5 0 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 7 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 1 Later, in medieval Christianity, we find a great many commentaries on the subject of the vanity of the world (Lat. vanitas mundi), from which the related subject of contempt for the world (Lat. contemptus mundi) followed that had in their inner connection an impact on the development of monastic life and asceticism in Western Christianity. So, for example, in the 12th century this is for alain de Lille the first subject of preaching to the faithful (Lille 1862, 114–116). In the Reformation period, however Martin Luther leaned away from Hieronymus’s interpretation, which scorned the created world and, resting on Augustine, placed vanity more among the human cravings (White 1987, 180–194). The Second Vatican Council brought in the Constitution Lumen Gentium a certain invitation to a new understanding of this biblical verse. In the council’s texts, the term vanity (Lat. vanitas) appears three times (Gaudium et Spes 2019, 37, 39; Presbyterorum Ordinis 2019, 17), and vain (Lat. vanus) two times (Lumen Gentium 2019, 46–47), while recognition of the value (Lat. valor) of creation thirty times. 2 Augustine and the Book of Ecclesiastes In our study, we will devote ourselves to analyzing the understanding of the above-cited verse from Ecclesiastes 1:2 in the work of the African theologian St. Augustine (354–430), who in many important ways influenced the subsequent development of spirituality in Latin Christianity. We are convinced that clarifying his thinking will help in understanding the verse in the context of Western Christian spirituality, with a suitable distinction in understanding the subject of vanity in contemporary Christian spirituality, as well as in dialogue with the spiritualities of other religious faiths. The theologian of Hippo is a contextual author who also left us traces of the development of his thinking. Therefore, we consider perceiving the interpretation of this verse in the context of the intellectual struggles with three heterodox groups of Christianity against which he spoke most often, as important. We recall here at the introduction that the author’s biblical citations often differ from the contemporary wording of the text and that his numbering of the psalms is different from the present numbering. Near the end of his life (426–427), in his work Retractationes, Augustine notes that several Latin manuscripts contain the wording of the verse: “the vanity of vain people” (Lat. vanitas vanitantium), but that he later discovered in Greek manuscripts that this should be: “vanity over vanity” (Lat. vanitas vanitatum) (augustinus 1999, 18). This is not only a philological development of his thinking, but in particular his understanding of the consequences of inherited sin in the life of a Christian. 3 Augustine Against the Manichaeans Augustine spent about ten years in the Manichaean sect, and after his conversion he wrote several tracts against them. In his commentary against the Manichaeans from 389–390, entitled On the Morals of the Catholic Church and on the Morals of the Manichaeans, he emphasizes the subordination of man to false goodness, which deceives him because he was created over them and he should be subordinate only to God. At the same time, in the context of the struggle against Manichaeism, which acknowledged the positive value of creation, he was careful to recall that creation as such is not a vanity: “Vain are those,” writes the theologian of Hippo, “who are deceived by things of this sort; and he calls this which deceives them vanity – not that God did not create those things, but because men choose to subject themselves by their sins to those things, which the divine law has made subject to them in well-doing. For when you consider things beneath yourself to be admirable and desirable, what is this but to be cheated and misled by unreal goods?” (Augustinus 1992, 44). In his commentary on Psalm 4 (elaborated between the years 394–395), he again emphasizes that bodily creation as such is not vanity but can become so if the created man reverses the established order and seeks things that are in the order of creation beneath him as if they were above him in that order. In this context, he also deals with the subject of deception, which is connected to the concept of vanity; the truth means to give preference to the Creator over the creation (Augustinus 1956, 15). 4 Augustine Against the Donatists Upon his return from Rome to Africa, Augustine found the African church separated into two parts: the Catholics and the Donatist sect. In the struggle against the schismatic Donatists, who referring to themselves as the “Church of the Pure” had broken away from the Catholic Church because they considered it to be full of sinners and traitors who cooperated with the Roman pagan power during the persecution, he again emphasized their incorrect quotations from the Bible. During a meeting of representatives of the Catholic Church with the Donatists in 411, the Donatist bishops refused to sit with the Catholics, citing Psalm 26:4 (whose current wording differs from Augustine’s), which read: “I did not
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