Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Ecclesiastes, having suffered the labor which he had felt in the study of wisdom, gives himself over to delights and pleasures; but in these too he saw vanity. Again, in verse 12, he applies himself to wisdom, and once more experiences vanity in it. Finally, in verse 18, he touches on the vanity of those who accumulate riches for a future heir, whom they do not know what kind of person he will be.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiastes 2:1-26
1. I said in my heart: Come, I will overflow with delights, and enjoy good things. And I saw that this too was vanity. 2. I counted laughter an error, and to joy I said: Why are you vainly deceived? 3. I thought in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, so that I might turn my mind to wisdom, and avoid foolishness, until I might see what is useful for the sons of men: what they need to do under the sun during the number of the days of their life. 4. I made my works great, I built myself houses and planted vineyards, 5. I made gardens and orchards and planted them with trees of every kind, 6. and I built myself pools of water, to irrigate a forest of growing trees, 7. I possessed men-servants and maid-servants, and had a great household, herds also and great flocks of sheep, beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem: 8. I heaped up for myself silver and gold, and the treasures of kings and provinces; I made for myself men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, cups and pitchers for the service of pouring wines: 9. and I surpassed in riches all who were before me in Jerusalem: wisdom also persevered with me. 10. And all things that my eyes desired, I did not deny them: nor did I forbid my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and from delighting itself in those things which I had prepared: and I considered this my portion, if I might use my labor. 11. And when I turned to all the works which my hands had made, and to the labors in which I had sweated in vain, I saw in all things vanity and affliction of soul, and nothing lasting under the sun. 12. I passed on to contemplate wisdom, and errors and foolishness (what is man, I asked, that he can follow the King his Maker?) 13. and I saw that wisdom excels foolishness as much as light differs from darkness. 14. The eyes of the wise man are in his head: the fool walks in darkness: and I learned that one and the same end befalls both. 15. And I said in my heart: If the same fate awaits both the fool and me, what does it profit me that I gave greater effort to wisdom? And speaking with my mind, I perceived that this too was vanity. 16. For there will be no remembrance of the wise man any more than of the fool forever, and future times will equally cover all things with oblivion: the learned man dies just as the unlearned. 17. And therefore I was weary of my life, seeing that all things under the sun are evil, and all is vanity and affliction of spirit. 18. Again I detested all my industry, with which I had most diligently labored under the sun, being about to have an heir after me, 19. whom I do not know whether he will be wise or foolish, and he will have dominion over my labors, in which I sweated and was anxious: and is there anything so vain? 20. Hence I ceased, and my heart renounced laboring further under the sun. 21. For when one man labors in wisdom, and learning, and care, he leaves what he has acquired to an idle man: and this therefore is vanity and a great evil. 22. For what will it profit a man from all his labor, and the affliction of spirit with which he has been tormented under the sun? 23. All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, nor does his mind rest during the night: and is this not vanity? 24. Is it not better to eat and drink, and to show his soul good things from his labors? And this is from the hand of God. 25. Who will so feast and overflow with delights as I? 26. To the man who is good in His sight God has given wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner He has given affliction and superfluous care, that he may add, and gather, and hand it over to one who has pleased God: but this too is vanity, and a vain solicitude of the mind.
Verse 1: I Said in My Heart: Come, I Will Abound in Delights, and Enjoy Good Things
1. I said in my heart (from the Hebrew you may translate, to my heart. So the Syriac): I WILL GO, AND ABOUND IN DELIGHTS, AND ENJOY GOOD THINGS: AND I SAW THAT THIS TOO WAS VANITY. — For "I will abound in delights" the Hebrew is anassecha besimeha, which can be rendered in two ways: first, I will try you with joy, so that anassecha is derived from nasa, that is, he tried, to which is attached the affixed pronoun cha, that is, you: so the Septuagint. Second, I will mix joy, or I will mix in joy, namely wines; or rather, I will pour out in joy, namely my heart, so that anassecha is derived from nasach, that is, he mixed, poured, poured out, offered a libation, to which according to custom the paragogic He is attached in the future tense. Following this, our translator rendered it, I will abound in delights, that is, I will frequent wines, banquets, and feasts, which carnal men esteem as the highest joys. Whence the Zurich translation renders it, I will joyfully indulge in cups. But both senses amount to the same thing. For Solomon addresses himself, and says to his heart: "I will try you with joy," that is, O my soul, who found affliction in the investigation of wisdom, I will test you with festive and joyful banquets, and I will see whether in them you will find the satisfaction, rest, and happiness that you seek; therefore I will indulge my appetite, I will live sumptuously. The Complutensian renders, I will accustom you to delights.
Again, for "I will enjoy good things" the Hebrew is see in good, that is, see the good, that is, taste the good, enjoy good things: for since sight is the noblest of all the senses, it is used for taste and any sense, as in Psalm 33:9: "Taste, and see (that is, savor) that the Lord is sweet;" the Zurich translation, I will experience how much good is in it; others, you will see, O my soul, the whole array of goods, and will choose for yourself the best; the Septuagint renders this maxim thus: "I said in my heart: Come now (Olympiodorus, come on then), I will try you with gladness, and see what is good; and this too is vanity;" Pagninus and the Zurich translation, this too is emptiness; the Syriac, I said to my heart: Come and let me search you with gladness, and see good; and behold, this too is vanity; the Arabic, I said in my heart: Come that I may tell you in joys, and see you in a good lot, and behold this is vain; the Chaldean of Costus, but silently I said to myself: Come, I will try myself with delights, and living I will enjoy pleasures; the Chaldean of the Complutensians, I will see the goods of this age, and when tribulation and sadness came upon me, I said in my word: Behold, this too is vanity; Aquila, it is vapor and smoke; the Author of the Catena, I absolutely resolved to give myself over to vices, and to experience pleasures; and I understood all these things to be vain; Nyssenus in the Septuagint seems to have read in acrossin; whence he translates, I will try you in folly. But one should read with the Complutensian, Vatican, and Royal editions is suppositin, and translate, I will try you in gladness: for so the Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate have it.
Now first, Albinus, Hugo Cardinalis, Dionysius, Vatablus, and indeed Gregory, Book IV of the Dialogues, ch. 4, think that Solomon as a preacher here speaks not so much from his own opinion as from the opinion and sentiment of the common people and carnal men. But the words themselves refute this: "I said in my heart," as if this was the innermost thought and choice of his heart.
Second, on the other hand, Hugh of St. Victor and the Author of the Greek Catena think that Solomon, despairing of happiness through the study of wisdom, as being laborious and troublesome to acquire, here gives himself entirely over to pleasures, that in them he might find happiness and pure joys. "Behold," he says, "how a despairing mind throws itself entirely into pleasure, and now calls only the blandishments of the flesh good things, because in them it finds no labor and affliction, as if judging the inquiry into truth to be evil, in which previously, stretching itself beyond what is right through curiosity, it labored."
Third, St. Jerome thinks the discourse here is also about spiritual joy, which is called vanity because we see it through a mirror and in an enigma, not face to face, as the blessed do in heaven, 1 Corinthians 13. Cajetan agrees, who translates, I will mix joy: where, he says, the word "I will mix" signifies that Solomon wished to throw himself entirely like a pig into pleasures, but wished to mix them with the study of wisdom, so that the weariness of the latter might be tempered and seasoned by the joy of the former: just as scholars have their honest recreations, by which they refresh body and mind, so that they may endure the labor of studies, according to that saying of Cato: Intersperse joys among your cares from time to time, That you may bear with spirit any labor whatsoever.
Fourth and genuinely, Solomon, seeking peace of mind, satisfaction, and happiness through all things of the entire world, when he had not found it in the study of wisdom, as I said at the end of the preceding chapter, as being difficult and gloomy, turned his mind to seek it in the opposite quarter, namely in delights, comforts, and pleasures: he therefore gave himself to these not from despair, nor from intemperance, but for the sake of experience, that is, to test what true joy and happiness might be in them. So says Nyssenus, who teaches that Solomon "pursued his plans with a definite purpose, and willingly lowered himself to pleasures." For he means that Solomon still had command of his mind, and "let himself down to the things which are considered pleasant and delightful to the senses, not drawn to these by mental disturbance, but to consider whether the sense that has dwelt in them contributes anything to the knowledge of the true good."
Solomon therefore says to his heart, still devoted to the study of wisdom, timid, modest, and averse to the pleasures of the flesh, but grieving and sorrowing from the more burdensome study of wisdom, as if coaxing it, to bend it toward those pleasures and thereby soothe and wipe away its grief: Come now, my heart, I beg you, relax somewhat the rigor of your study, and for a while put aside the severity of labor that is so troublesome; try a more pleasant way of life, refresh yourself with pleasures, taste the cup of delights I set before you; see whether it is not more agreeable than the austere wine of wisdom; by experience you will learn, what you so desire to know, whether the pleasantness and happiness of this life resides in delights. This is what Nyssenus means when he says: "Having tasted the more severe life, he slipped into the participation of pleasant things, and when he had shown himself averse to laughter, and grave and steadfast, through which the disciplines of wisdom are chiefly acquired by scholars; then he relaxes himself toward the things that are considered pleasant to the senses, not to the mind."
Now let us weigh each word. "I said in my heart," that is, I thought, deliberated, and resolved silently within myself and secretly in my heart, what I would not have dared to say publicly: for I would have been ashamed to profess a life of pleasure, and to prefer it to wisdom, lest I should appear an Epicurean. "I will go." This word signifies the zeal for wandering, and roaming through every kind of pleasure. For since the nature of pleasure is such that it does not satisfy the mind, but at its conclusion, when it is exhausted, it embitters the pleasure-seeker, and pierces him with the sting of pain, this causes his mind to recoil from it, and to seek other things, and others without end; because everywhere he finds that pleasure ends in sorrow, and fleeing it, he always pursues one pleasure after another.
I WILL ABOUND IN DELIGHTS. — In Hebrew anassecha, that is, I will pour out into joy, namely my heart; or, I will give my heart to drink with joy; or, I will offer a libation of joy, that is, I will give myself entirely to joy, so that I may overflow with it: just as wine or liquid that is offered as a libation to God, is wholly poured out to God, and at the foot of the altar is poured out in God's honor. By joy he understands by metonymy not only the delights of taste, but also all similar things that bring joy to the senses: namely laughter, wine, magnificent houses, gardens, orchards, a splendid household, wealth, treasures of gold and silver, and other things that please the eyes, which he enumerates from verse 1 to 10. So in Matthew 25:21, it is said: "Enter into the joy of your lord," that is, enter into the wedding feast abounding in all good things that produce joy, so that if you enter into it, you seem to enter into sheer joy. Hence some here translate, I will cover myself with joy. For the Hebrew nasach, that is, to pour out, alludes both in its letters and its meaning to the Hebrew sachach, that is, to cover, hide, conceal.
AND I WILL ENJOY GOOD THINGS. — In Hebrew, and see the good, as if to say: O my little heart, see, that is, taste, and experience how great the goods are that are stored up in delights and joys, and delight and enjoy yourself in them. Theologians distinguish use from enjoyment, in that we use means, and enjoy the end and the highest good. It is therefore perverse to enjoy things meant to be used, and to cling in love to these inferior goods, which is, as Hugo Cardinalis says, to embrace the chest instead of the treasure, the little gift instead of the friend, petty joys instead of the bride, the tracks instead of the deer, the phantom instead of the reality, the shadow instead of the body, the way instead of the destination, the most vain gazes instead of the highest truth, the thinnest drops instead of the abyss of sweetness, the creature instead of the Creator God.
AND I SAW THAT THIS TOO WAS VANITY — because delights are enticing, and immediately provoke and inflame desire in the carnal man even at their mere mention; therefore before he reviews them one by one, lest anyone be captivated by their memory, he immediately adds their antidote, namely that they are vain, indeed sheer vanity, and this: First, because they are slight, brief, and meager, and only tickle and provoke the palate and the senses: for they perpetually flow and flee before they can be grasped, as St. Augustine teaches, Sermon 23 On the Words of the Lord. Therefore they do not fill or satisfy the soul, and thus soon turn to weariness and nausea, as St. Gregory teaches, Homily 36 on the Gospels. Hence they should be considered not so much goods as lesser evils. For you eat because you are hungry, that is, eating afflicts you less than hunger: drive out hunger by eating, and eating will be a punishment for you. So St. Bernard, Sermon On Beginnings, Middles, and Endings: "You desire to eat, he says, because hunger tortures you. Both are labor, but because hunger is more grievous, you do not know that eating is a labor. In short, after hunger has been driven away, see if you do not consider eating more burdensome than being hungry. So it is with all things under the sun, that nothing in them is truly pleasant, but a person always wants to pass from one thing to another, and only by alternation is either relieved, as if he leaps from water into fire, and thence again springs back into the water, since he cannot endure either. For the remedy of every labor is the beginning of another labor. No one in this wicked age can have what he wants, since neither is the just man satisfied with justice, nor the pleasure-seeker with pleasure, nor the curious man with curiosity, nor the ambitious man with vain glory."
Again, for whom does he so studiously prepare these feasts? Surely for the body. And what is the body? Let Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, answer: "The body," he says, "when it is raw, is putrefaction: when it lives, a beast: when it dies, food for worms." So then, go ahead and fatten your flesh, so that you may prepare a delicate feast for the worms after death.
Finally, St. Basil on Psalm 33: "In bodily pleasures," he says, "there is more trouble than pleasure. In marriage, barrenness, widowhood, jealousy; in agriculture, unfruitfulness; in trade, shipwrecks; in riches, plots. And the delights themselves and satiety, and the continual use of pleasures, bring with them many and various diseases, manifold afflictions." Here applies the proverb of the Arabs, Century 1, number 67: "There is nothing in 'lasting,' that is, no pleasure lasts forever: so miseries have no remnants," as if to say: No one ever fares so well and pleasantly that it lasts; and conversely there is no evil that does not have an end, that is, no pleasure or misery is perpetual or long-lasting. Note the Arabism: "There is nothing in 'lasting,' that is, there is nothing lasting." So they say: God is in powerful, that is, He is powerful; I am in believing, that is, I am believing. Therefore nothing is briefer or more vain than pleasure. For when the lips are separated from it, no trace of it remains.
Second, because pleasures are procured with great labor, cares, and expense, whose trouble is more grievous and longer-lasting than the moderate and brief pleasure that is derived from them. How many there are who, in order to prepare a splendid feast, spend many days, weeks, and months anxiously procuring delicate wines, pheasants, swans, meat pies, confections of every kind, and to find and prepare them they occupy a crowd of servants, cooks, and the entire household; and they spend hundreds of coins, with which many poor people could have been fed for some months, on a single luncheon, to sumptuously entertain a few guests, for only two or three hours? I certainly would not purchase so small and brief a pleasure at the cost of such cares, and such waste of wealth, time, and servants, and I would say: "Pleasure bought with pain is harmful," and with such great pain, "pleasure" — especially since it soon turns back into the sorrow from which it was born. Look at those returning home from a feast, and you will see them burdened, gloomy, sad, anxious, because at the table they either said, or heard, or did, or suffered something inappropriate, troublesome, or harmful. The Wise Man truly says: "Mourning takes hold of the extremes of joy." Hence the Chaldean translates: when first distress and affliction came upon me, I said: This too is vanity.
Third, because they burden the stomach, impede sleep, afflict and torment the other members, and are immediately turned into filth and excrement. For, as Nazianzen says, Oration 38: "Delights are nothing other than precious dung." Precious, because prized by the glutton, and procured by him at a great price. Following his master Nazianzen, St. Jerome, Epistle 13 to Paulinus: "He who desires Christ," he says, "and feeds on that bread, does not greatly care from how costly foods he makes excrement: whatever is not felt after the throat, let it be the same to you as bread and vegetables." And Nicetas on Oration 38 of Nazianzen, near the end: "All pleasure," he says, "which is not received from God, nor in God, is the excrement of pleasure." These men themselves learned from St. Paul, who, in Philippians 3:8, says: "For the sake of Him (Christ) I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as dung, that I may gain Christ."
Truly Climacus, Step 26: "But if on every side," he says, "he stinks of spoiled wine, and is full of feasts, think of the wretched soul buried in such a body as in a tomb." More vividly St. Chrysostom, Homily 29 on Matthew: "Certainly," he says, "if you could see the soul of a man devoted to delights, you would not doubt that it is much better to lie in the grave than to be held entangled in these things, and pressed down by the heavy lid of insensibility as by a stone." And after comparing drunkards and gluttons to a dead man already buried four days, he adds: "Come then, let us see their heads bound: for since they are frequently drunk, they are bound just like the dead with many wrappings and bandages. Thus all the organs of their senses are shut up and bound." And after some things he adds: "You have seen the dead man, now see the undertaker also. Who then is the undertaker? None other than the devil, who so diligently binds and dresses you that you appear to be not men, but logs of wood."
Fourth, because they overwhelm the mind, dull it, make it inept and stupid, so that it cannot pray, study, work, or reason; in short, they make a man appear to be not a rational human being, but a pig and an irrational brute. Wherefore St. Eucherius rightly says, in his Epistle to Valerianus: "Will anyone," he says, "from that school of Aristippus see the truth, who differs in no way from pigs or cattle in his disposition, since he places blessedness in bodily pleasure, whose God is his belly and whose glory is in his shame?" Hence also that saying of Horace: "A pig from the herd of Epicurus." And Seneca: "Pleasure," he says, "is not the good of man, but of cattle." And Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks: "They," he says, "wallowing like worms in mire and chasms, namely in the stream of pleasure, feed on useless and foolish delights, swine-like men indeed. For pigs delight more in mire than in clean water, and rolling in a heaped-up pile of straw is a kind of insane delight for them, as Democritus says. Let us therefore not be made like pigs, but as true children of light let us gaze upon the light, and look upward, lest the Lord discover us to be illegitimate, as the sun tests eagles.
And St. Chrysostom, Homily 58 on Matthew: "What evil," he says, "does the foulness of delights not bring about? It makes pigs out of men, indeed even much worse. For a pig wallows in mud and is nourished by dung: but this man builds for himself a more abominable table, devising wicked mixtures. This man is certainly separated by no distinction from a demoniac: for he is equally imprudent and furious. And we pity the demoniac indeed, but we turn from and hate this man, because he willingly brings madness upon himself, and makes his mouth, eyes, ears, and the other instruments of sense into the most bitter sewers of pleasure." And after some things: "How much better is a donkey than a drunkard, how much superior a dog? Certainly all animals that are devoid of reason, when they drink or eat, beyond what is enough, even if a thousand men were to compel them, would never go astray: you are therefore worse than dogs and donkeys, you who get drunk."
Finally, Plato, Book IX of the Republic, calls pleasure-seekers cattle, and pleasures the shadows and images of true pleasure: just as the poet Stesichorus says that the Trojans, not knowing the real Helen, fought over merely her image. They are therefore similar to the apples of Sodom, which appear beautiful on the outside; but when you open them, they dissolve into ashes and cinders, as I said on Genesis 19, from Josephus and others.
Fifth, because they create fevers, diseases, and death. For, as the Wise Man says: "Excess kills more than the sword." "On account of excess," says Sirach 37:34, "many have died: but he who is temperate will add to his life." See what was said there. St. Chrysostom says admirably, Homily 45 on Matthew: "Just as," he says, "sharp thorns, however they are grasped and held, bloody the hands, in the same way delights will do the same to the feet, hands, head, eyes, and all members alike: they are also barren, producing no fruit just like thorns, and much more than almost everything else they destroy a man. For through delights old age creeps on sooner, through delights the senses are dulled, through delights thought is slowed, the mind is more quickly covered with darkness, the body is dissolved, a greater mass of filth is stored up and deposited: thus from the great heap of afflicted things, like a ship overburdened with cargo, frequent shipwrecks occur.
For tell me, please, why are you so eager to make your body fat? Is it so that we may lead you to be sacrificed, or so that we may place you sacrificed upon a table? Surely fat birds are useless for a healthier diet." And further on: "Wherefore anyone would be especially amazed at their madness and stupidity, because they are not willing to spare themselves as much as others spare their wineskins. For those who transport wines here and there do not want to fill the wineskins too much, lest they burst from being stretched: but these men do not even grant their wretched belly the dignity of a wineskin, but stretch and fill it to the very throat."
Sixth, because delights drag a man into gluttony, drunkenness, excess, and hell; and so it is a certain sign of reprobation, if someone in this life abounds in riches and delights: and of predestination on the contrary, if someone lacks both, as is clear in the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:25, where Abraham says to the rich man imploring help for himself and Lazarus: "Son, remember that you received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things: but now he is comforted here, and you are tormented." St. Jerome gives the reason, Epistle to Furia, On Preserving Widowhood: "Neither the fires of Etna," he says, "nor the Vulcanian land, nor Vesuvius and Olympus burn with such great heat as youthful marrow full of wine and inflamed with feasts."
The vanity and harm of delights is therefore clear from this, that the glutton fattens his flesh to be fuel for hell: just as a master fattens a pig to slaughter it, according to that saying of Martial, Book XIV: May that pig fed on holm-oak among foaming boars Make a good Saturnalia for you. Hence the pig is so called because it feeds with mouth stretched wide, and while it searches for the roots of plants, extends its maw more broadly. The glutton therefore is a pig from the herd of Epicurus, whom the devil fattens for the fodder of hell.
There exists on this matter an elegant fable of the fox and the pig in Cyril, Book IV of the Moral Apologues, ch. 2: "A pig," he says, "sumptuously fed by its master, when it lay fattened, a fox came to it and greeted it, saying: How is it with you, brother? And it replied: What do you ask? Do you not see how I rest, happy, sated, fattened, never tired, but always delighted? Without care therefore, with a providing master, I always live in saffron luxury. Why then do you wander about all day, hungry and roaming, and do not come to live with such a friend?" Hearing this, the fox, mocking the senseless creature, added: "Certainly it is true that fatness dulls the sense, takes away the millstone, and continued delights overturn the intellect. Because of this you have seen little, and never judged rightly. Surely this man has become a fisherman upon the earth, he adorns the hook with the sweetness of food, and gently draws the unwary to death. He has become a magnet attracting man, who kills with laughter, and leads the one enticed by food to the gallows, and like a cunning hunter calls to the snare with a sweet pipe. For he fills your belly, so that he may eat you more tastily when you are cooked down. He gives bran, to make you fatter; he provides broth, to take your flesh. Oh, if you had entered his house and looked around more carefully, surely from the other smoked pigs hanging there, which he had fed in the same way, you would have recognized the fire prepared for you by him. With good and sweet foods, then, he leads you to death, and he will convert these delights into everlasting sorrows for you." Whence he draws this moral of abstinence: "Far be from me such a friend, who suborns hatred with love, and hides the hook of eternal death under worldly delights. I abhor his food, and I reject his flattering hand, and from now on I spurn his comfort. I certainly do not want him to lead me by laughter to mourning, and by his false delights to separate my skin from my vital fellowship. I choose the cup of Pharaoh, not the basket of dishes; I spurn the straw, not the scourge; I love the arrow of Jonathan, and I flee the kiss of Joab. Having said this, she immediately fled."
Verse 2: Laughter I Accounted an Error, and to Joy I Said: Why Are You Vainly Deceived?
By laughter and joy, then, understand excessive and unrestrained gladness, both internal and external, which is betrayed by laughter, jests, and guffaws. Likewise understand delights, riches, and the splendor and abundance of things that provoke this gladness and laughter: by metonymy, so that laughter is put for the object or cause of laughter, namely for the enticements that provoke laughter. Less fittingly, therefore, Arboreus restricts this laughter to mockers and scoffers, as if Solomon here inveighs against them. It is an apostrophe for emphasis and emotion. For he addresses laughter and joy as if they were foolish and deceitful persons, and rebukes them, and reproaches their folly and deceit.
For "error" the Hebrew is meholal, which Rabbi Solomon translates as mixed, from the root mahal, that is, to mix, according to that passage of Isaiah 1:22: "Your wine is mixed with water." But others generally think that the first letter mem in meholal is servile, not radical; for the root is halal, that is, he exulted, jubilated, praised. Whence some translate, to laughter I said: Be praiseworthy; to which the Syriac seems to have looked, when it translates, to laughter I said: Let it be useful. But all the rest translate contrarily. Whence our translator first translates meholal as error; second, the Chaldean as derision; third, Symmachus as tumult; fourth, the Septuagint as periphoran, that is, carrying around, circling; fifth, Nyssenus, Olympiodorus, and others translate it as madness.
First, then, our translator renders it as error, as if to say: Laughter is an error, and those who laugh erroneously: therefore they are far from true wisdom and prudence, because rashly, without judgment and due measure, they so greatly rejoice and applaud themselves over such slight and worthless worldly things and pleasures, that they burst into unrestrained laughter and guffaws, when, as I said a little before, delights produce grief, and ought rather to provoke weeping than laughter. For, as St. Augustine says in the passage about to be cited: "Those who weep over vain things weep vainly, and those who laugh at vain things laugh at their own misfortune." They err therefore, because they rejoice where they should grieve, and laugh where they should weep: just as infants play and laugh, even while their parents are dying. Whence physicians teach that laughter arises from wonder, wonder from ignorance: and this is error, or is joined to error. Error therefore denotes an immoderate exultation of the soul, beyond what is fitting or becoming, beyond measure, beyond the scale that the merit and order of things allow. For he errs who judges that over a matter and a slight pleasure one should rejoice not moderately, but to the utmost, and therefore he rejoices to the utmost, laughs, and guffaws. Again, by "I said it is error" understand that it must be restrained: for error must be corrected, and what is excessive in laughter or in any other thing, this must be curbed and restrained, so that it is a metalepsis. Whence Thaumaturgus translates, I restrained unbridled laughter, and forced pleasure into temperance, and bitterly rebuked it. For immoderate laughter is error, both passively, because it truly errs as I have said; and actively, because it makes those who laugh err, seduces and deceives them, so that they pour themselves out into delights, for which they will soon grieve and mourn to the utmost: therefore for both reasons it must be curbed and restrained.
AND TO JOY I SAID: WHY ARE YOU VAINLY DECEIVED? — He explains the error of laughter, namely, that the laughter and joy of this world is nothing other than sheer fraud and deception: for it promises the soul rest, gladness, happiness, and does not deliver; but rather brings the opposite, namely restlessness, grief, misery. For this latter half-verse in Hebrew fashion explains the former, as frequently happens in the Psalms. Laughter therefore is the same as joy, error the same as deception.
The Hebrew and Septuagint have, and to joy I said: What do you do? Symmachus, what do you yourself do? The Syriac, what have you done? The Arabic, why have you done this? Pagninus, what good do you do? The Zurich translation, I do not know what gladness produces; Vatablus, what is it that you bring? The Chaldean, concerning joy I judged thus: What profit is there to a man, that he was wonderfully inflamed by it? Others plainly, as if to say: Why do you pour yourself out into laughter, jests, and unrestrained gladness? Pineda translates, what are you cooking? as if to say: You think you are cooking delights, but you do not know that you are cooking the most bitter things; you think you are cooking a feast, but you are cooking the food of diseases and death. You prepare honey, but you will find gall. So "to do" is taken for "to cook" in Genesis 18:7, where it is said of Abraham's servant cooking a kid: "He hastened and cooked (in Hebrew, and made) it;" for "to make" in that context is "to cook." Joy therefore deceives and destroys a man, and at the same time is itself deceived along with the man, because it does not bring the true, solid, and lasting gladness that it promises, but immediately ceases and is converted into grief. By joy understand delights, and all pleasures that produce joy, but a deceitful, painted joy, situated only in the vain opinion of men who gape after them, when in reality they rather produce grief and mourning. Whence for joy, Thaumaturgus translates pleasure; others, agreeableness: therefore pleasures, which seem to exist, in reality do not, and do not fill the mind's need and desire, as the damned in hell confess and too late regret, Wisdom 5:4.
Hear Nyssenus: "As if against some wild beast creeping upon my senses, I immediately resisted and opposed pleasure, saying: What are you doing? Why do you make the virtue of nature effeminate? Why do you soften the strength of the mind? Why do you enervate the powers of the soul? Why do you bring destruction to reason? Why do you cast the darkness of your impure thoughts upon the purity of serenity?"
Following Solomon, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius is said to have thus discoursed to his people about the vanity of the world: "What I have experienced I will freely declare, even though it brings reproach upon my name, but perhaps it will profit a future age. I exercised myself in every vice, and made the experiment whether human wickedness could satiate itself. I found that the more food I took, it did not diminish but increased hunger; the more I indulged in sleep, the greater the desire for sleep; the more things I possessed, the more I desired beyond them; the more diligently I sought, the less I found: in short, I never obtained anything that would calm appetite, rather than provoke yet more the lust for having."
Verse 3: I Thought in My Heart to Withdraw My Flesh from Wine
The Hebrew and Chaldean: until I should test and see what of these things would be good for the children of men, that they might do, while they remain in this age under the sun during the number of the days of their life. I considered what was not good for men, and what they could do while in this world, from which they might obtain perpetual gladness and pleasure in this life; the Syriac, I thought in my heart to gladden my flesh with wine: and my heart thought about wisdom, and held on to folly; the Arabic, and my heart hoped if it could draw my humanity, like an abstraction of wine: for my heart sent me to wisdom, and to embrace joy through it, etc.
Note, for "that I might withdraw my flesh from wine," the Hebrew is, to draw in wine (or into wine) my flesh.
Second, the Chaldean translates, to laughter I said derision in the time of my tribulation, or, as Costus translates, I said something ridiculous about gladness in the very time of calamity: It is ridiculous, because it is ridiculous to laugh over a light thing of no importance. For this laughter deserves to be laughed at. Whence wise men laugh at those who laugh rashly, without reason: indeed the world itself, provoking us to laughter with its follies, laughs at us. Whence St. Augustine, sermon at the beginning of Lent: "This world," he says, "either laughs at us, or is laughed at by us; either we are despised, or we despise."
Third, Symmachus translates, laughter I called tumult, and that without cause; and the Arabic, to laughter I said: What is the cause of your elation? For those who laugh immoderately, clap and guffaw, raise great noise, clamor, and tumult, and toss about wildly their head, arms, and whole body, as if agitated and shaken by unbridled gladness.
Morally, learn here that the enticements of the world are full of foolish clamor and noise. And so the laughter of the world, says Pineda, is tumult, is shouting; and though those delights of the world promise tranquility and peace of mind, they produce anything but peace: for they are nothing other than agitation of the soul, disturbance, roaring, clamor, thunder, and whatever else is opposed to the quiet and tranquility of the soul. You might say that worldly vanity, like hens that cackle at producing a cheap egg, struts about clucking. Although that tumult or song is not so much a sign of joy and laughter, as of inward pain, sobbing, and conceived vanity. So Columella testifies about that very bird: "Hens announce that they are about to lay by frequent sobbing sounds." But what other cause of pain, than that after laying the egg the empty belly has taken in the most vain air? So Columella, Book VIII, ch. 5. Add that hens frequently lay wind eggs, indeed empty ones, swollen with wind: precisely such are the vain joys of the world. Note the word "your elation," as the Arabic translates. For more effusive and boastful laughter is a sign of pride and haughtiness, such as the vainglorious and arrogant are accustomed to display, who flaunt and boast of their own things, despising others and even God Himself. Whence the Hebrew meholal signifies the pride, folly, and impiety of the arrogant, as is clear from Psalm 74:4: "I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly (in Hebrew, laholelim al tahollu), do not lift up your horn on high, do not speak iniquity against God."
Fourth, the Septuagint translates: Laughter I called periphoran, that is, carrying around, circuit, wandering about, dizziness, likewise error, hallucination.
Whence first, Thaumaturgus by "wandering about" understands unbridled laughter, randomly wandering into foolish jests, guffaws, gesticulations, tossing of the head, hands, and other members, as fools do. Second, Olympiodorus translates, to laughter I said: Wander far from me, and depart; but this seems rather forced. Third, better, others think laughter is called "wandering about" because it leads a man outside the bounds of modesty and reason, and makes him burst into disorderly gestures of unrestrained gladness, to err and wander. Fourth, because it compels the intemperate man to wander through every kind of pleasure to satiate himself, like a miserable beggar and vagabond, like one who suffers from vertigo, always wishing to go in circles. Whence St. Basil on Psalm 1, in the Greek Catena, citing this passage, calls laughter a vertigo: "Every soul," he says, "as if seized by vertigo, wavers in reasoning, when it turns over in its mind heavenly things in choosing virtue, and when looking at present things prefers pleasure." Fifth, because it brings upon a man grave error and hallucination, as I said in the first explanation: for periphora here signifies error rather than circulation, as the Hebrew and Vulgate have it. Sixth, you may translate periphoran as "carrying about," that is, delirium and madness.
Whence fifth, Nyssenus translates, laughter I called a disturbance of mind; Olympiodorus, to laughter I said madness, as if to say: You are insane and disturbed in mind, because by laughing excessively you behave indecorously and distort your appearance, so that because of ridiculous gestures you seem a fool, mad and stupid. And he adds that laughter, that is, earthly pleasures, is called periphoran, that is "carrying about," "either because," he says, "these earthly goods that supply the material for gladness and pleasure are carried about by every wind; or, changing the reading: with the change to alpha, we read not periphoran, but parapheran, that is, insane ecstasy and excess of mind: for they seem to be insane, and to have forgotten themselves, who in a place of misery and tears falsely think they ought to rejoice." And such are those who, as Seneca said, ch. 12 of On the Happy Life: "Are mad with a cheerful madness, and rage through laughter." Hence some translate, laughter I called insanity; others, habitual laughter I called madness; others, to laughter and pleasantness I said: You are insane, or you make people insane.
For the Hebrew halal means to raise the voice high in praise and jubilation; whence Hallelujah is a song of gladness, jubilation, and praise. Hence by catachresis halal means to become foolish, to be insane. For the foolish are accustomed, being vainglorious and boastful, with unbridled clamor, laughter, and guffaws, to celebrate and proclaim their own things beyond credibility and truth, which is a certain sign of madness. He therefore who so greatly rejoices over a slight thing and a cheap pleasure that he pours himself out in laughter and guffaws, is disturbed in mind, boastful and insane; especially because, growing weary of the pleasure he has experienced, he seeks another and another, useless and harmful, by wandering about like a famished, miserable, and demented person, according to that saying of Wisdom 4:12: "The inconstancy (in Greek rhembasmos, that is, a whirlwind) of desire perverts the innocent mind." Nyssenus gives the reason, describing laughter thus: "An unseemly widening of the mouth, a trembling of the breath and a shaking of the whole body, a spreading of the cheeks, an opening of the teeth and tongue and palate, a cracking of the neck and voice beyond reason, which together with the breaking of the breath is interrupted — what is this other than dementia?"
Whence the Greeks call this immoderate and ungovernable laughter synkrusion, because it shakes the whole person; and Nazianzen in the Swan Songs: "Laughter," he says, "is a thrust of the cheeks and a leaping of the heart."
The a priori physical cause is that laughter arises from a certain wantonness of the spleen, when it especially draws off the dregs from the blood: for then it stretches and relaxes the nerves and arteries, and disperses the spirits. Whence the body, weakened by these things, sometimes falls of its own accord. Hence we read that some have died from laughter and breathed out their souls, as Rhodiginus, Book I, ch. 48, teaches happened to the distinguished painters Zeuxis and Verrius.
Again, Aristotle, Book III of On the Parts of Animals, ch. 10, assigns the cause of laughter to tickling. "For those who are tickled laugh quickly," he says, "because the motion quickly reaches that place which, although it only slightly warms, nevertheless opens and moves the mind against one's will. The reasons why man alone among animals is ticklish are both the thinness of his skin, and that he alone of all animals laughs. For tickling is laughter produced by such motion of the part that fills the armpit. It has also been reported that a wound, when it pierced the diaphragm, brought laughter in battles, namely from the heat that the wound produced."
Those therefore who laugh immoderately have an immoderate tickling, either of body or of mind, and therefore dissolve into unrestrained laughter, which is a sign of a person lacking self-control and out of his mind: for soon this tickling turns to pain, and laughter turns to grief; just as a candle whose flame is extinguished turns to smoke, and light to darkness. Hence we see melancholy persons laugh and rejoice effusively, and soon, when the gladness and laughter cease, they become more sad or angry than they were before; whence Bede on Proverbs: "He who is hasty to laughter is also hurried to anger."
More fully and clearly, the Conimbricenses, Book III On the Soul, ch. 13, Question 1, art. 6, assign the physical causes of laughter thus: When a pleasant thing presents itself to us, one that can excite laughter, the mind is suffused with joy and gladness, by which the heart, impatient of delay, expands, and there is a great diffusion of the effervescing blood and vital spirits, upon which follows the motion of the muscles of the thorax, and especially of the diaphragm (the diaphragm is a certain small membrane, partly horny, partly nervous, separating the heart from the viscera, which Aristotle, Book III On the Parts of Animals, ch. 1, calls the girdle, and whose function he thinks is to prevent the vapors rising from the stomach from harming the heart): and upon the agitation and extension of the diaphragm, the muscles on the sides of the cheeks are extended simultaneously, and that gesture of the mouth occurs which is called laughter, by which the joy and gladness of the mind are expressed. The efficient cause of laughter, then, is principally the soul, instrumentally the appetite and the faculty that executes movement, and at the same time the effusion of blood and spirits, which are as it were the forerunners of laughter; the end is the expression of joy or gladness; the form is the spreading of the mouth and face itself.
And so in this manner laughter can be defined: "Laughter is a certain excitation of the mind moved by a pleasant thing, to express the joy conceived within, by which the muscles of the thorax and mouth are moved with a certain impetus." But some are prone to laughter, others are serious. For since the object of laughter is something new, those for whom anything new provokes laughter, like children and the common people, easily laugh from this cause; not so the elderly and philosophers. Likewise, since the object of laughter is a pleasant and joyful thing, those who are cheerful by their own nature are continually led to laughter, as those generally tend to be who have an abundance of blood, and that sweet, not bilious or melancholic.
Thus the agelasti, that is, those who never laughed in their life, were Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Phocion, Aristoxenus, Socrates, Cato, and Crassus, as Cicero, Pliny, Aelian, Laertius, and others attest.
Note that these things are said about untimely and excessive laughter; for moderate and timely laughter is becoming to a person, and agrees with his nature, and makes him serene and cheerful. Whence Clement of Alexandria, Book II of the Pedagogue, ch. 5, teaches that laughter is natural and fitting for man, if moderation is applied to it: "A fitting and becoming relaxation of the countenance through laughter, like a musical instrument, is meidiama, that is, a smile; but unfitting is the dissolution of guffawing." And Philo, in the book On Rewards and Punishments, calls the disposition to laugh the most honorable among others, inasmuch as it fills the whole soul with tranquility and security. Laughter therefore makes the soul cheerful. Whence Martial, Book VII, epigram 24: Nor is a face pleasing that lacks a gelasinus. Gelasinus, that is, the spreading of the mouth, and the lines that are produced by laughing; for gelos is laughter in Greek. Hence, just as the Romans decreed divine honors to Vitulina and Lubentia, the patrons of gladness, so the Greeks enrolled Laughter among the gods, and instituted a feast day, and held annual games with solemn rites for that god, especially the Thessalians and among them the Hypatians, who became very famous and renowned for their veneration and worship of the god of laughter. Lycurgus also, the author of the most severe and rigid discipline, placed a marble statue of Laughter in the sanctuary at Sparta; and ordained that his citizens, after completing their military labors, should religiously supplicate that god, says Giraldus, Syntagma 1, where an elegant poem of Coelius Calcagninus on Laughter is recited. So our Pontanus in Attic Dainties, number 113.
It is therefore the silly, immoderate, scurrilous, and indecent laughter that is understood here, which arises from a shameful object, and which is unbecoming to all people, but especially to the faithful, preachers, and religious. Whence St. Augustine, St. Basil, St. Bernard, and others note that it is read more often of Christ that He wept, never that He laughed. Hence also His words are: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," Matthew 5. "Woe to you who laugh, for you shall weep," Luke 6:25. Hence also St. Chrysostom notes, Homily 6 on Matthew, that in the Scriptures it is not read of Paul, or of any other saint, that he laughed. St. Chrysostom forgot Abraham, who was holy and laughed, upon receiving the oracle about Isaac to be born to him, Genesis ch. 17:17.
Wherefore St. Basil, Rule 31 from the Shorter Rules, and St. Ephrem, Volume I, treatise That One Should Not Laugh, p. 110, in the Roman edition of Vossius, seem to condemn absolutely all laughter in the faithful, especially in monks, who profess mourning. For St. Basil asks: "Is it in general not permitted to laugh?" and responds: "Since the Lord condemns those who laugh in this life, it is very clear that absolutely no occasion is given to the faithful in which one ought to laugh, and especially given the great number of those who dishonor God through transgression of the law, and give themselves to death in their sins, for whom it is fitting to grieve and groan." But understand this of much, frequent, and unrestrained laughter; also of the obligatory kind, whence he cautiously says: "in which one ought to laugh," not "in which it is permitted"; therefore he does not forbid moderate and holy laughter, which arises from the conversion of sinners (at which, as Christ testifies, the angels rejoice), or from a similarly pious cause, as is clear from his Admonition to a Spiritual Son. For, as Sirach 21:23 says: "A fool lifts up his voice in laughter: but a wise man will scarcely laugh quietly." See what was said there.
St. Gregory reports, Book IV of the Dialogues, ch. 14, 5, that Isaac was renowned for great virtues, yet so filled with gladness that through it he seemed to conceal, indeed to some to obscure, his virtues. Philosophers followed Solomon. Famous among them is Heraclitus, who wept whenever he left his house, just as Democritus conversely laughed: because to the former, everything we do seemed wretched; to the latter, foolish. Plato, Book III of the Republic, condemns those too given to laughter: "For unrestrained laughter," he says, "a violent change follows." Epictetus in the Enchiridion: "Laughter," he says, "should be neither frequent, nor for many reasons, nor unbridled." Dionysius the Philosopher, in Stobaeus, Sermon 72: "Continuous and intense laughter," he says, "is worse than anger. Therefore it flourishes most among prostitutes and the more foolish boys. To me at any rate a face seems more adorned by tears than by laughter: for with tears good teaching is usually joined, but with laughter, licentiousness: and by weeping indeed no one provoked anyone to insult him, but by laughing one increased the hope of disgrace."
But the stupid Anabaptists surnamed the Wailers err, who perpetually weep and wail, constantly saying that nothing is as pleasing to God as continual weeping and wailing, as Staphylus reports, and from him Gabriel Prateolus in the Catalogue of Heresies, under the word "Wailers."
Which first, some explain as concerning the mixture of wisdom with pleasure, as if to say: I, Solomon, having experienced that in the study of wisdom alone there is great labor and pain, and in pleasures alone great vanity and worthlessness, resolved to join both together, and to mix and temper the one with the other, and thus to test whether in this mixture the mind would find rest, and discover the long-sought tranquility and happiness: I therefore resolved to draw my flesh into wine, that is, to indulge the flesh with drink of wine to excite gladness, and to replenish the animal spirits that are necessary for contemplation and the study of wisdom: but I resolved to give my heart and mind to wisdom, so that the flesh might obtain its delights of wine, and the heart or mind its food and feast of wisdom. So from Rabbi Abraham, Vatablus says: "When I saw," he says, "that wisdom alone produces sorrow, and that laughter alone does not profit, I searched for a way to harmonize both, and I drew my flesh into wine, and my intellect into wisdom."
But this exposition seems incongruous, both because no one can professionally devote himself simultaneously to wisdom and to gluttony, especially wine-drinking, according to that saying of St. Jerome: You cannot fill the belly and the mind at the same time; for a belly boiling with wine clouds and dulls the head, so that it cannot contemplate, meditate, and study wisdom, and Solomon knew this very well; and also because Solomon would certainly have added his judgment about this mixture experiment, as was his custom, and would have said: "And I found that this too was vanity;" but he did not do this.
Second, the Chaldean translates, I explored in my heart — Costus renders, so that I might bring forth my body amid feasts and cups. So also the Syriac. And Vatablus, I investigated therefore in my heart to delight my body with prolonged pleasure, as if "to draw" means the same as "to stretch out" and "to prolong the delay." And Cajetan: "To draw the flesh in wine," he says, "is to be a wine-drinker, and never to be sober. For such men drag their flesh in wine: and since they are deprived of the acts of true rational life, as being never fully sober, therefore they drag, rather than lead, not so much their life as their flesh, all the way to death." St. Jerome agrees, who in his Commentary translates, I considered in my heart to draw my flesh in wine; and thus explains: "I wished to spend my life in pleasures, and to free my flesh from all cares, and to lull it with pleasure as with wine. Then what follows: 'But my heart led me in wisdom,' he thus connects with what follows, so as to signify the struggle of the flesh and the spirit, or of wine-drinking and wisdom in Solomon. Whence in Hebrew it is, my heart led in wisdom, that is, says St. Jerome: 'My thought and natural reason drew me back, and led me to seek wisdom and to trample foolishness, that I might see what good thing it was that men could do in the course of their life. And he elegantly compared pleasure to drunkenness. For indeed drunkenness overturns the vigor of the mind, and whoever is able to exchange it for wisdom, and (as some manuscripts have it) to obtain it, will be able to reach the knowledge of this matter, what should be sought in this life and what should be avoided.'"
Third, the Septuagint, reading keiain (that is, like wine) for beiain (that is, in wine), translates, I considered whether my heart would draw my flesh like wine, and my heart led me in wisdom, and to obtain gladness. Note here, for "would draw" the Greek is helkysei, for which Thaumaturgus and some others read eklysei, that is, "would dissolve"; but the former reading is in conformity with the Hebrew, Vulgate, Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, and the rest. The sense is, as if to say: I thought to do with wine what I did with laughter, saying: "Laughter I accounted an error." I therefore thought to test whether, just as wine attracts the flesh and the palate by its taste and sweetness, so wisdom by its beauty and form might attract to itself the heart and mind, so that wisdom, devoting itself, might draw the flesh to itself, dominate pleasure, and restrain all the appetites of gluttony and wine-drinking.
So Moringus: "I thought to myself," he says, "whether the mind and reason is effective at drawing my flesh as wine is," that is, as effective as wine is at drawing the flesh and the appetite. For it was once debated whether wine is stronger than the king, than a woman, than truth, as is clear from 3 Esdras 3. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus agrees: "When I considered," he says, "that the soul had such power as to be able to stop the drunken nature of the body, flowing like wine, and again to tame the desire for self-indulgence, I resolved that I must investigate what is ultimately useful for men."
Fourth and genuinely, St. Jerome, who in his Commentary had translated, to draw my flesh in wine, afterwards, at the command of Damasus, forging the Vulgate version, having better considered the matter, translated it as, to withdraw my flesh from wine; and the Church received and approved that version. For the Hebrew masach means to draw with all its compounds (for the Hebrews lack compound verbs, and therefore use the simple verb, or the root and stem itself, for them all), namely to attract, to prolong, to draw away, to withdraw. Again, beiain, that is, in wine, is not uncommonly taken for meiain, that is, from wine; for beth is sometimes taken for min, that is, from, away from, about; and so it should be taken here, as is clear from the connection and thread of the whole discourse. For what preceded was: "Laughter I accounted an error; and to joy I said: Why are you vainly deceived?" Hence it is fittingly added: "I thought to withdraw my flesh from wine." For by wine, just as by laughter, he understands by synecdoche banquets, feasts, and all carnal pleasures. For from wine follows licentiousness, laughter, revelry, and every wantonness. Properly, however, he means wine-drinking; for this is contrary to the study of wisdom, because the fumes of wine dull and cloud the head, and sometimes deprive it of reason and judgment, so that it cannot devote itself to wisdom. By wine, then, understand the immoderate use of wine. For wine taken in moderation sharpens the mind.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: When I had discovered that laughter and all the joys of the world are sheer vanities, errors, and deceptions, I thought to withdraw my flesh from wine and other pleasures, that I might devote myself to wisdom, until through it I might see what is useful for men to attain solid gladness and happiness, "what they ought to do," that is, what they should do under the sun during all the days of their life, so that they may persist constantly in that said gladness and happiness throughout their whole life. That this is the sense is clear from the Hebrew, Chaldean, Olympiodorus, and the Fathers in the Greek Catena, who explain it thus: "I thought by what means the study of intelligible things from above might compel the sense of the flesh to obey the intelligible part of the soul, as if the inferior were drawn and yielding to the superior;" another there says: "Suspecting," he says, "the approach of pleasure, no differently than the approach of some thief, who secretly insinuates himself into the treasures of the soul."
Again, by "to obtain" they do not understand "to have, possess, or enjoy"; but "to obtain," that is, "to master" gladness, just as a commander in war obtains the enemy when he conquers and captures him: for this is what the Greek tou kratesai ep' euphrosynen means, that is, to rule with authority and to master the exulting gladness, and to restrain the immoderately eager pleasure. Whence Thaumaturgus: "Continence," he says, "reduces desire to servitude;" and Nyssenus: "To obtain mastery over gladness;" and Cajetan: "To restrain foolishness, lest my heart revel through it." It could be translated from the Hebrew, "to obtain," that is, "to possess wisdom"; for sichlut with shin signifies this, although with samech it signifies foolishness, as I said in chapter 1, verse 17.
Whence St. Jerome in his Commentary translates, to obtain foolishness, that is, to seize, capture, and subject (for this is what the Hebrew leechoz means) foolishness, which is the same as what the same translator in the Vulgate renders, and to avoid foolishness. For the enemy is conquered and captured in order to be guarded against and avoided lest he be able to harm; but gluttony and lust are conquered not so much by resisting as by fleeing occasions and enticements, and to signify this, our translator cleverly translated it as "to avoid." Less correctly therefore Olympiodorus thinks that Solomon here signifies that he misused the wisdom given him by God to pursue carnal pleasures, to obtain them and immerse and feed himself in them.
UNTIL I SHOULD SEE WHAT IS PROFITABLE FOR THE CHILDREN OF MEN. — The Hebrew, what was good; the Chaldean, what that good of the children of men was, which namely would give them peace, gladden them, and make them blessed.
WHAT THEY OUGHT TO DO UNDER THE SUN. — The Hebrew, what they should do under the sun, that is, what all men ought to do, if they are wise and wish to be happy; in what they should occupy themselves, as long as they live here; therefore they ought to do this one thing, devote themselves entirely to this one thing, pursue this one thing with all their strength, according to that saying of Christ to Martha: "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary," namely "Mary has chosen the best part, which will not be taken from her," Luke 10.
DURING THE NUMBER OF THE DAYS OF THEIR LIFE. — Solomon signifies that he sought this good, says Nyssenus: "Which would not suit only one age, but would be perpetual and not temporary, and extend to the entire life; and would be good for every age, the first, the middle, and the last, and for every number of days: for on account of none of the things that are done in torpor is it permitted to be perpetually affected by pleasure; but the pleasure of drinking ceases at the same time as satiety, and in eating likewise fullness extinguishes appetite." its purpose is serious, and truly good and honorable." Olympiodorus further presses this comparison with wine: "The cup," he says, "which we drinking persons drain, is removed from our sight and vanishes. I considered therefore whether in worldly prosperities and pleasures the human mind could be so strong as to be able to consume and destroy, like wine drunk up, the lusts of the flesh." Therefore Solomon, blushing at having been conquered by wine, thinks of thus conquering wine. He thinks therefore to test whether the mind is not more powerful for conquering wine and taming gluttony, than wine was for conquering and overthrowing the mind from the state of reason. So Nyssenus: "Whenever," he says, "I felt pleasure gradually creeping in, flattering and charming the senses, I immediately resisted, rebuking it for wanting to soften and effeminate me: in this manner I considered how reason might conquer the motions of the body, and nature might fight and quarrel with itself, when the mind drew one way and the flesh another, or rather reason might absorb the prudence of the flesh. Just as when thirsty people drain a cup; for the wine does not remain in it, but is changed into the one who drinks it: which done, a clear and certain way lay open to me, with every error removed, to the knowledge of things."
Now let us weigh each word: For "I thought" the Hebrew is tarti, that is, I thoroughly investigated, explored, examined all around. For the root tur means to search, to survey everything in a circle all around, to look about on every side in order. Whence tor is the turtledove, because it constantly turns its head to survey everything around, and because as if pondering, it consults and deliberates with itself; although others think the turtledove is so named from the sound of the voice it produces when moaning. Solomon therefore signifies that he does not say these things rashly or off the cuff; but having first examined everything with great scrutiny, he pronounces these things with mature judgment. For from investigation and examination, by metalepsis, he leaves the judgment and decree to be understood, which customarily follows after examination. The phrase "to withdraw from wine" denotes the great inclination of corrupt nature toward wine and pleasures, so that one must be torn and pulled away from them with great force and pain, as if the skin were being scraped off; just as a bone that a dog is gnawing cannot be snatched from it except with great force. For "that I might transfer my mind to wisdom," the Hebrew is, my heart leading me in wisdom, through which I avoided foolishness, as follows, and through which, as Nyssenus reads, I obtained mastery over gladness (pleasure).
Whence Rabbi Haccados: My heart, he says, led me through wisdom, lest the heel that would destroy me prevail over me. For the Hebrew noheg properly means to lead away, or to lead elsewhere and in the opposite direction, just as a boy is led away by his tutor from play to school. Solomon therefore says: I resolved to withdraw my flesh from wine, to lead my mind away from bodily delights to spiritual ones, namely from gluttony to wisdom; by which he signifies that these two are contrary, and diametrically opposed to each other; therefore he who wishes to devote himself to wisdom must renounce pleasure, and the more he renounces it, the more closely he is joined to wisdom, and the more capable of it he becomes. Hence Cajetan and Pagninus translate, to accustom my heart to wisdom. For, as the Greeks say in the Catena: "He who follows the lead of wisdom, rules over pleasures with gladness."
AND TO AVOID FOOLISHNESS. — The Chaldean, to learn the foolishness of youth; the Septuagint seems to have translated approver, that is, foolishness, as our translator, the Hebrew, the Syriac, and others have. But now in the Septuagint one reads euphrosynen, that is, gladness. Whence they translate, to obtain gladness; Olympiodorus, my heart prevailing (abounding) in gladness; the Arabic, my heart sent me to wisdom, and to embrace joy through it. But the sense comes to the same thing: for by gladness they understand the senseless kind poured out into carnal pleasures, which is nothing other than foolishness. Hence the emblem: Lest you be insane with cheerful insanity, Lest too-harmful pleasure seize the mind, And pleasantly press your limbs with madness. Only with a laughing face does witless insanity Entice; it carries poisons in golden honey.
Again, the word "number" signifies that the days of man are few and easily counted. For thus "days" or "men of number" in Hebrew are called few, which can be immediately counted, as in Genesis 34:30 and Numbers 9:2. This is what Job says, chapter 14:5: "Man's days are short, the number of his months is with You." Hence the old adage: "The whole life is one day: We are all day-creatures: Pleasure and vain glory are but ephemeral."
Morally, note here: first, that the person devoted to wisdom must withdraw the flesh from wine and other carnal pleasures, as Daniel did with his companions, who through this attained great knowledge of things, and Daniel the gift of prophecy, Daniel 1:8 and following, where I said much on this matter. The same was done by St. Jerome, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Chrysostom, and the other Doctors; and also by philosophers, such as Crates, Zeno, and Socrates; but especially by the Ascetics and Anchorites, among whom the Essenes hold first place on a double title, about whose continence Eusebius, Philo, and Josephus narrate wondrous things.
Second, that it is the task of a wise person in all his actions to look to the end, so as to direct them to salvation and happiness; for this is the end for which he was created, this is his supreme good. Let him therefore constantly think of this: "Eye on the goal, eye on the back of the head," so that he looks not only at what is before him, but also at what is behind, namely the end and future things. And that saying of Aristotle: "Regard pleasures not as they come, but as they go." For when coming they entice with their appearance and veneer; when going they fix the sting of grief in the mind. And that saying of the Wise Man: "What fortune has lent, it will take away; what nature has changed, it will reclaim; what virtue has prepared, it will retain."
Verse 4: I Made Great Works, I Built Myself Houses, and Planted Vineyards
Whence St. Gregory Thaumaturgus and Olympiodorus rightly connect this verse with the preceding one. For Thaumaturgus says: "A wondrous desire came upon me, to see in what mortals might worthily occupy themselves during this life. Wherefore I omitted nothing of all those things considered worthy of admiration that I did not try. Palaces were built on high, vineyards were planted," etc.
I MADE GREAT WORKS — I built many, great, and magnificent works, namely magnificent houses, vineyards, gardens, etc. For under greatness is understood multitude, and so "great" in Hebrew often means the same as "many," and "greatness" the same as "multitude," as I showed elsewhere. It is an enallage of quantity, by which the continuous is put for the discrete, and vice versa. Whence the Syriac translates, I multiplied my works; and the Chaldean, I was much engaged in building magnificent works in Jerusalem; others, I constructed works many in number and enormous in size. By works understand not so much public works erected for the good of Jerusalem or the kingdom, such as the temple, walls, moats, citadels, towers, cities, and fortifications, 3 Kings 9, as private works, which Solomon splendidly built not for his necessity, but for his pleasure and luxury. For he says: "My works: and I built myself houses, and planted vineyards." Again, by works he means things artfully made, artificial, elaborated, polished through great study, art, and industry. Whence the Arabic translates, I made great my arts. Whatever was excellent in nature, whatever was hidden in art, Solomon summoned to himself from Tyre and from all around.
I BUILT MYSELF HOUSES — such as that one which Solomon built over thirteen years with his great wealth and magnificence, so splendid and admirable that the queen of Sheba was astonished at the sight of it, 3 Kings ch. 7 and ch. 10, verse 27. Similar was the house of the forest of Lebanon, and the other which he built for the daughter of Pharaoh, whom he had taken as his wife. See Josephus, Book VIII of the Antiquities, ch. 5, or according to another edition, ch. 11, and Abulensis, 3 Kings 7, Question 1 and following. That Solomon built many other houses to satisfy his desire for building is clear from this passage, and from the Chaldean, who translates, I built myself very many houses; and from 3 Kings ch. 9, verse 10: "He built whatever he pleased to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in the land of his dominion;" in Hebrew it is, he built the desire which Solomon desired to build: which phrase denotes an ardent zeal, not to say passion, for building in Solomon.
The Chaldean adds, I made a throne of ivory and a royal seat.
Tropologically, see how Nyssenus shows that the house of the soul must be built and adorned with spiritual virtues, and therefore excessive adornment of the bodily house must be guarded against, lest the mind spend and exhaust its cares, wealth, and time on it, so that little remains for it to spend on the building of the soul, as Nero did, who was more extravagant in nothing than in building, says Suetonius, ch. 31 of his Life. For he built in Rome a palace from the Palatine hill to the Esquiline so enormous that it was like a city. Whence, as the same Suetonius, namely ch. 39, writes, this distich was written about it: Rome will become a house: move to Veii, citizens, Unless this house also takes over Veii. And Martial, Epigram 2: And already one house stood in the whole city. Its ruins and rubble still exist, which indicate its wondrous size. Wisely Seneca, Epistle 90: "Luxury," he says, "has defected from nature, which daily urges itself on, and grows through so many ages, and assists vices with ingenuity; all those arts, by which a city is either excited or makes noise, attend to the business of the body, for which everything was once provided as to a servant, but is now prepared as for a master."
I PLANTED VINEYARDS. — Of Solomon's vineyards no mention is made in the books of Kings; but in Song of Songs 8:11, where the bride says: "The peaceful one had a vineyard in that which has peoples;" in Hebrew, Solomon's in Baal Hamon, which Aben-Ezra says is the proper name of a place near Jerusalem, where the greater part of the people had the most excellent vineyards. Others, whom the Chaldean favors, think it is a surname of Jerusalem itself, which was so called because of the great number of its inhabitants. For Baal Hamon means the same as lord or lady of multitude, that is, of a very great population. Moreover, this vineyard was so fertile and of such great yield that it was valued each year at a thousand silver pieces. For it adds: "He delivered it to keepers; a man brings a thousand silver pieces for its fruit."
Again, some refer here to the highly praised vineyards of Engedi, because the grapes had the flavor and fragrance of henna: for henna is an aromatic tree, and they think this is signified in Song of Songs 1:13: "A cluster of henna is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engedi." But whether this comparison of the beloved with henna and the vineyards of Engedi is drawn from Solomon's own vineyards or from others', is not sufficiently clear, especially because Engedi was far from Jerusalem, being near Jericho. But what prevents Solomon from having had his delights, villas, and vineyards in remote places of Judea, as the Romans once had at Capua and throughout Campania? Indeed, formerly in Judea alone, and specifically in Engedi alone, there was a most excellent balsam vineyard; for balsam is a shrub which, if cut with a sharp glass, stone, or bone, drips a most precious juice, of exquisite sweetness and virtue for healing diseases, which they call opobalsamum, and it is preferred to all perfumes. See Adrichomius under Engedi.
Likewise on Mount Lebanon there were most pleasant gardens, which the fountain of gardens irrigated, concerning which see Song of Songs ch. 4. This fountain, gradually growing, formed a river which was called the Sabbatical, because by a wondrous providence of God it flowed only on the Sabbath and dried up on the remaining six days, as Josephus attests, Book VII of the Wars, ch. 24. See Adrichomius.
Moreover, the planting and cultivation of vineyards is the most honorable, pleasant, and useful pursuit, as Columella teaches, Book III, ch. 3: for they produce excellent wines in great abundance. That Solomon's were outstanding and most delicate (like the Falernian wines of the Italians) cannot be doubted by anyone who looks more closely into these words of his and what follows, and at the same time considers his nature, genius, and zeal for investigating everything in the world that is delicate, precious, and outstanding. his zeal for building, not to say his passion. The Chaldean adds, I made a throne from elephant tusks and a royal seat.
Now that the vines and grape clusters in Palestine are enormous and outstanding is clear from the cluster which two scouts sent by Joshua to explore it brought back from there, and carried on a pole, Numbers 13:25, and from the most excellent vine of Sorek, concerning which Isaiah 5:2, whose grapes had no seed, as the Hebrews attest, and produced the most delicate red wine, indeed wine of Cos, that is, of the best color, scent, and flavor, says Adrichomius in his description of the Holy Land under Dan. Likewise from the fact that Israel is said to have dwelt peacefully under its vine and under its fig tree, 3 Kings ch. 4:25. The vines therefore must have been tall like trees and fig trees. Whence also in Genesis ch. 49:11, Jacob blessing Judah says: "Tying his colt to the vine," namely to load the donkey from it.
Again, whatever was rare and precious in the world, and especially in India, Solomon brought to Judea by ship: therefore there is no doubt that he also imported precious vines from regions where they are outstanding. Certainly Pliny, Book XIV, ch. 1, writes that in inner Africa such great grapes are grown "that they exceed the size of infant children," and that grapes also "swell like breasts in the manner of bumasti." For the grape is called bumasti in Greek, because in swelling and size it resembles the udder of a cow; whence by Varro, Book II On Agriculture, ch. 4, it is called Bumamma, and by Macrobius, Book III of the Saturnalia, the last chapter, Bummammia. Strabo also, Book II, ch. 10 and 15, mentions grape clusters two feet in size, and we see two-foot clusters produced in some places in Italy. Finally, that powerful wines are produced in Palestine, and all red, none white, I learned at Rome from those who had visited that land.
Under vineyards and vine-plantations some understand olive groves and fig orchards: for these are usually joined together, and indeed in the same fertile field one can often see olives and figs grafted into and intermixed with vines, as one can observe in Lombardy.
Mystically, each person must plant, prune, and cultivate the vineyard of the soul, both one's own and others'. Hear St. Ambrose, Book II, Epistle 7: "Let luxury be cut away," he says, "let delights be pruned back, and if anyone has been self-indulgent, let him bid farewell to his former ways. For a pruned vine brings fruit, a half-pruned one puts forth leaves, a neglected one runs wild, and therefore it is written: Like a field is the imprudent man, and like a vineyard the man lacking sense; if you leave him, he will be deserted. Let us therefore cultivate our body, chastise it, bring it into servitude, not despise it: for our members are weapons of justice, and they are also weapons of sin."
Verse 5: I Made Gardens and Orchards, and Planted Them with Trees of Every Kind
On the word Paradise see what was said on Genesis 2:8. Our translator renders it as orchards, because in paradises fruit-bearing trees of every kind are prominent, namely apple-bearing ones: for pomum signifies any fruit that has a soft rind, and is distinguished from a nut, which includes almonds, hazelnuts, and all hard-shelled fruits. Sometimes also pomum encompasses all fruits of both hard and soft rind, and nuts of every kind. So it is taken here. "With trees of every kind;" in Hebrew and Greek it is, with trees of every fruit, not that all were fruit-bearing, and Solomon planted only fruit-bearing trees, since non-fruit-bearing ones too, like the cedar, plane tree, and cypress, bring a wonderful pleasantness through their abundance of foliage, height, fragrance, and other endowments; but that besides these he also planted fruit-bearing trees fertile with various fruits and apples, says St. Jerome.
It is likely that Solomon transplanted precious shrubs and trees, acquired from Arabia, Egypt, India, and the entire world, into his Jerusalem paradises; whence Josephus, Book VIII of the Antiquities, ch. 11, relates that a balsam plant, brought as a gift by the queen of Sheba, was successfully planted by Solomon in its soil, and thereafter grew abundantly in Palestine, and indeed in such great quantity that Pliny later wrote, Book XII, ch. 25, "balsam was granted to the land of Judea alone." For that balsam was formerly proper to Sheba and Arabia Felix, and grew most successfully near Mecca and Medina, the chief cities of Arabia Felix, Prosper Alpinus teaches, Dialogue on Balsam, ch. 2; Strabo, Book XVI; Diodorus Siculus, Book I; Pausanias, Book IX, and others. From there, transplanted from the queen of Sheba to Judea for Solomon, with him planting it, it grew most successfully in Jericho. From there, transplanted to Egypt and irrigated by a fountain that sprang forth for the Blessed Virgin and the child Jesus, when fleeing Herod she withdrew there, it grew abundantly, as Baronius, Burchardus, Adrichomius, and others teach.
Again, it is likely that all the shrubs and trees, especially aromatic ones, which are named by Solomon in the Song of Songs, were planted by him in his paradises, such as cedars, cypresses, calamus, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, aloe, honeycomb with honey, Song of Songs ch. 5, verse 1, that is, the sweet or sugar cane, from which sugar is extracted, as some interpret.
The word "I planted" implies that Solomon planted his paradises not only with the hands of others, but also with his own, as Cyrus the Younger did in the Sardian paradise, according to Cicero in On Old Age, about which more shortly, and as the Emperor Diocletian, having voluntarily abdicated the empire, withdrew to Salona to his country estate, and there devoted himself to planting and garden work. Homer describes Laertes, the father of Ulysses, in the last book of the Odyssey, as found by his son cultivating the fields. Indeed, Noah planted a vineyard and was the first to press wine from it. And Adam and the rest before the flood, and after it Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other Patriarchs were farmers. At Rome the Hortensii were famous, so named from their devotion and zeal for gardens. This age has similar Hortensii, among whom at Louvain I once saw Justus Lipsius, free from studies, diligently spending his time planting flowers in his garden. See the man himself, Book II On Constancy, ch. 2 and 3, and Virgil, Georgics 1, where he celebrates the culture and pleasantness of gardens with wonderful elegance.
Now gardens bring great utility as well as delight. In Rome we see very many gardeners, and wealthy ones, because Italians feed and nourish themselves more on herbs than on meats. Among them "cabbages are the glory of gardens," says Columella. Under "I planted" understand also "I grafted." For, as Cicero says in On Old Age: "Not only plantings delight, but also graftings;" and Solomon was most skilled in these, since he knew the powers and properties of all trees, herbs, and shrubs, and knew which should be grafted and budded into which, and in what manner. Whence Fonteius translates: I set vines in order, And grafted pears, figs, quinces, plums, I placed innumerable species, every kind of wild beast. Moreover, that Solomon's paradises were outstanding, and surpassed the hanging gardens of Nitocris, which Nebuchadnezzar built for her as his wife, with wondrous art and greater expense, so that they were regarded as a wonder of the world, about which Pliny writes, Book XV, ch. 4, Solomon's desire, opulence, and magnificence easily persuades.
These paradises were partly in the city of Jerusalem, namely in the royal palace of Zion, and partly outside the city where the fields are more beautiful. Just as the Romans erected gardens in the suburbs, such as those of Caesar and Antony near the Tiber, about which Dionysius writes, Book 47. Hence our Vilalpandus, Volume III, Part I, Book II, from Josephus, Book VI of the Wars, ch. 6, teaches that the gate of Jerusalem called Genath, or the gate of the flock, was likewise the gate of gardens (for gan in Hebrew means garden), through which there was an exit and descent into the most pleasant valley of Hinnom, and the brook Kidron famed for its gardens, and into the valley of Jehoshaphat. There therefore were the most pleasant gardens, irrigated by the brook Kidron. Whence that saying of the bride, Song of Songs 6:10: "I went down into the garden of nut trees, to see the fruits of the valley;" the Septuagint translates, the fruits of the brook. Whence likewise Adrichomius in his description of Jerusalem depicts the royal garden, which in the Song of Songs is called the enclosed garden, in which was the fountain of Rogel and every pleasantness.
Tropologically, Nyssenus here has an invective against the useless cultivation of gardens, and shows with what reasoning and how great vanity delights are sought in the earth through buildings, in the air through plants, in the water through pools and fountains; nevertheless, moderate garden cultivation and pleasant farming is praiseworthy and useful, and was commended by God to Adam in paradise, Genesis 2:15. For, as St. Augustine says, Book VIII On Genesis, Literally, ch. 9: "What work is more innocent for the leisured, and what is fuller of great reflection for the prudent?" A garden, says St. Isidore, Book XVII of the Origins, ch. 10, is so named because something always arises in it. For while other land produces something once a year, a garden is never without fruit. The word olus (vegetable) is derived from alere (to nourish), because the first men were nourished by vegetables before they ate grain and meats. For they were nourished only by the fruits of trees and vegetables, just as animals by herbs. Therefore, just as Adam would have cultivated paradise, if he had remained innocent in it, not only for eating fruits, but also for observing through experience the natures, properties, and characteristics of herbs, fruits, and shrubs, and from them would have risen to a clearer knowledge of God the Creator, to love, praise, and thanksgiving: in precisely the same way Solomon cultivated his paradises. Whence he is said "to have discoursed on trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall," 3 Kings 4:33: therefore it was a pleasure as well as a benefit for Solomon to handle them, plant them, and cultivate them: just as it was a pleasure for Hercules to plant oaks with his own hand, as Pliny writes, Book XVI, ch. 4; and for Agamemnon to plant plane trees, as the same Pliny reports, Book XVI, ch. 44; and for Cyrus to be accustomed to boast that he had a field planted by his own hands, and rows arranged in a quincunx, and many trees sown by his own hand, according to Cicero in On Old Age. "Antiquity," says Pliny, Book XIX, ch. 4, "admired nothing sooner than the gardens of the Hesperides, and of the kings Adonis and Alcinous, and likewise the hanging gardens, whether Semiramis or the Assyrian king Cyrus made them. Indeed the Roman kings themselves cultivated gardens. For even Tarquin the Proud sent that cruel and bloody message to his son from the garden."
Moreover, the Chaldean from the translation of the Conimbricenses and Costus paraphrastically adds much here. For it reads: "I established vineyards all around in Jabneh, so that I and my silentiarii might sometimes feast, and offer new and old wine as a libation at the altar. I planted irrigated gardens and parks most full of pleasantness, where I sowed vegetables of every kind, which would be useful for food and feasts, or for health; I also added herbs notable for their scent; likewise both barren trees and aromatic-bearing ones, which demons and harmful angels had brought to me from India; likewise all fruit-bearing trees. The boundaries of the gardens were from the wall of Jerusalem to the shore of the waters of Siloam."
Silentiarii were intimate officials of the king, who maintained peace and silence in the court, and restrained the tumults of servants and all things, lest they assault the king's ears, about whom Justinian writes, ch. On the Silentiarii, and Procopius, Book II of the Persian War: "The Romans," he says, "call the minister of quietness in the palace a silentiarius, or a domestic person privy to the prince's secrets."
But these things were rightly cut out and excised from the Chaldean in the Royal Bibles. For they contain certain doubtful and apocryphal things, certain fabulous and unworthy things, such as the claim that Solomon used the magic art and received foreign plants through demons from remote regions of the earth.
Finally in his gardens and paradises Solomon testifies, in verse 11, that he found vanity and affliction of spirit. For besides the vanity common to all earthly things, that which is proper to paradises is that they demand perpetual care, and the constant restoration of flower beds, arbors, hedges, fountains, pavilions, labyrinths, vivaria, etc., on which enormous sums must be spent each year. Also, that they are visited by many people, including prelates and princes, who must be received lavishly and splendidly: therefore paradises serve not so much the master as his guests, with whom the master must waste his time and pour out his wealth. Moreover, in paradises there is leisure for feasting, drinking parties, wantonness, luxury, and other crimes. Finally, paradises often seize the master's entire thought, desire, and concern for themselves, so that he neither can nor wishes to think about other things that are his responsibility.
Wherefore St. Charles Borromeo used to tell bishops and prelates that their paradise should be none other than the Bible and Sacred Scripture. St. Gregory Nazianzen says splendidly, Oration 9: "How long," he says, "will you seek vanity and falsehood, namely this life and its delights, and its paltry glory and humble power, its false prosperity, thinking them to be something great and ample; which indeed have this characteristic, that they belong no more to those who obtain them than to those who hoped they would have them; nor again any more to the latter than to those in whose expectation they never even were; but like dust from a whirlwind, they are blown and tossed about from one person to another, and like smoke they dissolve, and like a dream they delude men, and like a shadow they cannot be held in the hands, and finally they are so constituted that when they are absent, those who do not have them do not despair of obtaining them, and when they are present, they are neither reliable nor certain."
Well known is that saying of St. Augustine: "Man (Job) conquered on the dunghill, but was conquered (Adam and Solomon) in paradise."
Verse 6: And I Constructed for Myself Pools of Waters
For "pools" Aquila translates limnas, that is, marshes, ponds; Symmachus, dexemenas, that is, cisterns, channels, water receptacles.
Pools here can properly be taken for fish ponds, in which fish are kept and fed. For fish were a delicacy for the ancients; indeed some fed only on fish, not on meat. For fish are more moist, cooler, and easier to digest; and there is a far greater variety of fish than of meats. Such were the pools of Nero, in which he himself fished with a golden net, with cords of purple and scarlet, says Suetonius, ch. 30 and 31 of his Life. Wondrous are the things that Pliny writes about the tameness and entertainment of fish in pools, Book III, ch. 2, where among other things he says: "In many of Caesar's villas fish eat from the hand, etc.; in the fountain of Labradean Jupiter, eels wear earrings attached to them. In the fountain of Apollo, which they call Curium, summoned three times by a pipe they come for augury. At Hierapolis in Syria, in the lake of Venus, they obey when called by the voices of the temple keepers, come adorned with gold, offer themselves to be stroked fawningly, and open their gaping mouths for hands to be inserted." The same Pliny, Book XX, ch. 11, prescribes this remedy for sick fish: "If fish become ill in pools, they are revived by fresh celery."
Second, by pools can generally be understood cisterns, lakes, streams, and any water receptacles. For these serve: first, for pleasantness; for pellucid and crystalline waters wonderfully delight the eye, especially when one sails on them in boats. Second, for refreshment; for in a pool they bathed themselves, indeed they swam. Whence it was also called kolymbetra, that is, a bath or swimming pool, such as was the pool of Siloam, to which the blind man sent by Christ, washing himself in it, was illuminated, John 9. Whence Pliny the Younger, Book V, Epistle 6 to Apollinaris: "If you wish," he says, "to swim more spaciously or in warmer water, there is a pool in the courtyard." The same, Book II, Epistle 17: "A warm pool adjoins wonderfully, from which swimmers look out at the sea."
Third, by pools can be understood thermal baths and bathhouses, in which they washed, warmed, and cured their bodies from cold diseases with hot waters, such as are the baths of Charlemagne, which at Aachen spring forth from the earth so hot that bathers must temper their heat with cold water. So the magnificence of the Romans was in their baths, and these were an imperial and royal work, such as were the baths of Diocletian, Constantine, and Antoninus, whose remains, witnesses of their former magnificence, we still behold.
Fourth, in pools or ponds there were naumachiae, that is, games and naval battles for the entertainment of spectators. So Nero, having diverted the Tiber into the gardens sloping toward Rome, made a pool or pond in which naval battles were practiced, for his and the people's recreation.
Fifth and chiefly, these pools and ponds served for the irrigation of gardens and trees. Whence Solomon adds: "To irrigate a forest of growing trees." For since Judea is dry and parched, to become moist and fertile it needs the irrigation of waters: and this in Scripture is called its blessing. Whence the pool in Hebrew is also called berecha, that is, blessing. Hence Achsah asked this from her father Caleb, saying: "Give me a blessing," that is, an irrigation of waters. "You have given me a southern and arid land, add also an irrigated one. So Caleb gave her the upper irrigation and the lower irrigation," Joshua 15:19.
So Thaumaturgus: "Pools," he says, "were vast, made for the collection of waters, distributed for the rich and abundant irrigation of trees. From the pools aqueducts were made, by which water was conducted through all the beds of the gardens, and through the workshops and rooms with great art, as well as convenience and pleasure. Indeed the magnificence of the ancient Romans was in their aqueducts, whose remains we still behold." Hence the Chaldean reads: I added moreover to the banquet house water pipes, most convenient for the irrigation of trees and plants, and I made from them reservoirs and aqueducts for irrigating a forest planted with various trees. For most trees love the irrigation of waters; except a few: for "cypresses, walnuts, chestnuts, and laburnum hate water," says Pliny, Book XVIII.
Moreover, what, how many, and what kind Solomon's pools were is uncertain, because neither Scripture nor Josephus describe them: Josephus merely, Book VI of the Wars, ch. 6, names the Pool of Solomon.
The Probatic Pool, that is, the sheep or cattle pool, in which the sheep to be sacrificed were washed, Vilalpandus, Adrichomius, and others in their description of the temple think was the work of Solomon: but it does not pertain here, because it served not Solomon's delights but the uses of the temple. The pool or swimming bath of Siloam, in which the blind man was cured, John 9, some think was the work of Solomon. This pool rises from the nearby fountain of Siloam, which springs from the base of Mount Zion: its water, clear, sweet, and most abundant, flows silently and peacefully into the brook Kidron, Isaiah 8:22; about which Saligniacus, Book X, ch. 1, writes: "The water of this fountain is still valued even by the Saracens themselves today. For since they naturally smell like goats in body, they wash themselves and their children in this fountain, and by that washing mitigate their odor. And the Turks also prize it greatly, because they experience that its use benefits the vision of the eyes."
Some also attribute to Solomon the pools in Heshbon, because he compares the eyes of the bride of Christ to their beauty on account of the clear knowledge of God, Song of Songs 7.
Finally, under pools understand fountains, which, conducted from a higher place through channels, spring up in gardens and courtyards to the great delight of onlookers; for these form a pool or pond. Famous in Jerusalem was the fountain of Gihon, and it was twofold, namely upper and lower: it rises from Mount Gihon, where Solomon was anointed as king by Nathan the prophet and Zadok the high priest, 3 Kings 1.
Mystically, pools are the merits of Christ and the Holy Sacraments, which contain the merits of Christ, which Christ the Lord as the true Solomon instituted, to irrigate the forest, that is, the Church, in which all kinds of trees germinate, that is, all the eminent saints, both patriarchs and prophets as well as apostles, virgins, and martyrs. The upper pool is Baptism, the lower pool is Penance.
Verse 7: I Acquired Servants and Handmaids, and Had a Great Household
By servants, understand both hired laborers and slaves; for these are properly possessed, like the livestock of the field and property. Whence they are called by Plato a living possession; by Plutarch, living instruments. Hence Nyssenus translates, I possessed servants and handmaids like flocks of goats and pigs, inasmuch as both the one and the other were subject in equal order of authority. By household understand wives, children, and house-born slaves, that is, children born from enslaved persons in the house. Whence in Hebrew it is, children of the house; the Septuagint, and house-born slaves were mine; the Arabic, and the children of the people of my house were born; Campensis, and from them were born to me house-born slaves. The abundance of these contributes both to the master's splendor and magnificence, and to his authority and labor force, so that through them he may accomplish whatever he pleases both at home and abroad, whether for utility or for entertainment. For servants obey the master at a nod, and attend to all his affairs whether domestic, rural, or public. Such are farmers, cooks, grooms, camel-drivers, chariot-drivers, cupbearers, bakers, craftsmen, weavers, embroiderers, attendants, bodyguards, armor-bearers, chamberlains, silentiarii, and couriers, etc.
Solomon had an innumerable multitude of servants and handmaids. Our Vilalpandus, Volume II, Book V, disputation 3, ch. 51, counts up to 48,600 people. But if you count here the prefects, officials, and courtiers, the number was far greater, as is gathered from the daily provisions of Solomon's court, 3 Kings 4:22: "The food of Solomon," it says, "for each day was thirty cors of fine flour, and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed oxen, and a hundred rams, besides the hunt of deer, roe deer, buffalo, and fattened fowl."
Herds (armenta) are so called as if armamenta, from the arms (weapons) which they have, strong for bearing burdens, and so that they may be armed for battle. Whence Virgil, Aeneid 4: For war are horses armed, for war these herds are prepared. Or armenta as if aramenta, that is, beasts of burden with which one plows; such are horses, donkeys, camels, cows, oxen, and buffalo. Moreover, Solomon's horses were very numerous, as is clear from their stables: "For he had forty thousand stalls for chariot horses, and twelve thousand riding horses," 3 Kings 4:26, that is, he had forty thousand chariot horses in stalls, and twelve thousand riding horses. It is a hypallage. That this is the sense is clear from 2 Chronicles 9:25, where it says: "Solomon also had forty thousand horses in stables." For each horse in the common stable had its own manger, that is, a fenced-off place where it was given fodder. Solomon therefore had in total fifty-two thousand horses in stables.
Moreover, Solomon possessed, as did Saul, David, and the other ancient kings, great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, both for food and clothing, and for commerce, and for sacrifice, as when he himself sacrificed a thousand victims at one time, 3 Kings 3:4, so much so that the queen of Sheba marveled at the number of his annual victims, 3 Kings 10:25. So Agag was the chief of the shepherds of Saul, 1 Kings 15:9; so "Mesha king of Moab raised many cattle, and paid to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams with their fleeces," 4 Kings 3:4. a thousand thousands of rams with their fleeces, 4 Kings 3:4. Therefore the riches of the ancients were not of gold and silver, but of flocks and herds; whence money, which was afterward stamped with the image of cattle, from which it succeeded, received its name. So Varro, book IV of On the Latin Language, and Pliny, book VIII, chapter III; namely, while the world was still alive, living riches were pleasing, flourishing and growing. But now to a world aging and nearly dead, dead and buried riches of bronze, gold, and silver are pleasing: in which matter, says Nyssen, man transgressed the limits prescribed by God, disemboweling and scraping the earth, digging out what God wished to remain hidden.
Furthermore, the vanity proper to male and female servants is that they serve their master not out of love, but out of fear, or hope of reward and gain. Again, that they are of servile temperament, and require great care and constant governance from the master, according to that saying of Ecclesiasticus 33:25: "Food, and a rod, and a burden for the donkey; bread, and discipline, and work for the servant. He works under discipline, and seeks to rest; relax your hand upon him, and he seeks freedom. The yoke and the strap bend the stubborn neck, and constant labors bow down the servant. For a wicked servant, torture and shackles; send him to work, lest he be idle." Moreover, they serve only under the eye, and are often unfaithful and thievish. Here is relevant the notable maxim of Rabbi Hillel in Pirke Avoth, that is, Sayings of the Fathers, chapter II: "He who multiplies flesh, multiplies worms; he who multiplies riches, multiplies sorrows with them; he who multiplies wives, multiplies witchcraft; he who multiplies maidservants, multiplies fornication; he who multiplies menservants, multiplies thieves; he who multiplies the Law, multiplies life; he who multiplies study, likewise multiplies wisdom; he who multiplies counsel, multiplies prudence; he who multiplies justice, multiplies peace; he who acquires a word of the Law, gains for himself eternal life in the world to come."
Allegorically, St. Jerome says: Christ, he says, who is the true Solomon in His court, that is, in His Church, has "servants who have the spirit of fear in servitude, and desire spiritual things more than they possess them. He calls those souls handmaids who are still devoted to the body and to earth; home-born slaves, who surpass the male and female servants, yet have not been granted freedom, nor ennobled by the Lord. But there are others like oxen and sheep, on account of their labors and simplicity, who without reason and knowledge of Scripture do indeed labor in the Church, but have not yet arrived at the point of deserving to be called men, and to return to the image of their Creator; of whom it is said: Men and beasts You will save, O Lord," Psalm 35:8.
Verse 8: I Heaped Up for Myself Silver and Gold, and the Wealth of Kings and Provinces
The Septuagint has synēxa, that is, I collected, I gathered together, I heaped up abundantly; the Arabic, I assembled; the Chaldean, I gathered together treasures of gold and silver, and from tried gold I fashioned standards and weights of equity and goodness. The revenues (or monies, as the Complutensian translators render it) also of kings and provinces were brought to me in tribute. "Tried gold" is gold that has been purified many times by fire, and therefore is most pure and excellent; for by frequent action of fire it contracts bumps and blisters, as Sabellicus teaches on chapter XLIV of Suetonius's Nero, and Cujas, book VII of Observations, chapter 40: of which it is said in Psalm 11:7: "Silver tried in the fire, purified sevenfold," that is, many times over, such as is refined gold.
You may ask, what and how great were the riches of Solomon? I answer that this can be gathered first, from the fact that Solomon's riches came to him from a singular promise and gift of God: and the gifts of God are extraordinary, surpassing all human things. Hear God speaking to Solomon: "And riches and glory I will give you, so that no one among kings, neither before you nor after you, shall have been like you," 2 Chronicles 1:12; which words, though some limit them to the kings of Israel, and others in other ways, are nevertheless in themselves unlimited and absolute. Whence our Vilalpandus shows at length that Solomon was wealthier than absolutely all kings and monarchs: of which more shortly.
Second, from the fact that David his father left him for the building of the temple "a thousand thousand talents of silver": a thousand thousands, that is, ten times a hundred thousand; and "a hundred thousand talents of gold." The Hebrew talent, as I showed at the end of the Pentateuch, was double the Attic talent; for it contained "three thousand shekels," that is, 125 pounds of gold, which make "twelve thousand French crowns." Our Salian adds in his Annals "and five hundred." Whence he reckons these thousands of David's talents of gold and silver to have amounted to 2,672 millions, and in addition 125 thousand gold coins. To which if you add 72 millions and 926 thousand and 666 gold coins, which were freely given by the people in 1 Chronicles 29:4, these two sums will ascend to two thousand seven hundred and 45 millions, 51 thousand and 666 gold coins. Whence Budaeus, book IV of De Asse, reckons that David's wealth, left to Solomon, was ten times greater than that of Darius the last king of the Persians, which Alexander seized upon defeating him. For Darius had only 87 thousand talents; but what Solomon accumulated goes into infinity. Indeed this sum of David's wealth and millions seems almost incredible; for it contains as much gold as scarcely exists in all of Europe; and it deterred Justus Lipsius, who was contemplating a work On the Magnitude of the Hebrew Empire, as a counterpart to the other which he had published on the magnitude of the Roman Empire, since he could not grasp such an immensity of wealth; wherefore some think the talents just enumerated were smaller ones, which view Eusebius favors, book IX of the Preparation, near the end: "By talent, he says, I mean what they call a shekel." A shekel has the weight of four drachmas; therefore if it was silver, it was worth four Italian Julios or Spanish reales; if gold, it was worth four French crowns, for these have the weight of four drachmas. But in that case this sum of David's would have been small, unless you say these shekels were not simple, but double, indeed tenfold, just as the Spanish real, if multiplied tenfold, makes a Philippic, a thaler or gold coin. These things David left to Solomon for the temple; but for the court and his own uses, from the very ample and continuous spoils of the enemies against whom he fought throughout his entire life and always emerged victorious; likewise from revenues and other expenditures he added very much, so that Josephus, book VII of Antiquities, chapter XII, writes: "King David left to his heir such great riches as no other king, either of the Hebrews or of other nations, ever possessed." He adds that the high priest Hyrcanus received three thousand talents from David's tomb; then Herod a great quantity of gold, etc., so that some believe that a thousand millions were buried with David.
Third, from the gold and riches which his ships brought him from Tarshish and Ophir, of which it is said in 3 Kings 9:26; 2 Chronicles 8:17, and 3 Kings 10:14: "The weight of gold that was brought to Solomon each year was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold, besides what the merchants brought," so that those six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold seem to have been annually extracted from the mines themselves by Solomon's servants; but other amounts, of which there was no count, were brought to Jerusalem by trade and commerce with those peoples whose coasts Solomon's ships visited. So Pineda.
Fourth, from the tributes and taxes which were paid to him annually by each of the tribes of Israel, which some conjecture from 3 Kings 9:15 to have been as much as what Hiram king of Tyre gave Solomon, namely 120 talents of gold — not that each individual tribe paid so much (for that would have been monstrous and impossible), but all together combined; also all the kings round about who were his tributaries and subjects, 2 Chronicles 8:8, and 3 Kings 4:21 and 24.
Fifth, from gifts and presents; for Hiram gave him one hundred and twenty talents, not annually, as some think, but once. The Queen of Sheba gave him the same amount. In 3 Kings 10:10 and 2 Chronicles 9:23, it is said: "All the kings of the earth desired to see the face of Solomon, etc., and they brought him gifts, vessels of silver and gold, and garments and weapons and spices, horses and mules every year."
Sixth, from the wisdom bestowed upon Solomon, by which he increased the annual revenues of fields, flocks, incomes, businesses, etc., with wonderful industry beyond the common practice of others; likewise from the supreme peace that was perpetual in the kingdom for forty years. This is what is said of Wisdom in Wisdom 8:18: "In the works of her hands is wealth (that is, riches) without failing." And Proverbs 8:18, Wisdom herself says: "With me are riches and glory, proud wealth and justice."
Seventh, from the buildings which he erected. Certainly some think he spent three thousand millions of gold on the temple. For this temple was the wonder of the world, and, as far as man is permitted to build, a house worthy of God, and a throne of glory among mortals. Hence David, making his vow for the building of the temple, left to Solomon "three thousand talents of gold from the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of the finest silver for gilding the walls of the temple," 1 Chronicles 29:4. What then shall we believe he left him for the actual construction of so great a building? Likewise from the magnificent expenses of the court and the almost innumerable household, enumerated in the preceding verse, and of the workmen. For he maintained, throughout all the years of building the temple and his houses, thirty thousand Israelites cutting wood in Lebanon, "and seventy thousand of those who carried burdens, and eighty thousand stonecutters in the mountain, besides the overseers who presided over the individual works, numbering three thousand three hundred." These were Tyrians, whom Hiram king of Tyre had sent to him, to whom accordingly Solomon furnished "twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty cors of the purest oil every year," 3 Kings 5:11 and following. Moreover, he maintained 52 thousand horses with their grooms, chariots and carriages, as I said in the preceding verse.
Finally our Vilalpandus, volume II, book V, chapter XLIV through LI, prudently calculating each item of Solomon's revenues, compares and prefers Solomon's wealth to the revenues and riches of the kings and monarchs of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and even the Romans, to such a degree that he estimates Solomon's income surpassed the income of the kings of the Persians fortyfold. For Solomon, he says, collected annually from tributes 2,226 talents from Ophir, and in addition 450 talents, which together make more than forty-five million gold coins. To these add the customs duties of the harbors, the pasturage, of the merchants, moreover the very many and very great spoils which David brought back from his enemies fighting throughout his entire life. Some add the annual poll tax, by which each person annually gave half a shekel by law to the temple: for individual Jews paid this, both those who were in Judea and those who were innumerable throughout the whole world. But this tax went to the high priest and the temple, not to the king and the court.
Our Lorinus, precisely enumerating, calculating, and defining each of Solomon's revenues, finally concludes and says: "Of all these things which Solomon had in his entire life, of which Scripture has designated a certain number, the sum is three thousand nine hundred and three millions, and seven hundred sixty-five thousand, and nine hundred twenty-four silver coins of Roman money: to which if we add one thousand four hundred and forty gold talents multiplied over thirty-six years, it will produce four thousand six hundred eighty-six millions, two hundred thirty-three thousand, one hundred twenty-four. Besides these, however, as can be gathered from what has been said, he had another very great sum collected from many other sources, whose total cannot be calculated — of such a kind and quantity as no monarch or republic ever possessed."
But this precise calculation of Solomon's wealth can only with difficulty be proven from Scripture, and it assumes some uncertain, indeed less probable things as true and certain, such as that Hiram gave Solomon 120 talents annually, when it is more likely he gave them only once; that each tribe paid the same amount in talents annually to Solomon, when it is more likely that all together paid no more, etc. It suffices therefore to say in general that Solomon's riches were very great and innumerable, inasmuch as they represented the spiritual riches of Christ, who is the true Solomon. For these are very great, namely graces, gifts, virtues, and innumerable crowns of heavenly glory, which Christ both has in Himself and distributes and apportions among innumerable Saints, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, and Virgins. Hence Solomon is said to have made silver as abundant in Jerusalem as stones, 3 Kings 10:27, and to have gathered gold like brass, and filled up silver like lead, Ecclesiasticus 47:20; and again 2 Chronicles 9:20: "Silver, he says, in those days was accounted as nothing," which, though said by way of hyperbole, nevertheless signifies that Solomon's riches were immense. What became of such an abundance of wealth? It departed, it vanished like smoke, indeed of all those things Solomon dying carried with him not even a farthing. Go now, you covetous ones, heap gold upon gold, fill your chests with silver, and know that all these things must be left behind by you in death, and nothing but virtue and beneficence will accompany you to the tribunal of Christ.
"And the wealth." — In Hebrew it is segula, that is, treasures and precious things, such as gems, valuables, jewels. The Septuagint renders this as the riches of kings; the Syriac, the possession of kings; the Arabic, the treasures of kings and regions; Vatablus, a precious treasure; the Zurich Bible, the treasure of kings; others, a desirable treasure; Campensis, what properly belongs to kings and lords of provinces; Arias, the treasure of kings, the wealth of royal treasuries, and the repositories of other princes. Therefore Solomon received from kings and provinces not common things, but the most excellent and finest of everything, namely the most outstanding gold, the brightest silver, the most precious gems, and whatever was rare, excellent, and valuable among them. Hence God says of Israel: "You shall be my treasure (Hebrew, segula) from among all peoples," Exodus 19:5. See what was said there, and at 1 Peter 2:9, on those words: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of acquisition."
Furthermore, Solomon heaped up these riches: first, as a young man, from the gift of God, whence the word "I heaped up" signifies the enormous piles and masses of wealth collected by him; then in old age, out of avarice, says Nyssen, and then from neches, that is, substance given by God, spurred by cupidity he made kenes, that is, a heapingup and scraping together of wealth, oppressing his subjects with excessive taxes, which he then squandered on his flatterers and parasites, and on his thousand wives and concubines, and on the other extravagances of his table and pleasures: in which matter he sinned against the law of God regarding a king, which ordains in Deuteronomy 17:17: "He shall not have many wives, who may lure his heart; nor immense quantities of silver and gold." And for this reason ten tribes rebelled on account of his excessive exactions, and rejecting his son Rehoboam, established Jeroboam as their king, 3 Kings 12:4 and following: "Your father, they said, imposed upon us a most heavy yoke," etc.
Finally, the vanity proper to riches is first, that gold and silver are nothing but red and white earth, as St. Bernard says, to which only human esteem gives value, which is nevertheless heaped up, that is, piled into heaps, so that coins smelted from it are hidden away in strongboxes, and are of no use or benefit to anyone, but lie hidden in dark places like prisons, packed away and thrust out of sight. Whence St. Chrysostom, Oration 4, disputing with Alexander, says that the avaricious disposition "does not gather wealth, but makes expenditures; or does not use the riches gathered, but keeps them bound and unfruitful, truly locked up in certain hidden and dark dungeons." And Nyssen, in Homily 4, pressing on the word "I heaped up," says: "I would gladly know what profit will come back to him who gathers this material, and sees in the whole what he now sees in a small thing, and brings no profit to the soul. He counted it, stored it away, sealed it with a seal; when it was asked of him, he refused, and when he was trusted, he even perjured himself. This is his happiness, this is his end, the result of all the zeal he put into it."
Second, that it tortures the rich man with a thousand cares, fears, and anxieties, lest someone steal them; lest they perish by shipwreck, fire, or robbery. Whence St. Gregory says: "Do not love those things which when loved defile, when possessed burden, when lost torment." And St. Basil in Antonius's Melissa, part I, chapter 34: "Whatever you see (O miser, he says), whatever you imagine, is gold. This is your dream when sleeping, and your thought when waking. For as those who rave in madness do not see things as they are, but imagine what their affliction suggests to them: so your mind, held captive by avarice, sees nothing but gold and silver, and indeed gold presents itself more pleasantly to your sight than the sun." Hear also Seneca in Hercules Oetaeus, Act 2: Oh, if the hearts of the wealthy lay open, What great fears does lofty Fortune stir within! The Bruttian strait, when the northwest wind Beats upon it, has a milder wave. The poor man carries an untroubled heart.
Third, that they increase cupidity to an immense degree; for he who has gained a hundred gold coins soon desires to gain two hundred, then immediately three hundred, four hundred, a thousand, and then not one but several millions, according to the saying: The love of money grows as the money itself grows. The more water is drunk, the more is thirsted for. Fourth, that riches are the occasion and stimulus of gluttony, luxury, pride, and of all crimes, as they were for Solomon: for from riches one proceeds to extravagance, from extravagance to lust, from this to heresy, idolatry, and atheism. Hear St. Chrysostom, graphically depicting the vanity, indeed the perversity of riches: "I call riches the parents of all extravagance and wickedness, the patronesses of all intemperance and lust, the inventors of every vice, the helpers of all ruinous pleasures, the enemies of continence, the foes of chastity, the secret thieves of all virtue." Thus quoting Chrysostom the words of St. John Damascene in the Parallels, book II, chapter 17, he ascribes from Basil: "How long will gold be the snare of souls, the hook of death, the allurement of sin? How long will riches be the parents of wars, for which weapons are forged and swords are sharpened? On account of them, relatives do not recognize nature, brothers look upon each other with hostile and bloodthirsty eyes. On account of riches the wilderness feeds robbers, the sea feeds pirates, cities feed sycophants. Who is the father of lies? Who is the fabricator of false documents? Who is the begetter of perjury? Is it not riches? Who turns what is yours to your own destruction? Were riches given as an aid to life, or as material and support for vices?" etc. And again from the same author: "See lest when you have heaped up riches for yourself with innumerable labors, you furnish material for sins to yourself and others, and thus find that you have brought upon yourself a double punishment — namely both on account of those to whom you have done wrong, and also on account of those to whom you have supplied the occasion and provision for vices."
See also St. Basil, Homily on the Avaricious Rich, and Isidore of Pelusium, book II, epistle 146, where he cites that saying of Isocrates: "Riches are ministers of vice rather than of virtue, since they bring license for idleness, and urge young men toward pleasures." And shortly after: "Among the ancients it was the custom that after a banquet they would take up the lyre and sing: O riches, would that you were seen neither on land nor on sea!" And he confirms this with the example of Aristides, Plato, Epaminondas, and Crates who, yielding his wealth to the senate, said: "Crates sets Crates free."
Fifth, that they expose a man to the danger of present and eternal death: for many rich men are killed for their money, so that the killer may seize it; many likewise are damned on account of their wealth, whence Christ says: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 19:24. What then did all this wealth profit Solomon? Indeed how much it harmed him, since it led him into danger of eternal salvation, indeed made him guilty of hell? How much better it would have been for Solomon to be poorer than Irus, than richer than Cyrus! How much he would now prefer to have begged with Lazarus, than to have gorged himself with the Rich Man! For he was himself a whirlpool of riches, and a glutton of the inheritances of so many kings and peoples. Let princes remember who, in order to enrich themselves, burden the people with excessive taxes, that they suck the blood of the poor, and will be accused at the tribunal of Christ as guilty of murder, and condemned to eternal death. For, as Ecclesiasticus 34:25 says: "The bread of the needy is the life of the poor; he who defrauds him is a man of blood. He who takes away bread earned by sweat is like one who kills his neighbor; he who sheds blood and he who defrauds the hired worker are brothers."
I MADE FOR MYSELF MALE AND FEMALE SINGERS.
In Hebrew, sarim vesaroth; which if written with sin, signifies princes and princesses. But here it is written with shin; whence it signifies male and female overseers, also male and female singers, who constantly study musical notes and the material to be sung. Some add that it signifies musical instruments, for with these the singers sing. Whence Pagninus translates, I made for myself various musical instruments. And our Pineda, by male and female singers, as our translator properly renders it, understands every kind of musical instrument: since the same substantive noun, varied through different genders, denotes all the diversity and universality of the thing which the noun signifies. For since the Hebrews have only those two genders, masculine and feminine, whoever says both genders of something comprehends that thing in its entirety, as in Isaiah 3:1: "I will take away from Judah the mighty and the strong, every staff of bread, and every staff of water." Which passage Cyprian reads thus, book I of Testimonies to Quirinus: "I will take away the strong man and the strong woman, the strength of bread and the strength of water." Barzillai says, 2 Kings 19:35: "Can I still hear the voice of male and female singers?" where the Chaldean of the Complutensian, Shall I hear the great sound of harps and hymns? where you see that male and female singers are taken for musical instruments.
Furthermore, David for the worship of God in the temple, and Solomon for his own pleasures at table and court, made these musical instruments: the psaltery, the organ, the harp, the flute, the drum, the ten-stringed instrument, the bell and the cymbal, stringed instruments, the trumpet, the pipe, the sambuca, which some call a harp, others a bugle, others a trumpet — so that the sambuca is said to be as if from shemesh, that is, the sun, and bucca, that is, a trumpet, because the cheeks inflated would blare like a trumpet. Others better maintain that the sambuca was so called because it was made from the elder tree, or rather from the pithy elder shrub, as St. Jerome indicates in his letter to Dardanus. Others best judge the sambuca to be a Hebrew word. For in Daniel 5:5, sabbecha is as it were sambuca (for the letter m is absorbed in the dagesh, and for the sake of euphony is changed into the neighboring labial b and softened); for the root sabach means to interweave, to intertwine, to plait together — one is inserted into another, and now it is drawn tight, now released by the sambuca player.
But plainly and properly, understand male and female singers as men and women, or youths and maidens, singing melodiously both with voice and with musical instrument: for at the same time as they sing with their mouth, they strike with their hand the organ, the harp, the psaltery, or some other instrument; and thus a double and full harmony is produced by one and the same singer: and if many do the same thing in tune and harmoniously, a wonderful and heavenly symphony results, which carries away the listeners and soothes them with marvelous delight. Furthermore, princes customarily have musicians in the court at hand, so that whenever it pleases them they may order them to sing, and by this modulation of theirs dispel their cares and sorrows; and especially they employ them at the table or after the table, and this was an ancient custom, especially of the Syrians and Egyptians, to have attractively adorned and comely boys singing at the table, who with both their handsome appearance and dress, and their melodious voice, would feed the ears and eyes alike of the guests. Whence Ecclesiasticus 32: "Like a carbuncle gem, he says, in a setting of gold, and the comparison of musicians at a banquet of wine. As a signet of emerald in a work of gold, so is the number of musicians at a pleasant and moderate wine." See what was said there.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: "I made," that is, I procured, established, arranged, organized, and distributed into choirs for myself male and female singers, who at fixed hours and places would delight me with their singing. For "to make" is a general verb signifying any action, arrangement, or ordering. Again, "I made" properly means, that is, I ordered to be made, and at a price arranged to have fashioned all kinds of musical instruments, precious and finely crafted, with which male and female musicians would sing as well as with their voice, and refresh me. Whence the Chaldean translates, I made in the house of the Sanctuary (he should have said, in the court) musical instruments, so that male and female singers might sing with them.
AND FEMALE SINGERS. — These, plainly and fully, the pleasure-loving and effeminate employed for the delights of song: for the voice of women is softer, sweeter, and more delicate; wherefore it is accustomed to unman and effeminate the ears and minds of men. Thus Antoninus Verus the Emperor, says Capitolinus in chapter VIII of his Life: "They brought with them (from Syria) lyre-players, and flute-players, and actors, and mimicking buffoons, and magicians, and every kind of slave, in whose pleasures Syria and Alexandria delight." So also among the Hebrews the singers were male and female slaves. Hear Ezra, book II, chapter 7, verse 67: "Besides their male and female servants, who were seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven, and among them were two hundred forty-five male and female singers." Similar ones existed among the Romans. Whence Plautus in the Stichus: "He brought with him lyre-girls, flute-girls, sambuca-girls (who played the sambuca), of outstanding beauty." And Livy, book IX of the Macedonian War: "Then psaltery-girls and sambuca-girls and the convivial amusements of entertainers were added to the feast." Similar female singers and musicians both with voice and musical instrument, in the pleasures of the kings of the Persians, Xenophon teaches, book IV of the Cyropaedia, Curtius book V, Athenaeus book II, and Brissonius, book IV of On the Kingdom of Persia, and they add that these women combined with their singing gestures of the arms, leaps, and rhythmic movements of the body, which were indeed hardly chaste, but rather enticements to lust. Whence Ovid, Remedy of Love: The harp and songs and lyres unnerve the mind, And the voice, and arms moved in their rhythms.
Now the first vanity proper to singers is that song is nothing other than a voice and a sound striking and passing through the air: for once it has sounded, it has gone and vanished. Second, that singers are surpassed in sweetness and variety of modulation by birds, especially by the blackbird and the nightingale, which, though a small and lowly bird, yet surpasses all birds and men in song, and therefore seems to be nothing other than voice and song. Third, that the delicate and slender voice of boys after a few years changes and grows coarse, and loses its delicate grace and beauty in singing. Fourth, that the voices of boys and especially of women effeminate the soul, and gradually invite to impure loves. For as the Sirens, so also prostitutes allure, madden, and destroy their lovers with song. Whence in Proverbs 5:3, it is said: "The lips of a harlot are a dripping honeycomb, and her throat is smoother than oil; but her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword." Wherefore St. Jerome commands Furia "to drive from her house lyre-players and psaltery-girls and the chorus of the devil of this kind, as the deadly songs of the Sirens." And Nyssen here says: "O wicked and importunate craft! What a dense flood of pleasures it sends in heaps, which like double torrents through hearing and sight inundates souls, so that evil is both seen and heard! Song overthrows the hearing, song overpowers and prostrates the eye. Hence the feminine sound, through the produced harmony of songs, takes the heart with it, and leads it down to vice. Thence sight, like some war machine, rushing into the eyes already broken by what had assailed the ears with songs, turns away the soul. And the leader of this battle line is wine, which like some wicked archer pierces man with double darts, directing its stings at the ears and eyes." Against this vanity of song is set the truth of the same, by which in former times Christians in the Agape or Eucharistic banquet sang praises and hymns to God, as Tertullian testifies, Apology chapter 39, after the example of Christ, who having completed the Last Supper and said a hymn, went out with the Apostles to the Mount of Olives, Matthew 26:30. Whence the Apostle, Ephesians 3:18 [actually 5:18]: "Do not, he says, be drunk with wine, in which is luxury; but be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms, and Hymns, and Spiritual Canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord." See what was said there.
AND THE DELIGHTS OF THE SONS OF MEN.
Some interpret these delights as the "male and female singers" just enumerated, so that it is an epexegesis, by which the purpose and use of them is explained, as if to say: Male and female singers serve no other purpose than for delights, to please the pleasure-loving sons of men. Whence the Syriac translates, I made for myself male and female singers, and sweetness among the sons of men; the Arabic, I made for myself male and female singers with pleasure among the sons of men.
More plainly, others understand all manner of delights and luxuries of tables, banquets, wines, cupbearers, vessels, dishes, baths, hot baths — as the Chaldean says — garlands, dining couches or beds on which the ancients reclined, attractively adorned youths serving at banquets, etc., which Philo graphically depicts in his book On the Contemplative Life. Whence for "delights" Aquila translates tryphas, that is, softness, pleasures, luxury; Symmachus, spatalas, that is, delicate foods, dainties, luxuries. Lyranus by delights understands the beautiful wives and concubines of Solomon, and very many of them, namely a thousand.
Tropologically, delights are vain and deceptive, because the life of the flesh in pleasures is often the death of the soul, of reason, and of the spirit. It is not I who assert this, but St. Paul speaking about the widow, 1 Timothy 5:6: "She who lives in pleasures, he says, is dead while living." For he who delights in the flesh cannot delight in the Almighty, Job 27:10. St. Gregory gives the reason in the same place, Moralia XVIII, chapter 8: "Both loves, he says, cannot be contained in one heart, nor does the crop of heavenly charity sprout in that heart in which the thorns of base pleasure choke it." St. Chrysostom gives a similar reason, Homily 13 on 1 Timothy: "He is dead, he says, whoever lives with pleasures. In what way? He lives only for his belly, dead to all other senses. For he does not look at what should be looked at, nor hear what must necessarily be heard, nor speak what it is proper to speak, and shows nothing alive in himself except the mere gluttony of the belly: but just as a dead person lying on a bed, with eyelids closed and lights shut, has absolutely no sense, so too this person — indeed he is far worse off than that dead man. For the dead man equally does not feel good or evil; but this person admits only the sensation of evil, and feels absolutely nothing of good. Nothing of what is stored up for the future life moves him, but he remains immobile toward all things; and so he is dead, as if cast down into some dark and gloomy hole like a tunnel, and full of every uncleanness, hidden in the innermost and dark recesses of vices, and always dwelling in darkness like a dead man." And further in the Moral: "We fill ourselves day by day with greater stench, the more we press after pleasures, our body flowing like a wineskin; and when someone bloated with such satiety violates even the brain with frequent belching, the vapors everywhere from the body give off a foul odor, as from a furnace seething with heat within, as is the opinion of the wise. And if those who are on the outside are thus offended and take it badly, what do you think the brain suffers within, when it is continuously shaken by vapors of this kind and cannot let off steam? What about those cavities, the liver and the spleen? What about the very receptacles of excrement? And what is worse, we carefully tend latrines so that they are blocked lest excrement rise to the upper parts: but we do not take care to clean out the latrines of our belly; rather we block them up and stop them, and while the very fumes rise to the upper parts, where the king himself has his seat — namely the brain — we sit idle, moved by no concern. Why, I ask? Evidently because we do not regard the brain as an honorable king, but as some unclean dog." And after some further remarks: "Rightly therefore, he says, she who lives in pleasures is dead while living; for a soul besieged by pleasures can neither speak nor hear anything fitting: for it becomes soft, lazy, weak, ignoble, timid; and at times full of boldness, flattery, and ignorance; a receptacle of indignation, anger, and all evils, destitute of all good things and virtues. She who lives in pleasures, he says, is dead while living."
"Delights are not fitting for a fool," Proverbs 19:10 — true, that is heavenly and divine delights, which God has in His right hand, Psalm 1, v. 10, and which He promises to those redeemed by the blood of Christ, Isaiah 51:3, namely the delights of Sacred Scripture, the Eucharist, devotion, love, and future beatitude, with which the Bride abounded, Song of Songs 8:5; for in that, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 35:9: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Your house, O Lord, and You shall give them to drink of the torrent of Your pleasure." They shall be truly inebriated, because, as St. Augustine says: "The human mind shall be absorbed and lost, and shall become divine; because You shall give them to drink of the torrent of Your pleasure." This world gives us to drink from a cup, indeed a drop of pleasure, which nevertheless often has more bitterness than honey; but in the future it will give to drink a torrent of sorrows. You, O Lord, here give us to drink a drop of sorrow, but in the future You will give to drink a torrent, indeed an ocean of pleasures, "for with You is the fountain of life," namely God Himself "will be their God;" God Himself, filling the desire of the soul with good things, will be for the reason fullness of light, for the will abundance of peace, for the memory continuation of eternity. In a word I shall say: God will be all in all; God will pour all the treasures of His glory, all His riches, all His knowledge, all His joy, all His delights into His chosen friends, indeed He will pour out His whole self, and so will inebriate the soul with glory and joy, that neither our soul nor our heart could contain it, but would burst and break apart with joy, unless God sustained them beyond nature. Why then, unhappy man, do you wander through many created things, seeking delights, and not finding them? Love the one in whom are all things. If honor delights you, if riches: "Glory and riches are in His house;" if beauty, "The just shall shine like the sun;" if knowledge, if freedom, if strength: "They shall be like the angels of God;" if satiety, if intoxication: "We shall be satisfied when Your glory appears;" if melody, there with the angels we shall sing Holy, Holy, Holy, and perpetual Alleluia; if companionship, if friendship, there is the wondrous fellowship of the Saints and the eternal length of all ages. And all these things for all eternities, as long as the world endures, as long as hell, as long as the angels, as long as God shall be God. O dear eternity, eternal truth, true charity, dear felicity, my God, my love, my God and my all! "For what have I in heaven, and besides You what have I desired upon earth, God of my heart, and God my portion forever?" O human heart, unworthy heart, heart that has experienced sorrows, overwhelmed by sorrows, how do you not fix your whole self upon this one good of yours, your rest, your center, pursuing this one thing with all your prayers and efforts?
CUPS AND FLAGONS FOR THE SERVICE OF POURING WINES.
In Hebrew it is shiddah veshiddoth, which is variously translated by various authors: first, the Septuagint, whom St. Jerome formerly followed, translate it as a male cupbearer and female cupbearers; Olympiodorus, male and female wine-pourers: "So that from the varied appearance of the pourers, and from the alternating change, he might provoke his appetite for the cups; or as being very soft, and expressing the character of a womanish man;" Nyssen adds: "Youth adorned for beauty, or boys made effeminate through ornament, or even the female sex itself present at the banquet, with kind invitations kindles an unbecoming flame;" Neocaesarius: "Cupbearers chosen and outstanding from both sexes, I cannot even encompass in number;" second, the Syriac, I made for myself male and female drinkers. So also the Arabic.
Third, the Chaldean understands hot baths and bathing places: I made, he says, pipes that would pour out warm waters, and pipes that would pour out hot waters. For the ancient Hebrews, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans frequently washed themselves in hot baths and bathing places for cleanliness and pleasure, as is clear from Judith 10:3; Genesis 19:2; Exodus 2:5; Daniel 13:15; 2 Kings 11:2, and from Brissonius, book II of On the Kingdom of Persia.
Fourth, Rabbi Solomon translates, a chariot and chariots, or a wagon and wagons. Fifth, Reuchlin in his Lexicon: honor and magnificences, that is, the most splendid and magnificent things. Sixth, Marinus and the Innovators generally: symphony and musical harmony. Seventh, Aben-Ezra, Campensis, Vatablus, Pagninus: the most select and beautiful women captured in war. Here is relevant the translation of the innovator Hutter in his Lexicon, who renders it, wife and children.
Eighth, our translator most excellently renders it, cups and flagons for the service of pouring wines, that is, with which the cupbearers and other servants of the table, while they serve the guests, pour wines, mix them, and offer them for drinking. For the Septuagint also translate, I made for myself male and female wine servants; and Aquila, I made that is, I mix, I temper, I dilute, whose past tense is kekramai; whence kratēr, and kratēr, that is, a cupbearer, a butler, who skillfully tempers, mixes, and dilutes wine with water.
Mystically, St. Jerome, translating from Aquila kylika kai kylikia, that is, large and small cups, or bowls and goblets, so that wine poured from the larger into the smaller cups might be served at banquets, applies these to Christ, who like "the Wisdom of the Father in the mixed bowl, Proverbs 3, calls those passing by to Himself: The Lord's Body, he says, we must understand as the great bowl, in which the divinity was not unmixed, as it was in heavenly things; but for our sake was tempered with humanity as a middle element, and through the Apostles was poured out as wisdom into smaller kylikia, that is, little cups, for believers throughout the whole world."
Verse 9: And I Surpassed in Riches All Who Were Before Me in Jerusalem
"All" — both kings, and merchants, and any others however wealthy. The word "in riches" is not in the Hebrew, the Septuagint, or the Syriac, but is understood; but for riches, understand delights and the abundance of all good things. For Ops (whence opes, riches) among the pagans was the daughter of Heaven by Vesta, and the sister and wife of Saturn, namely the Earth; whom, as Servius writes, the Greeks called Rhea from the Greek word for flowing, because the earth abounds in all things. Hence Festus: "Ops, he says, the ancients used to call the one whom we now call wealthy, as is testified by its opposite, inops (needy)." And Cicero, On Old Age: "For those, he says, who have no resource in themselves for living well and happily, every age is burdensome." Just as there are riches of gold and silver, so there are also riches of delights, wines, cups, flagons, etc., namely their abundance and plenty.
The Hebrew therefore literally has: I became great and increased, or accumulated. What? Various authors supply various words. The Arabic supplies, fame and standing: My fame was magnified, he says, and my standing was increased most greatly of all who preceded me in Jerusalem; Symmachus supplies, greatness: In greatness, he says, I surpassed all, so that in Hebrew there is a hendiadys: I became great and increased or surpassed, that is, in greatness I surpassed; St. Jerome in the old edition, which he has in his Commentary, supplies wisdom: And I was magnified, he says, and I added wisdom; the Zurich Bible, I accumulated pleasant things; Vatablus, I increased myself, that is, my dignity and magnificence; Rabbi Haccados, I was greater than the custom of other kings, as it is written: I made for myself an ivory throne, which was never done among other kings.
But our translator most excellently supplies riches with the Chaldean who translates, I multiplied goods and added riches; or, as Costus translates, overflowing with pleasures I amassed more abundant riches than anyone had previously possessed in Jerusalem. For the entire preceding discourse was about pleasures and riches, and riches generate greatness, fame, standing, pleasant things, dignity, and magnificence, and therefore tacitly comprehend them all. He repeats and emphasizes what he said in the preceding verse. He alludes to 2 Chronicles 9:22: "Solomon was magnified above all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom." Namely, God wished to magnify him so, that in this greatness he might better experience the vanity of all things, and more effectively represent and persuade it to others, says Nyssen. Whence he surpassed all kings, according to 3 Kings 3:13: "So that there has been no one like you among the kings, in all the days past." And 2 Chronicles 1:12: "So that there has been no one among kings like you, neither before you nor after you." Briefly but vigorously St. Lawrence Justinian, On the Tree of Life, chapter III, says: "Deceptive sweetness, he says, is in temporal goods, fruitless labor, good hope, perpetual fear, and there is a dangerous pleasure, whose beginning is without prudence, whose progress is without shame, and whose end is with punishment."
WISDOM ALSO REMAINED WITH ME.
The Hebrew has: wisdom also stood or stood by me; others, remained with me; the Syriac, my wisdom rose up for itself; the Arabic, nevertheless my wisdom remained with me; the interpreter Olympiodorus, it was stable for me. Those who think Solomon wrote this book after his fall and as a penitent, have difficulty here in assigning a wisdom that persevered with him in his fall. Therefore first, some understand by wisdom a human and animal wisdom, namely the shrewdness in devising new kinds of pleasures, and in increasing wealth, pleasures, luxury, pomp, and glory, which is the wisdom of worldly and sinful people. So Nyssen: "I found, he says, whatever can be thought of for enjoyment, and instructed in all wisdom I proceeded to make trial of those things. And so sight lent its help to desire, and the free will was filled with things that were delightful." And Hugh of St. Victor: "What is this wisdom, he says, that loves wandering about and disdains the secret place? See lest perhaps a resemblance deceive you, and what seems to be wisdom is not wisdom." And Olympiodorus: "I was so exalted that I never erred in any counsel or reason," as if to say: No cast or catch in my search for pleasure fell uselessly. The Chaldean favors this opinion, translating: wisdom also stood in me, and it helped me; or, as Costus translates, I amassed riches, etc., and I attribute this to my wisdom, which provided me with assistance.
Second, Bonaventure, Titelmann, and Dionysius respond that wisdom here is taken not as practical but as speculative, which Dionysius calls unformed, that is, destitute and empty of grace, charity, and good works: just as now, he says, many theologians and jurists, not inconsiderably learned and ready in citing the Scriptures and the documents of the Fathers and laws, are of detestable life. To the same point belongs what Moringus says, and the Gloss Interlinear indicates, that wisdom persevered in contemplation and speculative judgment, not in practice and use moral. For Solomon, abusing wisdom, made it animal, secular, diabolical, earthly. Hence Solomon's sin is aggravated, and in his confession his penitence is made more clear, because he sinned knowingly and deliberately, and turned so remarkable a wisdom to the offense of its Author, and he recognizes this and shows it openly.
Third, Thaumaturgus and Alcuin, for "remained," translate from the Hebrew, it stood with me, and explain it in the opposite sense: it stood, that is, it ceased and was diminished, as if to say: As concupiscence grew stronger in me, wisdom, which had been growing in me, stopped, and was gradually diminished and decreased; for what no longer advances but fails, we say stands still. So in 4 Kings 4:6, it is said: "The oil stood still," that is, it ceased, subsided, failed. Hence the Fathers teach that Solomon's luxury was punished by the privation of wisdom. For naturally also pleasures dull the reason, the mind, and wisdom. So St. Augustine, book III of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 21; St. Ambrose, Apology for David 2, chapters 6 and 7; St. Gregory, part III of the Pastoral, admonition 27, and others.
Fourth, others understand by wisdom the knowledge of natural things, which God infused into Solomon just as into Adam, which remained in both after sin, so that they might teach the same to posterity.
Fifth, Pineda takes wisdom as experience and the truest knowledge of things, as if to say: In the enjoyment of pleasures, wisdom assisted and aided me, so that regarding the things of which I was gaining experience, I might judge correctly and render a true verdict.
Sixth and genuinely, wisdom here, as in Proverbs and the other books of the Wise Man, is taken not as speculative but as practical wisdom, for prudence and sincere practical judgment about things to be done, which is therefore joined with a right choice of the will and with virtue — indeed it commands and produces virtue. Whence Lyranus says wisdom persevered with Solomon even while he was indulging in pleasures, until, using them immoderately, he was deceived by women and led away to idols. Therefore Solomon seems here to speak of himself in that state in which he was indeed indulging in pleasures, but moderately and with an honest purpose, namely to investigate and experience what good was in each thing, and whether the human soul could be satisfied, find rest, and be made happy by some thing. For when shortly afterward he used them immoderately and abandoned God, he lost true wisdom and holiness, and was made foolish and depraved, as Scripture says, 3 Kings 11.
Hence the Hebrews for "remained" have "stood by," as if to say: Amid so many pleasures, wisdom stood by me like a guide and teacher, both so that I would not be seduced by them and immerse myself entirely; and so that I might sincerely render a judgment about their vanity, and about the true happiness to be sought elsewhere, and pronounce. Whence the Chaldean translates, wisdom helped me. This same point is confirmed from the preceding passages, where he clearly signifies that, with his mind still whole and uncorrupted, he examined all things with zeal for true wisdom and happiness, to find in what it consisted. Whence in chapter 1, verse 12, he says: "I proposed in my mind to seek and investigate wisely all things that are done under the sun." And verse 16: "My mind contemplated many things wisely, and I learned. And I gave my heart to know prudence and learning, and errors and folly." And chapter 2, verse 3: "I thought in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might transfer my mind to wisdom, and avoid folly, until I should see what was useful for the sons of men." What he said there, then, the same he asserts here by saying: "Wisdom also remained with me;" all of which signifies that Solomon, while still pure and undefiled, experienced, perceived, was wise, and judged these things.
Allegorically, St. Jerome, explaining these words of Christ, of whom Solomon was a type, says that wisdom stood not in Solomon, but in Christ, as full and complete in all its parts, so that it could not be increased: "He who makes progress in wisdom, he says, wisdom does not stand still for him; but he who does not receive increase, nor grows moment by moment, but is always in fullness — he can say: Wisdom stands by me."
Verse 10: And Whatever My Eyes Desired, I Did Not Deny Them
For "I did not deny" the Hebrew has lo atsalti, that is, I did not separate, I did not keep back for myself; the Septuagint, I did not take away; the Arabic, I did not hide; others, I did not set apart, I did not snatch away, I did not remove from sight. For "nor did I restrain," others translate: I did not check, I did not control, I did not curb, I did not call back. It denotes a spontaneous and impelled inclination, impulse, and rush of the eyes and heart toward pleasures, which he did not restrain, but to which he gave full rein, yet within the lawful limits of propriety and law, lest he commit anything illicit or forbidden. Now, First, the Chaldean understands by eyes the senators and judges, to all of whose questions Solomon responded: for thus the Complutensian version has, all things that the princes and ordinary judges asked of me concerning what is clean and what is unclean, I did not withhold from them the interpretation of the words; nor did I restrain my heart from all the joy of the law, when I had leisure; because my heart exulted in the wisdom which was given to me before the face of the Lord, and before all the sons of men; and I rejoiced in it more than in all my labors: and this is my good portion, which has been prepared for me, so that for it I may receive a perfect recompense in the world to come from all my labors. But these eyes are symbolic. Whence the entire Chaldean version is symbolic and mystical, not literal and genuine.
Second, Rabbi Haccados in Galatinus takes the eyes not of the body, but of the mind and spirit: I gave free rein, he says, to the eyes of my mental understanding, and devoted myself entirely to the investigation and contemplation of spiritual and heavenly things, and in this I drew wonderful pleasure of heart, and rejoiced more than in the sensation and taste of bodily things. But this sense is likewise spiritual and mystical.
Third, therefore genuinely and literally, understand the bodily eyes, as if to say: Whatever pleased my eyes, whatever seemed beautiful and pleasing to them, I indulged them in it, I snatched nothing from them, I kept back nothing, but allowed them to pour themselves out upon pleasant things at will with full power, and to sate themselves by gazing with full mouth and full scope at the desired appearance of things — yet within the limits of propriety: for Solomon had not yet overstepped them, as he finally did by indulging them too much.
He says "desired," in Hebrew shaalu, that is, they asked for; Symmachus, epethymēsan, that is, they coveted, because the eyes are the indicators and enticers of concupiscence. Whence by St. John, Epistle I, chapter 2, verse 16, it is called the concupiscence of the eyes: therefore understand the eyes here not bare and alone, but with the sensitive appetite and the concupiscence of things, which sits in or sits beside the eyes. Whence explaining, he adds: "Nor did I restrain my heart from enjoying every pleasure." Through the eyes, therefore, understand also the heart, that is, the appetite and the will; because where the eye is, there is the heart and love. Whence that saying: "Having eyes full of adultery," 2 Peter 2:14. For the eyes are the leaders in love, because no sense is nearer or more closely joined to the heart and mind than sight and the eye. Whence in it is the proper seat of the soul, says Pliny, book XI, chapter 37. Hence in the eye all the affections of the soul are open and seen, and no sense operates more quickly and spiritually than it, says Philo, book On Special Laws. Finally there is the greatest sympathy between the heart and the eyes. Whence that commonly worn saying: "The eyes and the heart are the go-betweens (that is, the reconcilers and mediators) of sin." And that saying chapter 11, verse 9: "Walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes." The a priori reason is that the eye was given by God and nature to the heart as the light and guide of its appetites and actions. For without the eye the heart is as if blind, and can desire or seek nothing seen. For of the unknown there is no desire. Just as a man in darkness follows the lantern going before him, wherever it leads, so the heart follows the eye and sight. Hence the eye, because it is quick, subtle, and versatile, wherever it turns and moves, draws the heart in the same direction. Conversely, the heart through the eye reveals and announces its affections, and through the eye as a messenger allures and invites others to itself. The eye therefore moves the imagination, the imagination moves the sensitive appetite, and this the will: just as a little bird moves a boy, the boy moves the mother, the mother moves the father to pursue and catch the bird and hand it to the boy. For the eye is like the little bird, the imagination the boy, the appetite the mother, the will the father. Hear Hugh of St. Victor graphically depicting this roving and versatile concupiscence of the eyes in Homily 1 here: "It seizes, he says, upon the deceptive colorings and slippery appearances of things: forgetful of itself it pours itself outward, and giving itself wholly to curiosity it goes about everything, surveys all things, in case perhaps something new, something wonderful may present itself: at every change of things it is always different, always headlong, bold, wanton, impatient, and slippery, burning with the manner of the impatient, expecting to see what is to come, and at every vicissitude of things, whether sad or joyful, is varied by the inconstant fluctuation of the mind."
Morally, learn here first how harmful the eyes are, if their reins are loosened; conversely, how necessary is the restraint of the eyes, so that the integrity of the mind may be preserved. For the eyes are gates and windows, through which good or evil objects enter the soul. Hence through the eyes David fell into adultery with Bathsheba, and Solomon into the love of 700 concubines. I have said more on this subject elsewhere, especially on Lamentations 3:51, on those words: "My eye has plundered my soul." And on Ecclesiasticus 25:28, on those words: "Do not look upon a woman's beauty." And on Jeremiah 9:21, on those words: "Death has climbed through the windows." Wherefore Job 31:1: "I have made, he says, a covenant with my eyes," that is, as St. Chrysostom reads, Homily 34 on Matthew: "I have laid a law upon my eyes" (for covenant here signifies law and decree), "that I should not even think about a maiden." For the origin of thought is the eye and the gaze. Whence Ecclesiasticus 9: "Do not look upon a maiden, he says, lest you be scandalized by her beauty." Wherefore Seneca, On Remedies for Fortune, places chastity and innocence in blindness: "I have lost my eyes, he says — how many roads of desire have been cut off! How many things you will lack, which not to see your eyes had to be torn out! Do you not understand that blindness is a part of innocence? For this man the eyes show adultery, for that man incest, for another a house to covet, for another a city and all evils." They are indeed provocations of vices and leaders of crimes. Hence saints have rejoiced in blindness, and some have asked for and obtained it from God, such as St. Omer, St. Aquilinus, and Marius of Chalcedon.
Second, how harmful it is to indulge one's desires and affections, and conversely how salutary is their mortification. For Solomon, indulging his desires, precipitated himself into luxury and idolatry. Again, how dangerous it is to wish to experience whatever is lawful, and to set for oneself no limit on pleasure except where it is unlawful. For easily the curious person crosses these boundaries and the border between the lawful and the unlawful, since it is a narrow and indivisible line, and so slides into sin, as Solomon did. Thus one who wishes to avoid nothing except mortal sin commits many venial sins, through which one becomes close to mortal sins, and finally falls into them, according to the saying: "He who despises small things will gradually fall." Ecclesiasticus 19:1. See what was said there. "If therefore you wish to avoid what is unlawful, abstain from what is lawful," says one of the Saints.
AND MIGHT DELIGHT IN WHAT I HAD PREPARED.
The Hebrew has: because my heart rejoiced in all its labor; Symmachus, from all the zeal of my labors. For things acquired by labor give greater delight than those that come from inheritance or donation as if to someone sleeping, both because they are more one's own, and because they cost dearly, according to Psalm 125:6: "Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves." And Psalm 127:2: "Because you shall eat the labors of your hands, you are blessed, and it shall be well with you." Hence Benjamin was dearest to his father Jacob, because he had been benoni, that is, son of sorrow, his mother dying in the travail of bearing him, Genesis 35:18. Indeed Aristotle, book IX of the Ethics, chapter 7: "For all men, he says, everything that has been accomplished with the greatest labor is dearer to them." And Livy, Decade I, book IV: "Labor, he says, and pleasure, things most unlike in nature, are joined by a certain fellowship." And another: "As the best seasoning of food is hunger, so the best garnish of virtue and true pleasure is labor." Royal is the saying of Alfonso, King of Aragon, in Panormitanus, book I of His Deeds: "The food of kings is honor, which the immortal gods give not in idleness or luxury, but in strenuous labors and many toils to men."
AND I CONSIDERED THIS MY PORTION, IF I SHOULD USE MY LABOR.
The Hebrew and Septuagint have: and this was my portion from all my labor; Campensis, in all my toilsome effort; others, in the weariness of my body and mind, constant anxiety, and care of pleasure. All these things are graphically represented by Cyril in an elegant fable of the dog and the wolf, pregnant with vigorous arguments, book IV of the Moral Apologues, chapter III, whose title is: On the Evil of Pleasures. "In the midday heat, he says, a young wolf spoke to a dog who was panting with open mouth and restless breast, drawing in refreshment for his heart: O senseless one, wretched and willingly subjected to calamity, if hardships please you so much! Why do you not cast yourself into the furnace like Empedocles of Sicily? Indeed if punishments contrary to nature delight you so much, wait a little, because in death you will find all things punishing. Why then in so short a life, scorning refreshments, do you burn even now? For at night when the sheep are resting, you know no sleep; while they graze all day, you take only bread and water; in the nighttime frost and daytime heat, while they are covered with thick fleece and warm each other, you with bare skin live alone in the storms; while they lie down without fear, you with eyelids propped open, fearing here a tooth and there a claw, keep watch in the open. What are your pleasures sometimes, if not sour milk, stinking intestines, a bed of stone, and the sweet smell of sheep dung? What more? You are the most wretched of all, and you have already made the world your hell. Rise, wretch, and leaving behind punishments, seek pleasures, so that at least before you end your life, having tasted a drop of consolation, you may learn by experience what the good is." With these arguments the wolf persuaded the dog to a life of leisure and pleasure; whence he continues: "The dog, overcome by this powerful exhortation, came to the little sheep as if for his manumission and said: I have long served you, and beset on all sides by miseries I have stood with you. I shall go therefore, so that according to the wolf's advice I may rest a little in pleasures. Hearing this, the sheep groaned and said: Although we are simpler than you, yet wisdom dwells with the simple (Proverbs 8:32); therefore we ask you to listen to your old friends, and never trust your enemy; you know well that the wolf is cunning: what he does not bring down by tooth, he strikes by craft: therefore because a rigid life long had him as your bitterest enemy, he now attacks through the enticements of pleasures, so that he may find you softened by pleasures, and more cunningly sink his enemy tooth into your tender flesh." Then enumerating the grave damages of pleasures: "Do you not know, they say, that by pleasures the flesh is not only softened, but the rigor of the soul is also broken, the ardor of vices is sharpened, the yoke of virtues is bent, the clamor of passions enters the heart itself, and the splendor of reason is obscured? For indeed pleasures (Judges 16) broke Samson the strongest of men, and (2 Kings 11:2) overthrew David the holiest of men, and (3 Kings 11) deceived Solomon the wisest of men. What evil do bodily pleasures not do? On the outside they soften everyone with garments, baths, and ointments; on the inside they fill them with delicacies, seasonings, and wines. Therefore the foot is weighed down with timidity, warmth is dulled by moisture, and the softened skin is most easily penetrated on every side." From which they rightly conclude: "Therefore, my brother, if you seek pleasures, you love destruction, and in a sweet river you wish to be lethally drowned. You seek poison in sugarcoating, and into eternal distress you wish to be led with laughter and songs. Believe us, believe, and recognize that in the pleasures of this life every evil lurks. For the rigor of the flesh is the health of virtue. Hearing this, the dog was appeased and rested with the sheep."
"Portion" has five meanings. First, a part is a portion of a whole, for the whole is divided into its parts. Whence chelec, that is, part, is derived from chalac, that is, I apportion, I divide, because the whole is divided by apportioning it into its parts. Others derive "part" from "equal" (par), because the parts joined together are equal to the whole. Others from "little" (parum), because a part is something small in respect to the whole. Second, a part is the lot falling to each person. For from the whole range of lots, conditions, and circumstances assigned by God to the entire human race, each person's part and lot is assigned by the same God. Third, a part is an inheritance or hereditary portion; for the entire paternal inheritance is divided among the heirs who are brothers, to each of whom his own part falls, according to Psalm 15:3: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." Fourth, a part is the fruit, as Campensis translates, the reward, the profit coming to each from work or labor. Whence some derive "part" from giving birth (pario), because a part is drawn from labor and as it were born. Fifth, each person's part is what is dearest to him, namely the good which he above all others loves, selects for himself, and pursues. Thus Christ warns Peter: "If I do not wash you, you shall have no part with Me" in the kingdom of heaven, John 13:8; and the Psalmist: "God of my heart, and God my portion forever," Psalm 72:26.
Here it can be taken in all these senses, but more so in the second and fourth, and most of all in the fifth: for Solomon assigns his lot and the fruit of his labor, namely this, that he enjoyed the things acquired by his labor as his portion, that is, as the fruit of his labors supremely loved by him. The sense therefore is, as if to say: This portion, that is, this fortunate lot, this fruit, this my supreme good in this life, this my happiness, I considered it to be, if I should use my labor — that is, the riches and pleasures which I had acquired by my labor. Where note the vanity of this portion: both because it was a part of joy, not complete joy, and therefore did not satisfy him, and so from the pleasure of one thing he slid into another and yet another without end, seeking satisfaction and not finding it, because it is not to be found except in God and heaven, according to: "I shall be satisfied when Your glory appears," Psalm 16:15; and also because this portion gave him little joy — namely joy that did not exceed the labor but was commensurate with it: for as much as he labored, so much was he delighted by his labor, with no additional profit — indeed with loss — whereas God in return for an ounce of labor repays with talents of joys, according to: "He who has left father, etc., and followed Me, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess eternal life," Matthew 19.
Mystically, the Chaldean takes these words of eternal happiness: "And this same, he says, was my good portion, which was appointed for receiving upon it a perfect reward in the world to come from all my labor." St. Jerome: "The eyes of the soul, he says, and the gaze of the mind desire spiritual contemplation, which the sinner in ignorance forbids his heart from true joy. To this therefore the Preacher gave himself wholly, and compensated light tribulations in this world with eternal glory. For this is our portion, and our perpetual reward, if we labor here for virtues."
Verse 11: And When I Turned to All the Works Which My Hands Had Made
The sense is clear, as if to say: When I turned my mind back to consider the fruit of my works and labors — namely gardens, palaces, pools, servants, chariots, treasures, gold, silver, etc. — I saw that I had spent my labors in vain, because in all of them I had not found the peace of mind and the happiness I sought, but vanity and affliction of spirit: for nothing endures long under the sun, but all things gradually perish and vanish, and so leave their master empty, indeed afflicted, because he is deprived of the things he had prepared with such great labor. See what was said at verse 1, and chapter 1, verse 2. Truly Seneca, On the Happy Life, chapter 14: "As we hunt wild beasts, he says, with labor and danger, and even the possession of the captured ones is filled with anxiety; for they often tear their master: so those who have great pleasures have fallen into great evil." See the same author throughout the entire book On the Brevity of Life. So the Author of the Greek Catena: "For of all things of this kind, he says, one end is vanity, of which nothing is found remaining for the future. For as soon as the activity ceases, the pleasure is scraped away, and nothing is stored up for tomorrow, and when the operation of pleasure is past, not even a trace of joy or a remnant of pleasure remains for those who devoted themselves to pleasure." Gregory Nazianzen in his praise of Caesarius: "I saw that this too was vanity. I saw all things, says Ecclesiastes, I traversed all human things in thought — riches, pleasures, power, unstable glory, wisdom which escapes more than it is grasped, pleasures again, wisdom again, revolving the same things again and again — the pleasures of the belly, gardens, troops of servants, abundance of possessions, cupbearers of both sexes, male and female singers, weapons, bodyguards, nations falling at the knees, collected taxes, the arrogance of the kingdom, in short all things both necessary and superfluous for the use of life. And what after all these things? All is vanity, vanity of vanities and presumption of spirit, that is, a certain considered impulse of the mind and distraction of man, perhaps punished with this penalty on account of the ancient fall."
AND THAT NOTHING ENDURES UNDER THE SUN. — In Hebrew, and there is not (ein) yitron, that is, residue, remainder.
And, as the Gloss Interlinear says: How can man remaining — St. Jerome in his Commentary translates: and can imitate God in the comprehension of wisdom? There is no abundance under the sun; and mystically he explains thus: "Christ placed His tabernacle in the sun, and so he who has not yet reached the brightness, order, and constancy of the sun — in this one Christ can neither dwell nor abound." On the Hebrew yitron I have said more at chapter 1, verse 3. St. Augustine says brilliantly, book XX of The City of God, chapter III: "To this vanity, he says, as far as seemed sufficient for making it known, the wisest of men devoted this entire book, 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."
Verse 12: I Turned to Contemplate Wisdom, Errors, and Folly
It is a parenthesis: for the phrase "I turned to contemplate wisdom" depends on what follows after the parenthesis, and there its connection and meaning is completed. Thus, upon better consideration, St. Jerome translated it; for he had first rendered it: because who among men can go after the king before his Maker? He says therefore that he contemplated wisdom, to follow it, and folly, to avoid it; and he discovered that wisdom excels folly as much as light excels darkness: yet if the same be compared with the wisdom of God, it is small and vain.
For "I turned," in Hebrew is paniti, that is, I turned my face, I looked back. This word denotes the weariness with pleasures, and Solomon's wavering mind, eager for truth, as if to say: After having experienced the vanity of riches, pleasures, and bodily things, out of desire and zeal for finding rest and happiness, I again turned my mind to the interrupted skirmishing with wisdom, to try once more whether I might find in it the rest and happiness so greatly desired: for it seemed to me better, more worthy, more heavenly than all bodily things; but immediately discovering in it too its thinness and vanity, through an abrupt and passionate exclamation I cry out: "What is man, I say, that he can follow the king his maker?" as if to say: What is there not only in riches, pleasures, and all magnificence, but also in human wisdom, that can equal God, or that is not vain, thin, defective, and incomplete before God? For by what means can wretched, ignorant, and blind man follow, much less attain, God his Creator, who with His wisdom surveys and comprehends all things that are or can be?
Now since the wisdom of God is threefold — first speculative; second practical or artistic, by which He creates, forms, preserves, governs, and perfects all things; third active, or moral and ethical, by which He exercises all His actions, both internal and external, prudently, justly, and holily according to the dictate of right reason and the eternal law — in none of these can man imitate God and closely follow Him, but is infinitely surpassed by and distant from Him. For first, the speculative wisdom of God infinitely surpasses and transcends all human knowledge and wisdom, because it is commensurate with the immense God. Second, the practical wisdom of God does the same — for who can create, form, and make the things that God makes? Indeed, who can search out and penetrate the things that God creates and makes, and the manner of creating and making them? What are the gardens, houses, and pools built by Solomon, compared to the heaven, the sun, the stars, the earth, the sea, etc., created by God? Especially since Christ, comparing a single lily growing freely with the golden and jeweled garments of Solomon, says: "For not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these," Matthew 6:29. Who can trace God's secret counsels and decrees — why this one is rich, that one poor; this one a king, that one a commoner; this one wise, that one foolish; and especially why this one is faithful, that one unfaithful; this one holy, that one impious; this one predestined, that one reprobate? Surely all of us must exclaim with the Apostle: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!" Romans 11. Third, who can imitate the ethical wisdom of God? For who can follow, indeed who can mentally understand and comprehend, how great is the goodness of God, His justice, His patience, His magnificence, His holiness? Who can comprehend the charity of God, which He showed us through Christ in His incarnation, preaching, passion, Eucharist, and His entire economy? How small is our humility, we who are worms of the earth, if it be compared with the humility of Christ? "Who though He was in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man," Philippians 2. How small is our obedience, if compared with the obedience of Christ, who though He was King of glory, "became obedient to His Father even unto death, the death of the cross?" How small is our patience, if reckoned against the patience of Christ, who suffered the most atrocious pains, the greatest insults, the most extreme poverty, and finally torments of every kind on the cross with divine patience, meekness, and constancy? Think the same of all the other virtues of the Saints, which compared with the virtues of Christ are nothing other than what shadow is to body, what vanity is to truth, what a drop is to the sea, what a point is to the sky, what a grain of sand is to the entire universe. This is the genuine sense of the Vulgate version, whose author St. Jerome read in the Hebrew osehu, that is, his maker, or asahu, that is, he made him. For which, with different vowel points, they now read asuhu, that is, they made him or it. Therefore St. Jerome judged that it should be translated thus literally from the Hebrew: "What is man that he can follow the king, who already made him; whom (namely man) the king made," that is, whose maker is God. Whence secondly, in the Vulgate he more clearly translated "his maker"; for the pronoun "him" is redundant from the Hebrew pleonasm: for the Hebrews attach a demonstrative pronoun to the relative, for a more expressive demonstration of the thing or subject, as "whose seed of it in itself," for which the Latins say, "whose seed in itself," Genesis 1:11.
Here is relevant the explanation of Rabbi Haccados, which is as follows: Who is so perfect and in all respects so complete, that he can contend on equal footing with the divine law through all God's precepts? And of others, who explain thus, as if to say: Who among men is there who would dare to compete with God his Creator on equal terms regarding happiness, and claim for himself the blessedness of His tranquil life, when he cannot even imitate His works, nor match and equal even the more lowly of His creatures in elegance, efficacy, and other endowments? Whence Campensis paraphrastically translates thus: "Again I turned to those things, to see at least how great the wisdom was that I had employed in all those matters, and I found in wine much madness; and in the rest, manifest folly. For what is man, that by imitation of God the King he should attempt something great, when he cannot equal any, however small, of all the things which God has made innumerable?"
From what has been said, it is clear that Lyranus and Dionysius are wrong to think that Solomon says these things from the opinion of the Epicureans and Simonides, who according to Aristotle, Ethics book X, taught that man, consisting of a body, should pursue only bodily things and not aspire to spiritual ones. For in this passage such a change of persons would be unusual and harsh: for the preceding and following words indicate that all these things are said from one and the same person and mind of Solomon.
Better, Titelmann refers this parenthesis to the magnificent works of Solomon, about which the discourse preceded, as if to say: Therefore from these my works I pass to the contemplation of wisdom, because in them I can in no way rival the magnificence of God, but I can imitate the wisdom of God. For what, he says, were those things, however magnificent the buildings of Solomon, the house of the forest of Lebanon, and his royal dwelling, if compared with the structure of the heavens? What was that temple itself, so famous, so admirable to all, if you compare it with the temple of God not made by hands? What were those gardens planted and set by hand, if compared with the entire earth beautifully germinating at the word of the Lord, like one vast and most delightful garden? And so in all the rest. Assuredly Solomon was nothing, however great in all his glory, so as to be able to follow the king his maker.
And according to this interpretation, Solomon here rebukes and mocks himself, just as we sometimes mock ourselves for the follies of past times, because we formerly valued most highly those things which we now esteem most lowly.
Here Isidore Clarius adds his support, who translates: what is man, that he can follow the king in those things which He has made? — that is, who by imitation of the King should attempt something great, when he cannot equal any, however small, of all the things which He has made innumerable and very great.
These are based on the Vulgate version. For others distinguish the king from the maker, or God, and translate differently. Whence, Second, the Syriac renders thus: and I looked to see wisdom, transgression, and folly. For who is that man who will follow the king in judgment? and then compete with Him who made him? Here by the king he understands Solomon, and by the maker, God, as if to say: I perceived that human wisdom is thin. For who among them is able to compete with me in wisdom, or contend in judgment — I who was appointed by God as the wisest king? By what means, then, could he contend with God Himself? Others refer these words to Solomon's repentance, as though by his own example he encourages his subjects to the same — those whom by his scandal he had led into idolatry — as if to say: I perceived wisdom to consist in faith in God and His worship; I perceived also that folly consists in faithlessness and idolatry. You who followed me when I was foolish and worshipping idols, follow me now that I have come to my senses and am cleaving to God. But who will do this? Few indeed, because all are more inclined to evil than to good, and more readily follow the wicked than the holy examples of kings. So Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, St. Jerome, and Alcuin. Hear Thaumaturgus: "At last awakened and with sight restored, I perceived that the things I had in my hands were both shameful and full of bitterness, and the works of a spirit not good. Therefore, having gathered together both the goods of wisdom and the evils of folly, this great
St. Jerome says: "He says, he tells us, that after condemning pleasures and delights he returned to seek wisdom, in which he found more error and folly than true and certain prudence; for I do not think that man can know the wisdom of his Creator and King so clearly and purely as He knows it, who is the Maker. And so those things which we know, we rather opine than hold, and we estimate rather than truly know what is true." So also Hugh of St. Victor, Olympiodorus, St. Bonaventure, Cajetan, Lyranus, Arboreus, and others. Again you may aptly and genuinely refer this parenthesis to errors and folly, as if to say: I joined errors and folly to wisdom: because what man is so wise and circumspect that he remains fixed like God continually in wisdom, and never declines into some error and folly, so as to think, say, and do something imprudently, ignorantly, and foolishly? Surely no one.
I pursued with admiration that man who, when he was rushing headlong and wandering recklessly, afterward recovered his mind and returned to virtue and duty.
So also St. Jerome, and from him Albinus: "At last," he says, "having returned to myself, I gazed upon my works full of vanity, full of filth, full of a spirit of error; for I could find nothing good among what is considered good in the world. Considering therefore what were the goods of wisdom and the evils of folly, I consequently burst forth in praise of that man who, restraining himself after vices, could be a follower of virtues."
Third, the Septuagint translates "king" as "counsel," because the Hebrew melech, that is "king," also signifies a counselor and counsel, since it is the role of kings to counsel the republic, as I showed at length in Daniel chapter IV, 24. They therefore translate: "Who is the man who shall enter after counsel, together with all that they have done?" So the Complutensian edition, although the Vatican codex deletes "together." Others translate: "together with whatever things they shall have done with it;" Aquila: "But what is man that he should follow counsel?" The Arabic: "For who is drawn after counsel?"
The sense is, as if to say: Who is the man who conducts all his affairs so wisely and deliberately that he never strays from wisdom and counsel into error and folly, through which he might commit something foolishly and rashly? This sense is the same as what the Vulgate conveys, as I said at the beginning, and as Thaumaturgus and St. Jerome already cited: for prudent counsel is to abandon vices and pursue virtues. Olympiodorus explains it differently, in three ways, and accordingly holds that the teaching here is how much wisdom differs from folly, that is, virtue from pleasure. By "counsel" he understands the deliberation about how to fulfill one's desires and wishes: "Let us inquire," he says, "whether a man who has chosen to live according to this folly can fulfill his desires; for this is what it means to follow after counsel," as if to say: I, Solomon, whose resources were so abundant, did not attain fulfillment of my counsels and wishes; therefore there is no reason for anyone else to trust that he will attain his own. Who then is the man who will go after, or who can follow his own counsel or deliberation? As if to say: No one, or rarely; for not everyone who desires to become wealthy fully achieves this; nor does the one eager for glory become entirely fulfilled in his wish; and the same holds true in other matters. But whoever has embraced wisdom, led happily under God's guidance, follows counsel completely, that is, finds what he seeks. The other sense of Olympiodorus is that Solomon, astonished, bursts forth into a question: Who is the man who can recover himself and turn away from his desires, and examine the movements of his choice and the end he has proposed, to judge whether he lives wisely or foolishly? Third, Olympiodorus explains it thus, as if to say: Solomon, lifted beyond the body, and seeing through wisdom that after departing this life no one can return to life, and again enjoy those same things which he exercised with deliberate counsel while he lived, preferred wisdom to folly.
Fourth, the Chaldean translates: "I also examined in my mind wisdom in the administration of the kingdom and understanding; for what does it profit a man to use entreaty, when sentence has already been passed by the king, since punishment has already been decreed to be exacted from him?" As if to say: No one can escape or overturn the punishment decreed by God against the foolish, that is, the pleasure-seekers; therefore wisdom is to be preferred to folly.
HIS MAKER. — The translator read osehu, as I said; now they read asuhu, that is, "they made him" or "it." Whence various interpreters, supplying different words, give various senses. First, Vatablus and Pagninus translate: "What is man, that he should come after the king, which they have already done?" And he explains it thus, as if to say: "What is man that he should come after the king, namely to know what those who have acted have already done? That is, what has been done by men both foolishly and wisely," as if to say: "Who is that private man who can examine and know more accurately what has been done than I know, who am king?"
Second, others following the Septuagint explain it thus, as if to say: How few there are who follow the counsel of a holy and wise life, and fulfill all those things that counsel has produced, that is, all the things annexed to and prerequisite for counsel, which, as it were, give birth to and generate it! Indeed, few there are, and perhaps besides me, Solomon, hardly anyone. For so many things to be done surround this counsel that it is difficult to survey them all, let alone observe and fulfill them. It can also be translated: "who did it," as if to say: Who will follow those outstanding heroes who undertook this counsel of a wise and perfect life, and actually fulfilled it in their conduct? Such were Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, etc. Truly very few; for almost everyone follows their own desires and the customs and way of life of their parents and ancestors, and in the wealth and pleasures in which those placed their happiness, their posterity likewise place and set theirs. Hence some translate: "Who is the man, etc., who will not do those things which others have done?"
Third, the Arabic translates: "For who is drawn after counsel, and will know what men have done through it?" For the Hebrew eth signifies "through, with, before, at" and many other things, as is clear from the lexicons.
Fourth, Cajetan: The reason is given, he says, as the particle ("because") indicates, why Ecclesiastes turned himself to see wisdom and folly, etc., or to discern between the wise and the foolish and the entangled: because those through wisdom will come after the king and obey him ("whom they had already made him"), that is, the one elected by themselves; while these through folly and intrigues have been reduced to the power of tyrants and wicked princes.
Fifth, more plainly Pagninus translates: "For what is man who is to come after the king, who will not do what others have already done to him?" That is: Who would presume hereafter either to know or to prosper more than the king — which I am — since hitherto in vain others have attempted: for they began but could not finish.
Sixth, more simply Titelmanus translates: "What is man, that he can follow the king through those things which they have done?" That is, what is man's power that he should attempt to reach the King of all, God, and appear, as it were, equal to Him through the works that men have done or can do? As if to say: Through no works, or in no works that can be done by men, can anyone reach God so as to do the same.
Seventh, more sublimely and divinely, others hold that the mystery of the Holy Trinity is hinted at here. For just as in Genesis XI it is said in the plural: "Elohim bara, that is, God (three in Persons) created heaven and earth," so here it is said: "the king they made him," that is, the three royal and divine Persons made and created man in Their image and likeness, so that through memory he might be like God the Father, through intellect like the Son, and through will and affection like the Holy Spirit. So Galatinus, Book II, chapter IX. Therefore the whole of man's wisdom, justice, and happiness consists in making himself like God, as far as he can. For as Sirach chapter XXIII, 38 says: "It is a great glory to follow the Lord." Indeed, the Emperor Marcus Antonius, surnamed the Philosopher, when asked what was man's highest good, replied: "To imitate the gods, and that the imitation of them consists in needing as few things as possible and doing good to as many as possible," as Julian the Apostate reports in his Caesars.
Morally, here and elsewhere Sacred Scripture extols God, as He is King and as He is Maker — that is, God's governance and creation, or God's wisdom and omnipotence — and opposes these to our foolishness and weakness, so that by this reasoning it may cast down our pride, presumption, ingratitude, distrust, anxiety, and excessive worry. Hence Job chapter IX, 4: "He is wise of heart," he says, "and mighty in strength: who has resisted Him and had peace?" And verse 10: "Who does great and incomprehensible and wonderful things, of which there is no number." And verse 14: "How great then am I, that I should answer Him, and speak to Him with my own words?" See Isaiah chapter XL, 12 and following.
Verse 13: And I Saw That Wisdom Excels Folly as Much as Light Differs from Darkness
13. AND I SAW THAT WISDOM EXCELS FOLLY AS MUCH AS LIGHT DIFFERS FROM DARKNESS. — For "excels" and "differs," the Hebrew is iitron, that is, surplus, excelling, dignity, excellence, as I said in chapter I, verse 3. Hence the Septuagint translates: "And I saw that there is an abundance (the Complutensian: excess) of wisdom over folly" (Symmachus: lack of discipline, ignorance, rusticity, foolishness, ineptitude, rashness), "as an abundance of light over darkness." Thaumaturgus: "For there is a great interval between wisdom and foolishness, and as much difference as between day and night." The Arabic: "As much preeminence as the preeminence of light has over darkness." The Syriac: "And I saw that there is profit in wisdom much more than in folly, as light is more excellent than darkness." Vatablus: "And the dignity or excellence of wisdom over folly." Pagninus:
"Wisdom is more useful than folly, as light is more useful than darkness." Others: "So great is the breadth, fruit, reward, and recompense of wisdom over folly, as great is the breadth, fruit, and preeminence of light over darkness, of the sun over obscurity, of sight over blindness." The Chaldean: "I saw in the spirit of prophecy that wisdom exceeds folly as much as the light of day exceeds the darkness of night."
Note that appositively wisdom — that is, prudence, virtue, holiness — is compared to light; while folly — that is, imprudence, vice, and wickedness — is compared to darkness on account of many analogies on both sides.
The first is that just as light is a true quality having solid essence and existence, while darkness is nothing but the privation of light, and therefore nothing: so also wisdom, that is virtue, has solid subsistence; while darkness, that is vices, are only the privation of virtue, and have no solid essence or goodness. So Nyssenus.
The second: just as light puts darkness to flight, and darkness puts light to flight, so wisdom drives out foolishness, and virtue drives out vice; and conversely, if foolishness dominates, it banishes wisdom, and vice banishes virtue. So Olympiodorus.
The third: there is the greatest antipathy between light and darkness, so that they share no fellowship of place, time, or subject, according to that saying: "He divided light from darkness" (Genesis I, 4). And: "What fellowship has light with darkness?" (II Corinthians VI, 14). And Sirach XVI, 17, the Greek Complutensian Codices have: "He divided light from darkness with adamant," that is, with such firmness and separation did He sever light from darkness, as if He had built an adamantine wall between them.
The fourth: light is a most noble quality, heavenly and divine; such also is wisdom and virtue. Darkness, on the other hand, is a horrid gloom, both infernal and diabolical; likewise such are foolishness and malice.
The fifth: light directs all of man's steps and actions; darkness impedes both. So wisdom directs all of man's operations, which foolishness disturbs and perverts.
Pineda notes secondly that by "light" one can understand the sun and the day, because the sun produces light and light produces day; by "darkness," night and obscurity, because they cause it. Therefore wisdom and virtue are like the sun and the day; while foolishness and vice are like the night. For just as the sun illuminates the world and all things, so wisdom illuminates the mind of man with its radiance and rays, and adds to it wonderful splendor, dignity, and adornment. Again, just as the sun warms and enlivens lower things with its heat, and produces variety and beauty, so wisdom transmits its radiance to the body. "For the wisdom of man shines in his countenance;" it moderates the human senses, sets measure to the eyes, mouth, and ears, and imparts moderation and beauty to all actions. On the contrary, folly, once it has settled in the mind, wraps everything in obscurity and darkness, disfigures everything with horror and squalor, blinds the mind, makes the senses sluggish and squalid, and pours deformity and disorder over the whole body.
I reviewed more analogies between the sun and wisdom, or between light and virtue, at Genesis I, 8 and 16; Isaiah XLV; Sirach XLIII, 2; Ephesians V, 8, on the passage: "You were once darkness; but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light: for the fruit of light is in all goodness, justice, and truth;" James I, 17; I John I, 5 and following.
Symbolically, light is the symbol of the eye and sight, while darkness is the symbol of eye-loss and blindness. Hence wisdom, which is spiritual light, is like the eye and sight; while folly is like losing one's eyes and blindness. For what light is to the eye, the eye is to the body, and the intellect to the soul. Whence it follows: "The eyes of the wise man are in his head; the fool walks in darkness."
Verse 14: The Eyes of the Wise Man Are in His Head; the Fool Walks in Darkness
Campensis: "The wise man has eyes in his forehead; the fool gropes like a blind man." Vatablus: "The wise man is circumspect, he sees what must be done, whereas the fool is blind and improvident." The Chaldean: "The wise man contemplates at the beginning what will be at the end, and by praying turns away and delays the unfavorable judgments of God from men; but I know that if the wise man has not prayed, and has not driven that unhappy decree from the world, when vengeance comes upon the world, all will be reckoned by the same outcome." For "destruction" the Hebrew is micre, that is, occurrence, event. The Syriac: "One accident befalls all." The Arabic: "One occurrence meets them all." Thaumaturgus: "Equal lot." The Greek Scholiast: "One end." St. Jerome: "Common destruction, the same blow, the same death, equal distresses." St. Augustine: "One onset." Campensis: "The same outcome." The Tigurine: "The same fortune."
He explains and confirms what he said, that wisdom is light and folly is darkness, from the fact that wisdom is like an eye in the head of the wise man, illuminating all that is around him like light; while folly pours Cimmerian darkness of mind around the fool.
Therefore the meaning of this proverb is, as if to say: The wise man has bright eyes in his head, like watchmen — eyes, I say, both the bodily eyes of the forehead and, more importantly, the spiritual eyes of the mind — with which from the high citadel and watchtower, as it were, of the head, he surveys all things close at hand and foresees things far off. This is why everything is clear and bright for him, and he walks in perpetual light, providing for everything, avoiding what is harmful, and seizing what is useful. This light is circumspection, prudence, and foresight. But the fool, as though he had eyes in his heel and not in his head, in his ankles and not in his brain, neither foresees nor provides against losses or advantages; but as one walking in darkness, he pursues whatever pleasures come his way, and therefore falls into many harmful things — indeed, into the ruin of body and soul — according to Proverbs chapter IV, 19: "The way of the wicked is dark; they know not where they fall." So St. Basil on Psalm XXXIII.
Hear Nyssenus, Oration 12 on the text "Let us make man in our image": "You were born," he says, "so that you should not act contrary to the nobility of your nature. Do not look about at these earthly things, but at heavenly things, where Christ is. For if you have risen with Christ, says Paul, seek the things that are above, where Christ is. For on this condition and law you were formed. The figure of your body is a kind of rudiment by which you are taught for what end you were created: you were made to contemplate God, not that your life should creep along the ground, not that you should enjoy pleasure in the manner of beasts; but that you should fashion yourself according to the form and pattern of a heavenly life. And for this reason the wise Ecclesiastes not unskillfully said: 'The eyes of the wise man are in his head.' Whose eyes are not in his head? But here 'in the head' means so that they may contemplate those things that are on high. For whoever looks not at the good things that are on high, but at those on earth, that person fixes and drags down his eyes to the ground."
He alludes to the first creation of man and animals, in which man was created with upright body and head, so that with his eyes he might gaze at and aspire to heaven and heavenly things; while the other animals were created with head and eyes lowered toward the feet and the ground, because they think of, love, and pursue nothing but earthly fodder and grasses, according to that saying of Ovid in Metamorphoses, Book I: "And while other animals look down at the earth with bowed heads, He gave to man an uplifted face, and bade him Gaze at the heavens and raise his countenance erect to the stars."
Hence some animals, especially fish, have eyes in their belly — whence that expression in Homer: "The wide-eyed sole" — and they denote the foolish, "who savor earthly things, whose god is their belly" (Philippians III, 19), who therefore may rightly be called Dagonists.
Hear St. Ambrose, Book VI of the Hexaemeron, chapter IX: "First of all, let us recognize that the structure of the human body is like the world. For just as the sky rises above the air, and the seas above the lands — which are, as it were, certain members of the world — so too we see the head rise above the other parts of our body and be the most excellent of all, as the sky is among the elements, as the citadel is among the other walls of the city. In this citadel there dwells a kind of royal wisdom, according to the prophetic saying, for 'the eyes of the wise man are in his head': this is the safest of all, and from it vigor and providence are transmitted to all the members. For what would the strength and power of the arms avail, what the swiftness of the feet, unless the imperial power of the head, as of its prince, provided support? For from this either all things are abandoned, or all things are upheld. What would bravery accomplish unless it employed the eye as guide in battle? What would flight avail if sight were lacking? The whole body is a prison, bristling with dark dreariness, unless it is illuminated by the gaze of the eyes. What the sun and moon are in the sky, the eyes are in man. The sun and moon are the two lights of the world. And the eyes, like certain stars in the flesh, shine from above and illuminate the lower parts with clear light, nor do they allow us to be enveloped in certain darknesses of night—" they are our watchmen, keeping vigil day and night. For they are roused from sleep more quickly than the other members, and when awake they survey everything around; for they are closer to the brain, from which all the function of seeing flows." And after some intervening remarks: "Therefore the head explores all things with the eyes, probes hidden things with the ears, knows what is concealed, and hears what is being done elsewhere on earth." See the same author, in his book On Noah's Ark.
For this reason, in baptism the head of the baptized person is anointed. Hear St. Ambrose, Treatise 2 On the Sacraments, also found in De Consecratione, distinction 4, Canon LXXXVIII: "You have received the mystery, that is, the ointment upon your head. Why upon the head? Because the senses of the wise man are in his head."
Tropologically, Cajetan says: "The eyes of the wise man are in his head" — that is, they continually gaze upon the head reflectively, as in a mirror — because the wise man first knows himself, and precisely examines all the thoughts and intentions of his mind, and so works all things in the light. Here the old adage applies: "An eye upon the breast" — as if to say: Examine yourself.
"Thus at last you will see who you are, how great, and of what lot, And measure yourself prudently by your own foot."
Again, as if to say: The wise man is recognized from his eyes and head, according to chapter VIII, 1: "The wisdom of a man shines in his countenance." And Proverbs XVII, 24: "Wisdom shines in the face of the prudent man; the eyes of fools are at the ends of the earth."
Moreover, the eyes of the wise man — that is, of the prince (for he above all others should excel in wisdom, by which he wisely governs all his subjects) — are in his head: because a prince, such as Solomon was, just as he should be preeminent in head — that is, in dignity and authority — so also in eyes — that is, in vigilance and circumspection — above all others, so that from the high throne of his kingdom he may survey all his subjects, ward off from them everything harmful, and procure what is beneficial. Hence the Egyptians represented God's hieroglyph as "an eye upon a staff," by the eye denoting God's providence, and by the staff His power. Whence that saying: "An eye upon the scepter" — that is, let there be vigilance in the king and prince. So St. Ambrose on Psalm I, reading "senses" for "eyes": "The senses of the wise man," he says, "are in his head. Which can also be applied to those preeminent in the Church." The same, in his Exhortation to a Virgin: "The eyes of man are in his head — that is," he says, "the senses of your wisdom." For eyes are a type of wisdom and understanding.
Allegorically, St. Jerome, Olympiodorus, Salonius, Hugo, and others understand by "head" Christ, upon whom the eyes of our mind ought always to be fixed, so that from Him we may learn and draw wisdom. "He who has attained to the perfect man," says St. Jerome, "and has merited that Christ be his head, will always have his eyes directed toward Christ, and raising them on high will never think about lower things." And St. Gregory, Book XVII of the Moralia, chapter V: "The eyes of the wise man," he says, "are in his head, because indeed every wise person with complete intention contemplates Him whose member he considers himself to be through faith." And Book XX, IV: "The eyes of the wise man," he says, "are in his head, while he constantly contemplates the works of his Redeemer, which he ought to imitate." And as the same author says, Homily 2 on Ezekiel: "When all our intention raises itself toward Him, lest the eye of the mind, neglecting to look at the ways of light, should immediately fall shut into the darkness of error." Hence the Psalmist says, Psalm CXVIII: "I will exercise myself in Your commandments, and I will consider Your ways."
Anagogically, the spiritual eyes of those who devote themselves to the contemplative life are in the head, that is, in the higher part of the soul which is called mind and spirit; while those of ecstatics are at the very apex of the mind, by which they fly up to God and immerse themselves in Him so as to appear deified and become one spirit with Him, because they see God through a mirror darkly, and in Him they foretaste the joys of future happiness. So Lyranus, and indeed St. Jerome, on chapter LI of Isaiah and chapter II of Daniel.
AND I LEARNED THAT ONE AND THE SAME DESTRUCTION BEFALLS THEM BOTH. — In Hebrew it is micre, that is, occurrence, accident, chance, event, as the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Chaldean, Vatablus, and Pagninus translate it; by which St. Augustine, Book XX of The City of God, chapter III, understands those evils which we see to be common to good and bad alike.
But Olympiodorus understands both good and bad things, as if to say: Indifferently to the wise and the fool, that is to the good and the wicked, there come sickness as well as health, wealth as well as poverty, honor as well as contempt, and especially life as well as death. Hence our translator aptly renders it "destruction"; for no event is so common to all, which certainly befalls each and every one — both the pious and the impious — as death, according to that saying of Horace: "Pale death knocks with equal foot at the hovels of the poor And the towers of kings."
Death therefore is micre, that is, the common downfall of all, with absolutely no one excepted, both fall and setting. Again, death is micre, that is, an encounter; for it comes upon those who are not thinking about it and not expecting it, seizes the unwary, breaks in upon the business, pleasures, and prosperity of men, so that while they are in the midst of wealth, honors, and glory, death meets them from the side, cuts down all these things in a moment, and slays them in the midst of their exultation.
Many hold that Solomon says this not from his own viewpoint but in the person of others who deny the immortality of the soul. "To represent," says Nyssenus, "the objections of those who are small-minded and base in regard to this life, and who believe that no profit comes from virtue, since life ends in the same way for both." So also Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, Hugo of St. Victor, Lyranus, and others. But there is nothing that compels this interpretation; indeed, what follows and what precedes indicates that Solomon is speaking here from himself and his own mind.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: My mind prompted me to investigate what difference there is between wisdom and foolishness, and I found that as regards the soul, wisdom surpasses folly as much as light surpasses darkness; yet in this I found them equal: that as regards the body, the same lot and death comes to both — namely, to the wise and the foolish alike — and from this I discovered that both wisdom and folly have their own vanity, that is, transience and destruction, by which they vanish. For all these things aim to show that in all things which are under the sun on earth, he has found vanity, and hence to conclude that for one who seeks truth, the mind must be fixed on God and heaven, where there is no vanity, but true stability and stable eternity.
Verse 15: If the Same Destruction Shall Befall Both the Fool and Me, What Does It Profit Me?
"What does it profit me" — namely, for prolonging this life on earth, since wisdom cannot preserve this life for me or protect it from death; but the wise man, equally with the fool — that is, the good man equally with the wicked — must undergo the law of death that is common and fatal to all. For in the next life, the pursuit of wisdom — that is, of virtue — will profit much, since it will procure eternal happiness and glory for the wise; while folly — that is, impiety and wickedness — will bring upon the wicked Gehenna and eternal death.
Therefore here Solomon abstracts from the future state of the pious and impious after this life, and considers only the present state of this life, as philosophers and natural scientists are accustomed to do, because he is speaking to an unrefined age and to unrefined Jews. Hence he pointedly adds in the following verse "under the sun," as if to say: All things under the sun are vain. If therefore you seek truth and true happiness, seek it above the sun, with God in the empyrean heaven. For in this entire book he shows that all earthly things are vain — that is, they end in death and vanish — while heavenly things are true — that is, they endure, are established, and last forever.
Others hold that Solomon says these things from the viewpoint of the foolish — that is, of the impious — who gape at present things, care nothing for the future, and neither believe nor hope. The Septuagint supports them, translating iother (that is, "more") as "abundantly" and "in abundance." Hence St. Jerome reads from them: "Why have I become wise? Then I spoke abundantly in my heart, because the fool speaks from abundance" (that is, from the folly overflowing in him, says Olympiodorus. For "the torrents of garrulity burst forth as from a fountain of folly," says St. Gregory), "because this too is vanity." And the Syriac, following the Septuagint as usual, says: "I spoke in my heart that this also is vanity, because the fool speaks much more." The Arabic: "When I spoke in my heart of its preeminence, because the fool speaks from the preeminence of his heart."
But "the fool" is not in the Hebrew. Therefore our Vulgate version, and the interpretation reviewed a little earlier, is truer and more genuine.
Finally the Chaldean, reducing the thesis to a hypothesis, takes "the fool" to mean Saul, and "wisdom" to mean Solomon himself. Hence he translates: "And I said in my heart: As it happened to King Saul, who strayed in his folly and did not keep the commandment that was given him concerning Amalek, and the kingdom was taken from him — so too it will come to me; and why was I wiser than he? And I spoke in my heart that this also is vanity, and there is nothing except by the decree of the word of the Lord."
AND HAVING SPOKEN WITH MY MIND, I PERCEIVED THAT THIS TOO WAS VANITY — as if to say: And thus reasoning and debating with myself in my heart, I determined that this too was vanity — namely, to want to rest content in wisdom for its own sake, and not to strive toward a further end, namely toward eternal life, to which wisdom ought to lead. For this is the light and guide to life everlasting and blessed. So Titelmanus and others.
The Septuagint take it differently, referring these words to the fool. Hence St. Jerome, Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, Albinus, and others, following them, hold that there is a correction here; for Solomon corrects the opinion of the fools reviewed in the preceding verse, as if to say: Fools, from the fact that the same destruction and the same death befalls the wise man as befalls the fool, infer: therefore it profits nothing to pursue wisdom and virtue. But I pronounce this judgment of theirs to be vanity — that is, vain and foolish.
Verses 16-17: No Remembrance of the Wise Man; I Was Weary of My Life
St. Jerome, Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, Albinus, and Hugo of St. Victor, following the Septuagint, hold that the difference between the wise man and the fool, or between the pious and the impious, is noted here: that the memory of the wise man endures forever, while that of the fool is not similar but dissimilar, because it vanishes with this life. And so they do not connect the negation with "likewise," as if to say: "There shall not be alike" — that is, a similar memory — of the wise and the fool in perpetuity, that is, in the future age of eternity, which will cover and bury all present times with oblivion. Therefore the learned does not die like the unlearned; for they hold that the negation "not" should be repeated here from the beginning of the verse by a Hebraism, as if to say: In the future age, the memory of the wise and the fool — that is, of the good and the wicked — will be dissimilar; because then the memory of the wise will flourish, while that of the fool will be consigned to eternal oblivion. Hence the Chaldean translates: "There is no memory in the age to come for the wise together with fools; and as soon as a man departs from the living, both the things that happened in his times and those that will happen after him are utterly ground down by oblivion. Why then will men reckon the outcome of the just and the wicked to be the same?" Likewise St. Jerome in his Commentary, and others, express these last words as a question, while Olympiodorus, the Arabic, Vatablus, and others do so as well; whereas our Latin Vulgate reads it assertively and says: "The learned man dies just as the unlearned" — which reading is more conformable to the Hebrew, and therefore truer.
The plain sense of the Vulgate is therefore, as if to say: Granted that wisdom by its nature excels folly — that is, virtue excels vice — as much as light excels darkness, yet in this they are equal, that death cuts down both. For wisdom is so unable to preserve life that it cannot even preserve memory. Time takes from every man both his life and his memory, and buries him in oblivion. Therefore the wise man dies just as the foolish, and after death the memory of each is immediately consigned to oblivion and vanishes. In both, therefore, this deplorable vanity is found — indeed, sometimes the foolish, that is, the wicked, have a longer memory and greater fame than the wise, that is, the good, as was the case with Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, and the other tyrants of the nations. From this, men of good sense rightly conclude that after this life there remains a judgment, and another life in which rewards for merits will be given to the good by God the just Judge, and punishments to the wicked. For the providence and justice of God require this. Although the dignity of God is so great, and His merits toward us so many, that even if He had decreed no rewards for the good nor punishments for the wicked, He should nevertheless be worshiped by everyone with all love, obedience, and devotion; and although the honor and beauty of virtue are so great that it should be sought and pursued for its own sake, with no penalty or reward proposed, and even if no other life remained for man but the soul perished with the body — on which account St. Bonaventure, when the devil suggested to him that he was reprobate and therefore urged him to seize the pleasures of this life since he would be excluded from future ones by God, replied: "If it is not given to enjoy God and virtue after this life, let us enjoy Him in the present" — for so true and solid are His joys that all the delights of the world and the flesh are not to be compared with them; for the peace, serenity, and joy of a good conscience, which virtue produces, surpasses all worldly pleasures. Yet notwithstanding all this, this great vanity and misery is attached to wisdom and virtue: that it is cut down and ended by death. Hence unless one hoped for another life, blessed and eternal, it would be very miserable, and few would undertake its labors and sorrows, since they lack a reward. Therefore the Apostle says in I Corinthians XV, 19: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are the most miserable of all men," because without hope and fruit we devote ourselves to the mortification of the flesh and renounce its pleasures, which others indulge in.
Note that all these things are to be understood of the present life and memory among men, which the wise and the foolish, the good and the wicked, terminate with an equal end in death — but not of the future life with God. For in that life, the good and the wicked will be unequal and most dissimilar. For "precious" in the sight of the Lord is "the death of His saints" (Psalm CXV). On the contrary, "the death of sinners is the worst" (Psalm XXXIII). Likewise: "The just shall be in everlasting remembrance" (Psalm CXI). Again: "But the just shall live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them is with the Most High" (Wisdom, chapter V). On the contrary, of the impious it is said in Psalm LXXXVII, 6: "Of whom You are mindful no more, and they are cast off from Your hand." And Psalm XLVIII: "Like sheep they are placed in hell; death shall feed upon them." Hell is also called Lethe, that is, oblivion, and the land of forgetfulness (Psalm LXXXVII, 13), because the damned who dwell in it are rejected, despised, and as it were consigned to eternal oblivion. Hence the poets fable that Lethe is a river among the dead, and if anyone tastes its waters, he forgets all things. Of this Lucan says, Book IX: "Near which the silent river of Lethe glides, Drawing (as fame tells) forgetfulness from infernal springs." Virgil has similar things in Aeneid VI, and Ovid in Tristia, Book I, Elegy VII. Indeed, Varro and Festus derive lethum, that is death, from the Greek lethe, that is, oblivion, which death brings; although Priscian derives it from the ancient verb leo, that is, "I destroy," since death destroys all things. Hence the ancient version found in St. Jerome in this place has: "Because behold, in the days that shall come, universal oblivion shall cover all things." Olympiodorus explains this as follows: In the age to come, whatever has befallen us in this life — whether sickness or health, wealth or poverty — will pass into oblivion.
17. AND THEREFORE I WAS WEARY OF MY LIFE, SEEING THAT ALL THINGS UNDER THE SUN ARE EVIL (that is: wretched, troubled, transient, things that come to an end in death), AND THAT ALL IS VANITY AND AFFLICTION OF SPIRIT.
The Hebrew has: "And I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was evil upon me, for all is vanity, and reut" — that is, malice, or affliction of spirit, as the Arabic translates. The Septuagint translates proairesis, that is, choice, or presumption of spirit. The Chaldean: contrition of spirit; or, as Costas translates, sickness of soul. The Syriac: disturbance of spirit. Pagninus: thought of spirit. St. Jerome: feeding on wind. Cajetan: breaking of spirit. Campensis: torment of soul. Others: provocation or exhaustion of spirit; others: vexation of soul. See what was said at verse 15 and chapter I, 14.
This weariness of life is felt also by the wise and the holy, both because of life's labors, troubles, and sorrows; because of its brevity and end, since all its goods are terminated in death; and because of its desires, temptations, and dangers of sin and damnation which it constantly suggests, even to the perfect, on account of the desire to enjoy God, whom they love so greatly and always desire to love and praise most intensely. Hence St. Paul felt this weariness, saying: "Unhappy man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans VII). And: "But I am straitened between two, having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ" (Philippians II, 23). See the remarks there. The same weariness of this life and desire to pass to a better one was felt by St. Job, chapter X, 1; Jonah, chapter IV, 8; Rebecca, Genesis chapter XXVII, 46; Elijah, III Kings XIX, 4; David, Psalm CXLI, 8; Jeremiah, XX, 14; St. Augustine, when his Hippo was besieged by the Vandals; and even Christ as His Passion drew near, Mark XIV, 33. See St. Cyprian, On Mortality, and St. Ambrose, in his book On the Good of Death.
Furthermore, others assign a different cause for this weariness of the Wise Man — namely, that he sees the folly of fools, that is, their impiety and crimes, on account of which he grieves and sighs. Hence the Chaldean translates: "I certainly hated those living a wicked life. For I cannot help but be burdened by those nefarious deeds in which men in this world are so exceedingly zealous." And Symmachus: "The work that is done under the sun appeared evil to me." For by "evil work" (says Olympiodorus) he means the laborious life of sinful men. Nyssenus and Thaumaturgus refer it to the very labors and pursuits of vanity in the life they lived: "I began to curse my entire life, which I had spent on vain things, wasting away in earthly labors; for all things were accomplished by me with great difficulty."
Verses 18-19: I Detested All My Industry; Whom I Know Not Whether He Will Be Wise or Foolish
The Hebrew has: "I also hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish, who will rule over all my labor in which I labored and in which I was wise under the sun?" — that is, which I wisely undertook under the sun, by which I wisely acquired wealth. The translator of Nyssenus: "which my industry devised;" otherwise, by antiphrasis, translates: "in which I was foolish, or in which I was deceived." The Chaldean: "And I was stupefied in my heart, and I said: This also is vanity." So also the Septuagint, except that instead of "who will rule," they translate doubtfully: "whether he will rule." So also the Arabic. Another translates: "whether he will be engaged in pleasures, or whether he will rule according to his whim and desire, and use and abuse my wealth." The Septuagint translates exousiaszetai, that is, "he will exercise authority and dominion." The translator of Nyssenus: "he will command." The Complutensian: "he will be licentious." Others: "he will have power." Campensis: "he will receive all that is mine." In Hebrew the verb is scalat, that is, to rule absolutely with full right at one's pleasure. Hence sultan, or soldan, is an absolute king or emperor, such as the Turk. "I hated" — that is, "I was weary," as our translator renders it in verse 17 — "I was nauseated, I abhorred, I detested."
He passes to the vanity of the pursuit of enriching sons and heirs — which occupies and preoccupies a great part of mankind — and he passes to it fittingly and opportunely. For since at the beginning of the chapter he had reviewed the vanities of wealth, gardens, pleasures, etc., from these he passed to wisdom, in which, though it is more excellent than the rest, he asserts he found this vanity: that the wise man dies just as the fool. Now, lest anyone object and say: Even if the wise man dies, he nevertheless leaves behind him sons and heirs, in whom his name and fame survive, and thus in whom he is, as it were, surviving and living in his own living image — he replies that there is great and manifold vanity in seeking and enriching an heir.
[Continuation from previous page — the care of enriching heirs] which occupies and preoccupies a great part of mankind: and he passes to it fittingly and opportunely. For since at the beginning of the chapter he had reviewed the vanities of wealth, gardens, pleasures, etc., from these he passed to wisdom, in which, though it is more excellent than the rest, he asserts he found this vanity: that the wise man dies just as the fool. Now, lest anyone object and say: Even if the wise man dies, he nevertheless leaves behind him sons and heirs, in whom his name and fame survive, and thus in whom he is, as it were, surviving and living in his own living image — he replies that there is great and manifold vanity in seeking and enriching an heir.
The first [vanity of enriching heirs] is that in this matter there is as great a desire innate in man, so also anxiety and constant labor and sorrow, and indeed an entire life is consumed in heaping up wealth which the one amassing it does not enjoy; indeed, shortly after, in death, he is compelled to leave it behind and return destitute to the earth from which he came forth destitute, according to that saying: "Naked I came into this world, naked I shall return to the grave." And that of the Apostle: "For we brought nothing into this world, and doubtless we can carry nothing out" (I Timothy VI, 7). Hence Saladin, who had conquered the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt with great labors and battles, when dying ordered the linen cloth in which his corpse was to be wrapped to be raised on a lance and carried through the camp, and a herald to proclaim through the streets and crossroads: "Saladin, Emperor of Asia, dying takes nothing else from such great riches with him." So Blondus, Decade 6, Book VI. Such a man therefore cheats his own pleasure to fill the gaping jaws of another. Truly Seneca, Epistle 14: "He thinks about increase; he has forgotten about use: from a master he becomes a steward." On this account Plutarch in his Moralia compares such men to channels that keep water not for themselves but for others: "Just as these serve others," he says, "those serve others — like clay pipes that retain none of the water in themselves, but each one passes it on to the next, until some informer or tyrant from outside, breaking the pipe, diverts and turns away the wealth elsewhere."
The second [vanity] is that he is about to leave it to another, and does not know to whom — whether to a son or to a stranger. For often sons are lacking, or if they exist, they are deprived of their father's goods, according to that saying: "He treasures up, and knows not for whom he gathers" (Psalm XXXVIII, 7). And: "Fool, this night they demand your soul from you: and the things you have prepared, whose shall they be?" (Luke XII, 20). Thus Rehoboam lost the riches left to him by his father Solomon, as well as the kingdom of the ten tribes (III Kings XII, 20). Moreover, Sesac king of Egypt, in the fifth year after Solomon's death, plundered his treasures. Hence St. Anthony, as reported by St. Athanasius, citing this passage (though translated somewhat differently), thus exhorts his followers to the pursuit of truth and virtue: "Above all, we must consider this: that even if we wish to retain our riches, we are torn from them against our will by the law of death, as it is written in the book of Ecclesiastes: 'For man does not know what will be after him in his la-' bor.' Why then do we not make a virtue of necessity? Why do we not willingly relinquish, for the sake of gaining the heavenly kingdoms, what must be lost at the end of this light? Let Christians not care about those things which they cannot take with them; rather we should seek what leads us to heaven — namely, wisdom, chastity, justice, virtue, a watchful mind, care for the poor, robust faith in Christ, a spirit that conquers anger, and hospitality. Pursuing these things, we shall prepare for ourselves a dwelling in the land of the peaceful, according to the Gospel."
The third [vanity] is that he does not know whether the heir — even if he is his son — for whom he amasses wealth with such care (and sometimes by fair means and foul, with certain danger to his own soul and damnation) will turn out to be wise or foolish, grateful or ungrateful, a guardian or a spendthrift. For often sons, by living extravagantly and luxuriously, immediately squander the wealth acquired by their parents over so many years with such great labors. Grandsons do the same, who waste the goods left to them by their uncles (since these had no children) and amassed with great anxiety — squandering them on gambling, banquets, trifles, and display, or pouring them out on prostitutes. What, then, is more vain? Solomon seems to have foreseen the folly of his son Rehoboam — indeed, to have noticed its beginnings and certain signs in him. For he was already advanced in age, and indeed was forty when he succeeded his father in the kingdom. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And I hated the labors that occupied me in this life under the sun; for what will be left to my son Rehoboam, who will succeed me in the kingdom — Jeroboam his servant will rise up and take ten tribes from his hand, and will enter into a partnership of the kingdom with him." Hence Sirach XLVII, 27 says of Solomon: "And he left behind him from his seed folly to the nations, and Rehoboam, diminished from prudence, who turned the nation away by his counsel." Thus we often experience that sons degenerate from the wisdom and virtue of their parents, and it is almost a general rule that the sons of the wise are less wise than others — indeed, they are foolish. Hence the saying: "The sons of heroes are a bane." The physical and moral causes of this I reviewed at Sirach XXX, 43.
The fourth [vanity] is that the heir, often unknown, ungrateful, foolish, and prodigal, "will have dominion over my labors, in which I toiled" — so that I will have been the servant of my wealth, and he will be its master; I will have sweated in labors to gather it, while he rules over it in pleasure and triumphs. On this account Olympiodorus wisely says: "It is better for us to distribute our riches by our own hands, while we are in this life, for the needs of the poor and indigent — so that we may acquire for ourselves an inexhaustible treasure in heaven — than to transmit them to others as an inheritance, of whatever sort those heirs may turn out to be." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 9 On Penance: "Do you wish to leave a good inheritance to your children? Leave them almsgiving." And St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Works and Almsgiving, a good bit before the end, speaking of the widow who, setting aside her children, gave the flour she had in bread to Elijah (III Kings XVII), and therefore from him received the multiplication of flour and oil: "The mother did not take from her children what she gave to Elijah; rather she conferred more on her children by what she did kindly and piously." Then she objects to herself: "But there are many children in the household, and the number of your children holds you back from devoting yourself generously to good works." And she responds: "Indeed, for this very reason you ought to work more, since you are the father of many children. There are many for whom you should pray to the Lord; the sins of many must be redeemed, the consciences of many must be purged, the souls of many must be freed." And after a few more words: "If therefore you truly love your children, if you show them the full and fatherly sweetness of charity, you ought to work even more, so that you may commend your children to God by just action. Do not think of that father for your children who is temporary and weak; but provide that Father who is the eternal and firm Father of spiritual children. Assign to Him your resources, which you keep for your heirs; let Him be the guardian of your children, their caretaker, their protector against all worldly injuries by His divine majesty. A patrimony entrusted to God neither the state seizes, nor the treasury invades, nor any legal calumny overturns. An inheritance is placed in safety which is kept under God's guardianship. This is to provide for dear children in the future; this is to look after future heirs with fatherly devotion, according to the faith of Sacred Scripture which says: 'I was young and now am old, and I have not seen the just man abandoned, nor his seed begging bread. All the day long he shows mercy and lends, and his seed is in blessing.' And again: 'He who conducts himself blamelessly in justice leaves blessed children after him'" (Proverbs XX).
Mystically, St. Jerome and from him Albinus (although they present this sense as the literal one) explain these words of the spiritual labor by which the wise man labors day and night in the Scriptures to compose books and leave a memorial of himself to posterity — and yet they fall into the hands of fools, who frequently according to the perversity of their heart draw seeds of heresy from them and calumniate the labors of others. St. Jerome proves this to be the more fitting sense, even according to the letter, because what follows is: "And he shall rule over all my labor in which I labored, and in which I became wise under the sun." "For what wisdom is it," he says, "to amass earthly riches?" But this argument is not compelling, for wisdom among the Hebrews is taken broadly for any prudence, skill, or industry, as I showed above.
Verses 20-21: My Heart Renounced Laboring Further Under the Sun
"Renounced" — that is, he sent a message of farewell to inner labor, bade farewell to labor, and refused to labor any longer. Thus we are said to renounce an office, a life, or friends, when we abandon them. Hence Quintilian, Book X, chapter 7: "In my opinion, he will renounce public offices" — that is, will bid them farewell. And "to renounce a deposit," according to Ulpian, is to lay down the care and custody of deposited things. In Hebrew it is: "And I turned to make my heart give up all the labor in which I labored under the sun." Symmachus: "I turned myself around." The Syriac: "And I turned to soothe the essence of my heart from all the labor in which I labored under the sun." The Arabic: "I returned to despise in my heart the totality of my labor." The Scholiast: "to refuse labor." Others: "to restrain my heart from labor." The Chaldean: "to make my heart despair over all the labor which I labored in seeking." For the Hebrew iaas in the piel signifies to cause the mind to abandon the thing it was striving to accomplish, and connotes distrust and despair. Hence noas in the niphal passively signifies to be overwhelmed by evil, so that one despairs and desists from one's undertakings, as if the evil were extreme and incurable — as if to say: It is over; it is finished; it is desperate; it is hopeless.
21. FOR WHEN ONE MAN LABORS IN WISDOM AND LEARNING AND DILIGENCE, HE LEAVES WHAT HE HAS ACQUIRED TO AN IDLE MAN: AND THIS THEREFORE IS VANITY AND A GREAT EVIL.
Some insert these words parenthetically, in this way: "For when one man labors in wisdom and learning and diligence" (in Hebrew: "in uprightness"), "he leaves what he has acquired to an idle man." And this therefore is vanity — as if to say: It is vanity to amass riches for an heir. For what he has acquired with great labor and care, he leaves to an idle man; while another who is wise devotes himself to himself and amasses for himself wisdom, learning, and uprightness, or justice. The Septuagint supports this, translating: "What is man, since his labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in virtue; and to a man who has not labored in it, he will give his portion?" Campensis: "Whatever has been acquired in this way by him." So Olympiodorus, who explains the Septuagint thus, as if to say: I despised laboring over vain things, reasoning that there is another labor worthy of praise, which gathers the stable riches of virtues. Now such labor is that which a man undertakes to acquire wisdom, knowledge, and fortitude. Considering this labor therefore as preferable, I turned to renounce in my heart all the labor which I labored under the sun — that is, concerning vain things. So also Thaumaturgus: "Moreover," he says, "when we have cast aside those vain people (who amass wealth for an uncertain heir), then it will be clear that the true goods of man are the treasures of wisdom and the patrimony of fortitude. But if anyone, neglecting the care of these, is driven by the desire for some other thing, he places evils before goods and pursues vice instead of kindness and virtue." So also Nyssenus.
But all the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew codices place no parenthesis here. Therefore Solomon continues at length to amplify the vanity of those who direct all their efforts to amassing wealth for an heir whom they do not know whether he will be wise or foolish, good or wicked. For nam ("for") signifies that the cause of what preceded is here given — why Solomon ceased to labor and sent farewell to the labor by which his heir was to be enriched: because, namely, this labor, being toilsome, leaves what was acquired to an idle and lazy heir. Therefore the one laboring has nothing except labor and trouble; while the idle heir has all the fruit of the labor and an abundance of things. This "is vanity and a great evil" — evil, that is, a wretched indignity, a great affliction.
Furthermore, when he says: "When one labors in wisdom and learning and diligence," by these three understand three outstanding endowments of the soul, by which riches are acquired — not only spiritual but also material. For "wisdom" denotes the study of heavenly and divine things, and the religion and worship of God, which merits and obtains from God all things necessary for the body, according to Christ's promise: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew VI). By "learning" understand human prudence, which prudently directs business and all actions, so that they succeed happily and produce copious returns of fruit and wealth. By "diligence" understand assiduity, carefulness, and industry, which is wonderfully effective for increasing wealth. For "diligence" the Hebrew is kisron, that is, uprightness, fitness in conducting matters properly, industry. The Septuagint translates andreia, that is, virtue — which belongs to a brave man — fortitude. The Arabic translates: strength. The Scholiast: vigor. The Syriac: prosperity. The translator of Nyssenus: virtue of a lofty spirit. Thaumaturgus: the patrimony or acquisition of fortitude. The Chaldean: justice. Campensis: frugality. For by all these, riches are either acquired or, once acquired, increased.
All these things increase the vanity of the matter. For first, it is vain and evil — that is, wretched — to leave the riches which you acquired with such great wisdom, prudence, and virtue to an idle and lazy man who has labored nothing in them, as the Hebrew has it.
Second, it is vain and wretched, says St. Jerome, "that the sweat of the dead man is the delight of the living" — especially when the heir, living off the wealth acquired by the virtue of the deceased, misuses it for luxury and vice, as the prodigal son did (Luke XV, 13), and as grandsons do — that is, spendthrifts. For since grandsons often squander the inheritances of their uncles or grandfathers through gluttony and luxury, spendthrifts are called "grandsons" (nepotes). Likewise in a mystical sense, successors often despise the writings or works of their masters — indeed, they criticize, find fault with, and destroy them. Hugo of St. Victor gives the reason: "Because the negligence of those who follow rejects the use of what was prepared, which the keen diligence of their predecessors acquired with no small labor and care." St. Chrysostom says splendidly, as quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, Part I, chapter XXXV: "Insatiability is exceedingly violent, and avarice is overpowering. Plunderers disturb men's lives, and the plunder is his, but the pleasures are others'; upon him falls the curse, upon others the enjoyment; against him sighs are uttered, while abundance comes to others; against him tears are poured, while others seize the money; he himself is punished in the underworld, while others very often sing merrily in his riches."
Wisely Demochares says: "Not the rich man, but the one who uses riches, is happy." And Democritus: "Many of the wealthy are stewards, not masters of their riches." So Maximus, Sermon 12.
Third, misers often leave their wealth not to their children but to outside heirs, and even to their enemies. Hence the Chaldean translates: "For you may find a man whose highest pursuit is in wisdom and knowledge of things and justice; departing from this life without children, he will leave his possessions as if they were the portion of someone for whom he never watched out. Is this not also vanity and a remarkable evil?" For as Salvian rightly says at the beginning of Book IV of On the Governance of God: "What is dignity in an unworthy person, but an ornament in the mud?"
St. Ambrose, in his book On Naboth, chapter IV, brilliantly amplifies this vanity of misers: "From yourselves, therefore, you exact punishment before you distribute to the poor. You therefore pay with your own desires for the miseries of wretched poverty. And the poor indeed have nothing to use, while you yourselves neither use your goods nor allow others to use them. You dig gold from the veins of metal, only to hide it again. How many lives do you bury in that gold? Why are these things hoarded, when you have read of the greedy rich man: 'He stores up treasures and knows not for whom he gathers them'? The idle heir waits; the disdainful heir reproaches you for dying so late. He hates the increases to his inheritance; he hurries toward ruin. What, then, is more wretched, when you do not even leave gratitude with the one for whom you labor? For his sake you endure hunger throughout mournful days, fearing daily losses to your table; for his sake you pile up daily fasts."
Fourth, that misers defraud the poor — and in them, Christ — of the sustenance owed from charity. Salvian says movingly, Book IV to the Catholic Church: "Every destitute person begs only for himself and in himself; Christ alone is the one who begs in the totality of all the poor. And since this is so, what do you say, O man who call yourself a Christian, when you see Christ in need and yet leave your possessions to those who have no need of them? Christ is poor, and you pile up the riches of the wealthy. Christ is hungry, and you prepare delicacies for the affluent. Christ even complains that He lacks water, and by you the storehouses of drunkards are filled with wine. Christ is worn out by want of all things, and by you abundance is amassed for the luxurious. Christ promises you everlasting rewards for the gifts you give, and you lavish everything on those who will give nothing in return. Christ sets before you immortal goods for good deeds and eternal evils for evil deeds; and you are moved neither by heavenly goods nor stirred by unending evils. And you say you believe in your Lord, whose reward you do not desire and whose wrath you do not tremble at? You do not believe then, as we said in the previous book — you do not believe," etc.
Verses 22-23: What Does It Profit a Man from All His Labor?
Campensis: "And this is foolish." The Hebrew has: "For what does a man get in all his labor and the vexation of his heart, in which he labors under the sun? For all his days are in sorrows, and indignation is his occupation; and indeed at night his heart does not sleep; and this is vanity."
For "affliction" the Hebrew is raion, that is, malice — meaning misery, affliction. The Septuagint translates: en proairesei, that is, "in the choice" or "pleasure of his heart." Pagninus: "in thought." Others: "in toil" or "in the exhaustion of his heart" — as if to say: To what end, with what fruit, does the miser so constantly and so much toil and exhaust himself? Assuredly to no end. Campensis: "in the torments of the soul, by which he tortures himself." Others: "in contrition."
For "labor" Aquila translates basanos, that is, torment, punishment, torture, execution, inquiry, examination. The Septuagint translates algema, that is, trouble, calamity, torment of pain, sorrow, and sickness.
He continues to amplify the vanity and affliction of misers, who amass riches for an uncertain heir and defraud their own pleasure of the use and fruit of them. For all labor, and the very riches themselves, do not profit them but greatly harm them — and this, first, because such a person perpetually labors and does not enjoy his labor. Therefore his whole life is labor and torment, indeed, a continuous rack of labors and sorrows: "And all his days are full of sorrows." Because, as Hugo and Bonaventure say: "The search brings great pain, but the finding brings no fruit." Therefore less accurately does Olympiodorus refer these words to the labor of the good as well as the wicked: "Labor comes to a man," he says, "which he labors, whether he is good or bad, from the choice of his counsel — so that if it is spent on virtue, it is to be praised, but if on vice, it makes his days full of sorrows and troubles."
For it is clear from what precedes and follows that only the labor of the wicked and miserly is discussed here, not that of the good. Salvian brilliantly inveighs in Book II Against Avarice against misers who are eager to enrich their children: "What madness is it, O most wretched ones, that you make heirs of all others, but disinherit yourselves; that you leave others wealthy, if only briefly, but condemn yourselves to eternal beggary!" Indeed, Plutarch says in his Moralia: "Avarice, like a troublesome and peevish mistress, forces one to acquire but forbids one to enjoy; and while it excites desire, it takes away pleasure. And the person who possesses much but never achieves well-being resembles the bath-attendant's donkey, which, constantly carrying wood and kindling, is always filled with smoke and ash but never partakes of the bath's warmth, heat, or cleanliness."
Therefore Palladius called gold the son of sorrow and care, and considered it not only born from sorrow but nourished, raised, and cherished by it; and he affirmed that the rich perpetually spend their life with it — that is, with sorrow and labor. Prosper, Book II On the Contemplative Life, chapter XIII: "Those who have riches," he says, "do not seek them without labor, do not find them without difficulty, do not keep them without anxiety, do not possess them without harmful pleasure, and do not lose them without sorrow."
Second, that all his days "are full of miseries." In Hebrew: "anger is his occupation." The Chaldean: "the anger of fury is his business." The Septuagint: "fits of wrath are his preoccupation." The Syriac: "fury is his manner of life." Another: "indignation is his trade." Campensis: "his efforts are full of tedium." The translator of Nyssenus: "fits of anger are the vexation of his soul." The Arabic: "for the totality of his days is in confusion, full of sorrows and wrath."
For many things come upon the miser which sharpen his anger and inflame his bile — such as the negligence of servants, the treachery of partners, the shipwreck of wealth, the plundering of enemies, fires, the spoiling of merchandise, the decrease of prices, and a thousand such things, on account of which he grows angry, flies into a rage, tumbles into turmoil, rages, and storms. Therefore the entire work and labor of the rich is nothing other than the provocation and torment of their own soul. O what a remarkable man, occupied in tormenting and flaying himself!
Truly Seneca, Epistle 80, says: "The cheerfulness of those who are called happy is feigned, or else a heavy and festering sadness — and indeed heavier, because sometimes it is not permitted to be openly wretched, but amid miseries that eat away at the very heart, one must play the part of the happy man."
Here applies that line of Juvenal, Satire 14: "But why amass riches through these torments? Since it is undoubted madness, manifest insanity, To live in the lot of a pauper so that you may die rich."
Again Seneca, Epistle 108: "To poverty," he says, "many things are lacking; to avarice, everything. The miser is good to no one, and worst to himself."
Third, that not even at night does his mind rest, because worries and anxieties — lest his goods perish, lest they be plundered, lest they be sold too cheaply, etc. — do not allow him to rest; whereas the poor man, content with his modest lot, lives happily by day and sleeps deeply and peacefully at night. Therefore the miser is tormented by day with sadness and anger, and these manifold; by night with restlessness, sleeplessness, and cares. Thaumaturgus says: "For day and night, with ever-pressing labors of both body and soul, he pierces his heart with perpetual and vain anxieties, and torments and racks himself with troublesome business and cares." Or as another translates: "His soul is perpetually harassed by cares, his breast groaning and palpitating on account of absurd business." And St. Cyprian, in his Epistle to Donatus: "Amid his riches, uncertain anxiety tortures him with anxious thoughts. Neither food nor sleep comes to the one who is not secure. He sighs at the banquet, and when he has laid his body, languid from feasting, in a softer bed of deep down, he lies awake on the feathers. Even eminence exacts its penalties equally from the more powerful."
More powerfully, St. Augustine, Treatise 9 on John: "O man," he says, "who labor in loving avarice! What you love is loved with labor; God is loved without labor. Avarice will command labors, dangers, sorrows, and tribulations — and you will obey. To what end? That you may have something to fill your chest with, and lose your security. You were perhaps more secure before you had it than when you began to have it. See what avarice has commanded you. You have filled your house — now thieves are feared. You have acquired gold — you have lost sleep. God, when He is loved, is acquired and held without labor."
Isidore of Pelusium, Book II, Epistle 233, compares avarice or the desire for riches to the Hydra, which had many heads and an insatiable belly; to Briareus the hundred-handed giant; and to Scylla who devours everything including ships. And finally he says it is like a lustful and wicked woman, "endowed with a beast-like form," he says, "breathing fire, and having six hundred vipers in place of hair on her head, perpetually hissing and vomiting deadly poison; likewise six hundred hands abounding with claws, by whose effort and assistance she tears some, attacks others with arrows, and extorts money from others; and finally six hundred mouths. For she does not merely threaten or construct calumnies, but also flatters, and addresses people in a servile manner, and commits perjury, and devises innumerable occasions for base gain."
Furthermore, he gives avarice keen, harsh, and fiery eyes; ears closed to the groans of the poor; and calls it footless — that is, without feet — because once it has seized someone, it cannot or knows not how to withdraw from him. Whence he concludes: "Who then would be captured by such a most fierce and insatiable fury, which brings upon us innumerable sins and curses and disgraces and intemperances and acts of insolence? Who would resolve to live so wretchedly in this life, to be torn day and night as by certain scourges, feeling no rest or sleep, and in the life to come to begin punishments and tortures? But why do I say 'begin'? For here avarice torments and racks those it has seized more bitterly than any tyrant, leaping upon them, attacking their principal parts, and not allowing them the slightest respite, but inflicting upon them a heavier punishment than those suffer who are condemned to the mines (which is the most atrocious punishment). For those condemned to the mines, when their work is done, are allowed to enjoy sleep and rest; but avarice, blocking up even the harbor of sleep as with heaped-up earth, sets forth its cruel and inhuman decrees by night as well — sending some off to robberies, others to perpetrate murders," etc.
Hence it is clear that misers are slaves and bondsmen of gold — indeed, worse than slaves. For slaves cheat their own pleasure and skimp on food so as to save up money with which to redeem themselves and gain freedom. But the miser cheats his pleasure to hoard riches and shut them up in his chest as in a prison, and at the same time enslaves himself to the same: "For where your treasure is, there is your heart," says Christ. They are therefore more wretched than Tantalus, who thirsts in the midst of waters; and than Midas, who, using gold for food, perished of hunger. See Horace, Book I, Satires 3. Hayton the Armenian, in his History of the Tartars, chapter XXVI, relates that in the year of our Lord 1258, the Caliph, captured by his enemy Hulagu, was forced to die of hunger, for Hulagu locked him in a room full of gold and gems, because the Caliph, being greedy for gold, out of avarice had not supplied the funds necessary for war, and therefore, being defeated, had fallen into Hulagu's hands.
Fourth, misers, in order to enrich their sons or grandsons, commit many frauds, usurious dealings, unjust contracts, and cruelty toward the poor, by which they bring upon themselves Gehenna and eternal torments. Salvian amplifies this gravely, Book III to the Catholic Church: "Love them," he says, "we do not oppose it — love your children, but in second place after yourselves. Love them in such a way that you do not seem to hate yourselves. For it is rash and foolish love that is mindful of another and forgetful of itself. 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,' says Sacred Scripture, 'nor shall the father bear the iniquity of his son.' And the Apostle says: 'Each one shall bear his own burden.'" Hence he concludes: "Riches left to children do not free the parents from beggary; indeed, wealth left immoderately to children is the everlasting beggary of the parents. And therefore no children are more harmful to parents than those who are loved too much. For while the children abound in their father's goods, the parents are tormented in eternity. Even if a son were so pious as to desire to share with his father the goods left to him, for the sake of relieving his father's punishment, he would not be able to; for the piety of a son cannot repay after death what each person's own lack of devotion and unfaithfulness has denied him."
And after a few intervening words, he presses the same point more sharply with the example of the rich man: "The flames of the wretched dead are not cooled by the riches of their heirs. That rich man in the Gospel who was clothed in purple and fine linen — since doubtless he had been wealthy in this world, he had also enriched his heirs by his death. But this availed him nothing, for while his brothers sat rich upon his wealth and talents, he could not obtain that drop of refreshment. They were in abundance, but he in want; they in rejoicing, but he in pain; they in riches, but he in torments; they perhaps constantly in luxury, but he always in the flame. O unhappy, O pitiable condition! With his goods he prepares for others blessedness, for himself affliction; for others joys, for himself tears; for others brief pleasure, for himself an everlasting abyss. Where then were his kinsmen, his relatives, or his sons — if he had any — or his brothers, whom he remembered and whom he had certainly loved with such great affection that he did not forget them even when placed in torment? What did they profit him, how did they help? The wretched man was tormented, and while others devoured his riches, he, burning, begged for a drop of refreshment and could not obtain it."
And again, after a few more words, he exclaims at their pitiable stupidity: "O too heavy and lamentable a condition! The poor man buys blessedness with his beggary; the rich man buys punishment with his wealth. The poor man, when he had absolutely nothing, bought eternal riches with his destitution. O how much more easily could the rich man, with such great possession of things, have acquired these — he who, burning amidst torments and crying out amidst punishments, says: 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame,'" etc.
Verse 24: Is It Not Better to Eat and Drink, and to Show His Soul Good Things from His Labors?
One translator renders it: "Indeed, I see that this very thing is from the hand of God." The Tigurine: "For no other good comes to man from his labor than that he eats; which I also see is provided by the hand of God."
Olympiodorus, Bonaventure, and both Hugos — namely, Hugo the Cardinal (or Carensis) and Hugo of St. Victor — and indeed St. Gregory, Book IV of the Moralia, chapters 1 and 4, hold that these words and what follows are spoken from the viewpoint of fools — namely, Epicureans who led an animal-like life — whose mind and cry was this: "Eat, drink, play — after death there is no pleasure." They therefore considered this to be from the hand of God — that is, that this was the good and gift of happiness given by God. Thus that wealthy pleasure-seeker said in Luke XII, 19: "My soul, eat, drink, feast — you have many good things laid up for many years." Indeed, Socrates said that "the good eat to live, but the wicked live to eat and drink." So Laertius, Book VIII. And Aurelian said of the drunkard Bonosus that "he was born not to live but to drink," according to Aelian, Book XII of Various Histories, chapter XXIX.
But the connection of the discourse requires these words to be spoken from the mind of Solomon himself, as if to say: I, seeing the vanity and foolishness of misers who amass riches for an uncertain heir and not for themselves, say it is better to eat and moderately enjoy one's goods, and not to cheat one's pleasure, but to show — that is, to provide — good things to one's soul, that is, comforts and pleasures, so as to indulge one's pleasure honestly; and that this is a remarkable gift of God. So St. Jerome, Albinus, Lyranus, Dionysius, Titelmanus, and others generally. Hence some translate from the Hebrew thus: "And who will more justly eat, or who will hasten (to my labor) more than I?" Thus "to show" often in Scripture signifies to provide, give, bestow; for a gift that is given is shown to the one to whom it is given, so as to feast his eyes and senses. It is a metalepsis. Thus in Psalm XLVIII, 8, the Psalmist prays: "Show — that is, bestow upon — us Your mercy—"
Your mercy." Explaining further, he adds: "And give us Your salvation (that is, Your saving help or Savior)." Thus in Exodus XXXIII, 19, God says to Moses: "I will show you all good" — that is, I will display to you My essence, or Myself, so that you may see Me face to face, but in an assumed body. For the vision of God contains every good. Psalm LXX, 20: "How many tribulations You have shown — that is, sent upon — me." Psalm LIX, 5: "You have shown" — that is, sent upon — "Your people hard things."
Tropologically, Titelmanus says: To show good things to the soul signifies not only providing comforts for oneself, but also for others through works of mercy; moreover, devoting oneself to piety — for this is the nourishment, life, and salvation of the soul. Hence the Chaldean translates: "Therefore, why should any other thing be considered the highest good of man, than that he eat and drink, and receive himself most lavishly in the light of all, and make his soul see good things before the sons of men, by carrying out the commandments of the Lord and walking in the ways that are right before Him, so that He may do good to him from his labor?" But this is mystical, not literal, as I shall soon show.
AND THIS IS FROM THE HAND OF GOD — "this," namely, to eat and to show good things to one's soul. As if to say: To wish to enjoy the fruit of one's own labor, and not to hoard it avariciously for an heir, is a remarkable gift and benefit given and received from the hand of God. The "hand," therefore, since it is the instrument of giving and generosity, is here taken metonymically for the giving and generosity itself. Understand a natural gift, which remains according to the dictate of natural prudence, and from the lawful and generous love by which a person loves himself.
Mystically, St. Augustine understands these words of the reception of the Eucharist; for he says thus in Book XVII of The City of God, chapter XX: "For what is more credibly understood to be said in this passage than that which pertains to the participation in the table which the Priest Himself, the Mediator of the New Testament, offers according to the order of Melchizedek, from His own Body and Blood?"
Again, St. Jerome and St. Gregory, Book IV of the Moralia, chapter 1, understand these words of the nourishment of Sacred Scripture and the Word of God. Thaumaturgus also and Nyssenus understand them of wisdom and learning, which like food nourishes, gladdens, strengthens, and blesses the soul. For Thaumaturgus translates thus: "For the highest and perfect good does not consist in food and drink, even though it is above all by God's beneficence that nourishment comes to mortals. But the man endowed with uprightness, having obtained wisdom as a gift of God, enjoys heavenly pleasure."
And Anastasius of Sinai, in his Questions and Answers on Various Topics, Question XLIII: "Ecclesiastes does not command eating and drinking carnally," he says, "but spiritually. For He who said, 'Be not deceived by the fullness of the belly' — how would He, to overturn what He said, command rejoicing and indulging the belly? But one eats and drinks spiritually by working the commandments of God, the food that endures unto eternal life."
Verse 25: Who Shall So Devour and Abound in Delights As I?
The Hebrew has: "Who will eat and who will hasten" — or "make haste beyond" (namely, to the fruit of his labor, that is, to feasts) — "more than I?" In Hebrew the verb is chus, which properly signifies to hasten. Pagninus adds: "and to perceive, or enjoy with the senses." Hence he translates: "Who will eat and enjoy with his senses (especially with taste) as I do?" Symmachus translates analosei, that is, "will spend" or "will consume." Aquila, and following him St. Jerome in his Commentary, contrarily translates parcet, that is, "will spare": "Who eats," he says, "and who spares without him?" because instead of chus with shin, he reads chus with sin, which is the same as chus, that is, to spare. Now:
First, Olympiodorus, both Hugos, Bonaventure, and Lorinus hold that these words are spoken from the viewpoint of Epicureans; for they devour like wolves and abound in delights, as Solomon did after his fall.
Second, others hold that Solomon uses this phrase to turn the miser and the sordid man toward the other extreme, the opposite of where he once was — namely, toward the generous use of his wealth. For thus ethicists (as Aristotle, Ethics II) teach that the vicious man should strive toward the other extreme in order to arrive at the mean of virtue — just as a bent rod is bent in completely the opposite direction in order to bring it to the middle point of straightness.
Third, and genuinely, Solomon here confirms by his own example what he said in the preceding verse, and entices misers to use moderately the wealth acquired by their labor, and not to deprive themselves of it in order to keep it for an heir. As if to say: Take me as an example of the use and enjoyment of goods, and imitate me, the wisest of kings. For with royal magnificence I devoured — that is, I ate generously and was surrounded by delights. For who lived more sumptuously, more generously, more magnificently than I? as Campensis translates. This is clear from III Kings, chapter IV. Hence the Tigurine also translates: "For who has eaten, and who has been more ready for labor than I?" Vatablus: "Who ought to eat, and who ought to prepare (namely, for the enjoyment of the wealth acquired by my labor) besides me?" For "to devour," like "to be inebriated," is sometimes taken not in a bad sense to signify gluttony, but in a good sense to denote generous use and abundance — and is the same as to abound in food and drink, but within the bounds of temperance and lawful cheerfulness. For thus the brothers of Joseph, feasting with him, were inebriated — that is, made merry (Genesis XLIII, 34). So also St. John devoured — that is, eagerly ate — the book in Revelation, chapter IX. And Aaron's rod devoured the rods of the magicians — that is, the serpent of Aaron devoured the serpents of the magicians; for both rods had been turned into serpents (Exodus VII, 12).
Mystically, these words may be referred to the pursuit of wisdom, as I said at the end of the preceding verse. For wisdom was divinely implanted in Solomon from heaven. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And who, I ask, is either more vigilant in the judgments of the law, or more anxious about the day of that supreme future judgment, than I?"
Furthermore, the Septuagint, instead of mimmenni (that is, "more than I" or "like me"), reading mimmennu (that is, "from him," that is, "without him"), translate: "For who will eat, and who will drink without Him?" — namely, without God. As if to say: The food and drink which you eat and drink are not your own, but God's gift, received from His generous hand, as was said in the preceding verse. Therefore they must be referred back to Him through the giving of thanks.
So also the Arabic: "For who eats or drinks outside of himself?" So also the Syriac and Thaumaturgus: "For nothing that serves our salvation is outside His providence." Hence Clement of Rome, Book IV of the Constitutions, chapter IV, admonishes widows, orphans, and the poor that they should receive what is given to them with all fear, reverence, and thanksgiving. "For who among you," he says, "eats or drinks without Him?" — namely, God. For he cites this passage according to the Septuagint, since St. Jerome and his Latin Vulgate version did not yet exist. And Olympiodorus: "Indifferent gifts," he says, "are bestowed by God upon men — such as riches, good health, and authority. Therefore nothing good is found in men except the pleasure of eating and drinking."
Verse 26: To the Man Who Is Good in His Sight God Has Given Wisdom and Knowledge and Joy
In Hebrew it is "malice" — that is, affliction of spirit, of which I spoke at verse 11 and chapter I, 14. For "sinner" the Tigurine translates: "the one who strays from the right path of wisdom and happiness, and of a pleasant life." The Syriac translates: "For to the man who is good in His sight, He has given wisdom, etc." The Arabic: "For He has granted good to man, and given him the appearance of wisdom and joy; and to the sinner He has given confusion, that he may increase and gather, so as to give it to the good man before the face of God." The Chaldean: "For to the man whose works are upright, He grants in this world wisdom and thought, and finally also joy in the age to come; but upon the wicked He imposes a certain evil, that he may gather wealth and amass many possessions as a slave, so that what is eventually received from him may be transferred to the one whom God has chosen. This also is vanity for the impious, and sickness of soul." Here pertains the Arabic proverb, Century 1, number 33: "Strike a sour orange (a citron) against a pomegranate — that is, place wisdom in your heart, and treasure up knowledge in your heart."
He continues to declare the vanity of misers who amass riches for their sons and heirs, and confirms from the difference between the good and sinners. The sense is, as if to say: This is the difference between the wise man, or the good, and the foolish, or the sinner: that God gives to the wise man — who is good in His sight, that is, who pleases and is acceptable to God — wisdom to know the truth, namely that the true good of each and every man lies in God, and in the knowledge, love, and worship of God; and knowledge by which he may prudently gather riches and distribute them according to the precept of God's law for the sustenance of himself and his family, and spend what remains on the relief of the needy; and thence joy, because, leaning on the truth — that is, on God — he makes light of vain riches and duly distributes them for honest uses by which he wins for himself God's grace and glory. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And He gave him joy with the just in the age to come." But to the sinner God has given affliction and care, that he may laboriously and anxiously heap up riches, and then leave them to an heir — not the one he himself had in mind, but the one who has pleased God, namely the one whom God has designated, such as some poor or just and generous person, who will spend them on the poor or on pious works. Symmachus translates: "that they may be given to the one who has pleased God," according to Proverbs chapter XIII, 22: "The good man leaves heirs in his sons and grandsons, and the substance of the sinner is kept for the just." Or, as St. Augustine reads in Epistle 50: "The riches of sinners are treasured up for the just." And Job chapter XXVII, 16: "If he heap up silver as earth, and prepare garments as clay — he shall prepare indeed, but the just shall be clothed with them, and the innocent shall divide the silver."
Note first: where it says "good in His sight," Albinus refers "His" to the good man himself, as if to say: The man who seems good and upright to himself in his own conscience. But "His" properly refers to God, who follows. Now "good in the sight of God" by a Hebraism is the same as "pleasing to God, acceptable in the eyes of God." A person can be pleasing to God for many reasons and on account of various endowments both of nature and of grace. On account of the endowments of nature, even sinners can please God; on account of the endowments of grace, only the just, who are properly said to be pleasing to God and to please Him as His friends, sons, and heirs. And it is so understood here. For it is opposed to "sinner," although by "sinner" is properly understood here the miser, and consequently by "good in the sight of God," the generous man, as in Psalm CXVII, 2: "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endures forever."
Note second: Instead of the joy which God bestows on the one who pleases Him and is pleasing, He gives to the sinner affliction and care — that is, labor, anxiety, trouble, and difficulty in heaping up riches. This affliction is partly punishment, and in this respect it is positively sent by God upon the sinner, so that by it, as by a scourge, He may chastise his sins, especially of avarice, and drive and compel him to seek heavenly goods, says Olympiodorus. It is partly guilt, insofar as it proceeds from avarice and is its feeling and act, and thus it is inflicted on the sinner not positively but permissively by God. For God punishes a lesser sin with a greater one; He permits the sinner, as punishment for preceding sins, to fall into such great avarice that it brings upon him a thousand cares, anxieties, and sorrows. Therefore, just as wisdom, virtue, and generosity produce joy of mind and the wondrous gladness of a conscience exulting in good works, so foolishness, vice, and avarice produce anxieties, sorrows, and worries of mind. Truly Seneca, Epistle 23: "I said that this is the foundation of a good mind; it is also its summit."
Note third: This maxim signifies what God often does, not what He always does. For conversely, God sometimes allows the just, for the increase of their patience and merit, to be afflicted with poverty, so that with all their labor and care they can hardly provide the expenses necessary for supporting their family; while to the impious He gives an abundance of wealth freely and without labor, who therefore rejoice and feast on it — as He has done not infrequently in the New Testament (for in the Old Testament He generally did the opposite). For He had promised the Jews an abundance of temporal goods if they served Him faithfully. Hence examples of this maxim are found among the Hebrews who, under Moses' leadership going out of Egypt, obtained from God the wealth and spoils of the Egyptians (Exodus chapter XII, 36). Likewise, under Joshua's leadership, conquering the Canaanites, they possessed their riches, as is clear from the book of Joshua, etc. Thus David possessed the goods of the greedy and foolish Nabal, taking his wife Abigail (I Kings XXV, 42); likewise the wealth of the Syrians and Ammonites (II Kings X and XI); and of the Moabites (II Kings VIII, 4 and 11). Thus the wealth amassed by Diocletian and Maximian, sworn enemies of Christians, was obtained by Constantine the Great, who from those riches most magnificently built very many basilicas and churches for Christians. We see the same thing happen often today. Indeed, God has transferred a great many of the heretics' riches to Christians, and even to religious orders. Thus from the goods of heretics He raised up several colleges of the Society of Jesus, which would uproot heresy and convert heretics to the orthodox faith. Such is the college at Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum), erected by the Fuggers, some of whom were then Lutherans; such also is the college of Ghent in Belgium, where Charles V was born, and many others.
BUT THIS TOO IS VANITY AND VAIN ANXIETY OF THE MIND. — He speaks of the sinner and the miser, to whom God has given affliction and superfluous care; for to the good and generous man He gave wisdom and joy, as he just said. Therefore Cajetan less correctly extends the same to the good and generous man who enjoys the riches acquired by his own labor. For even though, he says, this is a gift of God, it is still called vanity because it is a small thing that quickly vanishes. Hugo of St. Victor also less aptly extends it "to the vanity and vain anxiety of the just man who seeks the riches of the sinner, or covets them, and if he has received them, sets his heart upon them." For "vain anxiety of the mind," from the Hebrew one may translate: "feeding on wind" — as if to say: Riches and all earthly things no more fill the mind than wind satisfies hunger. Hear St. Bernard, On Loving God: "Justice is the vital and natural food of the spirit that uses reason; but money (and the same could be said of other goods) no more fills or diminishes the hunger of the soul than wind does the hunger of the body. Indeed, if you were to see a hungry man with open jaws, puffing out his cheeks, gulping air to, as it were, address his hunger — would you not think him insane? It is no less insane if you think the rational spirit can be more puffed up than satisfied by any corporeal things. For what do corporeal things contribute to spiritual ones? Neither can spiritual things be nourished by corporeal ones, nor conversely can those be refreshed by corporeal things."