1 Samuel 18
John Chrysostom · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
1 Samuel 18:7
But now notice in this incident how much trouble the passion of envy caused: when the king saw this young man enjoying such popularity and the dancing crowds calling out, "Saul's conquests ran into thousands, David's into tens of thousands," he didn't take kindly to their words … but overwhelmed by envy, he now repaid his benefactor with the opposite treatment, and the one whom he should have recognized as his savior and benefactor he endeavored to do away with. What an extraordinary degree of frenzy! What excess of madness! The man who had won him the gift of life and had freed his whole army from the foreigner's rage he now suspected as an enemy, and, instead of the man's good deeds remaining fresh in his memory and prevailing over passion, the clarity of his thinking was dulled with envy as though by a kind of drunkenness, and he regarded his benefactor as his enemy.That is what the evil of this passion is like, you see: it first has a bad effect on the person giving birth to it. — HOMILIES ON GENESIS 46.13-14
1 Samuel 18:7
For envy is a fearful, a fearful thing, and persuades people to despise their own salvation. In this way did both Cain destroy himself, and again, before his time, the devil who was the destroyer of his father. So did Saul invite an evil demon against his own soul; yet when invited, he soon envied his physician. For such is the nature of envy; he knew that he was saved, yet he would rather have perished than see him that saved him have honor. What can be more grievous than this passion? One cannot err in calling it the devil's offspring. And in it is contained the fruit of vainglory, or rather its root also, for both these evils are apt mutually to produce each other. And thus in truth it was that Saul even thus envied, when they said, "David smote by ten thousands." What could be more senseless? For why do you envy? Tell me! "Because such a one praised him"? Yet surely you ought to rejoice. Besides, you do not know even whether the praise is true. And do you therefore grieve because without being admirable he has been praised as such? And yet you ought to feel pity. For if he is good, you ought not to envy him when praised, but you should praise along with those that speak well of him; but if not such, why are you galled? — HOMILIES ON 2 CORINTHIANS 24.4