Homilies on Ecclesiastes 1 part 5/8

what then does he mean by saying this? Is it not that the judgment between the virtuous life and the wicked life does not take place on this basis — as though it were necessary only that the wicked man should die in body, while the good man should remain untested by bodily death? — not knowing in what the immortality of virtue consists, and what is the death of those who live in vice.

“For the memory of the wise,” he says, “lives on forever, and extends throughout the whole age; but for the fool, his memorial is extinguished together with him.”

For concerning such as these the prophet also says, “Their memorial has perished plainly and manifestly”;

for this is what the addition of “with a sound” indicates.

“There is, then,” he says, “no remembrance of the wise together with the fool forever”; but the life of the wise is perpetuated through memory, while oblivion succeeds the fool;

for in the days to come, all that belongs to the fool falls into oblivion, as he says with this word:

“Inasmuch as already, in the days that are coming, all things have been forgotten.”

If, then, the wise man lives by wisdom, but the fool has vanished into the death of oblivion, how, he says, can you say that the wise man will die together with the fool? For this reason he grieves and is ashamed over the things he had zealously pursued in this life, and he says he hates all the things he had eagerly pursued for the sake of this life — undergoing something like what one would suffer if, having shamelessly gorged himself out of gluttony on honey mixed with poison, and then, when the sweetness had turned for him into a foul humor, he should perceive in his vomiting the sensation of the mingled drug being spat out together with the honey, and because of this, by the memory of the disgust, should come to hate the honey, whose very surfeit, through the poison, had wrought his overthrow.

For this reason, the one who had filled himself to the point of satiety with the things eagerly pursued for luxury, in the vomiting of his confession, feeling sickened and revolted — as at the very quality of some poison — at the shame over what had been done, cries out that he hates that life, speaking thus, word for word: “And I hated life together, because the work that was done under the sun was evil to me.”

“For not to anyone else,” he says, “but to myself have I become evil, through the things I did under the sun.”

“For nothing of what came to be stands firm for me, but all the things eagerly pursued were mere conceit and an impulse of choice.”

“For all things,” he says, “are vanity and a preference of spirit.”

Splendid and costly constructions of ramparts and buildings, gateways, towers, and towering colossal monuments, and labors of husbandry upon the earth — groves of every kind, the beauty of meadows, and vineyards rivaling the seas in breadth, and whatever else of this kind — whoever happens to have labored at these does indeed labor, but it is the one who comes to dwell in life after him who shares in them.

“But it is unclear whether he will not make this abundance the material of vice.”

For it is not given to all to submit their sense-perception to the experience of such things for the sake of knowledge.

“Which,” he says, “I have done by wisdom.”

“By my own authority, having let the impulse of nature, like some colt, leap freely for a little into the passions below, I again reined it in with the bridle of reasonings, and brought it under the authority of the mind.”

“Who knows,” he says, “whether that one, whoever he may be, who after us shall come to be involved in these things, will have mastery over the enjoyment, and will not rather himself be mastered — bowing down, like some slave, to the dominion of pleasure? For this reason,” he says, “I hated all my labor, at which I labor under the sun, because I leave it to the man who comes after me.”

“And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish, and whether he will have mastery over all my labor, at which I labored and grew wise under the sun?” For I think this is the sense of this saying: that he did not slip into the life of enjoyment through passion, but arrived at it by a certain reasoned wisdom, making his participation a matter under his own authority, and not himself being overpowered by this dominion.

“Who then knows,” he says, “whether the one who comes after me will not be mastered by these things, which I labored at not through passion, but by wisdom?” For by calling luxury “labor,” he indicates that, as if by force, he undertook participation in pleasure as though it were some hard-fought contest.

“And this too, then,” he says, “let it be numbered among the vain things.”

And he says that his own soul has renounced yet another of the things here, and he makes clear through his discourse what he means.

For he expresses disapproval toward the one who errs in right judgment — whenever someone, though seeing the manifest difference between opposite ways of life (by which the one labors for virtue and brings his desire down to nothing base, while the other, on the contrary, endures no labor for virtuous things, but wears himself out solely in bodily toils) —

whenever, then, someone casts the vote of the good in favor of this man, overlooking the one who excels in wisdom, he declares this unjust judgment to be not only vain, but also wicked.

And he says it in these words:

“And I turned,” he says, “to renounce in my heart, in addition to my other labor, that at which I labored under the sun.”

What then is it that I renounced? That there is a man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in fortitude, and another man who has toiled at nothing of this kind —

how then shall anyone assign to such a man the portion of preference? “For a man,” he says, “who did not labor at it” (that is, the man who did not labor for the good) “will give him his portion” (instead of:

he will assign such a life its place in the portion of the good).

“But,” he says, “this is vanity, and a great evil.”

For how is it not a great evil, when he knows the zeal and purpose inherent in man concerning his labors? For this is what he means when he says:

“That he knows, concerning man, in all his labor and in the purpose of his heart, at which he himself labors under the sun—”

What then is it that he knows? “That all,” he says, “his days are of pains, and his distraction is of vexation, and even at night his heart does not sleep.”

For indeed, for those who occupy their soul with this distraction, life is truly full of pain, scourging the heart, as with goads, by the desires for ever more things; and the zeal for greed is full of anguish — rejoicing not so much in what it has, as being pained by what it lacks;

for them, toil is divided between night and day, each working itself out fittingly through the other — the day being spent in labors, the night driving sleep away from their eyes;

for the anxieties of gain drive away sleep.

He adds to what was said before: “This too is vanity.”

Again he takes up another objection, and the objection is this:

“If, O teacher, you number what is outside us among vain things, then whatever we take up into ourselves would not reasonably be condemned as vain.”

“But indeed, eating and drinking take place within ourselves.”

“Such a thing, then, is not among the things to be rejected, but one might rather define such a grace as a divine benefaction.”

This is the sense of the objection, and the words run in this manner:

“There is no good in man,” he says, “which he will eat and drink, and will show his soul good in his toil;

and this too I saw, that it is from the hand of God; for who shall eat and who shall drink apart from him?”

These things the advocate of gluttony brings forward in reply to the teacher.

But what does the teacher of wisdom say to these things, concerning the good man? The addition of “the good” has certainly also indicated the distinction, so that what is understood as contrary to goodness might be made clear.

To the man, then — not the beastlike man, the one bent over his own belly, who possesses a gullet instead of reason, but the good man, who lives according to the image of the only Good — God did not legislate this food, around which the bestial nature gapes; but rather “He gave him,” it says, “in place of food, wisdom and knowledge and gladness.”

For how could one increase goodness through the foods of the flesh? “Man shall not live by bread alone” — this is the word of the true Word; virtue is not nourished by bread, the power of the soul does not thrive and grow fat through meats.

The lofty life is nourished and matures by other foods;

the food of the good man is self-mastery, his bread is wisdom, his relish is righteousness, his drink is freedom from passion; his pleasure is not that of the body — such as the disposition toward what gratifies the heart — but that whose very name and work is gladness;

for this is why he named with this appellation the disposition that comes to be in the soul toward the good, because such a state comes to the understanding out of thinking well.

It is necessary, then, here too to learn what we have also heard from the Apostle: “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and freedom from passion and blessedness.”

But the things which are eagerly pursued by men for the sake of bodily enjoyment are the pursuit of sinners, and a distraction of the soul, dragged down from the things above to the things below — a soul whose whole span of conduct in this life is spent in the pursuit of adding and gathering.

He, then, who judges this to be the good in the presence of God is ignorant, defining the good within what is vain.

These things I said with my own voice; but the juxtaposition of the divine words will set its seal upon this understanding:

"To the sinner he gave distraction, to add and to gather, that he might give it to the good man before the face of God;"

"for this also is vanity and a choosing of wind."

Therefore, whatever we have learned from this present reading through this parallel comparative examination of the good and the worse, may it become for us a help toward the avoidance of the things condemned, and provision for those things rightly accomplished toward the better, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages.

HOMILY 6. "To all things there is a time, and a season for every matter under heaven:"

This is the beginning, for our contemplation, of the sayings set before us.

And the labor of this examination is not small, but the gain from the labor is worthy of the labor.

For perhaps the purpose of what we contemplated in the first parts of the book is made manifest especially in this section, as the discourse, proceeding, will show through what follows.

In the preceding discourses all things were condemned as vain, whatsoever, in the course of human life, is pursued with zeal to no profit of the soul.

...to look with eyes intently fixed [upon such things], while against those who put forward bodily pleasure was set the nourishment that accords with wisdom.

What remains is to know how one might live according to virtue, having received through the discourse, as it were, a certain art and method of approach toward the right conduct of life.

These, then, are the things which the present examination of the sayings promises us at the outset, in which it declares: "To all things there is a time, and a season for every matter under heaven."

For if one should stoop into the depth of the meaning, one would find much philosophy comprised within the words, both contemplative and counseling of what is profitable.

And so that we may have, by means of a few words, some approach toward the contemplation of the text, we shall divide our discourse thus:

Of existing things, one kind is material and sensible, the other intelligible and immaterial.

Of these, the incorporeal transcends sensible apprehension, which we shall know then, when we strip off the senses;

but sense, having its apprehension of the material nature, does not have the capacity to pass beyond the heavenly body and to penetrate into what lies beyond the things that appear.

For this reason the discourse speaks to us concerning things earthly and under heaven, that we might live our life in this without stumbling.

This life is material, this living is through the flesh, and the contemplation of the good is somehow overshadowed by the things that appear beforehand according to sense.

We therefore need some knowledge for the judgment of the good, so that, as in the case of constructions, there may be some rule, directing by the plumb-line everything that is made.

This, then, is shown to us beforehand by the discourse, through which life is directed toward what is fitting.

And this it now teaches, saying:

"To all things there is a time, and a season for every matter:"

But "measure" must be understood in place of "time," because time extends alongside everything that comes to be.

These, then, are the criteria of the good.

Whether this holds universally, for every accomplishment of virtue, I do not yet affirm, until the discourse, proceeding, shall demonstrate it.

But that the greater part of an ordered life is accomplished by such observance, it would be for anyone to understand.

For who does not know that virtue too is a measure, measured by the mean of the things observed alongside it? For virtue could not come to be either deficient of the fitting measure or exceeding it—as, for example, in the case of courage, whose deficiency becomes cowardice, and whose excess becomes rashness.

For which reason certain ones of the outer wisdom too—having perhaps become thieves of what is ours—dividing the meaning signified in this saying, one counseled in an aphorism that nothing should be deficient, while the other forbade excess:

for the one declared, "Measure is best," while the other legislated, "Nothing in excess."

And it is shown through both, that failing to attain the measure of virtue that is sought is among the things condemned, and that exceeding due proportion is likewise to be rejected.

But concerning the part that pertains to right timing, the same account would be given us: that neither what anticipates the right season nor what lags behind it is judged to belong to the portion of the good.

What did it profit the farmer to hasten the cutting of the ears of grain before the crops had ripened in their season, or to delay his labor concerning the harvest until the seed had fallen away from the stalk? For in neither case does the effort become effective for good, since in either case the untimeliness of the cutting destroys the benefit of the season.

And what has been said in a particular instance, it is possible to understand also in every case.

For seafaring too knows the same thing, whether one anticipates the right season or lags behind it.

And what might one say of the art of medicine, in as much as both excess and deficiency in the season and measure fitting to treatment tend toward harm? But these things must be left aside, since the discourse that follows will be made clearer by examples, in the very words of the Ecclesiast himself.

But for what reason have these things been considered beforehand by us? Because neither the immoderate is good, nor the untimely, but that alone is good and desirable which possesses perfection through both.

...being deficient, even what has been rightly accomplished will be unprofitable in that very respect in which it is lacking.

Therefore, just as when we perform motion with two feet, if something should befall one of them, then even the unaffected foot becomes useless for running, on account of the weakness of the one that should cooperate with it—so also, if measure should be lacking to season, or timeliness to measure, that which is present is altogether rendered useless together with that which is lacking.

But both proportion within the season, and timeliness within measure, possess what is useful.

"Time," then, has been understood by us in place of "measure," because time is the measure of everything that is measured, each according to its own kind.

For things that come to be, come to be altogether in time, and along with the duration of each thing that comes to be, the interval of time is co-extended: little in the lesser thing, and more in the greater.

Time is the measure of gestation, the measure of the growth of the ears of grain, the measure of the ripening of fruits, the measure of seafaring, the measure of a journey, the measure of each stage of life—of the infant, the toddler, the lad, the boy, the youth, the man, the man of middle age, the man in his prime, the man past his prime, the elder, the old man.

Since, then, the measure that comes from time is not one and the same for all things that come to be (for it is not possible for all things to become equal in measure to one another, on account of the difference of the underlying subjects), but time is, as has been said, the common measure of all things measured, containing all things within itself—for this reason he did not say "measure" for all things, on account of the great inequality, as regards more and less, that exists among the things measured, but he said "time" as the common measure for all things, by which everything that comes to be is measured out.

For just as, in the case of human age, that which is advanced in years is weak, while that which is not yet established is disorderly, and the best is the mean between the two—whichever escapes the unpleasantness on either side—in which is shown a strength separated from the disorderliness of youth, and a prudence disjoined from the feebleness of old age, so that there is a strength blended with prudence, equally fleeing both the feebleness of old age and the rashness of youth;

so too, he who determines a time for all things, by his statement separates in each case the vice that arises from lack of measure, both dishonoring what exceeds its time and dismissing what falls short.

But it would now be the time for the contemplation itself of the God-inspired sayings to be set before us in due order.

"A time," he says, "to give birth, and a time to die."

Well did he, in the first place, join together this necessary pairing in his discourse, joining death to birth;

for death necessarily follows upon birth, and every generation is dissolved into corruption;

so that, by death and birth being shown together in conjunction, he might, as it were by a certain goad—the remembrance of death—awaken those who sink deep into the life according to the flesh and who love the present manner of living, and rouse them to concern for the things to come.

These same things Moses too, the friend of God, philosophizes in a hidden manner in the first titles of his books, immediately writing "Exodus" alongside "Genesis," so that those who encounter the titles might, even through the very order of the books, be instructed concerning their own affairs;

for it is not possible, having heard "Genesis" (generation), not immediately to think also of "Exodus" (departure).

This very thing, having understood it here also, the great Ecclesiast demonstrates, showing death to stand in the same rank with birth.

"For there is a time," he says, "to give birth, and a time to die."

The time came, and I was born; the time will come, and I shall die.

If we all looked toward this, we would not, having abandoned the short path of life, go about in a circle with the impious, willingly wandering the cyclical error of life among powers and prominence and riches, through which, entangling ourselves in the many byways of this life, we no longer discover the exit from the labyrinth of this life—confounding for ourselves, through the very things by which we suppose we are being diligent, the signs of the unerring journey.

How blessed indeed are those among men who, having abandoned the cyclical deceptions of life, lead themselves onto the short road of virtue!

And this is: not to turn the soul toward any of the things here, but to stretch oneself out with zeal toward that which lies before us in hope through faith.

Let us again examine what has been said.

"...he says, to give birth, and a time to die."

Would that for me too there might be birth in due season, and a timely death!

For one could not say that this involuntary travail and this spontaneous death are here being set forth beforehand by the Ecclesiast as belonging to an accomplishment of virtue;

for travail does not depend on the will of the woman, nor does death depend on the choice of those who are dying.

But that which is not in our power, one could define as neither virtue nor vice.

It is fitting, then, to understand the timely birth and the death that occurs in due season in another sense.

It seems to me that birth is ripe and not miscarried, when, as Isaiah says, one, having conceived from the fear of God, gives birth to one's own salvation through the travails of the soul;

for we become, in a certain manner, fathers of ourselves, when through good choice we form ourselves, and beget ourselves, and bring ourselves forth into the light.

And this we do by receiving God within ourselves, becoming children of God, and children of power, and sons of the Most High.

And again, we cause ourselves to miscarry, and render ourselves unfruitful and wind-eggs, when the form of Christ, as the apostle says, is not formed in us.

For, he says, the man of God must be complete.

And he is altogether complete in whom the principle of nature has been perfectly fulfilled.

Therefore if someone, through virtue, has made himself a child of God, having received the authority of this nobility, he has known the time of the good birth-pang, and rejoices fittingly according to the gospel, "that a man has been born into the world."

But he who has become a child of wrath and a son of perdition and offspring of darkness, a brood of vipers, an evil offspring, and all the other things by which the wicked birth is denounced, has not known the life-generating time.

For there is one time that gives birth unto life, and not many.

He who has missed this, in the untimeliness of his birth, has travailed himself unto perdition, and has midwifed his own soul unto death.

But if it is evident how we are born in due time, it should also be clear how we die in due time — as, for example, every time was a fitting time for the good death of holy Paul.

For he cries out in his own words, making it in a manner like an oath, where he says, "I die daily, I swear it by the boast I have in you," and "For your sake we are put to death all the day long," and "We ourselves have had within ourselves the sentence of death."

And it is certainly not unclear how Paul, who never lived to sin, dies daily — he who always puts to death the members of his flesh, and carries about in himself the mortification of the body of Christ, who is forever crucified together with Christ, who never lives for himself, but has Christ living within him.

This, in my judgment, would be the timely death, which becomes the procurer of true life.

"For I," he says, "will kill and I will make alive," so that we are truly persuaded that it is a gift of God to be put to death to sin and to be made alive by the Spirit.

For through killing, the divine voice promises to make alive.

And what follows is similar to what has been said.

"A time," it says, "to plant, and a time to uproot what has been planted."

We know who our farmer is, and whose tillage we are.

For the one we have learned from Christ, the other from Christ's servant Paul.

For the Lord says, "My Father is the husbandman," while the apostle says to us, "You are God's tillage."

The great husbandman, then, knows how to plant only good things (for "God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the east"), while he uproots whatever is contrary to the good.

"For every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted."

Therefore the wickedness of the Pharisees, and their unbelief, and their ingratitude toward the wonders performed by the Lord — these are the plants that are being uprooted.

For the proclamation of salvation must prevail, the gospel must be preached in the whole world, every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Since, then, these things must certainly come to pass, the unbelief now prevailing among some is not from the Father's planting, but from him who sows the tares alongside, or from him who plants the Sodomite vine-branch alongside the Master's vineyard.

What we were taught by the Master's own voice, this we have now also been taught in the riddle of the Ecclesiast: that it is the same time both to receive the saving plant of faith and to pluck up the tare of unbelief.

And what has been said in particular concerning the achievement of faith, this one might likewise understand accordingly concerning every virtue.

There is a time to plant self-control and to uproot the plant of licentiousness.

So too, when righteousness is planted, the unrighteous shoot is uprooted, and the plant of humility overturns pride, and love, once it has sprouted, withers the evil tree of hatred.

And so likewise it happens from the contrary side.

Unrighteousness, when multiplied, has grown cold love; and all the rest in the same manner — lest, by speaking of each case, we linger too long, we shall not go astray by understanding them all alike.

Again, the word that follows next is in harmony with what has already been examined.

"For there is," it says, "a time to kill, and a time to heal."

And this has been clearly interpreted beforehand in the prophetic saying, which speaks in the person of God: "I will kill and I will make alive."

For unless we kill enmity within ourselves, we shall not heal the loving disposition within us that has fallen sick through hatred.

So too with all the rest that lives to our harm — I mean the evil battle-line of the passions, and this civil war which campaigns against us through the pleasures and takes us captive to the law of sin — there is a time to kill this.

For the slaying of such things becomes the healing of him who has been weakened through sin.

Physicians say that worms and certain other such creatures are engendered within, in the bowels, from bad humors, whose life becomes a disease for the body.

But if these are destroyed by means of some drink of medicine, the one who is ill will be restored again to health.

Such afflictions of the body correspond analogously to the maladies of the soul.

Whenever anger, sucking out from within, or resentment, enervating the soul's vigor and its reasonings, or the beast of envy, or whatever other such evil an evil regimen has engendered — the one who perceives that his soul is nourishing a beast within will make timely use of the medicine that destroys the passions.

And this is the teaching from the gospel: that once those things have been slain and destroyed, healing may come upon the one who was afflicted.

"A time to tear down, and a time to build up."

These things can also be learned from what was said by God to the prophet Jeremiah, to whom power was given from God, first to tear down and uproot and demolish, and then to set upright and rebuild and plant.

For the buildings of wickedness must first be reduced to ruins within us, and then find both the time and the room for the construction of the temple of God that is built in our souls, of which virtue becomes the material.

"For if anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, and precious stones" — these are called virtue.

But by wood, hay, and stubble the nature of wickedness is signified, which is prepared for nothing other than to be consumed by fire.

Whenever, then, the buildings are of hay and stubble, that is, of unrighteousness and pride and the rest of the wickedness of life, the word commands that these first be brought to destruction, and only then that the gold of virtue be made the material for the construction of the spiritual house.

For it is not possible for silver to grow together with stubble, or for gold to be fused together with hay, or a pearl with wood; but if the one is to be, the other must certainly be made to vanish.

"For what fellowship has light with darkness?" Let, then, the works of darkness first be torn down, and then the luminous buildings of life will be constructed.

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh."

This saying is clarified by the gospel voice, which was uttered in the person of the Lord, saying, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Now, then, is the time to weep, while the time to laugh is laid up for us through hope.

And who would not spend his whole life in lamentation and gloom, if he truly gained perception of himself and came to know his own condition — what he once had and what he has lost, and in what state nature was in the beginning, and in what state it now is? Then there was no death, disease was absent, and "mine" and "yours," those wicked words, were banished from the life of our first parents.