Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 103

GREGORY: The book of Solomon in which these things are written is called Ecclesiastes. But Ecclesiastes is properly rendered 'preacher' or 'orator of the assembly.' In an assembly, indeed, a sentence is brought forth by which the sedition of a tumultuous crowd may be repressed. And when many hold diverse opinions, they are led through the reasoning of the one addressing the assembly to a single verdict. This book, therefore, is for this reason called 'preacher,' because Solomon in it took up, as it were, the mind of a tumultuous crowd, so as to say by way of inquiry those things which perhaps an unskilled mind may feel through temptation. For as many opinions as he raises by way of inquiry, so many persons of diverse men he takes up, as it were, in himself.

But the truthful preacher, as with hand outstretched, calms the tumult of all, and calls them back to a single verdict, when at the end of that same book he says: 'Let us all alike hear the end of the discourse: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole of man' (Eccl. XII, 13). For if in that same book, by his speech, he had not taken up the persons of many, why did he admonish all together with himself to hear the end of the speaking? He, therefore, who at the end of the book says: 'Let us all alike hear,' is himself a witness to himself that, taking up in himself the persons of many, he did not speak as though alone. Hence there are also other things which in that same book are raised by way of inquiry, and yet others which give satisfaction by way of reason;

others which he brings forth from a tempted mind, still given over to the delights of this world; but others in which he discourses those things that are of reason, so as to restrain the mind from delight. For there he says: 'This therefore seemed good to me, that one should eat and drink, and enjoy gladness from his labour' (Eccl. V, 17). And far below he subjoins: 'It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting' (Eccl. VII, 2). For if it is good to eat and drink, it would have seemed better to go to the house of feasting than to the house of mourning. From which it is shown that the former he brought in from the person of the weak, but the latter he subjoined from the definition of reason.

For he at once sets forth the very grounds of his reasoning, and shows what profit there is in the house of mourning, saying: 'For in it the end of all men is called to mind, and the living considers what he is to become in the future' (Eccl. VII). Again it is written there: 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth' (Eccl. XI, 9). And a little later he adds: 'For youth and pleasure are vain' (Ibid., 10). Since he afterward censures as vain that which he had earlier seemed to commend, he plainly shows that he uttered the former words as if from carnal desire, but appended the latter from the truth of judgment. Thus, then, first expressing the delight of things carnal.

—having set cares aside, he declares that it is good to eat and drink; yet afterward, by the reasoning of judgment, he reproves this, when he says that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting; and just as he proposes, as if from a deliberation about things carnal, that the young man should rejoice in his youth, and yet afterward, by a definitive verdict, censures youth and pleasure as vain—so also our Preacher, as though from the mind of the weak, sets forth the opinion of human surmise, when he says: 'One is the death of man and of beasts, and the condition of both is equal. As man dies, so do they also die; all things breathe alike, and man has nothing more than the beasts' (Eccl. III, 19).

Yet afterward he brings forth his own verdict from the definition of reason, saying: 'What has the wise man more than the fool, and what has the poor man, but that he go thither where there is life?' (Eccl. VI, 8). He therefore who said, 'Man has nothing more than the beasts,' himself again defined that the wise man has something not only more than the beast, but even more than the foolish man—namely, that he may go thither where there is life. By which words he first indicates that the life of men is not here, which he testifies to be elsewhere. Man therefore has this more than the beasts, that they do not live after death, whereas man then begins to live when, through the death of the flesh, he consummates this laughable life. He also says much further below:

'Whatever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly, for there is neither work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou hastenest' (Eccl. IX, 10). How then is the death of man and of beast one, and the condition of both equal? Or how does man have nothing more than the beasts, since the beasts do not live after the death of the flesh, whereas the spirits of men, led to hell after the death of the flesh for their evil works, do not die even in death itself? But in these two so contrary opinions it is shown that the truthful Preacher both uttered the one from carnal temptation, and afterward defined the other from spiritual truth. PETER.

It pleases me to have been ignorant of what I inquired, since in such great subtlety it has befallen me to learn what I did not know. But I beg you to bear with me patiently, if I too, after the manner of our Ecclesiastes, take upon myself before you the person of the weak, that I may the more nearly profit those same weak ones, as it were through their own inquiry. GREGORY. Why should I not patiently bear with you as you condescend to the weakness of your neighbors, when Paul says: 'I became all things to all men, that I might save all' (1 Cor. IX, 22)? Since you do this out of the condescension of charity, in this matter you ought the more to be revered, in that you imitate the manner of that excellent preacher.