“‘Why not the Seven Deadly Sins?’”
It would be an exaggeration to say that the suggestion made by Nick Jenkins in Anthony Powell’s novel cycle A Dance to the Music of Time captures the spirit of this issue, but not a very gross one. In the 1950s the Sunday Times published a series of essays (later collected in book form) featuring Edith Sitwell on pride, Cyril Connolly on greed, Christopher Sykes on lust, W. H. Auden on wrath, Patrick Leigh Fermor on gluttony, Angus Wilson on envy, and Evelyn Waugh on sloth. The idea was taken up again in 1993 by the New York Times Book Review, which commissioned Gore Vidal on pride, Richard Howard on greed, John Updike (inevitably) on lust, Mary Gordon on wrath, William Trevor on gluttony, A. S. Byatt on envy, Thomas Pynchon on sloth. Showing more knowledge of ecclesiastical history than respect for tradition, it altered the scheme by adding an eighth writer, Joyce Carol Oates, on despair.
The Lamp’s iteration of the series is the third: Freddie deBoer on pride, Joshua Cohen on greed, B. D. McClay on envy, A. E. Stallings on wrath, Zena Hitz on lust, Sam Kriss on gluttony, and Ottessa Moshfegh on sloth.
Why are the Seven Deadly Sins an abiding source of inspiration to writers, artists, and filmmakers as well as theologians? One reason is simply that they constitute an established iconographic tradition in art and literature, like the tropes of the commedia dell’arte or the personages of classical mythology: richly suggestive but infinitely malleable, with the added advantage of a rigidly defined schematic framework.
In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Satan invites the protagonist to converse with a series of tableau-like personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. “That sight,” Faustus replies:
will be as pleasing unto me,
As Paradise was to Adam,
the first day
Of his creation
Yet Faustus does not seem to enjoy his conversations. He insults each “sin” and even banishes the specter of lust: “Away, to hell, to hell!” But despite his obvious disgust, Faustus pronounces himself satisfied with the whole experience: “O, this feeds my soul!”
The old Baltimore Catechism describes the Seven Deadly Sins as “the chief sources” of all the others. The catechism’s definitions are well worth committing to memory. Pride is defined as “the inordinate seeking of one’s own excellence”; greed as “the inordinate seeking of temporal goods”; lust as the “inordinate seeking of the pleasures of the flesh”; wrath as “the inordinate seeking of revenge, or an unreasonable opposition to a person or thing”; gluttony as “the inordinate desire for food and drink”; envy as “sadness at another’s good fortune because it is considered to be detracting from one’s own excellence”; and sloth as “the distaste for spiritual things because their attainment requires much labor.”
The anaphora-like repetition of “inordinate” here is suggestive. A common feature of essayistic treatments of the Seven Deadly Sins is the desire of some authors, if not to rehabilitate them, then at least to explain what legitimate goods are at stake. Something like this was always a feature of the Church’s moral teaching. “Inordinate” pursuit of one’s own temporal good or, for that matter, sexual desire logically implies that these things can be pursued licitly and even profitably. Abusus non tollit usum.
Historically the Seven Deadly Sins have always been understood as privations of one or more important virtues. Pride, for example, is seen as the lack of humility. Greed, in its extreme forms, is incompatible with justice because it involves the unjust acquisition of wealth, but the excessive love even of things legitimately obtained is opposed to the virtue of liberality (which strikes me as one of the most neglected today). Lust is, of course, opposed to chastity; anger to meekness; gluttony to temperance. Oddly enough, envy and sloth are both called the opposite of charity.
In any case, the editors concur reply with the reply to Nick Jenkins’s suggestion: “‘A good idea,’” agreed Sir Magnus. ‘A very good idea indeed.’”
