The envious man indeed, who makes another's good his own torment by envying, seems to be provoked to envy by no concupiscence, but only to be vexed by the disease of pride. But if you search subtly and deeply into the plague of his soul by which, inflamed, he is hurled down, you will find him held both by a lust for the ruin of the one whose destruction he desires, and by the evil of pride, by which he ceaselessly groans that the better man, whom he envies, is preferred to himself. Who can easily express in words what kind of evil this is, whereby the envious man, with hatred of the man, pursues the divine gift in the man — when rather the man ought to be loved, even for the holiness of his own merit? The envious man has, by just penalty, as many tormentors as the envied man has had praisers.
For indeed excellence of merit makes a man enviable, the punishment of sin makes a man envious: and no remedy can be applied to him by man, whose wound is hidden.