Homilies on Ecclesiastes 1

“The words of the Ecclesiast, the son of David, king … Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, said the Ecclesiast. What advantage is there for a human being in all his toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, and the earth stands for ever. And the sun rises, and the sun sets, and it draws to its place; rising there, it goes toward the south and circles toward the north. Circling, circling, the wind goes, and on its circuits the wind returns. All the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not being filled; to the place where the torrents go, there they return to go again. All the … And the eye will not be filled with seeing, and the ear will not be filled with hearing. What is it that has been? The very thing that will be [made] … And there is nothing at all fresh under the sun, who will speak and say, ‘Look, this is new’; it has already been in the ages that were before us. There is no memory of the first, and also of the last who come to be there will be no memory of them with those who come to be at the last.”

The Ecclesiast lies before us for exposition, and the labour of contemplating it is equal to the greatness of its benefit. For once the thoughts of the Proverbs have already given the mind its preliminary training — their dark sayings and wise utterances and riddles and the varied turns of speech, as the prologue of that book contains — then, for those who have grown toward the more perfect lessons, the ascent comes to this Scripture, so lofty and inspired by God. If, then, the proverb and the exercise that prepares us for these lessons is so laborious and so hard to contemplate, how much labour must one spend in looking into these lofty thoughts themselves, which now lie before us for contemplation? For just as those under a trainer strip for greater sweat and toil in the athletic contests, so the teaching of the Proverbs seems to me to be a kind of exercise, training our souls beforehand for the contests of the church and making them supple. If, then, the exercise is achieved with so much sweat and toil, what must one reckon about the contests themselves? What hyperbole could anyone conceive that would set forth worthily in words how great are the strains that the stadium of this Scripture displays to those who contend, through athletic experience, for the security of intelligible things, so as not to show the argument in a fall, but in every grappling of thought to keep the mind upright through the truth? Nevertheless, since this too is one of the Master’s commands, that one must search the Scriptures, it is altogether necessary — even if our mind, in searching, comes in behind the truth because it does not reach the greatness of the thoughts — still to carry it out by zeal for the word as far as we can, so as not to seem to overlook the Lord’s commandment. Let us therefore search the Scripture set before us as far as we are able. For surely he who gave the command to search will also give the power for this very thing, as it is written: “The Lord will give a word to those who preach good news with great power.”

And first let the title of the book be set before us for contemplation. In every church Moses and the law are read, the prophets, the psalmody, all the history, and whatever belongs to the Old and the New Covenant: all are proclaimed in the churches. How, then, is this book alone singled out by the title “Ecclesiast”? What is it, then, that we have understood about this? That in all the other Scriptures, histories and prophecies, the aim looks also to certain other things not altogether useful to the church. For what does it matter to the church to learn precisely the disasters of wars, or which rulers of nations and founders of cities there were, and who were colonists of whom, or what kingdoms would appear in later time, and how many marriages and begettings of children were carefully recorded, and all such things as each Scripture has to teach? What would be so great for the … But the teaching of this book looks only to the church’s way of life, setting out the means by which one may achieve the virtuous life. For the aim of what is said here is to raise the mind above sense-perception and to make it stop, leaving behind whatever appears great and splendid among the things that exist; to peer up through the soul toward what sense-apprehension cannot reach, and to take up the desire for those things which sense does not attain. Perhaps, too, the title looks to the leader of the church. For the true Ecclesiast, who gathers what was scattered into one fullness and calls into one assembly those who had wandered in many directions through various deceptions — who else would he be but the true king of Israel, the Son of God, to whom Nathanael said, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel”? If, then, these words are those of the king of Israel, and this same one is also Son of God, as the Gospel says, then the same one is also named the Ecclesiast. Perhaps it is not unreasonable that we refer the meaning of the title to this sense, so that we may learn from it that the force of these words is referred to the very one who established the church through the Gospel. For it says, “The words of the Ecclesiast, the son of David.” So too Matthew at the beginning of the Gospel names him, calling the Lord “son of David.”

“Vanity of vanities,” said the Ecclesiast, “all is vanity.” By “vain” is understood what has no substance, which has its being in the mere utterance of the word; no substantial thing is indicated by the meaning of the name, but it is an idle and empty noise in the shape of some word, uttered at random in syllables, striking the hearing without meaning, like the words some people coin in play, which signify nothing. That is one kind of vanity. Another kind of vanity is the uselessness of things done with some zeal but toward no aim: children’s buildings in the sand, shooting arrows at the stars, hunting the winds, a runner’s race against his own shadow, when someone eager … the shadow …, or anything else of this kind we find among things done at random; all of these fall under the word “vanity.” Often, too, in common usage this is called vain: when someone, acting toward some aim and pursuing zealously something set before him as profitable, does each thing, and then, when something contrary happens, the toil comes to nothing; then zeal that has advanced to no achievement is signified by the word “vain.” For common usage says in such cases, “In vain I toiled, in vain I hoped, and for nothing I endured many labours.” And not to go through each of the cases in which the name of vanity is properly used, in brief the notion of the word is this: a word without meaning, or a thing without profit, or a plan without substance, or a zeal that has no end, or in general what has no existence for anything useful. If, then, we have understood the notion of “vain,” it would remain to examine what the “vanity of vanities” means. Perhaps what is sought would become clearer to us if we examined alongside it the usage of Scripture in things understood in the better sense. The doing of necessary and beneficial things is named “work” by Scripture …; those that look to the worship of God itself are called “works of works,” as the history shows, the passage indicating, I think, by a certain analogy drawn from the “work of works,” which of our pursuits is to be preferred. For as zeal for works stands to complete idleness, so the activity directed to the loftier and more valuable of our pursuits stands to the other works. So too something is called “holy” in Scripture, and again “holy of holies,” as though by an equal measure surpassing in holiness what is holy beyond the holy; and again beyond this, “the holy of the holies,” what is contemplated as supreme in sanctification. As, then, we have been taught in the better sense, the usage of Scripture signifying by such a form the comparison of the underlying thought, we shall not go wrong if we understand this also of the vanity of vanities. For it says that the things appearing among beings are not simply vain, but such in a certain superlative degree of the meaning of vanity, as if someone were to say “deader than the dead” and “more lifeless than the lifeless” … does not have this in such things, but nevertheless it is said in this phrase to make clear the excess of what is meant. As, then, there are “works of works” and “holy of holies,” whose superlative indication is interpreted toward the better, so the “vanity of vanities” shows the unsurpassable excess in what is vain.

And let no one suppose that what is said is an accusation against creation; for the charge would pass to the one who made all things, if he who constituted all things out of what is not were shown to be the maker of these things, if all things were of vanity. But since the constitution of the human being is twofold, the soul running together with the body, … is divided … correspondingly to each of the things contemplated in us … the form of life. For the soul’s life is one thing and the body’s another: the one is mortal and perishable, the other passionless and pure; the one looks only to the present, while the aim of the other extends to the everlasting. Since, then, there is a great difference between the mortal and the immortal, and between the temporary and the eternal, the voice of the Ecclesiast tends to this: that we must not look to this sense-perceived life, which, compared with the real life, is something without existence and without substance. But someone might say that the argument is nonetheless not free from accusing the Creator, since from him come both soul and body; so that if the life through the flesh is accused, and God is the maker of the flesh, such blame would necessarily be referred to him. But this would surely be said by one who has not yet come outside the flesh, nor looked closely into the loftier life. For one who has been instructed in the divine mysteries is surely not unaware that the life proper and natural to human beings is the life made like the divine nature, while the sense-perceived life, carried on through the activity of the sense organs, was given to nature for this purpose: that it should receive the knowledge of what appears and become the soul’s guide to the knowledge of the invisible, as Wisdom says: “From the greatness of the beauty of created things the maker of all is seen by analogy.” But human … did not see what is wondered at through the things that appear, but wondered at what it saw. Since, then, the activity of the senses is temporary and short-lived, we learn this through this lofty saying: that the one who looks at these things sees nothing. But one who is guided through them to the understanding of what is, and through the things that run past has understood the stable nature, and has come to perceive what is always the same, has seen the truly existing good, and what he saw he possessed; for the knowledge of this good is its possession.

“For what advantage,” it says, “is there for a human being in all his toil at which he toils under the sun?” He called the life in the body “toil”; for it ends in no achievement. “Advantage,” he says, “for the human being” … That is: what is left over for the soul from the toil of livelihood, for those who live for what appears? In what, indeed, does life consist? Which of the beautiful things that appear remains the same? The sun goes round its own course, shining in turn and being darkened, lighting the air above us when it shows itself above the earth, and drawing darkness after it through its setting. The earth stands and remains immovable in its fixity; what stands does not move, and what moves does not stand. Through them all things are shown in all the extent of time to … nothing …, through … the sea … of the waters flowing together from every side, and neither does the confluence cease nor does the sea grow. What is the aim of the course for the waters, always filling what is being filled? For what purpose does the sea receive the inflows of the waters, not increasing by the addition …? He says these things so that from the very elements in which human life consists he may interpret beforehand the insubstantiality of the things we strive for. For if this ordered course of the sun has no limit, and the alternation of light and darkness admits no rest, and the earth, sentenced to standing, remains immovable in its fixity, and the rivers toil without end, consumed by the insatiable nature of the sea, and the sea receives the inflows of the waters in vain, taking into its bosom to no increase what is poured in continually — if these things are so with them, in what is the human likely to consist, which has its life among these? And why are we surprised that a generation goes and a generation comes, and this course does not fail nature, the generation that has come in being pushed out by the one coming in after it? What, then, does the word cry out to the church through these things? This: “O human beings, look at the universe and understand your own nature. What you see in heaven and earth, what you observe in the sun, what you perceive in the sea — let these interpret your nature to you.” For our nature too, like the sun, has a rising and a setting; one road for all, one circle for the journey of life. When we rise through birth, we are drawn down again to the place akin to us. For when our life has set, our light too goes under the earth, when the perception by which we apprehend light …; and surely the earth is dissolved into what is akin to it, and this is a circle always rolling round in the same things. As with the sun’s course, it says — that rising over the upper part of the earth it passes through the southern parts, and under the earth … in this way, always going round, it circles its own course and comes round again (for it says, “circling, circling”) — so too your spirit goes (naming the whole human being from a part: “spirit”) this circular course through … “the spirit, and on its circuits the spirit returns.” Whoever has understood these things would gain no small benefit for his own life. What is brighter than light? What is more manifest than the rays? And yet if the sun goes under the earth, its light is hidden, and the … Looking at these things, let one pass through his own life more soberly, despising the splendour here, having learned from what is seen that distinction does not last for ever, but the alternations of opposites turn swiftly, and nothing remains for ever as it is at present: not youth, not beauty, not the splendour that comes from positions of power. These things, then, are for those who live in some good fortune; but those to whom the life of virtue seems laborious, let the soul be trained by the example of the earth to endure hardships. “The earth stands for ever.” What is more wearisome than this immovable fixity? And yet its standing is prolonged to the end of the age. But for you the time of contest is short. Do not be more lifeless than the earth; do not be more senseless than things without sense, you who have been allotted reason and are governed in life by reason; but “remain,” as the Apostle says, “in what you have learned and been assured of,” in a firm and immovable standing. For this too is one of the divine commands: “Be steadfast and immovable.” Let faith be fixed, love unchangeable, the standing in every good thing immovable, so that the earth in you too may stand for ever. But if someone gapes after greed and, spreading out the measurelessness of his desire like a sea, is insatiable toward gains flowing in from every side, let him look at the real sea and be healed of the disease. For as the sea does not go beyond its own measure in the countless inflows of the waters but remains at the same fullness, as though no addition from the waters came to it, in the same way human nature, confined within its own measures in the enjoyment of what is supplied, cannot greedily enlarge its capacity for enjoyment by the multitude of revenues; what flows in ceases, and the power of enjoyment is kept within its own limit. If, then, enjoyment cannot increase beyond the measure of nature, why are we drawn on toward the inflows of revenues, never overflowing with what comes in toward doing good to others?

Since, according to the account of vanity given us, vanity is either the profitless word or the profitless thing, the passage rightly begins from there, so that we may reckon nothing done and nothing said as having substance, if one looks to the aim here. For every human pursuit busied with anything that concerns this life is plainly children’s toys on the sand, for whom the enjoyment of what they made ended together with their zeal for making it. For as soon as they stopped labouring, the sand too, flowing together upon itself, kept nothing of what had been laboured over. This is human life: ambition is sand, power is sand, wealth is sand, each of the things eagerly enjoyed through the flesh is sand. In these childish souls now play at vanity with insubstantial things, and many … about each patch of sand — I mean life in the flesh; then they will recognize the vanity of their pastime here. For with the material life also … but they take nothing with them except their conscience alone. This, it seems to me, the great Ecclesiast too — as though already outside these things and treading with a naked soul upon the immaterial life — said those things which we too shall probably say one day, when we are outside this place on the seashore around which lies the sand spat out by the sea of life, with all the waves crashing and rushing about us; bringing with us from the sea we have come to understand only the memory of what was pursued here, we shall say: “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, and there is no advantage for the human being in what he toils at under the sun.” For thus, in my view at least, this is the saying of every soul when, stripped of the things here, it moves to the life that is hoped for. For whether it achieved something of the loftier things in this life, it accuses the state in which it was, by comparison with what it has found, holding the past in dishonour; or whether, having been passionately disposed toward matter, it sees what it did not expect and learns by experience the profitlessness of what it pursued in life, then, lamenting, it will utter this cry, as we human beings do from regret, recounting our own follies in our lamentations: “vanity of vanities,” and the rest.

“All words,” he says, “are wearisome, and a man will not be able to speak.” And yet nothing is thought easier and more readily at hand than speaking. For what weariness is there for one who says whatever he wishes? The tongue is supple and nimble, shaping itself without effort to whatever form of words it wishes; the drawing of the airy breath, which it uses to produce the sounds, is unhindered; the service of the cheeks is painless, and so is the cooperation of the lips in uttering what is said. What weariness, then, does he see in speech? For it is not by digging earth, or rolling stones, or carrying loads on our shoulders, or doing any other laborious work that we go through a speech; rather, the thought formed in us, revealed through the voice, became speech. But since such speech involves no weariness, we must consider which are the wearisome words of which a man will not be able to speak. “Let the elders,” it says, “be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the word.” By usage one is called an “elder” who has passed out of the disorderly age and come into the settled condition of old age; so that if someone is unstable in reasoning and has his life in disorder, such a one is not yet an elder, even if he appears grey-haired, but still a man. So the words that are truly words, those that come about for the profit of soul and the benefit of human beings, are full of sweat and toil and bring much weariness, that they may become words. “For the labouring farmer must be the first to receive the fruit,” says the craftsman of such words, as though “word” must be understood not as a spoken expression but as the virtue in deeds, set before those who see it as a teaching for life, becoming instead of a word for those who are taught. All such words, then, are wearisome, the words of those who lead the way in virtue by first achieving in themselves what they teach. For this is what it means to have to be first to partake of the fruits, which, before the others, we cultivate for ourselves through virtue. Or perhaps the passage also interprets the weakness of rational nature. For when the mind, having gone outside the senses — which have been named “vanity” — and somehow slipped into the contemplation of invisible things, attempts to set forth in speech what it has understood, then much weariness comes upon speech through this interpreting voice, which finds no device for making clear what cannot be uttered. We see the heaven, we receive by sense the rays of the luminaries, we have set foot on the earth, we draw the air in with our mouth, we use water for what nature thinks fit, we take fire into partnership in life; and if we wish to understand anything about these — what each of the things that appear is by the account of its essence, whence or how it took its subsistence — a man will not be able to speak, even if he happens to be above the others, since all knowledge that comprehends falls short before what cannot be reached. If the discourse about these things involves a weariness surpassing the human power and nature of speech, what would one say those suffer who discourse about the Word himself, or about the Father of the Word? Surely all lofty speech and grandeur of voice is a kind of obscurity and silence, if judged against the true meaning of what is sought, so that this alone can properly be said in his case: even if one sets every thought in motion and omits nothing that befits God, if the utterance is judged against the very dignity of the subject, whatever one says is not a word. “For a man will not be able to speak.” For sight has not brought to a halt the contemplation of what appears, which comes to the soul through the eyes; but always seeing as though they had not yet seen, they are still in ignorance of what … through … sight cannot; it has as the measure of its own activity what appears to it on the surface of things. Therefore it says, “The eye will not be filled with seeing, and the ear will not be filled with hearing.” The power of hearing, receiving the account of each thing, has no nature to be filled. For no one will be found … what is sought. How then will hearing be filled with listening about what is sought, when what would fill it does not exist?

Then after these words he questions himself and answers himself. For having asked, “What is it that has been?” he says, “The very thing that will be”; and “What is it that has been made? The very thing that will be made.” What, then, does the question mean? Following what we have learned, we object to him and say: “If all these things are vanity, clearly not one of these things, which do not subsist, has come into being. For the vain is altogether non-existent; and what does not exist no one would reckon among the things that have come to be. If, then, these things are not, tell us what it is that has come to be, which remains in being.” His answer to the question is brief: “Do you want to know what it is that has come to be? Understand what will be, and you will recognize what has been.” That is: “Understand, O human being, what you will become when you have raised yourself through virtue, if you are formed in soul in every respect by good features, if you come outside the stains of vice, if you wash off from your nature all the filth of material defilements — what you will become, adorned by such things, what form you will put on. If you understand this by reasoning, you have been taught what came to be at the first, that which is according to the image and likeness of God.” And where is that now, I shall say to the one teaching these things, which once came to be and is hoped for again later, but is not now? But he who teaches lofty things surely answers us with the same account: that the present things are named vanity for this very reason, that those things are not among the present ones. “And what,” it says, “is it that has been made? The very thing that will be made.” Let none of the hearers think this wordiness and a vain repetition of phrases in which there is no difference between what has come to be and what has been made. For by each of the two words the passage shows the difference of the soul from the flesh. The soul has come to be, and the body has been made. It is not because the force of the words signifies one thing and another that the passage uses this difference of words for each of the things signified, but in order to give you what is fitting to reckon about each: the soul came to be in the beginning as that which, cleansed later, will appear again; the body was made, formed by the hands of God, as that which the resurrection will show at the appointed times. For whatever you will see after the resurrection, such it surely was made at the first. For the resurrection is nothing else than the [return] to the original state. Therefore he adds what follows from this, saying that outside the original there is nothing. “For there is not anything fresh,” it says, “under the sun”; as if he were saying: if something is not according to the original, it is nothing at all, but is only thought to be. “For there is not,” he says, “anything fresh under the sun, so that someone should speak and point to something that comes later, that this is new and really subsists.” This is the sense of what was said. And the wording is as follows: “And there is nothing at all fresh under the sun, who will speak and say, See, this is new.” And he presses the argument further in what follows, saying: “If anything truly has come to be,” he says, “it is that which came to be in the ages before us.” For the very words of Scripture point to this sense, which run thus: “It has already been in the ages that came to be before us.” And if forgetfulness of what came to be has prevailed, do not be surprised at all; for the things that are now will also be overtaken by forgetfulness. For when nature inclined to evil, we fell into forgetfulness of the good things; but when there comes to be … toward the good, and our restoration again, evil in its turn will be covered over by forgetfulness. For I think this is the sense in what is said, where he says, “There is no memory of the first, and also of the last who come to be there will be no memory,” as if he were saying: the things that will come to pass at the last will wipe out the memory of those that came after the original good fortune, through which humanity came to be among evils. “For there will be no memory of them with those who come to be at the last,” that is, … the last state made a complete effacement of the memory of evils from nature. … in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the might for the ages of ages.