Nothing New

Estne verum de quo dicatur, vide hoc novum est: jam fuit in saeculis, quae fuerunt ante nos. Apertius hoc Symmachus transtulit: Putasne est, qui possit dicere: Vide hoc novum est, et jam factum est in saeculo, quod fuit ante nos. Cum superioribus autem congruit quod nihil novum in mundo fiat: nec sit aliquis, qui possit existere, et dicere, ecce hoc novum est: siquidem omne quod se putaverit novum ostendere, jam in prioribus saeculis fuit. Nec putemus signa, atque prodigia, et multa, quae arbitrio Dei nova in mundo fiunt in prioribus saeculis esse jam facta, et locum invenire Epicurum, qui asserit per innumerabiles periodos eadam, et eisdem in locis, et per eosdem fieri. Alioquin et Judas crebro prodidit, et Christus passes est saepe pro nobis, et caetera quae facta sunt, et futura, in easdem similiter periodos revolventur. Sed dicendum, quod ex praescientia et praedestinatione Dei jam ea facta sint, quae futura sunt. Qui enim electi sunt in Christo ante constitutionem mundi, in prioribus saeculis jam fuerunt. Sanctus Hieronymous, Commentarius In Ecclesiasten, Caput I Source: Migne PL 23.1019b-1020a

It is not true, when it is said of something, 'See, this is new,' for it already was in the past which is behind us. 1 Symmachus more broadly translates this as: 'Do not think someone can say, 'See, this is new,' for it was done in the past, which is behind us.' This harmonises with what has been said, that there is nothing new in the world, nor is there someone who can consider it and say 'Behold, this is new,' because everything he claims to be new has been in the past. But let us not think that the signs and wonders, indeed very many of them, which the will of God has made in the world were already done in the past, turning to that passage in Epicurus which asserts that there are innumerable identical ages, and that things are done in the same place and by the same people, so that Judas has frequently betrayed, and Christ has often suffered for us, and so on with the rest of the things that were done, which likewise occur with the revolution of the ages. But it must be said that because of the prescience and predestination of God, these things were done which are yet in the future. For they who have been chosen in Christ before the beginning of the world, 2 were already so in the past. Saint Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1 1 Eccles 1.10 Vetus Latina 2 Mt 7.3-5