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CHAPTER VII.

ECCLESIASTES AND ITS PATRISTIC INTERPRETERS.

It does not fall, as has been just said, within the plan of the present book, to give a review of the Commentaries on Ecclesiastes that have preceded it, so far as they represent only the opinions of individual writers. The case is, however, as before, altered when they represent a school of thought or a stage in the history of interpretation, and where accordingly the outcome of their labours illustrates more or less completely the worth of the method they adopted, the authority which may rightly be given to the dicta of the School.

It has been said (Ginsburg, p. 99), that Ecclesiastes is nowhere quoted in the New Testament, and as far as direct, formal quotations are concerned the assertion is strictly true. It was not strange that it should thus be passed over. The controversy already referred to (Ch. III.) between the schools of Hillel and Shammai as to its reception into the Canon, the doubts that hung over the drift of its teaching, would naturally throw it into the background of the studies of devout Israelites. It would 'not be taught in schools. It was not read in Synagogues. It was out of harmony with the glowing hopes of those who were looking for the Christ or were satisfied that they had found Him. Traces of its not being altogether unknown to the writers of the New Testament may, however, be found. When St Paul teaches why "the creation was made subject to vanity” (Rom. viii. 20), using the same Greek word as that employed by the LXX. translators, we may recognise a reference to the dominant burden of the book. When St James writes "What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James iv. 14) we may hear something like an echo of Eccles. vi. 12.

The earlier Christian writers followed in the same track and the only trace of the book in the Apostolic Fathers is the quotation of Eccles. xii. 13 ("Fear God and keep His command

ments") in the Shepherd of Hermas (Mand. VII.). Justin quotes the Wisdom of Solomon but not Ecclesiastes. Irenæus neither names nor quotes it. Clement of Alexandria, who makes no less than twenty-six quotations from the Wisdom of Solomon, quotes in one solitary passage (Strom. 1. 13) from Eccles. i. 16— 18, vii. 13. In Origen, though the quotations from Wisdom are still far more numerous, we have more traces of a thoughtful study. The vanitas vanitatum is connected with Rom. viii. 20 as above (de Princ. 1. 7, č. Cels. I. 7). He supposes Eccles. i. 6 to have given occasion to the contemptuous language in which Celsus had spoken of Christians as talking of "circles upon circles" (c. Cels. VI. 34, 35). In Eccles. i. 9 he finds a confirmation of his belief that there have been worlds before the present world and that there will be others after it (de Princ. III. 5, c. Cels. IV. 12). The "Spirit of the ruler" (Eccles. x. 4) is interpreted of the evil Spirit (de Princ. III. 2). In the words "the earth abideth for ever" (Eccles. i. 4) he finds an instance of the use of the word “eternity” with a secondary and limited connotation (Comm. in Rom. B. VI.). He gives a mystical interpretation of Eccles. iv. 2 as meaning that those who are crucified with Christ are better than those that are living to the flesh; of the "untimely birth" of Eccles. vi. 3 as meaning Christ whose human nature never developed, as that of other men develops, into sin (Hom. VII. in Num.), and cites Eccles vii. 20, with Rom. xi. 33 as a confession that the ways of God are past finding out (de Princ. IV. 2).

The passages now cited are enough to shew that it was probable that those who had studied in the school of Origen would not entirely neglect a book to which he had thus directed their attention. His treatment of them indicates that they were likely to seek an escape from its real or seeming difficulties in an allegorizing, or, to use the Jewish phrase, a Haggadistic interpretation. And this accordingly is what we find. The earliest systematic treatment of Ecclesiastes is found in the Metaphrasis or Paraphrase of Gregory Thaumaturgus, who had studied under the great Alexandrian teacher. Of all patristic commentaries it is the simplest and most natural. From first to last there

is no strained allegorism or mysticism, finding in the text quite another meaning than that which was in the mind of the writer. The scepticism of Eccles. iii. 20, 21 is freely rendered, "The other kind of creatures have all the same breath of life and men have nothing more...For it is uncertain regarding the souls of men, whether they shall fly upwards; and regarding the others which the unreasoning creatures possess whether they shall fall downwards." The Epicurean counsel of Eccles. ix. 7-9 is stated without reserve, but is represented as the error of "men of vanity," which the writer rejects. The final close of the writer's thought (Eccles. xii. 7) is given without exaggeration, "For men who be on the earth there is but one salvation, that their souls acknowledge and wing their way to Him by whom they have been made." Perhaps the most remarkable passage of the Commentary is the way in which the paraphrase of Eccles. xii. 1—6 represents the original as depicting the approach of a great storm filling men with terror, anticipating in this the interpretation which Dr Ginsburg and Mr Cox have worked out with an elaborate fulness:

"Moreover it is right that thou shouldest fear God, while thou art yet young, before thou givest thyself over to evil things, and before the great and terrible day of God cometh, when the sun shall no longer shine, neither the moon, nor the other stars, but when in that storm and commotion of all things, the powers above shall be moved, that is, the angels who guard the world; so that the mighty men shall cease, and the women shall cease their labours, and shall flee into the dark places of their dwellings, and shall have all the doors shut; and a woman shall be restrained from grinding by fear, and shall speak with the weakest voice, like the tiniest bird; and all impure women shall sink into the earth, and cities and their blood-stained governments shall wait for the vengeance that comes from above, while the most bitter and bloody of all times hangs over them like a blossoming almond, and continuous punishments impend over them like a multitude of flying locusts and the transgressors are cast out of the way like a black and despicable caper plant. And the good man shall depart with rejoicing to his own ever

lasting habitation; but the vile shall fill all their places with wailing, and neither silver laid up in store, nor tried gold, shall be of use any more. For a mighty stroke shall fall upon all things, even to the pitcher that standeth by the well, and the wheel of the vessel which may chance to have been left in the hollow, when the course of time comes to an end and the ablution-bearing period of a life that is like water has passed away1."

A more ambitious but less complete treatment of Ecclesiastes is found in eight homilies by Gregory of Nyssa, which cover however only the first three chapters. Like his other writings it breathes the spirit of a devout thinker trained in the school of Origen, alike in his allegorizing method of interpretation and in his utterance of the wider hope. At every step he diverges from the true work of the interpreter to some edifying and spiritual reflection. The Greek title of the book suggests its connexion with the work and life of the Ecclesia of Christ. Christ himself was the true Ecclesiastes gathering together those that had been scattered into the unity of His fulness. The true son of David was none other than the incarnate Word. In the language of Eccles. i. II, "neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come," Gregory finds an indication of his deeply-cherished conviction that the final restitution of all things will work out an entire obliteration even of the memory of evil (Hom. 1.). The words "that which is lost cannot be numbered" seem to him connected with the fall of Judas as the son of perdition, with the wandering sheep who reduces the complete hundred to the incompleteness of the ninety and nine (Hom. II.). The description of the magnificence of Solomon in Eccles. ii. 1-8 leads to a whole train of half-mystical reflections. The true palace is that of Wisdom and its pillars are the virtues that sustain the soul. What need is there of gardens for one who was in the true Paradise of contemplation? (Hom. III.). Is not the true fountain

1 The original is obscure and probably corrupt. The meaning of the commentator may be that the period of life in which a man may receive the "washing of regeneration will in that day come to

a sudden end.

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the teaching that leads to virtue? The mention of servants and handmaids leads him to protest against the evil of slavery (Hom. IV.). In the counsel to eat and drink he finds a reference not to the bread which nourishes the body but to the food which sustains the soul (Hom. v.). The catalogue of Times and Seasons in Eccles. iii. 1-8 suggests, as might be expected, a copious variety of like reflections. He cannot speak of the "time to plant" without thinking of the field of which the Father is the husbandman, of "the time to pluck up" without dwelling on the duty of rooting out the evil tares of sin (Hom. VI.). The "time to kill" can refer only to the vices which we are called on to strangle and destroy. The "time to weep" recalls to his mind the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 4) and the parable of the children sitting in the market-place (Matt. xi. 16, 17) (Hom. VII.). So "the time to gather stones" is applied to the stones of temperance and fortitude by which we destroy vice. The "time to keep silence" reminds him of St Paul's rule bidding women be silent in the Church, and the "time for war" of the Christian warfare and the whole armour of God (Hom. VIII.). Beyond this point he does not go, and perhaps it is well that he stopped where he did. Interesting and even edifying as such homiletic treatment may be as the expression of a refined and devout and noble character, it is obvious that it hardly contributes one jot or tittle to the right understanding of the book which it professes to expound. With the exception of the hints given by Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Greek Fathers of the Church have contributed almost as little to the exegesis of Ecclesiastes as the Rabbis of the Midrash Koheleth.

The history of the interpretation of Ecclesiastes among the Latin Fathers runs more or less on parallel lines with that which has just been traced. The earlier writers knew the book, and this or that proverbial sentence dwells in their memories, but they have not studied it and do not venture on any systematic interpretation. Thus Tertullian simply quotes three times the maxim of Eccles. iii. I, that "there is a time for all things" (adv. Marc. v. 4, de Monog. III., de Virg. Vel. III.). Cyprian cites Eccles. i. 14, v. 4, 10, vii. 17, x. 9 in his Testimonia adversus

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