Capital Vices

VIZI CAPITALI. — Pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth are called V. c. or capital sins, according as they are considered as a habit or inclination (vice), or as a single act (actual sin). Before becoming a vice, they are sinful acts: repetition creates the habit, that is, the vice.

These V. are called capital not because, as sins, they are the most serious—for often they do not exceed venial guilt—but because they are the origin and guide of numerous other sins. Just as the word head is metaphorically used to indicate one who presides and guides, so, metaphorically, these sins are the cause and guide of other sins (Sum. Theol., 1°-2°c, q. 84). This causality is neither physical nor moral, however, but only impulsive and occasional, particularly on account of the end, according to the Angelic Doctor: that is, one who is dominated by some V. passion.

II. THE SEPTENARY NUMBER

The various vices are already mentioned numerous times in Sacred Scripture, singly or in groups; but these are nonsystematic statements. The following texts may have provided some basis for a logical classification: Eccli. 10:15; I Tim. 6:9–10; I Io. 2:16. Indeed, the earliest writers who attempted a classification placed pride as the universal first source, on the basis of Ecclesiasticus (10:15). After pride they enumerated the other seven vices: vainglory, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth, thus arriving at the number eight, which prevailed in the East (v. below). In the West, on the other hand, after s. Gregorio Magno (Moralia, XXXI, 45: PL 76, 620), the septenary number was generally accepted, although not without some dissent (cf., for example, in opposition: s. Isidoro di Siviglia, Differentiarum, II, n. 161 ff.: PL 83, 96 ff.; Alcuino, Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, 27–34: PL 101, 653–736). In any case, authors were not lacking in the East who adhered, for one reason or another, to the number seven (Giovanni Climaco, Scala paradisi, 30: PG 88, 948–1164; s. Massimo, Questiones ad Thalassium, prol.: PG 90, 253). S. Tommaso observes (Sum. Theol., 1°-2°c, q. 84, a. 4) that the number seven corresponds to the seven fundamental vicious tendencies of man. He desires four kinds of goods in a disordered manner, and recoils from three other goods because evil is joined to them. The first good desired is spiritual in order: one’s own excellence, honor, and glory, which, when desired in a disordered manner, cause pride and vainglory. The second good is that of the body, which is twofold: a) the preservation of the individual: and the disordered use of food and drink is the cause of the vice of gluttony; b) the preservation of the species: and the disordered use of the senses is the cause of lust. The fourth good is wealth, attachment to which, when not guided by right reason, is the cause of avarice. There are then the three goods from which man recoils in a disordered manner: a) his own spiritual good, which he neglects because of the effort involved; therein lies sloth; b) the good of another, which he shuns or at which he grieves insofar as it diminishes his own excellence: this is envy; c) again, the good of another, which he shuns and which impels him to revenge; this causes anger (Sum. Theol., loc. cit.).
II. MALICE OF THE

V. C

It always consists in a disorder by which some good is desired or avoided. It does not exceed the malice of other sins, among which, on the contrary, there are some far graver ones: hatred of God, blasphemy, for example. Often a capital sin does not attain the level of grave or mortal guilt; indeed, ordinarily the sins of gluttony and anger are venial. Nor is it even a venial sin to procure moderate pleasure in the use of food and drink, since this was intended by the Author of nature to incite people to use them, for the purpose of preserving the individual; the disorder, and therefore the sin, lies in abuse through excess.

III. REMEDIES AGAINST THE CAPITAL VICES

Man is obliged to combat vices and to avoid their sins. Whoever knowingly and willingly fosters evil inclinations and habits is in imminent danger of committing grave sin, and the desire to remain in such imminent danger is in itself a grave sin. General means against all the capital vices are prayer, frequent reception of Penance and the Eucharist, and a moderate practice of Christian mortification. The special remedies proper to the individual vices are: to consider, in the light of faith, the deformity of that particular vice—for example, the baseness of avarice, which makes man a slave to riches so unreasonably that he may even deprive himself of what is necessary for life, and his neighbour of the assistance owed to him in particular circumstances. An extremely effective remedy is imitation of Our Lord, striving, after his example, to practise acts of the virtues opposed to the individual vices: humility against pride; generosity and almsgiving against avarice; the practice of temperance against gluttony, etc. For the treatment of the individual sins and capital vices, V. the relevant entries.

IV. V. C. AMONG THE EASTERNERS. — It is characteristic of the East to speak not of seven, as became customary in the West from the time of s. Gregorio Magno, but rather of eight V. c., following Evagrius and s. Massimo Confessore, who, moreover, maintained that there is only one common vice, the root of the others: φιλαυτία (self-love). Comparing the list of V.

one immediately notices: a) the different order of the sins; b) the absence from the Western catalogue of vainglory and sadness; c) the characteristic division in the Eastern one of pride and vainglory; d) envy is not named in the East but is certainly included, according to the various authors, sometimes under ὀργή and sometimes under ἀκηδία.

The plausible origin of this theory, once several less or wholly unfounded hypotheses (Zöckler, Schiwietz) have been rejected, seems to be connected with the allegorical explanation of the monk Serapion (of Tmuis?), according to which the ascetic must undertake the struggle against the seven V. in the list, beginning with the second, after having conquered the first of all, γαστριμαργία, just as Israel still had to overcome seven other nations after its victory over Egypt (Deut. 7, 1; Cassiano, Collatio, V, 17-18; PL 49, 635-36). Eight V. to be overcome, represented in the allegory by the eight nations. Nevertheless, Serapion, and consequently Evagrius, who constructed the system, would have drawn upon the primordial form of the allegorical interpreter of Scripture, Origen, in whom the term λογισμοί (cf. Mt. 15, 19) is already found, a term common among Easterners for designating the eight V. c. (on the number eight for the V. c., cf. also s. Nilo, Tractatus de octo spiritibus, 1: PG 79, 1145-64).

The order of these, established by Evagrius, then seems to be derived from the tripartite division of the spiritual life that he proposed: 1) πράξις, to which victory over the first three, more gross v., would correspond; 2) θεωρία θεοτέρα, to which the struggle against the V. that impede the first degree of contemplation is more properly suited, namely, the next three in the catalogue; 3) θεωρία προτέρα, to which the subtler V. (the final two), characteristic of the gnostics according to the authors of Eastern spirituality, are opposed.

Cassiano also discussed the causality among the first six v., which differed from that of the final two, while he alluded to the theory of the struggle against the dominant passion, since each person’s struggle could begin with different v., as is obvious.