Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
ON JEALOUSY AND ENVY. To be envious of the good you see in another and to grudge those who are better than you seems to some people a light and trifling fault, dearest brothers; and because it is reckoned light and trifling, it goes unfeared, and because it is unfeared it is despised, and because it is despised it is not easily guarded against, and so it becomes a blind, hidden ruin which, being scarcely perceived and therefore not watched for by the careful, strikes down unwary minds unseen. Yet the Lord has bidden us to be prudent and has commanded us to keep watch with careful vigilance, lest the adversary, who is himself ever watchful and ever laying snares, once he has crept into the breast, kindle great fires from small sparks, build up the greatest evils from the smallest beginnings, and, while he flatters the careless and unwary with a gentler breeze and a softer breath, whip up storms and gales that wreck faith outright and capsize both salvation and life together. We must therefore be on our guard, dearest brothers, and strive with all our strength, so that against the enemy raging and aiming his darts at every part of the body where we can be struck and wounded, we may fight back with careful and full watchfulness, as the apostle Peter forewarns and teaches in his letter, saying: be sober, be watchful, for your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour.
He goes about each one of us, and like an enemy besieging a fortified wall he searches and tests whether there is some part of our members less firm and less trustworthy, by whose entrance he might break through to the interior. He sets before our eyes alluring shapes and easy pleasures, that through sight he may destroy chastity. He tests the ears with melodious music, that through the hearing of a sweeter sound he may loosen and soften Christian firmness. He provokes the tongue to abuse, he goads the hand, roused by wrongs, toward the recklessness of bloodshed. To make a man a cheat he offers unjust gain; to seize the soul with money he heaps up ruinous profit; he promises earthly honors in order to take away the heavenly; he parades falsehoods so as to snatch away what is true; and once secret deception fails him, he turns to open, undisguised threats, brandishing the terror of a turbulent persecution — restless always and always hostile in his war against the servants of God, treacherous in peace, violent in persecution.
For this reason, dearest brothers, against all the devil's deceitful snares or open threats the mind must stand instructed and armed, as ready always to resist as the enemy is always ready to attack. And since his more frequent weapons are those that creep in unseen, and the more hidden and secret the shot, the less it is perceived, the more heavily and repeatedly it ravages our wounds, let us be watchful to understand and repel these as well. Among them is the evil of jealousy and envy. If anyone looks closely into it, he will find that nothing is more to be guarded against by a Christian, nothing more carefully to be foreseen, than that anyone be seized by envy and grudging, lest, entangled in the blind snares of the deceiving enemy, while brother turns against brother in jealous hatred, he unknowingly perish by his own sword. That we may grasp this more fully and see it more clearly, let us go back to its head and its origin. Let us see where jealousy came from, and when and how it began. For an evil so destructive will more easily be avoided by us if both its origin and its full extent are known.
From this the devil, at the very beginning of the world, was himself the first to perish and the first to destroy. He, propped up by angelic majesty, accepted and dear to God, once he beheld man fashioned after God's own image, erupted into jealousy through malicious envy — not casting down another by the prompting of jealousy until he himself had first been cast down by jealousy, captive before he captured, ruined before he ruined, since, goaded by envy, in snatching from man the grace of the immortality given him, he himself also lost what he had previously been. What an evil it is, dearest brothers, by which an angel fell, by which that lofty and glorious eminence could be tricked and overthrown, by which he who deceived was himself first deceived! From that time envy has stalked the earth, since he who is bound to perish through envy obeys the master of perdition, copying the devil's own jealousy, exactly as scripture states: death came into the world through the devil's envy. Those who belong to his party imitate him.
From this, then, came the first hatred within the new brotherhood, from this the unspeakable killing of kin began, when unjust Cain grew jealous of righteous Abel, when the wicked man pursued the good with envy and grudging. So powerful was the fury of rivalry in bringing the crime to completion that neither love for a brother nor the enormity of the wickedness nor fear of God nor the penalty for the deed was taken into account. He who had first displayed righteousness was unjustly crushed; he who had never known how to hate suffered hatred; he who did not resist was impiously slain even as he died. And that Esau became the enemy of his brother Jacob was jealousy: because the one had received his father's blessing, the other blazed up with the torches of hatred into persecution born of envy. And that Joseph's brothers sold him, the reason for the selling arose from rivalry: after he had simply told his brothers, as brother to brothers, what had been shown to him favorably in visions, their malicious minds burst out into envy. King Saul too — what else but the goad of jealousy drove him to hate David, to long, through persecutions often renewed, to kill one who was innocent, merciful, and patient in gentle forbearance? Because, after Goliath was slain and so great an enemy destroyed by God's help and favor, the admiring people burst forth in praise of David, Saul conceived from envy the fury of rivalry and persecution. And not to lengthen this by going through every case, let us consider the ruin of a whole people who once perished. Did not the Jews perish precisely because they chose to envy Christ rather than believe in him? Finding fault with the great works he performed, blind envy led them astray, and they could not open their hearts' eyes to perceive divine truths.
Considering these things now, dearest brothers, let us fortify our hearts, consecrated to God, watchfully and bravely against so great a destructive evil. Let the death of others serve toward our salvation; let the punishment of the imprudent bring health to those who take heed. Let no one imagine that this evil is confined to a single form, or shut up within short bounds and a narrow limit. The manifold and fertile ruin of jealousy reaches far and wide. Every evil springs from it as root, every disaster as fountain, every sin as seedbed, every fault as raw material. From it hatred rises, from it comes hostility. Jealousy inflames greed, when a man cannot be content with his own lot on seeing another richer. Jealousy stirs ambition, when a man sees another advanced in honors above him. With jealousy blinding our senses and reducing the secrets of the mind to its own dominion, reverence for God is cast aside, Christ's instruction is ignored, and no thought is given to the coming day of judgment. It puffs up with pride, embitters with cruelty, betrays with faithlessness, shakes with impatience, rages with discord, seethes with anger — and a man made subject to another's power can no longer restrain or govern himself. Because of it the Lord's peace-bond snaps apart, and because of it love between brothers is trampled, from this truth is corrupted, unity is torn apart, men rush headlong into heresies and schisms, while priests are disparaged and bishops envied, while one man complains that he was not himself ordained, or another disdains to bear a superior set over him. From this, puffed up with pride, perverted by rivalry, hostile through spite and envy not to a man but to his office, he kicks back, he rebels.
What corrosion of the soul, what wasting of the mind, what corroding rust upon the heart it is to envy another's virtue or his good luck — in other words, to despise in him either what he himself has earned or what God has granted him; to turn another's blessings into one's own misery; to be tormented by the prosperity of the distinguished; to make the glory of others one's own punishment; to set, as it were, executioners to work upon one's own heart, to summon torturers against one's own thoughts and feelings, who tear a man with inward torment, who beat the heart's secrets with the claws of malice. For such a man food brings no joy, drink can bring no gladness. He is forever sighing, groaning, grieving, and while the envious never lay down their spite, the besieged heart is torn without pause day and night. Other evils have their end, and whatever wrong is done comes to a close with the completion of the deed. In the adulterer the crime ceases once the seduction is accomplished; in the robber the wickedness rests once the murder is committed; possession of the plunder sets a limit to the plunderer's greed, and the accomplished deceit puts a stop to the liar's fraud. Jealousy has no limit, an evil that abides continually, a sin without end — and the more the man envied prospers with better success, the more the envious man is set ablaze with a greater fire of malice.
From this comes the threatening face, the grim look, pallor on the cheek, trembling on the lips, the grinding of teeth, raving words, unbridled abuse, the hand ready for the violence of murder, though it may hold no blade at this moment, it is nonetheless weaponized by the fury of a mind gone mad. And for this the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms: do not be jealous of one who walks well in his way. And again: the sinner will watch the righteous and grind his teeth at him. But God will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming. These the blessed apostle Paul points out and marks, saying: serpents' poison lies beneath their lips, and their mouths overflow with curses and rancor; their feet run swiftly toward bloodshed, wreckage and misery mark their paths, they have never recognized the road of peace, and no fear of God stands before their eyes.
A wound from a blade to the limbs is a far slighter and safer harm. Where the injury lies open to view, healing comes readily, and the healer's remedy quickly restores what can be seen. But the wounds of jealousy are hidden and concealed, and they do not admit the physician's healing remedy, since they have shut themselves up within the hiding place of conscience with their blind pain. Whoever you are, envious and malicious, see how treacherous, how ruinous, how hostile you are toward those you hate — you are the enemy of nothing so much as your own well-being. Whoever it is you pursue with jealousy will be able to escape and avoid you. You cannot escape yourself. Wherever you are, your adversary is with you, the enemy is always in your own breast, the ruin is shut up within, you are bound and fettered by the inescapable knot of chains, you are a captive under the rule of jealousy, and no comfort ever comes to your relief. To hound a man favored by God's grace is an evil with no letup; hating one who prospers is a misfortune that admits no cure.
And for this reason, dearest brothers, the Lord, taking thought for this danger, that no one might fall through jealousy of a brother into the snare of death, when his disciples asked him who among them was the greatest, said: whoever is least among you all, this one will be great. By his answer he cut off all rivalry, he rooted out and severed every cause and occasion for biting envy. It is not permitted to a disciple of Christ to be jealous, it is not permitted to envy. There is no room among us for rivalry over rank; greatness comes to us by way of lowliness, and we have grasped what makes us acceptable. So too the apostle Paul, teaching and exhorting that those of us lit up by Christ's brightness, having fled the gloom of our earlier conduct, ought to conduct ourselves in light-filled acts and deeds, writes: 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 lustful desires and shamelessness, not in strife and jealousy. Once the dark has left your breast, once night is banished, once the haze is cleared away, once daylight's brightness fills your senses and you have become someone made of light, act as belongs to Christ — for Christ himself is both light and day.
Why do you plunge into jealousy's darkness, why wrap yourself in envy's cloud, why extinguish every light of peace and love through envy's blindness, why turn back to the devil you once renounced, why make yourself another Cain? For the apostle John declares in his letter that whoever is jealous of his brother and holds him in hatred 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 still in darkness even 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 hell, ignorant and blind he is cast headlong into punishment, turning his back on Christ's light, on him who cautions: I am the world's light; the one following me will never walk in darkness but will possess life's light. But he follows Christ who holds fast to his commands, who walks the path of his teaching, who traces his footsteps and his way, who imitates what Christ both taught and did, just as Peter also urges and admonishes, saying: Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps.
Let us keep in mind the designation Christ gives his own, the label he applies to his flock. Sheep is his term, so a Christian's innocence would mirror a sheep's innocence; lambs is another, so unaffected minds would model themselves on the lamb's artless nature. Why does a wolf lurk beneath the fleece of sheep, why does someone who falsely claims the Christian name dishonor Christ's flock? Bearing Christ's name while refusing Christ's path amounts to nothing less than treachery toward that sacred name, a desertion of salvation's road. For he himself teaches and says that the one who comes to life is the one who has kept his commandments, and that the one who has heard his words and done them is wise, and that the one who has taught and so acted is to be called the greatest teacher in the kingdom of heaven — then only will it profit the preacher that his teaching was good and useful, if what is spoken with the mouth is fulfilled by the deeds that follow. And indeed, what did the Lord more often impress upon his disciples, what among his saving counsels 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 his disciples? But how can a man hold either the Lord's peace or his love, if, with jealousy intervening, he can be neither peaceable nor beloved?
For this reason too the apostle Paul, when he was setting forth the merits of peace and love, and when he affirmed and taught firmly that neither faith nor almsgiving nor even the suffering itself of the confessor and martyr would profit unless he had kept the bonds of love whole and inviolate, added and said: love is magnanimous, love is kind, love is not jealous — teaching and showing thereby that a man can hold fast to love only if he is magnanimous and kind and a stranger to jealousy and envy. Likewise in another place, when he was urging that a man now filled with the Holy Spirit and made, by heavenly birth, a son of God, should pursue nothing but spiritual and divine things, he states 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 solid food, for you were not yet able — nor indeed are you able even now, for you are still carnal. For where there is jealousy and strife and dissension among you, are you not carnal, and walking after the manner of men?
Dearest brothers, the failings and sins of the flesh call for trampling, and the earthly body's hostile taint must be beaten down by spiritual strength, so that in slipping back toward our former ways we do not get caught in deadly traps — a warning the apostle gives us with foresight and wholesome intent. Brothers, he writes, our life should not follow the flesh. Living by the flesh brings the beginning of death; but putting the flesh's deeds to death through the Spirit brings life. Whoever is guided by God's Spirit counts among God's children. Given that we are God's children, that we have already come to be his dwelling-places, that having taken in the Holy Spirit we now live a holy, spirit-filled existence, that our gaze has risen from earth toward heaven, that our hearts, filled with God and Christ, now reach toward what is above and divine — let nothing occupy us except what suits God and Christ, exactly as the apostle stirs and exhorts us to do. Having been raised with Christ, he says, seek out what lies above, where Christ sits at God's right hand; fix your thoughts on what is above, not on earthly matters. You have died, after all, and your true existence lies concealed with Christ in God. Once Christ, who is your life, is revealed, you too will be revealed alongside him in glory. So then, we who through baptism have died to the flesh's sins belonging to the old man and been buried, and who have been raised alongside Christ by heavenly rebirth — let our thoughts and actions together match what belongs to Christ, exactly as this same apostle again teaches and warns, saying: the first man came from earth's dust, the second man comes from heaven. Those made of dust resemble the man of dust; those who are heavenly resemble the heavenly man. Just as we have carried the likeness of the earthly man, so let us carry too the likeness of the heavenly one. Yet we can carry that heavenly likeness only by displaying Christ's own resemblance in what we have now begun to become.
For this is to have changed what you were and to have begun to be what you were not — that in you the divine birth may shine, that toward God the Father the godlike discipline of your life may answer him, that in the honor and praise of a life well lived God may become manifest in man, since he himself urges and admonishes this, and promises a return in kind to those who make him manifest in themselves. Those, he says, who make me manifest, I will make manifest, and whoever despises me will be despised. Shaping and preparing us for this manifestation, the Lord and Son of God, presenting the Father's own likeness, declares in his Gospel: you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, hold your enemies in love and pray on behalf of those who persecute you, so you may resemble your Father 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 who resemble them, and if it delights them all the more to have begotten such, so that offspring reflect a father in matching features, how much greater is the joy in God the Father, when someone is so born spiritually that in his deeds and in what he is praised for, the divine origin proclaims itself. What a palm of righteousness, what a crown it is, to be such a one, of whom God will not say: I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have spurned me! Let Christ instead commend you and summon you toward the reward with these words: come, you whom my Father has blessed, take possession of the kingdom made ready for you since the world's beginning.