Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1 part 1/10

And the abundance of the earth is in all things; a king belongs to the field that has been cultivated.

There is no lord, no master, and no ruler of a field that lies desolate and bears thorns and thistles;

but of a field that has been cultivated there is a king.

By 'king' he means the owner.

If you see a cultivated field, know that it has a master and a king—just as, if you see a four-horse chariot being driven with a charioteer's skill, you form the impression of a charioteer; and if you observe a ship being guided and steered in the manner it ought, you conceive the notion of a helmsman, even though you do not see him.

And, quite simply, those who introduce the teaching that God's providence governs all things say, when they set out to prove that providence exists, that:

Just as a woven fabric plainly shows that there is a weaver, whether or not he is visible, so too the one who beholds a cultivated field receives the impression that it has a governor and a ruler.

About whom, then, does he speak according to the literal sense? Speaking of a king over the fields that have been cultivated, he names the master, the owner, the landholder—by a somewhat extended usage—a 'king.'

The lord and master we do sometimes call by this name.

But it is also possible to speak in this more ordinary way:

When you see a soul cultivated like a field, flourishing, bearing produce and trees and ...

For one bore fruit a hundredfold, another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold.

When, then, you see a soul thus tilled, and having sown in tears, and being ready to reap in gladness, of this cultivated soul there is a king: a governing reason, a reason that holds sway and reigns.

But it must also be taken according to another anagogical sense:

The Church of God—that which exists according to the pious doctrines and the ethical works—together with those who pursue these things, is called a 'field.'

When, then, both its convictions and its practical life are in accordance with the ecclesiastical rule and ordinance, of this field there is a king;

but when you see people teaching strange doctrines, and a church of evildoers, know that this field has not been truly cultivated; it does not have that praiseworthy king, but rather some tyrant or robber.

For robbers and tyrants especially pursue the desolate places.

And according to different conceptions the soul is sometimes called a field, and sometimes a city.

And it is said concerning it:

The rushings of the river gladden the city of God.

Glorious things have been spoken of you, O city of God.

The soul thus disposed, and the one who possesses the canonical, upright reason, readily receives ...

At any rate, sometimes the order of the wording is preserved even in the things taken according to the anagogical sense; but sometimes, otherwise than the sequence requires, we take some occasion to depart from the historical sense.

He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver.

The one who craves money is never satisfied; but if it were possible for him to have all things under himself, he would have loved this.

He is therefore not without desire for these things.

This can be said concerning silver here—the kind that is not praiseworthy.

For the one who loves the words of the Lord, which are silver refined by fire, will at some point be satisfied.

For he does not always know in part, nor, having partaken of the things from the fullness, does he remain in what comes from the fullness; but he will at some point arrive at meeting the truth face to face, and at possessing the very fullness of the mind of Christ.

The discourse, then, is about blameworthy silver.

... every base person ...

... being found ...

... every sophistry of his is dissolved ...

... in himself, so that in this way he is ever satisfied, always having that which heals his thirst.

'He who drinks,' he says, 'of this water will thirst again.'

If after drinking he thirsts, he is not satisfied.

But hear again words of this kind spoken in another sense:

'He who drinks me will thirst again, and he who eats me will hunger again.'

Since the one who drinks of wisdom does not drink its perfection all at once, but little by little takes on insights and heals his previous thirst, he will thirst again—not for those very things which he drank, but for the things that come after them—so that the saying of a certain writer may hold force:

'What you have learned, preserve by exercises, and add to it by studies.'

If he adds to it, then, having been filled, he thirsts again and hungers again.

And who has loved produce in its abundance? This too is vanity.

Is there anyone who has loved an abundance of produce?

The word 'who' (tis) here signifies what some properly call the 'quality,' which others call the 'individual' (the atom).

But it would have been fitting, in accordance with the produce of the governing providence, to be content in the abundance also of the produce which providence supplies to man, and to desire it.

Not concerning the spirit, but concerning the flesh.

He, then, who sows into the flesh sows many things—that is, beyond what is needful.

We have flesh, and we must use it as flesh, buffeting it and bringing it into subjection.

But when we become attached to the flesh, we acquire also a fleshly purpose and disposition.

He who sows into this flesh is to bear fruits of destruction.

The Apostle enumerated the works of the flesh—such as strife and sorceries and heresies and contentiousness and the rest.

Are we not able to conceive of an abundance of power in a praiseworthy way? Because this is pursued in vain.

For that produce remains unto the age—'He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor;'

'his righteousness remains unto the age'—unless indeed we take such a saying with reference to heretical opinions as well, namely that those men profess to sow unto righteousness—not the true righteousness, but the counterfeit, the seeming righteousness.

This produce, then, is vanity, even if it seems to be much.

Take for me someone who has acquired much produce according to the literal sense, but who possesses those things alone ...

It is possible for him to desire and to be fed little by little; it is not possible ...

For he cannot consume the whole of these.

... darkness, and that man's zeal has become vain, and his longing has become empty.

In the abundance of goodness those who eat it were multiplied.

Correspondingly, we take 'goodness' as pleasure.

For since good things are indifferent—some concerning the soul, some concerning the body, and some concerning external things—

the things concerning the soul do not rouse so much pleasure as toil and sweat toward what is noble.

For the things concerning the body and external things are full of pleasure and productive of it.

If, then, someone has the things that rouse much pleasure, he has an abundance of goodness—a supposed goodness—since the things in which he takes pleasure also seem to be good, though they are not truly and properly good.

Nothing, then, is good which does not make its possessor good.

Nothing good can coexist with sin; but with health and strength and beauty of form sin can coexist.

No one sins together with a good, but we do sin together with health.

Thus, too, the problem was demonstrated by a syllogism.

Is the anagogical sense here mixed with the literal? Namely, this: that many are zealous for a certain kind of learning and take great delight in that falsely-named knowledge.

In the abundance of this pleasure they are multiplied.

Those who feed upon it seem to have something...

The multitude lays hold of it...

...and what courage belongs to him who comes from her—the good things are more to be chosen than that which diminishes them.

...that the beginning of seeing lies in his eyes.

We were saying that courage, properly speaking, is a disposition that prepares one to bear painful things nobly.

For it has virtue together with it, and also the power of judgment.

For it has often been said that the virtues are bound to one another.

In every case, he who possesses courage possesses also contemplative reason.

...he may endure some things and not others; but dishonour he does not endure.

But he does not pride himself on being utterly licentious, nor on wearing down those weaker than himself.

But this belongs to excess.

The excess of courage has often been said to be rashness.

There is, then, a certain courage that is courage 'of' something, not courage in the absolute sense.

Here, then, he does not speak of courage in the proper sense, but of that which someone lays hold of when he supposes himself to possess courage.

Rather, this man is merely rash.

We often take courage, too, with some qualification: brave in contests, brave in wars, brave in seafaring.

And this sort of courage receives no praise.

Even if someone becomes weak in body, yet bears painful things with endurance and long-suffering—a model of this has appeared...

...namely Job, who, sick and disfigured over his whole body and all but brought to death, yet kept that same courage of soul.

The beginning of life is bread and water and a garment and a house that covers one's nakedness.

These are the causes of living.

And thus such preserving things are called the beginning of life.

And here too the word 'beginning' signifies the cause.

The cause, then, of seeing is sight, that is, the eyes.

This, then, is what he says—that I may grasp it in a connected way—this is what he says:

For example, someone acts bravely by using his innate senses.

He has the beginning of perception from the senses.

But it is not by his own courage that he has these preserved.

For many who were both brave and strong have lost their sight, and been deprived of hearing and of the other senses.

Again, I do not say that courage the virtue is 'of' something—though temperance is sometimes said to be 'of' someone, as of Joseph—but I call the courage that concerns vain things a courage 'of' something, not in the absolute sense.

As for the anagogical sense of 'the beginning of seeing is the eyes':

I say that there are enlightened eyes of the soul, concerning which the Apostle writes: 'the eyes of your heart being enlightened.'

'To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in heaven.'

It is of these eyes that the beginning of seeing consists.

If anyone does not have the mind of Christ, neither can he see rightly, if he has not been enlightened by the true light.

'Sweet is the sleep of the servant, whether he eats little or much.'

'But to the one who is glutted with becoming rich, there is nothing that permits him to sleep.'

Sleeping he receives from himself, but eating and drinking he receives from another.

Whether, then, he eats little or much, this comes about by reason of the master.

Sleeping, however, he has from himself, from nature.

And since he sleeps free from care, having no anxiety about the acquiring and guarding of wealth, he has sweet sleep.

But the one who has much money does not enjoy even this.

Sweet is the sleep of the servant.

We were saying this, that the body is the servant of the soul.

The body itself in itself, insofar as it is body, has no anxiety, but has its appropriate repose together with rest.

But the soul, when it is occupied with acquisition and gathers up much falsely-named knowledge—those rejected pieces of silver—destroys both its wealth and its sleep, that natural rest.

For each thing's rest according to nature is called its sleep and its repose.

'Behold,' he says, 'the wage of the labourer, which has been wrongfully withheld: if it sleeps in the house of the owner, it cries out against him.'

By 'remaining at home in the house' he has meant its sleep.

The body, then, has its rest according to nature—I do not mean the licentious kind, nor the insatiable desire for food, but the appropriate kind...

...the goods spoken of in the moral sense...

...since again they do not even conceive of the soul as having real subsistence.

But some—among whom is Apollinaris also—suppose allegories to be, for the most part, mere re-paintings drawn from things that happen at the level of the senses.

If one hears that a dead man was raised—and by this very thing casts away the soul—that impious soul has descended into the uttermost death.

He who knows the soul—I say something paradoxical, contrary to what was just now being thought—he who understands the greatness of the soul and of its salvation, counts as nothing the body, and a man's being restored to sight, and his passing from lameness to walking unhindered.

For the daughter of the synagogue-ruler, having been justified, has not died.

Again, those who have risen according to the soul possess it for ever.

Those things are vain in relation to a certain consideration, not simply vain, but in relation to the superiority of greater things—just as 'vanity of vanities' too was rendered in this way—since the temporal creations of God possess much beauty.

In the body itself, at any rate, and in its harmonious proportions, you will see that it is a work of none who is able to make it, save God.

In relation, however, to the invisible things and the things above, it is vanity.

Not to this vanity, then, was the soul subjected.

There is nothing temporal—he means that in a certain manner he is a servant, is obedient, and a layman in knowledge—whereas the one who has gathered many contemplations is rich—and sweet is the sleep of this one who seems to be a servant and servile, whether he understands little or much.

And even if he has the right practice, so that he is a servant by possessing a spirit of slavery, he is not yet a son.

He is subject to the fear of judgment and abstains from evil—if indeed one ought to say that he abstains—out of fear of punishment.

This man, then, is a servant through fear of the law that has been raised over him.

But another, who seems to abound in many things, yet is in error, has that which does not permit him to sleep—namely, vain anxiety.

'There is a sickness which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his own hurt; and that wealth will perish in an evil distraction.'

For what purpose is anyone's wealth? Clearly that man too is a lord over his wealth.

This, then, which is to a certain man his sweetness, is his very own, and he himself is lord of his wealth.

Just as he is able to use his wealth well, mastering it and not being enslaved to it—that is, to mammon—so too can wealth master the one who possesses it.

There are times when he becomes a lover of money, when he becomes a slave of mammon.

He says, then, that there is such a wealth that is guarded up by its owner for himself.

He did not simply call it wealth, but wealth guarded up for himself.

This is the wealth of the one who possesses it.

So that he takes upon himself all the toils for the sake of acquiring it.

And observe indeed the grievous nature of the malady.

Neither does he himself enjoy it, nor does any of his successors.

Will not that wealth perish in an evil affliction? There is wealth that perishes suddenly, when a seizure occurs at the hands of enemies, or of robbers who have had the strength to lie in wait and to carry it off.

This one is not taken away in an affliction.

But whenever someone, for the sake of much gain, ships movable wealth by sea or engages in other ventures, it is often lost in the affliction.

By 'being afflicted' we mean being occupied about those things.

There are times when we had it in our hands.

God has given an evil affliction to the sons of men.

Often he buys slaves and they die; he builds ships and they are wrecked; he sows, and loses even the seed.

In an affliction, therefore, it will be lost—not in profligacy, not in the idleness of hands.

And he begot a son, and there is nothing in his hand.

Just as he came forth naked from his mother's womb, he shall return to go as he came.

Men make excuses, when they gather wealth, alleging their children.

And so sometimes they act unjustly and seize and do the rest, and they say, 'I do this for my children's sake.'

But just as the other pleasant things often ...

... into heaven, so that while walking upon earth he may have his citizenship in heaven.

I saw, then, one busying himself about wealth, and the wealth profited him nothing.

For neither did he himself enjoy it, nor did the son whom he had become master of it; but he is utterly poor, and just such as he was when he was born.

He was born not with money, not with garments.

'In the hand of the son'—that is, in the authority of the son there is nothing.

We are accustomed, at any rate, to say that a man has his wealth under his hand.

With rule, taking up nothing of the things of this life.

The good things of the soul alone can a man take up.

But concerning the perceptible and human things it is said:

Do not fear when a man grows rich, and when the glory of his house is multiplied; for when he dies he shall carry off none of it all.

Here the excuse that says 'he shall not carry off all things' is not a partial denial, but a universal one, equivalent to 'nothing at all.'

But if you wish to take it strictly and understand it as a partial privative, then it means this: that there are things which a man does carry off.

If, having money, he does good; if, having glory and rank, he reaches out to try to help the powerless—out of these earnest endeavours he takes these things with himself, namely his beneficence ...

Just as he was born, so he remains until death.

If, then, in his abundance he toils for the wind, the things he gathers do not remain.

And indeed all his days are in darkness and in mourning and in much wrath and sickness and bitterness.

These things can be said concerning the son, or indeed concerning both.

And he begot the son, and there is nothing in his hand.

Just as he came forth naked from his mother's womb, he shall return to go as he came.

Many who have acquired the things of the knowledge falsely so called, or of Greek philosophy, have not had their sons as lovers of these things; rather their sons depart together with them, possessing nothing in this way.

Many, indeed, have become the untutored sons of wise men.

This son, then, as he came, so he departs.

Without such instruction he came, and without it he departs.

But this too is possible: that one reputed to be wise begets him, and begets someone marked by vice, by licentiousness, and the other forms of vice, and he goes forth naked of the things about which his father was earnest.

Now the father was earnest not at all about the forms of vice, but about glory and the knowledge falsely so called.

It seems, however, that that man in some way, even if he takes ...

... so that these things might somehow remain here.

Of the father: called not blamably, but rather in place of 'praiseworthy' he says ...

And I say that wisdom is the mother of the wise man.

For wisdom was justified by her children.

And your mother, wisdom, shall guide you.

And again, the habits—both the worst and the better—are called mothers of those who have been formed according to them.

In this way, then, someone is called a son of perdition, and a son of vipers, and of death; and a son of light, and another a son of peace.

Here we understand the mother to be the blameworthy one, since the person about whom the discourse speaks is not a virtuous one.

According to the anagogical sense he has a blameworthy mother.

Just as his mother, vice, brought him to completion, so he enters here having acquired nothing—things contrary to those which his father provided, who gathered wretched wealth, and his mother, the habit that bore him.

He shall return to go as he came, and he shall carry off nothing in his toil.

He takes nothing of the things for which he toiled.

He leaves them behind and sometimes does not even know whether it comes into the hands of his enemies.

He lays up treasure, it says, and does not know for whom he gathers it.

The anagogical sense has already been stated: that the son carries off nothing of the riches of his father according to vice and of his mother.

Furthermore, the mother can also be taken as a praiseworthy one.

Here he has drawn near to the fear of God, in order that he might acquire ...

And indeed this too is an evil malady.

For just as he arrived, so also shall he depart.

If entering into a place signifies a local entrance, then so does going out.

For I do not say that the one who entered into this city came out of vice, but that he entered here from another country or city.

And what is his abundance, for which he toils into the wind?

His toil comes to nothing but wind; that is to say, his wealth is overturned as though by a mere breath of air.

He gains no mastery over it, nor does he hold onto it, so as even to pass it on to a son.

'And indeed all his days are in darkness and in mourning.'

By 'darkness' here he means ignorance and the obscurity of things.

And he mourns because he fails to attain the things he longs for, from which he supposes he would also have a cheerful life.

For mourning is stirred up over a death.

He has died, and all his days are in darkness and mourning.

'But she who lives in self-indulgence,' Scripture says, 'is dead even while she lives.'

If she has died, she is not worthy of being mourned; one ought not to raise up mourning over her.

For she indeed lives the empty life, but she has died in casting away the saving life, the blessed life, as though she had not lived in self-indulgence according to her human life.

From the things over which he toiled, ... it is.

'Behold, I have seen a good thing; it is beautiful.'

This good is at once both profitable and praiseworthy.

For he called it at once both good and beautiful.

Now the praiseworthy is the beautiful, while the beneficial and the desirable is the good.

If anyone eats the bread of life, the fruit of the tree of life, and the flesh of Jesus, he shows to his soul something good and beautiful—I mean, to him who pursues the good.

The very thing that is eagerly sought after to have is a good.

For not everyone who is benefited is praised by men.

Indeed many who love the flesh neither praise nor accept being cut and cauterized by the physician's art.

It is good, though not beautiful, for the one who undergoes it to derive benefit from these things.

For not every good is beautiful and desirable.

It is said with regard to ... .

The being praised—yet this is not a good.

'In his toil, in which he toils under the sun.'

He toils, laboring and wearying himself for the acquisition of virtue and of divine knowledge.

And because of sinning someone at times falls short of wisdom, ... .

Simply and ... nothing ... .

If, then, he eats and drinks something of this kind, he toils.

And according to the anagogical sense the same holds true, because the soul is in need of food and drink—if indeed his soul thus hungers and thirsts after goodness.

For as many as handle virtue well and wish to be thought prudent—not for the sake of the beautiful itself, but for the sake of being reckoned to be something—do indeed eat and drink, read and apply themselves to their readings, yet do not show forth any good to their own soul.

For they do not handle it because it is good, but because it brings them praise.

It is not good, unless they possess virtue in the way one ought to possess it.

They eat indeed and drink for the sake of being distracted.

'The number of the days of his life, which God has given him, for this is his portion.'

This he says with regard to the literal sense.

By providence the span of life was measured out to men.

And some live many years, others few.

For it is a blessed thing for the one who has obtained wealth—I speak with reference to those men—to enjoy it in the very many years that he lives in this present life.

That is to say, it is pleasant for him, when he has obtained the means, to eat and drink of the things he is able to, and to enjoy it throughout the number of the days of his life.

It was not of himself that he was long-lived or short-lived; by God's judgment there was measured out to each so many years.

This, then, is his portion: to enjoy throughout life the pleasant things, over which he labors and wearies himself.

If taken according to the anagogical sense, he means this: that if someone labors for the acquisition of the truly good things, and possesses them abiding throughout the whole course of his life, it will be to his benefit.

For he will be transferred from virtue to another place, to another region.

When in Scripture a praised life is set down as belonging to those of longer duration, or a blamed life as belonging to those of shorter duration, let us not take these things according to this obvious time measured by the sun, but rather, as Scripture says, 'the righteous shall make many years in wealth.'

'But the years of the ungodly shall be shortened.'

This does not appear to be so according to the literal history.

Thus, then, we take these words.

If the righteous are rich in wealth for many years, this wealth of theirs is illumination.

And the illumination measures out to them years—not those years measured by the perceptible sun, but by the Sun of righteousness.

Thus, then, he says that the one who honors father and mother fares well, because he is long-lived, or even lives many days.

And this is not found to be without exception in the literal history.

Indeed many who honored their parents departed from life untimely.

They make many years in wealth; but the years of the ungodly, even though they have a long-lasting life here, are made few.

Someone has wealth in false notions.

It will not abide with him, giving light thereafter.

The years, then, of the one so illumined were made few.

For only until the present life does he enjoy the illumination that merely seems to be such.

But the righteous have the illumination even thereafter.

'For the righteous shall shine forth as the sun.'

By 'sun' he means the Sun of righteousness.

'And indeed every man to whom God has given wealth and possessions and authority over it to eat of it and to receive his portion and to rejoice in his toil—this is a gift of God.'

Wealth was given to a man that he might eat and rejoice from it, and he received this gift from God.

And often he uses the gift and enjoys the things he possesses, but sometimes he fails to obtain these—in one case through his own excessive stinginess, spending nothing toward his own enjoyment, and in another case being hindered by sickness or by some other circumstance.

If someone received money in order that he might do good, this too was deemed to be a gift of God.

And he gives ... according to the ... of those who ask.

What is 'in toil'?—We have grown weary from toil.

If it were a gift of God, they used to say what the Apostle also says:

'For I often purposed to come to you.'

For what reason, then? 'That I might impart to you some spiritual gift.'

And they used to say that not all the things given by God as spiritual are gifts of grace.

When someone receives a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, or some other virtue, he has received a spiritual grace;

not so, however, if a man receives wealth or health or anything of that kind.

He has indeed received a gift of God and a bestowal, yet not a spiritual one.

The Lord puts to death and gives life.

If He gives life, He has furnished grain and wine—this present living—but not any spiritual gift.

The Lord appoints kings and removes them.

The offices given to those who govern are certainly not spiritual graces.

And the gift that is here below, or the bestowal, is not spiritual, but perceptible and human.

'And indeed every man to whom God has given.'

For the present I still hold to the literal sense.

If a man has much money, if he has myriads of grain and abundant wine, he cannot eat or drink it all, but he has a certain portion;

that which he can take in, namely the sufficient nourishment, up to the point of satiety, and likewise his drink—this is a gift of God.

If then anyone eats or drinks beyond what is needful, he does not have these as a gift of God, but as gifts of pleasure.

But with regard to the higher, anagogical sense, it is as follows:

God gives wisdom and the wealth that lies in wisdom,

and the possessions, that is, the contemplations of wisdom, so that a man may eat and drink from what he has received—the bread of wisdom—so that there may be its water, and the wine which it has mixed into the bowl.

And this indeed is a gift of God.

If a man receives the spiritual gift as he ought, then this grace becomes his portion.

You know that portions are properly given according to proportion.

Not everyone who has this possession of which I spoke—the goods that are allegorized and the wealth—holds it as another does, but to each it is apportioned according to his capacity.

For if a steward of the games provides food to the athletes and to those about the contest—for he has others too, as it were his attendants—he gives to each according to proportion: to one athlete seven pounds of meat—and this is his gift—to another four;

and to the one not contending he gives two.

A gift, then, is given to each according to his capacity and his condition.

So too has the parable of the talents come to be in the Gospel.

He gave to each of his servants his silver put out to work, to each according to his own capacity: to one five, to another two, to another one.