Commentary on Ecclesiastes

Introduction to the Commentary on Ecclesiastes

65 INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARY INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1. Blessed is the man,1 whose trust is in the name of the Lord and has no regard for vanities and lying follies.2 For, as Blessed Dionysius says: Good is above all else desirable .3 Now good is twofold, namely, temporal and eternal, according to what 2 Corinthians 4:18 says: The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.4 Good stirs up in us a twofold love or desire,namely, 1 The Latin reads vir (“man”), not homo (“human being”). 2 Psalm 39:5. 3 On p. 3 n. 1 QuarEd state that Dionysius suggests this is his De divinis nominibus, chapter 4 n. 4, 10, 31. See PG 3:698-699, 706-707, 751 where Bonaventure’s exact wording does not occur. 4 On p. 3 n. 2 QuarEd refer to Augustine’s treatments of this twofold love. See Book XI, chapter 15, n. 19-20 of his De Genesi ad litteram and On Genesis, Introductions,Translation and Notes by Edmund Hill,The Works of Saint Augustine I/13 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2002), 439-440. See further question 36 n. 1 in Eighty-Three Different Questions, translated by David L. Mosher, FC 70 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 67-69, esp. 68: “However, the poison of charity is the hope of getting and holding onto temporal things. The nourishment of charity is the lessening of covetousness, the perfection of charity, the absence of covetousness.” Also see Book XIV chapter 28 in The City of God Books VIII-XVI, translated by Gerald G.Walsh and Grace Monahan, FC 14 (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1952), 410: “What we see, then, is that two societies have issued from two kinds of love. Worldly society has flowered from a selfish love which dared to despise even God, whereas the communion of saints is 66 ST. BONAVENTURE’S COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES of love or inordinate desire with the result that charity becomes love returning to what is eternal while inordinate desire to what is earthly. And since the concord and disharmony of actions follow upon the concord and difference of desires and since the unity of a city consists in the concord between laws and behavior, a twofold city arises from this twofold love, that is, the city of the heavenly Jerusalem and the city of Babylon.5 The foundation of the first city is ordered charity whereas the foundation of the second is perverse inordinate desire. Therefore, the heavenly city, since it is founded on charity, which raises one up to eternal things, is at peace in eternal things and finds blessedness in them. But the city of Babylon, which is weighed down by inordinate desire to earthly things, finds blessedness in these earthly things. – And so it is clear from the preceding that just as there is a twofold good, a twofold love, and a twofold city, so too is there a twofold blessedness, namely, a true blessedness in what is eternal and a false blessedness in what is temporal and earthly. Psalm 143:15 states: They have called the people blessed, who have these things, etc.6 – The love of charity and inorrooted in a love of God that is ready to trample on self.”The editors also state that Augustine, who calls libido (“inordinate desire”) cupiditas (“covetousness”), defines libido in his book De mendacio, chapter 7 n. 10: “A desire of the mind, by which some temporal goods are put before eternal goods.” See PL 40:496 and Saint Augustine:Treaties on Various Subjects, ed. Roy J. Deferrari, FC 16 (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1952), 69. 5 On p. 3 n. 3 QuarEd refer to Book XV, chapters 1-2 of Augustine’s City of God. See The City of God (FC 14), pp. 413-417.They also refer to Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 64,n. 1-2. See Expositions of the Psalms 51-72. Translation and notes by Maria Boulding The Works of Saint Augustine III/17 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001), 264-267, esp. n.2 on 265:“Babylon signifies‘confusion,’ and Jerusalem‘vision of peace.’ You need to study the city of confusion now, in order to understand the vision of peace; you must endure the one, and yearn for the other.” 6 Psalm 143:15 continues: “. . . .But...