In this entry, DeYoung defines the seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices, as a schema for understanding and analyzing sin for Christians interested in self-examination, confession, preaching, and spiritual formation. DeYoung carefully looks at the difference between 'sin' and 'vice' and goes back to the capital vices of the Desert Fathers to draw out the tradition. She also looks at Aquinas's analysis to help articulate how the Christian tradition has used the vices

DeYoung, Rebecca

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Sin 5: Seven Deadly SinsThe seven deadly sins — known for most of theirearly history as the seven capital vices — constitutedan important schema of sins that was used by Chris-tians for self-examination,® confession,® preach-ing, and spiritual formation for nearly a millen-nium. Popular treatments of the seven use “sin” and“vice” as synonymous terms. Technically, however,“vice” is a more specific term than “sin,” since it re-fers only to a character trait, rather than applying toa general human condition (“original sin,” “sinfulnature”), a specific action (“sins of thought, word,or deed”), or social structures (“institutional rac-ism, a structural sin”).The seven vices can be traced back as far asEvagrius Ponticus (346-99), in his practical guidesto the ® ascetic life of the desert anchorite. JohnCassian (ca. 360-after 430) transmitted it to theLatin monastic tradition,® Gregory the Great (ca.540-604) gave it authoritative status, scholastictheologians systematized it in the 13th century, andit appeared extensively in penitential and preachingmanuals after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215),the most famous of which was the Summa de vitiiset virtutibus by the 13th-century Dominican Wil-liam Peraldus. The heptad was widely used in West-ern Christianity on account of its diagnostic power,memorability, and comprehensiveness.The seven vices were called principal or capital(from Lat. caput, “head”) on account of their beingthe head — meaning principle or source — of manyother sins. The term “principal vices” originates inCassian’s writings (Conferences 5) and was furtherexplained by Gregory in his widely disseminatedMoralia in Iob. Authors and illustrators commonlydepicted the seven as a tree, with pride as the com-mon root, the seven vices as the main branches, andother sins as their offshoots and poisonous fruit.The organic metaphor emphasized identifying theultimate source of sin in one’s heart and excising itat that level.Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-74) argued that theseseven vices were “source sins” because their objectsare goods closely affiliated with® happiness, whichare then pursued in an excessive or idolatrous way.The vices thus manifest a structure identified by®Augustine (354-430): They are disordered loves —that is, desires for creaturely goods in place or, or inexcess of, love for God the Creator (Conf. 1.20, 2.5).Furthermore, they are motivated by pride, in whichwe seek to define the good on our own terms andprocure happiness for ourselves (2.6). For example,avaricious people seek in money (a temporal, finitegood) the sufficiency and contentment that can befound only in God (an eternal, infinite good), andthey depend on themselves to provide that goodrather than trusting God to do so. The intensely de-sirable ends of the seven vices spawn other sins thatserve those ends or are the effects of one’s excessivepursuit of them. For example, the offspring of ava-rice typically includes “fraud” and “insensibility tomercy.”The list of vices in its most typical form includespride. Alternately, on the basis of Sir. 10:15 (“Prideis the beginning of all sin,” DV), Gregory namedseven other vices, including vainglory, offshoots ofpride. However, pride occasionally competed forstatus as the queen of the other vices with avarice,given the apostle Paul’s statement that love ofmoney is the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10). The sevenare often divided into spiritual vices and carnalvices. Pride, envy, and sloth directly regard spiritualgoods like our love for others and God, while ava-rice, vainglory, and anger concern goods like power,honor, and justice; gluttony and lust, in contrast,have bodily pleasures in view.There was some variation in the list throughoutmuch of its history. Evagrius included sloth and sad-ness, vainglory and pride, as well as avarice, anger,lust, and gluttony, for a total of “eight evil thoughts[logismoi].” In addition to making pride the root,Gregory added envy and subsumed Evagrian andCassianic sloth under sadness. Gregory’s list was au-thoritative for hundreds of years but graduallyshifted to include pride again, replace sadness withsloth, and drop vainglory because of its similarity topride. The list in its current form has pride, envy,sloth, avarice, anger, lust, and gluttony.The list is also known as the seven deadly sins, af-ter the 13th-century distinction between mortal(deadly) and venial sin, a distinction denied inProtestant theology. But even theologians whomCatholic theology takes as authoritative, like Aqui-nas, denied that all these vices always or only have adeadly form and preferred the term “capital vices.”The Christian tradition used the vices to guideself-examination and confession, and a parallel setof virtues to guide spiritual formation and the prac-tice of holiness. The process of casting off vice andcultivating virtue was framed in terms of Paul’s dis-tinction between taking off the old® self, or sinfulnature, and putting on the new ar self, redeemedand sanctified by ® grace (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3: 5-14).The list of virtues paralleling the vices usually in-cluded the seven principal virtues — ® faith, ®hope, and ® love (1 Cor. 13:13), along with pru-9Sin 5: Seven Deadly Sins Sin 5: Seven Deadly Sins9EC5 2006-10-31 galleysWednesday, November 01, 2006 2:45:57 PMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screendence, justice, courage, and temperance (Wis. 8:7).The cardinal virtues were a Greek philosophical in-heritance, although Augustine reframed them askinds of love (De mor. eccl. 25.15;® Greek Philoso-phy). Since the vices were not directly opposed tothese seven virtues, however, the two lists were notparallel. Instead, for example, pride was to be coun-tered by the Christian virtue of® humility (as in®Benedict’s Rule), and anger overcome by patience orlong-suffering (Prudentius, Psychomachia). Whilethe virtues had an explicit scriptural basis, theheptad of vices did not, although Cassian tried toassign it a metaphoric one (i.e., the seven tribesdriven out of Canaan in Deut. 7:1). Despite its ori-gin in distinctly Christian practices, then, the inabil-ity of academic theologians to find a satisfying theo-retical or scriptural basis for the list and the shiftfrom a virtue- to a law-based ethics may have beenfactors in its gradual decline after the Middle Ages.Nevertheless, the seven deadly sins continue to cap-ture the popular imagination, as is attested by regu-lar treatments of the topic in both scholarly litera-ture and entertainment culture, up to the presentday (e.g., the MTV special Seven Deadly Sins, whichaired in August 1993).Bibliography: Selected primary sources (in English):J. Cassian, The Conferences (trans. B. Ramsey; NewYork, 1997); idem, The Institutes (trans. B. Ramsey;New York, 2000) • Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek AsceticCorpus (trans. R. E. Sinkewicz; Oxford, 2003) •Thomas Aquinas, On Evil (trans. R. Regan; Oxford,2003).Secondary (scholarly): M. Bloomfield, The SevenDeadly Sins (Lansing, Mich., 1952; repr., 1967) • R. G.Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latinand the Vernacular (Turnhout, 1993); idem, ed., In theGarden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages(Toronto, 2005) • S. Wenzel, “The Seven Deadly Sins:Some Problems of Research,” Spec. 43 (1968) 1-22.Secondary (general or pastoral): H. Fairlie, TheSeven Deadly Sins Today (Washington, D.C., 1978;repr., Notre Dame, Ind., 1995) • S. Schimmel, TheSeven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian, and Classical Re-flections on Human Psychology (Oxford, 1997).Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung10Sin 5: Seven Deadly Sins Sin 5: Seven Deadly Sins10EC5 2006-10-31 galleysWednesday, November 01, 2006 2:45:58 PMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen

The Seven Deadly Sins

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The Seven Deadly Sins

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