Ambrose of Milan, on 1Thess 4:16

“Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so shall we be always with the Lord.”

“For truly death was no necessary part of the divine operation, since for those who were placed in paradise a continual succession of all good things streamed forth. Because of transgression, however, human life, condemned to lengthened labor, began to be wretched with intolerable groaning. Thus, it was fitting that an end should be set to the evils and that death should restore what life had lost. For immortality, unless grace breathed upon it, would be rather a burden than an advantage. And if one consider accurately, it is not the death of our being but of evil, for being continues, but it is evil that perishes.… So we shall either pay the penalty of our sins or attain to the reward of our good deeds. For the same being will rise again, now more honorably for having paid the tax of death. And then "the dead who are in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive will follow," it is said, "and together with them be caught up in the clouds into the air to meet the Lord, and so we shall always be with the Lord."”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.