Ambrose of Milan : The story of Nabuthe is ancient, happening every day. For who among the wealthy does not desire another's possessions daily? Who among the very rich does not strive to evict the poor from their small plot of land and drive the destitute off their ancestral estate? Who is content with what they have? Whose heart is not inflamed by their neighbor's wealth? Therefore, it is not just one Achab who is born, but, what is worse, an Achab is born every day and never dies in this age. If one is killed, many rise up: more who take than who lose. Not only one Nabuthe the poor is killed: every day Nabuthe is struck down, every day the poor are killed. This human race, struck with fear, now yields its own lands, and with their little ones, the poor laden with their pledge, migrate. The weeping wife follows, as if she were accompanying her husband to the grave. She grieves less, however, who mourns the deaths of her own; because even though she has lost the protection of her husband, she possesses his tomb; and if she does not have children, nevertheless she does not lament the exiles, she does not sigh with heavier grief for the funeral rites of her tender offspring. — On Naboth the Jezreelite, Chapter 1, 1 Ambrose of Milan : An ancient story tells of the two neighbors, King Ahab and a poor man, Naboth. Which of these do we consider the poorer, which the richer: the one who had been endowed with a king's measure of wealth, insatiable and unsatisfied with his wealth, who longed for the little vineyard of the poor man; or the other, heartily despising a "king's fortune of much gold" and imperial wealth, who was satisfied with his vineyard? Does he not seem richer and more a king, since he had enough for himself and regulated his desires so that he wanted nothing that belonged to others? But was he not very poor whose gold was of no account, while he considered the other's vines of priceless value? Understand why he was so very poor: because riches amassed unjustly are disgorged, but the root of the righteous remains and flourishes like a palm tree. — Letter 38 (To Simplician), Section 8