Eclesiastes 7
Gregory of Nazianzus · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Eclesiastes 7:23
Now the subject of God is harder to come at, in proportion as it is more perfect than any other, and is open to more objections, and the solutions of them are more laborious. For every objection, however small, stops and hinders the course of our argument and cuts off its further advance, just like people who suddenly check with the rein the horses in full gallop and turn them right around by the unexpected shock. Thus Solomon, who was the wisest of all whether before him or in his own time, to whom God gave breadth of heart, and a flood of contemplation, more abundant than the sand, even he, the more he entered into profundities, the more dizzy he became. And he declared the furthest point of wisdom to be the discovery of how very far away wisdom was from him. — ON THEOLOGY, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 2 (28).21
Eclesiastes 7:24
Who is it, who made all things by his Word, and formed man by his Wisdom, and gathered into one things scattered abroad, and mingled dust with spirit, and compounded an animal visible and invisible, temporal and immortal, earthly and heavenly, able to attain to God but not to comprehend him, drawing near and yet far off? "I said, I will be wise," says Solomon, "but she was far from me beyond what is," and, "Verily, he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." For the joy of what we have discovered is no greater than the pain of what escapes us; a pain, I imagine, like that felt by those who are dragged, while yet thirsty, from the water, or are unable to retain what they think they hold, or are suddenly left in the dark by a flash of lightning. — IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT, ORATION 2:75