On Jealousy and Envy

To be jealous of what you see to be good and to envy those better than you seems to some, dearest brothers, a light and small offense; and while it is thought light and small it is not feared; while it is not feared it is despised; while it is despised it is not easily avoided; and it becomes a blind and hidden ruin which, being too little perceived to be guarded against by the prudent, secretly afflicts imprudent minds. But the Lord commanded us to be prudent, and charged us to keep watch with careful concern, lest the adversary, himself always watchful and always lying in wait, when he has crept into the heart, should blow sparks into a blaze, magnify the smallest things into the greatest, and, while he flatters the careless and unwary with a gentler breeze and a softer breath, should stir up storms and whirlwinds and contrive the ruin of faith and the shipwreck of salvation and life. We must therefore keep guard, dearest brothers, and labor with all our strength, so that with anxious and full vigilance we may resist the raging enemy, who aims his darts at every part of the body where we can be struck and wounded, as the apostle Peter forewarns and teaches in his letter, saying: “Be sober, keep watch, for your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking something to devour.”

He goes about each one of us, and, like an enemy besieging those shut up inside, he examines the walls and tests whether there is some part of the members less steady and less trustworthy, through whose entrance he may penetrate to the inner parts. He offers the eyes enticing forms and easy pleasures, to destroy chastity through sight. He tempts the ears with tuneful music, to loosen and soften Christian vigor by hearing sweeter sounds. He provokes the tongue to abuse; he incites the hand, when injuries provoke it, to the insolence of murder. To make a man a cheat, he sets unjust gains before him; to capture the soul with money, he thrusts ruinous profits upon it; he promises earthly honors to take away heavenly ones; he displays false things to steal away true ones; and when he cannot deceive secretly, he threatens openly and plainly, holding out the terror of turbulent persecution, always restless and always hostile in fighting down the servants of God: crafty in peace, violent in persecution.

Therefore, dearest brothers, against all the devil's snares, whether deceitful, or his open threats, the mind must stand prepared and armed, always as ready to resist as the enemy is always ready to attack. And since his weapons that creep up secretly are more frequent, and his hidden and secret shooting, the less it is perceived, the more grievously and frequently it advances to wound us, let us keep watch to understand and repel these too. Among them is the evil of jealousy and envy. If anyone examines it closely, he will find that nothing is more to be guarded against by a Christian, nothing more carefully provided against, than that anyone be caught by envy and spite, that anyone, entangled in the blind snares of the deceiving enemy, while a brother is turned by jealousy to hatred of his brother, should himself unknowingly perish by his own sword. And so that we may gather this more fully and see it more plainly, let us go back to its head and origin. Let us see from where jealousy began, and when, and how. For so ruinous an evil will be more easily avoided by us if both the origin and the greatness of that evil are known.

From this the devil, at the very beginning of the world, both perished first and destroyed others. He, supported by angelic majesty, he, acceptable and dear to God, after he saw man made in the image of God, broke out into jealousy with malevolent envy; not casting down another by the impulse of jealousy before he himself had first been cast down by jealousy; captive before capturing, lost before destroying; while, driven by envy, he snatches from man the grace of the immortality that had been given him, he himself also lost what he had been before. What an evil it is, dearest brothers, by which an angel fell, by which that lofty and splendid sublimity could be circumvented and overthrown, by which he himself who deceived was deceived! From then on envy rages on the earth, as one who is to perish by envy obeys the master of perdition, as one who is jealous imitates the devil, as it is written: “But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world.” So those who are on his side imitate him.

From this, in short, began the first hatreds of the new brotherhood; from this, unspeakable murders of kin, when unrighteous Cain is jealous of righteous Abel, when the evil man persecutes the good with envy and spite. So strong was the fury of rivalry to accomplish the crime that neither love of his brother, nor the enormity of the crime, nor the fear of God, nor the punishment of the offense was considered. He was unjustly struck down who had first shown righteousness; he suffered hatred who knew not how to hate; he was impiously killed who did not resist as he died. And that Esau became the enemy of his brother Jacob was jealousy: for because the one had received his father's blessing, the other blazed up with the torches of envy into the hatred of persecution. And that his brothers sold Joseph, the cause of the sale came from rivalry: after he had simply explained to his brothers, as a brother, the good fortune that had been shown him in visions, their malevolent minds broke out into envy. And King Saul too: that he hated David, that he wished with often repeated persecutions to kill an innocent man, merciful and patient with mild gentleness, what else provoked him but the goad of jealousy? Because, when Goliath had been killed and so great an enemy destroyed by God's help and favor, the people in admiration burst out in praise of David with acclamation, Saul conceived out of envy the furies of rivalry and pursuit. And not to make it long by going through them one by one, let us consider the destruction of a people that perished once for all. Did not the Jews perish from this, while they preferred to envy Christ rather than believe him? Disparaging the mighty works which he did, they were deceived by blinding jealousy and could not open the eyes of the heart to know divine things.

Considering these things now, dearest brothers, let us fortify, watchfully and bravely, the hearts dedicated to God against so ruinous an evil. Let the death of others profit our salvation; let the punishment of the imprudent bring health to the prudent. But there is no reason for anyone to think that this evil is contained in one form, or confined within brief boundaries and a narrow limit. The manifold and fertile ruin of jealousy spreads widely. It is the root of all evils, the source of disasters, the seedbed of offenses, the material of faults. From it hatred arises; from it animosity proceeds. Jealousy inflames avarice, when someone cannot be content with his own, seeing another richer. Jealousy stirs up ambition, when someone sees another raised higher in honors. When jealousy blinds our senses and brings the secret places of the mind under its dominion, the fear of God is scorned, the teaching of Christ neglected, the day of judgment not provided for. Pride puffs up, cruelty embitters, faithlessness betrays, impatience shakes, discord rages, anger boils; nor can he any longer restrain or govern himself who has been brought under another's power. From this the bond of the Lord's peace is broken; from this brotherly love is violated; from this truth is adulterated, unity is split, people rush into heresies and schisms, while priests are disparaged, while bishops are envied, while someone either complains that he himself was not ordained instead or disdains to bear another set over him. From this he kicks back, from this he rebels, proud from jealousy, perverse from rivalry, an enemy, through animosity and envy, not of the man but of the office.

What a moth of the soul it is, what a wasting of the thoughts, what a rust of the heart, to be jealous of another's virtue or happiness, that is, to hate in him either his own merits or God's gifts; to turn the good of others into one's own harm; to be tormented by the prosperity of the eminent; to make the glory of others one's own punishment; to bring executioners, as it were, up to one's own breast, and to set torturers upon one's own thoughts and feelings, to tear oneself with inward torments and to beat upon the secrets of the heart with the claws of ill will. For such people no food can be glad, no drink pleasant. They are always sighing and groaning and grieving; and since the envious never lay aside their jealousy, the besieged heart is torn day and night without respite. Other evils have a limit, and whatever wrong is done ends when the wrong is completed. In the adulterer the crime ceases once the act of lust is done; in the robber the wickedness rests once the murder is committed; the seizure of the booty puts an end to the plunderer's greed, and the completion of the fraud sets a limit to the forger. Jealousy has no limit: it is an evil that lasts continually and a sin without end; and the more the one who is envied advances in better success, the more the envious man blazes up with the fires of jealousy into a greater conflagration.

Hence the threatening look, the grim glance, pallor in the face, trembling on the lips, gnashing of the teeth, raging words, unbridled abuse, a hand ready for murderous violence, even if for the moment it is empty of a sword, yet armed with the hatred of a maddened mind. And therefore the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms: “Do not be jealous of him who prospers in his way.” And again: “The sinner will watch the righteous and gnash his teeth at him. But God will laugh at him, for he foresees that his day will come.” The blessed apostle Paul marks and points out such people when he says: “The poison of asps is under their lips, and their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways; they have not known the way of peace; there is no fear of God before their eyes.”

The evil is much lighter and the danger smaller when the limbs are wounded by the sword. The cure is easy where the wound is plain to see, and what can be seen is quickly brought back to health when a remedy comes to its aid. The wounds of jealousy are hidden and secret; they do not admit the remedy of a healer's care, since they have shut themselves up with blind pain inside the hiding place of the conscience. Whoever you are, envious and malicious man, see how treacherous, how ruinous, how hostile you are to those you hate: yet you are the enemy of no one's salvation more than your own. Whoever it is that you pursue with jealousy can slip away and avoid you; you cannot flee from yourself. Wherever you are, your adversary is with you; the enemy is always in your breast; destruction is shut up within; you are bound and fettered by an inescapable tangle of chains; you are a captive with jealousy for your master, and no comfort comes to your aid. It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God; it is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy.

And therefore, dearest brothers, the Lord, taking thought for this danger lest anyone should run into the snare of death through jealousy of his brother, when the disciples asked him who among them was the greatest, said: “Whoever is least among you all, he will be great.” By his answer he cut off all rivalry; he dug out and cut away every cause and occasion of biting envy. A disciple of Christ may not be jealous, may not envy. Among us there can be no contest for exaltation: from humility we grow to the heights; we have learned how to please. And so the apostle Paul too, instructing and admonishing that we, who have been enlightened by the light of Christ and have escaped the darkness of the night's way of life, should walk in the deeds and works of light, writes and says: “The night has passed, and the day has drawn near. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lusts and impurity, not in quarreling and jealousy.” If the darkness has departed from your breast, if the night has been scattered from it, if the gloom has been wiped away, if the brightness of the day has lit up your senses, if you have begun to be a man of light, do the things that are Christ's, for Christ is the light and the day.

Why do you rush into the darkness of jealousy? Why do you wrap yourself in the cloud of envy? Why do you put out all the light of peace and love with the blindness of envy? Why do you go back to the devil, whom you had renounced? Why do you turn out like Cain? For the apostle John declares in his letter that whoever is jealous of his brother and hates him is bound by the crime of murder, saying: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” And again: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” Whoever hates his brother, he says, walks in darkness and does not know where he is going. For he goes unknowing into Gehenna; ignorant and blind, he is hurled headlong into punishment, departing, that is, from the light of Christ, who warns and says: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” And he follows Christ who holds fast to his commands, who walks the way of his teaching, who follows his footsteps and paths, who imitates what Christ both taught and did, as Peter too exhorts and admonishes, saying: “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps.”

We ought to remember by what name Christ calls his people, by what title he names his flock. He calls them sheep, so that Christian innocence may be like that of sheep; he calls them lambs, so that simplicity of mind may imitate the simple nature of lambs. Why does the wolf hide under sheep's clothing? Why does he who falsely calls himself a Christian disgrace the flock of Christ? To put on the name of Christ and not to go by Christ's way, what else is it than a betrayal of the divine name, a desertion of the way of salvation? For he himself teaches and says that he comes to life who has kept the commandments; that he is wise who has heard his words and done them; that he also is called greatest in the kingdom of heaven who has taught and has so done; that what has been well and usefully preached will then profit the preacher if what is uttered by the mouth is fulfilled by the deeds that follow. What did the Lord impress more often on his disciples, what among his saving admonitions and heavenly precepts did he command to be kept and observed more than that we too should love one another with the same love with which he himself loved the disciples? And how does he keep either the peace of the Lord or his love who, with jealousy coming between, can be neither peaceable nor loving?

Therefore the apostle Paul too, when he set out the merits of peace and love, and when he firmly asserted and taught that neither faith nor almsgiving nor even the very suffering of a confessor and martyr would profit him unless he kept the bonds of love whole and inviolate, added and said: “Love is magnanimous, love is kind, love is not jealous,” teaching, that is, and showing that whoever is magnanimous and kind and a stranger to jealousy and envy can keep love. Likewise in another place, admonishing that a man already filled with the Holy Spirit and made a son of God by heavenly birth should pursue only spiritual and divine things, he writes and says: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal ones, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not able; for you are still carnal. For where there is jealousy and strife and dissension among you, are you not carnal and walking in a merely human way?”

The vices and sins of the flesh must be crushed, dearest brothers, and the harmful stain of the earthly body trampled down with spiritual strength, lest, while we roll back again into the way of life of the old man, we become entangled in deadly snares, as the apostle forewarns of this very thing with foresight and for our salvation: “Therefore, brothers,” he says, “let us not live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will begin to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the works of the flesh, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” If we are sons of God, if we have already begun to be his temples, if, having received the Holy Spirit, we live holily and spiritually, if we have lifted our eyes from earth to heaven, if we have raised to things above and divine a heart full of God and Christ, let us do only what is worthy of God and Christ, as the apostle rouses and exhorts us: “If you have risen with Christ,” he says, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; set your minds on the things that are above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, appears, then you too will appear in glory.” We, then, who in baptism have both died and been buried as to the carnal sins of the old man, who have risen with Christ by heavenly regeneration, let us both think and do the things that are Christ's, as the same apostle again teaches and admonishes, saying: “The first man is from the clay of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the one from clay, so are those from clay; and as is the heavenly one, so are the heavenly. As we have borne the image of him who is from clay, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven.” But we cannot bear the heavenly image unless, in what we have now begun to be, we show the likeness of Christ.

For this is to have changed what you were and to have begun to be what you were not: that the divine birth may shine in you, that a godly discipline may answer to God the Father, that God may be glorified in man by the honor and praise of his life, as he himself exhorts and admonishes and promises a return to those who glorify him: “Those who glorify me,” he says, “I will glorify, and he who despises me will be despised.” Forming and preparing us for this glorification, the Lord and Son of God, impressing on us the likeness of God the Father, says in his Gospel: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be like your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” If it is a joy and a glory to men to have children like themselves, and if begetting delights them more when the offspring that follows answers to the father with like features, how much greater is the joy in God the Father when someone is so born spiritually that a divine nobility is proclaimed in his deeds and praises! What palm of righteousness is it, what crown, to be such a one that God does not say of you: “I have begotten and raised sons, but they have despised me”? Let Christ rather praise you and invite you to the reward, saying: “Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

With such meditations, dearest brothers, the mind must be strengthened; by exercises of this kind it must be made firm against all the darts of the devil. Let the divine reading be in our hands, the thought of the Lord in our minds; let unceasing prayer never stop at all; let saving work continue. Let us always be busy with spiritual activities, so that whenever the enemy approaches, as often as he tries to draw near, he may find the heart closed and armed against him. For a Christian's crown is not only the one received in time of persecution. Peace too has its crowns, with which we are crowned as victors in varied and manifold combat, when the adversary has been laid low and subdued. To have subdued lust is the palm of self-control. To have fought back against anger and injury is the crown of patience. To despise money is a triumph over avarice. To endure the adversities of the world in confidence of things to come is the praise of faith. He who is not proud in prosperity gains glory from humility. He who is inclined to mercy in caring for the poor obtains the reward of heavenly treasure. And he who does not know how to be jealous, and who loves his brothers with one mind and gently, is honored with the reward of love and peace. In this stadium of virtues we run every day; to these palms and crowns of righteousness we come without pause.

That you too may be able to reach these, you who had been possessed by jealousy and envy, cast away all that malice by which you were held before, and reshape yourself for the way of eternal life with saving steps. Tear out of your breast the thorns and thistles, so that the Lord's seed may enrich you with a fruitful yield, so that a divine and spiritual crop may overflow into the abundance of a rich harvest. Vomit out the poisons of gall, shut out the venom of discord; let the mind be cleansed that the serpent's envy had infected; let all the bitterness that had settled within be softened by the sweetness of Christ. From the sacrament of the cross you take both food and drink: let the wood that at Marah availed in figure to make the taste sweet avail for you in truth to soothe your heart, and you will not have to labor for a remedy to restore your health. Be healed by the very thing by which you had been wounded. Love those whom you hated before; cherish those whom you envied with unjust slanders. Imitate the good, if you can follow them; if you cannot follow them, at least rejoice with your betters and congratulate them. Make yourself their partner in united love; make yourself their co-heir in the fellowship of love and the bond of brotherhood. Your debts will be forgiven you when you yourself have forgiven; your sacrifices will be accepted when you come to God as a peacemaker. Your thoughts and acts will be directed by God when you think on what is divine and just, as it is written: “Let the heart of a man think just things, that his steps may be directed by God.”

You have many things to think about. Think of paradise, to which Cain, who killed his brother out of jealousy, does not return. Think of the heavenly kingdom, into which the Lord admits only those who are of one heart and one mind. Think that only those can be called sons of God who are peacemakers, who, united by divine birth and law, answer to the likeness of God the Father and of Christ. Think that we stand under the eyes of God, that we run the course of our conduct and life with him watching and judging, that we can at last attain to seeing him only if we now delight him who sees us by our deeds, if we show ourselves worthy of his grace and indulgence, if we please him first in this world so as to please him forever in the kingdom.