I was listening to the radio as I drove home from work one
night last week, and they were playing Handel’s Joseph and His Brethren. An aria struck me, where envy is described
as ‘the worse of crimes’ because from it all others arise. I’ve known
personally of someone who was prepared to murder for envy. It clearly leads to
theft, deceit, false witness (a way of life in ancient courtrooms, and in some
places testimony can still be bought and sold today), adultery, treachery, and
greed. The final item will then lead to oppression of the poor, cheating in
business, slave labour, and despoiling of both land and sea. Joseph’s brothers,
of course, sold him into slavery out of envy. And the last of the Decalogue
forbids it: do not covet anything that is your neighbour’s, because out of this
all the other sins will appear.
What do we
envy? Do I want a beautiful house, a
beautiful car, or beautiful clothes? Do I want it enough to steal a car, for
example? Why? Will I be more beautiful, or will my life be more beautiful? The
person who was prepared to murder acquired a life in prison: that was envy’s
reward. This is the secular answer.
The
spiritual answer might be more complex. Why envy at all? Every person is in a
unique situation with all its faults and blessings. If I say that ‘other
people’ have better health, for example, I forget that millions are dying every
year around the world from malaria: the bite of one mosquito. And that’s just
the tip of the iceberg. The rich have their sorrows as well as the poor, and
some of these are not redeemable through money. The beautiful often carry their
beauty as a burden, overwhelmed by the illusions of others.
What we
ourselves have is often as valuable as anything we might envy. It can all be lost in a day, too. Do we envy
what is present, what is past, or what is to come? Sitting in the pews at St.
Peter’s Eastern Hill today, I heard a magnificent choir singing Arvo Pärt’s
Beatitudes, and how could I envy the finest seat in the greatest opera house
in the world? I had my hearing: isn’t
this enough? And it all can be lost in a
day. Life is too fragile for envy. Let us then bless God.
Thank you Susan. Envy is certainly one cunning devil that messes with the mind. When we sit with our envy for long enough we discern its source is usually desire. It's so insidious that people who have 'everything' can even be envious of those with 'nothing'. So much of it comes too from forgetting to be thankful, as you make clear at the end of your essay. The more thankful we are of what we do have, the less time we have to be envious about what we do not. I do wonder though if envy is the main sin, or mistake, or or whatever it's called. C.S. Lewis, amongst others, believes pride is the prime origin of the other sins, the main fault. We all have it and often for the most absurd things, and how do we learn to hold back? Pride pushes us into remarkable places of selfish blindness. Envy is one of them.
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