Seven deadly sins

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Deadly sins)

For other uses, see Seven deadly sins (disambiguation) and Deadly Sins (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Mortal sin.

 Hieronymus Bosch's The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last

Things The Holy Spirit and the Seven Deadly Sins. Folio from
Walters manuscript W.171 (15th century)

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The seven deadly sins (also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins) function as a grouping
classification of major vices within the teachings of Christianity.[1] According to the standard list,
the seven deadly sins in Roman Catholic Church are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony,
and sloth.

In Catholicism, the classification of deadly sins into a group of seven originated with Tertullian,
and continued with Evagrius Ponticus.[2] The concepts of the sins involved were in part based on
Greco-Roman and Biblical antecedents. Later, the concept of seven deadly sins evolved further,
based upon historical context based upon the Latin language of the Roman Catholic Church,
though with a significant influence from the Greek language and associated religious traditions.
Knowledge of the seven deadly sin concept is known through discussions in various treatises
and also depictions in paintings and sculpture, for example architectural decorations on certain
churches of certain Catholic parishes and also from certain older textbooks.[1] Further
information has been derived from patterns of confessions.

Subsequently, over the centuries into 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 culture media such as literature, film, and television.
History

[edit]

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

[edit]

These "evil thoughts" can be categorized as follows:[3]

 physical (thoughts produced by the nutritive, sexual, and acquisitive appetites)

 emotional (thoughts produced by depressive, irascible, or dismissive moods)

 mental (thoughts produced by jealous/envious, boastful, or hubristic states of mind)

The fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus reduced the[which?] nine logismoi[clarification needed] to eight,
as follows:[4][5]

1. Γαστριμαργία (gastrimargia) gluttony

2. Πορνεία (porneia) prostitution, fornication

3. Φιλαργυρία (philargyria) greed

4. Λύπη (lypē) sadness, rendered in the Philokalia as envy, sadness at another's good
fortune
 5. Ὀργή (orgē) wrath

6. Ἀκηδία (akēdia) acedia (apathy/neglect/indifference), rendered in

the Philokalia as dejection

7. Κενοδοξία (kenodoxia) boasting

8. Ὑπερηφανία (hyperēphania) pride, sometimes rendered as self-

overestimation, arrogance, or grandiosity[6]

Evagrius's list was translated into the Latin of Western Christianity in many writings of John
Cassian,[7][8] thus becoming part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas or Catholic
devotions as follows:[3]

1. Gula (gluttony)

2. Luxuria/Fornicatio (lust, fornication)

3. Avaritia (greed)

4. Tristitia (sorrow/despair/despondency)

5. Ira (wrath)

6. Acedia (sloth)

7. Vanagloria (vainglory)

8. Superbia (pride, hubris)

In AD 590, Pope Gregory I revised the list to form a more common list.[9] Gregory
combined tristitia with acedia and vanagloria with superbia, adding envy, which is invidia in
Latin.[10][11] (It is interesting to note that Pope Gregory's list corresponds exactly to the traits
described in Pirkei Avot as "removing one from the world." See Pirkei Avot 2:11, 3:10, 4:21 and
the Vilna Gaon's commentary to Aggadot Berakhot 4b.)[12] Thomas Aquinas uses and defends
Gregory's list in his Summa Theologica, although he calls them the "capital sins" because they
are the head and form of all the other sins.[13] Christian denominations, such as the Anglican
Communion,[14] Lutheran Church,[15] and Methodist Church,[16] still retain this list, and modern
evangelists such as Billy Graham have explicated the seven deadly sins.[17]

Historical and modern definitions, views, and associations

[edit]

According to Catholic prelate Henry Edward Manning, the seven deadly sins are seven ways
of eternal death.[18] The Lutheran divine Martin Chemnitz, who contributed to the development
of Lutheran systematic theology, implored clergy to remind the faithful of the seven deadly sins.
[19]

Listed in order of increasing severity as per Pope Gregory I, 6th-century A.D., the seven deadly
sins are as follows:

Lust

[edit]

Main article: Lust

Lust or lechery is intense longing. It is usually thought of as intense or unbridled sexual desire,
[20]
which may lead to fornication (including adultery, rape, bestiality), and other sinful and
sexual acts; oftentimes, however, it can also mean 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 the devil".[18]

Lust is generally thought to be the least serious capital sin.[21][22] 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.[23]

Gluttony

[edit]

Main article: Gluttony

Still life: Excess (Albert Anker, 1896)

Gluttony is the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste. The
word derives from the Latin gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow.[24] One reason for its
condemnation is that the gorging of the prosperous may leave the needy hungry. [25]

Medieval church leaders such as Thomas Aquinas took a more expansive view of gluttony,
[25]
arguing that it could also include an obsessive anticipation of meals and overindulgence in
delicacies and costly foods. Aquinas also listed five forms of gluttony:[26]
  Laute – eating too expensively

 Studiose – eating too daintily

 Nimis – eating too much

 Praepropere – eating too soon

 Ardenter – eating too eagerly

Greed

[edit]

Main article: Greed

The Worship of Mammon (1909) by Evelyn De Morgan

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".[18]

As defined outside Christian writings, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more
than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.[27] Aquinas considers that, like pride,
it can lead to evil.[28]

Sloth

[edit]

Main article: Sloth (deadly sin)

 Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (1624) by Abraham
Bloemaert, Walters Art Museum

Sloth refers to many related ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual,
pathological, and physical states.[29] It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual
disinclination to exertion.[30]

In his Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good".
[28]

The scope of sloth is wide.[29] Spiritually, acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious
persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations
to God. Mentally, 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. Physically, acedia is
fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds
expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.[29]

Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy
Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord);
such disregard may lead to the slowing of spiritual progress towards eternal life, the neglect of
manifold duties of charity towards the neighbor, and animosity towards those who love God.[18]

Unlike the other seven deadly sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of
omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may
omit his duty to his father through anger. The state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin, while the
habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself
except under certain circumstances.[18]

Emotionally, and cognitively, the evil of acedia finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the
world, for the people in it, or for 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, but a lesser yet
more noisome element was also noted by theologians. Gregory the Great asserted that,
"from tristitia, there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair". Chaucer also dealt with
this attribute of acedia, counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence,
idleness, tardiness, negligence, laziness, and wrawnesse, the last variously translated as "anger"
or better as "peevishness". For Chaucer, human's sin consists of languishing and holding back,
refusing to undertake works of goodness because, they 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.[31]

Sloth subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions, and slows
down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders the man in
his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of human's undoing. [31]

Wrath

[edit]

Main article: Wrath

Wrath, by Jacques de l'Ange

Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often
reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance.[32]

According to the Catechism 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 is a mortal sin when one desires
grave harm.[33]
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.[34]

Henry Edward Manning considers that "angry people are slaves to themselves".[18]

Envy

[edit]

Main article: Envy

Envy is characterized by an insatiable desire like greed and lust. It can be described as a sad or
resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. It comes
from vainglory[35] and severs a man from his neighbor.[18]

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages: during the first
stage, the envious person attempts to lower another'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); and the third stage is hatred because
"sorrow causes hatred".[36]

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.[37]

Pride

[edit]

Main article: Pride

Detail of Pride from The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last
Things by Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1500
Pride, also known as hubris (from Ancient Greek ὕβρις) or futility, is considered the original and
worst of the seven deadly sins on almost every list, the most demonic.[38] It is also thought to be
the source of the other capital sins. Pride is the opposite of humility.[39][40]

C. S. Lewis writes in Mere 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."[41] Pride is understood to
sever the spirit from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence.[18]

One can be prideful for different reasons. Author Ichabod 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."[42] Jonathan Edwards said: "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." [43]

The modern use of pride may be summed up in the biblical proverb, "Pride goeth before
destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (abbreviated "Pride goeth before a
fall", Proverbs 16:18). The "pride that blinds" causes foolish actions against common sense. [44] In
political analysis, "hubris" is often used to describe how leaders with great power over many
years become more and more irrationally self-confident and contemptuous of advice, leading
them to act impulsively.