Nor is there anything wrong in the feeling of satisfaction at the punishment of an evil-doer.
3. Envy is that gall of the heart which is the reverse of charity. Envy is bred of self-esteem, and it hates to see others better, happier, more esteemed, more prosperous than self. It is selfish egoism, desiring to possess all advantages itself. It is a baseness of the soul, which cannot endure to see anything superior to its own mean self. It is a falsity of judgment, for it interprets awrong everything done by the person it envies. It is hypocritical, for it knows the despicable quality of its emotions, and veils them under all kinds of disguises.
4. It is the most distressing of spiritual maladies. It is to the soul what rust is to iron, canker to a tree, corroding and destroying all happiness, brightness, amiability.
It poisons the entire life.
It is, moreover, the fruitful mother of many sins.
It produces (a) slander, backbiting, malicious words, (b) uncharitable and cruel acts of animosity and vengeance.
It is a vice most hateful to God. “Envy,” says Solomon, is “the rottenness of the bones.” (Prov. xiv. 30.) “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing,” says S. Paul. (1 Cor. xiii. 3.) It is one of the works of the flesh that excludes from the kingdom of God. (Gal. v. 21.) “If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not ... this ... is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” (James iii. 15, 16.)
5. One belief among theologians is that the Devil fell through Envy; when he knew for what God had created man, he was filled with jealousy of man, and therefore revolted. As charity is the greatest of virtues, and sweetens and glorifies the whole life, and is that virtue most near to Christ, so is Envy the greatest of vices, souring and darkening the whole life, and bringing most into likeness to the Devil.
