They are gluttony, lust, greed, anger, sorrow, acedia, vainglory, and pride. John Cassianus introduced these eight evil thoughts to the Western Church. Pope St. Gregory I made them “the seven deadly sins” by combining Sorrow with Acedia, to become Sloth and Vainglory, to Pride, and adding Envy. They are now listed in the Catholic Catechism as: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. They are considered "capital" sins because they engender other sins and vices. Their wise teachings, derived from experience, will help us, living in the modern era, purify and govern our hearts.
Pride— is the root and summit of all evils. The evil spirit of pride leads the soul to the most profound corruption. It prevents the soul from recognizing God's help and makes it believe it is the cause of its good deeds. It makes others who do not acknowledge this aspect look foolish and arrogant. It is an attitude of thinking of oneself as the best, ignoring others, and rejecting God's help.
“A proud monk does not need other evil spirits, for he is an evil spirit and his own enemy.” That is why the Desert Fathers called pride the chief of all vices. The cure for pride is remembering the mercy and help that one has received from God, remembering the examples of the saints, and never forgetting that one owes everything to Christ. Pride is a sin committed by the fallen angel Lucifer and the first human being, and is destroyed through humility.
Avarice (greed)—is the attachment of the mind to worldly goods and material things. “Greed brings to mind long old age and inability to work, future hunger and disease, the pain of want, and the shame of receiving necessities from others”. In a word, greed comes from anxiety and worry about the uncertainty of the future.
Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:33-34). It is a lack of trust in these words. “Avarice (Greed) is a root of evil. It causes hatred, theft, envy, discord, hostility, anger, revenge, cruelty, and murder.”
In reality, all the evils around us stem from greed. People compete fiercely to have more, exploit each other, and even go to war. The cure for greed is poverty. Poverty is entrusting everything to God’s providence and escaping from worldly worries. This is the essence of evangelical poverty. Only those who have tasted heavenly things will not be obsessed with earthly things.
Lust— is closely connected to gluttony, according to Climacus, who said a soul that succumbs to gluttony is given over to lust. Cassianus’s following words clearly show how difficult the fight against lust is. “The second fight is against the spirit of lust. It lasts a long time, is more persistent than all the others, and few people achieve complete victory. It is a terrible fight … It does not end until all the other vices have been overcome.” “He who extinguishes the fire of the flesh with spiritual fire and drives out fleshly love with divine love is pure.”
The fight against Lust begins with the control of the sexual desires of the flesh and ends with their transformation. In this way, chastity aims not at the suppression of flesh and natural desires, but at their transformation, transforming human love into divine love. Whether married or single, we will all live sexually transformed lives in heaven, for there we will all be like angels.
Envy— is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, "sorrow at another’s good." It is a feeling of sadness or resentment because someone else possesses something we desire.
Gluttony— The Desert Fathers considered the stomach the cause of all human ruin and said that those who conquer the stomach make significant progress on the path to purity. Gluttony is dangerous precisely because it serves the lusts. Overcoming gluttony is not easy; overcoming other passions depends on overcoming gluttony. Evagrius’s prescription may sound unrealistic and useless in our present reality.
The Desert Fathers saw Anger as a terrible passion that drives away the Spirit of God from our souls.
The columnist thinks one of the serious problems in our society today is anger control disorder. Many people are impatient, easily get angry, and are consumed by anger. The Desert Fathers saw anger as a terrible passion that drives away the Spirit of God from our souls. When anger enters our souls, it distorts our vision, clouds our thoughts, confuses our minds, and renders us helpless against the attacks of Satan. Evagrius says, “Anger is the most violent passion… It is the one that, above all, takes away our spirit in prayer by recalling the face of the one who has made us sad”. He advises that no evil can transform the spirit into an evil spirit as much as anger, and that those possessed by anger should say the Jesus Prayer” frequently.
The Fathers saw anger as the greatest obstacle to prayer and the greatest enemy of the contemplative because it distracts our minds and prevents pure prayer. The remedy for anger is meekness. The path to meekness is to first not respond angrily to those angry at us, to not think harshly about them, and to not pay attention to those who attack us. Evagrius says that practice is a process of moving from anger to meekness.
Sadness, Acedia (Melancholy), Sloth come from not getting what one desires, and are sometimes accompanied by anger.” Sadness comes from a lack of desire, from unfulfilled longing. A monk who has retired to the desert could become obsessed with thoughts of his home, parents, and former life, and could fall into sadness due to the lack of such things. Those who are in the world fall into sorrow when they lose a parent or a loved one, or when their intentions do not go their way. This is a natural sadness that can lead us to frustration and despair. The cure for sadness is to turn away from worldly pleasures.
Evagrius says, “A person who abstains from all worldly pleasures is an inaccessible watchtower for the evil spirit of sadness…
Acedia means spiritual negligence, sloth, and lethargy. It is a vice found among celibate monks, and it is a state in which the covenant with God is broken due to our negligence. Climacus, in particular, describes the symptoms of this vice very vividly. “Acedia is a paralysis of the soul. It weakens the mind and neglects ascetic practices. It praises worldly wealth, slanders God’s mercy and love for man, neglects the recitation of psalms, and makes one weak in prayer.” Acedia is also called the “noontime evil spirit” (Psalm 91:6) because it attacks monks more strongly around noon.
A monk caught up in this vice falls into idleness and laziness, and is tempted to run away from his cell (the arena: the arena of spiritual struggle) and return to the world, surrounded by all sorts of distractions. As a remedy for this vice, Evagrius suggests manual labor and the memory of death, Climacus suggests perseverance and communal living, and Cassianus suggests zeal for work.
The laurel of victory that one obtains after overcoming evil habits through the battle against them is purity of heart and equanimity (apatheia) that is not shaken by any temptation. Only in such a pure and peaceful heart can one converse with God. The Acronym PALE GAS is often used to remember the 7 Capital Sins.
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