Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Ecclesiastes 1:3

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

If it is a vain thing to do good works for the sake of human praise, how much more vain for the sake of getting money, or increasing it, or retaining it, and any other temporal advantage, which comes unto us from without? Since "all things are vanity: what is man's abundance, with all his toil, wherein he labors under the sun?" For our temporal welfare itself finally we ought not to do our good works but rather for the sake of that everlasting welfare which we hope for, where we may enjoy an unchangeable good, which we shall have …

Explanations Of The Psalms 119:38 ↗

Jerome

"What profit is there for a man in exchange for all his toil, which he toils under the sun?" After the general opinion that all things are vain Solomon begins to explain with regard to mankind: because men exert themselves in vain in the toil of the world, amassing wealth, teaching children, working their way towards glory, constructing buildings, and then are taken away in the midst of their work by sudden death, they hear the words: "Thou fool, this night your soul shall be required of you, then whose will be those things that you …

Commentary on Ecclesiastes ↗

Bonaventure

Above he proposed what he intends to prove; here he begins to prove it. And just as a threefold vanity was proposed to exist in things, so also a threefold vanity is proved to exist. Whence this part has three parts. For first he shows there to be in things the vanity of mutability; second, the vanity of iniquity; third, the vanity of punishment. …

Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1 ↗