Chapter I.
How Naboth and Ahab, though poor, are oppressed daily by the rich; even though nature has produced everyone as equals, and the grave receives equals: Ambrose criticizes the arrogance and foolishness of the wealthy on this matter.
1. 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.
How far will you extend, rich people, your insane desires? Will you alone inhabit the earth? Why do you cast out your companion nature? And claim for yourselves the possession of nature? The earth is founded for the common use of all, both rich and poor. Why do you, rich people, arrogate to yourselves exclusive rights to the land? Nature knows not the rich, for it begets all the poor. For we are not born with clothes, nor are we born with gold and silver. He sheds naked men into the light, needy of food, clothing, and drink: the earth receives naked those whom it has given birth to, not knowing how to enclose the boundaries of possessions in a tomb. A narrow plot of land is equally abundant to the poor and the wealthy: and the earth, which did not take into its care the emotions of the living, now encompasses the entire rich man. Therefore, nature does not know how to discern when we are born, nor does it know when we are overcome. It creates all alike, it closes all alike in the embrace of the tomb. Who can distinguish the appearance of the dead? Plow the land again, and if you can, discover wealth. Dig up a little later a mound, and if you recognize someone in need, argue; unless of course it is only with the wealthy that more is lost.
Silk robes, and cloaks woven with gold, with which the wealthy adorn their bodies, are the losses of the living, not the aids of the dead. You receive perfume when you are rich, and yet you stink: you lose the favor of others, and do not gain your own. You leave behind heirs who will fight amongst themselves. You leave a deposit to your heirs, rather than a voluntary gift, which they fear will diminish and violate what has been left. If your heirs are frugal, they will preserve it: if they are extravagant, they will exhaust it. Therefore, either you constantly condemn good heirs with worry, or you let go of the bad ones, so that your actions condemn you.