We have learned who the Ecclesiast is, he who unites what has gone astray and has been scattered abroad, and makes it all one church and one flock, that none may be deaf to the shepherd’s kindly voice, which gives life to all. For “the words which I speak,” he says, “are spirit and are life.” This is the one who calls himself Ecclesiast, just as he calls himself “Physician,” and “Life,” and “Resurrection,” and “Light,” and “Way,” and “Door,” and “Truth,” and all the names of his love for humankind. … What does the Ecclesiast say? “I have become King over Israel in Jerusalem.” When is this? Surely when “he was set up as king by him on Mount Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the Lord’s commandment.” To him the Lord said, “You are my Son,” and “Today I have begotten you.” He says that today he has begotten the Maker of all, the Father of the ages, so that by applying a temporal term to the moment of his birth, the text might demonstrate not his existence before the ages but his fleshly...
