Vainglory (in the earliest list) is considered a form of pride, and includes boasting, vanity, presumption, excessive ambition, and narcissism. It includes the desire to be more important, more attractive, or better than others, and often includes an inability to acknowledge the good in others. Pride – “ Excessive love of one’s own excellence” is the opening definition given in The Catholic Encyclopedia - which continues, “ that frame of mind in which a person, through the love of his own worth, aims to withdraw himself from subjection to God.” Pride is considered by many to be the original sin and the most deadly of the seven, the sin from which all other sins grow. With this in mind, here’s a closer look at the most modern list of the Seven Deadly Sins: “Charity” (for example) has little to do with giving money and would be expressed in modern language as “brotherly love”. The actual meanings of some of these words have changed over time. In addition a list of the top seven virtues has been created to help identify what one should strive for: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. In modern times, the current list recognized by the Roman Catholic Church is: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth/acedia. Around 590AD the list was narrowed down to seven: extravagance, gluttony, greed, discouragement, wrath, envy, and pride. The earliest recorded “greatest sins” list, written around the third century, contained eight: gluttony, lust, greed, sorrow, wrath, despair, vainglory, and pride. It should be understood that the Catholic Church considers participation in any of the sacraments to include repentance on the worshiper’s part and forgiveness on God’s part the physical sacraments in and of themselves do not ‘magically’ remove sins.Įven before the Middle Ages different theologians had made various lists of the worst sins. The idea was that the lesser sins could be taken care of through any of the sacraments but the greater sins required the sacrament of Confession and acts of contrition. Having said that, what is a “deadly sin” and where did the idea come from? Sometime back in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church made a differentiation between “Cardinal Sins” (sins that could cost a person his or her soul) and “Venial Sins” (which weren’t quite as serious).

In Scripture all sins, even the smallest, are deadly and the antidote is faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. So sit back, pour yourself a second cup of coffee, and enjoy… (the article, that is, not the sins!)įirst it should be mentioned that the Bible itself says nothing about ‘seven deadly sins’ or ‘deadly sins’ in general. Sounds like a question that would have an easy answer, but it’s more involved than it looks! There’s a lot of history behind this list.

7 sins defined