In my judgment (if my view is not mistaken) it is a more serious thing to be stripped of resources than to be killed. That is true at least if death entirely removes our perception of evil, while a life of poverty produces endless misfortune - claims which, as you know, are frequently found in literature. It is a more serious matter to live a life full of evils than to put an end to those evils by dying.

nectarius, letter 103 to augustine, p.9

telling that this is how the roman world thought. nectarius, a pagan, lives in a culture of death. death is less evil than an impoverished life. we say that death is a shadow and to bow to it a crime. perhaps, like chesterton would say, nectarius is just bored with the world.