Vanity of Vanities

Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes: Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.  Si cuncta quae fecit Deus, valde bona sunt, quomodo omnia vanitas, et non solum vanitas, verum etiam vanitas vanitatem? Ut sicut in Canticis canticorum inter omnia carmina, excellens carmen ostenditur: ita in vanitate vanitatum, vanitatis magnitudo monstretur. Tale quid in Psalmo scriptum est: 'Verumtamen universa vanitas, omnis homo vivens.' Si vivens homo vanitas est: ergo mortus vanitas vanitatum. Legimus in Exodo, glorificatum vultum Mousi in tantum, ut filii Isreal eum aspicere non possent. Quam gloriam Paulus apostolus ad comparationem evangelicae gloriae, dicit esse non gloriam: Nam nec glorificatum est, inquit, 'quod glorificatum fuit in hac parte, propter exellentem gloriam.' Possumus igitur et nos in hunc modum, caelum, terram, maria, et omnia quae in hoc circulo continentur, bona quidem per se dicere, sed ad Deum comparata, esse pro nihilo. Et quomodo, si igniculum lucernae videns, contentus essem ejus lumine, et postea, orto sole, non cernerem, quod lucebat, stellarum quoque lumina jubare viderem solis abscondi: ita aspiciens elementa et rerum multiplicem varietatem, admiror quidem operum magnitudinem; recogitans autem omnia pertransire, et mundum suo fine senescere, solumque Deum id semper esse quod fuerit, compellor dicere non semel, sed bis: Vanitas vanitatem et omnia vanitas. Sanctus Hieronimus, Commentarius in Ecclesiasten

'Vanity of vanities,' says Ecclesiastes, 'vanity of vanities and everything a vanity.' If everything which God made was very good, how is everything a vanity and not only a vanity but even a vanity of vanities? As by the title the Song of Songs is shown to be of all songs the most excellent so in the title vanity of vanities the greatness of the vanity is shown. So it is written in the Psalm: 'Truly everything is a vanity, every man alive,' and thus a dead man would be the vanity of vanities. We read in Exodus that the glorified face of Moses was such that the sons of Israel were not able to look on him. Which glory, the Apostle Paul said, when compared to the evangelical glory was no glory: 'For it was not glorious,' he said, 'that it was glorious in this way, on account of the greater excellence of glory.' Therefore we are able to say that the sky, earth, seas and everything this globe contains is a certain good but compared to God it is as nothing. It is as when the light of a small flame is seen and one is content with its light but afterward, with the sun rising, one does not see what shone. Or as the light of stars may be seen only when the radiance  of the sun has departed. Thus seeing the elements and the multiplicity of things I admire a certain greatness of the work yet recognising that all of it is transient and the world will come to its end and only God will always be, and so I am compelled to say not once but twice, 'Vanity of vanities and everything a vanity.' Saint Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes