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The seven deadly sins (also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins) function as a grouping of major vices within the teachings of Christianity.<ref name="Tucker-2015">Template:Cite book</ref> In the standard list, the seven deadly sins according to the 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The concepts were partly based on Greco-Roman and Biblical antecedents. 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 Catholic parishes); and in some older textbooks.<ref name="Tucker-2015"/> Further knowledge has been derived from patterns of confession.
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 as literature, film, and television.
HistoryEdit
With reference to the seven deadly sins, "evil thoughts" can be categorized as follows:<ref name="Refoule67" />
- 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)
The fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus reduced theTemplate:Which logismoi (or forms of temptation) from nine to eight in number, as follows:<ref name="Pontico">Evagrio Pontico, Gli Otto Spiriti Malvagi, trans., Felice Comello, Pratiche Editrice, Parma, 1990, p.11-12.</ref><ref name="Evagrius">Template:Cite book</ref>
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) gluttony
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) prostitution, fornication
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) greed
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) sadness, rendered in the Philokalia as envy, sadness at another's good fortune
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) wrath
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) acedia (apathy, neglect, or indifference), rendered in the Philokalia as dejection
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) boasting
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration) pride, sometimes rendered as self-overestimation, arrogance, or grandiosity<ref>In the translation of the Philokalia by Palmer, Ware and Sherrard.</ref>
Evagrius's list was translated into the Latin of Western Christianity in many writings of John Cassian,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> one of Evagrius’s students; the list thus become part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas or Catholic devotions as follows:<ref name="Refoule67">Refoule, F. (1967) "Evagrius Ponticus," In New Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 5, pp. 644f, Staff of Catholic University of America, Eds., New York: McGraw-Hill.</ref>
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (gluttony)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (lust, fornication)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (greed)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (sorrow, despair, despondency)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (wrath)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (sloth)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (vanity, vainglory)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (pride)
In AD 590, Pope Gregory I revised this list into the form that has become common.<ref>"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 XXXI Template:Webarchive</ref> He combined {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; combined {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} with {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; and added envy, which is {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Latin.<ref name="DelCogliano-2014">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (Pope Gregory's list corresponds to the traits described in Pirkei Avot as "removing one from the world.")<ref>Pirkei Avot 2:11, 3:10, and 4:21. Also the Vilna Gaon's commentary to Aggadot Berakhot 4b.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Christian denominations, such as the Anglican Communion,<ref name="Armentrout2000">Template:Cite book</ref> Lutheran Church,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Methodist Church,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> still retain this list; modern evangelists such as Billy Graham have explicated it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Historical and modern definitions and perspectivesEdit
According to Catholic prelate Henry Edward Manning, the seven deadly sins are seven ways to eternal death (or Hell).<ref name="Manning">Template:Cite book</ref> The Lutheran divine Martin Chemnitz, who contributed to the development of Lutheran systematic theology, implored clergy to remind faithful congregations about the seven deadly sins.<ref name="Chemnitz2007">Template:Cite book</ref>
In order of increasing severity according to Pope Gregory I, the seven deadly sins are as follows:
LustEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}Lust or lechery is intense longing. It is usually viewed as intense or unbridled sexual desire,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which may lead to fornication (including adultery, rape, or bestiality), 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 the devil".<ref name="Manning"/>
Lust is generally thought to be the mildest capital sin.<ref name="DLSintro652">Dorothy L. Sayers, Purgatory, Introduction, pp. 65–67 (Penguin, 1955).</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
GluttonyEdit
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Gluttony is the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of excess. The word derives from the Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, meaning 'to gulp down' or 'to swallow'.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> One reason for condemning gluttony is that gorging by prosperous people may leave needy people hungry.<ref name="Okholm 2000">Okholm, Dennis. "Rx for Gluttony" Template:Webarchive. Christianity Today, Vol. 44, No. 10, 11 September 2000, p.62</ref>
Medieval church leaders such as Thomas Aquinas took a more expansive view of gluttony,<ref name="Okholm 2000"/> 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:<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – eating too expensively
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – eating too daintily
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – eating too much
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – eating too soon
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} – eating too eagerly
GreedEdit
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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".<ref name="Manning"/>
Avarice, or greed 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 to material wealth.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Aquinas believed that greed, like pride, can lead to evil.<ref name="Aquinas">Template:Cite book</ref>
SlothEdit
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Sloth refers to many related ideas, dating from antiquity, and includes spiritual, mental, and physical states.<ref name="Lyman-1989">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Originally, however, Christian theologians believed it to be a lack of care for performing spiritual duties.
In his Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good".<ref name="Aquinas"/>
The scope of sloth is wide.<ref name="Lyman-1989"/> In a spiritual sense, acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. 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.<ref name="Lyman-1989"/>
Sloth includes ceasing to use the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit; these gifts are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord. Such disregard may lead to slower spiritual progress towards eternal life, neglect of multiple duties of charity towards a neighbor, and animosity towards those who love God.<ref name="Manning"/>
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.<ref name="Manning"/>
Emotionally, and cognitively, the evil of acedia (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, "from tristitia, there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair".
Chaucer also dealt with this attribute of acedia, reckoning 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 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.<ref name="Lyman">Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref name="Lyman" />
WrathEdit
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Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance.<ref name="Landau-2010">Template:Cite book</ref>
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 it is a mortal sin when one desires grave harm.<ref>Template:CCC</ref>
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.<ref name="Anger pg 290">International Handbook of Anger. p. 290</ref>
Henry Edward Manning considers that "angry people are slaves to themselves".<ref name="Manning"/>
EnvyEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}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 from vainglory<ref name="books.google.com">Template:Cite book</ref> and cuts a person off from their neighbor.<ref name="Manning"/>
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"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
PrideEdit
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Pride is known as hubris (from the Ancient Greek Template:Wikt-lang) or futility. Strictly within the historical context of Judeo-Christian theology, it is considered the original and worst of the seven deadly sins — the most demonic — on almost every list <ref name="Climacus 62–63">Template:Cite book</ref>, often associated with the fall of Lucifer, who is said to have rebelled out of pride <ref>Isaiah 14:12–15; see also Milton, John. Paradise Lost, Book I</ref>. Pride, within this very context, is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Pride is viewed as the opposite of humility.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For a broader discussion of the modern behavioural trait often contrasted with humility, see Arrogance
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."<ref>Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, Template:ISBN</ref> Pride is understood to sever the human spirit from God, as well as from the life and grace given by God's presence.<ref name="Manning" />
A person 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."<ref name="Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers-1895">Template:Cite book</ref> 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."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Modern use of the term pride may be captured in the biblical proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (which is abbreviated as "Pride goeth before a fall" in Proverbs 16:18). The "pride that blinds" causes foolish actions against common sense.<ref name="Hollow-2014">Template:Cite journal</ref> 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.<ref name="Hollow-2014" />
Historical definitions and perspectivesEdit
AcediaEdit
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Acedia is neglecting to take care of something that one should do. The term can be translated as 'apathetic listlessness' or depression. It is related to melancholy; acedia describes the behaviour, and melancholy 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 term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration), which has a more restricted usage. Kēdeia refers specifically to spousal love and respect for the dead.<ref>Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.</ref>
Pope Gregory combined acedia with tristitia to form sloth in his list. When Thomas 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.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Acedia is currently defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as spiritual sloth—believing spiritual tasks to be too difficult.<ref>Template:CCC</ref> In the fourth century, Christian monks believed that acedia was primarily caused by a state of melancholia that caused spiritual detachment rather than laziness.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
VaingloryEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Vainglory is unjustified boasting. Pope Gregory viewed it as a form of pride, so he merged vainglory into pride in his list of sins.<ref name="DelCogliano-2014"/> Vainglory is the progenitor of envy.<ref name="books.google.com"/>
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.”Template:Sfn
The Latin term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} roughly means 'boasting', although its English cognate glory has come to have an exclusively positive meaning. Historically, the term vain meant roughly 'futile' (a meaning retained in the modern expression in vain); but by the fourteenth century, vain had come to have the strong narcissistic undertones that it retains today.<ref>Oxford English dictionary</ref>
Patterns of confessionEdit
According to a 2009 study by the Jesuit scholar Fr. Roberto Busa, the most common deadly sin confessed by men is lust, and the most common deadly sin confessed by women is pride.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See alsoEdit
- Seven virtues
- Arishadvargas in Hinduism
- Cardinal virtues
- Christian ethics
- Eight Dusts in Tenrikyo
- Enneagram of Personality
- Eternal sin
- The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits
- Five thieves in Sikhism
- Five poisons in Buddhism
- Chivalry
- Nafs and Tazkiah in Islam
- Prajnaparamita
- Seven Social Sins
- The Seven Sins of Memory
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times
- Ten Commandments
- Theological virtues
- Three poisons in Buddhism
- Tree of virtues and tree of vices
- Dante's seven deadly vices<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ReferencesEdit
Template:Reflist <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Further readingEdit
- Alighieri, Dante, Divine Comedy
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Ill (2005): "Catalogues of Demons as Catalogues of Vices in Medieval German Literature: 'Des Teufels Netz' and the Alexander Romance by Ulrich von Etzenbach." In In 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.
- The Concept of Sin, by Josef Pieper
- The Traveller's Guide to Hell, by Michael Pauls & Dana Facaros
- Sacred Origins of Profound Things, by Charles Panati
- The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
- The Seven Deadly Sins Series, Oxford University Press (7 vols.)
- Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, (Grand Rapids: BrazosPress, 2009)
- Solomon Schimmel, The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
- Template:Cite book
- Tucker, Shawn. The Virtues and Vices in the Arts: A Sourcebook, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Press, 2015)
- Template:Cite book
External linksEdit
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