Ecclesiastes — Chapter 6

Est et aliud malum quod vidi sub sole et quidem frequens apud homines

Lapide introduces another evil frequent among men: a new species of avarice's vanity, distinct from ch. 5:12 (where riches destroy the owner). Here the miser possesses abundant wealth yet dares not use it, so that a stranger devours it. This evil is \"super homines\" — it dominates and cruelly torments its victims, like a scab that a man scratches and thereby worsens. Jews are particularly prone to this vice, as Jerome observes on Isaiah 2:7.

Vir cui dedit Deus divitias et substantiam et honorem

Lapide expounds the full portrait of the miser: God gives him riches, substance, and honor; his soul lacks nothing it desires, yet God does not grant him the power to enjoy these goods, and a stranger devours them. He explains \"honor\" as the natural accompaniment of wealth, and \"substance\" (following Cajetan) as abundance. The miser's inability to enjoy his goods is either God's permissive will (allowing the sin of avarice) or positive punishment (stripping him through sickness, calamity, or fraud).

Si genuerit quispiam centum liberos et vixerit multos annos

Lapide argues that even if a man begets a hundred children and lives many years, if he does not enjoy his goods and lacks proper burial, an abortive (stillborn) is better off than he. Children, which nature gives for joy, only increase the miser's torment through expenses and anxieties over inheritance. Lack of burial — the ultimate dishonor among all nations — befalls the miser because his avarice makes him universally despised, or because he dies abroad among strangers, unknown and unmourned.

Frustra enim venit et pergit ad tenebras

Lapide explains that the abortive comes in vain and departs into darkness, its very name covered by oblivion. Literally this describes the stillborn who never sees light and receives no name (since Hebrews named children on the eighth day at circumcision). By comparison, the miser likewise comes in vain, never enjoying life's light and pleasures, and his name is quickly forgotten because he was hateful to all and proceeds to the darkness of Gehenna, the land of oblivion (Psalm 87:6).

Non vidit solem neque cognovit distantiam boni et mali

Lapide comments that the abortive never saw the sun nor knew the difference between good and evil. Literally, the stillborn emerged dead or half-dead, perceiving nothing. Applied to the miser, he too lives as though blind to the sun's joy, dwelling in squalid darkness, and — most gravely — he fails to discern the preeminence of true virtue over vice, or the magnitude of eternal felicity versus the horror of Gehenna. This is the common and gravest error of mankind: valuing a moment of time above all eternity.

Etiamsi duobus millibus annis vixerit et non fuerit perfruitus bonis

Lapide argues that even if the miser lived two thousand years (an impossibility — Methuselah reached only 969), if he never enjoyed his goods, all proceed to the same place. In life the miser is no happier than the abortive, because though he lives longer, his days are filled with cares, anguish, and grief. In death he suffers greater anguish than the stillborn, for he must abandon his beloved riches; and both go to the same end — but the abortive to Limbo (without the pain of sense), the miser to the fires of Gehenna.

Omnis labor hominis in ore eius sed anima eius non implebitur

Lapide offers three readings: (1) concerning speech — all human effort is in controlling the mouth; (2) concerning food — men toil to fill their mouths, yet the soul (appetite, cupidity) is never satisfied, since gluttony and avarice are insatiable; (3) most genuinely, concerning the miser specifically — he labors endlessly to feed his mouth and belly, yet his greedy soul can never be filled, making his toil utterly vain, like trying to fill the ocean basin with a single drop.

Quid habet amplius sapiens a stulto

Lapide reads this as an antithesis of the wise poor man and the foolish rich miser. In the necessities of eating and bodily sustenance, the sage has no advantage over the fool; but the poor man excels in this: he \"goes toward life\" — natural life (content and healthy with little), spiritual life (rich in grace and virtue), and eternal life (glory in heaven) — while the rich fool goes toward threefold death: of the body, of the soul through sin, and of eternal damnation in Gehenna, like the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16).

Melius est videre quod cupias quam desiderare quod nescias

Lapide offers five interpretations keyed to five senses of \"videre\" (to see): (1) better to contemplate present riches than to live hand-to-mouth in hope; (2) better to use reason's foresight than to follow blind desire; (3) better to set a fixed limit to one's needs and be content than to let cupidity wander without bound; (4) better to know by experience what suits you than to chase the unknown; (5) most genuinely, better to use and enjoy present modest goods than to burn with insatiable desire for absent, uncertain ones whose benefit you will never taste. The miser forgoes the certain for the uncertain — this is vanity and presumption of spirit.

Qui futurus est iam vocatum est nomen eius

Lapide explains that whatever is to be has already been named and foreknown by God, and man cannot contend in judgment with One stronger than himself. He gives five readings: (1) all created things were decreed by God from eternity; (2) against the ambitious who boast of nobility and power, since many greater men preceded them; (3) against the curious who arrogate foreknowledge of the future like astrologers; (4) against murmurers at divine providence who complain of their lot; (5) most fittingly, against misers who presume to secure their posterity and fortune by their own efforts, forgetting that man is \"Adam\" — dust, mortal, fragile, and entirely subject to God's sovereign disposition.

Verba sunt plurima multamque in disputando habentia vanitatem

Lapide concludes chapter 6: many words multiply vanity. He applies this especially to misers who endlessly discuss schemes for acquiring, preserving, and perpetuating their wealth, and who consult augurs, astrologers, and diviners about the future — all of which are vain words. Jerome mystically applies the verse to Christ: since all things are foreknown and written in Scripture, let man put silence on his mouth and believe that the One who was foretold has come, as and when and in what manner was written, seeking nothing beyond what Scripture has revealed. The Hebrews note this verse marks the exact midpoint of the book of Ecclesiastes.