In the Greek New Testament the word used for sin is a term from archery—hamartanein—meaning “to miss the mark”. We aim to do the right thing, gain a positive end, even if it’s only some sort of pleasure, but our arrow veers off and instead of the bull’s eye we hit someone in the field beyond. In other words, our mistakes are usually misdirected attempts at the good rather than intentional pursuit of the bad. But there is one exception to this positive understanding of sin: envy.
Every other sin offers some gratification, if only in its early stages, but envy is an empty and desolating experience from beginning to end. It is the meanest sin in the book, which is why few people ever own up to it. François de La Rochefoucauld captured its joyless secrecy in 1665: “We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shame-faced passion we never dare acknowledge.” Virginia Woolf thought it was the besetting sin of writers, and Gore Vidal agreed with her. Whenever a friend succeeded, he wrote, a little something in him died; for him it was not enough to succeed—others had to fail. Vidal’s spleen captures both aspects of envy: sorrow at another’s good and satisfaction at another’s misfortune, what the Germans call Schadenfreude, shame-joy, pleasure in the distress of others.
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