Section VI: Duties of Charity. Of Envy

I. Extent of the duties of charity.—II. Definition of envy.—III. This sin directly combats charity.—IV. Resolutions.

I. Though one might gather from what has been said what the duties of charity are, yet it is fitting to enter into some detail. Fraternal charity ought to reign in our will, in our understanding, in our mouth and in our works. In the will it should annihilate all movements of envy, in the understanding it ought to stifle all thoughts injurious to the neighbor and all rash judgments; in our mouth it ought to retrench all angry, unkind words, all mockeries and slanders; in our actions it ought to avoid all that is bad or unjust, and exercise us in works of charity.

II. Envy is a vice by which we experience pain because of the good that may happen to our neighbor, considering it as a diminution of our good. To elucidate this definition, we will distinguish, with St. Thomas, four ways of feeling pain at the good of our neighbor. First, when we fear that the good of the neighbor will be a source of misfortune to others or to ourselves; this pain is not envy, and may be felt without sin. It often happens, says St. Gregory, that we rejoice at the misfortune of our enemy without wounding charity, and without any movement of envy; his prosperity afflicts us when we see, for example, that his fall would be an occasion of drawing many from misery, while his prosperity is established only by the ruin of those whom he unjustly despoils. Second, when we are afflicted at the good of our neighbor, not because he possesses it, but because we having need of it are deprived of it, this is not envy: Aristotle calls it zeal, emulation. When this affliction is experienced with reference to spiritual and eternal goods, it is laudable and virtuous; when it is felt with reference to temporal goods it is good or bad according to the intention and moderation with which it is felt. Third, when we grieve to see good happen to a man whom we judge unworthy of it. As these events being arranged by a wise disposition of Providence who governs all here below, who distributes riches and poverty, glory and infamy for very wise ends; this sadness is forbidden us by the Scripture, and the Royal Prophet says to us: Be not moved by the prosperity of the wicked, envy not those who commit iniquity; let the secret designs of Divine Providence have full scope. We may add that when we are afflicted at the increase of a person's riches or dignities, because knowing his weakness we fear that he will abuse these blessings, that they will be for him stumbling blocks, this sadness is not a vice but a virtue and an effect of charity. The fourth manner is to be afflicted at the good of our neighbor because it hinders or diminishes our own; this sadness is properly the vice of envy.

III. This sin is diametrically opposed to charity which excites us to will and procure good to our neighbor, and to rejoice in his prosperity; while this accursed vice inclines us not only to do no good to our neighbor but to be grieved and displeased at the good which happens to him. Cost what it will, this passion must be exterminated, we must root its smallest fibres out of our hearts, great and strong reasons oblige us to eradicate it. Envy, as St. Basil and other Fathers teach, is the vice proper to the demon who in Heaven envied the glory reserved to the human nature by its hypostatic union with the Divine Word, and who on earth envied Adam and his posterity the eternal beatitude prepared for them, and which led this infernal spirit to solicit man to sin, to make him lose this beatitude, and envelop him in his own misfortune. By the envy of the devil, says the Sage, death entered into the world, and all the envious are his imitators and disciples. It excited Cain to kill Abel, says St. Austin, the sons of Jacob to sell their brother Joseph, the Babylonians to expose Daniel to the hungry lions, and the Jews to crucify Our Lord. What rage! What fury! The patriarch Jacob speaking of the ill-will his children evinced towards their brother Joseph, says: They that held darts envied him. St. Jerome remarks on this text, that the Holy Ghost represents envy armed with darts to pierce those on whom it casts its hideous eye. But if envy causes so many evils to the objects of it, it causes many more to the envious person himself: first, it kills his soul by depriving it of grace, for it is of its own nature a mortal sin, though in its lesser degrees, it may be only venial; it fills the soul with sadness and weariness, and withers up the heart. The envious, says St. Basil, tastes no joy, sadness never abandons him, it is his element; as rust consumes the iron which produced it, as the worm gnaws the wood which engendered it, as the viper tears the entrails of its mother, so envy gnaws the heart of the envious, dries his bones and devours his whole substance. Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen, well says that envy is the most unjust sin and the most just: the most unjust because it is the enemy of all good, the most just because even in this world it puts hell in the heart of him who commits it. Evagoras said with much reason that the envious was the most miserable of all men, the most unfortunate of all sinners; for other sinners are tormented only by their own sins, but the envious is tormented by the good of others. Strange disorder! What ought to rejoice him afflicts him; as bright colors dazzle weak eyes, as our day is night in another hemisphere, the happiness of our neighbor becomes our misfortune. Vile and abject vice, which can dwell only in base souls!

Envy, says Ovid, is a base vice which cannot raise itself to anything good. St. Gregory and St. Thomas make a similar remark on these words of Job: Envy kills the weak, who thinks he has lost much because others surpass him in advantages. But what does his envy profit him? Does it rob others of the good they possess or augment his own good qualities? Quite the contrary; it robs himself of whatever good he possesses since it deprives him of grace, and hinders him from participating in the good of his neighbor, which would certainly happen, if, instead of giving way to envy, he rejoiced in his neighbor's prosperity; because charity makes us share in all the goods of Christians, who are our brothers.

IV. Convinced by these reasons let us fly this detestable and diabolical vice so contrary to charity which, as St. Paul says, envieth not, but which, as St. Gregory explains, makes us feel the evils of others as our own, share their joys, look on their losses as our own, and hail as blessings to ourselves all the good that happens them. St. Austin gives the reason of this. Charity, says he, ruins the empire of covetousness by sapping the two foundations on which it is established, namely, mine and thine, because it sees only God, and the neighbor in God, and in all that refers to His glory. But nothing is more proper to make an impression on us than the comparison St. Paul uses: All the members of the body are mutually careful one for another. And if one suffers anything, all the members suffer with it, or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it; the least noble member is not jealous of that which is created for the most noble functions; on the contrary, it aids it, and contributes all it can to enable it to perform worthily its charge. The finger, says St. Austin, is one of the least members of the human body, the eye is one of its most magnificent parts; yet a sound finger is better than a diseased eye: let the Christian seek in the mystic body of which he is a member, not to be among the noblest and most elevated in rank, but in health, which is no other thing than charity.

When, then, the prosperity of our neighbor excites in us any movement of envy, let us immediately combat it with the arms of charity, and let us stifle it in its birth. Far from feeling sad at my brother's happiness I will rejoice in it, I will desire its increase, and I will beg of God to grant him every blessing I ask for myself. Now is my joy complete, He must increase and I must decrease, said St. John Baptist to his disciples who sought to excite in him some motions of jealousy by telling him that all men were coming to Jesus, having quitted him. O how happy am I that my neighbor possesses this good! He must increase, and I must decrease; he must be elevated and I abased, because He merits it more than I. We must then consider in the neighbor, Jesus Christ Our Lord, who is glorified by the advantages we procure him. Scipio Africanus, to induce the Senate to name his brother general of the army destined to fight in Asia, said that he would give his life, his counsels and all the services he had ever done the Republic, that he would even enlist as a common soldier to procure him this honor. These words decided the choice of the Senate. Scipio accompanied his brother in this war, helped him to gain the victory and led him back to Rome, charged with laurels. Let the Christian learn from this pagan not to envy the glory of his neighbor, who is his brother, but to procure glory for him by his own abasement, which will then become truly honorable to him and which will be to him as steps by which to reach eternal glory.