Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes · §12.1 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

Fear God before the great and terrible day

Fear God while young, before the great and terrible day when the heavens are shaken and the wicked are punished.

One must fear God while still young (Ecclesiastes 12:1), before giving oneself over to evils, before the great and terrible day of God comes, when the sun will shine no more, nor the moon, nor the rest of the stars (Ecclesiastes 12:2; Matthew 24:29), and the higher powers, the angels who guard the world, will be shaken in that storm and turmoil of all things (Ecclesiastes 12:3). So men of power will cease, and the women at their work will cease too (Ecclesiastes 12:3), fleeing into the dark corners of the houses with all the doors shut (Ecclesiastes 12:4). A woman who has stopped grinding for fear will speak in the faintest voice, like the smallest bird (Ecclesiastes 12:4). All the impure women will fall to the ground (Ecclesiastes 12:4), and so will cities and their bloodstained governments, as they await the punishment from above, when a most bitter and bloody season has set in, like an almond tree in flower, when punishments press on without pause, like a swarm of locusts flying down, and when the lawless are flung out of the way like a black and worthless caper bush (Ecclesiastes 12:5).

The good man will go rejoicing to his own eternal home; but the wicked will fill all that is theirs with beating of breasts (Ecclesiastes 12:5), and neither silver laid up in store nor tested gold will be of use any longer (Ecclesiastes 12:6). For a great blow will seize everything, even down to the jar standing at a spring, and the wheel of a carriage that happens to have been left in the hollow (Ecclesiastes 12:6), when the age that brings the washing has passed beyond the time of the circling, now at an end, and of the life given through water.

For human beings who lie upon the earth there is one salvation: that their souls come to know Him by whom they were begotten, and fly up to Him (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Greek

Χρὴ δὲ ἔτι νέον ὄντα φοβεῖσθαι Θεὸν, πρὶν ἢ ἑαυτὸν παραδοῦναι κακοῖς, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ μεγάλην ἡμέραν καὶ φοβερὰν, ὁπότε ἥλιος μὲν οὐκέτι λάμψει, οὐδὲ σελήνη, οὐδὲ οἱ λοιποὶ ἀστέρες, κινηθήσονται δὲ αἱ ὑπέρτεραι δυνάμεις, ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ ὅλων χειμῶνι καὶ ταράχῳ, οἱ κοσμοφύλακες ἄγγελοι· ὡς παύσασθαι μὲν ἄνδρας δυνάστας, παύσασθαι δὲ καὶ γυναῖκας ἐργαζομένας, φευγούσας εἰς τὰ σκοτεινὰ τῶν οἰκημάτων, κεκλεισμένων ἁπασῶν τῶν θυρῶν· καί τις γυνὴ τοῦ ἀλήθειν ἀποσχομένη διὰ τὸ δέος, ἰσχνοτάτῃ φωνῇ χρήσεται ὥσπερ λεπτότατον ὄρνεον· ἅπασαι δὲ ἄναγνοι γυναῖκες εἰς γῆν πεσοῦνται, καὶ πόλεις καὶ αἱ τούτων ἀρχαὶ αἱ μιαιφόνοι, περιμένουσαι τὴν ἄνωθεν κόλασιν, ἐνστάντος καιροῦ πικροτάτου καὶ αἱματώδους, ὥσπερ ἀνθοῦντος ἀμυγδάλου καὶ συνεχῶν ἐπικειμένων κολάσεων, ὥσπερ πλήθους ἐφιπταμένων ἀκρίδων, καὶ ἐκποδῶν ῥιπτουμένων τῶν παρανόμων, ὥσπερ μελαίνης καὶ εὐκαταφρονήτου καππάρεως. Καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀγαθὸς ἀνὴρ εἰς αἰώνιον οἶκον τὸν ἑαυτοῦ χαίρων πορεύσεται· οἱ δέ γε φαῦλοι, πάντα τὰ αὐτῶν ἐμπλήσουσι κοπτόμενοι, καὶ οὔτε ἀργύριον ἀποτεθησαυρισμένον, οὔτε χρυσίον δόκιμον ἐπωφελὲς ἔτι. Μεγάλη γὰρ ἅπαντα καθέξει πληγὴ, καὶ μέχρις ὑδρίας ἑστώσης πρός τινι κρήνῃ, καὶ τροχοῦ ὀχήματος, ὃν ἂν τύχῃ καταλελεῖφθαι ἐν τῷ κοιλώματι παυσαμένης, χρόνον τε περιδρομῆς, καὶ τῆς δι᾽ ὕδατος ζωῆς παροδεύσαντος τοῦ λουτροφόρου αἰῶνος. Ἀνθρώπων δὲ ἐπὶ γῆς κειμένων μία σωτηρία, εἰ ἐπιγνοῖεν αὐτῶν αἱ ψυχαὶ, καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀναπταῖεν ὑφ᾽ οὗ καὶ γεγέννηνται.

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About this text

Gregory Thaumaturgus retells the whole of Ecclesiastes in Solomon's voice: human affairs are empty, pleasure and wealth never satisfy, and the book ends with its charge to fear God and keep His commandments, for every person will be judged. A fresh English translation from the Greek.

Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213–c. 270) wrote this paraphrase of Ecclesiastes for the whole Church of God. He was a third-century Christian bishop, born in Neocaesarea in Pontus to a wealthy pagan family and originally named Theodore.

The work is a paraphrase, not a commentary, presenting the teaching of Ecclesiastes in Gregory's own Greek. Gregory speaks in his own voice when he says he is addressing the Church and has given these matters sufficient thought.

A reader will meet Solomon, King David, and Gregory himself. The argument is that all human affairs and pursuits are empty and useless, because people are defeated by temporal things and refuse to look above the stars with the noble eye of the soul. Human life wears away like winter torrents pouring into the boundless deep. What God has established remains fixed, but human words and deeds have no measure, and idle talk brings no profit. Nothing new ever happens; what seems new was already known to the ancients, and both past and present fade into oblivion. The paraphrase then follows Ecclesiastes to its end: Solomon tries wisdom, pleasure and great works and finds them empty, weighs wisdom against folly, tells how he once reasoned that the righteous and the wicked meet the same end and rejects it, and closes with the charge to fear God and keep His commandments, for every person will be judged. The work paraphrases Ecclesiastes, so readers should use the Septuagint book name and numbering, cited as Ecclesiastes (LXX).

English translated from the Greek of the MGR / Documenta Catholica Omnia transcription (TLG 2063.006, from PG 10), read from its page images. From Ecclesiastes 1:13 to the end, each passage was also checked against the Greek and Latin columns of the Opera omnia print (Paris, 1622). The older Ante-Nicene Fathers English was used only as a sense check for the opening section.

Printed text used

Translated from MGR / Documenta Catholica Omnia concordance (Greek · Whole work)
Translated from Greek of the opening section (Greek · Ecclesiastes 1:1-12)
Also checked Opera omnia, Greek and Latin (Paris: Sonnius, Morel and Cramoisy, 1622), page images (Greek and Latin · Ecclesiastes 1:13 to the end)

Where the prints differ

Section 5.1 (Ecclesiastes 5:8) — The transcription brackets οὐ as an editor's supplement; the 1622 print has it as text ('there is no need to wonder'), and the English follows the 1622 print.
Section 5.2 (Ecclesiastes 5:10) — The transcription's χόρος is read as κόρος ('fill, satiety') with the 1622 print.
Section 7.1 (Ecclesiastes 6:12) — The transcription's πλέοντι is read as πλέον τι ('anything more') with the 1622 print.
Section 10.2 (Ecclesiastes 10:9) — The transcription prints ἀλλὰ μή with the editor's conjecture μήν; the English follows μήν ('Moreover'), as the 1622 Latin does.
Section 12.2 (Ecclesiastes 12:8) — The transcription's ἂ is read as the relative ἃ ('what I said before'), as the 1622 Latin requires.
Chapters 6-12 — Small typing and accent errors in the transcription are corrected from the 1622 print.

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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