Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Introduction
Three things must be briefly set forth here, as is customary: first, what and how great is the authority of this book, and who is its author; second, what is its subject matter, what its method, what its purpose and aim; third, what is its division, how many sections and parts it has.
It is asked, therefore, first, what and how great is the authority of this book, and who and of what sort is its author? I answer: The authority of this book is the Canonical authority of Sacred Scripture; for the Hebrews, as well as the Greeks and Latins, have always held this book in the Canon of the books of Sacred Scripture, nor has there ever been any doubt about this; hence it has always been counted among the protocanonical books, as a Canonical book of the first class. This is clear from the Apostolic Canons, last Canon, from the Council of Laodicea and the Third Council of Carthage, as well as the Councils of Florence and Trent, Session IV; from St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome in the Prologus Galeatus, Innocent I, Gelasius, and others who compiled the catalog of canonical books. I except a few heretics, whom Philastrius mentions without naming, Heresy 132, and Jacobus Christopolitanus in his Preface to Canticles, as well as some Jews, who, according to St. Jerome at the end of his Commentary, supposed that this book favored the sect of the Epicureans, and was written by Solomon when he was indulging in lust and gluttony, whom Theodorus of Mopsuestia followed — a monk turned apostate and master of Nestorius — who, seeing the vanity of the world, and especially the luxury which he had spurned as a monk but had taken up again as an apostate, condemned in this book, said that Solomon had composed Ecclesiastes "when he had not received the grace of prophecy, but only that grace of prudence which is different," as is reported in the Fifth Council of Constantinople, Session 4. These critics therefore raised four objections against Ecclesiastes: first, that he seems to condemn God's good creatures as vain, chapter I; second, that in the same chapter he seems to teach the eternity of the world, when he says: "There is nothing new under the sun;" and: "The earth stands forever;" third, that in chapter II he says: "There is nothing better than to eat and drink," which plainly seems to be brutish, Epicurean, and pleasure-seeking; and that Epicurus stumbled on this very point, as Clement of Alexandria testifies, Book V of the Stromateis: "Hence," he says, "the idea struck Epicurus' mind, since he had not understood this saying: Vanity of vanities" etc.; fourth, in chapter III, 19, he seems suspected of teaching the mortality of the soul, when he says: "The death of man and beast is one."
But I shall respond to each of these objections in its proper place, and shall demonstrate that Solomon's meaning was far different. The raving Martin Luther, likewise an unfrocked monk, who, driven by his evil genius, dared to babble — indeed, to rave — in his table talk: "The author of Ecclesiastes seems to him to ride without boots and spurs, only in slippers; Ecclesiastes is like the Talmud, stitched together from various books. Moreover, the sayings of Solomon, which he uttered while reclining at table, were taken down from the mouth of the speaker, and afterward compiled into books" — naturally, a drunken man and habitual oarsman of cups measured Solomon by his own temperament; for he himself was accustomed to dictate and write only when well into his cups, practically drunk, and therefore his writings are full of tastelessness, vomit, debauchery, filth, jibes, and abuse, so that he seems to have studied not in books but in goblets, and to have composed his works amid his drinking, or rather belched and vomited them forth. Hence our Andreas Frusius rightly sang of him:
Your Bible, Luther, is a Bacchic goblet;
Your cellar is your library.
The first and primary author, therefore, of this Canonical book is the Holy Spirit, who suggested and inspired these things to Solomon; Solomon in turn spoke them forth, then wrote them down, or dictated them to his scribe for writing — just as David his father both sang the Psalms aloud and wrote them with his pen, and handed them down to posterity; for each taught the people both by the living voice and by written word. So the Doctors and Interpreters generally hold. And this is clear, first, from the very beginning of the book: "The words of Ecclesiastes, the son of David, king of Jerusalem," which words are not the title of the book, but the very opening and first part of the book itself; second, the same is clear from chapter XII, where Solomon, speaking of himself in the third person, expressly states: "Ecclesiastes, since he was most wise, taught the people, and set forth what he had done: he sought out useful words, and wrote discourses of the utmost rectitude" — what could be clearer? Third, because throughout Solomon speaks of himself in the first person, saying:
"I, Ecclesiastes, was king; I saw, I considered, I spoke, I pondered, I turned, I turned again, I considered," etc. Therefore R. Moses Kimchi errs in his treatise On Sacred Scripture, as do some Hebrews, especially the Talmudists, whom Eugubinus cites and follows in chapter I of Genesis, and whom Melchior Canus also cites, Book II of De Locis, chapter XI, who hold that Solomon merely spoke these sayings and parables of his aloud, which thereafter, worn smooth by common report and preserved in memory, were collected and written down many centuries later by Isaiah, so that he might commit them to posterity in writing. They err, I say, as I showed in Proverbs, chapter XV, 1. Why Solomon here calls himself Ecclesiastes, I shall discuss at chapter I, 1. In the meantime, hear in passing St. Gregory of Nyssa here, Homily 1, listing three reasons for this name: the first is that he teaches ecclesiastical matters, which pertain to the salvation of the soul; the second, that he gathers the Church into one assembly to hear this sermon of his, by which he instructs her in piety; the third, that he represents Christ, who is the true Ecclesiastes — that is, the founder, teacher, governor, and preacher of the Church; St. Gregory Thaumaturgus adds a fourth, at chapter I, 1: that he teaches the whole Church.
Furthermore, the Hebrews, according to St. Jerome, whom some moderns follow, hand down the tradition that Solomon wrote this book as a penitent, namely when he had repented of his lust and idolatry, and thus they prove from this book that he did repent. For this book seems to be a symbol of repentance, since in it he denounces the vanity of luxury and of all worldly pleasures, especially since, having three hundred concubines and seven hundred wives — a thousand in all — he seems to renounce and condemn them, saying in chapter VII, 29: "One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among them all I did not find;" and verse 27: "I found more bitter than death the woman who is a snare of hunters." He also seems to condemn his own idolatry, when he says: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity;" for idols in Scripture are called vain and vanity, because since they are nothing but golden or silver statues and images, they have no true divinity, no spirit, no life, and no power. Our Pineda adds that Solomon, after his repentance, to bear witness to it, first wrote Ecclesiastes, then Proverbs, and lastly the Song of Songs.
But this tradition is uncertain and doubtful. Hence Bellarmine, Book I of De Verbo Dei, chapter V, whom others follow, holds that Solomon wrote these three books before his fall: first, because he nowhere in them mentions his fall; on the contrary, he expressly asserts the opposite, when in chapter II he says that wisdom had remained with him up to that time: "And I surpassed in riches," he says, "all who were before me in Jerusalem; wisdom also remained with me;" second, because he gives no indication whatsoever of idolatry or repentance: for that by "vanity of vanities" he does not mean idols and idolatry is clear from the rest of the book, where, explaining this general vanity through its particular species, he shows it to consist in riches, pleasures, honors, songs, drinking, etc. Nor does he anywhere mention idol or idolatry, which he surely ought to have done if he had truly repented of it, in order to abolish the scandal and evil example he had given his subjects. For he was the first of the kings of Israel to introduce idols into Judea, which thereafter persisted there for three hundred years until King Josiah removed them; and Solomon was the origin and ringleader of this evil. Should he not then have destroyed them, abhorred them, and made them hateful to all, if he had truly repented? For thus, after idolatry had arisen in Israel, in order to call everyone away from it, Baruch thunders against the vanity of idols, chapter VI; Isaiah, chapter XLI and following; and all the rest of the Prophets to a man. Third, because if Solomon already had a thousand concubines, he was surely entirely enfeebled, carnal, and effeminate, so that he would not have been capable of the Holy Spirit, nor able to meditate and pour forth such lofty thoughts about the vanity of the world, the fear of God, and eternity, as he does here. "For it is not lawful for a wicked man to be the interpreter of the divine," says Philo in his book Who Is the Heir of Divine Things. Finally, Ecclesiasticus chapter XLVII, narrating the deeds of Solomon, first recounts his writings, and afterward his fall. Josephus does the same, Book VIII of Antiquities, chapter II.
The Chaldean Paraphrast, however, holds that Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon when, from the divine oracle in III Kings XI, 12 and 29, he had learned that his kingdom, so rich, prosperous, and glorious, was about to collapse and be torn apart by the schism of Jeroboam, who under Rehoboam, Solomon's son, separated ten tribes from two, drew them to himself, and established the kingdom of Israel divided from the kingdom of Judah, over which Rehoboam ruled. He therefore holds that Solomon here bewails the vanity of his kingdom, soon to be revealed through schism.
But this oracle about the schism of Solomon's kingdom occurred after his fall. For it was a punishment for his lust and idolatry, justly decreed by God. Therefore the objections that stand against the former opinion of the Hebrews — who supposed this book was written by Solomon after his fall — also tell against this opinion of the Chaldean. Add that no mention whatsoever of the future schism is made anywhere in the book.
II. The Subject Matter, Style, and Method
It is asked, second, what is the subject matter of this book, what its style, what its method? I answer: The argument of Ecclesiastes, says St. Gregory Thaumaturgus here at the beginning of his Paraphrase, is to show "how vain and useless are all the occupations and pursuits of men which are undertaken in human affairs," so as to lead men from sensible things to those that do not fall under the senses, says Gregory of Nyssa — that is, to heavenly and spiritual things, says St. Bernard, Sermon I on the Canticles. "Let us not think," says St. Jerome, "that anything in the things of this world is permanent, but that all things we see are fleeting and brief." And in this sense the summit of virtue consists. Therefore St. Chrysostom, Homily 3 to the People: "Virtue," he says, "is to despise all human things, and to think of the future at every hour, to hanker after nothing present, but to know that all human things are shadow, and a dream, and if anything is even cheaper than these. Virtue makes a man as if dead to the affairs of this life, so that he lacks all activity toward things harmful to the soul's salvation, as though dead, but lives and operates toward spiritual things alone."
Furthermore, the ancients distinguished the three books of Solomon by subject matter and argument in this way: in Proverbs they held that Ethics is treated, in Ecclesiastes Physics, and in Canticles Theology. So Origen in the Prologue to Canticles; St. Basil, Homily 1 on Proverbs; St. Ambrose on Psalm XXXVI; St. Jerome here and in his letter to Paulinus: "Solomon," he says, "the peaceful and beloved of the Lord, corrects morals (in Proverbs), teaches nature (in Ecclesiastes), and unites the Church and Christ (in Canticles)." Olympiodorus and other Fathers at the beginning of the Catena on Proverbs agree, dividing Solomon's three books into three kinds of subjects: Ethics, Physics, and Metaphysics. But Olympiodorus, hitting the nail on the head in a few words, at the beginning of his Catena on Proverbs, answers that "Ecclesiastes, having touched lightly on the nature of natural things, sets before our eyes the vanity of the present life."
Let it therefore stand as established that this book is ethical in nature; for he touches on Physics in relation to Ethics, namely to teach the vanity of natural things from their motion, change, and perishing; and consequently that the men who hanker after them are equally vain, and vain their pursuits, futile and foolish their plans, fruitless and foolish their labors, by which they toil their whole life long to amass riches, wines, estates, pleasures, or honors, forgetful of their true end and true happiness. For this happiness consists in the fear of God, obedience, and worship. Hence Lyra holds that the argument of Ecclesiastes is to identify the ultimate end of man and the supreme good, in which man's happiness lies. Solomon teaches that all these men had strayed from the mark and from the truth, and that true happiness lies in contempt of vanity and the world, and in truth — that is, in the knowledge and worship of true wisdom and of God, which consists in devotion to law and virtue: namely in piety, temperance, modesty, humility, patience in adversity, almsgiving, resignation and hope in God's providence, and in His religion and observance. These are the things that Solomon treats, drives home, and commends throughout this entire book.
But God chose and appointed Solomon above all other Prophets as the herald of this vanity of the world, for the very reason that Solomon himself, having experienced all the pleasures of all the goods and joys of the world, found nothing but vanity in them all. For lest anyone should say, or object to him: You assert marvelous things about the vanity of all creatures; I do not know whether things are really as you say — for I have not had the chance to experience many of them, indeed many I have never even known; Solomon answers: I have experienced them all and handled them with my own hands, so to speak, and I have learned by experience that in all of them there is no true joy, but only vanity, shadow, and show. Hence Gregory of Nyssa says: "In Ecclesiastes there is a kind of orderly confession of Solomon's entire life and narration of all his works."
As for the order and method, the order of Solomon's books is this: In Proverbs he instructs the boy, and teaches him the first and common elements of ethics, and the rudiments of good conduct. In Ecclesiastes he forms the advancing youth, and leads him from earthly vanity to heavenly truth. In Canticles he teaches the perfect man to unite himself to God, so that he may cling wholly to Him through love and contemplation, and rest in Him. So hold Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, St. Gregory in his Preface to the Canticles, and others generally. Hear the author of the Greek Catena at the beginning of Proverbs: "Proverbs are directed to the person first entering the way of the spiritual life; Ecclesiastes to the soul that has made some progress in the pursuit of virtue; Canticles to the state of the soul that has already been perfected in the virtues." Hear also St. Bernard more fully, Sermon I on the Canticles: "Since there are two evils which either alone or chiefly war against the soul — namely, the vain love of the world and the excessive love of self — those two books, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, are known to counter each pest: the one cutting away with the hoe of discipline whatever is depraved in conduct and excessive of the flesh; the other, with the light of reason, in all the glory of the world shrewdly detecting the show of vanity, and stripping it away against the solid standard of truth. In short, to all human pursuits and worldly desires he preferred the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments." And after some further words: "When these two evils have been driven out by the reading of those two books, one fittingly comes to this sacred and contemplative discourse (of the Canticles), which, being the fruit of both, must only be entrusted to sober minds and ears. Otherwise, before the flesh has been subdued by the labors of discipline and enslaved to the spirit, before the pomp and burden of the world has been spurned and cast aside, sacred reading is presumed upon unworthily by the impure." Therefore, according to the mind of St. Bernard, in Ecclesiastes the vain love of the world is expelled, in Proverbs the excessive love of self, and in Canticles the chaste love of God is prescribed. Accordingly, Solomon employs here a manly, sharp, vigorous, and truly royal style, such as befitted both the subject matter and the author.
Abbot Paphnutius in Cassian, Conference III, chapter VI, fits Solomon's three books step by step to the threefold renunciation: "The first is that by which we bodily despise all riches and the goods of the world; the second, by which we reject our former habits and vices, and the old desires of soul and flesh; the third, by which, calling our mind away from all present and visible things, we contemplate only the future and desire those things that are invisible." And near the end of the chapter: "To these three renunciations Solomon's three books are properly fitted. For Proverbs corresponds to the first renunciation, in which the desires for carnal things and earthly vices are cut away; Ecclesiastes to the second renunciation, where everything done under the sun is declared vanity; the Song of Songs to the third, in which the mind, transcending all visible things, is now united to God by the contemplation of heavenly things through His word."
Allegorically, Blessed Peter Damian, Sermon 1 on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, fits these three names of Solomon and his three books to Christ, saying: "The Son of the King and a King, not only the Son of God but also God, Solomon — that is, the Peaceful One — is ours in this exile; Ecclesiastes — that is, the Preacher — He will be at the Judgment; Jedidiah — that is, the Glorious One — He will be in the Kingdom. In exile He is lovable, at the Judgment terrible, in the Kingdom admirable; in exile He is merciful, at the Judgment just, in the Kingdom glorious."
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Poem 33, and Damascene, Book IV of On the Faith, chapter XVIII, hold that Ecclesiastes, like Proverbs and Canticles, was written in Hebrew verse and meter. But since in Ecclesiastes Solomon acts as a preacher, others more rightly hold that he wrote not in meter but in prose. For here we have a continuous sermon, one that is impassioned and sharp about the vanity of the world, in which he stirs up every emotion in order to set it before the reader vividly and persuade him.
The end and aim of this book is to teach true wisdom, namely that by which we distinguish vanity from truth: specifically, that we may know that all things which display themselves on earth, attract and charm us, are vain; while those things which are in heaven are true and solid — so that from this contrasting knowledge we may rise to contempt of the world as vain, and to love and desire of heaven and God as true and solid. So holds St. Augustine, Book XX of The City of God, chapter III: "In this vanity, to the thorough demonstration of which the wisest of men devoted this entire book, and for no other reason than that we might desire that life which has no vanity under this sun, but truth under Him who made this sun." Then he adds: "Finally, this wise man concluded his book by saying: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man; for God will bring every work into judgment, in every hidden thing, whether good or evil. What truer or more salutary thing could be said?"
Hence St. Jerome wrote his commentary on Ecclesiastes for Blaesilla, the firstborn daughter of St. Paula, with the purpose of persuading her to contempt of the world. Hear him in the preface to his Commentary: "I recall that about five years ago, when I was still in Rome and was reading Ecclesiastes to the saintly Blaesilla in order to move her to contempt of this world, and to make her regard everything she saw in the world as nothing, she asked me to discuss in the manner of a short commentary whatever passages were obscure, so that she could understand what she read without my help. And so, since she was snatched away by sudden death while our work was in progress, and we did not deserve, O Paula and Eustochium, to have such a companion of our life, and I was struck dumb by so great a wound, now stationed in Bethlehem — a more august city — I render what I owe both to her memory and to you."
Furthermore, by his frequent preaching of this vanity of the world, St. Jerome drew St. Paulinus, Pammachius, St. Paula, and the Roman nobility to contempt of the world and to retirement in Bethlehem.
Solomon in this book establishes many axioms for conducting life according to truth and true prudence, such as: that human knowledge does not make a man happy; that life is short and subject to a thousand changes; that human errors and customs, through succeeding centuries, revolve as if in a circle and return; that there is nothing new under the sun; that pleasure produces folly and fools; that happiness does not lie in dominion, in an excellent wife and children, in a longer life or funeral pomp; that it must not be sought in the present life, but in the future and eternal life; that virtue surpasses riches, strength, and other endowments of the body; that one must consider God's judgment and providence; that happiness is prepared by obedience to the divine law, by works of mercy, by the mortification of desires, by gentleness of spirit and peace; that the ruler must be honored; that the ruler ought to be just, sober, gentle, master of his passions; that one must think on approaching old age and death; and finally that the wise and happy man is he who everywhere has thought over and observes: "Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole of man."
III. The Division of the Book
It is asked, third, what is the division of this book, and what and how many are its parts? Hugh of St. Victor, and after him Richard of St. Victor, Book III on the Apocalypse, Part II, chapter VII, hold that the book has three parts, in which a threefold vanity of man is described: the first of changeableness, the second of mortality, the third of curiosity; or, as St. Bonaventure puts it, the vanity of nature, of guilt, and of misery.
But I say that there are two primary parts of Ecclesiastes. The first extends from chapter I to chapter VII, in which he shows that all the things of the sublunary world, which vain men esteem as great, are empty and vain, and therefore that the happiness which is placed in them is vain. The second extends from chapter VII to the end, in which, having dispelled vanity, he demonstrates that truth and true happiness lie in virtue, and in the fear and worship of God. Therefore in the very first chapter he refutes those who measured the supreme good by knowledge; in the second and third chapters likewise he rebuts those who, like the Epicureans, placed the end of goods in pleasure; in the fourth chapter, those who placed it in honors; in the fifth and sixth he confutes those who placed happiness in riches and wealth.
Again, you may divide this book with Lyra more minutely chapter by chapter, so that in it almost as many — namely ten — vanities are catalogued: in the first chapter, the immoderate desire for knowledge; in the second, the appetite for pleasures; in the third, the desire for a longer life; in the fourth and fifth, the ambition for dominion and rank; in part of the fifth and the whole of the sixth, the greed for riches; in the seventh, the art of divination and foreknowledge of the future; in the eighth, the pursuit of praise and fame; in the ninth, the chasing after fortune; in part of the ninth and the whole of the tenth, bodily strength; in the eleventh and twelfth, the glory of youthful age.
Finally, Albinus [Alcuin], the teacher of Charlemagne, in his Preface to Ecclesiastes, says that he wrote a commentary on it in order to fortify against the vanities of the world those who had been drawn from the monastery to ecclesiastical offices — Onias the priest, that is the Bishop, Candidus the presbyter, and Nathanael the deacon; and that the wisest Solomon had composed this entire book about the vain possession of riches amid the pleasures of this world, which book he urges them always to keep at hand as their teacher.
Interpreters Who Have Written Commentaries on Ecclesiastes
The interpreters who have written commentaries on Ecclesiastes are very numerous, both ancient and modern. Fabianus Justinianus counts up to sixty at the end of his Universal Index, where he compiles a catalog of interpreters of Sacred Scripture. I shall here review the more illustrious ones, whose works I have used and been helped by.
The first interpreter, after the Seventy, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the Syriac, is the Chaldean Paraphrast, who is thought to have been Joseph the Blind. For just as Onkelos translated the Pentateuch, and Jonathan the Prophets, so Joseph the Blind converted Solomon's books and the rest of the Hagiographa from Hebrew into Chaldean, quite faithfully and in agreement with the Latin Vulgate.
Second in time, but first in dignity, is St. Gregory, Bishop of Neocaesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus on account of his fame for miracles, who explained Ecclesiastes through a paraphrase "most brief and admirable," says Suidas.
Third is R. Haccados, whom Galatinus frequently cites in his book On the Secrets of the Faith; but he is more allegorical than literal.
Fourth is St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, brother of St. Basil, who produced eight homilies on Ecclesiastes, truly eloquent and learned.
Fifth is St. Jerome, who, adhering as is his custom to the letter, first renders its genuine sense clearly, then adds the mystical: rightly celebrated by the praise of the whole Church as the phoenix of his age and the greatest doctor in explaining Sacred Scripture. Note: St. Jerome translated Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Canticles twice: first, by correcting the old Latin Vulgate edition according to the Septuagint; second, by translating directly from the Hebrew into Latin by order of Pope Damasus, which the Church adopted, and which is our Vulgate Latin edition.
Sixth is Olympiodorus, partly paraphrast, partly scholiast, partly commentator, who briefly but usefully explained Ecclesiastes.
Seventh is Salonius, the son of Eucherius and disciple of Salvian, around the year of the Lord 470, who explains Ecclesiastes mystically and briefly. Albinus, or Alcuin, the disciple of Bede and teacher of Rabanus, does the same.
Eighth is Hugh of St. Victor, who composed 19 homilies on Ecclesiastes, in which he examines and draws out eloquently and keenly each statement of the first four chapters. Hugh was an eminently learned, eloquent, and devout man, Abbot of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, a contemporary and intimate friend of St. Bernard, a light of his century, who so emulated the teaching and style of St. Augustine that he was called "the tongue of Augustine."
Ninth is St. Bonaventure, who treats Ecclesiastes in a scholastic manner.
Tenth is Hugh of St. Cher, the first Cardinal from the Order of St. Dominic, who devotes himself to the mystical sense, and in exploring it is keen, sharp, and copious.
Eleventh is Nicholas of Lyra, who everywhere follows the Rabbis, especially Rabbi Solomon. These were followed by Denis the Carthusian, Cardinal Cajetan, Franciscus Titelmannus, Johannes Ferus, Gerardus Moringus, Hieronymus Osorius, Johannes Campensis, Isidorus Clarius, Franciscus Vatablus, and from our Society Johannes Lorinus briefly but accurately; and Johannes Pineda, who explained Ecclesiastes as fully as he did at great length. From all these I shall press out the juice, make a honey-gathering, and serve it up methodically, in a few words clearly, in my own manner, for the reader to drink in; and I shall add not a few things of my own, which the eternal Wisdom of the Father shall deign to suggest to me.