The Seven Capital (or Deadly) Sins

I’ve let the whole blog thing go by the wayside, and I shouldn’t have, but I hope to end that now. I’m going to start a bit of a series here, on the “seven deadly sins”. To start, I think it’s appropriate to examine exactly what that means.

First, a list of the traditional seven:

• Wrath
•  Pride
• Lust
• Greed
• Gluttony
•  Envy
• Sloth

Now, the first thing we need to understand is that this is not a list derived directly from any particular scripture. That’s not to say that scripture does not condemn all of these things, because it most certainly does, just that this particular listing does not appear in the bible, much to the surprise of many. The modern list actually was actually compiled by Pope Gregory I in AD 590, based on a similar list of eight evil thoughts composed some two hundred years earlier by a monk called Evagrius Ponticus.

The term “deadly” sins should be examined. Scripture makes it clear that all sin leads to death (cf Romans 6:23). As I understand it, the term “deadly” in this context relates to the Roman Catholic doctrine of venial and mortal sin, with these falling under the mortal category. I don’t subscribe to that doctrine, and I’ll admit I’m not terribly knowledgeable about it, so I won’t really elaborate on that score. I actually prefer the less common alternative term, the “seven capital sins”. The word capital derives from the Latin word for head, and has the idea of origin, that these seven are the origin of other sins. That’s the idea from which I intend to operate: each of these is sort of a “proto-sin”, or alternatively a category in to which more specific sinful acts can be placed. Murder, for example, could be a result of wrath, theft of envy, and so on and so forth.

As for the series of blogs itself, I plan on seven entries, one for each sin, following a similar format. I’ll have a basic examination of the term and what exactly it means, biblical teaching and/or commandments on the subject, and an example from a biblical narrative of someone who ran afoul of that particular sin. I’m hoping this will be an educational and enlightening experience both for myself and anybody reading it. So stay tuned! I hope to have the first entry ready in a few days.