Destroying And Building

Veranus. De qua destructione vel aedificatione loquitur, cum dicit: Tempus destruendi et tempus aedificandi? Nunquid de aedificatione ac destructione domorum loquitur? Quid enim nobis prodesset, si hoc diceret? Quis enim nescit quod alii destruunt, et alii aedificant domos? Salonius. Non hic loquitur Salomon de domorum, sed de malorum destructione, et aedificatione bonorum; quoniam necesse est prius mala destruere, et sic bona postea aedificare, iuxta illud Psalmistae: Declina a malo, et fac bonum. Hoc ergo dicit, quia tempus est destruendi mala et tempus est aedificandi bona, quoniam in praesenti vita concessum est nobis tempus a Deo ut destruamus mala, et aedificemus bona: id est, prius in nobis per poenitentiam deleamus peccata; postea vero per sancta desideria, virtutum construamus aedificia. Salonius Viennensis, Expositio Mystica in Ecclesiasten Source: Migne PL 53.999b-c

Veranus: Of what destruction and building does he speak when he says, 'There is a time for destroying and a time for building?' 1 Does he speak of the building and destruction of houses? And how does it benefit us if he speaks so? Who does not know that some houses are built and some destroyed? Salonius: Solomon does not speak of houses, but of the destruction of evils and the building up of goods, because according to the Psalmist it is first necessary to destroy evils and after to build up goods, 'Decline from evil and do good.' 2 Therefore he says this, that there is a time for destroying evils and a time for building up goods, because in the present life God grants us a time to destroy evils and a time to build up goods, that is, first we destroy the evil in us through penance, and after, desiring holy things, we construct the building of the virtues. Salonius of Geneva, A Spiritual Exposition of Ecclesiastes 1 Eccles 3.3 2 Ps 36.27