Chapter II. On Capital Sins

Capital sins are so called because they are, as it were, heads or sources of other sins. Whence they are to be called vices rather than properly sins, if they are considered in genus.

Seven are numbered, namely 1. Pride; - 2. Avarice; -

3. Luxury; - 4. Envy; - 5. Anger; - 6. Sloth; - 7. Gluttony. - A few things concerning each ¹.

¹ An accurate notion of this matter must be sought from theologians, and especially from St. Thomas, rather than from ascetical booklets, which not rarely treat things of this kind less exactly.

174. • Pride is the disordered love of one's own excellence.

Pride is distinguished as perfect, or complete and consummated in its own genus, and imperfect pride. - It is indeed called perfect when a man so stands in himself and is complacent in himself that he is in a disposition of gravely transgressing the law rather than obeying the commands of a Superior. But this by that very fact always includes mortal sin in itself. - But in the other cases it is called imperfect, and then of itself it usually induces only venial sin, unless grave injury to the neighbor accedes, for example if he is gravely contemned, etc. - St. Lig., no. 66.

The daughters of pride are ambition, vainglory, presumption, boasting, ostentation, and hypocrisy.

The remedies are consideration of one's own infirmity, of the vanity of human glory, and of the humility of Christ.

175. • Avarice is the disordered appetite of temporal goods. It is opposed to justice or liberality. If the former, it will easily break forth into mortal sin, namely as often as it impels to grave injustice toward the neighbor. - If the latter, of itself it will beget only venial sins. Moreover excessive affection toward earthly things can, and indeed usually does, propel one into other sins, even grave ones.

The daughters of avarice are: hardness of heart toward the miserable, disquiet of mind, or disordered solicitude about earthly things, perfidy, deceit, etc...

Remedies: consideration of the vanity of earthly things, of the baseness, unhappiness, and dangers of this vice. - St. Lig., no. 69.

176. • Luxury is the disordered appetite of a venereal thing. Luxury is grave from its whole genus; but this must be understood if the venereal delectation is deliberate in itself and directly sought; but if indirectly ², it can from some circumstance become light, as in some touches, readings, and similar things less dangerous.

² Venereal delectation, whether sought directly or indirectly, when it is intended or voluntarily admitted, always brings the guilt of grave fault. But the Author speaks here of another matter: namely he treats of acts by which carnal movements can be caused, and the venereal delectation connected with these. Now when effects of this kind are not intended, and a delectation perhaps arisen is not admitted, and moreover the proximate danger of consenting to it is absent, the general principle is that, according to the common opinion of the Doctors, St. Alphonsus also defends (book 3, no. 484), there is as much guilt in these effects, as voluntary only in the cause, as there is in the cause itself. Consequently those effects are judged only lightly culpable if the cause, for example a curious reading or look, is venially evil; and every fault also will be absent if a just cause of placing those acts is present.

The daughters: blindness of mind, inconsideration, inconstancy, hatred of God, languor of faith, indeed also loss of it, etc.

Remedies: frequent and humble prayer, custody of the senses, flight from occasions and idleness, mortification of the flesh, temperance, frequenting of the Sacraments. - See St. Lig., no. 71.

177. • Envy is sadness concerning another's good, insofar as it is esteemed as one's own evil, or at least as a lesser good. Joy concerning another's evil, which is judged an increase of one's own good, is recalled to it. But it is directly against charity, and grave from its genus.

The daughters: detraction, calumny, whispering, contumely, etc.

Remedies: consideration of the evils proceeding from envy, offices of charity toward the neighbor, frequent prayer, exercise of humility. - See St. Lig., no. 72.

178. • Anger is an inflaming of the mind, and a disordered movement against someone or something; or it is a disordered appetite of vengeance. Irascibility is a habit of anger. Anger is mortal from its genus, if it is an appetite of vengeance; but venial if it is only a disordered movement of the mind ³.

³ St. Thomas must by all means be read concerning this matter (2.2, q. 158 throughout), who accurately distinguishes the vice of anger from the passion of anger, which, if it is ruled and tempered by reason, can be not only laudable but also commanded. Nor are those things to be neglected which the same Holy Doctor writes (l. c., q. 157) concerning meekness, which can be excellently composed with the virtue of that severity, whose proper office is to be inflexible concerning the infliction of penalties when right reason demands it. And indeed accurate knowledge of all these things is especially necessary to the Confessor, so that he may know how to teach penitents the difficult boundaries of vice and virtue in this matter; and, to say it once, that Part of the Summa of the Angelic Doctor which is called the Second of the Second, where the reasons of all the virtues and of the opposed vices, and, I might almost say, all their fibers are investigated, is the book which ought never to fall from the hands of the Confessor.

The daughters: indignation, rancor, clamor, insults, blasphemies, etc.

Remedies: consideration of the evils of anger, and of the meekness of Christ. - See St. Lig., no. 80 and following.

179. • Sloth in general sounds the same as laziness; but more strictly it is torpor of mind and weakness of will, from which flows disgust for spiritual things on account of the labor and inconvenience joined to them. If it is so great that grave obligations are omitted from it, it must be held grave; if otherwise, it is to be judged light. - Thus commonly.

The daughters: torpor, wandering of the mind, nausea in prayer, etc.

Remedies: consideration of the labors of Christ, of eternal reward, and of the dangers of sloth; pious reading, frequent confession, etc.

180. • Gluttony is the disordered appetite of food or drink.

The vice is committed chiefly in five ways: 1. if you eat before the time; 2. if things too exquisite; 3. if more than is fair; 4. if voraciously; 5. if things prepared with greater industry. These are contained in the following verse:

Too soon, richly, too much, ardently, studiously.

It is venial sin from its genus. But it becomes grave if it gravely harms health, or if it renders someone inept for duties. He sins who eats or drinks to satiety on account of pleasure alone ⁴, as is established from the 8th proposition condemned by Innocent XI; yet of itself it does not exceed venial. - Thus commonly.

⁴ He eats or drinks on account of pleasure alone who positively excludes the further ends of the operation. For otherwise, from St. Thomas (Contra Gentiles, book 3, ch. 26, nos. 6, 7), delectation which follows a good operation is good and licitly desired; but from the general principle, an operation is good if its intrinsic ends, whether immediate or mediate, are not positively excluded, although there is no need at all expressly to intend them or to think about them while acting.

The daughters of gluttony are drunkenness, concerning which more fully soon, dullness of mind, buffoonery, much-speaking, and uncleanness of any genus.

Remedies: to consider the worst effects of gluttony as to body and soul; - to mortify the flesh, especially in bodily refection; - frequently to remember death, or the soon future corruption of the body. - See St. Lig., no. 74.