{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4130","native_reference":{"book_number":250,"chapter_from":3,"chapter_to":3,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":19,"verse_to":19},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Didymus the Blind</b>: Animals are mortal beings without reason, angels are immortal beings with reason, human beings are mortal beings with reason. Regarding mortality the human being is grouped together with beings without reason. Regarding reason [the human being] is grouped together with the immortal beings, since angels also have reason. Regarding its senses … the human being is of the same kind as the beings without reason. But the human being is receptive to something to which no other mortal being is receptive: its soul can become perfect, as far as this can be achieved, and become like God, as far as it is possible.…Thus, when he says that \"the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same,\" he does not mean what happens to reason but what happens to the outward body.… The general judgment which enacts promises and punishments does not judge what human beings have in common with animals but what humans have in common with angels. As humans can be led into the kingdom of heaven and remain in heaven, so it is with angels; and as humans can be judged, so can angels be judged.…<br/>If one investigates the nature of death, then the death of animals is not like the death of humans. Human death divides the soul from the body, and after the division the soul remains. But the death of animals destroys soul and body, since they have been created simultaneously.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Ecclesiastes 99:1</i></p><p><b>Evagrius Ponticus</b>: By \"fate\" he means everything that is part of the life of anyone in this world, whether that person is righteous or unrighteous—things such as life, death, sickness, health, affluence, poverty, loss of limbs, of wives, children or possessions. In all these it is impossible to discern between the righteous and unrighteous before the last judgment. He also says that both have in common the fact that they are taken from dust and will return to dust. They also have one soul, not by number but by nature. For the Spirit, he says, \"is one [and the same] in all.\" Here he calls a man, who was born in honor, a beast instead of labeling him as someone of understanding. It is because of his foolish desires that he is compared with the senseless beasts and that he ends up becoming like them. And not even through their acts can the righteous and unrighteous be clearly distinguished before the day of judgment, because a good number of the unrighteous become righteous and are elevated, while a good number of the righteous abandon virtue and are debased. \"What is the advantage of the righteous over the ungodly?\" In this present time, he says, there is no advantage. Everything is vanity except for the spiritual joy that naturally occurs to each according to his deeds and virtues.<br/><i>— SCHOLIA ON Ecclesiastes 21:3.19-22</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: In describing the pleasures of the flesh, he puts all cares out of his mind and states that it is good to eat and drink. Later, he finds fault with this view from the standpoint of reason and says it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Likewise, from purely carnal considerations he advises a young man to find his pleasure in his youth, and later, modifying this statement, he blames youth and its pleasures as fleeting. So, too, when he speaks from the minds of the infirm, our Preacher voices an opinion based on suspicion. \"For the lot of man and of beast,\" he says, \"is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life breath, and man has no advantage over the beast.\" Later, however, he presents conclusions drawn from reason and says, \"What has the wise man more than the fool? and what the poor man, but to go where there is life?\" So, after he says, \"Man has no advantage over the beast,\" he again specifies that the wise person has an advantage not only over the beast but also over the foolish person, namely, his ability to go \"where there is life.\"<br/><i>— Dialogues, Book 4, Chapter 4</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: \"For the fate of men and the fate of beast - they have one and the same fate: as one dies so the other dies, and they all have the same spirit. Man has no superiority over beast, for all is futile.\" It is not surprising that there is no distinction in<br/>this life between righteous and wicked, nor that none values virtues, but all<br/>things occur with uncertain outcome, where nothing seems to differ according to<br/>the worthlessness of the body between sheep and men: there is the same birth,<br/>common end in death; we proceed similarly towards the light and are equally<br/>dissolved into the dust. But there seems<br/>to be this difference, that the spirit of man ascends to the heavens, and the<br/>spirit of animals goes down into the earth, but from where do we know this for<br/>certain? Who can know whether what is<br/>hoped is true or false? But he says<br/>this, not because he thinks the spirit dies with the body, or that there's one<br/>place set aside for beasts and for man, but because before the arrival of<br/>Christ all were led equally to the nether regions. Jacob said that he was about to go down to<br/>those regions. And Job complains that the pious and impious<br/>are held back in the lower world. And the Gospel says that with an abyss<br/>blocking the way even Abraham and Lazarus were rich in prayers in the underworld. And in fact before Christ accompanied by a<br/>robber opened the wheel of flames, and the fiery rumpias<br/>and the gates of paradise, the heavens were closed and the equal unworthiness<br/>of the spirits of sheep and of men was abridged. One also seems to be dispersed and the other<br/>saved; but there is not much of a difference between dying with the body or<br/>being held in the darkness of the underworld.<br/>Let us look over these things one by one in paragraphs, and discuss them<br/>briefly. I considered the eloquence of<br/>the sons of man, whom God chose. Only<br/>this eloquence, he says, God wanted to be between men and beasts, since we<br/>speak, they are mute; we possess the will for conversation, they are stupefied<br/>with silence. And though we only differ<br/>from beasts in language, though it is shown to us, how we are like the beasts -<br/>weak in body. Just as a beast dies, thus<br/>man dies, and one breath is for all, and that is the air that we breathe. For he says this: \"and one spirit is for<br/>both, and there is nothing more for man than for beast.\"<br/><i>— Commentary on Ecclesiastes</i></p><p><b>Olympiodorus of Alexandria</b>: Ecclesiastes teaches us from this not to attend to our physical needs but to our spiritual existence.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Ecclesiastes 3:19</i></p><p><b>Shenoute the Archimandrite</b>: Why did he write, \"What advantage does man have over beast?\" Perceive now what had happened. Understand now the scorn toward us when he saw that humanity had recognized gods other than the Lord God alone and had not obeyed this utterance, \"No foreign god shall be in your midst, nor shall you worship a strange god.\" Then, when he saw humanity had acted wickedly by [doing] what is contrary to nature, with abominable deeds, with pernicious deeds that no one should be able to mention [and] to which no one should be able to listen, he said this. For if a person does not recognize his value, not only is he reckoned with the beast but the beast is more esteemed than he, when it is said, \"An ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib.\"<br/><i>— FRAGMENT ON ECCLESIASTES</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"960d8a86b9dc946d65e9857784d97404d13e5376f603c431ca994b187067270b","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4130,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"893496e04d1a9c24e21e42c7347d677f7b516a7486eafad30ebb251fc61d7275","translator":null,"work":null}