10. And therefore, beloved brethren, the Lord, taking thought for this risk, that none should fall into the snare of death through jealousy of his brother, when His disciples asked Him which among them should be the greatest, said, “Who soever shall be least among you all, the same shall be great.”19    Luke ix. 48. [Elucidation IX.] He cut off all envy by His reply.20    [And all ground for a supremacy among brethren was here absolutely ejected from the Christian system. The last of the canonical primates of Rome named himself Servus Servorum Dei, to rebuke those who would make him “Universal Bishop.”] He plucked out and tore away every cause and matter of gnawing envy. A disciple of Christ must not be jealous, must not be envious. With us there can be no contest for exaltation; from humility we grow to the highest attainments; we have learnt in what way we may be pleasing. And finally, the Apostle Paul, instructing and warning, that we who, illuminated by the light of Christ, have escaped from the darkness of the conversation of night, should walk in the deeds and works of light, writes and says, “The night has passed over, and the day is approaching: let us therefore cast away the works of darkness, and let us put upon us the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in lusts and wantonness, not in strifes and jealousy.”21    Rom. xiii. 12, 13. If the darkness has departed from your breast, if the night is scattered therefrom, if the gloom is chased away, if the brightness of day has illuminated your senses, if you have begun to be a man of light, do those things which are Christ’s, because Christ is the Light and the Day.

X. Et idcirco, fratres dilectissimi, huic periculo consulens Dominus, ne quis zelo fratris in laqueum mortis 0645B incurreret, cum eum discipuli interrogarent quis inter illos major esset: Qui fuerit, inquit, minimus in omnibus vobis, hic erit magnus (Luc. IX, 48). Amputavit omnem aemulationem responso suo, omnem causam et materiam mordacis invidiae eruit et abscidit. Discipulo Christi zelare non licet , non licet invidere. Exaltationis apud nos non potest esse contentio: de humilitate ad summa crescimus , didicimus unde placeamus. Denique et apostolus Paulus instruens et monens ut qui, illuminati Christi lumine tenebras nocturnae conversationis evasimus, in factis atque in operibus luminis ambulemus, scribit et dicit: Nox transivit, dies autem appropinquavit. Abjiciamus ergo opera tenebrarum, et induamus arma lucis. Tamquam in die decenter ambulemus, non in 0645C comessationibus et ebrietatibus, non in concupiscentiis et impudicitiis, non in certaminibus et zelo (Rom. XIII, 12, 13). Si recesserunt de pectore tuo tenebrae, si nox inde discussa est, si caligo detersa est, si illuminavit sensus tuos splendor diei, si homo lucis esse coepisti, quae sunt Christi gere, quia lux et dies Christus est.