Modern evangelists such as Billy Graham have explicated the seven deadly sins. The Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church, and Methodist Church, among other Christian denominations, still retain this list. 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 others. Gregory's list became the standard list of sins. Gregory combined tristitia with acedia, and vanagloria with superbia, and added envy, in Latin, invidia. In AD 590 Pope Gregory I revised this list to form the more common list. corruption of the mind (vainglory, sorrow, pride, and discouragement).lustful appetite (gluttony, fornication, and avarice).These "evil thoughts" can be categorized into three types: Tristitia ( sorrow/ despair/despondency).Luxuria/Fornicatio ( lust, fornication).They were translated into the Latin of Western Christianity largely in the writings of John Cassian), thus becoming part of the Western tradition's spiritual pietas ( Catholic devotions), as follows: Ὑπερηφανία ( hyperēphania) pride, sometimes rendered as self-overestimation, arrogance, grandiosity.Ἀκηδία ( akēdia) acedia, rendered in the Philokalia as dejection.Λύπη ( lypē) sadness, rendered in the Philokalia as envy, sadness at another's good fortune.Πορνεία ( porneia) prostitution, fornication.The modern concept of the seven deadly sins is linked to the works of the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus, who listed eight evil thoughts in Greek as follows: Origin of the currently recognized seven deadly sins His first epistles say that "to flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom." Īn allegorical image depicting the human heart subject to the seven deadly sins, each represented by an animal (clockwise: toad = avarice snake = envy lion = wrath snail = sloth pig = gluttony goat = lust peacock = pride). Roman writers like Horace extolled virtues while listing and warning against vices.
Aristotle lists virtues like courage, temperance (self-control), generosity, greatness of soul (magnanimity), measured anger, friendship, and wit or charm. Courage, for example, is the virtue of facing fear and danger excess courage is recklessness, while deficient courage is cowardice. Aristotle argues that each positive quality represents a golden mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics lists several excellences or virtues. The seven deadly sins as we know them had pre-Christian Greek and Roman precedents.
Behaviours or habits are classified under this category if they directly give rise to other immoralities. The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings, although they are not mentioned in the Bible.