Ecclesiastes 1:7

The waters that the earth drank on the first day were not salty. Even if these waters were like the deep on the surface of the earth, they were not yet seas. For it was in the seas that these waters, which were not salty before being gathered together, became salty. When they were sent throughout the entire earth for the earth to drink they were sweet, but when they were gathered into seas on the third day, they became salty, lest they become stagnant due to their being gathered together, and so that they might receive the rivers that enter into them without increasing. For the quantity that a sea requires for nourishment is the measure of the rivers that flow down into it. Rivers flow down into seas lest the heat of the sun dry them up. The saltiness [of the seas] then swallows up [the rivers] lest they increase, rise up and cover the earth. Thus the rivers turn into nothing, as it were, because the saltiness of the sea swallows them up.

As for the sea, if I had felt no wonder at its size, I should have felt it for its stillness, at the way it stands free within its proper limits. If its stillness had not moved my admiration, its size must have done. Since both aspects move me, I shall praise the power involved in both. What binding force brought the sea together? What causes it to swell yet stay in position, as if in awe of the land its neighbor? How can it take in all rivers and stay the same through sheer excess of quantity?—I know no other explanation. Why does so great an element have sand as its frontier? Can natural philosophers, with their futile cleverness, give any account of it, when they actually take the sea's vast measurements with pint size pots of their own ideas? Or shall I give you the short answer from Scripture, the one more credible, more real, than their long arguments? "He made his command a boundary for the face of the waters." This command is what binds the elemental water. What makes it carry the sailor in his little boat with a little wind—do you not find it a marvelous sight, does not your mind stand amazed at it?—to bind land and sea with business and commerce and unify for humanity such very different things? What springs do the first springs have? Look for them and see if you, a man, can discover or track one down. Who parted plains and hills with rivers and gave them free course? How do we get a miracle from opposites—from a sea that does not get out and rivers that do not stand still? What feeds the waters, what different kinds of food do they get? Some are nourished with rain, others drink with their roots—if I may use a rich metaphor to describe the richness of God.

You, whose period of struggle is short, do not become more lifeless than the earth, do not become more unthinking than the insensible, for you are endowed with thought and directed by reason toward life. Instead, as the apostle says, "Continue in the things you have learned and been convinced of," in that steadfast and immoveable stability, since this also is one of the divine commands, that you "be steadfast and immoveable." Let your sobriety abide unshaken, your faith firm, your love constant, your stability in every good thing unmoved, so that the earth in you may stand to eternity. But if any one, yearning for greater possessions and letting his desire become as boundless as a sea, has an insatiable greed for the streams of gain flowing in from every side, let him treat his disease by looking at the real sea. For … the sea does not exceed its boundary with the innumerable streams of water flowing into it but remains at the same volume, just as though it were receiving no new water from streams. In the same way human nature too, restricted by specific limits in the enjoyment of what comes to it, cannot enlarge its appetite to match the extent of its acquisitions; while the intake is endless, the capacity for enjoyment is kept within its set limit.

The sea is a receptacle for water which tends to flow everywhere; water never ceases to flow while the sea never grows larger. What is the goal of the water's course which always fills the unquenchable sea? What is this influx of water which never fills the ever-constant sea? Ecclesiastes speaks like this that he may explain the insubstantiality of our frenzied pursuits which result from elements constituting man's existence. If the sun's course consists in this, it too has no limit; neither is there any succession between day and night, and the earth is condemned to remain ever unmoved. The rivers also labor in vain, for they are consumed by the insatiable sea which receives this constant inflow to no avail. If this is true, what about man who is subject to such elements? Why are we astonished at the rise and fall of a generation which follows a natural course because a generation of men always succeeds the one before it and so forth? What does Ecclesiastes cry out to the church? That you, oh man, who contemplate the universe, should understand your own nature. The wonders you behold in heaven or on earth, the sun or sea, should help explain your human nature. Sunrise and sunset resemble our human nature because they both have in common the one course [circle] of life. When we come into existence, we later return to our natural place. Once our life sets, our light passes under the earth which then lays hold of it.

The time of your struggle is short. Do not be more inanimate than the earth nor more foolish than [beasts] which lack feeling, for you are endowed with reason and the capacity to administer. Rather, as the Apostle says, "Continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of" in steadfastness and constant stability. Since these words refer to the divine commands, "be steadfast and unmovable," allow temperance to abide in your life along with firm faith, constant love and stability in every kind of beauty, that you may resemble the earth's eternal stability. If anyone is greedy like the ocean with its expansive, boundedness desire which the inflow of waters cannot satisfy, let one be cured of his illness by looking upon the ocean. In this way he will not transgress his own bounds in the multitude of waters but will retain the same fullness without the addition of more water. In similar fashion pleasures arising from human nature with its present limit cannot expand its gluttonous appetite to keep pace with their great number; rather, the influx [of pleasures] does not cease even though our capacity for enjoyment is limited.

"All torrents flow into the sea but the sea is not filled. To the place from which the torrents come,
there they return to go." Some men believe that the fresh waters that
flow into the sea are either dried up by the burning sun above, or are feed for
the salt-thirsty sea. Here our Ecclesiastes,
the creator of the very waters, says that they return to the heads of the
springs by means of hidden passages, and always boil out from their deep
channels into their springs. The Hebrews
believed that the rivers or sea had more significance in the metaphor of man,
because they return to the earth, whence they originated. They are also called torrents not rivers
because they flow that much more forcefully, yet the earth however is not
filled with a great number of dead men.
More precisely if we go down to the deeper parts, the turbid waters
return to the sea where they used to remain.
And unless I am mistaken, apart from the additions to the text, nowhere
is the word 'torrent' found in a good context.
For "you will drink those with the torrent of your desire" [Psalms 35, 9.],
although "of desire" is written in an addition. On the contrary the Saviour was taken to the
brook Cedron [John 18,1.],
and Elisha at the time of persecution hid away in the brook of Chorat, which
even dried up. But the sea is not filled
up completely, in the same manner as the bloodthirsty daughters in Proverbs [Prov. 30, 15.].

On that passage of Ecclesiastes: "To the place whence the rivers go forth, they return:" Bernard says that "the origin of fountains is the sea; the origin of virtues and knowledge is Christ." He says therefore: "To the place whence the rivers go forth," namely of graces, "they return, that they may flow again." For just as a fountain has no duration unless it maintains a continuous connection with its source, nor indeed does light, so the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot flourish in the soul except through its return to its original principle.

It is written in Ecclesiastes: "All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going:" and it is the same with all the spiritual meanings that flow from divine Scripture. The spiritual meanings are called rivers — and also those men who understand in a spiritual manner — because they have their origin from the Scriptures and are confirmed by the Scriptures, and because, from these spiritual meanings, other meanings are derived.

Here mutability is touched upon with respect to visible elemental nature, namely water, because there is no stability there: for all waters move toward the sea; whence he says: "All the rivers enter into the sea," namely the great ocean, concerning which it is said in Job thirty-eight: "Who shut up the sea with doors, when it burst forth, as if proceeding from a womb"? And this motion is not terminated, because the sea is not filled: therefore he adds: "And the sea does not overflow." And because this seems wonderful, therefore he gives the cause of this: "To the place whence they go forth, the rivers return," not so that they may rest there, but "so that they may flow again." The rivers go forth secretly, they return openly, because they go forth through subterranean channels and certain filtrations. And thus all things are carried in a circuit and are subject to vanity. Hugh: "Behold how all things are carried in a circuit and are subject to vanity: and we know that a circle has no end: those things therefore that run in a circuit run indeed, but do not arrive at an end. What rest therefore can be hoped for, where there can be no stability? And therefore it is said of the impious: 'The head of their circuit'; and again: 'The impious walk in a circuit'; and again: 'My God, make them like a wheel.'"

Spiritually, these are the rivers of graces, concerning which John chapter seven: "He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers shall flow from his belly."

The sea, from which the rivers have their origin, is the immensity of divine generosity, which is neither increased nor diminished: "For great is our Lord and great is his power, and of his wisdom there is no number."

To this sea the rivers of thanksgiving return, so that they may flow again: John chapter four: "Whoever drinks of this water which I shall give him, it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life." From this they go forth: James chapter one: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." And just as rivers cease to exist and dry up when they cease to flow and are still, so also with the gifts of graces: the Psalm: "You broke open fountains and torrents," through generosity; "you dried up the rivers of Ethan," through the severity of judgment.

It is asked about what he says: "The rivers go forth from the sea."

Against: The sea is bitter, and rivers are sweet; but contraries do not have their origin from one principle, nor one from another; therefore neither does the sea come from rivers, nor rivers from the sea.

I respond: it must be said that all water by nature is sweet or tasteless, as the Philosopher says; but it becomes bitter accidentally, either through the evaporation of the subtle parts, with the earthly parts remaining, or through the admixture of earthly parts. Conversely, that water, just as it was accidentally made bitter, can return to sweetness through refinement, as is shown by the experiment of an earthen vessel placed in the sea. Since therefore rivers, even though they return to the sea in great abundance, nevertheless flow out secretly and underground and through a certain filtration, the water is refined and turned to sweetness.

As to the objection, then, that one of two contraries does not have its origin from the other: it must be said that water is not contrary to water; and if it has a contrary disposition, it has this not by nature but by accident, as is evident in hot and cold water. Nor is the origin of rivers from the sea by reason of property, because sweetness is prior by nature in water, but with respect to outflow, as the drawing of wine from a cask: because that place contains an abundance of waters, from which emanation ceaselessly occurs.