which makes me an imitator of Satan. Confounding myself, therefore, for the sin which I have committed in this matter, I will say to myself.
Colloquy. — Seeing that thou wert called to imitate Christ, imitate not His enemy; for if thou imitate him in envy, thou shalt be partaker of the death that entered by it.
POINT II.
Secondly, I will consider the innumerable evils of sin and pain that spring from envy, by God's just punishment, that itself might be the most cruel tormentor of him that is subject to it, as well in this life as in the other.
1. Envy is a venomous breath of the infernal serpent, by the which he casteth out all his poison together, seducing to most grievous sins, obscuring reason, enraging the soul, corrupting the body, and " is the rottenness of bones [1] and, still more, destroying the strong virtues of the heart
2. On the other side, it is like a disease incurable, or very difficult to be cured: for, as it is a vice infamous, and belonging only to base and servile minds, so we are ashamed to manifest it to the spiritual physician; and whatever success there be, whether prosperous or adverse, it is nourished and increased by it.
All this may be pondered in certain examples of Holy Scripture, in all states of persons, according to the degree of the envy that we speak of. It was through envy, conceived because Almighty God had accepted his brother Abel's sacrifice, that Cain killed him by deceit and cruelty, [2] and even would have covered his sin from Almighty God, and despaired of mercy and remedy. It was through envy that the brethren of Joseph put him in a well, and sold him for a slave; [3] and though he humbled himself they were not appeased. It was envying Aaron and Moses,
