Exegetical Fragments.929
| 929 See, in
the Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum of Gallandi, the Appendix to vol.
xiv., added from the manuscripts, after the editor’s death by an
anonymous scholar. |
————————————
I.—A Commentary on the Beginning
of Ecclesiastes.930
| 930
[Compare the Metaphrase, p. 9,
supra. Query, are not these twin specimens of
exegetical exercises in the school at Alexandria?] |
————————————
Chapter I.
Ver. 1. “The words of
the son of David, king of Israel in Jerusalem.”
In like manner also
Matthew calls the Lord the son of David.931
3.
“What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under
the sun?”
For what man is there who, although he may have become
rich by toiling after the objects of this earth, has been able to make
himself three cubits in stature, if he is naturally only of two cubits
in stature? Or who, if blind, has by these means recovered his
sight? Therefore we ought to direct our toils to a goal beyond
the sun: for thither, too, do the exertions of the virtues
reach.
4.
“One generation passeth away, and another generation
cometh: but the earth abideth for ever” (unto the age).
Yes, unto the age,932
but not unto the ages.
933
16. “I communed with mine own
heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more
wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my
heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
17. I knew parables and
science: that this indeed is also the spirit’s
choice.934
18. For in multitude of wisdom is
multitude of knowledge: and he that increaseth knowledge
increaseth grief.”
I was vainly puffed up, and increased wisdom; not
the wisdom which God has given, but that wisdom of which Paul says,
“The wisdom of this world is foolishness with
God.”935
For in this
Solomon had also an experience surpassing
prudence, and above the
measure of all the ancients. Consequently he shows the
vanity of
it, as what follows in like manner demonstrates: “And my
heart uttered
936
| 936
εἶπε, for which
εἶδε,
“discerned,” is suggested. |
many
things: I knew
wisdom, and
knowledge, and
parables, and
sciences.” But this was not the genuine
wisdom or
knowledge, but that which, as
Paul says, puffeth up. He spake,
moreover, as it is written,
937
three
thousand parables. But these were not
parables of a
spiritual kind, but only such as fit the common polity of men; as, for
instance, utterances about
animals or medicines. For which reason
he has added in a tone of raillery, “I knew that this also is the
spirit’s choice.” He speaks also of the multitude of
knowledge, not the
knowledge of the
Holy Spirit, but that which the
prince of this
world works, and which he conveys to men in order to
overreach their
souls, with officious
questions as to the measures of
heaven, the position of
earth, the bounds of the
sea. But he says
also, “He that increaseth
knowledge increaseth
sorrow.” For they search even into things deeper than
these,—inquiring, for example, what necessity there is for
fire
to go upward, and for
water to go downward; and when they have learned
that it is because the one is light and the other heavy, they do but
increase sorrow: for the question still remains, Why might it not
be the very reverse?
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