the seven deadly sins (chp 1-2) - bloomfield

8/13/2019 The Seven Deadly Sins (chp 1-2) - Bloomfield

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Part 1

I. The Pagan and Jewish Background

•

1•

THE HELLENISTIC AGE

T h e s t u d y of the origin of the seven cardinal sins takes us deep

into the early history of the hum an race. Although they took their

presen t shape in the deserts of Egypt in the fourth century of our

era, behind them lies a vast and complicated history which gathers

ideas and traditions from practically all the important races of the

M editerranean and Near Eastern worlds. These ideas and traditionsmay be best seen in the crystallized form that they took in the Hellen-

istic Age.

The teaching of the seven cardinal sins is a living reminder today

of that dark mass of beliefs, half heretical, half pagan, with which

Christianity had to contend in the early centuries of our era.^The con-

cept was purified and adopted, not eradicated, by the Church because,

first, it was deeply rooted in the religious consciousness of the age;

second, it fulfilled a genuine religious need; third, there was some justi-

fication in the Bible for a belief in such a conception; and fourth, iteasily and early became confused with an authentic JudeoChristian

belief, th at of the mortal (or deadly) sins?^

This study offers no simple explanation of the origin of the sevencardinal sins, for it is neither simple nor capable of absolute proof.

Such details of the provenience of the concept as we have will be con-

sidered in Chap ter II. Here we shall be concerned only with the

background necessary for the unders tandin g of those details. T he Sins,

a prod uc t of Hellenism (as the ideology and cu lture of the Hellenistic

Age is called), were influenced by other related themes and beliefs, sothat this chapter will lead us into the study of a whole era.

The Hellenistic Age, which may here be taken as a period stretching

from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to the fall of Rome and the

Western Empire in the fifth century after Christ, is an extremely com-

plex one. Sta rtin g in the East in the early years after Alexander’s

death, Hellenism moved gradually westward, until by the first century

of our era it had become the dominant spirit of the Empire.



2 The Seven Deadly Sins

Christianity is indebted to both Greece and Israel. But the Greek

world in which Christianity appeared was not that of Plato and Aris-

totle, Zeno and Epicurus, nor was it a mere continuation and elabora-

tion of the thought of these philosophers, but a great syncretisticstructure of new and old, to which Persia, Babylon, Syria, and Egypthad all contributed.1

Judaism was not unaffected by the intellectual atmosphere of the

age, as the later books of the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Talmud

show: the Judaism of the first century B. C. was a very different Juda-

ism from that of Micah, Isaiah, and the Psalmists. And Christianity

received many of her pagan elements through a Jewish medium.

^ ~ T h e basis of this unrest,2 of this syncretism, th is scientific, m eta-

physical, and religious speculation which is called Hellenism, was firstlaid by the conquests of Alexander, who opened up the East to the

West,3 and, to a lesser but important degree, the West to the East.

The selfsufficient citystate of Greece had broken down, weary from

the long wars of the fourth century, and with its disintegration had

gone much_ol the spiritual security which the sm all unit h ad offered,

for the citystate was not only a political, but also a religious, entity.

The poets might sing of Olympus and the gods, but for the average

Greek the citystate, with its organization and whatever cognizance of

the deities it might take,4 had provided him with his religion. Th en,

following a somewhat politically confused period after Alexander’s

empire had been subdivided, the growth of the Roman Empire in the

second and first centuries B. C. brought a new and more lasting polit-

ical unity which spread past the shores of the Mediterranean in many

directions. But a sp ir it u a l ga p remained to be filled.

C Alexander’s conquest for a time broke down the PersianGreek antag-

onism, and a new flood of ideas poured in to the West. It was especially

the déclassé urban populations who turned most eagerly to this new

thoug ht.5 T hu s the vital seed of Oriental culture fell upon receptive

Greek and, a little later, upo n R om an soil. From this crossbreeding

came the characteristics peculiar to the Hellenistic Age, the age which

formed the basis of Christian ,6 as well as Moham medan,7 civilization.

Out of it came many ideas which seem to us particularly medieval

and Western.

^ T he m ultiplicity of philosophies, religions, and beliefs which offered

themselves made some kind of intellectual unity necessary, and out of

this welter of conflicting ideas arose a syncretic tendency, a desire to unify and classify, to explain these diverse conceptions as different

manifestations of one spirit, of one religion .8 Besides, the novelty of

the new Oriental gods increased their attractiveness to the Greeks and



Pagan and Jewish Background 3

Romans. T h is syncretic tendency may be seen in Stoicism, NeoPythag

oreanism, NeoPlatonism, Emperor Worship, Mithraism, Hermeti

cism, Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and the various mysteries.

Religious syncretism was encouraged, as Nock has pointed out,9 by theconcept, held by the ancient world in general, that gods of a particular

region were perm ane nt residents there. T he chief center of this syn-

cretism was Alexandria, that fundamentally Greek city, well fittedgeographically, culturally, and economically for the syncretic process.

7 Classical education, established chiefly by the Renaissance hum an -

ists, has had such a great effect upon our Western tradition that we

have too often been unaware of the influence, or even the full concept,

of Hellenism and its Orien tal background.10 F ortunately classicists

today are realizing not only that a knowledge of the Orient is neces-

sary for an understanding of the later Greek world and the Roman

Empire, but also that such knowledge casts light on earlier Greek practices and beliefs. Orienta l history, anthropology, and archaeology

are opening up new vistas for us, and we no longer tend to set Greece

off as a separate branch in the evolution of hum an though t. T he con-

tributions of Greek culture to Western civilization are incalculable,

but noth in g is lost if we view some of these achievem ents in the light

of the ir background. It is, of course, possible to overestimate O rientalinfluence on Hellenism and wipe out or minimize Greek achievements.

As Nilsson, however, has recently written:

The great problem of research today in this field is the just evaluation ofthe forces which operated among the Greeks themselves and Oriental in-fluences; the blending of these forces and influences determined the develop-ment of ancient religions until the final outcome, the victory of Christianity.*!

The difficulties in dealing with the Hellenistic Age are numerous.

One feels, and agrees, with Diodorus Siculus when he speaks of thedifficulty of writing about ancient mythology.

I am not unaware of the fact that those who compile the narratives ofancient mythology labor under many disadvantages in their composition. For,in the first place, the antiquity of the events they have to record, since itmakes record difficult, is a cause of much perplexity to those who would com-

pose an account of them; and again, inasmuch as any pronouncement theymay make of the dates of events does not admit of the strictest kind of proofor disproof, a feeling of contempt for this narration is aroused in the mindof those who read it, . . . but the greatest and most disconcerting obstacle ofnil consists in the fact that those who have recorded the deeds and myths ofearliest times are in disagreement among themselves.12

The basis of our knowledge of Hellenism is provided by a group of

fragmentary and early-edited manuicripti, and what archaeology can




offer. It is often impossible, wholly apart from the problem of In

fluence, to determine which of two similar beliefs is the earlier. As a result, there is endless dispute, and classicists question much of theevidence Orientalists bring forward. The age is a mass of confused

beliefs in to which it is hard to bring any order, and although no civili-zation can be adequately summed up, such a synthesis is even moredifficult than usual in the case of Hellenism.

^The influence of the Hellenistic Age on the whole subsequent worldhistory of Christian, Mohammedan, and Jewish civilizations has beenimmense. In the fields of science, religion, art, and mysticism, it isimpossible to study long the movement of ideas without meeting recur-ring concepts which had their roots in that ageT) Almost every page ofThorndike’s H is tory of M agic a nd E x p er im e n ta l Sci ence, which traces

the subjects its title indicates up to the fifteenth century^, containsreference to some Hellenistic concept or comparison.13 fln all thegreat mystics down even to the nineteenth century we find Hellenistic

beliefs and modes of expression! Philosophy, too, is much indebted inone way or another to the ideas and ideals of that age. In ballads,folklore, and superstitions everywhere we can see the traces left bythe Hellenistic period.14 Many of the glories of Christian and Islamiccivilization owe their beginnings to the speculations of Hellenisticthinkers. And a byproduct of all these activities was the creation of aconcept destined to play an important role in the religious and culturalhistory of the West—that of the seven cardinal sins.

• 2 *

HE LL EN ISTIC THEOLOGY AND TH E SOIL IT

FLOURISHED IN

^ Hellenistic theology, to use Reitzenstein’s term, is an “illdefined bodyof popular belief,” a result of a mixture of “Greek philosophical dog-mas, Orphic and Pythagorean beliefs, ideas from Persia, ideas fromJudea, with a plen tiful dose of crude old magic.”15 The various appear-ances of this new religious syncretistic attitude all over the Mediterran-

ean world in the early Christian centuries\have led Reitzenstein to postulate as their source a protoGnostic religion which he traces to ahypothetical popular Iranian redeemer sect16 of which no documents ofearly date survive. (The word “Gnosticism” has often been used to covermany of these various Hellenistic religious manifestation^ and may be

retained more for convenience than exactitude.17Because of the gaps in our knowledge of the history of the Near

and Middle East before Christ,18 Reitzenstein’s hypothesis is somewhat




of a moot point, {or both Greek and Oriental elements are apparent in Gnosticism and Hellenistic theology. Although the weight of

scholarly opinion perhaps inclines towards making the Oriental ele-ment basic, the exact role of the Orient is a fundamental problem andis still being discussed; few wish to go as far as Reitzenstein does. But,at any rate, (it seems likely that there existed somewhere “a protoGnostic form of religious belief, popular in character and mystical inoutlook,”^ )even if it cannot be considered the ancestor of every mani-festation of Hellenistic theology.

The problem of preSocratic Oriental influence on Greece is alsoinvolved, as well as the question of what Eastern influences were passedon to the Greeks even as early as the Mycenaean Age.20 We are alsohampered by the fact that we know little or nothing of the history ofChristianity in Alexandria until about 180 A. D., when we find aflourishing Church there.21 Since Alexandria is above all the city of

syncretisni\this is a serious handicap.Many different factors helped to provide a favorable climate for the

development of Hellenistic theology. In spite of the fact that theRomans attempted to maintain the unity of the Empire by broadeningtheir concept of Roman citizenship, the relatively sudden incorporationof various diverse peoples with different traditions into a political unitywas bound to create many problems. Stresses and strains developed, but the legal and administrative genius of the Roman, aided by an

eclectic and synthesizing spirit, succeeded in holding these varied cul-tures together in some kind of loose harmony. The Pax Romana and

Roman engineering ability increased the mobility of the inhabitantsof the Empire. Paul, who could boast “civis Romanus sum,” and theother earliest followers of Christ were able to move about freely overa vast area. In their missionary work they were helped by the existenceof Jewish communities widely scattered throughout the whole Mediter-ranean area long before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70A. D. The dispersion of the Jews was thus one of the factors enabling

new ideas of all sorts to be carried to the farthest corners of the Empire.The general intellectual and moral crisis in the Roman Empire after

Augustus22 intensified the search for new answers to old questions.The breakdown in the old Roman and Greek religions23 and the gen-eral dissatisfaction due to the increasing economic miseries of the people in the Empire, which led to such desperate measures as Dio-cletian’s attempts at pricefixing in the latter part of the third century,intensified the already serious intellectual crisis.

On a philosophical level, there was a general dissatisfaction with theskepticism into which Platonism had developed in such followers asCarneades (d. 129 B.C.) and with the eclecticism which the Peripatetic




School had in general encouraged. In Nock’s striking phrase, “Philoso- phy could not make windows in heaven. Could religion?”24("Towards the end of the period, furthermore, there was an increas-

ing moral and religious degeneration which turned more and more toany form of supernaturalism.25^)Vs has been well pointed out, one hasonly to think of the philosophical achievements of Plotinus, Porphyry,Iamblichus, and Proclus to visualize the progressive decay of one of themost virile of the mystic and philosophic movements of the age, NeoPlatonism.

£ A basic element in this new Hellenistic theology was astrology (andastronomy).26 I t was both a philosophy based on the most reliablescience of the time, and a religion noble in aim and spirit.27 Originally

a product of Babylonian scientific observation and speculation, itowed its Hellenistic form chiefly to Egypt,28 where it was nourished,sustained, and systematized in the centuries immediately precedingand following the bir th of Christ. Not only did astrology influencemost of the other current religions, especially Stoicism and those of aGnostic nature, but as a religion in itself it provided a scientific viewof the universe29 which also offered some consolation for man. Origin-ally, apparently, it did not hold out hope of a future life,30 but laterit embraced even that.31

The Greeks before the Hellenistic Age had, as Plato and Aristotleshow, a considerable interest in the heavens, in which they were pos-sibly influenced by Egypt and Babylon. As Hellenism spread, how-ever, scientific astrology became more and more important until allHellenistic religions had to take at least some cognizance of it.32 Itsscientific basis made it particularly powerful. Its general attractivenessis well shown by the fact that of all the religions of Hellenism, withthe exception of Christianity and Judaism, it has proved the most

persistent.

The fear of the Romans of the old school that their beloved Tiberwould be polluted by the waters of the Syrian Orontes (to use thefamous figure of Juvenal as he described the effects of this Orientalflood which was inundating the West) provides strong testimony to theeffect of Oriental religions on the West. We find similar testimony inthe AeneicL, when Virgil, speaking of the shield given to Aeneas where-on the future of the Roman Empire is painted, shows Anthony and ahost of foreign gods defeated by Augustus and the Roman deities.88Lucian,34 Juvenal, 35 Horace,36 Seneca,87 and Martial88 also pour ample

ridicule upon this new stream of alien religion, but nothing could stop its flow until Christianity, itself a part of the alien current,

triumphed over all opponents.

S 'The period was one of great luperstition ai well ai of genuine




scientific endeavor. It is necessary to be cautious in separating thetwo, for much that was then science has, after having played its useful

part, now become superstition.39 The astronomy of the Hellenistic

Age, which was classified and organized by Claudius Ptolemy, wasscientific; the theory of a heliocentric universe held by Aristarchus ofSamos (fl. 250 B. C.) was a mere fantasy. On the basis of the factsknown at the time, Ptolemaic astronomy was sound; it offered the best explanation of the universe.4®jAristarchus and Seleucus providedwhat for that time was a much less satisfactory theory to explain theactions of the heavens and earth; yet we moderns, because theirtheory which was little more than a dream has proved true, tend toregard them as misunderstood martyrs. On the other hand, we canfind many examples of what we today would call genuine supersti-tion.41 Jus t as science is today perverted by charlatans, so the scienceof Alexandria and the Alexandrian Age was perverted by the quacksof the Roman Empire. iMagic and the allied concept of demons werewidely believed in. Tlrcy rested, however, upon a numinal view of theworld which assumed a universe actively attuned to man’s presence.Man was part of the universe in a deeper and more profound sensethan it is possible for us easily to conceive today. \

The Church Fathers had to postulate a white and a black magic inorder to preserve the faith of Christians,42 thereby creating a distinc-tion which prevailed far into the Renaissance.43 We may recall someof Benvenuto Cellini’s experiences, even at that late date, with the

black art.44 In the later Middle Ages, long after Christianity hadwon her battle, it was customary to attribute what were to medievaleyes the undoubted successes of the witches to their familiarity withthe nefarious art. Evil demons were everywhere in the Hellenisticand medieval periods, and it was easy to think of the threatening Sinsas demons. They were objectively real and very dangerous. It is inan atmosphere of this sort that the Sins took form, and they neverentirely lost the marks of their origin in Hellenistic theology, y

• 3 •

THE ATTITUDES OF THE RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES OF

TH E H EL LE NISTIC AGE TOWARDS TH E PROBLEM OF EVIL

^ The chief problem facing the religions and philosophies of the timewas the problem of evil. Mankind has before and since been interestedin Blake’s question, "Did He who made the lamb make thee?”; but perhaps never in hum an history have such ingenious answers been

worked out.



8 , The Seven Deadly Sins

C ..The concept of sin was a late one in hum an history. Primitive manwas at first concerned with the problem of explaining and controlling

physical ills, and la te r he came to regard anti tribal behavior as the

same evil force,45 visualized later sti ll in the form of demons.46 Physi-cal ill was frequently used to explain moral ill; in fact the two were

conceived as different aspects of the same objective principle^ Thetraces of this objective view of sin remained long, and in the Vedas,

for instance, the point of much of the ritual prescribed presupposessuch a view.47 (E vil was, then, from earliest times linked with disease,as it still occasionally is. ?

The Orphic mysteries, which Watmough interprets as a protestant

revolt against the excesses of the Dionysiac religion,48 were perhapsthe first pagan religion to reveal a sense of sin somewhat similar to

that made fam iliar by Christianity. The Orphics regarded the soul ascelestial in nature, as a spark of Dionysus imprisoned in an evil body.

They felt that purification, which the Orphic ritual provided, was

essential.49 They believed also in the transm igration of the soul andin the bro therhood of the participan ts in the ceremonies.60 W hether

or no t Orphism took its princip les from the East,51 its conception of

sin was in any case a new one for the Western world and proved to

be very influential.Orphism was preserved for classical antiquity by Pythagoras and his

school,82 and their influence on Plato and other Greek thinkers is wellknown. Plato ’s theory of ideas prov ided on a philosophical level a new

solution to the problem of evil; it was possible to understand the gap

betw een evil which was m atte r and good which was pure idea byassuming the former evil because it was a mere reflection of the latterand hence less real. T he way was here opened for a theory of gra da-tions,53 which is seen in some of Plato’s dialogues, such as the Sym po

sium , b u t which was really developed by the later NeoPlatonists under

Plotinus. This concept provided a metaphysical justification for some

of the science of the time, especially astrology. As we shall see inSection 5, the concept of a gradated universe was particularly con-

genial to the teach ing of a Soul Journey (which lies at the ro ot of

the cardinal sins).The NeoPlatonists developed also the idea of metempsychosis, which

is an Orphic elem ent in P lato.54 Pla to was not, strictly speaking, a

dualist in the sense that he believed in two equal and irreconcilable basic princip les in the universe, but he opened the door to dualism ,

and there are certain parts of his work which are definitely dualistic.55

Of course in one sense, as long as evil exists, some type of ethical, and

even metaphysical, dualism is necessary.



rugununitit ewmtf vn..w

Aristotle tackled the problem differently. He analyzed good andevil and classified virtues and vices, as both the Nicomachean and

Eudemian Ethics report. His ethical thoug ht was based upon a beliefin the primacy of desire; and his conception of virtue as a mean, andof evil as an extreme, is well known.50 Aristotle was less concernedwith the metaphysics of evil than was Plato.

The literary concept of evil as hybris , insolence against the gods,57as found in the great Greek dramatists, shows similarities to Christian pride and deserves mention. From the poin t of view of religion and philosophy, however, it was less productive than Plato’s or Aristotle’sconception.

The Stoics emphasized evil; they felt that it arises from preoccupa-tion with the world and that the wise man does not lose himself inthe things of the world bu t submits to nature’s law.58 Man should trainhimself and practise ask esis (a course of exercise) so as to control his

emotions. The Stoic movement cannot, of course, be thought of as aunity. Besides the differences implied in the traditional division ofold, middle, and late Stoa, there are differences within these chrono-logical stages themselves. But the above statement of the Stoic view ofevil can be considered common to most Stoic thinkers. The basiccosmological conceptions of the Stoics come from Heraclitus andfrom Empedocles, with his theory of the four elements. As fire is thehighest element and aspires heavenward, so the soul of man strives toattain the divine.59 This cosmology was greatly complicated by the

additions Posidonius80 made to it. Himself a Syrian from Apamea and brought up in the Orient, he introduced astronomy (or astrology) intothe cosmological picture. He believed that the souls of men go upwardto the stars after death through some kind of purification. Much has

been attributed to Posidonius’ influence, largely, no doubt, becauseonly brief fragments of his own works remain. Cicero, a pupil ofPosidonius, is our chief source for his ideas, but Cicero’s testimony inConcerning the Nature of the Gods and Tusculan Disputes must be

accepted with some caution.61(All these dualistic tendencies, which were rooted in a matterspiriiopposition, were strengthened and made outright by the Gnostics.Taking over Greek and Persian dualistic conceptions and adding acomplicated hierarchy of divinities and demons of diverse moral quali-ties, they made this world and i ts creator absolutely evil._ } 1

But before we can understand Gnosticism we must briefly consider,ftwo Oriental religions, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, which contributedto Gnostic thought, (xoroaster, whose dates are much in dispute,62

taught that this world was the battleground of two equal gods and



u

their followers: Ahura Mazda (or Ormuzd), the leader of the forces ofgood, and Ahriman (or Angrimanu), the leader of the forces of evil.They struggle continuously both in the external world and in thesoul of man. It Is man’s du ty to choose the side of Ahura Mazda andsupport him by leading an upright life. Iranian dualism was, itshould be noted, ethical only and not metaphysical.

The Gathas, the oldest part of the Avesta, the collection of the sa-

cred books of Zoroastrianism, clearly show this conception of struggle.83The later books and commentaries contain much more elaborate pic-tures of the conflict, as well as apocalypses which in their protoformare believed to have been the indirect or direct source of Jewish andChristian vision literature. An outandout dualism is so trying to thehuman mind that even Zoroastrianism held out some ultimate solu-

tion: the final victory of Ahura Mazda is assured. Thus even in themost dualistic of religions, some concession, however difficult to justify

philosophically starting from such premises, was made to man’s desirefor a monistic solution to the problem of the world and its evil.64/^Persian ethical dualism passed into Babylonia when she fell under

Persian power in the sixth century B. C., and considerable amalgama-tion with Babylonian thought, especially with astrology, took place,an amalgamation fraught with deep significance for the Western world.Thence this Babylonian Zoroastrianism passed westward, perhaps at

once, influencing Orphism and Pythagoreanism to some extent; butcertainly it had reached the West three centuries later, after Alex-

ander’s conquestr^After the death of the Macedonian conqueror, theChaldean priest Berossus set up a school on the island of Cos and

taught Orienta l knowledge.65 j In the first century of the Christian era,Mithraism, bringing its accumulated Oriental heritage formed in

Babylonia from Persian dualism and local astrology, entered the Westand found a receptive soil already prepared by NeoPythagoreanism,Platonic and Stoic teachings, and above all by a growing sense of thematerial evil of the world, an element which was also to help thegrowth of Christianity.66 ^

Judaism, the second Oriental religion which contributed to Gnosticthought, had a different concept of evil, for there could be no meta-

physical dualism for Israel. The late dualistic elements found inrabbinic Judaism are mainly the result of Persian and Babylonianinfluence, and, in Alexandrian Judaism ,67 of Greek influence. Dual-ism, however, played only a minoiTpart. [fhe most prevalent att ituderegarded the whole world as good, or at least potentially good. Mat-ter could n ot be evil. E_vjl to the Palestinian Jew was a rebellionagainst God’s law and essentially inne ry8 In a sense there is a paradox




which the Gnostics quite rightly saw: if God created everything, thenhe created evil. This dilemma, when posed by the Gnostics, led cer-tain Jews like Elisha ben Abujah (Acher) in to Judaic Gnosticism,for he taught that God could not have made the world, but that thecreation was the work of the angel Metatron .69 T his teaching was indirect contradiction to the Jewish belief that not only was God tran-

scendent but also immanent in history and nature.

Unless there is an absolute dualism,70 which is difficult to stomach,the reality of evil is, in effect, denied; for, assuming one good, omni-scient, and omnipotent God, evil must only, in at least the last analysis, be appearance.71 A strictly logical mind could see that, and strictlylogical minds, driven by the evil about them, did.

The Gnostic solution of the creation of the world by an evil power(sometimes Jehovah, sometimes Jaldaboth, the Demiurge or even aheavenly archon, or others) was not mere perversity.72 N or was its

praise of the serpent, of Cain and Esau. This view was a result of a

strong sense of the wickedness of the world and was part of a con-sistent philosophy that refused to deny the reality of evil. Evil wasreal, and the world was absolutely wicked. A good god could not havecreated it; it was the work of an evil demon. But even to logicalminds like those of the Gnostics, the intellectual turmoil and hope-lessness of such a view had to be relieved; a redeemer had to be found.The Christian Gnostics found him in Jesus, the messenger of an utterlytranscendental God, who braved the evil of this world to save man.He is the opponent of Jehovah, the evil creator of this world, and

certainly not His son.73 Such, with many modifications and variations,were the views of many sects.74

As regards Egypt, it is difficult to estimate its conception of eviland particularly its influence upon Hellenistic syncretism. One wouldexpect, a priori, that such influence would have been considerable,

remembering the geographical position of Alexandria, the center ofsyncretization; but Alexandria was essentially a Greek city. Greekculture spread all over the country after the Ptolemies had established

themselves on Egypt’s throne. The Coptic gospels of the third and

fourth centuries, our chief direct source of knowledge about Gnosticism before certain very recent discoveries, do show Egyptian influence inimagery and ideas. It is difficult, however, definitely to determ inespecific Egyptian elements. The pictures of hell owe much to Egypt,and the NeoPlatonic distinction between the soul and shade (umbra or aSa>\ov) may, as Cumont has suggested,75 come from the Egyptian

belief in the ka.



1 2 The Seven Deadly Sins Nilsson recently has written:I think it is fair to concede to Egypt a greater importance in the religious

development of late antiquity than is generally done, for this country was the crucible in which Greek, Oriental, and native elements were mixed, melted, fused and recast. Astrology is the specific contribution o f Babylonia; but it was in Egypt that it was brought into the current system of Nechepso-

Petosiris.76

{^According to Breasted,77 Egypt had a very high conception of moral-ity as early as the th ird millenium before our eraj) but exactly what

philosophical basis underlay its view of evil we do not know. It has been claimed that Persia, Babylonia, and Israel owe at least the begin-nings of their religious conceptions to Egypt, and this may very well

be tru e^ The difficulty of determining specifically Egyptian ideas can be seen in that body of writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum, about which various and differing estimates have been made.78 The

Greeks themselves attributed a great deal of their own science andknowledge to Egypt,79 and there is the story of Plato’s residence intha t land. Although no trace of such a belief in ancient Egypt has

been found by modern scholars, Herodotus att ributed the origin of the

Pythagorean belief in transm igration to Egypt.80 The Pythagoreanconception is close to the Indian belief in samsara,81 and it is possiblethat it reached Pythagoras and the Orphics through an Egyptian inter-mediary. The religion of Isis, by the first century B. C., was wide-

spread in the GraecoRoman world and must have had some influenceon Hellenistic thought.

• 4 *

THE OTHERWORLD JOURNEY AND

ESCHATOLOGICAL BELIEFS■v

With the general background of Hellenism and its religious views inmind, we are now in a position to understand the specific elements inthe origin of the concept of the seven chief sins, p i e Sins are a by-

product of an eschatological belief which has been called the SoulDrama or Soul Journey.82 T his belief was one of the central dogmas(if not the central one) of Gnosticism, and it is a concept of great

importance in Hellenistic religion.83 T he seven cardinal sins are therem nant of some Gnostic Soul Journey which existed probably in Egyptor Syria in the early Christian centuries.!

But the Soul Journey is itself part of a much vaster eschatologicalconception, the Otherworld Journey, which must first be brieflystudied.

The Otherworld Journey is a motif, possibly of vcgctational origin,




which has been found in many mythologies, and which persisted inWestern Europe down to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, inliterature, balladry, and folklore. It has formed the basis of greatmasterpieces, the most notable of which is Dante’s Divine Comedy. And i t is still alive in certain parts of the world.84

Greek mythology embodies the Otherworld Journeys of Orpheusand Eurydice, and of Proserpina.85 The eleventh book of the Odyssey (probably a later addition) deals with the hero’s adventures with

Tiresias, the seer of the underworld; the twentyfourth book containsa specific reference to the descent of the slain suitors. The early Greeksconceived of the otherworld as a shadowy and colorless underground

place, similar to the Hebrew Sheol and the early Roman Inferi. The

Orphics later introduced a twofold division, the Elysian fields forthe virtuous and Tartarus for the evildoers, both still below the earth.

It is possible that representations of the Otherworld Journey were performed at Orphic celebrations.88 The preserved Orphic amulets,some of which go back to the second century B. C, give us some in-formation about Orphic otherworld conceptions. The Pythagoreans,taking their eschatological beliefs from the Orphics,87 symbolized life

by the letter Y, the two arms of which represented the two ways, one

of virtue and the other of sin; this symbol may have strengthened aconception of a twofold afterworld. The Stoics held to a belief in anappropriate reward in the next world, although they tended to placeit in the stars. The sidereal element, despite earlier Greek references,88is believed to be an Oriental contribution to Greek thought.

The most famous classical underworld journey is that of Aeneas,

related in the sixth book of the Aeneid.89 This journey is in the na-ture of a mystic initiation, for afterwards Aeneas is strong and con-

fident.The Egyptian Book of the Dead90 contains, among other things, anarration of a postmortem underworld journey and a description ofthe gates through which the soul must travel.91 The soul had to knowthe correct words in order to pass the wardens. On the other hand, weknow from the Pyramid Texts (26252475 B. C.) that it was believedthat the souls of kings ascended the sky and passed into the barge of

Ra who took them into the blissful land.92In Babylonia the famous story has been preserved of the descent of

Ishtar through the seven gates of the lower world, at each one ofWhich she gave up part of her clothing until she stood naked beforeEreshkigal, queen of the underworld.98 There is a similar, although

leas poetic, story of Nergal's dcscent and winning of the hand of hisenemy, Ereshkigal. In Japan, an ancicnt Shintoist legend tells of




Izanagi’s journey to the country of the dead in search of his wife,Izonami.94 The Chinese novel The Voyage in the West describes theTa ng Emperor T ’aiTsung’s descent to the netherworld. The MojaveIndians believed that all departed souls had to seek for the happyhunting grounds through a complicated maze which only the good

could penetrate and in which the wicked wandered painfully andendlessly. The soul of the dead Aztec had to traverse eight deserts,among other obstacles.85

All these tales link up with various conceptions, eschatological andotherwise, and produce much confusion. Th e Vedas show traces ofan earlier belief in a glorious future land among the Aryans. LaterIndian literature gives definite examples of Otherworld Journeys. TheIranians had elaborate afterlife conceptions, including three judges, astruggle of good and bad angels for the soul, and a narrow bridgeover which the soul walks.90 It is common for the soul or person to

have a guide, in the classical world often the psychopomp (guide ofsouls) Hermes97 and in Judaism and Christianity, usually Michael butsometimes Gabriel.98 Very frequently the journey is connected with avision.

Much time could be spent in giving examples from medievalsources.99 The English and Scottish ballads preserve interesting escha-tological beliefs,100 including the “brig of dree,” and there are several

ballads about Thomas Rhymer’s journey to the next world.101 Thereare otherworld visions in Bede’s H is to ria e c c le s ia s tic a l in Gregory’s

Dialogues,103 in the Old Norse Solar L iod,10i and in many apocalypseswhich are preserved in sermons and literature, most of which are

products of Hellenism. The prototype of all Christian OtherworldJourneys is, of course, Jesus’ descent into hell105 between His earthlydeath and earthly resurrection, which is most fully recorded in theapocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. The most influential of all theseChristian Otherworld Journeys, however, was the Visio Pauli, whichappeared in Greek in the fourth century.106 Works such as this andthe Apocalypse of Peter, giving a picture of the next world, especiallydescribing hell in vivid detail, replaced the popularity of Revela-

tions as the chiliastic enthusiasm of the early Church died out.107Old and Middle Irish literature contains many eschatological visions(aislinge),108 those of Adamnan, Bran, and Tundall being the mostfamous.109 Dante transformed the vision into a supreme work of art,in which various forms of the journey, the underground, mountain,and heavenly, are combined.

As Asin has clearly pointed ou t,110 the otherworld vision (as well asthe Soul Drama) played an important part in the Mohammedan



world. Soon after the Prophet’s death, stories began circulating abouthis ascension, Miraj, from Jerusalem to the throne of God. The M iraj

was believed to have been preceded by an Isra, or nocturnal journey,during which the Prophet visited the infernal regions.111 These wereoriginally separate tales, and the only basis for them is a slight refer-

ence in the Koran xvii.l. In Surah xv.44, however, there is a referenceto the seven gates of Gehenna, for seven types of sinners (perverseones).

The Otherworld Journey, as we have seen, is spread all over theworld and is part of the cultural heritage of mankind. The varietiesare infinite, yet they all have certain traits in common. They concernthemselves with the journey of a living person or the soul of a deadone into the next world to receive a special revelation, to obtain

special information, or to witness the joys and sorrows of the dead.If the traveler is alive, his return journey is often described.

The belief in immortality is widespread, and there is no doubt that,in general, Hellenistic men and women believed in some kind of futurelife. Though there were some skeptics, chiefly Epicureans, as we knowfrom literature and epitaphs,112 most men were ready for more exactinformation about the nature and topography of the next world thanthe earlier vague pictures provided. They, therefore, welcomed this

new Eastern mythology and theology which Hellenistic activity wasmaking available for the West in many forms. Although Marcus Aure-lius is an outstanding exception, the Stoics were by his time andearlier generally believers in immortality. The earlier protesters likePanaetius, Posidonius’ teacher, had not been heeded, and the pupilhimself did much to introduce the new beliefs.113 NeoPythagoreanism, the other vital movement of the first century before and the firstafter Christ, had always believed in immortality,114 possibly holding

an Otherworld Journey belief inherited through Orphism from theEast.115 NeoPythagoreanism merged with NeoPlatonism in the secondcentury of our era,116 and that heritage, together with Stoicism andits own view of gradations, fitted in very well with the particularform of the Otherworld Journey known as the Soul Drama.117

The doubters must not be neglected, for they obliquely testify tothe hold the Journey had on men’s minds. Aristophanes in The Frogs makes fun of the Otherworld Journey, and in Peace attacks the Pythag-

orean belief that souls reside in the stars.118 Lucretius sublimely re-fuses all belief in such superstitions. Diodorus Siculus, Juvenal,119Seneca,120 and Cicero, 121 in his early days, all laugh at the popularconception of Hades and such voyages. Lucian in Ferae historiae,

Icaromenippus, and M enip pus lashes out at the absurdities in theOtherworld Journey.122





THE SOUL DRAMA AND ITS BACKGROUND

The Soul Dram a (or Journey) is a specific manifestation of this universal Otherworld Journey and may have originated in Persia, possibly

in a redeemer mystery. Th is theory of provenience assumes tha t itthen passed through Babylonia, accumulating cosmological and other beliefs, and spread to the Western world, through Syria to Palestineand Egypt, and northward to Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome. It became one of the central dogmas in Gnosticism, which was prim arilyinterested in the journey , rather than in the next world itselfA This isthe picture which Bousset and Reitzenstein give us. Although actuallythe origin of the Soul Drama is not immediately relevant to the centralthesis which is being maintained in this work— tha t the seven cardinal

sins which appeared in Christian theology in the fourth century camefrom a Gnostic Soul Journey—nevertheless a probable origin as out-lined in this section is of considerable interest and helps to clarifycerta in features of the Sins. The way in which the diverse elementsof the concept are here explained tends in turn to substantiate Bousset’s hypothesis.

The Drama appears in two different forms: as a pre and after-death experience and as a mystical ecstatic experience granted to be-lievers after much training .123 Anz was the first specifically to identify

the Drama,124 but Bousset made the first extensive study of the con-ception. Since his article appeared, further inform ation has beengathered, and it is now apparent that the fate of the individual soulis but a rehearsal of the fate of the world soul, and that the SoulJourney is only one element of a larger unity which includes the pri-mordial descent and imprisonment of the divine element.125£^To give the basic elements of the concept: the individual soul issu

* ing from God or from an upper world descends through seven or eightspheres of the planets, receiving from each some characteristic or

characteristics, un til i t enters the earth in a newborn child.126 Ondeath, the soul ascends, giving back these elements to their respectivekeepers,127 until it attains the Ogdoad, above the seven spheres, whereit un ites with God or lives in some happy abode.12̂ Chaucer, cer-tainly unconscious of its full purport, tells us of this return journeyin Troilus and Criseyde V. 180713, where he says of Troilus:

And whan that he was slayn in this manere,His lighte goost ful blisfully is wentUp to the holughnesse of the eighthe spere,In converg letyng everich element;

• 5 •




And ther he saugh, with ful avysement The erratik sterres, herkenyng armonye With sownes ful of hevenyssh melodie.

^ T h e Soul Drama is, of course, intimately connected with Hellenisticastrology? and, within these terms, quite logical. As Burkitt (Church,

p. 118) points out, “Wherever therefore the doctrine of the spheres

was accepted we find doctrines of how to get past them, correspondingin part to old tales of how to pass the fabled rivers of Hades.” TheSoul Journey does not usually appear in its full form, and the varia-tions are numerous. Often the vision is presented in the framework ofa story told by a father or master to a son or pupil.129 Often the char-

acteristics or passions received are all wicked, reflecting the dualistic belief that the world is evil. Sometimes the soul is divided into a

basic (or pre and postjourney) soul and an umbra (or aSwAov), as itwas called, a division, as has already been indicated, that may have

been suggested by the Egyptian distinction between the soul and theka,130 or possibly by the Aristotelian divisions of the soul.

It was possible to ally the belief with metempsychosis by assumingthat the souls were kept in the lower heavens and sent down againuntil properly purified. The Stoics earlier had held to an old folk

belief that souls stayed in the moon.131 The sun, the stars, and upperair were sometimes regarded by various thinkers as the abode ofsouls.132 Immortality had been linked to the heavenly bodies fromearliest times, for primitive man thought that the sun, moon, andstars renewed themselves every day, and, although Babylonian andEgyptian science had discovered laws for the heavenly bodies, the

belief persisted.133<The fact that Plato tells in detail the Soul Journey of Er in the R epublic 134 induced later Romans and Greeks who might otherwisehave been skeptical to accept the belief. It is apparen t tha t Platonic philosophy fits in very well with the conception of the Soul Journey;in fact, in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, certain forms of theSoul Journey were a definite part of NeoPlatonismTyrhe classicists,therefore, tend to attribute the whole conception to Plato and Greek

philosophy. Although we do not need to agree with him, Kraeling(p. 110) writes on this point:

The Greek parallels from Plato on, might be either an independent prod

uct or possibly dependent in some way ultimately upon Persian theology. These Greek parallels, whatever their origin, undoubtedly contributed to the Gnostic statements of the Soul Drama, but were not sufficient to explain its peculiarities. The Gnostic form was essentially Iranian with an admixture of much Babylonian material which the conception acquired as it travelled westward to be incorporated in the Gnostic system.



Further, we must not ignore the fact that, according to classicaltradition, Plato obtained much of his knowledge in the East. As Bousset points out (pp. 256 ff.), Er, who is transported to heaven in the Republic, is an Armenian. The Stoics, who took up the conception,

were many of them Orientals, and, as Reitzenstein emphasizes, theGnostic belief was essentially mythological, not philosophical as wemight have expected it to be had it been of Greek origin. Fortunatelythe decision as to origin is not a problem of this book.135

Throughout the rest of this section I shall in general follow theevolution of the Soul Drama as outlined by Bousset in his classicarticle. However, I have added new material whenever I felt that the

occasion called for it.The chief Christian and Jewish examples of the Soul Drama arefound in the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, or, more specifically, inthe apocalypses, which, although preserved Iranian examples areusually late, were probably originally of Persian inspiration.136 Inorder to obtain for them greater authority, the writers of the apocrypha frequently attributed their versions to the antediluvians or togreat men of Israel such as Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and

Isaiah.The oldest reference137 to the heavenly journey in Judaism is in a

late piece of I Enoch, Chapter 71 (Ethiopic Enoch), which seems to be preChristian;138 but the version given in the Slavonic Enoch (or IIEnoch), written after the destruction of Jerusalem, is more complete.In Chapter 3 of the latter, Enoch sees in the first heaven seas ofclouds, and in the second, fallen angels. Chapters 7, 8, and 10 give

a picture of the third heaven—the future dwelling of the blessed anddamned; the fourth heaven contains the stars (Chapters 1116), andso on. Chapters 2022 portray the seventh heaven (recension A,which is a later version, gives ten heavens), where Enoch sees from afarGod surrounded by His angels. Michael is sent to disrobe him of hisearthly garments, anoint him,139 and clothe him in raiment of glory.He then approaches God.140

Perhaps older is the journey of Levi, in the Testament of the TwelvePatriarchs, “Levi” II ff.,141 through three heavens (in the oldest manu-script) or seven (in the others). In the Martyrium et ascensio Jesiae,142an originally Jewish work much changed by Christian interpolators, isfound another journey through the seven heavens, with an angel asguide. Here, as in the Enoch vision, clothes must be removed.LOrigen refers to Baruch’s journey through the seven heavens? butin the surviving pseudepigraphon Baruch Apocalypse (not in the apoc

ryphon attributed to Baruch) he reaches only the fifth.143 In Chapter




VII, only three heavens are referred to. Michael plays a part in this journey, and the work is full of wild fantasies, such as a phoenix

circling about the sun, men with faces of oxen and horns of stags, andthree hundred and sixty rivers, some of them having very unfluvialcharacteristics.

Element of Alexandria refers to a heavenly journey) in the SophoniasApocalypse;144 and the small preserved fragment of this work (edited by Steindorff, Apocalypse of Elias, pp. 169170) contains a clear if in-complete allusion to a Soul Journey. According to this account, angels

soar in the air for three days with the evil souls before deliveringthem to damnation.145Among the Jews, the ascetic Essenes also appear to have been fa-

miliar with the Soul Drama.146 Their lists of secret angelic names147were perhaps, as Bousset suggests, used to aid righteous souls in theirascent against the opposition of aerial demons. We have already notedthe importance of giving the correct passwords to the heavenlywardens.148

^Tn the New Testament we find only a few traces of the conception.The author of Revelations was aware of the belief, as Chapters iv.6 andviii.6 ff. show. Paul alludes to a journey to the third heaven,149 andthis statement later gave rise to the Visio Pauli, in which the author,elaborating on Paul’s hint and making use of similar traditions, createda complex and vivid journey.150 Cryptic references to the Soul Drama,some of which pertain to Christ, are lightly sprinkled throughout the

last part of the New Testament, in, for instance, Ephesians vi.l 1—17 andiv.8; Hebrews iv.14, vi.20, vii.26, and viii.l; and possibly in I Timothyiii. 16.

Paul probably got the conception from rabbinical circles, where itwas being discussed at the time, as certain references in the Talmudtell us. A number of Paul’s younger contemporaries, Rabbis Akiba,Ben Asai, Ben Soma, and Elisha ben Abujah (usually called Acher,

“the other,” because later rabbis refused to refer to this heretic byname),151 are supposed to have penetrated in to paradise (BabylonianTalmud, Tractate Chagiga 14b and 15a). This same tractate containsother references to the heavenly journey and its cosmological basis.

The entry into paradise was not unknown to later Jewish tradi-tion, Moses especially being considered as a visitor to the next world.In an interesting Talmudic tale, Moses is forced to pass by seven evil

powers152 in a way reminiscent of the Gnostic belief in the seven

rulers of the planets who were of an evil nature. Similar tales weret ld f R bbi I h l h li d i th fi t t f 153




sms

Merkaba (chariot), in which Elijah ascended to God. This specula-tion played an important part in later Kabbalistic theorizing.154

It is in Judaism that the Heavenly Journey first appears in recog-nizable form. Its origin, however, is almost certainly not Jewish, forthere are earlier traces of the concept in Iran and Babylonia, and be-sides, the astrological elements bespeak a nonJewish provenience} Itshould be noted that the earlier forms of the Soul Journey in Judaism

contain three heavens, whereas later seven heavens are introduced.The three heavens, Bousset argues, indicate an Iranian origin.

In later Christianity the heavenly journey rarely appears in ortho-dox writings in direct form; it was too closely linked with heresy,

because the Christian Gnostics had made the Soul Drama their own.Clement of Alexandria knew the concept, as shown by Stromateis vii.3, in which he speaks of the Gnostics. In Stromateis vi.4, discussing,apparently, the purgatorial effect of the journey, he tells of a whole

scale of future fates in store for the soul. The conception is moreopenly expressed in the Eclogae prophetarum (which is perhaps not

by Clement), with emphasis upon the gradual mounting of the soul.Here the connection with Greek philosophy is very clear .158

Origen makes clear references to the conception; in De principiis ii .1 1 .6 , for instance, he speaks of the saints who will attain the heaven-ly heights in a trice through the spheres of the heavens .156 Later, JohnDamascenus admits that there are seven heavens, although he refersin De fide orthodoxe ii.6157 to the three heavens in II Corinthians xii.2 ff., and acknowledges that there is no Biblical support for such a

belief.Traces of the Journey are found in the Christian apocalypses, such

as the Gospel of Bartholomew and the Apocalypse of Esdras,188 and incertain Ethiopic apocalypses.159 The Soul Drama is more clearly de-lineated in the Apocryphal Life of Joseph the Carpenter ,180 whereJoseph as he lies dying sees Death ( Abbaton) coming with Hades

(Amenti), the devil, and the evil demons which are close to every soul

when it leaves the body. Jesus makes them all flee and calls Michaeland Gabriel to accompany His earthly father until he has passed theseven Aeons of Darkness. The way is horrible, full of fire and evil

powers.161

\The Soul Journey is often connected with troops of angels anddemons who meet and struggle for the soul as it leaves the, body.162

Numerous references are made to this struggle in Christian16̂ a s wellas Jewish 164 writings and lore, and it occurs very frequently through-

out the »Middle Ages.We have by imperceptible degrees moved over into (Gnosticism,



agan an

ew

s ac groun 21 where we find the most completely developed expression of the SoulDrama?? And it is here, where the seven chief sins found their birth—in the Gnostic versions of the Soul Drama—that because of the taintof heresy we have less information than we have about other Hellen-istic religions, even with the basic material gathered by Anz andBousset. Although Anz claims that the Soul Drama is the centralteaching of Gnosticism, it is doubtful whether that view can be

maintained today. There can be no doubt, however, of its presenceand importance in Gnosticism, and for the purpose of this book, thatis all that need be maintained. We shall discuss the Gnostic evidenceshortly.

We must now turn to Persia and study forms of the Soul Journeylater than those in early Judaism and Christianity which we havealready discussed, but resting, it is believed, on originals which arethe lost sources of the JudeoChristian versions.

The teaching of the Heavenly Journey is found in the later Avesta.

The oldest preserved reference is a brief account in Vendidad xix.90111, in which no specific number of heavens is mentioned. The de-mons flee before the smell of a good soul .165 There is no hin t of singlestations. In Yast xxii.5365 a more elaborate story, probably a laterinterpolation, is presented. Here the souls remain three days neartheir bodies before leaving for the upward journey. The souls of the

pious meet a beautiful maiden and then journey past the three (orfour) stages until they reach the throne of Ahura Mazda; these stagesare those of good words, good thoughts, and good deeds. The antiq-uity of these sections may be questioned, but a part of the Avesta,Fargard vii.52, where there is a clear if brief relation of the Soul Drama,is acknowledged by authorities to be in the oldest part of the work .166

Although the evidence is scanty, it is probably true that the teachingof the Soul Journey was part of earliest Zoroastrianism. The Greeksthought that the Persian religion was linked with the stars, but notraces of an elaborate astrological system are found in the Avesta.They knew the Persian religion, however, only after it had passedthrough Babylonia, where it allied itself with a definite and elaboratesidereal science. Babylonia, in fact, was the source of all later Greek

astrology. Reitzenstein assumes a popular Iranian redeemer religionwhich taught the Soul Journey. If it prevailed only among the folk,then it would be easy to understand the paucity of references to theJourney in the oldest parts of the Avesta .167

There is no doubt of the existence of the Soul Journey in thelater Avesta, in the Pehlevi tradition of the time of the Sassanians.The whole eschatology was elaborated in many ways. The Minok



hired ii. 114198 (Sacred Books of the East, XXIV, 1626) contains athreefold division of the heavens, from the stars to the moon, fromthe moon to the sun, and from the sun to Garothman (paradise), thedwelling of Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda).168 These and other later allu-sions,169 it is believed, all support the theory that we are indeed deal-ing with what was originally a folk belief .170

The only proof that in Persia the heavenly journey was linked to adefinite praxis, which made it possible for the elect to reach theheavens before death,171 is in late sources and, above all, in theapocalypse of the fourth century or later of the Christian era, ArdaViraf, which is assumed to be based upon much earlier material. Init the soul of ArdaViraf wanders for seven days in the next world,while he lies in a trance. In the best recension of this work the soul

passes through only three heavenly stations (a sign of antiquity) andsees the pains of the damned and the joys of the blessed, much as

the soul does in such tales in JewishChristian apocalypses, especiallyas in the Slavonic Enoch and the Sophonias Apocalypse. In all theother recensions of the ArdaViraf, the number of heavens has beenincreased from three to seven, but this version shows a true link tothe older traditions.

It is not necessary to deal here with the many other Persian treat-ments of the Soul Journey. The Sufis, or Islamic mystics of the elev-enth century, especially made use of the Journey (and later Sufis aswell). Bousset also lists several independent witnesses and inscrip-

tions, such as Lucian’s Menippus VI172 and Arnobius’ Adversus gentes 11.62 and 11.13, which substantiate the theory that early Iran believedin the Soul Journey.Q The best testimony of all is offered by Mithraism, the continuationin the West of Zoroastrianism.173 Origen (Contra Celsum VI.22) tellsus that the Mithraic mysteries present a representation of the fixedstars and planets and employ a ladder with seven steps, each of whichcorresponds to a metal as well as a planet. This ladder can only be asymbol of heavenly journey through the seven spheres.174 Cumont believes that this teaching was one of the central dogmas in the

mysteries,175 and we have the evidence of Porphyry176 and Julian177

to that effect. There were also seven degrees of initiation in Mith-raism, probably corresponding to the seven planets.

£ The Mandaean religion, the only Gnostic religion which survivestoday, also presents a clearcut Soul Journey, although offering littletestimony as to its origin, because many of the Iranian elements inthat faith probably came through nonIranian sources.178 This heav-

enly journey is preserved in their scriptures, the Ginza, where the




I UgUW u n u J CWNn i /u v n j r uwrru MV

stations arc called mattartas .17# Sometimes there are seven and some-times eight, and even, in one example, three.180 T h e 'mattartas are allruled by evil spirits and dem ons^ In Mandaeism we also have ex-amples of disrobing, as in II Enoch and the “Song of the Pearl .” 181

The purely evil nature of the guardians of the gates which we havemet now and then is a later addition that owes its origin to Gnosticspeculation.182 This will be discussed later.

We have seen that (the Soul Drama was at first linked with threeand later with seven heavens^ The fourth heaven in the earlierversions was often regarded as the highest, and our Persian parallelsexplain why. (The introduction of seven heavens, which resulted fromBabylonian astrology (or astronomy), made the eighth heaven therealm of the divineT)We know that the Babylonians at an early datelinked the stars to the gods.183 It will be well to emphasize here againthat the Soul Journey was based upon the science of the day.184 Aris-totle himself emphasized the difference between the world beneath

the moon, subject to chance, and that above it, subject only to destiny.Plato and his followers in their speculations had given a philosophicalTjasis for the concept, and an example of it in the Vision of Er, so thatwhen it appeared in the West with the Babylonian and possibly Egyp-tian additions, conditions were ripe for its acceptance. Seven finallydefeated three heavens, because the former was scientific, the latternot.183

^ I n to this conception intruded the microcosmmacrocosm theory—the theory that man is a little world, an exact image of the external

one. This belief was held by most of the Stoics and was certainly prevalent in Babylonia, where it may have arisen.188 We also find itin India in Upanishadic speculations.187 A whole series of pseudo-correspondences grew up on the basis of this conception, correspond-ences which we find emphasized down to the Renaissance188 and whichstill persist in modern superstition .189 If there were seven planets, theremust be seven parts of the body ,199 seven colors,191 seven metals,192

seven winds,193 seven parts of the world, seven diseases, and so forth .194

In the alchemical writings of the Middle Ages,195 as well as in theology,

homilies, and literature, there are many such correspondences, and allthis was linked to the mystic value of numbers.

We find these conceptions in Mithraism, in the ritual of which, asOrigen tells us, each of seven doors, presumably corresponding to theseven planets, is connected with a metal .196 This connection is spokenof as very old. In this regard, the seven or eightfloor building or city

(Ziggurat) Ekbatana, which the Babylonians built and which is de-scribed by Herodotus (i.81), should be recalled. Each floor or wall was



24 e even ea y ns probably sacred to a planetary divinity, and each was painted in adifferent color. Rawlinson (pp. 18 ff.) tried to reconstruct in planthe original from the ruins near BirsNimrud, and he gives the planetcolor correspondences.107 Bousset (p. 240) sets the correspondencesout in a table and shows how similar they are to the Mithraic scheme.

C This conception, which became intimately connected with the SoulDrama, must be a Babylonian addition, one of the many modificationswhich the originally Persian Journey was to undergo (Babylonia fellto the Medes and Persians in the sixth century B.C.). ~J

An interesting Eastern medieval survival of this particular belief isthat of the socalled Sabians in Harran, Babylonia, of whom Islamicwriters speak .198 The Sabians believed in some form of planet worshipand certainly venerated the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. It is alsorelated that certain metals and colors were sacred to them. Here, too,in Sabian correspondences, there is a remarkable similarity to the

Ekbatana and Mithraic lists. There is no doubt tha t in the Sabian belief this old teaching persisted, although it is unlikely that, as Bous-set believed, it was directly preserved from the old Babylonian reli-gion. It seems more likely that the Sabians emigrated from the Westsomewhere, possibly Egypt or Syria, carrying with them the teachingsof some Gnostic sect, thereby taking certain Mesopotamian conceptions back to Babylonia. There is also a list of metals and planets close toour list in the Syriac Book of the Knowledge of Tru th .199 Planet cor-respondences are extremely widespread, and frequently met with

throughout the Middle Ages.200

Another conception which seems to have come from Babylonia isthe correspondence of the seven planets with the seven kingdoms.The Mandaeans held a related conception; they divided world historyinto seven periods, over each of which a separate planet ruled. Theconcept also appears in late Persian (Pehlevi) literature. An interest-ing example is in the Zartustname Apocalypse of the sixth century ofour era, wherein “the course of world history is symbolized by a treewith seven branches of seven different metals.” 201 The tree as a symbol

of the seven deadly sins will be met in the later Middle Ages.( , The Hellenistic primordial man or Anthropos, too, was connectedwith the Soul Drama. The heavenly man who was the prototype ofearthly man was made subject to the astral journeyT)All these ideaswere intermingled along with others; and different problems, such aswhat drew the soul up, continually presented themselves to those whospeculated about the Soul Drama.

All these conceptions and mutual influences

point to an intermingling of Iranian and Babylonian conceptions which must



Fagan ana jewtsn oacKgruunu «,*

have already begun in the age of the Achaemenidae and continued into the time of Alexander and his successors, and the location of which was Babylon and Mesopotamia.203

If we can accept this statement as true, it presents a cardinal fact inthe whole history of Hellenism—that ^Babylonia under the Persians

was the original home of Hellenistic syncretism and theology^ TheGreek confusion between the Magi and Chaldeans, and in lateTegendsthe conception of Zoroaster as a Babylonian, tend to substantiate this

picture./Bousset states clearly, and I think correctly, that the change of the

planet gods into evil spirits as in Gnosticism was not basically due toBabylonian speculation. The separate Babylonian conception of the

seven evil spirits, however, may have had some influence on Gnosticand late Persian views of evil planetary gods or demons,203 for in laterPersian religion the stargods tended to degenerate into demons?} Onthe other hand, the seven heavens almost certainly came from Babylonia and perhaps also the idea of special guardians of each portal.204

^Thus the basis of much Gnostic205 speculation can be found in Baby-lonia under Persian swayOOrthodox Judaism and orthodox Christian-

ity repudiated these conceptions in the early centuries of our era, butin folklore206 and in many outposts of the world, traces lingered on,for example, in a ceremony of the Siberian Tungusic people in whichthe Shaman rides to heaven.207 In the Western religions on the fringesof orthodoxy, reminiscences of the Soul Drama can be found, and one part, the seven deadly sins—carefully separated from their originalmatrix—came into Catholic theology.

<^The Greeks, as we have seen, were familiar with a Soul Journey fromPlato’s time at least) 208 although the older concept of the descent tothe underworld persisted generally; Mjut, except in Plato, the SoulDrama as a specific element clearly connected with a plurality of heav-ens is not found until after the time of Posidonius (c. 13550).209And in Plato it is significant that the one making the Journey is anArmenian.210

Plutarch had heard of the Soul Drama, perhaps from the NeoPythagoreans, who among the Greek.sects seem especially to haveespoused it.211 Other references to it may be found in classical Greekand Roman literature, but never such explicit and detailed referencesas those in Eastern documents. Philo’s eschatology is Greek and H e- brew, yet he recognizes the heavenly journey and an atmosphere fullof living angels.212

ClThe sevenfold heaven, unknown to Plato or the older Pythagoreans,began to appear during the time of the Middle Stoa and from that



2 . no ocvcn scuu y oms

time on was well known.31*̂ The influence of Greek philosphicalspeculation on the Soul Journey is most clearly seen in the Hermeticwritings, which will be discussed below.214 One original Greek con-tribution is the notion of the soul’s wandering for thousands of years.Greek philosophical dualism, moreover, had a great influence on thoseversions which make the planetguardians evil.

The Logia Chaldaica (the core of which may have been written in

the second half of the second century), a late NeoPlatonic work piecedtogether from quotations from Iamblichus, Proclus, and others, con-tains numerous echoes of the Soul Journey .215 The work is a primeexample of eschatological syncretism, combining material in very con-centrated form from the mystery religions, Plato, NeoPlatonism, Hermeticism, Pythagoreanism, and Stoicism, with a dose of Gnostic magicthrown in .216

• 6 •

SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS— DEMONS— ANIMAL SYMBOLISM

The problem of the origin of the evil gods at each station in theheavens leads us into demonology, a subject linked in various ways withthe seven chief sins.C The belief in demons goes back to the early religious speculationsof mankind. Practically all primitive peoples believe in demons whocause both good and evil, but the evil ones are usually more prominent, because evil is always more dramatic and arresting, and more concrete^Evil seems to be more positive than good. Besides, evil is harmful,and its agents must be propitiated.( Among Semitic peoples we find an early belief in the power of sevenevil demons.21*^ The cuneiform texts contain many references tothem .218 Perhaps the most famous of these is the one in which eachdemonic spirit is compared to an animal, or to a force of nature, suchas the south wind.210^These spirits were certainly not linked to the

planets at this time but were independent^) Yet it is significant that

,they were usually regarded as the helpers of Anu, god of the heavens .220(Numerous references to them are found in magic formula^ a belief

in demons being at the basis of all magic, for both evil and good spiritswere conceived as the agents of the magician.221

Arabs and Syrians today look with fear on the seven jinns, who are,no doubt, descendants or cognate relatives of the(j$abylonian sevenevil spirits.222 ^ fh e New Testament gives evidence of the vitality ofthis belief in the story of the seven demons driven out of Mary Mag-dalene by Jesus.223 3fin the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, “Reu-



Pagan and Jewish Background 27 ben," written at the end of the second century B. C., seven spirits ofdeceit are given the names of qualities which in some cases correspondto those on our list of the chief sins.22^Clt is clear that these seven Semitic evil spirits will not alone explainthe later seven chief sins: first, because there are few references, andmostly late, linking the deadly sins with the seven evil spirits of the New Testament;225 second, because the seven are seldomlinked with

partisaylar sins, the Testament of the Patriarchs providing one of thefew examples (and it has been influenced by the Soul Drama); third, because the chief sins first appear as eightând this number cannot be satisfactorily explained unless the Soul Drama as interpreted inGnostic circles is assumed to be the chief source of the conceptionjândfourth, because the belief in the seven evil demons as the source ofthe Sins will not present as selfconsistent a picture of the evolution ofthe conception as does the Soul Journey .\£ertainly , however, the con-cept of the evil seven had some influence on the seven chief sins. TheHermetic writers and the monastic fathers who first treat of the chiefsins conceived of them as demons^ a conception which prevailedthroughout medieval tirnes.\C ln Egypt existed beliefs in seven evil Hathors and in evil spiritswho supported the god Set;220 but here, too, it is impossible to deter-mine the exact influence of these beliefs on our concepts The idea ofa struggle between vices and virtues, which we find later in Philo,Tertullian, and the writer of Hermetica XIII,227 may have been partly

suggested by the story portrayed in literature and art of the battle be-tween Set and Horus, each accompanied by seven spirits.In Persia, Ahriman was accompanied by six chief evil spirits and a

host of lesser powers in his battle with Ahura Mazda, who had an equalnumber and arrangement of assistants.228 It has been suggested thatZoroastrianism borrowed the battle theme from Babylonia;229 butwhether this is true or not, the theme is certainly widespread.<Ân elaborate system of demons, later brought into philosophy by

Plato and the NeoPlatonists,230 was part of earliest Greek folk belief,

The demons were generally considered morally neutral in the classical period of Greece. Later they were thought to be both good and bad; but the good demons were never so prominent as the evil ones, andas perception of evil sharpened, they faded even more.?"

The Gnostics considered the seven guardians totally evil, as we maylearn from Plotinus’ (c. 240270) protest to them that some demonsare good.231 In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries the belief in theubiquity of demons, abetted by NeoPlatonism, had become widespread.

("With the advent of Christianity and its apologists, the demons of



antiquity were linked to the devil of Jewish demonology, who had probably come ultimately from Persia. The evil demons became theassistants of Satan, and the good demons became angels) Pagan deitieswere generally considered devils.282 Throughout this period, Christian-ity offered its adherents a means of casting out demons and of pro-tecting themselves against them .233

In Greece today we find some important survivals of demonology,one being the belief that demons called telonia hinder the soul as it passes to heaven .234 This is closely linked, as we shall see, with theSoul Drama and our conception. Also surviving in modern Greece isthe superstition that midday is a particularly propitious time fordemons, and everyone is advised to stay indoors ;235 we have evidencefrom literary men such as Ovid, Porphyry, and Lucian tha t this supersti-tion existed in antiquity .236 This reminds us of “sloth” or “accidie,”the demon that, in the writings of the desert fathers, walks at noontide.

^All these demons when evil were originally connected with disease,the most obvious form of ill,237 and later, as a conscience developed,with moral qualities. Numerous diseasemetaphors describing sin areused in the Bible and elsewhere,238^knd such imagery has persisteddown to this day. ifhe idea of purification, adopted or originated bythe Orphics, could have taken hold only if disease and sin had beenthought of as closely connected^) The cult of Aesculapius, originally aminor Thracian chthonian deity, shows the connection very clearly.239

^The coupling of sin and disease found in these different cults fits inwith the conception already referred to of sin as an objective poweiv1

The history of the pictorialization of the devil will be dealt withlater ;240 here it is only necessary to deny R. Lowe Thompson’s con-tention that the medieval devil is to be traced to the survival of anancient horned god of the West. When we recall Persian, Semitic,Christian, and Coptic devils of the early centuries, complete withhorns and tails,241 we cannot concede that the medieval devil is mainlyderived from the horned god of the West, though possibly the horned

god as well as the classical satyr had some influence on pictorializationof the devil in literature and art .242

(Animals are also clearly linked to evil spirits, of whatever number.We may recall the entry of the demons into the swine in the NewTestament,2̂ and the early Babylonian equation of animal and demonalready mentioned. Modern Arabs attribute evil deeds to demons hid-ing in animals.244 The desert fathers had earlier seen demons in thesly lurking forms of animals like the jackal ,245 but there is no evidence,although the demons themselves had long before become specialized in

qualities, that demons having particular qualities were linked with





specific animals. The Ophite scheme of the Soul Drama considered asseven separate animals the seven evil warders who created man.246

Animal worship and totemism go back far into antiquity. Primitiveman felt closer to animals and plants than we do today .247 Animalswere worshipped probably for the powers supposed to be latent inthem.

In paleolithic times special animals were honored, as shown by cave paintings that have been preserved chiefly in Catalonia and France.248

We know, too, from penitentials such as Theodore of Canterbury’s inthe seventh century, that some kind of animal worship then prevailedin Britain. Miss Murray sees the witchcult of later medieval times asa continuation of this prehistoric religion.249

To this day the Ainu of northern Japan worship the bear, and theFinnish epic the Kalevala contains frequent references to that animal,showing that it was held in high respect. Egypt venerated certainanimals which were linked with divinities,250 and to the GraecoRomanworld was always associated with animal worship. In Babylonia, ani-mals were linked to the gods and given various powers .251 We findwinged Hons in Assyria, and dragons everywhere .252 Birds have beenhighly regarded in almost all places, and have usually been connectedwith souls.253 It is impossible to do more than touch upon this subjecthere, but enough has been presented to show the ubiquity of zoolatryand animal symbolism.254

Less well known, however, than these other manifestations is the

fact that there are definite traces of animal worship among the earlyGreeks,255 the serpent and the dove particularly being held in highhonor .256 Certain animals were connected with the Olympian godsand considered sacred.267

Gradually in the Hellenistic Age demons of special qualities cameto be linked with specific animals,258 a characteristic association which

persisted throughout the Middle Ages. It was quite natural forGower and Spenser, for instance, to personify the Sins by animals.Much animal lore appeared in medieval bestiaries with elaborate

morals,259 reinforcing the Hellenistic tendency to identify animals withvices (and sometimes virtues).

• 7 •

SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORY----TH E EVIL WARDENS

IN GNOSTIC SOUL DRAMAS

In any discussion of the various conceptions, beliefs, and movementsthat have contributed to the final formulation of the seven chief sins,



symbolism and allegory must not be neglected. Post (pp. 34) and laterLewis (pp. 44 ff.) make a distinction between the two, defining symbol-ism as a movement from concrete and sensuous reality to the abstract,and allegory (or personification) as a movement from the abstract tothe concrete and sensuous.260 Symbolism starts from the concrete,which it interprets in terms of abstract theory; allegory starts from theabstract, which it vivifies by personification. Although we shall ingeneral try to follow those definitions in this section, we are aware,as Patch261 has pointed out, that it is not always possible to do so.Symbolism and allegory are closely allied, and at times so interwoventhat to distinguish where one starts and the other ends is nearly im-

possible; it is necessary, however, to attempt to make some distinction,even if it is not a completely workable one, in order to deal with thealmost hopeless confusion of terms in this subject.262

Both allegory and symbolism were intellectual methods which, con-

sciously employed in the Hellenistic Age, contributed greatly to theorigin of our concept, the seven deadly sins, although the exact degreeand nature of that contribution are difficult to determined)CThe tendency to make the concrete stand for something more thanitself is rooted deep in human nature, and it is no exaggeration to saythat if men had not had such a tendency, civilization would have beenimpossible.26C^Language, as the ancients sometimes recognized, is themost conspicuous example of the symbolic process. Values were at-tached to certain sounds, enabling man to identify thereby specific

objects and concepts. These sounds, or words, were then combined orextended metaphorically to represent progressively more and moreelaborate and abstract ideas. The person who defined language asdead poetry exaggerated, but metaphors are so numerous and com-mon in language that they are for the most part unheeded by theindividual. Fortuitous similarities in words sometimes led to furthersymbolism. Two different but similar soundcombinations, originallymeaning “light” and “cat,” respectively, in the Egyptian language fell

together into the one word mau. This accidental similarity led to theassociation of the two concepts, just as, in like fashion, anpu (jackal)was linked with anpu (serpent).

Kellett has also pointed out (pp. 190192) that one of the psycho-logical bases of symbolism or symbolization is the equivoque, the de-sire to mean more than is said. The cryptic utterances of the oracleat Delphi, which were no doubt made so in order to play safe, strength-ened the belief that in high utterance more is implied than is actuallysaid.264

As civilization moved onwards, there was need to preserve tradi

30 e even ea y ns



ragan ana J cwisn jyacrtgruunu o *

don and the best that had been thought and said in the past. This presented problems, inasmuch as the ancients in general had no systemof historical criticism and no evolutionary concept of history to enablethem to appreciate the past as part of a developing whole .265 Josephus,for instance, in his Against Apion, complains about the contradictoryreports of Greek historians.266 Growth of a belief in a transcendentalgod made it necessary for the Greeks to explain away the cruder

anthropomorphisms of the earlier deities. Even more pressing was the problem of maintaining the greatness of Homer in the face of whatto later generations were absurdities in his text .267 By the time ofAristotle, veneration for Homer had reached such heights that theauthor of the Nicomachean Ethics treated the words of the Iliad andOdyssey as if they were sacred.208

As early as the sixth century B.C., or even earlier, men like Theogenes of Rhegium began to explain away the absurdities in Homer

by assuming that he had hidden in his words secret meanings, which

were supposed to refer primarily to physical events.269 No doubt thesecret hieroglyphic writings of the Egyptians, their tradition of anancient secret teaching for the elect,270 the use of symbols in the mys-teries at Eleusis and elsewhere, and the cryptic language of the oraclesall helped to give credibility to Theogenes’ belief. Euhemerus facedapproximately the same problem in a more rationalistic manner, explaining the origin of the gods as the deification of early heroes. Hecould thus account to rationalistic minds for the otherwise inexplic-ably atrocious deeds with which the gods were saddled. We know from

Plato’s remarks in the Republic 11.378, where he speaks of those whowould defend the poets, and in the Phaedrus 229 C and D, whereSocrates refers slightingly to those who give a physical explanation ofthe story of Boreas, that symbolic interpretation was already commonin the early part of the fourth century. And Plato himself, in spite ofhis disapproval of at least the abuses of symbolism, used myths to

explain his teachings, thereby strengthening the movement he wascondemning.271 Another strengthening factor, it should be noted, was

the Pythagorean tendency to see a mystic significance in the numerical

relations of the universe.In the later Greek world the Stoics in particular were known for

their symbolical interpretation of Homer, still chiefly in physicalterms. In the early preChristian centuries (probably the first century)the work of the Stoic Cornutus and the Allegoriae Homericae (orQuaestiones Homericae) of the pseudoHeraclitus272 both see the forcesof nature personified in Homer’s poems somewhat as Max Muller andhis followers in the last century saw solar myths in the legends of the



past.(L ater symbolical interpretation, like much else, was concentratedin Alexandria.27* ^ or was the symbolic method confined to the Hellen-istic world. In India, the Upanishads had already supplied a symbolicinterpretation of the Vedas, when their words, although highly re-garded, could no longer exactly fit new conditions.

The Jews, too, were faced with a similar problem, perhaps even more pressing, in explaining the inconsistencies in the Pentateuch, whichwas regarded as the word of God Himself .274 As early as the fourthand third centuries B.C., commentaries were in circulation, usually inthe form of Aramaic translations of the Pentateuch. These works,called "Targumim,” were more than mere literal translations; theywere to a certain extent exegetical.275 A floating mass of oral tradi-

tions and interpretations also gathered about the Bible, but was notwritten down un til the Mishna (the first pa rt of the Talmud) wasdrawn up at the end of the first century of our era, codifying part ofit; and still more tradition, early and late, was embodied in the Jeru-

salem and Babylonian Gemara (the second and concluding part of theTalmud, in the form of commentaries on the Mishna) in the fourthand fifth centuries of our era. The Pharisees stood for a reinterpre-tation of the Bible to meet changing needs, and it was largely throughtheir efforts that the Jews became a people of the Book and that theBible has been preserved as a living force in Judaism, even to thisday. The Sadduccees, the opposing party, representing more wealthyand cultivated interests, supported literal interpretation, but, as thatwas so obviously impossible, it was abandoned by official Judaism .276

In the ninth century in Babylonia, however, the Karaites arose protest-ing against rabbinical Biblical interpretation and demanding a returnto the original word, just as in the nineteenth century Reform Judaismattacked the rabbinical tradition (although it could not completelyreturn to the literal word). Rabbinical interpretation is not exactly thesame as Alexandrian or Stoic symbol reading, but they all have similar psychological roots and show certain similarities in evolution. TheJewish center at Alexandria, the most notable representative of whichwas Philo, was more specifically Greek in its methods than the rabr

binical school as embodied in the Talmud. Both, however, concen-trated, though with somewhat different emphases, on a spiritual, moral,and legal interpretation of the Bible.

It is also worthy of note that Catholicism today relies upon a tradi-tional and symbolic interpretation of the Bible, particularly of theOld Testament,277 which can be traced back in part to Philo,278 andwhich can also be found as early as the Epistle to the Hebrews in the

New Testament. Philo, contemporary of Jesus and a mystic who system-



atically interpreted the Bible for the Greekspeaking Jews of his age(and incidentally for the Christian Fathers who followed),aT® deeplyinfluenced men such as Justin Martyr ,280 Clement,281 Origen,282 Tertullian,288 Ambrose,284 Augustine, 285 and even Prudentius.286 Manyof Philo’s interpretations have been accepted by the Catholic Church

as the proper ones.287

Philo, influenced by the Stoics and Neo (or Middle) Platonists, car-

ried symbolism to new and sometimes farfetched lengths. In theBible he saw a moral tractate on how to lead the good life and amirror of the scientific knowledge of his time. He gave to numbers aspecial significance. In all his writings he tried to preserve the stand-ard of morality which later Judaism demanded.^Thus we pcfft see a widespread need for symbolic interpretation inthe face pf the natural changes that time had brought and of an increasing intellectual dissatisfaction with the past. The Stoic, Pharisaic,and Alexandrian methods fulfilled a function288 which today has been

largely taken over by an evolutionary concept of history. To a mindwhich saw analogies and correspondences in the natural world—someof which are hard to accept today—there would be no difficulty inlooking beneath the surface of the sacred Word.

We now turn to allegory, which is also found very early in humanhistory. Lilliebjorn traces the tendency to allegorize back to earlyman and finds its origin in the use of signs either to identify slaves orto represent the divine power (mana) which primitives believed latentin all objects. Lilliebjorn believes that this practice is preserved among

modem Arabs. But language itself aids the process of concretizing theabstract.289

The roots of medieval allegory, as Lewis points out (pp. 48 ff.), andas the medieval writers themselves recognized, lie in Roman and Greekliterature and life.290 Neilson (pp. 8 ff.) more than thirty years beforehad seen the connection here between Rome and the Middle Ages.Certainly in classical literature we find the sources of that laterallegory which appears in Martianus Capella, Bernardus Sylvester,Alanus de Insulis, and in the Roman de la Rose and many other works.

Classical murals and mosaics offer numerous examples of figures, usuallywomen, personifying abstract qualities.291 But more significant thanall this is the deification of abstract conceptions in the Roman reli-gion, which Axtell has traced back to earliest times—particularly thegoddess Fortuna, who is among the oldest of Roman deities .292 It is,of course, easy to see why these abstractions were usually given femin-ine forms, if we recall the gender of most Latin abstract nouns .293 InGreek theology, Tyche (fortune) was considered a divinity, as early as



the fourth century B.C., especially among the lower classes, but itwas chiefly in Rome that this type of deification was carried on. Inthe early Empire the abstractions so honored grew by leaps and

bounds, particularly in association with Emperor Worship.294 Nodoubt Alexandria was aware of this process.

In literature it is often difficult to say when the abstractions usedwere considered persons (or gods) and when mere abstractions, for

we have no capital letters in classical MSS to guide us. It is unneces-sary, indeed impossible, to list all the personifications used in Greekand Roman literature. It is sufficient to note that later writers likeApuleius,296 Statius,298 and—much later—Claudian297 employ them toa very great extent.298

There were mutual influences between symbolism and allegory, thedevelopment of each affecting the other, although the whole processis too complicated to trace.299 No doubt the prevalence of images,statues, and idols also fostered the use and popularity of allegory.300

^Allegory and symbolism play an important part in the backgroundof the seven chief sins. It was in a milieu where both processes werealive, alive as they perhaps have never consciously been since, that ourconcept grew up .301 In fact, owing to symbolism, it was possible tofind in the Bible the justification for seven chief sins, and henceauthority for their acceptance. When St. Luke spoke of “seven otherspirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there:and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (xi.26), or wrote

“And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day” (xvii.4), or re-ferred to the seven devils who were cast out of Mary Magdalene (viii.2), or when the author of Proverbs spoke of the “seven abominations”in the heart of a wicked man (xxvi.25), it was easy to see in these textsa reference to seven sins3Even the Soul Journey itself could by thismethod be found in the Bible. If we understand them aright through

Hippolytus’ report,302 the Naasenes, a heretical sect, interpreted thereference to the “just man” who “falleth seven times, and riseth upagain” as a symbol of a journey through the spheres. Much more

clearly, Clement of Alexandria suggests that Ezekiel xliv.2627, whichspeaks of the seven days of purification for a priest in mourning andthe eighth on which he should enter into the inner court of theTemple, is a reference to the Soul Journey through the seven heavensof purification to the Ogdoad.303

CAs for allegory and our concept, the Sins were from their earliest

appearance in Christian thought considered concrete devils or demons^and throughout the Middle Ages they continued, at times, to be so

visualized. They were often personified as men or women. CThus our



r u g u n u n u tan t ut, ru rn u

concept was affected in many ways by both allegory and symbolism.^Closely related to both of these processes is the tendency to find a

meaning, usually moral, in history. This moralization of history was

introduced to the world by the Hebrews, who, seeing God’s hand inall human events, could find the appropriate lesson in any one ofthem.304 Indeed, given the religious point of view of the Hebrews,with its strong historical sense, such a process was inevitable. God

reveals Himself in history and time, as well as in nature and in specialrevelations such as that at Mount Sinai. History, then, has a mean-ing which must be read.

Christianity continued this process. It appears in Orosius’ History (418 A.D.), wherein parallels to Roman history are adduced from theBible in order to absolve Christianity of the charge that it had broughtabout the degeneration of the Empire. Gildas in the sixth century,Hrabanus Maurus in the ninth, and Peter Comestor in the twelfth, tomention only a few names, all found moral lessons in history. Through-out the Divine Comedy Dante finds warnings both in past and con-temporary events. In the Middle Ages, we shall see many historicalexamples, frequently from the Bible, used as warning or encourage-ment, to illustrate the cardinal sins.

A question, the answer to which has already been suggested, mustnow be taken up for serious attention: (Why were all the spirits orguardians of the seven heavenly spheres considered evil by the Gnostics,although no traces of such a belief can be found earlier in Babyloniaor Persia?305 The basic answer to this query is that the Gnostics con-sidered the world and matter evil; any qualities, therefore, which these

guardians would give to man for earthly use must necessarily bemaleficent, and as only evil spirits could bestow evil qualities, thespirits themselves were evil. Iranian dualism was purely an ethicaldualism.^It posited an eternal good and evil struggling against each

other, but it did not link these qualities to spirit and matter^ Greekdualism (if it may be so called), however, was rooted in metaphysics.Its basic assumption was that matter, physically heavy and gross, wasevil, and spirit, physically light and airy, was good, with intermediate

stages in between^pBurkitt has called this conception the soma-sema

(“body in a tomb”) theory .308 To the Greeks, he points out, the soulwas immortal for both physical and logical reasons. The matterspiritopposition of the Greeks, then, is a different kind of contrast from thatwhich we conceive in modern times “between ‘matter,’ i.e. somethingwhich is subject to what are called ‘laws of nature,’ and ‘spirit,’ whichis thought of as altogether nonmaterial.” 307

(T h is conception of evil guardians, then, a logical outcome of a com



mon Hellenistic scientific mattersplrit dualism, was strengthened byan earlier tradition, chiefly Semitic and Egyptian, of a similar group ofevil spirits, seven in number, and also by the tendency to regard ab-stractions as personalities and personalities as abstractions. Then, too,aerial demons, usually wicked, were universally believed in X T o theGnostic the astral journey, based upon the thenscientific view of theuniverse, was one to which all were doomed. Man had descended past

the evil spirits, bearing with him their evil gifts, and he had to ascendafter death. How could he get through? How could the evil guard-ians be placated for the return journey? Gnosticism could fortify itsadherents for the ascent by providing them with the proper magicformulas and by enlisting the aid of the Gnostic redeemer, who, in theChristian sects, was Jesus. Gnosticism in some of its forms posited manyaerial powers besides the evil planetary spirits. It was not restrained

by any thought of needlessly reduplicating entities. Occam’s razor andthe law of parsimony were equally unknown to Gnostic thinkers, as a

short perusal of some of their works will indicate. W ith the means provided by his religion, however, the true Gnostic could safely travel past the wicked ones, of whatever number, and attain the blissfulrealm, the Ogdoad, or whatever it may be called, beyond the rollingspheres.

Yet religion, although making use of science, was independent of it,and astronomy developed on its own, after Ptolemy had classified thewhole system in the Almagest. Astrology, the practical side of astron-omy, never completely adopted the Gnostic view that the seven plan-

ets were evil,808 but held that only some were malignant, while otherswere benign. Usually there were three of each, and the seventh, Mer-cury, was indifferent, inclining to beneficence or maleficence, depend-ing upon its position.309 Medieval astrology usually took that view,and [with the disappearance or submergence of Gnosticism, the oppos-ing belief in seven totally evil planets seemed to die out. 25The medievaldualistic heresies probably concerned themselves with the evil seven, but our information as to their teachings is scanty.310 [Although the belief was widespread throughout the Middle Ages th at evil demonsinfested the upper regions of the air and attacked souls, they rarelyhad planetary associations.3u^Surprisingly enough, however, as weshall see, the planets and the seven sins appear in conjunction againin the late medieval period.

So, although the Gnostic conception of the maleficent planets fadedout, the seven cardinal sins remained in the orthodox theology of theChurch, as a remnant of all this Gnostic and Hellenistic speculation,unknown to the faithful.



SIN LISTING— TH E SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NUMBER

SEVEN— RECAPITULATION

Two important elements contributing to an understanding of the ori-gin of the Sins remain to be discussed: the general habit of listingvices, and the significance of the number seven. Pettazzoni has shownhow,(eVen among primitive peoples, it is customary upon occasion torecite long lists of sins (or perhaps of evil qualities ).312 The purposeis linked with the ubiquitous belief in the power of the name, thefeeling that the possession of the right name will give the possessor

power over the being or thing named .313 If the evil quality, which is

considered something objective, is named, it will be subject to control

and expulsion. Long lists grew out of the conception ffiarife'Ste'tS ife'committed unawares might also harm or be held against one; hence all

possible sins are named, so that none will escape control. In all civili-zations, this habit has continued. We have long lists of sins in thereligious writings of China, of Tibet, of Turkestan ,314 and of Egypt,where the Book of the Dead lists fortytwo sins which the judged manclaims he has not committed, each of which is linked to a differentgod.31̂ )T h is last has been called a “negative confession,” but, asBreasted has pointed out (p. 258), the phrase is meaningless.£lt isclearly connected with the primitive custom. The listing of sins has a

purifying effect. 3

C In Assyria and Babylonia, tablets with long lists of sins, no doubtmade to serve the same purpose,316 have been foundp and there arenumerous examples in the Old Testament and in the apocrypha. InGreek and Roman literature also, we meet many such lists, madelargely for intellectual, rather than magical, purposes. The Stoics,following the lead of Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Plato, classifiedthe vices and virtues.317JPThere is a long list of outrages and vices inPlautus’ Pseudolus, lines 360 ff., where the accused acquiesces in thecharges, and another in his Persia IV.4, lines 554 ff. Horace in Epistle 1.1.3340 has a list amazingly similar to the later Christian list of theseven chief sins—a similarity which, as Zielinski has pointed out ,318

can be explained only by a common source, which was probably a formof the Soul Drama. This passage will be discussed in connection withother similar passages in Chapter II.Q n the New Testament are found numerous lists, some of which are

given by Paul.319 In Origen, Tertu llian, and other patristic writersthere are many examples^ and we shall deal with some of these in thenext chapter.

• 8 •



Dcissman (p. 268) has called our attention to the counters, to befound in many museums, on which are inscribed the names of vices orvirtues. These counters, most of which apparently stood for vices,were used in some kind of game of draughts. Deissman points out thesimilarity of the vices to those listed in the New Testament, a cor-respondence without any particular significance, I believe. The gamewas played by the folk, as the Vulgar Latin of the names testifies, and

its popularity, vouched for by the number of the relics, reveals the popular basis of sin lists which we find in literature and inscriptions.There was, then, a tendency in the early Christian centuries, going back to early human history, to make lists of sins.320

Another problem which we need not attempt to solve in this workis that of the origin of the idea, found all over the world, that thenumber seven is sacred.32^)Whether or not it be derived from Babylon-

ian cosmology,322 or from the primitive Semitic division of time intomoonmonths of twentyeight days which could be divided into sevensand fours,323 the significant fact for us is that the number seven wasgiven particular honor from earliest history.324

A good concordance will show how often the number seven appearsin the Bible. Sevens appear very early in Babylonia325 and Egypt.328

The Pythagoreans introduced an extensive number speculation, inwhich not only seven,327 but all the numbers up to ten, played an im-

portan t part. This speculation, which sought to explain the universerationally in terms of numerical principles, appeared in Plato’s works

and, although proof of its existence immediately after Plato is lack-ing, must have continued sub rosa328 down to the days of the glories ofAlexandria, when it reappeared in full force, especially in the worksof Philo. Alexandrian Jews, for example, reasoned that it was fittingthat God created the world in six days, for six is the perfect number ,328

and they connected the word for seven in Hebrew with the Hebrewwords for rest and completion^All this speculation was aided among both Greeks and Hebrews by the fact that the letters of their respec-tive alphabets were used also for numbers, so that meanings could be

read into certain numbers and numbers into all wordsr Perhaps the bestknown example of Hebrew gematria, as such interpretation wascalled, appears in Revelations, where the number of the beast is givenas 6 6 6 . Gematria330 flourished in Judaism, in rabbinical (both mysti-cal and nonmystical) circles. The Talm ud shows acquaintance withthis game,331 but it is particularly preserved in Kabbalistic works,especially in the Sepher Komah and Sepher Yezirah, which showGnostic and NeoPlatonic influences, and which, indeed, carry the practice to ridiculous lengths.

38 e even ea y ns



The Greeks also regarded seven highly and linked it to both Marsand Apollo.832 A pseudoHippocratic writing on the number seven,which is probably much later than Roscher thinks, has been pre-served.333 Needless to say, Gnostic writings are full of numbers—ofsevens and tens and twelves and even three hundred and sixtyfives,into all of which special meanings were read. Bardaisan, teacher ofMani, for instance, is reported to have taught that the soul is com-

posed of seven parts .334 The Books of Jeu, the Pistis Sophia, and manyother Gnostic works are interlarded with numbers of one quantityor another.

Number speculation was not, however, frivolous. It was part of thegeneral desire to find valid correspondences in the universe which isalso at the basis of modern science. Such speculation was merely onthe wrong track and, in the words of A. Ehrhardt (p. 181), expressed

the strong feeling for the symbolic or abstract value of the image employedfor the expression of a most consequential discovery, the discovery that earth

and heaven, in short the universe, are one whole. . . . The numerals whichhad proved invaluable for the expression of findings of pure—or mathematical —reason were, therefore, regarded also as suitable symbols for the expressionof the demands of philosophical ethics.

Miss Ewer (p. 110) points out that the ancients did not have the bene-fit of the Arabic (or Hindu) numerical system, which would have pro-vided a powerful deterrent to such speculation.^Hellenistic thinkersfelt that the scientific secret of the universe lay in number and formOPhilo in On the Creation of the World gives reasons for making four

the first number to represent all sensible and corporeal things .335 Three points represent a twodimensional plane (or spirit), and the additionof a fourth point creates a third dimension, thereby making a full body. The sum of 1, 2, 3, and 4 is 10; hence 10 represents the com- pleted finite creation. Again, 7 = 4 + 3; hence 7 represents the physi-cal (4) and spiritual (3) realms taken together .336

We have already seen how ̂ the number seven, owing to Babylonianinfluences, assumed an importance in the Soul Journey. It should also

be noted here that eight played an important part in Egyptian theog

ony, a fact which helps explain why the chief sins first appeared aseight.337 ^

It becomes fairly obvious as we examine earlier documents thatfnokeen feeling for mathematical accuracy prevailed among our ancestors.The only conclusion to which a widespread examination of the use ofthe number seven can lead is that this number, along with forty anda few others,338 was consideied not exact339 but representative^) as itcontinued to be regarded throughout medieval times. The use of our

agan ana ewsn oac

grouna o



expression "forty winks" still testifies to the representative quality ofthat number. There was and is, in the East and elsewhere, a deeprooted prejudice against exact counting, closely linked to what anthro- pologists call the “fear of the name.” On the other hand, we know thatsome sense of seven as a mathematically exact symbol existed, as wesometimes find in practice a careful numerical exactitude.^Jf a Hellen-istic or medieval writer used a representative number like seven, hemight mean six, eight, or even ten, or, on occasion, exactly seven, butwould rarely mean such numbers as thirteen or twentyfive!} Thus boththe exact and representative natures of the number were sensed, andeach interacted on the other.')

To recapitulate briefly the main points of this chapter, some ofwhich have not yet been fully discussed:

1. The concept of the seven cardinal sins is a product of the Hellen-istic Age, an age which is of great importance in the understanding ofthe bases of both Christian and Mohammedan civilizations.

2. The religions of the Hellenistic Age, some of which may besummed up under the expression “Hellenistic theology” or under thevague term “Gnosticism,” were deeply concerned with the problemof evil.

3. Many of the Hellenistic, chiefly Gnostic, solutions to the prob-lem of evil were based upon a belief called the Soul Drama, or SoulJourney, which is part of a more general eschatological concept, foundall over the world, of an Otherworld Journey. Belief in the SoulDrama was put forward in the hope of bridging in terms of contempor-ary science and cosmology the barriers between spirit and matter, goodand evil.

4. The Soul Drama provides, as the next chapter will show in de-tail, the chief element in the background of the seven cardinal sins.

5. Demonology, particularly the Semitic conception of seven evilspirits or demons, also contributed to the origin of the Sins. Sin, inHellenistic times and earlier, was regarded as an objective force or

power closely tied up with the concept of demons.6 . Animals and animal worship were closely bound up with sin

from earliest times.7. Symbolism and allegory were part of the intellectual climate out

of which the Sins grew, and indeed, had they not been, the Churchwould not have been able to incorporate the concept into its doctrine.

8 . The listing of sins is an ancient and widespread practice, whichmay be traced to the “power of the name” and the fear of committingsins unconsciously.

9. Lists of sins are frequently met with in the Hellenistic Age.




Counters on which names of virtues and vices are inscribed were usedin the Roman Empire in some kind of game.

10. The significance of seven and of number speculation in gen-eral should be taken into consideration in studying the background ofthe chief sins.

11. Seven was regarded by Hellenistic and medieval writers as botha representative and an exact number.

The layers in the background of the seven chief sins are numerousand complex. Nor can one feel certain that these strata have beencompletely exposed. One can at least, however, get from what has been exposed some idea—incomplete though it must necessarily be—of the intellectual processes which produced, at the end of the fourthcentury in Christian Egypt, the concept of the seven cardinal sins.

agan an

ew

s ac groun 41



C h a p t e r II

The Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins1

^ C a t h o l i c t h e o l o g y has always made a distinction between the cardinal

(or chie f or capital) sins and the deadly (or m orta l) sins. Individualtheologians and laymen have, however, often confused the two, especi-ally since the late Middle Ages] a confusion which both the catechismand the terminology (the term “deadly sins” used for the “cardinalsins”) have tended to foster. As their names tell us, the cardinal sins

are simply the most important sins; the deadly sins are those whichinevitably lead to damnation and the death of the soul. Each had itsown origin and history. In order to avoid entangling the numerousand. varied threads in the development of our concept, we must keepthis distinction clear, no matter how often it has been blurred in the past.^ It was chiefly the sacrament of penance which was responsible forthis confusion, for confessors needed a convenient and handy list ofsins for their work. The deadly sins, unlike the cardinal sins, had not

been standardized; hence the early writers of penitential books turnedto a sequence of vices which had at least some stability?^ They had tostimulate an awareness of guilt in the semipagans with whom theyfirst had to deal—untutored folk who probably had difficulty recalling,or even knowing, their sins.2 (Jlence laymen, especially after the car-dinal sins became popular in literature and a rt from the twelfth centuryon, tended to think of the cardinal sins as the deadly sins^>

In Thomas Aquinas these same sins, the subject of this book, arecalled not deadly, but cardinal. Thomas, who is discussed in the nextchapter ,3 considered these sins final causes which gave rise to particu-lar sins in humanity. They were not the only causes of sin in his ethics,nor did their commission, if unconfessed, inevitably lead to damnation.

The fact that as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries adistinction between mortal and cardinal sins was still being made bylaymen is clearly indicated by Dante’s use of the seven capital sins,not in the “Inferno,” where one unacquainted with the differencemight expect to find them, but in the “Purgatorio .” 4 And a spell in

purgatory by no means implies damnation, but ra ther eventual salva



tlon. In fact, the term “deadly sins" is rarely, if at all, applied to thecardinal sins before the fourteenth century.^»CThe genuine deadly sins, although chiefly developed by Christianity,

are a native JudeoChristian tradition. They may be defined as thosesins the commission of which the rabbis and early Church Fathers believed led to damnation. They were usually based on the ten com-

mandments and were definitely part of the beliefs of Palestinian Jewryin the first century B.C., if not earlier.® They were, however, neverstandardized. ^^/There are numerous allusions to the deadly sins in Jewish and

early Christian writings. The New Testam ent offers some lists,® and patristic speculation on the subject found its theoretical point of de- parture in I John v.16, where a distinction is made between “a sinwhich is not un to death” and “a sin unto death/> Although in thisverse no list of deadly sins is given, Tertullian,7 Cyprian, Origen,

Augustine, Jerome8 and others understood sins “unto death” to befornication, blasphemy, homicide, and so forth.9 {The tradition of thevitia principalia, on the other hand, arises, as I shall shortly point out,from the astral religion andscience of. .theH ellen ist ic AgeJ Until wereach the late Middle Ages, I shall avoid the term “deadly sin” unlessI am specifically referring to the original JudeoChristian concept.(Throughout Chapter I it was assumed that some version of the

wellknown Hellenistic Soul Journey is the basic element in the originof the Sins. Now the probable steps must be traced whereby the Sins

evolved from such a concept) It must be stressed that no other theory put forth to explain the Origin of the Sins is as satisfactory as theastral theory, and if that theory cannot be illustrated at every step, itat least /provides landmarks and makes reasonable the appearance ofthe concept of the Sins in the deserts of Egypt around 400 A.D^) Somehave sought to find the origin of the Sins in Greek philosophy andspeculation10 or in the Judaism of the time or earlier,11 but theirefforts cannot be called successful.12

The earliest reference to the seven chief sins in any form is in the pseudepigraphical Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament ofReuben, which Charles dates 109106 B.C.) The references occur inChapters ii and iii of the work, which may be somewhat later. Here

seven spirits of deceit { π ν ε ύ μ α τ α rijs π λ ά ν η ς ) are listed: π ο ρ ν ε ί α (fornica-

tion), - α σ τ ρ ι μ α ρ ία (gluttony), μ ά χ η (strife), κίνοδοξία^ (vainglory),

ν ν ί ρ η φ α ν ί α (pride), ifitvSoi (lying), and α δ ι κ ί α (injustice).13 jSome of these

spirits of deceit are linked to parts of the body.14 In the same chapters(ii.3—iii.2) is interpolated a passage on seven spirits of life which cor




Ufigitt OJ me seven ^aramvu oms

respond to the five senses, the sexual powers, and the spirit of life(sic); and then an eighth, the spirit of sleep, is unexpectedly added.These spirits of life are connected somehow with the spirits of deceit.Charles in his edition clearly marks this passage as a Christian inser-tion, although Gothein (p. 429) has taken it as authentic. The “spiritof sleep . . . which is that of error and fantasy” (iii.7) is again added,apparently as yet another interpolation, to make an eighth spirit of

deceit. As may be readily seen, the text is very corrup t and confusedat this point.£There is a remarkable coincidence between this list and that which

appears in the works of Evagriusj6f Pontus (d. c. 400), the first orthodoxChristian writer to employ the scheme of the cardinal sins. For four

of the sins, both use the very same words: γασ τριμ αργία κ ε ν ο δ ο ξ ί α ,

π ο ρ ν ε ί α , and ν π ε ρ η φ α ν ια , ίο τ ,&^ιίύ ι, μ Α χ η . of the Testament of Reuben

corresponds closely to ό ρ - γ η of Evagrius; for the other three on Evagrius’

list, Μ τ τ η ‘α κ η δ ία , and^(Aapyvj^ ̂ e re„ iy^_no. parallels in the Testa·ment. There is no similarity in the order in which the sins are listedf]

although the first two in the Testament, π ο ρ ν ε ί α and γαστριμαργία alsoappear in reverse order as the first two in the Evagrian list. One of the

three in Evagrius not paralleled in the Testament, λ ύ π η , is one of thefour affects of the Stoics1®] and is used in the Corpus Hermeticum,

Libellus VI.1*Cj[ it is clear that in both cases, possibly five hundred years apart, we

are dealing with the same tradition!) Although the Testament allusion

contains no overt astrological reference, tfre fact that its author uses theterm “spirits of deceit” in alluding to the"Sins is significant. The Sinswere considered evil spirits^ Of course, in orthodox Pharisaic Judaism,we would no t expect any "astral suggestion in connection with sin.

iThe next reference in point of time is in Horace’s first Epis tle toMaecenas (c. 20 B.C.), where he mentions seven (or eight) mortalcrimes or passions which can be expiated by suitable procedures^

Fervet avaritia miseroque cupidine pectus:Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem

Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem. Laudis amore tumes: sunt certa piacula, quae teTer pure lecto poterunt recreare libello. Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,

Nemo adeo ferus est ut non mitescere possitSi modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.17[The human heart glows with avarice and wretchedlonging; there are words and formulas to assuage this suffering and to heal, at least in part,



thii dlieaie. You iwell with vanity: there arecertain expiations which will be able to reviveyou if you read thoroughly three times a certain book. Envious, angry, slothful, drunk, sensual,no one is so savage that he cannot be tamed,

provided he has the patience to devote himselfto learning.]

As Zockler points out ( Lehrstiick, p. 7), avarit ia and cupid o were

probably considered the same vice, as Horace uses the singular, “huncdolorem,” in referring to them; so (we find here almost a completecorrespondence with the Church doctrine, especially with that ofGregory the Great^who changed the order and reduced the numberof sins to seven from the original Evagrian eight. If we place laudis

amore first in Horace’s list, we actually have Gregory’s order. Theterms themselves, however, are not always the same. ^This remarkableagreement does not, of course, prove any direct influence, but showsthat this conception was widespread as early as the time of Horace?Some Hellenistic concept is at the root of it as well as of the referencefrom the Testament; it can hardly be normal Stoic speculation, asZockler suggests, unless in some Orientalized form .18 {The fact thatthere is confusion in Horace’s epistle between seven and eight sins isalso of significance, as both these numbers are to be found in theearly history of our concept.1^"?

The group of writings known as the Corpus H erm eticum 20 is of someimportance in the preEvagrian history of the seven chief sins. These

writings are chiefly the product of Egyptian NeoPlatonists who weregreatly influenced by Stoicism, Judaism ,21 Persian theology, and pos-sibly by naitive Egyptian beliefs,22 as well as, of course, by Plato, espe-cially the Timaeus. They were perhaps the bible of an Egyptian mysteryreligion, which possibly in kernel went back to the second centuryB.C.23 The date of these writings has been a subject of much dispute.It is generally agreed today, however, that whatever the age of some parts of the Corpus may have been, it was put into the shape in whichit has come down to us in the early Christian centuries. Our m anu-

scripts date from the fourteenth century, although they probablyderive from copies used by Michael Psellus in Constantinople in theeleventh century. The Corpus itself is chiefly concerned with philos-ophy and the related subjects of theology and cosmology. The alchemi-cal and astrological writings which are associated with Hermes aremainly late,24 and it is probable that the religion had its magical and practical sides.25 In other words, the term “Hermeticism” covers awide variety of subjects and works, from pure philosophy down to black magic, all having in common an allegiance to HermesThoth.



Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins 47Hermeticism was probably both a cult and a philosophy, with an innercircle of elect, for whom the "gnosis” was reserved, and an outer circleof adherents who were not immediately, if at all, initiated into all thesecrets. Its influence on the world has been immense, particularly inthe occult sciences and in a kind of popular mysticism.2®

The teachings embodied in the Corpus, as Scott has shown,27 cannotgo back before the first century B.C., since before that time no combina

tion of Stoicism and Platonism would have been possible.28 Thus a te rm inus a quo for the whole is established, though of course separate parts of the teachings may be older. Little if any acquaintance withChristianity is indicated in the writings, and, although one cannot

judge with finality from an argumentum ex silentio, nevertheless thissilence, together with other positive scraps of information ,29 does

justify one in at least tentatively setting the date down as the firstcentury of our era.

Most of the books in the Corpus are written in the form of dialogues

between Hermes and his pupils, Tat, Asclepias, or Ammon. Hermeswas given the surname τ ρ ι σ μ έ ΐ ι σ τ ο ? (thricegreatest) to distinguish him

from the Greek god Hermes.30 The rpis, which has the value of an

intensive, is a translation of the Egyptian aa aa> “great great” (verygreat), which had been applied to Tho th. The Greeks, in the syncretistic spirit of the age, considered Thoth the equivalent of Hermes.The teachings embodied in the Hermetic writings do not constitute aunified consistent doctrine, but are, rather, confused and often con-tradictory.

In Libellus I (also called Poim andres) , 2526, there is a clear refer-ence to the Soul Dram a in connection with sins. Translated by Scott,it reads as follows:

And thereupon the man mounts upward through the structure of theheavens. And to the first zone of heaven [Moon] he gives up the force whichworks increase and that which works decrease; to the second zone [Mercury],the machinations of evil cunning; to the third zone [Venus], the lust wherebymen are deceived; to the fourth zone [Sun], domineering arrogance; to thefifth zone [Mars], unholy daring and rash audacity; to the sixth zone [Jupi-

ter], evil strivings after wealth; and to the seventh zone [Saturn], the false-hood which lies in wait to work harm.And thereupon, having been stripped of all that was wrought upon him

by the structure of the heavens, he ascends to the substance of the eighthsphere, being now possessed of his own proper power; and he sings, togetherwith those who dwell there, hymning the father . . . 31

The passions in this list, which Scott (II, 61) suggests are derived fromMithraism,32 in only some instances resemble those in Evagrius. The

power of growth and decay, given up to the moon, does not fit in with



any Christian tin but is properly linked to the waxing and waning ofthe moon, a connection often noted in Greek philosophy. It is the

power of life (animation) which the soul here gives up. On the otherhand, we may recognize in the quotation the sins of lust in Venus, of

pride in the sun, possibly of anger in Mars, and of covetousness (avar-ice) in Jup iter. There is also a similar list in the verses which Stobaeusascribes to Hermes.33

In Libellus VI we have a list of six or seven evil qualities, such asanger, grief, and delusion, which are somewhat closer to the qualitiesin the Evagrian and Christian list. These vices are not, however, linkedto the planets. In Libellus XI.7 mention is made of “seven subjectworlds.” A more important reference, however, is to be found inLibellus XIII.7b ff., where twelve torments, some of which are similarto the Christian Sins, are driven out by ten powers, such as joy andcontinence and knowledge of God. The text is very corrupt and con-fusing at this spot; both seven an d ten are referred to. Although he

offers no external evidence,34 Scott thinks part of this passage is alater interpolation.

The number twelve in Libellus XIII is based upon a supposed con-nection of evil qualities with the signs of the zodiac.35 Competingwith the conception of seven evil planetary spirits was a similar zodia-cal arrangement of twelve. This number of sins (or torments) is metwith now and then in Hellenistic and late classical documents, but itdid not prevail in the learned world. It did, however, survive in folk-lore, particularly in Greece.36 It was Egyptian in origin,3T as opposedto the Babylonian or Persian seven. Although, as we have seen,38 thereare other bases for the association, the zodiacal arrangement may havehad something to do with the linking of animals and sins.

Hermes explains to Tat that the ten can drive out the twelve. The body (i.e., evil), he says, is put together by the influence of the zodiac,and the zodiac contains twelve signs; the decad, on the other hand, isthe num ber by which the soul is generated (X II I.l lc and 12), he pointsout in a comment which clearly reveals an acquaintance with Alex-

andrian num ber speculation. The soul (ten) is superior to the body(twelve).

Also noteworthy is a reference recalling Hesiod in the Hermetic Kore Kosmou (eyepupil of the universe), preserved in the Stobaeusexcerpts,39 in which the various planets speak to God, and state whatqualities they will give man. The qualities are not all pernicious.40

( Th e Corpus Hermeticum provides us with a clearcut example ofevil guardians in a Soul Journey and with evidence that there wasconsiderable speculation in Egypt on the subject of planets and sins in

m e seven Deadly Sins



V / n ^ F T I ( / / V f f O U O V O r r v w r i r r r v w v M r r r w

the first or second century of our era. We do not find our seven (oreight) chief sins here, but those listed in Libellus VI are somewhatclose to them in meaning, if not in terms) and the sins in Poim andres

show striking similarities to them.In his edition of the Poim andres (1904), Reitzenstein has pointed

out the (similarities, apparent even in the title,41 between that workand the early Christian writing known as the Shepherd of Hermas (01

simply Shepherd, ϋ ο ιμ ψ ). In the latter, which was written before 148A.D.TjtJiere is reference to seven women round a tower, who are interpreted as seven virtues. Each is a daughter of one of the others; sothat we have here seven generations of virtues.42 At this point nomention is made of vices,43 bu t further on (Sim.IX.ix.5) twelve womenin black, who are presumably outside the same tower, are explained(Sim.IX.xv) as twelve sins (though the word sins is no t actually used):Unbelief, Impurity, Disobedience, Deceit, etc.44 Reitzenstein pointsout a resemblance between these twelve and the twelve torments of

the Hermetic Libellus XIII .45 The Shepherd then proceeds to referto twelve maidens or virtues, who might (the author is very vaguehere) be considered opposites of the vices.46

The further reference in the Shepherd to an angel of luxury anddeceit47 is close to the conception of demons of various specific sins inthe Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which has been discussedabove.48

Before moving on to the betterknown Church Fathers we must citean important later reference, which, being outside the Christian tradi-

tion, affords strong and independent evidence for our theory of astralorigin. Servius, the Virgilian commentator, at the end of the fourthcentury, in his exegesis on the A eneid VI.714, writes:

Mathematici fingunt quod singulorum numinum potestatibus corpus etanima connexa sunt ea ratione, quia cum descendunt animae, trahunt secumtorporem Saturni, Martis iracundiam, Veneris libidinem, Mercurii lucri cupiditatem, Iovis regni desiderium.49

[Astrologers conceive that the body and soul are connected by powers ofindividual divine qualities in this fashion because when the souls descend,they attract to themselves the torpor of Saturn, the anger of Mars, the lust of

Venus, the desire for gain of Mercury, and the longing for power of Jupiter.]

He does not mention the sun or moon or the two sins connectedwith them, but the five mentioned above are five of the seven cardinalsins (although different terminology is used). Zielinski rightly pointsout50 that the sun and moon could, without violence to their powersor characteristics, be associated with the two missing sins, gluttony( gula ) and envy (invidia ). He fails to note that Servius, in comment-



ing on the A eneid XI.51, gives the sun and moon the control over thespirit and body respectively; however, as the other planets mentionedat this point are linked to qualities differing from those to which theyare linked in the commentary on the A eneid VI ,51 Servius is probablyusing another tradition than that of the earlier note. We do not knowwho Servius’ source may have been. Kroll suggests as possibilities

Posidonius or an unknown Platonizing Virgilian commentator, but pre-fers a hypothetical Chaldean astrologer .52 Servius was much influenced by the NeoPlatonists,5S who had made the Soul Journey an integral part of their philosophy, but who generally believed in good, bad,and neutral planetguardians. His comment on the Aeneid XI.51 re-flects this view. On the other hand, the Gnostic sects are the onlyones that we know of which certainly adopted the version of com-

pletely evil planets; hence, unless it be the lost works of Posidonius,it is reasonable to assume that some Gnostic belief must be at the

root of Servius’ exegesis on the A eneid VI.714. Whatever his source,however, this comment provides the clearest and most direct piece ofevidence we possess that the seven cardinal sins (as known in Christian-ity) were originally linked to the planets.

Macrobius shows a clear acquaintance with the Soul Journey, as agood NeoPlatonist of the fourth century should. His version,54 how-ever, offers mixed (chiefly good or neutral) gifts from the planets, andhence, for our purpose, is less important than that of Servius, who, inat least one allusion to the belief, gives us totally evil planetgodssimilar to the seven chief sins.

We turn now to the Christian tradition and Clement of Alexandria,whose Stromateis ( c. 200) contains a number of references to the SoulDrama? "AsTias been pointed ou t above,55 Clement suggests that Ezekielxliv.2627, where the prophet is speaking of seven days of purificationfor a priest in mourning and the eighth day on which the sin offeringis to be made, may refer to the journey through the purifying spheres.Clement shows a hesitancy about the matter, writing, “but we must

pass from physics to ethics, which are clearer . . . ”5β In Book VII.10 Clement also writes of the man who seeks perfection: “Accordingly,after the highest excellence in the flesh, changing always duly to the better, he urges his flight to the ancestral hall, through the holyseptenniad [of heavenly abodes] to the Lord’s own mansion; to be alight, steady, and continually, eternally, entirely and in every part,immutable.”57

may be said of Clement that he emphasizes the purifying effectsof the Soul Journey? He offers us, however, no clues as to the trans-

formation of the evil planetary seven into Christian dogma .58 Clem

SO The Seven Deadly Sins



UTtgtn oj me oeven u u r u m u t

ent is also important in the Christian history of the chief sins inthat he encouraged the use of animal imagery in dealing with sin.?9

There are many lists of sins in Tertullian ,60 some of them compris-ing seven vices, but they are all in the deadly sin tradition, includingsuch vices as homic id iu m, fraus, and blasphemia .ei/ T e n u llm n was thefirst to use the term “deadly sin.”62^)In Adversu s lilarc ionem IV.9 healso refers to the seven maculae capitalium. delicto rum (not our con-

cept, however), which he lists in discussing the seven baptisms of Naaman in the Jordan .08 Tertu llian is of importance in the evolutionof our concept only because he gave authority to the use of thenumber seven.64

Cyprian, in De m orta li ta te IV ,65 lists eight sins^ five of which laterfind a place in our conventional list. It is doubtful whether this list,which is one among several in Cyprian’s works ,66 had any particularinfluence on the growth of the seven cardinal sins. As we have seen,

Quch lists were current among early Christian writers, and it is probable

that the similarities are coincidental^ He may, however, have used anearly version of the chief sins, either in whole or in part.C Origen, who made a very significant contribution to the reconcilia-tion of Greek and Hellenistic thought with Christianity for the pur-

pose of making the religion acceptable to the learned and educated, is,unlike Tertullian and Cyprian, of great importance in our attemptto pierce the cloudy prehistory of the Sins. He reflects the ubiquityof the belief in the Soul Dramayand has left us at least one veryimportant text in the earliest history of our concept.

In a homily, he writes,Venit enim ad unamquamque animam de hoc mundo exeuntem princeps

huius mundi; et aereae potestates, et requirunt si inveniant in ea aliquidsuum; si avaritiam invenerint, suae partis est; si iram, si luxuriam, si invidiam, et singula quaeque eorum similia si invenerint, suae partis est, et sibiearn defendunt, et ad se earn trahunt, et ad partem earn peccatorum declinan0[For the prince of this world comes to any soul as it departs from this world;and the aerial powers seek if they can find anything of theirs in it; if theyfind avarice, it belongs to them; if anger, if lechery, if envy or if they findany similar (sin), it belongs to them and they protect it for themselves anddraw it to themselves and turn it to the side of the sinners.]

This excerpt is another of ou r rare pieces of direct evidence. It istoo bad that Origen is so cryptic; but he gives enough detail to showus that he knew of the aerial powers who would claim as their own thesinners of particular sins;68 and the four that are named are all car-dinal sins. Three of the seven vices are not mentioned, but the discus-sion is general here, and Origen is interested in the principle of aerial



demons rather than in their particu lar evil qualities. He must surelyhave been aware, though he does not specifically refer to planets, ofthe particular form of the Soul Drama which is the basis of our con-ception.69

/A n o th e r important reference in Origen is in Homily XII of In libru m

jesu N ave, where he allegorically interprets Joshua's conquest of the

seven Canaanite peoples as the battle of the Christian against the fleshand other worldly enemies.70 The seven Canaanite peoples are listedin both Joshua xi.3 and Deuteronomy vii.l. Origen does not enumer-ate specific sins, but the battle was a fruitful symbol which was laterused in connection with the seven chief siri|> This image was prob-ably not Origen’s own invention, but in all likelihood came into thehands of the Christian Alexandrians from their Jewish compatriots,

possibly from Philo, although I have not found such an interpre ta-tion in the latter’s work .71 There are other references to sins or

deadly sins in Origen, but they are of little importance to our theme .72(A s I have pointed out above,73 the aerial spirits who guarded the

passages through the seven planetary spheres were variously calledά ρ χ ο ν τ α , κ ο σ μ ο κ ρ ά τ ο ρ α , or τ ε λ ώ ν ια . The last, te lonia ,74 now enters our

history. Originally a respectable Greek word going back ultimately to

TiAos, an end, te lonia meant in classical Greek the office or function ofthe collector of tolls, taxes, or customs, and was so used by Sophoclesand Demosthenes. In the first century before Christ the connotationof the word was changed, although it did not lose its primary mean-ing, to signify also the gates of the spheres, and later the demonicguardians of these gates who extracted their dues from ffiF'journeyingsoxrisrfafe'wor3Ti~as~survived through Byzantium75 in modern Greekand Romanian folklore. Lawson (p. 287), unaware of its history andGnostic associations, defines the te lonia in terms of his investigationinto modern Greek folklore as “a species of aerial geniu s” whose “twoactivities consist in the collecting of dues from departed souls andassaults upon mariners.” 76 In a Romanian folk story which Gaster

entitles the “Pilgrimage of the Soul after Death,” we get a clear repro-duction of the Soul Journey and apparently (I have not seen theoriginal Romanian) the term again:

Pass on, O Soul;Pass on unharmed,Until thou hast gained in mercyThe seven heavy tollhouses.Then go on straight, O dear Soul,Until thou reachest a placeWhere the road divides.77




Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins S3

Telonia has a heretical flavor in modern Greek and Romanian folk-lore, but it is a perfectly respectable, if somewhat unofficial, term inthe Russian Orthodox Church today and occurs in its liturgy.

The modern Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, the sole surviving Gnosticsect, still believe in a form of the Soul Journey. The soul after death

journeys through the mattarta s in the sky where it expiates various

sins. “If it has been quarrelsome, it goes to the mattarta of N ir ig h (Mars), if vainglorious to that of Bil (Jupiter ).” 78 It seems certainthat the Mandaean version is very close to the ancestor of our con-cept. It has not hitherto been suggested, however, that the term“mattarjta” may be the same as te lonia. Inasmuch as I am not compe-tent to deal with the linguistic problems involved, I merely make thissuggestion. Burkitt says, it should be noted, that mattartas mean “cus-todies” or “guarded frontiers,”79 and the$e are the meanings oftengiven to te lonia when translated.

The word as applied to the heavenly spheres first appears in theworks of the early Fathers. Cyril of Alexandria, although later thanEvagrius, conceives the sins as demons clustered at each of five telonia

which the soul on its ascent to heaven must traverse.80 These telonia

are gates, one for each of the five senses. Some of the sins are similarto those on the later lists of cardinal sins, but Cyril’s selection, as wellas that of St. Macarius, discussed below, is of value chiefly in that itshows the reflection in a Christian writer of the science of the timeand the common belief in sins as aerial demons and as guardians of

the heavenly gates.St. Macarius the Egyptian ( c. 300390), who was one of Evagrius’

masters, says in Homily XLIII:

Like taxcollectors (τ ε λ ώ ν ια ) sitting in the narrow ways, and laying holdupon the passersby, and extorting from them, so do the devils spy uponsouls, and lay hold of them; and when they pass out of the body, if they arenot perfectly cleansed, they do not suffer them to mount up to the mansionsof the heaven and to meet their Lord and they are driven down by thedevils of the air.81

Another reference occurs in a vision of Macarius in which the te lonia

are mentioned, and it is stated that each is connected with a sin; butunfortunately only one sin is named ( fo rnicatio).82 In his other ser-mons Macarius enumerates a number of sin sequences, some of whichare close to Evagrius’ l i s ^ / )

In the Vita sancti Joannis eleemosynarii by Leontius of Neapolis inCyprus (seventh century), printed in the Vitae patrum, a revelationgranted to Saint Simeon Stylites “qui in columnis stetit” is recorded.




Quia (ut ait) exeunte anima e corpore, obviant ei cum ascendent a terrain coelum, chori daemonum, singuli in proprio ordine. Obviat ei chorus daemoniorum superbiae, investigat earn, si habeat opera eorum. Obviat chorus spiritum detractionis: aspiciunt si quando oblocuta sit, et poenitentiam non egerit. Obviant iterum superius daemones fornicationis: scrutantur si recognoscant in ea voluptates suas.

[When (as he says) the soul comes out of the body, troops of demons, each in its proper order, meet with it as it ascends from earth to heaven. A

troop of demons of pride meets it and investigates whether the soul contains their deeds. A troop of the spirits of detraction meets [it]: they inspect whether when it slandered someone it had not repented. Then, higher up, the demons of fornication meet [it]: they search to recognize in it their own sensualities.]

A little further on, other sins are added. Altogether, three— fom icatio ,

superb ia , and avaritia —correspond to sins on the later cardinal sinlist. Then, to encourage the living who yet must face this form ofthe Soul Journey, St. Hilary’s address to his soul is quoted to the

effect that God will guard our souls.84 The term te lonia is not used, but ^ e different sins are definitely connected to the various stages ofthe ascent to heaven. Sin demons are at each gate ready to obstructthe path of the intended victimT^

In^Abba Isaias’ txtant works we find close parallels to, and a kind ofgroping for, our concept which make Evagrius’ work, some thirtyfiveyears later, seem natural, flsaias has several lists of sins in his works, ofwhich the most important for our purpose mentions inanis gloria,

su perb ia , in vid ia, cupid itas, and ira, all cardinal sins, in connection

with seven demons. A little further on in the same passage, he names asixth, tr istitia .m Elsewhere he divides sins, without naming any, intotwo categories, bodily and spir itual.88 In another passage he derivesall sins from desid ia (accidia, we should say).87

Around 300, farther west in Africa, Arnobius, in attacking the re-ligious enemy (possibly a variety of NeoPlatonism), offers further testi-mony to the existence of a version of the Soul Drama with evilguardians. Since, like most Christian apologists and writers, he is un-willing to advertise his opponents, he gives us, unfortunately, little

information. Yet he writes,But (they say), while we are moving swiftly down towards our mortal

bodies, causes pursue from the world’s circles, through the working of which we become bad, ay most wicked; burn with lust and anger, spend our life in shameful deeds and are given over to the lust of all by the prostitution of our bodies for hire.88

^A lthough it is clear that the concept of the aerial demons hinderingthe soul and of the seven guardians was well known, the Coptic Gnos-tic and Christian literary remains available provide no direct reference



to the seven chief sinj) The second part of the Codex Brucianus con-tains allusions to seven wisdoms,89 the autopator (which the editorattempts to equate with cosmokrator ),90 soul journeys,91 and seven

leaders (σ τ ρ α τ η λ ά τ η ς )·92 The first part, usually known as the Books of

JeiI (ed. C. Schmidt), gives us soul journeys, archontes, aeons, and soforth. This Codex, however, provides us with no parallels so close asthose provided by the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Corpus

H erm eticum , Origen, or Servius.The Askew MS. (fifth century) contains two works, the first of

which is the bestknown Coptic Gnostic work, the Pistis Sophia proper,and the second of which, although a completely independent anony-mous treatise, is usually printed as books five and six of the Pistis

Sophia. The second work is believed to be earlier (midthird century),and it is this which contains several references to five archontes

(based probably on five of the seven planets—not the sun and the

moon), each of which seizes the souls of sinners of a particular classi-fication after death and torments them .93 The sins and guardians arenot those of our concept, but this picture is undoubtedly related tothat version of the Soul Journey which is at the basis of our teaching.The Pistis Sophia proper contains the familiar Gnostic paraphernalia,as well as a list of sins to avoid .94

The Apocryphal Life of Joseph the Carpenter (see above, p. 20) provides us with a picture of Joseph attempting to pass the sevenAeons of Darkness. The Coptic apocryphal gospels contain a num berof similar pictures wherein Mary or Joseph appeal to their Son to aidthem in the perilous journey.95 Reference has already been made toother Coptic works, where other journeys are described,9®but I havediscovered nothing very close to the Sins in them.

The vivid pictures of hell, often with rivers, found in these Copticworks remind us of those in more influential works, such as the Visio

Pauli and its model, the Apocalypse of Peter, both products of a similarenvironment and both writings which catered to the new eschatology

which arose after the chiliastic enthusiasm of the early Church, asseen in Revelations, began to die out .97 Greek portrayals of hell, aswell as Egyptian ones, were of great influence in the development ofthis vision literature. In fact, Nilsson attributes the medieval Christian

picture of hell primarily to the Greeks.98 The Apocalypse of Peter,in which thirteen sins are punished in hell, is the key text in under-standing the medieval hell. Although we are not primarily interestedin the descriptions of hell to which the Visio Pauli and the PetrineApocalypse are chiefly devoted, we find in these works the appearanceof the evil demons we have been concerned with above .99

Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sms 5 5



so m e seven ueaa y sm s

Enough evidence has now been presented to warrant the assumptionthat Christianity and its heresies recognized, if they did not alwaysaccept, the conception of seven evil aerial powers, originally paganand associated with the planets. It is also clear tha t Christianity assimi-lated in its course certain pagan elements, among which were theseven cardinal sins. There were protests tha t this assimilation or bor-rowing went too far. St. John Chrysostom (347P407) made such acomplaint,100 and four centuries later Claude, Archbishop of Turin, isfound making similar protests. The early penitentials and sermons inthe West show that, at least among the people, pagan customs diedhard.101 Of course, what the Church accepted officially and what wascarried on in spite of the Church must be sharply distinguished.

The Christian Gnostics were the first to attempt to give a coherent philosophy to Christianity.102 The founders of Christianity and theirimmediate successors were not in the least interested in philosophy or

in fitting their religion into a coherent world scheme; Christ hadappeared on earth, and His return was shortly to be expected. TheChurch’s struggle with her Gnostic enemies in the early centuries was bitter, and in selfdefense she had to modify her emphases and in tro-duce new concepts. In the dialectic of struggle, one learns from hisantagonist. Along with the pressure from philosophic and asceticopponents, the passage of time with the nonreappearance of Jesus andthe acquisition of more and more converts trained in philosophy forced

the Church to endeavor to formulate a philosophy, an effort seen inTertullian and Origen, and to encourage the ascetic tendency alreadystrong in its doctrine. In view of this struggle, it is not surprising tofind that few references to the Soul Drama, one of the prime con-cepts of its enemies, have survived in Christian theology and philosophy; yet enough have been preserved to show us that the Church wasnot unaffected by the beliefs of her opponents and of the time.103Fortunately, however, she did not tie herself too closely to the scienceof the age.

The seven cardinal sins arose out of, and for a long time remainedwithin, an ascetic and monastic milieu in Egypt, which was muchinfluenced by Gnosticism.104 Indeed the assumption, basic to muchof asceticism, that the flesh and matter are evil, is Gnostic and NeoPlatonic. Asceticism was part of the intellectual climate of the age,even in some Jewish communities. Philo, for instance, had praisedthe contemplative life,105 perhaps harking back to Aristotle,10®althoughthe “master of those who know” was not thinking of asceticism.

Because strong asceticism savored of the Gnostic heresy, the earlyChurch opposed extreme forms of it.107 This opposition did not, how



wngtn o tne oeven ̂ urumu > om s j

ever, prevent asceticism from gaining increasing favor. As early as thesecond century the first Christian hermit on record, a Bishop of Jeru-salem appropriately named Narcissus, retired from his see to go intothe wilderness for a long stay.108 In the early third century the pseudoClementine Epistles to Virgins gave minute regulations for those whowished to abstain from ordinary life.109

Origen himself, although he did not go into the desert, did morethan merely live the life of an anchorite .110 In his writings he highlyrecommended the path of selfdenial,111 and his example and teach-ings had great influence, particularly on the philosophy of asceticism.St. Ambrose of Milan, who developed a thoroughgoing ascetic philosophy, was indebted to him.

St. Anthony, the best known of the early ascetics, was probably thegreatest spiritual force in the whole movement. In 285, at the age offortyfive, he went into the desert, where he spent the rest of his verylong life. Gentle, kind, and sane, he has an appealing quality lackingin many other desert fathers, who, in spite of great spirituality, often

repel us by their harshness. Following St. Anthony’s example, manyforsook the world. In a short time there were hosts of hermits in bothLower and Upper Egypt. Since the large numbers made some kind oforganization necessary, individual cells were presently grouped to-gether. Pachomius, a former monk of the pagan Serapeum, establisheda monastery in Upper Egypt, and his rule formed the basis for allfuture regulae. Both Egypt and Syria were early homes of monasticism.

In 383, Evagrius of Pontus (d. in Scete around 400),112 the father ofthe seven cardinal sins, went into the Egyptian deserts of Nitria to

live a herm it’s life near Macarius, whom he accepted as a master. Soonhe himself was accepted as a master, and he taught the elements of theascetic life to his followers. Evagrius made the Sins a basic part of hismoral teachings, and conceived of them as the basic sinful drivesagainst which a monk had to fight. He did no t connect the classifica-tion with the practice of penance,113 nor did others of his time. Notuntil the seventh and eighth centuries was it adapted to penitentialuse, first by the Irish, at the beginning merely as a convenient sin listfor the priest, and later for his use in questioning penitents. The con-

fessional was to provide the meeting place for the two concepts, thechief sins and the deadly sins,114 leading ultimately to their being

confused.What was the environment out of which Evagrius came—the envi-

ronment he reflected? We need some picture of Alexandria at the endof the fourth century to understand his contribution to the history ofthe Sins. In the years between 385 and 420, Christianity had become



firmly established in the M edite rranean world. Gnosticism was nolonger a threat. NeoPlatonism, revived under Julian , had at leastweakened, if not disappeared. Alexandria, however, was still a strong

NeoPlatonic center. The beautiful Hypatia had not yet been killed,and one of her pupils, Synesius of Cyrene (360?—413?), had become(with reservations) a Christian bishop. In Synesius’ writings, aboveall in his H ym ns, demons, especially aerial demons, abound. The Soul

Journey, in one of its NeoPlatonic or Gnostic forms, is a basic elementin his thought.115 This was the intellectual atmosphere of that Africain which Evagrius lived, though he had fled Alexandria.

The famous ninth hymn of Synesius to Christ speaks of Christ’sdescent to Hades and then of His return to heaven with the souls ofthe righteous. “The boundless races of demons throughout the airtrembled at thy ascent, O King,” Synesius sings of the ascent toheaven.116 To the bishop, as to all educated Alexandrians of the age,the journey to heaven was fraught with danger. But the restless inte l-lect of Synesius found peace in a combination of Christianity, Gnosti-

cism, and NeoPlatonism.Another testimony to the spirit of Alexandria is provided by Clau

dian, the poet who in the last decade of the fourth century left hisnative Alexandria and moved to Rome, where he entered by meansof his pen into the life of the world’s capital. In his De con su latu

Stilichonis 11.424 ff., he tells us of N ature’s cave, surrounded by aserpent, far from mortal man. Nature herself and a venerable oldman assistant ordain from there the laws of the universe.

When the Sun rested upon the spacious threshold of this cavern dame

Nature ran to meet him and the old man bent a hoary head before his proud rays. The adamantine door [to the cave] swung open of its own accord and revealed the vast interior, displaying the house and secrets of time. Here in their appointed place dwell the ages, their aspect marked by varying metals; there are piled those of brass; here those of iron stand stiff; there the silver ones gleam bright.

Then again, attacking the astrologer Curetius, Claudian writes,

Wouldst thou, Curetius, have sure knowledge of thy horoscope, I can give it thee better than even thy father. Thy madness thou owest to the evil

influence of Mars; thine ignorance of poetry to enfeebling Mercury; thy shameful disease and premature decay to lady Moon and lady Venus; Saturn has robbed thee of thy property.117

These two passages reveal very clearly some of the Egyptian andGnostic elements in Claudian’s background. We recognize here theSoul Journey, the aeons, and the Gnostic serpent, as well as a sug-gestion of a mystery religion.




Synesius and Claudian thus to some degree convey a picture ofthe mind of intellectual Egypt of the late fourth and early fifthcenturies. A few years later the Bishop of Hippo, to the west ofEgypt, adds to this picture. In his attack on Porphyry, Augustinereveals to us the allpervading belief in the evil demons of the air,and contrasts Christian with other heroes with regard to their power

to conquer “those demons, those aerial powers, and in them, all thatis called Juno."118 And then, taunting Porphyry, he writes, “Platotaught thee not this thine impiety, but thy Chaldee masters, to thrustup morta l vices among the ethereal powers. . . .”119

Although Evagrius had fled from the world of Claudian, Synesius,and even Augustine, yet he was a part of it. He was probably, asGennadius suggests,120 not the first to list the seven chief sins; butthe unknown originator of the list must have been a product of this

Eastern matrix, as Evagrius himself was. We have already seen,especially in Abba Isaias,121 a groping towards our concept amongthe men of the desert, and it can therefore be no surprise to us,

except perhaps at the number, to find eight capital sins in ILepl τ ώ ν

ο κ τ ω λ ο ισ μ ώ ν π ρ ο ς Ά ν α τ ό λ ιο ν ,122 an epitome of a larger work,123 which,though some doubt has been cast on its authenticity, most scholarsaccept as a genuine work by Evagrius. His list is as follows:

α σ τ ρ ιμ α ρ ία (gula), π ο ρ ν ε ία (lu xu ria), φ ιλ α ρ ν ρ ία (avaritia), λ ύ π η (tris-

tit ia ),124 ο ρ ή (ira), ά κ η 8ίa (acedia or accidia),125 κ ε ν ο δ ο ξ ία (vana gloria) and ν π ε ρ η φ α ν ίa (superbia).126 Evagrius treats his list as somethingestablished and as an entity in itself, unattached to demons or to aneschatological belief. Yet he certainly believed in sindemons.

As Zockler has pointed out,127 the list and its order have particularrelevance to the aims of the cenobitical and eremitical life. Evagriusstates that acedia, vana gloria , superbia , avaritia , and tr is ti tia are par-ticularly dangerous to hermits, and gula, ira, and luxuria, to cenobites.

Hannay (Ch. V) gives a vivid picture of the eight vices and thestruggle of the desert fathers with them. Gula and luxuria were sinsagainst which the ascetics would have had to struggle most vigorously.Tristitia and acedia, too, had particular terrors, and the story of that

battle is perhaps the most vivid for a modern reader of the lives ofthe desert fathers. It is noteworthy that the later sin, invidia, perhaps

because of its connection with property, is not included in Evagrius’list.

Probably, as we have said above, Evagrius was not the one whofirst took this sinlist from a Gnostic source and purged it of its paganand unorthodox associations.128 His own description shows that the

Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins 59



ο υ ι n e o ev cn u ea a y o

belief in the cardinal sins was well established by his time (before400 A.D.). We do not, however, know what his source may have been.Although some of his known predecessors came close to his list, aswe have seen, no surviving Christian sequence can claim precedenceover his. Evagrius is not of prime importance in the history of ourconcept, but he was the first to enunciate the teaching clearly andmust be given the credit or blame to which that entitles him. Recent

investigations tending to show Evagrius’ sources to be in the Syriac worksof St. Ephraem the Syrian (d. 373) have not been substantiated.

In the next generation, Nilus (d. c. 430) deals with the Sins, althoughhe too is of little importance in the history of the concept. He mayhave taken his material from a source other than Evagrius, for thereare differences in the order and manner of presentation. Yet Nilus, asPeterson has shown, is much indebted to Evagrius. The problem iscomplicated by problems of Evagrian text and canon. Nilus’ work

IS entitled Tlepl των οκτώ πνευ/Λάτων τ η ς π ο ν η ρ ία ς ·12ϋ Th e name π ν ε ύ μ α τ α

(spirits) is apparently different from Evagrius* term Α & κ μ ο ί and mayindicate its ultimate astrological source. Nilus writes in poetic formand uses a structure similar to that of Proverbs or Ecclesiasticus. Infact, the work is essentially 4 florilegiu m of quotations. Under each

sin, he gives a list of apothegms. He puts λ ν π η ( tristi tia ) after opyrj

(ira) and makes much of the relation between them, that is, that tris ti tia arises from ira. In his comments on ira he makes the comparison of an angry man to a boar, lion, fox, and poisonous viper,the first example of a practice that came to be very common in the

Middle Ages: the employment of animals to symbolize or illustratethe capital sins.130 Other works, probably spurious, containing thechief sins in some form or other, are attributed to Nilus. One ofthem, Tractatus ad Eulogium de vitiis, quae opposita sunt virtutibus

(to use its Latin title),131 contains an early example of the struggletheme which is an important concept in medieval thought. The virtuesand vices are set against each other. One of the vices, invidia, makesits first appearance in this connection .132

The history of the seven cardinal sins in the Middle Ages beginswith a pupil of Evagrius, Cassian, whose list is of great significance.132AIn the next chapter, we shall sketch the theological history of ourconception from Cassian up to the fourteenth century, so as to estab-lish a basis for a study of the Sins in medieval English literature.First, however, some loose ends must be tied together.

In view of the rarity of the number eight in our preEvagrianhistory of the concept, it is somewhat surprising that the chief sins



Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins 61•hould first appear as eight rather than seven. Even twelve—a num berconnected with the zodiac—should not surprise us so much. In earlierlists of sins, usually in the deadly sin tradition, it is, however, notuncommon to find lists of eight,188 as well as of six184 and othernumbers. The number seven, as has already been pointed out,135 hada representative as well as a mathematical value, and the teaching ofthe evil seven might very well have been listed as eight in fact. Aneven more likely explanation, however, is that there was thought to be an eighth heavenly zone, the ogdoad,136 which was sometimes con-sidered a continuation of the seventh and sometimes as a separatedivision, just as, in the earlier conception of three heavens, a fourthdivision was often added to represent the region above the spheres.Seven spheres cut space into eight divisions. Later, however, theogdoad was equated with the sphere of the fixed stars.

The system of number speculation that was widespread in the

Roman Empire gave great power to the number eight. Macrobius,in his Commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, engages in a lengthydiscussion as to whether the perfect number is seven or eight anddecides that both have good claims to be so considered.137 Inasmuchas our concept arose in Egypt and many of the desert hermits werenative Egyptian converts or sons of native Egyptian converts, the factthat groups of eight gods were very common in the ancient Egyptianreligion is of considerable significance.138 The desire to couple may

be an additional factor in the choice of an even number like eight.In both intellectual history and in the workings of the subconsciousmind, the alternation of seven and eight is, as Jung has pointed out,139

of frequent occurrence.Jerome sees a special intimacy between the numbers seven and

eight.140 Gregory Nazianzen identifies the seven days of the weekwith the present life and the number eight with the future life.141Bede adds an eighth to the seven ages of the world, an age of eternal

peace near the Day of Judgment.142 The Mandaeans sometimes refer

to eight, and at other times to seven, mattartasMz Even more signifi-cant is the passage from the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs givenon page 44, above (“Testament of Reuben” iii.7). In an interpolationin that passage, an eighth φ α ν τ α σ ί α is added to the list of the sevenspirits of deceit. Thus we see that, even leaving aside the ogdoad, thenumber eight was often interchanged with seven.144

In the main, the desert fathers considered sin an objective power.Evidence that they did so is found in many stories preserved in theVitae patrum,145 in which the fathers see specific sins in the forms ofanimals that live in the wilderness. Such evidence is also contained



in the visions and tales of demons disguising themselves or fightingman.146 Macarius the Egyptian, one of the teachers of Evagrius,147

actually states that sin is a power of finest matter that under the direc-tion of Satan pervades the soul of man ;148 although he does nothere mention demons, demons are almost implicit in the reference toSatan.

Thus in the Egypt of the fourth and fifth centuries, all the elementsare present which are needed to explain the popular, and often thelearned, attitude toward sin which prevailed in the Middle Ages,when demons, which were often regarded as specific sins or vices,were considered lieutenants of the devil who had the power of enter-ing the bodies of animals or men and of working deadly harm.

The devil is an important personage in our study. The Jewish andChristian devil—that is, the ruling evil power—probably originated

in Persia. He makes his appearance in the later books of the OldTestament, such as Job, and is frequently referred to in the New Testa-ment. As has already been pointed out ,149 the belief in demons wasa different and much older conception, which was widespread in theEmpire at the time of Jesus and, a little later, was particularly associ-ated with the NeoPlatonists.150 The two concepts finally merged.

We have no idea how demons and the devil were visualized in the New Testam ent times, but in the late apocrypha and Egyptian gospelswe begin to get vivid pictures. The rather detailed pictures of hellwhich we find in ancient Egyptian eschatology had some influence onthese, as did also the Greek pictures of Hades .151 Demons with animalheads, sometimes described as black 152 and ugly, show Egyptian in-fluence.153 Occasionally in this early work we meet with the color red,which had been associated with evil gods, particularly Hapi in Egypt.

The most vivid pictorializations of the devil and demons in earlyorthodox Christian literature appear in the stories of the desertfathers.154 In their violent struggles with the evil one and his repre-

sentatives, they came to know the diabolic form which they passed onto us in wordpictures. In the late Ethiopian apocrypha, which go

back to earlier Coptic works, many of which are lost, we get images ofthe devil very similar to those found in the Middle Ages,155 completewith the traditional horns and wings. The Roman satyr, too, madeits contribution to the Christian Satan. Yet, despite the many varia-tions in his appearance, his form is strikingly similar all over theworld. His history, however, has been adequately treated by others .156

In the various appearances of the seven sins throughout the MiddleAges we shall often meet with the struggle theme: the battle of thevices against man or against the virtues .157 The history of this theme




wrtgm u tnz oeven ^ uratnat om j oo

mint be briefly traced in order that much of our later discussion may be understood.

C. S. Lewis (pp. 59 ff.) has pointed out that in Greek ethicalthought as found in Plato and Aristotle, the virtuous life was notconceived as a struggle or ba ttle .158 In other words, classical Greek philosophy tended to think of vice in terms of reason ra ther thanwill. But when we come to the Latin and Greek authors of Imperialtimes, we do find such a concept of conflict. This new idea of struggle,

part of that general Orientalization of classical culture which is termedHellenism, was probably a Persian contribution brought to the West

by offshoots of Zoroastrianism159 or by Judaism.This view of the moral life is implicit in the old Hebrew concep-

tion of evil as a rebellion against God and primarily rooted in thewill. Zoroastrianism had a similar view and regarded the attainmentof virtue as a result of a struggle against evil. The Amesha Spentas,led by Ahura Mazda (god of eternal light), were Asha (right), Vohu

Manah (the good mind), Khshathra (dominion), Aramaitu (piety), H aurveta t (wellbeing), and A m ereta t (immortality). T he ir oppon-ents, the Daevas, led by Ahriman (prince of darkness), were D ru j

(false appearance), A kern (evil), Dush-Khsh athra (pusillanimity), Tar-

omaiti (false pretense), A veta t (misery), and M ere th yu (annihila-tion).160 They struggled forever for the domination of the world andthe souls of men.

In the Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, as in the Testamentof the Twelve Patriarchs mentioned above,161 the idea of struggle isfrequently met with. It is a commonplace in Philo .162 In his On Abra

ham and elsewhere,163 he interprets the passage in Genesis xiv, where-in four kings make war upon Bera, king of Sodom, and his four

royal allies, as the attack of the four passions (π α θ ώ ν δ υ ν ά μ ε ις ) on thefive senses, and their ultimate defeat by the intervention of reason

(σ ω φ ρ ο ν ισ τ ή ν λόγον), personified by Abram. As I have pointed out else-where,164 this interpre tation is embodied in Prudentius’ Psychom achia,

which was to be the chief source of the medieval literature of moralconflict and to have a wide general influence on medieval allegory

and art.

Paul, who belonged to the next generation after Philo, also re-garded the virtuous life as a struggle against evil .165 In this viewthey were children of their age and of the Judaism of their time. Theimage of battle appealed to both of them as an appropriate symbolfor the moral life.

I have already referred to the struggle theme in Libellus XIII of theCorpus Hermeticum (first or second century of our era), where ten



virtues defeat twelve vices.168 The Shepherd of Hermas provides an-other example—by implication, however, rather than by direct state-ment: twelve women clothed in black (vices) are contrasted to twelve beautiful maidens (virtues) who dwell in a tower.167 Tertullian in De patientia XV.4 and more strikingly in De spectaculis XXIX168 refersto a struggle of virtues and vices. Tertullian, indeed, has generally

been recognized as the source of Prudentius’ poem. Although I wouldnot deny his influence on Prudentius, I believe a more importantsource is Philo.

Cyprian’s writings afford numerous proofs of the fact that both heand his audience looked upon the Christian life in this world as acontinual struggle against the devil and his tempters.169 Augustinetakes such an attitude for granted.170 St. Macarius’ Homilies furnishfurther examples,171 and we have already referred to the pseudoNiliancontrast of vices and virtues.172

Lewis has made us aware of the general Hellenistic influence onPrudentius by emphasizing the influence of certain pagan works,notably Statius’ Thebaid ,173 on Prudentius’ Psychomachia, althoughhe does not imply direct borrowing. We need not, however, assumethat this influence came by way of pagan works or that the olderview, that Prudentius’ chief sources were Christian and Jewish, must

be revised.Although Prudentius actually does not treat of the seven chief sins,

his two poems, the Hamartigenia and particularly the Psychomachia,

are of such great importance in a literary174 and artistic175 history ofthe Sins that they must be discussed in some detail. The earlier work,the Ham artigenia ,176 provides an earnest both in title and in contentof what is to come in the greater Psychomachia. In it Prudentius refersto the fourteen passions or sins which attack the soul. Seven heathennations help Satan in his battle.177 These nations, which had opposedIsrael in Canaan, are those which had been explained as types of sin

by Origen.178 Here again Prudentius is drawing on Christian sources.In the Psychomachia,179 Prudentius gives us a fulldress contest be-

tween the virtues and vices, with subordinates on both sides. In the Prefatio to the work he interprets Abram’s victory over the heathenkings as the victory of virtue over vice. No doubt he felt he neededsome Biblical support for his treatment of the moral life and found itin the story of the patriarch’s life, especially in his aid to Bera, asinterpreted by Philo. He then concludes the Preface with a prayer toChrist and proceeds with his wellknown story of the contest betweenseven virtues and seven vices.

As has been pointed out,180 the ultimate source of this particular

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Origin of the Seven Cardinal Sins 65

allegory Is to be found in the works of Philo. In the Psychomachia,however, the vices fight the virtues (not the senses), and the battle-field is presumably man himself, whereas Philo has the vices attackman through his five senses, which are his points of contact with theexternal world. Philo, moreover, as befitted the father of allegoricalexegesis, is more detailed in his treatment than is Prudentius. We donot know whether there has been any direct borrowing here or not,

but no closer parallel to the Psychomachia in detail has ever beenfound.

Could Prudentius have known Philo? It is entirely possible, forPhilo was highly respected by many of the Fathers, particularly byAmbrose. That he was so respected explains the preservation of agreat bulk of his work, while the writings of many other nonChris-tians of his period and later have vanished. His influence, however,was so allpervading that we need not postulate direct acquaintance-

ship on the part of Prudentius. The important point is that Pruden-tius is here, as in the Hamartigenia, relying fundamentally upon JudeoChristian tradition.

The rest of the poem is taken up with a pitched battle betweenVeterum cultura deorum (.Idolatria), Sodomita (Libido), Ira, Superbia,

Luxuria (equivalent to our modern word “luxury”— gula plus super

bia181), Avaritia, and Discordia (equivalent to heresy); and Fides, So- brietas, Humilitas, Pudicitia, Patientia, Operatio, and Concordia. Bothvirtues and vices are portrayed as women.182

Prudentius' list of sins shows only a vague similarity to the Evagrianor Cassianic list. He either assembled his own list or borrowed onefrom another tradition, and I incline toward the belief that he madehis own list, as any readymade list would not have given him thefreedom to oppose particular virtues with particular vices. However,this is a question which cannot, at present, be definitely settled.183Later, of course, the seven cardinal sins were often used in the con-flict of virtues and vices.

The struggle theme is closely bound up with that general sense of

opposition and contrast which, in the Middle Ages, often found expres-sion in debates and comparisons. A strong feeling for analogy and

parallelism, seen, for instance, in the great intellectual monumentscreated by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, also strengthenedthis sense of opposition. The vices against the virtues, against the seven

prayers of the paternoster, against the beatitudes, all mingle in a kindof ordered disorder and make part of the mental climate of the MiddleAges. And as we have seen, many medieval analogies and parallelismsgo back to the Hellenistic period.



From the homilies,184 preserved late apocrypha, Latin poetry, andPrudentius himself, the struggle theme passed over into art, and later,in the thirteenth century or a little earlier, into vernacular literature,

both nondramatic and dramatic.185 Most morality plays were builtaround some variant of the theme. In exercising a profound influenceon the Middle Ages, it became part of Western civilization and mayeasily be traced down to our day.186

The concept of the seven cardinal sins arose from a popular, prob-

ably Gnostic, variant of the Soul Drama, a particular type of Otherwcrid Journey; but, chiefly because its heretical associations weresuppressed, its origin was soon forgotten. Later the Sins became re-united with eschatology, but usually in connection with another aspectof the next world, hell. Because medieval visions of hell had to include

punishment of sins, it soon occurred to authors working on this tra-ditional form to introduce the most popular classification, the sevencapital sins, into the infernal scheme. In the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies we shall find the Sins linked to the planets again, probably

an accidental rewelding, as both were heptads. This point, however,will be discussed later.187

Except for the medieval relics of the Soul Journey to which we havealready referred at various points, and several important recent discov-eries in medieval Latin MSS to which we shall refer later, the SoulJourney died out in the Middle Ages among the learned, and theheavenly ascents and descents of this period are not usually based onGnostic cosmology and philosophy. The descent of the soul, for ex-ample, in Bernardus Silvestris’ De mundi universitate (twelfth cen-

tury) is based ultimately on Plato.In concluding this chapter we must briefly mention the origin of theseven cardinal virtues. We shall meet them so often in connectionwith our concept that it is necessary for us to understand their pro-venience; particularly it must be made clear that, in their inception,they had nothing whatever to do with the seven cardinal sins. Thereis no doubt at all that the seven cardinal virtues represent a combina-tion of the four cardinal virtues—fortitude, prudence, temperance, and

justice—found in Cicero188 and ultimately going back to Plato,189 andthe three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity.190

Ambrose was the first to use the term “cardinal” in connection withthe Platonic virtues,191 and he compared them, as Philo also had,192 tothe four rivers of Paradise. The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, basedon Isaiah, as well as the general popularity of the number seven, en-couraged in the twelfth century the definite union of the four and thethree.193

o



The point to emphasize is that the virtues and vices had originsindependent of each other. This accounts for the great difficultymedieval writers faced when, in their efforts to give a rational mean-ing to the universe, they attempted to oppose the virtues and vices.Pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth just cannot be

perfectly balanced with fortitude, prudence, temperance, justice, faith,

hope, and charity without violent damage to the validity of the con-trast.194 If the opposition was to have meaning, deviations must bemade from any traditional schemes chosen. If the seven cardinal vir-tues were chosen as the basis, the traditional list of the seven cardinalvices had to be changed, and vice versa. Although the seven cardinalvirtues usually formed the norm in art, in literature the seven deadlysins prevailed.195 Consequently other lists of virtues sprang up, calledremedia196 to the seven sins. These must be sharply distinguished from

the cardinal virtue list.197 Lack of clear opposition is also a reason,although minor, for the variations we find within medieval lists of theseven capital sins themselves. Sometimes a change had to be made inorder to fit the Sins into a better contrast with the cardinal virtues. Inmedieval literature the virtues were never as important as the vices,and never was the same lavish artistic care expended upon them. Noscene of virtues from medieval literature flashes upon the mind, asmany vice scenes do. The medieval author had to portray vices asenemies of mankind (and he believed them to be), yet he took joy in histask. Even though there were many medieval artistic failures, we canstill be grateful for the loving care of the author of the Ancren Riw le ,of Dante, Langland, Dunbar, and Spenser. The Sins were fascinating,and still are.198 Make no mistake, however: the medieval writer (andmedieval man in general) believed in their power, and even thoughhe may have been artistically kind, morally he was afraid.

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the seven deadly sins (chp 1-2) - bloomfield

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