What the capital vices are

THEOLOGIANS divide the chief vices to which human nature is subject into seven heads or capital sins, as they are called. The name implies that they are the source and origin of many more, inasmuch as the inordinate love of any temporal good is apt to give rise to many inordinate ways of pursuing it. The seven capital sins are: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony.

The so-called capital sins (peccata capitalia) must not be conceived as transient acts. They are rather the fundamental vices from which all sins flow, or the bad habits that manifest themselves in actual sins.¹ Hence the capital sins are neither by nature nor in their concrete manifestation always mortal, and it is a mistake to call them "deadly." The specific character and gravity of each may be determined by the presence or absence of certain marks or characteristics.

¹ Cfr. Hugh of St. Victor, Summa Sent., tr. 3, c. 16: "From these, as from seven fountains, all corruptions of souls flow. They are not called capital because they are greater than others, since others are equally great or greater, but capital because all the others arise from them. For there is none which has not arisen from one of these." (Migne, P. L., CLXXVI, 113). — St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, q. 84, art. 3: "A sin is called capital insofar as it metaphorically signifies the beginning or direction of others. Thus a capital vice is one from which other vices arise, especially according to the origin of the final cause, which is the formal origin; and therefore a capital vice is not only the beginning of others but is also directive and in a certain way leading of others. For an art or habit to which the end pertains always exercises primacy and command over those things that are for the end. Hence Saint Gregory compares capital vices of this kind to commanders of armies." (Moral., 1. 31, c. 45, n. 87-88; Migne, P. L., LXXVI, 620 sq.).

The capital sins are usually enumerated in the following order: Pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. From the initials of the Latin words superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia, the Schoolmen formed the catch-word saligia as an aid to the memory.

This septenary number, which may be traced back to St. Gregory the Great, became established at the time of Peter Lombard. Previously, theologians were wont to count eight or even nine capital sins.²

² Cfr. Greg. M., Moral., XXXI, c. 45; O. Zockler, Evagrius Ponticus, Munich 1893, p. 104.

— I. Notion of a capital sin. 1. From remote antiquity, Christians were taught to turn their mind not only to passing acts, but especially to consider habitual dispositions and propensities, which break forth into acts or are generated by acts. Did not the Apostle himself exhort the Galatians thus: "Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh" ¹; and the Philippians: "For have this mind in you which also was in Christ Jesus" (2); and give this supreme rule to the Corinthians: "Let all your things be done in charity" (3)? And many other passages can be alleged by which care for habitual disposition as the source of good works is commended with great force.

But there are also inclinations favoring sins and vices. Concerning these ecclesiastical writers and the holy Fathers began to discourse and to indicate them in a greater or lesser number, until the authority of St. Gregory the Great obtained that seven capital sins were commonly numbered.

Therefore nothing revealed or so sacred is to be placed in that sevenfold number: St. Antoninus himself ¹ admitted eight or nine capital sins.

2. Therefore capital vices are special vices, not necessarily graver than others, indeed not necessarily mortal, but whose ends have certain primary reasons of moving the appetite, so that for the sake of pursuing them man does many things, both good and evil, and thus is led into several sins (2).

And so they can be considered in two ways: either as sources of other sins, or as formally capital; or as special sins. Under the former respect alone do they pertain to fundamental or general theology. Yet authors are accustomed to use this as an occasion to add certain useful things concerning the individual sins, considered in themselves, lest afterward they should seem as it were to handle the same argument twice. To this custom we shall accommodate our own treatise.

¹ Gal. 5, 16. - (2) Phil. 2, 5. - (3) 1 Cor. 16, 14.

¹ Summa aurea p. 2, t. 1-9. - (2) Cf. Summa 1, 2, q. 84 art. 4, c.; 2, 2, q. 118 art. 7; q. 132, art. 4, ad 3.

— II. Division. According to St. Thomas ³, capital vices are of a twofold notion:

1. Some are heads, the first origin of all sins, and they are two: cupidity and pride.

Concerning cupidity the Apostle said (4): "The root of all evils is cupidity." This already appears true if you take cupidity for the appetite for riches. For riches are the means of pursuing all temporal goods; but sin arises "from the appetite of a changeable good" (5). And it is more manifest if you oppose cupidity, as the pursuit of one's own good as such or as quasi-separated, to charity by which we love all and ourselves in God. In every sin there lies hidden a certain "egoism."

Concerning pride Sirach 10, 15 says: "The beginning of all sin is pride," because, as St. Thomas teaches ¹, the end which man intends in temporal appetitions is a certain singular perfection and excellence of himself. Or more simply it can be said that pride, as contrary to humility, radically repudiates every subjection to law, and therefore all impediments are removed which could call back or retard the soul from following its own cupidity. But pride is described as an inordinate appetite of one's own excellence. Perfect pride, according to Augustine, says love of self even to contempt of God (2).

2. Others, which are manifestations or fruits of those two roots, have the notion of proximate origin with respect to several sins (3). That is, considering less the peculiar disposition of the sinner, which varies too much, than the natural and mutual relation of ends, they have final causality with respect to several sins.

³ 1, 2, q. 84 art. 3, ad 1. - (4) 1 Tim. c. ult. 10. - (5) S. Th. l. c.

¹ Ibid. art. 2. - (2) Cf. De civ. Dei, L. 14, c. 28 (P. L. 41, 436). - (3) 1, 2, q. 84, art. 3, ad 1.

— III. Explanation. St. Thomas, art. 4, hands down this explanation of the sevenfold number, which is sought from the threefold good which man principally seeks, and the twofold yoke of evil with which good is joined. Those three positive and inordinate pursuits are: of honor and praise through vainglory; of bodily delight through gluttony and luxury; of exterior goods through avarice. But through sloth we flee the labor with which one's own good is joined; through envy, however, another's good insofar as it stands in the way of our excellence; but if this is done through insurrection toward revenge, anger is had.

By the indication of these vices we are also taught what dispositions, in the spiritual combat, we have to fight down. They are: love of glory or human praise, which is cultivated by pride; love of exterior goods, which avarice nourishes; love of delights, which luxury and gluttony betray; self-love, which begets envy; love of one's own honor, which excites anger; love of one's own convenience, to which sloth yields.

The individual vices are designated, each by its own first letter, and are numbered in the customary order by the word Saligia (Noldin, Princ., n. 335).

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 75, a. 4; q. 84; De Malo, q. 8.

493. One sin can be the cause of another, just as one human act can be the cause of another. But this happens in three ways: 1. it can be the material cause of another, insofar as it supplies and prepares matter for another, as gluttony prepares matter for lust, and avarice for litigation, because it multiplies temporal goods which are the matter of lawsuit; - 2. it can be the efficient cause of another: a) per accidens, insofar as it removes grace, or charity, or shame, or submission, or anything else which draws one back from sin and would impede it: thus from drunkenness or anger all sins can arise, because they remove the judgment of reason by which man is restrained from sin;¹ b) per se, insofar as by some sin, for example, of lust, man is disposed by way of inclination or habit to similar acts, or sins of the same species; - 3. and especially it can be the final cause of another, insofar as on account of the end of one sin someone commits another sin, as if someone steals in order to fornicate. And because the end in morals gives the species or form, thus one sin is also the formal cause of another, because it gives form to the other: for if someone steals on account of fornication, theft is as the material, fornication as the formal (q. 75, a. 4).

¹ In this way pride, on the part of aversion, is the cause of every sin indirectly, insofar as it removes subjection to God, which draws one back from sin.

494. Capital sins are those which for the most part are the cause of many other sins, especially the final cause, because they have an object or end most appetible; hence on account of that end other sins are easily committed. They are called capital from the head, which is said metaphorically of that which is the principle and directive and in some way leading of others: for they are the principle or cause of other sins, as was said; they are directive because they are their final cause: for human acts are directed by the end. Hence the capital sins are as leaders, and the vices which arise from them as armies (q. 84, a. 3).

Therefore capital sins are not the greatest, since many others are graver than they, for example, those which are directly against God or are directly opposed to the theological virtues; nor are they necessarily mortal, even if done deliberately, as is clear concerning anger and gluttony, which often are venial.

**495. The capital sins are seven,**2 as is shown in the following way: Capital sins are those which have very appetible ends and therefore principal ends for moving the appetite.3 But something moves the appetite directly per se, and thus good moves it to pursuing; another thing moves indirectly through another, and thus good moves it to fleeing, insofar as someone flees a good on account of an evil joined to it.

Now the good which man most seeks can be:

1. excellence of praise and honor, which is a good of the soul, which vainglory inordinately seeks;

2. food and drink, which is the good of the body by which the individual is conserved, which gluttony inordinately seeks;

3. the use of venereal things, which is the good of the body by which the human species is conserved, which lust inordinately seeks;

4. external goods, which avarice inordinately seeks.

But the good which man flees on account of an adjoined evil which he most fears is:

5. his own spiritual good, which sloth inordinately flees on account of the bodily labor joined to it;

6. or another's good, which impedes his own excellence and thus is an evil, which envy inordinately flees;

7. or that against which anger rises up (q. 84, a. 4).

2. Ecclesiastical writers and the holy Fathers began to discuss these and to indicate more or fewer in number, until the authority of St. Gregory prevailed, so that seven capital sins were commonly numbered. Cf. Wrobl, Die Hauptsundenlehre des Ioannes Cassianus und ihre historischen Quellen, in Divus Thomas, 1923-1924.

3. Hence capital sins are not either those which are only the material cause of others, because it is not the cause of sin in act, but occasionally and in potency; or those which are only the efficient cause of others, which otherwise is verified of all sins, and thus every sin would be capital; or those which are the final cause but from the condition of the sinner, because this happens per accidens to the sin itself: "One sin is ordered to the end of another in two ways: in one way on the part of the sinner himself, whose will is more prone to the end of one sin than of another; but this is accidental to sins. Hence according to this they are not called capital sins. In another way, from the very relation of the ends, of which one has a certain agreement with another, so that in many cases it is ordered to it ... and according to this it is necessary to take the capital vices." Q. D. De Malo 8, a. 1; cf. I-II, q. 84, a. 4.

1. "Or otherwise. Good principally moves the appetite from this, that it participates in something of the property of happiness, which all naturally seek. Of its notion there is 1. a certain perfection; for happiness is a perfect good, to which pertains excellence or brightness, which pride or vainglory seeks; 2. ... sufficiency, which avarice seeks in riches that promise it; 3. ... delight, without which happiness cannot be ... and this gluttony and lust seek." a. 4.

496. Pride is the beginning of every sin, according to Ecclesiasticus X, 15 (the printed text has IX, 15), not only in the historical order, because the Angels and the first man were guilty of it, but also from the nature of the thing, because it is the final cause of all sins: for all sins can and are apt to arise from it, insofar as the temporal goods which man seeks in other sins he can will on account of his own excellence, which is the end of pride. And because the end is first in the order of intention, and intention precedes execution through means, it is rightly called the beginning of every sin. Therefore pride is the final cause of all sins, and consequently it is not a capital sin, from which only many vices arise, but rather the cause of all the capital sins, and the mother and queen of all vices.²

² Some have interpreted this concerning pride improperly so called, that is, a) concerning aversion or contempt of God, by which someone does not will to be subjected to his rule, which per se pertains to pride, but is found implicitly in all sins, consequent to conversion into a good opposed to the law; this general pride is the cause of sin or the beginning on the part of aversion: for from this sin has that it is evil, and therefore on the part of aversion the notion of evil begins; also b) concerning the inclination of fallen nature to such contempt, from which all sins proceed. - These things are true, but they do not hand down the sense of Scripture, which manifestly from the context speaks of pride properly so called, which is a special sin, namely, the appetite of one's own excellence (q. 84, a. 2).

497. Avarice is the root of all sins, according to the Apostle, I Tim. VI, 10, or a cause, not indeed final (as pride is), but disposing to all, because through riches man acquires the faculty and facility of perpetrating, and the occasion of desiring, any sin whatever, because for having any temporal goods whatever he can be aided by money, according to that saying of Ecclus. X, 19: All things obey money. Hence it is the root or first sin in the order of execution, because it offers the opportunity and gives the means of perpetrating all things; and therefore, just as a root furnishes nourishment to a tree, so money nourishes the desire of every sin, and in this sense any sin whatever can arise from avarice.³

³ Some have interpreted this concerning avarice improperly so called, namely, a) concerning inordinate conversion or tendency toward any temporal good whatever, which is found in every sin: this general cupidity is called the cause of sins on the part of conversion to created good, from which sin is nourished and fostered, whence it is called a root; also b) concerning the inclination of fallen nature toward inordinately seeking temporal goods, from which all sins proceed. - These things are true, but they do not hand down the sense of Scripture, which manifestly speaks of avarice properly so called, which is a special sin, namely, the inordinate appetite for riches (q. 84, a. 1).

Avarice, insofar as it is the root of all sins, is not a capital sin, but insofar as it is besides the final cause of many, it is rightly numbered among the capital sins.

498. Remark. - The capital sins are not those which are opposed to the fundamental or cardinal virtues, because "there is not the same account of origin in virtues and in vices. For virtues are caused through the order of the appetite to reason, or even to the incommutable good, which is God; but vices arise from the appetite for a commutable good. Hence it is not necessary that the principal vices be opposed to the principal virtues" (a. 4, ad 1).