(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

ON JEALOUSY AND ENVY.
Translated by the Rev. Ernest Wallis, Ph.D.

ARGUMENT.(5)--AFTER POINTING OUT THAT JEALOUSY OR ENVY IS A SIN ALL THE
MORE HEINOUS IN PROPORTION AS ITS WICKEDNESS IS HIDDEN, AND THAT ITS ORIGIN
IS TO BE TRACED TO THE DEVIL, HE GIVES ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENVY FROM THE OLD
TESTAMENT, AND GATHERS, BY REFERENCE TO SPECIAL VICES, THAT ENVY IS THE
ROOT OF ALL WICKEDNESS. THEREFORE WITH REASON WAS FRATERNAL HATRED
FORBIDDEN NOT IN ONE PLACE ONLY, BUT BY CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. FINALLY,
EXHORTING TO THE LOVE OF ONE'S ENEMIES BY GOD'S EXAMPLE, HE DISSUADES FROM
THE SIN OF ENVY, BY URGING THE REWARDS SET BEFORE THE INDULGENCE OF LOVE.

   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
people to be a slight and petty wrong; and, being thought trifling and of
small account, it is not feared; not being feared, it is contemned; being
contemned, it is not  easily shunned: and it thus becomes a dark and hidden
mischief, which, as it is not perceived so  as to be guarded against by the
prudent, secretly distresses incautious minds. But, moreover, the Lord bade
us be prudent, and charged us to watch with careful solicitude, lest the
adversary, who is always on the watch and always lying in wait, should
creep stealthily into our breast, and blow up a flame from the sparks,
magnifying small things into the greatest; and so, while soothing the
unguarded and careless with a milder air and a softer breeze, should stir
up storms and whirlwinds, and bring about the destruction of faith and the
shipwreck of salvation and of life. Therefore, beloved brethren, we  must
be on our guard, and strive with all our powers to repel, with solicitous
and full watch-fulness, the enemy, raging and aiming his darts  against
every part of our body in which we can be stricken and wounded, in
accordance with what the Apostle Peter, in his epistle, forewarns and
teaches, saying, "Be sober, and watch; because your adversary the devil, as
a roaring lion, goeth about seeking any one to devour."(6)

   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 any part of the walls(7) less firm and less trustworthy, by
entrance through which he may penetrate to the inside. He presents to the
eyes seductive forms and easy pleasures, that he may destroy chastity by
the sight. He tempts the ears with harmonious music, that by the hearing of
sweet sounds he may relax and enervate Christian vigour.(8) He provokes the
tongue by reproaches; he instigates the hand by exasperating wrongs to the
wrecklessness of murder; to make the cheat, he presents dishonest gains; to
take captive the soul by money, he heaps together mischievous hoards; he
promises earthly honours, that he may deprive of heavenly ones; he makes a
show of false things, that he may steal away the true; and when he cannot
hiddenly deceive, he threatens plainly and openly, holding forth the fear
of turbulent persecution to vanquish God's servants--always restless, and
always hostile, crafty in peace, and fierce in persecution.

   3. Wherefore, beloved brethren, against all the devil's deceiving
snares or open threatenings, the mind ought to stand arrayed and armed,
ever as ready to repel as the foe is ever ready to attack. And since those
darts of his which creep on us in concealment are more frequent, and his
more hidden and secret hurling of them is the more severely and frequently
effectual to our wounding, in proportion as it is the less perceived, let
us also be watchful to understand and repel these, among which is the evil
of jealousy and envy. And if any one closely look into this, be will find
that nothing should be more guarded against by the Christian, nothing more
carefully watched, than being taken captive by envy and malice, that none,
entangled in the blind snares of a deceitful enemy, in that the brother is
turned by envy to hatred of his brother, should himself be unwittingly
destroyed by his own sword. That we may be able more fully to collect and
more plainly to perceive this, let us recur to its fount and origin. Let us
consider whence arises jealousy, and when and how it begins. For so
mischievous an evil will be more easily shunned by us, if both the source
and the magnitude of that same evil be known.(1)

   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(2) was sustained in angelic majesty, he who was accepted and beloved of
God, when he beheld man made in the image of God, broke forth into jealousy
with malevolent envy--not hurling down another by the instinct of his
jealousy before he himself was first hurled down by jealousy, captive
before he takes captive, ruined before he ruins others. While, at the
instigation of jealousy, he robs man of the grace of immortality conferred,
he himself has lost that which he had previously been. How great an evil is
that, beloved brethren, whereby an angel fell, whereby that lofty and
illustrious grandeur could be defrauded and overthrown, whereby he who
deceived was himself deceived! Thenceforth envy rages on the earth, in that
he who is about to perish by jealousy obeys the author of his ruin,
imitating the devil in his jealousy; as it is written, "But through envy of
the devil death entered into the world."(3) Therefore they who are on his
side imitate him.(1)

   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 righteous Abel, in that the wicked persecutes the good with envy and
jealousy. So  far prevailed the rage of envy to the consummation of that
deed of wickedness, that neither the love of his brother, nor the immensity
of the crime, nor the fear of God, nor the penalty of the sin, was
considered.(4) He was unrighteously stricken who had been the first to show
righteousness; he endured hatred who had not known how to hate; he was
impiously slain, who, dying, did not resist. And that Esau was hostile to
his brother Jacob, arose from jealousy also. For because the latter had
received his father's blessing, the former was inflamed to a persecuting
hatred by the brands of jealousy. And that Joseph was sold by his brethren,
the reason of their selling him proceeded from envy. When in simplicity,
and as a brother to brethren, he set forth to them the prosperity which had
been shown to him in visions, their malevolent disposition broke forth into
envy. Moreover, that Saul the king hated David, so as to seek by often
repeated persecutions to kill him--innocent, merciful, gentle, patient in
meekness--what else was the provocation save the  spur of jealousy?
Because, when Goliath was slain, and by the aid and condescension of God
so great an enemy was routed, the wondering people burst forth with the
suffrage of acclamation into praises of David, Saul through jealousy
conceived the rage of enmity and persecution. And, not to go to the length
of numbering each one, let us observe the destruction of a people that
perished once for all.(5) Did not the Jews perish for this reason, that
they chose rather to envy Christ(6) than to believe Him? Disparaging those
great works which He did, they were deceived by blinding jealousy, and
could not open the eyes of their heart to the knowledge of divine things.

   6. Considering which things, beloved brethren, let us with vigilance
and courage fortify our hearts dedicated to God against such a
destructiveness of evil. Let the death of others avail for our safety; let
the punishment of the unwise confer health upon the prudent. Moreover,
there is no ground for any one to suppose that evil of that kind is
confined in one form, or restrained within brief limits in a narrow
boundary. The mischief of jealousy, manifold and fruitful, extends widely.
It is the root of all evils, the fountain of disasters, the nursery of
crimes, the material of transgressions. Thence arises hatred, thence
proceeds animosity. Jealousy inflames avarice, in that one cannot be
content with what is his own, while he sees another more wealthy. Jealousy
stirs up ambition, when one sees another more exalted in honours.(7) When
jealousy darkens our perceptions, and reduces the secret agencies of the
mind under its command, the fear of God is despised, the teaching of Christ
is neglected, the day of judgment is not anticipated. Pride inflates,
cruelty embitters, faithlessness prevaricates, impatience agitates, discord
rages, anger grows hot; nor can he who has become the subject of a foreign
authority any longer restrain or govern himself. By this the bond of the
Lord's peace is broken; by this is violated brotherly charity; by this
truth is adulterated, unity is divided; men plunge into heresies and
schisms  when priests are disparaged, when bishops are  envied, when a man
complains that he himself was not rather ordained, or disdains to suffer
that another should be put over him.(1) Hence the man who is haughty
through jealousy, and perverse through envy, kicks, hence he revolts, in
anger and malice the opponent, not of the man, but of the honour.

   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, anti, 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.(2)

   8. Hence the threatening countenance, the lowering aspect, pallor in
the face, trembling on the lips, gnashing of the teeth, mad words,
unbridled revilings, a hand prompt for the violence of slaughter; even if
for the time deprived of a sword, yet armed with the hatred of an infuriate
mind. And accordingly the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms: "Be not jealous
against him who walketh prosperously in his way."(3) And again: "The wicked
shall observe the righteous, and shall gnash upon him with his teeth. But
God shall laugh at him; for He seeth that his day is coming."(4) The
blessed Apostle Paul designates and points out these when he says, "The
poison of asps is under their lips, and their mouth is full of cursing and
bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are
in their ways, who have not known the way of peace; neither is the fear of
God before their eyes."(5)

   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 when the medicament is applied, the sore that(6) is seen is
quickly brought to health. The wounds of jealousy are hidden and secret;
nor do they admit the remedy of a healing cure, since they have shut
themselves in blind suffering within the lurking-places of the conscience.
Whoever you are that are envious and malignant, observe how crafty,
mischievous, and hateful you are to those whom you hate. Yet you are the
enemy of no one's well-being more than your own. Whoever he is whom you
persecute with jealousy, can evade and escape you. You cannot escape
yourself.(7) Wherever you may be, your adversary is with you; your  enemy
is always in your own breast; your mischief is shut up within; you are tied
and bound with the links of chains from which yon cannot extricate
yourself; you are captive under the tyranny of jealousy; nor will any
consolations help you. It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who
belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the
happy.

   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
brother, when His disciples asked Him which  among them should be the
greatest, said, "Who soever shall be least among you all, the same shall be
great."(8) He cut off all envy by His reply.(9) He plucked out and tore
away every cause anti matter of gnawing envy. A disciple of Christ must not
be jealous, must not be envious. With us there can be no contest for
exaltation; from humility we grow to the highest attainments; we have
learnt in what way we may be pleasing. And finally, the Apostle Paul,
instructing and warning, that we who, illuminated by the light of Christ,
have escaped from the darkness of the conversation of night, should walk in
the deeds and works of light, writes and says, "The night has passed over,
and the day is approaching: let us therefore cast away the works of
darkness, and let us put upon us the armour of light. Let us walk honestly,
as in the day; not in  rioting and drunkenness, not in lusts and
wantonness, not in strifes and jealousy."(1) If the darkness has departed
from your breast, if the night is scattered therefrom, if the gloom is
chased away, if the brightness of day has illuminated your senses, if you
have begun to be a man of light, do those things which are Christ's,
because Christ is the Light and the Day.

   11. Why do you rush into the darkness ofjealousy? why do you enfold
yourself in thecloud of malice? why do you quench all the light of peace
and charity in the blindness of envy? why do you return to the devil, whom
you had renounced? why do you stand like Cain? For that he who is jealous
of his brother, and has him in hatred, is bound by the guilt of homicide,
the Apostle John declares in his epistle, saying, "Whosoever hateth his
brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath life abiding in
him."(2) And again: "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his
brother, is in darkness even until now, and walketh in darkness, and
knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his
eyes."(3) Whosoever hates, says he, his brother, walketh in darkness, and
knoweth not whither he goeth. For he goeth unconsciously to Gehenna, in
ignorance and blindness; he is hurrying into punishment, departing, that
is, from the light of Christ, who warns and says, "I am the light of the
world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life."(4) But he follows Christ who stands in His precepts, who
walks in the way of His teaching, who follows His footsteps and His ways,
who imitates that which Christ both did and taught; in accordance with what
Peter also exhorts and warns, saying, "Christ suffered for us, leaving you
an example that ye should follow His steps."(5)I

   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 may be like that of sheep; He calls them lambs, that their
simplicity of mind may imitate the simple nature of lambs. Why does the
wolf lurk under the garb of sheep? why does he who falsely asserts himself
to be a Christian, dishonour the flock of Christ? To put on the name of
Christ, and not to go in the way of Christ, what else is it but a mockery
of the divine name, but a desertion of the way of salvation; since He
Himself teaches and says that he shall come unto life who keeps His
commandments, and that he is wise who hears and does His words; that he,
moreover, is called the greatest doctor in the kingdom of heaven who thus
does and teaches;(6) that, then, will be of advantage to the preacher what
has been well and usefully preached, if what is uttered by his mouth is
fulfilled by deeds following? But what did the Lord more frequently instil
into His disciples, what did He more charge to be guarded and observed
among His saving counsels and heavenly precepts, than that with the same
love wherewith He Himself loved the disciples, we also should love one
another? And in what manner does he keep either the peace or the love of
the Lord, who, when jealousy intrudes, can neither be peaceable nor loving?

   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 nor alms, nor even the passion itself of the confessor and the
martyr,(7) would avail him, unless he kept the requirements of charity
entire and inviolate, added, and said: "Charity, is magnanimous, charity is
kind, charity envieth not;"(8) teaching, doubtless, and showing that
whoever is magnanimous, and kind, and averse from jealousy and rancour,
such a one can maintain charity. Moreover, in another place, when he was
advising that the man who has already become filled with the Holy Spirit,
and a son of God by heavenly birth, should observe nothing but spiritual
and divine things, he lays it down, and says: "And I indeed, brethren,
could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as
unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, not with meat:(9) for ye
were not able hitherto; moreover, neither now are ye able. For ye are yet
carnal: for whereas there are still among you jealousy, and contention, and
strifes, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (10)

   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
spiritual vigour, lest, while we are turned back again to the conversation
of the old man, we be entangled in deadly snares, even as the apostle, with
foresight and wholesomeness, forewarned us of this very thing, and said:
"Therefore, brethren, let us not live after the flesh; for if ye live after
the flesh, ye shall begin to die; but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify
the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit
of God they are the sons of God."(1) If we are the sons of God, if we are
already beginning to be His temples, if, having received the Holy Spirit,
we are living holily and spiritually, if we have raised our eyes from earth
to heaven, if we have lifted our hearts, filled with God and Christ, to
things above and divine, let us do nothing but what is worthy of God and
Christ, even as the apostle arouses and exhorts us, saying: "If ye be risen
with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at
the right hand of God; occupy your minds with things that are above, not
with things which are upon the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid
with Christ in God. But when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with Him in glory."(2) Let us, then, who in baptism
have both died and been buried in respect of the carnal sins of the old
man, who have risen again with Christ in the heavenly regeneration, both
think upon and do the things which are Christ's, even as the same apostle
again teaches and counsels, saying: "The first man is of the dust of the
earth; the second man is from heaven. Such as he is from the earth, such
also are they who are froth the earth  and such as He the heavenly is, such
also are they who are heavenly. As we have borne the image of him who is of
the earth, let us also bear the image of Him who is from heaven."(3) But we
cannot bear the heavenly image, unless in that condition wherein we have
already begun to be, we show forth the likeness of Christ.

   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 discipline might respond to God, the Father, that in the honour and
praise of living, God may be glorified in man; as He Himself exhorts, and
warns, and promises to those who glorify Him a reward in their turn,
saying, "Them that glorify me I will glorify, and he who despiseth me shall
be despised."(4) For which glorification the Lord, forming and preparing
us, and the Son of God instilling(5) the likeness of God the Father, says
in His Gospel: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and
pray for them which persecute you; that ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise on the good and on
the evil, and sendeth rain upon the just and on the unjust."(6) If it is a
source of joy and glory to men to have children like to themselves--and it
is more agreeable to have begotten an offspring then when the remaining(7)
progeny responds to the parent with like lineaments--how much greater is
the gladness in God the Father, when any one is so spiritually born that in
his acts and praises the divine eminence of race(8) is announced! What a
palm of righteousness is it, what a crown to be such a one(9) as that the
Lord should not say of you, "I have begotten and brought up children, but
they have despised me!"(10) Let Christ rather applaud you, and invite you
to the reward, saying, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom
which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world."(11)

   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 devil. Let there be the divine reading in the hands,(12) the
Lord's thoughts in the mind; let constant prayer never cease at all; let
saving labour persevere. Let us be always busied in spiritual actions, that
so often as the enemy approaches, however often he may try to come near, he
may find the breast closed and armed against him. For a Christian man's
crown is not only that which is received in the time of persecution:
peace(13) also has its crowns, wherewith the victors, from a varied and
manifold engagement, are crowned, when their adversary is prostrated and
subdued. To have overcome lust is the palm of continency. To have resisted
against anger, against injury, is the crown of patience. It is a triumph
over avarice to despise money. It is the praise of faith, by trust in the
future, to suffer the adversity of the world. And he who is not haughty in
prosperity, obtains glory for his humility; and he who is disposed to the
mercifulness of cherishing the poor, obtains the retribution of a heavenly
treasure; and he who knows not to be jealous, and who with one heart and in
meekness loves his brethren, is honoured with the recompense of love and
peace. In this course of virtues we daily run; to these palms and crowns of
justice we attain without intermission of time.

   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 fast, and be reformed to the way of eternal life in the footsteps of
salvation. Tear out from your breast thorns and thistles, that the Lord's
seed may enrich you with a fertile produce, that the divine and spiritual
cornfield may abound to the plentifulness of a fruitful harvest. Cast out
the poison of gall, cast out the virus of discords. Let the mind which the
malice(1) of the serpent had infected be purged; let all bitterness which
had settled within be softened by the sweetness of Christ. If you take both
meat and drink from the sacrament of the cross, let the wood which at
Mara(2) availed in a figure for sweetening the taste, avail to you in in
reality for soothing your softened breast; and you shall not strive for a
medicine for your increasing health. Be cured by that whereby you had been
wounded.(3) Love those whom you previously had hated; favour those whom you
envied with unjust disparagements. Imitate good men, if you are able to
follow them; but it you are not able to follow them, at least rejoice with
them, and congratulate those who are better than you. Make yourself a
sharer(4) with them in united love; make yourself their associate in the
alliance of charity and the bond of brotherhood. Your debts shall be
remitted to you when you yourself shall have forgiven. Your sacrifices
shall be received when you shall come in peace to God. Your thoughts and
deeds shall be directed from above, when you consider those things which
are divine and righteous, as it is written: "Let the heart of a man
consider righteous things, that his steps may be directed by the Lord."(5)

   18. And you have many things to consider. Think of paradise, whither
Cain does not enter,(6) who by jealousy slew his brother. Think of the
heavenly kingdom, to which the Lord does not admit any but those who are of
one heart and mind. Consider that those alone can be called sons of God who
are peacemakers, who in heavenly(7) birth and by the divine law are made
one, and respond to the likeness of God the Father and of Christ. Consider
that we are standing under the eyes of God, that we are pursuing the course
of our conversation and our life, with God Himself looking on and judging,
that we may then at length be able to attain to the result of beholding
Him, if we now delight Him who sees us, by our actions, if we show
ourselves worthy of His favour and indulgence; if we, who are always to
please Him in His kingdom, previously please Him in the world.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 5, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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