Didymus the Blind : Take the case that someone has subjects, for example, children or slaves. If he is angry with them and in a fury so that he limits the evil, then his anger is good, not anger as such, but the anger of a father over his child, of a guardian's anger over his charge.…He calls that kind of anger good that prevents sins from becoming so big that punishment has to follow. — COMMENTARY ON Ecclesiastes 199:22 Jerome : "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to his heart. "It is more useful to go to the rites of a funeral than to the house where there is a party, since at the house of mourning we are warned of our creator and of our mortality on account of seeing the dead body. But in the happiness of a party, even if we seem to have any fear, we lose it. Symmachus interpreted the last verse by saying, "and he who lives, will look back in his mind". There is proof in these verses, in that God is seen to approve food and drink, but not seen to prefer desire to all these things, with the result that many men value them wrongly. But in comparison with avarice and too much sparing, feasting is allowed in a small way, or allowed to him, who enjoys his work completely every moment. For he had never preferred the sadness of mourning to the enjoyment of a party, if he had thought at any moment to drink and eat. — Commentary on Ecclesiastes John Chrysostom : "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter." What sayest thou, I ask? Is it better to go where there is weeping, lamentation, and groans, and anguish, and so much sadness, than where there is the dance, the cymbals, and laughter, and luxury, and full eating and drinking? Yes, verily, he replies. And tell me why is it so, and for what reason? Because, at the former place, insolence is bred, at the latter, sobriety. And when a person goes to the banquet of one more opulent, he will no longer behold his own house with the same pleasure, but he comes back to his wife in a discontented mood; and in discontent he partakes of his own table; and is peevish towards his own servants, and his own children, and every body in his house; perceiving his own poverty the more forcibly by the wealth of others. And this is not the only evil; but that he also often envies him who hath invited him to the feast, and returns home having received no benefit at all. But with regard to the house of mourning, nothing of this sort can be said. On the contrary, much spiritual wisdom is to be gained there, as well as sobriety. For when once a person hath passed the threshold of a house which contains a corpse, and hath seen the departed one lying speechless, and the wife tearing her hair, mangling her cheeks, and wounding her arms, he is subdued; his countenance becomes sad; and every one of those who sit down together can say to his neighbour but this, "We are nothing, and our wickedness is inexpressible!" What can be more full of wisdom than these words, when we both acknowledge the insignificance of our nature, and accuse our own wickedness, and account present things as nothing? Giving utterance, though in different words, to that very sentiment of Solomon—that sentiment which is so marvellous and pregnant with Divine wisdom—"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." He who enters the house of mourning, weeps forthwith for the departed, even though he be an enemy. Seest thou how much better that house is than the other? for there, though he be a friend, he envies; but here, though he be an enemy, he weeps. — Homilies Concerning the Statues, Homily 15