Homilies on Ecclesiastes 2

“I,” it says, “the Ecclesiast.” We have learned who the Ecclesiast is: the one who gathers into one what had wandered and been scattered, and makes all things one flock, so that nothing may be unable to hear the good voice of the shepherd, which gives life to all things. “For the words,” he says, “that I speak are spirit, and they are life.” He names himself Ecclesiast, as he names himself physician, and life, and resurrection, and light, and way, and door, and truth, and all the names of his love for humankind. As, then, the physician’s voice properly belongs to the sick, and the Word of life becomes active in the dead — who, when they hear the voice of the Son of Man, no longer remain in their ancient deadness — while those who are in tombs seek the voice of the resurrection, and the word of light is fitting for those in darkness, and the way is smooth for those who have wandered, and the door for those who need to enter, so too the Ecclesiast surely speaks to those who assemble as a church. So the Ecclesiast speaks to us; and let us, the church, listen to his words. For as the chorus looks to its leader, and sailors to the helmsman, and the battle line to the general, so too to the leader of the church [look] those who are in the fullness of the church. What, then, does the Ecclesiast say? “I became king over Israel in Jerusalem.” When was this? Surely when “I was established king by him on Zion his holy mountain, proclaiming the decree of the Lord” — he to whom the Lord said, “You are my Son,” and “Today I have begotten you.” For of the maker of the universe, the father of the ages, he said “today I have begotten,” so that by joining the temporal word to the moment of birth he might present not the existence before the ages but the birth in time through flesh for the salvation of human beings. These things, then, the true Ecclesiast goes through, teaching, I think, the great mystery of godliness, for whose sake God was manifested in the flesh.

“For I gave my heart,” he says, “to seek out and to examine in wisdom concerning all the things that come to be under heaven.” This is the reason the Lord came to dwell among human beings through the flesh: that he gave his heart to examine in his own wisdom the things that come to be under heaven. For the things above heaven did not need one to visit them, just as what is not held by disease does not need one to heal it. Since, then, the evils were around the earth … For the serpent, that crawling and violent beast, dragging itself on breast and belly, makes earth its food, feeding on nothing heavenly, but dragging itself in what is trodden underfoot, it always looks to what is trodden, watching the heel of the human journey, and injecting its venom into those who have lost the authority to tread upon serpents. For this reason he gave his heart to seek out and examine all the things that come to be under heaven. For in the things above the heavens the Prophet sees the divine magnificence unhumbled, saying, “Your magnificence has been lifted above the heavens”; whereas the heavenly part too was humbled through vice. For so the Psalmist says, that because of their sins they were humbled. This the Ecclesiast came to examine: what had come to be under heaven which was not there before; how vanity entered, how the non-existent prevailed, what is the power of that which does not exist. For evil has no substance, because it has its subsistence from what is not; and what is not, arising from what is, surely does not even exist according to its own nature; but vanity nevertheless prevails over those who have become like vanity. He came, then, to seek out in his own wisdom what had come to be under the sun, what the confusion of affairs here is, how what is was enslaved to what is not, how the insubstantial holds power against what is. And he knows that “God gave an evil distraction to the sons of men, to be distracted with it.” But it is not reverent to think this as one might understand it at first sight, that God himself gave the evil distraction to human beings; for then the cause of evils would be referred back to him. For he who is good by nature is surely also the giver of good things, because “every good tree produces good fruits,” and neither does a grape grow from thorns nor a thorn from a vine. What, then, is good by nature would not bring out anything evil from its treasures. For neither does the good man speak evil things out of the abundance of his heart, but utters what corresponds to his own nature; how much more, then, would the source of good things not pour out from its own nature anything evil? But the more reverent understanding suggests that we understand this: that the good is God’s gift. This is the self-determining … [which] became an instrument for sin. For the self-determining and unenslaved is by nature good, while what is held by necessities no one would count among the goods; but this self-determining impulse of the mind, slipping away without discipline toward the choice of vice, became a temptation to the soul, dragged down from the lofty and honourable things toward the passionate movements of nature. This is what “gave” signifies: not that he himself made evil in human life, but that the human being, through folly, used the good things given by God in the service of evils. It is customary for holy Scripture to declare such thoughts in such expressions: “God gave them up to dishonourable passions,” and “He gave them up to a debased mind,” and “He hardened the heart of Pharaoh,” and “Why, O Lord, did you make us wander from your way, did you harden our hearts so as not to fear you?” and “He made them wander in a trackless place and not on a road,” and “You deceived me and I was deceived,” and whatever is similar to these. In such cases the precise understanding does not establish that something of evil came to be in human nature from God, but accuses the [freedom], which is a good and a gift of God given to nature, but became evil through its inclination to the opposite.

The Ecclesiast, then, saw all the things made in the life under the sun, that all were vanity. For there was none who understood, there was none who sought God, since all turned aside, together they became worthless. Therefore, having said, “And see, all is vanity,” he added the cause: that God is not the cause of these things, but the free choice of human impulse, which he named “spirit.” He accuses this spirit, not because it was such from the beginning — for it would be beyond accusation if it had been made such — but because, having been distorted, it was put out of joint with the … “For what is distorted,” he says, “cannot be set in order”; that is, what is distorted could not belong to the creation set in order by God. For as the craftsman who constructs something for himself according to a plan straightens with rule and line the parts that complete the work of the vessel by their skilful relation to one another, and if any of them is not made straight by the line, the straight fitting surely does not admit the distortion, but that part too must be brought to the line and become straight, if it is to … — so the Ecclesiast says that nature distorted by vice cannot belong to the creation set in order by right reason. “And a lack,” he says, “cannot be counted.” Scriptural usage teaches us to understand “to lack” as to fall short, and this can be confirmed from many passages. For Paul, who was initiated in everything and in all things, knows both how to lack and how to abound; and the one who spent his father’s substance in prodigality began to lack when famine took hold; and Paul, going through the account of the saints, among the other things he says of what they suffered in body, adds this too, that they were “lacking, afflicted.” So here too the passage, saying “lack,” indicated by the word what is missing; and what is missing cannot be counted among the things that are. For the disciples too, as long as all were in their own fullness, were twelve in number; but when the son of perdition perished, the number was cut short, so that what was missing was not counted with those who were; for after Judas they both were and were called eleven. So, he says, “the lack will not be able to be counted.” What does he signify by this passage? That once our [nature] too was counted with the whole; for we too were [among the hundred sheep] in the holy [flock] of rational beings; but when the one sheep, our nature, … of the mountain way of life … was dragged down through vice to this salty and parched place, the same number is no longer recorded for the flock of those who did not wander, but they are called ninety-nine; for what is vain comes to be outside the number of the things that subsist, because “a lack will not be able to be counted.” He came, then, to seek and to save what was lost, and taking it up on his shoulders to restore to the things that are what was perishing in the vanity of the non-existent, so that the number of God’s creation may again become complete, what was lost having been saved and joined to those that were not lost. What, then, is the return of the one who wandered, and what is the manner of the return from evils to the good, we are taught in what follows. For he who was tested in all respects in likeness to us without sin speaks to us from what is ours; he who took up our weaknesses shows, through the very weaknesses of nature, the road out of vice.

Now, then, understand that Wisdom speaks from Solomon himself according to the flesh, and speaks those things through which above all we may be led to disdain for what human beings strive for. For his argument does not come about in the manner of the many, who do not have what they desire in their power, so that on this account … lacks credibility when he accuses things he has not experienced. For we do not learn everything by our own experience, but we know through reasonings alone those things whose experience in the enjoyment of pleasures poverty prevents. And if some advice is offered by us to someone, that one ought to count as nothing the things honoured by human beings, the hearer’s objection is ready at hand: that we dishonour those things because we have not come to know them by experience in them. But with the one who discourses on these things to us, every such objection is idle. For it is Solomon who says these things; this Solomon was third among the kings of Israel, after the famous Saul and after David, chosen by the Lord. He received the rule from his father, and having already grown to greatness of power, he was shown king to the Israelites; one who no longer [kept the country] subject by war and battle, but, living in peace with every authority, made it his business not the acquisition of what he did not have but the enjoyment of what he had, as though there was no hindrance to him in any of the things he desired. For his wealth extended as far as his desire, and his leisure for enjoyment was unrestricted, since nothing unwelcome [interrupted] his life amid what he desired. And being otherwise wise, and able by intelligence to devise any of the things that please, he said that he had devised this and that of the things pursued for enjoyment, and having done all that he enumerated in order in his account, he said that he had learned by experience itself that the one end of what is pursued in these things is vanity. He gave this order to his narrative: that first, in the first years of his life, he gave his leisure to education and was not softened in his zeal for the labours of such things, but used the free choice of the spirit — that is, the impulse of nature — for the increase of knowledge, even though what he strove for was achieved with labour; and that, having grown in this way through wisdom, he examined not only by reason the passionate and irrational deceit of human beings concerning bodily enjoyments, but also came to recognize, through the very experience of each thing pursued, its vanity. That is the aim of what has been examined. It would be time also to set out in order, following the sequence of what is written, the contemplation of the wording.

“I spoke in my heart, saying, See, I have been made great.” For since I saw about myself the greatness of power and the weight of kingship suddenly come upon me — but before these things I made the possession of wisdom my chief concern, which cannot be acquired otherwise than with labour and sweat. Therefore, having said, “I spoke in my heart, saying, See, I have been made great,” he added, “I added wisdom.” For the weight of power which came to me of its own accord I increased by the addition of wisdom, saying this to myself: that for this reason above all I must be shown superior to the kings before me, and must have the advantage in wisdom. “For I added wisdom,” he says, “beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and I understood how these things might come to be.” For who does not know that wisdom consists in the knowledge of what others have laboured over before, for those who love labour? “Therefore,” he says, “my heart saw many things, wisdom and knowledge,” the knowledge of such things not having come of its own accord and without toil. “But since,” he says, “I gave my heart to know wisdom and knowledge” — as though I would not have learned those things unless labour and practice had led the way to their knowledge — “I also came to know parables and understanding,” that is, the apprehension of what lies beyond, which comes from analogy through comparison with the things near at hand. And he says that he learned these: “For I came to know parables and understanding.” Just as in the Gospel, too, the Lord, teaching his hearers, brings the account of the kingdom before their eyes by describing a pearl, or a treasure, or a wedding, or a grain, or leaven, or something of this kind, not saying that these things are the kingdom, but through the likeness of the things signified in them [setting out] parabolically to the hearers certain glimmers and riddles of realities beyond comprehension — “and for this,” he says, “the free choice of the spirit came to be in me: that a multitude of wisdom might come to be in me,” so that by becoming wise I might not miss the knowledge of the things that are, nor come to be outside the discovery of what is profitable. For knowledge consists from wisdom, and knowledge makes our judgment of what we should attend to easier. But this does not by nature come to those who strive for it without toil; rather, he who adds knowledge to himself surely increases the labour along with the learning. Therefore he says, “He who adds knowledge adds pain.” And having become such a man, then … of pleasant things as … For he says, “I said in my heart, Come now, I will test you with gladness, and see in good things. And this too is vanity.” For he did not at once give himself to such testing, nor, without having tasted the hardened and more austere life, did he slip into participation in pleasures; but having been trained in those, and having first achieved in his character what is … and unyielding, through which above all the lessons of wisdom come to those who strive for them, then he lets himself down to the things thought delightful to the senses, not dragged down to them by passion, but for the sake of examining whether sense-perception, when it comes to be among these things, contributes anything to the knowledge of the truly good. Since from the beginning he then makes even laughter his enemy, and names the passion “distraction,” which in meaning is equal to derangement and madness. For what else would one properly call laughter, which is neither speech nor an act accomplished for some aim? An unseemly loosening of the figure, a shaking of the breath, a convulsion of the whole body, a stretching of the cheeks, [a baring] of teeth and gums, … and contortions …, an unreasonable breaking of the voice, chopped up together with the breaking of the breath — what else would this be, he says, but madness? Therefore he says, “To laughter I said, Derangement,” as if he said to laughter: “You are mad and out of your senses and do not stay within the settled state, behaving unseemly of your own will and distorting the form in the passion, working the distortion for nothing useful.” “And I said to gladness, Why are you doing this?” — which is equal to saying, “I stood in opposition to pleasure, suspecting its first approach, as of some thief slipping secretly into the storerooms of the soul. I never let it gain mastery over my mind. For as soon as I recognized pleasure creeping like some beast around my senses, I at once stepped out against it, saying to this servile and irrational gladness, ‘Why are you doing this? [Why do you] slacken the tension of the mind? Why do you unnerve the soul’s vigour? Why do you outrage the reasonings? [Why] do you make gloom with your own mist in the clear sky of pure thoughts for me?’” “Having done these and such things,” he says, “I examined whether my heart would draw my flesh like wine”; that is, so that care for intelligible things might become stronger than the movements of the flesh, so that nature should not be at strife with itself, the mind choosing some things and the flesh [inclining] to others, but that the mind of our flesh should be persuaded by and … to the intelligible part of the soul, the lesser being drawn in and swallowed up, in the way that happens with the thirsty. For wine does not remain in the cup, if it is brought to a thirsty mouth, but passes over to the drinker and vanishes, being drawn inside eagerly. When this happened, the guidance toward the knowledge of the things that are became for me without wandering and without hindrance. “My heart,” he says, “guided me in wisdom,” by which I mastered the uprising of pleasures, and education became for me the cause of mastering … over gladness. For so the sequence of the wording contains it. But what I strove for most of all in knowledge was not to busy my life with anything vain, but to find that good, attaining which one does not miss the judgment of what is beneficial; which is lasting and not temporary, and extends through the whole of life, a hope for good that comes to every age — first, middle and last — and to the whole number of the days. “Until I see,” he says, “what is the good for the sons of men, which they will do under the sun, the number of the days of their life.” For the things pursued through the flesh, even if they entice the senses ever so much for the present, have their gladness for a moment. For it is not possible to take lasting pleasure in any of the things that happen in the body; the pleasure of drinking ends together with satiety; likewise with eating, fullness quenches appetite; and any other desire in the same way withers with the presence of what is desired, and if it comes again, again it withers. Nothing of what delights the senses lasts for ever, nor remains the same. And besides this, there is one good for infancy and another for the prime of life, another for one past his prime, another again for the one beyond his age, and another again for the old man already flowing into the earth. “But I,” he says, “was seeking that good which is equally good for every age and for every time of life; of which satiety is not expected and fullness is not found, but the appetite extends together with the participation, and the longing grows to its height together with the enjoyment, … and is not circumscribed by the age of what is desired. But the more one delights in the good, the more the desire extends together with the delight, and the delight is kindled together with the desire; and in every interval of life it is always beautiful to those who pursue it, not changing with the instability of ages and times; which is good for one who is asleep and one who is awake, for one who is grieved, for one who passes the night and one who passes the day, and for all things in life without exception; becoming neither worse nor better, neither lessened nor increased, by what befalls anyone through circumstances.” This, in my view at least, is the truly existing good, which Solomon was seeking to see, which human beings would do under the sun for the whole number of their life; which seems to me nothing else than the work of faith, whose activity is common to all, set before those who wish it on equal terms, all-powerful, and remaining lastingly with life. This is the good work, which may it also come to be in us, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory for the ages of ages. Amen.