Bad Advertisement? Are you a Christian? Online Store: | Ver. 1. “I said in mine heart, Go to now, make trial as in mirth, and behold in good. And this, too, is vanity.” For it was for the sake of trial, and in accordance with what comes by the loftier and the severe life, that he entered into pleasure. And he makes mention of the mirth, which men call so. And he says, “in good,” referring to what men call good things, which are not capable of giving life to their possessor, and which make the man who engages in them vain like themselves. 2. “I said of laughter, It is mad;938
Laughter has a twofold madness; because madness begets laughter, and does not allow the sorrowing for sins; and also because a man of that sort is possessed with madness,939
3. “And my heart directed me in wisdom, and to overcome in mirth, until I should know what is that good thing to the sons of men which they shall do under the sun for the number of the days of their life.” Being directed, he says, by wisdom, I overcame pleasures in mirth. Moreover, for me the aim of knowledge was to occupy myself with nothing vain, but to find the good; for if a person finds that, he does not miss the discernment also of the profitable. The sufficient is also the opportune,941
4. “I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards. 5. I made me gardens and orchards. 6. I made me pools of water, that by these I might rear woods producing trees. 7. I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had large possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me. 8. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as cups and the cupbearer. 9. And I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. 10. And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any pleasure.” You see how he reckons up a multitude of houses and fields, and the other things which he mentions, and then finds nothing profitable in them. For neither was he any better in soul by reason of these things, nor by their means did he gain friendship with God. Necessarily he is led to speak also of the true riches and the abiding property. Being minded, therefore, to show what kinds of possessions remain with the possessor, and continue steadily and maintain themselves for him, he adds: “Also my wisdom remained with me.” For this alone remains, and all these other things, which he has already reckoned up, flee away and depart. Wisdom, therefore, remained with me, and I remained in virtue of it. For those other things fall, and also cause the fall of the very persons who run after them. But, with the intention of instituting a comparison between wisdom and those things which are held to be good among men, he adds these words, “And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them,” and so forth; whereby he describes as evil, not only those toils which they endure who toil in gratifying themselves with pleasures, but those, too, which by necessity and constraint men have to sustain for their maintenance day by day, labouring at their different occupations in the sweat of their faces. For the labour, he says, is great; but the art942
12. “And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what man is there that shall come after counsel in all those things which it has done?”947
He means the wisdom which comes from God, and which also remained with him. And by madness and folly he designates all the labours of men, and the vain and silly pleasure they have in them. Distinguishing these, therefore, and their measure, and blessing the true wisdom, he has added: “For what man is there that shall come after counsel?” For this counsel instructs us in the wisdom that is such indeed, and gifts us with deliverance from madness and folly. 13. “Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as much as light excelleth darkness.” He does not say this in the way of comparison. For things which are contrary to each other, and mutually destructive, cannot be compared. But his decision was, that the one is to be chosen, and the other avoided. To like effect is the saying, “Men loved darkness rather than light.”948
14. “The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness.” That man always inclines earthward, he means, and has the ruling faculty949
14. “And I perceived myself also that one event happeneth to them all. 15. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise?” The run of the discourse in what follows deals with those who are of a mean spirit as regards this present life, and in whose judgment the article of death and all the anomalous pains of the body are a kind of dreaded evil, and who on this account hold that there is no profit in a life of virtue, because there is no difference made in ills like these between the wise man and the fool. He speaks consequently of these as the words of a madness inclining to utter senselessness; whence he also adds this sentence, “For the fool talks over-much;”954
16. “For there is no remembrance of the wise equally with the fool forever.” For the events that happen in this life are all transitory, be they even the painful incidents, of which he says, “As all things now are consigned to oblivion.”956
22. “For that falls to man in all his labour.” In truth, to those who occupy their minds with the distractions of life, life becomes a painful thing, which, as it were, wounds the heart with its goads, that is, with the lustful desires of increase. And sorrowful also is the solicitude connected with covetousness: it does not so much gratify those who are successful in it, as it pains those who are unsuccessful; while the day is spent in laborious anxieties, and the night puts sleep to flight from the eyes, with the cares of making gain. Vain, therefore, is the zeal of the man who looks to these things. 24. “And there is nothing good for a man, but what he eats and drinks, and what will show to his soul good in his labour. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God. 25. For who eats and drinks from his own resources?”958
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