Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes · §8.3 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

The mistake of living for food and drink

Solomon admits he once thought eating and drinking the greatest good, and learned that such a life never finds what is truly good.

I once thought that the greatest of goods was eating and drinking, and that the man dearest to God was the one who enjoyed these things in life as much as he possibly could (Ecclesiastes 8:15). I held that such good cheer was the only comfort of life, and so I attended to nothing else but this notion, so that neither by night nor by day did I keep myself away from anything people have discovered for luxury (Ecclesiastes 8:16). And I learned this much: that someone who mires himself in those things will never be able, not even with much toil, to find what is truly good (Ecclesiastes 8:17).

Greek

Ἔδοξα δέ ποτε τὸ μέγιστον τῶν ἀγαθῶν βρῶσιν εἶναι καὶ πόσιν· κἀκεῖνον θεοφιλέστατον, ὃς ἂν τούτων ἀπολαύῃ παρὰ τὸν βίον, ὡς οἷόν τε μάλιστα· καὶ παραμυθίαν τῆς ζωῆς, τὴν τοιαύτην εὐθυμίαν μόνην ἡγησάμην· καὶ τοίνυν προσεῖχον οὐδενὶ ἑτέρῳ, ἢ τῇ οἰήσει ταύτῃ, ὡς μήτε νύκτωρ μήτε μεθημέραν ἁπάντων, ὅσα πρὸς τρυφὴν ἀνθρώποις εὕρηται, ἐμαυτὸν ἀπάγειν. Ἔγνων τε τοσοῦτον, ὅτι ἐν ἐκείνοις τὶς ἐμφύρων, οὐδαμῶς δυνήσεται, οὐδὲ πολλὰ μοχθήσας, εὑρεῖν τὸ ὄντως ἀγαθόν.

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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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