II. 1.  I said to myself: Come, I will experiment with joy and enjoy pleasure.  That, too, turned out to be futile.  After I detected that pain and labour were in the essence of wisdom and the accumulation of knowledge, and nothing else except vain and endless struggle, I felt joyful that I would overflow with excess, accrue riches, amass great wealth, and take temporary pleasures before I die.  But even in this I saw my vanity, for past pleasures do not help the present, and do not fill up what is empty.  It is not just the pleasures of the flesh however, but also spiritual joys that are a temptation for one who possesses them.  Hence I desired greatly, because I had been grabbed by this incentive and the angel of Satan too, who had knocked me down with such force that I could not recover.  Solomon says about this "Don't give me riches and poverty" [1], and immediately writes underneath "lest I be full and a liar"[2], and lest I should ask, "who is looking at me?"[3], for the devil strikes down in abundance righteous men.  In the apostles it is also written, "lest enraptured by his pride, he should fall into the judgement of the devil "[4], that is 'into such a judgement, as the Devil himself falls ".  But having said this, spiritual joy, just as the other kinds, is claimed to be vanity, because we see it through a mirror and in mystery.  But when it has been seen for what it is, then it is called vanity for no reason, but rather truth. 

2.  I said of laughter, It is madness! And of joy, What does it accomplish?  Wherever we read madness the Hebrew text has molal, which Aquila took to be planesin, that is 'delusion'[5], Symmachus has thorubon, 'commotions'[6].  But the Septuagint and Theodotion as in many places, so too in this, also agree and translate it as periphoran, which we, expressing word for word, can call 'revolution'.[7]  Those men therefore, who are carried around on the 'breeze' of all doctrines, are unstable and fluctuate between interpretations.  Thus those who guffaw with that laugh, which the Lord says must be muted in holy weeping, are seized by the delusion of time and its whirlwind, not understanding the disaster that their sins will cause, nor bewailing their former faults, but thinking that brief joys are going to be perpetual.  Then they exult in these, which are more worthy of lamentation than joy.  Heretics also believe this, who agree with false doctrines and promise themselves happiness and prosperity.

3.  I thought to stimulate my body with wine while my heart is involved with wisdom, and to grasp folly, until I can discern which is best for mankind to do under the heavens during the brief span of their lives.   I wanted to stimulate my life with enjoyment, and to lull my body, as if freed from all worries by wine, in the same way with desire; but my deep consideration and inborn reasoning, which God the creator mingled even into my sins, drew me away from the idea and led me back to seek wisdom and to spurn foolishness, so that I was able to see what was good, that men can do in the span of their lives.  But he has compared desire eloquently with intoxication.  Since he intoxicates and destroys the vitality of his spirit, which he was able to change into wisdom and obtains spiritual happiness, (as it is written in certain manuscripts), he is able to discern which things ought to be sought out in this life, and which avoided. 

4.  I acted in grand style: I built myself houses, I planted vineyards;  and others such until the point where he says: The wise man has his eyes in his head, whereas the fool walks in darkness.  Before I discuss each of these in turn it seems useful to me to encompass all of them in a short paragraph, and to reduce their meanings to just one explanation, so that it is easier to understand what is being said.  I had all things that have been considered good through the ages.  I built myself a palace on high, and covered the hills and mountains with vines.  And lest anything be lacking from my excess I planted gardens and orchards of different kinds of trees, which were watered from above by water stored in pools, so that the growth was fed for longer periods with continual moisture.  I also had an uncountable number of slaves, buyers and natives, and many flocks of animals, cows of course, and sheep- no king before me in Jerusalem had such a number.  I also amassed a huge number of treasure houses of gold and of silver, which I obtained as gifts from various kings and as tributes from conquered races.  And because of this it happened that I was prompted by having too much wealth to even more pleasures, and they called to me in choirs of music, flutes, lyres and in songs, and each sex served in entertainment.  Those temptations grew in such quantity as I was lacking in wisdom.  For desire had dragged me to each and every pleasure and I was being carried along unbridled and headlong, and I thought that that was the fruit of my labours, if I myself was consumed with lust and luxury.  Having then at last returned to my senses, and as if waking from a deep sleep, I looked at my hands and saw that my work was full of vanity, full of squalor, and full of the character of my folly.  For I found nothing to be good that was considered good in the world.  Considering therefore those things which were good for wisdom and which were bad for foolishness I rushed to praise any man, who then refrained from his sins and was able to pursue true virtues.  Certainly there is a great diversity between wisdom and foolishness, and virtues are as much separated from vices as day differs from night.  It seems to me then that he that follows that path of wisdom always lifts his eyes to heaven and raises his face aloft, and considers those things which are above his head; but he that gives in to foolishness and vices fumbles in the darkness and flounders in his ignorance of the world.  I acted in grand style: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards.   He, who is raised up equal to the face of God in the heavens, makes his work great; and he builds houses so that the Father and the Son will come, and will live in them.  And he plants vineyards to which Jesus will tie up his ass.

5.  I made for myself gardens and orchards and planted in them every kind of fruit tree.  In my treasure house are not only gold and silver dishes but even some that are made from wood and pottery.  And even the gardens therefore are made on account of certain weaker and sick men, for anyone who is sick will eat vegetables.  Trees are planted, not all of them fruit-bearing as we have in the Latin manuscripts, but of all fruits, that is of varied fruits and fruit-trees, because the grace of the Church is also varied.  Thus one type of tree is the eye, one the hand and another the foot, and on those things which are most prized we bestow our greatest glory.  And amongst those fruit-trees I esteem the wood itself to be primal in life because it is wisdom, for unless that is planted in their midst the other trees will dry up.

6.  I constructed pools from which to irrigate a grove of young trees.  The wood in glades and in forests, which is not fruit-bearing, are not nourished by rain from the sky, not by such rain waters but by water which is collected in pools from rivers.  Even low-lying Egypt is situated low in the land like a vegetable patch, and is irrigated by waters, which come from Ethiopia.  But the Promised Land which is mountainous and raised up waits for timely or late-coming rain from the sky.

7.  I bought slaves, male and female, and natives too; I also owned more possessions, both cattle and sheep, than all of my predecessors in Jerusalem.   If we want Ecclesiastes, as we have said before, to refer to the person of Christ here too, then we are able to say his slaves who have the spirit of fear in servitude and desire more spiritual things in life than they already have.  But we can also call the slave-girls hearts[8] that till now have been bestowed upon the body and upon the earth.  They surpass also those natives, who are certain of the Church, both slaves and slave-girls, about whom I have spoken.  And the Lord has not yet bestowed upon them freedom or noble-birth.  But there are others in the estate of Ecclesiastes like oxen and sheep, who are kept on account of work and their innocence, and who work even in the church without reason and knowledge of the Scriptures.  But they have not yet attained such an understanding, that they deserve to be men and return to the appearance of their creator. If you look more diligently too, you will notice that the number is not added in the case of slaves, slave-girls and natives, but in the case of cows and sheep it is said: "I owned more possessions of cattle and sheep". There is more silver in fact in the Church than men: more sheep than slaves, slave-girls and natives.  But that which is said at the end- "more than all those who were before me in Jerusalem" does not pertain to the glory of Solomon, or that he was richer than his father the King, since Saul did not rule in Jerusalem, and the city was held by the Jebusites who had themselves occupied the city at that time.  Ecclesiastes however was richer at a younger age than were all men, who had preceded him as kings in Jerusalem. 

8.  I amassed even silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and the provinces; I provided myself with various singers and musical instruments, and with every human luxury- chests and chests of them.   Divine scripture always places silver and gold above speech and meaning.  The dove in the sixty-seventh Psalm represents this too, which is interpreted as a spirit, and is more noticeable because of its silver wings, so that it hides the underlying significance of the pallor of gold.  But he gathers the treasures of kings and of the provinces or kingdoms into the Church of believers.  He refers to those kings about whom the psalmist writes "the kings of the earth were there and the chiefs gathered together"[9].  And he refers to those kingdoms to which the Saviour orders us to raise our eyes[10], since now they burn with fear.  The treasures of kings can be called both the doctrines of philosophers and also secular knowledge[11], which Ecclesiastes understands well: he takes hold of the wise men in their wisdom, and squanders the wisdom of the wise, and reproves the discretion of the prudent.  The choirboys and girls are those who sing with vitality and with intelligence.  A male singer sings like a man who is both strong and spiritual about heavenly matters.  But a girl flits about the matter, which the Greeks call hulen.  Nor is she able to raise her voice loudly into the air.  Therefore wherever a woman is mentioned in the Scriptures and the weaker sex, we are to translate it according to an understanding of the context.  Pharaoh does not want the male children to be allowed to live for example, but only the females in this matter.[12]  And another point is that none of the saints is said to have had a daughter[13], and it is only Salphaat, who died for his sins, that had all girls.  Jacob is the father of one daughter amongst the twelve patriarchs, but is endangered by her.[14]  The pleasures also of mankind over wisdom must be understood, which have many fruits and desires like paradise.  We are admonished against them, saying, "take delight in the Lord and he will give you the request of your heart"[15], and in another place, "you will drink them as the torrent of your desire".[16]  (I had wanted to shun reference to the female sex, and even now use the distinction of the male, because the Latin language does not take readily to this.)  Aquila explains about the wine-pourers, male and female, in a manner very different to the fashion written here.  For Solomon is not naming the sexes of man, clearly either male or female, but types of dish, and he calls them kulikion and kulikia, which is written in Hebrew as sadda and saddoth.  Then Symmachus, who was not able to express the idea word for word, translates this in a similar way: types of table and equipment.  Therefore Solomon is believed to have had either pitchers, wine goblets, or bowls arranged in chests, and which were ornate with gold and with jewels.  And he drank from a kulikio in one, (that is, a bowl) and from kilikiois in other places, which are clearly smaller dishes; and the crowd of drinkers received wine at the hands of his servants.  Because we explain Ecclesiastes as being Christ, therefore wisdom, having mingled her wine (as it says in Proverbs) calls out to those who wander to come to her. [17]  Now we must see the body of the Lord as a very great bowl, in which is not pure divinity as there is in heaven, but there God is blended with humanity on account of us, and wisdom is then poured out by the apostles to smaller kulikia, small goblets and bowls held by believers throughout the world. 

9.  Thus I grew and surpassed any of my predecessors in Jerusalem; still, my wisdom stayed with me.  It seems to me that Ecclesiastes, acting grandly, agrees less with the Lord, unless by chance we adapt this to him: "He [Jesus] increased in wisdom and age and grace"[18].  And, "on account of which God took him on high[19]".  He also says "those who were before me in Jerusalem" and is referring to those who, before he arrived, steered the congregation of holy men and the Church.  If we explain the text in a spiritual way then Christ is richer than all men; and he only perceives the Synagogue better in bodily form than the Church.  Therefore he wears a veil, because it was placed over the face of Moses and he let us see his face in daylight.[20]  More precisely "wisdom has stayed with me", means even in respect to the temptations of the body wisdom stayed with him.  For he who receives a profit from his wisdom will not keep wisdom long, but he who does not receive a gain, nor grows through change, but always has plenty- he is able to say, "and wisdom has stayed with me". 

10.  Whatever my eyes desired I did not deny them; I did not deprive myself of any joy.  Indeed my heart drew joy from all my activities, and this was my reward for all my endeavours.  The eyes of the heart and the sight of the mind desire to gaze on spiritual matters, which the sinner does not see, so forbids his heart from true happiness.  Therefore Ecclesiastes gave himself completely over to this cause and balanced eternal glory lightly in an world of discord.  This is our lot, and our continual reward if we work for our virtues.

11.  Then I looked at all things that I had done and the energy I had expended in doing them.  He who does all things with diligence and wariness is able to say this.  It was clear that it was all futile and a vexation of the spirit, [and there is no profit under the sun.]  As if he considers that in comparison with other things, all things are cheap which are under the sun, and are different according to the variety of desires.  And there is no profit under the sun.  Christ placed his tabernacle in the sun.  So Christ will not be able to live, nor be plentiful in whoever has not yet obtained the lucidity of the sun, its regularity and constancy. 

12.  Then I turned my attention to appraising wisdom with madness and folly - for what can man who comes after the king do?  This seems to discuss heavenly matters until the place where he says, "the eyes of a wise man are in his head".  I had summed up all things in one explanation, intending to show the meaning briefly, and because of that, again according to anagoge[21], I had only touched lightly on some things, but now I ought to explain in a manner similar to that in which I began.  For the meaning is quite different here from the interpretation found in the Septuagint.  But he says he had returned to seeking wisdom after pleasures and those desires he had condemned, in which he found more foolishness and stupidity than true and recognised knowledge.  For man, he said, is not able to know so clearly and truly the wisdom of his creator and of his king, as his creator knows it himself.  And so he says that those things that we know, we only think we have grasped and value more than know what is true.

13.  And I perceived that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.  I am allowed, he says, to see through that very wisdom of mankind, which is mixed with uncertainty.  Nor is it possible, he adds, for it to flow into our minds so clearly as it does into the king and our creator.  I know however that the difference between wisdom and folly is great even as much as one can differentiate between day and night, between light and dark. 

14.  The wise man has his eyes in his head, whereas a fool walks in darkness.  But I also realised that the same fate awaits them all.  Whoever attains complete wisdom and has deserved Christ to be his aim always raises his eyes to the heavens and will therefore never think about terrestrial matters.  When these things are considered in this way and there is such a distinction between a wise man and a fool, one being compared with day and the other with darkness, the former raises his eyes to heaven, the latter looks on the ground.  Suddenly this thought occurred to me, why both the wise man and the fool are constrained by a common mortality - why the same wounds, the same fate, the same death and equal troubles confine each one.

15/16.  So I said to myself: the fate of the fool will befall me also; to what advantage then have I become wise?  But I concluded that this, too, was vanity.  For there is no comparison between the remembrance of the wise and of the fool at all, for as the succeeding days roll by, is all forgotten?  How can the wise man's death be like the fool's?  I have stated that the wise man and the fool, the righteous and wicked are destined to die by the same fate and all wicked things in this world will suffer a similar fate; what profit is there for me then, that I have sought wisdom and worked more than others?  On reconsidering the matter and applying myself to it diligently I saw that my opinion was unfounded.  For the wise and foolish will not have similar remembrance in the future when the end of the world comes; and they will be confined for no reason by equal death because the wise man will continue to the joys of heaven and the fool to his punishment.  The Septuagint translates the meaning of the Hebrew here more clearly, for it doesn't necessarily follow the Hebrew word order: "and to what purpose have I become wise?"  Then I said to myself copiously, (for the fool is he, who speaks too much), 'for this is also vanity, because there is no remembrance of the wise with the fool for ever, and so on.'  Since he tried to convince us that his prior thoughts were foolish, he bore witness that he had spoken foolishly, and that he had erred, and it was by doing this that he realised his folly.    

17.  So I hated life, for I was depressed by all that goes on under the sun, because everything is vain and a vexation of the spirit.  The world has been given over to unkindness[22] and the apostle moans about the tabernacle saying "I am a wretched man, who will free me from the body of this death?"[23], and he hates quite rightly everything that is done under the sun.  That is however only in comparison with paradise and the beatitude of that life, in which we would enjoy the fruits of wisdom and the pleasures of virtues.  But now as if we are in a prison camp or cell, and with a wall of tears, we eat our bread in the sweat of our brow.

18/19.  Thus I hated all my achievements labouring under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who succeeds me.  And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? - And he will control all my possessions which I toiled and have shown myself wise under the sun.  This, too, is vanity.  He seems to be reconsidering wealth and riches, because according to the Gospel, being snatched by sudden death, we do not know with which kind of heir we die - whether he will be a fool or wise who will enjoy the fruits of our toil.  This was also the case with Solomon: for he did not regard his son Roboam as similar to himself.  We learn from this that a son is not worthy of his father's heredity if he is foolish.  But to me studying the work it seems that he is speaking more about spiritual labour, because a wise man will work on the Scriptures for days and nights, and will compose books and will hand down his memory to his descendants, and nonetheless all this will come into the hands of fools, who repeatedly find in them the seeds of heresy, according to the perversity of their own mind, and waste other men's efforts.  For if the text now refers to Ecclesiastes' personal wealth, it was necessary to say about toil and wealth: "and he will control all my possessions which I toiled and have shown myself wise under the sun."  For what is wise in the pursuit of earthly riches?

20/23.  So I turned my heart to despair of all that I had achieved by toiling under the sun.  For there is a man who laboured with wisdom, knowledge and skill, yet he must hand on his portion to one who has not toiled for it.  This too is vanity and a great evil.  For what has a man in return for all his toil and his stress, which he toils beneath the sun?  For all his days are painful, and his business is a vexation; even at night his mind has no rest.  This, too, is vanity!  Previously he has spoken about the uncertainty of an heir and not knowing whether he will be foolish or wise, the master of the works of another.  But even now he seeks the same things but this time the meaning is different, because he might leave his wealth and labours perhaps to his son, to a neighbour, or someone he knows.  Nevertheless it happens time and time again that one man enjoys in the work of another, and sweet toil is to the dead while pleasures are for the living.  He thinks of himself as every single one and he will see with how much toil he composes his books, how "often he turns his pen, again he will write those things which are worthy of law"[24], and for the man who does not work he will give him his own share.  For what good to the wealth of the earth, as I have said clearly, are wisdom, knowledge and virtue, in which he said he had laboured?  For although he may be virtuous, wise and knowledgeable he spurns worldly things.   

24/26.  Is it not good for man that he eats and drinks and shows his soul satisfaction in his labour?  And even that, I perceived, is from the hand of God.  For who should eat and who should make haste except me?  To the man who pleases Him He has given wisdom, knowledge and joy; but to the sinner He has given the urge to gather and amass - that he may hand it on to one who is pleasing to God.  That, too, is vanity and a vexation of the spirit.  After I examined all things and saw that nothing was more unjust than one man enjoying the work of another, then this work seemed to me to be the most righteous, and like a gift of God, seeing that a man may enjoy his own labour, drinking and eating, and for a time refraining from amassed wealth. And sometimes it is a gift of God, that such a mind as is bestowed upon righteous men, that they squander those things, which they have sought with great attention and vigilance.  In fact on the other hand, it is the character of the anger of God, which is set against the sinner, so he amasses wealth day and night and uses if for no purpose, then he bequeaths it to those men who are righteous in the sight of God.  But, he says, looking at this more closely and noticing that all things come to a common end with death, I have judged it to be the most vain of all.  These readings are very close to the text though, so that I do not seem to completely miss the plain meaning of the words, and while I follow spiritual riches, disdain the poverty of history.  For what is good then, or what kind of gift of God is it, either to covet his wealth and like a man in flight gather desire prematurely, or to turn someone else's work to ones own pleasures, and then to think that this is a gift of God, if we take pleasure in others' discomfort and toil?  It is good though, to take our own food and drink, which we have found by divine will, from the flesh and blood of a Lamb.  For who is either able to eat or when there is need to spare in the absence of God?  He warned that sacred food must not be given to the dogs[25], and he teaches how rations ought on occasion to be given to slaves[26], and similar to another meaning, that is we ought to eat only honey that has been found, and only as much as is needed.  But God gives wisdom and knowledge and happiness to the man who is good.[27]  For unless he was good and corrected his ways beforehand by his own judgement, he will not be worthy of that wisdom, knowledge and happiness, according to that which is said in another place: "Plant for yourselves in justice, make a vintage of the fruit of life, enlighten for yourselves the light of knowledge."[28]  In fact, righteousness ought to be planted first, and the fruit of life must be reaped, only then, afterwards the light of knowledge will be able to appear.  Therefore just as God gave the good man wisdom and other gifts, in the same way he has forsaken the sinner according to his own judgement, and made him amass riches and contrive false doctrines therefrom.  When a saintly man who is pleasing to God sees these things, he understands them, since they are vain and composed of the conceit of the spirit.  Nor should we admire what he has said: "he gave vexation to the sinner" and so on.  For this must be seen in concordance with that meaning which I have often explained: that for this reason anxiety or vexation has been given to him, since he was a sinner, and the cause of vexation was not in God, but in himself, who had sinned previously by his own volition.