The Dead, The Living, and The Unborn

Et laudavi ego mortuos, qui jam mortui sunt, super viventes quicumque ipsi vivunt usque nunc. Et melior super hos duos qui nondum natus est, qui nondum vidit opus malum, quod factum est sub sole. Ad comparitionem miseriarum, quae in hoc saeculo mortales premunt, feliciores judicavi mortuos, quam viventes, secundum illud Job de inferis disputantis: 'Ibi requieverunt lassi corpore, cum his qui vincti fuerant, jam securi, non audientes vocem exactoris  Melior autem est his duobus, vivente videlicet et defuncto, qui necdum natus est. Alius enim adhuc mala patitur, alius quasi de naufrasgio nudus evasit. Porro qui necdum natus est, in eo felicior est, quod necdum mala mundi expertus est. Hoc autem dicit, non quod qui necdum natus est, ante sit quam nascatur, et in eo felicior sit, quia necdum corpore praegravatus est: sed quod melius sit omnino non esse, nec sensum habere substantiae, quam infeliciter vel esse, vel vivere. Quomodo et de Juda Dominus loquitur, futura ejus tormenta significans: Melius erat non nasci homini illi  quod melius ei fuerit omnino non esse, quam aeternos cruciatus perpeti. Alii vero hunc locum ita intelligunt: Meliores esse dicentes eos, qui mortui sunt, ab his qui vivunt, licet ante fuerint peccatores. Viventes enim adhuc esse in praelio, et quasi clausos corporis ergastulo retentari; qui vero mortem obierint, jam esse securos, et peccare desisse. Sicut et Joannes, quo major non fuit in natis mulierum , minor est eo, qui minimus est in regno coelorum, et corporis onere liberatus, nescit cum Apostolo dicere: Miser ego homo, quis me liberabit, de corpore mortis hujus  Meliorem autem his duobus esse eum, qui necdum natus est, nec vidit mala, quibus in mundo homines deprimuntur.  Sanctus Hieronymous, Commentarius Ecclesiasten, Liber I

'And I praised the dead, who had already died, over the living who now were living. And better than these two those who have not yet been born, who have not yet seen the evil that is done beneath the sun.' 1  By a comparison of miseries, which presses on the mortal men of this age, happier he judges the dead than living, according to which Job argues concerning those deceased: There rest the weary bodies, with those who were conquered, now safe, not hearing the voice of the exactor.' 2 Better than these two, the living and the dead, is he who has not been born. For the one suffers evils now and the other is as one who has escaped naked from a shipwreck. However, he who has not yet been born, in this is happier, that he has not yet experience of the evils of the world. He says not that he who is not yet born before he is born in that is happier, because the body does not yet weigh down, but better it is not to be, not to have sense of things, than to be unhappy or to live so. And the Lord said to Judas signifying his future punishment, 'Better it were that that man had not been born' 3 that better it were to him not to have been than to undergo the eternal torments. But others understand this passage in this manner: better are those who are dead than those who live, if it were that before they were sinners. For they live now in struggle, and as locked up in the prison of the body, but those who have met with death, they are already secure and have ceased to sin. So even John, compared to whom no one greater was born of woman,4 is less than him, he who is least of all those who are in the kingdom of heaven, and from the burden of the body freed, who does not know with the Apostle to say, 'A wretched man I am, who will free me from this body of death?'  5 Yet better than these is he who is not yet born, nor has seen the evils by which men in the world are oppressed. Saint Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Book 1 1 Eccl 4. 2-3 2 Job 3. 17-18 3 Mat 26.24 4 Mat 11.11 5 Rom 7.14