Ecclesiastes 12:7

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was The reference to the history of man's creation in Genesis 2:7 is unmistakeable, and finds an echo in the familiar words of our Burial Service, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." So Epicharmus, quoted by Plutarch, Consol. ad Apoll. p. 110, "Life was compound, and is broken up, and returns thither whence it came, earth to earth and the spirit on high." So the Epicurean poet sang,

"Pulvis et umbra sumus."

"Dust and shadows are we all."

Hor. Od.iv. 7. 16

echoing the like utterance of Anacreon,

ὀλίγη κόνις κεισόμεθα.

"We shall lie down, a little dust, no more"

echoed in its turn by Shakespeare (Cymbeline, iv. 2),

"Golden lads and lasses must,

Like chimney sweepers, turn to dust."

the spirit shall return unto God who gave it We note, in the contrast between this and the "Who knoweth …?" of ch. Ecclesiastes 3:21, what it is not too much to call, though the familiar words speak of a higher triumph than is found here, the Victory of Faith. If the Debater had rested in his scepticism, it would not have been difficult to find parallels in the language of Greek and Roman writers who had abandoned the hope of immortality. So Euripides had sung

Ἐάσατʼ ἤδη γῇ καλυφθῆναι νεκρούς,

Ὅθεν δʼ ἕκαστον ἐς τὸ φῶς ἀφίκετο,

Ἐνταῦθʼ ἀπελθεῖν, πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα,

Τὸ σῶμα δʼ ἐς γῆν.

"Let then the dead be buried in the earth,

And whence each element first came to light

Thither return, the spirit to the air,

The body to the earth."

Eurip. Suppl. 529

or as Lucretius at a later date,

"Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante,

In terras, et quod missum "st ex ætheris oris,

Id rursum cœli rellatum templa receptant."

"That also which from earth first came, to earth

Returns, and that which from the ether's coasts

Was sent, the vast wide regions of the sky

Receive again, returning to its home."

De Rer. Nat. ii. 998.

Or again,

"Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animal

Naturam, ceu fumus, in altas aëris auras."

"So must it be that, like the circling smoke,

The being of the soul should be dissolved,

And mingle with the breezes of the air."

Lucret. De Rer. Nat. iii. 455.

Or Virgil, with a closer approximation to the teaching of the Debater,

"Deum namque ire per omnes

Terrasque tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum;

Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,

Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas;

Scilicet huc reddi deinde, ac resoluta referri

Omnia; nec morti esse locum; sed viva volare

Sideris in numerum, atque alto succedere cœlo."

"[They teach] that God pervades the world,

The earth and ocean's tracts and loftiest heaven,

That hence the flocks and herds, and creatures wild,

Each, at their birth, draw in their fragile life;

That thither also all things tend at last,

And broken-up return, that place for death

Is none, but all things, yet instinct with life,

Soar to the stars and take their place on high."

Virg. Georg. iv. 220 227.

We cannot ignore the fact that to many interpreters (including Warburton) the words before us have seemed to convey no higher meaning than the extracts just quoted. They see in that return to God, nothing more than the absorption of the human spirit into the Anima Mundi, the great World-Soul, which the Pantheist identified with God.

It is believed, however, that the thoughts in which the Debater at last found anchorage were other than these. The contrast between the sceptical "Who knoweth the spirit of man that it goeth upward?" (ch. Ecclesiastes 3:21) and this return to God, "who gave it," shews that the latter meant more than the former. The faith of the Israelite, embodied in the Shemàor Creed which the writer must have learnt in childhood, was not extinguished. The "fear of God" is with him a real feeling of awe before One who lives and wills (ch. Ecclesiastes 8:8; Ecclesiastes 8:12). The hand of God is a might that orders all things (ch. Ecclesiastes 9:1). It is God that judges the righteous and the wicked (ch. Ecclesiastes 3:17). Rightly, from this point of view, has the Targum paraphrased the words "The Spirit will return to stand in judgment before God, who gave it thee." The long wandering to and fro in many paths of thoughts ends not in the denial, but the affirmation, of a personal God and therefore a personal immortality.