On Jealousy and Envy.

 1. To be jealous of what you see to be good, and to be envious of those who are better than yourself, seems, beloved brethren, in the eyes of some peo

 2. He goeth about every one of us and even as an enemy besieging those who are shut up (in a city), he examines the walls, and tries whether there is

 3. Wherefore, beloved brethren, against all the devil’s deceiving snares or open threatenings, the mind ought to stand arrayed and armed, ever as read

 4. From this source, even at the very beginnings of the world, the devil was the first who both perished (himself) and destroyed (others). He who was

 5. Hence, in fine, began the primal hatreds of the new brotherhood, hence the abominable fratricides, in that the unrighteous Cain is jealous of the r

 6. Considering which things, beloved brethren, let us with vigilance and courage fortify our hearts dedicated to God against such a destructiveness of

 7. But what a gnawing worm of the soul is it, what a plague-spot of our thoughts, what a rust of the heart, to be jealous of another, either in respec

 8. Hence the threatening countenance, the lowering aspect, pallor in the face, trembling on the lips, gnashing of the teeth, mad words, unbridled revi

 9. The mischief is much more trifling, and the danger less, when the limbs are wounded with a sword. The cure is easy where the wound is manifest and

 10. And therefore, beloved brethren, the Lord, taking thought for this risk, that none should fall into the snare of death through jealousy of his bro

 11. Why do you rush into the darkness of jealousy? why do you enfold yourself in the cloud of malice? why do you quench all the light of peace and cha

 12. We ought to remember by what name Christ calls His people, by what title He names His flock. He calls them sheep, that their Christian innocence m

 13. Thus also the Apostle Paul, when he was urging the merits of peace and charity, and when he was strongly asserting and teaching that neither faith

 14. Vices and carnal sins must be trampled down, beloved brethren, and the corrupting plague of the earthly body must be trodden under foot with spiri

 15. For this is to change what you had been, and to begin to be what you were not, that the divine birth might shine forth in you, that the godly disc

 16. The mind must be strengthened, beloved brethren, by these meditations. By exercises of this kind it must be confirmed against all the darts of the

 17. To these rewards that you also may come who had been possessed with jealousy and rancour, cast away all that malice wherewith you were before held

 18. And you have many things to consider. Think of paradise, whither Cain does not enter, who by jealousy slew his brother. Think of the heavenly king

7. But what a gnawing worm of the soul is it, what a plague-spot of our thoughts, what a rust of the heart, to be jealous of another, either in respect of his virtue or of his happiness; that is, to hate in him either his own deservings or the divine benefits—to turn the advantages of others into one’s own mischief—to be tormented by the prosperity of illustrious men—to make other people’s glory one’s own penalty, and, as it were, to apply a sort of executioner to one’s own breast, to bring the tormentors to one’s own thoughts and feelings, that they may tear us with intestine pangs, and may smite the secret recesses of the heart with the hoof of malevolence. To such, no food is joyous, no drink can be cheerful. They are ever sighing, and groaning, and grieving; and since envy is never put off by the envious, the possessed heart is rent without intermission day and night. Other ills have their limit; and whatever wrong is done, is bounded by the completion of the crime. In the adulterer the offence ceases when the violation is perpetrated; in the case of the robber, the crime is at rest when the homicide is committed; and the possession of the booty puts an end to the rapacity of the thief; and the completed deception places a limit to the wrong of the cheat.  Jealousy has no limit; it is an evil continually enduring, and a sin without end. In proportion as he who is envied has the advantage of a greater success, in that proportion the envious man burns with the fires of jealousy to an increased heat.13    [Another specimen of our author’s pithy condensations of thought and extraordinary eloquence.]

VII. Qualis vero est animae tinea, quae cogitationum tabes, pectoris quanta rubigo, zelare in altero vel virtutem ejus vel felicitatem, id est odisse in eo vel merita propria vel beneficia divina, in malum proprium bona aliena convertere, illustrium prosperitate torqueri, aliorum gloriam facere suam poenam, et velut quosdam pectori suo admovere carnifices, cogitationibus et sensibus suis adhibere tortores, qui se intestinis cruciatibus lacerent, qui cordis secreta malivolentiae ungulis pulsent! Non cibus talibus laetus, non potus potest esse jucundus. Suspiratur semper et ingemiscitur et doletur; dumque ab invidis numquam livor exponitur, diebus ac noctibus pectus obsessum 0643B sine intermissione laniatur. Mala caetera habent terminum , et quodcumque delinquitur, delicti consummatione finitur. In adultero cessat facinus perpetrato stupro, in latrone conquiescit scelus homicidio admisso, et praedoni rapacitatem statuit praeda possessa, et falsario modum ponit impleta fallacia. Zelus terminum non habet, permanens jugiter malum et sine fine peccatum; quantoque ille cui invidetur 0644A successu meliore profecerit, tanto invidus in majus incendium livoris ignibus inardescit.