Seven Deadly Sins: The Capital Sins and Their Virtues

The seven deadly sins are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. The Church calls them the capital sins because they are the source and the cause of many other vices and sins: from these seven roots the rest of our sins grow. Each one is conquered by the contrary virtue: pride by humility, covetousness by liberality, lust by chastity, anger by patience, gluttony by abstinence, envy by brotherly love, and sloth by diligence and fervour in the service of God.

What are the seven deadly sins

There are seven vices which the Church calls capital: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. This is the list given in the Catechism of Saint Pius X, and it is the list the Church has handed down. They are sometimes called the seven deadly sins, but the more exact name is the seven capital sins, and the difference of words points to a difference of things.

This is the full list of the seven deadly sins, with the virtue the Church sets against each:

1. Pride — conquered by humility.
2. Covetousness (avarice) — conquered by liberality.
3. Lust — conquered by chastity.
4. Anger — conquered by patience.
5. Gluttony — conquered by abstinence.
6. Envy — conquered by brotherly love.
7. Sloth — conquered by diligence in the service of God.

A sin is one thing; a vice is another. A sin is an act which passes — a single offence against God, done and over. A vice is the bad habit which one has contracted of falling into some sin: a settled disposition of the soul, bent the wrong way by the frequent repetition of evil acts, which inclines a man to flee good and to do evil. So the capital sins are not, strictly, seven acts. They are seven evil dispositions, seven inclinations rooted in fallen nature, each of which gives birth to a whole family of sins.

To grasp this is already to begin to make a serious examination of conscience: we examine not only what we did, but what we are inclined toward — where the soul leans before it ever acts.

Why they are called capital

These vices are called capital because they are the source and the cause of many other vices and sins. The word comes from the Latin caput, the head: a capital sin is a head, a fountainhead, from which other sins flow. It is not necessarily the gravest sin a man can commit, but the most fertile — the one that breeds.

This is why the older name "deadly sins" can mislead. A capital sin is dangerous not only because it may itself be grave, but because of all the sins it fathers. Pride begets contempt, disobedience, ambition, vainglory. Covetousness begets theft, fraud, hardness toward the poor. Anger begets quarrels, insults, violence, the long memory of revenge. To uproot a capital sin is therefore to dry up a whole spring of offences at once; to leave it standing is to leave the root, so that the sins return however often they are cut down.

The seven capital sins and the virtues opposed to them

One triumphs over the capital vices by the exercise of the opposite virtues. The Church does not tell us merely to avoid each sin, but to plant in its place the contrary good — for a soul is not made clean by emptiness but by being filled with what is right. Against each of the seven deadly sins stands a virtue, and the practice of that virtue is the appointed remedy. Most of these contrary virtues are parts of the four cardinal virtues, and both lists are set side by side in our guide to the seven heavenly virtues.

Pride and humility

Pride is the disordered love of one's own excellence — the refusal to be under God and under the truth about oneself. It is named first because it is first: the head of the capital sins, and in the order of the Fathers the root of them all. One triumphs over pride by humility, by which a man holds himself in the truth, owns what he owes to God, and does not exalt himself above his place.

Covetousness and liberality

Covetousness is the disordered desire for riches and earthly goods, which makes a man cling to what he has and grasp after what he has not. One triumphs over covetousness by liberality — by an open hand, by giving, by holding goods loosely as things lent rather than owned. This vice, left to grow, hardens into the very sins that cry to heaven for vengeance: the oppression of the poor and the defrauding of labourers of their wages.

Lust and chastity

Lust is the disordered desire for the pleasures of the flesh. One triumphs over lust by chastity, which governs the body and its desires according to one's state of life. Of all the capital sins this is among the most insistent and the most blinding, and against it the Church sets the plain remedy of a chaste and ordered life.

Anger and patience

Anger, as a capital sin, is the disordered desire for revenge — the passion that rises against what offends us and seeks to return the hurt. One triumphs over anger by patience, by which a man bears wrongs and provocations without being mastered by them, and keeps charity toward the one who has injured him. We gather what Scripture teaches on it in what God says about anger.

Gluttony and abstinence

Gluttony is the disordered desire for food and drink — eating and drinking beyond what reason and the service of God allow. One triumphs over gluttony by abstinence, the measured restraint of appetite, which keeps the body a servant and not a master. It is for this reason, among others, that the Church appoints her days of fasting and abstinence.

Envy and brotherly love

Envy is sadness at another's good, as though his good were our loss. It is a strange and joyless sin, for it gains the envious man nothing. One triumphs over envy by brotherly love, by which we rejoice in the good of our neighbour and will his welfare as our own (see what God says about jealousy). Note that envy appears twice in the Church's reckoning: as a capital sin here, and — when it hardens into envying the very graces God gives to others — among the six sins against the Holy Ghost, which are committed through pure malice.

Sloth and diligence

Sloth is not mere laziness but a sadness or distaste in the things of God — a heaviness of soul that shrinks from spiritual effort. One triumphs over sloth by diligence and fervour in the service of God, by taking up prayer, duty, and the works of religion with a willing heart rather than letting the soul go cold.

The origin of the seven deadly sins

The origin of the seven deadly sins is not a single book but a tradition refined over centuries by the Fathers and the monks of the desert. The first reckoning came from Evagrius Ponticus, a fourth-century monk, who listed eight evil thoughts (logismoi) that assail the soul. His disciple Saint John Cassian carried this teaching to the West in his Conferences and Institutes, where the eight remained: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sadness, sloth (acedia), vainglory, and pride.

It was Saint Gregory the Great, at the close of the sixth century, who gave the list its decisive shape. In his Moralia in Job he set pride apart as the root and "queen" of all the vices, and named seven principal vices springing from it: vainglory, envy, anger, sadness, avarice, gluttony and lust. He thus added envy, and folded sloth into sadness. Saint Thomas Aquinas kept Gregory's scheme but named sloth (acedia) where Gregory had sadness; and in time the common teaching counted pride itself among the seven in place of vainglory. That is the list of the seven capital sins as the catechisms hand it down: a desert discipline of self-knowledge, ordered by Gregory and refined by the Schoolmen.

The seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments

The seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments are not the same thing, and it helps to see how they differ. The Ten Commandments are God's law — the precepts He gave on Sinai, telling us plainly what to do and what to avoid. The seven capital sins are not commandments but dispositions: the inward roots from which the breaking of the commandments grows.

The two fit together. The commandments forbid the acts; the capital sins name the inclinations that drive a man to those acts. Covetousness breeds the theft forbidden by the seventh commandment; lust breeds the adultery forbidden by the sixth; anger breeds the murder forbidden by the fifth; pride breeds the contempt of God forbidden by the first. So when we examine our conscience, the Ten Commandments tell us which deeds to weigh, while the seven deadly sins tell us where in the soul those deeds were born. To know both is to know not only what we have done, but why.

How the capital sins are conquered

One triumphs over the capital vices by the exercise of the opposite virtues. This is the whole strategy of the spiritual life in a single sentence. We do not conquer a vice by staring at it, but by labouring at the virtue that displaces it — by acts, repeated, until the soul is bent the right way as surely as the vice had bent it the wrong way.

This is why the capital sins are so useful in confession. Because they are roots, they tell us where to dig. A man who knows that anger is his governing vice knows where his other sins come from, what to confess, and what virtue — patience — to ask for and to practise. Not every act of a capital sin is grave: a flash of impatience is not murder, a second helping is not drunkenness. The difference between a serious fall and a small fault is set out in mortal and venial sin. What the sacrament itself is we explain in what is confession, and the practice in how to go to confession.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the seven deadly sins?

The seven deadly sins are pride, covetousness (avarice), lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. The Church more properly calls them the seven capital sins, because they are the source and the cause of many other vices and sins — heads or fountains from which the rest of our sins flow. This is the list given in the Catechism of Saint Pius X, handed down from the Fathers.

What are the seven deadly sins in order?

In the traditional order given by the Church they are: (1) pride, (2) covetousness, (3) lust, (4) anger, (5) gluttony, (6) envy, and (7) sloth. Pride is named first because the Fathers reckon it the head and root of all the others. Against each the Church sets a contrary virtue — humility, liberality, chastity, patience, abstinence, brotherly love, and diligence — by which it is conquered.

Who are the seven deadly sins?

They are not persons but seven evil dispositions of the soul: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. A vice is a bad habit, a settled inclination bent the wrong way by repeated sin, and each of these seven gives birth to a whole family of further sins. They are called capital from the Latin caput, the head, because each is a fountainhead of offences.

Are the seven deadly sins in the Bible?

The Bible does not give the seven capital sins as a single numbered list; that ordering belongs to the Church's tradition, drawn from the Fathers and handed down in her catechisms. But every one of them is condemned in Scripture, and Saint Paul gives lists very close to it: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury... enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels... envies" (Galatians 5:19-21). The Book of Proverbs likewise says: "Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth" (Proverbs 6:16), and the first it names is "haughty eyes," which is pride.

Where in the Bible are the seven deadly sins?

No single verse numbers them seven, but Scripture condemns each and gathers them in places the Church's list draws upon. The clearest is Proverbs 6:16-19, "Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth," beginning with "haughty eyes." Saint Paul's catalogue of "the works of the flesh" in Galatians 5:19-21 names lust, anger, and envy together; the same Proverbs rebukes sloth ("Go to the ant, O sluggard," Proverbs 6:6), and Saint Paul calls "the desire of money" "the root of all evils" (1 Timothy 6:10). The Church gathers and orders what Scripture everywhere condemns.

What is the origin of the seven deadly sins?

The list originated with the desert monks. Evagrius Ponticus, in the fourth century, named eight evil thoughts that assail the soul; Saint John Cassian, formed in the same desert school, brought this teaching to the West. At the end of the sixth century Saint Gregory the Great, in his Moralia in Job, set pride apart as the root of all and named seven vices springing from it, adding envy. The medieval doctors refined his list into the one the catechisms hand down: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.

What is the worst of the seven deadly sins?

Among the seven, pride is reckoned the worst and the most dangerous. It is named first because it is first: the Fathers call it the head and root of all the others, the sin by which Lucifer fell and by which our first parents were tempted — "you shall be as Gods" (Genesis 3:5). "Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted up before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). It is the most fertile of the capital sins, for from it the rest take their rise, and the humility set against it is therefore the foundation of every other virtue.

Conclusion

The seven deadly sins are not a curiosity but a map of the soul's danger. Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth are called capital because they are the heads from which our other sins flow; and over each the Church sets a virtue — humility, liberality, chastity, patience, abstinence, brotherly love, and diligence — by which it is conquered. To name our vice, to confess what it has bred, and to practise the contrary virtue: this is the labour of a Christian life, and the path back to God.

The Iter Fidei confession app examines the conscience by the seven capital sins after the Commandments, with a private notebook of what you tick and a guide in the confessional. Join early access here.

Sources. Catechism of Saint Pius X, Part V, Chapter 6 ("Vices and the Other Very Grave Sins"): the seven capital vices, their definition, why they are called capital, the virtues opposed to each, and the sins against the Holy Ghost and the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.