SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Historical and modern definitions
Lust
Lust, or lechery (carnal "luxuria") is an intense desire. Lust could be exemplified by the intense desire for money, food, fame, power, or sex.
In Dante's Purgatorio, the penitent walks within flames to purge himself of lustful thoughts and feelings. In Dante's Inferno, unforgiven souls of the sin of lust are blown about in restless hurricane-like winds symbolic of their own lack of self-control to their lustful passions in earthly life.
Gluttony
Derived from the Latin gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow, gluttony (Latin, gula) is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste.
In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from the needy.[15]
Because of these scripts, gluttony can be interpreted as selfishness; essentially placing concern with one's own interests above the well-being or interests of others.
Medieval church leaders (e.g., Thomas Aquinas) took a more expansive view of gluttony,[15] arguing that it could also include an obsessive anticipation of meals, and the constant eating of delicacies and excessively costly foods.[16] Aquinas went so far as to prepare a list of six ways to commit gluttony, comprising:
- Praepropere – eating too soon
- Laute – eating too expensively
- Nimis – eating too much
- Ardenter – eating too eagerly
- Studiose – eating too daintily
- Forente – eating wildly
Greed
Greed (Latin, avaritia), also known as avarice, cupidity or covetousness, is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of excess. However, greed (as seen by the church) is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's Purgatory, the penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. Scavenging[citation needed] and hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by Greed. Such misdeeds can include simony, where one attempts to purchase or sell sacraments, including Holy Orders and, therefore, positions of authority in the Church hierarchy.
As defined outside of Christian writings, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.[17]
Sloth
Sloth (Latin, acedia) can entail different vices. While sloth is sometimes defined as physical laziness, spiritual laziness is emphasized. Failing to develop spiritually is key to becoming guilty of sloth. In the Christian faith, sloth rejects grace and God.
Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do. By this definition, evil exists when good men fail to act.
Wrath
Wrath (Latin, ira), also known as "rage", may be described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. Wrath, in its purest form, presents with self-destructiveness, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of anger can manifest in different ways, including impatience, revenge, and self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide.
Wrath is the only sin not necessarily associated with selfishness or self-interest, although one can of course be wrathful for selfish reasons, such as jealousy (closely related to the sin of envy). Dante described vengeance as "love of justice perverted to revenge and spite". In its original form, the sin of wrath also encompassed anger pointed internally as well as externally. Thus suicide was deemed as the ultimate, albeit tragic, expression of hatred directed inwardly, a final rejection of God's gifts.
Envy
Like greed and lust, Envy (Latin, invidia) is characterized by an insatiable desire. Envy is similar to jealousy in that they both feel discontent towards someone's traits, status, abilities, or rewards. The difference is the envious also desire the entity and covet it.
Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments, specifically, "Neither shall you desire... anything that belongs to your neighbour." Dante defined this as "a desire to deprive other men of theirs". In Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious is to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they have gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low. Aquinas described envy as "sorrow for another's good".[18]
Pride
In almost every list, pride (Latin, superbia), or hubris (Greek), is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the source of the others. It is identified as believing that one is essentially better than others, failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others, and excessive admiration of the personal 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 neighbour". In Jacob Bidermann's medievalmiracle play, Cenodoxus, pride is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the titulary famed Parisian doctor. In perhaps the best-known example, the story of Lucifer, pride (his desire to compete with God) was what caused his fall from Heaven, and his resultant transformation into Satan. In Dante's Divine Comedy, the penitents are burdened with stone slabs on their necks which force them to keep their heads bowed.
DANTES INFERNO
The nine circles of Hell
First Circle (Limbo)
In Limbo reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. Limbo shares many characteristics with the Asphodel Meadows; thus the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven. Without baptism ("the portal of the faith that you embrace")[6] they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive. Limbo includes green fields and a castle with seven gates to represent the seven virtues. The castle is the dwelling place of the wisest men of antiquity, including Virgil himself, as well as the Persian polymath Avicenna. In the castle Dante meets the poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan; the Amazon queen Penthesilea; the mathematician Euclid; the scientist Pedanius Dioscorides; the statesman Cicero; the first doctor Hippocrates; the philosophers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Averroes; the historical figures Lucretia, Lucius Junius Brutus, and Julius Caesar in his role as Roman general ("in his armor, falcon-eyed");[7] mythological characters Hector, Electra, Camilla, Latinus, and Orpheus; and many others. Interestingly, he also sees Saladin in Limbo (Canto IV). Dante implies that all virtuous non-Christians find themselves here.
Beyond the first circle, all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged to one of the lower eight circles by the serpentine Minos. Minos initially hinders the poets' passage, until rebuked by Virgil. Minos sentences each soul by wrapping his tail around himself a corresponding number of times. The lower circles are structured according to the classical (Aristotelian) conception of virtue and vice, so that they are grouped into the sins of wantonness, violence, and fraud (which for many commentators are represented by the leopard, lion, and she-wolf).[8] The sins of wantonness – weakness in controlling one's desires and natural urges – are the mildest among them, and, correspondingly, appear first, while the sins of violence and fraud appear lower down.
Second Circle (Lust)
In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors"[9] for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.
In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life.
Third Circle (Gluttony)
The third circle, illustrated by Stradanus
Cerberus as illustrated by Gustave Doré
The "great worm" Cerberus guards the gluttons, who are forced to lie in a vile slush produced by ceaseless foul, icy rain (Virgil obtains safe passage past the monster by filling its three mouths with mud). In her notes on this circle, Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence."[11] The gluttons lie here sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives.[11] Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction.[12]
Fourth Circle (Greed)
Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"),[15] who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. The two groups are guarded by a figure Dante names as Pluto, either Pluto the classical ruler of the underworld or Plutus the Greek god of wealth[16] (who uses the cryptic phrase Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe), but Virgil protects Dante from him. The two groups joust, using as weapons great weights which they push with their chests:
… I saw multitudes
to every side of me; their howls were loud
while, wheeling weights, they used their chests to push.
They struck against each other; at that point,
each turned around and, wheeling back those weights,
cried out: Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?[17]
Fifth Circle (Anger)
The fifth circle, illustrated by Stradanus
Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.
In the swampy waters of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water, withdrawn "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe."[20]Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff. On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph from a prominent family. When Dante was forced to leave Florence, Argenti took all his property. When Dante responds "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain,"[21] Virgil blesses him. Literally, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante's beginning awareness of his own sin[22] (Cantos VII and VIII). Just as Argenti seized Dante's property, he himself is "seized" by all the other wrathful souls.