Do Not Covet, Writings by Eastern Church Fathers, Dwight Moody, and Dr Laura

Today we will learn and reflect on the Tenth Commandment,
DO NOT COVET, or DO NOT ENVY.
REPEAT:
Although COVETING is a sinful thought, it is still a very serious sin, as coveting can
lead to all the other sins, including murder, theft, and adultery.
Just as the first Psalm is a progression, so the Decalogue is a progression.
The first Psalms goes from walking, to standing, to sitting:
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

REPEAT:
Likewise, for the Decalogue:
If we think pure thoughts,
Then our speech will be pure.
If we speak encouraging and loving words,
Then our actions will be pure.
Our actions will not be pure
Unless our thoughts and words are pure.

Although COVETING is a sinful thought, it is
still a very serious sin, as coveting can lead
to all the other sins, including murder, theft,
and adultery.
Just as the first Psalm is a progression, so
the Decalogue is a progression.
If we think pure thoughts,
Then our speech will be pure.
If we speak encouraging and loving words,
Then our actions will be pure.
Our actions will not be pure
Unless our thoughts and words are pure.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for this video, and my blogs
that also cover this topic. Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments, sometimes these will generate short videos of their own. Let us learn
and reflect together!

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Do Not Covet, Writings by Eastern Church Fathers,
Dwight Moody, and Dr Laura
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In Luke, Jesus told this parable to some who trusted
in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others: “Two men went up into the
temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with
himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other
men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like
this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of
all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off,
would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat
his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a
sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other; for everyone who
exalts himself will be humbled, but he who
humbles himself will be exalted.”

We imagine we are the tax collector, and perhaps we even thank God
we are not like the Pharisee over there, but if we go to church on
Sunday and live a cut-throat life on Monday, taking advantage of
those around us, not loving our neighbor, then we are the
Pharisee. Perhaps that is the best way to learn from this parable, to
see ourselves as Pharisees, so we too can repent like the tax
collector.
Ask any waitress, the best tippers are the drunks who come in from
the bars on weekend nights, but the worst tippers, the least
generous, are the Christians coming in for their Sunday brunch after
church. We are fine with going to church and loving God, but our
neighbor who doesn’t go to church with us, not so much.

So perhaps it would be better for us in the modern world to start
with the last commandment and go to the first, for like we hear in
the country song, if we do not love our neighbor, we can never Love
God.
Before we study this section in the Catholic Catechism, in this blog
we will listen to the teachings of the Church Fathers and others who
have commented on the command, DO NOT ENVY.
Our favorite summary of the Ten Commandments is that provided St
Gregory Palamas in Volume 4 of the Philokalia, so that is where we
will start.

St Gregory Palamas teaches us that the command not to covet is
not only a negative THOU SHALT NOT command but is more a
THOU SHALT positive command, that we shall be generous and
show charity and lend to our less fortunate neighbor, and to
watch after our neighbor’s interests, returning to him lost items
you may find. “Covetousness, conceived in the soul, produces
sin; and sin, when committed, results in death (James
1:5). Refrain from coveting what belongs to others and avoid
filching things out of greediness. Rather you should give from
what you possess to whoever asks of you, and you should, as
much as you can, be charitable to whoever is in need of charity,
and you should not refuse whoever wants to borrow from you
(Matthew 5:42). Should you find some lost article, you should
keep it for its owner, even if the owner is hostile towards you,
perhaps your kindness will change him and your kindness will
overcome evil, as Christ commands.”

Does this last of the commandments simply admonish, You shall
not covet your neighbor’s wife or anything that belongs to your
neighbor? No, this is far too important a commandment than
that, it first lists all that is important to your neighbor that you
should not covet, and then says you should not covet any of your
neighbor’s other possessions.

If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will want the best for your neighbor, you
will not be angry if he has something you do not, if your neighbor is more
fortunate than you, if your neighbor is wealthier than you; rather, you will rejoice
in your neighbor’s good fortune. Envy and covetousness is a dangerous sin, it
leads to all the other sins, before you steal, before you adulter, before you murder,
you covet. Envy is the enemy of friendship. Envy is a sin of your thoughts, that
leads to a sin of your words, and ultimately leads to sins of commission, the sins of
orneriness, theft, adultery, and murder.
The best example of how envy and covetousness is how King David coveted the
wife of Uriah the Hittite, and how this envy and covetousness quickly led to many
other sins.

In the spring of the year, the
time when kings go forth to
battle, David sent Joab, and his
servants with him, and all
Israel; and they ravaged the
Ammonites, and besieged
Rabbah. But David remained at
Jerusalem.
It happened, late one
afternoon, when David arose
from his couch and was walking
upon the roof of the king’s
house, that he saw from the
roof a woman bathing; and the
woman was very beautiful.
2 Samuel 11
Bathsheba with David's messenger, as king watches from roof, 1562 Jan Massys

David sent and inquired
about the woman. And
one said, “Is not this
Bathsheba, the daughter
of Eliam, the wife of
Uriah the Hittite?” So
David sent messengers,
and took her; and she
came to him, and he lay
with her. (Now she was
purifying herself from
her uncleanness.) Then
she returned to her
house. And the woman
conceived; and she sent
and told David, “I am
with child.”
David seducing Bathsheba. Anonymous 17th century painting.

Immediately the envy and covetousness David felt for the wife
of Uriah the Hittite led to adultery, and pregnancy.
David then lied, trying to trick Uriah into spending time with his
wife when he was called from the front, but Uriah refused. He
then instructed his general Joab to place Uriah near the front of
the army so he would be killed, adding murder to his crimes,
and theft, since he then married Bathsheba. Notice how
Scriptures note that Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam,
whom he dishonored, adding another sin. And most of all, this
was a sin against God.

Bathsheba at
her bath,
Paolo
Fiammingo,
late 1500’s

Bathsheba, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, 1700’s
Bathsheba at her bath, Giuseppe
Bartolomeo Chiari, painted 1700

Allegory of Time and
Truth as winner over
Envy and Falsehood, Jan
van den Hoecke, painted
between 1630 and 1651

The Exodus version admonishes us:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you
shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or
female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that
belongs to your neighbor.
An interesting observation by Von Rad in his
commentary on Deuteronomy is that the Hebrew
word for covet had a double meaning, it can be
translated as coveting or as taking.

One possible implication is that because coveting itself is a sin,
that spiritually coveting is a type of spiritual theft as we imagine a
future day when that which is our neighbor’s belongings now
belong to us. The initial envious temptation may not be a sin,
but it develops into coveting when we feed the initial desire by
our evil imaginings. Just as God heard the cry of the blood in
ground drained from Abel’s murder, so God heard the cry of
anger in Cain’s heart as he pondered the evil deed. The
wrestling against sin begins in our heart as we wrestle with the
temptation that seeks to grow into covetousness.

Abraham
Bloemaert: Cain
slaying Abel,
painted 1590s

St John Climacus in his monastic handbook
guards his monks from envy by having them
give up their possessions. “Non-possessiveness
is the resignation of care, life without anxiety,
an unencumbered wayfarer, alienation from
sorrow, fidelity of the commandments.”
As envy is the gateway to all the other sins
against your neighbor, for envy often precedes
theft, adultery, anger and murder, so non-
possessiveness leads us to fidelity to the
commandments, enabling us to love our
neighbor and our God. “He who despises what
is material is rid of quarrels and controversies,
but the covetous man will fight to the death for
a needle.”

St John Climacus continues,
“The love of money is the root of all evils (see 1
Timothy 6:10), because it produces hatred,
thefts, envy, separations, enmities, storms,
remembrance of wrong, hard-heartedness, and
murders.” “Job showed no trace of avarice,
when he lost everything, he remained
undisturbed.” When you cling to your
possessions, do you own them, or do they own
you? Were a hurricane to strike and sweep
away all you own in the wind and the water and
the waves, would you lose everything? “Waves
never leave the sea, nor do anger and grief
leave the avaricious.”

St Maximus the Confessor links self-esteem to
avarice, “those who are full of self-esteem acquire
riches and those who are rich become full of self-
esteem.” Likewise, he links rancor and resentment
to envy, “it is hard to check the resentment of an
envious person, for what he envies in you he
considers his own misfortune. You cannot check
his envy except by hiding from him the things that
arouses his passion.” How can you defeat your
own envy? By “rejoicing with the man whom you
envy whenever he rejoices, and grieving
whenever he grieves, fulfilling St Paul’s words,
‘Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with
those who weep. (Romans 12:15)”

St Thalassios teaches us that “pride and
boastfulness are characterized by hypocrisy,
guile, trickery, pretense and worst of all,
deceit. These are aided and abetted by envy,
strife, anger, resentment, and rancor. Such is
the state of those who live dissolutely, and
such are the treasures hidden in my heart
(Matthew 12:35).” “The three most common
forms of desire, gluttony, self-esteem, and
avarice, have their origin in the passion of
self-love.” From these base desires flow
“resentment, anger, rancor, envy, and
listlessness.

Dwight Moody sees ENVY as the
creeping sin, the sin few confess, the sin
few notice as it creeps into their souls,
the sin of the mind and the heart that
leads us to all other sins. “Covetousness
and stealing are Siamese twins,” and add
lying they are triplets. “Covetousness
destroys faith and spirituality, turning
men’s minds and hearts away from
God.” Nations go to war when they
covet riches and territory. The Scriptures
squeeze the covetous between thieves
and drunkards.”

Moody continues, “Envy is what led Eve, then Adam, to the first sin, “they were
not satisfied with that God had showered upon them, but coveted the wisdom of
the gods which Satan deceitfully told them might be obtained by eating the fruit.”
Adam and Eve, Sistine
Chapel, Michelangelo

In their book on the Ten Commandments, Dr
Laura and her rabbi say that in the Hebrew in
Deuteronomy two words are used, we are
forbidden to covet our neighbor’s wife while we
are forbidden to desire our neighbor’s house,
some scholars see desiring as leading to
coveting.
Coveting is a sin of our thoughts, Proverbs exhorts
us that among the six things the Lord hates is a
“heart that devises wicked plans.” Likewise,
Leviticus exhorts us, “You shall not hate your
brother in your heart, but you shall reason with
your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of
him.” As Dr Laura and her rabbi put it, coveting
“involves wanting something at someone else’s
expense, not simply just wanting something.”

SOURCES:
We quoted several Eastern Church Fathers from several volumes of the
Philokalia that are not referenced in the Catholic Catechism. The
Catechism referenced several works from St Augustine and St Gregory
of Nyssa’s book on the Beatitudes, which will have blogs and videos of
their own.
We also quoted from the Ladder of Divine Ascent, we will be recording
videos and blogs as we climb the rungs of the ladder in the coming year.
Dwight Moody has some excellent sermons on the Decalogue, and the
book by Dr Laura and her rabbi is excellent, she recounts stories from
the calls she has fielded on her show over the years, and her rabbi
provides interesting commentary.

You can purchase and/or view the full Catechism on-line at the US Catholic Bishops website:
http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

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