Seven Deadly Sins

The schema developed in early Christian monastic literature: Evagrius Ponticus formulated a Greek list of logismoi (tempting thoughts) which John Cassian transmitted into Latin monastic practice; Pope Gregory I (AD 590) reworked the list into the familiar seven-term form used in Western Christianity and later theologians such as Thomas Aquinas defended and systematized it for pastoral and penitential use.

The sources do not present the Seven Deadly Sins as embodied or anthropomorphic beings. They are described as internal moral dispositions, passions, or 'logismoi'—patterns of thought, appetite, and affect (e.g., Evagrius's Greek terms; Latinized terms used by Western authors)—rather than as visible creatures.

Theological sources describe the seven as 'capital' or 'head' vices that function as roots or sources of other sins: they incline or enslave persons to further sinful acts and corrupt the soul. Thomas Aquinas calls them the 'head and form of all the other sins'; pastoral writers (e.g., Henry Edward Manning) warn that they lead to spiritual ruin. Each term names a disordered appetite or affect (lust, gluttony, greed/avarice, sloth/acedia, wrath, envy, pride) that fosters additional wrongdoing and damages one's relationship with God.