Editor's Choice

The Seven Deadly Sins

• Anger (Wrath)
• Covetousness (Avarice or Greed)
• Envy (Jealousy)
• Gluttony
• Lust
• Pride (Vainglory)
• Sloth

While the Seven Deadly Sins are not part of the Christian Scriptures, they are quite an ancient part of Christian theology and were grouped together in the 6^th Century A.D. by Pope Gregory I.  Pope Gregory I also composed the less well known list of Seven Heavenly Virtues.  Since Pope Gregory I's time, many Christian theologians have written about the Seven Deadly Sins.  Probably the most prominent of these was St. Thomas Aquinas, the 13^th-century philosopher, who wrote about these sins in his Summa Theologica.

The Seven Deadly Sins have been an inspiration for artists for the past 1,500 years.  They served as the basis of morality plays in the European Middle Ages as well as the subject of a famous painting by Hieronymus Bosch, a 15^th-century Dutch painter, as well as a series of drawings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a 16^th-century Flemish painter.  In Dante’s Inferno, Dante makes his way through the circles of Hell including the Second Circle for those being punished for the sin of lust, the Third Circle for gluttons, the Fourth Circle for misers, the Fifth Circle for the wrathful and lazy.  English playwright Christopher Marlowe wrote a play "Dr. Faustus" (c. 1592), which uses the Seven Deadly Sins in one of its key scenes.

More recently, such artists as German-born American composer Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht created a ballet-opera on the theme.  And Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist-playwright Thornton Wilder wrote a series of seven one-act plays, each on a different sin.  Some critics have theorized that each of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books "portrays" one of the deadly sins:

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe portrays Gluttony
• Prince Caspian portrays Luxuria (a more general word often translated as "lust," but here meaning desire for profit)
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader portrays Greed
• The Silver Chair portrays Sloth
• The Horse and His Boy portrays Pride
• The Magician's Nephew portrays Anger
• The Last Battle portrays Envy

In addition, such movies as "La Dolce Vita" (1960) (“I have heard theories that Federico Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita' catalogs the seven deadly sins, takes place on the seven hills of Rome, and involves seven nights and seven dawns, but I have never looked into them, because that would reduce the movie to a crossword puzzle. I prefer it as an allegory, a cautionary tale of a man without a center.”—Roger Ebert, “La Dolce Vita,” The Chicago Sun-Times), "The Seven Deadly Sins" (1962) with seven directors each tackling one of the deadly sins:

• Philippe de Broca and Gluttony
• Claude Chabrol and Avarice
• Jacques Demy and Lust
• Sylvain Dhomme and Max Douy (co-director) and Anger
• Jean-Luc Godard and Sloth
• Edouard Molinaro and Envy
• Roger Vadim and Pride

“Bedazzled” (1967) (“Spiggott [the devil played by British comedian Peter Cook] complains as lavishly as any midlevel drone about his arrogant, eccentric boss and the lousy help he’s saddled with. His assistants, the Seven Deadly Sins, include Raquel Welch as a go-go girl named Lilian Lust and Barry Humphries, out of his Dame Edna drag, as a mincing personification of Envy.”—Dave Kehr, “New DVDs,” The New York Times, April 17, 2007), and the thriller “Se7en” (1995) have found the themes of the Seven Deadly Sins fertile ground for creation.

Sometimes lowbrow art can find inspiration in the Seven Deadly Sins.  Some viewers have theorized that the personalities of each of the characters on the show "Gilligan's Island" are inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins.

The Seven Deadly Sins can also inspire creativity in unlikely places and fields.  “…Jenna [the owner of the Inn at Little Washington] prepares small portions of chocolate mousse cake for ‘Seven Deadly Sins,’ one of the Inn’s signature desserts, which features bite-size morsels of seven different sweets, splattered Pollock-like with seven different sauces.”—Stephanie Mansfield, “A Day Inn the Life…of the Virginia restaurant some call the best in the country, the Inn at Little Washington,” Forbes FYI, Fall ’97, pp. 134 and 136.  There is also Web site with a Seven-Deadly-Sins-inspired tour of the Seattle area.

How It's Used

"Can you not see that there are other foes in this world besides Frenchmen, and as much glory to be gained in conquering them?  Would it not be a proud day for knight or squire if he could overthrow seven adversaries in the lists?  Yet here are we in the lists of life, and there come the seven black champions against us:  Sir Pride, Sir Covetousness, Sir Lust, Sir Anger, Sir Gluttony, Sir Envy, and Sir Sloth.  Let a man lay those seven low, and he shall have the prize of the day, from the hands of the fairest queen of beauty, even from the Virgin-Mother herself."

"This is not to single out the New Scientist editors; they are just reflecting the generalized belief that there's an element of laziness in anyone's obesity. 'Gluttony and sloth are two of the seven deadly sins,' said Ellen Ruppel Shell, author of 'The Hungry Gene.' 'We ascribe obesity to a character flaw.' This is what leads to the psychic pain of being fat, the social isolation of having a condition that everyone believes to be completely within your control - as if it were a voluntary purgatory, a case of willfully digging your own grave with your dinner fork."

"With Burkean contrition, I confess that in a Thai restaurant not long ago, following my company's attempt to order three curry dishes, I suggested that we not get 'curried away.' Punning, it seems, like every non-deadly sin, is easier to excuse than to resist."

"To take one of the most common, and gentlest, examples: Critics in this country are often accused of enviously cutting down our tallest poppies. For the record, I don't see a lot of this happening, but even if I did, I would be inclined to think it good horticulture rather than conduct motivated by one of the seven deadly sins. The tallest poppies are precisely the ones that need the attention of a critical weed whacker. They suck up all the oxygen and take the most nutrients from the soil, crowding out all of the up-and-coming green. Better to pull such plants out of the ground, shake the dirt from their roots and toss them on the weed pile."

"Of the seven deadly sins: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth, it's perhaps the last one - sloth - that drivers are guilty of most often.

"No doubt a strong case could be made for wrath (think: road rage), and granted some motorists do take pride of ownership a bit too far, while others have been known to lust after a particular set of wheels.

"Car envy is never pretty, but judging by what I've seen on the streets lately it seems that sloth has definitely taken the lead."

Also Known As (AKA)

The Seven Capital Vices, The Seven Cardinal Sins

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