De bono mortis
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De bono mortis ("Death as a good") is a sermon by St. Ambrose (340–397), a Doctor of the Church. The text, which argues that death is not a bad thing to be feared, was written between 387 and 391. A companion piece or supplement to his De Iacob, it was composed "as two sermons, perhaps for the catechumens awaiting baptism at Easter".[2] Profoundly informed by neoplatonism, it is one of the texts through which Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose's pupil in Milan, came under the influence of that philosophy.
Ambrose argues that death is a good thing feared only by the foolish. The death of the body (other deaths he identifies are those of sin and to sin) is an emancipation of the soul, now free from the body, which is to be desired by all.[3]
The "three deaths" Ambrose distinguishes are "death to sin so as to live to God; death as the completion of this present life; and the death of the soul due to sin".[4] The death of the body ("natural death",[5] or "death as the completion of this present life") is, far from being bad or even neutral, a good thing.[4] According to Pierre Hadot, Ambrose derives this doctrine to a great extent from Origen; his neo-platonism—the language of Plato and Plotinus he received through Porphyry.[5]
De bono mortis, as does his De Isaac vel anima, contains passages derived from Plotinus's Enneads, and the two exerted an influence on Augustine of Hippo, who was living in Milan teaching rhetoric and studying neoplatonism, and may have listened to them as sermons.[6] One of the medieval codices that contains De bono mortis is the eighth-century Ragyndrudis Codex, a collection traditionally thought to have been used by Saint Boniface to protect himself during his martyrdom in 754.[7]