From the early Church Fathers to now.
1 Patristic · 1 Medieval
“There is no man that liveth always, or that hopeth for this: a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
“Do not, I pray thee, in such a question trust to humility only or to gravity, which are often deceived. Better by far is a living dog in this problem than a dead lion. For a living saint may correct what had not been corrected by another who came before him.”
“Secondly, it is shown how pleasure arises from this. "No one lives forever." He has now shown how the vanity of false security arises from indistinction; here secondly he shows how pleasure arises from security: and indeed he does this in the following order. First is noted the certainty of death; second, the worsening of one's state through death; third, the commendation of pleasure; fourth, the confirmation of the commendation. First, therefore, the certainty of death is noted by the fact that no one escapes its judgment. Therefore he says: "There is no one who lives forever": therefore in the Psalm: "What man is there who shall live and not see death?" And into this condemnation Adam fell with his posterity, when it was said to him in Genesis 3: "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return." "And who has confidence in this matter," supply: no one; "in this matter," namely the hope of living forever: Job 7: "My days have passed more swiftly than a web is cut by the weaver, and they are consumed without any hope, for my life is wind, and it shall not return," etc. "A living dog is better," etc. Here secondly it is shown that through death there is a deterioration of condition: and he proposes this under a metaphor: "A living dog is better than a dead lion." Although a lion surpasses a dog, nevertheless death renders it inferior, because a living dog can do something, a dead lion can do nothing, and yet when living it is more powerful than a dog: Proverbs 30: "The lion, the mightiest of animals, shall tremble at the approach of none." Thus metaphorically he means to say that any living person, however lowly, is better than a dead person, however good.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.