All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from where the rivers come, there they return again.
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 1:7 Go To Ecclesiastes 1
Gregory of Nyssa
AD 394
The sea is a receptacle for the confluence of waters from every direction, and neither does the confluence cease, nor does the sea increase. What is the point of the activity as far as the waters are concerned, always filling what is not filled? To what end does the sea receive the inflow of the waters, remaining unincreased by what is added? He says these things so that from the very elements among which a person’s life is spent he might explain in advance the unreality of the things sought among us. For if this urgent cycle of the sun has no end, and the successive changes of light and darkness never cease, and the earth, condemned to immobility, remains unmoved in its fixed place, and the rivers toil without effect, being swallowed up by the insatiable nature of the sea, and in vain the sea receives the inflow of the waters, taking to its bosom without increase what forever pours into it—if these things are in this condition, what is likely to be the state of the humanity which spends its life among them? Why are we surprised if generation goes and generation comes, and this cycle does not leave aside its natural rhythm, as the generation of humankind constantly arriving expels its predecessor and is expelled by the one succeeding? What then does the Word here proclaim to the church? He says, “You human beings, as you look upon the universe, recognize your own nature. What you see in the sky and the earth, what you observe in the sun, what you notice in the sea, let this interpret to you your own nature too.” For there is a rising and a setting of our nature corresponding to that of the sun. There is one path for all things, one cycle for the journey through life.
