The Impious and Death

Unde illi intende, de quo dicit Propheta: Qui non accepit in vanum animam suam. In vanum accepit animam suam (ut jam de hujus vitae dicamus molestiis) qui saecularia struit, aedificat corporalia. Quotidie ad edendum et bibendum surgimus, et nullus expletur, ut non post momentum esuriat ac sitiat. Quotidie lucrum quaerimus, et nullus cupiditati modus ponitur. Non satiabitur, inquit, oculus visu, nec auris auditu. Qui diligit argentum, non satiatur argento. Nullus finis laboris, et nullus est fructus abundantiae. Cupimus quotidie scire nova; et quid est ipsa scientia, nisi quotidiani doloris adjectio? Omnia quae sunt jam fuerunt, et nihil sub sole est novum, sed omnia vanitas. Totam vitam odio habui , dixit Ecclesiastes. Qui vitam odio habuit, mortem utique praedicavit. Denique mortuos laudavit magis quam viventes; et illum judicavit beatum, qui in hanc vitam non venit, nec inanem hunc suscepit laborem. Circuivit, inquit, cor meum, ut scirem impii laetitiam, et considerarem, et quaererem sapientiam, et numerum, et ut scirem per imperium laetitiam, et molestiam, et jactationem; et inveni ego eam amariorem, quam mortem: non quia amara sit mors, sed quia impio amara; et tamen amarior vita quam mors. Gravius est enim ad peccatum vivere, quam in peccato mori; quia impius quamdiu vivit, peccatum auget: si moriatur, peccare desinit. Sanctus Ambrosius Mediolanensis, De Bono Mortis

Whence to this attend, of which the Psalmist says, 'He who has not received his soul in vain.'1 In vain he receives his soul (so now let us speak of this troubled life) who fashions a worldly life, building up the flesh. Every day we rise to eating and drinking and no one is satisfied, since not even after a moment one may hunger and thirst. Every day we seek wealth and no one places a limit on avarice. 'The eye shall not be satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing.'2 He who loves coin shall not be satisfied with coin. No end of labour, and no abundance of fruit. We desire every day to know new things and what is this knowledge but to add to grief every day? 'Everything which is now was, and there is nothing new under the sun but all is vanity. For all life I have had hate,'3 says Ecclesiastes. He who has had hate for life has thus spoken of death. Next he praises the dead more than the living and he judges blessed he who has not come into this life, he who has not taken up vain labour here. 'It has surrounded my heart, he said, to know the joy of impiety and I pondered and I sought wisdom and numbers that I might know through rule joy and trouble and boasting, and I found in it more bitter than death,'4 not because death is bitter but because it is bitter to the impious, and yet life is more bitter than death. More burdensome it is to live in sin than to die in sin, because while the impious man lives his sin grows, if he dies his sin ceases. Saint Ambrose, On the Good of Death  1 Ps 23.4  2 Eccl 1.8 3 Eccl 2.17  4 Eccl 7.26