Exegetical and Miscellaneous Fragments 1–4

But if you say that paradise is not a part of the world, nor came into being in it, nor is written to have been made by God together with the other things, but is a place above the world, how did he bring in there the earthly man whom he had formed? And how did God there still form from the earth the man and the woman, and bring them to him, to see what he would call them? Where (was) the tree that brings death …

The words “You have spoken as one of the foolish women” some have taken to refer to Eve. “You have imitated her,” he says, “who first received the dart of sin, and with like counsels led astray that man who was honored with the image of God and free from all evil.” For she did not know the intricate and crooked thoughts of the serpent and his wild and untamed shrewdness, through which he is said to be wiser, not than men; for the unrighteous could not be wiser than the righteous, nor the apostate than the assessors of God. But if he outwits the foolish and senseless, bewitching them with clay and brickmaking, and those who do not cry out to God because they do not perceive his plot, then those would rightly be reckoned among the beasts, than whom alone he is said to be wiser. For still imperfect was … He was not, then, wiser than men, nor yet than angels. For how could he be, who came to be mocked by them? … For having in detail ascribed divine things to him and glorified him, again, summing up, he said: “Who does great and unsearchable things, glorious and marvelous, of which there is no number.” For even if number is countless and has no end, always receiving increase and addition to itself, and being counted to infinity, yet he surpasses, he says, the whole boundless number; for he will exceed it still. And it would be a great task to select and set out the very great hymns from the divine Scriptures, above all of which God is to be praised and exalted. But now let us go on to what follows of the interpretation. … of finding; Job too reaches after it, saying often: “But wisdom, where was it found? And what is the place of understanding?” And, describing its unattainableness and incomprehensibility for most, he adds: “It has escaped every man.” And that it is known to the saints alone, understanding this, he adds: “The Lord established its way,” and so on. … it is, again he says: “With him are wisdom and power; his are counsel and understanding.” One, then, is the begetter and giver of wisdom, and if anyone has shared in it, he has it, having received it from him: “For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his face come knowledge and understanding”; and as another similar writing taught, saying: “For he is both the guide of wisdom and the corrector of the wise; for in his hand are prudence and knowledge of crafts.” For nothing good and marvelous came to us from anywhere else; but if anything is good, it is his, and if anything … comprising all together the sum and fullness of them, and defining each, they ascribe them to him, and first of all wisdom, which in us is the oldest and leads the others, like a foundation laid under the rest that are built on it. For as he alone is good, so he alone is wise: “For there is one,” it says, “who is wise, greatly to be feared, seated upon his throne.” And he added the reason why he attached to him this special and unique name, saying: “The Lord himself created her, and poured her out upon all his works.” And to this blessed knowledge Baruch exhorted us, saying: “Learn where prudence is, where strength is, where understanding is, so as to know at the same time … Who has found her place, and who has entered into her treasuries?” For the fertile place of wisdom, and the treasury from which she comes forth and is measured out to those who receive her, is God. Therefore he also reproached beforehand those who do not partake of him: “For you have forsaken,” he says, “the fountain; if you had walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in peace for ever.” These things have been interpreted at length by others, … who understand wisdom as the knowledge and contemplation of beings …

Verse 1. “Of the son of David, king of Israel in Jerusalem.” So too Matthew calls the Lord son of David. Verse 3. “What advantage has a man in all his toil at which he toils under the sun?” For who, growing rich from work on earthly things, being two cubits tall became three cubits, or being blind recovered his sight? So one must send one's labors beyond the sun; for there the toils of the virtues pass over. … Others thought that “under the sun” signifies the care and industry of farming, saying in so many words that it means work on the land. But the passage admits neither interpretation as true. For the things made by the Creator have been testified to be all very good; and it is neither possible to contradict the word of divine Scripture, nor fitting in any way to disparage the recognized and comprehended usefulness and beauty and order of the nature of things that are and appear. On the contrary, we find men old and young who engaged in the care of farming and tilling the soil and industry honored by the divine Scripture, … and conversely the negligent and idle and lazy subjected to many reproaches, and so on. Verse 4. “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth stands for the age.” For the age, but not for the ages. Verse 16. “I spoke in my heart, saying: Behold, I have become great and have increased wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem; and my heart has seen much wisdom and knowledge.” Verse 17. “I knew parables and understanding; that this too is a choice of spirit.” Verse 18. “For in abundance of wisdom is abundance of knowledge,” and “I was puffed up in vain and increased wisdom”: not that which God gave, but that of which Paul says, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” For Solomon had been educated in this too, beyond the prudence of all the ancients. He shows, then, its vanity, as what follows also makes clear: “And my heart has seen many things: I knew wisdom and knowledge, parables and understanding.” Wisdom and knowledge, not the true, but that which, according to Paul, “puffs up.” And he spoke, as it is written, three thousand parables; not those in the Spirit, but such as suit the common life of men, about animals or medicines, for instance. Therefore, mocking, he added: “I knew that this too is a choice of spirit,” and “abundance of knowledge”: not of the Holy Spirit, but that which the ruler of this world works, and sends to trip up souls, busying them with the measures of heaven, the position of the earth, the bounds of the sea. But he who increases knowledge of these increases pain. For they search into what is deeper than these: what need is there that fire goes up and water down; and having learned that the one is light and the other heavy, they add pain: and why not the reverse? Chapter 2. Verse 1. “I said in my heart: Come, I will test you with mirth, and see good; and behold, this too is vanity.” For by way of trial, and incidentally, he came from a more dignified and austere life to pleasure. And by “mirth” he means what men call so; by “in good,” the things they call goods, which are not able to give life to the one who acquires them, and which make vain the one who practices them. Verse 2. “I said to laughter, Madness; and to mirth, What are you doing?” Laughter has a twofold madness: because frenzy begets laughter and does not allow one to mourn for sins; and because laughter itself is carried about, changing times and places and persons; for it flees those who mourn. “And to mirth, What are you doing?” Why do you go to those whom it is not lawful to make merry: to the drunkards and the greedy and the robbers? … Why “as with wine”? Since wine gladdens the heart, for it makes men mild; and the flesh too gladdens it, when moved in an orderly and moderate way. Verse 3. “And my heart guided me in wisdom, and to master mirth, until I should see what is good for the sons of men, which they should do under the sun, the number of the days of their life.” Guided through wisdom, he says, I mastered the pleasures in mirth; and the aim of my knowledge was not to occupy life with anything vain, but to find the good, attaining which one does not fail in judging what is profitable: what suffices is also what is timely, and extends alongside the whole of life … Verse 4. “I made my works great; I built myself houses; I planted myself vineyards.” Verse 5. “I made myself gardens and parks …” Verse 6. “I made myself pools of water, to water from them a forest sprouting trees.” Verse 7. “I acquired male and female slaves, and servants born in my house were mine; and I had great possessions of herds and flocks, beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem.” Verse 8. “I gathered for myself also silver and gold, and the treasures of kings and provinces; I made myself male and female singers, and the delights of the son of man, a cupbearer male and female.” Verse 9. “And I became great and increased beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem; and my wisdom stood by me.” Verse 10. “And all that my eyes asked I did not keep from them; I did not withhold my heart from any …” You see how, having numbered the multitude of houses and fields and the rest, and then finding no profit in these (for neither did his soul become better through them, nor did he gain through them intimacy with God), he necessarily transfers his discourse to true wealth and firm possession. Wishing, then, to show which possessions stand fast for the one who acquires them, and remain with him continually and are kept safe, he added: “And my wisdom stood by me.” For it alone remains; the other things that he numbered before flee and depart. Wisdom, then, stood by me, and I stood through it. For those things fall, and make those who run after them fall. But wishing to set wisdom in comparison with the things thought good by men, he added: “And all that my eyes asked I did not keep from them,” and so on; reproaching by this not only the toils that those who live luxuriously in mirth suffer in their toiling, but also those which men endure, toiling under necessity and constraint, for their daily food, working at their crafts “in the sweat of their face.” For the toil, he says, is great, but the craft that comes from the toil is temporary, offering nothing useful to those who take delight in it. Therefore the profit is nothing. For where there is no advantage, there is no profit either. Rightly, then, the things pursued are “vanity and a choice of spirit.” And he calls the soul “spirit”; for choice is … a movement of the soul. And David: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” And indeed wisdom truly stood by me, when it made me know and understand so as to say that there is no advantage under the sun. If, then, we desire a good profit, if we want advantage, if we seek to be incorruptible, let us toil at the toils that run above the sun. For in these there is no vanity, nor a choice of spirit that is aimless and distracted in vain hither and thither. Verse 12. “And I looked to see wisdom and madness and folly; for who is the man who will follow after counsel in all that it has done?” By wisdom he means that from God, which also stood by him; by madness and folly, human toils and the aimless and senseless delight in them. Having discerned these, and the difference between them and true wisdom, he added, calling him blessed: “For who is the man who will follow after counsel?” For this counsel truly teaches us wisdom, and bestows deliverance from madness and folly. Verse 13. “And I saw that wisdom has advantage over folly, as light has advantage over darkness.” He does not say this by way of comparison, for opposites cannot be compared, and destroy one another; but because he knew that the one is to be chosen and the other avoided. Such too is the saying: “Men loved the darkness rather than the light.” For the “rather” belongs to the choice of the one who loved, not to a comparison of the things. Verse 14. “The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” Always looking down, and having his ruling part darkened. And yet all of us men have our eyes in our head, according to the position of the body. But he speaks of the eyes of the mind. For as the eyes of the pig do not look up to heaven, because it is by nature formed to look down to its belly, so the mind of one who has once been sweetened by pleasures is drawn away from there with difficulty, because he does not look to all the commandments of the Lord. And again: “The head of the church is Christ”; and the wise are those who walk in his way, since he said, “I am the way.” The wise man, then, must always direct the eyes of the mind to Christ himself, so that he may be neither elated by any success in his affairs nor despondent at misfortune, since his judgments are a great abyss; which you will learn more exactly from what follows. Verse 14. “And I knew, I too, that one event will befall them all.” Verse 15. “And I said in my heart: As the event of the fool, so it will befall me also; and why then have I been wise?” The sequence of the argument through what follows heals those who are faint-hearted about this life, to whom death seems something hard, and bodily misfortunes too, because in these accidents there is no difference between the wise man and the fool. He speaks, then, the words of a madness that has inclined toward folly; and so he adds: “The fool speaks out of his abundance,” calling himself a fool, or anyone who reasons so. Condemning, then, this absurd thought (and so he said it “in his heart,” holding back, fearing surely the just condemnation of those who would hear), he resolves the objection of the difficulty by reasoning. For “why have I been wise?” is the word of one who is in two minds and doubts whether he has spent himself on wisdom well or in vain, if he has no advantage over the fool, being subject in the present age to the same sufferings as he. And for this reason, “Moreover,” he says, “I spoke in my heart,” thinking that there is no difference between the wise man and the fool. Verse 16. “For there is no remembrance of the wise man with the fool for ever.” For the accidents of life are passing, whether they be grievous, concerning which he says, “since all things have already been forgotten,” since, after a short time has passed, the events of life are extinguished for men by forgetfulness. And those themselves to whom these things have happened are not remembered alike, even if they met with similar accidents of life. For they are not remembered from these, but according as they had wisdom or folly, virtue or vice. For the memories of these are not extinguished among men, because of the rewards attached to them. For this reason he added consistently: “And how will the wise man die with the fool?” For “the death of sinners is evil,” but “the memory of the righteous is with praises, and the name of the ungodly is extinguished.” Verse 22. “For what comes to a man in all his toil?” For truly, to those who occupy the soul with the distraction of life, life is painful, scourging the heart as with goads by the desires for more; and grievous is the eagerness for greed, not so much rejoicing in what it has as grieved at what it lacks; the day is spent in toils, and the night drives sleep from the eyes with cares about gain. Vain, then, is the zeal of the one who looks to these things. Verse 24. “There is no good for a man except what he will eat and drink, and show his soul good in his toil. This too I saw, that it is from the hand of God.” Verse 25. “For who will eat and who will drink without him?” That the word is not about sensible foods, he himself now (shows): … “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of drinking”; and to these words he now adds: “And show his soul (good) in its toil.” And yet sensible food or drink is no good for the soul. For the flesh, when indulged, wars against the soul and rebels against the spirit. And how could prodigality in foods and drunkenness not be other than from God? He speaks, then, of mystical things. For no one will partake of the spiritual table who has not been called by him and heard Wisdom: “Come and eat.” Chapter 3. Verse 3. “A time to kill and a time to heal.” To kill the one who sins unpardonably; to heal the one whose wound can bear to receive medicine. Verse 4. “A time to weep and a time to laugh.” A time to weep, when it is the time of the passion, as the Lord says: “Truly I say to you that you will weep and lament”; and to laugh, concerning the resurrection: “For your grief,” he says, “will become joy.” “A time to mourn and a time to dance.” When one considers the death that Adam's transgression brought in, (it is the time) to mourn; and to celebrate a festival, when we take to mind the resurrection from the dead that we await through the new Adam. Verse 6. “A time to keep and a time to cast out.” A time to keep the scripture from the unworthy …; and to bring it out for the worthy. Or else: the letter of the law had a time to be kept before the coming (of the Lord), and to be cast out when the truth flowered. Verse 7. “A time to be silent and a time to speak.” A time to speak, when the hearers are such as receive the word; a time to be silent, when the hearers pervert the word, as Paul says: “A heretical man, after …” Verse 10. “I saw, then, the distraction that God has given to the sons of men, to be distracted in it.” Verse 11. “All the things he made are beautiful in their time; and he has put the whole age in their heart, so that man may not find out the work that God has made from beginning to end.” And this is true; for no one can comprehend the works of God completely. And the world is God's work. Of this no one can find out the beginning and the end, that is, the time appointed for it and the term fixed for it; since God has put ignorance of the whole age in our hearts, as someone says: “Declare to me the fewness of my days.” Thus, for our good, the end of this age, that is, of the present life, is unknown. Chapter 4. Verse 9. “Two are better than one, who have a good reward in their toil; for if they fall, the one will raise up his companion.” Understanding these things thus according to the letter, we do not accept those who have taken the interpretation of the words as referring to the soul and the body, as by no means preserving the sense. For the soul has the authority of the rule and of the whole governance, both its own and the body's, while the body is the slave of the soul, ministering and serving at all its judgments. If, then, the soul inclines to what is base and wicked, and slips away from better thoughts and reasonings, it is not possible for the body to raise it up and lead it back to the better; for it is not its nature. And again, and so on.

For seeing such a soul rising up and being taken up by the Savior, approaching radiant, the holy angels will say: “Who is this who comes up whitened?” For she was not white from the beginning who says: “I am black and beautiful, … like the curtains of Solomon; do not look at me because I am darkened.” For let her be beautiful from now on, even if she is still black; for she must be such, like the tents of Kedar, being among them; for Kedar is interpreted “darkening.” … those who remain in this world and in the tent pass their time in gloom, as in some cave, in which one who lingers laments, saying: “Woe is me, that …”