Зависть

Envy is sadness about the goodness and well-being of one's neighbor. Tormenting passion! In other sins there is some kind of sweetness, even an imaginary one, but the envious one sins and at the same time suffers. The envious person does what the demon does not do: the demon is jealous only of man, not of the demon, but man is jealous of man. Whoever despises this world and seeks heavenly blessings, this ulcer has no place. Why envy someone in earthly and perishable things who, despising them, seeks heavenly things? The nobleman does not envy the praise of the shoemaker, tailor and other craftsmen, because he has the best praise; So, whoever strives for the eternal does not envy the temporary. The envious and malicious are at one with the devil, for the devil is the spirit of envy and hatred. But if you have bitter envy and contentiousness in your heart, do not boast or lie about the truth. This is not wisdom descending from above, but earthly, spiritual, demonic, for where there is envy and contentiousness, there is disorder and everything bad (James 3:14-16). Cain became sad and his face fell. Why? Because he saw that his brother Abel was praised by the Lord of all for bringing gifts, but he was rejected because of his laziness. The elder brother of the prodigal son, walking from the field, heard rejoicing and singing in his father’s house and learned that the fun was because of his brother, whom his good-born father had found healthy again, became angry and did not want to enter his father’s house and be a participant in that fun (see: Lk 15: 25-30). The reason for the merriment is righteous: his brother was dead and came to life, he was lost and was found. But he doesn’t look at that, he doesn’t like that for the sake of his brother his well-fed calf is slaughtered and for the sake of his well-being his father and the whole house rejoice. So envy grieves over the goodness of its neighbor and considers the well-being of its brother to be its own ill-being! The root and beginning of envy is pride. A proud person, since he wants to rise above others, cannot tolerate anyone being equal to him, much less higher in prosperity, and therefore is indignant about his elevation. A humble person cannot envy, because he sees and recognizes his own unworthiness, and considers himself more worthy than others; That’s why he has no indignation about their talents. This passion exists only among those who think of themselves that they are something in the world, and dreaming so highly of themselves, they impute nothing to others. Proud Saul is so indignant at the meek and humble David that the jubilant wives attributed more praise to him, as Saul himself admitted and said: They gave tens of thousands to David, and thousands to me (1 Samuel 18:8). That's why he started persecuting the innocent. The purpose of envy is to see the person being envied as being in trouble. She is then born when the well-being of another begins; then it ceases when his well-being ceases and misfortune begins. Thus, through envy, our forefathers were brought down from high bliss to a state of misery. Cain's envy taught him to rebel against his brother Abel and kill him. It is a matter of envy that Joseph was sold to Egypt. It must be attributed to envy that the Jews raised Christ, their Lord and Benefactor, to the Cross. So from pride envy begins, from envy - hatred, from hatred - malice; anger leads to the most unfortunate end. Envy is a painful passion and deserves laughter or, rather, crying, for the human heart is infected with such devilish poison. Other passions have some, albeit imaginary, pleasure, but the envious person sins, and at the same time suffers. Haman, the enemy of the Jews, as he himself admits, is displeased with neither the glory with which the king exalted him, nor the wealth with which he abounded, nor the honor that he was invited to the queen and the king for a feast: this, he says, is not enough for me. What is the reason for this? Has anyone offended you, Haman? Has anyone stolen your belongings? Or has someone slandered you before the king? Are you healthy yourself or your family? Or doesn't the fear of the enemy bother you? No! There is nothing like that. What then? Why is your heart troubled? Why are you mourning in the midst of such fame and fortune? Why are you bowing your head? Why are you walking around decrepit and sad? Why does your face darken? What do you, the king's first adviser, lack? You don’t have just the scepter and the royal power. “No,” says Haman, “all this is not enough for me, for I see Mordecai in prosperity. All this displeases me when I see Mordecai the Judah in the royal court. Nothing makes me happy: neither glory, nor honor, nor wealth, because I see Mordecai in the king’s favor” (see: Esther 5). So the envious one sins and at the same time accepts execution, commits lawlessness and suffers! And from this you can see how vile the vice of envy and ridicule is worthy! To be sad because your neighbor is having fun; to lament and be consumed by the fact that one’s brother is flourishing in prosperity—isn’t that something worthy of laughter? Anyone can admit this, only the devil is capable of such a thing: the devil is sad and unbearable that Christians are saved and receive eternal glory, from which he is cast into eternal destruction and dishonor. Everyone can see how destructive this passion [envy] is. Because: 1. This is the devil’s own sin, who killed our first parents with this plague, and us with them. For the devil’s work is to rejoice over human destruction and grieve over salvation, which is characteristic of envy. 2. The demon does not envy such a demon, but a man; and man is jealous of man, brother to brother, kindred to kindred, like like to like, who should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), as the apostle teaches; something one cannot help but be surprised by, or, moreover, something that is impossible to mourn with dignity. This is how Satan infected our hearts with his poison! 3. Envy... leads to every unfavorable end for those on whom it is armed. 4. Envy envies those from whom it receives benefits; She doesn’t care for goodwill, she even persecutes her benefactor. Who was a greater benefactor to the Jews than Christ, the Savior of the world? He raised their dead, enlightened the blind, cleansed the lepers and performed other wonderful deeds. But envy doesn’t look at that; she advises: What should we do? This Man does many miracles. If we leave Him like this, then everyone will believe in Him (John 11:47–48). She does not reason, does not honor high good, but learns to kill her benefactor. Feed, clothe, take care of, protect, enrich, console the envious one as you wish - it is unpleasant for him: since you are prosperous, everyone loves, praises, and honors you. This hurts his heart, which your love and good deeds cannot heal. And he will continue to hurt you until he sees you in distress. 5. Envy of those who possess it leads to disaster. For, in addition to making them guilty of eternal torment, it exposes them to temporary disaster. So Cain groans and trembles; Haman, carried up on the tree that Mordecai prepared for the Israelite, dies... But, at least there was no other external disaster for the envious one, the internal one is enough for him, it’s enough for him to be consumed, tormented and tormented inside by his own tormentor. The remedy against this evil and destructive illness [envy] is as follows: 1. Pride, from which envy, as it is said, is born, must be put aside with the help of God, and so, without an evil root, there will be no evil fruit. “Envy,” says Augustine, “is the daughter of pride: kill a mother, and her daughter will perish.” 2. Learn to love your neighbor - so envy will fall. For love does not envy (1 Cor. 13:4), says the apostle. And although this destructive arrow will strike the heart, it will, with the spirit of love, begin to resist its action and encourage itself, and the unwilling one, to thank God that his neighbor is in prosperity. This is how all internal evil is healed and, as they say, the wedge is knocked out with wedge. We must force ourselves to do every good thing and do not what the evil heart wants, but what the Christian faith and conscience demands: those who use force delight the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 11:12). So we resist malice and revenge, grumbling and blasphemy and other passions, and force ourselves to patience and other piety. That at first it will not be without difficulty, but later with the help of God it will be convenient. 3. To think and believe without a doubt that in this world there is nothing great or worthy of wonder and there is no true bliss except the eternal and heavenly. And when we are in this opinion, then envy will weaken and become invalid. For envy is born from the well-being of one's neighbor; but when temporary well-being, that is, honor, wealth, etc., we will not consider true well-being, then we will not envy it. If, having despised earthly things, you seek heavenly things, then you will envy neither honor, nor glory, nor praise, nor wealth, nor nobility, for you desire incomparably better. The prince and nobleman do not envy the praise of the shoemaker, tailor, carpenter and other craftsmen, since he has much better. Likewise, those who seek permanent and true eternal bliss do not envy what is temporary, pitiful and, so to speak, imaginary. Do you want to avoid being eaten up and harmed by this painful ulcer? Consider everything temporary as nothing, and so it will have no place in you. It is a matter of envy to grieve over the well-being of one’s neighbor and to be depressed about the joy. In love, this mental ulcer has no place: it considers the happiness of its neighbor and misfortune to be its own, and therefore, just as it hurts over the misfortune of its neighbor, it rejoices over the happiness; with those who weep he weeps, with those who rejoice he rejoices. Thus, the Apostle Paul exhorts to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). Whatever envy and malice do. A pious soul cannot please them with anything; everything they do is unpleasant to them. There they invent vice where there is no vice. They defame and slander what is worthy of praise. This is what the Lord said about the evil Jews: John (the Baptist) came, neither eating nor drinking; and they say: he has a demon. The Son of Man came, eating and drinking; and they say: here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend of publicans and sinners (Matthew 11:18-19). You see that both the Forerunner, the Angel covered with flesh, and Christ Himself, his Lord, the light without any darkness and innocence itself, could not please the evil ones, but in both they found something to discredit. When in the light, in which there is no darkness, and in His lamp, malice found something to condemn, then what is it no longer found in other pious souls who are not without weakness? We see today the same effect of malice: no matter what a person does, he judges everything, blames everything. Beware of envy and malice - this is the great poison of the soul, and just as a worm is a tree inside, so it gnaws and consumes the soul, and as soon as it rises in the heart, kill this destructive worm, so that, when it grows, it does not kill your soul. We see how our soul is damaged by the poison of the ancient serpent, how Satan is envious and malicious, how he fed the human soul with the same poison, so that what a person should rejoice about, he is consumed with envy and malice. We see enough of such evil in the world. Envy and malice are great plagues in the human soul. From envy, anger, from anger, malice, from malice, murder will follow, as we see with Cain. Therefore, we need to work and pray to Jesus until He heals these wounds in our souls. He wants to heal them, but he wants us to declare our infirmities to him, and ask, and seek healing from Him. Let us try to take care of the healing of our souls and pray diligently and persistently to the Physician of souls, Jesus, to heal our infirmities. What does envy do? It leads to anger, and anger not only blasphemes and slander, but also incites murder. Oh, fierce evil is envy, and its daughter is malice! So Cain was at first jealous of Abel, then he became angry, and in the end he killed his brother. So the sons of Jacob, envious of their brother Joseph, were angry with him and wanted to kill him and would have killed him if God, who was with him, had not preserved him from murder. However, out of anger, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt. So the Jews at first were jealous of Jesus our Lord, then they became angry and out of malice they slandered and blasphemed Him, and then they wanted to kill Him. Envy and malice lead to this end. Beware of envy and malice, as deadly ulcers of the soul, and first, as soon as they arise in the heart, suppress them with the sword of the word of God and the help of Jesus. For if you do not stop, they will strengthen themselves and defeat you, and plunge your soul into the most terrible state... The evil and envious do not let their benefactors go, and they consult against them on how to harm them and destroy them. They don’t look at who and what those against whom they breathe malice are. They do not reason and do not recognize the good in them and their good deeds to themselves, but only think about how to put their evil thoughts into action. Thus envy and malice blind a poor man. Oh, envy and malice, the offspring of an evil spirit - the devil! Do you see how this parent of malice has infected the human heart! We see enough of this evil in the world, numerous examples are found of how evil ones and their benefactors are not ashamed and not horrified to do evil. Try in every possible way to guard yourself from envy and malice, so that they do not possess your heart. Many abstain from food and drink and do not eat meat and fish, but they do not want to abstain at all from envy and anger. And what is the benefit if the body does not consume what is not prohibited, but the soul is consumed by what is forbidden under the death penalty? Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15), says the apostle.