Caput XXII. De invidia
The Devil's Envy and the Fall
Tracing envy back to the devil, who through jealousy brought death into the world and cast man out of paradise.
Through the devil's envy death entered the world (Wis. 2:24). While he envied earthly man heaven, he looked for a way to destroy him through the transgression of that commandment which the Creator established for man. Nothing can be more wicked than envy, which is tormented by the good things of others, and because it does not have them itself, it resents others having them. Envy is an enemy to all that is good. Where there is envy, love cannot exist. And where there is no love, nothing good can exist. Whoever envies is like the devil, who through envy cast man out of the happiness of paradise.✦
The Nature and Poison of Envy
Envy is exposed as the enemy of all good, incompatible with love, and a self-inflicted torment that wastes away as others flourish.
It is a great person who overcomes envy with humility and destroys discord with love. What is more miserable to a person than to have made another's good into his own punishment? For every envious person is tormented in soul. Where the good person grows, the envious person wastes away.
Overcoming Envy with Love
The chapter closes by urging believers to imitate the good rather than envy them, and to make another's good their own through love.
It is better to imitate the examples of good people than to goad them with the sting of envy. Envy bites the sense, burns the heart, and afflicts the mind. Let no one grieve over another's good or be saddened by another's happiness. Therefore a person can make another's good his own, when he loves in another what he does not do in himself.
Read the original Latin
Invidia diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum (Sap. II, 24). Dum invidebat homini terreno coelum, quaerebat quomodo eum perderet per transgressionem illius mandati, quod Creator homini statuit. Nihil nequius potest esse invidia, quae alienis torquetur bonis: et quod ipsa non habet, alios invidet habere. Omnibus inimica est bonis invidia. Ubi est invidia, charitas esse non potest. Et ubi charitas non est, ibi nihil boni esse poterit. Qui invidet, diabolo similis est, qui per invidiam hominem de paradisi felicitate dejecit.
Magnus vir est, qui invidiam humilitate superat, discordiam charitate destruit. Quid infelicius est homini, quam alterius bonum suum egisse supplicium? Omnis enim invidus animo torquetur. Unde igitur bonus proficit, inde invidus contabescit. Melius est bonorum imitari exempla, quam eos invidiae stimulo agitare. Invidia sensum mordet, pectus urit, mentem affligit. Nullus de alterius cujuslibet doleat bono, vel felicitate aliena constristetur. Potest itaque homo alterius bonum suum facere, dum amat in altero, quod in se non facit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.3.24 — So he drove out the man, and he settled east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turns every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
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