Theseven deadly sins (also known as thecapital vices orcardinal sins) function as a grouping of major vices within the teachings ofChristianity.[1] In the standard list, the seven deadly sins according to theCatholic Church arepride,greed,wrath,envy,lust,gluttony, andsloth.
In Catholicism, the classification of deadly sins into a group of seven originated withTertullian and continued withEvagrius Ponticus.[2] The concepts were partly based on Greco-Roman and Biblical antecedents[3]. Later, the concept of seven deadly sins evolved further, as shown by historical context based on the Latin language of the Roman Catholic Church, though with significant influence from the Greek language and associated religious traditions. Knowledge of this concept is evident in various treatises; in paintings and sculpture (for example, architectural decorations on churches in some Catholicparishes); and in some older textbooks.[1] Further knowledge has been derived from patterns ofconfession.
During later centuries and in modern times, the idea of sins (especially seven in number) has influenced or inspired various streams of religious and philosophical thought, fine art painting, and modern popular media such asliterature,film, andtelevision.
An allegorical image depicting the human heart subject to the seven deadly sins, each represented by an animal (clockwise:toad = avarice;snake = envy;lion = wrath;snail = sloth;pig = gluttony;goat = lust;peacock = pride)
With reference to the seven deadly sins, "evil thoughts" can be categorized as follows:[4]
physical (thoughts produced by the nutritive, sexual, and acquisitive appetites)
emotional (thoughts produced by depressive, irascible, or dismissive moods)
mental (thoughts produced by jealous, boastful, or hubristic states of mind)
Ὑπερηφανία (hyperēphania)pride, sometimes rendered asself-overestimation,arrogance, orgrandiosity[7]
Evagrius's list was translated into the Latin of Western Christianity in many writings ofJohn Cassian,[8][9] one of Evagrius’s students; the list thus become part of the Western tradition's spiritualpietas orCatholic devotions as follows:[4]
In AD 590,Pope Gregory I revised this list into the form that has become common.[10] He combinedtristitia withacedia; combinedvanagloria withsuperbia; and addedenvy, which isinvidia in Latin.[11][12] (Pope Gregory's list corresponds to the traits described inPirkei Avot as "removing one from the world.")[13][14]Thomas Aquinas uses and defends Gregory's list in hisSumma Theologica, although he calls them the "capital sins", because they are the head and form of all the other sins.[15] Christian denominations, such as theAnglican Communion,[16]Lutheran Church,[17] andMethodist Church,[18] still retain this list; modern evangelists such asBilly Graham have explicated it.[19]
According toCatholic prelateHenry Edward Manning, the seven deadly sins are seven ways toeternal death (or Hell).[20] The Lutheran divineMartin Chemnitz, who contributed to the development of Lutheran systematic theology, implored clergy to remind faithful congregations about the seven deadly sins.[21]
In order of increasing severity according to Pope Gregory I, the seven deadly sins are as follows:
Lust or lechery is intense longing. It is usually viewed as intense or unbridledsexual desire,[22] which may lead tofornication (includingadultery,rape, orbestiality), and other sinful and sexual acts; however, lust can also denote other forms of unbridled desire, such as for money or power.Henry Edward Manning explains that the impurity of lust transforms one into "a slave of thedevil".[20]
Lust is generally thought to be the mildest capital sin.[23][24] Thomas Aquinas considers it an abuse of a faculty that humans share with animals, and sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins.[25]
Gluttony is the overindulgence andoverconsumption of anything to the point of excess. The word derives from the Latingluttire, meaning 'to gulp down' or 'to swallow'.[26] One reason for condemning gluttony is that gorging by prosperous people may leave needy people hungry.[27]
Medieval church leaders such asThomas Aquinas took a more expansive view of gluttony,[27] arguing that it could also include an obsessive anticipation of meals, as well as overindulgence in delicacies and costly foods. Aquinas listed five forms of gluttony:[28]
In the words of Henry Edward Manning, avarice "plunges a man deep into the mire of this world, so that he makes it to be his god".[20]
Greed, oravarice as it came to be known, has many forms. When Pope Gregory I revised the sins, he defined greed as "treachery, fraud, deceit, perjury, restlessness, violence and hardnesses of heart against compassion." This definition would evolve into the modern interpretation: outside Christian writings, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect tomaterial wealth.[29] Aquinas believed that greed, like pride, can lead to evil.[30]
Sloth refers to many related ideas, dating from antiquity, and includes spiritual, mental, and physical states.[31] The definition has changed considerably since it was first recognized as a sin. Today it can be defined as the absence of interest in or habitual disinclination to exertion.[32] Originally, however, Christian theologians believed it to be a lack of care for performing spiritual duties.
The scope of sloth is wide.[31] In a spiritual sense,acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations toGod. In a mental sense,acedia has a number of distinctive components: the most important of these is affectlessness—a lack of any feeling about self or other; a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy; and a passive inert or sluggish mentation. In a physical sense,acedia is fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; the sin finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.[31]
The other deadly sins are sins of committing immorality; by contrast, sloth is a sin of avoiding responsibilities. The sin may arise from any of the other capital vices: for example, a son may avoid his duty to his father because of anger. The state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin; but the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself, except under certain circumstances.[20]
Emotionally, and cognitively, the evil ofacedia (or sloth) finds expression in a lack of feeling for the world, the people in it, or the self.Acedia takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. The most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in, or care for, others or oneself. Nevertheless, a lesser yet more harmful element was also noted by theologians: Gregory the Great asserted that, "fromtristitia, there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair".
Chaucer also dealt with this attribute ofacedia, reckoning the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, laziness, andwrawnesse, the last variously translated as 'anger' or better as 'peevishness'. For Chaucer, human sin consists in languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because (people tell themselves) the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer.Acedia in Chaucer's view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.[33]
According to Stanford Lyman, sloth subverts the maintenance of the body, taking no care for its daily needs; sloth also slows down the mind, diverting its attention away from important matters. Sloth hinders a person in moral undertakings, and it thus becomes a significant source of a person's ruin.[33]
Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance.[34]
According to theCatechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person; when it is unduly strong or long-lasting; or when it desires excessive punishment. "If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin". Hatred is the sin of desiring that someone else may suffer misfortune or evil, and it is a mortal sin when one desires grave harm.[35]
People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been offended; when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event; when they are certain someone else is responsible; and when they feel that they can still influence the situation or cope with it.[36]
Henry Edward Manning considers that "angry people are slaves to themselves".[20]
Envy is characterized by an insatiable desire such as greed and lust. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of another person. Envy stems fromvainglory[37] and cuts a person off from their neighbor.[20]
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages:
During the first stage, the envious person attempts to lower another person's reputation
In the middle stage, the envious person receives either "joy at another's misfortune" (if he succeeds in defaming the other person) or "grief at another's prosperity" (if he fails)
the third stage is hatred because "sorrow causes hatred"[38]
Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow to committers of envy, while giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others.[39]
Detail ofPride fromThe Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1500
Pride is known ashubris (from theAncient Greekὕβρις) or futility; it is considered the original and worst of the seven deadly sins—the most demonic—on almost every list.[40] Pride is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Pride is viewed as the opposite ofhumility.[41][42]
C. S. Lewis writes inMere Christianity that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God: "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that Lucifer became wicked: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."[43] Pride is understood to sever the human spirit from God, as well as from the life and grace given by God's presence.[20]
A person can be prideful for different reasons. AuthorIchabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not worst snare of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing."[44]Jonathan Edwards wrote: "remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was and lies lowest in the foundation of Lucifer's whole building and is the most difficultly rooted out and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility."[45]
Modern use of the termpride may be captured in thebiblical proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (which is abbreviated as "Pride goeth before a fall" inProverbs 16:18). The "pride that blinds" causes foolish actions against common sense.[46] In political analysis,hubris is often used to describe how powerful leaders become irrationally self-confident and contemptuous of advice over time, leading them to act impulsively.[46]
Acedia is neglecting to take care of something that one should do. The term can be translated as 'apathetic listlessness' ordepression. It is related tomelancholy;acedia describes the behaviour, andmelancholy suggests the emotion producing it. In early Christian thought, the lack of joy was regarded as a willful refusal to enjoy the goodness of God. By contrast, apathy was considered a refusal to help others in times of need.
Acēdia is the negative form of the Greek termκηδεία (Kēdeia), which has a more restricted usage.Kēdeia refers specifically to spousal love and respect for the dead.[47]
Pope Gregory combined acedia withtristitia to form sloth in his list. WhenThomas Aquinas considered acedia in his interpretation of this list, he described it as an "uneasiness of the mind", which was a progenitor for lesser sins such as restlessness and instability.[48]
Acedia is currently defined in theCatechism of the Catholic Church as spiritual sloth—believing spiritual tasks to be too difficult.[49] In the fourth century, Christian monks believed that acedia was primarily caused by a state ofmelancholia that caused spiritual detachment rather than laziness.[50]
Vainglory is unjustified boasting. Pope Gregory viewed it as a form of pride, so he merged vainglory into pride in his list of sins.[11] Vainglory is the progenitor ofenvy.[37]
Professor Kevin M. Clarke observes that vainglory is technically different from pride: vainglory is “when we seek human acclaim”, while pride is “taking spiritual credit for what I’ve done, instead of ascribing one’s good deeds to God.”[51]
The Latin termgloria roughly means 'boasting', although its English cognateglory has come to have an exclusively positive meaning. Historically, the termvain meant roughly 'futile' (a meaning retained in the modern expressionin vain); but by the fourteenth century,vain had come to have the strongnarcissistic undertones that it retains today.[52]
According to a 2009 study by the Jesuit scholarFr. Roberto Busa, the most common deadly sin confessed by men is lust, and the most common deadly sin confessed by women is pride.[53] It is unclear whether these differences were due to the actual number of transgressions committed by each sex, or whether the observed pattern was caused by differing views on what matters or should be confessed.[54]
^abRefoule, F. (1967) "Evagrius Ponticus," InNew Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 5, pp. 644f, Staff of Catholic University of America, Eds., New York: McGraw-Hill.
^"For pride is the root of all evil, of which it is said, as Scripture bears witness; Pride is the beginning of all sin. [Ecclus. 10, 1] But seven principal vices, as its first progeny, spring doubtless from this poisonous root, namely, vain glory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, lust." Gregory the Great,Moralia in Iob, book XXXIArchived 2021-06-12 at theWayback Machine
^abDelCogliano, Mark (18 November 2014).Gregory the Great: Moral Reflections on the Book of Job, Volume 1. Cistercian Publications.ISBN9780879071493.
^Tucker, Shawn R. (24 February 2015).The Virtues and Vices in the Arts: A Sourcebook. Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers.
^Pirkei Avot 2:11, 3:10, and 4:21. Also theVilna Gaon's commentary to AggadotBerakhot 4b.
^Armentrout, Don S. (1 January 2000).An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: A User-Friendly Reference for Episcopalians. Church Publishing, Inc. p. 479.ISBN9780898697018.
^Speidel, Royal."What Would a United Methodist Jesus Do?". UCM. Archived fromthe original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved26 March 2017.Thirdly, the United Methodist Jesus reminds us to confess our sins. How long has it been since you have heard reference to the seven deadly sins: pride, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, envy and anger?
^The American Lutheran, Volumes 39–40. American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. 1956. p. 332.The world-renowned Evangelist, Billy Graham, presents in this volume an excellent analysis of the seven deadly sins which he enumerates as pride, anger, envy, impurity, gluttony, avarice and slothfulness.
^abcdefghManning, Henry Edward.Sin and Its consequences.
^Martin Chemnitz (2007).Ministry, Word, and Sacraments: An Enchiridion; The Lord's Supper; The Lord's Prayer. Concordia Publishing House.ISBN978-0-7586-1544-2.
^"greed".American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2016. Retrieved4 February 2019 – via The Free Dictionary.
^Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.
Schumacher, Meinolf [de] (2005): "Catalogues of Demons as Catalogues of Vices in Medieval German Literature: 'Des Teufels Netz' and the Alexander Romance by Ulrich von Etzenbach." InIn the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages. Edited by Richard Newhauser, pp. 277–290. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
.jpg)
.jpg)
