溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is There Nothing New Under the Sun?
Is what we now think new only the return of what already was, long ago?
There is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes's view that "there is nothing new under the sun" represents the cyclical conception of time that sees history as a ring. Ancient Greece and India, and Stoic philosophy, largely held time to be a returning circle — the Stoics spoke of eternal recurrence, the cosmos burning away and repeating exactly. Against this cyclical time stood another current of scripture: the linear time advancing from creation to end. Augustine established this linear view and broke with the cyclical. Whether time is a returning circle or an advancing arrow is thrown again today, amid the modern faith in progress and its disillusion.
In an age forever chasing the new, this question — that what seems new is only the return of the old — makes us see beyond the fashion of the moment.
The author of Ecclesiastes says that all we deem new is in truth the repetition of what already was.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
The author of Ecclesiastes says that all we deem new is in truth the repetition of what already was. What has been is again; what has been done is done again. In this view history is not a straight line advancing forward but a circle returning. I read this question not as cynicism but as humility. The joy and sorrow I think I meet for the first time, someone lived exactly the same thousands of years ago. Before this gaze — finding myself within the old rather than thrilling at the new — I stand too.
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