{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4135","native_reference":{"book_number":250,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Jerome</b>: \"So I<br/>consider more fortunate the dead, who have already died, than the living, who<br/>are still alive. But better than either<br/>of them is he who has not yet been, and has never witnessed the evil that is<br/>committed under the sun.\" In comparison with the difficulties, which<br/>trouble mortal men in this world, I had judged the dead to be happier than the<br/>living according to that which Job says in his argument regarding the dead:<br/>\" there they rested with tired bodies, with those who had been in chains,<br/>now without cares, not hearing the voice of the expeller.\" [Iob. 3, 17, 18.] But it is better for these two, for the<br/>living it seems and for the deceased, who has not yet been born. For one man will suffer ill, another<br/>unclothed will escape it as if from a shipwreck. Moreover he who has not yet been born is<br/>happier in that, becausehe has not<br/>yet experienced the ill of the world. <br/>But he says this, not because he who has not yet been born, exists<br/>before he has been born, and he is happier in this, since he has not yet been<br/>weighed down by his body; but better to be sure is not existing, or not having<br/>a sense of wealth, than either being unhappy or living unhappily. Just as the Lord speaks to Judas, referring<br/>to his coming anguish: \"it was better for that man never to have been<br/>born\" [Matth. 26, 24.],<br/>since it would have been better for sure for him not to have existed, than to<br/>suffer eternal torture. Some people in<br/>fact understand this passage in this way: they say they are better, who have<br/>died, than those who are living, it is permitted to them before they were<br/>sinners [Cfr. Origines peri Archon I. 5,5 ; Hier. Epist 124, 3. sqq]. For until now the living were in battle and<br/>were held back as if closed in by the prison of the body; but those who have<br/>opposed death are already without cares and have stopped sinning. Just like John, in which he was not greater<br/>in respect to the sons of women, he is less than him, who is the lowest in the<br/>realm of heaven and is freed from the burden of the body. He does not know how to say like the apostle:<br/>\"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<br/>has not yet been born, nor does not see the wickedness, by which men are<br/>oppressed in the world. For our souls mingle among the gods, before descending<br/>to these bodies and are blessed so long as the heavenly ones are held in<br/>Jerusalem and in the choir of angels.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ecclesiastes</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"128c77ff2adbca924ce7ce86ab91f06e8c9cf01eeb4a0adee196e8e08b0d0dbc","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4135,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"7528a24f1a4b13d6d330e03e34b29ba54120fd5ef3eaae3ca4cdec0a4576dd07","translator":null,"work":null}