On Envy

Envy consumes the eye. It is tainted sight. Invidia means looking closely, too closely at the advantages of others. Wealth, beauty, achievements, relationships, opportunities. It gives birth to resentment, hostility, and hatred. While jealousy defends one’s own possessions, envy desires another’s. It dwells in a limited world; it feels there is never enough; a world of reaching for prizes, seeking for names. Aquinas calls envy “sorrow for another’s good.”

 Envy distorts judgement. Where justice returns to everything that which belongs to it, envy seeks to take it away; envy will suffer loss, so others may lose. The evil eye is envy personified, withering crops, sickening children, fuelled by a sense of grievance and inferiority. Envy is the seat of many crimes, from theft to murder. 

Integrity is seamless. Wholeness protects. “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” That eye is the road to the heart: kindly, beneficent, generous, benevolent, loving. Light enables us to see reality as it is; darkness obscures. “If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” We know so little about others, even judging God: “Are you envious because I am generous?” God’s eye is true. 

On Envy: The Worst of Vices.

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.