The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 1:1 Go To Ecclesiastes 1
Gregory of Nyssa
AD 394
Now the teaching of this book looks exclusively to the conduct of the church and gives instruction in those things by which one would achieve the life of virtue. For the object of what is said here is to raise the mind above sensation, to persuade it to abandon all that seems to be great and splendid in the world of existence, to catch a glimpse through the eyes of the soul of those things which are unattainable by sense perception, and to conceive a desire for those things to which sense does not attain. Perhaps the title of the book also envisages the one who leads the church (ekkl&#;sia). For the true Ecclesiast [is] he who collects into one body what has been scattered and assembles (ekkl&#;siazon) into one whole those who have been led astray in many ways by various deceits. Who else would he be but the true King of Israel, the Son of God, to whom Nathanael said, “You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel”? If therefore these are words of the King of Israel, and this same one is also the Son of God, as the gospel says, then the same one is called Ecclesiast (Assembler). Perhaps we may not unreasonably give this sense to the expression used in the title, so that we may learn by this that the meaning of these words has reference to him who established the church forever through the gospel message. Words, it says, of the Ecclesiast, the Son of David. And Matthew so names him at the beginning of his gospel, calling the Lord “Son of David.”
