Gregory of Elvira

In his own words on Ecclesiastes

• Ecclesiastes 3:2

  "A time to live and a time to die": you can see, therefore, beloved brothers, that this was said concerning the time of the Lord's birth and death. Thus you must accept his virgin birth if we are to believe not only that the Word in the beginning who was called "is" was born, but, as I said, also that the humanity which he adopted and put on was born, both Lord and man. For it says, "what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit." Yet, what suffered, died, was buried, and resurrected was not God but man, since he raised man to God, not God to man.

  EXPOSITION OF ECCLESIASTES, FRAGMENT 1

• Ecclesiastes 3:6

  Jerusalem, therefore, was abandoned "like a booth in a vineyard" because the guardian angels left it along with the Lord when Christ had suffered. A crop in the field is guarded by the Lord not for its own sake but only for the grain it yields, such that the stalk is permitted to be destroyed once its fruit is harvested. So also it was not principally for its own sake that Jerusalem was guarded temporarily, but on account of Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born according to the flesh within its borders. But when its fruit had been harvested, that is, the body of Christ, whence came the heavenly bread of life, then Jerusalem was abandoned like a field after the harvest, like a booth in a vineyard after its grapes had been gathered. This, then, is why it was said here in the divine Scriptures, "There is a time for guarding and a time for casting aside," for there was a time when Jerusalem was guarded and a time when it was being cast aside.

  EXPOSITION OF ECCLESIASTES, FRAGMENT 2