傳道書講道 第 1 章 第 1/8 段

Of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, on the Ecclesiast, Homily I. Before us lies the Ecclesiast for exposition, the labor of contemplation being equal in magnitude to the benefit it yields.

for the thoughts of the Proverbs have already given the mind preliminary training — those dark sayings and wise maxims and riddles and the various turns of speech which the preface of that book comprises;

then, for those who have grown toward the more perfect teachings, the ascent to this lofty and truly God-inspired scripture takes place.

If, then, the discipline of the Proverbs, which prepares us for these teachings, is itself so laborious and hard to contemplate, how much toil must we expect to find in these lofty thoughts now set before us for contemplation? For just as those who have trained in wrestling at the trainer's school strip for greater sweat and toil in the gymnastic contests, so it seems to me that the teaching of the Proverbs is a kind of preliminary exercise, training and softening our souls beforehand for the contests of the church.

If, then, the preliminary exercise is accomplished with so much sweat and toil, what must we reckon concerning the contests themselves? Indeed, though one should conceive every degree of hyperbole, he could not adequately set forth in words how much toil the arena of this scripture displays to those who contend, through athletic experience, for the security of its thoughts — so as not to show the argument fallen, but to preserve the mind upright through the truth in every entanglement of thought.

Nevertheless, since it is also one of the Master's commandments that we ought to search the scriptures, it is altogether necessary — even if our mind should be found lagging behind the truth, unable to attain to the magnitude of the thoughts — nonetheless to accomplish, through diligence applied to the text according to our ability, at least the appearance of not overlooking the Lord's commandment.

Let us, then, search the scripture set before us as best we can.

For surely he who gave the commandment to search will also give the power for this very purpose, just as it is written: "The Lord shall give a word to those who proclaim good tidings with great power."

And first of all, let the title of the book be set before us for contemplation.

In every church Moses and the Law are read, the prophets, the psalter, the whole history, and whatever belongs to the old and the new covenant — all these are proclaimed in the churches.

How then is it that this book alone is specially adorned with the title "Ecclesiast"? What then have we understood concerning this? That in the case of all the other scriptures — both histories and prophecies — their aim looks also toward certain other matters not altogether useful to the church.

For what concern is it to the church to learn in precise detail the calamities of wars, or who became rulers of nations and founders of cities, and who were colonists of whom, or what kingdoms would appear in the time to come, and how many marriages and begettings of children were carefully recorded, and all such things as can be learned through each scripture?

What great contribution could these make to the church's aim of piety? But the teaching of this book looks solely to the ecclesiastical way of life, setting forth those things by which one might rightly order a life in virtue.

For the aim of what is said here is to set the understanding above sense-perception, and to persuade the soul, having abandoned everything that appears great and splendid among existing things, to look beyond, through the soul itself, toward those things unattainable by sensible apprehension, and to take up desire for those things which sense-perception cannot reach.

And the title also looks to the leader of the church.

For the true Ecclesiast — he who gathers the scattered into one fullness, and who assembles into a single congregation those led astray in various places by manifold deceits — who else could this be but the true King of Israel, the Son of God, to whom Nathanael said, "You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel"? If then these words belong to the King of Israel, and he himself is also the Son of God, as the Gospel says, then he too is called the Ecclesiast.

And perhaps it is not unreasonable that we refer the meaning of the title to this sense, that through this we may learn that the force of these words is referred to him who, through the Gospel, established the church.

"Vanity of vanities," said the Ecclesiast, "all things are vanity."

"Vain" is understood as that which has no subsistence, which has its being only in the utterance of the spoken word;

but no really subsisting thing is signified together with the meaning of the name; rather it is a kind of idle and empty sound, uttered through syllables in the shape of some word, striking the hearing at random without meaning — such as some, in jest, coin as words, whose signification is nothing.

This, then, is one kind of vanity.

Another kind is called vanity — namely, the uselessness of things done with a certain effort but toward no purpose, such as children's buildings in the sand, and shooting arrows at the stars, and the hunting of winds, and the runner's race against his own shadow, when he contends to plant his foot upon the crown of his shadow, and whatever other such thing we find among things done at random — all of which fall under the term "vanity."

There is also often another thing called "vain" in ordinary usage: when someone, looking toward some goal and pursuing each action diligently as something profitable to that purpose, then, some obstacle having arisen, his labor turns out to be futile — then his effort's failure to arrive at any accomplishment is signified by the term "vain."

For in such cases ordinary usage says, "I labored in vain," and "I hoped in vain," and "I endured many toils for nothing."

And, so that we need not go through each instance in which the term "vanity" is properly used, let us briefly sum up the meaning of this word.

Vanity is either a word without meaning, or a thing without benefit, or a resolve without substance, or a zeal that has no end, or, in general, whatever has no real existence in relation to anything profitable.

If, then, we have now understood the concept of "vain," we must inquire what "vanity of vanities" means.

Perhaps the sought-for meaning would become clearer to us if we examined together the scriptural usage in the case of things conceived in the superlative degree toward what is better.

The performance of things necessary and profitable is called by scripture "work"; but those pursuits that surpass the rest, whatever looks to the very service of God, are called "work of works," as the history shows — the text, I think, showing us by a kind of analogy, through the "work of works," what among the things pursued is more to be preferred.

For the relation which zeal for works bears to idleness in general, the same relation the activity directed toward the loftier and more preferable pursuits bears to the rest of the works.

In the same way, scripture also speaks of something as "holy";

and again, "holy of holies" — as though, by an equal measure, the holy surpasses in holiness what is merely permitted, and again the "holy of holies" surpasses this, being contemplated as the superlative degree in sanctification.

Accordingly, what we have learned concerning the superlative usage — that scriptural custom signifies, by such a form, the intensification of the underlying meaning — if we understand this same principle also in the case of "vanity of vanities," we shall not go astray.

"deader than a dead thing" and "more lifeless than a lifeless thing"

and yet the comparative intensification has, strictly speaking, no place in such cases; nevertheless it is expressed in this way, for the sake of clarity, to indicate the excess of what is being signified.

Just as, then, there are the "works of works" and the "holies of holies," understood as expressing the superlative indication toward what is better, so too the "vanity of vanities" shows the unsurpassable degree of excess found within vanity.

And let no one suppose that what is said here is an accusation against creation.

For the charge would indeed pass over to him who made all things, if the one who constituted all things out of what did not exist should appear to us as the maker of such things — if indeed all things were vanity.

But since the constitution of man is twofold — soul running together with body — the form of life has been apportioned correspondingly to each of the two elements observed within us;

for the life of the soul is one thing, and the life of the body another;

the one is mortal and perishable, the other impassible and incorruptible; and the one looks only to the present, while the aim of the other extends into perpetuity;

Since, then, there is a great difference between the mortal and the immortal, and between the temporal and the eternal, the Ecclesiast's word tends toward this: that we ought not to look toward this sensible life, which, when compared to the truly real life, is a kind of non-existent and unsubstantial thing.

But nonetheless one might say that this argument, too, does not escape accusation against the maker, since both the soul and the body are from him; so that if the life through the flesh is condemned, and God is the maker of the flesh, then such a reproach would necessarily be referred back to him.

But such things will surely be said by one who has not yet come to be outside the flesh, nor looked closely into the loftier life.

Since indeed one who has been instructed in the divine mysteries certainly does not fail to know that the life proper and natural to human beings is that which has been made like to the divine nature, whereas the sensible life, conducted through the activity of the sense-organs, has been given to nature for this purpose: that the knowledge of visible things might become a guide for the soul toward the recognition of things invisible — just as Wisdom says, that from the greatness and beauty of created things the Author of all is analogously beheld.

But human folly did not see the very thing that ought to have been admired through visible things, but admired instead what it saw.

Since, then, the activity of the sense-organs is temporary and short-lived, we learn this through this lofty utterance: that he who looks toward these things sees nothing.

But he who, through these things, is guided toward the comprehension of true being, and who, through the things that pass by, comes to understand the abiding nature, and who arrives at an apprehension of that which is always the same — he both sees the truly existing good, and possesses what he has seen;

for the knowledge of this good is itself its possession.

"For what profit," he says, "is there to a man in all his toil which he toils under the sun?" He named the life in the body "toil," something pursued fruitlessly, without accomplishment.

"For what," he says, "is the profit to man?" — that is, what does the soul gain from life's toil, for those who live with a view to what appears? In what does life consist, or what among the visible goods remains the same? The sun goes around its own course, shining in turn and being darkened, illuminating the air above us when it shows itself above the earth, and dragging darkness after it through its setting.

The earth stands and remains motionless in its fixity; and what is standing does not move, and what is moving does not stand still; but all things, throughout every interval of time, are displayed by the very same means, changed in no respect by any alteration toward novelty.

The sea is the receptacle of the waters flowing together from every side, and neither does the inflow cease nor does the sea increase.

What is the purpose of this course, for the waters that ever fill what cannot be filled? To what end does the sea receive the inflows of the waters, remaining forever without increase despite the addition? He says these things so that, from the very elements in which human life consists, he might interpret beforehand the insubstantiality of the things we pursue.

Succession of darkness meets with stillness: the earth, sentenced to stillness, remains motionless in its fixity; the rivers labor to no purpose, being spent into the insatiable nature of the sea; and the sea receives in vain the inflows of the waters, gaining nothing further in its bosom from what is forever being poured in;

if such is the state of these things, in what condition is it likely that the human, whose life is bound up with these things, should be? And why are we surprised if "one generation passes and another generation comes," and this course does not fail its nature — the ever-succeeding generation of men both pushing out the one that entered before and being pushed out by the one that enters after? What, then, does the word cry out to the church through these things? That, O men, looking to the whole, you should understand your own nature.

Let those things which you see concerning heaven and earth, which you behold in the sun, which you observe in the sea — let these interpret for you your own nature as well.

For there is, in a manner similar to the sun, both a rising and a setting also in our nature.

There is one path for all, one circle in the course of life.

When we rise through birth, we are again drawn down to the place akin to us.

For when our life sets, our own light too becomes subterranean, when the perceptive sense that receives the light becomes earth;

and the earth is invariably resolved into what is akin to it; and this is a kind of circle, continually revolving within the same bounds.

just as the text says concerning the sun, that in rising it travels through the southern part above the earth, while, going under the earth, it passes beneath the opposite, northern part, and in this manner, forever making its circuit, it completes the circle of its own course and again, revolving, goes around;

"For it goes round," it says, "circling round";

so too, then, "your spirit goes" (naming, by a part, the whole of the human spirit), running through this same circular course by means of like things.

"For the spirit goes," it says, "and the spirit returns to its circuits."

He who understands these things would not gain small benefit for his own life.

What is brighter than light? What more radiant than its rays? And yet, if the sun should go beneath the earth, its light is hidden and its ray vanishes.

Let one who looks upon these things pass through his own life the more soberly, despising the outward glory of this world, having learned from what is seen that what is conspicuous does not endure into perpetuity, but the successions of opposites are quick to turn;

and nothing remains forever such as it is in the present — not youth, not beauty, not the glory that comes from positions of power.

And this, then, applies to those who live in some measure of good fortune;

but for those to whom the life directed toward virtue seems laborious, let the soul be trained by the example of the earth to endure hardships steadfastly.

'The earth stands forever.'

What is more toilsome than this immovable fixity? And yet its standing extends unto the age.

But you, for whom the time of the contest is short, do not become more soulless than the earth; do not become more senseless than things without perception—you who have been allotted reason and are governed by reason toward life—but 'Remain,' as the apostle says, 'in the things you have learned and been assured of,' in a steadfast and unmoved standing.

since this too is among the divine precepts: 'Be steadfast and unmoved.' Let self-control remain unshaken in you, let faith be firm, let love be unchangeable, let your standing in every good thing be immovable, so that the earth in you also may stand forever.

But if someone, gaping after greed, having spread out the immoderacy of desire like a kind of sea toward the gains flowing in from every side, remains insatiable, let him look toward the actual sea and be cured of his disease.

For just as that sea does not overstep its own measure amid the countless inflows of waters, but remains at the same fullness, as though no addition of waters were coming to it, in the same way human nature too, being bounded by its own measures in the enjoyment of what comes to it, cannot expand its enjoyment's gluttony together with the multitude of its incomes; rather, what flows in does not cease, but the capacity for enjoyment is kept within its own limit.

Since enjoyment cannot increase beyond the measure of nature, to what end do we draw to ourselves the influxes of income, never overflowing toward the well-doing of others from what streams in upon us? But since, according to the definition of vanity given to us, vanity is either a senseless word or a useless deed, he rightly begins his discourse from there, so that we should reckon as truly subsisting neither anything of what happens nor anything of what is said, if it looks toward the purpose here below.

For every human zeal, occupied with something belonging to this life, is exactly like children's playthings on the sand, in which the enjoyment of what is made ceases together with the effort spent in making it;

for as soon as they ceased their labor, the sand, flowing back together into itself, left no trace of what the children had toiled over.

This is human life: sand is ambition, sand is power, sand is wealth, sand is each of the things eagerly enjoyed through the flesh;

in which now childish souls, vainly occupying themselves with things that have no real subsistence, and enduring many labors over each of these, will—if only they leave behind the region of sand, I mean life in the flesh—then recognize the vanity of their sojourn here;

for with the material life the enjoyment of it also remains behind, and they draw along with themselves nothing except conscience alone.

So it seems to me that the great Ecclesiast, as though already having come outside these things and, with soul stripped bare, treading upon the immaterial life, spoke those words which it is likely we too shall one day speak, when we come outside this coastal place—around which lies the sand cast up by the sea of life—and are parted from all the waves that roar and thunder about us, bringing with us from that now understood sea only the memory of what was pursued here—saying: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' and 'What profit has a man of all his labor which he toils at under the sun?'

For truly, in my judgment at least, this is the word of every soul, when, stripped of the things here, it is transported to the life that is hoped for.

For whether it accomplished something of the loftier things in this life, it accuses that former state in which it was, dishonoring the past by comparison with what it has now found;

or whether, having been disposed toward matter with passionate attachment, it should see the unexpected things and learn by experience the unprofitableness of what it had eagerly pursued throughout its life, then, lamenting, it will utter this cry—just as we humans do out of remorse, recounting our own follies in our wailings—'Vanity of vanities,' and what follows.

'All words,' he says, 'are toilsome, and a man will not be able to speak.'

And yet, on the face of it, nothing is thought easier than speaking.

For what toil is there for one speaking whatever he wishes? The tongue is pliant and nimble, shaping itself effortlessly into whatever form of words it wishes;

unhindered is the drawing in of the airy breath, which, being used together with the tongue, produces the sounds;

painless is the service of the cheeks, and likewise the cooperation of the lips in uttering what is spoken;

What toil, then, does he discern in speech, since bodily labor does not produce the toil for speech? For it is not while digging the earth, or rolling stones, or bearing burdens on our shoulders, or performing any other laborious task, that we go through speech; rather, the thought formed within us, disclosed through the voice, becomes speech.

But since such speech has no toil, we must consider what the toiling words are, which a man will not be able to speak.

'Let the elders,' he says, 'be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in word.'

Now 'elder,' according to common usage, is said of one who has passed beyond the disorderly age and come into an aged condition; so that if someone should be unstable in reasoning and hold his life in disorder, such a one is not yet an elder, even if he happens to appear gray-haired, but is still merely 'a man.'

Therefore the words—those which are truly words, which come about for the soul's benefit and the usefulness of human beings—these are full of sweat and labors, and bring on much toil, in order that they may become words.

'To partake first of the fruits,' says the craftsman of such words, meaning that speech ought not to be understood as mere utterance, but that virtue displayed in deeds, set forth for the instruction of life to those who behold it, should become, in place of speech, teaching for those being taught.

Therefore all such words are toilsome, since those who guide others in virtue must first accomplish in themselves what they teach.

For this is what it means to have to partake first of the fruits, which, before giving them to others, we cultivate for ourselves through virtue.

Or perhaps the discourse also interprets the weakness of rational nature.

For whenever the understanding, coming outside the sense-organs—which indeed have been called 'vanity'—and having somehow slipped into the contemplation of things invisible, undertakes to set forth in speech what has been understood, then great toil comes upon speech, since this interpretive voice can discover no device for the clarification of things that cannot be uttered.

We see heaven, we receive by sense-perception the rays of the luminaries, we tread upon the earth, we draw in the air with our mouth, we use water as our nature deems fit, we admit fire into fellowship of life;

yet if we should wish to understand anything about these—what each of the visible things is by nature according to the principle of its essence, or how it came to have its existence—'a man will not be able to speak,' even should he happen to surpass all others, since every comprehending science is powerless for the declaration of things unattainable.

If, then, discourse about these things is a toil exceeding human power and nature to speak, what would one say happens to the words concerning the Word itself, or concerning the Father of the Word? Surely every lofty utterance and grandiloquence is a kind of speechlessness and silence, if it be judged against the true signification of what is sought—so that this alone can properly be said concerning him: that even if one should set in motion all reasonings and omit nothing of the thoughts befitting God, yet if the utterance be judged against the very worth of the subject proposed, whatever it says is not speech;

for 'man will not be able to speak.'

For sight has not brought to a stop the contemplation of the visible thing that comes to be in the soul through the eyes; rather, though we are always seeing, as though we had not yet seen, we still hold in ignorance what is apprehended through sense-perception.

For sight cannot pass beyond color, but has as the measure of its own activity that which appears to it upon the surface of existing things.

'The eye will not be satisfied with seeing, nor will the ear be filled with hearing';

the faculty of hearing, though receiving the account concerning each of these things, does not have it in its nature to be filled.

For no discourse will be found that comprehends within itself, with exactness, the thing sought.

How then will hearing be filled with the report concerning the things sought, when that which would fill it does not exist? Then, after these words, he questions himself and answers himself.

'What is that which has come to be? That,' he says, 'which is going to be';

'and what is that which has been made? That,' he says, 'which is going to be made.'

What then does the question intend? Let us proceed as though we, following on from what we have learned, were raising this objection to him, saying:

'If all things are vanity, it is clear that not even one of these has come to be, since they do not subsist;'

'for that which is vain is altogether non-existent, and that which is non-existent no one could reckon among the things that have come to be.'

'If then these things do not exist, tell us what is that which has come to be, which will remain in being?' Briefly, then, the answer to what was asked came to him:

'Do you wish to know what that which has come to be is? Understand what is going to be, and you will recognize what has come to be.'

And this means: 'Understand for me,' he says, 'O man, what sort of being you will become, having exalted yourself through virtue.'

If in every respect your soul were shaped by good characteristics, if you should come to be outside the haunts of vice, if you should wash away from your own nature every stain of material defilements—what would you become, being thus adorned? What form would you put on yourself? If you understand this by reasoning, you have been taught that which came to be at the first, which is truly that which is going to be: 'according to the image and likeness of God.'

Thus does he who teaches us lofty things show us that present things have therefore been named vanity, because that true reality is not present among things present.

'And what,' he says, 'is that which has been made? That very thing which is going to be made.'

Let none of the hearers suppose that there is mere wordiness and some vain repetition of terms in the distinction between 'that which has come to be' and 'that which has been made.'

For through each of these two terms the discourse shows the difference between the soul and the flesh.

The soul 'has come to be,' and the body 'has been made.'

Not because the emphasis of the words signifies one thing here and another there does the discourse employ this distinction of terms for each of the things signified, but in order that it may grant you to reason fittingly about each.

That which the soul was in the beginning is what, in the end, having been purified, it will again appear to be;

that which the body was made—fashioned by the hands of God—is what the resurrection will show it to be in the fitting times;

for whatever sort of body you might see after the resurrection, such precisely was it made at the first.

For the resurrection is nothing other than, altogether, the restoration to the original state.

'For there is nothing new under the sun,' as if he were saying that whatever is not according to the original state does not exist at all, but is only supposed to exist.

'For there is nothing new,' he says, 'under the sun,' such that anyone could speak and point to something among the things that have come about afterward, saying that this is new and truly subsists.

This is the sense of what has been said; and the wording runs in this manner:

'And there is nothing new under the sun, of which one will speak and say, See, this is new.'

And he reinforces what has been said by the words that follow:

'If anything has truly come to be,' he says, 'it is that which came to be in the ages before us.'

For the very words of Scripture, which run thus, indicate this sense:

'It has already been in the ages that were before us.'

But if forgetfulness has prevailed over the things that have come to be, marvel not at all;

for indeed the things that now exist will be covered over by forgetfulness.

For when nature inclined toward vice, we came to be in forgetfulness of the good things;

when our return to the good comes to be for us again, evil in its turn will be covered over by forgetfulness.

For this, I think, is the sense contained in the words spoken, in which he says:

"There is no remembrance of the first things, and indeed of the last things that come to be there will be no remembrance of them" — as though he were saying that the things which come after the good fortune from the beginning, the things through which humankind fell into evils, will have their memory erased by the things that in turn come to be at the last.

"For there will be no remembrance of them, along with the things that come to be, unto the last" — that is, the final condition. This will bring about for our nature a complete effacement of the memory of evils, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

HOMILY TWO. "I," he says, "the Ecclesiast..."

We have learned who the Ecclesiast is: he who gathers together into one the things that have gone astray and been scattered abroad, and makes all things one church and one flock, so that nothing may be deaf to the good shepherd's voice, which gives life to all things.

"For the words," he says, "that I speak are spirit, and are life."