Category Archives: Ecclesiastes

Soap Bubbles

14 Tuesday Sep 2021

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Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Photo courtesy of John R

The following is from Mark Twain’s Autobiography (which is a beautiful book through-and-through. I am listening to it read by Bronson Pinchot, and I cannot recommend his reading sufficiently. The pacing, emphasis, tone are perfect). Susy was his daughter who died at age 24. When she was a teenager, she wrote a biography of her father:

Sept. 10, ’85.—”The other evening Clara and I brought down our new soap bubble water and we all blew soap bubles. Papa blew his soap bubles and filled them with tobacco smoke and as the light shone on then they took very beautiful opaline colors. Papa would hold them and then let us catch them in our hand and they felt delightful to the touch the mixture of the smoke and water had a singularly pleasant effect.” [Susy’s Biography]

It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory—and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.

I remember those days of twenty-one years ago, and a certain pathos clings about them. Susy, with her manifold young charms and her iridescent mind, was as lovely a bubble as any we made that day—and as transitory. She passed, as they passed, in her youth and beauty, and nothing of her is left but a heartbreak and a memory. That long-vanished day came vividly back to me a few weeks ago when, for the first time in twenty-one years, I found myself again amusing a child with smoke-charged soap-bubbles.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.17 Envy

19 Tuesday May 2020

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The prior post on Schopenhauer and happiness may be found here.

Schopenhauer makes the reasonable observation that envy makes one unhappy:

Envy is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice and a source of misery.

There are ways in which envy makes one unhappy: to be envious and to be envied. First as to being envious. The sensation I experience in being envious of another person will injure me. Schopenhauer treats this point briefly. He does little to explain why envy should make one unhappy.

He then offers some advice to avoid feeling envy: (1) don’t pay attention to those who have something you do not; and (2) think of how much misery that person whom one envies actually has an unhappy life.

This may have some practical merit, but it seems to miss the real bit of envy. Envy is more than just a desire for some-thing I do not possess. A desire for an object or a state can be a spur to great good. I desire to become a physician, and so I work very hard for many years with study and delayed gratification until I achieve my goal.

This illustration can be worked out in numerous variants. Much of the good done in the world is as the result of someone intently desiring to have some thing or state which we do not now possess.

The desire is to achieve or possess is not envy.

Envy is exactly desire for some-thing, it is a sense of injustice that you have it and I do not. Envy is a moral judgment without the capacity to effectuate judgment. The furnace for envy is possessing or not possessing. Envy is the settled conclusion that the world has gone wrong because you wrongfully possess X.

Schopenhauer does observe “it should always be remembered that no form of hatred is so implacable as the hatred that comes from envy.” The envy is the conclusion that you should not have that – and I should. The moral sense of injustice is coupled to a hatred, typically directed toward the one possessing the object.

Thus, having consider envy more carefully, we can see that merely avoiding knowledge of the possession of others will be insufficient to stem envy. Unless the ignorance is complete, I can still have the sense that I should have X. The knowledge that anyone has X – which I should have – will be sufficient to stoke envy.

The knowledge of another’s misery might help to stem envy, because it could give me the sense that the other person is being judged.

What needs to be understood is that the defeat of envy must come from a sense that the world will be just in the end.

Schopenhauer has no good basis to believe that anything will be just. Therefore, the best advice he can give is to try and avoid the occasions which might provoke envy.

When the matter is considered, it seems that a better means of regulating envy will be see some basis for justice in the world.

One way to see that justice is to understand that the good is not distributed in some purely material way: the basis for envy is illusory. This is a strain in Ecclesiastes: no degree of material possession or control will be able to deliver happiness.

If I envy you for having a better house, I believe that possessing that house makes you happy when I should be happy with that house. And yet, possessing all that one could desire, property, money, drugs, human beings is insufficient to bring happiness: In Ecclesiastes 2:11 it is said to be vain, striving after wind and there is nothing to be gained under the sun. In short, the injustice is illusory.

In Ecclesiastes 6:2, the giving of some particular life is of no good unless God also gives “the power to enjoy” what has been given.

The point could be multiplied, but the sense of contentment is not in the object out there; contentment is a subjective sense.

A further remedy for envy is given in the realization of God’s providence and sovereignty and eventual judgment. God determined that this one would be a billionaire and this one would have little. That realization does not mean that the billionaire simply does as he pleases. His possession creates a moral duty to use that property well.

The property comes with a moral obligation which will be judged in the end. Thus, someone does not just get property. The thing received from God creates a moral obligation will which be judged. Therefore, envy is a condemnation of God for erring in terms of distributing good and for failing to judge rightly.

If one denies the existence of God and judgment, then envy is simply incoherent. Without God there is no “should” there is only “is.” If one man is wealthy and another poor, there is no violation of justice. Nothing “wrong” has happened. I may wish I had X, but I cannot determine that it is wrong.

For envy to exist, one must believe there is some justice in the world. Yet, that justice has been subverted. One must believe in a moral order with the maladministration of that order. In short, there must be a god, but that god must be impotent, unconcerned or unjust.

Thus, envy is a theological problem. Thus, it is not surprising that Schopenhauer has little help beyond trying to avoid the temptation.

Schopenhauer on Happiness.10 Festivities

21 Friday Feb 2020

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In this section, Schopenhauer makes an argument that happiness, if you can call his goal ‘happiness’ is a matter of distance from life and especially other people. The first stop on his list avoidances is pleasure Perhaps it would best be to consider his position to be avoidance of disappointment:

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life: for the whole object of it is to transform our miserable existence into a succession of joys, delights and pleasures,–a process which cannot fail to result in disappointment and delusion; on a par, in this respect, with its obligato accompaniment, the interchange of lies.

This proposition is again true and perhaps not so. Let is first consider this as a true statement. No amount of revelry will be maintained forever. This advice of Schopenhauer reminds of the story in Joyce’s Dubliners entitled, “After the Race.” The story concerns a young Irishman named Jimmy who is having a fine time on the back of his father’s wealth as a butcher. Joyce describes the night of revelry as follows

They drove by the crowd, blended now into soft colours, to a music of merry bells. They took the train at Westland Row and in a few seconds, as it seemed to Jimmy, they were walking out of Kingstown Station. The ticket-collector saluted Jimmy; he was an old man:

“Fine night, sir!”

It was a serene summer night; the harbour lay like a darkened mirror at their feet. They proceeded towards it with linked arms, singing Cadet Roussel in chorus, stamping their feet at every:

“Ho! Ho! Hohé, vraiment!”

They got into a rowboat at the slip and made out for the American’s yacht. There was to be supper, music, cards. Villona said with conviction:

“It is delightful!”

Upon the yacht they begin to play cards:

Cards! cards! The table was cleared. Villona returned quietly to his piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game after game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit was flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was winning but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault for he frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his I.O.U.‘s for him. They were devils of fellows but he wished they would stop: it was getting late. Someone gave the toast of the yacht The Belle of Newport and then someone proposed one great game for a finish.

From there, the arc of revelry and joy turns to profound realization:

The piano had stopped; Villona must have gone up on deck. It was a terrible game. They stopped just before the end of it to drink for luck. Jimmy understood that the game lay between Routh and Ségouin. What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he would lose, of course. How much had he written away? The men rose to their feet to play the last tricks, talking and gesticulating. Routh won. The cabin shook with the young men’s cheering and the cards were bundled together. They began then to gather in what they had won. Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest losers.

He knew that he would regret in the morning but at present he was glad of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head between his hands, counting the beats of his temples. The cabin door opened and he saw the Hungarian standing in a shaft of grey light:

“Daybreak, gentlemen!”

“They knew they would regret it in the morning.” There was no rest, no time to bear the wound. It struck and would not be relieved. He had crested a hill and the valley was twice as deep.

That theme of the crash after the party is a recurrent theme in everything from high art (like Joyce) to popular music, like the Rolling Stones in Coming Down Again:

Coming down again, coming down again

Where are all my friends?

Coming down again, coming down again

Coming down again, coming down again

Where are all my friends? Comin

Of course being a song, it has more effect heard than read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG7WIrHtLUQ

And so we must agree that revelry and “high life” have within them the potential for excess and disappointment.

But does the fact that excess and disappointment are possible mean that all such things are to be shunned. What of a marriage? It is certainly a matter of festivity. But the ceremony does not bear within it the inherent crash which was experienced by Jimmy of Keith Richards.

A time of joy, a time of feasting can be an appropriate consummation of hard work. A festival in the Fall to celebrate a good harvest is fundamentally different than a wealthy slacker gambling away money he does not possess. A birthday party for a child is different than a drug addict’s crash.

Celebrating a graduation from college, obtaining a new job are celebrations of some good thing.

I think it best to limit Schopenhauer’s warning to diversion doing little than stave off boredom. The revelry of people who have no purpose and are merely seeking to stave off ennui is quite different than the celebration of those who have accomplished a good – even if it little more than enjoying the continued relationship of friends and family.

Perhaps he knew little of that celebration and knew only those who were killing time.

Ecclesiastes 9:7–10 (ESV)

7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

 

Schopenhauer on Happiness.9 What does experience teach?

16 Sunday Feb 2020

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Schopenhauer now says that one must learn from experience:

To live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet, and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it is requisite to be constantly thinking back,–to make a kind of recapitulation of what we have done, of our impressions and sensations, to compare our former with our present judgments–what we set before us and struggle to achieve, with the actual result and satisfaction we have obtained. To do this is to get a repetition of the private lessons of experience,–lessons which are given to every one.

This is the sort of advice that sounds good until it is considered. It is remarkable how thin most wisdom becomes when it obtains some attention.

William Blake in the Proverbs of Hell from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, we read:

Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

We all speak generically of having learned from our experience. But what and how precisely do we learn anything from experience? Experience alone cannot teach us anything. It certainly cannot teach us either contentment or happiness.

The learning takes place upon the basis of some basic structure, some values or propositions which tell me what to value and what to avoid. The experience can at most tell me the extent to which my suppositions about the world are work out in practice.

Let us say I learn that purposeful cruelty to other human beings results in their sorrow and pain. I see that happen on so many occasions that I conclude on the basis of induction that it will be true for all other persons I have never met. Now, experience has taught me a correlation between two events.

But experience alone does not tell me whether the pain I have inflicted is good or bad. I know that it is evil to purposefully provoke sorrow and pain, not on the basis of experience but upon some ethic which I had prior to my experience.

The infamous Marquis De Sade drew a very different conclusion from precisely the same experience. Experience did not teach the evil or cruelty. Experience can only demonstrate but not teach.

A life-long libertine learns nothing from the road of excess, except perhaps empirical facts about the results of his conduct. But nothing teaches him happiness or contentment. So, we first must begin by limiting our trust in experience as a teacher. It does teach some empirical information, but it does not teach us that means.

Let us take another comparison with Blake’s Proverbs. They both say that experience teaches – Blake in a much more memorable manner. But the next proverb of Blake proves the point that experience merely demonstrates or at best teaches facts but not values.

Schopenhauer commends experience as a way to learn prudence: Presumably we are to learn what sorts of things result in unpleasant experiences, and thereby avoid such experiences. Schopenhauer sees prudence as the goal of learning by experience.

But Blake commends precisely the opposite:

Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

Blake here turns Schopenhauer on his head. For Schopenhauer, experiences teaches prudence. Blake says that experience teaches – indeed the most excessive experiences are the surest are the surest paths to wisdom. The wisdom in Blake’s hellish proverbs is that prudence is a failure; it is lack and incapacity.

If we consider Blake and Schopenhauer from a distance, how do we decide between the two? Certainly not on the basis of experience, because the conclusion of both is made upon the basis of experience. And, an argument can be made that experience does teach both prudence and the painful constriction of prudence.

How does one choose between the two and conclude that one or the other is wisdom?

We will take a third voice in our consideration of experience as a basis to gain wisdom. In the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, we read of Solomon’s experience. He obtained all that the world could possibly provide; he rebuilt a veritable Eden from endless wealth and tremendous power:

Ecclesiastes 2:3–10 (ESV)

3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. 5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.

Solomon certainly took Blake’s advice to heart and full followed the road of excess. But what conclusion did Solomon gain?

Ecclesiastes 2:11 (ESV)

11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

This is the most negative evaluation in the entire book. Solomon learned that there was nothing of value in experience. He learned that experience amounts to nothing. In fact, he learned that wisdom adds nothing because it cannot save from death:

Ecclesiastes 2:14–15 (ESV)

14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

In fact, experience teaches that we die. What wisdom is there in seeing death? What would constitute wisdom in light of death? What does prudence provide if I will die? What does excess teach if it runs into death. What palace of wisdom stands before us?

Schopenhauer on Happiness, 4: A Comparison with St. Paul

26 Sunday Jan 2020

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He goes onto define happiness in terms of the absence of pain rather than obtaining pleasure:

To estimate a man’s condition in regard to happiness, it is necessary to ask, not what things please him, but what things trouble him; and the more trivial these things are in themselves, the happier the man will be. To be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off; for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt.

Now this is a seemingly paradoxical statement, but it makes some sense. If one is starving to death, trivial things will not matter. To even take notice of trivial inconvenience is evidence of privilege. If I am starving, I will not much care if something is out of place: I will care about obtaining food. When one comes to their death bed, even bill collectors are irrelevant.

This observation is true, but I don’t see how that is really conducive to any sort of happiness. I would think one should draw the opposite conclusion, especially from Schopenhauer’s ready pessimism. Seeing that we are all soon to die, and everything will decay, why ignore all trivialities and look at them now as we will look at them upon our death bed. We will soon enough be dead, so why sweat anything at the present?

In the opposite direction, he counsels we should set out happiness very few:

Care should be taken not to build the happiness of life upon a broad foundation–not to require a great many things in order to be happy. For happiness on such a foundation is the most easily undermined; it offers many more opportunities for accidents; and accidents are always happening.

Paul makes an argument which has a similar structure:

1 Timothy 6:6–10 (ESV)

 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

The similarity lies in the realization that we will die and this world is uncertain. Therefore, we should expect to obtain very little from this life. Indeed, an overarching desire to have happiness fixed upon the fleeting things of this world will lead to ruin and sorrow.

But Paul couches the argument in a different context. Schopenhauer sees life as transitory, but there is no sense of redemption of the transitory. Paul sets content on very little within the context of godliness. The Christian hope is not that this world in its present cursed form will be made permanent, but rather that the world will be remade:

Romans 8:18 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for “glory” is a word which has the sense of “heavy” or substantial. Paul is writing to the Romans in Greek (and he next raises the issue of the vanity of the creation), but the concept of glory developed in the OT would affect his thinking.

And so to compare and contrast Schopenhauer and Paul: They both see life as resting on vanity; the world will decay and we will die. But realize that the things of this world cannot be trusted. The difference is that Schopenhauer sees the decay the as the end. There is not any real point in this world except perhaps to be made sadder and wiser:

Men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of Fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. They recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness; they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight; and, in the end, they can say, with Petrarch, that all they care for is to learn:–

When we are actually doing some great deed, or creating some immortal work, we are not conscious of it as such; we think only of satisfying present aims, of fulfilling the intentions we happen to have at the time, of doing the right thing at the moment. It is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand

But it is hard to say that there is anything good in this wisdom:

Ecclesiastes 2:12–17 (ESV)

 12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

Wisdom is very little worth if the only thing it can do is make me aware that I will die and all things are pointless. Merely managing my sorrows and disappointments may give me some equanimity; or it may just be boring. How do you measure the relative “happiness” of a life spent avoiding pain (Schopenhauer), plunging into pleasure and pain (Shelley). That seems more a matter of taste and temperament than better or worse.

It is at this point, the Christian view is profoundly different. Yes, the world is vain; we will die: the creation, after all, is under a curse. Therefore, let us be content with food and clothing in this world; and – here is the distinction – and hope for redemption:

Romans 8:19–25 (ESV)

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Schopenhauer can at most help one whistle past the graveyard. It is a sort of sour grapes philosophy. You’ll just make me sad, anyway.

The Christian answer however takes an equally steel-eyed view of the world and its pain and says that it will be transformed. The answer matches perfectly to the loss. That is either the mark of its truth or its utter fraudulence. The resurrection is the perfect answer to death. Death is a horror turned inside-out.

(There is another issue here: how can any future answer to individual horrors of this life? How can disease which ravages a child, or slavery, or abuse be answered for?  Too often the answer sounds like, Let me beat you senseless, but I’ll make it okay by giving you some money afterwards. That is not the right answer; nor is it the promise of glory. But that is for another time.)

Schopenhauer on Happiness (3c, Ecclesiastes)

23 Thursday Jan 2020

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Schopenhauer quite rightly notes that all is impermanent and all will decay. His solution is to reject all hope and expectation and thus avoid disappointment. As we have seen from Shakespeare and Shelley, this is not the only potential response. One could bemoan the tragedy of loss (Macbeth), receive the knowledge with equanimity (Tempest), or realize there will be loss and thus hold more tightly to and cherish what is good knowing that it will all soon be lost (Shakespeare & Shelley).

Another response is the redemption of all that is lost. The book of Ecclesiastes famously declares, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. Eccl. 1:2 Vanity translates a Hebrew word Hebel, which refers to something which is transient, insubstantial, like a breath or mist. From that, the writer draws the conclusion that nothing is world is sufficient to bring contentment to anyone in this life:

Ecclesiastes 2:10–11 (ESV)

10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

That however does not end the matter:

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 (ESV)

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

That matter of bringing everything into judgment may sound ominous. However, what it means in the context of the world being temporal is that the world is also meaningful: There will be a date on which all things which be confirmed as having eternal significance.  The solution to the temporality of the world is not renounce the world and all its good; nor is it to love in despair. Rather, knowing that the temporal world will be judged and remade as a permanent matter will make this world and life meaningful.

In the 15th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church Paul lays out the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, wherein even the human body will not be lost but will be remade in an unchanging manner:

1 Corinthians 15:42 (ESV)

 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.

In light of the resurrection, our life and work is not meaningless:

1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV)

 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

By stating their labor is not in vain, Paul is underscoring the permanence of human existence. The mutability of the world is not the last word. The Christian sees the world as temporal, along with the Buddhist, but rather than seeing the end as dissolution, sees the end as permanence:

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)

 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Therefore, happiness is not contingent upon renunciation, nor must one “cross-fingers”, and know that the joy will be destroyed. Rather, the goal is set hope upon permanent joys.

Thucydides and the Fear of God and gods

26 Thursday Sep 2019

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In considering the matter of the fear of God/gods and human response, Thucydides has an interesting observation in Book II The Peloponnesian War. He is describing a circumstance of people flooding into the city of Athens. He first describes the breakdown in public order:

[52]An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. [2] As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. [3] The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane. [4] All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger’s pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off.

The breakdown in public order led to a breakdown in moral order:

[53] [1] Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. [2] So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their lives and riches as alike things of a day. [3] Perseverance in what men called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honorable and useful.

He then addresses the issue of fear as a restraint upon human behavior:

[4] Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Medford, MA: London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton, 1910).

This is interesting not just for the observation about the relationship between fear and restraint (why not do whatever I desire when it makes no difference in terms of punishment), but also the matter of “faith” in gods/God. I wrote a couple of days ago about the question of a crisis of faith following a great loss.

This people are experiencing a crisis of faith and have become atheists in practice if not in theory. They are living as if there is no divine judgment. Since it is the duty of a god to protect me from the vicissitudes of life, what is the point of faithful relationship to the god, if the god will not protect me from this world. That idea is so deeply engrained in us, that we effectively believe – even among professing Christians – that if some difficulty befalls us, that we God has failed.

But Christianity sees trouble as ultimately stemming from a decision of God. In a polytheistic society, there are multiple divine agents. Thus, one should worship the god/goddess who best be able to protect and advance my interests among the other gods. To get across the sea, it does little to have the help of a god who has no power over the water.

They gave up on worship, because the gods could no longer sustain their duty of protection. Gods operate like politicians who can get votes only so long as they have the capacity to provide some benefit. And that benefit must be immediate and tangible.

Why then would God fail to deliver to protect one against trouble. If there is trouble, why not a judgment upon Egypt which does not touch Goshen?

The promise is not a delivery in this age, but a delivery from this age:

Galatians 1:1–5 (ESV)

 

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The obvious rationale to permit trial in this age is that trial in this age sets our hope elsewhere. The book of Ecclesiastes begins with the observation that this world is utterly vain – it will not persist nor will it satisfy. The book ends with the admonition:

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 (ESV)

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

This is interesting, because it is so countercultural. The disposition described by Thucydides is the human default: The job of a god is to protect me from the vanity of this world. If the god fails in that task, there is no basis to fear that god. But Ecclesiastes says: The world is in fact vain. But the vanity of the world should lead to the conclusion to in fact fear God.

But there is also a coherence between Thucydides and Ecclesiastes, the gods of the Athenians could not fulfill their promise. They were “hired” to do a job, which they could not do. Like the Egyptian gods systematically destroyed the plagues, the Athenian gods were shown to be no gods.

 

How should one translate Ecclesiates 2:24a?

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Hebrew, Hebrew Translation, Uncategorized

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(This is a question I am posting over at the Facebook Group, Nerdy Language Majors — if you’re a language geek, it is a great place to discuss Greek, Latin, Hebrew and other far more exotic ancient languages)

A translation history question: How did the Hebrew text end up as the standard English translation? This was a question I had with a friend the other evening. We may have missed something quite obvious. Moreover, it is quite possible that one of the members of this group was actually involved in the English language translation decisions. Here is the text and the history of translation from Greek to English:

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (BHS/WHM 4.2)

24   אֵֽין־ט֤וֹב בָּאָדָם֙ שֶׁיֹּאכַ֣ל

Which as Young’s Literal Translation reads:

 

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (YLT)

24There is nothing good in a man who eateth,

 

The Septuagint reads

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (LXX)

24 Οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγαθὸν ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ,

(Not there is good in (a) man/human being).

 

The change seems to come in the Vulage:

 24 Nonne melius est comedere

The word good (tob, agathos) is here “melius” the comparative form of “good”; hence, “better”. As is seen in the English translation of the Vulgate:

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (D-R)

24 Is it not better to eat

The German has

Kohelet 2,24(LUT1912)

  1. Ist’s nun nicht besser dem Menschen,

The AV

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (AV)

24 There isnothing better for a man,thanthat he should eat

And this patter is seen in all the major modern English translations, such as

Ecclesiastes 2:24 (ESV)

24 There is nothing better for a person than that ….

How is this explained?  The Hebrew pattern is not the standard comparative structure. In fact, we could not come up with a similar Hebrew pattern which was translated as a comparative. We surmised that Vulgate provided a gloss which was then followed by Luther & the AV. The combined weight of the Vulgate, Luther and the AV exerted sufficient gravity to draw along the following English translations. Is our theory correct? Did we miss something painfully obvious in the Hebrew?

Remember Your Creator

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Thomas Brooks, Uncategorized

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Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;Ecclesiastes 12:1 (ESV)

‘Remember now thy Creator.’
Remember to know him,
remember to love him,
remember to desire him,
remember to delight in him,
remember to depend upon him,
remember to get an interest in him,
remember to live to him, and
remember to walk with him.

‘Remember now thy Creator;’ the Hebrew is Creators, Father, Son, and Spirit. To the making of man, a council was called in heaven, in the first of Genesis, and 26th verse. ‘Remember thy Creators:’

Remember the Father,
so as to know him,
so as to be inwardly acquainted with him.

Remember the Son,
so as to believe in him,
so as to rest upon him,
so as to embrace him, and
so as to make a complete resignation of thyself to him.

Remember the Spirit, so as to hear his voice,
so as to obey his voice,
so as to feel his presence, and
so as to experience his influence, &c.

‘Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.’
He doth not say in the time of thy youth, but ‘in the days of thy youth,’ to note,
that our life is but as a few days.
It is but as a vapour,
a span,
a flower,
a shadow,
a dream;
and therefore Seneca saith well, that ‘though death be before the old man’s face, yet he may be as near the young man’s back,’ &c.

Man’s life is the shadow of smoke, the dream of a shadow.
One doubteth whether to call it a dying life, or a living death. (Aug. Confess. lib.i.)

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1, “Apples of Gold”, chapter 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 178–179.

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in Art, Ecclesiastes

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Robert Frost & Ecclesiastes 3:

 Apple Picking

MY long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,

And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.


The poem is about the approach of death: the ladder has gone through the tree points toward heaven. There is work which has not been finished. There is a strangeness he cannot shake. There is exhaustion with his work. There is a sleep coming, but he doesn’t know what it is. 

This poem was written well before Frost died. It is not really about the approach of his own death, but rather the question raised in Ecclesiastes 3:

 18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.

20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?

22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? http://esv.to/Eccles3.18-22