Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth.
The Seven Capital Vices or Seven Deadly Sins.
Succumb to any of these you’ll end up in your very own version of the Divine Comedy.
Being guided through hell and climbing out through satan's nutsack.
Or maybe not who knows, I’m no expert.
It’s likely most of have heard of the Seven Deadly Sins in some capacity.
When we discussed Peter Binsfeld classification of demons each of the seven demon princes
of hell represented one of these seven deadly sins.
This became a fairly common way for historians and demonologists to personify and create
a taboo around these ideas.
Today we’ll take a look at what these sins actually meant and why they were so deadly.
Before we proceed any further I must tell you about the undiscovered deadly sin I recently
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Although the Seven Deadly sins is largely a Christian concept we do have similar ideas
from the Ancient Greeks and Romans along many other religions from across the world.
The Seven Deadly sins are commonly paired with the Seven holy virtues because they are
examples of how we should and should not behave.
Aristotle sees this as less of a concrete right and wrong system and more of a spectrum
of behaviour.
Veer too far off in one direction and we move into Vice territory,
stay in the middle of these extremes and you’ll be showing positive qualities or virtues.
One example would be fear, if you’re scared of everything then you’ll miss out on things
in life because you’re allowing the fear to control you, a demonstration of too much
cowardice.
The quality or virtue that conquers fear and cowardice is courage.
However if one shows too much courage we now lean heavily over to the other side of the
spectrum which is recklessness.
Too much courage may leave you in situations that could have otherwise been easily avoided.
Rather than the approach of this behaviour can only be good or bad, this is much more
of a balancing act trying to maintain a healthy mean rather than the idea of Sin and Virtue.
Anyway moving onto the Christian or more accurately Catholic concept of the seven deadly sins.
The most concise definition I’ve come across is as immoral behaviour that would separate
one from God and in turn then lead to more sins being committed.
A Venial sin would weaken one’s relationship with God but not completely sever this bond
as the deadly sins would.
It was believed turning your back on God would make one more likely to commit what are known
as mortal sins.
If you then die without repenting for these mortals' sins you would go straight to hell.
So the Seven Deadly Sins are essentially the gateway or temptation that leads to more sin.
These ideas were first discussed in the catholic church by Pope Gregory the 1st.
He wrote about these seven sins in the 6th century,
a very similar idea was discussed several hundred years before by the monk Evagrius
who instead listed 8 evil thoughts.
These thoughts were translated from Greek to Latin by John Cassian.
Pope Gregory then streamlined this number to 7 sins in his text Moralia and thus we
have the seven deadly sins.
Gregories list was then used in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas who further expanded upon
on the ideas behind these sins.
The first sin is Pride which is also commonly referred to as the father of all sin.
Pride however in this case refers to ego or the idea of Hubris which is prevalent in Greek
and Roman myth as one of the worst crimes one could commit.
Whenever someone believed they were greater or equal to the gods they were swifty punished
and made an example of.
Once one succumbs to pride this symbolises a lack of humility, the welfare of others
is ignored in place of their own urges and desires, this selfishness only leads to contempt
and other sin.
The most classic example of pride we have is the story of Lucifer, the most beautiful
of God's angels.
Lucifer began to question everything about the universe he had been told.
Eventually he started to believe that he could do a better job ruling heaven than God himself.
This led to a great war in heaven that Lucifer would ultimately lose, for his rebellion he
was cast from heaven and forever known as the fallen angel who personified the sin of
Pride.
The opposite of pride is the virtue of humility or humbleness.
The next sin is Gluttony, this is the act of over indulgence to the point of waste.
Although gluttony is most commonly associated with the consumption of food it can also refer
to an over indulgent lifestyle not too dissimilar from greed.
There are several different types of gluttony, Thomas Aquinas divided gluttony into separate
forms.
Eating food that was too expensive, luxurious or exotic.
Eating food in excessive quantities,
Eating food that required eliberate preparation,
Eating food at an inappropriate time
and lastly eating food too eagerly.
The virtue of gluttony is Temperance or moderation exercising restraint and modesty are examples
of how not to succumb to Gluttony.
Moving onto Greed or Avarice as it’s also known, this sin also focuses on desire.
The uncontrollable desire for material, social or political gain.
From this stems all sorts of questionable behaviour.
hoarding riches and materials that could be used to help those in need,
stealing in order to obtain what you desire
or lies, trickery and the manipulation of others to achieve status or political power.
Early European theologists would go as far to see that other than the Devil there is
no greater enemy to man than the desire for money, this was commonly used when discussing
Usury.
which is the practice of making immoral or unethical loans which exceed legal interest
rates,
often taking advantage of others misfortunes.
This is what we would refer to today as a loan shark.
Similar to pride, Greed is considered a gateway into numerous other sins and the route of
many evils.
Lust is the capital sin that relates to desire of a sexual nature, this was seen as leading
to fornication, adultery, sexual assault, seduction and beastiality in some odd cases.
Most religions will distinguish lust from passion, lust was an immoral desire and passion
was widely more accepted as it was considered God given and the main driving force behind
reproduction.
Lust does also come in some other forms such as the unbridled desire for money, power and
even food;
these are minor forms of lust that also relate to greed and gluttony.
The virtue opposite of lust is chastity, the act of refraining from sexual activity that
is considered immoral and in some cases all sexual activity.
Envy is a sin that ties closely together with both greed and lust, it is a desire for what
others have that leads to resentfulness and sadness.
This can mean desiring someone's possessions, achievements, physical and personality traits
or social status.
In some cases you may not desire them but instead wish that someone else didn’t have
them.
Envy is also separated into two categories malicious and benign envy,
Malicious envy is similar to jealousy, the negative emotion towards people who you perceive
as better off than yourself,
benign Envy is merely the recognition that someone is better off or in a better position
than yourself.
This type of envy is still negative but it can be used in a positive way such as the
motivation to emulate someone's success.
Malicious envy only leads down the path of hatred, isolation and sorrow.
The only sin that weighs down the souls more than envy is pride.
The most famous example of envy at least in the book of Genesis is Cain murdering his
brother Abel because he was jealous God favoured his brother’s sacrifice.
The virtue of this sin is kindness which involves compassion and the satisfaction of one's situation.
Sloth is the sin where you start to see the separation from God we mentioned earlier.
This isn’t laziness in terms of one just sitting around the couch all day.
Well actually it is but it also means a spiritual laziness.
The latin for sloth translates to mean without a care, not caring about anything in your
current life and even the after life,
whatever the church perceived as obligations or duties would be ignored.
Losing interest in things in your life such as work, hobbies, friends and romance leads
to sadness and depression.
All the sins so far have been something someone you should not do, acts you shouldn’t commit
but do anyway.
Sloth is the sin of omission not doing something that you should do.
You may have heard the phrases the devil makes work for idle hands or Evil exists when good
people fail to act which are taken from a much older sentiment towards sloth.
The virtue of sloth is diligence and a persistent work ethic.
The lack of stimulation relating to one's mind and body is still something many struggle
to overcome even today.
The only sin left to cover now is Wrath, the feeling of rage and anger that one struggles
to control.
From wrath stems hatred and vengeance that causes feuds which can last for decades and
even centuries.
Anger was not considered a sin unless it was directed towards an innocent person, only
then does it become the sin of wrath.
Anger is normally divided into three subsections,
passive anger consists of defeatism, self blame and Apathy.
This was seen as the path that leads to substance abuse and addiction.
Aggressive anger consists of bullying, hurtfulness and vengeance.
Assertive anger involves calling out behaviour you deem as wrong, blaming the individual
responsible for that behavior and then punishing them.
The Virtue of Wrath is patience.
Allowing people time to change the way they behave.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this video on the seven deadly sins.
I'm sure the comments comment sections will be full of anime references I don't understand
and that's okay.
Maybe it's something I'll cover in the fututre.
As Always, I've been your host, Mythology and fiction explained.