Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1 part 5/10

This man is upon the earth not only in body but also in heart.

He minds earthly things, sinking himself deep into a settled abode there.

None of such men is righteous.

And I mean 'man' not in a simple sense, but the one who, being upon the earth, cannot be righteous.

One who walks upon the earth, if he has his citizenship in heaven, is wise not according to the earth.

For this reason there is no hindrance to naming the one who possesses righteousness after it.

As regards the literal sense, does it not hold? If you wish to take it according to the literal history, you arrive at a doctrine: that there is no man who, having come to be upon the earth, is without sin.

But I said that this brings us difficulty concerning John and concerning Jeremiah, unless indeed you take that sin according to which it is said: 'All have sinned.'

You know that I once distinguished this and said that not every sin brings harm to the one who commits it, when indeed I made use of such an image: let there be a painter learning the craft.

He paints many pictures poorly, and this sin does not bring reproach.

For this reason he paints poorly, in order that he may learn to paint well.

One must do many things faultily, so that thus a person may readily accomplish the aim of the work he has in hand.

They say also concerning the inventors, that the inventors were not so accomplished as those who came after them or as they themselves were when they had persevered longer.

At any rate the painters of old are said to have painted things so unlike the original forms, that in a painting the image happened to be better than the original.

Thus, then, you might say that everyone who comes to be upon the earth has this sin—not the one opposed to virtue, but the one that leads toward virtue.

Indeed, at any rate, we say of one who is eager to paint a picture, having only begun the craft, and at times painting badly, that he paints worse than one who has already grown practiced in the craft—if that latter one, out of negligence, should paint carelessly.

And if you compare the work with the work, the work of the careless one is the better.

But if you look to the purpose, the one who painted worse painted the more truly.

Thus, then, we also take it according to a proportion of quantity.

Of the one able to learn ten lines by heart, but who has learned twelve, we speak favourably;

but of the one able to learn fifty, yet who has learned forty, we say that he has learned nothing.

who will do good and will not sin.

Such a man does not exist upon the earth, one who will do good and will not sin.

I wish to take a loftier meaning;

but do not charge me with tastelessness.

It is said concerning Jesus alone;

'Before He chooses evil, He will choose the good.' The Child alone, the one according to Jesus, who did not know sin—the choice of evil things—chose the good; but all the others, after they had come to know this wickedness—not the blameworthy kind, but the introductory kind.

There is, then, no man who will do good and will not sin. After sin all men possess the good, but the sin here spoken of is the one already mentioned, the one that pre-exists virtue.

See, many who seem to have quickness of understanding, and who have devoted themselves to their own cleverness, think that they know everything;

and when they begin to take up those very things which they think they know, they fall into such ignorance as to give up learning.

Often I have supposed concerning a folding tablet that it is easy to understand, and yet it appeared harder than everything to everyone who applied his mind to grasping each thing.

This ignorance is prior to knowledge;

and it is not opposed to knowledge, but is prior to knowledge.

The one, then, who thinks he knows something, unless he finds himself to be as one knowing nothing, cannot receive knowledge.

There is, then, one alone concerning whom this is said;

'Before He chooses evil, He chose the good.' Even if, then, it does not seem so to Apollinaris and to those who follow him in this, their doctrine is overthrown.

before He chose evil things;

He was never able to sin, because, coming only as far as pre-passion, He did not extend it into a settled disposition.

It can, then, be brought to the same meaning, but it can also be understood otherwise: that in the temple, that is, in the man, God the Word came to dwell.

And He is Wisdom, and from this understanding comes every betterment.

Since, then, I am speaking of the matters of the economy, this ought here to be demonstrated.

Being a child, He did not say those things which He said when He had become a perfect man.

He advanced, then, in advancement.

A teacher, or another likewise possessing the disposition of instruction, when disciples have come forward and are longing for knowledge, condescends and says those things which the beginners are able to hear—not the things which he himself is able to say—and he conforms himself to the ignorance of the beginners, and, as knowing only those things which he says, he instructs them.

In proportion, then, as the child advances, the teacher also advances;

but the child advances by the acquisition of lessons, while the teacher advances by the manifestation of the power residing within.

And consider for me the sun when it has reached this perceptible horizon;

and let some veil, running up beneath, hinder the sight from quickly falling upon it, as it would if the veil were not there.

In proportion as there comes to the sight a disclosure, then there comes also so great a disclosure of the sun.

And I say that the sun advances, not by the acquisition of light, but by being henceforth able to illuminate the one who previously could not be so lit up.

The veil of the soul, then, is sin.

If, then, you do not choose wickedness, the light shows itself the more manifestly.

Thus, then, I say that the teacher advances in wisdom, not by the acquisition of wisdom, but by the manifestation of greater wisdom.

In reality, indeed, all advancement would be impeded, if, say, perfect saints, being visible, could accomplish and know so much.

If, having become men, they did and said great things, this contributes to the advancement of virtue and its manifestation.

'And indeed, to all the words which they shall speak, give not your heart, lest you hear your servant cursing you, for many times he will do wickedly.'

'And indeed, to the many words which men shall speak'—there is a certain ignorance and sin;

belonging to those who are at the beginnings of the discoveries of the sciences.

'Give not your heart'—it passes over to a moral lesson.

You know that the ... sins and injustices done against someone provoke him to indignation.

If, therefore, you give commands, and the servants are negligent in the things commanded, do not give your heart to this, since both you and he are harmed.

If, then, a servant curses you, ...

you should consider him, whether he does what was commanded or does not do it, not how he does it or does not do it.

For afterwards you wish to know this, so that you may honour him with freedom, so that you may give him what he did not previously have.

Consider, then, you also yourself, whether you have not at some time sinned.

For this too the Apostle writes, exhorting servants to be subject to their masters, not in eye-service, but as servants of Christ.

And you masters, maintain equality toward your servants. He who maintains equality toward his servants does not press upon them and scrutinise their dispositions, but the deed, what has been done;

and we shall not use it unseasonably.

We find, then, in certain gospels;

'A woman,' it says, 'was condemned by the Jews for sin and was being sent to be stoned in the place where it was customary for this to be done.'

'The Saviour,' it says, 'having seen her and observing that they were ready to stone her, said to those who were about to cast the stones down upon her:'

'Let him who has not sinned take a stone and cast it. If anyone is conscious in himself of not having sinned, let him take a stone and strike her.'

Having set themselves under scrutiny and recognized that they too are liable to certain charges, they did not dare to strike down that woman.

'That he will often do wickedly.'

'He will often act wickedly so as to do harm.'

For him the matter stands only at the stage of counsel.

But if ever such a thing should truly appear, as though he had in fact dared to do it, then he must be restrained, then one must take a stand against the designs he expresses.

'And by many turnings it will afflict your heart, for even as you yourself have cursed others.'

By 'many turnings' he means those upon which it comes repeatedly.

And whenever I say concerning someone that—

'...to the point of speaking evil of your heart.' .....

'All things whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, do you also to them.' 'What you hate, do not do to another.' Just as you hated it when you were often cursed, so hate to curse others yourself.

And the making the servant to be found out—in this also there is much..... .....

Take the forgiveness from your own self.

'All these things I tested in wisdom.'

'I will make myself wise, yet it was removed far from me, farther than it had been.'

'In the wisdom given to me, which is sent from God, these things I tested'—I, the Ecclesiast, I, the wise man, the instructor in the sciences, who so advances my discourses that they profit those who learn.

So that we may understand the 'testing' (peirasmos) as the wise define it: this is a 'testing procedure' and a 'testing syllogism,' when we take our premises from the opinions of the one conversing with us.

For instance, if we were to inquire whether wealth is good or not good, we take the premises not from the universal, but from the opinions of the very one with whom we are arguing.

And we say that it is possible to use wealth as one ought.

It is possible to do good to one's neighbors, to nourish wise men, of whom the Apostle spoke:

'sharing in the needs of the saints.' And from this we established that it is possible to use wealth well.

The other, who says that it is not good, says:

Many have become prodigals from wealth, have been shown to be adulterers, and that the rich man gives himself over to drunkenness, and that he will often plot against others.

For we frame our arguments from the opinions of the respondent, even if others do not hold that view, but he alone.

And this syllogism is called 'testing' (peirastic),

for it is brought forward for the sake of testing.

And it is similar to what among the geometers is called a 'false diagram' (pseudographema):

for those who are learning and are able either it makes clear at some point to be recognized ..... ..... .....

The geometer makes a false diagram and ..... .....

two falsehoods, and he gives them to that one to resolve.

He found true things and displayed a proof of perfection.

...for the one who places assumptions in between the assumptions places those ..... .....

The 'I said here' signifies not merely to utter, but also to assent in such a way, as the '<no one> says':

'Lord, Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.' To 'say' here is to confess in the proper sense—to call him Lord in a real and effectual way, while serving him.

I added this: 'I will make myself wise.'

The example just now stated becomes plain:

In this, then, insofar as I supposed I possessed wisdom, I did not say:

But now, instead of saying that—

'I fall short of wisdom,' I say that:

'But it becomes far from me, farther than it was.' I supposed it was not at all far from me, and for this reason I was zealous to do everything so as now to lay hold of it.

But when I had done this, it became far from me.

Yet in reality it did not become far from me, but it appeared to me to be far, beyond the interval to make it distant.

'Who shall find it?' Meaning:

'There is no one who finds it.'

'Do not give your heart'—this is indeed a moral matter.

But this must be taken up:

The body is a servant of the soul.

Do not give your heart to attend to the base motions of the body.

Suppose, for example, one attends to this: that the body is capable of rising up against the soul through desires, through passions.

Do not give this, then, so as to know what he says, what he was saying.

His pretext must be examined.

This word does harm, it is a curse.

And if the word is a curse, it is a wishing of evils.

He who buffets his body and brings it into subjection does not give it leave to know his heart as a spy.

'I went round, I and my heart, to know and to observe and to seek out wisdom and reckoning.'

It has often already been said that 'the heart' signifies the mind.

The mind does not move obliquely nor in a straight line, but revolves around itself.

Indeed, some even of those outside have said that acts of thinking are like wheels and circles that revolve.

For when the mind stretches itself toward external things and wishes to receive an impression of the objects of sense, it is not around itself, it does not revolve around itself.

When it attends to itself, it is at once both that which thinks and that which is thought.

For the mind in actuality always possesses thinking, and there is no time when it is poured out upon external things.

The 'I and my heart'? Things composed of many parts, or conceived as such, each is called by the name of the whole.

Man is constituted of soul and body and spirit, as when it says 'your whole spirit and soul and body'—does it not name all the other parts of the man?

Each is other than the man, but all together they are the man.

This the Apostle did also in the case of the body, even though he mixed in something intelligible along with it:

'If the whole,' he says, 'were an eye, and if the whole were hearing, where were the body?' And he says that each member is in itself, but all together are the body.

And superficially the same thing may be seen.

The word 'reckoning' (psephos) here signifies number.

The many parts complete a most exalted contemplation.

And 'reckoning' might be spoken of as if it were number.

But if one should wish to take 'reckoning' also as what has been said:

But when they were being destroyed, he brought down a verdict, the testimony, and thus he willed to know wisdom and a reckoning. If wisdom is knowledge of things divine and human and of their causes, one ought to comprehend each of them, and how one holds the whole of knowledge summed up together.

and to know the impiety of the fool, and folly, and vexation, and giddy wandering

It is a great thing to know the worse things, yet not to do them.

It is impossible to stand apart from evil without having understood it.

But in another sense we say that sin is not known by him who does not sin, meaning:

he has no experience of sin. Thus, then, Jesus knew no sin, that is, he had no experience of it.

But he who truly wishes to abstain from evil will come to know it: that it is base, and that it procures evil for the one who practices it, and that it drags him down to death, and that it is a matter of choice, and that it can be undone by us.

It does not exist according to substance, nor is it wrought by the motion of the stars.

If, then, I come to know this folly of the fool, I stand apart from it, I cast it away.

and to know, through the impious one, gladness

If I come to know who the impious man is, and abstain from this very thing, I come to know gladness.

For the phrase 'through something' must be understood thus:

'for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.' He who knows the law will through it know sin, and evidently virtue as well;

but the one, that he may do it, and the other, that he may flee it.

and vexation and giddy wandering

Folly and impiety and vexation are one and the same.

Indeed the outside philosopher too has spoken of the vexations of the sophists.

And one must recognize 'giddy wandering' to mean that these things must be carried about, not held as fixed possessions.

And even if at some time they gather together in the soul, one must not keep them, but carry them about and turn away from them.

'And I find her more bitter than death, together with the woman, who is a snare.'

'I find her'—that is, the vexation, the giddy wandering—'more bitter than death,' meaning:

when I take experience of her, I die;

I reckon her worse than death.

But if anyone reckons her to be death and the ruin of the soul, he will decline her, he will cease from her.

'together with the woman, who is a snare'

It is also possible that by 'woman' he has meant this very worst disposition, which he casts away, which he saw to procure nothing other than death.

For in many places of the divine instructions the dispositions and the settled state are called 'women' of those who possess them, both in praiseworthy and in blameworthy cases, as when it says:

'Wisdom bears prudence for a man,' and 'your wife like a flourishing vine, your sons like young olive shoots.' From this woman are born male offspring, nourishers of fire and light.

For the blessing of these plants nourishes the fire and the light.

'Do not give heed to a base woman;'

'Honey,' it says, 'drips from the lips of a harlot woman, who for a little while sweetens your throat.'

'But afterward you will find her more bitter than gall.' Then, a little later, it adds:

'But the feet of folly...'

He called the woman 'folly.'

Wherefore also he set her over against wisdom.

He says that this woman, whom he called 'giddy wandering,' whom he held to be 'vexation,' is a snare that catches, not something that is caught.

not as something tame, but as a wild beast that drags others to itself.

It is possible also, with respect to the literal sense, for the sake of a moral lesson, to take it according to the historical meaning as signifying the base woman.

You know that sins prove to be suited to particular persons.

For the most part, to prance about, to bear oneself insolently in sophistical fashion, belongs to a man, but to a woman belongs the enticing of others in licentiousness.

He says, then, that this woman—whom he calls a harlot, whom he speaks of as sitting upon a stool and calling to the passers-by—is a snare.

It is a bait, even if you take these things at the level of disposition: the crafty and unscrupulous disposition, whether sophistical or even heretical;

'and her heart is nets, and her hands are bonds.'

'The good man before the face of God will be delivered from her, but the sinner will be caught together with her.'

She wishes to ensnare those who draw near.

And her net is contrary to that which Jesus cast into the sea.

For the fabric of the divine instruction and of the evangelical teaching is a net cast into the sea, and it gathers from every kind. And since the net is not perceptible to the senses, neither are the things ensnared perceptible to the senses.

If, then, it says 'from every kind,' this is what it means:

those from every human character who have fallen down into the watery life. And concerning the devil it is said in one of the twelve prophets—and this one is Habakkuk—'Wilt thou keep silence while the impious swallows down the righteous? And thou makest men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler.' For it says:

'He draws up the whole with a hook, and gathers them in his net.'

'For this cause he will sacrifice to his net, and burn incense to his casting-net.'

'Shall he continually cast out his casting-net, and not spare to slay the nations?' The enemy, then, hunts in diverse ways, just as does the Word of salvation. For as Jesus cast a net into the sea, so also Peter is commanded to cast one. But the teachings are particular, looking to the one who is said to be the specific quality of each individual.

For when he gathers diverse nations in a net, there is this:

'he will continually not spare to slay the nations.' And since the founders of false doctrines make gods of these very things, they burn incense to them as to some divine craft or as to some god.

This woman, then, who is said to have nets in her own heart because she in manifold ways entices and draws men to herself, is a net of the devil.

Here we wish to consider the passage from Job, so that from that one and from this we may take the contemplation.

It says that everything that swims, coming together, could not bring up a single hide of his tail, nor could the boats of fishermen bear his head. Then it says:

'Who shall uncover the covering of his face? And into the fold of his breastplate who could enter?' No one is able to uncover his face.

He is many-faced, imitating the sea-dwelling Proteus;

for that one has no fixed face at all.

This, then, is what it says in Job:

'Who shall uncover the covering of his face?' You cannot say that this is his face.

If you should strip off his face by word or by thought, some other thing worse is found.

Then too he is folded round on every side;

'into the fold of his breastplate no one is able to enter.'

And if you should enter, again he is folded round.

So also here the malicious one, who is named 'woman' here—whether you wish to take it literally or at the level of disposition—does not have a single net.

When you think you have escaped one, she casts you under another.

The one who draws near she immediately binds.

And by her 'hand' he means the deed and the activity.

He who acts in accordance with her is not only hunted and caught in the net, but also falls into her bond.

'He who is good before the face of God shall be delivered from her.'

He who is good before the face of God is not such by his very essence, but is the one who strives to possess virtue, so that he may become good in the sight of God.

This man, then, does not fall into her; he is not hunted, he is not caught in her net.

Since the good man does not fall into her snares or into her bonds, it is the worthless man who is handed over to her.

After hindering him many times, when it no longer hinders — that evil one persisting in his course — a handing-over comes about for him.

'And the sinner shall be taken by her.'

No one who is without sin is taken by her.

The beginning of being taken is the act of sinning.

She draws near, indeed, even to the saints;

but since they do not sin, they are not taken by her; rather they are outside of her, and they tread her underfoot.

'I went round about, that I might know' — the whole passage is by way of anagogical interpretation;

it is not far from what was said, that, since from the greatness of beauty and of created things their Author is contemplated, he who circles about the whole cosmos and beholds all things which God has made, sees them, that they are exceedingly good.

But if he does not circle about, but takes them one by one, he does not see the beauty of the Maker.

So then in like manner, unless one circles about all the doctrines and all the virtues, and finds their mutual sequence, and the whole creation, and through that created thing comes to know the Creator, of what power He is —

then, taking all things together at once and proportionately in the mind, and as it were having circled about wisdom, he finds the true wisdom.

'Behold, this I found,' said the Preacher, 'one thing to another, to find out the reckoning which my soul sought after, and I found it not.'

The Preacher is the teacher of the whole assembled congregation.

This the Preacher found;

here to find is to comprehend.

What sort of thing? This very thing: that the woman who is a snare has nets in her own heart, and holds a bond in her own hand.

It belongs to the Preacher to know this.

For this will be of profit to those who listen to the Preacher.

'One to another' — since here he speaks in the plural;

for it is not said concerning one only, that 'one to another.'

We speak either concerning her nets;

he says that these snares of hers and her nets find out the worthless reckoning and hand it over.

Doubtless, then, these women too act as go-betweens for one another and lead one another forward, not to find a good reckoning, but toward working cunning.

Did he not say 'one' above? Evil is not of a single kind, but is manifold and of many divisions.

It must be further understood that he does not say these things concerning some particular woman, but concerning every woman who has such earnestness — 'one to another, to find out a reckoning.' But if you take it of the nets, you say that the nets too seem to have an agreement.

For those who hold false opinions also try to say that their own false opinions agree with one another.

'Which my soul sought after, and I found it not.'

My soul sought after their reckoning, and I found it not.

It is similar to the things that have been said:

'Are we not ignorant of his devices? Into the folding of his breastplate who could enter?' — if indeed;

What sort of thing, then, is the 'I found' in the foregoing? Here at last he says:

'One to another, to find out a reckoning.' This reckoning I wished to detect, so that I might also escape them.

'And I found it not' can also be spoken according to such a sense as this: 'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.' Of myself I found nothing.

But God made it manifest to me; He showed me the cunning of this reckoning.

For he surely says that neither the runner nor the willer accomplishes anything. 'And one man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I found not.'

Many copies have 'a man;'

'but a woman among all these I found not.' And you can take it also according to the literal sense, that scarcely is one earnest man found among a thousand, but among all these women it is not possible to find an earnest one.

I found one man of the thousand, one reckoning of a man out of many, but a woman not, on account of her being hard to hunt, on account of her being hard to comprehend — if indeed;

Does he say that he has found this? Since they are things hunted.

It is one thing to know that someone is a sophist, and another thing to comprehend his sophistries.

For indeed he who guards himself, lest he fall under sophistries, has known that he is dealing with a sophist;

yet he is not by any means also able to solve his sophistries.

But to find truly is this: to detect his craft, to make manifest his deceit.

'They sought out many reckonings.'

The chief point of the theorem is this:

God made man upright, that is, fair and good, having nothing crooked or bent aside.

But they themselves devised many reckonings.

According to those reckonings these are the distinctions:

that a certain thing is a hunted prey; that it is 'one to another, to find out a reckoning'; that a certain one is foolish.

I was saying that the enemy is manifold, when I made mention of Proteus.

But he certainly has some face resembling himself, according to which he is Satan, according to which he is the devil.

This face of his those alone are able to see who say, 'For we are not ignorant of his devices.' They know what sort of counterfeit face he has, put on from without, and what sort is his face that is, as it were, according to his nature.

And his face according to nature is to go deep into wickedness.

And you often find sophist-men too, putting on countless faces, yet they have some one hidden aim.

That, then, is their true face.

As, then, in the case of these he passes over to the praiseworthy: there is a certain face of man, according to which he is man, not according to which he is a wicked or cunning man.

This is he who was made in honour;

'Man, being in honour, understood not' — inasmuch as man was made both in the image and likeness of God.

And this indeed is his foremost face, which if anyone should contemplate, he has found the man.

But they themselves practised not one reckoning, but many.

For wickedness is manifold.

And I remember once having spoken an image concerning calculation, that all who succeed find the same number, but those who err do not find the same one.

Man therefore has a face according to which he is rational, according to which he does all things with reason; and as I was saying, that the judge —

the true judge is a living, ensouled justice;

he considers nothing other than the facts of those being judged, not whether they are friends or foes or kinsmen.

For the uprightness of the judgment is defiled.

And observe that he did not say 'he was compared to a beast,' but 'to the beasts.'

And there is one form of man, that which makes him like unto God, but many forms into which he falls.

When he becomes cunning, he bears the face of a fox.

When he is venomous and harmful, the face of a serpent;

when licentious and pleasure-loving and a flatterer, the face of a dog.

And in short, out of the one man and the one form there arise manifoldness and multiplicity of forms.

And again there will be an aim—even if to some it does not seem so—according to which the casting off of all these forms comes about, so that what God has made may be brought forth and displayed.

So then, while he remained in his self-identity, he had a single mode of thought.

And even as it is said in one of the Psalms:

'God settles those of single manner in a house.' Those who are settled piously and virtuously and in a churchly way are of single manner, being knit together in the same mind and the same purpose, so that each is of single manner.

But in a second sense you will say that they all have one manner.

It is concerning those who thus hold their purpose that it is said that of the believers the soul is one and the heart is one—not in number, but in identity.