I came to know all these things when I received wisdom from God; but later I cast it away, and was no longer able to be as I had been (Ecclesiastes 7:23 ). For wisdom fled from me to an endless distance and an unmeasured depth, so that it could no longer be grasped (Ecclesiastes 7:24 ). So afterward I gave up even seeking it altogether, and no longer gave thought to examining the follies of the ungodly, their vain counsels, and their aimless life (Ecclesiastes 7:25 ). Being in this state, I was carried away into those very things; and gripped by a deadly desire, I came to know the woman, who is a kind of earth, or something else of that sort (Ecclesiastes 7:26 ). For her heart casts a net over those who pass by, and by merely joining hand to hand she holds them as fast as if she had thrown chains around them and were dragging them off. You could be rescued from her only if you have God gracious to you and watching over you; for one who is enslaved to sin could not escape (Ecclesiastes 7:26 ).
I sought chastity among all women and found it in none (Ecclesiastes 7:27-28 ). One might find a chaste man among a thousand, but not a woman (Ecclesiastes 7:28 ). This above all I perceived: that human beings, made simple in their souls by God, draw upon themselves intricate reasonings and endless inquiries, and, while pretending to seek wisdom, wear themselves out over petty words (Ecclesiastes 7:29 ).
Greek Ἔγνων δὲ ταῦτα ἐγὼ ἅπαντα, σοφίαν ἐκ Θεοῦ λαβὼν, ἣν ὕστερον ἀποβαλὼν, οὐκέτι οἷός τε ἤμην ὅμοιος εἶναι. Ἔφυγε γὰρ ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ σοφία εἰς μῆκος ἄπειρον, καὶ εἰς βάθος ἀμέτρητον, ὡς μὴ εἶναι αὐτῆς λαβέσθαι μηκέτι. Ὥστε ὕστερον καὶ τοῦ ἐπιζητεῖν αὐτὴν, τέλειον ἀπεσχόμην· καὶ οὔτε ἐνεθυμούμην ἔτι τοῦ κατανοεῖν τὰς τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἀφροσύνας καὶ βουλὰς ματαίας, καὶ ἀλύοντα βίον. Οὕτω δὲ διακείμενος, εἰς αὐτὰ διηνέχθην, καὶ ἐπιθυμίᾳ συσχεθεὶς θανατηφόρῳ, ἔγνων τὴν γυναῖκα, γῆν τινα, ἢ εἴ τι ἕτερον τοιοῦτον ὑπάρχουσαν. Καρδία μὲν γὰρ αὐτῆς σαγηνεύει τοὺς παριόντας, χειρὶ δὲ χεῖρα συνάψασα μόνον, κατέχει ἢ εἰ δεσμοῖς περιβάλλουσα εἷλκε. Μόνος δ᾽ ἂν ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς ῥυσθείης, τὸν Θεὸν ἵλεω καὶ ἐπόπτην ἐσχηκώς· ὡς ὅ γε ἁμαρτίᾳ δεδουλωμένος οὐκ ἂν ἐκφύγοι. Ζητήσας δ᾽ ἐγὼ διὰ πασῶν γυναικῶν σωφροσύνην αὐτῶν, εὗρον ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ. Καὶ ἄνδρα μέν τις ἐν χιλίοις γνοίη ἂν σώφρονα, γυναῖκα δὲ οὔ. Κατενόησα δὲ ἐκεῖνο μάλιστα, ὅτι ἄνθρωποι ὑπὸ Θεοῦ ἁπλοῖ ταῖς ψυχαῖς γενόμενοι, ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισπῶνται λογισμοὺς ποικίλους καὶ ζητήσεις ἀπεράντους, καὶ σοφίαν ζητεῖν προσποιούμενοι, περὶ ῥημάτια κατατρίβονται.
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About this text Third-century paraphrase of Ecclesiastes transmitted under Gregory Thaumaturgus.
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 Translated from Greek of the opening section Also checked Opera omnia, Greek and Latin (Paris: Sonnius, Morel and Cramoisy, 1622), page images 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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