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Seven Deadly Sins: Lists
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The Seven Deadly Sins never occur as a formal list in the Bible. Some people say they can all be found in Matthew's Gospel (chapters 5 through 7), but they are not in a simple list there.
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In almost every list Pride is considered the original and most serious of The Seven Deadly Sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise. It is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to give compliments to others though they may be deserving of them, and excessive love of self (especially holding self out of proper position toward God). Dante's definition was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor." In Jacob Bidermann's medieval miracle play, Cenodoxus, Pride is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the famed Doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus. In perhaps the most famous example, the story of Lucifer, Pride was what caused his Fall from Heaven, and his resultant transformation into Satan. Vanity and Narcissism are prime examples of this Sin. In the Divine Comedy, the penitent were forced to walk with their heads bowed while they were whipped in order to induce feelings of humility.
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The standard list of seven deadly sins was established by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century. He maintained that pride breeds all the other sins, and is therefore the most serious offense. St. Thomas Aquinas, author of the landmark thirteenth-century Summa Theologica, reaffirmed that pride (or "vainglory") is rebellion against the authority of God. Aquinas reasoned that some sinful acts are venial rather than deadly: They arise from the temptations of everyday life and have the effect of weakening the bonds of trust and fellowship among people. Lust, for example, threatens the crucial relationship between parents and children. Such actions become elevated to deadly sins when they arise from the spiritual failing of pride and therefore threaten the soul's acceptance into the kingdom of God.
Vanitas with her mirror. Painting by Titian, c. 1515 While there are seven of them, these sins are significantly different in outward appearance from the seven deadly sins list that arose later. The only sin which is clearly on both lists is Pride. "Hands that kill innocent people" could be taken to refer to Wrath. However, it is possible to imagine a case where cold blooded murder of an innocent would be one of the "hated things" without necessarily being an example of Wrath. Practices such as abortion, genocide, and euthanasia can be arguably covered under this umbrella of "hands that shed innocent blood."
In Christian tradition, sins with the most serious impact on spiritual development were classified as "deadly sins." Christian theologians developed different lists of the most serious sins. John Cassian offered one of the first lists with eight: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, dejection (tristitia), sloth (accedia), vainglory and pride. Gregory the Great created the definitive list of seven: pride, envy, anger, dejection, avarice, gluttony and lust. Each of deadly (capital) sin comes with related, minor sins and are contrasted with seven cardinal and contrary virtues.
In Christianity, the seven deadly sins are considered “deadly” because it is believed they can do terrible damage to the soul. The now-famous list does not appear in the Bible and may have been formulated by Gregory the Great (540–604). The deadly sins are sometimes known as “capital” or “cardinal” sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth.
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