Homilia de invidia

Homily 11. On Envy. God is good, and a giver of good things to those who are worthy. The devil is evil, and a craftsman of every kind of wickedness. And just as freedom from envy follows the good, so malice follows the devil. Let us therefore guard ourselves, brothers, against the passion of envy, lest we become partners in the works of the adversary and be found condemned with the same judgment. For if the one who is puffed up falls into the judgment of the devil, how will the envious man escape the punishment prepared for the devil? No passion is more destructive to human souls than envy; it, while causing the least pain to those outside, is first an evil and a private one to its possessor. For just as rust consumes iron, so envy consumes the soul that holds it. Or rather, just as vipers are said to be born by eating through the womb that conceived them, so envy naturally consumes the soul that gives it birth. For envy is grief at the good fortune of one's neighbor. Therefore, vexations and despondencies never leave the envious man. Has the neighbor's land yielded well? Is his household flourishing in all the things of life? Do joys not abandon the man? All these things are food for the disease and an addition to the pain for the envious one. So he differs in no way from a naked man being wounded by all. Is someone brave? Is he in good health? These things strike the envious man.

Another is more graceful in form; another wound for the envious man. So-and-so surpasses the many in the excellences of the soul, being looked upon and envied for prudence and power of speech? Another is wealthy and ambitiously shines in benefactions and fellowship with the needy, and receives much praise from those he benefits? All these are blows and wounds, striking his heart in the middle. And the harshness of the disease is that he cannot even speak it out; but he stoops, and is downcast, and is confused, and laments, and is undone by the evil. Yet when asked about his suffering, he blushes to make public his calamity, because "I am envious and bitter, and the good things of my friend consume me, and I bewail my brother's cheerfulness, and I cannot bear the sight of others' goods, but I make the prosperity of my neighbor a misfortune." For he would say these things, if he wished to speak the truth. Choosing to speak none of them, he keeps the disease deep within, secretly consuming his vitals and devouring them.

Therefore, he neither admits a physician for his disease nor can he discover any remedy to ward off the affliction, although the Scriptures are full of such cures. But he awaits one relief from the evil, if he should see any of the envied fallen. This is the limit of his hatred: to see the envied one wretched instead of blessed, to see the object of jealousy become pitiable. Then he makes peace and is a friend, when he sees him weeping, when he beholds him mourning. He does not rejoice with the cheerful, but he weeps with the lamenting. And he bewails the change of life, from what to what the man has fallen, not out of philanthropy or sympathy, magnifying the former state in speech, but in order to make the misfortune heavier for him. After death, he praises the child and exalts him with countless encomia—how beautiful to see, how quick to learn, how well-adapted to everything—though he would not have granted him a favorable word while he was alive. If, however, he sees many joining in the praise, he changes again and envies the dead man. He admires wealth after its loss. He praises and extols the beauty of the body, or its strength and good condition, after illnesses. In short, he is an enemy of present goods, a friend of those that are lost. What, then, could be more destructive than this disease? It is a corruption of life, a ruin of nature, an enmity toward the gifts given us by God, an opposition to God. What drove the primal demon into his war against men? Was it not envy?

through which he was clearly proven to be a fighter against God, being vexed with God for the great gift to man, and taking vengeance on man, since he could not on God. And Cain is shown to do the same things, the first disciple of the devil, taught envy and murder by him, the sister crimes, which Paul also yoked together, saying: "Full of envy, murder." What then did he do? He saw the honor from God, and was inflamed with jealousy, and killed the one honored, so as to strike at the one who honored. For being unable to fight against God, he fell into fratricide. Let us flee, brothers, a disease that teaches fighting against God, a mother of murder, a confusion of nature, an ignorance of kinship, a most irrational calamity. Why are you grieved, man, having suffered nothing terrible? Why do you war against one who is in some good, having diminished nothing of yours? But if you are also indignant when benefited, are you not plainly begrudging your own advantage? Such was Saul, who made the excesses of benefits the occasion for his war against David. For first, having been freed from his madness by that all-harmonious and divine music, he attempted to pierce his benefactor with a spear; then, having been saved together with his army from the enemy, and freed from the shame over Goliath, nevertheless, since in the victory songs the dancing women attributed to David ten times the cause of the events—"David struck among tens of thousands, and Saul among thousands of his own"—because of this one utterance, and the testimony that came from the truth itself, he attempted to become a murderer and to kill him from an ambush.

Then, having made him a fugitive, he did not stop his enmity even so, but finally, marching out against him with three thousand chosen men, he scoured the deserts. And if he had been asked the pretext for the war, he would certainly have cited the man’s benefactions. For at the very time of the persecution, being caught sleeping, lying ready for slaughter before his enemy, and again being spared by the righteous man, who refrained from laying hands on him, he was not softened even by this benefaction; but again he recruited soldiers, and again he persecuted, until, being captured a second time by the same man in the cave, he showed the other’s virtue more brilliant and made his own wickedness more evident. Envy is the most intractable form of enmity. For other enemies are made gentler by benefactions; but the envious and malicious man is provoked all the more by being well treated; and the greater the benefits he receives, the more he resents, grieves, and is vexed. For he is more distressed by the power of his benefactor than grateful for what is done for him. What beast do they not surpass in the harshness of their ways? What untamed creature do they not exceed in savagery? Dogs are tamed by being fed; lions become gentle when tended; but the envious are made more savage by attentions. What made the noble Joseph a slave? Was it not the envy of his brothers? And here it is worth admiring the irrationality of the disease. For, fearing the outcome of the dreams, they made their brother a slave, as if a slave would never be worshipped. Yet if the dreams were true, what device could prevent the prophecies from being fulfilled in every way?

But if the visions of dreams are false, why do you begrudge the one who is deceived? Now, however, by the economy of God, their cleverness is turned against them. For through the very means by which they thought to hinder the prophecy, they were seen to pave the way for its fulfillment. For if he had not been sold, he would not have come to Egypt; he would not have fallen, through his chastity, into the snares of the licentious woman; he would not have been cast into prison; he would not have become familiar with the servants of Pharaoh; nor would he have interpreted the dreams, from which he received the beginning of his rule over Egypt, and because of the famine, when his brothers came to him, he was worshipped by them. Let the discourse pass to the greatest envy, which arose over the greatest matters, that which came from the madness of the Jews against the Savior. Why was he envied? Because of the miracles. And what were these wonder-workings? The salvation of those in need: the hungry were fed, and the one who fed was warred against; the dead were raised, and the life-giver was begrudged; demons were driven out, and the one who commanded was plotted against; lepers were cleansed, and the lame walked, the deaf heard, and the blind saw, and the benefactor was driven into exile. And finally, they put to death the one who bestowed life, and they scourged the liberator of men, and they condemned the judge of the world. Thus the evils of envy have extended through all things. And with this one weapon, from the beginning of the world until the end of the age, the destroyer of our life, the devil, who fell through envy and casts us down with him through the same passion, wounds and overthrows all.

The wise man, then, was he who forbade even dining with the envious man, speaking from the fellowship at dinner about the whole of communion in life. For just as it is our care to store combustible material as far as possible from fire, so it is necessary, as far as possible, to lead friendships away from the company of the envious, placing ourselves outside the shafts of envy. For it is not otherwise possible to be entangled with envy without approaching it through familiarity. Since, according to the saying of Solomon, "Jealousy comes to a man from his companion." And indeed it is so. It is not the Scythian who envies the Egyptian, but each envies one of the same nation; and within the same nation, he does not envy the unknown, but the most intimate; and among the intimate, neighbors and those of the same craft, and those otherwise close; and among these again, those of the same age, relatives, and brothers. And in general, just as rust is a particular disease of wheat, so envy is a disease of friendship. Yet one might praise this evil for that, that the more violently it is stirred, the more grievous it is to its possessor. For just as arrows that are shot violently, when they strike something hard and resistant, return upon the one who shot them, so the movements of envy, harming the envied not at all, become blows to the envious man himself. For who, by being grieved, ever diminished the goods of his neighbor? He has, however, consumed himself, wasted away by his griefs. And indeed, those suffering from envy are suspected to be even more destructive than venomous creatures themselves.

If, on the one hand, some things inject their venom through a wound and gradually spread decay to the bitten part, certain people think that the envious inflict harm even through their eyes alone, so that well-conditioned bodies, which have bloomed into full prime from the peak of their age, are wasted away by their bewitchment, and the whole bulk is destroyed all at once, as if some destructive stream flows from the envious eyes, spoiling and corrupting. But I dismiss this account as vulgar and introduced into the women's quarters by old wives. I say this, however: that the malevolent demons, when they find dispositions akin to their own, use them in every way for their own purpose, so that they even employ the eyes of the envious in service of their own will. Then do you not shudder at making yourself a servant of a destructive demon, but instead welcome an evil through which you will become an enemy of those who have done no wrong, and an enemy of God, who is good and without envy? Let us flee an unbearable evil.

It is a teaching of the serpent, an invention of demons, a sowing of the enemy, a pledge of punishment, an obstacle to piety, a road to Gehenna, a deprivation of the kingdom. And those who envy are somehow manifest even in their countenance. Their eye is dry and without luster, their cheek downcast, their brow contracted, their soul confounded by the passion, having no criterion of truth in matters. No action praiseworthy according to virtue is found among them, no power of speech adorned with dignity and graces, nor anything else of what is zealously sought and admired. And just as vultures are borne toward foul-smelling things, flying over many meadows and many pleasant and fragrant places, and flies pass over what is healthy but hasten to a wound, so the envious do not even look upon the splendors of life and the greatness of achievements, but attack the rotten parts; and if something goes amiss—as many human things do—they publicize this and wish to know men from such things, like bad painters who indicate the forms of those they paint from a crooked nose or from some scar or mutilation, whether natural or resulting from an affliction. They are clever at disparaging what is praiseworthy by twisting it for the worse, and at slandering virtue from a neighboring vice. For they call the brave man rash, the temperate man insensible, the just man harsh, the prudent man crafty. And they slander the magnanimous man as vulgar, the liberal man as prodigal; again, the economical man as stingy.

And in general, all the forms of virtue do not lack a name among them, a name transferred from the opposing vice. What then? Shall we stop our discourse at the accusation of evil? But this is, as it were, only half of the cure. For to show the sick man the magnitude of the disease, so as to instill in him a proper concern for the evil, is not useless; but to leave off at this point, without leading him by the hand toward health, is nothing other than to abandon the sick man to his infirmity. What then? How might we not suffer the disease from the beginning, or, if overtaken, escape it? If, first of all, we judge nothing human to be great or extraordinary—not wealth among men, not glory that blooms, not bodily good condition. For we are not defined as having the good in transitory things, but we are called to a participation in eternal and true goods. So the rich man is not yet enviable because of his wealth; nor the powerful man because of the bulk of his office; nor the strong man because of the strength of his body; nor the wise man because of the abundance of his speech. For these are instruments of virtue for those who use them well, not possessing blessedness in themselves. The one who uses them badly is pitiable, like a man who, with the sword he received for defense against enemies, willingly wounds himself; but if he handles present things well and according to right reason, and is a steward of what comes from God, not hoarding for his own enjoyment, he is justly praised and loved for the brotherly love and sociability of his character.

Again, someone excels in prudence and has been honored by the word of God, and is an interpreter of the sacred writings. Do not envy such a person, nor ever wish to silence the herald of the sacred mysteries, if by the grace of the Spirit some acceptance and praise from the hearers follows. For the good is yours, and the gift of teaching was sent to you through your brother, if you are willing to receive it. Moreover, no one blocks a flowing spring, and when the sun shines, no one covers his eyes nor casts an evil eye upon it, but prays for his own enjoyment of it. But when a spiritual discourse springs forth in the Church, and a pious heart pours forth from the gifts of the Spirit, do you not offer your ears with gladness? Do you not gratefully receive the benefit? Instead, the applause of the hearers stings you, and you would wish that neither the one being benefited nor the one praising existed. What defense will these things have before the judge of our hearts? Now, it is necessary to consider that the good of the soul is naturally noble. But as for the one who is preeminent in wealth, who is proud of his power, and of a healthy body, and who uses well what he has, one should love and cherish him, as one who possesses the common instruments of life, if indeed he handles these things according to right reason: so that by the supply of money he is generous to those in need, and by his body he provides service to the sick, and considers all his remaining abundance not more his own than that of anyone in need. But the one who is not so disposed toward these things should be considered wretched rather than enviable, if he has greater resources for being evil.

This is to be destroyed by greater preparation and effort. For if wealth is a provision for injustice, the rich man is pitiable; but if it is a service to virtue, envy has no place, since the common benefit from it lies before all—unless someone, by the abundance of his wickedness, should begrudge even himself the good things. In general, however, having risen above human affairs in thought and looked to what is truly good and praiseworthy, you would be far from judging anything perishable and earthly as blessed and enviable. For one who is in this state, and not astounded by worldly things as if they were great, it is impossible for envy ever to arise. But if you are wholly desirous of glory and wish to outshine the many, and for this reason cannot bear to be second (for this too is indeed a starting point for envy), then transfer your ambition, like a stream, to the acquisition of virtue. Do not wish to be rich by any means whatsoever, nor to be esteemed through worldly affairs. For these things are not in your power; but be just, temperate, prudent, brave, and patient in sufferings for piety. For thus you will both save yourself and have greater renown for greater goods. Virtue is in our power and can be acquired by the diligent; but the acquisition of wealth, bodily beauty, and the weight of offices are not in our power. Therefore, since virtue is both a greater and more enduring good, and has undisputed preference from all, we must pursue this.

for it to be engendered in the soul, which is not purified from the other passions and especially from envy, is impossible. Do you not see how great an evil hypocrisy is? And this is a fruit of envy. For the duplicity of character arises in men especially from envy, when, concealing hatred in the depth, they display a surface smeared with love, like submerged rocks which, covered by a little water, become an unforeseen evil to the unwary. If, therefore, death has flowed to us from that source as from a spring, the loss of goods, alienation from God, confusion of ordinances, and the overthrow of all that is good in life together, let us be persuaded by the Apostle, and let us not become vainglorious, challenging one another, envying one another; but rather let us be kind, compassionate, granting favors to one another, as also God granted to us, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom glory is to the Father together with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.