Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. I-II, q. 75, a. 4; q. 84; De Malo, q. 8.

493. One sin can be the cause of another just as one human act can be the cause of another. This happens in three ways: 1° it can be the material cause of another, insofar as it supplies and prepares matter for another, as gluttony prepares matter for lust, and avarice for litigation, because it multiplies temporal goods which are the matter of litigation; — 2° it can be the efficient cause of another: a) accidentally, insofar as it removes grace, or charity, or shame, or submission, or whatever else withdraws from sin and would impede it: thus from drunkenness or anger all sins can arise because they remove the judgment of reason by which man is restrained from sin¹; b) of itself, insofar as by some sin, as e.g. lust, man is disposed by way of inclination or habit to similar acts or sins of the same species; — 3° and principally it can be the final cause of another, inasmuch as because of the end of that sin, one commits another sin, as if one steals in order to fornicate. And because the end in moral matters gives species or form, thus one sin is also the formal cause of another, because it gives form to another: for if one steals because of fornication, the theft is as it were material, the fornication as it were formal (q. 75, a. 4).

494. The capital sins are those which for the most part are the cause of several other sins especially final, because they have a very desirable object or end; whence because of it other sins are easily committed. They are called capital from head, which is said metaphorically of that which is the beginning and directing and in some way leading of others: for they are the beginning or cause of other sins, as was said; they are directive because they are their final cause: for by the end human acts are directed. Whence the capital [sins] are as it were leaders, and the vices which arise from them as it were armies (q. 84, a. 3).

The capital sins therefore are not the greatest, since several other sins are graver than they, as e.g. those which are directly against God or directly opposed to the theological virtues; nor are they necessarily mortal, even if deliberately done, as is evident about anger and gluttony which are often venial.

495. There are seven capital sins², as is shown in the following way: The capital sins are those which have very desirable ends and therefore principal for moving the appetite³; but something moves the appetite directly of itself and thus moves to pursuing good, another indirectly through another and thus moves to fleeing good, inasmuch as one flees good because of an evil adjoined.

Now the good which man most desires can be:

1. excellence of praise and honor, which is a good of the soul, which is inordinately desired by vainglory;

2. food and drink, which is a good of the body by which the individual is preserved, which is inordinately desired by gluttony;

3. the use of venereal things, which is a good of the body by which the human species is preserved, which is inordinately desired by lust;

4. external goods, which is inordinately desired by avarice⁴.

But the good which man flees because of an evil adjoined which he most fears, is

5. one's own spiritual good which because of the bodily labor adjoined is inordinately fled by sloth;

6. or the good of another which impedes one's own excellence and so is an evil, which is inordinately fled by envy;

7. or against which anger rises (q. 84, a. 4).

496. Pride is the beginning of every sin, according to Ecclus. IX, 15, not only in historical order, because the Angels and the first man were guilty of it, but also from the nature of the thing, because it is the final cause of all sins: for all sins can and are by nature to arise from it, inasmuch as the temporal goods which man seeks in other sins, he can will because of the proper excellence

because that incidentally pertains to sin itself: « One sin is ordered to the end of another in two ways: in one way on the part of the sinner himself whose will is more prone to the end of one sin than of another, but this is accidental to sins. Whence according to this sins are not called capital. In another way from the very relation of the ends of which one has a certain agreement with another, so that in several things they are ordered to itself... and according to this the capital vices must be assumed ». Q. D. de Malo 8, a. 1; cf. I-II, q. 84, a. 4.

which is the end of pride. And because the end is first in the order of intention, and intention precedes execution by means, it is rightly called the beginning of every sin. Pride therefore is the final cause of all sins, and accordingly is not a capital sin, from which only several vices arise, but rather the cause of all the capital [sins], and the mother and queen of all vices⁵.

497. Avarice is the root of all sins, according to the Apostle I Tim. VI, 10, or the cause, not indeed final (as pride) but of disposition to all, because through riches man acquires the facility and ease of perpetrating, and the occasion of desiring any sin whatever, inasmuch as for having any temporal goods whatsoever he can be helped by money, according to that of Ecclus. X, 19: To money all things obey. Whence it is the root or first sin in the order of execution, because it provides opportunity and gives the means of perpetrating all things; and therefore just as the root provides nourishment to the tree, so money nourishes the desire of every sin, and in this sense any sin can arise from avarice⁶.

Avarice, insofar as it is the root of all sins, is not a capital sin, but insofar as it is also the final cause of several, it is rightly numbered among the capital [sins].

498. Observation. — The capital sins are not those which are opposed to the fundamental or cardinal virtues, because « the same notion of origin is not in the virtues and in the vices. For virtues are caused through the order of the appetite to reason, or even to the unchangeable good, which is God; vices, however, arise from the appetite of changeable good. Whence it is not necessary that the principal vices be opposed to the principal virtues » (a. 4, ad 1).