QUESTION I. On the purpose of the book of Ecclesiastes.
First, concerning the purpose. For it is said that the purpose of the book is contempt of the world. That it is so determined,
1. is proved by that which is said in James 4: The friendship of this world is enmity with God: but everything that is hostile to God, it is good to despise.
2. Likewise, 1 John 2: Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world.
But on the contrary: 1. Praise of the work redounds to the craftsman, therefore contempt of the work also redounds to the same, therefore whoever despises the world despises God: therefore either this world was not made by God, or it is not to be despised.
2. Likewise, Proverbs 16: The Lord has made all things for himself, therefore all things are ordered to God; but what is ordered to an end is not to be despised, but to be accepted and loved: therefore this world, and the things that are in it, are to be loved.
I respond: it must be said that, as Augustine and Hugh maintain, this world is like a certain ring given by the bridegroom to the soul itself: but the bride can love the ring bestowed upon her by the bridegroom in two ways, namely, with chaste love and with adulterous love. Chaste love is that by which she loves the ring in memory of the bridegroom and on account of love for the bridegroom: adulterous, that by which she loves the ring more than the bridegroom: and the bridegroom cannot but regard this as evil. For just as love is twofold, so hatred or contempt is twofold, because "as often as one of the opposites is spoken of, so also the other." Contempt of the ring, as though it were a small and worthless gift, redounds to the bridegroom: but contempt of the ring, as though it be reckoned as nothing in comparison with the love of the bridegroom, this is to the glory of the bridegroom: and concerning this contempt it is said in Song of Songs, the last chapter: If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing. Of this contempt is the discourse here: and thus the objections are resolved.
Question II. On the subject matter of the same.
Next it is asked concerning the subject matter, and it is said that here the treatment is of vanity.
But on the contrary: 1. Every science treats of the good and the true: but the vain is deprived of goodness and truth: therefore there is no science of it.
2. Furthermore, it seems that there is no vanity in things, because it is said in Genesis 1: God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good: therefore if all things are very good, nothing is vain.
3. Furthermore, that is vain and futile which is not ordered to an end, just as, if someone were to bathe himself so that the sun might be eclipsed, he would labor in vain, because the former is not orderable to the latter: but all creatures tend toward the highest good in their own way, as Dionysius says,
and Boethius, that all things desire the good, and also the Philosopher: therefore nothing vain is found among all things.
4. Furthermore, if vanity is found, and this science is founded upon it as upon its subject: and what is founded upon the vain is vain: therefore this science is vain.
I respond: for the understanding of the foregoing, it can be said in one way thus, that vain is said in two ways: in one way absolutely, and thus it deprives of the true and the good, and such a thing does not exist in the universe. In another way something is vain by comparison to its initial origin, because it is from nothing: and thus it is not incompatible with the good; indeed one and the same thing is both good and vain: but good, because from the good and toward the good; vain, because from nothing and left to itself it tends toward nothing; and such vanity possesses goodness subject to knowledge, and therefore concerning such there can be knowledge and doctrine.
And by this all objections can be resolved, because they proceed as if they were about the vain absolutely.
But this solution does not resolve the matter, because Ecclesiastes does not treat of things insofar as they are from nothing, but rather insofar as they are desired by men: and moreover it treats of the vanity of fault, which is a privation: therefore it is necessary to speak otherwise.
One must therefore respond otherwise and say that just as the true is said in three ways, so also the vain, which is opposed to it, by the rule stated above. In one way the true is said insofar as it is convertible with being, and thus it is said that every being is true; and thus the vain, opposed to the true, is called non-being, just as we say that a chimera is a non-being.
In another way the true is said insofar as beyond entity it adds an ordering to operation and end, just as true wine is said to be that which has the true operation of wine, so a true man is one who has the operation proper to man, and this is the operation of virtue; and thus the vain is said through privation of ordering to an end, and thus all sins and abuses are vain.
In another way the true is said insofar as it adds above being a freedom from admixture with non-being, which in no way has potency toward that: and thus that is said to have true being which has immutable being: and in this way the vain, opposed to the true, is that which is mutable and changeable. And thus every creature is vain, because subject to vanity, that is, to mutability.
Thus therefore, with the vain being said in three ways: in one way through privation of being absolutely, in another way through privation of ordered being, in a third way through privation of unchangeable being: concerning the first, there is in no way knowledge or doctrine, unless perhaps it has being in a cause and according to that can be known and taught: and thus it is not vain: but insofar as it is vain, there is knowledge of it neither per se nor per accidens.
Concerning the second way, there is no knowledge per se, but per accidens. For just as medicine is the knowledge of the healthy and the sick, of the healthy indeed per se, but of the sick per accidens, as the Philosopher holds; so concerning fault or sin there is theoretical knowledge, but by reason of virtue.
Concerning the third way, namely concerning the mutability of the creature, there is knowledge per se, as is evident concerning the motion of the sun and the spheres and other things.
In this book, therefore, the subject treated is the vanity of mutability or of nature, because it is fair and fitting, and the vanity of fault: the other vanity, namely that of total privation, is not treated, because of that there is neither knowledge nor doctrine.
1. To the first objection, therefore, that every science concerns the good and the true: this is true per se, but there can also be science of the vain by reason of the true; and he who knows true principles also knows false ones: and it is similar with the sick and the healthy, and likewise in the matter at hand.