The Synodal translation of the Old Testament contains a list of God's commandments - there are 10 of them. Deadly sins are two less. Here they are: pride, vanity, anger, despondency, sadness, adultery, avarice, gluttony. In some cases, the concepts of sadness and despondency are combined into a single whole, although these are somewhat different concepts.
Deadly sins are called so because the lack of will and desire to fight them leads to spiritual death.
As a rule, their list, contained at the beginning of any prayer book, begins with pride or pride, which sometimes they try to distinguish. Indeed, the expressions “we are proud of our country” or “the flag of our native land proudly flies on the mast …”, etc. are very often used. Like any sin, pride stems from the feelings inherent in most people, called virtues. There is even a very expressive and figurative comparison of such emotions with a dog, which is good when guarding the house, and becomes harmful if it bites everyone in a row or acts out of order in the house. The deadly sins are interconnected. A person who believes that his homeland is beautiful, and happy with the fact that he lives in his native land,At the same time, he should not consider all foreigners as second-class people, whom he has the right to goad. Otherwise, he will fall into the sin of pride, and then unrighteous anger, that is, malice. An example of such an attitude to the outside world can be the actions of the leadership of Nazi Germany, who considered themselves en titled to humiliate and exterminate "racially inferior" peoples.
Pride is the sister of vanity
Other deadly sins are also separated from righteous deeds by a fine line. Inherent in human nature itself, the need for food sometimes becomes a hypertrophied desire to eat as many of the most sophisticated foods as possible and develops into gluttony.
The perfectly natural instinct to procreate becomes a pretext for promiscuity (multiple sexual intercourse without feeling, just out of lust).
The sadness experienced at the loss of loved ones can cause a complete loss of interest in life.
Thrift and frugality sometimes transform into stinginess, because greed is characteristic of greedy people.
There are other "cross" connections with which mortal sins feed each other. For example, a glutton quickly enough begins to experience desire in other pleasures and becomes an adulterer. The proud man does not tolerate objections and usually reacts to any critical remark addressed to him with outbursts of anger. Excessive sadness turns into despondency. Covetousness is often the result of vanity andthe desire to prove to others their superiority and demonstrate we alth and luxury.
The approach to this problem of the famous philosopher and biologist Konrad Lorenz is interesting. In his book The Eight Deadly Sins of Civilized Mankind, the Austrian scientist explores theosophical concepts from a rational point of view, summing up the socio-scientific basis for the motivation of human actions and establishing parallels with the behavior of animals. In his opinion, the Christian concepts of good and evil, at first glance, abstract and abstract, have deep rational roots, containing recommendations, the observance of which is necessary for the survival of all mankind.
