De arte praedicatoria

Against envy, the preacher can fortify his hearers with these authorities; the Lord says in the Gospel: Do not envy one another. Peter also says: Laying aside all malice, and all guile, and dissimulations, and detractions, and all envy.¹ Solomon says: A sound heart is the life of the flesh; envy is the rottenness of the bones.² Augustine also says: "Envy burns up all virtues. Truly he is envious who makes another's good his own punishment by envying it." Isidore says of the same: "Where the good man prospers, there the wicked or envious man wastes away." Another authority says of the same: "By the envy of the devil, death entered into the world."³ Likewise the poet:

Laughter is absent, except that which the sufferings of others have produced.

Likewise:

The tyrants of Sicily never found a greater torment than envy.⁴

In accordance with these authorities, let the preacher proceed thus: You have heard, dearest brothers, how sacred Scripture pursues the plague of envy, how it curses the evil of malice. For this reason the plague of envy is especially to be avoided, which first torments itself and afflicts its own possessor, harms itself first before it wounds another, and its wounds turn back upon itself. This is the vice that grieves at another's prosperity, and mourns at another's joys, and rejoices at another's misfortune. O vice, more despicable than every other vice, more base than every plague! which virtue troubles, which happiness afflicts, which blessedness vexes, which joy torments! While the other vices have some superficial pleasure, a shadow of joy, an image of happiness, this plague is a torment without relief, a sickness without remedy, a labor without rest, a punishment without interruption. This is the sin that punishes itself, that does not leave itself unpunished; it defiles and torments at once, it punishes and corrupts at once; this is the worm that is born from manna; this is the worm by which Jonah's gourd was dried up; this is the fiery serpent by which the children of Israel were bitten, this is the locust by which the fruits of the earth are devoured.

We read that manna was given from heaven to the children of Israel, from which, when kept, a multitude of worms swarmed: so from the heavenly grace bestowed on the faithful man, envy is sometimes born, occasioned in the mind of the proud man; and the more the faithful man is strengthened in the manna of heavenly grace, the more the mind of the proud man is dissolved into the worm of envy. We read that a worm was born from the gourd, whose shade protected Jonah from the assault of heat, and that the worm gnawed the gourd through completely; so envy, like a worm born from the brightness of virtue, completely gnaws through the purity of conscience with which a man ought to defend himself against the heat of vices; and it exposes Jonah's head, that is, the mind of the man, to the heat of vices. We read that the children of Israel, wandering in the desert, were stung by fiery serpents; so those in the cloister, exiled in the desert of this world, who ought to be the true children of Israel, frequently labor under envy, for this worm dwells in ashes and sackcloth, and lurking in the dust, it stings all the way to death. This is the moth that destroys the fine garments of the virtues. This is the rust that plunders the treasure of wisdom. This locust consumes the green growth of the earth, because whatever good work is flourishing in a man, it destroys.

This is the plague that cast the angel out of heaven, that banished man from paradise. This struck the children of Israel in the desert; this armed the brothers against Joseph; this cast Daniel into the lions' den; this at last fixed our Head to the gallows of the cross. O man, what benefit is it to you if you envy, what profit if you undermine another? Do you open a snare, and dig it out, and yourself fall into the pit you make? While you labor to hold others back, you yourself are held; while you labor to defraud others, you are deceived. O man, you attack nature, you fight against charity, you trouble yourself, you sin against your neighbor, you offend God. Whereas you ought to make another's joys your own by rejoicing with him, and another's sorrow your own by grieving with him, whereas in another's misery you ought to read your own, and recognize in yourself the condition of your neighbor. To what end does malice tend! to what does jealousy leap forth! to what is envy carried! It breaks the bond of friendship, the glue of charity, the covenant of love, the law of natural justice.