The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 1:9 Go To Ecclesiastes 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
There are some people who want to twist even a famous passage in the book of Solomon, called Ecclesiastes, into a defense of these recurring cycles of universal dissolution and reevocation of the past: “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that has been done? The same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is anyone able to say, ‘Behold, this is new,’ for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us.” But here Solomon was speaking either of things he had just been discussing—the succession of generations, the revolution of the sun, the course of rivers—or, at any rate, of those creatures in general that come to life and die. For example, there were people before us, they are with us now, and they shall come after us. And the same is true of animals and plants. Even monstrosities that are abnormal at birth, different as they are among themselves and, in certain cases, unique, nevertheless, inasmuch as they come under the heading of prodigies and monsters, have existed before and will exist again. Consequently, it is nothing new or even of recent date that a monster should be born under the sun. However, there are some who interpret the words to mean that what Solomon had in mind was that, in the predestination of God, everything is already a fact and, in that sense, there is nothing new under the sun. Far be it from us Christians, however, to believe that these words of Solomon refer to those cycles by which, as these philosophers suppose, the same periods of time and sequence of events will be repeated. For example, the philosopher Plato having taught in a certain age at the school of Athens called the Academy, even so, through innumerable ages of the past at long but definite intervals, this same Plato and the same city, the same school and the same disciples all existed and will all exist again and again through innumerable ages of the future. Far be it from us, I say, to believe this. For Christ died once for our sins; and “having risen from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no longer have dominion over him.” And we after the resurrection “shall ever be with the Lord,” to whom we say, as the holy psalmist reminds us, “You, Oh Lord, will preserve us: and keep us from this generation forever.” And the verse that follows, I think, may be suitably applied to these philosophers: “The wicked walk round about.” These words do not mean that their life will repeatedly recur in cycle after cycle as they think but that here and now the way of their errors, that is, their false doctrine, goes around in circles.
