Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes · §8.2 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

God's patience is no escape for the wicked

God's patience does not mean that the wicked will go unpunished.

I am astounded whenever I see what sort of things, and how many, people have devised to harm their neighbors (Ecclesiastes 8:9). And I know that the ungodly are snatched away from here before their time and removed from the scene, because they had given themselves over to vanity (Ecclesiastes 8:10). For since God's providence, in its great forbearance, does not swiftly pursue everyone, nor punish offenses on the spot, the wicked man supposes for this reason that he ought to sin all the more, as though he will get off unpunished (Ecclesiastes 8:11). He does not understand that even after a very long time the wrong he has done will not go unnoticed (Ecclesiastes 8:12). Yet the greatest good is to revere God; the ungodly man who has fallen away from this will not long have the use of his own folly (Ecclesiastes 8:12-13).

A very bad and false opinion often spreads among people about the just and the unjust. For they suppose the reverse about each: one man who was just was not thought to be so, and again an ungodly man was held to be wise (Ecclesiastes 8:14). For my part, I count this error among the most grievous.

Greek

Καὶ ἐκπέπληγμαι δὲ, ὁπότ᾽ ἂν ἀπίδω οἷα καὶ ὅσα εἰς βλάβην τῶν πέλας ἄνθρωποι ἐπιτετηδεύκασιν. Ἐπίσταμαι δὲ προαναρπαζομένους ἐνθένδε τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς καὶ γινομένους ἐκ ποδῶν, ἄνθ᾽ ὧν ἑαυτοὺς ματαιότητι δεδώκεσαν. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἁπάντων μετέρχεται ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ πρόνοια ὀξέως διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ἀνεξικακίαν, οὐδὲ παραυτίκα τιμωρεῖται ἐπὶ ταῖς πλημμελείαις, τούτου χάριν οἴεται δεῖν ὁ πονηρὸς ἀνὴρ ἁμαρτάνειν ἐπὶ πλεῖον, ὡς ἀθῶος ἀπαλλάξων· οὐ συνιεὶς, ὅτι καὶ μετὰ πάμπολυν χρόνον ἀδικήσας οὐ λήσεται· ἀγαθόν γε μὴν μέγιστον, εὐλαβεῖσθαι Θεόν· οὗπερ ἀσεβὴς ἐκπεσὼν, οὐ πολὺν χρόνον τῇ ἑαυτοῦ μωρίᾳ καταχρήσεται. Χειρίστη δὲ καὶ ἐψευσμένη δόξα ἀνθρώπους ἐπινέμεται πολλάκις, περί τε δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων. Ὑπολαμβάνουσι γὰρ περὶ ἑκατέρων τἀναντία· καὶ δίκαιός γε τὶς ὢν, οὐ τοιοῦτος ἔδοξε· καὶ πάλιν ἀσεβὴς, ἔμφρων ἐνομίσθη. Ταύτην ἔγωγε τὴν πλάνην χαλεπὴν ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα τίθεμαι.

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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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