NOTES for Ecc 4:7-9

Reading Ecclesiastes, one begins to understand that there is a deep truth in Buddhism. Though not in all its fullness. The truth of a world that does not know God's presence. A world without a messianic perspective, and therefore without the perspective of the Kingdom. Still, the Buddha himself may well have seen its glimmers, sensed its breath, still distant then. It is no accident that he did not want to speak about his experience under the banyan tree. Or could not express it in words. He spoke only of nirvana, of that silence behind which the inexpressible is hidden. But if this inexpressible is absent, if its presence, even distant, is not sensed, then nirvana becomes emptiness, and life becomes absurdity. And no religion, even the most correct, can change anything here. For meaning to appear, what is needed is not religion, but the living God.

The Kingdom is needed, even if only as a promise, as a glimmer, as a light breath. Speaking in Yahwist language, a messianic perspective is needed. A prophecy about the Messiah and the Kingdom. In the Book of Ecclesiastes this perspective is absent. Therefore there is no meaning in life either. Or, more precisely, there is, but as if somewhere in the distance. Outside time and space. At the boundary of the world and God's eternity. But there, at the boundary, there is only rest and silence, akin to those the Buddha experienced under the banyan tree. They do not penetrate the world, into the endless cycle of spaces and times. And therefore the world is unchanged and unfixable. And it is not worth living in it.

Not because it is unworthy of the righteousness of the righteous person, but because from the point of view of the righteous person and the path of righteousness it has no future if there is no Kingdom ahead and no Messiah who will make the world different. And man too: seen from rest and silence, all man's intentions and all his activity turn out to be only unnecessary and meaningless self-assertion; they only add vanity where there is already enough of it. Every intention, every purpose of man turns out to be meaningless; they do not give meaning to his life, but only reduce the chance of finding it. But then why live at all? What is the meaning of a person's being born into this world? What then is human birth: a foolish joke of God or an equally foolish accident unrelated to God?

Whatever the answer, it is clear that it is better not to live the life of this world at all than to live without meaning. The conclusion is quite Buddhist, and there is nothing strange in it: the issue is the objective laws of life, spiritual laws first of all, which do not depend on where a person was born or in what times he lived. But the experience reflected by Buddhism and by the Book of Ecclesiastes is not yet the last word. It is only the word of a person seeking God and the Kingdom. God has not yet spoken His word. It lies ahead.

What is the point of living in a world where wisdom brings no more good than foolishness, where righteousness is not rewarded and sin is not punished? At last Ecclesiastes says directly that in such a world the dead are happier than the living, and those who were never born and never lived in it are better off still (vv. 1-3). This conclusion, quite Buddhist in essence, does not appear by accident: the founder of Buddhism also looked at life so pessimistically for the same reasons as Ecclesiastes.

Indeed, if life is meaningless and unjust in principle, why is it needed? And how can it then be considered a good? Similar logic led people living at opposite ends of the earth, and unacquainted with one another, to the same conclusions. Not everyone may have the misfortune of falling under the power of a judge or tyrant-king who tramples all laws, but there is no person in the world who is not occupied with something, and every activity divides people (v. 4).

In the fallen world, labor has turned from a blessing into a curse. Even if it is crowned with success, one's neighbors will by no means rejoice in that success; their reaction to success will not be joy, but envy and hostility. With bitterness Ecclesiastes quotes the wise, who say that the lazy fool, unlike the wise person, will end by eating his own flesh out of hunger (v. 5). Even if that is so, he adds sadly, it is better to have less and be poor but live in peace than to be rich and have nothing but toil and anxiety (v. 6).

Ecclesiastes also notes another misfortune that threatens everyone: a person's loneliness in the face of a world hostile to him (vv. 7-8). And the point is not only that a lonely person has no one to whom he can leave the fruits of his labor. The point is also that loneliness is abnormal for a human being; a human being should not be alone (vv. 9-12). And if something good nevertheless happens in the world, it quickly passes and is forgotten. Ecclesiastes gives as an example the story of a certain wise young man who was born in a country ruled, judging from the author's words, by an unwise ruler (v. 13). The wise young man apparently managed not only to get out of prison to freedom, but also to take the throne after the death of the former king (v. 14). The wise young man, unlike his predecessor, apparently turned out to be a good ruler, so that the people welcomed his rule, which became an event in the history of the country he governed (v. 15). But even these golden times will pass into history, and everything will go on as before, so that descendants will not remember them and will not rejoice in what gladdened their ancestors (v. 16). Everything is transient before the face of eternity, and eternity turns toward the human being and toward all his deeds its darkest face, the face of inexorable and inevitable death, which makes everyone equal.