To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the Danaids [32] and Dircæ, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with stedfastness, [33] and though weak in body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from their husbands, and changed that saying of our father Adam, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." [34] Envy and strife have overthrown great cities and rooted up mighty nations.

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Footnotes:

[32] Some suppose these to have been the names of two eminent female martyrs under Nero; others regard the clause as an interpolation. [Many ingenious conjectures might be cited; but see Jacobson's valuable note, Patres Apostol., vol. i.[p. 30.]

[33] Literally, "have reached to the stedfast course of faith."

[34] Genesis 2:23.