Koheleth proceeds to erect his own modest system in the second. As life
offers us no positive good, those who, in spite of this obvious fact,
desire it, must make the best of such negative advantages as are within
their grasp. Although so far from being a boon, it is an evil, yet it
may, he points out, be rendered less irksome by following certain
practical rules; and warming to his subject, he winds up with an
exhortation to snatch such pleasures as are within reach, for when all
accounts have been finally cast up and everything has been said and done,
all things will prove vanity, and a grasping of wind.
The ethics open with six metrical strophes composed, so to say, in the
minor key, which harmonises with the disheartening conclusions of the
foregoing. The theme is the Horatian _Levius fit patientia quicquid
corrigere est nefas._ Death is better than life, grief more becoming
than mirth, contemplation preferable to desire, deliberation more
serviceable than haste.[108] The fleeting joys and the abiding evils of
existence, are to be taken as we find them, seeing that it is beyond our
power to alter the proportions in which they are mixed, even by the
practice of virtue and the application of knowledge. Hence even in the
cultivation of righteousness the rule, _Ne quid nimis_, is to be
implicitly followed: "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself
overwise."[109] On the other hand, wisdom is not to be despised, for it
hardens us against the strokes of Fate, and renders us insensible to the
insults of our fellows.[110] It also teaches us the drawbacks of
isolation, the benefits of co-operation, and the advantage of being open
to counsel.[111] The basis of all practical wisdom being resignation to
the inevitable, obedience to God is better than sacrifices destined to
influence His action. What He does, is done for ever, and our efforts are
powerless to alter it, or to induce Him to change it.[112] God is far
off, unknowable, inaccessible, and man is here upon earth, and such
prayers as we feel disposed to offer, had best be short and few; vows
too, although to be carried out if once made, serve no good purpose, and
are to be avoided. In a word, wild speculations and many words in matters
of religion and theology are vain and pernicious.[113] That work and
enterprise are beneficial in public and private life is obvious from a
study of the results engendered by their opposites.[114] Simple
individuals, no less than rulers, may benefit by enterprise and
initiative, provided that prudence, by multiplying the possibilities of
profit, leaves as little as possible to the vagaries of chance.[115] But
prudence is especially needed in order to avoid the seductive wiles of
woman, against whom one must be ever on one's guard.[116] It also enjoins
upon us submission to the political ruler of the day, who possesses the
power to enforce his will, and is therefore a living embodiment of the
inevitable.[117] In a word, this practical wisdom assumes the form of a
careful adjustment of means to the end in all the ups and downs of
existence.[118]
After this follows the recommendation of the negative good: the sensuous
joys within our reach. Seeing that no man knows what evil is before him,
nor what things will happen after him, he cannot go far astray, supposing
him to be actuated by a desire to make the best of life, if he tastes in
moderation of the pleasures that lie on his path, including those of
labour.[119] The young generation should, in an especial manner, take
this to heart and pluck the rosebuds while it may, for old age and death
are hurriedly approaching to prove by their presence that all is vanity
and a grasping of wind.[120]
Footnotes:
[108] vii. 1-6, vi. 9, vii. 7-9.
[109] vii. 10, 13-14, 15-18.
[110] vii. 21-22.
[111] iv. 9-16.
[112] iii. 14.
[113] v. 1-7.
[114] v. 7-8, x. 16-20.
[115] x. 1-3, 6, 4, 5.
[116] vii. 26-29.
[117] viii. 1-4, x. 2-7.
[118] x. 8-14a, 15.
[119] x. 14b, ix. 3-10, xi. 7-10.
[120] xi. 9, xii. 8.
* * * * *
KOHELETH'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
Koheleth, who agrees with Job in so many other essential points, is
likewise at one with him in his views on human knowledge, or, as he terms
it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of
man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of
existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render
the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom
and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I
realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] The scenes it
reveals in the moral as well as the material order are of a nature to
make us hate existence. "Then I loathed life."[122] Indeed, the so-called
moral order which, were it, in theory, what it is asserted to be in
truth, might reconcile us to our lot and kindle a spark of hope in the
human breast, is but the embodiment of rank immorality. "All things come
alike to all indiscriminately; the one fate overtaketh the upright man
and the miscreant, the clean and the unclean, him who sacrifices and him
who sacrifices not, the just and the sinner."[123] What then is life?
To this question the answer is, in effect, "The shadow of a thing which
is not." The sights and sounds of the universe are the only materials
upon which the human intellect can work; and they are all alike empty,
shadowy, unreal. They are the creation of the mind itself, the web it
weaves from its own gossamer substance; and beyond this are nothing.
Space and time, or, as Koheleth expresses it, the universe and eternity,
were placed in our consciousness from the very first, and are as
deceptive as the mirage of the desert.[124] Kant would define them to be
functions of the brain. A projection of the organ of human thought, the
world is woven of three threads--space, time, and causality--which, being
identical with the mind, appear and vanish with it. The one underlying
reality, whether we term it God, Nature, or Will, is absolutely
unknowable,[125] and everything else is Maya or illusion.
Strange as this doctrine may sound in orthodox ears, it contains, so far,
nothing incompatible with Christianity, which teaches that time and space
will disappear along with this transitory existence, and that the one
eternal and incomprehensible Will is outside the sphere of both and
exempt from the operation of the law of cause and effect. The only
difference between the two is that Christianity admits the existence of
many beings outside the realm of space and time, whereas without space
and time multiplicity is inconceivable, impossible.
We cannot hope to know the one reality which is and acts underneath the
appearances of which our world is made up, because knowledge is for ever
formed, coloured and bounded by time, space, and causation, and all three
are unreal. They alone constitute succession and multiplicity, which are
therefore only apparent, not existent. We can conceive nothing but what
is, was, or will be (and therefore in time), nothing outside ourselves
but what is in space, and absolutely nought that is not a cause or an
effect. "Far off is that which is, and deep, deep, who can fathom
it?"[126]
But we possess insight and understanding enough to enable us to perceive
that life is a positive evil, as, indeed, all evil, pain, and suffering
are positive; that pleasures are few, and being negative by their nature,
merely serve to make us less sensible of the evils of existence; that
happiness is a chimaera, birth a curse, death a boon,[127] and absolute
nothingness (Nirvana) the only real good. The hope of improvement,
progress, evolution, is a cruel mockery; for the present is but a
rehearsal of the past; the future will be a repetition of both;[128]
everything that is and will be, was; "what came into being had been long
before, and what will be was long ago."[129] In a word, what we term
progress is but the movement of a vast wheel revolving on its axis
everlastingly.
But may we not hope for some better and higher state in the future life
beyond the tomb where vice will be punished and virtue rewarded? To this
query Koheleth's reply, like that given by Job, is an emphatic negative;
and yet the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of the
resurrection were rapidly making headway among the writer's
contemporaries. But he descries nothing in the material or moral order of
the world to warrant any such belief. What is there in material man that
he should be immortal? "Men are an accident, and the beasts are an
accident, and the same accident befalleth them all; as these die even so
die those, and the selfsame breath have they all, nor is there any
preeminence of man above beast; for all is nothingness."[130] Nor can any
such flattering hope be grounded upon the moral order, because there are
no signs of morality in the conduct of the world. "To righteous men that
happeneth which should befall wrong-doers, and that betideth criminals
which should fall to the lot of the upright."[131] Nay, "there are just
men who perish _through_ their righteousness, and there are wicked
men who prolong their lives _by means_ of their iniquity."[132] Of
divine promises and revelations Koheleth--who can hardly claim to be
considered a theist, and whose God is Fate, Nature, eternal Will--knows
nothing. The most favourable judgment he can pass upon such theological
speculations is far from encouraging: "in the multitude of fancies and
prattle there likewise lurketh much vanity."[133] In eternal justice,
however, he professes a strong belief, and, like Job, he formulates his
faith in the words: "Fear thou God."[134]
To accuse Koheleth of Epicureanism is to take a one-sided view of his
philosophy. His conception of life, its pleasures and pains, is as
clearly and emphatically expressed as that of the Buddha or of
Schopenhauer. He is an uncompromising pessimist, who sees the world as it
is. Everything that seems pleasant or profitable is vanity and a grasping
of wind; there is nothing positive but pain, nothing real but the eternal
Will, which is certainly unknowable and probably unconscious. These
truths, however, are not grasped by every one; they are the bitter fruits
of that rare knowledge, increase of which is increase of sorrow. The few
who taste thereof cling too tenaciously to life, though life be wedded to
sorrow and misery, to renounce such deceitful pleasures as are within
their reach; and the bulk of mankind revel in the empty joys of living.
To all such, Koheleth offers some practical rules of conduct to enable
them to make the best of what is to be had; but the gist of his
discourse is identical with those of Jesus, of the Buddha, of
Schopenhauer--renunciation.
Human pleasures, whatever their origin, are limited in degree by man's
capacity for enjoyment; and this is an inborn gift, varying in different
individuals but unchanging in each. Some dispositions, cheerful and
sanguine by nature, tinge even the blackest clouds of misfortune with the
rainbow hues of hope; others impart a sombre colour to the most
auspicious event, and descry cause for dread in the most complete
success, just as the bee sucks honey from the flower which yields only
poison to the adder. All joys, although produced by the chemistry of our
consciousness, are drawn either from within its inner sphere or from
without. The former, known as intellectual pleasures, are relatively
lasting because they emanate from what man is; the latter are fleeting
because their source is either what he has or what he seems. These are
never free from alloy; preceded by the pain of desire, they are
accompanied by that of disenchantment and followed by tedium, the worst
pain of all; those are exempt from all three, because instead of
gratifying passing whims they free the intellect from drudging for the
will and afford it momentary glimpses of truth. Wisdom therefore, for
Koheleth as for Job, is the greatest boon that can fall to man's
lot.[135] And yet the law of compensation, operating here as in all other
spheres, sensibility to pain is always proportionate to capacity for
intellectual enjoyment.
With regard to the pleasures of possession, seeing that they are often
difficult of attainment and always precarious, we must be moderate in
their pursuit and make the most of such as fall to our lot. Contentment
here is everything, and contentment is the result of an even balance
between desire and fulfilment, the former being always in our power and
the latter generally beyond our control. To such happiness as possession
can bestow, it is immaterial whether our demands are lowered or our
prosperity increased, just as in arithmetic it matters not whether we
divide the denominator of a fraction or multiply its numerator by the
same number. Therefore, "Better look with the eyes than wander with
desire."[136] The golden rule is to keep our wishes within the bounds of
moderation, and to adjust them to unfavourable circumstances. The rich
man who wants nothing and covets a mere trifle which is beyond his grasp,
is supremely wretched, while the poor man who needs much but longs for
nothing, is cheerful and contented. But even if wealth were as easily
obtained as it is difficult, the law of compensation should deter us from
seeking it. "Sweet is the sleep of the toiler, but his wealth suffereth
not the rich man to slumber."[137] The only enjoyments common to all men
are those which consist in the satisfaction of natural wants; the
pleasures which wealth can purchase over and above these are trifling,
and more than outweighed by the pain of carking care which it brings in
its train. He who labours for this is, therefore, cutting a stick for his
own back: "all his days are sorrows and his work grief."[138] "There is
no good for man," then--for the common run of mankind who, debarred from
intellectual enjoyment, yet cling tenaciously to life--"save that he
should eat and drink, and make glad his soul in his labour."[139] Health
being the condition of all enjoyment, and one of the greatest of earthly
boons, care should be taken to preserve it by eating, drinking, labour,
and rest, and by moderation in all things. For painlessness, which is
positive, is always to be preferred to pleasure, which is negative. It
matters little to the strong man that he is otherwise hale and thriving,
if he suffer from an excruciating toothache or lumbago. He forgets
everything else and thinks only of his misery. The world, then, being a
terrestrial hell, they who love it as a dwelling-place cannot do better
than try to construct a fireproof abode therein. To hunt for pleasures
while exposing oneself to the risk of pain is folly; to escape suffering
even at the sacrifice of enjoyments is worldly wisdom. As Aristotle put
it, [Greek: _ho phronimos to alupon diokei, ou to haedu_.] But when
all has been said and done, the highest worldly wisdom is but a less
harmful species of folly. Existence is an evil, and the sole effective
remedy renunciation.
Footnotes:
[121] i. 17, 16b.
[122] ii. 17.
[123] ix. 2.
[124] iii. 11.
[125] vii. 24, _cf_. also v. 1.
[126] vii. 24, _cf_. also viii. 16, 17.
[127] "I appraised the dead who died long since, as happier than the
quick who are yet alive; but luckier than both him who is still
unborn, who hath not yet witnessed the evil doings under the
sun," iv. 2, 3.
[128] In truth, time existing only in the intellect as one of the forms
of intuition, there can be neither past nor future, but an
everlasting now.
[129] iii. 15.
[130] iii. 19.
[131] viii. 14.
[132] vii. 15.
[133] v. 7.
[134] _Ibid._
[135] vii. 11, 12.
[136] vi. 9.
[137] v. 12.
[138] ii. 23.
[139] ii. 24.
* * * * *
THE SOURCES OF KOHELETH'S PHILOSOPHY
To what extent are these pessimistic doctrines the fruits of Koheleth's
own meditations, and how far may they be supposed to reflect the views of
the nation which admitted his treatise into its sacred canon? The latter
half of this question is answered by the desperate efforts made from the
very beginning to correct or dilute his pessimism, and by the grave
suspicion with which Jewish doctors continued to regard it, long after
the "poison" had been provided with a suitable antidote. Thus the book
known as the Wisdom of Solomon, which is accepted as canonical by the
Roman Catholic Church, contains a flat contradiction and emphatic
condemnation of certain of the propositions laid down by Koheleth, as,
for instance, in ch. ii. 1-9, which is obviously a studied refutation of
Koheleth's principal thesis, couched mainly in the identical words used
by the Preacher himself:
"For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not
right: the time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end
of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to
have returned from hell.
"For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as
if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke;
and speech a spark to move our hearts.
"Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our
spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass
away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist,
which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered
with the heat thereof.
"And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall
have any remembrance of our works.
"For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is
no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man
returneth.
"Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are
present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.
"Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments; and
let not the flower of the time pass by us.
"Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered;
let no meadow escape our riot.
"Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us everywhere
leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this
our lot."
Although the book was accepted as canonical by generations of Hebrew
teachers and was quoted as such by men like Gamaliel, there was always a
strong orthodox party among the Jews opposed to its teachings and
apprehensive of its influence;[140] nor was it until the year 118 A.D.
that the protracted dispute on the subject was at last definitely settled
at the Synod which admitted Koheleth into the Canon. It was natural
enough that Hebrew theologians should have hesitated to stamp with the
seal of orthodoxy a book which the poet Heine calls the Canticles of
Scepticism and in which every unbiassed reader will recognise a powerful
solvent of the bases of theism; and the only surprising thing about their
attitude is that they should have ever allowed themselves to be persuaded
to abandon it.
For Koheleth's pessimistic theory, which has its roots in Secularism, is
utterly incompatible with the spirit of Judaism, whichever of its
historical phases we may select for comparison. It is grounded upon the
rejection of the Messianic expectations and absolute disbelief in the
solemn promises of Jahveh Himself. Koheleth cherishes no hope for the
individual, his nation, or the human race. The thing that hath been is
the same that shall be, and what befell is the same that shall come to
pass, and there is no new thing under the sun....[141] "I surveyed all
the works that are wrought under the sun, and behold all was vanity and
the grasping of wind."[142] Persians had succeeded Chaldeans; Cyrus, the
Anointed of Jahveh, had come and gone; Greeks had wrested the hegemony of
the East from Persians, but no change had brought surcease of sorrow to
the Jews. They were even worse off now than ever before. Jahveh, like
Baal of old, was become deaf to His worshippers, many of whom turned away
from Him in despair, exclaiming, "It is vain to serve God, and what
profit is it that we have kept His ordinance?"[143] Koheleth, like Job,
never once mentions Jahveh's name, but always alludes to the Eternal
Will, which alone is real and unknowable, under the colourless name of
Elohim. To say that he believed in a personal God in any sense in which a
personal God is essential to a revealed religion, is to misunderstand
ideas or to play with words.[144] And Koheleth was a type of a class.
Literary men of his day having mockingly asked for the name of the
Creator,[145] Koheleth answers that He is inaccessible to men, and that
prayer to Him is fruitless.[146] The Jewish aristocracy of his day,
desirous of embodying these views in a practical form, sought to abolish
once for all the national religion, as a body of belief and practices
that had been weighed in the balances and found wanting; while the party
that still remained faithful to the law was composed mainly of
narrow-minded fanatics, whose wild speculations, long-winded prayers and
frequent vows, Koheleth considers deserving objects of derision. He
himself held aloof from either camp. He took his stand outside the circle
of both, surveying life from the angle of vision of the philosophical
citizen of the world. But it would be idle to deny that he had far more
in common with the "impious" than with the orthodox.
Thus he scornfully rejects the old doctrine of retribution, and he is
never tired of affirming premisses from which the obvious and indeed only
conclusion is that the popular conception of a deity who spontaneously
created the universe and vigilantly watches over the Hebrew nation, is
erroneous, incredible, inconceivable. The Jahveh of olden times, with His
grand human passions and petty Jewish prejudices, he simply ignores. He
naturally rejects the immortality of the soul--a tenet or theory which
was then for the first time beginning to gain ground and to be relied
upon as the only means of ultimately righting the wrongs of existence.
The fact is that he had no belief in a soul as we understand it. Modern
theology regards the indestructible part of man as essentially
intelligent, while admitting the fact that intellect is indissolubly
associated with the brain, partaking of its vicissitudes during life and
vanishing with it apparently for ever at death. Job, Koheleth, and many
other writers of the Old Testament hold that if anything of the man
persists after the death of the individual, it is unconscious. "The
living know at least that they shall die, whereas the dead know not
anything at all."[147] In a word, no other philosopher, poet, or
proverb-writer of the Old Testament is less orthodox in his beliefs or
less Jewish in his sentiments--and Agur alone is more aggressive in his
scepticism--than Koheleth.
Much has been written about the sources from which this writer may and
even must have drawn his peculiar mixture of pessimism and
"Epicureanism," and considerable stress has been laid upon the profound
influence which Greek culture is supposed to have exerted upon Jewish
thinkers towards the second century B.C., when the moral atmosphere was
choked with "the baleful dust of systems and of creeds." The
"Epicureanism" of the man who said: "Better is sorrow than laughter,"
"the heart of the wise is in the mourning house,"[148] hardly needs the
hypothesis of a Greek origin to explain it. My own view of the matter,
which I put forward with all due diffidence, differs considerably from
those which have been heretofore expressed on the subject. I cannot
divest myself of the notion that Koheleth was acquainted, and to some
extent imbued, with the doctrines of Gautama Buddha, which must have been
pretty widely diffused in the civilised world towards the year 205 B.C.,
when the present treatise was most probably composed.[149]