Traditionally envy was regarded as the second worst and second most prevalent of the seven deadly sins. Like pride, it is a sin of the spirit, not of the flesh, and thus a “cold” and highly “respectable” sin, in contrast to the “warm” and openly “disreputable” sins of the flesh, such as gluttony. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is the one vice that its perpetrators never enjoy and rarely confess. (The Call, Os Guinness)
"But Envy always brings the truest charge, or the charge nearest to the truth, that she can think up; it hurts more." (The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis ).
Envy enters when, seeing someone else’s happiness or success, we feel ourselves called into question. Then, out of the hurt of our wounded self-esteem, we seek to bring the other person down to our level by word or deed. They belittle us by their success, we feel; we should bring them down to their deserved level, envy helps us feel. Full-blown envy, in short, is dejection plus disparagement plus destruction. (The Call, Os Guiness)
“Envy begins by asking plausibly: ‘Why should I not enjoy what others enjoy?’ and it ends by demanding: ‘Why should others enjoy what I may not?’” (Dorothy Sayers)The following dialog occurs in The Great Divorce. The protagonist John witnesses an exchange of a resident of heaven with her husband. The husband is visiting from hell. The wife tries to persuade him to stay and pleads with him to forget his pride and self-importance so he can then join her in heaven. At the end of the conversation, he refuses heaven and happiness, and demands that the wife leave her Joy(Christ) and follow him back to hell. She flatly refuses. The protagonist, John, asks his tour guide is it really necessary that wife should be so untouched by her husband's self-inflicted misery. The tour guide, George MacDonald, responds as follows:
Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthy life."Here is a couple notes of explanation. First, Sophistry is an argument based on cleverness and not truth. Second, "Dog in a Manger" means some one who prevents other people from getting what they want when the person can't get what he wants. The fable goes "There was a dog lying in a manger who did not eat the grain but who nevertheless prevented the horse from being able to eat anything either."
"Well, no. I suppose I don't want that."
"What then?"
"I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved."
"Ye see it does not."
"I feel in a way that it ought to."
"That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it."
"What?"
"The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven."
"I don't know what I want, Sir."
"Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in other the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe." (pp. 120-121)
Here's a quote by Charles Spurgeon on the cure for envy. I stole it from a website listed below.
The cure for envy lies in living under a constant sense of the divine presence, worshiping God and communing with Him all the day long, however long the day may seem. True religion lifts the soul into a higher region, where the judgment becomes more clear and the desires are more elevated. The more of heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet. The fear of God casts out envy of men. ( http://www.challies.com/personal-reflections/the-cure-for-envy)
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