The search for the summum bonum, the quest of the chief good, is the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes. Naturally we look to find this theme, this problem, this "riddle of the painful earth," distinctly stated in the opening verses of the book. It is stated, but not distinctly. For the book is a drama, not an essay or a treatise. Instead of introducing the drama with a brief narrative or a clear statement of the moral problem he is about to discuss, the Preacher opens with the characteristic utterances of the man who, wearied with many futile endeavours, gathers up his remaining strength for a last attempt to discover the chief good of life.
I. It is the old contrast old as literature, old as man between the ordered steadfastness of nature and the disorder and brevity of human life. As compared with the calm order and uniformity of nature, man's life is a mere fantasy, passing for ever through a limited and tedious range of forms each of which is as unsubstantial as the fabric of a vision, many of which are as base as they are unreal, and all of which, for ever in a flux, elude the grasp of those who pursue them or disappoint those who hold them in their hands. The burden of all this unintelligible life lies heavily on the Preacher's soul. The miseries and confusions of our lot baffle and oppress his thoughts. Above all, the contrast between nature and man, between its massive and stately permanence and the frailty and brevity of our existence, breeds in him the despairing mood of which we have the keynote in his cry, "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
II. All depends on the heart we turn to nature. It was because his heart was heavy with the memory of many sins, because, too, the lofty Christian hopes were beyond his reach, that the "son of David" grew mournful or bitter as he looked at the strong ancient heavens and the stable, bountiful earth and thought of the weariness and brevity of human life. This, then, is the mood in which the Preacher commences his quest of the chief good. He is driven to it by the need of finding that in which he can rest. He could not endure to think that those who have "all things put under their feet" should lie at the mercy of accidents from which their realm is exempt; that they should be the mere fools of change, while that abideth unchanged for ever. And therefore he set out to discover the condition in which they might become partakers of the order, and stability, and peace of nature the condition in which, raised above all tides and storms of change, they might sit calm and serene even though the strong ancient heavens and the solid earth should vanish away.
S. Cox, The Quest of the Chief Good,p. 113.
The allegorical interpretations of Ecclesiastes, of which there have been an enormous number, are all based upon a similar mistake. They all assume that the author ought to have written something else. This kind of criticism, however ingenious, is dishonest and irreverent dishonest, for it is an attempt to obtain unfairly confirmation for our own opinions; irreverent, for if a book be worth reading at all, it is our business to try and learn the author's views, and not to teach him ours.
I. Koheleth begins his soliloquy with the thought that we are not immortal. "What profit hath a man," he asks, "of all his labour that he taketh under the sun?" The earth is possessed of perpetual youth, and she continually repeats herself; but how different it is with man. Generation after generation passes away, and returneth nevermore. We do not live even in the remembrance of our fellows. "But the earth abideth for ever." This was what angered Koheleth: that man should perish when the world in which he lived was eternal.
II. Apart from immortality, all that he said may be repeated with equal correctness today. Whoever takes Koheleth's view of human destiny should participate in Koheleth's despair. What avails it to be a Homer or a Caesar today if tomorrow I am to be nothing but a heap of dust?
A. W. Momerie, Agnosticism,p. 176.
References: Ecclesiastes 1:1-11. J. J. S. Perowne, Expositor,1st series, vol. ix., p. 409; J. H. Cooke, The Preacher's Pilgrimage,p. 12.Ecclesiastes 1:2 G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 20; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 102.Ecclesiastes 1:2; Ecclesiastes 1:3. H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines,p. 162.