Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes · §12.2 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

Closing words: fear God and keep His commandments

Solomon closes the book: fear God and keep His commandments, for every person will be judged.

So I say again what I have said before: human beings are in a state of utter emptiness, and the emptiness of the things they devise could not be greater (Ecclesiastes 12:8). My labor is wasted as I preach wisely to the assembly, since I am trying to teach this people, who are unteachable and past cure (Ecclesiastes 12:9). It takes a man of noble spirit to be able to understand words of wisdom. Now that I am old and have passed through a long span of life, I have labored to find out what is pleasing to God through the mysteries of the truth (Ecclesiastes 12:10). I know that the precepts of the wise rouse souls and prick them no less than bodies are stirred when pierced by an ox goad or a nail (Ecclesiastes 12:11). Some will hand on those wise teachings, having received them from one good Shepherd and Teacher (Ecclesiastes 12:11); all of them, as if from one mouth, will set out more fully, in agreement with one another, what has been entrusted to them.

There is no profit in many words (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Nor do I advise you, my friend, to write down useless things about what is fitting, in which there is nothing more than labor spent in vain (Ecclesiastes 12:12). It remains for me to add a conclusion such as this: O people, here I declare to you plainly and briefly: fear God, the Master and Overseer of all things, and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13). And be persuaded that every person will afterward be judged, and that each will receive, as he deserves, the recompense of his own works, good and bad alike (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

Greek

Λέγω τοίνυν αὖθις ἃ καὶ πρότερον εἴρηκα, πάνυ ματαίως ἀνθρώπους διακεῖσθαι, καὶ μήτε ὑπερβολὴν ὅλως ἐνδέχεσθαι τῶν ἐπινοουμένων πραγμάτων τὴν ματαιότητα. Περιττὸς δέ μοι ὁ κάματος ἐκκλησιάζοντι σοφῶς, ὅτι διδάσκειν ἐπιχειρῶν τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον ἀδιδάκτως καὶ ἀνιάτως ἔχοντα. Δεῖ δὲ ἀνδρὸς γενναίου, πρὸς τὸ συνιέναι λόγους σοφίας δυνηθῆναι. Ἐγὼ δὲ ἤδη πρεσβύτης ὢν, καὶ μακρὸν βίου διελθὼν χρόνον, ἔκαμον εἰς τὸ ἀνευρεῖν τὰ τῷ Θεῷ ἀρεστὰ διὰ τῶν τῆς ἀληθείας μυστηρίων. Ἐπίσταμαί τε ὡς ἐπεγείρει ψυχὰς, καὶ νύττει οὐχ ἧττον τὰ τῶν σοφῶν παραγγέλματα, ἢ διατίθεται σώματα βουκέντρῳ, ἢ ἥλῳ ἐμπερονηθέντα. Δώσουσι δέ τινες τὰ σοφὰ ἐκεῖνα διδάγματα, παρ᾽ ἑνὸς ἀγαθοῦ λαβόντες ποιμένος καὶ διδασκάλου, ὥσπερ ἐξ ἑνὸς στόματος ἅπαντες αὑτοῖς συμφώνως δαψιλέστερον τὰ πιστευθέντα διηγούμενοι. Λόγων δὲ πολλῶν οὐδὲν ὄφελος· οὐδέ σοι συμβουλεύω, ὦ φίλος, ἀνόνητα καταγράφειν τὰ περὶ τὸ προσῆκον, ἐν οἷς τοῦ κάμνειν εἰκῆ ἐστὶν οὐδὲν πλέον. Ἀλλά μοι λοιπὸν ἐπιλόγου δεήσει τοιοῦδέ τινος, ὅτι· Ὦ ἄνθρωποι, ἰδοὺ διαῤῥήδην ὑμῖν καὶ συντόμως προαγορεύω, φοβεῖσθαι μὲν Θεὸν τὸν πάντων δεσπότην τε ὁμοῦ καὶ ἐπόπτην, τηρεῖν δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ παραγγέλματα· πείθεσθαι δὲ, πάντα τινὰ μετέπειτα καὶ κριθήσεσθαι, καὶ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν ἀπολήψεσθαι ἔκαστον τῶν αὑτοῦ ἔργων τὴν ἀμοιβὴν ἀγαθῶν τε ὁμοῦ καὶ φαύλων.

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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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