The Seven Deadly Sins

## Sins vs. Virtues

* Lust(Luxuria) VS. Chastity(Castitas)
* Gluttony(Gula) VS. Temperance(Temperantia)
* Greed(Avaritia) VS. Charity(Caritas)
* Sloth(Tristitia) VS. Diligence(Industria)
* Wrath(Ira) VS. Patience (Patientia)
* Envy(Invidia) VS. Kindness(Humanitas)

* Pride(Superbia) VS. Humility(Humilitas)

## The Seven Sins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert\_Fathers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven\_deadly\_sins

The **seven deadly sins**, also known as the **capital vices** or **cardinal sins**, is a grouping and classification of vices of Christian origin.[1] Behaviors or habits are classified under this category if they directly give birth to other immoralities.[2] According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth,[2] which are also contrary to the seven virtues. These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions (for example, gluttony abuses one's desire to eat).

This classification originated with the desert fathers, especially Evagrius Ponticus, who identified seven or eight evil thoughts or spirits that one needed to overcome.[3] Evagrius' pupil John Cassian, with his book The Institutes, brought the classification to Europe,[4] where it became fundamental to Catholic confessional practices as evident in penitential manuals, sermons like "The Parson's Tale" from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and artworks like Dante's Purgatory (where the penitents of Mount Purgatory are depicted as being grouped and penanced according to the worst capital sin they committed). The Church used the doctrine of the deadly sins in order to help people stop their inclination towards evil before dire consequences and misdeeds occur; the leader-teachers especially focused on pride (which is thought to be the one that severs the soul from Grace,[5] and one that is representative and the very essence of all evil) and greed, both of which are seen as inherently sinful and as underlying all other sins (although greed, when viewed just by itself and discounting all the sins it might lead to, is generally thought be less serious than sloth). To inspire people to focus on the seven deadly sins, the vices are discussed in treatises, and depicted in paintings and sculpture decorations on churches.[1] Peter Brueghel the Elder's prints of the Seven Deadly Sins and extremely numerous other works, both non-religious and religious, show the continuity of this practice in the culture and everyday life of the modern era.

## History

### **Biblical antecedents**

The seven deadly sins in their current form are not found in the Bible, however there are biblical antecedents. One such antecedent is found in the Book of Proverbs 6:16–19, however only in the Masoretic Text (the earlier translated Septuagint version of this passage lacks a clear preface and lists only five). Among the verses traditionally associated with King Solomon, it states that the Lord specifically regards "six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him", namely:[6]

1. A proud (vain) look
2. A lying tongue.
3. Hands that shed innocent blood
4. A heart that deviseth wicked acts
5. Feet that be swift in running to mischief
6. A false witness that speaketh lies
7. He that soweth discord among brethren[7]

Another list,[8] given this time by the Epistle to the Galatians (Galatians 5:19–21), includes more of the traditional seven , although the list is substantially longer: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, "and such like".[9] Since the apostle Paul goes on to say that the persons who practice these sins "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God", they are usually listed as (possible) mortal sins rather than capital vices.[10]

Still another list of things that God hates comes from Revelation 21:8.[11] This list has eight items, however and are inclusive of the seven sins listed previously which states: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

### **Greco-Roman antecedents**

While the seven deadly sins as we know them did not originate with the Greeks or Romans, there were ancient precedents for them. Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics* lists several positive, healthy human qualities, excellences, or virtues. Aristotle argues that for each positive quality there are two negative vices that are found on each extreme of the virtue. Courage, for example, is the human excellence or virtue in facing fear and risk. Excessive courage makes one rash, while a deficiency of courage makes one cowardly. This principle of virtue found in the middle or "mean" between excess and deficiency is Aristotle's notion of the golden mean. Aristotle lists virtues like courage, temperance or self-control, generosity, "greatness of soul," proper response to anger, friendliness, and wit or charm.

Roman writers like Horace extolled the value of virtue while listing and warning against vices. His first epistles says that "to flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom."[12]

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).

### **Origin of the currently recognized Seven Deadly Sins**

The modern concept of the seven deadly sins is linked to the works of the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus, who listed eight *evil thoughts* in Greek as follows:[13][14]

* 1 Γαστριμαργία (gastrimargia) gluttony
* 2 Πορνεία (porneia) prostitution, fornication
* 3 Φιλαργυρία (philargyria) avarice
* 4 Ὑπερηφανία (hyperēphania) pride – sometimes rendered as *self-overestimation*[15]
* 5 Λύπη (lypē) sadness – in the Philokalia, this term is rendered as *envy,* sadness at another's good fortune
* 6 Ὀργή (orgē) wrath
* 7 Κενοδοξία (kenodoxia) boasting
* 8 Ἀκηδία (akēdia) acedia – in the Philokalia, this term is rendered as *dejection*

They were translated into the Latin of Western Christianity (largely due to the writings of John Cassian),[16][17] thus becoming part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas (or Catholic devotions), as follows:[18]

* 1 Gula (gluttony)
* 2 Luxuria/Fornicatio (lust, fornication)
* 3 Avaritia (avarice/greed)
* 4 Superbia (pride, hubris)
* 5 Tristitia (sorrow/despair/despondency)
* 6 Ira (wrath)
* 7 Vanagloria (vainglory)
* 8 Acedia (sloth)

These "evil thoughts" can be categorized into three types:[18]

* lustful appetite (gluttony, fornication, and avarice)
* irascibility (wrath)
* mind corruption (vainglory, sorrow, pride, and discouragement)

In AD 590 Pope Gregory I revised this list to form the more common list. Gregory combined tristitia and acedia, vanagloria and superbia, and added envy.[19][20] Gregory's list became the standard list of sins. Thomas Aquinas uses and defends Gregory's list in his Summa Theologica.[21]

Most of the capital sins, with the sole exception of sloth, are defined by Dante Alighieri as perverse or corrupt versions of love for something or another: lust, gluttony, and greed are all excessive or disordered love of good things; sloth is a deficiency of love; wrath, envy, and pride are perverted love directed toward other's harm.[22] In the seven capital sins are seven ways of eternal death.[5] The capital sins from lust to envy are generally associated with pride, which has been labeled as the father of all sins, etc.