Enigmatic children’s films for the day: “No Excuse for Sin” (which Victoria says should be named “unnecessary puppet is total bummer”) and “Gluttony vs. Self Control.

The Seven Deadly Dwarves

This being our first episode on the Seven Deadlies, we figured we’d briefly talk about the general concept of the sins. As always, Wiki has a solid introduction to the concept. It seems like “lists of virtues” as a concept goes back to at least classical Rome, with a set of nine virtues proposed by Horace around the turn of AD and Plato writing on the virtues in The Republic (375 BC).

The idea of the seven virtues seems to have evolved more or less parallel to the seven deadlies, Pope Gregory I cleaned up the list in 590, in particular consolidating acedia and vainglory with sorrow and pride to get the list down to seven.

One idea that’s stuck in pop occult thought is the connection of the Seven Deadlies to powerful demons. As far as we know this seems to have turned up first in the Lanterne of Light (1415?) (list of sins, p. 39; correspondences to demons, p. 60:

Þe firste is Lucifer/ þat regneþ in his malice.̉ ouer þe children of pride/ Þe secounde is clepid Belzebub.̉ þat lordiþ ouer envious/ Þe þridde deuel is Sathanas.̉ & wraþþe is his lordschip/ Þe fourþe is clepid Abadon.̉ þe slowȝ ben hise retenwe/ Þe fifþe deuel is Mammon.̉ & haþ wiþ him þe auarouse/ and also oone þat is his feere.̉ a foule synne couetise/ Þe sixte is clepid Belphegor.̉ þat is þe god of glotouns ‖ Þe seuenþ deuel is Asmodeus.̉ þat leediþ wiþ him þe leccherouse ‖ But þe seuene sacramentis.̉ casten out þise deuelis/ from þe saruauntis of God.̉ þat resceyuen meedfulli/ & stablen hem in [folio 57b] seuene ȝiftis.̉ þat ben clepid of þe Hooli Goost/

And then later, Peter Binsfeld ascribed this classification to confessions from witches in his slightly modified 1589 list (wiki). The Binsfeld Hierarchy is pretty well-regarded as demonological fact.

Gluttony comes in fives

There are a lot of lists as various apologists tried to create a taxonomy of sins. As to what degree of success they achieved, I think the jury is out. Thomas Aquinas, in 1270 “Summa Theologia,” a systemic compendium of theology, broke down the types of gluttony as consuming as follows:  (1) hastily, by eating or drinking too rapidly or at the inappropriate time; (2) sumptuously, by eating or drinking rich or expensive fare over healthier or more moderate fare; (3) excessively, by eating or drinking too much; (4) greedily, by eating or drinking too eagerly and refusing to share; and (5) daintily, by eating food that is dainty in quality or excessively prepared. (from Encyclopedia Brittanica, “Gluttony.”) 

Jacob found it more amusing to talk about Pope Gregory’s six daughters of Gluttony, excessive joy, unseemly joy, scurrility, uncleanliness, loquaciousness, and dullness of the mind.” What does it mean for the priorities of the church when half of the daughters of gluttony are some form of happiness? Nothing good, I think.

Some major sources for this episode…

 – New York City Public Library, Lectures in Humanities, the Seven Deadly Sins. Reviews say the series is “uneven.” More as we learn more.
 – The Catholic Standard, “Gluttony”
 – Ligioner.org, “Virtues and Vices: Gluttony“
 – Holyart.com, “The Meaning of the Seven Deadly Sins.” Actually I’m not sure we found this before we started recording, but it’s a solid article that will probably fold well into future discussions on sins and the deadlies, so worth the mention.