to dogs, and teaches how food is to be given to fellow-servants in due time; and, according to another sense, that when honey is found, only so much should be eaten as suffices?

Beautifully, moreover, God gives to the good man wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: for unless a man be good, and have first corrected his own ways by his own choice, he does not deserve wisdom, and knowledge, and joy, according to what is said elsewhere: Sow for yourselves in righteousness, reap in the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge. For righteousness must first be sown, and the fruit of life must be reaped, and afterward the light of knowledge will be able to appear. As, then, God has given wisdom and the rest to the good man in his own sight: so the sinner, offending by his own choice, he has made to gather riches, and to sew together, from here and there, cushions of perverse doctrines. When the holy man, pleasing to God, has seen these things, he understands that they are vain, and a spirit composed of presumption. Nor is it to be wondered at that he said: To the sinner he has given care, and so on.

For this must be referred to that sense of which I have often treated: that care, or distraction, was given to him for this reason, that he was a sinner, and that the cause of the distraction is not in God, but in him who of his own accord had sinned beforehand.

For all things there is a time, and a time for every matter under heaven. He has taught above the uncertain and wavering state of the human condition: now he wishes to show this, that all things in the world are contrary to one another, and nothing stands 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 is planted.

There is no doubt that both the birth and the death of men are known to God and predetermined, and that to give birth is the same as to plant: to die, the same as to pluck up what is planted. But because we read in Isaiah: From fear of thee, O Lord, we have conceived, and been in labor, and brought forth: this must be said, that for the perfect man, that birth which was born of fear dies when he has begun to love God. For perfect love casts out fear. The Hebrews understand all this, which is written about the contrariety of times, up to that place where it says: A time of war, and a time of peace, as referring to Israel. And since it is not necessary to set down, verse by verse, what they interpret and think, I will touch briefly, leaving the wider discussion on this matter to the reader's own judgment. 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 freeing them from Egypt. A time of destroying the temple under Nebuchadnezzar, and a time of building it under Darius. A time of mourning the overthrow of the city, and a time of laughing and dancing under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. A time of scattering Israel, and a time of gathering into one. A time when the people of the Jews was girded about God as a belt and girdle, and a time of leading them into the Babylonian captivity, and there rotting beyond the Euphrates. Read the περίζωμα (loincloth) of Jeremiah. A time of seeking and preserving them, and a time of destroying, and a time of casting away. A time of rending Israel, and a time of sewing again. A time of the Prophets keeping silence, now in the Roman captivity, and a time of their speaking, then when even in a hostile land they were not without God's consolation and address.

A time of love, with which he loved them of old under the fathers, and a time of hatred, because they laid hands on Christ. A time of battle, now while they do not do penance, and a time of peace in the future, when, the fullness of the Gentiles having entered in, all Israel shall be saved.

A time to kill, and a time to heal. There is both a time of killing and of healing, of him who says: I will kill, and I will make alive. He heals, calling to penance. He kills, according to that sense: In the morning I killed all the sinners of the earth.

A time to destroy, and a time to build. We cannot build good things, unless we have first destroyed the evil ones. For this reason the word was given by God to Jeremiah so that he should first uproot, and dig under, and destroy; and afterward build and plant.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh. Now is the time of weeping, and in the future the time of laughing: for Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh.

A time to mourn, and a time to dance. For this reason those are rebuked in the Gospel, to whom the Lord says: We have mourned to you, and you have not lamented: we have sung, and you have not danced. We must mourn for the present, that afterward we may be able to dance that dance with which David danced before the Ark of the Testament: and displeasing to Saul's daughter, he was the more pleasing to God.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather stones. I wonder how an eloquent man said something ridiculous at this place: he says the discourse is about the destruction and building of Solomon's 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: He tears down, builds, changes square into round. He seethes, and is at odds with the whole order of life.

Whether he has said this rightly or wrongly, I leave to the reader's judgment. Let us follow the order of the earlier explanation: saying that there is a time of scattering and of gathering stones, according to what is written in the Gospel: God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. This was the time of scattering the gentile people, and the time again of gathering into the Church. I have read in a certain book (according to the Seventy Translators, however, who said: A time of casting stones, and a time of gathering) that the severity of the old Law was tempered by the grace of the Gospel. For the Law, being rigid, unkind, unsparing, kills the sinner. The grace of the Gospel has mercy, and calls to penance. And this is the time of casting stones, or of gathering them, that stones are cast in the Law, gathered in the Gospel. Whether this be truly said or not, let it be imputed to its own author.

A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing. According to the simple understanding the sense is plain, the Apostle agreeing in the same words: Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer, attention being given to children, and again to continence. Or, that it was a time of embracing, when that sentence was in force: Increase, and multiply, and fill the earth. And a time of being far from embrace, when there succeeded: The time is short. It remains, that they also who have wives, be as if they had none. But if we wish to climb to higher things, we shall see wisdom embracing her lovers: Honor her, he says, and she will embrace you, and will hold you within her arms and bosom in a tighter embrace.

Further, because the human mind cannot always be stretched upward, and think of divine and higher things, nor be continually in the contemplation of heavenly matters, but must sometimes indulge the necessities of the body; therefore there is a time of embracing wisdom, and holding her more tightly, and a time of relaxing the mind from the gazing upon and embrace of wisdom, that we may serve the cares of the body, and those things which our life, without sin, requires.

A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. Under different words, the sense here is the same as above and below, in that he said: A time to destroy, and a time to build. And then: A time to rend, and a time to sew. For as the Synagogue is destroyed, that the Church may be built, and there is a rending from the Law, that the Gospels may be sewn together, which each Evangelist has accomplished, sewing together testimonies of the Lord's coming from the Law and the Prophets: so also there was a time of seeking and keeping Israel, a time of destroying and casting him away. Or, certainly, a time of seeking a people from the Gentiles, and a time of destroying the people of the Jews. A time of keeping believers from the nations, and a time of casting away 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, having been trained, to speak, drew the origin of their decree from this. Let us learn, then, we too, first not to speak, that afterward we may open our mouths to speak. Let us be silent for a certain time, and hang upon the words of our teacher. Let nothing seem right to us, except what we have learned, so that after much silence we may become masters out of disciples. But now, through the fault of ages daily slipping into worse, we teach in the Churches what we do not know. And if by composition of words, or by the instinct of the devil, who is the patron of errors, we have stirred up the applause of the people, we think, against our own conscience, that we know that of which we have been able to persuade others.

We do not learn any arts without a teacher: this alone is so cheap and easy that it needs no instructor.

A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of loving, after God, children, wife, kinsfolk, and a time of hating them in martyrdom, when for the confession of Christ hostile piety assails the steadfast. Or certainly, a time of loving the Law, and those things which had been commanded by the Law, circumcision, sacrifices, sabbath, new moons, and a time of hating these, the grace of the Gospel succeeding. And this too can be said, since now we see through a glass in a dark manner, that this is the time of loving present things, and in the future a time will come, when, seeing face to face, and advancing to better things, we shall begin to hate and despise what we loved.

A time of war, and a time of peace. As long as we are in this present age, it is a time of war: but when we shall have passed out of this age, the time of peace will come. For in peace is the place of God, and our city Jerusalem has taken its name from peace. Let no one, then, think himself secure now: in time of war one must gird oneself, and handle arms, that we may rest at last, as victors, in peace.

What abundance is there for the one who labors, in the things in which he himself toils? I have seen the occupation which God has given to the sons of men, that they might be occupied in it. He has made all things good in their time, and indeed he has given the world into their hearts, so that man cannot find out the work which God has made from the beginning even to the end. It does not escape me what has been said by many in this passage, namely that God has for this reason granted occupation in the present age even to teachers of perverse doctrines, lest the mind of man grow torpid in idleness, and that this is the good which God has made in its own time, and nevertheless that they are unable to comprehend nature and the knowledge of things.

But to me it has been expounded thus by the Hebrew who instructed me in the Scriptures: Since all things glide by in their own time, and there is a time for destroying and for building, for weeping and for laughing, for keeping silence and for speaking, and the other things that are said concerning time, why do we strive and stretch ourselves in vain, and think the labors of this brief life to be perpetual? Nor are we content, according to the Gospel, with the evil of the day: and let us take no thought for the morrow. For what more can we have in this age by laboring, in which this only has been given to men by God, that one by pursuing one thing and another by pursuing another might have something in which to be instructed and to exercise himself? For God, whatever he has made, it is good, but good in its own time.

It is good to watch and to sleep: yet it is not always good to watch or to sleep, because in turn, according to the disposition of God, each thing is good when it is needed. God has also given the world for men to dwell in, that they might enjoy the varieties of the seasons, and not inquire into the causes of natural things, how all things were created; why this or that thing has been made to grow, to remain, to be changed, from the beginning of the world even to its consummation.

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. For this reason man has been given as a tenant and guest of the world, that he may enjoy the brief time of his life, and, the hope of a longer age being cut off, may look upon all that he possesses as one about to set out for other places, and may do what good he can in his life: nor be tormented in vain with anxious thoughts for the gathering of 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 wealth in good works, this alone is the gift of God.

From which, not, as some suppose, are we, like animals, urged to luxury and delights and to despair, according to that saying of Isaiah: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die; but according to the Apostle: Having food and clothing, with these let us be content, so that whatever we can have beyond this we may spend in nourishing the poor and in bounty to the needy. Furthermore, since the flesh of the Lord is true food, and his blood is true drink, according to the anagogical sense, this alone is the good we have in the present age, if we feed on his flesh and are given his blood to drink, 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 that which was prophesied by Balaam: There shall be no labor in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel, is contrary to what is said to be the gift of God: If any man eats and drinks, and shows good in all his labor. For many are the tribulations of the just. And concerning these the Apostle complains, saying that he has sweated in labor and in sorrow. But when the Lord shall in the future have freed us from these things: There shall be no labor in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel. And just as we read: Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laugh: and our laughter shall follow the words of Job prophesying: The mouth of the truthful shall be filled with joy; so now we enjoy our labor in good works, by which we are straitened and pressed, that afterward we may cease from laboring.

I have known that whatsoever things God has made, they shall be forever; nothing can be added to them, and nothing can be taken from them; and God has done this, that men may fear before his face. There is nothing new in the world. The course of the sun, and the changes of the moon, and the dryness or greenness of the earth and of trees, were born and formed together with the world itself. And therefore God has ordered all things by a fixed reckoning, and has commanded the elements to serve the uses of men, so that men, seeing these things, might understand that there is providence, and might fear before the face of God, while from the equality, course, order, and constancy of things they perceive the Creator. For the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity.

But if we wish, the earlier sense being ended, to read this as though from a new beginning: And God has done this, that men may fear before his face, the sense is this: God has made all things so that men may fear to depart from that which God has once ordained, into something else. And he has fittingly tempered the expression, saying: That they may fear before his face. For the countenance of the Lord is against those who do evil.

What is that which has been? The very thing which now is; and the things that shall be, have already been: and God will seek him that suffers persecution. Whether past, or present, or future, all things that we behold both have been, and are, and shall be. The sun which now rises, both was before we were in the world, and after we shall have died, will yet rise again. But we have named the sun, that from this we may understand that other things also are the same as they have been. But if they seem to perish through the condition of death, they do not perish, because they grow again, being restored to life, and nothing perishes forever, but is reborn, and revives as it were with a kind of increase. For this is what he says: And God will seek him that suffers persecution; which is better expressed in Greek: καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ζητήσει τὸν διωκόμενον, that is, that which has passed, that which has been driven out, that which has ceased to be.

But if this is said concerning all things that are in the world, there is no doubt concerning man, that being dead he is reborn. But if anyone prefers to read it as though it were its own separate beginning: And God will seek him that suffers persecution, let him use this testimony in time of persecution by the gentiles, to console him who perseveres in martyrdom. And since all, according to the Apostle, who wish to live godly in this age, suffer persecution, let them have this consolation, that God seeks him who suffers persecution, just as he requires the blood of the slain, and comes to seek that which was lost, and carried back the wandering sheep on his own shoulders to the flock.

And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment: there was wickedness; and the place of justice: there was iniquity. I said in my heart: God shall judge the just and the wicked, for there is a time for every will over every deed there. The sense is plain, but it is wrapped in a cloud of interpretation. Under this sun, he says, I sought for truth and judgment, and I saw even in the very seats of the judges, that not truth but bribes prevail. Or otherwise: I supposed that some measure of justice was carried on in the present age, and that the pious man now receives according to his merit, or the impious is punished for his crime: and I found the contrary of what I had supposed. For I saw the just man suffer much evil here, and the impious reign for his crime.

But afterward, conversing with my heart and reflecting, I understood that God does not now judge by parts and individually, but reserves judgment for a future time, 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 over every deed there, that is, in the judgment, when the Lord shall have begun to judge; then truth shall come to be; now injustice reigns in the world. Something of this sort we also read in the Wisdom which is inscribed of the son of Sirach: Say not, what is this, or what is that? For all things shall be inquired into in their time.

I said in my heart concerning the speech of the sons of men, that God separates them, and that he might show that they themselves are beasts to themselves, because the fate of the sons of men, and the fate of the beast, is one fate for them. As the death of the one, so also the death of the other, and there is one spirit for all, and man has nothing more than the beast, for all is vanity. All go to one place, all were made of the dust, and all shall return to the dust. And who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and whether the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth?

It is not to be wondered at that in the present life there is no distinction between the just and the impious, and that virtues avail nothing, but that all things are tossed about by uncertain outcome, since even between beasts and man, according to the vileness of the body, there seems to be no difference, and the condition of birth is the same, one lot of dying is common: likewise we go forward to the light, and equally we are dissolved into dust. But if there does seem to be this distinction, that the spirit of man ascends into heaven, and the spirit of the beast descends into the earth, by what certain authority have we come to know this? Who can know whether that which is hoped for is true or false? But he says this, not because he thinks the soul perishes with the body, or that one place is prepared for beasts and for man alike, but because before the coming of Christ all were led alike to the underworld.

Whence also Jacob says he shall go down to the underworld. And Job complains that both the pious and the impious are held fast in hell. And the Gospel testifies that a great chasm is set between them in the underworld, and that Abraham with Lazarus, and the rich man, are in torments. And indeed, before Christ, with the thief, unlocked that fiery wheel, and the flaming sword, and the doors of paradise, the heavens were shut, and an equal vileness confined alike the spirit of the beast and of man. And although one thing seemed to be dissolved, and another to be preserved; nevertheless it made little difference whether one perished with the body, or was held fast in the darkness of hell.

Let us return to the particulars, and, in a clause-by-clause manner of speaking, discuss them briefly according to their order. I said in my heart concerning the speech of the sons of men, that God might choose them out. This alone, he says, God willed to be between men and beasts, that we speak, they are mute; we bring forth our will in speech, they are numb in silence. And though we differ from beasts so much in speech, yet it is shown to us that, according to the frailty of the body, we are beasts. As the beast dies, so also man dies, and there is one breath for all, and this air by which we are nourished. For this is what he says: And there is one spirit for all, and man has nothing more than the beast. And lest we should suppose this is said also of the soul, he added: All were made of the earth, and shall return to the earth. But of the earth nothing else was made except the body.

And it is said meaningfully concerning the body: Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt return. But as for what seems blasphemous: Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and the spirit of the beast goes 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 show 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 here: Who shall declare his generation? And in the fourteenth psalm: Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle, and who shall rest in thy holy hill, and the rest that follows. And in Jeremiah, although it is otherwise in the Hebrew: And man is, and who shall know him?

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 man of the Church, learned in the heavenly disciplines, and, as it were, a sure asserter of a doubtful matter, be found to affirm this. These things meanwhile according to the letter.

As for what pertains to spiritual understanding: Because men, and beasts, the Lord will save; and in another place: I am, he says, as a beast before thee, and I am always with thee: and in all the prophets men and cattle are said to be saved in Jerusalem, and the land of promise is said to be filled with flocks and herds; who knows whether the holy man, who is worthy of the name of man, will ascend into heaven, and whether the sinner, who is called a beast, will descend into the earth?

For it can happen, given the uncertain and slippery state of this life, that the just man may fall, and the sinner may rise up, and it sometimes happens that the more rational man, and the one learned in the Scriptures, that is, the man, does not live circumspectly, as befits his knowledge, and is led down to hell; while the simpler and more rustic person, who by comparison is called a beast in relation to man, lives better, and is crowned with martyrdom, and becomes a dweller of paradise.

And I saw that there is nothing good, except that a man rejoice in his work, because this is his portion. For who shall bring him to see that which shall be after him? Instead of what we have rendered: That he may see that which shall be after him, Symmachus has interpreted more clearly, saying: That he may see the things that shall be after these. There is, then, nothing good in this life, except that a man rejoice in his work, giving alms, and preparing for himself treasures to come in the kingdom of heaven. This alone is the portion we have, which neither thief nor robber, nor tyrant, can take away, and which follows us after death. For we cannot, once this life has been dissolved, again enjoy our labors, or know what things shall be in the world afterward.

Otherwise: Disturbed by the former error, in which I supposed there was no difference between men and beasts, I was led by this depraved opinion into this view, that I said there was no good other than to seize present pleasure. For once death has dissolved us, we cannot enjoy those things from which we depart unwillingly. Others have referred what he says here: For who shall bring him to see the things that shall be after him, to that understanding, so as to say: It is better for a man to enjoy his own labors, since this alone he can take from his substance. When death comes, he does not know what kind of heir he will leave behind, whether worthy or unworthy, to enjoy his goods..

And I turned myself, and beheld all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of such as are oppressed, and there is none to comfort them, and in the hands of them that oppress them there is strength: and there is no comforter for them.

After this reflection I turned my mind and eyes thither, to behold the oppressors and those enduring oppression. And behold, those who are unjustly crushed by the more powerful, protesting the odium of the matter by their tears—the only thing permitted them in their calamities—can find no comforter. And so that the misery may be greater and the grief inconsolable, they see their oppressors stronger in their iniquities. And this is the reason why they cannot be comforted. David treats this passage more fully in the seventy-second psalm, and Jeremiah in his book.

Wherefore I praised the dead who are already dead, more than the living who are living even now. And better than both of these is he that hath not yet been born, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. By comparison with the miseries that oppress mortals in this age, I judged the dead more fortunate than the living, according to that saying of Job disputing about the underworld: There the wearied are at rest in body, with those who had been bound, now secure, hearing not the voice of the taskmaster. But better than these two—namely the living and the deceased—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 more fortunate 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 exists before he is born, and is more fortunate in that he is not yet weighed down by a body: but because it is altogether better not to exist at all, nor to have any sense of substance, than to exist or live unhappily. As also the Lord speaks of Judas, signifying his future torments: It were better for that man if he had not been born: that it would have been better for him not to exist at all, than to endure eternal torments. Others, however, understand this passage thus: saying that those who are dead are better than those who live, even though they were formerly sinners. For the living are still in the battle, and are, as it were, held shut up in the prison of the body; but those who have met death are already secure, and have ceased to sin.

Just as John also, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women, is less than he 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 shall deliver me from the body of this death? And that he is better than these two who has not yet been born, and has not seen the evils by which men are weighed down in the world. For our souls, before they descend into these bodies, dwell among those above, and are blessed for as long as they are held in the heavenly Jerusalem and the angelic choir.

And I saw all the labor, and all the excellence of works: that this is the envy of a man from his neighbor; and this too is vanity and vexation of spirit. I turned myself again to other things, and saw all the strength and glory of those who labor, and I discovered that the good of one is the evil of another, while the envious man is tormented by another's happiness, and the glorious man lies open to snares. For what is more vain, more unstable, and so worthless, than that men do not weep for their own miseries, or mourn their own sins, but envy those better than themselves?

The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. This is he who in Proverbs also is described as the sluggard, holding his hands upon his breast. Upon whom, like a swift runner, poverty comes, and who, because of excessive hunger (though this be said hyperbolically), eats his own flesh. Who thinks it better to have one handful of grain, and to live idle and torpid, than to fill both hands with labor. Now the whole point of his discourse is this: to show that both he who labors and possesses something in the world lies open to envy, and again he who wishes to live at rest is oppressed by poverty, and both are wretched, while one is endangered by his riches, the other is consumed by want through his poverty. Or perhaps thus: He who envies another's happiness, and is, as it were, seized by a raging spirit, and has received envy into his bosom, and nourished it in his breast: this man eats his own soul and his own flesh.

For the more fortunate he sees the one he envies, the more he himself wastes away and perishes, and gradually melts away with jealousy and rancor. Otherwise: hands are frequently taken for works, as here: The word of the Lord which came by the hand of Haggai, whether of this or that prophet, because he performed such works as to be worthy that the word of the Lord should come by his work. To this agrees also that of David: Who teacheth my hands to war. The fool, therefore, has folded his hands, that is, has drawn them in, and would not stretch them out, whence he does not eat 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 upon the works of the flesh.

Better is a handful with rest, than both hands full with labor and vexation of spirit. It is better to have a little that is just, than many riches of sinners. And in Proverbs: Better is a little with justice, than many revenues with iniquity. Elegantly, justice has rest, iniquity has labor. And since the singular number is always taken for good, and the double for 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 not a 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 with riches: and for whom do I labor, and deprive my soul of good things? But this too is vanity, and a most grievous distraction. I turned to other matters, and saw men laboring more than is necessary, gathering wealth by fair means and foul, and not using what they had gathered, possessing everything, brooding over riches, saving for another, and not enjoying their own labor: especially since they have neither son, nor brother, nor kinsman, so that this pious labor may be seen to be reserved for necessary heirs. So I found nothing more vain than that a man should gather riches, not knowing to whom he will leave them. This indeed we can, according to the earlier interpretation, understand also of those who write books, and leave them to fastidious readers.

Some interpret this passage, from the words: There is one, and there is not a second, as referring to the Savior, that he alone, and without any companion, descended to save the world. And although many are sons of God, and are called his brothers by adoption: yet none was found worthy to be joined with him in this work. Whose labor has no end, bearing our vices and sins, and grieving for us: and his eye shall not be satisfied with riches, ever desiring our salvation, and the more he sees one sinning, the more he urges him to repentance.

Two are better than one, who have a good reward for their labor: for if one fall, he will lift up his companion. But woe to him that is alone, when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him up. And indeed if two sleep together, they shall have heat: but how shall one be warmed alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him: a threefold cord is not quickly broken. After the anxieties and miseries with which he is afflicted who torments himself in acquiring wealth without a certain heir, the discourse is now turned to companionship. And it is said what good there is in the fellowship of friends, and in shared comfort, because both the ruin of one is relieved by the help of the other, and he who has a faithful friend passes even the rest of the night better, managing domestic cares, than he who broods alone over acquired riches.

And that even if some stronger enemy should rise up against one, the weakness of one is sustained by the comfort of a friend. And by however much two differ from one, if joined in love, by so much also does the fellowship of three prove of greater worth. For true charity, violated by no envy, the more it grows in number, the more it will grow also in strength. And let these things be said simply for the present.

But since in the preceding passage we set forth the understanding of certain men concerning Christ, the remaining matters must also be discussed in the same order. It is better that two be together, than one. For it is better to have Christ dwelling in 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 the fellowship. For if one fall, Christ raises up his companion. Woe indeed to him who, when he falls, does not have Christ within him to raise him up. But if one also sleeps, that is, if he is dissolved by death, and has Christ with him, warmed and made alive, he revives more quickly. And if the devil, stronger in the assault, should stand against a man, the man will stand, and Christ too will stand for his own 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, as we strive, he himself becomes stronger in the battle. But if the Father also, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit come, this fellowship is not quickly broken. But 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, this cord was broken. Furthermore, as to what he said above: And indeed if two sleep together, they shall have heat: but how shall one be warmed alone? Let us take an example from Elisha, that he stretched himself upon the boy, and lay down, and warmed his little body, and thus brought him back to life as he rose again. Unless, therefore, Christ sleeps with us, and rests in death with us, we cannot receive the warmth of eternal life.

Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king, who knows not how to provide for the future. Because he goeth forth out of the house of the bound to be king, since even in his kingdom he was born poor. I saw all the living who walk under the sun with the second youth who shall rise up in his stead. There is no end of all the people, of all who were before them. And indeed they that come after shall not rejoice in him: but this also is vanity, and a presumption of spirit. Symmachus translated this passage thus: Better is a poor man with wisdom than an old and foolish king who knows not how to guard against change. For the one comes forth from prison to reign, while the other, though born a king, is oppressed by poverty. I saw all the living who walk under the sun with the second youth who arose in his place.

Endless is all the people who were before them both: and those who come after shall not rejoice in him. But this too is wind and the feeding on wind. My Hebrew, whom I often mention, when he was reading Ecclesiastes with me, testified that Barachiba, whom they admire above all one alone, handed down these things concerning the present passage: Better is the inner man, who after the fourteenth year of puberty arises in us, than the outer man, who was born of his mother's womb, who knows not how to depart from vice, and who came forth from the house of the bound—that is, from the mother's womb—for this purpose, that he might reign in vices. He too, though in his own power, has become poor, by committing every evil.

I saw those who lived in the former man, and afterward were occupied with the second man—namely, him who was begotten in place of the former predecessor: and I understood that all had sinned in the former man, before, at the birth of the second, two men came to be. But because they turned to better things, and after the letter Y of the philosophers, having abandoned the left-hand path, strove toward the point on the right, and followed the second, that is, the latter man, they shall not rejoice in him, that is, in the former. These two men the Apostle also attests, and Leviticus does not pass over in silence: "Man, man, if he shall do this or that".

The holy man Gregory, Bishop of Pontus, a hearer of Origen, in his Metaphrase 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 comes that it is possible for any of those whom he had bound to come forth from prison to a kingdom, and for himself thereafter to fall from his own unjust power. For it sometimes happens that those who were under the wise youth are without grief; yet so that they had formerly lived under the old king.

For those who were born afterward, because they did not know the past evils, cannot praise the youth who afterward arose, being led away by a perverse opinion and by the impulse of the adversary spirit." The Laodicean interpreter, striving to express great matters in brief speech, spoke here too in his accustomed manner: "The discourse of Ecclesiastes here concerns the change of good things into bad, attempting to depict the foolish man, who, not thinking of the future, delights in present and transitory things as though they were great and everlasting. And after the various things that are wont to befall men in their life, and to change, he brings in, as it were, a general sentence about death, that an innumerable multitude perishes, and little by little is consumed and passes away, one after another leaving his place, and again another dying as successor." Origen and Victorinus did not think much differently from one another.

For after that general statement, which is plain to all—that a poor and wise youth is better than an old and foolish king, and that it often happens that the former, by his wisdom, even coming forth from the king's prison, rules in place of the perverse ruler, while the foolish king loses the rule which he held—they interpreted this passage concerning Christ and the devil, wishing the poor and wise child to be Christ. A child, according to that saying: "It is a great thing for thee to be called my child". Poor indeed, because he was made poor, though he was rich. And wise, because he advanced in age and wisdom and grace with God and men. 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 certainly strive for me, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not of this world".

In that kingdom, then, of the foolish old man, who showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, was born the best child; and from the house of the bound—of whom Jeremiah speaks in the Lamentations, saying: "That he might humble under his feet all the bound of the earth"—he went forth to the kingdom, and departed into a far country, and after some time returned as king against those who did not wish him to reign over them. With prophetic spirit, then, Ecclesiastes saw all the living who can be partakers of the youth who says, "I am the life", and, the old foolish king being dismissed, follow Christ.

At the same time two peoples of Israel are signified: the former, who existed before the coming of the Lord, and the latter, who shall receive Antichrist in place of Christ: that the former is not utterly cast away (for the first Church was gathered from the Jews and the Apostles), and that at the end the Jews, who shall receive Antichrist in place of Christ, shall not rejoice in Christ.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and draw near that thou mayest hear. For the sacrifice of fools is a gift; because they know not that they do evil. He gives precepts of life, and does not wish us to give offense as we go to the Church. For it is not entering the house of God, but entering without offense, that is praiseworthy. And if it were the privilege of all who are in the Church of God to hear the word, he would never have added, "draw near that thou mayest hear". For Moses alone drew near to hear God: the rest could not approach. Fools, not knowing this to be the remedy for sin, think that by offering gifts they can satisfy God, and do not know that this too is evil and sin—to wish to amend, not by obedience and good works, but by gifts and victims, what they have done. To this agrees what is said elsewhere: "Obedience above sacrifice".

And: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice".

Be not hasty with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few, for a dream cometh through the multitude of care, and the voice of a fool through the multitude of words. Most suppose that this passage commands that we should not readily make promises before God, and should not vow, without regard to our strength, things that we cannot fulfill. For God, though present, is in heaven, while we seem to be on earth: yet he hears what we speak, and our folly is proved by the multiplication of words.

But others, understanding better, affirm that this is commanded so that we should not, either in speaking or thinking, suppose more about God than we can; but that we should know our weakness, that, as far as heaven is distant from earth, so far our opinion is separated from his nature: and therefore our words ought to be measured. For as one who is occupied with many thoughts often dreams of the things he thinks about, so he who would discourse too much about the divinity falls into folly. Or certainly thus: our words ought to be few, because even those things which we think we know, we see through a glass and in a riddle, and we grasp as it were a dream, which we suppose we hold fast. And when we have said many things (as has seemed good to us), the end of our disputation is folly. For by much speaking we do not escape sin.

When thou hast vowed a vow to God, defer not to pay it, for there is no pleasure in fools. Whatsoever thou hast vowed, pay. It is better not to vow than to vow and not pay. The plain meaning needs no interpretation. It is better not to promise than not to fulfill promises, because they displease God, and those who do not fulfill their vows are numbered among fools. As for what he says, "there is no pleasure in fools," "of God" is to be understood, according to the Apostle's saying: "And indeed it was not the will that I should now come to you." But if we wish to say something more careful, it is enjoined on the Christian to fulfill his faith with works, and not to be like the Jews, who, promising and saying, "All that the Lord has commanded, we will do", adored idols. And after beating the servants, and stoning them, at last they even slew the son of the householder himself.

It is better, then, long to weigh a doubtful decision, than to be easy in words and difficult in deed. For the servant who knows the will of his lord, and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.

Give not thy mouth, that thou make thy flesh to sin. And say not before the angel, "It was ignorance"; lest God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the works of thy hands. The Hebrew understood it thus: what thou canst not do, do not promise. For words do not pass into the wind, but are at once carried to the Lord by the present angel who attends each as a companion. And thou, who thinkest that God does not know what thou hast promised, dost provoke him to anger, so that all thy works are scattered. But in what he says, "that thou make thy flesh to sin," not carefully weighing it, he understood it as though it had been said: Give not thy mouth, that thou sin not.

But to us another sense seems apt, that those are here reproved who complain of the vice of the flesh and say that they are compelled by bodily necessity to do things they would not, according to that saying of the Apostle: "For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do," and so forth. Do not, therefore, he says, seek vain excuses, and give occasion to thy flesh to sin, and say: "It is not I who sin, but the sin that dwells in my flesh." Further, in the place where he says, "Say not before the angel, it was ignorance," Aquila, translating the Hebrew word SEGAGA, rendered it "ignorance" as ἀκούσιον, that is, involuntary. For if, he says, thou say this, thou provokest God as though he were the author of evil and of sin, so that, being angered, if he sees thee to have any good, he takes it out of thy hands.

Or certainly he hands over one who thinks such things to a reprobate mind, so that thou doest things which are not fitting.

For in the multitude of dreams there are also vanities, and many words: but fear thou God. And this passage the Hebrews explain thus: Do not do the things mentioned above, of which it has already been said, that thou shouldst not easily believe dreams. For when thou hast seen various things through nightly rest, and the soul has been agitated by various terrors, or incited by promises, do thou despise those things which belong to dream. And fear God alone. For he who believes dreams will give himself over to vanities and follies. Otherwise: Because I have said and commanded, "Give not thy mouth, that thou make thy flesh to sin," and seek various excuses: I now add this, that in the sleep of this life, and in the image of the shadow in which we live, we can find many things that seem to us plausible, and excuse our sins.

Therefore I admonish that thou beware of this one thing only—not to think God absent, but to fear him, and know that he is present at all thy works: and that thou, being made of free will, art not compelled, but willest what thou doest.

If thou see the oppression of the poor, and the perverting of judgment and justice in the province, marvel not at the matter; for he that is high hath one higher above him, and there are yet higher than they, and moreover, the king over all the land is a king who serves the field. Christ's tunic, woven from the top, could not even be torn by those who crucified him, and he from whom the Savior had cast out demons was bidden to depart clothed in the garments of the Apostles. Let us also, then, strive not to tear the garments of our Ecclesiastes, nor for our own pleasure stitch here and there patches of opinions, but keep the one fabric of the discussion, and follow the same sense and order. Above he had said: "Say not before the angel, it was ignorance, lest God be angry at thy voice," and so on: and he had spoken against those who deny that human affairs are ruled by providence.

Since therefore, against this precept, a question would arise, why the just suffer oppression, and why unjust judgments occur in the whole world, and God is not the avenger; now he brings in and resolves what could be objected, saying: If thou see the oppression of the poor man, who is called blessed in the Gospel, and see that things, not justice, flourish, marvel not.

And to you it may seem something new. For God, exalted above the exalted, looks upon these things, who has set his angels over the judges and kings of the earth, who are indeed able to prohibit injustice, and to prevail more on earth than any powers of men. But since he reserves judgment for the end, and for the consummation of the world, when the crop has become ripe, and the reapers have come, he will command that the wheat be separated, and the tares be handed over to the fire: therefore now he waits and defers sentence, so long as the field of this world is being cultivated. That the field is to be interpreted as the world, the Lord set forth in the parable of the tares and the wheat.

He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, and he who loves riches shall not enjoy them. But this too is vanity. For in the abundance of goods there are many who eat them, and what strength has he who possesses them, except that he may see with his eyes? Wherever we put "silver," according to the ambiguity of the Greek language, "money" can also be substituted: for ἀργύριον signifies both. Moreover Tully relates that "pecuniosi" wealthy men were first so called who had had many "peculia," that is, herds of cattle. For thus the ancients called them. But gradually, through misuse, the name devolved onto something else. The miser therefore is described as one who is never filled with wealth, and the more he has, the more he desires. Flaccus too agrees on this point, who says: "The miser is always in want." and the noble historian's opinion, that avarice is diminished neither by want nor by abundance. Riches, therefore, says Ecclesiastes, profit their possessor nothing, except this alone, that he may see what he possesses.

For the greater the substance, the more servants he will have to devour the wealth gathered together. But he himself sees only what he has, and cannot take more than the food of one man.

Sweet is the sleep of the laborer, whether he has eaten little or much. And the abundance of the rich man does not permit him to sleep. The discourse is still about the rich man and the miser, and he is compared to one who labors, and sleeps without anxiety, whether he has eaten little or much, because through the labor and sweat of his work he digests whatever food he has, and enjoys sweet sleep. But the rich man, distended with feasts, and torn apart in various directions by his cogitations, cannot sleep, with the surplus of his drunkenness, and his undigested food seething in the narrow confines of his stomach. Moreover, since sleep is also called the common exit from this life, better will be the rest of him who labors in the present, and according to his powers is occupied in good works, than the riches of those of whom it is written: "Woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation".

There is a most grievous sickness, which I have seen under the sun: riches kept by their owner to his own hurt. And those riches perished in a most grievous distraction. And he begot a son, and there is nothing in his hands. As he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he return, as he came, and he shall take nothing of his labor, that he may carry it away in his hand. But this too is a most grievous sickness, that as he came, so also he goes. What advantage then shall he have, since he labored for the wind? And all his days he eats in darkness, and in much indignation, and in sickness, and in wrath.

Join with what precedes what follows: Ecclesiastes describing the rich man, who cannot even himself enjoy his riches, and often comes into danger on their account, and leaves nothing to his heir of what he has gathered; but both he himself and his son, just as they came naked, so return naked into the earth, and none of their labors accompany them. For is it not a most grievous sickness, to be tormented in thought for the sake of riches that will perish, and which we cannot carry with us when we die, to acquire them in sorrow, in groaning, in indignation, in strife, with useless labor? And this according to the simple sense. But that we may be lifted higher, it seems to me he speaks of philosophers, or heretics, who gather riches of doctrines to their own hurt, and can obtain neither any benefit for their discoverers, nor leave any lasting fruit to their followers.

But they themselves, and their disciples, return into the earth, and lose their riches at the hand of him who said: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject". For truly, just as they went forth from their mother's womb, that is, from the perverse Church and its contrary, of which it is written: "But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all", so they shall go naked into the wind, laboring in vain. They who "failed while searching diligently", and are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and have no light, but in darkness eat their sacraments. Always they are in sickness, always in wrath, treasuring up wrath for themselves against the day of wrath, and not having God propitious to them.

Behold what I have seen good, which is best: to eat, and to drink, and to see pleasantness in all his labor, wherewith he has labored under the sun, throughout the number of the days of his life, which God has given him; for this indeed is his portion. But also every man to whom God has given riches and substance, and has granted him to eat of them, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God occupies his heart with gladness. In comparison with him who feeds on his wealth in the darkness of cares, and with great weariness of life amasses things that shall perish, he says that he is better who enjoys present things. For here there is at least a small pleasure in the enjoying: there, only the greatness of anxieties.

And he gives the reasons why it is God's gift 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 vexed with thought, being led away by gladness and present pleasure. But it is better, according to the Apostle, to understand spiritual food and spiritual drink as given by God, and to see the goodness in all his labor, because by great labor and study we are able to contemplate true goods. And this is our portion, that we may rejoice in our study and labor. Which although it is good, yet, until Christ our life is manifested, it is not yet fully good. And therefore God will not much remember the days of our life. It should also be noted, that here περισπασμός (distraction) is taken in the better sense for the occupation of spiritual and true gladness.

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 nothing is lacking to his soul of all that he has desired, and God has not given him power to eat thereof, but a stranger eats it. This is vanity, and a most grievous sickness. If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, and the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good things, and he have no burial, I have said it is better for him to be a miscarriage. For it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name shall be covered with darkness. And indeed it has not seen the sun, nor known it; this has more rest than the other. And though he live a thousand years twice told, 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 nothing of what is thought good in the world is lacking to him, and nonetheless he tortures himself with the most foolish stinginess, keeping things to be devoured by others. And he adds this too, hyperbolically, that even if he should beget a hundred children, and should live not, like Adam, nearly a thousand, but two thousand years, and his soul waste away with covetousness and avarice: he would be of a condition much worse than a miscarriage, which perishes as soon as it seems to be born. For that one has seen neither evils nor goods: but this one, though he has possessed goods, has always been tormented with sorrows and anxious thought: and the miscarriage may have more rest than that long-lived miser: and yet both are snatched away by an equal end, since both this one and that one are taken away by a like death.

This can also be understood of Israel, that God gave to him the Law, and the Prophets, the Testament, and the promise, the Savior saying: "That the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof". All these things have been transferred to a foreign and strange people from among the Gentiles, and let them see their own goods, and not enjoy them. And that we are of a much better condition, who were thought by them as it were miscarriages and new-comers, by those who applauded themselves in their antiquity, glorying in their fathers and saying, "Our father is Abraham": 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 he had no burial," either signifies that that rich man does not think of his death, and though he possesses everything, is miserly even in the construction of his tomb; or that often, because of these riches, he is slain by ambush and cast out unburied; or, which I think better, that he did no good deed by which he could gain for himself a memory among posterity, and not pass his life in silence, like cattle, when he had material by which he could have shown that he had lived. All the labor of man is in his own mouth, and yet his soul shall not be filled. For what has the wise man more than the fool? What has the poor man, but to know how to walk against life? All that men labor for in this world is consumed by the mouth, and, ground by the teeth, is handed over to the belly to be digested.

And while it delights the throat for a little while, it seems to give pleasure only so long as it is contained in the gullet. But when it has passed into the belly, there ceases to be any distinction among foods. And after all this, the soul of the eater is not filled: either because he again desires what he has eaten, and both the wise man and the fool alike cannot live without food, and the poor man seeks nothing else but how he may sustain the instrument of his little body, and not perish of hunger; or because the soul gains no benefit from the refreshment of the little body, and food is common alike to the wise and the foolish, and the poor man goes there where he perceives wealth to be. But it is better to understand this of the churchly 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 fool: because, since he perceives himself to be poor (poor, that is, in the sense in which he is called blessed in the Gospel), he hastens to lay hold of those things that belong to life, and walks the narrow and strait way that leads to life, and is poor as regards evil works, and knows where Christ, who is life, dwells. Better is the sight of the eyes than one walking according to the soul. But this too is vanity and presumption of spirit. Symmachus has interpreted this clearly, saying: It is better to provide beforehand, than to walk as one pleases; that is, it is better to do all things according to judgment, which is the eye of the soul, than to follow the will of the heart. For this is to walk according to the soul, as Ezekiel says: "Who walk according to the will of their own heart".

Or certainly he rebukes the proud man who is pleased with himself, and says that he is better who provides for everything, than he whom nothing pleases except what he himself has done: than which nothing is worse, and more empty than every wind. Again here Aquila and Theodotion have interpreted "presumption of spirit" as "affliction of wind": but Symmachus, "affliction of spirit." Moreover it should be known that among the Hebrews both "spirit" and "wind" are called by a similar name, that is, RUHA.

What is it, that which shall be: already its name has been called, and it is known, that it is man, and he cannot be judged with one stronger than himself. This is openly foretold of the coming of the Saviour, that he who was to come, before he was seen in the body, his name was already called in the Scriptures, and was known to the prophets and the saints of God: that he should be man, and according to this, that he is man, he could not compare himself with the Father, and in the Gospel he says: The Father who sent me is greater than I. Whence also in what follows it is enjoined that we should not inquire beyond what has been written for us concerning him, lest man wish to know more than Scripture has attested. For since we are ignorant of our own state, and our life passes away 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 passage is that God already knows the name of all who are to be and are to be clothed with the body of man; and that man cannot answer against his maker, why he was made in this way or that. For the more we should inquire, the more our vanity and superfluous words would be shown; and that free will is not taken away by the foreknowledge of God, but that the causes precede beforehand why each thing was made thus. For there are many words that multiply vanity. What more is there for man? For who has known what is good for man in life, in the number of the days of his life of vanity? And he will make them like a shadow, for who will declare to man what shall be after him under the sun?

Since, he says, man is ignorant concerning his own state, and whatever he seems to know and perceive, he does not see as the truth itself is, but as 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 set silence upon his mouth, and let him believe that he has come who was written of, without inquiring how, and how great, and of what sort he has come.

A good name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one's birth. Consider, he says, O man, that your days are short, and that soon, when the flesh is dissolved, you will cease to be: make for yourself a longer fame, so that just as ointment delights the nostrils with its fragrance, so all posterity may take delight at the mention of your name. This Symmachus has clearly interpreted, saying: Better is a good name than a sweet-smelling ointment.

Since indeed it is the custom of the Hebrews to call good ointment "oil." But as to what he says: And the day of death is better than the day of one's birth, this shows either that it is better to depart from the world, and to be free from tribulations and the uncertain state of life, than, entering the world, to endure all these things. Or certainly that in death, it becomes known what sort of body we have been surrounded with, of what quality we are: whereas at the beginning of our birth, it is unknown what we are to become. Or that birth binds the freedom of the soul with the body, while death looses it.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of every man; and he that lives will lay it to his heart. It is more useful to go to funeral obsequies than to a house of feasting, because there we are reminded, from the corpse present before us, of the condition of our human frailty. But in the gladness of a feast, even if we seemed to have some fear, we lose it. The last verse Symmachus has interpreted more openly, saying: And he who lives will look to his mind. From which it is proved that in that place where he seemed above to approve of food and drink, he did not prefer pleasure to all things, as many wrongly suppose: but by comparison with avarice and excessive stinginess, though it be brief, it is more, if one may enjoy his own goods even for a moment.

For he would never have preferred the sadness of mourning to the festivity of a banquet, if he had thought that drinking and eating were of any importance.

Anger is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart shall be corrected. Laughter dissolves the one laughing; anger reproves and corrects. Let us be angry also with ourselves, if ever we sin; let us be angry also with others. For by the sorrow of the countenance the mind is made better, as Symmachus has interpreted. And therefore: Woe now to you that laugh, for you shall mourn.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of mirth. Blessed, says the Saviour, are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Samuel also mourned for King Saul all the days of his life. And Paul says that he mourns over those who, after various sins, had not been willing to do penance. Let, therefore, the heart of the wise man go to the house of such a man, one who may reprove him when he offends, so as to bring him to tears, one who provokes him to weep for his own sins, and let him not go to the house of mirth, where the teacher flatters and deceives, where he seeks not the conversion of his hearers but applause and praise. Such a preceptor is lamented, rich in speech, rich in words, who, because he is filled, therefore receives his consolation. Finally, the following little verses agree with this exposition.

For it says: It is better to hear the rebuke of a wise man than to hear the song of fools, for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool. But this also is vanity. For it is better to be reproved by a wise man than to be deceived by flattering adulation. To which is similar that saying: Better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy. For just as the voice of burning thorns under a pot gives back a harsh crackling, so also the words of a flattering teacher will not profit, whether he exhorts his hearers to the cares of the world, which are interpreted as thorns, or prepares them for the future fire.

Symmachus, in place of what we have set down: For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool, interpreting this same sense which we have discussed above, says: For by the voice of the ignorant someone is bound with chains, that is, at the voice of such teachers the hearer is rather entangled, while each is bound by the chains of his own sins.

Calumny troubles the wise man, and it will destroy the heart of his strength. Now understand the wise man as one placed in progress, according to that saying: Reprove a wise man, and he will love you. For the perfect wise man needs no reproof, is troubled by no calumny. Let us use this verse whenever we see a just and wise man enduring calumny, and being troubled by the iniquity of a judgment, and God not immediately coming to his aid though present. But as to what the Seventy, and Aquila, and Theodotion have translated, "it destroys the heart of εὐτονίας αὐτοῦ," that is, of his strength or vigor; Symmachus says, "and it destroys the heart of MATTHANA" (מתנה), that is, of gift, joining both the Hebrew word and its interpretation, and producing that sense which is written elsewhere: Gifts blind even the eyes of the wise.

Better is the end of a speech than its beginning. Better are the conclusions in speaking than the exordium. For in the former the speaker's anxious care comes to an end, in the latter it begins. Or certainly thus: He who begins to hear a discourse, and goes to the teacher, is at the beginning; but he who hears the last things is consummated and perfect. But this too can be understood in this way: While we are in this age, whatever we know is wholly a beginning: but when that which is perfect shall come, we shall be in the last and consummate things. The Hebrew has thus 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 rather than to be carried away by the fury of impatience.

We learn also from this little saying that there is no wisdom among men, since it is better to be silent than to speak; and that when a speech is finished, the hearer reconsiders within himself what has been said: but when we have begun to speak, he has not yet received any benefit from it.

The patient is better than the lofty in spirit. Since above he had allowed anger, saying: Anger is better than laughter, lest we should suppose that the anger which is in passion is being praised, now he teaches that anger is to be entirely removed. For there he set anger for the reproof of sinners and the instruction of lesser ones: but here he restrains impatience. But patience is necessary not only in straits but also in more prosperous circumstances, lest we be exalted more than is fitting. It seems to me too that he who is here called "lofty in spirit" is the opposite of the "poor in spirit" in the Gospel, who is set among the beatitudes.

Be not hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Not that he grants that one should be slower to anger does he now say: Be not hasty in your spirit to be angry; but that when anger is raging and fresh, if deferred it is more easily settled, and can be taken away. And since anger is always joined with pride, desiring vengeance, he said above that the patient man is better than he who is lofty in spirit, and now he has given a mark of foolishness: for although someone may be reckoned powerful and wise, if he is irascible, he is convicted of folly: for anger indeed rests in the bosom of fools.

Say not: What has happened, that the former days were better than these? For you have not asked wisely about this. Do not prefer the old age to the present, for the same God is the maker of both. Virtues make good days for those living, vices make evil ones. Do not say, therefore, that the days under Moses and under Christ were better than they now are. For in that time too there were many unbelievers, and their days were made evil; and now too many believers are found, of whom the Saviour says: More blessed are they who have not seen and have believed. Otherwise: You ought so to live, that your present days always be better for you than the past, lest, when you begin gradually to decline, it be said to you: You were running well; who has hindered you from obeying the truth? And again: Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh?

Otherwise: Do not say that the times of Moses were better than those of Christ now, that of the Law better than that of Grace. For if you should wish to inquire into this, you act imprudently, not seeing how great is the distance of the Gospel from the old Testament.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and more profitable to them that see the sun, for as the shadow of wisdom is, so is the shadow of silver: and that which is more, the knowledge of wisdom shall give life to him that has it. The wise man with riches is of greater glory than one who is only wise. For some lack wisdom, others lack wealth, and he who is wise but not rich can indeed teach what is good, but sometimes cannot supply what is asked. And therefore he says: For as the shadow of wisdom is, so the shadow of money, that is, as wisdom protects, so sometimes money also protects. And lest he seem to have detracted from wisdom, in subjecting it to a fortuitous good (for it is not in our power to have riches, which unjust men often possess in greater measure), therefore he shows wisdom to be greater, saying: And more, the knowledge of wisdom shall give life to him that has it.

In this, he says, wisdom is greater than riches, in that without any wealth it gives life to him who has it.

Some interpret this passage thus: They say that he has set "inheritance" for good conduct, through which we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Ecclesiastes wishes therefore to teach how much those who deserve to see the sun of justice, and have wisdom together with good conduct, differ from those who without wisdom have devoted themselves only to zeal for life and conduct. This indeed Daniel also shows, saying: They that understand shall shine as the lights of heaven. Or as Theodotion has translated: As the splendor of the firmament. And they that instruct many, as the stars of heaven. But the shadow of silver, or of money, we ought to take according to the anagogical sense, concerning which the talents and minas are gathered in the parables of the Gospel, so that when we shall be 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.

But this too 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. All our protection in this land is like a shadow, whether of wisdom, or of the aforesaid silver, until the day breathes forth, and the shadows are removed. Symmachus, in his usual manner, has also interpreted this passage more clearly, saying: As wisdom protects, likewise money protects. But the following verse plainly exhorts to zeal for knowledge.

Consider the works of God, for who shall be able to adorn him whom God has made crooked? And in this passage Symmachus has thus translated: Learn the works of God, for no one shall be able to correct what he has diminished, that is, let it suffice that one, if calmer, may be able to know and understand from the holy Scriptures, or from the very contemplation of the elements, the things which have been made: yet not to search out the causes and reasons why each thing was so made, or ought to have been made otherwise than it was made. For example, if anyone should wish to ask why God speaks thus to Moses: Who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind, is it not I the Lord God? And should say: Why were the blind and deaf and mute created thus, and other things like this?

A testimony must be taken in this place from the seventeenth Psalm, in which it is said to the Lord: With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverted. And it must be said that the Lord is holy with him who is holy, and is perverted with him who by his own will has previously been perverse. According to that also which is written in Leviticus: If they shall walk perversely toward me, I also will walk perversely toward them in my fury. This indeed will also be able to explain why the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

For just as one and the same operation of the sun melts wax and dries mud, and wax melts and mud dries according to its own substance: so the one operation of God's signs in Egypt softened the hearts of believers, and hardened unbelievers, who according to their hardness and impenitent heart, were storing up wrath for themselves against the day of wrath from these wonders, which though they saw them come to pass, they did not believe.

In the day of prosperity be in good, and in the evil day take heed. And indeed God has made this fitting for man's speaking, so that man may find nothing after him. I know that I have heard in the church, from one who was thought to have knowledge of the Scriptures, these little verses expounded thus. "While you are in the present age, and are able to do some good work, labor, so that afterward you yourself may securely see others tormented on the evil day, that is, on the day of judgment. For as God made the present age, in which we are able to prepare for ourselves the fruit of good works; so also the age to come, in which no opportunity of good work is given." He seemed indeed to persuade, when he spoke to his hearers: but to me another sense seems to be present, which Symmachus also translated, saying: On the good day be in good; but look upon the evil day.

Since God has made this like that other, that man might not find something to complain against him about. And, he says, sustain both good and evil, as they shall befall you. Nor think that there is in the world a nature of only good things, or only evil things, since this world consists of diverse contraries, hot and cold, dry and moist, 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 that free will might be left to man, lest he say that he was made insensible and stupid by God; but that God made diverse things for this reason, that man might not be able to complain of his condition. And at the same time this testimony will be joined consequently to the preceding ones, in which he says: Who will be able to set in order what God has perverted?

All things have I seen in the days of my vanity. There is a just man perishing in his justice, and there is an impious man living long in his malice. To this, what does the Savior say in the Gospel like unto it: He who finds his soul shall lose it, and he who shall lose his soul for my sake shall find it. The Maccabees seemed to perish in their own justice for the law of God and righteousness, as did the martyrs who poured out their blood for Christ. On the contrary, those who at that time ate swine's flesh, and after the Lord's coming sacrificed to idols, these seemed to live in this age, and to persevere long because of their malice.

But God's patience is hidden, both in tribulating the saints now, that they may receive evils in their lifetime, and in not visiting sinners for their crime, and in reserving it as it were for a neighboring time, so that he may both restore eternal goods to the former, and inflict perpetual evils on the latter. The Hebrews suspect that the just perishing in their justice are the sons of Aaron, because while thinking they were acting justly, they offered strange fire. And they say the impious man long-lived in his malice is Manasseh, who after his captivity, being restored to the kingdom, lived thereafter for a long time.

Be not overly just, and seek not more, lest you be dumbfounded. If you see someone rigid and fierce toward all the sins of the brethren, so that he pardons neither one sinning in speech, nor one delaying occasionally through natural sluggishness, know that this one is more just than is just. For since the Savior commands, saying: Judge not, that ye be not judged; and no one is without sin, not even if his life were but of one day, it is an inhuman justice not to pardon the frailty of the human condition. Therefore be not overly just, because a great weight and a small weight are both an abomination before the Lord. Whence also among the philosophers the virtues are placed in the middle, and everything which is excessive, whether above or below, is reckoned a vice. But when it says: Seek not more, lest you be troubled, or, lest you be dumbfounded; it knows that our mind cannot comprehend perfect wisdom, and it bids us know the measure of our frailty.

Finally, Paul also, to one who was seeking to know more than a man could know, saying: What does he still find fault with? For who resists his will? Responded: O man, who art thou that repliest against God, and so forth. For if the one who is introduced as questioning had heard the causes of the question from the Apostle, he would perhaps have been benumbed with stupor, and would have felt grace to be useless. Because there is also a gift, according to the same Apostle, which does not profit him to whom it is given. The Hebrews interpret this precept, that is: Be not overly just, as concerning Saul, who had pity on Agag, whom the Lord had ordered to be slain. But also that servant of the Gospel, whom the Lord had forgiven, and who himself would not forgive his fellow servant, can be fitted to this verse, in that he was overly just.

Be not overly wicked, and be not foolish; why shouldst thou die before thy time. Since the Lord says: I do not wish the death of him that dies, only let him return and live: let it suffice to have sinned once; we ought to raise ourselves up after a fall. For if, according to those who dispute about physical matters, the swallow knows how to open the eyes of her young with her chelidonia-herb, and wounded goats seek out dittany; why should we not know that the medicine of penance is set before sinners? But as to what it says: Lest thou die before thy time; we know that Korah and Dathan and Abiram, because of their sedition against Moses and Aaron, were swallowed up by a sudden gaping of the earth, and that many, for the correction of others, have even in this life been judged before the day of judgment. What it says, then, is this: Do not add sins to sins, lest you provoke God to inflict punishment upon you even here.

It is good that thou shouldst hold fast this. And indeed do not withdraw your hand from this; for he that fears God shall come forth unto all things. It is good to do good to the just, but to do good to sinners also is not unjust. It is good to sustain those of the household of the faith, but it is a command to give to every one who asks. For one who fears God, and is an imitator of his Creator, who rains upon the just and the unjust, hastens to do good to all without regard of persons. Otherwise: Because this miserable life is varied daily by diverse events, both adverse and prosperous, let the mind of the just man be prepared, and let him ask the Lord's mercy, that whatever may happen, he may sustain it with a balanced mind. For he who fears God is neither elated by prosperity, nor crushed by adversity.

Wisdom shall strengthen the wise man above ten men that have power, who are in the city: because there is no just man on earth, who does good and does not sin. Therefore wisdom strengthens the just man, and the help of it surpasses that of all the princes of the city, because although someone may be just, yet while he is placed in this flesh, he is subject to vices and sins, and needs a greater safeguard. Otherwise: the ten who have power and stand in the city are angels, who have attained the perfect number of ten, and give aid to the human race. But if anyone considers all forms of aid, the help of wisdom is greater, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For after the angels said, "We have healed Babylon, and she is not healed; let us leave her, and let each one go into his own land", then the Master Physician himself came down, and healed us, sprinkled with blood and dripping with the gore of our sins, who had spent our whole substance on physicians, by the touch of his fringe. But he healed in the city, that is, in this world, and strengthened the wise man, or, as the Seventy translated, helped him. For to everyone who has, it shall be given, and it shall be added unto him. But because man, placed in sins and stuck fast in the mire of the deep, needed greater help, therefore Wisdom herself came. Otherwise: Above he had said that good should be done both to household and to strangers. Someone might then reply: If I wish to do good to all, I have not the means to do it.

Nor can the just man have such riches, which are wont to abound more to sinners; therefore he now says: Those whom you cannot rule, help with counsel, cherish with comfort. For wisdom can offer more to one placed in straits than any of the greatest powers whatsoever. And do this very thing with prudence. For great indeed is the scale of justice, as to whom, and how much, and how long, and of what kind you should grant, whether in deed or in counsel. And indeed give not your heart to all the words that men speak, lest you hear your servant cursing you. For your own heart often knows that you too have cursed others. Do what is commanded, and, strengthened by the help of wisdom, prepare your heart for good things or for bad, and do not trouble yourself about what enemies say of you, or what opinion there is of you abroad.

For it is the part of a prudent man not to listen to a murmuring servant, nor to lend a curious ear to what he says of him in his absence: for if he does this, he will always be in trouble, and his anger will be stirred by the muttering of his servant; so too it belongs to the wise man to follow wisdom as his guide, and not to heed idle rumors. But he also teaches by another example that the just man should not at all trouble himself about what men say, saying: How does your conscience know that you yourself have spoken of many, and often detracted from others? So you ought also to forgive others who detract from you. And at the same time he teaches that one ought not to judge rashly, and that he who has a beam in his own eye should not speak of the mote of another.

I have tried all these things in wisdom, and I said, I shall become wise; and it went farther from me than it was, and a deep profundity, who shall find it? He says that he sought wisdom beyond all men, as the books of Kings also testify, and tried to reach its end, but the more he sought it, the less he found, and he was plunged into the midst of darkness, surrounded by the shadows of ignorance. Otherwise: the man who has been trained in the Scriptures, the more he begins to know, the greater obscurity daily arises for him in these matters. Otherwise: the contemplation of wisdom in this life is seen as in a mirror and in an image; when therefore I shall have considered that in the future the knowledge of it is to be revealed face to face, then I shall clearly recognize how far I am now removed from the knowledge of it.

I went about, I and my heart, that I might know, and consider, and seek wisdom and reason, and that I might know the wickedness of the fool, and the error of the imprudent. And I find a woman more bitter than death, who is a snare, and her heart is nets, her hands are bonds. He that is good before God shall escape from her; the sinner shall be caught by her. In place of what the Seventy set down: "I went about, I and my heart, that I might know," Symmachus translated, saying: "I passed through all things with my mind, to know and to learn and to investigate." Since therefore Ecclesiastes had said above that he had tried all things in wisdom, and that the more he sought it the farther it fled from him, he now says that he also sought another thing in his wisdom, namely what thing in human affairs precedes all other evils, and what holds first place in impiety, folly, error, and madness.

And he says he found the woman to be the head of all evils, because through her death entered into the world, and she captures the precious souls of men. For all who commit adultery, their hearts are like an oven; which makes the hearts of the young fly forth. And when she has fallen into the mind of the wretched lover, she drags him headlong; she does not allow him to look before his own feet, but like a snare and a net she binds the heart of the young man. For her hands are bonds. In place of this Aquila translated: "Her hands are bound," which in the Hebrew tongue is called ASSURIM (אסורים). For she can persuade, but she cannot use force; nor can she draw the unwilling to herself. He who is just and good before God shall escape from her: but the sinner, once caught, shall be led to death. Let us not think that Solomon uttered this sentence rashly concerning the race of women: he speaks of what he has experienced.

For indeed he offended God because he was captured by women. And this is according to the letter. But according to the spiritual understanding, either we call sin in general and iniquity "woman," which sits under the appearance of a woman upon the talent of lead in Zechariah; or we take the devil figuratively (τροπικῶς) as a woman, on account of his effeminate powers; or certainly we understand idolatry, and, to come closer, the Church of the heretics, which calls the foolish in mind to herself, that, once led astray, he may receive stolen bread and stolen water, that is, a false sacrament and a polluted baptism.

Behold this I have found, said Ecclesiastes, one thing after another, that I might find the sum, which my soul has sought still, and I have not found it. One man among a thousand I have found; but a woman among all these I have not found. Only this I have found: that God made man upright; and they themselves have sought out many devices. This, he says, I have found, sifting all things diligently, that by sinning little by little, and by adding one offense to another, we make up for ourselves a great sum of sins. For Esebon (חשבון), which all with one voice have translated λογισμόν reckoning, we can, according to the ambiguity of the Hebrew tongue, render as number, and sum, and reason, and thought. But this too, he says, my soul has sought, whether an upright woman may be found. And though I have scarcely found a few good men, so that out of a thousand one could be found, I could not find a good woman at all.

For all have led me not to virtue but to lust. And because the heart of man is bent diligently to evil from his youth, and almost all have offended God, in this ruin of the human race woman is more prone to fall. Of whom also the pagan poet says: Ever changeful and inconstant is Woman. And the Apostle says: Ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And lest he should seem to condemn the common nature of men, and to make God the author of evil, since he is the creator of such beings who cannot avoid evil, he shrewdly forestalls this, and says that we were created good by God: but because we have been left to free will, we slip by our own fault into worse things, while seeking greater things, and devising various things beyond our strength. Otherwise: Daily, weighing with myself the reason of each thing, I could find no thought that was not disturbed from without by a perverse cogitation.

But among a thousand men I found one man, who is made according to the image of his Creator: and among a thousand, not just any thousand, but a thousand men, whose number woman could not fill up. And among a thousand who did not draw near to woman, and therefore remained most pure. But all these things must be taken tropologically. For among many who are studious and toil in daily meditation, scarcely is a thought found pure, and worthy of the name of a man. We can also take "thoughts" for "men," and "women" for "works," and say that it is difficult for anyone's thought to be found pure. But works, since they are carried out through the body, are always mingled with some error.

As for what we said above in interpreting the Hebrew phrase, "one thing to another, that a number, or sum, or reason, or thought might be found," Symmachus interpreted more openly: "one thing to another, to find the reason." For what we usually call in the absolute and neuter, that is, "this I sought, that I wished to find," the Hebrews pronounce in the feminine gender, as in the psalm: "One thing have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek", in place of "one thing."

Who is as the wise man; and who knows the interpretation of a word? A man's wisdom shall make his face to shine, and the strong man shall change his countenance. Above he had taught that a good man is hard to find, and had refuted the objection that would arise against this: that good men were created by God, but by their own will fell away into sins.

Now he enumerates, as if boasting, what good God has given to man, namely wisdom, and reason, and foresight, to know the hidden mysteries of God, to enter with the sense of the heart into his secret places. But obliquely he speaks of himself, that no one has been so wise as he, and no one has known so well the solutions of problems, and his wisdom has been praised by all the people, which not only lay hidden within, but also shone forth on the surface of the body and in the mirror of his face, and painted the prudence of his mind in his face beyond all other men.

The Seventy, for what we have rendered as "Who is as the wise man," translated: "Who knows the wise?" And for what we said, "And the strong man shall change his countenance," they put: "And the shameless man shall be hated for his countenance." And indeed, though there are many who promise wisdom, it is hard to find one who can discern the truly wise man from those who seem to be wise. And though there are very many who say they can solve the hidden things of the Scriptures, rare is he who finds the true solution. But as to what follows, "A man's wisdom shall make his face to shine, and the wicked man shall be hated for his countenance," we can explain it thus, by setting beside it the words of Paul: "But we all, with open face beholding the glory of the Lord": and the Psalmist singing: "The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us". But he does not here call wisdom of man anything other than the wisdom of God.

Which, since it is the wisdom of God, begins to belong, according to the capacity of man's ability, to him who has deserved to have it. Every heretic and defender of a false doctrine has a shameless countenance. In short, Marcion and Valentinus say that they are of a better nature than the Creator himself. And this could be endured to some extent, if they claimed to have hope of this thing, and did not already claim to possess the nature.

I keep the king's mouth, and the word of God's oath. Do not hasten to depart from his face, and do not stand in an evil word, for whatsoever he will, he will do. As the king has spoken, having power: and who shall say to him, What doest thou? He seems indeed to enjoin, following the Apostle, obedience to kings and powers (To), especially since the Seventy Interpreters say, in the imperative mood: Keep the mouth of the king; but I think that this is now said of that King, of whom David says: O Lord, the king shall rejoice in thy strength. And in another place, to signify that the kingdom of the Father and the Son is one, Scripture recalls: O God, give thy judgment to the king, and thy justice to the king's son. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. This King, the Son of God, is the Son of the Father who is King.

Therefore his precepts must be kept, his will must be done. And this is what is written in the book of Tobias: It is good to hide the mystery of the king. And he especially warns that we should not discuss why God has commanded each thing, but that whatever a man sees to be commanded, his devout mind should hasten to fulfill it. And his will shall be in the law of the Lord. But because the Seventy translated otherwise, saying: And concerning the oath, and concerning the word of God, do not hasten to walk away from his face: it must be known that the oath of God is written in the divine volumes. This oath, then, sacred and secret, concerning the word of God, we ought not to relate to just anyone, nor bring it out into the open, nor pass hasty judgment upon it. Nor, like Moses, should you hasten to see the face of God, but wait until he himself passes by, and see only his back parts.

Likewise what follows: Do not stand in an evil word, and so on, let us understand as spoken of one who has been overtaken by the error of heresy: or of one who, though he holds the faith of the Church, is nevertheless conquered by sins, so that he becomes unfaithful. Do not persist in detraction, nor in foul speech, luxury, avarice, lust. But if you persist, the king of vices and of sin, the devil, will work your ruin, and will do whatsoever he wills.

He who keeps the commandment shall not know an evil word: and the heart of the wise man knows both time and judgment.

It should be noted that "shall not know an evil word" is put for "shall not suffer it, or it shall not be in him." For thus also it is written of the Savior: He who knew no sin, was made sin for us. For "word" also, Symmachus rendered the thing itself, saying: He who shall keep the commandment shall not experience an evil thing. But he commanded that the king's rule be observed, and that one know what, and why, and at what time he commands. For to every matter there is a time and a judgment. For the affliction of man is great upon him, because he does not know what is to come; for who shall tell him how it will be?

Although diverse things happen, and the just man cannot know what is to befall him, nor learn the causes and reasons of individual things (for no one is privy to the future), yet he knows that all things are done by God for the benefit of men, and are not arranged apart from his will. For it is a great affliction of the human race, as the Poet says: The mind of men, ignorant of fate and future lot, hopes one thing, and another comes to pass: from one quarter it awaits the enemy, and is wounded by a spear from another. But whereas the Seventy Interpreters and Theodotion said: For the knowledge of man is great upon him, in the Hebrew it has "malice," not "knowledge": but because the Hebrew letters RES and DALETH, apart from a small stroke, are alike, they read DAATH (דעת), that is, "knowledge," for RAATH (רעה), that is, "malice." This will be better known to one who has acquaintance with that same language.

That also which is written at the end of these verses: For he does not know what has been done; and what shall be after him, who shall tell him? We have now translated word for word from the Hebrew speech, that we might know there is another sense, namely, that we cannot know either the things that have passed, nor can we know the things that are to come, as they will actually be. Man has no power over the spirit, to restrain the spirit, and he has no power in the day of death, and there is no discharge in war, and impiety shall not save him who has it. Our soul is not in our own power, to keep it from being taken from us, and when the spirit goes forth at the command of the Lord, it profits nothing to close the mouth and hold back the fleeing life. And when destruction, the enemy of our life and foe, comes, we cannot obtain a truce.

Nor can even kings, once in the world, laying waste all things by their wickedness, thrust forth hands to meet death: but we shall be dissolved into ashes and earth. Therefore we ought not to grieve, if we cannot know future things, and are often oppressed by the more powerful wicked, since all things are ended by death, and even the proud and powerful man, who has plundered everything, is not able to hold on to his own soul, when it is snatched away. Otherwise: The Spirit, who disposes all things, cannot be restrained by any man, nor receive laws as to how it should breathe. Of which it was also said above: The spirit goes about circling in its circuits. In the day of death we have no power: for in the day of life the enemy is easily avoided.

Likewise he who is in war, and does not have the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will not have that "discharge," concerning which it is said to the bride: Thy shoots are a paradise with the fruit of apples. And because impiety will not save him who has it, piety, on the other hand, will save. Impiety can be called the devil, and piety our Lord Jesus Christ. All this I saw, and I gave my heart to every work that is done under the sun, and man has ruled over man, to afflict him. And then I saw the wicked buried, and they had come, and had gone forth from the holy place, and were praised in the city, because they had done so: but this too is vanity. For because there is no swift contradiction to those who do evil, therefore the heart of the sons of men is filled in them to do evil.

I gave, he says, my heart, that I might observe everything done under the sun, and this above all, that man has received power over man, to afflict and condemn whomsoever he wishes. When therefore I directed my mind to observe these things, I saw the wicked dead with such a reputation, and so buried, that they were reckoned holy on earth, who even while they lived were thought worthy of the Church and the temple of God, and moreover, walking in pride, were praised in their evil deeds, as it is written: For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquities is blessed. Now this happens because no one dares to contradict sinners, nor does God avenge the crime at once, but defers the punishment, while he awaits repentance. But sinners, because they are not immediately reproved and corrected, thinking that judgment will never come, persevere in wickedness.

We can use this testimony against bishops, who have received power in the Church, and who scandalize rather than teach those whom they ought to have incited to better things. These are often praised after death in the Church, and are called blessed for the very things they had not done well, publicly proclaimed either by their successors or by the people. And so this too is vain, because they are not heard as they acted, nor are they immediately reproved for their sin (for no one dares to accuse a superior), and therefore, as though they were holy and blessed, and walking in the commandments of the Lord, they add sins to sins. It is difficult to bring an accusation against a bishop. For if he sins, he is not believed, and if he is convicted, he is not punished.

Because the sinner does evil a hundred times, and it is prolonged for him. From this I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, who fear before his face. From the fact that God gives room for repentance to one who sins very much (for this is what "a hundred times" signifies), and does not punish him immediately in his wickedness, but waits for him to turn from his iniquity: I understand how kind and merciful God is going to be toward those who have fear of him, and tremble at his word. Symmachus translated this passage thus: For the sinning wicked man is dead, longsuffering having been granted to him. Moreover I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, who feared before his face. But it shall not be well with the wicked man, nor shall he live long, because he did not fear before the face of God.

And since it is clear what this man translated, it must be said that the Hebrew word MAATH (מאת), which the Seventy translated as "from then," and which we have rendered "a hundred times," Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion interpreted as "he is dead," so that the sense is: he who sinned and did evil, is dead: for in the very act of sinning, he died at once. But if, according to the Seventy Interpreters, we read "from then" instead of "he is dead," then according to some, the sense here would be: The sinner does not sin for the first time when he is seen to commit the sin, but has already sinned before: For sinners are estranged from the womb, they have gone astray from the belly; and they seek what follows, "they have spoken falsehoods," how this can be explained: for the plain understanding does not seem to have a consistent sequence, that little sinners, as soon as they are cast forth from the womb, speak lies.

And it shall not be well with the wicked, and he shall not prolong his days like a shadow, who does not fear before the face of God. He imprecates evil upon those who do not have the fear of God, and wishes that punishment not be long deferred, but that, being cut off at once by death, they receive the torments they deserve. The Apostle says something similar: Would that they were cut off who trouble you. And elsewhere: Alexander the coppersmith showed me many evils: may the Lord repay him according to his works. How these things were spoken with clemency must be inquired into. This according to the truth of the Hebrew sense.

But if anyone follows the Seventy Interpreters, who, beginning as it were from a different sense, said: And I acknowledge that it shall be well with them that fear God, that they may fear before his face, and it shall not be well with the wicked, and he shall not prolong his days in the shadow: because he does not fear before the face of God; this may be said: Those things indeed will happen, of which I treated a little before; yet I most clearly know that it will be well with those who fear before the face of God: For the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And it will not be well with the wicked man: for he does not fear before the face of God, and he will not prolong his days in the shadow, that is, the days of his life, which are like a shadow to the living.

For those do not prolong their days who live a long time, but those who make them great by the greatness of their good works. Whence also Jacob, as though confessing himself a sinner, says: Few and evil are my days. And confessing in the psalm: My days, he says, have declined like a shadow, and I have withered like grass. Not that he sought a long life in the present, in which all our living is short and a shadow and an image: For man walks in an image: but that he feared for the future, lest the length of his own life, where true life is, should be shortened.

There is a vanity which is done upon the earth: for there are just men to whom things happen as though they were the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked men to whom things happen as though they were the deeds of the just. I said that this too is vanity. Among the other vanities which are carried along in the world with varied outcome, I also discovered this, that those things which ought to have happened to the wicked frequently befall the just, and the wicked pass their lives in this world so happily that you would think them most just. The Gospel gives an example in the purple-clad rich man and poor Lazarus. The seventy-second psalm also discusses this matter: why evils sometimes befall the just, and good things the wicked. But whereas we have rendered "There is a vanity which is done upon the earth," Symmachus translated it absolutely, saying: It is difficult to understand what is done upon the earth.

The Hebrews interpret the just, to whom evils happen, and the wicked, to whom the deeds of the just accrue, as the sons of Aaron, and Manasseh, in that the former, while sacrificing, perished, and the latter, after such great evils and captivity, was restored to his kingdom.

And I praised gladness; because there is nothing good for man under the sun, except to eat, and drink, and be merry. And this same thing shall go forth with him from his labor, during the days of his life, which God has given him under the sun. This we have interpreted more fully above, and now we say briefly: that man should prefer this brief and quickly-flowing pleasure of eating and drinking to the anguishes of the age, and to those things which seem to happen unjustly in the world; because this alone seems to be what man may have from his labor, if he but enjoy a modest refreshment. But this interpretation, if taken as it is written, will approve as wretched those who fast, hunger, thirst, and mourn, whom the Lord in the Gospel calls blessed. And so let us take food and drink spiritually, and the gladness over them, which we can scarcely find in the labor of our life.

That these things are to be understood as we have said, the following verse demonstrates, in which he says: I gave my heart, that I might see wisdom and occupation: namely, that men are occupied upon the earth, and are engaged day and night in the meditation of the Scriptures; so that very often, for the sake of the investigation of truth, sleep flees from their eyes.

Wherefore I gave my heart, that I might know wisdom and see the occupation which has been done upon the earth. Because both by day and by night he does not see sleep in his eyes. And I saw all the works of God: that man cannot find the work which has been done under the sun, in which man has labored, that he might seek, and shall not find. Even if a wise man shall say that he knows, he shall not be able to find it.

He who seeks the causes and reasons of things, why this or that has been done, and why the world is governed by various events: why one is born blind and weak, another seeing and healthy; why this one has poverty, that one riches; why this one is noble, that one without renown; profits nothing else, except to be tormented only in his own inquiry, and to have disputation instead of torment, and yet not to find what he seeks. [lacuna] And when he has said that he has known these things, then he has the beginning of ignorance, and is engaged in a profound error. He shows, however, that there are causes of all things and a justice, as to why each thing happens thus: but that they lie hidden in secret, and cannot be grasped by men.

All this I have given in my heart, that I might consider all things: because the just, and the wise, and their works are in the hand of the Lord.

And indeed love, and indeed hatred: man does not know all things in their presence. Symmachus has also interpreted this passage more clearly, saying: All these things I have determined in my heart, that I might winnow all things: because both the just and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. And moreover man knows neither friendships nor enmities: but all things before them are uncertain, because like things happen to all, to the just and the unjust. Now this is the sense: Even in this I gave my heart, and wished to know whom God loved, whom he hated. And I found that the works of the just are indeed in the hand of God, and yet whether they are loved by God or not, they cannot now know, and they waver in doubt, whether they endure what they endure for testing, or for punishment.

In the future, therefore, they will know, and in their countenance are all things, that is, when they have departed from this life, the knowledge of this matter goes before them, because then is the judgment, and now is the contest. And whoever endures adversities, whether they endure them through love of God, as Job did, or through hatred, as very many sinners, is now held uncertain.

In all things there is one event, for the just and the impious, the good and the evil, the clean and the polluted, him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; as is he who swears, so is he who fears an oath. These things, which in themselves are neither good nor evil, but are called “indifferent” by the wise of this age (because they happen equally to the just and the unjust), trouble the simple as to why they happen thus, and therefore they do not think there is judgment, though in the future there will be a distinction of all things, and here all things are confused. But when it says: There is one event for all, for the just and the impious, it signifies the event either of anguish or of death: and therefore that they know in themselves neither the love of God nor his hatred.

Him who sacrifices, too, and him who does not sacrifice, and the other contraries that are enumerated, are to be understood spiritually, according to that saying: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit.

This is the worst thing in all that is done under the sun: that there is one event for all. But also the heart of the sons of men is filled with malice, and errors are in their heart during their life, and after these things, to the dead. For who is there who has fellowship with all the living? And this Symmachus, according to his custom, has interpreted more openly, saying: But also the heart of the sons of men is filled with malice, and with insolence according to their heart in their life. But their last end comes to the dead. For who can continue living forever?

Now Scripture repeats the same sense which we treated a little before, that since all things happen equally to all, and there is no distinction in the enduring of good or evil things, or at least we are removed from this age by an equal death: nonetheless we are filled with errors and insolence and malice, and after all these things we are suddenly snatched away by death, nor can we any longer have fellowship with the living. Or perhaps thus: Since common anguishes press upon both the just and the unjust, men are for that reason provoked to sins; and yet after all their efforts, in which they have striven in vain, while they are ignorant, they descend to the underworld.

There is confidence, because a living dog is better than a dead lion: for the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any reward for them. For their memory has come into oblivion. But also their love and their hatred and their zeal has already perished: and they no longer have any part in the age, in all that is done under the sun. Because he had said above that the heart of the sons of men is filled with malice and insolence, and after all these things is ended by death: now he completes and repeats the same things, that as long as men live, they can become just, but after death no occasion is given for a good work. For a sinner while living can be better than a just man who is dead, if he wishes to pass over to his virtues. Or certainly, than one who boasted himself in malice, power, and insolence, and has died, some poor and most abject person can be better. Why?

Because the living, through fear of death, can perform good works: but the dead can avail nothing further to add to what they once carried away with them from life: and all things are wrapped in oblivion, according to what is written in the psalm: I am given over to oblivion, as one dead from the heart. But also their love and hatred, and rivalry, and everything that they were able to have in this age, is ended by the coming of death: nor can they now do anything justly, neither sin, nor add to their virtues, nor to their vices.

Although certain persons contradict this exposition, asserting that even after death we can increase and decrease, and as to what he now says: And they shall no longer have a part in the age, in all that is done under the sun, they understand it thus, that they say these have no fellowship in this age, and under this sun which we behold, but that they do have it under another age, of which the Savior says: I am not of this world; and under the sun of righteousness; and they do not exclude the opinion which contends that, after we have departed from this age, it is still possible to offend rational creatures, and to gain merit with them. The Hebrew related this verse otherwise, in which it is said: For a living dog is better than a dead lion, explaining it thus among his own people: that it is more useful, however unlearned, for one who still lives and teaches, than a perfect teacher who has already died.

For instance, that by “dog” one should understand any one whatever of the many teachers, and by “lion,” Moses, or any other of the prophets. But since this exposition does not please us, let us aim at greater things: and let us say that that Canaanite woman, to whom it was said, Thy faith has made thee whole, is the dog according to the Gospel; but the dead lion, the people of the circumcision, as the prophet Balaam says: Behold, the people shall rise up as a lion’s whelp, and as a lion exulting. The living dog, then, is we who are of the nations: but the dead lion is the people of the Jews, forsaken by the Lord. And this living dog is better with the Lord than that dead lion. For we, living, know the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: but they, dead, know nothing, and expect no promise or reward: but their memory has come to an end.

Neither do they themselves remember what they ought to have known, nor does the Lord any longer remember them. Their love too, with which they once loved God, has perished, and their hatred, of which they boldly used to speak: Have I not hated those who hate thee, O Lord, and pined away because of thy enemies, and also their zeal, according to which Phinehas was zealous, and Mattathias’ knees trembled in Greek, νεφροί. It is clear, moreover, that their part also is not in the age. For they cannot say: The Lord is my portion.

Go and eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a good heart, for now your works have pleased God. Let your garments be white at all times, and let not oil be lacking from your head: down to that place where he says: As fish are taken in an evil catch, and as birds are caught in a snare: so shall the sons of men be caught in an evil time, when it shall fall upon them suddenly. Before we discuss each point, all things must briefly be brought together, so that it may appear in what single sense they are all being said.

Because in the preceding chapter he had said beforehand that after men die, they fall out of the heart of the living, and no one has for them either love or hatred, according to that saying of the poet: No strife with the vanquished, and none cast out from the upper air: and because beneath the sun they can do nothing further: now he introduces, as it were, human error and the custom by which men exhort one another to enjoy the goods of this age, and he makes a prosopopoeia in the manner of rhetoricians and poets, saying: O man, since after death you are nothing, and death itself is nothing, hear my counsel, and while you live in this brief life, enjoy pleasure, partake of feasts, drown your cares with wine, and understand that these things have been given to you by God to use.

Go forth adorned in white garments, let your head breathe with perfumes: whichever of women pleases you, rejoice in her embrace, and run through this vain and brief life with vain and brief pleasure. For beyond these things you will have nothing further to enjoy: whatever can delight you, seize quickly, lest it perish. Nor should you fear the frivolous fictions, that an account must be rendered to you in the underworld for each of your deeds, whether good or evil. For there is no wisdom in death: no perception remains after the dissolution of this life. And let some Epicurus say these things, and Aristippus, and the Cyrenaics, and the rest of the cattle of philosophers. But I, carefully turning it over in my mind, find—not, as some wrongly suppose, that all things are carried on by chance, and that varying fortune plays with human affairs—but that all things happen by the judgment of God. For the swift of foot ought not to think that his course belongs to him, even if he runs.

Nor should the strong trust in his own might, nor the wise suppose that riches and wealth are gathered by prudence, nor the eloquent and learned think that they can find favor with the people through eloquence and learning: but that all things come to pass by God's ordaining. And unless he governs all things by his own will, and builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless he guards the city, those who guard it watch in vain. Therefore it is not, as they think, a single chance outcome, and an uncertain state of this life: because when they do not expect it, snatched away by sudden death, they will come to judgment. And just as fish are caught by hook and nets, and birds, free through the air, are bound by a snare while unaware: so also men, according to their merit, will be led to eternal punishments, when death comes suddenly, and judgment upon those who thought all things were rolled about in an uncertain state.

These things, according to the sense by which we wished briefly to comprehend the whole: now the particulars must be interpreted as though he speaks not in another's person, but in his own: Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a good heart: for your works have pleased God. Since you have learned that all things are ended by death, and that in hell there is no repentance, nor any recourse to virtue, while you are in this age, hasten, strive to do penance: while you have time, labor. For God gladly receives the penitent. Otherwise: and it is profitable to understand it simply, according to that saying: Whether you eat, or drink, or do anything, do all in the name of the Lord. And in another place: Drink wine with counsel. For he does not have true joy and a good heart who abuses creatures beyond measure.

But it is better to understand it thus: he whose works have pleased before God will in no way lack the true bread and wine, which has been pressed from the vine of Sorech. Since therefore the precept has been given to us, which says: You have desired wisdom, keep the commandments, and the Lord will minister it to you: let us keep the commandments, and we shall be able to find spiritual bread and wine. But to him who does not keep the commandments, and boasts in the abundance of bread and wine, it is said through Isaiah: Do not say, I know it also: you have neither known it, nor do you know it, nor have I opened your ears from the beginning. For I know that despising, you will despise. Moreover, what is said in the Seventy Interpreters: Come, eat your bread with joy: this is the voice of the Ecclesiastes, who speaks in the Gospel: Whoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And in Proverbs: Come, eat my bread, and drink my wine.

Let your garments be white at all times, and let not oil be lacking from your head. Have, he says, a clean body, and be merciful. Or thus: Let there be no time in which you do not have white garments; beware lest at any time you be clothed in polluted garments. For the sinning people is described as mourning in dark garments. But you, put on light, and not the curse which is written concerning Judas: Let him be clothed with cursing as with a garment. Put on the bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. And when you have stripped off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, which is renewed day by day. But as to what he says: And let not oil be lacking from your head: it must be known that this is the nature of oil, that it both nourishes light and relieves the weariness of the tired.

There is a spiritual oil, the oil of gladness, of which it is written: Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. With this oil our countenance must be made cheerful. With this the head of the one fasting must be anointed—which sinners cannot have, to whom it is said: There is no poultice to apply, nor oil, nor bandages. For they have a contrary oil, which the just man detests, saying: Let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. This oil the heretics have, and with it they desire to anoint the heads of the deceived.

See life with the wife whom you have loved all the days of your life of vanity, which are given to you under the sun: for this is your portion in life, and in the labor with which you labor under the sun. Follow wisdom and the knowledge of the Scriptures, and join this to yourself in marriage, of which it is said in Proverbs: Love her, and she will keep you; embrace her and she will surround you. But the days of vanity signify the days of this wicked age. Of which the Apostle also does not keep silent. But as to what he says: See life with the wife whom you have loved, it is said ambiguously, whether: see and contemplate life, both you yourself and your wife with you (for you will not be able to see life alone without such a wife), or: consider both, and see life, and the wife, in the days of your vanity.

And he beautifully instructs that in the days of our vanity we should seek true life with wisdom as our wife. For this is our portion, and here is the fruit of labor, if in this shadowy life we may be able to find true life. Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might: for there is no work, nor thought, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in hell, to which you go. Do whatever you can now, and labor: because when you have descended to hell, there will be no place for repentance. Something like this is commanded by the Savior: Work while it is day: the night comes, when no one can work. But as to what he says: In hell, to which you go, note this—that you may believe that Samuel too truly was in hell, and that before the coming of Christ, all the saints, though holy, were detained by the law of hell.

Furthermore, that the saints after the resurrection of the Lord are no longer held in hell, the Apostle testifies, saying: It is better to be dissolved and to be with Christ. But he who is with Christ is certainly not held in hell. I turned myself, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the prudent, nor favor to the skillful: for time and chance shall befall them all. He who is bound with iron fetters, and weighed down with heavy bonds of lead: For iniquity sits upon a talent of lead: and in the Psalm it is said: Like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me: he is not fit for that race of which it is said: I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. But he who is light, and whose soul is not weighed down, nevertheless he too, without God as helper, cannot reach the finish line.

But also when there is battle against the opposing powers, of which it is written: Sanctify war: though strong, yet he will not be able to conquer by his own powers. Also, one perfect among the sons of men and wise will not be able to have the living and heavenly bread, except through wisdom exhorting: Come, eat my bread. And since there are riches, of which the Apostle says: To be rich in good works: and elsewhere: You have been made rich in all speech and in all knowledge: it must be known that the prudent man cannot gather these riches unless he has received them from the Lord, whose own riches they are. Of which it is also said elsewhere: The redemption of a man's soul is his own riches. Favor too, unless it is accompanied by knowledge, and granted by God, even a learned man will not be able to find it.

Which Paul, knowing this, says: I have labored more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me. And again: His grace in me was not in vain. And finally it is not known by man when the time comes in which the various chance and end of all things follows. These things according to the anagogical sense.

But, that we may discuss more simply: the Epistle to the Romans is fitting for this place: For it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. But as to what he says: Bread is not for the wise, this is proved daily by the example of many, who, though they are most wise, are in need of necessities. And: Favor is not for the skillful. For you may see in the Church that the most unskilled flourish: and because they have nourished boldness of face, and have attained fluency of tongue, while not considering what they say, they think themselves prudent and learned—especially if they have had the favor of the crowd, which is more delighted and moved by lighter words. And on the contrary, the learned man lies hidden in obscurity, suffers persecutions: and not only has no favor among the people, but wastes away in want and need.

These things happen because all things are carried along in an uncertain state, and there is no reward of merits in the present, but in the future.

And indeed man does not know his time, like fish that are caught in an evil catch, like birds that are gathered in a snare: so shall the sons of men fall in an evil time, when it falls upon them suddenly. We have already said above that while men do not know it, so anguishes come upon them, or destruction. Furthermore, according to allegory it must be known that the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea. And on the contrary, the heretics have a net, by which they catch fish unto destruction. Their net is affable speech, smooth eloquence, feigned or forced fasts, humble clothing, imitation of virtues. But if they begin also to dispute about higher things, and to raise their mouth on high, and to seek the depths of God, they set a snare in the heights.

Just as, therefore, fish and birds are quickly caught by such a net, and by such a snare: so, when iniquity shall have multiplied, and the love of many shall have grown cold, and signs and portents shall have been made, so that, if possible, even the elect are led astray: it must be known that among Ecclesiastical men too, who are called sons of men, and are of little faith, can quickly fall. It should also be noted that throughout the whole book, wherever it says "sons of men," the Hebrew has (בני אדם) "sons of the man," that is, "sons of Adam." And nearly all Scripture is full of this idiom, calling the whole human race "sons of Adam."

But this too I saw as wisdom under the sun, and it is great with me. A small city, and few men in it: and there came against it a great king, and encompassed it, and built against it a great engine. And there was found in it a poor and wise man, and he saved the city by his wisdom: and no man remembered that poor man.

Whereas others say that all things are uncertain, and that the just has nothing more than the unjust: I have proved that wisdom is very great even in this respect: that it often happens that a city is small, and its inhabitants few, and it is surrounded by the army of innumerable enemies, and by siege and famine the people within are being killed: and suddenly, contrary to everyone's suspicion, there is found a humble and poor man who, because he has greater wisdom than all the rich, the great and powerful and proud who are placed in danger and trembling at the siege, ponders and searches out, and discovers how he may deliver the city from its evils. And, O ungrateful forgetfulness of men, after they have been freed, and the captivity has been dissolved, and liberty restored to the fatherland, no one remembers that poor wise man, no one gives thanks for their deliverance: but all honor the rich, who in the danger were able to bring no help.

In another way the Hebrew has interpreted this passage thus: The small city is man, who is also called by the philosophers the lesser world. And the few men in it are the members of which man himself is composed. But when the great king, the devil, comes against it, and seeks a place through which he can break in, there is found in it a humble and wise man, and the quiet reflection of the inner man, and he preserves the city which was being besieged and surrounded by enemies. And when man has been delivered from danger, whether of persecution, or of straits, or of any adverse thing or sin whatsoever: that outer man, who is the enemy of that poor and wise man, does not remember the inner man, nor submit himself to his counsels: but again enjoys his own liberty.

In another way: The small city, and the few men in it, in comparison with the whole world, is the Church: against which the great king, the devil, often rises up (not because he is great, but because he boasts himself to be great) and surrounds it with the siege either of persecution, or of some other kind of distress. And there is found in it a poor and wise man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sake became poor and is Wisdom itself: and that poor man delivers the city by his wisdom. How often have we seen the lion sitting in ambush with the rich, that is, with the senators and princes of this age, and plotting against the Church, collapse before the wisdom of that poor man? And when this poor man has conquered, and the city has been restored to peace, scarcely anyone remembers him, scarcely anyone considers his commands: but, giving themselves wholly over to luxury and pleasures, they seek riches, which do not deliver in time of need.

And I said, Wisdom is better than strength, and the wisdom of the poor man which was despised, and his words which were not heard. Although no one remembers that poor wise man, since all is prosperous; but all admire power and riches: yet I, following all the above interpretations, honor more the despised wisdom, and the words which no one deigns to hear.

The words of the wise are heard in quiet, more than the cry of him that rules among fools. Whomever you see in the Church as a declaimer, and stirring up applause with a certain allurement and elegance of words, provoking laughter, exciting the hearers to feelings of delight: know it as a sign of folly, both of him who speaks and of those who listen. For the words of the wise are heard in quiet, and in moderate silence: but he who is unwise, however powerful he may be, and however much clamor either of his own voice or of the acclaiming crowd he may have, will be counted among fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, and one sinner shall destroy much good. Here again he prefers wisdom to strength, and says that it avails more in battles than the arms of fighters. But if there be one fool, however small and worthless he may be, yet often through his folly great wealth and riches are overthrown. But since in the Hebrew it may be read: And he who sins destroys much good, it may also be understood thus: that on account of one sin, many righteous acts of the past may perish, and that the virtues follow one another in turn, so that he who has one has them all. And he who has sinned in one point is subject to all the vices.

Dying flies spoil the sweetness of ointment: a little folly is more precious than wisdom and glory.

He has given an example of the preceding sense, in which he said that through one fool many good things can be overthrown, because an evil man mixed among the good defiles many, just as flies, if they die in ointment, ruin both its scent and its color. And because craftiness is often mixed with wisdom, and prudence has malice in it, he bids us seek a simple wisdom, mingled with the innocence of doves: that we be wise unto good, but simple unto evil. And the sense is: it is fitting for the just man to have a little simplicity, and, because of excessive patience, while he reserves vengeance to God, to seem foolish, rather than, avenging himself at once, to practice malice under the veil of prudence. In another way: The flies which, according to Isaiah, rule over part of the river of Egypt, spoil the sweetness of the oil, leaving in each of the believers the odor and traces of their uncleanness.

From these flies also the prince of demons is called Beelzebub, which is interpreted either the idol of flies, or the man of flies, or the one having flies.

The heart of a wise man is at his right hand, and the heart of a fool at his left. But also when the fool walks in the way, his heart is diminished, and he says, everyone is a fool. And in the Gospel it is commanded that the left hand of the wise man should not know what the right hand does. And when we are struck on the right cheek, we are not commanded to offer the left cheek to the one striking, but the other right one. For the just man has no left in himself, but all in him is right. And when the Savior comes to judge, the sheep shall stand on the right; but the goats shall be on the left. And it is written in Proverbs: The Lord knows the ways of the right; but those which are perverse are on the left. He therefore who is wise always thinks of the age to come, which leads to the right.

But he who is foolish thinks of the present, which is set on the left. Following this same thought, that philosopher and poet says:

The right hand leads beneath the walls of great Dis.
This is our way to Elysium: but the left exacts
the penalties of the wicked, and sends to impious Tartarus.

Our own Firmianus too, in the illustrious work of his Institutions, recalls the letter Y, and has discussed most fully the right and left hands, that is, the virtues and vices. Nor should we think this contrary to that saying in which it is written: Do not turn aside to the right hand, nor to the left. For here the right part is taken for good: but there it is not so much the right hand as the turning aside from the right that is blamed: lest we be wiser than it is necessary for us to be wise; because the virtues lie in the middle, and every excess is a vice. But of the following verse in which it says: But also when the fool walks in the way, his heart is in want, and he says: everything is folly, or foolish, the sense is this: the fool, since he himself sins, expects everyone to sin likewise, and judges all according to his own disposition.

Indeed Symmachus interpreted thus: But also when the fool walks in the way, he himself, being foolish, suspects of everyone that they are fools. But the Seventy made another sense of it, by which they said: All that the fool thinks is utterly vain.

If the spirit of him that has power ascend upon you, leave not your place, because healing makes great sins to rest. Scripture now signifies the prince of this world and the ruler of these darknesses, and him that works in the children of unbelief, of whom the Apostle also makes mention. But if he ascends into our heart, and the mind receives the wound of an evil thought, we ought not to give further place, but to fight against the worst thought, and free ourselves from the greatest sin: namely, that we not fulfill the thought in deed: for it is one thing to sin in thought, another to sin in deed. Of this great sin it is also written in the Psalm: If they shall not have dominion over me, then shall I be blameless, and I shall be cleansed from the greatest offense.

Symmachus has interpreted the Hebrew word (MARPHE), which all others have rendered "iama," that is, health or healing, according to sense, and says: If the spirit of the prince rushes upon you, do not withdraw from your place: because chastity restrains great sins. That is, if the devil tickles your mind, and stirs you up to lust, do not follow the worst thought and the flattering pleasure: but stand firm and rigid, and quench the flame of pleasure with the coldness of chastity. The Hebrew in this passage has suspected something else, I know not what. If you receive some dignity in the world, and are ordained greater among the peoples, do not abandon your former works, and do not begin to forget your former virtues, nor to give up your earlier labor: because the remedy of sins arises from good conduct, and not from swelling and superfluous dignity.

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as it were an ignorance proceeding from the face of the powerful: a fool set in great heights, and the rich sitting in a low place. I have seen servants on horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. For what we have rendered: As it were an ignorance proceeding from the face of the powerful, Aquila and Theodotion and the Seventy have interpreted: As it were not voluntary, that is, ὡς ἀκούσιον, from the face of the prince. To which Symmachus adds, saying: A fool set in a great height: but the rich sitting in humility. He recalls, therefore, that he has observed this injustice in the world, that the judgment of God seems unjust: and whether it happens through ignorance, or apart from his will, that either in the powers of the world, or in the leadership of the Church, those who are rich in speech and wisdom, rich also in good works, sit in obscurity, while some foolish person holds the leadership in the Church.

But the Apostle does not conceal that this comes about through the devil, who has power in the world, so that he presses down all the powerful and learned men, and does not permit them to appear among the people. But those whom he knows to be unwise in the Churches, he makes greater, so that the blind may be led by the blind into the pit. To this sense also belongs what follows: I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. Because those who are servants of vices and sin, whether so lowly that they are counted as servants by men, being suddenly puffed up with dignity by the devil, wear down the public roads with their ponies: and every noble and prudent man, oppressed by poverty, walks the road in the manner and office of servants. The Hebrew has expounded the powerful one and prince, from whose face ignorance seems to proceed, as God, because men think that in this inequality of things he does not judge justly and as is fitting.

But others think this should be joined with what precedes: that he himself is the powerful one, of whom it was said before these verses: If the spirit of him that has power ascend upon you, leave not your place. Let us not, therefore, be sad, if in this age we seem to be lowly, knowing that from the face of the devil both fools are exalted, and the rich cast down: servants bear the insignia of masters, and princes enter into the vileness of servants. It should be noted, moreover, that here too the horse is taken in a good sense, as in that other place: And your riding is salvation.

He that digs a pit shall fall into it, and he that breaks down a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. This has partly a simple, and partly a mystical meaning. For elsewhere Solomon himself also says: He that sets a snare shall be caught in it. And in the seventh Psalm: He has opened a pit and dug it, and he has fallen into the ditch which he made. But the tearing down of the hedge and wall are the teachings of the Church, and the institution founded by the Apostles and Prophets, which whoever dissolves and wishes to disregard, in that very negligence is struck by the serpent. Of this serpent it is also written in Amos: If he descend into hell, I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.

He that removes stones shall be grieved in them: and he that splits wood shall be endangered by them. In Zechariah too the holy stones are rolled upon the earth. For they do not stand fixed in a stable place, but pass on, and, ever striving toward higher things, hasten to depart from here. Of these living stones the city of the Saviour is also built up in the Apocalypse, and the Apostle does not fail to mention that the Church is built. If therefore anyone, perverted by heretical craft, shall have removed these stones from the building of the Church (whence also, notably, Aquila and Symmachus, in place of what we rendered—he that removes stones shall be grieved in them—said: He that transfers stones shall be torn apart by them), afterward he shall suffer torments.

But since Scripture speaks absolutely, saying, He that removes stones, or, he that transfers stones, and did not add "good" or "bad," therefore also, conversely, it must be understood that an ecclesiastical man, namely a bishop or presbyter, if in accordance with the command of Leviticus he shall have removed a stone from a leprous house, to be ground into ash and dust, will grieve at this very fact, that he is compelled to remove a stone from the Church of Christ, saying, according to the Apostle: To weep with them that weep, to mourn with them that mourn; and, Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not burned? He who splits wood also shall be endangered by it. Heretics are unfruitful wood, and forests without the benefit of fruit. Whence also in the temple of God the planting of a grove is forbidden, and the vain shades of leaves—that is, of words that merely make a sound—are rejected.

Although therefore a man be prudent and learned, who cuts down this wood with the sword of his speech, he shall be endangered by it, unless he take careful heed; especially if what follows should happen to him: If the iron be blunted, and its edge disturbed—that is, if his disputation be found weaker, and have no keenness by which to cut apart whatever is contrary, but the chief part of his heart be dulled—he will pass over to the opposing side, and perverse strength will confirm him. For this is what the Seventy Translators rendered: And he shall be strengthened with strength; and, strengthened with a superfluous wisdom, he begins, it says, to have strength, and a wisdom which is superfluous and does not help its possessor. If the iron be blunted; and this, not as before, but disturbed, he shall be strengthened by virtues: and the remainder of strength is wisdom.

If someone, it says, shall have seen that he has lost the knowledge of the Scriptures through negligence, and the keenness of his mind has been dulled, and he has by no means remained disturbed such as he had begun to be—for it happens sometimes that when someone has a little knowledge, being lifted up into pride, he ceases to learn and to read, and gradually, because nothing is added to him, it is taken away, and his breast remains empty of learning, and the iron which had been sharp is dulled; for idleness and sloth are, as it were, a kind of rust of wisdom. If then someone suffers this, let him not despair of the remedy of health, but let him go to a teacher, and be instructed again by him, and after labor and diligence and much sweat, he will be able to recover the wisdom which he had lost.

This is what is said more significantly in the Hebrew: And he shall be strengthened with strengths—that is, by labor and sweat, and diligence, and daily reading, he will attain wisdom, and his strength will have this end, that he may receive wisdom. If a serpent bite in silence, there is no more advantage to him who has a tongue. The plain sense here is: the serpent and the detractor are equal. For just as the one, biting secretly, injects venom; so the other, secretly detracting, pours out the poison of his breast upon his brother, and has nothing more than the serpent. For since the tongue of man was created for blessing, and for the edification of his neighbor, he makes it equal to the serpent, when he misuses its powers perversely.

Otherwise: if the devil-serpent shall have secretly bitten someone, and, with no one aware, shall have infected him with the venom of sin; if he who is struck keeps silent, and does not do penance, nor wishes to confess his wound to a brother and teacher, the teacher and brother, who have a tongue for healing, will not easily be able to help him. For if the sick man is ashamed to confess his wound to the physician, medicine does not cure what it does not know. The words of a wise man's mouth are grace, and the lips of a fool will cast him headlong. If folly were content with its own rusticity, it would have something less of evil. But now it wages war against wisdom, and whatever prudence it sees in a learned man, being stirred by zeal, it does not receive.

For the wise man speaks words of knowledge and words of grace, which can afford benefit to hearers, and the ears of the fool do not receive what is said as it is said; but on the contrary they try to trip up the prudent man, and make him like themselves. And truly the wise man is cast down, when he speaks into the ear of an imprudent one, and his words perish in the deep, so to speak, whirlpool. Whence blessed is he who speaks into the ear of one who listens. The beginning of his words is folly, and the end of his mouth is the worst error. And the fool multiplies words. Man does not know what has been done: and what shall be after him, who shall announce it to him? He is still disputing about the fool, whose lips cast down the wise man, or, according to another interpretation, make the fool himself fall.

For the beginning of his speech, and the end, is folly and the worst error; or, as Symmachus translated, tumult, and a certain inconstancy of words; since he does not remain in his opinion, but thinks he can escape sin by multiplying words. For since he remembers neither the past nor knows the future, and rolls in ignorance and darkness, promising himself a false knowledge; in this he thinks himself learned, in this he thinks himself wise, if he multiplies words. This can also be understood of heretics, who do not grasp the sayings of prudent men, but, preparing themselves for contrary disputes, wrap up both the beginning and the end of their speaking in vanity, tumult, and error; and though they know nothing, they speak more than they know.

The labor of fools shall afflict them, who do not know how to go into the city. Join these verses also with the preceding: he disputes either generally about all fools, who do not know God, or specifically about heretics. Read Plato; unroll the subtleties of Aristotle, examine Zeno and Carneades more carefully, and you will prove true what is said: The labor of fools shall afflict them. They indeed sought truth with all zeal; but because they had no guide, no forerunner of the way, and thought that they could grasp wisdom by human senses, they did not at all arrive at the city, of which it is said in the psalm: Lord, in your city you will scatter their image. For all the shadows and diverse images and personas, which they clothed themselves with in various doctrines, the Lord will scatter in his city. Of which it is also written elsewhere: The rush of the river makes glad the city of God. And in the Gospel: A city cannot be hidden set upon a mountain.

And in Isaiah: I am a strong city, a city that is assailed. Since indeed all the wise men of the world and heretics try to assail this city of truth and wisdom, even though it is strong and robust. And what we have said of the philosophers, the same must also be understood of heretics, that they labor and are afflicted in vain in the study of the Scriptures, since they walk in the desert, and cannot find the city. Of whose error the Psalmist also makes mention, saying: They wandered in the desert and in a waterless place, they found not the way to the city of their habitation.

Woe to you, land, whose king is a youth, and whose princes eat in the morning. Blessed is the land whose king is a son of the freeborn, and whose princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for shame. It seems indeed to reprove the rule of the young, and to condemn luxurious judges, because in the one, wisdom is weak by reason of age, while in others even mature age is enervated by delights. And conversely, it seems to approve the prince of good character, and one liberally trained; and to praise those judges who by no means prefer pleasure to the business of the citizens, but after much labor and administration of the commonwealth, take food as though compelled by necessity. But to me something more sacred seems to lie hidden in the letter, namely that in Scripture those are called young who fall away from ancient authority, and despise the hoary precepts of their fathers; who, neglecting the command of God, desire to establish the traditions of men.

Concerning whom also in Isaiah the Lord threatens Israel, because it was unwilling to have the water of Siloe, which flows in silence, and turned away from the ancient pool, choosing for itself the streams of Samaria and the waters of Damascus. And I will give, he says, youths as their princes, and mockers shall rule over them. Read Daniel, and you will find God the Ancient of Days. Read the Apocalypse of John, and you will find the head of the Saviour white as snow, and as it were white wool. Jeremiah too, because he was wise, and his gray hairs were reckoned in wisdom, is forbidden to say that he is a youth. Woe therefore to the land whose king is the devil, who, ever desirous of new things, rebels against his father even in Absalom: which has as judges and princes those who love the pleasures of this age, who, before the day of death comes, say: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.

On the contrary, blessed is the land of the Church, whose king is Christ, the son of the freeborn: descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from the stock of the prophets and all the saints, over whom sin has had no dominion; and for that reason they were truly free. From these was born the freer Virgin, holy Mary, having no offshoot, no sprout from her side; but her whole fruit burst forth into a flower, speaking in the Song of Songs: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. Her princes too are the Apostles and all the saints, who have as king the son of the freeborn, the son of the free woman: not born of the handmaid Agar, but of the freedom of Sara. Nor do they eat in the morning, nor hastily. For they do not seek pleasure in the present age, but shall eat in their own time, when the time of retribution shall come, and they shall eat for strength, and not for shame.

Every good of the present age is shame, that of the future is perpetual strength. Something like this is also said in Isaiah: Behold, they who serve me shall eat: but you shall hunger: And again: Behold, they who serve me shall rejoice: but you shall be put to shame.

By slothfulness the framework shall be brought low, and through the weakness of the hands the house shall drip. Our house, which was raised up together with the standing of man, and the habitation which we have in the heavens, if we are slothful and rather slow to good works, will be brought low. And every framework, which ought to bear the roof aloft, falling to the ground, will crush its inhabitant. And when the aid of hands and of virtues has grown numb, all the tempests from above, and the whirlwind of storms, burst in upon us. Moreover, what we have interpreted concerning one man can be better taken concerning the Church: that through the negligence of its leaders all its height collapses, and there the enticements of vices are found, where the covering of virtues was thought to be.

In laughter they make bread and wine, that the living may feast. And to silver all things are obedient. I judge that what follows depends on what precedes. For we explained above that, through the sloth and carelessness of teachers, the Church is brought low, and its height falls down, and its beams are eaten through. Now therefore he speaks of these same teachers.

And because he seemed to accuse them for being silent, and not exercising the office of teachers, and for bishops and presbyters established in the Church not laboring in word and doctrine—which Titus is also admonished to do, and Timothy is charged not to neglect the grace which he had received through the imposition of hands; but rather, that presbyters and bishops should so consider themselves worthy of due wages, and, as teachers, seek the double honor which is owed to those laboring in doctrine and word—now, on the contrary, he accuses those who indeed speak in the Church, and teach the peoples, but teach what it delights the people to hear, because it flatters sinners in their vice, and stirs up the applause of hearers. Does it not seem to you, when speech in the Church grows wanton, and promises to the crowd blessedness and the kingdoms of heaven, that it makes bread in laughter, and mixes wine for the gladness of the living?

Whether because those who teach acquire riches, and food, and wealth through delightful promises; or because they prepare the bread of the Church, which is the bread of those who mourn and not of those who laugh (for blessed are they that mourn, for they shall laugh), in gladness and joy.

But what follows: Money or silver, all things obey, is to be understood in two ways. Either that the teachers themselves, after having been enriched by flattery, exercise dominion over the peoples: or certainly, because silver is always taken for speech: For the sayings of the Lord are pure sayings: silver tried by fire in the earth, purged seven times: this asserts that the common and lowly crowd easily yields to eloquence and oratory, which is composed with a foliage of words. Otherwise: those who have the bridegroom with them, and for that reason are forbidden to mourn and fast, make bread in laughter. From which laughter Isaac also received his name, and they prepare wine to drink in gladness. Every holy man therefore who, as Christ commanded, is a teacher of the Church, makes bread in laughter and gladness, and dispenses cups of wine in joy.

The silver too, which all things obey, are those five, and two, and one talents of the master of the household from the Gospel, and the ten minas, which are entrusted to the servants for trading.

Curse not the king, even in your thought, and in the secret of your bedchamber curse not the rich: because a bird of the air will carry the voice, and one having wings will report the word. And the simple precept edifies its hearers: that overcome by anger and fury, we should not burst out into cursing and detraction of kings and princes: because it sometimes happens, contrary to hope, that it is reported to those whom we have cursed, and we incur danger from the intemperance of the tongue. But what he says: A bird of the air will carry the voice, and one having wings will report the word, is to be understood hyperbolically, in the way we are accustomed to say that even the very walls, privy to our speech, will not conceal what they have heard.

But it is better to hear the precept in such a way that we know it is commanded us, not only that we should say nothing rashly against Christ, but also that even in the secret places of the heart, however hemmed in by various tribulations, we should think nothing blasphemous, nothing impious.

And because we owe to our neighbor the love which we show to Christ: for indeed, You shall love the Lord your God, but also your neighbor as yourself, we are now commanded also, that after the king we should not readily detract from the Saints as well: and that we should not gnaw with the bite of the tongue those whom we see enriched with wisdom, knowledge, and virtues: because the Angels who go about the earth, and are ministering spirits, and speak in Zechariah: We have gone about the earth, and behold, all the earth is inhabited, and is silent: carry our words and thoughts up to heaven, after the manner of birds: and that what we think in secret does not escape the knowledge of God.

Cast your bread upon the face of the water: for in the multitude of days you shall find it. He exhorts to almsgiving, that it should be given to every one who asks, and done indiscriminately, and well.

For just as one who sows over well-watered ground awaits the fruit of the sowing: so one who gives generously to the needy sows not a grain of seed, but bread itself, awaiting its multiplication by a kind of interest: and when the day of judgment shall come, he will receive far more than he had given. Otherwise: in whatever man you shall see that water, of which it is said: Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly, let it not weary you to offer the bread of wisdom, the reasonable bread, the bread of the word. For if you do this frequently, you will find that you have not sown the seed of teachings in vain. Something of this sort I think is also said in Isaiah: Blessed is he who sows upon the water, where the ox and the ass tread. Because that teacher is to be held worthy of blessedness who sows upon the well-watered breast of his hearers, gathered together both from the Jews and from the people of the nations.

Give a portion to seven, and indeed to eight: for you do not know what evil shall be upon the earth. And in Ezekiel we read of seven and eight steps for the ascent to the temple. And after that ethical psalm, that is, the hundred and eighteenth, there are fifteen psalms of the steps, through which we are first instructed in the Law, and, the number seven being completed, afterward through the number eight we climb up to the Gospel. It is therefore commanded that we believe with equal reverence in both instruments, that is, both the old and the new. The Jews gave a portion to seven, believing in the sabbath: but they did not give to eight, denying the resurrection of the Lord's day. On the contrary, heretics, Marcion and Manichaeus, and all who tear apart the old Law with rabid mouth, give portions to eight, receiving the Gospel: but they do not grant the same to the number seven, rejecting the old Law. Let us therefore believe in both Instruments.

For we cannot even now comprehend in mind the torments worthy, the punishment worthy, which is laid up for those who dwell upon the earth, the Jews and heretics, who each deny one of the two. The Hebrews understand this passage thus: Observe both the sabbath and circumcision: lest, if perchance you do not do this, unforeseen evil should come upon you.

If the clouds be full, they will pour out rain upon the earth. And if a tree fall to the south, or to the north: in the place where the tree shall fall, there it shall be. Keep the commandments which have been enjoined upon you above, that the clouds may pour out their rain upon you. For wherever you shall have prepared a place for yourself, and a future dwelling, whether to the south or to the north: there, when you have died, you shall remain. Otherwise: for this reason we said above: Cast your bread upon the face of the water, and give to every one who asks of you: because the clouds too, when they are full, bestow their riches upon mortals, and you, like the tree, however long-lived you may be, will not remain forever, but suddenly, overthrown by the tempest of death as by that of the winds, wherever you fall, there you will remain forever, whether the final hour finds you harsh and cruel, or gentle and merciful.

Otherwise: it is said in the Psalms to God: Your truth reaches even unto the clouds. And in Isaiah, God threatens the vineyard that has sinned: I will command the clouds not to rain a shower upon it. The clouds therefore are the Prophets, and every holy man, who, when he has gathered together many teachings in his heart, will then be able to rain down the precepts of doctrine, and to say: Let my speech be awaited like the rain, and let them pour a shower upon the earth: to which it was said: Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. But what follows: And if a tree fall to the south, or to the north: in the place where the tree shall fall, there it shall be: let us take as an example that from Habakkuk, where it is written: God shall come from Teman, which other translators rendered, God shall come from the south. And as far as I can judge, the south is always taken in a good sense.

Whence also in the Song of Songs it is said: Arise, O north wind, that is, withdraw and depart, and come, O south wind. The tree, therefore, which has fallen in this life, and has been cut down by the condition of mortality, either sinned before while it stood, and is afterward placed in the region of the north: or, if it has brought forth fruits worthy of the south, it will lie in the southern region. Nor is there any tree but is either to the north or to the south. This same thing is signified also by what is written in Isaiah: I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. For it is never commanded of the south wind and the east wind that they should bring: because it is fitting that they should be in other regions, who are afterward to be led to the east and the south. The north wind, therefore, brings its inhabitants to the south, and the south wind to the east.

For they cannot advance if they persist in their former abodes.

He who observes the wind will not sow; and he who watches the clouds will not reap. He who considers to whom he should do good, and does not give to every one who asks of him, often passes by the one who deserves to receive. Otherwise: he who preaches the word of God only at that time when the people gladly listen, and a favorable breeze of rumor blows, is a negligent sower and a slothful farmer. For in the very midst of prosperity, while we are unaware, adversities arise. But the word of God must be preached in season, out of season, with its own steady course: nor, in a time of faith, is the storm of hostile clouds to be considered. Of which it is said in Proverbs: Like a violent and useless rain: so are those who abandon wisdom and praise impiety. Therefore, without regard for clouds or fear of winds, one must sow in the midst of storms.

Nor should it be said: this time is favorable, that one useless, since we do not know what is the way, and what is the will of the spirit that disposes all things.

As you do not know what is the way of the spirit, and how the bones are formed in the womb of a woman with child: so you do not know the works of God, who makes all things. Just as you do not know the way of the spirit and of the soul entering into the infant, and are ignorant of the varieties of bones and veins in the womb of the pregnant woman: how, from a lowly element, the body of man is fashioned into diverse shapes and limbs, and how of the same seed one part softens into flesh, another hardens into bones, another throbs in the veins, and another is bound in sinews: so you will not be able to know the works of God, who is the maker of all things.

From this he teaches that contrary things are not to be feared, nor should one judge rashly about the winds and clouds of which we spoke above: since the sower ought to proceed with his own steady course, and reserve the outcome to the judgment of the Lord. For it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening let not your hand be idle: for you do not know which shall prosper, this or that. And if both together, it is like one good thing. And light is sweet, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun: for if a man live many years, let him rejoice in all of them, and remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that is to come is vanity. Choose not to whom you should do good: but even when you have done good, never cease from the good work. Let the evening find morning justice. And let the rising sun add to the mercy shown in the evening. For it is uncertain which work pleases God more, and from which the fruit of righteousness is prepared for you. But it may happen that not one, but both please God. Otherwise: both in youth and in old age let your labor be equal.

Nor say: while I could, I labored; I ought to rest in old age. For you do not know whether you please God in youth, or in advanced age. Nor does frugality in youth profit, if old age is led into luxury. For in whatever day the just man has erred, his former righteousness will not be able to deliver him from death. But if, according to either interpretation, you have always done good, and have kept an equal course at every age, you will see God the Father, the sweetest light; you will see Christ, the sun of righteousness. Furthermore, if you have both lived many years, and possessed all good things, or performed good works, and have known that you will always die, and that the coming of darkness is ever before your eyes: you will despise present things as fleeting, fragile, and transient.

Symmachus translated the end of this saying thus: If a man has lived many years, and has rejoiced in all of them, he ought also to remember the days of darkness: for they shall be many, and in all of them he shall come to cease to be. Otherwise: God promises in another place of Scripture, saying: I will give you the early and the late rain, namely the old Testament and the new, and I will water you with both showers. Whence we are also now admonished, so to read the old Law that we do not despise the Gospel: so to seek spiritual understanding in the old Instrument, that we do not think that in the Evangelists and Apostles only that is meant which is read literally. For we do not know in which we are granted more knowledge and grace by God, and that man is happy who has joined both together in common, and made them as it were one body.

He who shall have attained this will see the light, will see Christ, the sun of righteousness. And if he shall have lived many years, he will pass his time in the greatest joy and delight, having knowledge of the Scriptures, and will be driven the more to this labor by remembrance of the coming judgment: because a perpetual time of darkness will come, and eternal punishments will be prepared for those who have not sown in the morning and in the evening, and have in no way joined the two together: nor have they seen the light, nor the sun, whence that very light proceeds.

Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart be in good in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes. And know this, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. And remove anger from your heart, and put away malice from your flesh: for youth and folly are vanity.

And remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near of which you shall say: I have no pleasure in them. On this little chapter there has been a diverse explanation from everyone, and almost as many opinions as men. Whence, because it would be tedious to recount the opinions of all, and to set forth the arguments by which they have wished to establish their views, being nearly the matter of a whole volume: let it suffice for the prudent to have indicated what they thought, and, as if on a small tablet, to have painted the layout of the lands, and to have shown, in a narrow compass, the vastness of the whole world and the circuit of the Ocean.

The Hebrews reckon that this commandment pertains to Israel, to whom it is enjoined that he enjoy his riches, before the time of captivity comes upon him, and he exchanges youth for old age: whatever seems delightful or pleasant, both to the heart and to the eyes, let him make use of, while it is at hand: yet so that he know himself to be judged in all things: and let him flee both evil thoughts and lusts, knowing that folly is joined to youth: and let him always remember his Creator, before the days of the Babylonian and Roman captivity come, in which he will not be able to have his own will. And this whole passage, from where it says: Before the sun, and the moon, and the stars grow dark, up to that place where Scripture recalls: And the dust shall return to its earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to the Lord who gave it, they explain concerning the state of their own condition.

Because these things, as we said above, are intricate and prolix, they shall be touched by us briefly and succinctly. Rejoice therefore in your youth, O Israel, and do this or that, of which mention has already been made, before the captivity comes, and your honor and glory depart from you: and your judges, and your holy ones (whom they wish to be understood in the sun, the moon, and the stars) are taken away. Before Nebuchadnezzar comes, or Titus the son of Vespasian, summoned by the prophets, and their prophecies are fulfilled.

On the day when the angels presiding over the temple shall withdraw, and the most robust in your army shall be troubled, and the words of the teachers shall be idle, and the prophets, who used to receive the light of their visions from the heavens, shall grow dark: when the doors of the temple shall be shut, and Jerusalem shall be humbled, and the Chaldean shall come, like the song of a bird, thus summoned by the voices of Jeremiah, and the daughters of song, the choirs of those singing psalms in the temple, shall fall silent. At that time, when, coming into Jerusalem, even the very enemies of God shall fear the greatness, and, doubtful on the way, shall dread the destruction of Sennacherib. For this is thought to be said: And they shall fear from on high, and shall be afraid in the way.

In those days the almond tree shall flourish, that staff and rod which Jeremiah saw at the beginning of his prophecy, and the locust, Nebuchadnezzar with his army, shall grow fat, and the caper shall be scattered, that is, the friendship of God with Israel. But what the caper means will be more fully explained when we come to speak of each particular. But all this shall befall Israel: because man is about to go into the house of his eternity, and to return from the protection of God to the heavenly things, at whose departure into his tabernacle, they shall go about in the street weeping and mourning, and hemmed in by the siege of enemies.

Rejoice therefore, Israel, in your youth, before the silver cord be broken, that is, while your glory is still with you, before the golden fillet turn back, that is, before the ark of the testament be taken away; before the pitcher be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel be rolled back over the cistern, that is, while within the Holy of Holies are the precepts of the law and the grace of the Holy Spirit, and before you return into Babylon, whence you went forth in the loins of Abraham, and begin to be worn away in Mesopotamia, whence once you set out: and all the grace of prophecy, with which you were once inspired, return to its giver. These things the Jews discuss even to this day, and draw the understanding of this chapter to their own person.

But returning to the order of our earlier discussion, we shall try to explain each point. Rejoice, young man, in your adolescence, and let your heart be in good in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes. And know, concerning all these things, that God will bring you into judgment. He had said that the light of this world is most sweet, and that man ought to rejoice in the days of his life, and with every effort seize pleasure: for the eternal night of death draws near, when it will not be permitted to enjoy what has been gathered, and all that we have possessed shall pass away like a shadow. Now therefore he exhorts man, and says: O young man, before old age and death rush upon you, rejoice in your youth, and whatever seems good to your heart, pleasant to your sight, take up, enjoy, use the things of the world as you please.

Again, lest, saying this, he should be thought to be inciting man to luxury, and falling into the dogma of Epicurus, he removed this suspicion, adding: And know, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Thus, he says, make use of the things of the world, so that you know you will be judged in the end. Under anger he comprehends all disturbances of the soul. Under the malice of the flesh he signifies all the pleasures of the body. Thus, he says, enjoy the good things of this world, so that you sin neither by desire nor by flesh. Leave behind the old vices, by which in your youth you served vanity and folly: for youth is joined to foolishness. And remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, of which you will say: I have no pleasure in them.

Always remember your Creator, and so walk the path of your youth that you remember your final death: before the time comes upon you in which every sad thing shall follow.

Before the sun grow dark, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, and the clouds return after the rain. If we take this of the general consummation of the world, this chapter agrees with the words of the Lord, in which he says: There shall be tribulation and distress, such as has not been from the beginning of creation, nor shall be. For the sun shall grow dark, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, which are the guardians of the house: so that the house here is understood to be this world, but the strong men are those deceived by error, and the contrary powers are to be scattered. But if the consummation particular to each individual is referred to the end of this life: then the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the clouds, and the rains shall cease to be for him who has died.

Otherwise: Rejoice, young man, O Christian people, and enjoy the good things which have been granted to you by God, and in all these things know that you are to be judged by the Lord. And do not think, because the former branches have been broken off, and you have been grafted into the root of the good olive tree, that you are therefore secure: but remove anger from your heart, and pleasures from your body, and, the other vices having been left behind, remember your Creator, before the evil and incurable day comes, in which punishments are prepared for sinners: lest, when you have sinned, the sun of righteousness set for you at midday, and the light of knowledge perish, and the splendor of the moon, that is, of the Church, be withdrawn, and the stars set, of which it is written: Among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. And elsewhere: Star differs from star in glory.

Before the clouds return after the rain, lest the prophets, who water the hearts of believers with their word and with their showers, after they have seen you to be unworthy of their rain, return to their own seat: namely, to him by whom they were sent.

In the day when the keepers of the house shall be moved, and the strong men shall perish. By keepers of the house is understood either the sun and the moon and the rest of the choir of the stars, or the angels who preside over this world. But the strong men, or the mighty, as Symmachus interpreted, who shall perish, or as Aquila translated, shall err, are understood to be the demons, who themselves have received the name of "strong ones" from the strong devil. Whom the Lord, overcoming and binding, according to the parable of the Gospel, lays waste his house. Otherwise: those who refer all that is written to the body of man think that the keepers of the house signify the ribs, because by them the intestines are fenced about, and the whole softness of the belly is preserved. But the strong men they reckon to be the legs: the sun, and the moon, and the stars they fit to the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, and the senses of the whole head.

But this is so, because they are forced by necessity below to understand what follows not of angels and demons, the sun, moon, and stars, but of the members of man.

And the grinders shall cease, because they are diminished: and they that look out shall grow dark in the windows. At the consummation of the world, when the charity of many shall have grown cold, and the souls of the teachers who can furnish heavenly food to believers shall be diminished, and translated into the heavenly places: then those who in this world beheld in part the light of knowledge shall begin to be wrapped in darkness. For if it is said to Moses: I will set you in a hole of the rock: and so you shall see my back parts: how much more does every soul behold the truth through a hole, and as it were through certain dark caverns! Otherwise: There are two grinders, of whom the Gospel does not hide that one is taken and the other left. When these have been diminished and have ceased, it is necessary that all the light of knowledge be taken away from the eyes.

Otherwise: they think that the ceasing of the grinders, because they are diminished, is said of the teeth. For when extreme old age has come, the teeth also either are worn down, or fall out: by which food, chewed fine, is sent down into the belly. But they think that those who grow dark that look out in the windows are the eyes: because in those worn down by age the sight grows dim, and the gaze is darkened.

And the doors shall be shut in the street with the low sound of the grinder: and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird; and all the daughters of song shall grow dumb. When the voice of the grinder has grown weak, and the teaching of the masters has ceased, everything else will consequently cease: among which the doors also shall be shut in the street, so that, in accordance with the foolish virgins of the Gospel, each one may have the doors of his own street shut, and they may not be able to buy oil. Or certainly, while the foolish virgins are going about in the street, those who have gone in with the bridegroom shall shut the chamber of the bridegroom. For if the way that leads to life is narrow and strait, and that which leads to death is broad and spacious: rightly, when the love of many has grown cold, the door of teachings is shut in the streets.

In the following little verse, however, in that he says: And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, or sparrow, we shall use this in due time, whenever we see a sinner rising up at the voice of the bishop, or of the priest, through penance. This can also, though somewhat apart from the sequence of the chapter, be understood extraordinarily of the last resurrection, when the dead shall rise at the voice of the archangel. Nor is it to be wondered at, if we compare the trumpet of the angel to a sparrow, since every voice, compared to Christ, is slight. And as far as I can recall to mind, I know that I have never read of the sparrow taken in a bad sense. The just man speaks in the tenth psalm: In the Lord I put my trust: how do you say to my soul, flee to the mountain like a sparrow. And elsewhere: I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop.

And also in another place: For the sparrow has found herself a house. Otherwise: they wish the doors shut in the streets to be taken as the feeble steps of the old man: that he sits always, and cannot walk. And they interpret the low sound of the grinder as referring to the jaws, in that they cannot chew food, and his voice, thin and scarcely audible, comes with constrained breath. Further, that he rises at the voice of the bird shows that, now that the blood is growing cold, and the moisture dried up by which sleep is nourished, he wakes at a light sound, and rises hastily in the middle of the night when the cock has crowed: being by no means able to turn his limbs often on his bed. Also that the daughters of song grow dumb, or, as it is better rendered in the Hebrew, grow deaf, signifies the ears, in that the hearing of old men becomes duller, and they are no longer able to know differences between sounds, nor to delight in songs.

This indeed is also what Barzillai says to David, refusing to cross the Jordan. But also they shall be afraid of high things, and shall be afraid in the way. That is, they will not be able to go up steep places, and with weary knees and trembling steps, wavering even on a level road, they will dread a stumble of their steps. And the almond tree shall flourish, and the locust shall be made fat, and the caper shall be scattered: because man shall go into the house of his eternity, and they shall go about the street mourning. By metaphor the discourse of Ecclesiastes is even now about the members of man: that when old age has come, the hair has grown white, the feet have swollen, lust has grown cold, and man has been dissolved by death: then he shall return to his own land, that is, the grave, the house of his eternity: and, the funeral rites being duly performed, a crowd of mourners shall go before the burial.

Now the flower of the almond, which we have rendered as “gray hairs,” some interpret as the sacred thorn, because, as the flesh of the buttocks decreases, the thorn (spine) grows up and flourishes. Further, as to what he says: The locust shall be made fat, it should be known that where in our copies it is read “locust,” in the Hebrew is written AAGAB (חגב): a word which among them is ambiguous. For it can be rendered both as “ankle” and as “locust.” Just as, at the beginning of Jeremiah, the word SOCED (שקד), if the accent is varied, signifies both “nut” and “watching”; and it is said to him: What do you see, Jeremiah? And he answered: A rod of a nut-tree. And the Lord said to him: You have seen well: for I will watch over my word, since the word means both an almond nut and to watch.

So that, just as there he drew from the word for “nut” an inference of “watchings,” so here he understands, under the fatness of the locust, a swelling of the ankle. That I may do it, or that; and it has the etymology of “nut,” in that God is about to watch and to repay the people what it deserves, and this is the occasion of the discourse. So also here the ambiguity of the word, through its etymology, indicates the swollen legs of old men, weighed down by the humors of gout. Not that this happens to all old men, but that it happens for the most part, and, by synecdoche, the whole is named from a part. In that place where we have “caper,” in the Hebrew it has ABIONA (אביונה): which is itself also ambiguous, and is interpreted as love, desire, longing, or caper. And it is signified, as we said above, that the lust of old men grows cold, and the organs of intercourse are dissolved.

This is so because these ambiguous words, while in their own sound meaning almond, locust, and caper, signify by derivation something else, and are, by a figure, applied to meanings suited to an old man. It should also be known that where the Seventy Translators have now put “almond,” the word itself is SOCED (שקד), which is at the beginning of Jeremiah: but there it is rendered “nut,” here “almond.” Symmachus, understanding I know not what in this passage, translated quite differently. For he says: Moreover concerning these things they shall see from on high, and there shall be terror in the way, and the watchful one shall fall asleep, and the strength of the spirit shall be dissolved. For man shall go into the house of his eternity, and they shall go about the street mourning. The man of Laodicea, following his interpretation, can please neither the Jews nor the Christians: since he is far from the Hebrews, and disdains to follow the Seventy Translators.

Before the silver cord is broken, and the golden fillet shrinks back, and the pitcher is crushed at the fountain, and the wheel is broken at the cistern. And the dust returns to its own earth, as it was, and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, all is vanity. He returns to what came before, and after a great hyperbaton (which he had interposed from that place where he says: And remember your Creator in the days of your youth: before the evil days come, and before the sun and moon grow dark, and so forth, on the day when the keepers of the house shall be moved), he now concludes the sentence he had begun with a similar ending, saying: Before the silver cord is broken, and this or that happens. Now the silver cord signifies this bright life, and the breath that is granted to us from heaven. The shrinking back of the golden fillet also signifies the soul, which runs back there whence it had come down.

Further, the two remaining things that follow, the crushing of the pitcher at the fountain, and the breaking of the wheel at the cistern, are, by metaphor, riddles of death. For just as the pitcher which is crushed ceases to draw water, and the wheel by which waters are lifted up from cistern and wells, if it is broken, or, as the Seventy Translators would have it, rolled up in its own cord, the use of the water is cut off: so too, when the silver cord has been broken, and the stream of the soul runs back to the fountain, the man will perish. And as follows more plainly: The dust shall return to its own earth, whence it was taken: and the spirit shall return to the Lord, who gave it. From which they are sufficiently to be laughed at, who think that the souls of a few are sown together with the bodies, and are not generated by God, but by the parents of the bodies.

For since the flesh returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God, who gave it; it is manifest that God is the parent of souls, not men. After the description of the ruin of man, beautifully repeating the beginning of his book, he says: Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, all is vanity. For since the whole labor of mortals, of which discussion has been made throughout the entire volume, comes to this, that the dust returns to its own earth, and the soul returns there whence it was taken, it is of great vanity to labor in this world and to seek after things that will profit nothing.

And besides, because Ecclesiastes was made wise: he still taught the people knowledge, and made them hear: and, searching, he composed proverbs. Ecclesiastes sought much, that he might find words of good will, and might write words of truth aright. He now professes also at the end of his little work the wisdom by which Solomon surpassed the whole race of men, in that he was not content with the institution of the old Law: but of his own accord plunged himself into deep questions, and, for the teaching of the people, composed proverbs and parables, having one meaning in the marrow, and promising another on the surface. Indeed we are also taught in the Gospels that proverbs do not mean what is written on their face: that the Lord spoke to the people in parables and proverbs, but explained them privately to the Apostles.

From which it is manifest that the Book of Proverbs too does not have plain precepts, as simple people suppose: but, as gold is sought in the earth, the kernel in the nut, the fruit hidden in the bristly covering of chestnuts, so in these the divine sense is to be searched out more deeply. Beyond this he adds that he wished to know the causes and natures of things, and the disposition and providence of God: he wished to know why each thing was made, or how: so that what David, after the dissolution of body and soul, hopes he will see upon his return to heaven, saying: I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers: this Solomon now, in the present life, strove to find, so that the human mind, hedged about by the enclosure of the body, might comprehend the truth known to God alone.

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails driven deep, given by one shepherd to the gathered assemblies. Lest he should seem, after the Law of God, suddenly to burst forth as a rash teacher, and to claim for himself a teaching which Moses had received not so much of his own will, as first by God's anger, then by his inspiration: he says that his words are the words of wise men, which correct those at fault after the likeness of goads, and stir the slow steps of mortals with a pricking sting: and thus are firm like nails driven into what is high and solid: and are put forth not by the authority of one, but by the counsel and consent of all the masters. And lest human wisdom be despised, he says it was granted by one shepherd: that is, although many teach, yet the author of the teaching is one, the Lord.

This passage works against those who think that the God of the old Law is one, and the God of the Gospel another, in that one shepherd instructed the assembly of the wise. Now the wise are both the Prophets and the apostles. At the same time this too is to be noted, that the words of the wise are said to prick, not to stroke, nor to fondle wantonness with a soft hand: but to fix sorrow and a wound into those who err, and (as we said above) the slow, unto penance. If therefore anyone's discourse does not prick, but is a delight to the hearers, that is not the discourse of a wise man. For the words of the wise are as goads. Because these provoke the one at fault to conversion, and are firm, and given by the assembly of the saints, and granted by one shepherd, and founded upon a solid root.

By this goad, I think that Paul, not yet Paul but still Saul, on the road heard the confession of his error: It is hard for you to kick against the goad.

And beyond these, my son, be warned. Of making many books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Beyond these words which have been given by one shepherd, and approved by the council and consensus of the wise, do nothing, claim nothing for yourself: follow the footsteps of your elders, and do not depart from their authority. Otherwise, to one seeking many things an infinite number of books will present themselves, which will drag you into error, and will make the reader labor in vain. Or certainly he teaches that brevity is to be studied, and that meanings are to be pursued rather than words, in opposition to the philosophers and the teachers of this world, who strive to establish the falsehoods of their dogmas by the vanity and multiplication of words. On the contrary, divine Scripture is confined within a brief compass, and as much as it is expanded in meanings, so much is it constricted in speech.

Because God has made his word complete and abbreviated upon the earth, and his word is near, in our mouth and in our heart. Otherwise: frequent reading and daily meditation is usually more a labor of the soul than of the flesh. For just as whatever is done by hand and body is accomplished by the labor of hand and body, so that which pertains to reading is more a labor of the mind. From which it seems to me that the foregoing statement about the multitude of books should be understood otherwise than most suppose. It is the custom of the Scriptures, though there be many books, if they do not disagree among themselves and are written about the same matter, to call them one volume. For indeed both the Gospel and the Law of the Lord, undefiled, converting souls, are called singular, though there are several Gospels and many commandments of the law.

So too the volume sealed in the word of Isaiah is the whole of divine Scripture, and Ezekiel and John feed upon one chapter of a book. The Savior too, prophesied by the voices of all the saints of old, says: In the chapter of the book it is written of me. According to this sense, then, I judge the present precept to be, that many books should not be made. For whatever you say, if it be referred to him who in the beginning was with God, and was God the Word, is one volume: and innumerable books are named one Law, one Gospel. But if you dispute diverse and discrepant things, and with excessive curiosity draw your mind hither and thither, then even in one book there are many books. Whence it is said: In much speaking you shall not escape sin. Of such books, then, there is no end. For every good thing, and truth, is enclosed within a certain limit: but malice and falsehood are without end.

And the more they are sought, the greater their sequence becomes. Concerning this matter, study and meditation is a labor of the flesh. Of the flesh, I say, not of the spirit. For the spirit too has its own labor, according to that which the Apostle says: I have labored more than all of them: yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me.

And the Savior: I have labored, crying out. The end of the whole discourse is very easy to hear: Fear God, and keep his commandments. For this is every man, since God will bring every deed into judgment concerning every hidden thing, whether it be good or evil. The Hebrews say that, among the other writings of Solomon which have become obsolete and have not endured in memory, this book too seemed likely to be blotted out, because it asserted that the creatures of God were vain, and thought everything to be for nothing, and preferred food, drink, and passing delights above all things; yet from this one chapter it deserved to gain authority, so as to be placed among the number of the divine Volumes, because it confined its whole discussion and entire catalogue in this, as it were, ἀνακεφαλαίωσις (recapitulation), and said that the end of its discourse was most ready to be heard, and had nothing difficult in itself, namely, that we should fear God and do his commandments.

For man was born to this end, that, understanding his creator, he should venerate him with fear, and honor, and the doing of his commandments. Since, when the time of judgment shall come, whatever has been done by us stands before the judge, and awaits for a long while an uncertain sentence, and each one receives according to his work, whether he has done something evil or good. But for what we have rendered: concerning every hidden thing, whether it be good or evil, Symmachus and the Septuagint have translated: concerning every despised thing, or certainly concerning every unknown thing, because even for an idle word, uttered not by will but by ignorance, we shall render account on the day of judgment. Otherwise: since fear is of servants, and perfect love casts out fear, and in divine Scripture a twofold fear is named, both of beginners and of the perfect: I think that here it is spoken of the fear consummated in virtues, according to that: Nothing is lacking to those who fear him.

Or certainly, because man is still man, and has not yet received the name of God, he has this account of his substance, that, being placed in the body, he should fear God. Because every deed, that is, all men, God will bring into judgment concerning all things which they have perceived otherwise than they were disposed and spoken by him, whether in this direction or in that. For woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.