Jerome : "So I consider more fortunate the dead, who have already died, than the living, who are still alive. But better than either of them is he who has not yet been, and has never witnessed the evil that is committed under the sun." In comparison with the difficulties, which trouble mortal men in this world, I had judged the dead to be happier than the living according to that which Job says in his argument regarding the dead: " there they rested with tired bodies, with those who had been in chains, now without cares, not hearing the voice of the expeller." [Iob. 3, 17, 18.] But it is better for these two, for the living it seems and for the deceased, who has not yet been born. For one man will suffer ill, another unclothed will escape it as if from a shipwreck. Moreover he who has not yet been born is happier in that, becausehe has not yet experienced the ill of the world. But he says this, not because he who has not yet been born, exists before he has been born, and he is happier in this, since he has not yet been weighed down by his body; but better to be sure is not existing, or not having a sense of wealth, than either being unhappy or living unhappily. Just as the Lord speaks to Judas, referring to his coming anguish: "it was better for that man never to have been born" [Matth. 26, 24.], since it would have been better for sure for him not to have existed, than to suffer eternal torture. Some people in fact understand this passage in this way: they say they are better, who have died, than those who are living, it is permitted to them before they were sinners [Cfr. Origines peri Archon I. 5,5 ; Hier. Epist 124, 3. sqq]. For until now the living were in battle and were held back as if closed in by the prison of the body; but those who have opposed death are already without cares and have stopped sinning. Just like John, in which he was not greater in respect to the sons of women, he is less than him, who is the lowest in the realm of heaven and is freed from the burden of the body. He does not know how to say like the apostle: "I am a wretched man, who will free me from the body of this death?" [Rom. 7, 14.]. But he says he is better than those two, who has not yet been born, nor does not see the wickedness, by which men are oppressed in the world. For our souls mingle among the gods, before descending to these bodies and are blessed so long as the heavenly ones are held in Jerusalem and in the choir of angels. — Commentary on Ecclesiastes