The Seven Deadly Sins and Dante Alighieri

The seven main defectiveness of man from the Middle Ages known as lust, anger, pride, envy, greed, sloth and gluttony, appeared already cited some form of text and much more ancient teachings, for example, in the Bhagavad Gita, (part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata called, written many centuries before Christ) or the same Old Testament (Galatians 5: 19-21: ¨ are manifest works of the flesh, which are: adultery , fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and things like these ... ¨).

Although the deadly sins were listed as eight by some authors of early Christianity, were finally formalized in the s. VI with the number seven by Gregory the Great, and so would be collected by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy, in the early fourteenth century.

Besides this book of Dante, the seven deadly sins have inspired many artists throughout history as the famous · Table of sins ¨ Bosco (acquired by Philip II, who placed it in his private chambers El Escorial) and Pieter Brueghel's prints etc..

The term "capital" was not referring just to the magnitude of sin but rather that gave rise to many other sins. Thomas Aquinas said that the sins a man commits are originated in a vice capital as their primary source.

Then we analyze each of the vices and who collected the chapters on Dante in Purgatory.

Lust (Latin, meaning lust) is usually regarded as excesses of a sexual nature. Purgatory Dante is walking with lustful burnt by fire and thirst, passing others going in opposite way, the Sodomites, who were greeted with kissing. Some shouted with all his might: Sodom and Gomorrah!, And the other: In the cow entered the bull Pasiphae to go to her lust!, Then said they were going in different directions crying.

Anger (in Latin, anger) can be described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of discomfort, anger and hatred. Dante describes the anger and disgust, irritation and thirst for revenge, and finds souls who clamored for obtaining peace and mercy.

Pride (French orgueil) and pride (Latin superbia) and are strictly synonymous. They understand the pride, arrogance, vanity, conceit ... Dante that he watches a group of souls humbly bowed under the weight of carrying huge stones, and then gives several examples of pride, like Lucifer, Saul, Holofernes, and so on.

Greed or covetousness (Latin avaritia) is attachment to material goods and ambition to spiritual things. In Purgatory, Dante meets Pope Adrian V, bound hand and foot and lying on the ground face down, because greed made him have his eyes on earthly things and never looked up.

Envy (Latin, invidia), wanting something someone else has to feel bad for the good of others, to wish evil to others and feel good with the bad alien. Dante defined this as "love for one's own goods perverted to a desire to deprive others of theirs." In Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious was to take his eyes closed and sewn with wire, so you do not see the light (because they had received pleasure from seeing others suffer), said they were as blind support each other and cried so many tears that bathed her face with them

Sloth (Latin, acedia) is defined in its own right as a "sad mood" that separates a person from spiritual obligations, and more broadly corresponds to any negligence, indolence and neglect. Dante meets the souls who walked quickly and with a burning zeal to compensate for the neglect and delay warmth that prevented them from doing good.

Finally, Gluttony (Latin, gula) is now identified with gluttony, overeating and drinking, whereas in the past any excess could fall within the definition of this sin. Thus the dependence or addiction to something, substance abuse, etc.., Can be seen as examples of gluttony. In the region of the greed of Purgatory, Dante encounters a crowd of spirits with sunken eyes and emaciated face that through skin you could see the shape of the bones, the penitents were excited by the desire to eat and drink before a fragrant apple and a source of clear water, but were not allowed to reach them and must suffer and purging by means of hunger and thirst.

Ruben Gonzalez and Agnes Martin