Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He shows the vanity of things from time, to which all are subject. First, from the fact that individual things pass away with time and undergo their turns and vicissitudes, and he demonstrates this with many examples through combinations of antitheses. Second, verse 14, from the fact that time and temporal things, compared to God and God's works — which are constant and perpetual — are vain and unstable, fluid and perishable. Third, verse 16, that time, which changes all things, from time to time brings about tyrannies and tyrants, under whom crimes and criminals reign, while virtues and those endowed with virtue are afflicted and banished. Fourth, verse 18, that time brings death to men, and a destruction similar to that of beasts.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-22
1. All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven. 2. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. 3. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. 4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. 5. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. 6. A time to gain, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. 7. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. 8. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace. 9. What has man more of his labor? 10. I have seen the trouble which God has given to the children of men, to be exercised in it. 11. He has made all things good in their time, and has delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work which God has made from the beginning to the end. 12. And I knew that there was no better thing than to rejoice, and to do well in this life. 13. For every man that eats and drinks and sees good of his labor, this is the gift of God. 14. I have learned that all the works which God has made continue forever: we cannot add anything to them, nor take away from those things which God has made, that He may be feared. 15. That which has been made, the same continues: the things that shall be, have already been: and God restores what has passed away. 16. I saw under the sun in the place of judgment, wickedness, and in the place of justice, iniquity. 17. And I said in my heart: God shall judge the just and the wicked, and then shall be the time of every thing. 18. I said in my heart concerning the children of men, that God would prove them, and show them to be like beasts. 19. Therefore the death of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dies, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man has nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity. 20. And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together. 21. Who knows if the spirit of the children of Adam ascends upward, and if the spirit of beasts descends downward? 22. And I found that nothing was better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his portion. For who shall bring him to know what shall be after him?
Verse 1: All Things have their Season, and in their Times all Things Pass under Heaven
1. ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR SEASON, AND IN THEIR TIMES ALL THINGS PASS UNDER HEAVEN. — For time the Hebrew is זמן zeman, that is, an appointed or established time. appointed. Therefore the Hebrew text has it thus: for every thing there is an appointed time, and a time for every desire (that is, for every thing desired, or for every thing which anyone has wished and willed) under heaven. The Septuagint reads: for all things there is a time, and an opportunity for every thing under heaven. The Syriac: for every thing there is a time, and a time for every business under the sun. The Arabic: for every time and for every thing under the sun there is a time. The Chaldean: for every man a time shall come, and an hour for every business under the sun. Others: for each thing its own predetermined time is set, limited and determined. Campensis: there is a vicissitude in its own spaces, and nothing under the sun is stable. Symmachus: for every thing there is an hour, and for every service and business there is a time. Thaumaturgus: through this time all contraries occur. Others: all things have a time and every thing under heaven has its own opportunity.
Note the word pass: for time consists in a continuous succession and passing. For "time," as Aristotle says, "is the number (measure) of motion according to before and after." Just as motion consists in a continuous agitation and succession, while the later part continually succeeds the former and pushes it out and expels it, so also time, which is nothing other than the property and measure of motion. From this gather how little true essence and existence time has, as well as motion, and all things that are subject to motion and time. For past time does not exist, but has passed; future time does not exist, but will be; only the present exists; and the present is merely one indivisible "now," that is, one instant of time. Hence that man aptly said that man and temporal things truly do not exist at any time, but only in one "now," that is, in one instant of time. Furthermore, Varro, book V of On the Latin Language, says: "They say that time is the interval of the world and of motion. This is divided into several parts chiefly by the course of the sun and moon. And so from their tempered tenor the word time (tempus) is derived; whence timely things (tempestiva); and from the motion of them, by which the world joined to God throughout heaven came into being, from which God this time is called day." Thus far Varro.
You will ask: why does Solomon treat of time so extensively, and assign so many diverse actions and epithets of it through fourteen antitheses? I answer first: in order to demonstrate the vanity of all things from time, with which, as he says in this verse and verse 9, all things pass and vanish, and this by the decree of God; because God has predetermined for each thing the time at which it arises, endures, and perishes. For He has decreed for each thing the time at which it shall exist, when and how long it ought to endure; for the Hebrew word zeman, which the Vulgate translates as "time," signifies this fixed period of time for each thing. Hence Lyranus judges these things are said (indeed that nothing else is taught in this whole chapter) so that it may be clear that happiness should not be placed in long life, nor should it be sought, because a certain period of duration has been appointed by nature, or by God the Author of nature, for each thing — among which is the period of human life, with which man ought to be content, just as with the other periods given to him by God.
Secondly, from the definite and predetermined period of things appointed by God, or from the vicissitude and succession of the contrary, which he opposes to each thing in each verse, he shows the instability, mutability, and circular motion of all things — namely that all things revolve with the sun and go in a circle with time. He says under heaven, says Saint Jerome, because the other "spiritual substances are contained neither under heaven nor in time" — such as angels. Hence they do not have contraries that would change or destroy them, as men and all sublunary things do, which are composed of contrary and mutually conflicting elements, and therefore vary, change, and perish. From the few examples he assigns, he leaves it to each person to make and assign a similar antithesis of time in all things and actions. For it is an incomplete induction.
Thirdly, he suggests that the cares of men are vain and misguided, since, when a time and opportunity (as the Septuagint translates it) has been predetermined by God and nature for each thing, and must be prudently awaited or patiently endured, they themselves by their own industry and excessive anxiety want to predetermine, invert, or anticipate it — in which matter they labor in vain with foolish, empty, and futile effort.
Fourthly, Tertullian, in the book On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter 1, by "time" understands the stages of time by which both nature in any thing and grace in man are advanced to perfection: "Nothing," he says, "is without its age; all things await their time. Finally, Ecclesiastes says: There is a time for every thing. Behold creation itself being gradually advanced toward fruit. First it is a seed, and from the seed a shoot arises, and from the shoot a small tree is produced. Then branches and leaves grow strong, and the full name of tree spreads out. Then comes the swelling of the bud, and the flower unfolds from the bud, and from the flower the fruit opens. This too, for a while rough and unformed, gradually directing its own maturity, is trained into the mildness of flavor. So also justice (for the same God is God of justice and of creation) first existed in the rudiments of a nature that feared God; then through the law and the Prophets it advanced its infancy; then through the Gospel it boiled over into youth. Now through the Paraclete it is settled into maturity."
Finally, from time that is always passing, revolving, and vanishing, he concludes by an evident demonstration that all things subject to time pass, revolve, and vanish with it. For in temporal things time rules and reigns. Hence Varro, book IV of On the Latin Language, following Pythagoras, establishes four principles of things, namely body, place, suffering, and time: "For there are," he says, "two origins of things: rest and motion. What is at rest or is set in motion is body; where it is set in motion is place; the period during which it moves is time; the movement itself is action. Body is like the runner; place, the stadium; time, the course he runs; action, the running. Therefore it happens that all things are fourfold and eternal: for there was never a time without motion (for time is the interval of motion); nor motion without place and body (the one being what is moved, the other where); nor agitation without action. Therefore the four-horse team of first principles: place, body, time, and action." Thus far Varro. is what is moved, the other is where); nor agitation where there is no action. Therefore the four-horse team of first principles: place, body, time, and action." Thus far Varro.
Relevant here is the disputation of the Seven Sages of Greece, which Plutarch recounts in their Banquet. For when Aesop, asked "what was most ancient," had answered: "Time. What is greatest? The world. What is wisest? Truth. What most beautiful? Light. What most common? Death. What most useful? God. What most harmful? Genius. What strongest? Fortune. What easiest? What is pleasant." Thales, correcting and rearranging some things, answered each one thus: "What is most ancient? God; for He has no beginning. What is greatest? Place; for the world contains other things, but is contained by place. What most beautiful? The world; for all its parts are fitly ordered. What wisest? Time; for it has discovered some things and will discover the rest. What most common? Hope; for those who lack all other things have this. What most useful? Virtue; for it makes other things useful by using them rightly. What most harmful? Vice of mind; for by its presence very many good things are corrupted. What strongest? Necessity; for it alone is insurmountable. What easiest? What is in accord with nature; for pleasures also are things that are very often rejected." When all had approved of Thales' sayings, Cleodemus said: Questions of this kind, Niloxenus, it befits kings to propose and solve.
Hence the Egyptians and the ancient mythologists and mystical philosophers gave these as hieroglyphics and symbols of time: The star is the hieroglyphic of time, because nothing in the whole world observes the fixed law of time as do the stars and heavens, which, since they are always moving, always return at the same interval of time and in fixed periods to the point from which they began to move. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics LVI, page 536.
They also signified time by the poplar tree, because that tree is endowed with two-colored leaves, by which it represents the chief parts of time itself, namely day and night. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics LII, page 505.
Some also hold that the sickle attributed to Saturn, to whom time is subject, was meant to signify time, because time reaps, cuts down, and takes away all things. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics LVI, page 536.
Fittingly Phocylides says:
Remember always to serve the times with caution, And do not wish to stand against the gusts of wind.
Again, the Egyptians signified the revolution of time by a coiled serpent grasping its tail with its mouth. Hear Claudian, book II on Stilicho:
There lies afar, unknown and impervious to our mind, Scarcely approachable by gods, the squalid mother of the years, The cavern of immense eternity, which supplies ages From its vast bosom and recalls them: the serpent embraces the cave, Who consumes all things with placid power, And is ever green with scales, and drawing back its tail Devours it with its mouth, retracing its beginnings in silent gliding.
And shortly after:
An old man writes the laws, who divides numbers among the stars, And reviews the courses and fixed delays by which all things live And perish, with established laws.
Moreover the ancients would censure those who inverted the times as performers and directors of a topsy-turvy life. Thus they censured Heliogabalus, who transposed the activities of day to night and those of night to day, reckoning this among the instruments of luxury, so that he rose late from sleep and began to receive visitors, but slept in the morning. So Lampridius in his Life. Seneca, epistle 122, says: "There are those who pervert the duties of day and night. The life of such people is contrary to all, not their region. There are certain antipodeans in the city who, as Marcus Cato says, never saw the sun either rising or setting." And further, about a certain shunner of daylight who would wake under nightfall and go to bed at dawn, he jests so sharply and wittily as to say that he lived most frugally indeed, since he consumed nothing but the night. And when some called him sordid and miserly: "You," he said, "will also call him a lychnobius" (one who lives by lamplight). This is an ambiguous word, signifying either that he was so far from being miserly that he even consumed his lamps, or so thrifty that he lived on lamp-oil alone. Pericles tried to restrain Tolmides, the military commander, who was preparing an incursion into Boeotia at an inopportune time, saying: If he did not believe Pericles, he would not go wrong if he waited for that most prudent counselor — time. But Tolmides, rejecting the sound counsel, paid for his rashness with the slaughter of his army and his own death. So Plutarch in his Life of Pericles.
The prefect of the Emperor Hadrian named Similis, having resigned his prefecture, lived seven years for himself; whence he ordered this epitaph to be inscribed on his tomb: "Here lies Similis, who spent many years, but lived for seven." So Xiphilinus in his Life of Hadrian.
Tropologically, learn here how great is the value of time that passes and flies away so quickly, and how great a care must be taken of it. For on this brief and fleeting time depends our eternal salvation or perdition, according to the saying: "The moment on which eternity hangs." For God from eternity has appointed for each person his own time, indeed his year, hour, and day — for example, that in the first century, in such a year, month, day, and hour, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian should be born, and after so many years die on such a day and hour; in the second century, Saint Ignatius, Saint Dionysius, Saint Polycarp, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus; in the third century, Constantius, Constantine, Diocletian, Maximian, etc. Thus for each person He has fixed a certain century, a certain year, a certain day on which he is to be born, live, and die. Therefore use, O man, if you are wise, the time allotted and measured out to you by God; for you will have no other from all the rolling ages throughout all eternity — no, not even an hour or a point of time in which you might do penance, gain merits, and earn eternal life. The damned had their time, but they spent it badly, and where they could have gained heaven, they acquired hell. How much they would wish now for an hour of repentance to be given them! What labors and crosses they would willingly undertake if they might return to life! But in vain — the door is closed, their time has passed. For you it still remains: see to it that you spend it rightly, and do not too late repent of having spent it badly, as they do. Excellently Hugo of Saint Victor says here and in his book On the Vanity of the World, at the end: "All things, he says, have their time — namely a certain and definite one — whether for when they begin, or when they end, or even how long they endure, so that the prudent mind may not think that among all things there is something which can always stand, in which to place confidence; but rather, conforming itself to true and permanent goods, may so despise the vanity of mutable things that, although it uses each thing in its time while it is present, it never permits its mind to decline from its state in its passing. For he is most prudent who so knows how to turn passing things to use, that he nevertheless does not know how to allow his mind to decline from its stability in their failure. He therefore did badly when he chose certain things from among all as if they were better for his enjoyment, and believed he could be happy in them; because all things are indeed good for him who uses them well in their time, and yet all things that are subject to mutability, though they may provide some consolation in misery, cannot confer happiness. Nothing, therefore, should be rejected in its time, and nothing should be chosen outside its time. But let the mind be so prepared for the use of time that it is not changed by the mutability of time."
Hear Saint Bernard in his Declamations: "Children of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lies? This time has been assigned to souls, not to bodies — it is a day of salvation, certainly not of pleasure. All things have their time: now it is necessary to devote labor to souls. For he who sows in the flesh shall from it reap only corruption." Remember that saying of Saint Ambrose on Psalm I: "You sleep, and your time does not sleep but walks on." For around eternity all times and ages revolve, as a wheel around its axle. Hear also Seneca, epistle 129: "Nothing is enough for those who are about to die, indeed who are dying; for every day we stand closer to the last, and every hour drives us toward the place from which we must depart." And shortly after: "The last day has arrived at death; every day approaches it. Death plucks at us, it does not seize us; therefore the great soul, conscious of its own better nature, indeed takes care that in this station in which it is placed it comport itself honestly and industriously; yet it judges nothing of those things around it to be its own, but uses them as a stranger and a traveler uses things lent to him."
Secondly, it belongs to the wise man to do all things at the opportune time and to seize occasions for doing good; for the fool does not observe the proper opportunity, and therefore works and labors foolishly, in reverse order, and without fruit. See Saint Antiochus, homily 94, whose title is: That the opportunity of time must always be seized. The wise man therefore uproots from his soul excessive and untimely anxiety about acting, and waits for the opportune time for action — indeed he asks God to suggest to him occasions for gaining merit and exercising heroic acts of virtue, according to Ephesians chapter II, verse 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared that we should walk in them." Wisely Boethius, book II of the Consolation, meter 6:
God marks the times, fitting Proper duties to each; Nor does He permit the turns Which He Himself has set to be confused.
And Ovid, book I of the Remedy of Love:
Medicine has power in its season; given in time, wines help; Given at the wrong time, they harm.
To represent this, the poets imagined Opportunity to be a god standing on a revolving wheel, with winged feet, spinning around in a circle with the swiftest rotation, with the front part of the head covered in hair so it might be grasped, but the back bald so it could not be held. Hence the saying: "Opportunity has hair in front, but is bald behind." See the things said on Jeremiah chapter VIII, verse 7.
Thirdly, some accommodate these words to the inconstancy of human thoughts and desires, which the Hebrew supports, for it reads thus: For every desire (that is, for every longing and pleasure of man) there is its own time. This inconstancy Horace vividly depicts in these verses, book I of the Epistles:
Thus my mind battles with itself: What it seeks it spurns, what it lately dropped it takes up again; It seethes and is at odds with the whole order of life; It pulls down, builds up, changes squares to rounds.
Fourthly, Nyssenus and Olympiodorus by "time" understand mode or measure — that is, the golden mean to be observed in every action, according to the Greek saying: μηδὲν ἄγαν, καιρὸς ἄριστος, that is, nothing in excess, occasion is the best thing. And that saying of Horace, book II of the Odes, ode 10:
Whoever cherishes the golden mean Safely lacks the squalor of a dilapidated roof, And soberly lacks the enviable palace.
This maxim of Solomon, illustrated with a remarkable fable of the cicada and the ant, adorned with beautiful examples, Cyril vividly depicts in book I of the Moral Apologues, chapter IV: "In the heat of harvest, he says, the cicada, singing and resting, when it had seen the ant with much labor drawing a grain with its little organs, compassionately said to it: Why in such great heat, when nature requires refreshing rest and moistening shade, do you not only go about the dry land and endure the storm, but — what is worse — kill yourself with a heavy burden? Do you not see that I, resting in green shade with jubilation, can scarcely catch a refreshing breath for my heart in this suffocating heat? Rest, therefore, until the burning of the harvest passes. To this improvident creature the provident ant providently replied: All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven (Ecclesiastes III, 1). Wherefore, just as all things must be done in their proper place and time, so also must they be sought. For if the opportune time for a thing has passed while it was neglected, when one needs it later one will by no means find it, because one did not seek what was necessary at the proper hour. Thus, dearest friend, we must use foresight, so that we watchfully collect the suitable provisions of life at the time when we find them through nature's beneficence while we seek them. But the time for gathering is harvest; hence I now providently gather by my labors, so that in the dry winter I may live in prosperous rest. But you, improvident one, neglecting the future time, now stand at an unstable point of rest — indeed you are now rather wasting your time on songs; and when the leaf in which you now delight has passed like a shadow, the heavy burning of hunger together with destitution will succeed, since you will have gathered nothing in the harvest. Have you not therefore slain with the dire sword of improvidence the life that you so dearly love?" Then he confirms this maxim, that "all things have their season," with various examples of springs, the zodiac, the sun, the earth, and the vine: "But consider, I pray, how nature is guided in its affairs by the wonderful regularity of providence. For it always has full springs of veins in the pastures of animals, so that when there is need, it may providently distribute the due and prepared nourishment to them. For the sun is led through the circuit of the zodiac by a provident guide, so that provision may thus be made for the changing seasons, as providence produces them. Likewise the palm generates its sweeter dates once for the following year; so also the vine distills its sweetest liquid in like order. So too the springs, which do not always flow, are seen to gush forth when the earth has once been soaked with lasting moisture by the power of the stars. Is not the whole order of nature governed by providence? Why then, spurning her who is so convenient a guide of life, and neglecting the future, do you think only of present things? I for my part, if I am not mistaken, care more for the future. For I have lost the past, I have already traversed the present by the swiftest course of heaven, and I possess only what remains — the future." Then he adds the epimythium, or moral and fruit of the fable, saying: "Having heard these things, the speechless cicada asked the ant to show by a definition what these things were. And she, willingly granting the request, said: Foresight indeed (if I may use a worthy word) is this: By the vigilant art of reason, in this transitory life, to gather justly temporal things, and to preserve inviolably what has been gathered, from which you may live forever in eternal and glorious rest. Having said this, she went on laden to her little nest."
Verse 2: A Time to be Born, and a Time to Die
2. A TIME TO BE BORN, AND A TIME TO DIE. — For to be born the Hebrew is ללדת laledet, which signifies both to be born and to beget. Hence the Septuagint, the Arabic, Vatablus, Campensis, Arias, and others translate: a time to beget, and a time to die. The Chaldean of Costi, however: sometimes the time for procreation and offspring is unlimited, sometimes for dying. The Rabbis in the Midrash explain it as if to say: Sometimes birth is joined with death, namely when the fetus dies soon after conception in the womb, or after birth when already brought into the light. But this explanation is more forced and narrow, as is that of the Complutensian Chaldean: there is a chosen time for bearing children; there is a time for killing rebellious and provocative children, that they may be stoned according to the word of the judges. Better, our Vulgate, Pagninus, the Syriac, Clarius, the Zurich version, and others translate: a time to be born; for to this a time to die is directly opposed by antithesis. Hence Thaumaturgus translates: some things are born, then they die.
Solomon proves his thesis, which he proposed in the first verse — namely: "All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven" — through an induction of various examples and contraries succeeding one another in turn, through fourteen combinations of them up to verse 8, where from them he infers and concludes that all things under heaven are vain, and that nothing remains for man from his continual labor, but all things pass and vanish. The first example is that for every living thing a time of being born and of dying has been predetermined by God and nature. For just as for all things that arise there is an established law that they decline and die, so likewise for the same things there is an established time of arising and declining, or of being born and dying. Thus flowers, leaves, and shoots arise in spring and die in winter. Thus animals and men are born in infancy and die in old age. And this time cannot be changed, prolonged, or reversed by man. Therefore the old man labors in vain to prolong for himself years of living, of doing right, and of gaining merit, when the time — the fate, so to speak — of dying presses upon him. He who is wise, therefore, while he lives and thrives, should accumulate for himself merits of virtues and good works. This two-horse chariot of being born and dying, then, is that by which we are all borne toward death, and through it toward immortality — either the most blessed in heaven or the most wretched in hell. Therefore Solomon tacitly admonishes man, as if to say: Know, O man, you who were born in the world, that you must die and depart from the world; prepare yourself therefore, and acquire the works of virtue which you may offer to Christ the Judge after death, so that on account of them you may deserve to be adjudged to heaven by Him, and not to be condemned to hell. To suggest this, Moses joined Exodus, that is, departure and decline, to Genesis, that is, the origin of things, says Nyssenus and Olympiodorus. Therefore Solomon says these things for this purpose: "To remind us of the temporariness of life," says Olympiodorus; or "by the mention of death, as by a certain spur, to awaken those who are immersed in the depths of carnal life, and to arouse them to the care of future things," says Nyssenus. Again, he joins death to birth as if there were no intervening time of living, to suggest that immediately from birth man tends toward death and begins to die, according to the saying: "As soon as we were born, we ceased to be," Wisdom chapter V, 13, because for as many hours as we have lived since birth, we proceed by as many steps toward death. Thus "by being born we die, and by dying we all live." What is life? A continual course toward death. What is death? A passage to immortality.
Tropologically Saint Jerome says: Spiritually we are reborn through fear, according to that saying of Isaiah chapter XXVI, 18, according to the Septuagint: "From Your fear, O Lord, we conceived and were in labor and brought forth the spirit of salvation;" but we die through love: for as we grow toward the love of God, fear dies, according to the saying: "Perfect charity casts out fear," I John IV.
Symbolically the Hebrews say: "The time of being born for Israel, that is, for the Synagogue and the Hebrew people, was when they began to increase in Egypt after the death of Joseph," Exodus I, of which Ezekiel XVI, 4 says: "When you were born, on the day of your birth." The time of dying was when in the Assyrian, Babylonian, and especially Roman captivity, the Jewish commonwealth was overthrown and dispersed and virtually perished. Hence in Ezekiel XXXVII, 12, the captivity of the Jews is compared to a tomb; the captives to dry bones, and those returning to their homeland to the rising. Better still, the first Christians were born in the Church through baptism, and died gloriously through martyrdom. For them, therefore, the time of being born was baptism, and of dying, martyrdom.
Finally, the time of the birth of the Church of Christ and of Christians was the time of the death of the Synagogue of the Jews: for the latter perished when the former was born and soon gave birth, so that when the people of the Gentiles was born from the barren Church, the Synagogue lost its children, says Saint Jerome on chapter V of Micah.
A TIME TO PLANT, AND A TIME TO PLUCK UP (in Hebrew, to uproot or extirpate; so also the Syriac and Arabic) WHAT IS PLANTED. — Campensis: now we cut back what we once cultivated to grow; the Chaldean: there is a time for sowings and uprootings of trees.
After the work of nature (namely, the time of being born and dying), there follows the work of art and of the artisan cooperating with nature, says Hugo — namely, the time to plant trees, shrubs, and herbs such as cabbages, beets, brassicas, etc., and the time to pull them up so that new ones may be planted. The time for planting each one according to the rising of certain stars, especially the moon, winds, rains, fair weather, etc., Columella exactly describes in book II of On Agriculture, chapter VIII and following, and Varro in book I, chapter XXVII and following. So the Chaldean, Thaumaturgus, and others. Therefore what Saint Jerome and Albinus explain — that the time of planting is the time of being born, and the time of uprooting is the time of dying, which preceded — is not literal but mystical.
Tropologically, the time to plant virtues is when at appointed seasons one ought now to devote oneself to penance, as in Lent; now to spiritual joy, as at Easter; now to works of almsgiving, as in a time of plague, famine, or war; now to patience, as in a time of sickness, temptation, or persecution; now to the works of the active life, now of the contemplative, according as obedience or necessity requires and alternately enjoins, so that it is often necessary to leave God for God, that is, prayer for action. Therefore for the obedient person the rest of contemplation must now be planted, now uprooted and exchanged for action, when obedience requires it. Again, the time for uprooting weeds is when concupiscences, suggestions of the devil, and temptations of the flesh and the world must be plucked from the imagination and appetite.
Symbolically the Hebrews, says Saint Jerome, refer all these combinations to the Synagogue and the people of Israel: "A time, he says, for begetting and planting Israel, a time for dying and being led into captivity. A time for killing them in Egypt, and a time for liberating them from Egypt. A time for destroying the temple under Nebuchadnezzar, and a time for building it under Darius. A time for weeping and lamenting the overthrow of the city, and a time for laughing and dancing under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. A time for scattering Israel, and a time for gathering them into one. A time, as it were, to gird and wrap the Jewish people around God like a belt and sash, and a time for leading them into the Babylonian captivity and there rotting beyond the Euphrates. Read about the loincloth of Jeremiah. A time for seeking them and preserving them, and a time for destroying them and casting them away. A time for rending Israel, and a time for sewing it together again. A time for the Prophets to be silent, now in the Roman captivity, and a time for them to speak, when even in a hostile land they did not lack God's consolation and address. A time of love, with which He loved them under the patriarchs; and a time of hatred, when they laid hands on Christ. A time of war, as long as they do not repent; and a time of peace in the future, when, the fullness of the Gentiles having entered, all Israel shall be saved."
Anagogically, the time for planting the choirs of the blessed in heaven, and for uprooting the reprobate from the earth so that they may be thrust into hell, there to burn perpetually, will be the day of judgment; for then "every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up," says Christ, Matthew XV, 13.
Verse 3: A Time to Kill, and a Time to Heal
3. A TIME TO KILL, AND A TIME TO HEAL. — The Syriac: a time to kill, and a time to give life. Thaumaturgus: what now is curable, afterwards becomes lethal.
First, Hugo of Saint Victor says: The time to kill sheep and cattle is when we slaughter them so that we may feed on their flesh, which was permitted by God on account of the weakness of bodies after the flood; the time to heal is when we abstain from them in Lent and fasting, and thus preserve and, as it were, heal them.
Secondly and genuinely, the time to kill is when a criminal is condemned to death by a judge, likewise when enemies are attacked in a just war; the time to heal is when those wounded in battle or in some other matter, and the sick, are cared for, when the damages inflicted by war are repaired through peace. Hence the Arabic translates: a time to fight, and a time to cure; and the Chaldean: the time often demands to mix all things with fire and sword; but at another time to cure those who are unwell — namely, the time when the sick are to be treated.
Verse 4: A Time to Weep, and a Time to Laugh. a Time to Mourn, and a Time to Dance
4. A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH. A TIME TO MOURN, AND A TIME TO DANCE. — The Arabic: a time for weeping, and a time for laughter; a time for lamenting, and a time for dancing. The Chaldean: at their time the sick are to be tended, and at another time the friend is to be cheered with mirth and laughter; on the appointed day the dead are to be mourned, and on another day one should exult with joy. Thaumaturgus: now there are tears, shortly after laughter; now mourning, then also dancing. Campensis: sometimes we grieve sadly, sometimes we leap with joy. Lyranus says: the time to weep is in misfortunes, the time to laugh in good fortunes.
The time for weeping and mourning, then, is in grief — for the funerals of parents or friends, for private or public disasters, for any dangers and adversities. The time for laughing and dancing is in public rejoicing — namely, in triumphs, victories, feasts, banquets, and weddings. Note here that weeping and laughing is private, while mourning and dancing is public. The meaning therefore is, as if to say:
Note that in these antitheses the order of contraries is indicated: for first is the time of weeping, afterwards of laughing. Likewise first is the time of being born, then of dying; first the time of planting, then of uprooting; first the time of being silent, then of speaking — and so of the rest.
Now you mourn at a funeral, now you dance at a banquet; now you carry your wife to burial, now you take another in a second marriage; now you celebrate funeral feasts, now wedding feasts. Thus all things are full of contrarieties succeeding one another, and linked in a chain of opposites: widowhood with marriage, sitting in dust in the time of mourning, and dancing and rejoicing at a broader time of public joy, says our Pineda. Nyssenus notes in the Greek Catena that κοπετόν, that is, mourning or beating of the breast, adds intensity to weeping and wailing; and ὀρχηοῦ, that is, dancing, adds intensity and amplification to joy bursting forth outwardly and exulting in celebration.
Note that choral dances are not in themselves illicit; indeed, they are sometimes holy, as were those of David dancing before the Ark out of the jubilation of his mind in honor of God, II Kings VI, 14 and 16; and those of the Hebrews in thanksgiving for the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh, Exodus chapter XV, 20; likewise those of the women for the slaying of Goliath by David, I Kings XVIII, 6. Indeed God had commanded that the Hebrews should annually celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles with a sacred dance, and dance in the tabernacle before the Lord, as I showed on Leviticus XXIII, 40. Likewise, from the sacred leap the Salii were famous at Rome among the pagans, the Curetes in Crete, and the Corybantes in Phrygia.
But great moderation must be employed in dances, lest they degenerate into wantonness and luxury. Hence they were permitted to the carnal Jews rather than to Christians. Therefore almost all the Fathers inveigh sharply against the dances of Christians: Saint Basil, homily 14 Against Drunkenness; Saint Ambrose, the book On Elijah and Fasting, chapter XVIII; Saint Augustine, sermon 215 On the Times; Saint Chrysostom, homilies 48 and 56 on Genesis, and 49 on Matthew; Clement of Alexandria, Pedagogue II, 20; Eusebius, Preparation XIII, chapter XII; Lactantius, Institutes VI, 20, and others. Moreover, against them there exist laws of the Emperors: of Constantine, in Eusebius' Life of him, chapter XVIII; of Theodosius and Valentinian, On Spectacles, chapter V; of Arcadius, law All, chapter On Holidays; of Leo and Anthemius, in the same place, last law. Much more do the Canon Laws prohibit them, On Consecration, distinction I, chapter Who on Days, and distinction III, chapter Irreligious. Hence Matthew Cling in his Theological Commonplaces, chapter On Dance, says: "What is a dance? It is a circle whose center is the devil, and whose circumference is all his angels."
Tropologically Saint Jerome says: "Now is the time for weeping, in the future for laughing. For blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh, Luke VI. We must mourn at present, so that afterwards we may be able to dance with that dance with which David danced before the Ark; because he who in the present age mourns his sins will rather laugh in the future," according to Malachi chapter IV, 2: "You shall go forth and leap like calves from the herd." And Didymus in the Greek Catena: "The time of the present life is opportune for weeping; but the time for laughing lies in hope."
Verse 5: A TIME TO SCATTER (in Hebrew, to cast; Septuagint, to throw; Syriac, to hurl) STONES, AND A TIME TO...
5. A TIME TO SCATTER (in Hebrew, to cast; Septuagint, to throw; Syriac, to hurl) STONES, AND A TIME TO GATHER. — Campensis: now we demolish old buildings, now we build new ones. It is surprising that some substitute "fruits" for "stones;" hence Thaumaturgus translates: now someone gathers the fruits of the earth, then casts them away.
The time to scatter stones is when houses are demolished, when stones are cast out of a field, garden, or vineyard lest they choke the seeds, herbs, and plants; then the field is cleared of stones, when it is freed and purged of them. The time to gather is when those same stones are collected and heaped together, so that from them a hedge or wall may be made to protect a field, garden, or vineyard against beasts and thieves.
Secondly, Arboreus narrows this maxim to the buildings of Solomon, which he now built, now destroyed: just as today we also see wealthy men often demolish a house they had built, for the sole reason that its design displeases them, and they wish to build a new one of a new design — which is truly an extravagant vanity and inconstancy.
Thirdly, Cajetan by "stones" understands precious ones — namely gems — as if to say: There is a time for collecting gems and ornaments, and a time for casting them away, such as in a time of devastation and destruction, according to Lamentations IV, 1: "The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street." Again, as if to say: In this age gems are held cheap and are, as it were, scattered; soon in another age they are collected and held in great esteem. For it is the estimation of men that gives value to gems, just as to medals; and since that estimation often varies, the price of gems likewise often varies.
Fourthly, more profoundly, Pineda refers this to the stones of commerce — namely, to the weights by which merchandise and coins were weighed; for these were formerly made of stone and were called stones, Proverbs XVI, 11 — as if to say: There is a time when a man devotes himself to commerce, and therefore collects stones, that is, weights by which he weighs and measures his merchandise and coins. Conversely, there is a time when a man, now wealthy and old, grows weary of commerce and desires to live quietly for himself and for God, and therefore scatters and casts away these stone weights.
Tropologically, the Author of the Greek Catena says: Stones are virtues with which we stone and overwhelm vices. "For what else is temperance but a stone by which the unbridled and neighing passion of the soul is dislodged and prostrated? Again, stones are the sayings of Sacred Scripture, with which we can strike down and overwhelm the enemy; yet he commands us to gather them back into the bosom of the soul, so that at the opportune time we may use them against adversaries, that the casting of such stones may never fail at any time, and we may never succumb."
Symbolically, first, Saint Jerome reports some who explain it thus, as if to say: The law of severity was succeeded by the law of clemency — namely, the Old Law by the New Law. For in the Old Law those guilty of adultery and other crimes were commanded to be stoned; but the New Law removed this rigor of the Old Law, when Christ absolved the adulteress and said to the Pharisees who wished to stone her: "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone at her," John chapter VIII, 7. But he himself does not approve this exposition as the literal sense; as a mystical sense, however, it can be admitted.
Allegorically, Saint Jerome says: At this time, he says, the stones, that is, the stony hearts of the Jews, were scattered by Christ — from faith, truth, and salvation; but at the end of the world they will be gathered, when they are converted to Christ, and all will be assembled together.
Anagogically, the chosen stones are the saints, whom God sends into the world so that they may sanctify it; but He gathers them when He receives them to Himself through death, lest they see the evils of their people, and so that they may build the heavenly Jerusalem, says Saint Gregory, Dialogues III, chapter XXXVII, at the end.
A TIME TO EMBRACE, AND A TIME TO BE FAR FROM EMBRACES. — The Arabic: to separate. Commonly the interpreters understand the embrace of spouses and the use of marriage, as if to say: Now is the time to give attention to procreating children, now to abstain and be continent — namely, when one must devote oneself to prayer, penance, and fasting (as in Lent), according to I Corinthians VII: "Do not defraud one another, unless perhaps by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer." Likewise when the wife is sick, suffers her monthly courses, is old, is absent, etc. So Saint Jerome, Olympiodorus, Hugo, Bonaventure, Lyranus, Dionysius, and almost all the rest. Thus Noah with his sons and all the animals in the ark abstained from the use of marriage, on account of the common mourning at the destruction of the whole world by the flood, as I explained on Genesis VIII, 16. Hence the Chaldean: at its time there is access to one's wife; but for seven days of mourning one must withdraw from her. Thus Tobias said to his bride Sarah, chapter VIII: "Arise, and let us pray to God today and tomorrow and the next day, because for these three nights we are joined to God; but when the third night has passed, we shall be in our marriage; for we are children of saints." Vatablus adds this explanation: whether we contract marriage or not but remain celibate depends on God; marriage has its own time.
Somewhat differently Thaumaturgus: Now, he says, a man is madly in love with a woman and embraces her with insane love; now he intensely hates and shuns her, especially after intercourse — the physical cause of which Aristotle and the natural philosophers explain — just as Amnon loathed Tamar after it, "so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her before," II Kings XIII, 14. Hence Campensis translates at this place: now we give ourselves to embraces, now we are nauseated by embraces.
Secondly, Hugo and Pineda understand the embrace of friends and friendship, as if to say: Now is the time to embrace friends and cultivate friendship; now to abstain from them — as when they are absent, die, or are found unfaithful — as if to say: The friendship of men is unstable, and in it there is vanity either of death, or of absence, or of treachery, or of sadness. But friendship with God is stable, and in it there is truth, sincerity, constancy, and blessed eternity. Therefore cling to Him, and "grow old in Him," Sirach II, 6. of the body or for the salvation of one's neighbors. So Saint Jerome and Hugo. Thus Moses, about to receive the law, conversed with God on the mountain for forty days; but afterwards, when the people sinned and practiced idolatry, he descended to correct them, Exodus XXXII, 7.
Allegorically, the time for embracing and marriage was in the law of nature and of Moses, when it was said: "Increase and multiply," Genesis I. But the time of continence is in the New Law, when it is said: "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven," Matthew XIX. "For it is the precept of the Old Testament that the earth be filled with offspring; but of the New, that heaven be filled with continence and virginity," says Saint Isidore, book II On the Offices of the Church, chapter XVII. So also Saint Jerome and Olympiodorus.
Symbolically, there is a proper time for devoting oneself to wisdom, contemplation, and the embraces of God with Mary; and equally a time for abstaining from them, so that one may devote oneself to action with Martha — namely, to serve the needs of the body or the salvation of one's neighbors. So Saint Jerome and Hugo. Thus Moses, about to receive the law, conversed with God on the mountain for forty days; but afterwards, when the people sinned and practiced idolatry, he descended to correct them, Exodus XXXII, 7.
Verse 6: A TIME TO GAIN (in Hebrew, to seek), AND A TIME TO LOSE
6. A TIME TO GAIN (in Hebrew, to seek), AND A TIME TO LOSE. — The Arabic: a time to suffer loss. The Chaldean: there is a chosen time for seeking money, and a chosen time for losing furnishings. Campensis: sometimes with great effort we seek what we may lose shortly after.
First, the Hebrews narrow this to David and Solomon, as if to say: The time to acquire the kingdom of Israel for the tribe of Judah was under David; the time to lose it was under Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, on account of his idolatry, III Kings XII.
Secondly, Olympiodorus, as if to say: There is a time when you lose your possession, and a time when you find what was lost again — so that it is a hysteron proteron. For first is placed "gaining," then "losing," while in reality losing comes before gaining what was lost.
Thirdly, Thaumaturgus, Nyssenus, Lyranus, Hugo, Bonaventure, and others adapt these words to merchants and those who seek profits, as if to say: There is a time when merchants acquire gains, and a time when they lose the same — as when cargo ships suffer shipwreck, or are captured by enemies, or the goods themselves spoil, or on account of the arrival of other goods they sell at a lower price. He urges, therefore, says Pineda, that we bear losses with an even mind, and whether with fortune, or rather with God the supreme arbiter and governor of things, we enter into a partnership of gain and loss in the commerce and possession of temporal things. For "if we have received good things from the hand of God, why should we not bear the bad?" The joy of gain must be tempered with the pain of loss and damage. And so, as another wisely said: "Against fortune, confidence of mind must be set; and against disturbance, reason." Nor should fortune be highly esteemed, which "gives not so much as a gift but as a loan," to be demanded back at its pleasure. "For fortune fastened to ropes is not very desirable" (as Cicero reports from a certain Spartan) — a thing that is indeed inconstant, and whether with winds or with waves, always in a thousand dangers.
Fourthly and genuinely, the word "to lose" here is not intransitive but active, so that it means the same as to destroy, cast away, dissipate; for this is what the Hebrew אבד abbed signifies. And so this combination is nearly the same as the following: "A time to keep, and a time to cast away" — as if to say: There is a time when you acquire and gain things such as provisions, crops, and wealth; and again there is a time when you lose and squander the same, as when a storm strikes at sea, a plague on land, an enemy in the city. Again, when the crops themselves are spoiled, or when for some other reason we grow disgusted with our possessions and therefore cast them away and commit them to the flames. So Saint Jerome, Albinus, and others.
Mystically, Saint Athanasius, in his treatise on the text: Going to the village that is opposite, you will find a colt, first explains it of Christ, as if to say: Christ sought man who was lost by the sin of Adam: "Because," he says, "the human race had been lost for a long time and was perishing through the deceits of the devil. For the time of seeking came, and of freeing from captivity."
Secondly, of the penitent sinner, as if to say: Seek through penance what you lost through sin; or: Acquire grace, lose sin.
Thirdly, of the just man, as if to say: In order to acquire the salvation of the soul, lose and mortify its concupiscence; in order to gain virtues, lose vices; in order to gain heaven, lose earth; in order to gain spiritual things, lose temporal things, according to the saying of Christ: "He who finds his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake shall find it," Matthew X, 39; "so that at the time of martyrdom we may be willing to spare neither possessions, nor children, nor parents, nor body, nor even the soul itself, but offer ourselves unto death, that we may find our soul in the kingdom of heaven. He therefore who wishes to find his soul, let him lose it in this time. It is necessary therefore that malice be destroyed in us, so that, seeking virtue, we may find it. For if someone has not rested from anger, how shall he be exercised in meekness? If someone has not exterminated fornication from himself, how shall he dare profess temperance? I sought, he says, him whom my soul loves; I sought and found him, and brought him into the dwelling of my mother, and into the chamber of her who bore me." Thus far Saint Athanasius.
Again the Author of the Greek Catena: "A time to acquire — this whole life is a time for acquiring; for acquiring, I say, the Lord, whom we ought to seek. On the contrary, we ought to lose that whose possession is a loss and whose loss is a gain."
A TIME TO KEEP, AND A TIME TO CAST AWAY. — The Syriac: a time to connect, and a time to loose. Thaumaturgus: now anxious custody preserves what later, growing disgusted, one freely casts away — as if to say: There is a time when you guard your possessions; and conversely a time when you cast them away — namely, when they are corrupted, or a storm, plague, death, enemy, thieves, etc., threaten, as I have already said. More narrowly, Campensis says: Sometimes we save what we afterwards squander. More remotely, Olympiodorus says: The steward knows at what time to keep money with him, and at what time to spend it. Others say: The generous man knows when to save money and when to distribute it to the poor.
Tropologically, the time to keep wealth is when it helps to feed one's family and to practice the virtue of almsgiving; the time to cast it away is when it harms the soul and incites it to gluttony and luxury, or calls it away from the pursuit of prayer and perfection. Hence Christ said to the young man: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor," Matthew chapter XIX, 21. So Hugo.
Mystically, Hugo of Saint Victor says: There is a time when God guards His faithful from temptations and dangers; and again a time when He exposes and subjects them to these, either as punishment for sin, or to test and increase their patience, faith, and virtue.
Verse 7: A TIME TO REND (others: to tear), AND A TIME TO SEW
7. A TIME TO REND (others: to tear), AND A TIME TO SEW. — The Arabic: a time to cut off, and a time to sew. Others: to stitch. Others: to mend. Campensis: sometimes we rip apart what we once sewed together. The Chaldean: on its day a garment must be torn for the dead, and eventually the tear must be mended.
The time for the Hebrews to rend their garments was in a grave calamity, or upon hearing some blasphemy, as Caiaphas tore his garments when Christ declared Himself to be the Son of God, saying: "He has blasphemed," Matthew chapter XXVI, 65. Conversely, when the calamity ceased, they sewed the torn garment. The time for rending, therefore, is the time of mourning; the time for sewing is the time of joy and gladness. Again, in order for any garment to be made, one must fittingly cut the cloth to the body, then sew it; furthermore, in order to fashion one garment from another — for example, to make a tunic into a breastplate — it is necessary to cut it and fit it to the chest, and then mend it. Thus God, who was the world's first tailor, sewed a tunic of skins for Adam, Genesis chapter III.
Less aptly, Thaumaturgus refers these to the cutting of the body, as if to say: There is a time when you cut and wound the body with a sword in war, or in judgment to punish a crime; and again a time when you restore what has been cut and, as it were, sew it back together. More remotely also, Didymus in the Greek Catena: "Man," he says, "now kills, now is killed."
Mystically the Hebrews say: The time for rending the kingdom of Israel was under Rehoboam, when the ten tribes revolting from him made Jeroboam king, III Kings XII. The time for sewing it together will be when at the end of the world all the Israelites, converted to Christ, will unite in one Church and kingdom never to be divided, Ezekiel XXXIV, 29.
Symbolically Hugo of Saint Victor refers these to the joining and dissolving of alliances and friendships: "For," he says, "social agreement has its sewing at its time; and the zeal of just opposition has its rending at its time."
More sublimely the same Hugo further refers these to the joining of nature and grace: "Those things," he says, "which are rent are substantially one; but those which are sewn together are essentially indeed diverse, yet through the binding thread they become, as it were accidentally, one. For thus every man is united to corruptible and perishable things through nature; but is made a partaker of eternal things through grace. Thus human and divine things are sewn together into one, so that what were two by nature become one by grace. Compunction itself is the needle, and love is the thread. The needle makes a way and pierces both, so that the thread may hold both together; for the sewing could not have been done otherwise, unless both were pierced and both were held together, because the one would depart from the other and would easily divide itself from the unity, if the bond did not hold both together. For this reason both the needle of compunction pierces, and the thread of love connects both, so that they stand together and do not separate from each other."
Again, the time for rending is the time for excommunicating, when the impenitent sinner is cut off from the Church, so that through this punishment and disgrace he may repent, and thus be sewn back and united to the Church again, as Paul cut off the fornicator and sewed the penitent back to the Church, I Corinthians chapter V and II Corinthians II. So the Author of the Greek Catena.
Allegorically, the body of Christ was rent in His Passion, and sewn together in His Resurrection. The same will happen to us.
Tropologically, we rend our hearts through penance and the cutting away of vices; we sew them through the weaving of a new life and virtues. Again, we sever our association with heretics and the wicked, and join ourselves with Catholics and the upright, when we rescind unjust contracts and enter into fair ones. Finally, Arius tore the tunic, that is, the Church of Christ, which Saint Athanasius sewed together again, as Christ showed to Saint Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, in a vision. See his Life in Surius, November 26.
A TIME TO KEEP SILENCE, AND A TIME TO SPEAK. — The Complutensian Chaldean: there is a chosen time for not uttering words of contention, and a chosen time for uttering words of contention. But the Chaldean of Costi has it thus: sometimes a limit must be placed on prayer and supplications; at other times one must use vehement words. He therefore refers these to the pursuit of prayer or silence. Didymus in the Greek Catena says: "Man now speaks, now is silent." The time for silence is in school, in prayers, in a sermon. Again, when a superior, teacher, or elder speaks, the subordinate, student, and young person must be silent and listen; when a teacher or preacher, now old, is destitute of voice, memory, eloquence, and grace, let him be silent and resign the torch and office of speaking, teaching, and preaching to a younger person who excels in these. The time for speaking belongs to the teacher when he must teach; to the preacher when he must preach; to the superior when a subordinate must be admonished or corrected; to an equal when he must bestow counsel, consolation, or direction on his neighbor. Hence Salonius says: "You shall keep your words under silence for a while, until a suitable occasion for speaking presents itself." Hear Saint Jerome: "I believe the Pythagoreans, whose discipline it was to be silent for five years and afterwards to speak as learned men, drew the origin of their decree from this. Let us therefore also learn first not to speak, so that afterwards we learned; this alone is so cheap and easy that it needs no teacher."
For this reason Solomon places the time for silence before the time for speaking, because by being silent we learn to speak. Hence Hugo of Saint Victor, Institutes of Morals XVI: "Solomon does not say, he notes, a time to speak and a time to be silent, but a time to be silent and a time to speak; because first in silence the manner of speaking is learned, which afterwards in the time for speaking is maintained in the voice." Hence Saint Basil, in the Longer Rules, chapter XLIII: "Silence is the training ground for speaking well." And Blessed Diadochus, book On Spiritual Perfection, chapter LXX: "An excellent thing, therefore, is silence, and nothing other than the mother of the wisest thoughts." Again Saint Jerome in the Rule for Monks, chapter XXII: "For from this, he says, the holy Fathers, taught in the desert, observe silence with the greatest diligence as the cause of holy contemplation." And Saint Bernard, epistle 88: "Continual silence and perpetual rest from all the noise of worldly things compels one to meditate on heavenly things." Blessed Dorotheus, sermon 20: "Beware of much speaking, for it utterly extinguishes holy, rational, and heaven-sent thoughts." Finally, silence teaches us to do what Saint Bernard commands in the Mirror of Monks: "Before you utter words, let them come twice to the file before once to the tongue." And that saying of Saint Augustine: "Let every word first come to the file before once to the tongue." Albertus Magnus, book On Virtues, chapter XXXI: "Where there is no taciturnity, there man is easily overcome by the adversary."
I have said more on this matter on Proverbs XXV, 11, and Sirach chapter XX, 6 and 7, where I cited Saint Gregory and Saint Ambrose, explaining this passage. Pope Zozimus confirms the same with many examples, as is found in distinction 36, chapter Who on Ecclesiastical matters: "Hence also, he says, our same Savior first sat in the midst of the teachers, hearing them and questioning them, and afterwards began to preach: because each person must first learn and afterwards assume the office of preaching. Hence also Solomon says first a time for silence and afterwards for speaking: because truth is first learned by being silent and afterwards proclaimed by speaking. Hence the same Lord says: Let him who hears say, Come. Hence also He first taught the Apostles, then sent them to preach, saying: Be wise as serpents and simple as doves. So also after the Resurrection He first opened their understanding and explained the Scriptures, and afterwards said to them: Going into the whole world," etc.
Moreover, Solomon poses this maxim for this purpose.
First, to show the vanity of wisdom and eloquence, on account of which learned and eloquent men, especially teachers and preachers, not infrequently grow proud, when on account of the grace of speaking they receive applause and draw after themselves flocks of hearers and disciples who hang on their lips. For to these succeeds a time for silence, when on account of old age, illness, or some other cause this grace of teaching and speaking fades, or when another more eloquent teacher or preacher arrives, whom the people, leaving the former, follow. In this matter preachers often suffer shipwreck of their audience, their reputation, and their peace of mind; and consequently, if they pursue this vain breeze of popular favor, they are most wretched, for it changes like the wind, and now follows this one, now that, abandoning the former. He who is wise, therefore, should discharge this office purely out of obedience and love of God, and with Saint Francis should preach with the same peace of mind and the same cheerfulness to few and to many, to commoners and to nobles. Let him think that he has God as a great hearer, and say of Him what Plato said of Aristotle: "This one is enough for me, for he is worth more than a thousand others."
Secondly, to teach the prudent man to prudently distinguish the time for silence and the time for speaking, and therefore to speak and be silent with profit; whereas the imprudent man perverts both, speaking when he should be silent and being silent when he should speak, and therefore speaks or is silent without profit — indeed with harm to both himself and his neighbor — according to the saying: "There is one who is silent, not having the sense of speech; and there is one who is silent, knowing the proper time. The wise man will be silent until the time comes; but the frivolous and imprudent will not observe the time," Sirach chapter XX, verse 6. So Saint Gregory, Pastoral Rule III, admonition 13: "A time for silence and a time for speaking: for the times of these vicissitudes must be discreetly weighed, lest either when the tongue ought to be restrained it flow out uselessly through words, or when it could usefully speak, it lazily restrains itself."
Verse 8: A Time of Love, and a Time of Hatred
8. A TIME OF LOVE, AND A TIME OF HATRED. — The Septuagint: a time to love, and a time to hate. The Syriac: a time for loving, and a time for hating. The Arabic: a time for loving, and a time for insult. Campensis: sometimes we love, sometimes we pursue with hatred the one we loved.
The meaning is, as if to say: Nothing in the world, nothing even in the appetite of man, is fixed and stable, but all things are changeable and vain. For some thing — say a friend — whom you now love, you will pursue with hatred when you find him harmful, unfaithful, or opposed to you; or certainly when your affection changes, he will displease you. Thus love and hatred are taken actively. They can also be taken passively, as if to say: Do not trust too much in a friend and in friendship, that you are loved by him; because he who now loves you will soon hate you. For these affections so alternate in men that what they now ardently desire, as soon as they have obtained it they grow disgusted with, and even come to hate. Hence Bias admonished: "Love as if you were going to hate; hate as if you were going to love."
Properly, the cause and object of the wise and just man's love is virtue, and of his hatred, sin. Therefore for the just man the time of love is when he sees his neighbor devoted to virtue; of hatred, when he sees the same declining toward sin; for then he hates him not as a man, but as a sinner — indeed, properly he hates only the sin in him, in order to destroy it and free his neighbor from it; or certainly, if he is a superior, may punish it with just punishment for the terror of others. Hence the Chaldean translates: a suitable time for one to love his companion, and a suitable time for one to hate a sinful man, especially one who strives to drag you and others into the fellowship of sin.
Finally, the time of love is in youth, which, abounding in blood, heat, and spirits, is inclined to loving; the time of hatred is in old age, which, being cold, sluggish, sad, and morose, tends toward disgust and hatred. Hence to the Synagogue, still tender and young, God says: "Behold, your time was the time of lovers." In Hebrew דודים dodim, that is, of loves or of breasts, Ezekiel chapter XVI, verse 8.
Tropologically, now is the time for loving the flesh and the soul, that we may advance it toward God's grace and glory; now for hating the same, when we must resist its depraved desires, according to the saying of Christ: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own soul, he cannot be My disciple," Luke chapter XIV, 26.
To this Saint Cyprian in On the Singularity of Clerics adds: "A time to love, he says, and a time to hate. Love women in the sacred solemnities (so that you may admit them to those rites, O Cleric), and hate them in private fellowship (lest you associate with them privately), if you wish to hold to the doctrine of Solomon."
Again Saint Jerome tropologically explains it thus: "There is a time for loving, after God, children, wife, and relatives; and a time for hating them in martyrdom, when hostile impiety attacks those who are steadfast in the confession of Christ." So also Saint Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, octonary 15: "A time to love, he says, and a time to hate — that is, the time of martyrdom, when divine things must be preferred to every bond of family affection, etc., so that it is fitting to hate those you loved and to love those you hated."
Allegorically the same Saint Jerome, as if to say: In the time of Solomon, circumcision and the Jewish law were to be loved; now in the time of Christ they are to be hated and rejected. Anagogically the same, as if to say: The time of this life is the time in which we love present things, which in the future blessedness we shall despise and pursue with hatred.
Finally the Author of the Greek Catena says: The time for loving, and also for hating, is the whole of life; but the target of love is none other than God, and the target of hatred is the enemy of our life, the devil.
A TIME OF WAR, AND A TIME OF PEACE. — This antithesis is subordinate to and nearly the same as the preceding one. For the time of war is the time of hatred, and the time of peace is the time of concord and love. Hence the Arabic translates: a time for waging war, and a time for making peace and greeting; the Chaldean: there is a chosen time for fighting, and a chosen time for making peace. Campensis: sometimes we wage hostilities, then again we embrace peace. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: There is a time when peace must be prepared by war, as when enemies invade or harm the state, when seditious or wicked men disturb the common peace, when vices and desires in ourselves or others must be cut away — after which it is the time for peace. For peace is to be sought for its own sake, inasmuch as it makes the state flourish with virtue, justice, and all temporal and spiritual goods. Hence in Scripture God is called the God of peace, and the peace of God — namely, a singular and proper gift, Philippians IV, 7; Romans XV, 33. But war is to be undertaken not for its own sake, but for the sake of peace. Hence war (bellum) is said by antiphrasis, as if it were least bellum, that is, beautiful; or from beasts (belluis), as if beastly; or bellum as if duellum (just as for bonum they formerly said duonum); or from Belus, who first waged war, as I have said elsewhere from Cassiodorus, book I of the Variae, epistle 30.
Again Thaumaturgus explains it thus, as if to say: "Human affairs are now afflicted by war, now tranquil and peaceful; and such is their inconstancy that things which just now seemed favorable slide in a swift moment into the most certain evils."
Mystically, Saint Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, octonary 15: "The time of war is, he says, when we wage war even for the name of Christ against faithless bonds. The time of peace, because His place is in peace." And Nyssenus in the Greek Catena: "The time of peace is the whole of life, so that we may be at peace with God, inasmuch as we have taken up a hostile and aggressive spirit against the adversary (Satan)."
Finally, our Alvarez de Paz, book II of On the Spiritual Life, part II, chapter XV, applies all these antitheses of Solomon to signify that each person ought first to devote himself to his own perfection, and then attend to the salvation of his neighbor. Consider, he says, that all things have their time, and you must first grow in virtues and arrive at the perfection of spiritual maturity before you beget children for God and are called the mother of others. Take note, O soul, that now at the beginning of your conversion "it is the time to be born" and to arrive at divine love, and afterwards there will be "a time to die" for your brethren, so that with Paul you can say: "I die daily, by your glory, brethren," I Corinthians chapter XV, 31. Now "it is the time to plant" and to engraft virtues in yourself; afterwards there will be a time to uproot from the hearts of others what was wrongly planted by the ancient enemy. Now "a time to kill" — namely, to extinguish the disordered love of yourself, and in the morning to slay all the sinners of the land; and then there will be "a time to heal," when you will be fit to treat the wounds of others and to bring healing to infirm minds by the word of doctrine. Now "a time to destroy" what you had wrongly built in the world; and afterwards there will be "a time to build," when you have gathered resources by which you may erect the citadel of virtues in others. Now "a time to weep" over your own offenses, and afterwards there will be "a time to laugh" and to rejoice over the conversion of the impious effected by you. For of preachers it is thus written: "Going forth they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves." Now "a time to mourn" on account of one's own evils, and then there will be "a time to dance" out of the affection of devotion for the good of the brethren. "A time to gather stones" and to prepare the weapons necessary for battle, and afterwards there will be "a time to scatter" them and to lodge them in the forehead of the Philistine. Now "a time to embrace" the Bridegroom who feeds among the lilies, and afterwards there will be "a time to be far from embraces," when, perfected by the gift of charity, you say with Paul: "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for the sake of my brethren." Now "a time to acquire" gifts which you may later distribute, and then there will be "a time to lose" yourself — that is, to labor and afflict yourself, so that you may gain souls. Now "a time to guard" the citadel of your mind, and afterwards there will be "a time to cast away" in part the care of yourself, so that you may also take up the care of others. Now "a time to rend" your heart and soften it with sorrow for sins; and then there will be a time to sew — that is, to compose a discourse for the good of your neighbors from the sayings of Scripture. Now "a time to be silent," and afterwards "a time to speak," because, as Hugo says, first through silence in the time for being silent one learns what afterwards through speech in the time for speaking one may utter. Finally, now "a time of love" of God, and "a time of war" against those things which resist this love; and in the future there will be "a time" for exercising "hatred" against those things which your Beloved hates, and "a time" of rest and "peace" amid occupations.
Verse 9: What has Man More of his Labor?
9. WHAT HAS MAN MORE OF HIS LABOR? — except this vicissitude of contraries just recounted, this inconstancy, this torment, this vanity — which is the theme and argument of the whole book proposed at the beginning, and then repeated after each induction as an exclamation and conclusion. Hence Campensis translates: what fruit does man gain from such conflicting and troublesome occupations? As if to say: None, because all things succeed each other through the turns of time, torment, and vanish. Hence Thaumaturgus infers: "Let us therefore say a long farewell to such fruitless labors" — that is, let us use them in passing as if in transit, using each thing in its time, but meanwhile let us remain with our mind fixed on God and eternity, and continually tend and aspire toward it. And Saint Jerome says: "Since all things slip away in their time, why do we strive and strain in vain, and think the labors of a brief life to be perpetual? Let us not be content with, according to the Gospel, the evil of the day, and let us think nothing for the morrow. For what more can we have in this world by laboring? — in which only this has been given by God to men, that each person, pursuing one thing or another, may have something in which to be trained and to exercise himself."
Again Nyssenus judges that these words are said about death — that all human labors and their fruits end in death, so that "of his labor" means the same as "after his labor and life." "It is, he says, as if he were saying: What more has he from all his human labors, from which nothing returns to him? He cultivates fields, sails, is afflicted with military works, practices commerce, suffers loss, gains profit, litigates, fights, loses a case, wins a suit by the verdict given, is considered unhappy, is reckoned blessed, stays at home, wanders among foreigners. What more does all this bring to him who consumes his life through these things? Is it not that as soon as he has ceased to live, all is covered with oblivion, and deserted by the things whose pursuit held him, he departs naked?"
Moreover the Chaldean has it thus: what more has the working man, who labors to make treasures and to gather money, unless he is aided from above by a good star? The Septuagint: what abundance has the worker in the things at which he labors? The Syriac: what usefulness is there in the work at which he labors? The Arabic: what remains for him who works at all the things in which he labors? For all these meanings are expressed by the Hebrew יתרון iitron, as I said on chapter I, verse 3. The meaning of all is, as if to say: From the vicissitudes of the times just described, it is clear that nothing remains for man from all his labor that is fixed and stable, in which he may find rest; and therefore nothing remains except that he run opportunely through all those vicissitudes and pass with the passing things. Therefore let him establish for himself no happiness in this life, since nothing in it is perpetual, nothing durable, but all things are temporal, passing, and vain. Let him therefore seek happiness in the future eternity, and prepare himself for it by serving the true God, and fix all his hopes in Him, with whom all things are solid, firm, and eternal.
Verse 10: I have Seen the Affliction Which God has Given to the Children of Men, that They may be Exercised...
10. I HAVE SEEN THE AFFLICTION WHICH GOD HAS GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN, THAT THEY MAY BE EXERCISED IN IT. — In Hebrew ענות anoth, that is, that they may be humbled, afflicted, tormented in it.
This maxim stands in Hebrew and Greek with the same words in chapter I, 13 (although our Vulgate there translates affliction as "occupation" and exercised as "occupied"), where I explained it; therefore I will not repeat here what was said there. This maxim pertains to the preceding question and seems to be a response to it, or at least the reason and confirmation of an implied response. Hence Campensis translates: what fruit does man gain from such conflicting and troublesome occupations? I have discovered that God sent those things into the minds of men, so that they might torment themselves with them. And Thaumaturgus, having translated the preceding verse as: let us therefore say a long farewell to such fruitless labors, gives the reason in this verse, saying: Since indeed all these things are in my judgment armed with venomous stings to harass men. So also both Hugos, Cajetan, Osorius, and others.
Furthermore Saint Jerome, and following him Albinus and Titelmannus, refer this maxim to what follows about the investigation of the world and of things created by God, as if to say: God implanted in man this occupation of examining the things He created in the world, so that, honestly occupied with it, he might acknowledge, love, and praise God the Creator, and thus abstain from the curious investigation of divine and hidden things, and from all vice.
Finally, Nyssenus judges that this affliction was given by God to man not in itself, but by occasion — namely, by which man abuses God's good things with excessive love and zeal, by which he afflicts himself. It is, he says, as if a guest of the king, given a knife for cutting food, were to misuse it for his own or others' destruction. So also Olympiodorus: "Man," he says, "having fallen from the right path and turned away from constant reason, converts what is useful in each thing into its contrary." The Chaldean version supports this, for he holds that this affliction was given to impious man as punishment for sin: "I saw," he says, "the business of chastisements and the vengeance which the Lord gave to the children of men who are wicked, that they may be afflicted in it."
Verse 11: HE MADE ALL THINGS (God, mentioned earlier) GOOD IN THEIR TIME
11. HE MADE ALL THINGS (God, mentioned earlier) GOOD IN THEIR TIME. — The Hebrew: He made everything beautiful in its time; hence the world in Greek is called κόσμος (cosmos), from the adornment and beauty of things. He teaches that the turns of time already described are good, inasmuch as they were made and arranged fittingly for each time by the most good and wise God, for the good and advantage of creation and of man.
Beautiful, or as the ancients said polscer, comes from pollendo (excelling), because it excels in form. For, as Cicero says in Tusculan Disputations IV: "Beauty of body is a fitting arrangement of the limbs with a certain agreeableness of color." Thus the beauty of the world consists in the fitting arrangement, disposition, and connection of the elements, heavens, and other parts, having in mixed things its variegated and all-encompassing agreeableness of colors. The beauty of time and temporal things consists in the congruent succession, proportion, and connection of its parts — namely, that the time of being born comes first, followed by the time of growing and begetting, and finally ending with the time of dying. Thus the beauty of the year is that cold and rigid winter is followed by mild spring, flourishing and green (hence spring, ver, is so called because it makes all things green, virere); spring is followed by summer rich with harvest; summer by autumn adorned and, as it were, painted with grapes, fruits, and multicolored produce. Thus God made everything beautiful in its time, because, for example, the pleasantness of spring is beautiful in spring, and would not be beautiful, fitting, or advantageous in winter or summer; likewise cold is beautiful in winter, not in summer, etc. This is what is said in Genesis I, 10 and 12: "And God saw that it was good;" for good is fitting and beautiful. Hence the Septuagint here translates: all things which He made are good in their time; and the Syriac: everything He does is best in its time; and the Arabic: all things which He made I know to be most excellent; Symmachus: each thing is good in its proper time; the Chaldean: Solomon said in the spirit of prophecy: The Lord made all things good in their time.
This is an anticipation by which he meets a tacit objection. For someone will say: If creatures are in themselves vain and perishable, for what reason then were they created by the true and eternal God? He responds that creatures, insofar as they were made by God, are good and beautiful; but insofar as they subsist in themselves, they are vain and tend and incline toward nothingness. Again, they are vain insofar as man misuses them, fixing his heart on them as if they were the highest goods — above God, indeed against God — in order to enjoy them and satisfy himself with them, when God alone can satisfy the mind of man. Therefore man ought only to use creatures, but to enjoy God alone, as Saint Augustine teaches, and the theologians after him.
AND HE HAS DELIVERED THE WORLD TO THEIR CONSIDERATION. — Campensis: and He has exposed this whole world to be examined by their intellect. In Hebrew it is: עולם olam He delivered into their heart. Now olam first signifies something hidden, from עלם alam, that is, he hides; secondly, perpetuity and eternity, whose end is hidden from us; thirdly, the age and the world, or the course of times and of all things in the world, whose limits and boundaries are hidden from us. The Syriac translates: the essence of the world, that is, the nature and substance of the world.
Hence a manifold translation arises, and consequently a manifold interpretation.
First, some according to Titelmannus translate: God delivered hiddenness into the heart of men — hiddenness, that is, ignorance of death, for this is most deeply hidden from man. Hence in the first antithesis, verse 1, he placed a time of dying, to which he alludes here, as if to say: Death certainly threatens everyone, but its day and hour are uncertain to us; and God wished to hide this from us, to teach us to be watchful and to live holily — namely, so that we may live as if we were going to die every day.
Secondly, Cajetan and David de Pomis translate: God gave the desire for perpetuity into the heart of men. Wherefore man will find nothing in earthly things, since they are perishable, that can satisfy this desire of his; but he must raise his mind to God and heaven, so that, fixed on Him, he may become capable and possessor of the desired eternity, by despising temporal things and pursuing eternal ones. And Didymus in the Greek Catena says: "He gave them eternity — that is, the discipline and knowledge of eternity, that is, the kingdom of heaven, which the Lord declared to be within us; which, while it is covered and besieged by the manifold tumult of disturbances, is not easily found by men."
Thirdly and best, the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic translate: and He delivered the age or the world into their heart. But here the question arises: what does "into their heart" mean? First, "their" — namely, of the demons who have dominion in the world, says Thaumaturgus, as if to say: God permitted the devil and his followers to exercise dominion in the world until the day of judgment, and to tempt men. Hence by Paul, Ephesians II, 2, he is called "the prince of the power of this air," and by Christ, "the prince of this world," John XII, 31. Hear Thaumaturgus: "All these things are in my judgment armed with venomous stings to harass men, and the malignant demon, who from the beginning of the world to its end is always eager to do harm, goes about this world with gaping mouth and strives immoderately, if by any occasion he might be able to destroy God's creature."
Secondly, others better understand "their" as referring to men, about whom all this discourse is. For no mention has been made of demons. Now since the heart is the seat and symbol of many things — namely, first, of love and delight; secondly, of will and dominion; thirdly, of choice; fourthly, of discussion and examination — hence a manifold meaning arises here. Some therefore explain it thus, as if to say: God indeed created the world and all things in the world that are beautiful and good, and delivered them to the heart of man, so that he might modestly and honestly delight himself with their love, use, and enjoyment. But the human heart abuses them by pouring itself entirely into them; and therefore by things beautifully created by God, he deforms himself and defiles himself with the filth of sins. Hence Saint Jerome explains it thus, as if to say: "God gave the world for men to inhabit, so that they might enjoy the varieties of the seasons, and not inquire about the causes of natural things — how all things were created, why He caused this or that to grow, remain, and change from the beginning of the world to its consummation."
Nyssenus, however, judges that here is signified "whence human nature was drawn away from good and right — namely, by occasion taken from divine benefits; for God indeed made all things for good, and gave reason to men by which they might discern what is better; but by evil counsel departing from reason and from the proper time, they turn what is useful into its contrary."
To these add the exposition of Vatablus, which is as follows: All the works of God are good and made in their time; and the things which happen in this world — that is, the affairs of this world, that is, the desire and longing to know the things of this world — He has implanted in the mind of men, and so they transact business in this world as if they were going to live forever.
Thirdly, others, taking "heart" for will and dominion, explain it thus, as if to say: God delivered the world, so beautifully created, to the heart — that is, to the will and dominion of man — so that he might be its lord, prince, and, as it were, king of the world, using at pleasure herbs, plants, trees, animals, gold, silver, metals, etc. But man, having abused this dominion, was rebellious against God, the supreme Lord of all; and therefore this dominion was not entirely taken from him, but was greatly curtailed and diminished by God. Hence our Pineda sensibly explains it thus: God gave the world and the age, and all the vanities of the age and of time, into the heart of man, as if to say: God made man a microcosm and a little world, so that he might experience in himself that variety and inconstancy of times, and moreover understand that nothing is to be sought outside himself, and that human happiness is not to be placed in any external good, as it is written: "The kingdom of God is within you." Whatever good, therefore, or tranquility, or pleasure you desire, do not seek it outside yourself, but in yourself and in your heart, when you have composed the disturbances of your mind, closed off your desires, restrained your unbridled impulses, and external things you have despised. The goods of your soul are your own, they are perpetual, and you will carry them with you wherever you may happen to be; not so those external things, which will shortly come to an end.
Fourthly, others take it as referring to the choice of the heart, that is, of the mind, as if to say: God delivered the whole world and all the contraries that are in it to the choice of man, that he might choose in it good or evil as he pleases, according to Sirach XV, 14: "God from the beginning constituted man and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added His commandments and precepts: if you wish to keep the commandments, they shall preserve you, etc. He has set before you water and fire; stretch forth your hand to whichever you wish."
Fifthly and best, our Vulgate takes "heart" as referring to the examination of the heart — that is, of the mind — its discussion, meditation, inquiry, and knowledge. For the heart, or mind, is the workshop of these; hence the saying:
The heart knows, the lung speaks, the bile stirs anger.
The same is proven by what follows: "So that man may not find out the work which God has made." For the philosophers have disputed, and still dispute, about the world, while some said it was composed of water, others of atoms, others of earth, etc. Hence so many sects among them: Academics, Stoics, Skeptics, Peripatetics, etc. And so often there are as many diverse opinions and views about the world, heavens, stars, winds, etc., as there are philosophers.
Moreover, God delivered the world to a twofold examination by man — namely, of the intellect and the will, of knowledge and choice, of speculation and affection.
For first, God set the world before the eyes of men like a beautiful ball, so that they might examine the natures, properties, powers, and actions of it and of the things contained in it — namely, of the heavens, elements, winds, plants, animals, etc. — as well as the varieties of times already recounted; and thus in them they might recognize and praise the beauty, wisdom, beneficence, and power of God the Creator; and in practical affairs they might seek and seize the time destined and fitted by God for the conducting of each matter. So Didymus, Saint Jerome, Titelmannus, and Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapters LXIV and LXV. Furthermore, Olympiodorus judges that God permitted the wise men of this world to be anxious and occupied about the world, lest if they had continually and with tranquil mind attended to the fabric and structure of this world, and had perceived and known its beauty, they might think that these visible things were God or gods. Likewise, He gave to all the children of men the knowledge of the present age — namely, that all things began and will cease to be; but of those things which were before the beginning of time and which will be after this age, certain and manifest knowledge is not had.
Nyssenus and Hugo, however, judge that the world was given by God to the examination — that is, the contemplation and moderate investigation — of men, but that through their abuse it became the matter and object of a curious and harmful disputation and argument — inquiring, debating, and judging about the Creator Himself, about His providence and judgments, about happiness, etc., in matters so various, so many, so discordant, so rash, so impious — and meanwhile scarcely arriving, or not even scarcely, at an exact knowledge of any single natural thing from all the things which God made from the beginning of creation and thenceforward to the end.
Secondly, God delivered the world to the examination of man, so that man, disputing and reasoning within himself about the vanity of the world and the succession, rotation, and passage of all times and temporal things, and on the other hand about God's truth, constancy, eternity, and every kind of perfection, might conclude and say to himself: Therefore call your heart and love away from the world, and transfer and fix them on God; for He alone can satisfy and beatify your immense desire for knowing and loving. For it was for this purpose that the world was created by God and delivered to man — that through the world he might ascend to the world's Maker, and fix all his concerns and hopes in Him, and thus obtain stable rest and perpetual happiness. Hence Nyssenus says: "Whoever did not use what they received as they ought and for their benefit, did not find the work of God, which God made for the purpose of benefit, from the beginning of creation to the consummation of the universe, since in the things that exist there is nothing evil."
SO THAT MAN MAY NOT FIND OUT THE WORK WHICH GOD HAS MADE FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END. — As if to say: The world has been delivered to the examination of men, so that seeing God's work so beautiful, so sublime, so perfect and complete, they may not find — that is, may be unable to discover — its innermost qualities and perfections, which are very many in it "from beginning to end" — that is, from head to foot, from bottom to top, from the foundations to the roof, from the center of the earth to the summit of the heavens. But they may continually dispute and debate about them among themselves; whereby they are compelled to admire and be astounded at this work, and much more at its Maker, God, who built this admirable machinery of the world like a most magnificent palace complete in all its parts, set the highest pinnacle upon it, and put the finishing touch to it — so that from this admiration all might be carried away to His love, veneration, and worship.
Secondly, others explain it contrarily, as if to say: God did not wish to create the works of the world as full and perfect in every respect, so that man might not find complete perfection in them, and therefore might not fix his mind upon them, but might rise to God and place his happiness in Him. Man will not find, therefore, this work so perfect and useful that nothing of perfection is wanting in it; for God did not wish His works to be so perfect "from beginning to end" that no element was lacking in them. He wished nothing to be perpetual and useful at all times from beginning to end, but only in its own time — that is, for a brief and prescribed period. So Pineda.
Thirdly, others explain it affirmatively by way of a question, as if to say: How shall man not find this work of God in the world? Indeed, if he considers it diligently, he will certainly find it perfect and complete in all its parts from beginning to end, so that nothing is lacking anywhere. Again, he will find the same from beginning to end — that is, always and at every time when he examines its individual parts and members, and more attentively considers the nature, use, and utility of each.
But the first sense is the genuine one, as is clear from what follows; for thus Solomon explains it in verse 14.
FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END. — That is, thoroughly, says Cajetan, who refers it to "may find," as if to say: God delivered the world to the examination of men, so that man may be unable to thoroughly discover its properties and conditions, and their causes and effects, and therefore may continually dispute about them as if in doubt. Vatablus, however: so that he may not find from beginning to end — that is, he says, so that he may be unable to perfectly and intimately know and penetrate all things that are in the world, traversing them from beginning to end. The Chaldean: so that it may not be known to a man from the beginning what will be in the end of days even unto ages of ages. He adds that the last day of death was also hidden from them, lest it be possible for man to know what would happen from head to foot. With this agrees Bonaventure and the Carthusian: from the beginning, he says, of man's life until death, or throughout the whole of life.
Others better refer it to "the work," in the sense I mentioned a little before, as if to say: The work of God — namely, this world — was created so beautiful and perfect, from its beginning to its end, that is, from the first day of creation to the sixth and last, Genesis I, that man cannot find and comprehend its beauty, harmony, connection, and perfection. Indeed, "from beginning to end" — that is, from the first, meaning the smallest and lowliest creature, to the last, meaning the noblest and most excellent — he cannot fully perceive and penetrate any one of them, not even the smallest. For who can comprehend the nature and all the qualities of a fly, a gnat, or a flea? Surely:
The greatest God Himself shines forth in the smallest things.
Verses 12-13: And I Knew that There was no Better Thing than to Rejoice, and to do Well in this Life. for Every...
12 and 13. AND I KNEW THAT THERE WAS NO BETTER THING THAN TO REJOICE, AND TO DO WELL IN THIS LIFE. FOR EVERY MAN THAT EATS AND DRINKS AND SEES GOOD (that is, enjoys good) OF HIS LABOR, THIS IS THE GIFT OF GOD. — The Hebrew: and I know there is nothing better in them (the works and creatures of the world) than to rejoice and to do good in one's life. Vatablus: I knew that there is no happiness for men in them, except that they rejoice and bestow benefits upon their neighbors. Didymus in the Greek Catena: "I knew indeed that things in themselves contain no goodness or happiness, but that the very principles of things — that is, the knowledge and true understanding of them, for which the rational nature was made to rejoice — and the very exercise of doing good, this at last is what is good, favorable, and happy for men. For nothing so nourishes and waters the soul as the food of virtue and the streams of knowledge."
Saint Bonaventure takes these words as spoken from the mind and in the person not of Solomon, but of fools and Epicureans. But Thaumaturgus, Saint Jerome, Albinus, Saint Augustine, both Hugos, Lyranus, Cajetan, Vatablus, Titelmannus, and all the rest take them as spoken in the person of Solomon, and the words themselves plainly signify this. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: I, Solomon, contemplating partly the instability and vicissitude of things which the succession of time continually brings, as I said at the beginning of the chapter; and partly the curious, troublesome, and useless disputation of men about the world, since it is impossible to penetrate and comprehend the things of the world — I judged it better to use creatures modestly, according to the fixed times at which they are offered to us by God for enjoyment, and in their moderate use and enjoyment to honestly delight myself, and thus to live a life of honest gladness and good works, because this is the will of God, whose gift accordingly is the frugal use of created things — neither running wild through abuse, nor cheating one's nature through sordid and miserly parsimony. See the things said on chapter II, 4. For here he repeats and emphasizes what he said there. This gladness he opposes to the affliction of spirit which desire and the toil of human affairs bring, as he has often said.
Allegorically: There is nothing better than to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ in the Eucharist. So Saint Augustine, City of God XVII, 20, where he contends that this is the literal sense. For Solomon, he says, "that he does not mean carnal feasts of pleasure is sufficiently shown" where he says (chapter VII): "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting." And shortly after: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of feasting."
AND TO DO WELL. — This expression signifies three things: First, to live happily, to lead a life pleasantly and cheerfully, which in Greek is called εὖ πράττειν, so that it is nearly the same as to rejoice. Thus Aben-Ezra takes it here: to do well, he says, is to cheer oneself with the frugal use of good things. And Campensis: to cheer oneself, to do good to oneself while one lives. And Bonaventure distinguished thus: "To rejoice in enjoying, and to do pleasant good things by working." But when Scripture wishes to signify this, it usually adds something and says: to do good to oneself or to one's soul.
Secondly, therefore, others better judge that "to do well" denotes beneficence. So Saint Jerome: "Having food and clothing, let us be content with these; and whatever more we can have, let us spend it on nourishing the poor and in generosity to the needy." And Didymus in the Greek Catena: "I knew, he says, that tranquility of mind and beneficence are the greatest goods for man." And Moringus: I knew, he says, that nothing is better than to convert the goods bestowed on us to honorable uses while life lasts — first for the modest protection of oneself, and then, if anything remains, to distribute it in pious donations and for the needs of others, according to the saying of Paul, or rather of Christ: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," Acts chapter XX, 35 — see the things said there. For nothing is so divine as to do good and to bind all to oneself by benefits. So also Vatablus, Arboreus, and others. Wisely, from Heraclitus, Maximus says in his sermon On Beneficence: "Timely beneficence, like food suited to hunger, heals the indigence of the soul (that is, from avarice — that sacred hunger for gold, I mean)." Indeed even Plutarch, in his book On Living Pleasantly according to Epicurus, asserts from his mind that it is more pleasant to be affected by wrongdoing and injury than to inflict the same on others. And Seneca, book III On Benefits, chapter XV: "It belongs to a generous and magnificent soul to help and benefit; he who gives benefits imitates the gods."
Thirdly, fully and best, "to do well" means the same as to act from virtue, to do what is honorable, to fulfill the law of God. For this is what "to do well" or "to do good" signifies, Psalm XXXIII, 15: "Turn from evil and do good;" II Chronicles XXIV, 16, and elsewhere. So Thaumaturgus: I am persuaded, he says, that the greatest goods of man are joy of mind and the performance of good works. And the Chaldean: Solomon the king said by the spirit of prophecy: It is clear to me that nothing better or more excellent has been given to men than that they may refresh themselves with the joy of the law and spend their whole life in the best works. So also Nyssenus, Olympiodorus, and others.
He aptly joins these two — namely, to rejoice and to do well — to indicate that there is no true joy except in doing good, and that the cause of true joy is to always act well. Do you wish, therefore, to always rejoice? Always act well, for thus you will always be joyful. For there is no more joyful mind than one that is conscious of its own rectitude — more joyful, I say, "now indeed through the hope of joy, and afterwards, having received the fruit of good joy, with a joy proper to those who are worthy, says Nyssene and the Author of the Greek Catena. Hence many placed happiness in joy. Whence Aristotle, book VII of the Ethics, derives the word makarios from chairein, that is, to rejoice, to be glad, as if makachaire, meaning that the blessed one is he who greatly rejoices. And St. Isidore, book X of the Origins: "Blessed," he says, "is so called, as if 'well increased,' namely from having what one wishes and suffering nothing that one does not wish. He, however, is truly blessed who both has all the good things he wants and wants nothing evil. For from these two things a man is made blessed. For the sake of knowing the reasons of things," he says, "and for doing good, it is arranged by nature that the rational nature should rejoice." And Thaumaturgus: "This alone," he says, "is the pleasure that comes from God, if justice leads in the conduct of affairs." Hence the ancient anchorites, and now true religious, are always joyful; and so St. Anthony was distinguished from all others by the joy of his mind alone, as St. Athanasius testifies in his Life. See Hieronymus Platus, book III On the Good of the Religious State, chapters 11 and following. On the other hand, concerning the bittersweet and acrid joys of pleasures, St. Chrysostom writes thus, in his homily On Compunction: "As sick men," he says, "when they are afflicted with many fevers, if they plunge themselves into cold waters, seem to themselves to have found some present relief, but multiply the flames of their fevers: so also do we act, when we are goaded by the stings of conscience, if we seek merely external causes of joy and gladness." The same author, in homily 65 to the People, teaches that the joys of the world beget sadness, but the joys of the spirit endure and grow: "Good," he says, "is such joy, better than all worldly joy; thus I prefer the mourner to all who rejoice." And further: "Therefore we rejoice with a useless joy, which is of the world, which is immediately extinguished and begets infinite sorrows. Let us rather be sad with a sadness that begets joy, and not rejoice with a joy that begets sadness. Let us pour out tears, sowing much pleasure: and let us not laugh with a laughter that produces for us the gnashing of teeth. Let us be afflicted with tribulation, from which indulgence is born: and let us not seek delights, from which much tribulation and anguish are born."
And sees good, that is, tastes good, namely eats and drinks something savory, and enjoys it, and delights himself. For sight, being the noblest of the senses, is taken metonymically for taste and any sense. Wherefore what Nyssene says: "Sees good," that is, "does good," namely devotes himself to piety and good works, is mystical, not literal. "Because," he says, "what food and drink are to the body, by which nature is preserved, this is for the soul to look upon the good, and this is truly a gift of God, to have one's eyes fixed on God; and just as the carnal man has strength in eating and drinking: so he who looks upon the good," etc. And the Author of the Greek Catena:
"Nothing so nourishes and waters the soul as virtue and knowledge."
This is a GIFT OF GOD. — Namely an outstanding and excellent one. In Hebrew, the gift of Elohim itself, as if to say: This gift is a special one of the divine power and providence: for this is what Elohim signifies; Campensis: let him consider it a manifest gift of God; the Chaldean: and as for the one who has eaten and drunk, if he has indulged throughout his whole life, and dying has left to his children the fruits of his labor, by this very fact he may seem to have been favored with the greatest benefit from God; Didymus in the Greek Catena: "I hold it established that this use of temporal things comes to man from heaven, provided that justice is the guide of all actions." St. Chrysostom gives the reason, in homily 1 on the Epistle to the Corinthians: "He," he says, "who enjoys spiritual joy, cannot be seized by sorrow; but being well armed on every side, he repels the darts that assail him: the pleasure that is perceived according to God is more powerful than any fleet of arms." And shortly after: "On the contrary, he who abounds in earthly pleasures can be seized and overcome by anything, and it happens to him as to one who is equipped with weak arms, and is wounded by even the slightest blow."
Verse 14: I learned that all the works which God has made persevere forever: we cannot add anything to them,...
14. I learned that all the works which God has made persevere forever: we cannot add anything to them, or take away, which God made so that He might be feared. — The Arabic: I knew that all creatures which God created will endure forever according to their order and state; nor can anything be added to them, or diminished from them; the Septuagint: upon that, nothing can be added, and from it nothing can be taken away; the Syriac: upon it, nothing is to be added, and from it nothing is to be diminished.
One may ask how this verse is connected and coheres with what precedes.
First, Cajetan says: The Hebrew leolam, that is, forever, can be translated as "in the age," as if to say: Whatever God does, it will be in its own age, in its own period of time, so that the same thing is said here as in verse 1: "All things have their time." But this is weak, obscure, and forced. For then he would have said beolam, that is, "in the age," not leolam, that is, "into the age," or "forever." Wherefore Campensis also translates less aptly: whatever God does will be such as He Himself wills it to be.
Second, Thaumaturgus connects this verse with what immediately preceded, namely that to eat moderately, to drink, and to enjoy one's labor is a gift of God, if indeed those things are done with this end, that through them we may tend toward heavenly and perpetual goods. Whence he thus paraphrases: although I do not deny it is from God, even if we enjoy temporal things, provided that through them, with justice as our guide, we are led to heavenly and never-dying works.
Third, Hugh of St. Victor by the works of God understands the judgments of God, especially the predestination of the elect and the reprobation of the wicked. The Chaldean version favors this: I know, he says, in the spirit of prophecy, that all things which God has done in the world, whether good or evil, whatever has been determined from His mouth, this will be forever: nor has a man the power to add force, nor has he the power of diminishing: and in the time when vengeance comes in the world, God has caused the sons of men to fear before His face. More clearly from the Codex: I thoroughly saw also what the Lord has done in this world for the upright and wise, etc., that men may observe and worship Him.
But all these are mystical interpretations, not literal and genuine.
Fourth, our Pineda refers this maxim partly to the vicissitude of the affections of the human heart, which now loves, now hates, now laughs, now weeps, now gathers, now casts away, etc., as he said at the beginning of the chapter, so that here he might set God in antithesis against these, in whom there is the constant firmness and eternity of the divine nature, according to James 1:17: "With whom there is no change, nor shadow of turning." Human works therefore succeed one another in a cycle and pass away with time: whence we are always adding something to them, or subtracting, changing and being changed from hour to hour; we grow weary of old things, and always pursue new ones. But God's thoughts and works are firm, they are self-consistent, and they endure forever; His will is immutable: what He once willed He always wills, and He attains it at the time He has decreed.
Again he refers this maxim to what preceded: "He who sees good from his labor, this is a gift of God," so that Solomon might signify that those things which are joined with frugality, moderation, and piety are the works of God, gifts of God which He bestows, and therefore do not depend on that temporary and inconstant fortune, but are perpetual and constant.
Fifth and genuinely, he refers this in the Hebrew manner not to what immediately precedes, but more remotely and above, namely to verse 1: "All things have their time," etc., and to verse 11: "He has made all things good in their time." For he gives a twofold antithesis between the works of men and the works of God: the first is that the works of men do not endure except for a fixed, and that a brief, time; but the works of God endure forever. The second is that man changes his works over time, and adds something to them or takes away, because they are diminished and imperfect; but the works of God are perfect, and therefore nothing can be added to or taken from them. By the works of God understand both the creation of the world and of all things that are in the world, and also their conservation, providence, and governance, by which He causes all things to succeed one another at the appointed time, so that now is the time for living, now for dying, now for planting, now for uprooting, etc. For this succession by God's law is continuous and perpetual. Therefore, although with respect to individuals, individual men and their works succeed one another in a cycle and pass away, with new ones succeeding, yet God causes them to endure with respect to species, namely so that the succession of individuals of each species, both of animals and of things and actions of whatever kind, may be perpetual and continuously continue, namely until the consummation of the world. And this is what Solomon chiefly has in view here, as is clear both from the connection of this verse with verse 1. nothing in the world is superfluous; nor is anything lacking that would contribute to its completion. Even harmful and poisonous animals are useful to man, because they "either punish him penally, or exercise him healthily, or test him usefully, or teach him unknowingly," says St. Augustine, book III of On Genesis Taken Literally, chapter 17. For although man can produce a new species of mixed being from the combination of various simple species, as is evident in medicines, in monsters, in mules, leopards, wolf-dogs, etc. — for God did not originally create these, but from the combination procured by men of horses with donkeys, mules were born; from the combination of lions with leopards, leopards were born; from the combination of wolves with dogs, wolf-dogs were born — yet the entire power of producing these new species resides in the nature implanted by God in each animal; and therefore God Himself originally produced these, not formally in themselves, but causally, as it were in seed and root, namely in the animals from whose combination they are born.
Silently by this maxim Solomon calls man away from vain labor, as well as from fear; for through him no increase of any thing happens without God's help, nor any decrease without God's nod and will, according to that saying about the just in Psalm 33:11: "They shall not be diminished of any good," as if to say: No one will be able to snatch from the just even the smallest part of pleasure, joy, or sustenance, because God prospers and favors them. For every work of God is efficacious, ratified, and firm, while conversely every work of man is of itself inefficacious, void, and empty.
Which God made so that He might be feared — while His immense power and wisdom from His works and governance are continually esteemed and celebrated; in Hebrew: that men may fear before His face; the Arabic: and God made them so that they would be terrified before His face; Olympiodorus: that they may fear His face; Campensis: in this He acted so that we might reverence Him; Thaumaturgus: for the works of God are worthy of reverence and admiration, and consequently God Himself much more so, that we may exult before Him with trembling; St. Jerome: God made all these things, so that men may fear to deviate from what He once disposed to something else (that they may subject themselves entirely to the divine disposition and law, and attempt nothing contrary to it); and he beautifully tempered it by saying: That they may fear before His face, for the countenance of the Lord is upon those who do evil, Psalm 33. He alludes to the etymology of Elohim. For Elohim is derived from ala, that is, He swore, obligated, bound, because God by creating all things binds His creatures by oath to the fear, worship, and love of Himself, as I said on Genesis 12. For the fear of God in Scripture comprehends the dread of God, love, reverence, obedience, and the worship owed to Him as the supreme majesty, supreme power, providence, and beneficence. "Fear first made gods in the world," says Statius. Whence some, among whom is St. Clement of Rome, epistle 1, derive the name Deus, or Theos, from Theos, that is, fear. For who would not fear God hurling thunderbolts, thundering, shaking everything with winds, storms, and earthquakes? Who would not love the One who gives harvests, fruits, and abundance of things? Thus God is called by Jacob the fear of Isaac, that is, the One whom Isaac feared and revered, Genesis 31:42. And God says, Malachi 1:6: "The son," He says, "honors the father, and the servant his lord: if then I am a father, where is my honor? and if I am a lord, where is my fear?" For we owe God the supreme fear on account of His supreme dominion and power over death and life, heaven and hell; and to the same, as the supreme Father of all, we owe supreme honor, supreme obedience, and supreme love. Hence Job 31:23: "I have always," he says, "feared God as waves swelling over me, and could not bear His weight." And St. John, Revelation 15:3: "Great," he says, "and wonderful are Your works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are Your ways, O King of the ages. Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy: because all nations will come and worship in Your sight."
From this maxim, that all the works of God endure forever, St. Thomas, I part, Question 104, article 4, concludes that no created thing is annihilated: because even though it may be corruptible with respect to form, it nonetheless remains with respect to prime matter. The same, Question 65, article 1, reply to 1, teaches from the same that creatures the more they approach God, the more they are perpetuated and are incorruptible: whence mixed bodies are corrupted substantially with respect to form, but the heavens are changed only with respect to place, and angels are changed in themselves only with respect to internal acts of cognition and volition. Do you wish then to be more and more firmly established and stabilized? Join your mind more and more to God.
We cannot add anything to them, nor take away. — As if to say: We cannot produce new species of things which God has not produced; nor can we take away and destroy the species produced by God. Again, we cannot change or reverse the fixed succession of times appointed by God to each action and thing. Moreover, nothing
Verse 15: What has been made, that itself remains: what is to be has already been: and God restores what has...
15. What has been made, that itself remains: what is to be has already been: and God restores what has passed away. — In Hebrew: that which has been already is, and what is to be has already been, and God seeks out that which is subject to persecution. For this is the Hebrew nirdaph, which a certain learned man translated as "what has been seized"; but he erred: for he supposed nirdaph to be by metathesis nitraph, that is, seized, though these two words, although similar in letters, are very different in meaning; for the root radaph means to pursue, while taraph means to seize.
He repeats and confirms what he said in the preceding verse, namely that the works of God are perpetual, and that the succession of temporal things is perpetual, for example: "The sun which now rises both existed before we were in the world, and after we have died, will continue to rise," says St. Jerome. And: "Man was, man also is: a tree was, a tree also is," says Olympiodorus. He said the same in chapter 1, verse 9: wherefore I shall add no more here.
For "God restores what has passed away," the Hebrew is: Elohim seeks or requires what has been pursued or followed, that is, what is past, that is, God restores and renews the things which have been carried off by the succeeding time and have already passed away. Whence Campensis translates: for He continually recalls those things which, as if put to flight, have departed hence; and Vatablus: God seeks out what is driven away by what follows. "Seeks out" means "restores." Thus David, Psalm 118:176, asks to be sought by God, that is, to be restored. And Job, chapter 3, verse 4, asks God not to seek out, that is, not to restore the day on which he was born; and St. Jerome: "God seeks out what has perished, what has been expelled, what has ceased to be. For past time is beautifully said to be driven away by the present and the future, and to suffer persecution from it as from a pursuer, and to be put to flight, just as in a river the water in front is driven forward and put to flight by that which follows."
Furthermore, Thaumaturgus refers this maxim to the foreknowledge and decrees of the divine will, which always endure; for thus he translates: according to the foreknowledge of God, the things that were once done now exist: and future things are just as certain as if they were now done; and Campensis: what once was now is, and it was once decreed that it should also exist in future times; moreover Hugh of St. Victor considers this maxim to be understood "not only of the works of God, by which He arranges the creation of the world, namely that they remain forever without change and confusion of order, but also of the disposition of His judgments, namely that they do not change the law of His providence, so that what He Himself has not disposed might come to pass."
Hence others also take this maxim and the preceding one as referring to the judgments of God, by which He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. For although God intermits these for a time, yet He soon again recalls and restores them. Wherefore the Septuagint and the Syriac translate: God seeks out him who suffers persecution; the Arabic: and God seeks what is sought; Symmachus: God inquires on behalf of those who are harassed and expelled, as if to say: God avenges the injuries and death of the innocent who are unjustly afflicted, as He avenged the slaughter of the martyrs by killing the persecutors, Nero, Decius, Diocletian, etc.: for through this killing of persecutors, the innocence of the martyrs is declared, and their name, fame, glory, and, as it were, life is restored and renewed. Thus St. Jerome: "And God," he says, "will seek out him who suffers persecution: he uses this testimony in the persecution of the pagans, to console him who perseveres in martyrdom. And because all, according to the Apostle, who wish to live piously in Christ suffer persecution, they have consolation, because God seeks out the one suffering persecution, just as He requires the blood of the slain, and came to seek what had perished, and carried the wandering sheep back to the flock on His shoulders." And Thaumaturgus: "He who has been unjustly harmed," he says, "has God as his helper": for, as Sirach 1:29 says: "The patient man will endure until the time, and afterwards there will be a return of joy"; and Christ: "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 5. Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, cites and presses this passage in his Apology for St. Athanasius.
The Chaldean agrees. But he postpones this vengeance until the day of judgment: On the day of the great judgment, he says, the Lord will come to seek out the needy and the poor from the hand of the wicked one who persecuted him.
Anagogically, God in the resurrection will restore the body that perished and that suffered in the martyrs, so that it may revive and rise gloriously. So St. Jerome.
Verse 16: I saw under the sun in the place of judgment, wickedness: and in the place of justice, iniquity
16. I saw under the sun in the place of judgment, wickedness: and in the place of justice, iniquity. — Campensis: where the wicked man reigns; others: where wickedness or iniquity dominates.
Furthermore, the Septuagint codices vary here. For the Vatican codices have: and further I saw under the sun the place of judgment, there the wicked: and the place of the just, there the pious; following which reading the Arabic translates: I also knew under the sun the place of judgment, for there is the apostate; and the place of the just, and there is the faithful; namely, for asebes, that is, wicked, some read eusebes, that is, pious. So also Lucifer of Cagliari reads, in the Apology for St. Athanasius: which some explain as if to say: I saw paradise prepared for the pious, and hell prepared for the wicked. Whence Thaumaturgus: I saw, he says, in the lowest parts, punishments indeed — a pit receiving the wicked, but another peaceful place for the pious. So also Olympiodorus, who questions whether paradise is on earth or in heaven, because it is said here to be "under the sun."
But the Complutensian Septuagint codices, reading asebes, that is, wicked, in both places, thus translate: and further I saw under the sun the place of judgment, there the wicked: and the place of the just, there the wicked. St. Jerome according to the ancient edition received from the Septuagint: I saw, he says, the place of judgment, where there is wickedness: and the place of justice, where there is iniquity. So also the Syriac: which reading indeed corresponds to the Hebrew and the Latin Vulgate, and is therefore true and genuine. The Chaldean also agrees: Again, he says, under the sun I saw the court of judgment, in which corrupt enrolled judges condemned the innocent, and by their sentences acquitted the guilty: and the place in which the just man is found, and moreover the wicked man who presides over him because of the sins of this generation.
The meaning therefore is clear, as if to say: I saw sitting in the tribunal of judgment a wicked judge who pronounced unjust sentences; and therefore in the place where just judgment ought to reign, I saw wickedness reigning, and in the seat of justice I saw an unjust man presiding who judged against right and divine law, and therefore in it I saw iniquity dominating. He takes judgment and justice, and iniquity and wickedness, as equivalent, whereas properly speaking impiety is a crime against God, and iniquity is a crime against equity, by which justice and the right of one's neighbor is violated. But, as I said, impiety is here taken for iniquity and injustice, namely for the unjust sentence of a judge; for this is rightly called impiety, which wounds justice, by which not only one's neighbor, but also God, who is the author of all right and justice, is violated. Wherefore the unjust judge causes injustice to sit in the seat of justice, and to rule and dominate in it as a queen, and antichrist to occupy the throne of Christ.
Therefore by the place of judgment and justice, properly the public tribunals and judicial benches are understood here; generally, however, any place of judging and pronouncing sentence may be understood, such as where the disputes of merchants, farmers, and artisans are privately settled. Moreover, he first calls it the place of judgment, then of justice, to indicate that judges must first examine the matter with diligent and mature judgment, before they pronounce a fair and certain sentence in favor of justice. Note the phrase "under the sun," as if to say: Injustice has no place except under the sun, among covetous and avaricious men: for above the sun, in heaven, justice dwells. Whence by the poets Themis, the goddess of justice, is imagined to sit beside God the supreme judge. Hence also that verse of Ovid, Metamorphoses book I:
"And the virgin Astræa, last of the heavenly ones, left the earth dripping with blood," as if flying away from unjust men to the just God. Again, "under the sun" marks the indignity and impudence of unjust judges, that in the sight of the most brilliant and purest sun, and therefore of the Sun of Justice, namely Christ the Lord, they dare to pronounce an impure, dark, and unjust sentence, and thus to violate justice, as if a most chaste virgin entrusted to their care, according to Sirach 20:2: "The lust of a eunuch will deflower a young girl: so is he who by force makes an unjust judgment." Wherefore Isaiah thunders against them, chapter 59:14: "Judgment is turned backward, and justice has stood afar off: because truth has fallen in the street, and equity could not enter. And truth has been cast into oblivion: and he who departed from evil lay open to plunder: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in His eyes, because there is no judgment."
The difficulty here is in the connection, namely by what reasoning this maxim is inserted here and coheres with what precedes.
First, some connect it with "that He might be feared" in verse 14, as if to say: God made all things so that He might be feared; but so great is the wickedness of men that they do not fear Him, but openly in the tribunals they trample upon Him and His truth and justice by pronouncing unjust sentences. So Ferus. But this seems far-fetched.
Second, Hugh of St. Victor, whom our Lorinus follows, considers that a new kind of vanity is being enumerated here. For since he had enumerated a great vanity, consisting in the vicissitude and transience of all times and things, as if it were not enough of evils from this inconstancy, says Campensis, he wove in this greater one concerning the corruption of judgments. From which, just as from the former, men take occasion to murmur against divine providence, because they see "the just man suffering many evils here, and the wicked man reigning because of his crime," says St. Jerome. Wherefore Ecclesiastes answers him in verse 17 that God will reform these unjust judgments, and by His own just judgment will restore to each his right.
Third, Thaumaturgus, Didymus, and Olympiodorus consider that this refers to the punishments of the wicked and the rewards of the pious, as if after enumerating the vanities and depravities of men, he here weaves in their fitting punishment. I cited the words of Thaumaturgus at the beginning of this verse. But their translation, and consequently their explanation, plainly disagrees with the Hebrew and the Vulgate.
Fourth, our Pineda thus interprets it: that after having said the vicissitude of all human affairs is the height of inconstancy, but the works of God alone are firm and stable, he now objects that wickedness seemed to him to sit firmly and stably in the place of the judge, and where justice seemed most likely to reign, iniquity dominates through the greatest tyranny, and unjust judgments are exercised so constantly that in this matter there seems to be no vicissitude, nor any time for the chaste and upright cultivation of justice. But he responds in verse 17 that its own time will not be lacking to the eternal law and the judgment of the supreme arbiter, when indeed "God will judge the just and the wicked, and then will be the time of every matter."
Fifth, others who followed the Septuagint version consider that the preceding verse deals with the judgments of God by which He punishes those who persecute the innocent, and aptly connect this maxim with those, inasmuch as it explains that this persecution is most seen and felt in the wicked sentences of judges, by which they oppress the innocent, and therefore for their consolation God will correct these judgments at His own tribunal.
Sixth and genuinely, this verse pertains to verse 10: "I saw the affliction," etc., as is clear to one comparing the words on both sides, especially in the Hebrew. For the Hebrew here has: and further I saw under the sun in the place of judgment, wickedness, as if to say: I saw a twofold affliction of men in this vanity of the world. The former I enumerated in verse 10, namely that man is afflicted by the continual labor of temporal works, which are not stable nor enduring, but are tossed about with time and pass away: wherefore their labor and affliction is fruitless and vain, because it lacks a fruit that is stable and persevering. The latter I enumerate here, namely that in the seat of judgment a wicked judge often presides, and wickedness reigns, which oppresses the pious and piety. He joins this to the former, because it is analogically similar. For that affliction of labor is natural and physical, but this one of perverted judgment is moral and ethical. And just as that one arises from the vicissitude of times and the transience of temporal things: so this one likewise arises from the vicissitude of judges and judgments, namely that wicked and unjust men succeed upright and just judges in the seat. Again, just as he said of those things that God restores what has passed away, and thus perpetuates successive things, not in the individual but in the same species: so here he asserts that God will restore the unjust judgments of the wicked, when He will publicly condemn and punish them, and will restore their right to the just who have been harmed.
Therefore this is the sequence and connection of the whole chapter: verse 1 proposes this theme of the chapter: "All things have their time, and all pass away within their allotted spaces under heaven." He then proves this by induction through natural things, saying: "A time to be born, and a time to die: a time to plant, and a time to uproot," etc. From which he concludes in verse 10 that in all this succession of times he has seen labor continually succeeding labor, and affliction succeeding affliction. He proves the same theme here through ethical or moral matters, namely from the fact that in the seat of judgment and justice, through the succession of times, unjust men often succeed just judges, who patronize the wicked and afflict and oppress the upright; but the time of God's most just judgment will also succeed these, in which God will restore to the seat of judgment the justice taken away by the wicked, and will cast down iniquity from it. Whence, aptly suited to the theme: "All things have their time," he adds in the following verse 17: "God will judge the just and the wicked, and then will be the time of every matter," as if to say: Just as physical things have their time, so also do ethical things; just as works succeed works in time, so also judgments succeed judgments; and therefore all things pass away and vanish with time: for justice passes away when it is routed by injustice from a succeeding wicked judge: and conversely his injustice passes away when it is reproved and punished by God the judge. St. Gregory says splendidly, book 26 of the Moralia: "The highest position," he says, "is well governed when he who presides dominates vices rather than his subjects."
St. Cyprian graphically depicts this iniquity of judgments, book II, epistle 2 to Donatus: "The frenzy of those in discord," he says, "rages on each side, and amid the togas, with peace broken, the forum bellows with insane litigation; the spear is there, and the sword, and the executioner stands ready, the claw digging, the rack stretching, the fire burning; for one human body, there are more tortures than limbs. Who in the midst of these comes to help? The advocate? But he prevaricates and deceives. The judge? But he sells his sentence. He who sits to punish crimes commits them, and so that the innocent defendant may perish, the judge becomes guilty. Crimes blaze everywhere, and on every side through wicked minds the harmful poison works through manifold kinds of sinning." He then enumerates the modes of injustice in detail, adding: "Here one forges a will; there another writes a false one with capital fraud; here children are barred from their inheritances; there strangers are endowed with goods. The enemy accuses falsely, the slanderer attacks, the witness defames, and on both sides the brazen audacity of a prostituted mercenary voice rages in lying charges, while in the meantime the guilty do not even perish along with the innocent. There is no fear of the laws; no terror of the investigator or the judge: what can be bought off is not feared; to be innocent among the guilty is already a crime: whoever does not imitate the wicked offends them. Laws have consented to sins, and what is public has begun to be licit. Where in all this is the sense of shame, what integrity could there be, where those who would condemn the wicked are lacking? Only those who may be condemned present themselves to you."
Moreover, this ethical affliction is graver and harder than the former physical and natural one, because nothing tortures men more than to be judged, condemned, and punished as guilty when they are innocent. And what is more unworthy than that injustice should sit and preside in the seat of justice? That iniquity should reign and dominate in the tribunal of equity? That impiety should oppress piety, dishonesty should oppress honesty, malice should oppress innocence, wickedness should oppress sanctity, tyranny and cruelty should oppress humanity? Let judges hear and tremble before David, indeed before God the supreme judge thundering at them: "God stood in the congregation of gods (judges): and in the midst He judges the gods. How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked? etc. I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men: and shall fall like one of the princes," Psalm 81:1, where for "gods" the Hebrew has Elohim, that is, angels or gods, by which it signifies that a judge should be as it were an angel, indeed a god among men, so that free from every affection of flesh and blood, he may pronounce sentence according to God and truth, and thus be as it were "a god walking on earth, and a holy angel in the flesh." Whence Philo, in his book On the Judge, requires in him sincerity and a tranquil mind subject to no disturbance; that he may imitate God, of whom the Wise Man says, chapter 12:18: "But You, the Ruler of power, judge with tranquility." Hence also the unjust judge is called in this passage rascha, that is, restless, tumultuous, turbulent; indeed he is called in the abstract rescha, that is, restlessness, tumult, disturbance, because he mixes up, disturbs, obscures, and perverts everything. And Psalm 74:3: "When I shall receive the time, I will judge justly." Let him hear King Jehoshaphat gravely impressing upon them: "Consider what you do: for you exercise not the judgment of man, but of the Lord; and whatever you judge will redound upon you. Let the fear of the Lord be with you, and do everything with diligence: for with the Lord our God there is no iniquity, nor respect of persons, nor desire of gifts," 2 Chronicles 19. Hence at the Council of Chalcedon and Ephesus, chapter 22, the book of the Gospels was placed on the bench as if on a tribunal, to represent the person of Christ the judge, whom the bishops should keep before their eyes in judging, and pronounce a just sentence according to His mind. Thus the Ethiopians are said to set up a high chair in the Senate, leaving it empty, as if God the arbiter and moderator of judgment sat in it, whom therefore all senators in pronouncing sentences should look upon, revere, and imitate. The kings of Egypt customarily compelled judges to swear an oath that even if the king ordered them to judge something that was not just, they would not judge it, says Plutarch in the Moralia, who also adds: But how can it happen that a state has incorrupt judges, where the prince sells the power of judging for a high price? The Emperor Marcus Antoninus used to say that "private men indeed have many judges; but the prince has no other judge than God." So Xiphilinus in his Life. The Emperor Trajan held out a drawn sword to the prefect of the city and said: "Take this blade, and if I govern the empire rightly, use it for me; but if otherwise, use it against me." So Nicephorus, book III of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 23. Cambyses flayed the judge Sisamnes, because he had pronounced an unjust sentence when corrupted by money, and had the tribunal or judicial seat upholstered with his skin, and ordered Otho, the son of Sisamnes, to sit as judge in it, saying: "Remember on what seat you sit and judge." So Herodotus, book V.
Verse 17: And I said in my heart: God will judge the just and the wicked (on the day of judgment, says the...
17. And I said in my heart: God will judge the just and the wicked (on the day of judgment, says the Chaldean), and then will be the time of every matter. — "Then," namely on the day of judgment, when the Lord will judge. By "the just" understand anyone, but properly the innocent who has suffered injury and been unjustly condemned by a wicked judge; by "the wicked," the unjust judge who wickedly condemned the innocent. For by this maxim Solomon consoles himself, and at the same time those who are innocently condemned, with the hope of divine judgment, namely that God will reform and correct these unjust human judgments by His most equitable judgment, and will decree and actually inflict upon the innocent his right and the crown of patience, but upon the unjust judge his deserved punishment and the penalty of retaliation. For this is the office of Elohim, that is, of the divine power and providence, to restore to the just who have been harmed their right and reputation, and to punish the unjust who do harm according to their deserts. Indeed from this we conclude that there is a divine power, and that there will be a universal judgment of God; for thus we argue: In this life the innocent are often condemned and oppressed by the guilty; therefore justice and the right order of things require that God's judgment should follow, by which these injustices are uncovered, corrected, condemned, and punished, and the praise and merits of their innocence are restored to the innocent. "Then therefore the just shall stand with great constancy against those who afflicted them and who took away their labors," Wisdom 5, because, as Sirach 35:16 says: "The Lord will not accept the person of the poor man's oppressor, and He will hear the prayer of the one who has been injured. He will judge the just and execute judgment, until He removes the fullness of the proud: and He will crush the scepters of the unjust." So St. Jerome explains, whom listen to: "Under this sun," he says, "I sought truth and judgment, and I saw that even in the very benches of the judges, not truth but bribes prevail"; or alternatively: "I supposed that some justice was being done in the present age, or that the pious man was now receiving according to his merit, or that the wicked man was being punished for his crime, and I found the contrary of what I supposed. For I saw the just man suffering many evils here, and the wicked man reigning because of his crime. But afterwards, conversing and reflecting with my heart, I understood that God does not judge piecemeal and individually, but reserves judgment for a future time, so that all may be judged together, and there may receive according to their will and their works. For this is what he says: And the time of every will, and over every deed, there — that is, in the judgment, when the Lord shall have begun to judge — truth will be in the future: now injustice dominates in the world. Something similar we read in the Wisdom which is entitled the Son of Sirach: Do not say: What is this, or what is that? for all things will be sought out in their time," Sirach chapter 39.
And then will be the time of every matter. — "The time," namely of examination, judgment, and retribution, in which the crown of patience will be bestowed upon the injured innocent, and punishment according to deserts will be inflicted upon the guilty offender. This therefore will be the time of God's judgment, just as in this life there is the time of freedom and human judgment, to act and judge whatever one pleases. He refers back to verse 1: "All things have their time," as if to say: The wicked and the harmful have their time for doing harm, and the innocent their time for suffering; in turn God will have His time for judging both; just as thieves have their time for stealing, and the magistrate has his time for hanging them (!).
The Hebrew has: and the time of every will, and over every work there. St. Jerome from the Septuagint in the ancient version: there is a time for every will (others: good pleasure) over every deed, so that it is a hendiadys, by which, with the conjunction "and" omitted, will is coupled with deed and work, as if to say: There will be a time of the last judgment, in which God will judge every will, that is, every act of the will, namely whatever you have freely willed and chosen; and moreover every work which you have performed from this choice, from which judgment there is no appeal, no escape, no excuse. The word "over" denotes that this judgment of God will be superior to and will dominate all the works of men, even of kings and emperors, so that all must submit themselves and receive from it a sentence both just and inevitable, which no one can escape. Hence Pagninus translates: because there is a time for everything that one wills, and over every work there will be judgment; the Zurich Bible: for there is a time in which to every will and all deeds a worthy reward is repaid; Vatablus: there is a time for every matter, and that according to all works there, as if to say: After I considered all things through the word of God, I said to myself that God will judge the just and the wicked, according to each one's works there, that is, on the day of judgment, because all things happen in their time; another: for there is an opportune time for every matter and for every work; the Syriac and Aquila: because there is a time for every affair, and all works are there; the Arabic: because for every matter and every work there is a time; the Chaldean clearly: because judgment is prepared for every matter and every work; what is done in this age will be judged there.
You may object: Revelation 10:6, the angel at the end of the world, namely near the day of judgment, swears by Him who lives forever and ever: "That time shall be no longer"; how then is it said here that then there will be a time for every matter? The answer is that on the day of judgment there will no longer be time for meriting or demeriting, but time for judging and rewarding, so that each may receive according to his merits either punishment or reward. Again, then time will be no longer, because the motion of the heavens will cease and consequently time, which is the measure of motion. Therefore eternity will succeed time — the eternity of glory for the just, and of hell for the unjust.
Hence the doctors conclude that on the day of judgment God will reveal the consciences of men, so that each may see both his own and those of all other men — their words, deeds, thoughts, and desires, even the most secret — because the public justice of God the judge demands this, namely that from these all may see that God justly decrees for each one glory or fitting punishment according to their merits, according to the saying of the Sibyl:
"And all the secrets of all shall be open to all."
So St. Augustine holds, tract. 35 on John; St. Basil, tract. On Virginity; Lactantius, book VII, chapters 21 and 22; Isidore of Pelusium, book II, epistle 94; Anselm in the Elucidarium; the Scholastic Master in book IV, distinction 43 or 47. This is what St. John says, Revelation 20:12: "And the books were opened, etc., and the dead were judged from those things which were written in the books, according to their works." See what was said there.
Verse 18: I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God might test them, and show that they are...
18. I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God might test them, and show that they are like beasts. — So the Latin codices generally read; whence it is surprising that the Vatican codices read "I said in my heart to the sons of men," unless it be a printer's error. For the Hebrew, Chaldean, Septuagint, Syriac, Arabic, and the rest all have the preposition "concerning"; for thus the Hebrew has: I said in my heart concerning the matter of the sons of Adam. The Septuagint and from them St. Jerome in his earlier translation take "word" as meaning the speech of man; whence they translate: I said in my heart concerning the speech of the sons of man, because God will separate them, to show that they themselves are beasts. Which St. Jerome explains thus: "God willed this one difference between men and beasts: that we speak, they are mute; we express our will in speech, they are inert in silence." And Thaumaturgus: They are distinguished from one another, he says, only by articulate speech. But Olympiodorus, translating "will separate" as "will judge," explains it as if to say: Of every word both of mouth and of mind, an account must be rendered on the day of judgment, of which there was mention previously, according to the saying of Christ, Matthew 12:36: "But I say to you that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account of it on the day of judgment." The Syriac, following the Septuagint as usual, translates: I said in my heart concerning the conversation of the sons of men, whom God created. And the Arabic: But I said in my heart concerning the words of the sons of man, that God has judged them, and showed them that they are beasts. But our translator with the Chaldean better took "word" as meaning matter and affair, by the metonymy customary among the Hebrews. Whence he translated: concerning the sons of men. So also Pagninus, the Zurich Bible, Campensis, Vatablus, and others. Note: For "that He might test them," the Hebrew is labaram, which can secondly be translated as "that He might purge or purify them"; thirdly, "that He might choose them" — so Pagninus; fourthly, "that He might separate, distinguish, judge them" — so the Arabic and Olympiodorus from the Septuagint; fifthly, "that He might create them" — so the Syriac and Vatablus, who derive baram from bara, that is, "He created," as if the mem, being a quiescent letter, were a prefixed termination. From these versions you may gather that death and
This sentence seems incomplete and suspended; therefore it is asked whence it depends, where it is completed and filled out. There is a threefold answer: for first, some consider it to depend on the following verse; second, others on the preceding verse; third, others consider it to be self-contained and self-completing.
First, therefore, some connect it to the following verse in this way, as if to say: That God might test the faith and hope of men concerning the future life and blessedness, by showing and making them similar to beasts with respect to the body, therefore He ordained that there should be one death for man and for beasts, and an equal condition for both. For by this very thing He tests and probes their faith and hope: while He sees some, from this equality of man and brute, not believing that the soul is immortal, but thinking that it dies and perishes with the body, and therefore despairing of the future life and happiness; but on the other hand He sees others wisely distinguishing the soul from the body, and understanding that man is indeed similar to beasts with respect to the body, but dissimilar with respect to the soul: for man has an immortal soul, while in all beasts it is mortal and perishes with the body; wherefore they strive to cultivate the soul with virtues, so that they may be given future glory by God; therefore God takes these to Himself and blesses them, but rejects and condemns the others. This connection is probable: for this sentence plainly seems to look forward to what follows. Only the punctuation, namely the period which separates this verse from the following one separates and distinguishes them; and because for "therefore" the Hebrew has ki, that is, "because," which word signifies that the following verse does not complete the preceding one, but gives the reason for it.
Second, others connect it with the preceding verse, but with varying connections. First, St. Jerome connects it thus: "It is not to be wondered at," he says, "that in the present life there is no distinction between the wicked and the just, nor that virtue avails anything; but that all things are tossed about with uncertain outcome, since even between beasts and men there seems to be no difference according to the quality of the body, and the condition of being born is the same, and the lot of dying is one."
Second, Aben-Ezra, Cajetan, and Dionysius consider that Solomon here speaks not from his own opinion, but from that of the Epicureans, who hold that the soul of man perishes with the body just as that of brutes, and therefore one should indulge in the pleasures of this life: for no others are to be hoped for in the next. The paraphrase of Thaumaturgus accords with this: "How foolishly I once thought that before God all are reckoned and judged alike, and that there is no difference between acting justly and unjustly; between being endowed with reason or being a brute. Because time is dispensed to all without distinction, and death is inflicted on all."
Third, our Pineda more wisely considers that Solomon here signifies that God on the day of judgment will examine the life of each man, whether namely he lived as a man or as a beast; for wicked judges, who, as verse 16 said, justify the guilty and condemn the innocent, live as beasts, indeed as wild animals, and are similar to lions and wolves, which tear apart and devour other animals, according to the saying: "A roaring lion and a hungry bear is a wicked prince over the poor," Proverbs 28:15; and again Habakkuk 1:13-14: "Why do You not look upon the unjust and are silent while the wicked devours one more just than himself? And You make men like the fish of the sea, and like creeping things that have no leader." For the bigger fish devours the smaller, and that with impunity, no one preventing it. Whence Campensis translates: since I could not find any other reason why God permits these things, it seemed to me that He wished by such human tumults to exercise man in such a way that he might see that in this life he differs little from brutes; for men rage among themselves no differently, nor with greater separation, than brutes among themselves.
Third and genuinely, this sentence stands by itself and is completed in itself, as is clear from the Hebrew which reads thus: I said in my heart concerning the matter (that is, concerning the affair and business) of the sons of Adam (that this is done for this purpose), that God might test them.
The force and energy of the sentence lies in the phrase "concerning the business of the sons of Adam," as if to say: Considering in my heart the business, that is, the condition, nature, and lot of the sons of Adam — namely that Adam was made from adama, that is, man was created from the earth; and is therefore similar to beasts in eating, drinking, procreating, walking, sleeping, dying, etc. — this, I say, business of men considering, I said about it that it was done by God for this purpose, that through it He might test men, whether namely they believe and hope in the immortality of the soul and their eternal glory, as if to say: That God might test this faith and hope of men, by showing them outwardly similar to beasts, which lack all faith and hope; therefore He gave them an earthly, corruptible, and mortal body, such as beasts have: for the foolish and carnal conclude from this that their soul, and themselves and their body, are similar to the soul of beasts, and will die with the body, and therefore they give themselves over to gluttony and lust; but the wise distinguish the soul from the body, and judge that the soul of man is rational and immortal, but that of beasts is irrational and mortal; and therefore they strive to live not as beasts, but as angels, that they may merit to attain their happiness. So Olympiodorus: He admonishes us through these things, he says, not to indulge the body, but to cultivate with virtues the soul which is endowed with reason, by which we are similar to angels. And Vatablus: I considered in my heart the condition of men, how God created them most excellent, and at the same time seeing how they cast themselves down into the condition of cattle. And the Chaldean: I said in my heart concerning the business of the sons of men, upon whom the Lord brought plagues and evil infirmities, that He might try them, and that He might test them, God did; that He might see if they would turn to repentance, so that He might forgive them and they might be healed. But the wicked, who are like beasts, do not turn, and therefore they are punished, so that it may go ill with them. The Chaldean seems to have read, instead of dabar, that is, word, with different vowel points deber, that is, pestilence, mortality, death. Whence he translates: that afflictions and evil diseases will come upon them: for pestilence is the worst.
Moreover, although it is not necessary to scrutinize scrupulously the connection of all these sentences among themselves here, since Solomon here enumerates various species of the vanity of the world one by one, and passes from one to another completely different one without order or connection, nevertheless in this place a suitable connection and transition can be assigned. For he had said in verse 16 that among other vanities, the iniquity of judgments and of judges who acquit the guilty and condemn and punish the innocent with death is no small one. Now he weaves in a similar vanity, namely that men as regards the body are similar to animals and beasts, so much so that they themselves are truly animals, and to some they seem to be beasts and brutes, especially because the death of men and of beasts is one. If you say the difference lies in the soul — that the soul of men is immortal, and therefore to be judged by God so as to receive eternal reward or punishment, as he said in verse 17, while the soul of brutes is mortal and perishes with the body — he adds that this is obscure and doubtful to many, and indeed if you look at external appearances and the senses, it seems false. For many, from the fact that they see men die like brutes, judge that the soul of men perishes, just as the soul of brutes perishes. For this is what he says in verse 21: "Who (how few) knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upward, and whether the spirit of beasts descends downward?" And this is the greatest vanity of man, indeed misery, error, and vice: namely that he does not know the nobility and eternity of his soul, and therefore does not take care to provide for it by living well, so as to bless it for eternity, but gives himself over to illicit pleasures, by which he brings eternal fire upon it. But lest anyone think that the matter truly stands thus, namely that from the destruction of man's body the destruction of his soul can rightly be inferred, he adds that God did this to test and try men, and their faith and hope in the immortality of the soul. Whence shortly before he clearly said and declared: "God will judge the just and the wicked, and then will be the time of every matter," by which he clearly signifies the immortality of the soul, and its judgment according to its merits, and eternal reward or punishment.
And He showed them to be similar to beasts. — In Hebrew: to see that they themselves are beasts, they themselves to themselves; which can be taken in various ways: first, as if to say: That one may see that they themselves are beasts, they, I say, in their own estimation. Whence the Arabic translates: He showed them that they themselves are beasts. So also the Complutensian Septuagint; second, as if to say: To show that man preys upon man like a beast, according to the saying: "Man is a wolf to man"; third, as if to say: To show that, just as men are beasts and brutes with the beasts, so conversely beasts are beasts to the very men, when they savage them and tear them apart and devour them, as lions, wolves, tigers, panthers, etc. do; fourth, "they themselves to themselves" can be translated as "to their very selves," as if to say: Man not only with respect to the body, but also with respect to his own opinion, according to his bestial soul and morals, and ignorance which makes him forget his own dignity, just as if he differed nothing from beasts, seems to be similar to them. Just as Nebuchadnezzar was made similar to an ox, partly with respect to the form of his body, because he walked as a quadruped and fed on grass like an ox; partly with respect to his corrupted imagination, by which he seemed to himself to be a beast, Daniel 4:22. Finally, the man who lives as a beast dies as a beast. Fifth, Cajetan, translating "and to see that they are beasts to themselves," explains it as if to say: Man is a beast to himself, that is, man is a certain political beast, because men communicate among themselves, but some deceitfully, like foxes; some cruelly, like wolves; some proudly, despising others, like lions; some gluttonously, like pigs; some lustfully, like donkeys, etc. For "beasts" in Hebrew is behema, which signifies every quadruped, whether tame and domesticated, such as horses, sheep, and oxen; or wild and fierce, such as wolves, lions, and leopards. Whence the elephant is called behemoth, that is, beasts, in the plural, because in the bulk of its body it is like many beasts, Job 40:10. Our translator frequently renders it "beasts of burden" (jumenta).
Man therefore is similar to beasts, which are driven by the impulse of passions, not by the judgment of reason, and is worse not than one beast, but than all beasts. For beasts do not savage beasts of the same species, but those of a different species; but man savages man. Man therefore imitates, indeed surpasses, the envy of the dog, the voracity of the wolf, the pride of the lion, the savagery of the tiger, the sloth of the donkey, the malice of the serpent, the cunning of the fox, the filthiness of the pig, the lust of the goat; where now is your boasting, O noble? why do you preen yourself, O rich man? why do you despise the poor? why do you disdain to address the lowly, when you have been made similar, equal, and comparable not only to a poor man, but also to beasts of burden, pigs, and goats? Go now, resplendent in gold, puffed up with lofty brow, proud with horses and carriages, magnificent with a crowd of servants; but look at yourself, remember that you have been compared to foolish beasts and have been made similar to them.
Tropologically, the garments of animal skins with which God clothed Adam after his sin signify that we put on the nature of beasts through that sin; and therefore we shall cast off the hide of mortality together with them, says St. Augustine on Psalm 101.
Verse 19: Therefore one is the death of man and of beasts, and the condition of both is equal: as man dies,...
19. Therefore one is the death of man and of beasts, and the condition of both is equal: as man dies, so also they die: all breathe alike, and man has nothing more than the beast: all things are subject to vanity. — Thaumaturgus: nor are the laws of death more severe upon other animals than upon men. The Chaldean restricts this to the sinful man: for thus he translates: because the death of the sinful man and the death of the unclean beast — the death is one for all these; and as the unclean beast dies, so this man dies, if he does not turn to repentance before death; and the breath of spirit of both will be judged together in every way, and nothing more remains of the sinful man than of the unclean beast; nor is there any difference between both except the house of burial, because all things are vanity.
Hence some have thought that the wicked perish both in soul and in body, like brutes. But this is an error: wherefore the Chaldean wrongly restricts this to the sinner, since the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic have it absolutely and generally: one is the death of man and of beasts.
For "death" the Hebrew is micre, that is, accident, so the Syriac; event, so the Septuagint; lot; so the Arabic: condition, encounter, chance; namely the same feelings, the same desires, the same diseases and afflictions, the same chances, the same habits and vices. Whence Olympiodorus translates: the brutish life of beasts therefore, which indulges in lust, is sheer vanity. Our translator however renders it "death" or "destruction," because death itself is an accident common, necessary, certain, and inevitable to all men; yet its day and hour are uncertain and doubtful. Again, death for man is the last chance event, into which all other chance events of human life fall back, as I said in chapter 2:14; and that Solomon meant this is clear from the fact that, explaining micre, that is, accident and this chance event, he adds: "As man dies, so also they die."
Some consider that Solomon here speaks not from his own opinion, but from that of the Epicureans, who deny the immortality of the soul; so Thaumaturgus, Clarius, and St. Gregory, Dialogues book IV, chapter 4, whom hear: "Our preacher, as if from the mind of those weakened by human suspicion, proposes the opinion, when he says: One is the death of man and of beasts, and the condition of both is equal: as man dies, so also they die. All breathe alike, and man has nothing more than beasts. Yet he afterwards delivers his own judgment from the definition of reason, saying: What more has the wise man than the fool, and what has the poor man, except to go where there is life? He therefore who said: Man has nothing more than beasts, himself again determines that the wise man has something more not only than the beast, but also than the foolish man, namely to go where there is life. By which words he first indicates that this is not the life of men, which he testifies exists elsewhere. Man therefore has this more than beasts, that they do not live after death; but man then begins to live, when through the death of the flesh he finishes this visible life." He then proves the same by another testimony of Ecclesiastes: "who also says much further on: Whatever your hand can do, do it diligently; because there will be neither work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the underworld, to which you are hastening. How then is the death of man and beast one, and the condition of both equal? Or how has man nothing more than beasts, since beasts do not live after the death of the flesh, but the spirits of men, led to the underworld after the death of the flesh for their evil works, do not even die in death itself? But in both such disparate statements it is demonstrated that the truthful preacher inferred the former from carnal temptation, and afterwards determined the latter from spiritual truth."
I respond: Others more rightly consider that Solomon speaks from his own mind and meaning, as if to say: God, wishing to test and explore man's faith, made him similar to beasts with respect to the body: therefore just as the body of a beast perishes and dies, so also that of man. For the body of man is similar to the body of beasts, as in birth and growth, so in decline and death. For it arises and is born from the earth, continues or carries on life by breathing, namely through respiration. It sets and dies, when it returns to the earth from which it arose. So St. Jerome: "Lest we think," he says, "that this is said of the soul, he added: All things are made from the earth, and they will return to the earth; but from the earth nothing other than the body was made." And St. Thomas, part I, Question 75, article 6, reply to 1, notes that these things are said about the body of man, not the soul, and proves it by this reasoning: "For the soul of brutes," he says, "is produced from some bodily power (by the power of the seed through generation; for just as the light of one candle lights another candle, so the soul of the cow, sheep, wolf, lion, etc. produces the soul of the calf, lamb, wolf, lion which it generates); but the human soul is produced by God, and to signify this, it is said in Genesis 1 regarding other animals: Let the earth bring forth the living soul. But regarding man it is said that He breathed into his face the breath of life. And therefore it is concluded in Ecclesiastes, it can also be gathered that the mode of generation and corruption in beasts is the same as in man (for beasts are procreated and die of old age in a similar way as men), except only for the difference of the perfection and subsistence of the human form, namely the rational soul, which we would not gather from the mode of generation and corruption of man unless it became known to us from elsewhere, namely from the spiritual operation of the intellect, by which it also understands God and incorporeal angels, and from the freedom of the will, from ecstasy and rapture, from merits and demerits, and especially from acts of grace, and from the faith and revelation of holy Scripture.
Morally, St. Bernard in his entire sermon 82 on the Canticle beautifully teaches from this passage that the soul of man, which is similar to God, created in simplicity, immortality, and freedom, through sin has been made dissimilar to Him in these three respects, and most similar to beasts: for thus he says: "From this (from sin) the soul is dissimilar to God, from this it is dissimilar also to itself; from this it has been compared to foolish beasts and made similar to them; from this comes what we read about exchanging its glory for the likeness of a calf eating hay; from this men, like foxes, have dens of duplicity and fraud; and because they have made themselves equal to foxes, they shall be the portion of foxes; from this, according to Solomon, there is one end for man and beast: why should not one who lived similarly also depart similarly? He dwelt on earthly things in a bestial manner; he will depart from the earth in a bestial manner. Hear another thing: What wonder if we receive a similar departure, who also have a similar entrance? For whence comes that so intemperate ardor in coupling, that so immoderate pain in childbirth, to human beings, if not from the similarity to beasts? Thus man in conception and birth, in life and death, has been compared to foolish beasts and made similar to them. What of the fact that the free creature does not govern the appetite subject to it as a mistress, but follows and obeys as a handmaid? Does it not also in this make itself similar to and number itself among the other animals, which nature called not to freedom but created in servitude, to serve their belly, to obey their appetite?"
All breathe alike. — In Hebrew: the breath (ruach) is the same for all, that is, there is one spirit for all. Spirit, that is, breath or respiration, as Symmachus translates; a puff of air, or vital breeze, as Vatablus translates: for all animals breathe just like man, and by breathing they draw in air to temper the heat of the heart and viscera, and thus preserve and prolong life: whence when breathing is impeded either by strangulation or by catarrh, man suffocates and dies. See Aristotle, book On Respiration. Hence the soul is called by some from anemos, that is, breeze or wind, says Isidore, book XI of the Origins, chapter 1, although he himself refutes this and adds: "The soul (anima) is for life, the mind (animus) is for counsel; for the soul is the spirit by which we live, says Nonius, the mind that by which we are wise." In Greek it is called psyche from psychesthai, that is, from cooling. Whence Campensis translates: nor does it appear that the soul of man is different from that of brutes, that is, the vital breath.
And man has nothing more than the beast. — The Septuagint: and what advantage has man over the cattle? Nothing; Theodotion: what is the excellence of man? Symmachus: and what more has man than the cattle? The Zurich Bible: nor has man anything more excellent than the cattle. Others: the dignity of man above the beasts is nothing, namely with respect to the body; for with respect to the soul, man has a perennial and immortal life, which brutes do not have. "Nothing" therefore is to be understood with respect to the mutability of the body, death, and all external things. Whence the Chaldean translates: the surplus of a man over a beast is nothing between the two, except the house of burial. For the noble and rich among men erect splendid tombs for themselves, such as are not erected for beasts.
The Commentary of Vatablus, or rather what was inserted into Vatablus by heretics, must be guarded against here, which explains it as if to say: "Human reason alone does not perceive the excellence of man above the beasts, because whatever is seen by the eye of reason in man is most vain." For this is erroneous and smacks of Epicureanism. For it is certain that apart from faith, by natural reason alone, man is known to excel beasts through the rational and immortal soul. For that the soul of man is immortal, natural philosophers prove and demonstrate by many natural arguments in the book On the Soul. Wherefore the Doctors who censured Vatablus marked this passage with a censorial note and expunged the words just cited.
Mystically St. Jerome says: Man is the just, the beast is the sinner, who often through God's grace and repentance equals, indeed surpasses, the just; of which more shortly.
Some Rabbis note that the soul in Hebrew has three names, which signify its threefold power: namely neshama signifies the rational power, which is a ray of divinity; nephesh, the sensitive power; ruach, the vital power. Hence Rabbi Abraham places neshama in the brain, nephesh in the liver, ruach in the heart: just as natural philosophers and physicians establish a threefold set of spirits in man, namely rational spirits, which serve the discourse and speculation of the mind; animal spirits, which serve sensation and locomotion; vital spirits, which serve respiration and life. But this distinction is not constant: for ruach also signifies the rational power, as is clear from verse 21 and chapter 12:7. Indeed the Holy Spirit, who is not only rational but also divine, indeed God, is everywhere in Scripture and by the Rabbis called ruach hacadosh.
Verse 20: And all things (that is, both, namely man and beasts: for the preceding discourse was about these...
20. And all things (that is, both, namely man and beasts: for the preceding discourse was about these alone) go to one place (to the earth, as follows): they are made from the earth, and they return equally to the earth. — The Septuagint and Syriac: all things are made from dust, and all things will return to dust. For in Hebrew instead of "earth" there is aphar, that is, dust, namely mixed with water, that is, mud or clay. St. Jerome: All things are made from the ground, and all will return to the ground.
He alludes to, indeed cites, Genesis 3:19: "Until you return to the earth from which you were taken: for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." See what was said there. Hence by Sirach 40:1, the earth is called the mother of all; wherefore Junius Brutus, having received the oracle of Apollo at Delphi that he would rule Rome who first kissed his mother, immediately kissed the earth, and after the Tarquin kings were expelled, was the first to be created consul of Rome, as Livy testifies, book I. Suetonius narrates in his Life, chapter 7, that a similar dream portended world dominion for Julius Caesar. Hence also the ancient pagans, as Varro testifies, book I of On the Latin Language, would place a newborn child on the earth and implore the goddess Ops (that is, the Earth), whom they also called Levana from lifting from the earth, and Fauna from favoring, and Fatua from speaking, as if it were not lawful to speak before her touch; and Maia and Bona, and finally the Great Mother. So our Lorinus.
Similarly the process of life is similar with respect to the body, to which pertains what is said in Ecclesiastes: All breathe alike. And Wisdom 2: Smoke and breath is in our nostrils, etc.; but the process is not similar with respect to the soul: because man understands, but brute animals do not; whence it is false that it is said: Man has nothing more than the beast; and therefore the death is similar with respect to the body, but not with respect to the soul." Thus far the Angelic Doctor.
Again, "the death of man and of beasts is the same," because as far as sense and experience last chapter: Let the dust return to its earth whence it was, and let the spirit return to God who gave it. Similarly the process of life is similar with respect to the body, to which pertains what is said in Ecclesiastes: All breathe alike. And Wisdom 2: Smoke and breath is in our nostrils, etc.; but the process is not similar with respect to the soul: because man understands, but brute animals do not; whence it is false that it is said: Man has nothing more than the beast; and therefore the death is similar with respect to the body, but not with respect to the soul." Thus far the Angelic Doctor.
Verse 21: Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upward, and the spirit of beasts descends...
21. Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam ascends upward, and the spirit of beasts descends downward? — The Hebrew, Septuagint, and Syriac add: into the earth; the Arabic: to the depth of the earth; Campensis: how few in the meanwhile know whether the soul of man will ascend upward; or whether the soul of the remaining animals will perish with their bodies?
St. Gregory, Dialogues book IV, chapter 4, Olympiodorus, Lyranus, Bonaventure, Cajetan, and others consider these words to be said by Solomon not from his own person and mind, but from that of the wicked, namely the Epicureans who deny the immortality of the soul, or at least doubt it. For the words bear this on their face. Whence Thaumaturgus translates: I once remarkably thought, etc., that it was uncertain about human souls whether they would fly upward, and about the rest of the brutes whether they would flow downward.
But if you consider the antecedent about the similarity and similar death of man and beasts, which he stated from his own meaning in verses 18 and 19, and the conclusion which he draws from it in verse 22, saying: "And I perceived that nothing is better than to rejoice," etc., you will entirely judge that he here likewise speaks from his own mind and meaning, namely that he wishes to signify that men, especially the rude and unspiritual of that age, from the fact that they see the bodies of men corrupted and dying just like those of beasts, and all externals being similarly disposed in man as in brutes, but do not perceive the internal things of man, especially the soul and spirit, for this reason scarcely perceive that the soul of man is immortal, while that of brutes is mortal.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Who knows, that is, how few know and are certainly persuaded that the spirit, that is, the soul of man after the death of the body ascends upward to God who created it, so that He may judge it as immortal, and decree for it according to its merits an immortal reward or punishment, and actually bestow it, while the soul of brutes descends into the earth, so that with the body dissolved into dust it perishes and vanishes — as if to say: Few know this, and that with great difficulty, reluctantly, and doubtfully; so much so that Aristotle, a man of the highest genius, from
...of heavenly origin." And so from this passage the eternity and immortality of the human soul is not weakened, but rather confirmed. He clearly establishes the same in chapter 11, last verse, and chapter 12, verses 8 and 15.
Second, it means that it ascends to God as to its judge, so that according as it has done good or evil in life, it may receive from Him the sentence of punishment or reward. For although serious doctors, such as Dominic Soto in book IV, distinction 43, article 3, conclusion 2; Francis Suarez, part III, tome II, Question 59, article 6, disputation 52, section 2; Gregory of Valencia, tome IV, disputation 11, Question 1, point 2; Bartholomew Sibylla in the Peregrinal Questions; Peter Thyraeus, book I On the Apparitions of Spirits, chapter 14, number 134; Henry Henriquez, last book of the Summa, chapter 25, section 1, and others, hold that the soul after man's death undergoes the particular judgment while it is still in the body, and is judged at the first instant after death, so that once the judgment is completed it is soon borne from the body either to heaven or to hell: nevertheless by catachresis the soul is said to ascend upward, because it ascends to God the judge, who dwells above in heaven and there sits on the throne of glory with the angels. Whence St. Augustine, or whoever is the author, in the book On the Vanity of the World, chapter 1: "When the soul," he says, "is separated from the body, angels come to lead it before the tribunal of the Judge." St. Chrysostom asserts the same, homily 1 on Matthew. Wherefore Suarez in the cited passage says that souls are said to ascend to heaven because they are elevated intellectually to hear the sentence of the Judge, namely Christ the man, which He exercises now through Himself, now through angels, says Thyraeus, although those being judged see neither Christ nor the angels.
Third, it signifies that the soul of man was created by God to enjoy heaven and heavenly happiness: wherefore, if it has lived according to God's law, it is gifted and blessed by Him with heaven and eternal glory. Hence the Apostle says that, when Christ comes to judgment, "we shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord," 1 Thessalonians 4:17. So St. Bonaventure, Lyranus, Cajetan, Dionysius, and others.
Those who explain it thus accede to this interpretation, as if to say: Who knows, that is, who has seen with his eyes, or known by evident reasoning and clear demonstration, that the soul of man is immortal and capable of heavenly glory; but that the soul of brutes is mortal and goes into the earth? For many do not believe except what they see with their eyes, especially regarding the future rewards of the good in heaven and the punishments of the wicked in hell. Whence the rich glutton asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers, to testify that he was being tormented in hell; and when Abraham said: "They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them," he objected: "No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent," Luke 16:29. So Genesis 3:7 says of Adam and Eve after the sin: "They knew (that is, they felt and saw) that they were naked." So Hugh: "No one," he says, "among men knows this in the way that those things are known which are seen and heard and touched and
...by many he is thought to have doubted the immortality of the soul. So St. Jerome: "Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of Adam, etc. He does not contend," he says, "that there is no difference between beasts and man according to the dignity of the soul, but by adding 'Who' he wished to demonstrate the difficulty of the matter. For the pronoun 'who' in the holy Scriptures is always taken not as meaning impossible, but as meaning difficult, as in Isaiah 35:8: Who shall declare? Psalm 14:1: Who shall dwell? Jeremiah 17:9: Who shall know?"
Alcuin, Salonius, Hugh the Cardinal, and generally the Latin authors follow St. Jerome in this as usual. Hence the Chaldean also translates: who so excels in wisdom that it can be established for him whether the souls of men fly to heaven, and the spirit of beasts descends under the earth? And this is the notable vanity, ignorance, and error of men, which Solomon here deplores — namely that they do not know themselves, that is, their own soul and its condition, and do not know whether it is mortal or immortal; whether it will return to heaven or to earth. For the philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, spoke about this matter doubtfully, obscurely, and frivolously. For Plato in the Phaedrus and elsewhere calls God the world, which is carried in a circle. In its convex part he says the true ideas exist, which the soul, borne up on wings, contemplates until it is compelled to return home. Afterwards he denies that it returns to the same place unless ten thousand years have elapsed, until the wings regrow: unless one has philosophized sincerely, a return is given after three thousand years, etc. He assigns men to certain planets which each follows, and with them surveys the ideas of the intellectual world. Epicurus also ridiculed death with this sorites, saying that it "pertains nothing to us; for what has been dissolved is without sensation: and what is without sensation pertains absolutely nothing to us," says Cicero, book II of On the Ends. Tertullian detects the vice and paralogism of the sorites, in his book On the Soul: "It is dissolved," he says, "and lacks sensation — not death itself, but the man who suffers it. But he gave death its passion, whose is the action; and if it belongs to man to suffer death, which dissolves the body and destroys sensation, how absurd to say that so great a power pertains nothing to man!" Add that the sensation of the soul is not extinguished by death; rather, through it the soul feels the eternal fires and is burned by them in hell.
Note: That the spirit of man ascends upward signifies many things: first, that the soul of man is not from the earth, nor is it generated from the transmission of the parents' soul, as the souls of brutes are generated, which therefore die with the body and are resolved into the earth from which they came; but that it is created from above, from heaven, by God alone, and by creating it is infused into man: and therefore it is spiritual and immortal, and consequently after the death of the body it returns to God its creator and ascends upward, to present and render itself to Him, according to chapter 12:7: "Let the spirit return to God who gave it." Hence the Poet said that the soul of man is "a particle of the divine breath." And another: "Fiery," he says, "is their vigor, and
...perceived by the other senses; for they do not think it possible to know anything unless it is seen by the eye of the flesh and touched by the senses."
Furthermore, Cajetan explains it thus, as if to say: "Who knows," that is, no one knows. "For no philosopher," he says, "has hitherto demonstrated the soul of man to be immortal; and no demonstrative reason appears, but we believe this by faith, and it is consonant with probable reasons." So also Vatablus, Campensis, Ferus, and even Scotus in book IV, distinction 43, Question 2. But Melchior Canus refutes these, in the last book of On the Theological Places, last chapter; and St. Augustine, in the book On the Immortality of the Soul, proves it to be immortal by twelve physical arguments; and generally others more truly hold that it can be demonstrated by natural reason that the soul of man is immortal; but this reasoning is grasped only by the rare few who are of lofty and penetrating intellect. Wherefore many of the faithful believe by faith rather than know by reason that the soul is immortal.
Again Rabbi Solomon explains it as if to say: "Who knows," that is, who thinks about, who attends to, who considers that the soul is immortal, so as to be moved from this consideration to a holy life, to look after the salvation of his soul — as if to say: Few do this, few know it practically. So it is said of God in Psalm 138:1: "You have known (that is, You notice, inspect, consider) my sitting down and my rising up."
Finally, St. Jerome explains this of the limbo of the fathers, to which in Solomon's time the souls of the just descended after death: for many were ignorant of where this limbo was, whether above in heaven or below in hell, as if to say: Who knows where the souls of those who now die go, whether namely they ascend to heaven or descend to hell? Hear St. Jerome: "But he says this not because he thinks the soul perishes with the body, or that one place is prepared for beasts and men alike, but because before the coming of Christ all were led equally to the underworld. Whence Jacob also says that he will descend to the underworld. And Job complains that the pious and the wicked are detained in the underworld. And the Gospel testifies that a great chasm was placed in the underworld, and that Abraham was with Lazarus and the rich man in torments; and indeed before Christ opened with the thief that flaming wheel and fiery sword at the gates of paradise, the heavenly places were closed, and an equal futility of condition confined the spirit of beast and man. And although one seemed to be dissolved, another to be preserved, yet there was not much difference between perishing with the body and being detained in the darkness of the underworld."
Morally, learn here how great is the vanity and blindness of the soul, which does not perceive itself and its own gifts and eternity unless it is illuminated by God. St. Augustine, epistle 100 to Evodius, relates that the physician Gennadius, who doubted the immortality of the soul, was taught the same through the appearance of an angel in his sleep. For the angel said to him: "Where is your body now?" He answered: "In my bedroom." "Do you know," the angel said, "that in that same little body your eyes are now bound and closed and idle, and that you see nothing with those eyes?" He answered: "I know." Then the angel said: "What then are those eyes by which you see me?" To this he, finding nothing to answer, was silent. To the hesitating man, the angel opened what he was trying to teach by these questions, and immediately said: "Just as those eyes of the flesh, which in the sleeper lying in bed are now idle and do nothing, and yet there are these by which you gaze upon me and use this vision: so when you shall have died, with the eyes of your flesh doing nothing, you will have life by which to live and sensation by which to feel. Beware henceforth that you do not doubt that life remains after death." Thus this faithful man says that the doubt about this matter was taken from him — taught by whom, if not by the providence and mercy of God?"
John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 195, records a similar example proving the immortality of the soul, concerning Evagrius the philosopher, who after death returned to Bishop Synesius the bond for money to be distributed to the poor and to be received back after death, telling him that he was now satisfied. Marsilio Ficino, disputing about the immortality of the soul with Michael Mercato, a philosopher of great repute, each made a pact with the other that whichever of them departed this life first (if it were permitted) would inform the other about the state of his life after death. Marsilio died first at Florence, and appearing at the hour of his death to Mercato, who was absent and far away, he said: "O Michael, O Michael, those things that we discussed about the immortality of the soul are true." Having said this, he vanished from the wondering man's eyes: and from then on Mercato, although he had lived uprightly, devoted himself to a more perfect virtue, and bidding farewell to philosophy, what remained of his time he lived, dead to the world, for the future life alone. Baronius narrates the matter at length, tome V, under the year of Christ 411.
Indeed Galen, the chief of physicians, from the sympathy of the soul with the body judged it to be mortal. See him, tome I, in the book That the Dispositions of the Soul Follow the Temperament of the Body, chapter 3, where he teaches that the soul in general is nothing other than the temperament of the four primary qualities, namely heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. But the rational soul, he says, which is a species of soul, is nothing other than the temperament of the brain: whence when the brain is overheated or overcooled, the soul departs and man dies; since therefore this temperament perishes, it seems that the rational soul also perishes: so he says. But the antecedent is false; for the rational soul is not a temperament of qualities — for then it would be corporeal, whereas it is spiritual, indeed a pure spirit. Whence Isidore of Pelusium refutes Galen, book III, epistle 124. But Pythagoras, Plato, and the rest judged the soul to be immortal. Whence Heraclitus, in his epistle to Amphidamas: "Heraclitus," he says, "will not succumb to disease; disease will succumb to Heraclitus, etc. The body will descend to the fated place; but the mind will not descend; since it is immortal, it will fly aloft to heaven. The ethereal dwellings will receive him, and I shall accuse the Ephesians. I shall dwell not among men, but among gods." Cicero asserts the same in the Dream of Scipio, and Quintilian, Declamation 10, section 18, where he says: "The soul, taking its impulse of fiery vigor and its perenniality not from our fire, but from where the stars fly and where the sacred axes revolve — it comes from the source whence we derive the spirit that is the author and parent of all things, and it neither perishes, nor is dissolved, nor is affected by any fate of mortality: but as often as it has broken free from the prison of the human breast, and, unburdened of mortal limbs, has purified itself with light fire, it seeks a dwelling among the stars, until in the struggle of time it passes into other fates. Then it remembers its former body: thence the shades come forth when summoned; thence they receive body and countenance and whatever we see; thence dear images sometimes meet their own, and oracles are given, and admonitions are made in nocturnal visions; they feel the offerings we send and perceive the honor of tombs."
Clement of Alexandria, book IV of the Stromata, near the end: "I admire," he says, "Epicharmus who openly says: If you have been pious in mind, you will suffer no evil when dead. The spirit remains above in heaven. And the Lyric Poet singing: But the souls of the wicked fly under heaven in bloody pains, under the inevitable yokes of evils; but those of the pious dwell in the heavens, singing to the chief of the blessed in hymns. Therefore the soul is not sent down from the heavens to things that are worse: for God does all things toward what is better; but the soul that has chosen the best life from God and justice exchanges earth for heaven." Eugubinus, book IX of On the Perennial Philosophy, cites more opinions of the philosophers in favor of the immortality of the soul.
Eugubinus, book IX. But Plato added that the souls of the wise and brave are carried up to heaven to the stars which ruled over them before their descent into bodies; Aristotle, to the air; Virgil, Aeneid book VI, to the Elysian Fields; the Stoics, to the moon, whom Lucan followed and thus sings, book IX:
"And the space that lies between the earth and the courses of the moon — there dwell the demigod shades, whom fiery virtue, innocent of life, enduring the lowest ether, has made, and has gathered their spirits into eternal spheres."
Tertullian reviews and refutes the errors of these, in the book On the Soul, chapter 54. Gregory of Nyssa adds (or rather Nemesius; for this book is attributed to him in the Library of the Holy Fathers, tome IX of the second edition), book II of Philosophy, chapter 7, that all pagans who declared the soul immortal taught the transmigration of souls into different bodies with unanimous consent, though they differed only concerning the forms, place, and state of souls. But the Catholic faith teaches that the souls of the wicked from the beginning of the world are immediately thrust into hell upon death; and those of the just who need purification are sent to purgatory, where when they had been fully purified, before Christ they passed to the limbo of the fathers, but after Christ they are immediately received into heaven, as the Council of Florence defines in the Decree of Union. Therefore Calvin and the Innovators err, who hold that souls hide in a cave or sleep until the day of the last judgment.
Finally, the immortality of the soul is joined with the divine power, that is, with the providence and justice of God; for it is fitting that He should punish in the next life the wicked who oppress the pious in this one, and reward the pious. Hence those who deny the immortality of the soul soon deny the divine power and become atheists. Conversely, faith in the immortality of the soul and hope of its happiness rouses man to every virtue, however arduous. Thus the martyrs were inflamed to martyrdom by the hope of the future life, as is clear in 2 Maccabees chapter 7. Indeed Socrates, unjustly condemned to death, rejoiced that his mind, free from the body as from a prison, would begin to be its own master and would live better than before, as Plato and Laertius relate in his Life.
Alphonsus, King of Aragon, splendidly said, while turning over the works of Seneca, when asked why the human mind was so insatiable: "The mind of man, having proceeded from God, does not rest until it returns to the place whence it proceeded." Thus long ago Lucretius:
"For what was formerly from the earth yields back to the earth; but what was sent from the regions of the ether, that again the shining temples of heaven receive."
And a modern poet:
"The principle of heaven is in the mind, of earth in the body. To him who has a great mind, nothing is great."
Furthermore, by far the greater and better number of philosophers indeed held that the souls of men after the death of the body ascend upward, but to this opinion each added his own fictions and fables. So held Trismegistus, Orpheus, Socrates, Musaeus, Pherecydes the teacher of Pythagoras, Aratus, Homer, Empedocles, Seneca, Virgil, Phocylides, whose verse is:
"Life remains for the dead, and then they are made gods;" which corresponds to that saying of Christ: "They will be as the angels of God in heaven," Matthew 22:30. He cites them
..."I have become like a beast before You, and I am always with You. And in all the Prophets, men and cattle are said to be saved in Jerusalem, and the land of promise to be filled with flocks and herds. Who knows whether the saint, who is worthy of the name of man, ascends to heaven; and whether the sinner, who is called a beast, descends into the earth? For either can happen, given the uncertain and slippery state of this life, so that the just man may fall and the sinner may rise; and it sometimes happens that the more learned and educated in the Scriptures, that is, the man who does not live circumspectly and as befits his knowledge, is led down to the underworld; while the simpler and more rustic person, who is called a beast in comparison with a man, lives better, and is crowned with martyrdom, and becomes a colonist of paradise."
So also the Author of the Greek Catena: To ascend upward, he says, is to ascend to a sublime state of virtue; to descend downward is to plunge into the depth of vices, as if to say: "Not even by the things which the just and unjust do can they be clearly distinguished before the judgment. For many unjust have passed to justice and have been raised on high; and conversely many just have fallen from justice and plunged themselves into vices."
St. Gregory of Nyssa says splendidly, in his book On Virginity, chapter 5: "As the eyes of pigs," he says, "by nature turned toward the earth, do not have a view of the wondrous celestial things: so the mind ruined by the luxury of the body, since it is inclined toward lowly things and those that belong to cattle, will no longer be able to discern heaven, nor the harmony and beauty of the remaining things. Wherefore, in order that our mind, quiet and free, may most fully gaze upon the divine and blessed pleasure, it will turn itself to absolutely no perishable and earthly things, nor will it partake of those pleasures which are arranged for the indulgence of common life, but will rather translate all the force of its love from the things of the body to that contemplation of beauty which is both incorporeal and discerned by the mind."
And Julius Firmicus, book I of the Astronomy, chapter 2: "The mind," he says, "which is immortal, if it has been separated from the vices and lusts of the earthly body, and retaining the constancy of its origin and seed, has recognized the power of its own majesty, will easily attain by the investigation of the divine mind all things that are thought difficult and arduous. Tell me, who in heaven saw the path of the sea? Who by the striking of stones struck forth the spark of hidden fire? Who came to know the powers of herbs? To whom has all the nature of divinity both shown and revealed itself, if not to the mind, which, having proceeded from the celestial fire, was sent for the governance and direction of earthly frailty? He himself handed down the reasoning of this science, he himself the calculations; he himself showed the courses, retrogradations, stations, conjunctions, increases, risings, and settings of the sun and moon and the other stars which we call wandering and the Greeks call planets; and established in the frailty of an earthly body, with a brief recollection of his majesty, all these things he did not learn in order to hand them down, but recognized them" — which last point take with a grain of salt, lest you fall into the error of Plato, namely that our knowledge is merely a reminiscence of things we previously knew.
Verse 22: And I perceived that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his...
22. And I perceived that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his portion. For who will bring him to know the things that are to be after him? — Many again consider that Solomon speaks in the person of the Epicureans, or in his own person when he was foolish and indulging in pleasures. So Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, Bonaventure, Hugh of St. Victor, and others, and indeed St. Gregory, Dialogues book IV, chapter 4, as if here he says the same as Epicurus: "Eat, drink, play, after death there is no pleasure." Hear St. Gregory: "The book of Solomon in which these things are written is called Ecclesiastes; and Ecclesiastes properly means a preacher. In a public address, a verdict is delivered by which the sedition of a tumultuous crowd is suppressed. And when many hold different opinions, through the reasoning of the preacher they are led to one opinion. This book is therefore called the Preacher because Solomon in it took up, as it were, the sentiment of a tumultuous crowd, so as to say by way of inquiry what perhaps an inexperienced mind might feel through temptation. For as many opinions as he raises by way of inquiry, so many persons of different people he takes upon himself, as it were; but the truthful preacher, as if with outstretched hand, calms the tumult of all, and recalls them to one opinion, when at the end of the same book he says: Let us all together hear the end of the discourse: Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is the whole of man." And after a few words: "This therefore seemed good to me, that a man should eat and drink and enjoy gladness from his labor." And much further on he adds: "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. For if it is good to eat and drink, it would have seemed better to go to the house of feasting than to the house of mourning. From which it is shown that the former he introduced from the person of the weak, but the latter he added from the judgment of reason."
Better, St. Jerome, the Author of the Greek Catena, Lyranus, Hugh of St. Victor, Titelmannus, and others consider these words to be said from the person of Solomon and the wise, and in a double sense. In the first sense, as if he were saying: Given the immortality of the soul, the divine judgment, and heavenly happiness, which few will know, I perceived and concluded that nothing is better in this life than for a man to rejoice in his work, namely that he joyfully devote himself to honorable and holy works, especially of charity and almsgiving; for these are the works of man insofar as he is man, namely works conformable to reason and mind, by which he is led to his end, namely to heavenly glory.
...of justice and the other virtues give examples, as if to say: At least, O most vain man, who understand nothing more sublime or better than the brutes, try at least to understand what they understand; drive away empty cares from your mind, use present things frugally, cast away desire for the future; and leave your mind free and prepared for better thoughts of the soul, and for the most pleasant tranquility of mind. So Pineda, Lorinus, and the rest.
To rejoice therefore in one's work is to enjoy the goods acquired by one's labor; to enjoy, I say, not for lust, but according to right reason, which dictates that from them you should do good first to yourself, then to others through alms and other good works. For virtue begets true and solid joy, while intemperance and vice beget nausea and sadness. So St. Jerome, Lyranus, and others. For this is properly one's own labor, because nothing is so much our own as a good deed done from virtue: for this is the work of our free will aided and imbued by the grace of God.
And St. Jerome: "There is nothing good," he says, "in this life, except that a man rejoices in his work, giving alms and preparing for himself future treasures in the kingdom of heaven. This alone is the portion that we have, which neither thief, nor robber, nor tyrant can take away, and which will follow us after death." For in this sense he drew this conclusion from a similar vanity of things in verse 12, and in chapter 2, verse 24, where he similarly said that this is the portion, that is, the lot of man, namely that he should provide for himself, not for his heirs. The Chaldean clearly signifies this when he translates: and at length I perceive that there is nothing better in this life than that a man should rejoice in his best works, and eat and drink, and gladden his soul. For this is the best portion assigned to him in this age, so that he may win for himself the future life. For why does a man say to himself: What use is the distribution of riches to me, that I should cultivate justice? It is better that I leave them to my children, or that I sustain myself in extreme old age. For who will bring him to see what will be after him?
Mystically St. Augustine (although he himself considers this to be the literal sense), book XII of The City of God, chapter 20, takes this maxim as referring to the Eucharist, when he says: "There is no good for man except what he shall eat and drink; what is he more credibly understood to say than what pertains to participation in this table which the priest Himself, the mediator of the New Testament, presents according to the order of Melchizedek, from His body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all those sacrifices of the Old Testament which were offered in the shadow of the future: on account of which we also recognize that voice in the thirty-ninth psalm, of the same mediator speaking through prophecy: Sacrifice and oblation You did not want; but a body You have perfected for Me, because in place of all those sacrifices and oblations His body is offered, and is administered to those who partake." He proves this by this reasoning:
For that this Ecclesiastes in this maxim of eating and drinking, which he often repeats, greatly commends not the savoring of carnal feasts of pleasure, that verse sufficiently shows where he says: It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of drinking, Ecclesiastes 7. And shortly after: "The heart," he says, "of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of the foolish is in the house of feasting." So also Philastrius, book On Heresies, near the end, where he attacks the Epicureans.
For who will bring him (to this knowledge, says Lyranus) that he may know the things that are to be after him? — Campensis: who will tell him what will be after him?
Various authors explain this variously. First, the Epicureans, as if to say: Enjoy the goods of this life, indulge the belly and lust, because these are certain; but future goods, as well as the immortality of the soul, are doubtful and uncertain.
Second, as if to say: Enjoy the goods of this life while you live, because after death there will be no return to them or to life. So Thaumaturgus. And Olympiodorus adds: there will be no return to life, so that you might do penance.
Third, Pineda considers that the question is touched upon here whether the souls not yet blessed know the things that are done concerning their own people on earth, and whether they are present to them. For he answers negatively: they do not know, nor are they present. In the same way St. Augustine answers, in the book On the Care for the Dead, chapters 13 and following.
Fourth and genuinely, as if to say: Enjoy your goods honestly and moderately, and do not look to the future or to future heirs, because this is your portion and lot, which you know and hold: for who will bring you to foreknowledge of the future, so that you may know what kind of heirs you will have, since they are utterly uncertain and doubtful to you? Who again will bring you to know where your soul after death will proceed to the limbo — whether namely to heaven or to hell? Let it suffice for you to live honestly and modestly, so that you may be led to the limbo and the bosom of Abraham, wherever that may be.
Therefore do not anxiously vex and torment yourself to know what will happen after death to your soul or to your heirs. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Hugh of St. Victor, Dionysius, and others. For in this sense he used this clause, or conclusion, in chapter 2, verse 24. For he here returns to that notable and common vanity above all others, by which the greedy with great labor and care heap up riches and store them away for children, grandchildren, and other uncertain and often ungrateful and foolish heirs, and thus defraud their own genius: for he repeatedly castigates this vanity, as in verse 12, and in the preceding chapter, verses 18, 19, 20, 21 and following. Moreover, supposing that a certain man cannot be persuaded of the immortality of the soul — which in that rude age was frequent — he persuades him at least to use his goods rightly and frugally, and to dispense them himself properly.
Finally, this maxim can be turned against those who are excessively anxious, who curiously and scrupulously torment themselves with the uncertainty of their predestination and reprobation, and thus are driven either to despair or to madness; for they continually turn this dilemma over in their mind: You do not know whether you are predestined or reprobated by God; nor can you avert or change God's predestination or reprobation. If therefore from eternity God reprobated you, whatever you do you will be damned; if He predestined you, whatever you do you will be saved. What then shall I do, uncertain and in doubt? Where shall I turn? Who will tell me whether I am reprobate and to be damned, or predestined and to be saved? Who knows whether my spirit will go upward to heaven or downward to the underworld? Against these you may rightly oppose this maxim of Solomon: enjoy honestly and moderately your goods and God's gifts for your own and others' salvation, and avoid sins and serve God joyfully: thus you will certainly be saved. Therefore do not scrutinize the secret of predestination and reprobation; this belongs to God: therefore commit and resign it to Him. For who will bring you to that lofty watchtower of divinity, that you may foresee and foreknow the future things that are hidden in His foreknowledge and predestination? By this reasoning St. Giles, companion of St. Francis, a man of great prudence and holiness, disputes this anxiety and temptation conceived from the uncertainty of predestination, and Thomas a Kempis, book I of The Imitation of Christ, last chapter, narrates about himself: "When," he says, "a certain anxious man frequently wavered between fear and hope, and on one occasion, overwhelmed with grief, prostrated himself in prayer in a church before a certain altar, he turned these things over within himself, saying: Oh, if only I knew that I would still persevere! And immediately he heard within a divine response: What, if you knew this, would you wish to do? Do now what you would then wish to do, and you will be well assured. And soon, consoled and strengthened, he committed himself to the divine will, and the anxious wavering ceased. And he did not wish to investigate curiously, so as to know what things were to be his in the future; but rather he studied to inquire what was the good and perfect and pleasing will of God, for beginning and completing every good work."