“Vanity of vanities. Everything is vanity.”
I, Ecclesiast, became
king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I set my heart to seek out
and to survey with wisdom concerning all things
that happen under the sky,
because an evil distraction
God gave to the sons of men
to be troubled within himself.
I saw the actions all together
that are done under the sun,
and look, they are all vanity and the preference of the wind.
And I hated my whole labor
that I toiled at under the sun,
for I must leave it to the person who comes after me.
And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish?
And whether he will have authority over all my labor
that I labored and I gained wisdom under the sun?
And this too was vanity.
And I turned to set my heart
in all my labor at which I labored under the sun;
for there is a person that his labor
is in wisdom and in knowledge and in virtue.
And the person, to one who has not labored at it,
will give his portion to him.
And this too is vanity and great wickedness.
For it happens in the person in all his labor
and in the preference of his heart
with which he labors under the sun.
For all his days
are of suffering, and his distraction is anger,
and at night too his heart does not sleep.
And this too is vanity.
There is no good thing for a person
that he shall eat and that he shall drink and that he shall show his soul
good in his labor.
And this too I saw, that it was from God’s hand.
For who shall eat and who shall drink without him?
For to the good person
before him he gave wisdom
and knowledge and merriment.
And to the sinner he gave distraction,
to increase and to gather,
to give the good before God.
For even this too is vanity and the preference of the wind.
I think that the true Ecclesiastes next teaches about the great mystery of salvation when God manifested Himself in the flesh. “I applied my heart to seek out and examine by wisdom all things done under heaven.” The reason for our Lord’s dwelling with men is to give His heart over in wisdom to consider his actions done under the sun. For man is not allowed to consider what lies above heaven just as healthy persons do not require doctors. Evil belongs to the earth. A snake is a reptile which crawls on its belly, eats earth instead of food from heaven, crawls on anything trampled down and is always on the prowl. It watches for man’s heel and injects poison in those who have lost the power to tread on serpents. For this reason Ecclesiastes gives his heart over to careful consideration of every activity done under heaven. As for what lies above the heavens, the prophet gazes at the divine magnificence and says “His magnificence is exalted above the heavens.” Since evil oppresses the realm lying under heaven, the psalm says that sin has brought men low. Ecclesiastes considers how things made under heaven which had no prior existence became subject to vanity and how that which lacked existence took over and became dominant. Evil cannot exist because it is non-existent, and non-existence has no nature belonging to itself; nevertheless, vanity dominates those things which resemble it.
Ecclesiastes has come to search through his own wisdom those actions done under the sun, their confusion, why things are subject to nonexistence and how that which is insubstantial prevails against being. He knew that “God has given to the sons of men an evil trouble to be vexed with.” This is not a pious deed we can readily understand because God has given an evil to the sons of men in order to trouble them; and so one may attribute the cause of evil to God. He who is good by nature indeed bestows goodness because every good tree bears good fruit; a grape cluster does not spring up from thorns nor do thorns come from a vine. Therefore he who is good by nature does not offer evil from his own storehouse; a good man does not speak evil from the abundance of his heart but utters words in accord with his nature. How, then, is the fountain of grace not a source of evil? A more pious understanding suggests that God bestows upon man the gift of free will which he abused and then became an instrument for sin. This free will is good and subject to no one, while anything subject to necessity should not be counted as good. But any impulse coming from the mind is free; it distracts the soul to choose evil and pulls it down to passion from the lofty honors it had received. Such is the meaning of “He has given”; not that God has given evil to men, but that men have used God's benefits to commit thoughtless evil. Holy scripture expresses this by proclaiming “God has handed them over to the disgrace of passion,” “The Lord has hardened Pharaoh's heart,” “Why, Lord, have you caused us to err from Your way and have hardened our hearts not to fear You,” “He caused them to wander in a desert and not in the way,” “You have deceived me, and was deceived” and other such remarks. An accurate understanding of these verses does not mean that human nature lacks anything unbecoming from God; rather, they censure our power of free choice which in itself is good and a gift bestowed by God to human nature. But as a result of indiscretion, free will inclines towards the opposite way. Ecclesiastes thus sees all things done under the sun and calls them vanity. “There is not one who understands or seeks after God” since all have turned aside and have become worthless: “Behold, all is vanity.” He does not attribute this cause to God but to human free choice which he calls the wind. He condemns this wind although it was good at the beginning; there would be no need for such condemnation, but it turned aside by conforming to the world.
Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes 2
