What profit has a man of all his labor which he takes under the sun?
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 1:3 Go To Ecclesiastes 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
If it is a vain thing to do good works for the sake of human praise, how much more vain for the sake of getting money, or increasing it, or retaining it, and any other temporal advantage, which comes unto us from without? Since “all things are vanity: what is man’s abundance, with all his toil, wherein he labors under the sun?” For our temporal welfare itself finally we ought not to do our good works but rather for the sake of that everlasting welfare which we hope for, where we may enjoy an unchangeable good, which we shall have from God, nay, what God himself is unto us. For if God’s saints were to do good works for the sake of this temporal welfare, never would the martyrs of Christ achieve a good work.
